Two Hearts, One Soul
Pairing: Yeji x Hyunjin
Word count: 19.9k
Genre: Fluff | Platonic Soulmates AU | Found Family AU | College AU
Hwang Hyunjin was never exactly fond of people when he was in high school. However, when Hwang Yeji, an ex-high school classmate who had spent their high school life calling him “Twin”, is thrown into his life when he finds out that they’re in the same university, he’s suddenly tossed around friend groups and social settings where he encounters some of the most chaotic people he’s ever met.Not only that, but he starts to think that Yeji may actually be his twin after all.
Warnings: Alcohol consumption | Marijuana usage | Mentions of sex | Harassment
Masterlist | Ao3 Link
Adventures of Campus masterlist
A/n: I will not be including my networks in this fic because of the harassment warning.
i.
Hyunjin feels awkward walking into the classroom. He feels like anything could easily go wrong. Is his tie wonky? Did he forget to zip up his backpack? What if someone steals his wallet from his bag because he forgot to zip it? He swipes his long fringe to the side of his face and gulps as he sits down at the seat by the window.
It’s always weird being in a new classroom every year and Hyunjin doesn’t like most of the kids from his batch because he thinks they’re all mean; which actually led him to becoming friends with one of his seniors.
Lee Minho is a simple guy. He’s a year older than Hyunjin, but he accepted the younger guy because he thought he was adorable and didn’t really want to miss out on an opportunity to protect the kid from being bullied by the guys in his class. He also absolutely loves how Hyunjin’s habits remind him of his cats, so it wasn’t much of a wonder as to why Minho attached himself to him without much hesitation.
The school bell rings and it makes Hyunjin jump a little, looking up to see his teacher already at the front of the class.
Hyunjin doesn’t like school. It’s not because he thinks he’s out of place—god no—Hyunjin doesn’t care about where he lands in the strangely overly exaggerated hierarchy of high school, but he just doesn’t like studying. He’s never been that book smart and he’s never been much of a fan of reading a textbook only to memorise the answers only to physically paste it into an exam sheet.
No.
Hyunjin likes art. He loves art. He loves the way he can take one image and combine it with something different to create something new and refreshing. He loves how abstract art can be and how many meanings you can put into something that could not even have that much meaning at all.
Hyunjin loves the idea of creation through art. It’s the act of putting in hours and hours, all of his blood, sweat, and tears—sometimes literally—onto a canvas or a blank piece of paper and being able to see what he comes up with. Art has no boundaries, he thinks. He always stops to see graffiti whenever he does because he knows that a lot of them have stories behind them and he thinks that there’s always a reason behind putting something such as graffiti out into the world. In times of suffering, it could be a call for help. Sometimes it could hold history, a story of a city so overcome by machines and skyscrapers that someone decided to bring back the old, simple beauty of what it used to be.
And Hyunjin fucking loves the process of painting. He finds himself losing track of time, track of reality—track of the world whenever he has a paintbrush in his hands and tubes of oil paints beside him. There’s just something so amazing about art that makes his heart flutter. It makes him feel like he’s literally fucking glowing.
But he doesn’t want to go to an art school because he doesn’t want to lose his passion and he’d really rather put himself through the gruelling process of a normal high school to get a degree. But god, there’s really nothing Hyunjin loves more than letting his pen scratch against the empty page of his lined notebook when he’s in the middle of class because he’d really rather be doing anything else.
There’s a moment where Hyunjin looks up from his notebook, away from the messily scrawled drawing of a flower that he saw a few days ago when he was walking back from school, to find inspiration. He looks outside the window and sees the school field that’s empty; as it usually is when a new school year starts. There’s nothing moving other than the few birds that fly around and land at random spots of the field, and the single squirrel that scurries down one of the trees and across the grass to climb into the drain.
Hyunjin feels a spark in his brain; that’s exactly it.
He returns his attention to his notebook and continues his drawing while his teacher explains the process of clubs and societies… or was it the Pythagorean theorem? Hyunjin doesn’t care as he allows her voice to become a blur, the process of drawing is more entertaining to him anyway.
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
The cafeteria buzzes, loud chatter and laughter filling the air, and surrounds both Hyunjin and Minho as they eat their lunch. Lunch time is the only time during school where they both get to hang out with the way they both join different clubs and are in different years, so the act of eating has turned into more of a comfort than when they first got into high school.
“Don’t bother,” Hyunjin chuckles as he opens his notebook and places it on the cafeteria table. Minho looks at the drawing for a moment before nodding and sticking a spoonful of rice into his mouth.
“You should get into art when you graduate,” he says, voice muffled by the rice that, disgustingly, flies out of his mouth and falls onto the blazer of Hyunjin’s uniform.
“Dude, close your fucking mouth,” he scoffs and flicks the single grain of rice away. “That’s so gross, Min.”
“It’s endearing,” Minho snorts once he’s swallowed his food. “But, I’m serious, Hyunjin. You should consider earning money with this because you’re really good at it.”
“Thanks,” Hyunjin mutters and pulls his notebook close, stuffing it into his backpack and turning his attention to his food instead. “But I’m worried I might get bored of art if I turn it into a job.”
“You’re going to need to figure that out. It’s not like you have anything else in mind anyway.”
Minho isn’t exactly wrong, but he is blunt and it makes Hyunjin want to jam his spoon into the older student’s ear.
But again, Minho isn’t wrong. Hyunjin really doesn’t have any other interests or hobbies. Well, maybe his gymnastics is included, but it isn’t something that he’s really thought about that much. It’s honestly just something that he does because he’s good at it and it’s fun for him.
It also keeps him really in shape, so there’s that, too.
“Or, if you really wanna avoid doing art as a job, then consider a sports university since you’re a gymnast,” Minho suggests.
Hyunjin purses his lips into a straight line before he sighs, “I might actually just do that. I really don’t want to risk losing my passion for art.”
“Then do that,” he nods. “It’s better than becoming an artist, cracking under pressure, burning out, and then chopping your ear off like Van Gogh did.”
“Van Gogh was hallucinating and he was sick,” he laughs.
“Yes, but he was mad at his artist friend,” Minho quickly adds.
“That doesn’t mean that I’m going to develop a hallucinatory illness and chop off a body part because I’m mad at someone,” Hyunjin defends with a playful scoff. Minho only smiles cheekily and stuffs his mouth with food.
“Have you made any friends in your class? I know you don’t like your batch, but wouldn’t it be nice to be friends with someone who you can spend more time with?” Minho asks after a moment.
“They’re all the same guys from last year and it’s only been a week,” Hyunjin shakes his head.
“Maybe get around more. You’ll never know, maybe they’ll be way nicer than you initially thought,” he suggests with a shrug.
Hyunjin appreciates that Minho tries to get him to mingle around more, but Hyunjin doesn’t really care that much about making more friends than the one he already has. It’s a tiring process making friends, and after the entire fiasco he had with his old friend group when he was in middle school, he doesn’t really want to have to go through more friends than he honestly needs.
He also knows that once he graduates, he won’t be talking to a good ninety percent of them because life calls for change and Hyunjin’s not bothered to make friends only to lose them later on.
But he’s also up for anyone who wants to spend time with him. Hyunjin’s always down for someone who invites him out to a party or whenever that one group of guys invite him to play volleyball because they’re really not that bad.
“I’ll give it a try,” Hyunjin nods, smiling slightly when he sees the corner of Minho’s lip curling slightly; one of the few genuine emotions that Minho allows people to see from him, and Hyunjin just so happens to be one of the few people that bring it out of him
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
ii.
Hyunjin wanders into the art studio of his school and lets out a contented sigh when he realises it’s empty. Study week means that the club rooms are completely empty most of the time because everyone’s too busy studying for exams; which also means that Hyunjin can take advantage of the school supplies and busy himself with art when he can’t go home just yet.
He plugs his ears with his earphones and puts on a random playlist as he starts moving around the room to prepare whatever he needs. Hyunjin rummages through the plastic drawer that contains all of the art supplies provided by the school until he finds a few short stumps of charcoal pencils. His lips purse into a straight line when he realises that there’s only three charcoal pencils in the drawer that are probably only about two or three inches long.
No surprise considering it’s the end of the year, he thinks. But Hyunjin will make do with whatever he can, so he grabs all of the pencils as well as one of the blender stumps and takes a seat at one of the easels, pulling the A3 sized sketchbook that he keeps in the art studio for convenience in front of him.
There’s no particular subject that comes into Hyunjin’s mind, so he lets his hand freely drag the pencil across the page until he’s able to come up with some kind of a blob that brings more inspiration into his mind. He slowly loses track of time the more he draws, the process of drawing starting to consume him the longer he spends on the wooden stool—that the other students typically find extremely uncomfortable, but Hyunjin doesn’t care because he doesn’t even think he’s in his body whenever he’s drawing.
“Hey, twin!” The voice violently snaps Hyunjin out of his reverie and he rips his headphones out to turn around. He’s faced with one of the girls that sit in his class, her straight hair pulled into a half-up half-down ponytail as she stares at him.
“Oh, hey,” Hyunjin mutters back, somewhat bitter that she rudely interrupted his previously comforting and safe space.
“I asked you what you’re still doing here,” she claims, her cat-like eyes blinking at him.
Hyunjin has seen her throughout the year, but he’s never actually known her name. Well, it’s not like he actually bothered to learn it in the first place since he doesn’t seem to have anything in common with her other than the fact that she’s in the cheerleading team; which implies that she’s into the idea of gymnastics.
“What do you mean ‘still’?” his eyes narrow slightly at her and her shoulders only raise into a shrug.
“School’s been over for like… two hours, dude. Why are you still here?”
What the fuck?
Hyunjin’s head almost falls off of his shoulders with how quickly he snaps his head to look at the clock hanging from the wall, only to realise that she’s right. He turns back to the sketchbook and his jaw drops at the realisation of just how much of the drawing he’s developed since he’s been here for almost four hours.
“Yeah, you weren’t in Chemistry or English. Everyone was wondering where you were,” the girl claims as she lets her arms slip out of the sleeves of her blazer.
“Fuck,” Hyunjin blurts out in panic as he picks his backpack up off of the ground. “Fuck, fuck fuck! My mum’s going to kill me!” he frantically chants as he haphazardly throws the pencil stumps into the drawer and rips his sketchbook off of the easel, all while the girl only watches him in slight amusement.
“Hey, calm down, dude,” she laughs, only for Hyunjin to trip on a stool and fall flat on his face.“Jesus, Twin, are you alright?” The girl rushes to his side to help him up and Hyunjin finally gets a good look at her face.
“Holy shit, you look exactly like me,” he gasps.
“Yeah, the entire school knows that,” she claims with a chuckle as she helps him to his feet. “Why else would I be calling you ‘twin’? I thought you knew that.”
“Hell, I don’t even know your name,” Hyunjin claims.
“It’s Hwang Yeji—which is also why I call you that.”
Hyunjin breathes out a laugh, his face contorting in disbelief, “what are the chances?” He adjusts his backpack on his shoulder and huffs, “I would love to stay and chat, but I really need to get home before I turn into family dinner.”
Yeji laughs and nods.
“Alright. Walk safe, Hyunjin.”
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
Hyunjin leans his head on his table, desperately waiting for the class to end so that he can get home. With exams over, there’s nothing to really do at school other than prep for the next year and for high school finals. And maybe university research to know where he wants to go next. And also maybe research on exactly what Hyunjin wants to do in university because he definitely doesn’t feel like going to a sports university would be a good path for him.
There’s too many things to think about almost all at once and Hyunjin feels slightly overwhelmed at the idea of having to choose what helps decide his future. There’s nothing else that he really wants to do other than art and gymnastics—even then, gymnastics is more of a failsafe for him since he knows he could do it for a few years after he graduates university.
Maybe he should get into something more digital and see if there’s anything there to offer. Hyunjin’s always been into animation, so maybe he should get more into it just to see how he feels about it.
He lifts his head with a sigh and looks around his class, only to see Yeji sitting at the other side of the classroom a few rows ahead. Hyunjin hasn’t spoken with her much even after the time she caught him in the art studio, but there doesn’t really seem to be anything to talk about with her. She seems to just be hovering about the place; switching in and out of groups as she pleases because Yeji has that kind of aura to her.
