Work Text:
Woohyun thinks his first week goes well—at least, as well as a first week at a new school can go. All of the teachers seem decent enough, and none of his classmates are any stranger than the ones at his last school.
Still, waking up on the Monday of the second week of school is not fun. Mondays never are, he reasons, but that doesn’t make hauling his ass out of bed any easier.
To make matters worse, his history teacher doesn’t seem to grasp how much her students dislike Mondays and chooses today to assign them a partner project. Fantastic. He doesn’t really know anyone in the class aside from Howon, who he has two other classes with, and Soojung, who he’d borrowed a pencil from last class, but both of them get paired off with other people before his own name is called.
Instead, Woohyun gets paired off with some kid called Sunggyu. He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but when everyone’s been paired off and the teacher tells them to sit and work with their partners for the remainder of class, he sees who he’s supposed to work with and considers asking to switch because—
Well. Because Sunggyu is kind of scary, actually.
He’s slouched in the back of the classroom in a gray hoodie, glaring at Woohyun. The glare may just be his how his face is, but Woohyun still approaches with caution; the guy has either a serious case of resting bitch face or a serious desire to punch Woohyun in the face, and Woohyun doesn’t want to take any chances (he rather likes his face the way it is).
“Uh, hey.”
Sunggyu sends him a tight-lipped smile that doesn’t really detract from the scary factor at all but that still manages to reassure Woohyun that he’s not about to get beaten up. At least, he’s somewhat reassured, enough to say—
“So, do you want to exchange numbers?”
The teacher’s only giving them the last half of the class to work, but the rest of the project is to be done outside of class. Woohyun hopes Sunggyu realizes this and is not too offended by his request. Luckily, his fears are unfounded.
“Sure,” Sunggyu says with a shrug, unlocking his phone and handing it to Woohyun. They swap numbers quickly, and then Woohyun’s at a loss for what to do next, half expecting Sunggyu to dump the whole project on him and then threaten to shove him in a locker if he refuses. But that does not happen.
Instead, Sunggyu pulls a laptop out of his backpack and opens it up. “I’ll make a blank slideshow now and share it with you; we can research separately and add on to it sometime over the next couple of days,” he says, clicking away, “You have a topic preference?”
Woohyun hadn’t expected so many words to come out of Sunggyu’s mouth at once, so his reaction is somewhat delayed; he just stares at his partner until Sunggyu’s glare starts to look a little more annoyed, at which point he finally stutters out an “Uh.”
Articulate, he thinks, before adding “Not really, I don’t really know anything about, uh, metallurgy.” He hopes his winning smile will ease the murderous glare directed his way. It sort of does, but not enough for Woohyun to fully relax.
“Okay,” Sunggyu says with another shrug, turning back to his computer, “Based on the Wikipedia page, I’d say we can break it up into history, types of metals, and the process, more or less. Then we should probably work together to go over whatever the big picture is.” He looks at Woohyun for confirmation before returning to the screen.
They spend the rest of class awkwardly (at least on Woohyun’s part) dividing up work, and Woohyun leaves the class feeling equal parts idiotic and embarrassed.
Tuesday night, after rewriting the message no less than three times, he finally texts Sunggyu.
[ 7:03 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
Hey this is Woohyun! Are you free during 3rd or 5th period tomorrow to work on the project?
[ 7:03 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
5th is good. library?
[ 7:05 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
Sounds good! See you then :)
He gets no reply.
Because of the school’s annoyingly complicated block schedule, fifth period is actually the second block of the day on this particular Wednesday. Having nearly slept through his first class, Woohyun is barely awake and thus entirely unprepared for dealing with Sunggyu, who enters the library a few minutes after him, bag slung over one shoulder. He couldn’t see yesterday when they were both sitting down, but now Woohyun realizes that Sunggyu walks with a confidence that makes him look very different from how he looks seated, hunched over in the desk chair.
Absentmindedly Woohyun thinks that he looks good this way, but quickly reminds himself to stop ogling the classmate he’s been terrified of since they met.
“Hey,” Sunggyu greets shortly, dropping into the chair next to Woohyun and leaning over to look at Woohyun’s computer screen.
“Hey.” Woohyun turns the screen towards Sunggyu before talking again. “So I’m feeling pretty good about the post-Bronze Age stuff. I figured we could use the Agricola book to transition into talking about the processes, but I’m not really sure where alloys fit in.”
“This all looks good,” Sunggyu says, skimming the slides as Woohyun clicks through them, “We could probably fit alloys in with the historical stuff rather than the processes; I think it fits better there. Although we should probably iron out the history section, since I’m not sure how much she wants us to go into the Bronze Age—”
“Iron out?”
