Chapter Text
Kim Seungmin did not suffer fools. He had neither the time nor the patience to deal with anyone less intelligent than himself. He had made it a point over the years to only surround himself with those whose mental capabilities he both respected and appreciated. Which was why he was wondering how he had come to be in his current situation, being forced to witness his best friends all actively make fools of themselves in the most public spot on campus right outside of his job.
Felix and Minho weren’t necessarily a huge surprise to Seungmin. Felix loved creating chaos, despite his angelic appearance, and Minho could be talked into doing whatever Felix asked of him, with his bright eyes and sweet freckles. Seungmin was pretty sure that Minho viewed Felix as another one of his cats, and Minho would never deny his cats anything. But Jeongin? Seungmin almost couldn’t believe his eyes, watching the youngest member of their little group stand as a proud member of the nonsense that Felix and Minho were engaged in on the green outside the library. He almost felt a little betrayed, he had thought that Jeongin was a sensible sort of guy.
Seungmin would never say it to their faces, but he genuinely loved each of his friends immensely. However, at the sight that stood before him after a long and annoying shift at the library help desk, he was questioning why he ever allowed these idiots to speak to him at all.
“Kim Seungmin!” Minho shouted at the top of his lungs, as if Seungmin wasn’t standing twenty feet away from him. He was wearing a t-shirt with a terribly unflattering photo of Seungmin’s face printed on the front and Seungmin took a moment to note that Jeongin and Felix were wearing matching ones. Great, that means that they had been planning whatever this was for a while, if they had had time to custom order t-shirts for it. All three of them were holding what looked to be handmade signs on neon colored poster boards.
Each sign said, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SEUNGMINNIE!!” in Felix’s distinctive handwriting. Felix’s sign was covered in a frankly outrageous amount of hearts, Jeongin’s a much more reasonable amount of hearts, and Minho’s had a drawing of a cat holding a knife on it, which would have maybe been concerning had Seungmin not known Minho as well as he did. Felix had tied balloons to his arms and was grinning at Seungmin like a maniac. There was also, incredibly concerningly, a boombox sitting on the ground by his feet. Seungmin had no idea where he had acquired such a piece of equipment, but he was going to kill whoever had lent it to him with his bare hands the minute he found out who it was. Seungmin had never wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole more than he did at this exact moment in time.
Seungmin had honestly forgotten it was his birthday today. Felix had, of course, woken Seungmin that morning with happy birthday wishes and a cupcake with a candle in it (unlit, so they wouldn’t set off the smoke detector in the dorm), as was their yearly tradition, but after the day he had had, his birthday was the last thing on his mind. He usually loved his job at the campus library, but there must have been a big project due for the engineering students soon, because it felt like every single engineering undergrad enrolled in the university all needed help locating the exact same book that was already checked out.
“KIM SEUNGMIN!” Minho somehow managed to shout even louder, as if Seungmin hadn’t heard him the first time. It was at this moment that Seungmin noticed that all eyes in the quad were on him or his insane friends, which was just fantastic. “HAPPY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY! YOU CAN FINALLY LEGALLY GET BLACKOUT DRUNK AND MAKE REGRETTABLE DECISIONS!”
“Happy birthday, Seungmin!” Felix said, and at least he wasn’t shouting, not that that improved the situation in the slightest, as everyone was still watching this nightmare scene unfold. “As a show of our love for you, we have choreographed a dance piece that we’re excited to perform for you now!”
He set down his sign and reached to turn on the boombox, and Seungmin prepared himself to run and tackle his best friend before he could do any more irreparable damage to their collective reputations. He had just taken his first step forward when a blur of movement came running into his line of sight and ran right into Minho, knocking him over and taking both him and whoever had just collided with him tumbling to the ground.
Seungmin would have been worried about his friend being hurt in the fall had he not just been intending to ruin Seungmin’s life forever by performing a birthday dance in front of everyone currently on this side of campus. As it was, he was grateful for the distraction that allowed him to run forward and snatch the boombox away from Felix’s reach. He withdrew from the scene and clicked the top of the CD disc slot open, finding a disc labeled “Seungminnie’s 21st Birthday Surprise!! <3” scribbled on it, again in Felix’s handwriting. Seungmin removed the CD and slipped it into the large front pocket of his university hoodie (part of his unofficial work uniform), breathing out a sigh of relief knowing he was now probably safe from the torture that his friends had been planning to inflict upon him.
