Chapter Text
“For fuck’s sake, not again.”
Minho is stressed, and any semblance of luck has signed out for the day. He must be cursed, that's the only explanation for whatever is going on in some apartment near him.
He hears something playing obnoxiously loudly from a speaker, presumably, lest said neighbour has broken all physics laws and has discovered how to carry sound through a closed window without a speaker. He wouldn't put it past them, considering their track record thus far.
Minho currently loathes said neighbour.
Okay, loathe might be a strong word, but honestly? It's one a.m.; he's sleep-deprived and working on his engineering assignment, which is due for his 9 a.m. class, a class his stubborn, old-fashioned professor refuses to accept online because “Mid terms are near blah blah blah”, and he has to pretend he cares about the degree his parents forced onto him when he flippantly mentioned he wanted to build the tallest, most glamorous building whilst playing minecraft at 9 years old. He’s 20 now, and it still carries its weight.
At this moment, he's a certified sleep-deprived, purely running on caffeine and adrenaline student pulling an all-nighter for a class he doesn't even like, and the sounds coming from that offending speaker seem to be getting louder the more his irritation and fatigue grow.
What his neighbour is playing is quite…different this time, though.
Typically, it's a trendy pop song or a song from a K-pop group that he swears he has no clue about(he does, he's lying: it's Stray Kids, and no, he does not know this because he Shazamed “Bounce Back” two weeks ago, you're delusional).
Today, however, it's not a tune to any song he's ever heard, let alone a song at all. It's a distinct sound: people talking in a language, but grating nonetheless after this realisation.
Sadly, Minho was given unrestricted internet access from an early age, so he recognises the sound of a hentai video playing off of the sin-committing speaker with scarily good volume capabilities; it's clear and eerily perceptible even through his(still closed) windows. (Seriously, where did they get that good of a quality speaker? They’re college students for crying out loud-). The infamous “yamete kudasai, senpai!”, followed by staccato voice inflexions and rhythmic sounds of pleasure couldn’t have been more apparent to Minho and he’s pissed.
He opens his chat with Chan while contemplating whether living is even worth it anymore at this point:
You:
chan
channie-hyunggg
oh my god can you pls answer ik you’re awake and at the studio rn
Fave senior citizen^^:
What do you want, Minho.
What could it possibly be at ONE AM IN THE MORNING, that's SO important?
You:
why have u not turned off ur auto caps omg am i talking to my dad rn??
whatver thats not important rn i need advice before running to the country side and living off of wheat and tripping on cow shit sounds more enticing than this
Fave senior citizen^^:
Yeah? What’s up, mimo?
Are you okay??
You:
no, i am not okay rn im on the verge of a mental breakdown
Somebody from my apartment is blasting fucking hentai, hyung im pulling an all-nighter for Professor Kim’s class and i cant focus for shit
should i threaten murder or castration before i lose my mind or should I try manifesting in an aesthetic way with a wonyoung shrine like those Pinterest girls
Fave senior citizen^^:
Okay, so maybe not the second last part; I’m literally just as broke as you, mimo, I can't afford a lawyer.
Why dont you, like, act normal for once and knock on the damn door and ask them to turn it down?
You:
ughhh
okay
fine
the fun police has struck again it seems
screw you and your sound advice that nobody asked for
hate ur ass bro</33
Fave senior citizen^^:
Thanks for not doing the whole murder-castration thingy. I’m sure the local cheap lawyers felt a shiver down their spines back there.
And I love you too><
Now, please release me, I have work to do and it's not finishing itself, I fear.
You:
im glad i disrupted ur work for a bit
if i cant work peacefully
no one can
After Minho puts his phone down on his table, he works up the courage with a quick pep talk to go and speak to his neighbour and tell them to turn it down a notch or two: “Okay, Minho, you are a calm, collected and peaceful citizen.”
A deep breath.
“You are not running on vanishing hopes and dreams, but rather passion and the determination of a first year.”
Another, even deeper breath.
“You are not sleep deprived and won't crash out on your neighbour over this.”
A final deep breath.
“I think I'm ready to sort this out. Let's hope this goes quickly so I can finish this assignment before 6 am and not look like a rotting corpse in class.”
He grabbed his keys, took a sip of his stale coffee that might be growing an ecosystem, and locked the door behind him.
He followed the sound of the loud hentai and found the offending neighbour: unit 143, directly across from his own unit.
“Here goes nothing, I guess,” and he knocked on the door whilst praying the person behind the door wasn’t a serial killer that would stab him for asking him to turn it down; once again, their track record isn’t the best so far.
What Minho saw was the last thing a weak and painfully gay man could’ve ever conceived.
