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Whoever made the final call on all economics classes being before 9 a.m. should be burned at the stake for the complete and utter nonsense they came up with. It isn’t like Vernon even wanted to take this class, he would much rather be snuggled up in bed after a long night of bingeing MTV Cribs, but it was a credit he desperately needed. With his first semester of college completed he was nowhere near his degree in finance (with a minor in global communications, ayooo) but without a passing grade in this class he wouldn’t be able to escape making it up over the summer, and there was no way he was missing out on the beach vacation he and his friends had been planning the last few months. Besides, this class was only scheduled for Tuesdays, which gave him at least six other days to sleep in until his noon classes.
Grabbing his keys and a thermos of hella-creamered coffee he walked out his dorm, not bothering to saying bye to his roommate, Dino. Dino was a quiet kid who worked his way into finishing high school a year before everyone else his age and getting into the local college on a performing arts scholarship. He was born with the god-given talent to dance like no one was watching. They ended up as roommates and after quickly bonding over american mainstream music and their love of fried chicken, the two had grown accustomed to each other and now belonged to the same friend group. Vernon had seen Dino stumble in last night after what looked like a brutal dance practice judging by the shakiness of his knees and the way he peeled off his shirt and slumped to the floor. He had stayed there a solid five minutes before jumping to his feet exclaiming that he had a “pre-semester assignment” due the next afternoon. Vernon was sure he had stayed up until at least three a.m., so he decided to let the poor kid catch up on sleep.
Cruising down the sidewalk on his favorite (and only) mode of transportation, he ran his hands through his unkempt hair. It was an early class, so he didn’t expect anyone to be awake enough to pay attention to his bedhead, especially on the first day. He rolled up to his first class of the new semester and popped his board up. He walked into the lecture hall somewhat drowsily, looking for a spot near the back where he could most likely catch a few minutes of sleep before the professor got started. Looking around he noticed a fair amount of empty seats near the middle, so he walked up the stairs and found a cozy spot away from the other students. He propped his board up on the wall next to him and put his head on his arms, drifting off slowly while he had a chance.
He was woken up not even a few minutes later when someone sat roughly in the chair beside him. Startled, he popped his head up and looked at his neighbor with a shocked look on his face. The boy beside him was sitting back in the seat, looking like he was still dead asleep. His eyes were practically shut, and he was swaying slightly. Vernon noticed with amusement that he had also failed to tame his bedhair, as the back of his dyed-red hair was going in all directions. He slid his eyes over to Vernon, who had his back up against the wall next to his board, before his eyes slowly grew wide and he looked away quickly, a choked sound coming from his throat. Confused, Vernon watched as he pulled his hood over his hair and started typing on his phone like the message he was about to send was the most dire thing in the world to him. His fingers flew across the small iphone screen before he clicked send and set his phone next to him on the shared desk. Still not looking at Vernon, he pulled out a notebook and a pen with a plastic piece of tuna on the top. Vernon wasn’t sure if he had done something to offend him or not, so he just let it be and took out his own writing utensil, a chewed up #2 pencil he had found at the bottom of his backpack.
For the next painstaking hour Vernon listened to the professor drone on and on about the importance of carrying a decimal while he struggled to stay upright, his coffee long finished and the promise of a quick nap after class making it almost impossible to focus. Occasionally he peeked sideways at the boy to his right, watching him scribble on his notepad and send quick texts on his phone. Suddenly his own phone buzzed in his pocket, alerting him of a new message. Noticing that even the teacher wasn’t awake enough to realize he was repeating the same line he had just finished, he slid his phone out of his hoodie pocket and onto the desk in front of him.
Dino-myte: Hey! Hoshi just texted me that practice is cancelled today!! Wanna meet some of the guys for pizza @ 4?
Figures his younger roommate would be up and excitable no matter how many hours of sleep he had the night before. Vernon’s next and last class for the day was at 11, giving him plenty of time to go back to his room and shower before heading out to their favorite place for food and probably some form of public embarrassment.
Me: yoooo that’s tight man. ya pizza sounds cool, whos all goin
Dino-myte: Hmmm so far Scoups, Hoshi, Jun, Wonu, and Mingyu. Minghao said maybe, I think he has homework already???
Me: brutal. see u at the room :P
Dino-myte: Okay! :D
Looking up from his phone he noticed the teacher still rambling on about negative numbers being their greatest enemy or something along those lines. He set his phone on the desk and leaned back in his chair, stretching and lowkey giving the boy next to him a second glance over. He was wearing an oversized hoodie with a floral pattern covering the hood and sleeves. His hood was up but there were still stray flips of hair coming out of the front from his bangs. His shoulders were slumped over on the hard surface in front of him and every few minutes he would shake his head to keep himself from passing out.
It didn’t look like he had actually taken a single note, but neither had Vernon so who was he to judge?