Sunggyu stops abruptly to look at Woohyun. “What?”
“We should—” Woohyun starts laughing, “Iron out the history section?” The pun was probably unintentional, and it’s not actually that funny, but Woohyun can’t seem to stop laughing; he blames being overtired. When he does finally manage to stop, he sees Sunggyu staring at him with wide—well, wider—eyes. “Sorry,” Woohyun says, smile still on his face.
Sunggyu shakes his head a bit as if to clear it before saying, “It’s fine.”
They start from the end and work backwards, looking first at the slides for the processes involved in metallurgy (“Try to find some short videos,” says Sunggyu, “Kids love that sort of thing”) and finishing their free period by playing around with the title slide (“We can’t make the title font Comic Sans,” Sunggyu groans, “We’ll get an F for that, alone.”)
By the time the bell rings to signal eighth period (which, according to the schedule-from-hell is after fifth period every other Tuesday), Woohyun and Sunggyu have a well-organized slideshow and plans to meet that Friday to practice presenting before the project’s due next Monday.
Woohyun sits with Howon at lunch because he seems nice enough and because they have three classes together, which is enough to constitute a friendship in Woohyun’s book. They’re joined by some guy named Dongwoo, who Woohyun has deduced is Howon’s best friend since birth, and a girl named Nicole, who always has really impressive nail art. Despite being used to larger groups of people from all his friends at his old school, he seems to fit well with this new, smaller crowd.
“You’re like a replacement for Sungyeol,” says Nicole, “Except you’re not really anything alike.”
“No?” asks Woohyun, pushing some stray vegetables around his plate.
“Well you haven’t worn a skirt to school, yet,” points out Howon. Woohyun has yet to get used to Howon’s blunt way of speaking, but Dongwoo at the very least seems to find the comment hilarious.
Howon hadn’t struck Woohyun as the sort of guy who would hang out with boys that wear skirts, but he’s pleasantly surprised by the realization. Looks can be deceiving, he supposes.
The Friday meeting between Woohyun and Sunggyu is good for multiple reasons. The first reason is that they run through the presentation with no problems, confident in their preparation for Monday. The second reason is that it’s hot enough to warrant tank tops, and Sunggyu has gone sleeveless. Woohyun tries not to let it distract him, but it’s a struggle. He’s come to terms with his attraction to Sunggyu, despite being scared of him at first (he doesn’t seem quite so scary anymore, but he can’t put his finger on why). However, acknowledging the fact doesn’t make interacting with Sunggyu any less stressful.
When they’re done with the presentation, Sunggyu holds his hand up for a high five, which Woohyun gives him. He wonders how far gone he already must be to notice that Sunggyu’s hands, of all things, are really nice.
Woohyun contemplates texting Sunggyu over the weekend, but he can’t think of a good enough reason to do so. Instead, he texts Howon.
[ 2:12 ] To: Howon Lee
Hey! How’s your project going?
[ 2:17 ] From: Howon Lee
Not bad. Would be better if Jaehwan didn’t keep making innuendos
[ 2:19 ] To: Howon Lee
What’s your project on??
[ 2:20 ] From: Howon Lee
Early agricultural tools
Plows and shit
[ 2:21 ] To: Howon Lee
Oh. I see how that could get ugly
Woohyun doesn’t really know who Jaehwan is, but decides this is just another reason to be glad Sunggyu is his partner.
On Monday, Woohyun sits next to Sunggyu in the back of the class. It’s partly because Jaehwan—who he now realizes is the tall kid with the creepy smile who usually sits next to the window—takes his seat to be next to Howon, but it’s also because Woohyun is glad to accept partner seating as an excuse to be next to Sunggyu, even if that means sitting far enough away from the front that he to strain his eyes a bit.
They’re presenting second to last, which is fine by Woohyun. The first few presentations go off without a hitch, and even Howon and Jaehwan manage to get through theirs without too much trouble (Jaehwan keeps making suggestive faces and Howon looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, but Woohyun thinks they probably won’t lose points for that. If anything, they’ll lose points for misspelling “efficient” in their slideshow).
Once the group talking about textiles is done, Woohyun and Sunggyu make their way to the front of the class. The teacher gets their slideshow up on the board (the title slide now in a nice serif font, not Comic Sans), and they’re off.
They transition easily between slides and topics thanks to their Friday meetup. During their allotted time, the pair inform their classmates of everything they need to know about how neolithic people crafted things out of metal—at least, Woohyun hopes it’s everything they need to know, considering they’re going to be tested on the material of their own slideshow, as well as that of the others. He’s a little worried about his notes for the pottery topic, but he figures if he’s really desperate he can just ask Soojung to send him her presentation. His focus is drawn back to his own presentation when Sunggyu stops talking and looks at him expectantly.
