Chapter Text
Donghyuck can’t say he’s had a hard life, not really.
He’s got money, he’s popular, he’s healthy. Honestly, he’s been pretty blessed all around. But he’s starting to suspect God must’ve decided to punish him for something. Like, what did he do? Set an angel on fire in a past life?
Breathe in, breathe out, Donghyuck. Slow breaths!
That’s the tape loop playing in his head, the same one his mom used to whisper when he got too worked up as a kid. He still uses it now for anything. Anger, stress, disappointment, existential dread, anything, because it works. It’s damn effective. Especially today, when he feels like he’s three seconds from spontaneously combusting.
His eyebags probably reach straight into hell by now. His hair looks like a family of rats signed a lease on his scalp. And he’s been trying to unpack the stupid beige box sitting at his feet for ten minutes, but his brain refuses to function because his neighbor apparently thinks the entire building needs to join him in listening to that same shitty rock song. On loop. For the third time. This morning.
Donghyuck sighs, fully done with this.
It all started three days ago, when he moved into this apartment.
He’d lived with his parents his whole life, and they were great. Supportive, loving, always feeding him like he was preparing for war. But he always dreamed of living alone. His own space. His own rules. His own little slice of adult freedom.
Donghyuck wanted this. Independence. Being alone. Quiet mornings.
He definitely got the ‘alone’ part. Too bad the universe decided to laugh at the ‘quiet mornings’ part and say, “Well, no.”
For starters, the walls are so thin he can hear his neighbor breathe. Well, not literally, but he truly believes it’s something like that. If the guy sneezed, Donghyuck is pretty sure he’d feel the vibration through the drywall.
The apartment itself is great, though. It’s not big and definitely not the kind of luxury you see in those ridiculous Seoul penthouse tours, but it’s small in that cozy, charming way. It’s affordable, clean, bright. Nice. The first time he walked in during the viewing, he took one look around and thought, Yeah. I can definitely live here.
What he didn’t think about—because apparently he’s stupid and overly optimistic—was asking whether the neighbors were cool. Chill. Normal. Quiet. Basic questions, really.
He doesn’t know about the other neighbors in the building, but the one on his left side? Holy shit. What a noisy human being. The guy blasts some music every single day. It’s always loud, always terrible, and always at the exact moment Donghyuck needs peace.
But, of course, Donghyuck tries to stay positive about all of it.
Despite the anger flaming his heart, he squares his shoulders, inhales through his nose and goes back to digging through the box. It’s the one that somehow ended up holding all the random things he doesn’t remember packing: a tangled charger, three mismatched socks, a half-empty bottle of lotion, and a notebook he forgot he owned. Honestly, at this point, the box is just trashy shit he didn’t really want to throw away but, also, doesn’t know what to do with it.
That’s when another blast of electric guitar rattles the wall.
Donghyuck closes his eyes and counts to three.
He tries to imagine the neighbor as a kind person. Maybe he’s going through a breakup. Maybe he’s practicing for a band that, hopefully, is terrible on purpose. Maybe he’s just socially unaware. But then the man’s voice joins the music, screaming off-key like he’s being possessed by a tone-deaf ghost, and Donghyuck thinks, Nope. No sympathy. None whatsoever.
He slams the notebook onto the floor and stands up fast enough to cause him a heat wave. He glares at the wall like he can burn a hole straight through it.
“No. Absolutely not,” he mutters. “I didn’t move out of my parents’ house to have my eardrums abused by some wannabe rock star.”
His feet stomp toward the front door on their own, because of course his temper is faster than his logic, and he yanks it open.
The hallway smells faintly like old ramen and someone’s cheap cologne, and there’s an old lady at the end of the hall brushing her rug on the railing, so she waves at him. He gives her a short nod before he marches to the neighbor’s door, hesitates for one second and then knocks. Hard. The music is so loud he can barely hear himself do it.
No one comes. So he knocks harder, because subtlety is dead.
