Chapter Text
In a world of things that belong in pairs, Jisung has always felt the odd one out.
Many groups of friends are big in number, a gathering of people that know one another and end befriending each other as well. Most of the time they split into smaller groups, though, because there’s always certain people that click better with you than others. Then it becomes smaller, and smaller, until it’s you and someone else. Your best friend. Your partner. Your person.
Jisung doesn’t think he has that person.
He has friends, more than he ever thought he would have when things didn’t look great back in High School. He even has someone he could call his best friend – bright-smiled and blonde-haired Felix, who found him on their first day of classes and never let go.
But Felix is not his person, because Felix has Chan. Multi-talented, three years older than them Chan, who is Jisung’s senior and the love of Felix’s life. The blonde’s words.
And that’s alright, because Jisung sees how happy Felix is with his boyfriend. How highly he speaks of him, how safe and content he sees him when they hang out together.
And it’s okay that Felix had decided to play It Takes Two with Chan, instead of with him.
Jisung has been dying to play that game for longer than he would like to admit. It was released not more than a year ago and, even if he had nobody to play it with back then, he was too busy with his college entrance exams to even think about it. But now he’s halfway through his first year of college and, without his finals breathing down his neck anymore, he has the time to sit down in front of his computer and play to his heart's content.
He does have more people to play it with, too. There’s not only Felix in his life, but Seungmin and Hyunjin have also officially adopted him as their friend. Seungmin is Felix’s roommate, and he loves playing videogames. Hyunjin is his own roommate, and he loves bothering Jisung. So, of course, both of them could be a great choice to play the game that has either fixed or broken relationships.
When he had asked Seungmin, his apologetical expression made Jisung’s face fall. I’m sorry, Jisungie. I played that game with Changbin when it was released, he had said, but it was okay. He could re-play it as the other character, right?
Sadly, Seungmin didn’t want to do so, because the memories from playing it with his long-term boyfriend were too precious for him.
Hyunjin’s answer went easier on him – he didn’t give a fuck about videogames.
And, against his own will, Jisung realized that, despite having friends that love him, the sense of not belonging is still being carried in his heart.
Refusing to let any of this stop him from playing the game, Jisung decides that, one random Thursday night, he’s going to find a random player and play with them. Online matchmaking exists for a reason, after all.
Still, it makes Jisung nervous, and fidgety, and overly self-conscious. What if the person doesn’t like him? What if he doesn’t like them? What if it’s a random kid that stole his sister’s computer to play, and he has to go through the story of two suffering married characters with someone that wouldn’t understand the entire depth of it?
No, no way. He would just abandon the game and find someone else.
Sitting down in his gaming chair, Jisung turns on his computer and everything shines with rainbow lights. It takes no time for him to open up the game as he sips on some late-night soda, and his heart stutters with anxiety when he clicks the play online button, and then chooses online matchmaking.
Oh, well. He has nothing to lose.
Against his expectations, it takes a while for the game to find someone. Everyone has a person to play it with, Jisung supposes, and that’s why it’s taking forever to find a player in the region of South Korea.
That, and the fact it’s eleven p.m. on a Thursday night.
Just before he regrets his decision and closes the game, the orange square of the player two changes to yellow and gets filled with a name.
Linos_098.
His heart skips a beat. Ninety-eight? That means this person is not a kid, right? Actually, it would mean this person is older than him, probably bored to death to the point they have nothing better to do than play this game with a random dude. Or maybe it’s a random number and Jisung is making them wait for no reason.
Before he spirals even further, he presses continue and a cinematic starts.
Jisung knows enough about the game to know that it’s about a married couple with a kid that are about to get a divorce. Many comments online explained that this game strengthened their own relationship, that it helped them fix their deepest issues. It’s not like he has any relationships he needs to improve, but he would have loved to play this with someone that matters to him, so they could learn together how to work around their own issues, if they had any.
He’s going to play this with Linos_098, instead.
At least he hopes they don’t have an annoying voice.
The cinematic completely hooks up Jisung, to the point his nerves take a different shape – now it’s not really about playing it with a stranger, but more about actually being able to play the game. He’s starting it. He’s doing this.
He gets a bit lost in them fighting over a dentist appointment – getting to know the woman is called May and the man Cody – until the camera pans to their daughter holding two dolls, one made with wood, and another made with clay, clearly representing her parents.
Jisung stays still, doesn’t know what to do now. They have to choose their character, that much is clear, but the tingling in his fingers from the anticipation is not allowing him to open the chat and text a simple hello, what would you like to choose?