She’s able to naturally make friends with everyone and go in and out of friend groups without any sort of drama following her—something that Hyunjin’s noticed only because he’s aware of her presence now. The more he watches, the more he realises that, while she looks exactly like him, she seems to be the polar opposite of him: outgoing, sprightly, book smart.
It’s, quite honestly, something that Hyunjin finds ironic considering how they look like carbon copies of each other, but he doesn’t think anything else of it, or her for that matter. He thinks Yeji’s nice. She’s sweet and she’s helpful to the students around her by just hovering around them until someone asks her for answers during a quiz because she’s just so damn willing to help people cheat, which is a rare charm, Hyunjin thinks. Not that many people are open to cheating during tests out of fear of being caught, but Yeji doesn’t seem to mind because she has a way of sweet talking her way out of trouble.
Hyunjin thinks it’s funny that she’s able to do that from the amount of times that he’s noticed her going into the teachers’ office and still leaving with a wide smile on her face after managing to sliver her way out of detention.
It actually also makes him wonder why the teachers chose Yeji to be the class president when she, very obviously, helps people cheat and does their homework for them—which only happens whenever she really feels up for it.
But, again, Yeji feels quite indifferent towards Hyunjin. He doesn’t have that many opinions on her.
And once he graduates, he doubts he’d have anything else about her to think of.
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
iii.
“How are you feeling?” Minho asks as they sit together at the park, ice cream in their hands. There are people jogging, families having picnics, a few people walking their dogs—and cats, to Minho’s surprise—which creates a soft buzz that the two bask in.
It’s been a few weeks since they’ve last hung out from how busy Minho had gotten. The rest of Hyunjin’s high school year had gone naturally uneventful, but the lack of Minho’s presence just made him bored the entire time. He had also lost time to do art from how stressful and pressuring his exams were getting, so when his last paper was finally over, Hyunjin practically fell to his knees at the idea of being able to draw once again.
“I think I’m nervous,” Hyunjin confesses softly. “Orientation is tomorrow and I don’t know if I’m… ready… for university—which actually sounds really stupid because I don’t think anyone is ready for anything, really.”
Minho lets out a soft laugh and lets his head hang forward as it shakes from side-to-side.
“Jin, I wanted to shit myself when I walked into my university hall for the first time. You’ll be fine.” The reassurance does little to calm Hyunjin’s anxiety. It feels like a new year in high school but slightly worse.
He had finally decided on taking graphic design mainly because it was a form of art that he felt he didn’t really care that much about but was good at, so Hyunjin just stuck with it and decided he would continue to do gymnastics on the side until he could actually do it more professionally once he gets his degree.
“Mingle around this time, yeah? You’re gonna have to learn to make some friends since I’m not going to be there,” Minho advises, his tone coming out softer than usual, which Hyunjin highly appreciates because he knows how much his friend hates giving advice that makes him sound like an old man.
“I’m actually going to try this time, but I’m not making any promises,” Hyunjin sighs just as he tosses the plastic ice cream wrapper into the bin right beside their bench.
“Go have fun. We’re in university—go get drunk, have lots of sex, do light drugs or something. Don’t just sit in your room cooped up with art. Make friends with people because they’ll help you in the future,” he continues as he finishes the last of his ice cream. “I’m in my second year of university and I’ve done weed and fireball shots.”
“Why the fuck would you do fireball shots?” Hyunjin laughs in disbelief.
“It’s fun when you’re stressed over exams,” Minho chuckles. “You get double points if you do vodka shots and fireball shots alternatively. Oh! You also get alcoholism that way.”
“I’m not keen on becoming an alcoholic once I’m a uni student.”
“Trust me, Hyunjin, you’ll soon realise that you’re not entirely given a choice,” he jokes. Hyunjin snorts, looking around the park as he tries to not think about the possible versions of Hyunjin which will come out of becoming a soulless university student.
But he also knows that he’ll eventually have to come to terms with it because he has to be on campus tomorrow. So, he’s not exactly given much time to prepare himself either, but he’ll just have to roll with it.
He bids Minho goodbye once they both decide there’s nothing else for them to do and that Hyunjin’s anxiety isn’t going to magically disappear the more he hangs out with him. The fear just runs rampant within him even when he reaches his new temporary home right outside of the university campus.
Hyunjin’s been moved into the apartment for the past week, but he’s still getting used to sleeping alone without the comfort of his beloved family dog. He lets his tote bag fall onto the floor before he plops himself onto the bed and kicks his feet up, staring at the ceiling blankly as he continues to mentally prepare himself for university.
He starts thinking about making friends. There’s been a few people that he’s seen lingering around campus that don’t seem that bad; one of the more notable ones being the guy who, for some reason, is an absolute god at baseball. Hyunjin’s certain that this dude is in the same year as him, but he’s already been seeing people in some of his class groups practically drooling over this guy’s skill.
There’s also one of the other guys from his class that sent a meme of a dog with a piece of butter on its head before going completely radio silent. Hyunjin had laughed at it the first time he saw it and he was hoping “Yeni” would send more memes to keep him entertained among the chatter of class topics and introductions.
But Hyunjin doesn’t think he’ll be making friends until orientation, which is when he’ll actually be able to see these guys face-to-face and be able to do his—to quote Minho—’weird-slash-judgy vibe check that makes people think you want to kill them’.
Maybe someone will actually decide they want to be friends with him over it. The idea of that makes Hyunjin laugh to himself slightly before deciding to just go with the flow. He’ll figure it out tomorrow.
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
Orientation was the most boring fucking thing that Hyunjin has ever had to sit through next to listening to his high school teacher explain Physics. He feels like he’s been violated from how dragged on it was and now, he honestly doesn’t even know if he wants to go to class at all for the rest of the week.
Students pile out of the main hall, yawning and muttering curses over how they’ve all felt as though they just had a good three hours of their lives taken away from them. Hyunjin feels exactly the same as he frantically tries to rub the sleep away from his eyes. There’s nothing that he really wants to do other than head back to his apartment and crash until he has to actually be physically present for his classes in a few days.
He had also figured out who ‘Yeni’ was; a guy one year younger than him who graduated high school early for being some kind of a kid genius. Hyunjin thinks he’s funny, but he also thinks that people are definitely going to be in love with him from the way Yeni seems to carry this naturally boy-ish charm in his smile and the way he makes threats with a wide smile on his face and a sweet tone to his voice.
Hyunjin had also been able to chat up with Lee Felix, a dyed blonde who seems more interested in partying and playing baseball over anything else in the university. They chatted up right before the orientation had started and Hyunjin learned that Felix had spent a few years overseas before moving back to the country and deciding he wanted to take business on a whim.
He yawns as he looks around the bustling corridor, trying to remember where the entrance is. Just as Hyunjin sees the neon green exit sign, a hand wraps around his shoulder and makes him turn around.
“Hwang Hyunjin?”
Hyunjin’s eyes widen in surprise when he sees Yeji standing in front of him with the same look of shock on her face.
“Hwang Yeji?”
She takes a step back in disbelief at the realisation that it is Hyunjin.
“I didn’t know you were enrolling here,” Yeji mutters. “What are you taking? Maybe we share a few classes?”
“Graphic design, but I’m pretty much a partial media student,” Hyunjin says as he completely angles himself to face her.
“I’m taking a few media classes, too! Maybe we share them!” She smiles brightly and it makes Hyunjin smile as well. “Come on, I was just heading to the cafeteria. We can grab something to eat and talk—we only know each other from high school, anyway.”
“Yeah, sure. I don’t have anything else going on anyway.”
They walk side-by-side and head towards the entrance to the building. Hyunjin truly wasn’t expecting to see anyone from high school in his uni, but out of all people, he’s somewhat glad that it’s Yeji. She’s among some of the students that he’s slightly more than just acquaintances with and he thinks she’s nice.
Hyunjin and Yeji actually end up spending the whole day together. He finds her way funnier than he initially thought she was and she doesn’t mind his teasing behaviour since she’s just as teasing as he is.
“I did not care about anything that I did in high school other than art,” Hyunjin claims as he sticks a fry into his mouth.
“Oh please, do you think anyone else in that class did?” Yeji scoffs. “Everyone was just there to graduate so that they could move on with their lives. There’s a reason why I helped so many people cheat on their exams.”
“How the hell did you even get away with that? You spent almost the entire of grade nine doing that.”
“You have to be sweet and nice,” she smiles. Hyunjin responds with a disgusted look on his face and a click of his tongue. “Learn how to be the teacher’s pet and you’d soar through school.”
“God, please don’t tell me you’re going to do that here. I keep hearing really weird stories about university professors and students,” he claims, but Yeji only laughs and shakes her head frantically.
“What do you take me for?!” She covers her mouth with her hand and composes herself, “I’m not going to be sleeping with any of our professors. I’m just going to be nice enough to them to make it harder for them to fail me.”
Hyunjin lets out a scoff at the way Yeji only smiles sweetly and shrugs her shoulders.
“That’s insane…”
“Manipulate your professors into giving you good grades,” she jokes.
“Wow,” Hyunjin laughs. “No wonder you were class president.”
“I was class president because everyone asked our head teacher to make me the class president,” Yeji corrects him, a manicured nail being pointed at him, “class president is voted on, dumbass.”
“Like I would know,” he grumbles.
“Hyunjin, you would be asked to vote every year.”
“I don’t ever pay attention in the first week because there’s nothing important,” Hyunjin shrugs. He’s not lying. He truly never paid attention in the first week of each year because classes wouldn’t have anything academic until the second week—the first was always just easing everyone into the new year.
“The first week of the year was fun if you wanted to focus on clubs and societies. That’s the time where you start figuring out what you wanna join since you don’t start studying until the second week,” Yeji says while nodding. “Oh, I have a question.”
“Shoot,” he nods.
“Why were you in that art studio the first time we met?” she asks.
“I was drawing,” Hyunjin states, but Yeji narrows her sharp eyes at him that makes him chuckle. “It was finals. I didn’t have anything else to do and it was empty. I don’t have charcoal at home, so I used to take advantage of the school’s studio and supplies. It’s surprisingly well equipped for a high school level art studio, but I’m pretty sure it’s because they wanted some of the art kids to ‘realise their full potential’ or something.”
“It makes sense. A lot of the school facilities were really fucking good for no reason,” Yeji points out.
“Since you asked a question, I think I deserve to ask one.”
“Go ahead.”
“When did you realise we looked the same?”
Yeji blinks a few times before leaning back in her chair. She lets out a sigh and allows the memories to play throughout her head before she frowns.
“I don’t remember, actually,” she claims. “It just… I think one of our old classmates pointed it out to me, but no one wanted to bother you. However, I do remember the first time I tried talking to you when we were fourteen.”
“Huh?” The sound comes out more disgruntled and inhuman than Hyunjin had intended it to, but the amount of grease that’s lining his throat from the food.
“Yeah, Hyunjin, we’ve been in the same class since we were twelve. I tried talking to you when we were fourteen because everyone had been calling us ‘Hwang Twins’ for two years, but you were so out of it and I didn’t know what was going on, so I just decided to leave you alone.”
“Why didn’t you ever try approaching me after that?” Hyunjin asks with a softer tone.
“Every time I thought of it, you were either sleeping or doing something and I didn’t want to disturb you. No one wanted to disturb you whenever you were doing something because it was rare for anyone to see you doing anything other than art. The one time I did approach you, I was confused because I was pretty sure you would be out of school right after it ended,” she explains with a small laugh.
“Fuck, I remember that,” he laughs and leans back in his own chair. “I wasn’t even supposed to be in there for that long. I just felt like drawing and I completely lost track of time.”
“For what it’s worth, it was a really pretty drawing,” Yeji claims.
“Do you even remember what it was? I still have the sketchbook somewhere in my parent’s house, but I don’t think I remember exactly what I was drawing that day.” Hyunjin tries his best to think back to what was his subject that day, but he likes the fact that Yeji probably still has a memory of it.
“It was the dog you’ve posted on your Instagram; the one that has you making out with it.”
“I was not making out with Kkami!” he exclaims.
“Hyunjin, it’s really fucking hard to believe it when you have a dog treat in your mouth that you’re trying to feed to him,” she deadpans.
“Don’t other people feed their dogs treats?!”
