Work Text:
The amber light of a dying sunset poured into the room, slipping through the cracks of the tightly shut curtains, filling the chaotic landscape of Soobin’s apartment with gold and shadows. The air tasted of stale coffee and external dread. On the floor, mountains of books on business sprawled haphazardly next to a half-assembled IKEA side table, its wrench lying in silent accusation. A single, sad succulent sat near the windowsill, valiantly trying to die, a metaphor of Soobin’s will to live.
The only sound that could be heard was the furious, rhythmic clack-clack-clack-CLACK of fingers assaulting the keyboard with the violent intensity of a composer finishing a death metal symphony. On the screen, a Twitter thread unfolded in all its glorious, nonsensical fury—a holy war being waged with 280 characters at a time.
Beomgyuuuu [@bmzzyu]
Who wants to be my oomfs on my priv??!!! ><
Soobin [@pgee5oobin]
May I follow…
Beomgyuuuu [@bmzzyu]
Hiii I dont feel comfortable with you following 😭😭I talked a lot of shit about you in there so let's go our own separate ways loool
Soobin [@pgee5oobin]
Oh
Soobin leaned back on his gaming chair, his left eye developing a microscopic twitch. Numbly, his fingers hovered over the mouse, gliding his cursor over to click on bmzzyu‘s profile. His icon was a stupid drawing of a teddy bear wearing black rimmed glasses, with his header being ‘he has 97 mental illnesses and is banned from most public spaces’. His bio was mostly empty save for a reentry link. Soobin was about to click on the link just as the door to his room flung open with a slam.
“Knock, knock, loser. I brought you a sad burrito from the place that definitely gave me food poisoning last time ‘cause I know you haven’t eaten anything that didn’t come from a bag of powder,” a familiar voice called.
Soobin groaned, dropping his head in his hands as he felt the rise of a pounding headache from the depths of his skull. “Not now, Yeonjun-hyung.” His voice came out muffled and strained through the confinement of his own hands.
His roommate (also his self-appointed life manager) strolled in happily, kicking a laundry bag out of the way with practiced ease. He was holding up a grease-spotted, brown paper bag like a trophy.
Yeonjun’s cheerful demeanour faltered as he took in the scene: Soobin, coiled like a spring in his rickety chair, face illuminated by the screen’s angry blue glow through the cracks of his fingers, jaw clenched so tight it looked like it could crack diamond. The small room was a cell of palpable, barely contained fury.
“Woah,” Yeonjun said, his tone shifting from cheerful to cautiously amused. “You look like shit, dude. What happened? Did your plant finally die? Did you get a parking ticket?”
Soobin didn’t look up. His voice was a hollow whisper. “Worse.”
Yeonjun dropped the oily paper bag on the counter, and Soobin couldn’t even bring himself to complain about the grease. The older dragged the cursor over the screen, frowning as he took in the contents of the thread. Slowly, his eyes widened, and he pressed his lips together, a dangerous tremor at their corners.
“Oh, Soobinnie,” he said, his voice thick with a mixture of pity and imminent laughter.
“Like, who even says that?!” Soobin cried, humiliation and distress bleeding into his voice as he spun his chair around to face the older. “He made me look like some kind of desperate loser! Which I’m not.” He added menacingly, and Yeonjun’s mouth snapped shut.
At least the latter had the decency to cover up his snort with a choked cough. “I’m sorry. You look like you’re seconds away from having an aneurysm because of someone rejecting your oomf request? Maybe you are a desperate, pining loser.”
Soobin glared at him through his lashes, trying to exude as much venom as he could with pink bunny headphones hanging over his nape. “You’re not helping, hyung.” He gritted through his teeth. “And I’m not pining for that washout. I bet he’s an ugly, uneducated old man behind the screen, so you’d better pray that when I get my hands on him—“
Another choked laugh escaped Yeonjun. “I’m sorry, it’s just…the ‘lol’ at the end—the sheer audacity. The casual brutality.”
“And all I said was ‘oh’.” Soobin mourned, his tone one of self-loathe. “Just…’oh’. I had so many comebacks! I could’ve been witty! I could’ve been cold! I could’ve said ‘noted’ or ‘yikes’! I could’ve said ‘this is why your podcast has 7 listeners’! But no. My immediate and ever so intellectual response was…’oh’.”