A message in the left, lower corner appears, and saves him from further suffering.
Linos_098: hey! do u wanna voice
chat here or on discord?
Alright, straight to the point. Jisung can work with that.
dino.Han.00: oh, hello! thank you for
joining me in the game. since they say
it’s filled with cinematics, do u wanna do
discord?
Linos_098: ah, no problem =) glad i
found someone to play it with tonight.
discord is the best option for this game
so yeah, add me? i’m username
catbutlerlee#9160
Jisung snorts at the name. Opening discord, he realizes he already knows two things about this stranger – their age, and that they absolutely love cats.
Adding catbutlerlee to his friend list, he cannot help but wonder if his own username is going to tell them anything.
dino.Han.00: alright, invitation sent!
call me whenever you want
In no time a new conversation screen is opening up, and Lino is calling him.
“Hello, Princess Richard,” a masculine but melodic voice says at the other end of the call, and Jisung cannot help but laugh.
“Oh my god, shut up!” he dares to say, and the other person is laughing too. “I’m not Richard, I’m Jisung. Richard is my pet lizard, and she’s my princess.”
The guy snorts again. “Okay, Jisung, it’s nice to meet you and your princess Richard. You can call me Lino, if you want.”
Jisung cannot help but smile. “Nice to meet you too, Lino the cat butler. I see you have succumbed to being owned by furry pets.”
“That I have,” Lino answers, and Jisung can hear the smirk in his voice. “I’m the proud brother of three cats, and I’m not above knowing I do nothing but serve them.”
He giggles again. This Lino guy is pretty funny.
“Yeah, I can see that. So, Lino, are you really a ninety-eight liner?”
“That I am,” he says, “and by your username you seem both a reptile nerd and from a different century than me. And, since I’m feeling pretty generous tonight, I’m going to allow you to call me hyung.”
He rolls his eyes – he’s a bit feisty, too.
“Wow, so generous,” Jisung deadpans, and he can hear a faint laughter on the other side. “So, Lino-hyung, what would you like to play as?”
There’s a faint humming coming from his headphones, and he sees Lino_098’s name jumping from one character to another.
“I actually don’t mind? I did start playing this game with a friend a while ago, but we never went further than the first area. I did play as Cody, though.”
“Do you want to play May, then? I really don’t care, as long as we get to play it.”
“Aww,” Lino coos, and Jisung becomes a bit smaller at the sound. “You really want to play this game, don’t you?”
He pouts, and he’s glad Lino is not seeing him do so. “Yeah… I do.”
The smaller voice must have made Lino stop for a second, because when he speaks his voice tone is quieter, too, without any teasing.
“Yeah, me too.”
Lino_098’s name falls inside the blue square, just beside the wooden doll, and May gets chosen.
Jisung then chooses the clay character – Cody.
“So, are you ready?” Lino asks, and his voice keeps being soft, without the initial teasing tilt. Maybe he feels bad for teasing Jisung.
“I’m more than ready,” Jisung answers, as hype as he can so he shows Lino he doesn’t actually mind.
As Jisung starts the game, they stay quiet while the next cinematic plays. It shows both of the parents waking up in their respective doll bodies, and they do nothing but freak out about it. A book that their daughter Rose found – called Dr. Hakim’s Book of Love – appears to explain to them what is happening and what they need to do to recover their bodies, words along love is work and you need to fix your relationship.
Looking back, Jisung has never had a relationship to fix, because he’s never had a relationship in the first place. He’s just a twenty-year old self-proclaimed loser that wears glasses and is obsessed with reptiles and dinosaurs, and that spends most of his free time playing videogames. The most he’s gotten to do is kiss his High School crush, and that’s too much to say – he truly isn’t the best with people.
“Alright, well, I guess a speaking book is gonna give us love lessons now,” Lino says through the headphone speakers, voice amused. “What an amazing way to fix a broken marriage.”
“I mean, doesn’t it make perfect sense? What everyone needs in a relationship is, clearly, becoming bug sized, getting scolded by a book, and getting lost in your own shed.”
Giggling, Jisung imagines Lino is shaking his head. “What an amazing game. I really can’t wait to go further than here.”
“Did you finish the whole part?” Jisung asks as they start moving around on the partitioned screen, their first objective to find some fuses. “Please, tell me it’s not too difficult. I don’t wanna hold you back.”