At exactly 10 the teacher clapped his hands together once with a faint “we did it guys” and instructed everyone to grab a handout with their semester assignments on their way out.
Vernon stood up quickly the same time as his neighbor and turned to grab his skateboard. When he turned back to say something like “hey what’s up” he was disappointed to see the boy already gone. Shrugging his shoulders he grabbed his phone of the desk and put it back in his pocket. He walked down the steps to the front of the class and bowed to the teacher in thanks as he took a syllabus and headed out the door.
Humming a tune slightly off-key he pulls his headphones out of his pocket and sticks them in his phone, clicking the button attached to the mic to start his “chill jamz” playlist.
He was expecting to hear the funky opener to the Gorillaz “Rock the House”. What he didn’t expect was the high pitched chorus to Britney Spears’s “Toxic” slapping him in the face so hard he almost dropped the phone he was holding. Eyes wide he clicked the button again, the cold reality of the situation at hand sinking in.
This wasn’t his phone.
Not that he didn’t appreciate a good bubblegum pop song now and again.
But this definitely was not his phone.
Which meant one of two things. One, someone had snuck into his pocket within the last twenty seconds and swapped his phone with someone else's. A fun and very elaborate prank? With friends like Mingyu and Jun it wasn’t as crazy as it sounded.
The second, and much more likely, was that in their half conscious state his ruffled neighbor had accidentally grabbed Vernon’s phone instead of his own. Not a huge problem, but somewhat inconvenient in terms of his plans for the day. He had class in an hour, and he had really wanted to take that nap before then.
He walked over to a bench and dropped his backpack onto it, rolling his board back and forth under his vans. Clicking the home button on the phone, he chuckled when the lockscreen displayed a somewhat blurry picture of mystery boy and someone else Vernon didn’t know. They looked like they were doing karaoke, both in Beyonce-esque poses with their heads thrown back, mouths open wide mid-song. Not expecting much, he slid the lock over to the right, surprised when it opened without asking for a password. Vernon’s own phone had a password, although it was mostly from when he lived at home and didn’t want his sister snooping on his business (not that he had any). It was simple and childlike, but it did the job.
The home screen to the phone in his hand was an aesthetic picture of ice cream and for a second Vernon struggled to remember what his own background was. Flipping through the apps he noticed with a smile that they both had the major ones (snapchat, instagram, tumblr) and also a few others (spotify, pokemon go, etc). He was tempted to go through the boy’s pictures and see what his life was like, but decided he probably shouldn’t and went to the contacts instead. He had been planning on calling his own phone to try to meet up with the owner of the phone he currently had, when a notification popped up alerting him of a new message.
Instinct kicked in and he clicked on the bubble, opening the messaging app and reading what had been sent to a group chat.
Naega Buttface (oﾟ▽ﾟ)o : heeeeeyyyyyyy we got invited out for food later d’you wanna goooo (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ
Before he can even finish reading the text displayed on the screen another four messages came in.
DK ಥ⌣ಥ : YEEEEAAAAHHHHH
DK ಥ⌣ಥ : YO KWANNIE
DK ಥ⌣ಥ : are you out of class yet????
Naega Buttface (oﾟ▽ﾟ)o: did you get caught up with the “cute babe next to you” ehehehe (｡≖ิ‿≖ิ)
Wait what???
Scrolling up the feed a few times he locked eyes with a message sent minutes after mystery boy had taken refuge in his hood and essentially ignored him the remainder of class.
Me: SOS RED ALERT THIS IS NOT A DRILL
Me: HELLA HOTTIE ALERT
DK ಥ⌣ಥ: L O L
Me: THE GUY NEXT TO ME IN MY GODAWFUL 8 A.M. ECON CLASS IS A MEGA CUTIE AND HERe I aM LOOKING LIKE 2008 PARIS HILTON щ(ಠ益ಠщ)
Me: SOMEHOW HE PULLS OFF A HOODIE AND SWEATS LIKE HE WAS BORN TO WEAR THEM??LIKE HOW IS HIS BEDHEAD FAIR RIGHT NOW
Naega Buttface (oﾟ▽ﾟ)o: llllllooooooooolllllll snaps or it didn’t happen
Me: i am not about to take a picture of this guy r u joking
Naega Buttface (oﾟ▽ﾟ)o: ╮(─▽─)╭
DK ಥ⌣ಥ: get them digits gurl
Me: nOOOOOOOOOOO not looking like this there’s no way
Naega Buttface (oﾟ▽ﾟ)o: you didn’t look that bad this morning?? #wokeuplikethis
DK ಥ⌣ಥ: #droolinbutfab
Naega Buttface (oﾟ▽ﾟ)o: #eyebagsbeprada
DK ಥ⌣ಥ: #wakeandshakethatbooty
Me: sTOP OMG
Vernon stopped scrolling as he reached the newest messages and laughed to himself as he realized that the boy next to him had been avoiding him because he thought he wasn’t cute enough to be seen by him. Which was so so wrong. Vernon had found the way his cheeks flushed when he had put his hood up was adorable. From the moment he laid eyes on his surprise neighbor he had wanted to know more about him. What did he do for fun? Did he like watching action movies? Did he think going out to get burgers at two in the morning and then going home to stare at the ceiling and listen to house trance was a weird idea for a first date because when he locked eyes with him for that quick second that’s all he wanted to do with him.
