Chapter Text
“Jesus Christ,” Hyunjin muttered under his breath. 1 am on a Tuesday night and he was getting a phone call; of course. He pushed away from the desk, the wheels of the swivel chair squeaking across the wood floor.
“Hello?” Hyunjin grabbed the phone from his bed and immediately pressed accept upon seeing the caller id. He rubbed his temples.
“Is this really important, Lix? I’m kinda busy,” Hyunjin glanced back at the unfinished paper on his laptop, next to it a mess of lists and post-it notes piled under multiple empty energy drink cans.
Felix sounded slightly panicked over the phone, “yeah, uhm, Jin, I forgot I have a dentist’s appointment tomorrow and I told Seungmin I’d bring him cookies and I-”
“Jeez Lix, calm down, it's fine. Who’s Seungmin, first of all?”
“Oh,” Felix seemed to swallow a dramatic sob on the other end. “He’s just someone I know from my bio class. We hung out a few times to study and I told him I bake, so then when we studied together I’d make brownies or something. But he hasn’t tried my cookies yet so I wanted to give him some. But then the stupid dentist-”
“I can take them to him, it’s fine.” Hyunjin heard Felix release a relieved breath on the other end. “And you can’t cancel your dentist appointment or anything?”
“They said I cancelled too many times already,” Felix almost whispered. “Things just kept coming up, ok?”
“Ha! For real?” Hyunjin laughed, picking up on his reasons for missing things so often. “You really have a social life, don't you? I’m surprised you’re passing any of your classes.”
“Oh my god, Jin, at least I have a social life.” Hyunjin rolled his eyes with a little chuckle.
“Anyways,” Felix said, “You can just grab the cookies from my room, they’re on my desk, and I’ll text you Seungmin’s room number. He should be done with class and back at the dorms by 5 pm.”
“Damn, you even have his schedule memorized,” Hyunjin teased.
“Bye, I’m hanging up now!”
Beep, beep, beep.
++ the next day ++
Hyunjin really didn’t know why Felix was so stressed over not being able to bring cookies to some random kid he knew from class. He was only joking over having his schedule memorized, but a little crush wasn’t out of the question. Lix was known for having obvious crushes all throughout middle and high school, his signs of romantic affection never the most subtle.
Nevertheless, Hyunjin didn’t mind doing this. It was just dropping off sweets for another (probably) sugar-craving college student; he really had no issues making light conversations and the like, especially when they had a mutual friend to bond over. Not that they even needed to “bond”, Hyunjin could easily be in and out and back to whatever pile of assignments his professors had decided to dump onto him for the day. Maybe even get a late-night practice in at the dance studio if he finished work early.
Mentally shaking himself from the string of thoughts, Hyunjin stepped out of the dorm’s elevator onto his floor. The upside to your best friend living in the room directly across from yours was that both of you were in and out of each other’s places all the time, thus granting access to the passcode. Hyunjin pressed Felix’s room code in and stepped inside. As usual, the room was clean, save for a few snack packets scattered across Felix’s desk. The sun streaming through his large window and cute, bright decor served to make the room comfortable even with crumpled chip bags and empty pocky containers. Hyunjin spotted the box of cookies next to one of Lix’s succulent plants. A piece of small, yellow paper was stuck on top of the box, labelled in Felix’s cute writing: for Seungmin! hope these are tasty <3 Hyunjin’s pretty, right? don't flirt with him too much ;)
With a groan, Hyunjin tore off the bottom piece of the paper and crumpled it up. He loved Felix with all his heart, but sometimes the boy was ridiculous. He tossed the paper into the trash and headed out the door.
Checking his texts from Felix, he saw that Seungmin’s room wasn't too far down the hallway from theirs. After smoothing his hair back almost habitually, Hyunjin knocked on the door. After waiting a few moments without hearing any rustling or signs someone might come to the door, he considered just leaving it at the door.
But no more than a few seconds later, the door swung open, snapping Hyunjin from his thoughts. A guy stood in front of him, about the same height and with parted brown hair. He looked slightly confused and a bit dishevelled. He was pretty cute nonetheless.
“Oh! Hi.” Hyunjin started quickly. “I’m friends with Felix, he wanted to give these to you.”
The guy looked a bit skeptical, but grateful. “Thanks, that’s really sweet. I’m Seungmin, by the way, if Felix didn’t tell you.” He cracked a smile.
“He told me a bit about you, yeah,” said Hyunjin, grinning back. “Hyunjin. Nice to meet you.”