Finally, the music lowers enough to make Donghyuck’s eye twitch. Then the door swings open. And Donghyuck’s immediate thought is: oh, great. Of course he’s hot.
The guy in the doorway looks like every stereotype Donghyuck absolutely did not want his noisy neighbor to be: broad shoulders, messy hair that somehow looks styled, and a stupidly gorgeous face that has no business belonging to someone who plays music like an unhinged teenager discovering volume knobs for the first time.
He’s wearing a loose black tank top that shows off way too much arm and ribs, gray sweatpants hanging low on his hips, and he’s holding a bag of chips. The neighbor also does have some bags under his eyes that could probably match Donghyuck’s. His face does look a bit tired. For a microscopic second, Donghyuck feels a tiny spark of sympathy, but it goes as fast as it comes.
“Uh… hey?” the guy says. His voice is deep, scratchy. The kind of voice that makes people forgive things instantly.
Donghyuck is not people. He does not forgive. But he definitely wavers.
“Hi,” Donghyuck says stiffly. “I’m your neighbor. Just moved in three days ago.”
The guy hums in response. A bored, lazy sound, exactly like and how is that my problem?
“And, I don’t know if you know,” Donghyuck continues, irritated by his own politeness, “but the walls are thin.”
“Okay?” The man frowns.
“So, I don’t know, could you lower your music a bit?” Donghyuck tries to sound calm, peaceful. His mother would be proud.
The neighbor stares at him for three whole seconds, then yawns and says simply, “Alright.”
Donghyuck opens his mouth, ready to add something like, “I’m not trying to be bossy, I just need some quiet,” but the words never make it out, because the neighbor simply closes the door.
Right in his face.
Like that’s the end of the conversation.
Donghyuck stands there, blinking at the closed door in disbelief. He points at the door, mouth hanging open. He slowly turns his head toward the end of the hallway, hoping, praying, that the old lady witnessed the absolute audacity he just experienced. And of course, she is standing there, watching.
She gives him a tiny shrug, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“He can be tough sometimes. But he’s a good man,” she says, before shuffling back into her apartment.
Donghyuck lets out an incredulous little wheeze. He throws his hands up, then he shrugs at himself, because that’s the only available reaction, and trudges back into his own apartment.
He drops onto the floor and sits his ass down, ready to tackle the same box he’s been trying to unpack since sunrise. He’s barely touched the tape when the music starts again.
Same song. Same volume. Same nightmare.
Donghyuck sighs.
Again.
And honestly, he thinks he might never stop.
Donghyuck’s pitiful daily life continues, one miserable loop at a time.
Long hours at the university, dragging himself from lecture to lecture. Then straight to his part-time job, at his parents’ bakery, where he pretends to be functional enough to deal with customers who somehow all share the same brain cell.
Then home. To him. Noisy neighbor.
Every night is the same: Donghyuck tries to sleep, tries to convince his soul and his mattress that today will be the day he gets more than three hours. But as soon as the apartment goes quiet enough for hope to sprout, the guy next door decides to blast something.
So Donghyuck tosses, turns, curses the universe, and ends up sleeping like a newborn baby. Half-assed, half-alive.
Then morning comes.
He rises.
He repeats.
And through all of this, the cardboard boxes in his apartment somehow remain exactly where he left them, almost mocking him for not being able to function.
Things get annoyingly annoying when he almost snaps at a customer at the bakery.
Donghyuck isn’t exactly rude, he’s not throwing bread or insulting anyone’s grandma, he’s not that insane. But his answers come out a little too sharp, a little too bold, and definitely not customer-service approved. He can practically feel the crankiness dripping off him like icing that didn’t set right.
Jaemin notices immediately.
Before Donghyuck can dig himself a deeper hole, Jaemin slips in with that perfect, sweet smile that makes customers instantly forgive the world.
“Sorry about him,” Jaemin says cheerfully. “He’s in awful pain in his ribs today.”
Donghyuck whips his head around to curse Jaemin, but the customer is already nodding sympathetically.