“Not with their mouths, you fucking furry!”
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
vi.
The process of getting through Hyunjin’s first university semester is… a bit odd. The first week was practically kicked off with how quickly everything was being put into place. Not only were his professors almost a million times more entertaining and more easy going than he had expected them to be, but the people around him were the most physical example of ‘we come from different backgrounds’ than he had ever thought was possible.
Yeji had also been by his side whenever they had free time, but by the third week, she had joined the cheerleading team and was becoming friends with the members. Hyunjin had also bumped into ‘Yeni’ in one of their classes, figuring out that his name is actually Yang Jeongin and that the name ‘Yeni’ came about because someone in high school called him “Innie”.
There were a few other people that surrounded Hyunjin, like Felix, who Hyunjin very quickly came to learn that Minho was absolutely right about university students being mostly depressed, lifeless alcoholics because Felix would try to invite him out to random parties over the weekend and would just drink himself practically to death.
“Did you hear about the guy on the baseball team?” Ryujin asks as she holds her phone out towards Yeji, Hyunjin, and Jeongin.
“Kim Seungmin?” Jeongin questions as he looks at her phone. It’s an Instagram post by the university’s baseball team congratulating Kim Seungmin’s win on a national championship and for winning his team a gold medal. “I know him; he’s a nice dude. I’m pretty sure he was born to play baseball. This guy’s skill is completely different.”
“I heard he also gets around a lot,” Yeji says. She picks her phone up off of the table and pulls open one of her group chats, showing it to the table, “no one really seems to care about dating him, but he’s really into sex.”
“A player?” Hyunjin wonders as he reads the gossip from Yeji’s phone.
“Not exactly,” Jeongin shakes his head. “He said that the past few people that he’s slept with, he makes it clear that he doesn’t want a relationship and that he’s out the door before the Sun comes up.”
“I guess he’s somewhat considerate for making it clear,” Ryujin mumbles, intending for it to come out more to herself.
“I feel like you guys would get along with him, though,” Jeongin quickly claims. “He acts exactly like the top cheerleader.”
“Oh, (Y/n)?”
“Yeah! Them! They have the same personality, so if you get along with (Y/n), you’re probably gonna get along with Seungmin.”
“So, they’re both cocky bastards,” Hyunjin jokes.
“Exactly!” Jeongin laughs.
The four of them had quickly realised that they all, unfortunately, lacked the ability to filter their words—which is actually why they seem to get along so well despite having only known each other for a month. So, the term ‘cocky bastards’ is actually used quite endearingly.
“We should hang out with them one day,” Ryujin hums.
“Felix from Business invited me out to the baseball team’s party this weekend,” Yeji says as she pulls up an invitation on her phone, instead, and shows it to the table. “I’m pretty sure both (Y/n) and Seungmin are gonna be there.”
“From what I heard, the baseball team always throws the best parties,” Jeongin claims. “Heard it from one of my seniors.”
“We should go, then,” she suggests.
“It’s not like there’s anything else going on this weekend—assignment season is next week,” Ryujin hums.
“Ready to mingle around as university students?” Yeji turns to Hyunjin. He knows what she’s doing.
She’s trying to gauge whether or not he’d be comfortable in a social setting that he’s not used to. The realisation dawns on him that there’s a very high chance Yeji’s been able to note down his habits if she had always been wanting to talk to him.
For that, he smiles and nods.
“Sure.”
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
Hyunjin hadn’t been to many parties when he was in high school, except for the one party he went to when the football team threw a graduation party. He isn’t sure what he’s expecting out of a university party, but he can’t expect it to be any different from the drugs, alcohol, and random people making out in the corner of the living room.
The four of them step into the frat house only to be practically deafened by the loud music. There’s a lingering smell of alcohol that wafts into Hyunjin’s nose, but somehow, it still feels not as bad as the football team’s party.
The only thing that’s bothering him at the moment is when the infamous peer pressure comes crashing into him the moment someone offers him some kind of alcohol or drug. Hyunjin honestly doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to be doing with any part of himself as he wanders into the house with his friends.
Not long after, Ryujin gets whisked away by a group of people while Jeongin drags Hyunjin and Yeji to the kitchen where most of the baseball team are.
“Yeni!” Felix gasps when he sees him. He pulls Jeongin into his side to hug him and his eyes only brighten further upon seeing Hyunjin and Yeji. “Holy shit, you convinced Hyunjin to come along? This guy never accepts any of my party invites.”
“This time, I actually have people who have a chance of leaving sober,” Hyunjin chuckles.
“That’s a fair point,” he laughs heartily. “Do you guys drink? If you’re lightweights, then I’d suggest starting off with just a beer. If you’re down to lose your fucking mind, then you can try this… vodka… tequila… thing I made.” Felix gestures to the clear water dispenser filled with a neon yellow liquid that doesn’t look like something that’s good for your body.
“What’s in it?” Yeji asks, sceptical, as she eyes the liquid, extremely unsure of whether or not she should be willingly putting it into her system.
“I only remember the vodka and the tequila…” Felix trails off as he frowns and stares at the dispenser to try and remember exactly what’s in it. “I don’t know, I think I drank it afterwards and blacked out. Hold on, maybe Jongho knows.” He quickly pulls over one of the other members of the baseball team that Hyunjin recognises only because he’s seen him around campus a few times.
“Vodka, tequila, sprite, I’m pretty sure you threw in the gummy bear infused vodka, too—and there’s a lemon floating around somewhere in there, “ Jongho recites as he stares at it.
“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why it’s neon yellow,” Hyunjin claims.
“Felix threw in two bottles of yellow food colouring into it without checking if it was enough in the first place,” he answers.
“Are you trying to kill us?” Jeongin scoffs playfully as he looks at Felix in disbelief.
“Know your limits, people!” Felix laughs right before he chugs his cup of the concoction and lets out a loud hiss. “Fuck, that’s strong—why did I make this?” He visibly, and very loudly, gags after a moment and turns to Jongho, “why the hell did you let me make this?”
“Chan said to trust you.”
“Well, don’t fucking trust that guy,” he groans and reaches for a water bottle on the counter to try and wash away the horrible taste in his mouth.
“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad,” Hyunjin laughs as he and Yeji pour themselves a cup, the cheerleader still extremely hesitant, but willing enough to try it because she wants to know what’s the deal with it.
They both look at each other as they take the smallest sip possible only for the both of them to spit it back into the cup immediately after.
“Felix?!” Hyunjin chokes.
“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Yeji coughs violently.
“My god, that’s going to give someone alcohol poisoning!” He looks at Felix in pure disbelief. He turns to hand the cup to Jeongin, but the younger man quickly raises his hands up and shakes his head.
“I-I’m scared of it,” he quickly blurts out.
“Here’s advice,” Felix says, voice coming out a pitch higher than usual as he gathers the three of them, “drink the beer and never trust me to make drinks ever again.”
“You got it,” Hyunjin laughs as he puts the cup down onto the counter and lets Jongho hand him a beer instead.
“It’s alcoholic ginger beer—Felix insisted because he’s obsessed with it,” Jongho says as he hands a bottle to Yeji as well.
“Alcoholic ginger beer?” Yeji repeats as she eyes the unlabelled glass bottle.
“Just give it a try. It’s surprisingly good,” he nods. He spares a glance at Felix and cringes slightly when he realises that he’s chugging another cup of his vodka monstrosity.
Yeji and Hyunjin exchange a look before deciding, at the same time, to take a swig of the drink. Only for their eyes to widen in surprise.
“Wow, that’s so good!” Yeji gasps.
“Yeah, Felix has the entire football team practically hooked on this stuff and he’s only been here for a month,” Jongho chuckles. He leans against the counter with his strong arms crossed over his chest, watching as Yeji and Hyunjin’s eyes seem to sparkle at the tangy flavour of the ginger beer. “It also won’t get you completely blacked out. Find a place to hang out. If it’s too crowded or loud on the inside, feel free to head into the garden. There’s less people there and there’s a campfire going on right now—oh, and if anything weird happens or anyone weird tries something, look for me or Chan; we’re always sober.”
“Thank you, Jongho,” she sighs before turning to Hyunjin who nods immediately when she silently suggests the outdoors.
Jeongin stays inside with Jongho and Felix while the two make their way into the large garden where a kiddy pool has been set up on one end, a foosball table on the other, and a bonfire in the centre. The garden has significantly less people than the inside and most of the people outside don’t actually look drunk at all; Hyunjin assumes they’re people who didn’t want to get caught in the gross crowd on the inside, but still wanted to stick around the party.
They spot Ryujin at the end with the kiddy pool, talking to a handful of people who are comfortable sat on the inside of the pool in what Hyunjin assumes is their underwear or just the clothes they wore to the party—this is solely based off of the fact that he doesn’t think anyone is given a memo that they should bring a swimming suit for a fucking kiddy pool.
She waves them over the moment she spots them and the two of them oblige, making the guys in the pool turn and wave at them as well.
“These are some of my friends from the music club; Changbin, Jisung, and Chaeryeong.” The three of them wave, muttering ‘heys’ and drunken smiles. “This is Yeji and Hyunjin.”
“Woah, you guys look the same,” Jisung slurs, slightly. He pushes his wet hair out of his face and squints at them for a moment before letting out a soft ‘woah’.
“Are you twins?” Chaeryeong asks as she leans against the edge of the pool, the air moving around the inside and making her slump against it instead.
“Nope, but we do share the same surname,” Yeji answers.
“We’re both Hwang,” Hyunjin nods.
“Yo, that’s crazy,” Changbin chuckles.
“They’re a bit drunk,” Ryujin whispers to the two of them, hoping that the alcohol would lessen their hearing abilities just a little bit.
“I think we can tell,” Hyunjin snorts. “What have you guys been drinking?”
“Felix’s cocktail. It’s pretty good after a few glasses,” Jisung claims while waving his cup in the air. He brings it to his face and frowns when he realises that it’s empty. He throws the plastic cup onto the ground and whines, “I want more alcohol.”
“Ji, if you take more alcohol, you’re going to make it harder for Changbin to take you home,” Ryujin jokes.
“It’s not like Changbin’s going to be having a good time doing it now anyway,” he grumbles, glancing at the way Changbin and Chaeryeong are giggling over a piece of grass. “He’s way worse than I am and I’ve already had four cups of it.”
“What the fuck? Four?” Yeji gawks at him and Jisung only gives them a toothy smile in response, his full cheeks rounded right at the apples of his face before Changbin splashes water at him.
“Fuck you,” he drawls.
“What’s your problem, man?” Jisung groans.
“Your face is the problem.”
“Then get out of the pool!”
“I like the pool!”
Ryujin watches with a half-cringe on her face, her head shaking slightly.
“I don’t know why I became friends with them,” she sighs as she turns back to Yeji and Hyunjin. “How are you two holding up?”
“Felix’s cocktail is toxic waste, so he gave us ginger beer.” Hyunjin waves the bottle in his hands lightly.
“I knew to stay away from that thing,” Ryujin mutters as she glances at the way Chaeryeong climbs out of the kiddy pool, her sweater and jeans completely drenched with water as she stumbles onto the grass.
“I wan’ more,” she grumbles.
“No, Chae, hey,” she quickly rounds the pool to help steady the woman. “That’s enough for you—let me get you home.”
“Do you need any help?” Hyunjin offers, but Ryujin shakes her head with a reassuring smile.
“You guys can stay here for a bit longer if you’d like. I just need to get Chaeryeong home and in clothes that won’t get her sick.”
“Alright,” Yeji nods, “just give us a call if you need anything.”
“Oh, and also let Jeongin know that I’m leaving. He gets worried whenever we go to parties and I disappear.”
“Hell, I’d be worried, too,” he chuckles. “Safe ventures, Jin.”
“You, too!”
Hyunjin and Yeji return their attention to the way Changbin is practically passing out in the pool while Jisung pokes his cheek repeatedly, fingers squishing the skin of his face before he decides that he’s bored.
“Why aren’t you guys leaving? Baseball team parties are fun if you have friends or if you’re hammered,” Jisung claims, his words slurring together.
“It’s actually… pretty neat here,” Yeji claims as she looks around. There are a few guys from the male rugby team playing foosball with cigarettes in their hands. “It’s an interesting vibe.”