His—relative—safety ensured, he returned his attention to the scene in front of him, finding Minho sprawled on the ground with a slightly smaller man on top of him, pinning him to the ground, probably unintentionally given the manner in which they had collided. The two of them were staring at each other like they were alone in the world, and Seungmin noticed with amusement that all the people who had been staring at him previously had now shifted their focus to Minho and the stranger sprawled on top of him.
From the angle he was standing at, Seungmin could only see the back of the guy’s head, but he saw his friends frozen in place, Felix in an aborted step towards Minho, probably going to check if he was okay, and Jeongin staring at one of two men who have come up to the group, apparently having followed after the guy currently staring at Minho and making no attempt to get off of him.
In the awkward silence, Seungmin quickly examined the two men. The one that Jeongin was gaping at was not exactly tall, but was definitely taller than anyone else in this strange little crowd. He was thin, but his arms were muscled, t-shirt hugging them tightly. He had dark hair gelled into spikes and pouty lips. Seungmin could see why Jeongin might be a little entranced by this beautiful stranger, despite the fact that he was almost sure Jeongin was straight.
Then he turned his eyes to the other stranger and fought not to gape at the man like Jeongin was at his friend. The guy was short, but incredibly buff, with arms that looked like they could lift Seungmin without breaking a sweat. The skin tight shirt the man was wearing left absolutely nothing to the imagination and Seungmin had never felt so grateful for spandex in his entire life. He had black hair and dark eyes, his bangs hanging over his eyes just slightly with an annoyed look on his face. He was fucking hot. Seungmin was struck with an overwhelming urge to sink his teeth into the man's perfect biceps.
Refusing to drool over a stranger in public, unlike Jeongin, Seungmin decided that the bizarre silence had gone on for far too long.
“What the fuck is happening right now, and also why is it happening?” He asked the group at large, not really caring to keep the irritation out of his voice, and also not really caring who answered him as long as someone did.
“I’m so sorry,” The guy on top of Minho apologized, still making no move to get off of him, not that Minho seemed to mind very much, which Seungmin found incredibly strange and very interesting. “You’re beautiful—Wait, no, I mean—! Um, I’m so sorry, I mean, you are beautiful, but that’s not what I meant to say, um, I just—“
“Get off of the man, Jisung,” The short Hot Guy said, cutting off his friend, Jisung apparently, in his rambling. “You’ve been sitting on him for like a whole minute now, dude.”
Jisung scrambled off of Minho, seemingly not having realized that he had been basically straddling him. Seungmin saw Minho make a tiny aborted movement to reach out for the smaller man before stopping himself, almost like he didn’t want the guy to leave his lap. Now that was very interesting indeed.
Jisung stuck his hand out awkwardly, offering to help Minho stand up. Minho accepted his hand and did not let go of it even after he was fully upright. What the fuck was going on here.
“Hey, um, I’m so sorry?” Jisung said it like a question and the hand that Minho wasn’t holding fidgeted with the bottom of his shirt. Now that they were standing, Seungmin could see what he looked like a bit better. He was short, a little bit shorter than Minho, but he must have been gym buddies with his friend, because he was clearly built under the oversized t-shirt that he had tucked into a pair of baggy jeans that showed off an absurdly small waist.
Who were these guys and why were they all so attractive? Seungmin hadn’t seen this many hot guys in one area since… Well, actually, he’d seen a bunch of hot guys while hanging out with his friends from the baseball team yesterday. But this was different.
“You sound unsure about that,” Minho pointed out, still holding the guy’s hand. Okay, seriously, what was going on here? Minho was not a hand-holding guy, Seungmin of all people would know, having dated Minho for four whole months in his freshman year.
“Oh god, I’m not! I mean—that is—I’m not unsure, I really am sorry! I totally didn’t mean to run into you, it’s just, there was this dragonfly? And, um, I was trying to get a picture of it, because it was really pretty, and I didn’t think it would fly after me because I’m pretty sure it was an autumn meadowlark and that species is supposed to be really tame, but I guess I pissed it off or something because it, like, flew right at me and I had to run because dragonflies bite, did you know that? Some people think that they sting, but that’s not true, they bite. And they really only bite when they feel threatened, and I didn’t think I was being threatening towards it, but I guess maybe I got too close? I’m honestly not really sure what happened, but it was definitely mad at me and, well, dragonflies are so fast, so I guess I was running pretty fast and I wasn’t really looking where I was going and then I ran into you and knocked you to the ground and I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Oh god, I’m so sorry!”