“Oh, get better soon,” they say, leaving with their bag of pastries and zero suspicion.
When the door closes, Jaemin leans his elbows on the cashier counter, staring at Donghyuck.
“What’s with you today?” he asks.
Donghyuck slumps against the register. “Noisy neighbor,” he sighs, like the words physically hurt him.
Jaemin makes a face. A very Jaemin face. Half pity, half you poor dumb thing.
“I thought you talked to him?”
“And it solved nothing.” Donghyuck groans, rubbing his eyes. “He just said ‘alright’ and slammed the door on me. Then played the same music louder the next day. I swear he’s doing it on purpose.”
Jaemin snorts. “Maybe he hates you.”
“Impossible,” Donghyuck says flatly. “He doesn’t even know me.”
“Yeah,” Jaemin hums, “that’s probably why.”
Donghyuck glares at him.
Jaemin just grins, way too amused for someone who isn’t sleep-deprived or slowly losing his sanity.
“You should just knock on his door again.”
“And what? Get the door slammed in my face again?” Donghyuck scoffs. “No thanks. My dignity can only handle so much. I’m not doing that.”
Lies.
Huge lies.
Bold-font, neon-sign lies.
Because when Donghyuck goes back home that evening, the first thing he hears is that same awful, shitty music blasting from the other side of the wall.
He kicks his sneakers into a sad little pile by the door, trying not to throw curses at his neighbor, and stands there for a moment with his hands on his hips.
Donghyuck sets one single, simple rule for himself that night: do not let the neighbor bother you. He repeats it in his head like a mantra: Do not react. Do not snap. Do not march next door with something to prove. He can ignore loud, inconsiderate, stupidly attractive men with rock playlists from hell.
He can do this.
He can absolutely do this.
He lasts twelve minutes.
By minute thirteen, he’s glaring daggers at the wall again, vibrating with irritation, and every deep breath he takes feels more like he’s inhaling pure rage.
By minute fifteen, he’s talking to himself.
“Don’t let it bother you,” he mutters. “You’re calm. You’re mature. You’re an adult. Adults don’t pick fights. Adults don’t commit noise-related homicide.”
Minute seventeen. He’s standing still, arms crossed, jaw clenched.
By minute nineteen, he caves.
There goes the rule.
There goes his dignity.
Donghyuck storms out of his apartment, slamming the door behind him, and marches straight to the apartment next door. His heart pounding and fueled by exhaustion and spite, and he has absolutely no plan other than to stop the noise or die trying.
He lifts his knuckles and knocks. Not a gentle tap. Not a polite, just-checking-in knock. A firm, irritated “open this door before I lose my mind” knock.
It takes a few seconds, mostly because the neighbor is apparently obsessed with taking his sweet fucking time.
The door finally swings open, revealing the same gorgeous, sleepy-faced pain in the ass from last week. Still unfairly attractive. Still looking like he woke up two minutes ago and decided to be a problem.
“Oh,” the neighbor says, blinking slowly. “It’s you.”
Donghyuck hates how attractive people get away with sounding rude. But not with him, though.
“Yes, it’s me,” Donghyuck says, voice tight. “And I’m here to—”
“Complain about the music?” the guy asks, raising an eyebrow.
Donghyuck opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.
“Yes.”
The neighbor nods once. “Why?”
“Why?” Donghyuck repeats, voice jumping an octave. “Well, because it’s still loud?”
“I lowered the volume,” the neighbor says, sounding absolutely stupid with that blank, emotionless stare.
“No, you did not.”
“Yes, I did.”
Donghyuck inhales deeply, one of those dangerous breaths where he’s clearly deciding between murder and patience.
“Are you deaf or something?” he asks, even though he knows he’s being rude.
Donghyuck sees the exact moment something flicks in his neighbor’s eyes before the man retorts, “What do you want from me?” his voice has a bite of anger now.
“Your music still swallows my apartment. Vibrates through my walls. Annoys me,” Donghyuck answers.
The neighbor blinks at him, looking confused.