“I like coming to these because I get to see what people are like when they feel lighter,” Jisung chuckles. His head falls forward lazily only for him to throw it back upright with a shocked look on his face. “That’s a side effect of being drunk,” he laughs.
Hyunjin laughs as well, “how drunk are you?”
“Really fucking drunk. I don’t know how I’m still able to form coherent sentences and thoughts, but hey, it’s a neat trick,” Jisung hums. “Anyway, I need to deal with Changbin and his lightweight bullshit. You guys enjoy the rest of the party. Try not to look for me if you need anything because I might just end up tripping on my own feet trying to help.”
“We’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Jisung,” Yeji chuckles.
There’s a moment where the Hwang pair are left alone; where Changbin has completely passed out in the pool while Jisung lets himself bask in the momentary silence. The buzz of the garden is more pleasant than the crowd inside and it sends a strange sense running throughout Hyunjin’s body—one that sends an epiphany shooting through his mind as he turns to look at Yeji and the way she smiles slightly to herself.
There’s something about this girl that just makes Hyunjin feel as though he’s safe, but not in the sense that he’d want to date her, God no.
The idea of dating Yeji feels awkward to Hyunjin. It feels wrong. No, Hyunjin likes her company. There’s something about her that makes him know that she’s someone who will be in his life for a very long time and it makes Hyunjin’s heart feel at ease knowing that.
Yeji turns to look at him, laughing at the group at the foosball table when someone manages to accidentally rip an entire bar out of the table.
“Hyunjin—” She quickly cuts herself off when she sees the way he looks at her, so much adoration in his eyes. “What?”
“Nothing,” he shakes his head while smiling.
Hyunjin raises his free hand to her head and ruffles her straight hair, making Yeji groan while swatting his hand away.
“Don’t mess my hair up, asshole!” she grumbles and shoves his hand away. Hyunjin only laughs as he lowers his hand and nods.
“Whatever you say, your majesty.”
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
v.
As time goes on, Hyunjin finds himself slowly easing into university way better than he had in high school. He finds university a bit more eventful than school ever was and Hyunjin actually finds himself really liking it. By the time his first semester is over and Winter rolls by, he doesn’t really know what to do with himself without living on campus.
But when Autumn comes and Hyunjin’s back on campus, he’s more in tune with what he actually wants to do on campus. He has himself signed up in the art club and the gymnastics team, choosing the red cross society as a third option because he needed more than two clubs.
Yeji had chosen to stay in the cheerleading team, the dance club, and the red cross society, which was mainly because she thought it would be nice that the two of them would share at least one club. But with how it was both of their third options, they doubt that they would even be spending that much time as active members.
“Fuck, it’s cold,” Yeji shivers as she pulls her dark red coat tighter around herself. Hyunjin stands in front of her with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his own beige coat.
“Jeongin said he’d be here by now,” he grumbles, voice coming out shaky from how fucking cold it is.
“Why the hell did he ask us to wait outside? We could be at the cafe right now instead of waiting in the fucking snow,” she grumbles. Hyunjin’s so cold that he almost doesn’t even hear what Yeji is saying as he looks around the fountain area of the university, watching as the snow continues to pile up around the two of them.
“Because he’s dumb like that,” Hyunjin mumbles.
His eyes narrow when he sees someone running towards them from the direction of the cafeteria, dark brown coat trailing behind him as he does.
“Speak of the fucking devil,” Yeji chuckles when she realises that it’s Jeongin running towards them.
“I’m sorry! Fuck!” Jeongin pants, hunching over in front of the two of them. “Professor… class went longer… something about a baby—but I’m here now! Which means we can go! “
“Where’s Ryujin?” Hyunjin asks as they start heading towards the campus gates.
“She’ll meet us there. She didn’t want to wait in the snow.”
Hyunjin smacks Jeongin on the back of the head and scoffs, “why didn’t you tell us? We would’ve gone there first—my balls are gonna fall off in this temperature, man!”
“I thought she mentioned that she was going to be waiting at the bar,” Jeongin wonders.
“If she did, we would be at the bar,” Yeji deadpans.
The youngest laughs awkwardly, hand pulling out of his pocket to rub the back of his neck. Hyunjin laughs and pats Jeongin on the back, pulling him into his side almost aggressively.
“It’s okay, Yeni. You get away with everything because you’re so adorable,” Hyunjin coos. Jeongin whines when Hyunjin squeezes his neck harder, feeling as though his head’s just going to pop from the action and he scuffles with the graphic design student’s arm while Yeji only watches with amusement.
“Hyunjin!” Jeongin whines just as he finally pulls away and huffs. He straightens the collar of his coat and smacks the back of Hyunjin’s head, “asshole.”
“Hey, don’t hit him,” Yeji gasps as she smacks Jeongin’s arm.
“Wh—you guys hit each other all of the time!” he argues, voice raising pitches beyond what Hyunjin thinks is decipherable by the human ear.
“Yeah, because we’re close!” Hyunjin laughs.
“The vibes are different,” she chuckles. Her arm links with Hyunjin’s almost naturally, the two of them smiling at Jeongin when he stares at them in disbelief.
He doesn’t have it in himself to argue with the Hwangs because he knows, way too well, that if Hyunjin can’t come up with a comeback, then Yeji has it instead.
Jeongin sighs and nods, muttering something under his breath along the lines of ‘kill me’ as they step out of campus grounds and find the bus stop somewhere further down the hill.
The wind is, murderously, cold. Hyunjin genuinely feels like his nutsack is about to freeze and fall out of his right pant sleeve, which also makes him pray for the lives of whatever scientists, lawyers, or twitch streamers are hiding in his left nut.
Okay, maybe Hyunjin is giving himself too much credit for thinking he’d be able to have a scientist as a kid, but the twitch streamer is the most likely, so he’ll take whatever he can get as long as his kid doesn’t turn out to be some kind of a serial killer-slash-sexual offender.
“Felix wants to go to the beach, by the way,” Yeji states as she huddles further and further into her coat, trying to desperately disappear into the fabric.
“He can wait until it’s Summer; I’m not going to the beach during Winter,” Jeongin huffs.
The more that Hyunjin comes to know Felix, the more he realises that there is, truly, something different about this guy. He’s also pretty sure that whatever bleach Felix uses to bleach his hair every few months, it’s definitely seeping into the poor dude’s head and has started to bleach his brain.
Felix is a different kind of… himbo. He isn’t entirely categorised as one, but Yeji has pointed out, on many occasions, that Felix seems to choose to be a himbo. So, he isn’t exactly dumb—nor is he extremely buff—but he has a smile that shines like the Sun and he’s also gorgeous. While he is smart at times, Felix has his moments where he makes everyone want to dip his head in black hair dye to try and un-fry whatever the bleach has done to him.
“This loser wants to go swimming in negative degree water because he’s ‘looking for a vibe’,” Yeji claims while quoting with her index and middle fingers. “He’s psychotic.”
“He does anything to feel alive,” Hyunjin chuckles, “which I admire him for, but I’d rather not be tied into him trying to drive off of a cliff in an ATV to prove that he’s the next… ATV version of Tony Hawk.”
“Who even is the ATV version of Tony Hawk?” she wonders.
“Fuck if I know,” he laughs.
There’s a moment of silence that the three of them bask in, all of them more focused in trying to not think about the cold in an attempt to make themselves believe it’s warmer than it actually is.
And when they finally reach the restaurant twenty minutes away from campus, simultaneous breaths and moans of relief at the feeling of the heater release from the three.
“This is perfect,” Yeji breathes out as she starts pulling her coat off.
Ryujin sits at one of the tables with you, seemingly playing a game of rock paper scissors… only the loser gets slapped in the face. Your laughter fills the air and bounces off of the brick walls of the restaurant because it’s obvious that you're both holding back from completely smacking each other into the next dimension.
At least until Ryujin smacks you and your jaw drops, eyebrows furrowing in pure shock that drives you to want to win, and suddenly, you’re both playing at a faster pace until your cheeks have turned red from both slapping and laughing.
“Jesus, what did we miss?” Yeji laughs as she sits herself down beside you.
“You guys were taking a while,” you say with a shrug.
Hyunjin’s yet to spend a lot of time with you. The only thing he knows about you is that you’re one of the best cheerleaders in the cheerleading team and that you like being in non-committed, casual-sex relationships. He doesn't seem to have had the time to actually hang out with you since he’s always either with Yeji or Jeongin and you always seem to be busy with your own things; or your own people.
“Hey, Hyunjin,” you wave. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“You know how it is,” he claims with a laugh. “I know all of our seniors keep saying that our first year doesn’t count in our overall grade, but I’m still at least trying.”
“Admirable,” you claim, smiling slightly. “Ryujin and I haven’t ordered yet. We were waiting for you guys,” you say as you turn to the table.
“You guys really don’t have to do that,” Jeongin says. “If you want to order and eat first, then go ahead. I think we’ve gotten past the need for actual manners and politeness in this group.”
“Definitely not after the time Changbin took his clothes off at one of Felix’s parties.” Yeji visibly shudders as she recalls the memory. For once, Hyunjin had actually gotten drunk, so he doesn’t remember much of that particular night, but he very vaguely remembers seeing Changbin butt naked and standing on the dining room table.
“It’s… an experience,” Ryujin chuckles.
“What’s the deal with you two, by the way? You’re always so close together,” Jeongin teases while nudging Ryujin’s shoulder.
“Ah, that’s…” Her cheeks flush, voice cracking slightly as she speaks, “we’re not dating.”
“But you two are always together. It’s a wonder,” Yeji hums as she leans closer.
“You and Hyunjin are always together, but I don’t ever see anyone asking whether you two are dating,” Ryujin huffs.
“That’s the difference, though,” you point out.
“Yeji and Hyunjin give off different vibes, so it’s obvious that they’re not dating, but you and Changbin, on the other hand,” Jeongin smiles widely and rests his chin on his hand. “It’s like watching a love story bloom.”
“We’re not dating,” she insists. “Changbin has his own things going on and I really don’t want to be in a relationship right now. We’ve talked about it.”
“Are you two actually interested in each other?”
“We… are, but it’s just not the right time. I also don’t think any time is the right time, honestly.”
“I thought you were gay,” Hyunjin claims innocently.
Yeji smacks his head and scoffs, “fucking idiot.”
“What?! It’s a genuine question…” he whines, grimacing in slight pain as he rubs the spot that she hit.
“Yeah, but you don’t have to be so blunt about it,” she scolds.
“No, no, it’s fine!” Ryujin quickly reassures the two. “I’m more… biromantic than anything. I don’t really like sex that much.”
“And that’s totally fine,” Jeongin reassures her with his hand resting on her shoulder gently. “There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Take your time with this, Ryujin. Don’t rush yourself and go with your gut.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she nods.
“Changbin’s a bit of a dumbass anyway; all he does in his free time is camp at the music club with Chan and Jisung,” you joke.
“I’m pretty sure they’re high half of the time, too,” Ryujin shyly adds, which makes everyone smile fondly and laugh.
Ryujin’s a bit shyer than she shows herself to be. Yeji figured that out when she was hanging out with you and Ryujin, realising quickly that, despite her tough exterior, Ryujin is unbelievably shy. While she can be aggressively loving and loud towards her friends, and have reflexes that are mostly punching or choking people who get too close to her, Ryujin lacks the ability to actually act on a few impulses when she’s around a lot of people—aka, an extroverted-acting introvert.
“By the way, Felix told me he wants to go to the beach,” you say, glancing around the table to see many displeased faces. “He said he promises he won’t go skinny dipping, but that guy would take any chances he gets to do it.”
“I-I don’t trust Lix,” Jeongin laughs nervously.
“I really wouldn’t put it past him to end up skinny dipping in negative twenty celsius water,” Ryujin chuckles. “He’s built a bit differently than everyone else and even Jisung wouldn’t do it.”
“Ahh, and Jisung is willing to drive a pickup truck blindfolded,” you claim.
“What the hell?” Hyunjin laughs, “that guy doesn’t even have his licence yet—where the hell did he find a pickup truck?”
“It was Chan’s. Poor guy ended up retiring the old thing because Jisung drove into a streetlamp.”
“That’s not even ‘built differently’ anymore, that’s just plain stupid,” Yeji mumbles.
