Work Text:
October 15th, 2021 | 9:35am
weiner-weiner 🐥:
i reckon if u die in a forest
a telepath would hear you scream
10:
Lmaoooooo
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
i reckon if you scream in your head it would scare a telepath off
weiner-weiner 🐥:
they’d still hear you scream
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
touché
10:
kun i dare you to scream in your head rn
spot the telepath hahaha
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
wtf why me
sicheng brought it up
10:
I would never get sicheng in trouble
weiner-weiner 🐥:
🤩😘
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
gross
—
When Johnny Suh, who was sitting right next to him and who Kun kind of knew a little bit flinched as soon as Kun screamed in his head, his stomach sank to his ass. Instead of taking to his phone, he looked up at both of his other friends in the class to see if they’d noticed it too. They must have; neither of them could keep their jaws shut.
“Is everything okay, Johnny?” Professor Park asked, looking genuinely concerned.
“Yeah, I just had a, uhm, like a migraine, suddenly.” Johnny rubbed at his temple, one eye squinted in pain. “Sharp pain in the head.”
“That doesn’t sound good at all. If I were you, I’d go see a doctor. Immediately.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” Johnny bit his lip. “Sorry for interrupting.”
Right before he turned around to pack his things away, Johnny’s eyes met Kun’s. It was brief, but not so much that Kun missed it, or couldn’t tell it was deliberate.
See, Kun had thought about Johnny before. Kun had thought about Johnny a lot, actually. He’d done so in the privacy of his own brain, so every once in a while his thoughts became a little… not safe for work.
And Johnny, apparently, was a telepath.
—
‘HIS40023: A history of magic and the supernatural’ had a bit of a reputation in Neo City University. You didn’t have to be a part of the uni Stalkerspace for too long before you found people talking about it, and it was usually the mystery of how a subject like this could even exist. Most theories suggested that its professor, Jin-young Park, was fucking the university dean.
Kun had a feeling it was how popular it was. After all, its notoriety had almost the entire student population, regardless of major, considering enrolling into it despite it not being a core subject for anything. Everyone wanted to know — did the professor really believe in vampires and magic and the Loch Ness monster? Did the subject really teach you how to hunt ghosts? And no one had managed to ask Professor Park if he thought the Earth was flat yet — would they be the one to finally do it?
Kun was at a party hosted by Jackson Wang when he made the decision to enrol into the subject.
“Careful,” Johnny grinned down at him. His fingers pressed gently around Kun’s hands, just seconds after Kun had bumped into him and nearly spilt his own drinks.
“Sorry, dude,” Kun said.
“That’s a lot of drinks. You need help?”
“No!” Kun said, on instinct, because his parents had taught him to do everything by himself where possible. Carrying four red solo cups at once, though, probably wasn’t what Kun should count as ‘possible’. “Actually, maybe I do. I should’ve brought someone with me.”
“Good thing we ran into each other! Here.” Johnny accepted half of Kun’s load. “It’s been a while since we’ve caught up.”
Kun didn’t realise they were friends enough to catch up, considering they only knew each other through their somewhat overlapping friend circles. “Yeah, ages. I’ve just got to get these to the others, they’re sitting near the pool table.”
“Easy. You’re in your final year too, aren’t you?”
Kun laughed bitterly. “Yep. Two theses and absolutely no career prospects.”
“Two theses? What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m double majoring in genocidal studies and English literature.”
“…Oh my god.”
“I know.”
“I thought you were doing international studies or something.”
“International relations,” Kun corrected. “I changed my mind.”
Talking to Johnny usually injected a heavy dose of serotonin in the brain. But as much as Kun had a minor (major) crush on him, he didn’t quite feel up to discussing the reasoning behind Kun’s sudden change of heart between his very sensible goal of foreign policy and his new, illogical track of whatever the fuck caught his fancy at the time.
“You sound like you need a bludge subject,” Johnny mused. “Have you signed up for any?”
“No… the university has bludge subjects?”
Johnny nodded, grinning. “I’m taking that history of magic subject in Semester 2. Apparently it’s one of the easiest passes in a senior year subject, if you actually submit your work.”
“No. The history of magic subject? You’re really doing that?” Johnny nodded. “Aren’t you doing neuroscience? How did you get enrolled?”
“The honours track offers one non-science elective. You’re supposed to use it to add to your research topic but…” Johnny shrugged. “I don’t even know what my research topic is, yet. I’m going into post-grad anyway, so I have heaps of time to specialise.”
“Huh.” Johnny had always been driven (as far as Kun could tell) but to hear him think about post-grad this early in the year caught him off guard. He should probably start thinking about post-grad too, considering that was his only option after this…
“You should do it with me,” Johnny told him, leaning down slightly.
