IMB 2012: Wednesdays (1/2)
Working Title: Wednesdays
Pairing/Focus: Sunggyu/Woohyun
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sunggyu and Woohyun like to study together at the library on Wednesdays.
Final word count: 11,612
The first Wednesday of the first semester of his senior year at university, Sunggyu found himself standing in the library study area, surveying the tables with a sense of growing dread. It wasn’t packed - in fact, it was nowhere near as full as it would be during midterms and finals - but there was at least one person already at every table. Sunggyu sighed and readjusted the straps on his backpack, trying to decide what to do.
The only reason he had come here to start with was because one of his new roommates, Lee Sungyeol, had gotten back to the dorm about an hour before whining about how he already had homework for his European theatre history class. He had then immediately launched into reading lines from Shakespeare out loud to memorize them. Sunggyu didn’t necessarily mind that, but there’s a limit on how many times one can listen to "Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry" before wanting to saw their ears off with a spoon. Sunggyu had lasted about thirty minutes before packing up his statistics homework and heading to the library.
So now Sunggyu had three options: ask a complete stranger if he could sit at a table with them and proceed to do his homework in awkward silence, find a corner where he could sit on the floor and use the back of his textbook as a table to write on until his legs and butt fell asleep, or head back to his dorm and suffer through who knows how many more hours of Shakespeare. Sunggyu debated for almost a minute, then sighed headed for the tables, trying to decide which person to approach.
He settled on a guy who seemed about his own age, maybe a little younger, with glasses and hair dyed a medium brown. Sunggyu walked over to the table and stood there for a couple of seconds, hoping the other student would notice him. Unfortunately, glasses-guy was completely focused on whatever was on his computer screen - some sort of math or economics problem, judging by the papers full of charts and graphs sitting on the table next to him - and didn’t notice Sunggyu’s approach.
“Um,” Sunggyu finally said awkwardly, and the guy looked up, startled out of his concentration. “Is it ok if I sit here?” Sunggyu gestured towards one of the other chairs at the table.
“Oh, yeah sure,” the other said with a smile, moving his papers out of the way. “Go right ahead.”
“Thanks.” Sunggyu smiled back and set his backpack down so he could pull his homework out. After getting everything situated he sat down and started working through the problems.
The silence wasn’t too bad, just the quiet concentration of two people working. If anything, it was almost comfortable - nothing near the awkward situation Sunggyu had pictured in his mind. About an hour later glasses-guy shoved his papers into a folder and jammed the folder and his laptop into his backpack.
“Time for class,” he announced, swinging his backpack up onto one shoulder. “See you around.”
Sunggyu glanced up from his calculator and nodded. “Have fun,” he called out as glasses-guy started walking away. He was answered with a laugh.
--
The second Wednesday of the first semester of his senior year at university, Sunggyu ended up back at the library again. It was pure coincidence, really. There was no particular reason for him to leave his dorm that day; Howon and Dongwoo were at dance practice and Sungyeol was out who knows where. Their suite was empty and quiet, but Sunggyu’s last class of the day had ended at one, and by four he was bored. It had been getting harder to resist the lure of his laptop, so he had once again packed up his homework materials and headed to the library.
Apparently several members of the student population had already abandoned their resolves to study more diligently this semester, and there were numerous open tables in the study area. Sunggyu started to head for one when he caught sight of a familiar pair of glasses and head of brown hair. Pausing, Sunggyu stared at glasses-guy in disbelief. Their university campus had somewhere around 30,000 students, so the likelihood that Sunggyu would actually run into this particular one again was pretty low.
Making a split-second decision, Sunggyu changed his course and slid into a chair at glasses-guy’s table. The other looked up from his laptop, surprised, then smiled when he recognized Sunggyu.
“Hey,” he said, eyes crinkling with his grin.
“Hi again,” Sunggyu replied, starting to pull out his homework. He suddenly stopped halfway and held out his hand. “I’m Kim Sunggyu, by the way,” he said, free hand rubbing his neck in embarrassment. “Sorry if this is kind of awkward or anything, I just figured I might as well sit with you again.”