“If it makes you feel any better, they chose an abandoned parking lot somewhere further up the hill. There’s nothing but open fields and construction work there, so there really wasn’t much danger other than driving into a street lamp or a tree,” you say with a shrug.
“Honestly? These guys can do whatever they want as long as they’re smart enough to not hurt other people,” Jeongin says with a shrug. “And I trust Chan to at least make sure that there’s no one around them that could possibly explode whenever they’re playing with lighters and gasoline.”
“They’re fucking toddlers; who gave them lighters and gasoline?!” Hyunjin scoffs in disbelief.
“Jisung’s a weedie,” Ryujin states, eyes rolling as she reminds everyone.
It’s a secret that’s… not entirely a secret with the way the entire campus knows that Jisung’s the resident weed dealer. He’s on a similar level with Felix where he’s either always high, sometimes drunk, and always giggly and bashful whenever someone tells him that he shreds the electric guitar like a God. Despite him being a literal musical prodigy—who’s pitch fucking perfect—Jisung’s humble. He doesn’t like talking about his talent that much and when Hyunjin had first gone to the music studio to accompany Ryujin, Jisung had told him he wasn’t really that confident in his music and Hyunjin assumed he was an amateur.
Until he pulled a riff out of his ass in the span of 4 minutes after chugging a can of Monster and made Hyunjin’s head feel like it was going to explode with how fucking amazing this guy was.
“He always has a lighter on him… but the gasoline is a different story. I have no idea how they got their hands on that.”
“I’m just gonna guess that it’s from Chan since he owns a car,” you snicker.
“Can we just hope that they don’t end up destroying the entire university? I’d like to actually have a degree,” Jeongin jokes.
“I actually wouldn’t put it past them to not commit arson towards the entire university,” Yeji jokes as she thinks about it. “Just the image of Chan, Jisung, and Changbin dancing around a large fire screaming ‘free degrees! Free degrees!’ because they don’t understand that that’s not how universities work.”
“Oh, they’re such a fun bunch,” Hyunjin simpers.
Hyunjin’s only met Chan once throughout the half a year. The twenty-two year old only ever appears in either stories or at parties with the baseball team. Chan’s neither a baseball player nor a rugby player, however, he is president of the music club and in his final year.
He, Jisung, and Changbin are part of the popular group of students who excel at music; only Changbin has the added strength and enjoyment of rugby, so he’s less involved in music than the other two are. But while Jisung is busy stuffing a lava cake he got from 7/11 down his throat while shitting lyrics out, Chan is the one recording everything to slap into a half-assed SoundCloud account that they only use every nine months.
The most he knows about the trio is that they’re mostly together whenever they have the ability to be, but Jisung’s either buried himself in his blankets or his music, which means that he’s less seen around campus in general. People only ever see him in the music room or at parties where Changbin has to convince him with chocolate chip muffins and free lunches in order to get him to come out of his cave.
Hyunjin also knows that Changbin and Ryujin are impossibly close. The rugby player typically keeps to himself, but Ryujin and Felix had somehow managed to pull him out of his zone to integrate him into their friend group. Despite that, Hyunjin still barely sees Changbin anywhere else but on the university field or at parties. The only other times that he’s ever seen Changbin is either with Ryujin or with Chan, but even that has been a relatively rare sighting.
He honestly feels like half of their friend group exists as Pokėmons: meaning you need to actually hunt for them and catch them in order to start spending time with them because Jisung’s social anxiety keeps him from actively interacting with anyone while Seungmin ever only seems to want to hang out with Jeongin since they share the same apartment.
But the only people that Hyunjin sees on the regular are Yeji and Jeongin, honestly. You and Ryujin seem to spend your own time together, busied with something else while Yeji joins you two occasionally—especially since you two are part of the cheerleading team—but Hyunjin only ever hangs out with you and Ryujin whenever Yeji or Jeongin are around.
He doesn’t hate it, though. Hyunjin likes the fact that he’s able to slip in and out of groups while still keeping, what he would describe, a fixed factor. It makes him feel safe knowing that Yeji—especially—is by his side.
There’s something else about her that makes Hyunjin just feel so… comfortable. High school him wouldn’t have ever thought that Hwang Yeji would turn out as one of his close friends when university came around, but her company has grown on him more than he ever thought was possible. He isn’t sure whether it’s because they’re polar opposites with the same exact features or whether it’s because her energy is just so fucking calming and sweet, but Hyunjin has a strange feeling that she’s going to be around him for a really long time.
And honestly?
Hyunjin fucking hopes that Yeji does because he can’t see any future where she isn’t friends with him.
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
vi.
Hyunjin knocks on Jeongin’s door with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. His foot taps the floor impatiently until the younger student opens the door and his eyes widen in surprise at how frustrated and upset Hyunjin looks.
“Hey, dude—” he cuts himself off when Hyunjin pushes past him and lets himself into the apartment. “Come… on in…? Aren’t you supposed to be on a date with… what’s his face?”
“I was,” Hyunjin grumbles as he pulls his jacket off and throws it onto Jeongin and Seungmin’s couch along with his backpack. “He said that he’s more worried about whether or not I’d end up cheating on him with Yeji.”
“What?”
“Exactly!”
He starts rambling on about how horrible the date went and how he had actually really liked the guy—only for him to ruin it because he was too worried about the relationship Hyunjin had with Yeji. Jeongin can only watch as Hyunjin continues to pace around his kitchen until he pops open the fridge and pulls out the first form of alcohol he could find; which is surprisingly a bottle of red wine.
“And I told him that—why is wine the only alcohol you have?” Hyunjin turns around to see Jeongin staring at him with his mouth wide open and his eyes narrowed, staring at him in disbelief for a moment as he tries to process everything.
“I-I like red wine, dude,” he mumbles.
“Whatever, this works,” Hyunjin mumbles to himself as he pops the cork open and starts drinking from the bottle directly. “Is being friends with Yeji so bad? Is it so bad that the first guy that I’ve actually liked had to break up with me over it?”
“I don’t think it is,” Jeongin confesses. “I think he’s overreacting because the two of you are practically siblings.”
“Exactly my point! We were doing so well together!”
Admittedly, the relationship only lasted about a month and a half, but Hyunjin was really hoping that it would end up going somewhere.
But now it was ruined only because he couldn’t get past the fact that Hyunjin’s closest friend is Yeji.
“Woah, Hyunjin, take it easy,” Jeongin gasps as he rushes over to pull the bottle away when Hyunjin starts to fucking chug it. “Hyunjin!”
“I just don’t understand! Is it me?! Is it something that I did?! What if he’s just using Yeji as an excuse to break up with me?!” Hyunjin sobs, shoving the younger man away to continue downing the contents of the tinted bottle. “I liked him so much! Why did that have to be the issue?!”
“I don’t know, dude! I think it’s stupid, too!” He tries his best to get Hyunjin composed to some kind of level, but the graphic design student decides that he’s just going to drink away his problems while Jeongin can only watch in a strange mixture of distress and amusement.
Until Hyunjin’s a sobbing mess on the kitchen floor and Jeongin realises that he needs to find a way to knock the fucker out before Seungmin gets home.
“Hey, hey, Hyunjin,” Jeongin soothes as he pulls the, now, empty bottle of wine away from him. “Let’s get you to sleep, okay? All you need to do is get some rest and you can think about it in the morning.”
“Get away from me!” Hyunjin slurs while shoving him away. “I-I don’t want to think about it!”
“You won’t think about it when you’re sleeping,” he argues as he tries to pick Hyunjin up.
“No! Just let me wallow in my shit, dude!”
“Hyunjin, you need sleep!”
“I need more wine!”
“Hyunjin!”
Jeongin isn’t able to stop Hyunjin from ripping the fridge door open to pull out another bottle of wine from the fridge, fiddling with the corkscrew right at the edge of the counter to pop the bottle open.
“No! That’s Seungmin’s wine!”
“Leave me alone!”
“Stop it!” Jeongin falls backwards at a particular shove by Hyunjin and he lets out a whiney groan when Hyunjin brings the lips of the bottle to his own to drink it like there’s no tomorrow.
The front door clicks open, the sound of Seungmin sighing as he pushes the door open and kicks his shoes off. Jeongin turns around and is faced with the sight of the baseball player staring at him and Hyunjin in shock, hands in front of him as he was in the middle of tossing his keys onto the counter.
“What…”
“I tried to get him to calm down and not drink your wine, but I couldn’t,” Jeongin says.
“Wha—what happened?”
“Erin broke up with him because of Yeji; said that he’s uncomfortable with how close Hyunjin is to her and that his sexuality doesn’t help.”
“That is… that’s ridiculous—is that any kind of phobic?”
“I can’t calm him down. Do I give him a sedative? He’s not listening to me, Min,” Jeongin groans while bouncing in his spot in frustration.
“What the fuck?! No!” Seungmin scoffs in disbelief. “Just… let me try,” he sighs while shaking his head.
Jeongin moves away quickly to allow Seungmin some space to crouch beside Hyunjin. He watches closely, wondering whether something so magical was going to happen that would get him to stop crying.
But Seungmin fucking slaps him across the face.
“Seungmin, what the fuck?!”
“Get over it, dude! Don’t cry over lost dick!” He grabs Hyunjin by the collar, the man too drunk and too stunned to actually process what Seungmin is saying to him as he only stares in confusion and shock.
“Stop it!” Jeongin grabs Seungmin by the shoulder to try and pull him away, but Seungmin’s still stronger than he is despite Jeongin joining Changbin at the gym regularly.
“You need to get your shit together and fuck the next person you see dumb so that you can forget about Erin! He’s not worth it! If he was, he wouldn’t have broken up with you over something stupid!”
Hyunjin stares at Seungmin for a moment longer before he bursts into a bigger fit of tears, wails and sobs flying out of his mouth as Seungmin only holds him by the collar in shock.
“W-Why is everyone so mean to me?!” he cries.
“O-Oh, I-I’m sorry,” Seungmin quickly apologises when he realises that his method may not be working for Hyunjin.
“Asshole!” Jeongin complains as he crouches on the other side of Hyunjin.
“Weird. That usually works,” he mumbles to himself. Jeongin only scoffs as he throws Hyunjin’s arm over his shoulders.
“Hyunjin’s sensitive. I’m going to leave him in our guest bedroom,” he grumbles as he pulls him out of the dining room and towards the bedroom, leaving Seungmin slightly more dumbfounded as he watches them.
“Here.” Jeongin hauls Hyunjin onto the bed despite his whining and groaning. “I’ll leave a glass of water here and some ibuprofen—you just take them in the morning and… try not to throw up because I’m not cleaning it.”
Hyunjin grumbles to himself slightly while Jeongin stands at the doorway, his hand raising to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly. To his luck, he actually ends up passing out not long after Jeongin places him in the bed and it gives him the opportunity to leave without worrying too much about it.
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
Yeji violently knocks on the door, her fist banging on it until it opens to a very disgruntled looking Erin who looks at her in disbelief.
“You think that you can break up with my best friend?! Because you’re fucking insecure?!” She grabs him by the collar and shoves him into the apartment. “Do you know how much Hyunjin was so fucking willing to be with you for the long run?! And you break up with him because you’re scared of me?! I’ll show you something to be scared of!”
“What the fuck?!”
Erin stumbles backwards, completely at shock and at a loss of what to do with Yeji now in his apartment with her manicured finger poking at his chest.
“You’re such an asshole, Erin Yeo. You’re a fucking asshole. The next time you get into a relationship, think about being secure!” She turns on her heel and leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind her; not without leaving the envelope filled with glitter and addressed to Erin on the floor.
Yeji takes a deep breath to compose herself and pushes her hair out of her face before walking to the lift. Hyunjin had sent a vague text to her saying that he and Erin had broken up because he wasn’t comfortable with their relationship; which basically sent her into a fit of rage because she knows how much her best friend liked him.
Which leads her now as she walks out of the apartment building feeling a little lighter having—especially after leaving the glitter bomb behind. She’s going to give Hyunjin the time he needs before he reaches out to her because she knows that he has his boundaries and she’d really rather not intrude on them.
Until she receives a text from Jeongin.