Oh, if only Kun was drunk enough to lean up and kiss him and pretend it was a mistake.
Johnny pulled back slightly, motioning for them to keep moving. “Think about it. It’ll be a nice break from the rest of your work.”
“We’ll see,” Kun muttered under his breath.
—
“Hey,” Kun tugged on Ten’s sleeve after class, as they all made their way to the elevators. They had hung back a few minutes, allowing everyone to head out of the classroom first. Kun paused to give Professor Park a tight smile as he waved them goodbye, before dragging Ten out of the way. “You’re close with Johnny. Did you know?”
“No, the heck?” Ten tugged his arm away. “How should I have known?”
“You went to high school together,” Sicheng pointed out.
“We didn’t really talk in high school. I only got to know him through Taeyong. I wonder if they know…”
“And what about you?” Kun asked, pointing at Sicheng. “You guys were housemates.”
“For, like, six months.” Sicheng shrugged. “Everyone mostly kept to themselves in that house. Taeyong was literally always asleep and Doyoung was really into surfing at the time so he was never home.”
“Damn,” Ten whistled. “Doyung? A surfer?”
“I know right.”
Kun sighed, clutching his laptop bag to his chest. “This is not good. I’ve thought things about Johnny.”
Sicheng rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Kun. Johnny doesn’t need to be a mind reader to know you’re into him.”
“It’s not just that. I’ve thought things about him.”
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t think you’re the only one who’s thought about sucking Johnny’s dick while sitting right next to him.”
“That so does not make me feel better, Sicheng.”
“Hey, don’t stress.” Ten patted Kun on the shoulder. “You’ve had not-safe-for-work thoughts around Johnny for ages, right? And he still hangs around you. He’s the one who put you up to doing this class.”
Sicheng nodded. “Good point, good point. That definitely means he’s into it.”
“I wouldn’t go that far…”
Kun blew at his fringe. It was true that Johnny had been nothing but nice to him despite all of Kun’s not-so-polite thoughts about him, but Johnny was nice in general. Kun didn’t think the man had a mean bone in his body. And it’s not like he treated Kun any differently than other sort-of-friends.
If Johnny was really into him, he might have made more of an effort to get to know him. They had known each other for a few years, after all.
—
Kun first met Johnny at work. It was the first half of his second year and he’d only just started his job at the campus library a few weeks before.
Things were easier back then. Not as easy as they were the previous year, maybe, but he was still doing the thing he’d enrolled into university to do and unemployability wasn’t a prospect in his future. It helped, too, that his study load was much lighter and the only job he had was this library one.
“Kun, you’re here!” Jungwoo’s voice wasn’t naturally quiet, so Kun was thankful he turned it down for the library lobby. He turned around to greet his friend, but was stopped short when he saw Jungwoo’s companion.
He was tall, and his shoulder-length blonde hair barely fit under his beanie. He had a pair of headphones around his neck; if it was playing any music, it was too quiet for Kun to tell.
“I’ve been coming over for weeks trying to catch you, but you’re never here,” Jungwoo whined.
“I’m usually out the back,” Kun said. “That’s why you never see me.”
“Tricky. Johnny, this is Kun.” Jungwoo looked up — it wasn’t often Kun had to see Jungwoo look up — at his friend while gesturing to Kun. “He was my team leader at orientation day. Johnny’s in my still life class.”
“Nice to meet you.” Kun held his hand out. “I still find it weird that you have still life drawing as a core subject in engineering.”
Johnny smiled almost as sweet as his honey eyes. “I’m in neuroscience, not engineering. But it helps with scientific diagrams.”
Johnny’s hands were very, very big, Kun noted as he shook them in greeting. He was sure one hand alone could circle his neck—
Nope. This was not the place for horny thoughts.
“Oh. Well, yet another reason I’m glad I’m not a science student! I can’t draw to save my life.”
“What are you studying?”
“International relations,” Kun said confidently. “I want to work in foreign policy.”
Johnny whistled. “Impressive. That sounds fancy.”
“Says the guy who’s studying neuroscience.”
“Ookay,” Jungwoo tugged at Johnny’s arm, inching towards the private study area. “I’m glad you guys are friends now, but we actually came here to study, so…”
Kun laughed. “You have study groups for still life drawing?”
“Oh no,” Jungwoo shook his head, “Johnny’s helping me with course planning. He’s in the same year as you.”
“Jaded,” Johnny explained.
Kun snorted. “Alright, if you guys are going to chat, I’ll get you a room so you won’t annoy everyone else.”
“I’ll just head to the bathroom real quick.” Johnny reached into his back pocket and pulled out his student ID, sliding it over the counter. “Book it under my name. Text me the number,” he nodded at Jungwoo.
When he was gone, Kun leaned over the counter and whispered. “Are you guys dating?”