Jisung was completely out of breath by the time he stopped talking, not surprising, Seungmin would be too. Honestly, it was kind of impressive that he hadn’t passed out from lack of air supply.
Minho was looking at Jisung with an expression that was usually only reserved for his cats and Felix: fondness, with a notable touch of amusement.
“I’m Minho, and you didn’t hurt me, I’m okay,” He said, almost smiling, but not quite. His eyes were shimmering with barely concealed amusement. It was kind of disgusting actually. “You’re cute. You should take me on a date.”
Seungmin had to actively fight to not drop his jaw, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Felix gape and Jeongin finally turn away from Pretty Boy to look incredulously at Minho.
“Um,” Jisung said, a blush starting to creep up his neck. “Really? Okay, uh, yeah. I’m Jisung, by the way. Um…I’m not sure if I already said that or not.”
“You hadn’t,” Minho informed him, now smirking. “Give me your phone, Jisung.”
Jisung scrambled with his free hand to grab his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it before he handed it off to Minho.
Seungmin looked around and noticed that, much to his relief, much of the crowd that had initially gathered to watch Seungmin’s worst nightmare come to life had dissipated, those that had stuck around now had their attention fully diverted to whatever was going on between Minho and Jisung.
Felix unstuck himself, shaking his head as if to clear it. He looked around and spotted Seungmin holding the boombox. He reached out for it and made grabby hands, the balloons on his arms swaying with the movement.
“Minnie!” He smiled sweetly, that little demon. “Happy birthday! I’m sorry we didn’t get to perform our dance for you, but I hope it was a nice surprise anyway!”
“It wasn’t and I know you know that,” Seungmin grumbled, again wondering what the fuck was wrong with his friends. “What is wrong with you people? Why on earth would you think that public humiliation would be a good birthday gift?”
Felix pouted at this and tried to grab the boombox out of Seungmin’s hands, but he pulled it back out of his best friend’s reach. Just because he had managed to confiscate the CD didn’t mean that he was going to give Felix back the weapon he had planned to torture Seungmin with. He wasn’t stupid, even if his friends obviously were.
“We just wanted to make sure your twenty-first was special and memorable,” Felix was still pouting, but his eyes sparkled with a mischief that made it very clear he knew what he was doing. Felix knew Seungmin could imagine nothing worse than being serenaded with a dance routine in public as a birthday surprise.
“Oh, shit,” The shorter stranger (the Hot Guy that Seungmin very pointedly was not checking out) said. “Happy birthday, man. Sorry Jisung ruined your surprise thing.”
Jisung whined wordlessly and looked like he wanted to stomp his foot but was holding himself back. Minho was still typing away on Jisung’s phone with one hand, having still not relinquished his hold on the other hand.
“Stop whining, you sound ridiculous,” Hot Guy said, rolling his eyes underneath the fringe of his bangs.
“As if you don’t whine all the time, Bin. You have no room to talk,” Pretty Boy interjected with a snort, drawing Jeongin’s attention back to him.
“I do not whine,” Bin (?) protested, and it really did sound pretty whiny to Seungmin’s ears, if he was being honest. “You’re just mean to me!”
“It’s nothing you don’t deserve,” Pretty Boy said.
“Yeah,” said Jisung, who was finally taking his phone back from Minho, face and neck still flushed a vivid pink. “You make it really easy to bully you, dude.”
Bin shot Jisung a look that said, Do you really wanna go there ? That made Jisung immediately back down. Seungmin rather liked the smug look Hot Guy/Bin wore after threatening his friend with only his eyes.
“Thank you,” Seungmin said, remembering that Hot Guy/Bin had just wished him a happy birthday and not wanting to be rude by ignoring it. “For saying ‘happy birthday’ and also for interrupting whatever these idiots were about to do.” He gestured towards his moronic friends with the hand not currently holding the boombox. “I would have had to murder them if they had actually gone through with it and then I’d probably end up kicked off the team. I think murder is generally frowned upon by the administration.”
Hot Guy/Bin saluted him, which was stupid and Seungmin enjoyed it very much. “Happy to have been of service, then.”
“God, you’re so fucking embarrassing,” Pretty Boy groaned, making Jeongin blush.
“Oh, I’m embarrassing? Jisung just ran into a stranger and tackled him to the ground and the first thing he said afterwards was, ‘You’re beautiful’ and I’m the embarrassing one here? You guys are so mean to me it’s fucking criminal. I’m gonna call Chan and tell him that you’re bullying me.”