Yeni:
UhhCan you collect your brother in the morning?He’s passed out in our apartment because of Erin
Hwang but with boobs:
I’ll swing by tomorrow morning at ten if he’s still thereI just left a glitter bomb at Erin’s apartment andI think I just harassed him
Yeni:
What?!?Like sexually??
Hwang but with boobs:
Wtf???No????I just yelled at him for being insecureI basically just gave him something else to be insecure about
Yeni:
OhFairAnywaysSeungmin made Hyunjin cry even moreSo he might be more sensitive tomorrow morning
Hwang but with boobs:
SighI’ll pick him up in the morning
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
When morning comes, Hyunjin wakes up in a bedroom that definitely isn’t his or the floor of Yeji’s. He looks around in confusion as he tries to make out where he could be until he sees the strip of ibuprofen next to a glass of water on the bedside table.
The memories come flooding in and he lets out a loud groan as he rolls over, the pounding in his head even more apparent now that he’s moved.
Shit.
Did he actually spend the night crying in their dining room?
“Fuck,” Hyunjin groans as he sits upright and immediately takes the ibuprofen. How is he supposed to face Seungmin and Jeongin now? He’s not even that close to Seungmin either. Which technically means that this is the first time that he’s actually spending time with him.
Hyunjin lets out an even whinier groan at the relationship that this is probably going to be the first thing Seungmin thinks of whenever he sees him.
Whatever, he thinks, as he rolls out of bed and leaves the room, only to find Seungmin in the living room and Jeongin in the kitchen—the both of them turning at the sound of the guest room door opening and making eye contact with Hyunjin.
He feels his entire face heating up, his entire body wanting to just curl up into a ball and disappear into nothingness as they wait for him to say something.
“Hi,” he greets them sheepishly.
“How are you feeling?” Seungmin asks first.
“Do you want breakfast?” Jeongin asks next.
Hyunjin looks between the two before deciding to answer both of them at the same time.
“I’m feeling alright and sure,” he nods as he makes his way into the dining room. Jeongin places a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of him right before he sits beside him.
“Yeji’s coming in a bit to pick you up, by the way. I asked her last night.”
“Thanks,” Hyunjin mutters.
“I’m sorry for slapping you, by the way,” Seungmin nonchalantly says from his spot on the couch with the book in his hands. “I was really only trying to help.”
“I think it would’ve worked if I was sober, not when I’ve chugged two bottles of wine,” he chuckles, poking around at his food.
“Good to know,” he smiles and glances over his shoulder at Hyunjin.
“Are you going to be alright?” Jeongin asks after a moment of watching Hyunjin sadly poke at the eggs.
“Eventually, I guess,” Hyunjin sighs and looks at Jeongin, smiling at the concern he shows. “I’ll be fine, Yeni. Thanks for taking care of me last night.”
“Well, I couldn’t exactly leave on the floor. Especially after the stunt that Seungmin pulled.”
“I was only trying to help!” Seungmin says in a singing tone. “I’m not gentle, but I will smack some sense into you,” he chuckles and throws his arm over the back of the couch to look at Hyunjin properly.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for trying.”
“I also have some tea if you’d like,” Jeongin offers as he stands up. “It’s an earl grey and rose mix because that’s the only tea Felix drinks without ‘making Irish’ whenever he’s over.”
“Every time you talk about Felix, he just sounds more and more like an alcoholic,” Seungmin chuckles.
“Seungmin, you don’t understand—it’s because he is an alcoholic,” Hyunjin pipes in. “Have you ever seen him at parties? He drinks J.D straight out of the bottle.”
“It blows my mind how he does it,” Jeongin sighs while shaking his head, a white teapot placed in front of Hyunjin as he returns to his seat. “(Y/n) keeps saying it’s because he can afford to have his university life practically thrown out the window.”
“Hey, don’t do that to him,” he frowns.
“They meant it as in; Felix already has a degree,” he corrects himself.
Hyunjin and Seungmin exchange a confused look before turning back to Jeongin, the both of them going, “what?”
“Felix already has a degree. He’s taking business here because he wanted to. Felix has a degree with… something to do with science—he graduated high school extremely early and went into university the first time when he was sixteen. He finished that and now he’s taking business on a whim,” Jeongin explains ever so nonchalantly, as though it’s something that they hear everyday.
“Holy shit…” Seungmin trails off.
“Yeah, you guys joke about me being a kid genius for graduating high school early, but Felix doesn’t talk about his other degree,” he chuckles.
“But… he’s twenty-one… When did he have the time to graduate and then get into another university?” Hyunjin asks in disbelief.
“He basically ‘sped run’ the other one,” Jeongin shrugs. “I don’t know the exact details, but he’s shown it to me before when he invited me over to play with his Switch. It has the university crest and everything—I didn’t believe him at first but I googled the university and it’s pretty legit. He graduated on the dean’s list.”
“Why does it feel like Felix lives a complete other life when he isn’t getting cronked with us on the weekends,” Seungmin wonders with a longing hum.
“It seems like he does, honestly,” Hyunjin laughs. “That guy’s full of surprises.”
Jeongin picks his phone up off of the table, searching through his gallery for the picture he had taken of Felix’s degree—with his permission of course; Jeongin’s one of the only ‘lawful good’ ones of their bunch—and shows it to the both of his friends just as their doorbell rings. Seungmin answers it while Jeongin indulges in the way Hyunjin’s eyes almost pop out of his skull upon seeing the name of the degree plastered on the top of the certificate, right above Felix’s name full name and signature:
Bachelor’s Degree of Video Game Design
“What the fuck?!” Hyunjin gasps as he reads it. “He’s a fucking video game designer?!”
“Yeah! I feel like you guys should have a lot of fun talking since you’re taking graphic design!” Jeongin nods ecstatically.
“You could’ve told me!”
“Is Hyunjin only finding out about Felix’s degree now?” Yeji questions with a laugh as she steps into the dining room with Seungmin brushes past behind her to grab one of his shirts off of the living room floor.
“You knew?!” Hyunjin aims an accusing finger in her direction while she only lets out an even heartier laugh.
“Of course I did. (Y/n) knew about it when they first met at orientation and they told me about it. I’ve even seen the physical degree and Felix’s ‘High Achievers’ award that he keeps hidden in the back of his closet because (Y/n) wanted to prove that he isn’t lacking any brain cells. In fact, he seems to have more than the rest of us,” she jokes.
“You know, if you ask him, he’d most likely give you a straight answer,” Jeongin claims as he puts his phone away. “Felix isn’t exactly private about his life, but he’ll only answer questions that you ask. He won’t say anything unrelated because he wants you to ask him about his life sometimes.”
“In all honesty, you should,” Yeji nods in agreement.
“You could actually sit and talk to him for hours—literal hours—and Felix would still have stories to tell you about himself,” he smiles.
“I should probably get to know the guy. He is on the baseball team,” Seungmin claims as he plops himself on his previous spot on the couch, picking his book back up and laying across the cushions with his feet kicked up on the armrest.
Yeji sits herself on the other side of Hyunjin, giving him a small smile as she lets her hand rest on his shoulder.
“You alright?” she asks softly.
“I’ll be fine,” he nods. “Thanks for coming to pick me up.”
“I can’t leave my favourite dumbass here hungover,” Yeji chuckles. “Who’s going to take care of you if I’m not the one doing it?”
Hyunjin’s nose scrunches up and he laughs, “I was wondering why you were being so sweet.”
“My bullying is endearing,” she states matter-of-factly before letting her hand raise to ruffle his hair. “You’ll get over Erin soon. He wasn’t anything worth your time anyway.”
“Did you actually glitter bomb him?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Yeji scoffs. “He deserves it. He’s a piece of shit with a sad, sad looking dick anyway.” She pushes his head away slightly and Hyunjin only lets out a small laugh. “After you’re done with breakfast, we can take a walk into town and distract you until you’re ready to talk about it.”
Hyunjin smiles and he nods as he fixes his hair.
“Thank you, Yeji.”
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
vii.
Yeji finds herself lazily sprawled out on Hyunjin’s bed while he silently types away at his laptop. Music plays softly from the silver speakers perched on the shelf of the dorm wall, the two of them quietly busied with their own devices as Yeji tries to waste her time on her phone while patiently waiting for her friend to finish with his assignment.
But Hyunjin lets out a frustrated groan as he throws his head back.
“Fuck this assignemnt,” he grumbles to himself right before continuing.
Yeji turns her head slightly to glance at him and breathes out a laugh.
“I thought you chose this topic yourself?”
“I didn’t. I asked my professor to throw a topic at me because I couldn’t think of anything.” Hyunjin runs a hand through his already dishevelled hair from when he almost ripped his hair straight out of its roots out of frustration an hour earlier.
She breathes out another laugh, shaking her head as she turns her attention back to her phone.
“I’m hungry,” Yeji states as she rolls onto her side and faces Hyunjin, who turns around to look at her questioningly.
“Cafeteria or we ask Chan for his truck?”
“Are we even allowed to do that? I feel bad for that dude sometimes,” she snorts.
“Ryujin says just get him high and take his keys when he isn’t looking,” Hyunjin jokes.
“And here I thought university students had the best moral compasses in the world,” Yeji says sarcastically while rolling her eyes.
“He said he’s fine with us borrowing his truck as long as we take care of it, honestly.”
“Jisung didn’t crash it that time?”
“He did. Chan just got a new one because he has a thing for pickup trucks,” he shrugs as he turns his attention back to his laptop. “According to Changbin, he likes bringing his girlfriend out on the back of it to watch the stars. Christ—did I tell you that the only time I got to hang out with Changbin, alone, he spilled about Jisung and Chan’s love lives without me even asking? I have the unfortunate image of the way Chan fucks the shit out of her like there’s no tomorrow on the back of his truck.”
“Ryujin never said he was good at keeping secrets,” she giggles. “I learned that the time Changbin and I were waiting for Ryujin and Jisung at a bar and he ended up telling me about the time Chan threw up all over his girlfriend when they were at a theme park.”
“Ew!” Hyunjin exclaims, his face scrunching up in disgust despite laughing.
“It was really gross—this is exactly why I feel bad for Chan sometimes!” Yeji laughs. “Based on what Changbin said, Chan hadn’t told Raisha that he was sick and they still ended up going to the theme park.”
“Oh, that’s on him then.”
“You can’t blame him for that!” Hyunjin laughs.
“With the amount of shit that Raisha’s seen as his girlfriend, they better get married. If my boyfriend threw up all over me, I don’t know what I’d do with myself,” she chuckles.
“Nah, you’re just an asshole,” he jokes.
“I was being sarcastic, dickhead,” she remarks.
Hyunjin only snorts a laugh and stands up.
“Fuck—I’m so lazy to leave campus, though,” he states, voice strained as he lifts his arms up into the air to stretch his entire body.
“We could always convince Chan to get us dinner.”
“That isn’t a half-bad idea,” Hyunjin claims with a laugh. “Or we could ask him if he wants to have dinner with us. That way we don’t, you know, abuse the fact that he has a car.”
“That is tempting,” she nods. Yeji’s quick to pull her phone back up to call Chan and put him on speaker, tossing her phone onto Hyunjin’s bedside table.
“That way we could also convince him to pay—Hey, Chan!” Hyunjin greets when the phone stops ringing to Chan’s voice coming through the speakers, groggy and slurred.
“I’m not going to let you take my truck if you’re going to do doughnuts,” the older man immediately grumbles.
“We’re not Jisung or Changbin,” Yeji claims as she sits upright. “Nor are we Ryujin.”
The line goes silent before Chan sighs, “you have a point. What is it?”
“Do you want to get dinner with us? We can head over to the nice Chinese restaurant in town,” she suggests.
“Is this just so that you guys will get my truck and I’ll pay?”
“Pfft! No!” Hyunjin scoffs, glaring at Yeji when she purses her lips to stifle her laughter. “We never seem to hang out, Chan. I only know you through Ryujin and Changbin’s stories.”
“That is a fair point,” he mumbles. The line goes silent once again before sharp rustling and a gasp is heard, “what do you mean through Changbin’s stories? What did he tell you? That guy can’t keep secrets to save his own life.”
Hyunjin glances at Yeji who shares the same wide-eyed look as her hand raises to cover her mouth.
“Hello? What the fuck did he tell you guys?”