Jungwoo frowned. “God, no. He’s hot and everything, but way too focused on school. I don’t date nerds. Besides,” Jungwoo smirked, “I’m pretty sure he was checking you out.”
Kun scoffed. “He was not.”
“I’m 82.7% sure that he was.”
“We just met. There’s no way you can be that sure, and I’m a bit worried about your career if your estimates are that far off.” Kun scanned Johnny’s card in. He may or may not have taken the liberty to observe his ID picture — his hair was shorter in this, brown and curled around his face.
His government name was John Jun Suh.
Cute.
“I’m putting you guys in G03. It’s got glass walls on three sides, so no funny business.”
“I told you, we’re not dating! But if you’re into that exhibitionist stuff, I could totally lock Johnny in there after we’re done and let you know.”
“Jungwoo!”
—
October 19th, 2021 | 3:32pm
Johnny 🌻:
We should meet before our presentation
To rehearse it
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
i finish work at 6 on thursday
Johnny 🌻:
Works for me
See you then
—
“For your final presentation,” Professor Park explained, “You’re going to be employing everything I’ve taught you about the history of various paranormal creatures and working out how to protect yourself against them. I want real, preventative solutions. You want to make sure you’re safe before you ever meet one of them.”
Kun held back a laugh. He’d laugh openly if this wasn’t one of those classrooms that consisted of just the one rectangular table that everyone was sitting around, and if Professor Park wasn’t so fucking scary when he was annoyed. He chewed out Hongseok in their first lesson for “disrespecting” his curriculum. And Kun was kind of lowkey a nerd, and only enjoyed being yelled at by authority figures if he had provided prior consent.
“Now, I’m aware of the lack of peer-reviewed sources for this subject overall, so I’m going to let you branch out for your ten references. But that doesn’t mean you can just go anywhere — you need to be verifying everything you see. Do you see me wearing a tin foil hat?” Professor Park pointed to his head. “Don’t you think if tin foil hats worked, I’d be wearing one right now?”
How was Kun supposed to know? What if Professor Park wanted his mind read? Surely there were people out there who were into it. Maybe it was a sex thing somewhere. Who was Kun to judge?
Now, Kun returned to the possibility of sex with a telepath. How would consent work in that scenario? It sounded so complex, and yet the idea of someone knowing exactly what he wanted before he could even say it, taking complete control—
“There’s a lot of research out there you can draw from that is very good, but I will reward original ideas. I love to see my students take initiative.” Professor Park skipped to another slide, which just said ‘GROUPS OF TWO OR THREE’ in bolded letters. “I’m going to let you guys assign yourselves your pairs, since you should all know each other by now. But if anyone’s lost, I’ll be happy to assign pairs for you.”
Kun turned to Ten and Sicheng immediately. “We’re a three.”
“Yay!” Sicheng clapped his hands together. “I hope you guys don’t mind if I slack off. I’m going to be so busy these two weeks.”
“Shit, me too. I’ve got the due date for one of my thesis drafts extended, but I still have my other one…”
“Who the hell asked you to do two majors that require a thesis to graduate?”
“Kun,” Ten craned his neck over from Sicheng’s other side. “You should pair up with Johnny before he gets someone else.”
Kun shook his head quickly. “No, no way. That’s anxiety-inducing. I have to spend alone time with him.”
“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”
“I’ve never spent alone time with him. Not for extended periods of time.”
“I’m pretty sure he asked you to do this subject so he could spend alone time with you.”
“No.”
“He always gets lunch with us after class,” Ten said lowly. “Imagine if we weren’t doing this class with you.”
“Well, he probably wouldn’t get lunch with me after class since you guys are his actual friends and he knows both of you better than he knows—”
“Hey.”
Kun snapped his mouth shut and turned around to find Johnny squatting on the floor by his seat. “Hi.”
“I don’t have a partner. I don’t want to split you guys up, but does one of you want to do this presentation with me? I don’t know anyone else that well.”
“Well,” Ten butt in before Kun could get a word out, “Since Sicheng and I live together, it’s probably convenient if we pair up. Maybe Kun…?”
Kun hated Ten. He really did. “Yeah, I don’t mind.”
Oh, he was doomed. He was going to make a fool of himself for sure. He had enough inappropriate thoughts about Johnny that he was bound to say one of them out loud and scare him off.
He could already see it play out. They would be talking about tents for some reason and Kun would joke about the tent in his pants, and then Johnny would block him on all social media and never talk to him again.
Even worse than saying something inappropriate out loud: saying something gay. Because visibly large penis aside, Johnny was really nice and smart and he looked like a liddol babie in the winter when he wore oversized hoodies, and Kun had feelings for him.
Oh, he was so stupid.
—
Kun was very drunk at Jackson Wang’s annual pre-semester party, and not just because alcohol was free.
