Chapter Text
Korea University Festival wasn’t supposed to create new pressures or add to the ones students were already carrying. If anything, it was advertised as the opposite: a brief escape from looming deadlines, disappointing grades, and failed situationships that somehow carried heavier than they should. A few days dedicated to forgetting. Music blasting from overcrowded stages, strangers becoming friends for a night, unpredictable weather, and the inevitable hangover waiting the next morning.
A student’s dream.
Unfortunately, the weather had never cared much for dreams.
No matter how important the week was, rain held no respect for carefully planned performances or sentimental ballads. And this year, it arrived without mercy. Sheets of water poured from the sky, hammering against both the stage and the sea of students packed below it. Umbrellas collided in every direction, and within minutes, every person in attendance was drenched to the skin.
There, a boy stands lonesome under a tree, poncho wrapped around his frame, hands clinging to his jeans and pulling them up slightly so the ends aren’t ruined by the wet terrain. He’s watched by a distant other, a broader man in a larger social crowd who isn’t bothered by his soiled cuffs and is very, very intrigued by this face he’s never seen before. Korea University is heavily populated - it’s impossible to know every person on the campus unless you’re some memory-driven freak. But he can’t fathom the idea of forgetting this face.
Smooth cheeks. Uncut hair haloed by the stage lights under the dark sky, damp at the edges. A perfect nose. No phone in sight, unlike every other student watching the current performing group. All he can think is: unusual.
“This is our song!” Yeonjun cries as he relentlessly bashes his elbow into Soobin’s side.
Soobin flinches, looks away from the halo and towards his overly drenched housemate. “Why are you so wet?”
“…rain,” he replies, distracted. “Holy shit, this setlist is insane. How much did we even pay for this? I feel like I owe them more.”
“Thirty… forty?” Soobin says as he pulls his own poncho hood over his head. He washed his hair this morning. Taehyun keeps ‘borrowing’ his conditioner, and Soobin spent too much of his parents’ budget this month on drinks to actually buy another bottle. He needs to ration.
“All that money and they can’t get a good stylist.”
Soobin scoffs, crossing his arms as if it’ll block the cold air. “Go tell them that.”
“I will,” Yeonjun smirks. “Let me graduate first.”
Graduate. It’s almost a forbidden word in their house - not banned outright, just avoided in that quietly careful way that makes it worse. Nobody says it enough to confront how it knots something ugly in Soobin’s chest or how the mere thought of it has his pulse spiking. It’s not like it’ll ruin anything, not really. When Yeonjun graduates, he’ll probably just get worse - louder and clingier and more insistent on dragging Soobin out because he hates being alone. But it’s the shift that gets him, because their share house works. It works.
Yeonjun is a good leader - too good, honestly. Without him, Soobin never would’ve agreed to move in, never mind convincing his childhood friend to follow. Taehyunnie is cute, Yeonjun had said at the end of Soobin’s freshman year. Bring him in. He’ll attract the shy girls.
Taehyun has not attracted any girls.
If anything, it’s the opposite. Girls trail after Soobin or Yeonjun at the end of a night, tipsy and giggling, only to clock the quiet figure in the kitchen with his arms folded and eyes sharp, watching like they’ve personally offended him by entering his domain. It never takes long before they make up some excuse, grabbing their things and slipping out with awkward laughs. Taehyun doesn’t fit the house. Not financially, not socially, maybe not even fundamentally, really. He can’t afford the rent, let alone the damage control after Yeonjun’s bi-weekly parties. If it weren’t for Soobin quietly covering him, ignoring every stiff refusal, and Yeonjun’s borderline reckless approach to money, Taehyun wouldn’t have lasted a week.
Soobin tells himself it’s nothing. Just circumstance, of sorts. He and Yeonjun were lucky enough to be born into families where money was never a question. Taehyun wasn’t. Soobin remembers packed lunches split in half whilst pretending not to notice when Taehyun said he wasn’t hungry. It’s not a debt or obligation. It’s just, unfortunately, how things turned out. Luck of the draw, pure and simple. Still, the idea of Taehyun leaving sits wrong in his chest. They’d have to replace him, adding a new stranger in his space and their routines, buried within the fragile balance they’ve built. Soobin can’t commit to that.