“And now we have a short video to give you a better idea of what all of this looks like,” Woohyun says, moving to the computer to click on the link to the video. The video itself is rather long, but they’re only showing a few seconds of it. They receive a few subdued noises of interest, which Woohyun is satisfied with; they hadn’t expected much more than that, after all.
They return to their seats after the customary applause. Sunggyu puts his hand out, Woohyun gives it a soft slap, and they both turn their attention to the last group.
It feels a bit anticlimactic.
When Woohyun arrives in history class on Tuesday, he dithers for a moment, wondering whether or not he should take back his normal seat or join Sunggyu again. Howon takes the decision out of his hand though, when he grabs Woohyun.
“You’re sitting next to me,” he says, with an air of desperation. “If I have to hear any more of Jaehwan’s jokes, I will combust.”
Woohyun huffs out a laughs and drops into the seat next to Howon. He turns around to look at Sunggyu and sends him a smile when they make eye contact before turning towards the front again to take his notebook out of his bag.
He feels kind of bad about abandoning Sunggyu, though, even though Sunggyu’s spent all but one class sitting next to other people and getting along—as far as Woohyun can tell—just fine. But he’s starting to consider Sunggyu as something akin to a friend, and he’s worried about losing that now that the project’s over. That, and he’s never seen Sunggyu during lunch, despite all the juniors eating lunch at the same time, so maybe he’s short on friends? If he’s off somewhere eating lunch all by himself, then Woohyun would feel obligated to invite him to eat lunch with his own friends. Unless he’s uncomfortable being in the crowded cafeteria, in which case it might be best to invite Sunggyu to eat lunch at the sandwich shop down the street as just the two of them, because one friend is better than none, but—
The teacher is saying something about trade routes between Mesopotamia and Indus, and Woohyun realizes he should probably be paying attention.
After class, though, Woohyun tells Howon to leave without him and waits outside the classroom for Sunggyu. He doesn’t have to wait long; Sunggyu comes out in less than a minute.
“Sunggyu!”
He turns to see Woohyun. “Hey.”
“Um.” Woohyun wishes he had planned this out more in his head. “Do you like sandwiches?”
He really should have planned this out more.
“Yeah, I guess. Why?”
“I was gonna go to the deli down the street for lunch. Since you, uh, like sandwiches too, do you want to come with?”
Sunggyu laughs, but he looks a little confused. Nervous, maybe? “Sure. Anyone else coming?”
Woohyun pales a little. Would it have, in fact, been better to invite other people along? He’d figured Sunggyu would be okay with one-on-one time because they’ve already spent time together working on the project, but maybe he’s so used to eating lunch somewhere by himself that he would prefer a bigger group where he can fade into the background a little. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be—other people can come, too, if—”
“It’s fine,” Sunggyu cuts him off, but he doesn’t sound upset, just vaguely amused. “I’ll go to the sandwich shop with you, Woohyun.”
Woohyun smiles, relieved. “Great!” And then they’re standing awkwardly in the hallway, so Woohyun gestures towards the school entrance. “Shall we?”
It’s a short walk to the deli, but they make decent conversation on the way. Woohyun’s only been in once before, and it was before classes actually started; he and his mom had gone on a little tour of the area around the school after they moved to the town. Sunggyu, on the other hand, has apparently never been to the deli before, despite having lived here his entire life.
“It only opened a couple years ago,” he explains. “It used to be a taco place.”
“I think I prefer sandwiches, anyway,” says Woohyun. His phone vibrates in his pocket and he pulls it out to check.
[ 12:08 ] From: Howon Lee
Are you coming to lunch?
[ 12:08 ] To: Howon Lee
Not today! Going to the deli with Sunggyu :)
He puts his phone away again and they enter the shop. It’s mostly empty, save for some guy in a suit sitting by himself and a couple of students that Woohyun thinks go to their school. He orders the same thing he got last time, and grabs a bag of chips to snack on as well.
Sunggyu asks for some kind of ham sandwich and goes to pull out his wallet, but Woohyun quickly tells the cashier that, “These two orders are together.”
Sunggyu’s wallet goes back into his pocket.
As far as lunches go, it’s not all that special; they sit at an open table by the window and eat their sandwiches, pausing in between bites to talk to each other. They find that they both have older siblings and bond over the childhood trauma resulting from that.
(“My sister used to put makeup on me,” Sunggyu admits.
“My brother messed up the laundry and turned all my clothes pink,” counters Woohyun.)