He’d only come along on a whim. Kun didn’t know Jackson Wang very well despite having been to a few of his parties (which he kept getting invited to for some reason). The guy had a big old two-storey house entirely to himself and tended to invite anyone and everyone, so it was a good place to unwind with his friends when he couldn’t justify spending any money on a night out.
Kun didn’t come with friends that evening. Earlier that day, he had officially made the decision to drop his international relations major, and the highly-in-demand internship stream that his professor had recommended him for, for something completely new and different and a little bit scary. It had felt right when he was thinking it through over the past month, but now that he’d done it, he suddenly felt like he’d massively fucked up. Kun came to this party with the idea of getting fucked up, and he didn’t want his friends — especially the younger ones like Yangyang and Yizhuo — to see.
He was tired of seeing the Jack Daniels honey whiskey lying sealed on the kitchen counter, so he took the liberty to open it himself. It felt wrong, pouring liquor this expensive into a red solo cup, but Neo City’s most generous host Jackson Wang still wasn’t generous enough to let everyone use his glassware.
“Whoa, whoa, Kun! You’re going to overfill your cup!”
Kun looked up right in time to see Johnny right in front of him and feel a cold hand over his, tipping the neck of the bottle up. He looked down to see that his glass was full to the brim.
“Are you okay?” Johnny’s hand was still covering his. Kun wanted to keep it there. It felt good against the heat of his own skin.
“I’m fine,” Kun told him. “Do you want some?”
Johnny pulled away, but stayed in Kun’s personal space. “Maybe pour some of that out into another cup. I’ll have that.”
“Mm, no.” Kun pulled another solo cup out of the plastic wrap, and clumsily shovelled some ice into it. “I can leave it half empty if it’s too much.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m not having the best of days. I don’t want to talk about it, just want to get wasted.” Kun proceeded to try to pour some whiskey out into cup, when Johnny stopped him again.
“Let me do it. Your hands are a little shaky right now.” Kun let Johnny pry the bottle from his grasp. “I don’t think you should drink much more than this.”
“I really want to drink till I pass out today.”
Johnny frowned down at him. “Where are your friends?”
Kun ran a finger along the rim of his cup. “I came alone.”
Johnny’s brow furrowed further, forming creases along his forehead. Somehow, he still didn’t look bad. “Come on. I’m here with Taeyong and Doyoung and a few others. You can hang out with us.”
‘Drink to forget’ was a phrase that started to make a little more sense as he snuck in two more drinks that night. It wasn’t accurate; he didn’t quite forget about his problems. But enough alcohol and he was no longer thinking about them the way he might have if he was alone and sober in his dorm room. Johnny wouldn’t let him get baked along with a few of the others, but it was okay, because Kun spent that time tucked into Johnny’s arm as he listened to Jungwoo’s new nerd boyfriend Mark tell a story that wasn’t funny to anyone except himself.
(It was to keep him upright. That’s why Johnny had an arm around him. No other reason.)
“How are you getting home?” Johnny asked him a few hours into the morning. He led Kun out Jackson Wang’s front door, held open by Doyoung, with a hand at the small of his back.
“I took the bus here,” Kun told him. He watched as Taeyong stuffed himself into a warm down jacket; the rest of them had had enough drinks to keep warm in the early spring air. “I’ll call an Uber.”
Johnny, Doyoung and Taeyong exchanged a few glances. Kun couldn’t discern quite what they meant in his state.
“Yeah, I’ll drop him,” Taeyong said. “We’ll stop over by his first. Where does he live?”
“Campus,” Johnny replied. “That residence hall right next to the soccer field, with the studio apartments. It has a fifteen minute parking bay right outside. They’ve got a no noise policy after 2am, so we’ll have to be quiet.”
Kun didn’t remember telling Johnny any of this. Maybe he did at some point in the night and forget. Or maybe he’d heard it from Ten — they did know each other after all.
—
July 28th, 2019 | 3:22am
Johnny 🌻:
Text me when you wait up ☺️
July 28th, 2019 | 2:04pm
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
i’m awake! (/▿＼ )
tysm for taking care of me last night and making sure i got home safely
and for leaving the water and hydrodol by my bed
i owe you one!
Johnny 🌻:
Good afternoon! I’m glad
Please look after yourself 🥺 take the time to engage in some healthy self care methods too
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
lol no guarantees but for you i’ll try~
—
Three, one, four, one, five, nine, two…
Kun repeated as many digits of pi as he could in his head — the only gift high school math had ever given him — as he headed out the backroom and into the library foyer. It would make no difference, anyway; Johnny would know he was nervous. Johnny always seemed to know what he thought.
Wait. Of course he did. He was a telepath.
Oh my god, and their presentation was about telepaths. Jesus christ.