And yet, the biggest commitment he’s ever made was Yeonjun.
A sophomore working in the campus café for no reason other than he hated how the previous staff made his iced Americanos, so he fixed it himself and took the labour into his own hands. The first time Soobin met him, he could barely get his order out without stuttering. The second time, Yeonjun cut him off halfway through and ordered for him, like he’d known him for years. The third time, he was leaning over the counter, smiling like an idiot, asking Soobin if he needed a place to live.
Soobin hadn’t been daring back then. Just another freshman - one friend, one goal, and more money than he knew what to do with.
Yeonjun changed that. He turned Soobin into someone who did things. Who drank too much, stayed out too late, woke up next to girls whose names he sometimes forgot by morning. Someone looser and alive in a way he’d never known how to be before. Yeonjun pulled him into a world he’d been mollycoddled away from and let him know that he belongs there.
But sometimes, more often than Soobin likes to admit, he catches the way Taehyun looks at Yeonjun; not a mentor or role model or even a hyung, but rather like he’s watching someone actively destroy futures.
They grew up together, Soobin and Taehyun. Good grades, good habits with a clear path forward. Then Yeonjun arrived - sharp smiles and fox eyes - and suddenly their grocery lists included condoms and their nights blurred into noise and bodies and things Soobin never thought he’d be comfortable with.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Taehyun resented him for it. Honestly, Soobin’s usually too drunk to care. Or maybe he just doesn’t let himself think about it long enough to matter.
Because the real problem isn’t Taehyun. It’s the thought of Yeonjun leaving, graduating and moving on, whilst mercilessly taking that version of Soobin with him.
Without Yeonjun, Soobin doesn’t know who he is. The confidence and the recklessness all feels borrowed, like something he’ll have to return eventually. And when that happens, what’s left? Just him, too aware of himself. A lonesome, tight-lipped freak who doesn’t even know how to please a woman-
“-agh!” Yeonjun yelps, ducking with futility. “Is it fucking hailing?”
“…oh,” Soobin looks around, feeling the pressure of light pebbles on the crowd of his head. Instinctively, for some unbeknownst reason, his mind travels to those soft hands holding up the hem of those baggy jeans.
He looks to the right, back at the tree where the halo-boy once stood.
Nobody.
“…right,” he says, shaking his head and looking at the crowd, which is quickly dispersing. He didn’t even notice the music stop. Honestly, he couldn’t even recall which bands played that evening.
Yeonjun, also, seems relatively unbothered, looking attentively towards a group of well-dressed girls screaming incoherently about the tropical weather.
“I want them,” he says.
“Hyung!” Soobin whacks him. “Don’t be an incel.”
“I’m not,” Yeonjun is already walking, Soobin skips a little to catch up. “They’d be fun at a party right? They look like party girls… they’re definitely party girls.”
“They won’t want you.”
“They will.”
“They won’t.”
“They will,” Yeonjun stops just before their crowd, turning slowly towards Soobin with fake dramatics. “At the very least, Soobin-ah, they’ll want you.”
And despite the Taehyun-shaped angel on his shoulder screaming go home and study!...
…he always follows Yeonjun’s lead.
It’s days like this Soobin regrets joining the dance team, when Yeonjun is so adept at being hungover that he offers no grace period or rest to those suffering (primarily Soobin).
He doesn’t even like dancing that much. He partook in the odd talent show in high school, but switching from a hobby to extreme discipline is devastatingly difficult. And with Yeonjun as the captain, he considers breaking his own legs just to get a couple days off.
“Dance like the idol you are!” Yeonjun cries, doing way too much for just a warmup. “Don’t be a cop-out!”
Soobin would rather die than become an idol - he couldn’t suppress his sexual appetite for a bunch of parasocial fangirls. He knows for a fact Yeonjun would be even worse, but he doesn’t dare damage whatever fantasy the Junior has conjured in his head. Instead, he dances.
Head throbbing, limbs aching, he dances.