“Ah, don’t worry about that, Jisungie,” Lino answers, and Jisung’s character falters for a second when the nickname comes out. “If you think you’re bad, I’m worse. It might be a bit difficult to get the handle of it at first, but then it just becomes so nice to play. Trust me!”
Not even a few minutes after meeting Lino, and Jisung kind of does trust him already.
“Alright,” he ends up saying, “but if I die three thousand times, you can’t blame me, alright?”
“You got a deal.”
They spend their first minutes playing together messing around with their characters. Jisung learns how to double jump after dying five times on the same gap, and Lino just laughs at him. Even if he does it doesn’t even feel mean – somehow, Jisung knows Lino would never actually make fun of him.
In no time they encounter a vacuum cleaner, one that complains he never got fixed and got replaced instead.
“Aww, I feel so bad for the vacuum cleaner…” Jisung mumbles, seeing how sad it is being put somewhere and forgotten there. “I would be upset if they never fixed me, too.”
“Well, it’s old, isn’t it?” Lino questions, words stopping as they both listen to the book explain they need collaboration to go search for the mad vacuum cleaner. “I mean, it’s natural for things to die down, no matter what they are.”
Jisung shrugs, even if he can’t see. “That’s true, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve a second chance, does it? Maybe you can try fixing things even if they seem like they don’t have much more of a future, it might give you a surprise.”
There’s a bit of silence before Lino speaks again. “Wow, you speak like you have experience in this.”
He snorts. “Oh, absolutely not. I’m just saying what I think about it, that’s it.”
Another bit of silence. “Alright, then. Shall we go get that thing?”
“Let’s go!”
As soon as they go further into the shed, things start to get even more interesting. They have to go through small nooks and crannies and surf through cables, communicating constantly to help each other go forward. And, the more they advance, the more fun Jisung has.
Lino is definitely an incredibly funny person. He doesn’t seem to be aware of what he says being hilarious, but Jisung finds himself laughing constantly at his expense. Lino seems to be having fun too, either teasing Jisung or being amused by the things Jisung tells him.
Drying a stray tear from laughing at Lino just having the time of his life jumping through tubes that just suck you in, they finally reach where the vacuum cleaner is.
And, sadly for Jisung, the vacuum cleaner is a boss they have to fight.
“I didn’t know this game had bosses,” Jisung complains, already almost dead after the thing attacks them. “I thought it was just jumping around and helping each other!”
“Oh, Jisungie,” Lino says, voice sounding amused. “I’m afraid this game is full of bosses. But that’s okay, hyung can kill them for you if you can’t do it yourself.”
“Ah, come on,” he says, pout evident in his voice. “You promised you wouldn’t laugh at me!”
“Ah no,” Lino answers, tutting. “I said I wouldn’t blame you. I am, very much indeed, laughing at you.”
Jisung tries really hard not to laugh, and fails miserably. “You’re so mean, Lino-hyung. I can’t believe we just met and you’re being a menace to me.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” he retorts. “People get my actual mean side. This is me being nice.”
He somehow doesn’t have any trouble believing him.
“I feel so honored, then. Cat butler that is, himself, a cat too.”
Lino snorts. “You already know me better than most.”
It takes them a few tries to kill the vacuum, one that sucks its own eyeballs and ends up exploding.
Jisung is horrified.
“Oh my god.”
He pictures Lino blinking a thousand times the same way he is.
“Oh my god indeed. I forgot about this.”
And, despite it all, they burst out cackling.
“Jesus, is this game going to be this morbid all the time?”
“I have no idea,” Lino answers, moving forward in the game and triggering another cinematic. “This is where I left it at.”
The cinematic shows them trying to gather their daughter’s attention who is in the shed, but she cannot see them. And then, out of nowhere, the head of a speaking hammer appears and begs them to put him back in the tool box.
“Oh, are we getting weapons?” Jisung questions as May grabs it and puts it on her back, and Cody gets three nails. “This is getting really amazing.”
“It seems like we do. Ready to stick some nails in the coffin?”
Jisung is so stunned by the bad joke that he’s unable to speak.
“… Too bad?”
He huffs out a laugh. “Absolutely terrible. Let’s go.”
Giggling, Lino follows him.
In between cooperation, nails being thrown and hammer heads being swung around, they advance through the game with an ease Jisung wasn’t expecting. It took him a bit to get used to the controls and not to fall to the pits of hell every time there is a big jump, but the game is just so fun and varied that he doesn’t mind the learning curve.