Johnny leaned against wall by the entryway, staring mostly at his phone. Kun wondered how much of the thoughts of the people around him he could hear, whether he had to be physically close to someone or he could hear the entire room at once.
Six, five, three, five, eight, nine, seven…
“Hey.” Kun kept a respectable two arms’ length away. “Where do you want to go? I can book one of the private study rooms. I know how to kick people out.”
Johnny’s lip curled up at one end, but it wasn’t as full a smile as Kun was used to seeing. “Can we go to my place? I was hoping for somewhere more private.”
Kun knew it. Johnny was going to kill him.
“I’m not going to kill you.”
Oh my god.
Johnny rolled his eyes. Kun cowered as he pushed off the wall, closing the 1.5 metre gap between the two of them. “Yes, I’m a telepath,” Johnny whispered. “I can read the minds of almost everyone in this foyer right now, and I really, really wish I couldn’t. Your attempt at saying numbers in your head will only work if you actually focus on it and stop thinking about other things.”
“Oh my fucking god.”
“I want to go to my place because I’d like to talk about this in the comfort of my own home, where I can’t hear anyone think, and because I’m getting dinner with my cousins later and I don’t want to smell like college when I go see them.”
“You don’t smell like college, you smell… nice.” He smelt like coffee and sweat, honestly, but Kun wasn’t going to tell him that. Wait, shit — he already knew now, since Kun was thinking about it. Fuck.
Johnny’s glared softened, and he took a big stride back. “Thank you for trying to lie to me. Come on, I’m not parked too far from here.”
—
The café down the road from Sicheng’s new apartment was nothing more than a hole in the wall, but the natural sunlight and string of pearls plants hanging from the hooks on the ceiling made it feel cozy and welcoming. Kun, Sicheng, Dejun and Kunhang chose a spot by the window, where they and their coffees could be warmed up by the autumn sun while they waited for their brunch.
“You’re so lucky to have this two minutes from your house,” Dejun said, licking the froth of his cappuccino off of his lips. “I should think about moving out of the halls.”
Sicheng shrugged. “It takes me ages to get to campus now, though. I miss being able to roll out of bed and into the shower fifteen minutes before class starts.”
“No wonder you smell like shit all the time,” Kun mumbled. Across from him, Kunhang snorted.
Before Sicheng could make a snappy retort, the glass door swung open. Johnny strode in wearing workout gear that didn’t seem appropriate for the cold, breezy weather outside, sleeves rolled up to his shoulders so most of his tattoo sleeve was on show. Almost immediately, he turned around and looked directly at Kun.
Kun tried not to flush under the brightness of his smile.
“Johnny! What are you doing here?” Sicheng waved him over. “Guys, this is one of my housemates, Johnny.”
“Oh, we know Johnny,” Dejun said, waving along.
“Me too,” Kun added quietly.
“Yes, I’ve met everyone here.” Johnny grinned down at everyone, hand on his hips. “I see Kunhang and Dejun at the uni gym all the time. And Kun…”
“Jungwoo introduced us.”
“Yeah. We keep bumping into each other.”
Kun forced a laugh, tugging at his one pierced ear, hoping it would distract from the heat in his cheeks.
In Kun’s opinion, they didn’t bump into each other enough.
“Did you just come back from the gym?” Sicheng asked.
Johnny nodded. “Got some class prep to cram before I head out later, so I wanted to get the blood in my brain flowing.”
“Ew. Does that even help?”
Predictably, this statement had Kunhang and Dejun arguing with Sicheng about the benefits of cardio and how it was apparently better for your metabolism, improved your diet, skin, concentration, watered crops and ended poverty. Kun tuned out a little; he was all for exercise, but it usually took the form of a nightly endurance run. He didn’t understand the rowing and the pressing and the bells-ing references that were being thrown across their table. At some point, his eyes — unintentionally! Definitely not intentional — drifted towards Johnny, who watched them argue with an amused expression.
Eventually, Johnny’s eyes met his too.
‘Are they always like this?’ Johnny mouthed.
Kun closed his eyes and nodded twice.
Johnny hid his mouth behind his hands, eyes flitting back and forth between Kunhang-slash-Dejun and Sicheng’s end of the table.
“Alright,” he said, at the first lull in the heated conversation. “I better get my coffee and go home. Got a lot of work to do!”
“Catch you around, man,” Kunhang said, as if the last time he’d opened his mouth wasn’t to agitatedly explain how regular exercise could reverse brain shrinkage and therefore improve memory function.
“Yeah.” Johnny smiled at everyone in turn before his gaze finally rested on Kun. “I hope I do.”
Kun could feel his friends watch him stare at Johnny’s retreating back as he headed towards the counter. They made easy conversation — “Funny how all of us know him somehow! Small world.” — until the man was finally well and truly out the door.