As much as he would like to continue sitting and talking to Sunggyu (they get along really well, Woohyun notices, and it doesn’t hurt that Sunggyu’s nice to look at, too), their lunch block is only half an hour. They discard their trash and head out the door to walk back to school.
Woohyun checks his phone on the way.
[ 12:10 ] From: Howon Lee
Oh cool have fun!
But not too much fun ;) ;)
Woohyun chalks it up to Howon spending too much time with Jaehwan.
The week gets more stressful as teachers start piling on more work; it’s only the third week of school, and he’s already got one math quiz, a history project, and an English paper under his belt, but he’s got a history test coming up and another paper due in a week. To make matters worse, Soojung’s presentation is rather sparse in terms of actual information; he’s not really confident with all of the material for the history test.
Sunggyu, however, might have better notes than him, Woohyun thinks. He considers Howon too, but he can’t actually read Howon’s handwriting, so Sunggyu it is.
[ 8:34 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
Hey do you have pottery notes from class? I don’t think I got everything down ^^;
[ 8:37 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
[ image attached ]
here you go
actually speaking of the test, do you want to study together on thursday? I’m free during 5th again
Woohyun hadn’t seen Sunggyu at lunch again after they went out, but he’s sort of proud of Sunggyu for reaching out, asking to spend time together. It’s progress.
[ 8:38 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
Sure!! Library again?
[ 8:38 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
actually do you want to meet in room R124? there are bean bags
Well, Woohyun’s not one to say no to bean bags.
[ 8:39 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
Smart man. Is that near the band room?
[ 8:39 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
yep, that’s the one
He wants to keep the conversation going, but he’s not really sure what to say in order to do that. Figuring he’ll be able to talk to Sunggyu tomorrow anyway, he gives up.
[ 8:40 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
Great! See you tomorrow then :)
[ 8:41 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
:)
Woohyun looks at Howon’s notes the next day during lunch, and, as expected, they are illegible.
Howon just shrugs. “I can read them,” he says, which, to be fair, is all that really matters. “But anyways,” he continues, “Do you want to study together? I haven’t really started yet.”
“Sunggyu and I are studying during fifth period if you want to join us,” Woohyun offers.
“I’ll pass. Probably too early for me to join you guys without it being awkward,” he says.
Too early? “But the test is tomorrow.”
Another shrug. “I’ll study with you guys for the next one, then.”
Because it’s the alternate week of the block schedule, fifth period is the second-to-last period on Wednesday. So, after his post-lunch class, Woohyun makes his way over to the band room. Room R124 is easy to find; it’s a couple doors down, right where Sunggyu had said it would be. Woohyun looks through the window on the door to check that Sunggyu’s there, and he is, but he’s not alone.
He opens the door cautiously.
“Oh, hey, Woohyun!” Sunggyu greets him immediately. The other two people turn to face him. One of them he knows; Bora is a senior in the same math class as Nicole. Apparently they bond over nail art and differential calculus (Woohyun’s kind of intimidated by Nicole’s math skills, actually).
The other person is vaguely familiar, but they’ve never met. Sunggyu introduces them quickly.
“Bora and Yoseob, this is Woohyun. Woohyun, this is Bora and Yoseob.”
“Hello, Bora and Yoseob.”
Yoseob nods at him, but Bora’s eyes light up dangerously.
“Woohyun, it’s so nice to meet you—”
Sunggyu cuts her off. “Bye, Bora! Bye, Yoseob! See you guys later; Woohyun and I have a really important test to study for, so please scram.”
Bora pouts. “I didn’t even get to—”
Yoseob hauls her out of the room before she can finish. “Nice to meet you, Woohyun,” he says before closing the door.
Woohyun’s a little confused about the whole ordeal, but he drops down in the bean bag next to Sunggyu anyway.
“Ignore my friends,” Sunggyu pleads, but Woohyun finds that he can’t really do that because—
Well. He had sort of assumed Sunggyu didn’t have any friends. That theory has obviously been proven wrong; Sunggyu is not some introverted hermit, but rather a regular guy with (possibly not quite) regular friends, and Woohyun wonders why it is that he still never sees him at lunch.
“So, you needed help with the pottery stuff?”
Woohyun nods. “I had Soojung send me her presentation, but it had more pictures than words.”
“Yeah, that’s Soojung for you,” says Sunggyu. “She takes a lot of art electives; history isn’t usually her thing. I think my notes are a little better than yours, though, so let’s see what we can do.”
Sunggyu does have better notes than him (and more legible writing than Howon). Woohyun copies what he’s missing down, and then they take turns quizzing each other. Sunggyu seems to be better prepared by far.
“Why were the surpluses created by efficient agriculture important?”
“Because then people could, uh, do...things.”