He guesses it also has to do with Lino. He may not be the best player he’s ever seen either, and he keeps laughing at Jisung’s mishaps, but playing with him gives Jisung a sense of comfort that nothing else has done in a long time. He doesn’t need to think of what to say next because their conversations are endless, and he doesn’t need to hide his actual personality because Lino outdoes him in weirdness – something he never thought would happen.
The book reappears at some point, showing them a new game mechanic – minigames. They’re pointed by a very cute hovering tambourine, and the first one they’re shown is, hilariously, called whack-a-Cody.
“Facing a challenge makes you learn something new,” Jisung repeats from the game, and nods to himself. “This game is actually teaching us pretty nice things, isn’t it?”
Lino moves his character to stand over the cardboard box with a hammer, and hums. “Yeah, I’ve heard so many good things from it, how nice its messages are. Because, of course there’s always something to learn from everything that happens in our lives, right?”
For a second, Jisung thinks Lino is being deeply philosophical.
“Like, hitting you with a hammer teaches me how to be faster with my reflexes.”
Of course he’s not.
“Bad cat.”
“You can say that when I’ve actually destroyed you in this mini-game.”
And, just Jisung’s luck, Lino does destroy him in the mini-game.
“You’re being too competitive and too lucky,” Jisung complains as they continue their paths, not before replaying the game over and over.
“It’s whack-a-mole, Jisungie,” he says, and if he had x-ray vision, he could see Lino smirking at him. “It’s a skill issue.”
“You’re a skill issue.”
“That makes no sense.”
Jisung huffs. “I know. Let’s just go.”
They eventually do encounter a second mini-game, but this one they spend considerably less time on – perhaps because it’s more boring, or because Jisung doesn’t want to lose again. In no time they find the toolbox, a red piece of metal that also chooses to destroy them.
“Why is everything trying to kill us in this game?” Lino questions as he dodges a hit, and Jisung is pressing the revive button as hard as he can.
“I don’t know, but can’t he just stop hitting us already? We’re so tiny and cute, we cannot die!”
“I bet you’re tiny and cute, too,” Lino says, relaxing before they realize there’s a second phase. “Ah, shit.”
“Hyung, you can’t just say that!” Jisung whines, already dodging a new attack.
“Why not? You keep saying that things are tiny, like bugs. I bet you look like a bug, too.”
“Alright, that’s straight up mean, now.”
Lino giggles on the other side. “I’m not saying it in a bad way! Bugs can be so cute, too. You just give me the vibes.”
Jisung gets aware of his sitting position, curling himself into the tiniest posture possible, and shrugs.
“Yeah, okay, you’re right. I am kinda tiny.”
“I knew it.”
Two hits later and the toolbox boss is destroyed – at least, this time it doesn’t destroy itself. They are able to bring the head of the hammer back to its body, and to all the tools to be together again.
“Aww, it’s so cute. They’re finally reunited!” Jisung coos, and he swears he hears Lino say yeah, definitely cute too.
He decides to ignore it for the sake of his own preservation.
Being able to get out of the shed finally, they land on the tree just outside Rose’s room. It seems like the scenery is changing already, so the first chapter is officially complete.
“I think this is a new chapter,” Lino voices, running around the tree. “Are you okay to keep playing?”
Jisung looks at his own clock – it reads twelve thirty in the morning, and he realizes he couldn’t give less shits that he has class early tomorrow.
“Yeah, absolutely! Maybe not that much more, though. I have class tomorrow morning.”
“Oh,” Lino says, seemingly surprised. “College student?”
“Yup!!” Jisung answers, excitedly. “I’m a music producing major at Seoul’s National University.”
There’s a few seconds of silence, one where Jisung wonders if he shared too much.
“Really?” Lino questions, breaking the quietness. “And you’re a freshman?”
“That I am,” he confirms, nodding even if he can’t see. “I started college not even eight months ago.”
There’s another pause, and another thought that perhaps Jisung is being too much.
“I go to Seoul’s National University, too.”
Jisung’s eyes open up, as wide as the moon lamp on his desk. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah, I’m a dancing major, a couple of years left still.”
His breath hitches. What were the chances of Lino going to the same university as him? Of being in the same major as half of his friends, on top of it all? The chances of them having crossed paths are pretty big, too, their buildings being very close by.
Has Jisung ever locked eyes with him? Went by him and thought that he smelled nice, that he was handsome? The chances of them talking are pretty slim – Jisung doesn’t talk to anybody else other than his friends if he can help it – but they must have seen each other at least once.