“No, don’t worry, it’s totally fine,” glasses-guy laughed. “Nice to meet you, I’m Nam Woohyun.” They shook hands, and then Sunggyu went back to getting his work out of his backpack and Woohyun went back to staring at his laptop. After arranging everything to his liking, Sunggyu squinted at the upside down graphs he could see on Woohyun’s notes.
“Is that statistics?” he asked, pointing to the papers.
“Hmm?” Woohyun replied, glancing over to where Sunggyu was pointing. “Ah, no. I did have to take statistics last year, but this is actually stuff for my data and banking class. I’m an economics major, third year.”
“Economics?” Sunggyu asked curiously. “That sounds absolutely thrilling.” Then he mentally punched himself for his sarcasm and glanced up at Woohyun, hoping he hadn’t offended him.
Luckily, Woohyun just laughed and shrugged.
“Yeah, it’s not exactly the most exciting major,” Woohyun said, absentmindedly organizing his papers. “But I think it’s pretty interesting. I like knowing how things work.”
Sunggyu nodded and was about to go back to his homework when Woohyun spoke again.
“How about you?” he asked, catching Sunggyu off guard. “What’s your major?”
“Oh, I’m in accounting. Fourth year,” Sunggyu stumbled out, wincing as his slight lisp made an appearance. Woohyun raised an eyebrow.
“Wow, accounting? That sounds absolutely thrilling.” His words were light, teasing even, and not at all malicious. Sunggyu felt himself turn bright red with embarrassment.
“Yeah, well it’s a major my parents approve of, so I guess that’s all that really matters,” Sunggyu hastily defended himself.
“That’s totally reasonable, I understand,” Woohyun said with a laugh. Sunggyu just nodded again and busied himself with his work, willing his blush away.
They continued working in silence for the next forty minutes, until Woohyun had to leave for class again.
“See you next week, Sunggyu-ssi,” Woohyun called out as he left, and Sunggyu smiled.
--
The third Wednesday of his senior year at university, Sunggyu arrived at the library before Woohyun. He looked around before shrugging and sitting down at an empty table. Ten minutes later Woohyun sat down across from him, dropping his backpack on the floor with a muffled thud.
“Hi,” Woohyun said with a grin.
“Fancy seeing you here again,” Sunggyu replied with a matching smile, and Woohyun laughed. It was only their third time meeting, but Sunggyu had a feeling that this was going to become a routine.
--
On the fourth Wednesday, Woohyun looked so tired that Sunggyu was afraid he would fall asleep on his international finance notes.
“Are you ok?” Sunggyu asked as he sat down, and Woohyun nodded wearily.
“Yeah, I’ve just been stressing out over a concept for one of my classes. My prof said it’s going to be on the midterm, but no matter what I do I can’t seem to understand it.” Sighing, Woohyun took off his glasses and set them on the table so he could massage his temples.
“What time did you go to bed last night?” Sunggyu demanded, frowning.
“Um. Four, I think? Maybe it was five.”
“Depriving yourself of sleep won’t help you understand it any better,” Sunggyu reprimanded sternly.
“Yes, mother.” Woohyun smiled tiredly.
Shaking his head, Sunggyu went back to his principles of auditing homework. His concentration was soon shattered, though, when his stomach let out a growl so loud that he blushed and wrapped his arms around his abdomen as if to silence it. Woohyun burst out laughing and Sunggyu leaned over, laying his forehead on the table.
“Sorry, we’re out of food at the dorm,” Sunggyu mumbled into his papers. “All I’ve eaten today is a banana.” It was the last banana too, and Sunggyu was sure Sungyeol had thrown a fit when he had discovered it was missing.
“It’s ok, don’t worry about it,” Woohyun, obviously amused.
“I’m just gonna go buy something to eat,” Sunggyu said, still into his papers, as he patted his back pocket to make sure he had his wallet. “I’ll be right back.”
“All right.” Woohyun was laughing again so Sunggyu made sure to glare at him when he slid out of his seat and walked towards the stairs.
There was a coffee shop right next to the library so Sunggyu decided to go there and grab to hold him over until dinner. He surveyed the pastries display and decided he wanted a croissant and a muffin before getting into line.
While he was waiting for the three people in front of him to order, Sunggyu stared blankly at the menu on the wall. He had a water bottle in his backpack so he wasn’t very inclined to waste four thousand won on a fancy drink, but as he read through the menu he remembered Woohyun’s zombie-like appearance from earlier.