“Yeah.” Yeonjun nodded gravely. “This takes the cake for Top 10 Most Embarrassing Moments in History. I wager this is even worse than the time when Kai drank too much and said ‘good morning’ to his high school crush at 10 pm.”
Soobin frowned. “Now we’re exaggerating.” He grumbled under his breath.
“You should log off,” Yeonjun chirped, blissfully unaware of Soobin sinking into a magnificent sulk next to him. “Deactivate. Delete the account forever.”
Soobin dropped himself on the bed in a helpless heap. “I need to change my name. Move to a different country. Live off the grid.”
“What you need,” Yeonjun patted him on the shoulder in reassurance, “is to make sure you’ve eaten a vegetable at least once this week, because I know you haven’t. Eat up.”
A week had passed. The phantom sting of the ‘oh incident’ (as Yeonjun had put it) had faded from a sharp, humiliating wound to a dull, persistent ache. Soobin had, for the most part, successfully avoided all social media, treating his phone with the cautious suspicion one would afford a venomous snake.
Yeonjun, however, had not moved on. He viewed the entire incident not as a tragedy, but as an unresolved narrative. He was perched on Soobin’s couch, a plotting glint in his eye that usually preceded either a brilliant scheme or a minor disaster.
“So, hear me out.”
Soobin barely looked up from his phone, locked in an intense game of block blast. “No.” He deadpanned.
Yeonjun bristled in faux offence at the lack of attention. “It’s a social experiment. An ethnography of digital communication. We need to reclaim the narrative.”
Soobin lowered his phone. “The narrative is me being publicly shamed by a fellow Twitter user who’s either a kid or an unemployed 50 year-old creep. The narrative is closed.”
“Actually…” a smirk pulled at Yeonjun’s lips, and Soobin decided he definitely didn’t like that look. “…he’s quite the opposite. In fact,” he added, a mischievous glint in his eyes as he slowly, dramatically turned his own phone towards the younger. “He looks exactly like your type.”
Soobin scoffed. “There’s no way—“ he froze.
"
There was a long, deafening pause. Soobin felt like his heart had been yanked from his chest, rolled over thoroughly by an SUV, stomped on 7 times, and stuffed back in place. When he spoke, his voice was a small, stifled sound. “Oh.” He managed at last.
Yeonjun was grinning, a smug, victorious glint in his eyes. “Oh, indeed.” He agreed. “But, that’s not the best part.” He flipped his phone back to face himself, and Soobin could only stare dumbly as his fingers flew over the screen. “The so-called narrative we talked about? It was left on a cliffhanger. A weak, pathetic, cliffhanger. We need a twist. A plot device.” He finished with a flourish and looked up, beaming. “Meet @cymeong.”
Soobin blinked. “You what?”
"I made you a new account," Yeonjun announced proudly. "Followed a few people so he wouldn’t get suspicious. The profile pic is a tastefully blurred photo of a vintage typewriter. The bio just says 'Perpendicular to the noise.' It's genius. You're an enigma. A ghost."
A cold dread trickled down Soobin’s spine as each word left Yeonjun’s mouth. "Hyung, what did you do?"
Yeonjun’s grin was downright diabolical. "I just sent a follow request to @chptwr1303—Beomgyu’s priv—from your new, mysterious persona."
The phone slipped from Soobin’s fingers and landed onto the floor with a dull thud. "YOU DID WHAT?!"
"Think about it!" Yeonjun jumped to his feet and started pacing. "He publicly humiliated @pgee5oobin and you disappeared off the face of earth for a week. He expects the matter to drop, the drama to die out. And that—“ he shoved a finger towards Soobin’s direction. “—is where you come in. @cymeong—a cool, cryptic person who is suddenly taking an interest to him! Besides,” he added, the grin never faltering from his face, “don’t you want to know what kind of ‘shit’ he’s been talking about you?”
