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Hongbin is rather certain that Jaehwan’s blood stream is filled with coffee at this point.
If Hongbin were to cut him, it would likely bleed out of Jaehwan in dark brown rivers, maybe lightened a hue by the sheer amount of cream that Jaehwan dumps into his cups, mug nearly permanently attached to his hand. It is this kind of thing that would remind Hongbin that finals week is nigh, if he hadn’t already been studying for half the month.
Hongbin likes to be prepared, even if his boyfriend tends to rely on the much less effective method of not sleeping for a week and a half and living off of coffee that is as dark as the chances of Jaehwan passing all his finals.
“I think you have a problem,” Hongbin grins tiredly as Jaehwan stares rather resolutely at the coffee maker. It’s four in the morning, but this has little effect on either of them, Hongbin having held onto the futile hope of actually getting some sleep when muffled cursing dragged his mind kicking and screaming to the kitchen.“Jaehwan, you do this every semester, why are you even surprised at this point?”
Jaehwan makes a strangled kind of warbling sound, hands shaking like he’s on crack rather than hopped up on too much coffee and Hongbin wonders if he should be a bit worried. For some reason the only emotion he can muster up is amusement, covering his mouth with his hand to hide his laughter and leaning forward on the counter.
“The machine is broken,” Jaehwan finally sighs, looking at Hongbin desolately. The coffee machine gurgles rather sadly, as if sharing in Jaehwan’s misery, and Hongbin bites his lip to keep his grin from growing. “Fix it.”
“I think it’s time for bed,” Hongbin says instead, grabbing hold of Jaehwan’s arms and steering him away from the machine, through the maze of pizza boxes that line their hallway and into their bedroom. Jaehwan makes some for of grumbling protest, but Hongbin ignores him, patting at Jaehwan’s shoulders until he sits down in bed. “You’re going to fail everything at this rate. Do you even remember the last time you slept in a bed?”
Jaehwan blinks owlishly as Hongbin pulls off his glasses and makes a series of gestures that likely have something to do with needing coffee and chemistry not even being his major, but Hongbin really can’t bring himself to care. The most logical solution seems to be to roll Jaehwan over and lay on top of him, at least to make him stop talking.
Mostly due to the fact that it is now thirteen minutes past four in the morning and Hongbin cannot be bothered to deal with this right now. Possibly in three hours when the sun shines through their too thin blinds and reminds him that he has a final in some seven odd hours, but not at this moment.
“I’m definitely going to fail,” Jaehwan laments, and Hongbin shushes him, patting at Jaehwan’s hair and ignoring the whines of get off me Hongbin I’m going to fail and become a hobo. “I’m going to become a hobo and die from coffee withdrawal.”
“Yes, yes you are,” Hongbin mutters into Jaehwan’s shoulder blades, attempting to muster up some caring but failing. He may feel more inclined in the later hours of the morning, but currently he’s rather preoccupied with minding the craters for bags under his eyes and attempting to smother Jaehwan into the pillows. “But I’ll still love you at least.”
Jaehwan makes a sound between a wail and something resembling happiness, but Hongbin just smacks him on the arm. He just wants to get his required four hours of sleep, force Jaehwan to get five, and dream about being able to go back to worrying about normal things, like getting Jaehwan to not burn down the kitchen.
Instead he dreams about vats of coffee and failing grades, sitting at the bottom of a coffee cup while Jaehwan stirs him around with a silver spoon. He thinks that there must be some symbolism to this, watching as cream swirls past him, but even the word makes him feel uneasy. Too much symbolism already beaten into his mind to want to be haunted by it even outside his waking hours.
He wakes with a gasp to see the clock blinking five twenty seven and grimaces, repressing the urge to scream. Jaehwan has managed to flip them in the meanwhile, crushing Hongbin’s neck under his arm and jabbing him in the neck with his nose. It’s a familiar uncomfortableness though, and Hongbin just sighs and swings a leg over Jaehwan’s hip.
Jaehwan’s breath ruffles his hair, and he doesn’t dream.
...
Hongbin wakes up not to the spotty light shining directly in his eyes, which it is, but instead a loud fire siren echoing off the highway and through their thin walls.
There’s also the rapid fire stream of curses escaping Jaehwan’s mouth, but Hongbin is used to that.
“I’m going to fail,” Jaehwan groans as he picks himself up off the bed and stumbles into the kitchen as Hongbin stares at the ceiling and contemplates the meaning of life. He wonders if it has anything to do with the litany of curse words that echo from the kitchen at the very much abused coffee maker.
He drags himself to the kitchen in time to see Jaehwan attempt to throw the instant coffee into the blender, and grabs the plug before Jaehwan can turn it on, picking up his bag and shoving it into Jaehwan’s hands.
“I’ll fix it, just go fail chemistry already,” Hongbin smiles, not really feeling awake enough for a pep talk but patting Jaehwan’s cheeks like he is, pretending that he doesn’t have his own to go fail just a few hours after Jaehwan. Instead, he pulls him into a kiss hard enough to light up fireworks behind Jaehwan’s tired eyes, Hongbin nipping at his lips and grabbing his hair when Jaehwan thinks he’ll pull away. He blinks with suspicion when Hongbin does pull back, certainly feeling much more awake while Hongbin licks his lips and runs a hand through Jaehwan’s hair. “Try using that to keep going instead.”
“I hate you,” Jaehwan mutters, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth as he slings his bag over his shoulder, turning quickly to hide the grin that Hongbin can hear in his voice. His mouth tastes like old coffee and sleep and Hongbin and he'd like nothing more than to turn right around and continue. Equations of he and Hongbin moving against each other rather than protons and neutrons. “I hope you fail too.”
“I will,” Hongbin says, much too cheerily as Jaehwan forces his legs out the door. Hongbin’s laughter follows him, stabbing him in the back as he walks down the block towards the university.
He stops and buys coffee out of some kind of need to spite Hongbin, and walks into his exam room with his head held up high.
((he fails, rather spectacularly))
...
Hongbin gets a text four odd hours later, freshly out of political science and feeling like becoming a hobo isn’t quite such a bad idea after all.
It reads very simply and eloquently I found ur bf in the library pls retrieve him or I’ll steal his stuff and Hongbin nearly chokes to death from laughter.
Accompanying the text is a photo of a grinning Sanghyuk making bunny ears over Jaehwan’s sleeping face, the older boy curled on the floor of the library with his laptop clutched to his chest.
He has half a mind to tell Sanghyuk to just take it, but decides not to. The end days are upon them and they are ordering chinese tonight, and nothing ruins chinese night.
Maybe he’ll even fix the coffee maker, and they can both bleed themselves dry of the stuff until it’s just their bones sitting side by side with takeout between them.
And that’s all they really need.