“Try it,” Pretty Boy laughed. “He’ll just join us.”
Jisung nodded his agreement, his body turned at an awkward angle to face his friends without having to let go of Minho’s hand.
“Okay,” Seungmin cut in, not really caring about their interpersonal drama enough to let this continue. “As fun as this has been, and by fun I do mean nightmarish, I’m tired and I want to go home and go to bed.”
“Nooo,” Felix protested. “We’re going out tonight! You have to celebrate your twenty-first birthday properly!”
“Yeah, I got a fake for this, I’m not gonna let it go to waste,” Jeongin added.
“I wouldn’t announce that if I were you, dude,” Pretty Boy advised, and Jeongin looked like he was going to fall over when the guy turned to look at him. “That’s super illegal and this place is crawling with campus police.”
Jeongin nodded wordlessly, he probably would have no matter what Pretty Boy had said. God, Seungmin had the most embarrassing friends on the planet.
“I’m leaving,” Seungmin announced, deciding to just take the boombox with him instead of giving it back to Felix. He’d have to return it to him eventually, and they shared a dorm so they were going back to the exact same place, but at least if Felix decided to use it at the dorm it wouldn’t be in public. He started walking, grateful to see that the crowd had almost entirely dissipated by now.
“Wait!” Felix said, and Seungmin couldn’t see his face but he knew that tone of voice and it never boded well for him. That voice meant that he had an idea. It was probably the tone of voice he had had when he roped Minho and Jeongin into his birthday ambush plans. Seungmin sighed deeply before turning around.
“You guys should come out with us tonight!” Felix grinned and bounced a little on the balls of his feet. “You seem fun and I think we’d all get along really well! Plus, I think Minho might be in love with your friend or something.”
“Excellent idea, Felix,” Minho smiled his weird little smile at Felix before turning back to Jisung. “You should come out with us to celebrate Kim Seungmin’s birthday.”
“Would that count as a first date?” Jisung asked.
“No,” Minho replied. “If Seungmin is present then it can’t count as a date.”
“As if I would want to be there for your gross first date,” Seungmin interjected. “You guys just met five minutes ago and you’re already making me sick to my stomach.”
“Yeah, I kind of hate this, actually,” Pretty Boy agreed, eyeing Minho and Jisung’s joined hands with pure disgust written on his face.
“Do you want us to join your group tonight? It’s your birthday celebration, after all.” Hot Guy/Bin was looking at Seungmin and Seungmin was startled at being addressed unexpectedly. Hot Guy/Bin’s inquiring gaze was heavy and Seungmin refused to squirm under it.
“I mean, I guess you can come. I don’t know any of you guys, but I think Minho will kill me if I say no, so…” He shrugged, aiming for nonchalance and hoping he hit the mark.
Minho nodded calmly.
“Okay, then it’s settled! You guys will join us tonight! Minho, you can text Jisung the details, right?” Felix asked.
Minho merely nodded again, his eyes locked on Jisung’s.
“Great!” Felix smiled and it was as bright as the sun. “See you guys tonight!”
And with that he walked over to Seungmin, snatched the boombox from Seungmin’s grip, and linked their arms together, dragging him away in the direction of their shared dorm.
“So!” Felix started excitedly, not giving Seungmin a chance to ask what the hell that was all about. “Here’s what I’m thinking for tonight: first, you need to shower because I love you Minnie, but you kind of stink right now. Then you’re going to let me pick your outfit because you really cannot be trusted when it comes to picking your own clothes and you need to be the hottest bitch in the club tonight or else I will have failed in my duties as your number one best friend of all time. And then—”
Tuning out Felix’s energetic explanation of his itinerary for the night, Seungmin risked a quick glance back over his shoulder. He saw that Jisung and Minho were still lost in each other’s eyes, while Jeongin had started chatting with Pretty Boy, who looked bemused by whatever Jeongin was saying to him. The only one still watching Felix and Seungmin was Hot Guy/Bin. Seungmin expected him to salute again or wave or something, but instead he quickly looked away when their eyes met. It was hard to tell from this distance (Felix was a fast walker and Seungmin was just along for the ride), but Seungmin thought he might have seen a bit of a blush on the guy’s face.
Seungmin smiled to himself as Felix continued rambling about his ambitions for the night ahead of them. He had no idea what had just happened, honestly, but he was starting to think that maybe this birthday wouldn’t be a total disaster after all.