Frowning, Sunggyu moved up in line as the people in front of him slowly filtered through, mulling the memory over in his head. When it was finally his turn to order he asked for the croissant and muffin he wanted then quickly, before could change his mind, asked for a medium-sized house blend as well. He paid for his order and then sat in an empty seat, clutching the bag with his pastries in a death grip and resisting the urge to bash his head into the table. He didn’t even know if Woohyun liked coffee.
But if anyone needed a caffeine fix right now it was Woohyun, so Sunggyu took the coffee when his order came up, grabbed a handful of sugar packets and some creamers, and headed back to the library.
Woohyun was once again immersed in his homework, eyebrows drawn together in concentration as he stared at the laptop screen like looking harder would magically force whatever he was reading to make sense. Before he could chicken out and just keep the drink for himself, Sunggyu put the coffee down next to Woohyun’s laptop, dropping the sugar and creamer beside it.
Startled, Woohyun looked over at the coffee, blinked, then looked up at Sunggyu. Sunggyu just shrugged and sat down, busying himself with taking his croissant out of the bag.
“You seemed like you needed some caffeine,” Sunggyu said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Ah, thank you but… I actually don’t drink coffee.”
Sunggyu’s head shot up and he stared at Woohyun in panic. Woohyun had apology written all over his face and was chewing nervously on his bottom lip.
Sunggyu opened and shut his mouth a few times, trying to think of what to say, and then Woohyun suddenly burst into laughter. He laughed and laughed, doubling over and bracing an arm against the table.
“Oh my God, Sunggyu-ssi, your face,” Woohyun gasped out. “You should have seen your face.”
Sunggyu stared at him in shock, before indignantly throwing a pen at Woohyun’s head. By now several people had turned to watch them, and Woohyun was more or less in tears.
“What the fuck, Nam Woohyun!” Sunggyu complained, looking for something else to throw since the pen had missed.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Woohyun wheezed. He finally managed to get a hold of himself and calm down enough to speak normally. “It’s just, you looked so absolutely devastated. Like a kicked puppy or something.”
Sunggyu picked up his textbook and brandished it as he was going to throw it at Woohyun. Woohyun quickly ducked partway under the table, waiting until Sunggyu put the book down before sitting up again.
“Thank you, though,” Woohyun said with another of his eye-crinkling smiles as he pulled off the lid on his coffee and started dumping in sugar. “I really appreciate it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sunggyu grumbled. He tried to sound annoyed, but was undermined by the small smile pulling at his lips.
--
The next Wednesday, Sunggyu stopped by the coffee shop on his way to the library. After watching Woohyun dump all of the creamer packages into his coffee the week before, Sunggyu decided to buy him a café latte this week instead, and got a cookie for himself. Even though he hadn’t seen Woohyun yet, he figured that since midterms were starting in less than a week it was extremely unlikely his stress level had decreased in the past seven days, and he would probably be in need of caffeine again.
While waiting for his order to come, Sunggyu looked at his wallet. He flipped through the paper bills idly and winced. Somehow he sensed that he would be making many more stops by this café before the end of the year; the same way he’d had predicted that his library meetings with Woohyun would become a weekly ritual. Sunggyu sighed and shut his wallet, shoving it back into his pocket. At this rate he was going to have to get a job.
--
“You really don’t have to keep buying me coffee,” Woohyun said on the sixth week, carefully taking the cup Sunggyu was holding out for him.
Sunggyu just shrugged and slumped into his seat across from Woohyun clutching his own cup as if it were a lifeline. In light of midterms he had decided to splurge and buy himself a drink too. Something with as much caffeine as possible, because he wasn’t actually sure that he could actually survive the rest of the day without some artificial energy to help.
“At least let me help pay,” Woohyun said with a frown. He started to reach for his wallet, then caught sight of the glare Sunggyu was giving him and stopped.
“I don’t buy you coffee because I want your money,” Sunggyu croaked. He grimaced internally because his voice sounded like he hadn’t slept in the past three days (probably because he hadn’t.) “If you want to pay me back then just do well on your tests.”