Soobin couldn’t lie; he was intrigued. But his pride and dignity forced him to retain his stance as he protested, “Hyung, this isn’t a Wattpad fanfiction. He’s probably going to think I’m a bot account and end up blocking me—“
Yeonjun tsked at him disapprovingly. “Ah-ha, that’s where you’re wrong. Contrary to your belief, he has already accepted your—my—follow request.”
Soobin’s eyes blew wide comically. “WHAT.”
He was rudely interrupted when a loud ‘ding’ emitted from Yeonjun’s phone. The hairs on the back of Soobin’s neck immediately stood up as dread pooled deep within his gut. Cautiously, he peered over Yeonjun’s shoulder to check the notification.
gyu [@chptwr1303] :
Hey :)
Yeonjun squealed. Behind him, Soobin let out an earth-shattering screech that Hueningkai would be proud of.
An hour later, they had perched themselves by the kitchen counter. While Yeonjun was happily slurping on his tteokbokki, Soobin’s own kimchi fried rice remained untouched in front of him as he frowned at the contents on the dish.
“‘Ude,” Yeonjun nudged him, his mouth full. “Hop haring a’ uh ‘ood hike hif hershoally ohhended ‘ou.”
Soobin finally tore his gaze away from his lunch, but the frown remained etched on his features. “What.”
Yeonjun swallowed before answering. “I said, stop glaring at your food like it personally offended you. It’s creepy.”
Soobin groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Hyung, just let me wallow in my misery for once. Please.”
Yeonjun raised a brow. “I don’t get why you’re miserable. You just had fine shit accept your follow request on his priv, and he dmed you first. Don’t you know how rare that is for you? Shouldn’t you be jumping around the room in joy instead?”
“He said he talked shit about me,” Soobin said, his lips numb as he spoke. “In his private account. The account that I just followed. And he also happened to have the hottest face card created by god himself. I mean, did you see him? Those eyes? Those perfect, glossy lips? The way he was pouting? God, hyung, I swear if I don’t get those lips on me right now—“
“Calm down, homotron3000, you’re disgusting.” Yeonjun barely hid a snicker behind his hand. “I think I heard you the first time.”
Soobin’s fingers found their way to the edges of his hair, and he tugged at the strands in utter despair, an anguished wail escaping his throat. Yeonjun doesn’t understand. It’s not like the love of his life had openly shamed him and admitted he belittles Soobin in private…to who? His friends? His boyfriend? The mere thought made Soobin want to simultaneously melt into a puddle on the floor and rip his hair out in frustration.
He wasn’t even being dramatic. @chptwr1303—Beomgyu—was, in a word, Soobin’s type. Not a vague, general ‘attractive person’ type. He was the specific, hyper-targeted, ‘algorithm-of-my-soul’ type. The kind of man he’d only ever encountered in the carefully curated daydreams he never admitted to having.
Soobin felt a hot flush creep up his neck when the accursed selfie flashed in his mind again. He quickly looked down into his smoky ramen, hoping the floor would swallow him whole.
Yeonjun, of course, noticed everything. He took one look at Soobin’s flushed appearance and smirked deviously. “Man, you’re down even worse than I imagined. You’re so doomed.”
“Shut up,” Soobin hissed, his face now fully crimson.
The older rolled his eyes. “Just take a look,” he pressed, grabbing Soobin’s phone from the tabletop and tossing it to the latter. Soobin fumbled for the device, barely catching it in his hands. “Come onnnnnnnnn.” He drawled.
Soobin shook his head. “I can’t, hyung. He-he hates me. He abominates me. Oh my god, he probably wants me dead.”
Yeonjun groaned. “Don’t get so hysterical on me, Soobin-ah, you look like the time you left your pet lizard at the beach and it burnt to death under the sun.”
Soobin fiddled with his chopsticks glumly. His neatly assembled rice (courtesy of Yeonjun) flopped around sadly. “I might as well have.”
“But you didn’t.” Yeonjun grabbed his shoulders and turned him, forcing their eyes to meet. His gaze was uncharacteristically serious. “Listen, you’ve been rotting away in your room every day recently, either coped up with your studies or your games. When I ask you to come to parties with me to meet new people, you reject me every time—which is okay! Really, I get it. Not everyone’s a party person. But you’ve been so…lonely these days, Bin-ah. You barely even go out for food anymore. It’s always just takeout and instant ramen. So really…if he’s your type, I say shoot your shot.”