But, even if Jisung is too curious for his own good, the fact that Lino is not using his real name should be enough information.
“That’s insane, most of my friends are dancing majors too!” he says, excitedly, as he sees how their characters just found a door on the tree. “I wonder if you know them.”
“Hm, maybe,” Lino answers, mumbling, and before Jisung can ask if he knows Felix and Hyunjin, he’s laughing at something on the screen. “Oh my god, they’re squirrels!”
May and Cody are abducted by squirrels, ones that, if Lino knew what he actually looks like, would be having a blast of a time comparing them to him.
He can already hear Felix saying he looks like a squirrel when he eats.
“I can’t believe we’re smaller than squirrels,” Lino continues, voice amused. “It’s actually gonna be true that you are a bug.”
Jisung gasps, faking offense. “You’re as small as I am! It makes you as much of a bug as I am.”
As if on cue, the squirrels start to explain their war with the wasps, who are basically as big as they are in the game.
“Alright,” Lingo concedes, “maybe we are both bugs.”
In exchange for bringing them to Rose’s room, the squirrels make a pact with them to kill the wasp queen. For both their amusement, Cody gets a nectar shooter called Habschaiki 57, and May a flamethrower that goes by the name of DrillBazzer x200.
Jisung just keeps being awed by the love this game has been given. Not even into a quarter of the game, and there are already so many great details, and the playability is immense – Cody can throw nectar now, and May make it explode.
This game is slowly starting to deserve its GOTY award.
Same as before, they fall into easy cooperation. Playing with Lino is as easy as playing on his own, but ten times more entertaining – despite knowing each other for less than two hours, their chemistry is so good that they go through the level as easy as breathing, fighting wasps and opening paths together.
They fight mini bosses first and then bigger ones, wasps with all kinds of armors and annoying ways of making them die. Of course, Jisung whines through the entirety of it – not because it’s hard, but because it seems to amuse Lino to no end.
“Jisungie,” Lino says, catching his breath from all the laughter as they kill the second boss. “You know they’re not actually killing you in real life, right?”
Trying not to smile, Jisung feigns indifference. “What do you mean? They were hitting us so hard, hyung,” he says, whine still present. “It hurt almost as much as in real life.”
Lino giggles again despite being almost breathless. “You’re so silly, Jisung-ah.”
This time Jisung cannot hold the smile blooming on his face.
In between being silly while taking pictures of each other in a stand and playing some mini-games, they end up getting attacked by wasps once again. They take them out easily while Jisung keeps being dramatic and Lino laughs at his antics, and they end up reaching a round raft in a small stream.
It’s fun, going through the water while they’re being attacked, moving their characters around to guide the circular platform down the stream. Jisung expects the level to finish when they reach the end of it but, instead, they’re brought inside a cave that not only leaves him speechless, but Lino too.
“Woah,” the older guy whispers on the other side. “This is beautiful.”
“It really is,” Jisung answers, sounding equally astounded.
In front of them there are an endless amount of jellyfishes floating on the water, ones that shine in bioluminescence under them first, and then have to jump through them to advance.
It gets prettier the deeper they get into the cave, with glowing mushrooms and neon paintings on the wall depicting the squirrels’ lives. They end up floating around in the deepest part of the cave, with red plants hanging on the ceiling and the unmistakable sound of Lino giggling in amusement.
He’s so fun to play with. He matches Jisung’s energy so well, makes jokes that are so odd yet so hilarious that have Jisung laughing into oblivion. He makes fun of Jisung struggling as he floats around, but immediately goes to help him and shows him how it’s done. And, when they have to ride a ghostly cat fish, he seems so awed by it that Jisung gets cuteness aggression.
Would it be so bad to think that Jisung really wants to meet Lino in real life?
Like, alright – they’ve only known each other for two hours, and they know almost nothing about the other. They go to the same university, though, and he seems approachable enough, so the thought of befriending him doesn’t scare Jisung as much as it usually would.
And, if Jisung feels kinda giddy every time he makes Lino laugh, that’s between him and the moon lamp he has lit on his desk.
“Wow, I’m terrible at this mini-game,” Lino deadpans as he loses for the third time at the shooting game they encounter, while Jisung feels overjoyed at finally seeing Cody wins on the screen. “I can’t believe you’re better than me at something.”
“Oh well,” Jisung sing-songs, leaving the mini-game and continuing down their path. “I guess hyung isn’t as good as he thought, hm?”
“You think you’re so funny,” he answers and, despite the level tone, Jisung knows he’s very much smiling. “We’ll see who dies first on the next boss.”