Judging by the way Kunhang was leaning back against his chair, smirking, Kun knew he would be the first to start. “Is it just me or was Johnny hitting on Kun?”
“He was. And Kun liked it,” Dejun sang.
Kun raised an eyebrow. “I’m literally in a relationship.”
“Your little fling with Jackson Wang isn’t going to last long. In fact, end it now so you can get with Johnny faster.”
“I don’t think Johnny even knows Kun and Jackson Wang are dating.” Kunhang shook his head. “Poor guy.”
As much as Kun hated to admit it, they were right. His relationship with Jackson Wang was only two months long, and it was already petering off.
But that didn’t mean he needed his stupid, nosy friends messing around with his love life. “Try anything,” he warned, point his knife at the three of them, one after another, “And I’ll end you.”
That shut them up.
—
October 8th, 2021 | 11:34am
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
i forgot to say
we should absolutely add tin foil hats to this assignment just to piss prof park off
Johnny 🌻:
NO
I want to pass 😭
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
you’re the one who told me all you have to do to pass this subject was submit the assignments
Johnny 🌻:
I want a HD 😭💀💀
Do u know how hard the neuroscience masters degree is to get into here
Or anywhere 😔
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
awww but i had it all planned out
i was gonna bring out a tinfoil hat and go “hey telepaths it’s me ya boi”
“o wait you can’t tell”
Johnny 🌻:
LOL
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
(≖ ͜ʖ≖)
Johnny 🌻:
Still a no
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
damn
—
It was weird how Kun had never been to Johnny’s house considering one of his closest friends used to live there. Sicheng did always mention that his housemates got a little weird about visitors but that they had a party every once in a while, apparently. It was just that Sicheng moved out and into Ten’s nice city apartment before he could find out.
(Sicheng had a lot of odd stories about his housemates in general, but he was still in touch with all three of them, so they couldn’t have been that bad.)
“We have to keep it down a little,” Johnny said lowly as he slipped his shoes off just beyond the front door. “Taeyong is sleeping.”
Kun snorted. “What is he, a vampire?”
With no answer from Johnny, Kun’s eyes near popped out of his sockets. “No. Is he really?”
“Don’t tell anyone? He’s kind of insecure about it. I think it makes him a great housemate, though, because I can’t read his mind.”
Many questions. Many, many questions.
“Which one did you want to ask first?”
Kun sucked in a deep breath and slipped out of his own sneakers, placing them neatly next to the shoe rack. “You can’t read vampire minds?”
“Nope. There’s a few creatures I can’t read, actually.”
“Is Doyoung one of them?”
“No.” Johnny pointed at a closed door as he led Kun through the main corridor. It had a biohazard warning printed out and stuck to the front. “I used to be able to read his mind all the time, but Donghyuck, the new guy, is a warlock. He cast a mental block on himself and Doyoung, so I don’t know what anyone in this house is thinking anymore.”
It was alarming, hearing Johnny throw the same words from his bonkers History of Magic class right back at his face, as if he believed them too. Instead of scoffing this time, Kun let the new information sink in.
Telepaths exist. Vampires exist. Warlocks exist. Magic is real.
“Doyoung is a siren, by the way.”
“Are you fucking serious? How many of you are there?”
Johnny pursed his lips. “If by ‘you’ you mean ‘supernatural creatures’, then way more of us than you think.”
Jesus.
Johnny strode a few paces ahead of him, guiding him past the living room. Next to a staircase leading downstairs was another closed door, undecorated except for a simple green ‘please knock’ door hanger. “This is me.”
Johnny’s bedroom was so… normal-looking. Kun might have expected it before — the plushies on the bed, the bluetooth speaker on his desk, an entire hat stand simply for beanies — but now that he knew Johnny was a telepath, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Maybe he expected sound-proofing or some kind of physical thought barrier.
Johnny snorted. “Physical thought barrier. I wish.”
“You really don’t like being able to read people’s minds, do you?”
“Sometimes it’s useful. Most of the time, it’s a pain in the ass.” Johnny sat carefully on the edge of his bed, a stranger in his own home.
Kun opted for Johnny’s desk chair.
“When I was younger, my school got me diagnosed with ADD. My parents knew it was the telepathy, but they couldn’t exactly tell the school board, so…”
“That sounds like it would’ve sucked.”
“It sucked a lot. And none of the meds helped me focus better in school.”
Kun swivelled Johnny’s chair around so he could rest his cheek against its back. “But you’re so driven now. Kunhang told me he sees you reading your textbooks on the treadmill.”
Johnny shrugged. “I kind of have to be. I have voices in my head 24/7 and it’s distracting. I need to be totally focused if I want to function. Plus, I want to do my masters here.” Johnny leaned forward in his seat. “The science department has a lot non-humans. That’s why the post-grad science degrees are so in demand.”