Soobin’s jaw was dangling from his mouth in indignation. He wanted to argue, to protest that he didn’t need new friends, that he was perfectly content with Kai and Taehyun, and remind Yeonjun that not everyone was an extrovert like he is, but one pleading look from the older and a small pout made his mind instantly go blank. He sighed in defeat.
“Fine, whatever. I’ll look through his Twitter page. What happens next highly depends on the shit he tweeted about me. You’d better pray it does not involve another epic crashout and me throwing my phone out of the window.”
Yeonjun brightened immediately, a beam pulling at his lips. “Really?! Okay! But first—“ he jabbed a chopstick at Soobin’s direction. “Eat. I bet you haven’t had a meal like this in ages.”
That’s how, a few minutes later, they found themselves once again rested on the couch. Yeonjun was looking at Soobin expectantly, whilst the latter was trying to ignore the slight tremble of his hands, which were cupped around his phone like he was holding a treasured artifact. The screen was open to Beomgyu’s profile.
“Ready?” Yeonjun whispered.
“Yes,” Soobin grumbled. “Why are you whispering?”
“It’s for dramatic effect. Now get to it.”
Soobin took a deep breath, his hands tightening around his phone, and began to scroll.
At first, the page seemed normal enough. His timeline was a delightful mix of professional frustration, from obscene music memes to sharp, witty self-composed lyrics. (He’s a composer? Of course he’s a composer.) He was smart. Really smart. And funny. Soobin found himself smiling at a sheet music meme, in which the notes splayed out to form a distressed-looking smiley face. (This was when he knew he was fucked, because the last time he did anything music-related was when he almost broke his fingernails trying to strum a guitar, and now he’s giggling like a high schooler over weird faces on sheet music.) There was a tweet about his favourite bakery in his hometown, which was in Daegu, and another about top tier League players being insufferable. (He’s in Diamond rank? Be still my heart.)
This was worse than he thought. This wasn't just a physical attraction. This was a full-scale personality invasion. Beomgyu was a goddamn unicorn.
He kept scrolling, back through days, then weeks of tweets. He was falling down a rabbit hole, and he had no desire to climb out. He was looking for… he didn’t know what. A sign. A hint. A girlfriend? A boyfriend? Anything.
And then he saw it.
A tweet from about three weeks ago.
It was a quote retweet from Soobin’s selca a while back, a simple…well, maybe not that simple. He had just finished his rare monthly gym workout, and a sudden boost of confidence had allowed him to snap a quick mirror selfie of his pre-gym body and tweet it. To be fair, he had cropped the photo so that it only showed the top half of his body, so that not even his full chest was visible. Which is why he could only sit in place, stunned at the other man’s reaction.
gyu [@chptwr1303]
HOLY SHIT YOUR BODY IS FUCKING ABSURD CHOKE ME SLAP ME STRANGLE ME RIGHT NOW I DONT CARE I NEED YOU SO BAD
Soobin froze. Next to him, Yeonjun gasped, seeming more amused than surprised.
His blood pounded loudly in his veins, his head a whirlwind of questions. For a moment, the world seemed to pause around him, shrinking down to himself and the tiny device in his hands. He stared at the tweet. Looked up at the bland white wall of his apartment. Back at the tweet. Only then did reality actually hit.
He had seen Soobin’s selfies. No, more than that—he had liked Soobin’s selfies. Liked them a lot, it seems.
“Keep scrolling,” Yeonjun’s voice, lidded with anticipation, jarred Soobin from his thoughts.
With trembling fingers, Soobin slowly brought his thumb up to continue swiping at the screen. He scrolled faster now, his heart hammering in his ribs. He was no longer a passive observer; he was an archaeologist uncovering a stunning, terrifying ruin.
He found another tweet, from a month ago.
gyu [@chptwr1303]
@pgee5oobin heyyyy you should ruin me or I can ruin you or we can ruin each other hahahhahahahahaa please one chance is all I need
Soobin’s mouth went dry. His head spun. The pieces were slotting into place with dizzying speed—the adamant rejection to follow him on his priv. The way he had come up with ‘talked shit about him’ as an excuse. It wasn’t simple admiration. He had been…thirsting over Soobin. The dark-haired found himself flushing at the thought.