Minho swears, honest to god, that his neurones stopped transmitting synapses the second that door swung open, minho.exe has stopped working for the time being, please contact support(Channie-hyung).
The most ethereal, jaw-unhinging person he’s ever seen faced him, and the painfully slow and creaking door revealed his adorably puffy cheeks akin to a squirrel(minho definitely does not want to bite them), big boba eyes that could make the strongest of men fold, pink cupid’s bow lips that look so kissable, and a light pink tint on his squirrel cheeks.
Minho is floored, to say the least.
His knees almost buckling and him nearly getting on the dirty, probably hasn’t been cleaned since 1971 floor to say his thanks to this descended angel causes him to semi acknowledge his own existence and, in turn, realise he’s being perceived too, in his on-the-brink-of-becoming-a-corpse state, crater-like eye bags and all.
The one day I see a hottie and this is what I look like; fuck my life.
“Uhm, can I help you…sir?”
Oh, the angel speaks.
But on a more important note, why the hell did he call him “sir”, of all things? Minho would be more offended if his pretty lips weren’t distracting him.
“Could you, like, maybe, uh, turn down the volume of the speaker a notch…or four? I can hear it all the way from my unit and i’m sure the other people here can hear it too,” Minho internally cringed at how awkward that came out but at least the worst was over, right?
“Oh, crap! Oh my gosh, I didn’t realise the speaker was still connected, oh, my god this is so embarrassing, what the hell,” and the stranger somehow instantly turned a lovely shade of tomato red that made Minho feel second hand embarrassment in his bones.
“Yeah,”he drawled out the word which only served to make him sound like more of an awkward loser that can’t converse, but that’s neither here nor there.
“So…uhh, you watch hentai, huh?” Minho wanted to die, or have the ground swallow him whole. Preferably both.
“Oh! Y-yeah, I happen to…indulge on some days, just to destress, as you could see, well, hear, I guess,” an awkward chuckle comes from the angel and Minho clears his throat; the lack of conversational skills the both of them have is starting to get to him.
“Cool…you’ve got good taste, I think I’ve seen that one before.” Minho has absolutely no sound reason as to why the fuck he just said that, knowing full well he last “indulged”(the angel’s words, not his) in hentai was when he was 14 and realised the tentacles and straight sex wasn’t for him.
“Fuck, this is so embarrassing I need to crawl into a hole and never come out again before I combust spontaneously.”
The stranger let out a heavy sigh and ducked his face into his hands before attempting to look at Minho (he failed miserably but Minho was not one to judge with his internal Gay Panic™️)
“Thanks for letting me know, though. I’ll turn it off and sorry for ruining your work flow, uhm…mister?”
“My name is Minho, so don’t worry about formalities. What’s your name? I don’t really like addressing you as ‘you’”.
Minho would rather take up his own castration suggestion before admitting that he referred to him as “The Angel”in his head, or his painfully red ears might seriously combust.
“My name is Jisung, and I’d really like to say ‘hope to see you around’ but the shame is killing me right now, I think I’ll need 4-10 business years to recover.” He—Jisung—said with a half-grimace-half-forced-smile.
“Right, right, I get that, it’s totally cool. ”
It was not cool, not in the slightest, and he might have a metal breakdown for a different reason.
“I’ll not see you around for both of our sakes, I guess?” Minho managed to croak out because this was all totally fine and he did not want to see Jisung anyways.
“Yeah, thanks again, Minho,” Jisung said with a slight smile that made Minho’s heart skip a couple of beats.
He is so fucked.
✄╰U╯
Throughout the following weeks, Minho constantly saw Jisung: at the library, hunched over a laptop and headphones perched atop his head. In their apartment hallway, scurrying off to god knows where. At the cafeteria eating the stalest bread Minho knows for a fact disintegrates in your hands before it reaches your lips.
Jisung was everywhere.
And, although Minho could only muster up enough courage to awkwardly give a nod of acknowledgement and a reserved smile to Jisung each time they crossed paths, he couldn’t help but yearn for Jisung as though Jisung were a lover at war, when he’s very obviously a twink that wouldn’t last a day out in the fields; bless his heart.
Every look from his pitiful hamster eyes made Minho consider getting an EKG scan whilst simultaneously running head first into oncoming traffic.
Tension-filled atmosphere at every glance aside, on the bright side: the hentai stopped.
However, on the catastrophic side: Minho’s weak heart can’t coexist in a ten metre radius of the cute twink he might possibly, maybe have a little crush on without igniting into 5 billion flames, each one leaving wounds that only an elixir(Jisung) could repair.
Upon realising he’s waxing poetry about a squirrel-like man he’s spoken to a grand total of one(1) time, he’s solidified his fate: Jisung had him hook, line and sinker.
He is abysmally fucked.