The moment, sweet at first, gathered awkwardness quickly and the pair stood silent, not sure if they should shake hands, or one should just leave…
“Hold on, are those...frog socks?” Seungmin’s smile spread a little more, bordering on a smirk.
On the other hand, Hyunjin’s face reddened immediately and he looked down to see his jeans bunched up slightly. And peeking out from his shoes, were in fact, frog socks. Blue with little green cartoon frogs scattered across them. They were ridiculous and Hyunjin loved them.
“Oh- uhm,” Hyunjin was caught off guard at the notice of his choice of socks. “They’re pretty funny, huh?”
Seungmin looked like he might laugh, then after a “hold on a sec,” he ducked back into the room and reappeared a few seconds later wearing...a frog hat. A green bucket hat embroidered with a frog face and little green ears sewn on sat atop Seungmin’s fluffy hair.
They both grinned, stupidly happy at the absurdity of this situation. Seconds later they simultaneously burst out laughing.
Seungmin finally managed to catch a breath; he hadn’t laughed this hard in a while. “We match!”
++
With a flop, Hyunjin collapsed on his bed. So much for studying, he thought, after checking the time on his phone and seeing it was well past midnight. Of course, he could probably do something easy, look through his notes or make a few flashcards, but even that seemed like such a task. Man, was he drained. Hyunjin still couldn't believe what just happened was real; the last few hours had felt too good, too sweet, to even stomach.
After their laughing fit over matching frog attire, Seungmin invited the other inside. Hyunjin was quick to accept, seeing Seungmin as someone fun and endearing.
Seungmin got them iced tea, and within half an hour, they had already eaten half of Felix’s cookies and were hitting it off way better than expected. They chatted about university, about their passions and how they both were about music. Hyunjin talked about his love for dance, Seungmin his love for singing. Hyunjin found Seungmin so easy to talk to, the words perfectly falling from his lips just as he wanted them; no awkward laughs or not knowing what to say. As well as telling about his own life, he listened about Seungmin’s. The details of his childhood and early adulthood wrapped with the bow of Seungmin’s smooth, comforting voice. Hyunjin thought he could listen to him talk for hours.
Which is exactly what happened. They slipped into easy conversation, eventually moving from the kitchen counter to Seungmin’s small couch. With the chocolate chip cookies long gone, Seungmin suggested putting on a movie, if Hyunjin wasn't busy. Studying can wait, he thought, giving Seungmin an excited nod. The younger began flicking through Netflix, the two deciding eventually on a random movie they both hadn’t seen. Their talk slowly settled into none at all, both focused on Seungmin’s little tv.
Focused was a bit of an overstatement; Hyunjin was more absorbed in his thoughts at the moment. He had really found it strange how his more reserved qualities melted away around Seungmin. Even in the short time they’d spent together, he was quickly warming up to the idea of them being long-term friends. Hyunjin had found making friends difficult; people would approach him because of his pretty face then leave when they found he couldn't provide them with the outgoing, social, perfect boy they’d envisioned him to be. And it frustrated him to no end.
Of course, that wasn’t the case with Felix. That boy seemed to be filled with sunshine, his freckled face emitting nothing but bubbly energy and love. At first, Hyunjin was drawn to him, as most people were, then soon became jealous of him. Felix was everything he aspired to be, and Hyunjin’s pettiness led him to shoot glares Lix’s way when he wasn’t looking, rolling his eyes every time he saw the boy with his sizeable friend group, and just avoiding him as much as possible. Looking back, this was the stupidest thing he could do; Felix was nothing but kind, bundled into a really, really cute body. Hyunjin came to his senses halfway through his freshman year of university, timidly getting to know Felix when they were paired together in their shared music production class.
Hyunjin turned his eyes back to the screen. The main character was doing something related to basketball or some other type of sport, aka nothing he cared enough about to watch with his full attention. Something, though, did catch his eye. Seungmin had scooted slightly closer to him on the couch. Hyunjin’s hand was planted close to a foot from Seungmin’s when they started the movie. Now their fingers were mere centimeters from touching.
Hyunjin snapped back to the present. He´d barely realized the events of the last few hours had reeled through his head like a movie. Hyunjin rubbed at his eyes and sprawled out further on his bed. Like some lovesick preteen he'd thought over his visit with Seungmin; so what if he'd enjoyed their time together. So what if it made him feel things, made him want to see Seungmin again. He had more important things to focus on.