He was pulled from his flowery daydream when the phone began to vibrate and his own phone number flashed on the screen.
“Hel-”
“OH THANK GOD YOU PICKED UP. YOU HAVE MY PHONE RIGHT?”
“Er, yeah I d-”
“I AM SO SORRY FOR TAKING YOURS IT WAS A COMPLETE ACCIDENT-”
“Oh, it’s totally coo-”
“I didn’t realize it until just now and I’m already halfway around campus oh my god I am so sorry! Could we meet somewhere, I really need it back!”
Vernon glanced at the clock on the screen, realizing he had class in about twenty minutes near where the other boy described being.
“I have my next class in the social sciences building, can you meet me out front in ten minutes?”
“Yes of course! See you then!” the lines clicked as the stranger hung up and Vernon stared at the screen for a second before standing up and pushing off the ground to get his board moving in the direction he wanted to go in.
Pushing the button on his headphones again he started a new playlist on the phone now tucked away in his pocket and a smile graced his features when he heard the opening beat to Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” began playing. If he knew anything about this guy, it was that his taste in music was great.
Making his way to the designated meeting place he saw the boy sitting at a bench in front of his next class, his leg bouncing in what Vernon hoped was anticipation and not irritation. Stepping off of his board in front of him he offered a smile and unplugged the headphones from the jack.
“Nice playlist, I hope you don’t mind that I listened to it.”
“O-oh, not at all! I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he laughed, handing Vernon his phone back and taking his in exchange, “I really am sorry about this, I was in such a hurry and now I’ve held us both back”.
“It’s no problem!” Vernon smiled, noticing the flush creeping it’s way back onto the baby-faced boy in front of him, “I was on my way this way anyway so uh yeah haha,” he finished lamely, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. He wasn’t sure what it was about the teen in front of him but the shy look on his face paired with the cheeky grin on his face made Vernon’s heart race at a million miles a minute. He looked into the other’s eyes and wasn’t able to stop the word-vomit from pouring out of his mouth.
“I’m Vernon, by the way. Well, Hansol Vernon Chwe, but my friends call me Vernon. So you can call me Vernon, because I’d like to be your friend. Well I mean, maybe more than your friend. Well, that is, friendship should probably come first y’know, so we can get to know each other and yeah so. . .so. . .” he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Here was this perfectly cute and musically adept boy who thought that he was cute and he completely makes a fool of himself. He was supposed to be cool and chill and hella fly when it came to these situations so why was he losing his mind over a pair of rosy cheeks and big brown eyes that were-
Wait.
The boy standing a few feet away from him almost mirrored his wide-eyed expression, cheeks gone from a slight blush to a vivid red within the last few seconds of Vernon’s confession. Oh shit, he did just confess didn’t he. He had just met the boy a few hours ago and suddenly he wanted to spend the next few lifetimes learning everything he could about him.
“I- My name is Boo Seungkwan, b-but you can call me Boo! Ahh, uh d-did you mean what you said just now?” he stammered, looking down and linking his fingers together in the cutest display of embarrassment Vernon had ever seen, “About wanting to be more than friends? And even just friends? Because i-if so, oh god i’m sorry i don’t usually sound this ridiculous. If you’re serious then I would like to get to know you better too. If, if you wanted to.” He flashed a smile in Vernon’s direction and a million lyrics about “first loves” began reciting themselves in his head.
“Yeah,” he grinned back, “yeah i would love that.”
ONE HOUR LATER~
Vernon looked down at his pocket as his phone vibrated, unsure of who would be texting him when all of his friends would be in class.
He placed his phone on the desk and tried to look as nonchalant as he could while the professor explained something about shapes on the board.
Inputting his password he slid the snapchat notification to the right and smiled to himself when he saw the name of the user who sent him a message.
From DivaBoo (u‿ฺu✿ฺ : [tap image to load]
He clicked the message and a picture of Boo popped onto the screen.
[image] : i can’t believe “boobs” was your phone password. . .anyway i added myself on everything so keep in touch c;
Vernon quickly took a screenshot of the cute picture he had received, and put his hand over his mouth to stop himself from smiling and drawing attention.
He couldn’t believe how lucky he was that someone had decided classes before 9 a.m. should be a thing.