“It’s not that loud,” he says.
Donghyuck almost combusts. “It is that loud.”
“It’s at, like, half volume.”
“Half volume for who?” Donghyuck lets out a humorless laugh. “God? Giants? Creatures that communicate through earthquakes?”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” the guys crosses his arms. “Maybe you’re just sensitive.”
Donghyuck’s mouth drops open. “Sensitive? I’m sensitive?”
“Yeah,” the neighbor shrugs. “Like, noise sensitive.”
“I’m not—”
“And, honestly, it’s not my problem if you are.”
They stare at each other for a full five seconds, the tension thick enough to choke on.
“Oh, but it is your problem,” Donghyuck fires back. “Because I live here. Next to you. And I need sleep. And peace. And the ability to hear my own thoughts without your music kicking them out.”
The neighbor frowns harder. “It’s not that loud,” he repeats.
“It’s earthquake loud.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“That’s factual. I can hear the lyrics through my shower,” Donghyuck fires back. “I know your music playlist better than mine at this point.”
“It’s a good playlist,” the neighbor says, totally deadpan.
“It’s terrible,” Donghyuck shakes his head. “It’s all aggressive rock and screaming men having emotional breakdowns over guitars.”
“That’s a genre,” the neighbor says.
“That’s a cry for help.”
The guy stares at him, eyebrows lifting just a little. “You don’t like rock?”
Donghyuck scoffs. “I don’t like your rock.”
“What do you like then? Ballads?” The neighbor tilts his head.
Donghyuck frowns. “Are you calling me soft?”
The neighbor shrugs, unfazed. “Maybe. Looks like it.”
“I’ll have you know I listen to very normal, very respectable music,” Donghyuck fires back, lifting his chin
“Like?”
Donghyuck straightens his spine defensively. “Pop.”
“I see,” the man hums, expression bored to hell and back.
“So?” Donghyuck pushes.
“So what?” The neighbor counters, blinking slowly.
“Will you lower the damn music?”
“I already did,” the neighbor sighs.
“I told you, you didn’t,” Donghyuck shakes his head.
“Yes,” the neighbor says, voice flat as a dead battery, “I did.”
Donghyuck throws his hands up. “You call that low?”
“Yes,” the neighbor sighs, slow and dramatic. “Dude, why are you so—”
“So what?” Donghyuck narrows his eyes.
“So tense,” the guy finishes lazily. “Like relax, you’re giving stressed chihuahua.”
Donghyuck’s jaw drops. “Did you just—did you seriously just call me a stressed chihuahua?”
The neighbor shrugs again. “If the bark fits.”
Donghyuck can’t even believe the words.
“You know what?” he says, voice going frighteningly calm.
“Bark.”
And that’s it. Something in Donghyuck snaps. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a quiet, exhausted click inside his brain.
Donghyuck doesn’t think. Doesn’t plan. He just impulsively, and stupidly, acts.
The neighbor continues, completely unaware he just pushed Donghyuck over the edge. “You could buy earplugs. They're cheap—”
Before Donghyuck can process the impulse, before he can think of consequences, his fist is already moving forward on pure frustration and instinct.
He punches him. A clean, startled punch right to the neighbor’s stupidly handsome face.
The guy’s head jerks back with a sharp grunt, more from surprise than pain. He touches his cheek, blinks, and looks at Donghyuck.
Donghyuck looks back, hand still half-raised, eyes wide in holy-shit-did-i-just-do-that horror.
“Oh,” the neighbor finally says, voice low and a little breathy. “So that’s how it is.”
Donghyuck’s whole soul tries to leap out of his body. His mouth opens, but all that comes out is a pathetic half-noise, something between a gasp and a “wait”. He wants to apologize, or pretend it was an accident, or maybe blame gravity, but Noisy Neighbor doesn’t give him even a quarter of a second.
He swings.
Donghyuck barely processes the movement before a fist connects with his cheek.
Noisy Neighbor makes sure to painfully punch him right back.