The weather decided to be even more bipolar today than it was at the festival the night before, and his only Hail Mary is the working air conditioning unit in the corner of the dance studio. Not all of the rooms in the University’s music department have working AC - budget cuts and lack of value for musical talent resulting in that sweaty reality. But if the dance room’s AC broke, Yeonjun would probably protest naked in the cafeteria until the janitors fixed it.
It seems that the band club next door doesn't share that pride.
“…this is insufferable.” A muffled voice groans through the walls, loud enough to be heard over whatever crap is playing through the speakers. “Musical talent comes from comfort, not heatstroke.”
“We don’t have time to complain, hyung. Let’s just work.” Another voice pleads.
“I can't!"
“You can,” they say. “We finish in an hour. Come on-”
“…no.”
“No?”
Footsteps. “At least let me tune it.”
“Hyung…”
“Give me ten minutes.”
“…oh,” Approaching. “Where are you-”
Soobin flinches as the glass door separating the band room from the dance studio slams open, the force of it enough to make the glass shudder.
Everyone stops as someone cuts the music out mid-beat. Yeonjun lowers his water bottle simultaneously as one of the freshmen in the dance team nearly trips over himself.
A guy walks in with no apology or explanation, just a guitar hanging from one shoulder and damp, uncut hair falling into his eyes. He crosses the entire studio like it’s his own, straight past the mirrors, straight past the dance team, straight past Yeonjun’s increasingly offended expression.
Then he drops onto the floor directly beneath the air conditioning unit with a relieved groan.
“Oh, thank fuck.”
The room falls silent.
The guy pulls the guitar into his lap and begins tuning it - Twang. Twang. Twang.
Nobody says anything for a solid ten seconds until Yeonjun slowly looks around. “Am I hallucinating?”
Nobody answers; the guitarist doesn’t even look up. Instead, he pulls another string - Twang. Twang.
“Holy shit,” Yeonjun mutters.
The door flies open again as a taller boy rushes inside carrying drumsticks and looking moments away from cardiac arrest.
“Beomgyu-hyung!”
The guitarist - apparently Beomgyu - waves him off.
“Sit down, Kai-ah.”
“What are you doing?!”
“Cooling off.”
“You can’t just-”
“I can.”
“You literally ran away.”
“The room is forty degrees.”
“It’s not forty degrees.”
“It feels like forty degrees.”
The taller boy looks ready to cry. “Hyung, everyone is staring.”
Only then does the Beomgyu guy glance up, gaze drifting across the dance team and everything in the room, only responding physically with an unbothered shrug, mumbling: “They’ll survive.”
The taller boy bows immediately. Soobin’s eyebrows shoot up. “So sorry. I’m really sorry. We’ll leave in a second.”
“We’re not leaving,” says the Beomgyu guy.
“We are.”
“We’re not.”
“We are.”
Beomgyu plucks another string. “No.”
The taller boy closes his eyes, and Soobin can practically see the years being taken off his lifespan. “Please.”
“No.”
“Hyung.”
“No.”
Yeonjun starts laughing, hands on his knees and head thrown back. Soobin stares at him, not sharing the sentiment of entertainment. “What is wrong with you?”
“This is incredible.”
“This is our room.”
“Exactly.”
Beomgyu continues tuning his guitar as though none of them exist - Twang. Twang. Twang. Somehow louder than before, the sound echoing through the studio.
Soobin feels a vein twitch. He’s always hated the band club; they’re loud, and dramatic, and Soobin can’t respect people who think owning an instrument is a personality trait. And now one of them is sitting beneath his air conditioning unit.
The guy finally looks up again, and for a split second, something clicks: The nose, the hair, the face, the tree, the festival, the halo of stage lights.
Oh.
It’s him.
The weird guy from last night, the one standing alone beneath the tree, whom Soobin spent twenty minutes staring at instead of watching the performances because he looked strangely elegant holding up the hems of his jeans.
A complete lie of a personality, apparently. Because the moment Beomgyu notices Soobin looking, he points at the AC above them.
“Can you make that colder?”
Soobin blinks.
“What?”
“A little colder.”
“Why would I do that?”
Beomgyu frowns as though the answer should be obvious.