"This is insane," he whispered, feeling slightly light-headed.
But Yeonjun was gesturing at the screen, his finger jabbing at another tweet from a few days prior to the previous post. “Look.”
It was another quote retweet of Soobin’s selfies—a simple picture of him in a white shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up to meet his elbows.
gyu [@chptwr1303]
FUCK MEEEEE FUCK ME IN THE SHOWER FUCK ME BEFORE THE SHOWER FUCK ME AFTER THE SHOWER I DONT FUCKING CARE OH MY GOD
Yeonjun whistled lowly. “He’s deranged. I like him.”
Soobin ignored him and continued scrolling through his page. His thumb moved numbly, automatically, feeling heat rise to his cheeks as each tweet seemed to get progressively worse. This is bad, a small, sensible part of his brain reminded him. You’re borderline stalking him. But the rest of his body screamed at him to continue, to find out what he had been hiding from him all this time. It wasn’t until Soobin reached a reply to one of his own tweets that his breath caught.
Soobin [@pgee5oobin]
What do you guys do in your free time?
gyu [@chptwr1303]
jorking it to the thought of you ❤️
Yeonjun fell silent. Soobin calmly locked his phone and placed it on the counter, face-down.
Then he screamed. Again.
What happened next came as a blur. As Soobin mourned into his hands and questioned his entire existence, Yeonjun jumped to his feet, pacing around the room and cackling with glee. "This is the greatest thing that has ever happened! To anyone! Ever! All that time you spent worrying about being 'oh'-ed into oblivion, and this… this Adonis was out here composing sonnets to your brain and your face! You have to text him. Right now."
Soobin was barely able to comprehend the older’s words. The humiliation of the ‘bmzzyu incident’, the pathetic ‘oh,’ the shame of the ‘cymeong’ catfishing… it all melted away, replaced by a warm, buoyant, utterly terrifying sense of validation and power. Behind layers of embarrassment and utter mortification at Beomgyu’s tweets, realization gradually dawned upon Soobin: he has the upper hand now.
His previous distress dissolved just a bit, fading into a lingering throb at the back of his mind. It didn’t completely disappear, but he was definitely a lot less jumpy than a few minutes ago. A slow, steady plan began to formulate in his head as he took a deep breath, then unlocked his phone again.
It’s okay, he told himself mentally, I can do this.
He fumbled for his phone again, switching to his original account, the one where everything first started. He searched up Beomgyu’s public account and clicked ‘message’. The text field blinked at him—a silent invitation. All the clever, aloof openers evaporated from his head. Instead, fuelled by a sudden, dizzying burst of courage, he typed in a single, direct message.
Soobin [@pgee5oobin] :
Hey. Heard you’re a fan.
Attached were multiple screenshots of Beomgyu thirsting over Soobin, including the reply to Soobin’s post.
Yeonjun, who, by then, had stopped his pacing and plopped into the seat next to him, laughed as he witnessed Soobin’s actions. “Damn, you actually confronted him. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Soobin exhaled, not even bothering to reply with a snarky remark when he settled back against the couch, dropping his phone onto his lap.
The next ten minutes were an excruciating masterclass of psychological torture. Yeonjun had regretfully left the apartment for dance classes a few minutes ago, and ever since then, Soobin had been walking back and forth within the length of his apartment, checking on his phone for notifications every time he passed by the couch where he had left it. His heart was performing a frantic tap dance against his ribs as he walked, biting his lower lip in worry. He had just thrown a grenade in @bmzzyu‘s life—what if he felt horrified? What if he deleted his posts and blocked him? Reported him? What if the thirst tweets had just been a facade, and he was actually a fragile soul who would now retreat into a permanent state of mortified silence?
The phone buzzed. The vibration felt like a seismic event.
Soobin froze mid-pace, his eyes squeezing shut. He couldn’t look. He had to look.
Slowly, he reached over to where his phone sat and clicked on the notification tentatively.
He frowned.