“Wait.” The science department? How many people did Kun know from the science department? “Mark Lee?”
“Mark Lee is half-Yeti.”
“Mark Lee is half what?”
“The Yeti genes mostly skipped him though. He just has the hairy feet and the flatulence.”
Kun racked his brain for other science students he knew, lest he spent too much time on the fact that Mark Lee had hairy feet. “Yuta?”
“An elf.”
That made a lot of sense. “Jungwoo?”
“Jungwoo is in computer engineering and is very human.”
“So it’s not everyone. What about… one of the first years in my hall, he said you’re his girlfriend’s TA…”
“Hyejoo is a werewolf and she’s full of potential — just not academically. I’ve met her boyfriend once… Chenle, right?” Kun nodded. “He has no clue. He also doesn’t know that she’s only dating him for his money. Poor guy.”
“Don’t feel bad for Chenle.”
“Got it.”
Kun rubbed his temples. There was a lot to process: how so many people he tangentially knew happened to not be human, how his university’s science department was apparently infiltrated by people who were not human — wait, what about the arts department? Was Professor Park actually a…?
“No, he isn’t. He’s super smart though. Almost has everything figured out.”
Right. There was that, and there was the fact that Johnny apparently knew everything about any person he had just bumped into.
“I don’t know everything,” Johnny explained. “I just know what’s in their head at the time. There’s a lot you can tell even from the smallest details.”
Kun threw his arms over the back of Johnny’s chair and hooked his chin over the top. Was he using it as a shield, or was he trying to be cute? Who knew. Oh jeez, Johnny probably knew. “What have you read in my mind?”
Johnny’s lips curled up into a shy smile, the edge of his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He shuffled forward, shifting his weight to his feet on the ground rather than his seat on his bed. “I think you already know the answer to that.”
Kun groaned, hiding his face behind his hands. “That’s so embarrassing.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. I like you too.”
Kun stayed behind his hands, but moved his fingers to the side so he could peek out at Johnny through one eye.
Johnny was glowing.
Now that he thought about it, Johnny was always glowing. He should’ve seen it before. Preferably a few years earlier. Definitely before his seven-month relationship with Jackson Wang. Maybe if he’d connected the dots before then, that whole fiasco would never have happened.
“I am so glad you broke up with Jackson Wang.”
“I don’t know why I dated him to start with. I didn’t even like him that much when he asked me out, and I don’t think he grew on me the entire time we were together. Why did I let it go so long?”
“It’s because you were dealing with the sudden realisation that you had no job prospects, and Jackson Wang is a homeowner with a trust fund. And don’t say it— I would rather die than be a psychologist. Literally.” Johnny pressed his lips shut, as if he was about to say something he shouldn’t. “Jackson Wang is a vampire, by the way.”
“He’s a what?”
“Why do you think I was so comfortable going to his parties? Almost all of his friends are vampires, I couldn’t read anyone’s mind. And did you ever see him during the day time?”
No. Now that Kun looked back on it, he had never seen the man he dated for the better half of a year during the day time. Nor did he ever see him eat. “Oh my god.”
“Don’t feel bad. You didn’t know vampires were real until 20 minutes ago.”
“Why have I attracted so many supernatural creatures?” Kun asked. “Do I have, like, pheromones? Does my brain give off special signals to you or something?”
Johnny ducked his head as he chuckled. “This isn’t Twilight, Kun. You’re an attractive person. I can’t speak for Jackson Wang, but I like you the same way anyone likes anybody.”
It shouldn’t have been such an endearing statement, but damn it, Kun was endeared. He reached his hands out, knowing Johnny would know to hold them. Johnny’s hands were huge and cold, but despite the October air, he didn’t mind threading their fingers together.
“Can I kiss you?” Johnny asked him.
“Do you have to ask?”
“I do. Sometimes people think about doing things they aren’t ready for, so I always have to ask.”
Kun dug his feet into Johnny’s carpet and pushed himself and the chair forward. He lifted himself up on his toes and craned his neck so he could press his lips against Johnny’s. It was soft, chaste, and not at all how Kun imagined his first time kissing Johnny to be on the few occasions he did imagine it (usually at night, well past his hall’s quiet hours), but it felt just right. He wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny tilted his lips away so it barely grazed against Kun’s own. “You have a very active imagination.”
Kun pouted. “How long do you have before you have to go meet your cousins? If that was actually real.”
“It was real, I am going to get dinner with them. And not long enough for what you have in mind, I’m afraid.”
Kun took a deep breath, and pulled back, wheeling Johnny’s chair back in its place. “Okay. I’m guessing you didn’t actually want to rehearse our presentation.”