“Because I’m hot.”
The entire dance team stares, and Soobin decides he’s going to kill this man, facecard or not.
“Then go back to your own room,” he hisses, stepping forward.
Beomgyu blinks up at him. “No.”
Soobin huffs, crossing his arms. He isn’t usually confrontational like this, but Yeonjun-hyung is watching. He feels oddly pressured to act on his group's pride. “So your solution was to invade ours?”
“It isn’t invading if the door opens.”
Asshole.
“That’s not how rooms work.”
“Seems to be.”
Kai lets out a noise of genuine distress. “Hyung, please.”
“No, seriously, it’s common knowledge not to enter team rooms that aren’t yours,” Soobin says, taking another step forward. “What exactly was your thought process?”
“I was hot.”
“And?”
“So I came here.”
“And?”
“The air conditioning is here.”
Yeonjun is physically leaning against a wall to stay upright. “This guy is amazing.”
Soobin whips his head around, face red. “He isn’t amazing.”
Beomgyu points at Soobin. “I don’t like him.”
Soobin feels overwhelmingly offended. “I don’t like you either.”
“Good.” Beomgyu nods.
“Great.”
“Fantastic.”
Kai looks seconds away from a breakdown. “Please stop talking.”
Neither of them listen.
“You don’t even belong here,” Soobin snaps.
“Oh, sorry. I forgot the dance department owns oxygen.”
“We booked the room.”
“Your room isn’t an oven.”
“It wouldn’t be an oven if this department actually had funding.”
“Ouch.” Beomgyu pouts. He hears mumbles behind, like he offended masses he wasn’t aware about.
Soobin ignores it. “That wasn’t even directed at you.”
“It still hurt.”
Kai covers his face as Beomgyu continues plucking strings, the sound somehow more irritating now, like he’s doing it deliberately. Soobin determines that this asshole definitely is.
“Can you stop that?”
“No.”
“You’re not even tuning it anymore.”
“You know what?” Yeonjun says eventually, checking his phone. “I’m bored.”
“What?”
“I’m getting coffee.”
Soobin stares at him.
Yeonjun points at Beomgyu. “You.” Then points at Soobin. “And you.”
He grins.
“Figure it out.”
Kai’s eyes widen as Yeonjun walks out, as if the only trusted adult left the room despite all of them being of age. Beomgyu, stupidly naive, plucks another string, and something in Soobin snaps. Maybe it’s the headache or the lack of sleep. Maybe it’s the fact he’d spent all of last night building this stupid stranger into some mysterious, interesting person only to discover he’s actually insufferable. Whatever it is-
“Give me that.” He growls.
“What?”
“The guitar.”
“No.”
“Give it here.”
“No.”
“Hey. Hey-” Kai immediately stands, hands raised. “Let’s not do that.”
Beomgyu hugs the guitar to his chest, something flashes across his face: a smirk, brief but unmistakable, thinking this situation is overtly funny.
And somehow, that’s what does it.
Soobin lunges.
Kai screams. “HYUNG!”
Everything happens at once. Beomgyu jerks backwards as the guitar slips, but Soobin grabs it. Kai grabs Soobin.
One of the freshmen yells something about insurance and reputation but as the instrument twists awkwardly between three different people, a crack freezes the room and everybody pauses, staring at the neck of the guitar hanging at a sick angle. Immediately, Kai looks ready to pass out.
For the first time all afternoon, Beomgyu isn’t talking, he’s just looking at the broken guitar, splintered wood and dangling strings with an unreadable expression. Kai, on the other hand, stares at it, pale as death.
“Oh.” Kai sounds devastated. “Hyung…”
Soobin thrusts the guitar back into Beomgyu’s arms.
“There.” Soobin mumbles; the word comes out harsher than intended. “I hope you’re happy.”
Beomgyu doesn't say a thing. Soobin turns before walking straight to the door.
“Wait-” Kai’s voice follows him. Soobin ignores it.
The door slams behind him, leaving only within it the remainder of the dance team, a silent Beomgyu, and the revelation of Kai’s horrified whisper. “…we are so unbelievably screwed.”