That is, indeed, Jisung.
This time it’s a beetle caged on an amphitheater-like arena, charging against a not-so-quick-enough Jisung. Lino seems too preoccupied not dying himself to laugh at his demise, but Jisung makes sure to tease him when it’s May’s time to die.
In no time, though, they defeat the beetle together, who admits it is a mercenary. They end up making a deal with him, getting his help to reach the supreme wasp queen.
She turns out to be a pain in the ass, of course. The first phase has them both half-panicking at the attacks they have to throw at her, but as the platform they’re standing at gets completely destroyed and leaves them only sliding through railings, there’s no time for messing with each other. Luckily for them, it doesn’t take much longer to destroy the queen wasp – discovering that she’s the cutest bumblebee ever.
After destroying all the nectar and the wasps along it, the squirrels don’t take too well that they’ve saved the bumblebee and try to fight them. Cody and May steal a plane instead, one fabricated by human Cody’s underwear, and make their escape until they land on Rose’s room.
“Oh my god, imagine having underwear with hearts,” Lino mentions, and Jisung goes a bit still, looking at the drawer where he keeps dinosaur-printed ones.
“What’s wrong with them?” Jisung asks, whiny.
Lino’s snort comes out a bit static-y. “Nothing! I have cat underwear myself, but aren't hearts a bit too much? It’s kinda cheesy.”
Huffing out a shaky laugh, Jisung shakes his head. “What if Cody is a romantic? I think it’s cute.”
There’s a bit of silence before Lino speaks again. “You have heart-shaped underwear, don’t you.”
Jisung then thinks of the ones kept even deeper in his underwear drawer, terribly similar to the ones in the game, and gulps.
“… Perhaps.”
Lino’s laughter alleviates some of Jisung’s tension.
“Oh my god, you’re so cute Jisungie, what else do you have there? Car ones?”
“No,” he pouts, even if Lino can’t see him. “Dinosaur ones.”
“God,” Lino breathes out, and it makes Jisung blush a bit. “Yeah, definitely the damn cutest.”
The cinematic saves Jisung, because he doesn’t really know what to say. He’s been called cute by his friends before, but not by someone that has never seen him before, and even less in such a way that makes Jisung’s chest feel funny.
He’s about to comment something on the game, though, but amidst the sentence a yawn escapes him.
“Sleepy, Jisung-ah?”
“Hm,” Jisung mumbles, looking at the clock in the computer that reads it’s already too late. “Yeah, actually. I had tons of fun with you, but I think it’s time for me to go to sleep.”
“Of course,” Lino agrees, and yawns as well. “I would love to keep playing with you, but my eyes are drier than the plants my roommate keeps. So, sleep time it is, for both of us.”
Smiling, Jisung saves the game and closes it. “Would you like to keep playing anytime soon?”
“Of course!” he exclaims. “I’m actually free tomorrow night, if you want to play.”
“Oh? Not going to the Fine Arts party?”
There’s some shuffling on the other side, and a quiet huff. “Oh, absolutely not, I’m a professional hater of college parties. Plus, I’d rather keep playing with you, if you have nothing to do, I mean, and not going to the party and –”
“Hyung,” Jisung giggles, effectively stopping Lino’s rambling. “I’m not going, either. I’d rather eat my own underwear than be in such a loud place.”
“The heart underwear?”
“Hyung!”
Lino laughs. “Sorry, sorry. So, not a big fan of parties either, then.”
“Nah,” Jisung shakes his head, even if Lino will never know he did. “I don’t like loud places, nor loud crowds, and I hate drinking alcohol. Why would I even want to go to such a place? I’d also prefer to just keep playing with you.”
In Jisung’s mind, Lino gives him a smile. “Then what about we start a bit earlier? So we don’t finish so late at night.”
“Sounds amazing, hyung. Does eight sound good?”
Humming, Lino seems to be shuffling through something before he answers. “Yeah, that’s actually perfect! I should be done with my afternoon study session by then and have some time to spare.”
“It’s a date, then!” Jisung spews out, and immediately feels mortified by it. What the fuck, Han Jisung?
There’s too much silence for Jisung’s poor heart, to the point he almost backtracks and makes a joke out of it, but Lino is quicker than him.
“Sounds good, Jisungie. Dress up nicely for your date with hyung tomorrow then, hm?”
And, before Jisung can say anything, Lino says good night and the call ends.
°⸙°•🎮•°༄°•