“Not much…” Yeji trails off. “Just about you throwing up on Raisha’s lap at the theme park…”
The line goes silent again, the sound of footsteps and a door opening coming through Yeji’s speakers before Chan starts yelling in the distance.
“Why would you tell her that?!” he shouts.
“Tell who what?!” Changbin argues.
Hyunjin and Yeji are left in an awkward state as they wait for Chan and Changbin to finish arguing before they hear him sitting down at his phone.
“We can get dinner together, but don’t remind Raisha about it,” he grumbles. “She feels horrible that she hadn’t noticed I was sick and telling her about it might make her uncomfortable. Don’t make my girlfriend uncomfortable or I’ll make you uncomfortable.”
“Yessiree,” Hyunjin chuckles. “We’ll meet you at the parking lot.”
“I’m bringing Changbin with me, by the way. If I don’t take him out to eat he’ll cry about it to Raisha.”
“Why is that a problem?” Yeji laughs.
“Because Raisha thinks I should be nicer to my friends,” he grumbles, muttering something else under his breath along the lines of ‘I’d lay my life down for this woman, but god damn’. “Let me know when you guys are in the parking lot. Changbin and I will head down when you do.”
“Thank you, Channie,” Hyunjin giggles right before the phone disconnects. He exchanges a glance to Yeji as she sits upright and smiles.
“I love having friends who can drive.”
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
“Fuck yeah!” Hyunjin cheers as he sits at the back of Chan’s truck, the older student going 150 kilometres down the empty highway.
“I fucking love having friends who can drive!” Yeji whoops as she throws her hands into the air.
Somewhere throughout dinner, Changbin had convinced Chan to take Hyunjin and Yeji out for a joyride. With the highways empty at two a.m. and the black Ford Ranger big and fast enough to intimidate anyone in front, Chan couldn’t resist the temptation to speed down the highway to give his friends a free-spirited night.
“I told you this guy’s truck is the best!” Changbin laughs loudly from beside Yeji. “Fuck yeah! Thank you, Chan!”
Chan’s hand sticks out of his window for a moment to wave at Changbin before he brings it back inside.
Hyunjin’s honestly never felt this free before. Never in his entire life had he thought that he would be on the back of a guy he’s only known for a few months; not only that, but Chan’s one of the best music students in the university and he’s also one of the hottest guys on campus—aka, not someone high school Hyunjin would’ve found himself hanging out with.
He feels himself suddenly getting sentimental as he stops laughing and looks at the road ahead. Everything around him moves so quickly that Hyunjin wonders whether this is what life will feel like forever. He had blinked and suddenly he’s almost in his second year of university. He’s one of the best gymnasts in his university after joining the team for fun once.
Hyunjin finds himself surrounded by a bunch of people that he holds so closely yet barely knows that much about. He glances over at Yeji as she holds her arms out in the air while Changbin keeps her steady with an arm around her waist, and Hyunjin wonders for a moment, would he be doing this if he hadn’t allowed Yeji into his circle?
He knows well that Jeongin isn’t the kind to go on spontaneous adventures because he scares easily. He wonders whether he would’ve gotten along with Changbin before they had met that time at the party. He wonders whether Jeongin would’ve been able to crack him out of his shell as well as Yeji had done seemingly so easily.
Until Hyunjin comes to the realisation that his life might have turned out starkly different if he and Yeji hadn’t ended up in the same university.
And for that he’s grateful.
Chan suddenly steps on the brakes and the three of them stumble backwards into the cargo bed with various shouts. Changbin had managed to catch Yeji on himself while Hyunjin had fallen over her, the three of them looking around the area in confusion and sitting up as they heard the car door opening only for Chan to climb out.
“Where are… we…” Changbin trails off as he looks around.
The other car door opens and Raisha slides out of the passenger seat with Chan’s help.
“How did we miss that we were heading to the beach?” Yeji breathes out in awe as she moves closer to the edge of the cargo bed.
Chan moves to the back of his truck and pulls the tailgate down to help them out.
“When you’re at the back of Chan’s truck, the world seems to disappear,” Raisha hums with Chan’s arm comfortably slung around his waist.
Changbin’s the first to climb out of the truck before he helps bring Yeji and Hyunjin down. “Just be glad that it isn’t Winter anymore or else we’d be freezing our asses off out here,” he chuckles as he sticks his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.
Despite Winter having ended already, early Spring is still relatively cold, but Hyunjin ignores the feeling of the cold burning at his cheeks and his ears as he approaches the beach with Yeji’s arm linked with his.
“Wow,” he breathes out.
“Cigarette?” Chan offers, holding a blue box out with the top pulled open towards the two of them but Yeji shakes her head. He pulls one cigarette out and holds it at the end of his mouth before handing the box to Raisha who pulls her own out.
“This is nice,” Changbin breathes out as he lifts his arms out into the air and lets out a laugh, basking in the feeling of the salty air blowing past him and the taste of the ocean filling his senses. He turns around and his face contorts into a cringe when he realises that he’s technically fifth wheeling at the way Yeji and Hyunjin are linked together while Chan has his arm wrapped around Raisha’s shoulders. “Am I the only one who doesn’t have someone?”
“No….?” Hyunjin laughs while trailing off. “Yeji and I aren’t dating, remember?”
“Yeah, but you guys still have each other,” Raisha points out. “Bin means that he’s the only one who’s alone.”
“What about Ryujin?”
“It’s complicated with her,” Changbin sighs while shaking his head. His tone changes slightly but he looks at the night sky instead, seemingly trying to distract himself as well. “I’ve been trying to talk to her about this, but if she doesn’t know what she wants, then I’m not going to push it. I’ll wait until she’s ready to finally talk about it with me.”
Raisha presses her lips together before turning to Chan who only shakes his head.
Yeji nudges Hyunjin slightly with her elbow, asking him to pull a ‘guy to guy, heart to heart’ with Changbin because she knows that she might not be able to get through to him.
He gives her a look before pulling his arm away from her to approach Changbin where he stands beside him with his own hands stuffed into the pockets of his sweatpants.
“You know… maybe she’s not the kind you have to wait for. She might be waiting for you for all we know,” Hyunjin claims.
“I don’t want to step over her boundaries,” Changbin quickly says.
“Hey, Channie, do you want to maybe head on over to the other side of the beach?” Raisha suggests while already pulling him away. “Come on, Yeji—you two.” She pulls the two of them away while Hyunjin stays with Changbin.
“I asked her out last semester. I didn’t want to risk throwing away an opportunity when I’m graduating this year, but if she doesn’t want to get into anything messy, then I’m not going to push her on it.”
“Do you like her?”
“A lot,” he nods. “She makes me feel like I can actually be better—like I’m able to actually just pretend nothing in my past matters because Jin doesn’t think they do.”
“Are you willing to keep her around as just a friend?”
“I might. I’d rather have her around as a friend than not at all.”
Changbin looks down and turns to Hyunjin, smiling slightly. But Hyunjin feels his chest feel as though it’s constricting when he sees how sad his eyes are.
“It’s fine, Hyunjin. I can make it out of this alive,” he reassures him when he sees the sympathetic look on his face.
“I know. You’re a strong guy. I just… feel bad,” Hyunjin says.
“I know,” Changbin chuckles. “But it’s okay. I’ll be fine. No matter what happens, I think I’d just want Ryujin to be with me.”
Hyunjin looks away from Changbin for a moment to look at Yeji, Raisha, and Chan at the other end of the beach where they kick at the waves without their shoes on before Yeji yells something incoherent at the ocean.
To him, there was never a need to want to start anything romantic with Yeji. But Hyunjin really is glad that she’s there for him.
“I think you can understand what I mean to some extent,” Changbin claims, pulling Hyunjin out of his reverie. “I know you guys aren’t dating or anything like that, but I know that she must mean something to you.”
“She does,” Hyunjin nods without turning away. “I don’t know what it is, but she means so much to me and I don’t even want to date her.”
He lets out a laugh and takes a step closer, “Hyunjin, do you believe in platonic soulmates?”
“I don’t believe in soulmates, period,” he claims as he finally turns to look at Changbin who smiles at him slightly.
“Because I think that you and Yeji are platonic soulmates.” Hyunjin tilts his head curiously at the statement, which only makes him breathe out a laugh, “it’s just a feeling I get—nothing to take too seriously.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way, but… yeah, maybe,” Hyunjin mumbles. He lets his gaze travel back towards Yeji. “The funny thing is that we knew each other in high school, I think I was just a different person back then.”
“Didn’t hang out that often?”
“Didn’t hang out at all,” he shakes his head. “Yeji and I were in the same class, but we didn’t hang out. Hell, I didn’t even know who she was until we were in our tenth grade. Even then, it was only because she found me in the art studio and called me ‘twin’. I wasn’t… social in high school—and it wasn’t because I wasn’t awkward, it was because I didn’t see the need in being social.”
Changbin nods as he sits down on the sand, patting the spot beside him as a silent invitation for Hyunjin to join; who obliges without much hesitation.
“I didn’t even care that much about who she was or what she was doing. I just knew that she was Hwang Yeji; the girl who everyone thought looked like me. But now…” Hyunjin trails off and looks at Yeji as she climbs onto Chan’s back—seemingly with Raisha’s permission as she laughs from the side at the way she pulls on Chan’s jacket as though they’re reigns. “Now, she’s my best friend and I really wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“She’s great. Sometimes I wish that I was in love with her and not Ryujin,” Changbin mutters. Hyunjin whips his head towards him but he only smiles and shakes his head, “don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything. It’s just a thought, really.”
“What makes you think that you’d have an easier time with Yeji?” Hyunjin asks, his tone bitter almost.
“There’s a thing called intrusive thoughts, Hyunjin,” he chuckles. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way—my thoughts sometimes come out before I can stop them. You know I wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt Yeji.”
“I worry about her a lot. I’m sorry if that makes me appear stand off-ish,” he mumbles. “Yeji’s also mentioned your previous habits… I don’t want to be that person, but, you know.”
“And that’s alright,” Changbin claims. He looks up at the sky again and lets out a small sigh. “I’m not proud of who I used to be and a lot of people tend to hold me against it… but with Ryujin… she reminds me that I’m not the same person that I used to be back then.”
“I’m sure she’ll come around,” Hyunjin claims, his voice coming out soft as more of a wonder than anything else.
“I don’t care how long it takes. I’m going to wait for her as long as it takes.”
Hyunjin glances at Changbin and lets out a small sigh as he lets his hand rise to rest on his shoulder, “let’s join the others and keep your mind off of it.” The older man nods and lets his hand clap onto Hyunjin’s.
“Yeah, thanks, by the way.”
“Just looking out for you, man.”
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
viii.
Hyunjin had agreed on going to the party only because Yeji had convinced him. He honestly didn’t want to do anything more than sitting in his room and wasting the weekend away because exams are finally over, but Felix was throwing a party for the baseball team’s first win against another university and Yeji just couldn’t resist going.
So here he is, red solo cup in hand as he laughs at the way Jisung climbs onto Felix’s back despite being more than the baseball player can handle.
“Get off of me, dickweed!” Felix cries while trying to push him off of himself.
“Come on, Lixie, give me a piggyback ride!” Jisung giggles with his hands locked in a death grip in front of Felix’s front.
“If I fall, we’ll both get hurt!”
“Dude, I’m high enough to not feel pain.”
“Sung!”
Hyunjin laughs from his spot beside Yeji, arm thrown over her shoulders as they watch. One of the only other reasons he had agreed on coming was the fact that Chan had convinced Felix to turn their guest room into more of a hangout lounge for just their friends; upon Raisha’s request because she didn’t feel like hanging out with the entire university. Which led to him shoving a part of the living room loveseat into the, now, cramped bedroom.
“I’m going to get more drinks,” Yeji says to Hyunjin as she stands to leave from the couch. “I might also stop by to say hi to Chaeryeong if I see her.”
“Just stay safe,” he nods, words slurred slightly from having accepted two cups of Felix’s concoction—which he and Yeji would typically refuse because Felix has a horrible habit of adding enough alcohol to send someone soaring through the tenth dimension.
But Hyunjin’s officially done with his first year, so he's in the mood to let loose for once.
He lets out a laugh that sounds higher than usual when Ryujin dares Seungmin to show the room how he usually seduces people.