Johnny bit his lip. It was swollen and pink and shining, and Kun couldn’t keep his eyes off of it. “No. And I don’t think it’ll happen now if we tried.”
The logical decision was to go home, to eat dinner and get some sleep before his early morning class. But Kun didn’t really want to leave.
“I’d love for you to stay, but… we should take it slow.” Johnny tugged on his earring, a small marbled jade ring. “You need time to get used to me being able to read your mind all the time, and I need to get used to dating a regular human. Just dating in general,” he added, quieter.
“You’ve never dated before?”
“Between the mind-reading and the sheer amount of effort it takes me to get any work done, not really.”
Kun cooed. “You deserve a nice boyfriend. I’m going to be the best boyfriend you’ve ever had.”
Johnny raised an eyebrow. “You overestimate your abilities. I know how you were with Jackson Wang.”
“Hey!”
—
Making a drastic life decision the night of his final thesis defense may not have been the worst decision Kun had ever made, but it was certainly up there.
“I’m going to start a Youtube channel,” Kun explained, hands hovering L-shaped in the air. He didn’t need to explain it to Johnny, of course, but his boyfriend had repeatedly told him it was important to voice things out. “I don’t know about what yet, but I’m going to do it.”
“Okay.” Johnny poked his fork into the park of his pancake dripping with maple syrup and started cutting a triangle around it. “And what are you going to do for money? You can’t work at the library or do RA work anymore, and you need to make rent.”
Kun had… no savings. Campus living was expensive, and graduation even more so. (Or less so, actually, when he considered how long he’d been doing campus living for. Graduation was still ridiculously expensive, though, considering how much he’d already paid for that piece of paper.) But retail jobs were aplenty, and Kun had references from his previous jobs. How hard could it be?
“I’ll work it out,” he said.
“Hm. Eat.” Johnny spooned portion of his pancakes onto Kun’s plate, making sure Kun got enough of the butter and salad. Kun accepted it without question: 1) who was he to turn down free food? Even if Johnny’s short stack was inferior to his chicken and waffles; and 2) Johnny liked to take his time to read people’s minds properly before he responded. That meant he needed them to shut up.
“You’ve been studying for almost 12 months straight, so you should take a break. It’ll be good for you.” Johnny proceeded to cut himself a bite of Kun’s meal. “But you just finished off with your undergrad degree, and you’re tired. Give yourself time to think this through.” He pulled his plate closer to Kun’s, so that he could transfer meaty goodness without dropping it all over the table. “You thought on changing your degree for nearly two months and you still regret it. I don’t want you to regret this one either.”
Kun sighed dreamily. “You really know everything about me,” he told Johnny, mouth still full of pancake.
“I keep telling you, I don’t know everything. I’ve just bumped into you so many times and I liked you enough to remember all the thoughts in your head. Want more?”
Kun shook his head, and Johnny shrugged and dug into the waffles he’d served himself. Kun watched his eyes widen and shut, and his head tilt to the side as he savoured that chicken.
Yeah, Johnny definitely regretted his plain old classic short stack now.
“Do you want more of mine?”
“I shouldn’t. I dug my grave and now I have to lay in it.”
“It’s here any time you want, hero.”
With a pout on his face, Johnny started to spread the butter evenly around the top of his stack. Kun was just thinking about how he wanted to kiss the maple syrup off the corner of his lips, when Johnny froze.
Kun looked beyond Johnny’s shoulder to see a couple had just walked in.
The reason they’d come to a 24-hour diner at midnight on a Tuesday was so that they wouldn’t run into people. There was less staff around, too, so much less for Johnny to listen into. It was a strategy that had worked for them so far, and one of the only ways to get Johnny out on a dinner date.
Kun tipped the ends of his cutlery onto his plate. “Should we pack up and go?”
Johnny frowned. “We just started.”
Kun bit his lip. Throwing a glare at the couple when he assumed they weren’t looking, he reached into his backpack and pulled out Johnny’s big, bulky headphones. He stood up in his seat and leaned over so he could place them over Johnny’s ears.
After plugging the headphones into his iPhone and doing a quick Spotify search, he hit play on ‘Me And My Husband’ by Mistki and turned the volume almost all the way up. Johnny’s eyes shone a little as Kun placed his phone next to Johnny’s right hand.
On his way back to sitting down, Kun swapped their plates around. Johnny’s eyes were already glassy, and Kun didn’t need to read minds to know what that meant. But Johnny wouldn’t be able to read his as clearly, so… just in case.
—
Johnny 🌻:
I love you
Best boyfriend
💕❤️💘💝💗🥰👨❤️👨
kunnie kunnie kun kun („• ֊ •„):
and you said i was overestimating myself
Johnny 🌻:
I will never doubt you again 😳🙇
—