It wasn’t a reply to his message. It was a tweet from Beomgyu’s private account. When the tweet loaded, his dread dissipated, and a lopsided smile tugged at his lips as he quickly typed his reply.
gyu [@chptwr1303]
WHICH ONE OF YOU FUCKERS SNITCHED ON ME IM GOING TO FIND YOU AND KILL YOU
Soobs [@cymeong]
After all that we’ve been through?? The coffee spills??? The forgotten birthdays??? The romantic picnics at our local park?????
gyu [@chptwr1303]
?
Who are you again
Wait
Wait
Are you
Wait
Soobs…soob…soobin…………
Oh
Oh.
For a horrifying moment, there was nothing. No replies, no more tweets. Soobin could hear his pulse in his own ears as he frantically refreshed the page several times, wondering if he had finally scared the latter away. Then, an alert pinged from his dms, and he jumped, almost dropping his phone.
Soobin [@pgee5oobin] :
Hey. Heard you’re a fan. (attached four images)
Beomgyuuuu [@bmzzyu] :
So.
Are you
Like
Free tonight
Soobin [@pgee5oobin] :
Well it depends if you’re planning to take me out or talk shit about me
Beomgyuuuu [@bmzzyu] :
Both
Soobin [@pgee5oobin] :
That’s okay I’m into degradation too ❤️
Beomgyuuuu [@bmzzyu] :
WHAT THE FUCK
you’re deranged
let’s kiss
Soobin [@pgee5oobin] :
Okay :3
Beomgyuuuu [@bmzzyu] :
But seriously
I specifically told you not to follow my priv bcuz I talked shit abt you.
WHY WOULD YOU GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO FOLLOW ME ON A NEW ACCOUNT WHEN I SAID THAT
Soobin [@pgee5oobin] :
Well maybe you shouldn’t have dissed me in public on the internet in front of thousands of Twitter viewers.
Unless it’s your weird way of telling me you’re into exhibitionism 🫢😳
Beomgyuuuu [@bmzzyu] :
That’s it
Get ready by 6pm
You. Me. My place.
Soobin [@pgee5oobin] :
Bossy~
I like it
Send me your address kitten whiskers
Beomgyuuuu [@bmzzyu] :
Did you just quote Shrek
Oh my god please marry me
But you’d better not fucking call me that tonight.
Two hours later, Soobin was still on the floor, phone in hand, the conversation saved and re-read approximately seventeen times. Yeonjun had been summoned via emergency text and was now sitting cross-legged opposite him, having demanded a full, verbatim recitation. The older had listened intently the entire time, his jaw dropping so low that Soobin was worried it would hit the floor soon.
“He said what?!” Yeonjun was visibly shaking, his hand covering his chest in dramatic fervour. “He said WHAT? Soobin, that’s not a man, that’s a romance hero who somehow wormed his way onto Twitter. You have to marry him. It’s the law.”
“Now let’s not go that far,” Soobin rolled his eyes at the elder’s melodrama, but he was grinning. He doesn’t think he has ever smiled so widely in the past few months. “It’s just one night.”
“It is not ‘just one night’!” Yeonjun shrieked, grabbing his empty mug of coffee and waving it around. “It’s the culmination of a multi-platform, slow-burn thirst campaign! He was your fan! He admired you from afar! He pined online! This isn’t a date; it’s the third-act resolution!”
Soobin hugged his knees to his chest, the reality of it settling in. The man in the selfie, the man with the cute, pouty lips who writes and composes songs as a habit, wasn’t just a random crush. He was someone who had been around, silently marvelling at Soobin from far away.
The fear that usually accompanied a date—the fear of being found lacking, not being found interesting or smart or funny enough—was gone, replaced by a thrilling, buoyant sense of anticipation.
“I’ve looked further into his tweets. We’ve had a few conversations before you arrived. I think…I think I kind of like him, hyung,” Soobin admitted without preamble, his voice a little small.
Yeonjun’s eyes softened, a genuine smile stuck on his lips. “I know. So go get your man. However—“ the smile vanished as quickly as it appeared. “I’m helping you pick the outfit. God knows what atrocious clothing you’re planning to wear for your first date.”
( 8 hours later )
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