“Technically you’re right, but I need you to be a little more specific.”
“They could do specific things.”
“I honestly can’t tell if you know the answer or not.”
Woohyun groans, slumping back in his bean bag. His head ends up at a weird angle, shoved against Sunggyu’s shoulder. He’s frustrated on several fronts. First, it’s not fair that Sunggyu is both attractive and intelligent. Second, studying is particularly difficult when you don’t know much of the material. Third, he does not like looking like an idiot in front of Sunggyu. He feels a little better when Sunggyu shifts so that Woohyun’s head is properly leaning on his shoulder instead of digging into the side of it, but still.
“Do you want to talk about wheels instead?”
“Can we talk about metallurgy? I actually know stuff about metallurgy.”
Sunggyu chuckles. “Then you don’t need to study it. But okay, fine. How and when did the Iron Age start?”
The test on Friday goes—
Well, it goes. Not too well, probably, but he’ll pass.
He tells Sunggyu as much and gets a sympathetic text in return. As well as a somewhat harsh scolding for not studying what he needed to.
They get the test back a week later, and it goes pretty much as well as Woohyun expected, which is to say, not great. His spirits are greatly improved by Sunggyu’s concern, though.
“How’d it go?”
“Not great.”
“You’ll do better next time,” Sunggyu assures him. “But wanna get consolatory ice cream after school anyway?”
Woohyun agrees probably a little too quickly, but Sunggyu just laughs at him and claps him on the shoulder before departing. Sunggyu has never struck Woohyun as a particularly touchy guy, but maybe he just needs to be comfortable with the person first.
Woohyun’s last class seems to drag on more than usual now that he knows he’s going for ice cream with Sunggyu after school; he loves ice cream, and he really likes Sunggyu—what’s not to be excited about? The only thing that would make his afternoon better would be if it were actually a date, but that’s probably too much to expect at this point, he thinks. Having Sunggyu as a friend is already pretty fantastic.
The ice cream parlor is across the street from their school, so it’s pretty popular among students. When they arrive, there are no seats open. Woohyun’s kind of disappointed; the last time he got to sit down and talk with Sunggyu over food had been really enjoyable, and it’s too bad that he won’t get to do it again today. However, as soon as Sunggyu pays for their treat, he says, “Let’s take a walk.”
As it turns out, getting to walk and talk with Sunggyu is just as good as sitting down. It’s nearing the end of September, so the weather is hot enough for ice cream to be appropriate but not hot enough to be uncomfortable. Woohyun bumps into Sunggyu as they walk because he thinks he’s allowed that much, and Sunggyu’s smile tells him that it’s alright. Still, he doesn’t want to push the boundaries too much, so he tries to keep his hands to himself.
“So how did your test go? Better than mine?”
Sunggyu laughs. “Yeah, it went well enough for me to reward myself with some ice cream.”
“Is ice cream your answer to everything?”
“Is it not yours?”
“Touché.”
They walk around the block before returning to the school, brains slightly frozen from the ice cream and skin warm from the afternoon sun.
“Do you need a ride home?” Sunggyu asks.
“Nah, I’m all set,” Woohyun replies, purposely leaving out the fact that his mom is coming to pick him up in her minivan (she only has two children—the minivan has always seemed rather unnecessary, but his working theory is that she only bought it to embarrass him and his brother).
Luckily Sunggyu doesn’t press him for details. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow!”
Life goes on; the teachers keep assigning more work, the weather gets cooler, Woohyun and Sunggyu get food together sometimes. Still, as much as Woohyun enjoys the alone time with Sunggyu, he feels like he’s not doing enough to help his friend branch out; sure, he’s got Woohyun (and apparently Bora and Yoseob, who now say hi to Woohyun sometimes), but Woohyun doesn’t recall having seen Sunggyu talk to anyone else outside of class.
Woohyun’s friends seem to agree that he’s waited long enough when he asks them if Sunggyu can join them for lunch.
(“I was wondering when you’d ask that,” Howon says.
Dongwoo cheers. “We finally get to meet Sunggyu!”
“You’ve gone to school with him for three years, man.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never actually spoken to him before.”)
Woohyun thinks the real problem will be convincing Sunggyu to come, but he’s proven wrong fairly quickly.
(“Sunggyu, do you want to, uh, have lunch with my friends and I in the cafeteria today?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t have to—what? You’ll do it?”
“Yeah. Did you want me to say no?”
“No! No, I just didn’t think you’d say yes.”
“Why’s that?”
Don’t say it’s because you think he’s lonely. “Because the cafeteria food is not great.” Nailed it.
“Hm, that’s true. Maybe I won’t join you guys then.”