“Well, if you’re so interested in knowing,” the man chuckles as he grabs the first person to his left; to Chan’s dismay.
“No, come on, man,” Chan whines when Seungmin takes his hand.
“It’s alright, Chan, I’ll even let you have a safe word and everything,” Seungmin giggles. Despite his outward displeasure towards the situation, Chan doesn’t seem to explicitly tell Seungmin to stop as he readjusts himself. “Okay, so what I usually do—especially if we’re sitting down—is I’ll look them in the eye, tilt my head, and I’ll do that triangle trick that usually has guys melting. It works on women, too. Hell, I’ve tried it on someone who was non-binary and it worked.”
“Just get to the saucy part!” Raisha laughs, earning a glare from her boyfriend, whose face has turned bright red out of embarrassment. Seungmin leds out a loud laugh as he nods.
“So, usually after the triangle trick, I would invite them to my place or ask them if we can go over to theirs. Something like: ‘hey, so… I don’t think I have anything going on in the morning if you’d like to spend the night’ and they’ll be wrapped around my finger just like that.”
“Ugh, I hate how confident you are in yourself,” Ryujin grumbles with her arms crossing over her chest, her body leaning slightly into Changbin’s from the way his arm is slung around her shoulders as they lean against the headboard of the bed.
“Hey, people seem to like my confidence,” he chuckles.
“If you were really confident, but an extremely bad fuck, I don’t think people would be throwing themselves at you,” Felix snickers.
“I have professors throwing themselves at me,” Seungmin wiggles his eyebrows.
A chorus of ‘ew's' and ‘that’s gross!’ erupts from the entire room at the idea of literal professors trying to get into Seungmin’s pants.
“Min, be honest,” you start, stumbling to your side lightly when you lose your balance despite sitting cross-legged on the floor, “would you… or would you not… sleep with a professor for grades.”
“Oh, fuck no,” he scoffs while shaking his head. “I would never sleep with a professor.”
“Okay good, because I was seriously re-considering my relationship with you right now,” Jisung laughs.
“If it’s something that Han Jisung wouldn’t do, then there’s seriously something wrong with you,” Hyunjin jokes.
“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad,” Seungmin shakes his head as the rest of the room start agreeing, voices overlapping each other as they argue with him.
“Hold on—Hold on!” Jeongin raises his hand, effectively silencing everyone to allow himself more room to speak. “I feel like Seungmin would have some kind of respect for himself that he wouldn’t sleep with professors for grades. But… you know… There’s probably a few Kim Seungmin’s in the world, but the only one that I know, would probably sleep with the first thing walking on two legs.”
“One and only, baby,” he laughs.
The conversation topic slowly diverts to Changbin and how he had been bringing Jeongin to the gym. But he pulls his arm away from Ryujin for a moment to roll up the sleeve to his shirt and flex his bicep instead.
“Whoever can win an arm wrestle against me gets free lunch for the next week,” he claims with a proud laugh.
“Cocky bitch,” Ryujin scoffs as she moves away from him. Changbin turns to her and chuckles as he shoves her slightly before looking around the room.
“Come on—who’s up for it?”
Everyone exchanges glances before Hyunjin sits upright and shrugs, “I’ll do it.”
“Shit, with your noodle arms?” Jisung laughs.
“Hey, I’m stronger than I look, okay?” Hyunjin scoffs, tossing the empty cup in his hand at him. He stands up from the couch and beckons Changbin over while his head hangs, his eyes squeezing shut and head shaking as he tries to shake the drunken haze away. “Come on, Bin. Show me what you got.”
“Fuck yeah, let’s go,” Changbin cheers as he immediately moves from his spot on the bed. Jeongin drags the bedside table to one of the empty centres of the room to give them space and the two crouch on both ends of the table.
“Lunch for two days if I win, right?” Hyunjin repeats as their hands clasp together, elbows resting against the dark wood of the table.
“If you win, I’ll get you lunch for the entire week, dude,” Changbin chuckles. But as Jeongin has his hands holding the top of theirs, counting down from three, Hyunjin suddenly feels his smile fading and an itch crawling up his spine that he can’t seem to shake.
“Ready?” Jeongin looks between the two of them, but Hyunjin shakes his head and pulls away suddenly, stumbling backwards as he grabs his head with his left hand.
“No… no, wait… something’s not right,” he mumbles.
Changbin watches with wide, surprised eyes at how suddenly he had pulled away.
“No, no—wait, where’s Yeji?” Hyunjin looks around the room, his heart racing at the realisation that she still hasn’t returned from getting drinks.
“She left the room a while ago,” you claim, sitting upright at how urgent he’s acting.
“I-I need to look for her—something’s not right,” Hyunjin repeats and stumbles out of the room.
Chan and Jeongin exchange a look before Chan chases after him, asking the rest of their friends to stay behind since he’s the only sober one left in the room.
The moment Hyunjin leaves past the door to the room, the first thing he hears is Yeji protesting from the other end of the room despite how loud the music is playing.
“Come on, Yeji, let me show you that I’m worth it,” the man says as he pulls on her wrist.
“Let me go,” she says sharply while trying to pull away from him. “I’m not joking, Leon. I need to get back to my friends.”
“Just one night, please?” Leon whines as he pulls her against him, ignoring the way she shoves at his chest.
“Leon, let go!”
Hyunjin feels the alcohol draining from his system as he watches with wide, blank eyes. His long legs storm across the room and shove past the crowd as rage ignites his heart.
He doesn’t even have time to think as he grabs Leon’s shoulder and spins him around, left arm flying forward and making contact with his cheek.
“Hyunjin!”
Yeji grabs onto Hyunjin’s arm when he shoves Leon to the floor and throws punches to his face almost non-stop, everyone in the room stopping to see what the commotion is as she desperately tries to pull him off.
“Stop it!”
“She said no—what part of that do you not understand?!” Hyunjin yells. He doesn’t hear Yeji’s voice ringing in his ears—even when blood starts to pour out of Leon’s nose and mouth.
“What the fuck?!” Chan exclaims as he pushes past the crowd, his face contorting in horror when he sees what’s happening.
“Chan, a little help?!” Yeji looks at him helplessly and he takes it upon himself to wrap his arms around Hyunjin’s torso and rip him off of Leon, ignoring the pain that shoots throughout his body at the way Hyunjin elbows and scratches at him.
“Let me go!”
“Stop it, you idiot!” Chan barks.
“He fucking deserves it! He knows he does!” Hyunjin argues, but Chan pulls him away from Leon with Yeji following closely behind as they scurry back into the guest room. He throws Hyunjin onto the ground, despite the many protests, and glares at him in shock. “He fucking deserves it! Yeji said no!”
“What happened?” Changbin shoots up from his seat, looking between Hyunjin’s rageful eyes and Yeji’s terrified ones.
“L-Leon from Computer Science tried to pull me out of the party,” she confesses softly.
“What?” Raisha shoots up as well.
“I kept saying no, but he wasn’t listening,” she mumbles.
The tone in the room quickly changes as everyone sits up straighter. Chan ushers Yeji to Felix and Raisha who pull her onto the floor while Changbin stands and leaves the room.
“Bin?” Ryujin calls as she tries to reach for him, but he doesn’t say anything as he slams the door shut behind him, leaving everyone in the room stunned.
“Are you okay? Did he do anything?” Hyunjin quickly asks while scrambling towards Yeji who stares at him for a moment longer, chest heaving before she wraps her around his neck and brings him into her.
“T-Thank you,” she whispers shakily. “I-I don’t know what he would’ve done—thank you, Hyunjin.” Yeji’s hands tremble against him as she cries softly. “T-Thank you so much.”
“Y-You’re okay, Yeji,” Hyunjin reassures her with his own arms wrapping around her torso. “You’re safe here.”
Everyone stays silent as they watch the exchange, not wanting to leave and face the crowd, but not exactly wanting to be in the room either.
The door opens and Changbin’s re-appearance gives the group something else to talk about as he returns with bloodied knuckles and his chest heaving.
“Bin, what did you do?” Ryujin’s heart drops when she sees the way his cheek is slightly bruised and his knuckles are slowly darkening.
“Something I had to,” he mumbles as he swipes his hair out of his face and lets out a deep sigh at the sight of Yeji and Hyunjin. Ryujin climbs off of the bed and rushes towards him, pushing him into the corner of the room and quietly checks up on him; which only adds to the awkward and solemn feeling in the room.
“Take me home, please,” Yeji requests softly as she leans her forehead against Hyunjin’s shoulder. “I-I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Hyunjin nods as he wraps his arm around her and helps her to his feet. “We’ll… uhh… see you guys sometime soon.”
Everyone in the room nods, watching as the two leave with Hyunjin’s arm wrapped around Yeji’s shoulders securely.
But just as he brushes past Changbin, the man stops him by grabbing onto Hyunjin’s other shoulder.
“You did a good job,” he praises quietly. “Yeji’s lucky. I’m also still buying you lunch for the week.”
“Thank you,” he smiles awkwardly.
Changbin gives him another nod before clapping his shoulder twice and letting go, his other arm wrapping around Ryujin’s waist as they bid Hyunjin and Yeji goodbye.
。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆ 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆
“Are you going to be alright on your own?” Hyunjin asks as they step into Yeji’s apartment.
He had gotten her McDonald’s on the walk back to her apartment to get some food in her stomach and to distract her from what had happened. Hyunjin knew better than to press her about it, but he couldn’t help but wonder exactly what had happened that led to her situation.
He also couldn’t shake how odd it was that, when she had been in trouble, he knew that something was wrong. Which Hyunjin just found so fucking strange as the two walked back to Yeji’s apartment building in mostly silence with his arm wrapped around her shoulders as a silent form of reassurance that he’s there and he’ll keep her safe.
“Can you stay the night? Please?” she asks softly, pulling her jacket off of her shoulders and draping it over the back of her chair.
“Of course,” he nods. Hyunjin takes his own jacket off and lets it fall onto the floor, right beside the door. He sits at the edge of the bed as Yeji climbs into the covers, not even bothering to change out of her clothes or take her makeup off. She lets the blanket come up to her chin and stares at Hyunjin. “Can I ask what happened?”
She lets out a sigh and looks away from him for a moment. Hyunjin nods when she doesn’t say anything and slides off of the bed to sit on the floor with his head resting against Yeji’s bed.
“I just finished talking to Chaeryeong,” Yeji starts, which makes Hyunjin lift his head to look at her. “I wanted to go back to you guys, but Leon sparked a conversation. I knew that he wanted something, but I wasn’t expecting him to be so… aggressive. He kept asking me to sleep with him and tried to give me a drink and I knew better than to take it, but he wouldn’t stop trying to pull me out of the party.”
Hyunjin reaches for her hand that rests over the blanket, thumb running over her knuckles gently as she speaks.
“The funny thing is that, the entire time it was happening, I kept calling for you in my head. ‘Hyunjin, hurry up, please’, and… suddenly… you were there—just like I knew you’d be.” Yeji smiles slightly as a tear slips from her already puffy and bloodshot eyes, streaming down the side of her face. “I really don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I’m just glad that I got there on time,” Hyunjin claims softly, smiling slightly.
“Thank you, Hyunjin,” she thanked once again.
“I’d do anything to keep you safe and you know that.”
Yeji smiles and nods, her eyes closing slightly as she tries to let sleep plague her mind instead while Hyunjin watches.
“You know what?” he starts, making her eyes open once again. “I was just about to arm wrestle Changbin for lunch when I suddenly felt off. Something just felt wrong. It was like a chill ran down my spine the moment you thought of me,” Hyunjin explains. He pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath, “did I tell you what Changbin and I talked about at the beach?”
Yeji nods, “you said that you guys talked about Ryujin.”
“So, I didn’t tell you what he said about us?” She shakes his head, no. “Changbin asked if I believed in soulmates—and I said no, because I don’t—but he said that he thinks you and I are platonic soulmates.”
“Yeah?” she chuckles. “I didn’t even think those were a thing.”
“Apparently, they’re soulmates but the friend version of it,” Hyunjin claims with a shrug and a small laugh.
“You don’t believe in them, though,” Yeji points out as she adjusts her hand to hold onto Hyunjin’s more securely.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he hums. Hyunin’s eyes flit to hers and he smiles, “but I’ve always thought that if I had one:
It would be you.