“But you already said you’d go!”)
So he and Sunggyu end up standing in the lunch line, waiting to be served their mediocre food. For the first time, Woohyun thinks that Sunggyu actually seems out of place; even though he must have been in the same classes as some of these people during the past three years, he doesn’t seem to know any of them. He wonders what will happen when Sunggyu is confronted with his friends.
When they get to the table, the other three are already there. Howon and Dongwoo seem to be watching a video on one of their phones, so only Nicole notices them at first.
“Hey! Are you Sunggyu?”
Sunggyu nods. “Yeah.”
“Sunggyu, this is Nicole; she’s friends with Bora, too,” says Woohyun.
Nicole’s eyes take on the same glint Bora’s had when she and Woohyun had first met, but this time it’s directed at Sunggyu. “Oh, she’s mentioned you before!” she says, leaning forward in her seat a little.
“Dongwoo, this is Sunggyu!” Woohyun cuts her off before she can say anything weird, mentally urging his other two friends to distract her. Luckily, they stop looking at the phone and turn to greet them.
“Nice to meet you!” says Dongwoo, and Howon just nods in acknowledgement; technically they already know each other from class.
It gets better after that, and Woohyun thinks he might have been worried for nothing. Howon and Sunggyu have complementary senses of humor, it’s impossible to dislike Dongwoo, and Nicole gets complimented for her nail art. They get along so well that Woohyun doesn’t even feel awkward leaving the four of them alone while he goes to the bathroom. When he gets back, though, everyone seems to be intently focused on Sunggyu. He approaches with caution.
“Uh, is everything alright?”
Nicole is the first to respond. “Everything is fine.”
Still unsure, Woohyun drops a tentative hand on Sunggyu’s shoulder, and Nicole shoots Sunggyu a weird knowing look. It does nothing to ease Woohyun’s confusion. “Really?”
This time Sunggyu replies. “We’re good. Howon was almost really intimidating, but the bow kind of ruined it.”
“Bow?” Howon brings a hand up to his head and feels around before plucking a purple bow out of his hair. “Dongwoo, what the hell.”
Dongwoo laughs, and Woohyun lets out a breath; everything does, in fact, seem to be fine.
The first really cold day comes in the second week of October, and Woohyun is woefully unprepared, clad only in jeans and a short-sleeved t-shirt. Howon just laughs at him as they walk to class together; the bastard is appropriately dressed in a sweatshirt and thus knows nothing of Woohyun’s pain.
Sunggyu’s better, but not much; he greets Woohyun with a “Dude, what are you wearing?” which Woohyun kind of detests (really? “Dude”? There is nothing more platonic than “dude”), but then offers him his hoodie. It’s gray and soft and most importantly warm, so he accepts it even though Howon makes a face at him.
Woohyun’s still wearing the hoodie at lunch, where he has to deal with both Howon and Nicole being weird.
“Wow, he must really like you,” says Nicole. “No boy has ever given me his jacket.”
Woohyun groans. “He called me dude.”
“I call you dude,” says Howon, indignantly.
“But I don’t like you.”
“Damn,” Howon deadpans. “I thought we had something special.”
Woohyun wonders how long his friends have known.
Later that night, Woohyun opens his phone to find a text from Sunggyu.
[ 7:32 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
hey do you want to go see a movie tomorrow after school?
Woohyun’s heart jumps a little at the thought of Sunggyu asking him out, but he doesn’t think it’s a realistic hope; they plan their lunch outings in advance over text all the time, so Sunggyu probably thinks the same procedure is fine for a movie. And it is fine, but Woohyun’s still a little bitter.
[ 7:36 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
How would we get to the theater?
[ 7:36 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
I have a car
[ 7:37 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
You have a car??!! Why have I not been chauffeured to and fro for the past month??
[ 7:38 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
because you’re an idiot
so, movie?
[ 7:38 ] To: Sunggyu Kim
Yes please! :) :)
[ 7:39 ] From: Sunggyu Kim
cool see you tomorrow
Woohyun really needs to have a talk with Sunggyu about his texting; the no-caps thing is starting to get to him.
“I still can’t believe you have a car.”
Sunggyu laughs. “It’s not really mine,” he says, a bit sheepishly, “It’s my sister’s, but she can’t have it with her at college. Next year I’ll have the same problem.”
Woohyun still thinks it’s cool that Sunggyu even has access to a car, but wait—
“Next year?”
“Yeah, I won’t have a car in college either.”
“And you’ll be in college next year?”
Sunggyu seems confused about where the conversation has gone. “Yes?” he answers, “I’m graduating.”
“You’re a senior?”
“You didn’t know I was a senior?” Sunggyu looks almost as surprised as Woohyun feels.
“We have a class together! I thought everyone in the class was a junior!”
“Most are yeah,” Sunggyu admits, “But there’s me, and Hyojin and Soojung are seniors, too.”
“Seriously?” Woohyun exhales and leans back in his seat. It’s thrown him for a loop, but a lot more things make sense now. Like why he never saw Sunggyu in the cafeteria. Seniors have lunch during a different block, and most of them choose to eat with their fellow seniors. He feels kind of embarrassed about asking the other to lunch now. He feels kind of embarrassed in general, actually.
“You didn’t think I was younger than you, did you?” From the face Sunggyu’s making, he doesn’t find the idea particularly appealing.
“I never really thought about it, I guess,” mumbles Woohyun. “How old are you, anyway?”
“I turn eighteen in April.”
“Oh. We’ll both be seventeen for a few months then; my birthday’s in February. Anything else I should know about?”
“You tell me, genius!”
“Just drive, grandpa.”
Sunggyu huffs. “Kids these days.”
For some reason they had decided to buy tickets for some zombie horror film, even though neither of them are particularly stoic when it comes to scary movies. This becomes glaringly obvious when the first jumpscare prompts Sunggyu to yell and Woohyun to latch on to Sunggyu’s wrist. They spend the rest of the time shaking, trying to minimize the frightened noises they make, and maintaining a death grip on each others’ hands during the especially scary parts. Woohyun’s initially a bit worried about disrupting the other moviegoers, but soon decides that they’re doing them a public service by acting as a much needed comic relief from the blood, guts, and undeath on the screen.
They leave the theater with wobbly legs, still on edge even after the credits.
“They did a good job with the makeup,” says Sunggyu, acting as if he was entirely unaffected.
“For the zombies, yeah,” agrees Woohyun, mind returning to the gaunt, pallid faces of the zombies that were sure to haunt his dreams for the next month. “I think they went a little overboard on the humans though; I don’t know if it’s possible to have dark circles that intense.”
“You should have seen me first week of the semester,” Sunggyu jokes, “I caught a cold right before school started and couldn’t get a good night’s sleep for days.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get me sick!” exclaimed Woohyun, remembering that they had worked on the project around that time.
Sunggyu waves that off. “I was mostly over it by the second week; I just had some chills. Which is why I was wearing that hoodie in early September, of all times.”
Woohyun looks down to see that he is, in fact, wearing Sunggyu’s gray hoodie. He’d put it on that morning thinking he’d return it after the movie. Which just ended. He starts shrugging it off, but Sunggyu stops him.
“You can keep it for now,” he says. “I have that same sweater in like, three different colors.”
“Oh. Cool.” Woohyun tries to hide his blush by looking down to zip the hoodie back up, but he’s not sure how successful he is. He wonders how obvious his crush must be to Sunggyu.
The ride back to Woohyun’s house is fairly quiet, but it’s a comfortable silence. When they pull up to Woohyun’s house, he’s surprised to see Sunggyu put the car in park and unbuckle his seatbelt.
“You coming in?” Woohyun asks jokingly. He’s pretty sure Sunggyu wouldn’t just invite himself into Woohyun’s home. Not that Woohyun wouldn’t want him there, but it’s kind of late, and they have school tomorrow.
Sunggyu just laughs. “No, I was just gonna walk you to the door. Isn’t that the gentlemanly thing to do?”
Maybe if this were a date, Woohyun wants to say, but he keeps his mouth shut and his fantasies to himself and lets Sunggyu do whatever it is he’s doing. It does seem like a date, in a lot of ways; they went to a movie together, and spent a lot of time holding onto each other (screaming in terror, but still); Sunggyu paid for both the tickets and the popcorn (it was a small popcorn, and there was way too much butter); and now Sunggyu has driven him home and escorted him to the front door. Because it’s not actually a date, though, there will be no post-date kiss.
Except—
They’ve stopped in front of the door and Sunggyu’s hand finds it’s way to the spot between Woohyun’s neck and his shoulder. They’re close, and Woohyun’s pretty sure his lungs have stopped bringing in air.
“Is this okay?” Sunggyu asks, and Woohyun just nods because he doesn’t think he can talk right now and he’s not really sure what this is, but he knows it’s definitely okay. In fact, it becomes more than okay when Sunggyu leans in all the way to press his lips lightly against Woohyun’s, parting them slightly. He lingers for a moment before pulling away with a smile, and Woohyun’s pretty sure he must look like a complete idiot right now, but Sunggyu just slides his hand down from Woohyun’s neck to his hand to squeeze once before letting go.
“See you tomorrow!” he says with a grin. Then he’s retreating back to his car, leaving Woohyun standing in front of his house with too many thoughts running around in his head.
Woohyun’s still jittery when he sits down at lunch the next day. He hasn’t had class with Sunggyu yet since history is at the end of the day, so he hasn’t seen him since last night. He doesn’t feel quite ready to face Sunggyu yet, but maybe talking it out with his friends will make him feel better.
“You guys know Sunggyu?” he starts, drawing the attention of his companions.
“Your boyfriend, Sunggyu?” Howon confirms.
Woohyun feels his world tilt slightly. “Boyfriend?”
Now Howon looks confused, too. “Yeah, haven’t you two been dating for a couple months now?”
“You guys are cute,” adds Dongwoo, and Nicole just nods along like any of this makes sense.
“We’re not dating,” Woohyun retorts, because what are they talking about?
“Then what are you doing?” asks Howon, who looks properly perplexed now. If he scrunches his forehead anymore, his eyebrows might just disappear.
“We just—” Woohyun tries to think of an explanation, “Hang out outside of school sometimes, but that’s what friends do! Not—”
“But you guys are so touchy with each other,” argues Nicole, “Even more touchy than Dongwoo, who’s like, the king of inappropriate touching.”
Dongwoo grins and ruffles Howon’s hair as if to make a point. Howon, surprisingly, lets him.
“That’s not the point!” says Woohyun, frustrated. “He—” Woohyun lowers his voice before continuing. “He kissed me.”
Howon levels him with an unimpressed look. “Because you’re dating.”
“But we’re not—”
He stops to think. A lot of the assumptions he’s made about Sunggyu have been wrong; Sunggyu wasn’t as scary as Woohyun first thought he was, Sunggyu was not some loner with no friends, and Sunggyu was an entire grade above Woohyun. Considering how much Woohyun’s already gotten wrong, this could just be another thing he completely didn’t realize. Were all those times they hung out outside of school (or in school, even) dates? Has Sunggyu liked him this whole time?
It can’t be. Wouldn’t he have known?
He considers what Nicole said. They didn’t really do couple stuff, like holding hands, or—
Well. They didn’t hold hands for any extended amount of time, per say, but once or twice they have, technically, held hands for a second or two. Besides that, there’s the occasional side-hug, and Woohyun has definitely taken a nap on Sunggyu’s shoulder more than once, but all of these things can be chalked up to friendly gestures.
If not for the kiss. That kind of throws everything into a different perspective, and in that perspective it really does look like they’re dating, because what else could it be?
Woohyun lowers his head into his hands and lets out a long groan. It all seems rather obvious, now that he thinks about it. It’s been months; how did he not realize? Sunggyu must think he’s really shy if he waited this long just to kiss Woohyun, jeez.
“Did you really not know?” asks Dongwoo, which doesn’t really make him feel any better.
“I’m an idiot.”
“Yeah, a bit,” agrees Howon, which also doesn’t help. “You should probably talk to him, you know. He probably has no idea that he’s dating someone so dumb.”
Woohyun needs better friends.
History seems to drag on forever. It’s like he can feel Sunggyu in the back of the room, but he can’t do anything about it. To make matters worse, Howon is not oblivious to his struggle; he keeps making weird faces at Woohyun, and Woohyun wonders if he’s spent any more time with Jaehwan recently.
Even when the teacher finally dismisses them, he can’t leave; Howon grabs his arm.
“You’re gonna talk to him, right?”
“I would if you’d let me go, thanks.”
Howon lets go of his arm and leaves with one last pointed looks in Woohyun’s direction.
When Woohyun turns to look at the back of the class, Sunggyu’s already gone. He curses Howon internally before grabbing his bag and leaving the class himself. He barely gets outside when he sees Sunggyu in the hallway. Waiting for him, maybe?
Sunggyu notices him and smiles, and Woohyun wonders again how he missed it this whole time. He knows he should tell Sunggyu or even apologize for not realizing, but it seems much harder now that he’s actually facing him; he can’t seem to start talking.
So instead, he greets Sunggyu with a kiss. Because he can do that. Because they’re dating.
And Sunggyu doesn’t even seem surprised, just happy. “Hello to you, too,” he says. “What was that for?”
“Can’t I just be happy to see my boyfriend?” Woohyun replies, because that’s what they are, what they have been. They could have been making out for weeks if Woohyun wasn’t so oblivious. He’d be mad if he weren’t in such a good mood.
“Ugh, cheeseball,” says Sunggyu, but he loops an arm around Woohyun’s shoulder anyway, and Woohyun thinks that maybe they don’t need to have that talk.
They seem to be on the same page, after all.