Woohyun laughed, and Sunggyu glared harder over the top of his coffee cup.
“Sorry,” Woohyun said, grinning. “But did you just quote that directly from a drama or something? If that wasn’t cliché, I don’t know what is.”
“Shut up,” Sunggyu grumbled. “I’m being encouraging and stuff. I’m your hyung, that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“Ok then, hyung.” Woohyun raised his coffee cup in a mock salute. “I’ll do my best.”
Sunggyu snorted and took a long drink of his coffee before forcing himself to focus on his work, hoping he could manage to understand enough to pass his tests.
--
By the seventh week, Sunggyu was convinced that Woohyun knew at least half of their school’s student population.
They were studying like usual, only interrupted by occasional short conversations, when a girl with light brown hair seemed to appear out of nowhere, and promptly sat on Woohyun’s lap. Woohyun jumped, accidentally drawing a line through the paper he was writing on. Sunggyu looked up from his laptop, his pen held between his teeth.
Occurrences like this weren’t too uncommon, although this was the first time Sunggyu had seen quite this level of invasion of personal space. Every Wednesday at least one person would stop to talk to Woohyun, or wave and smile as they walked past. Sometimes Sunggyu would see his own friends too, but not with anywhere near the frequency that Woohyun did.
Before her element of surprise could wear, off the girl started shaking Woohyun until his glasses slipped down his nose.
“What the hell, Woohyun-ah,” she complained, continuing to shake him. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages. You don’t seem to ever have any time to hang out anymore.”
“Sorry,” Woohyun apologized as he let himself flop around. She finally stopped shaking him and he pushed his glasses back up his nose, pulling a face at her. “I’ve just been really busy because of midterms and stuff. I’m almost done now, so I should be able to hang out again soon. Promise.”
Perplexed, Sunggyu watched the whole scene play out with his pen still dangling from his mouth. He wondered if he should say something but ultimately decided to keep silent, regarding them warily in case he suddenly had to jump in and save Woohyun’s life or something.
“Please stop by the art studio soon,” the girl begged. “I swear the stress is starting to make Key actually lose his mind. I’m never quite sure if he’s going to snap and start throwing paint tubes at people.”
“Key never had his mind to start with,” Woohyun replied easily. “I’ll try to go by the fine arts department soon, though. Maybe I can find some time tomorrow.”
While Woohyun lost himself in his thoughts the girl let out an exclamation as if remembering something, and turned so she was facing Sunggyu. “I’m sorry I disrupted your studying,” she said and Sunggyu blinked, starting to reply before remembering the pen and quickly taking it out of his mouth.
“It’s no problem,” Sunggyu quickly reassured her. “It’s worth it to see Woohyun get beat up.” The girl laughed and Woohyun let out an indignant protest.
“I’m Jung Nicole.” She reached out a hand over the table. “I’m Woohyun’s friend, if you hadn’t already guessed.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured,” Sunggyu said, taking her hand to shake. “I’m Kim Sunggyu. I’m -”
Sunggyu paused, suddenly unsure of what to say. ‘I’m Woohyun’s senior’ didn’t seem right - they weren’t even in the same program. ‘I’m Woohyun’s classmate’ didn’t work for the same reason. But after seeing the close relationship Nicole and Woohyun had, Sunggyu suddenly felt wrong calling himself Woohyun’s friend. So where did that leave them? Study partners? Acquaintances?
Luckily Woohyun cut in, erasing any need for Sunggyu to come up with a category for himself.
“He’s my friend,” Woohyun said. “My wonderful, nice friend who doesn’t try to kill me when he sees me.”
Nicole just laughed and hit Woohyun’s shoulder before standing up.
“Well, I have an art history paper to finish writing. I’ll see you later, Woohyun-ah. It was nice meeting you, Sunggyu-ssi.”
“I’ll text you later,” Woohyun called out as she waved and turned to leave.
“Yeah, sure.” Nicole flapped an arm at him dismissively and headed off towards the stairs.
“Well that was interesting.” Sunggyu blinked a couple more times and shook his head, making Woohyun laugh.
“Sorry about that. I think most of my friends are crazy or something,” Woohyun apologized. “Especially Nicole and the guy she mentioned, Key. I’ve been friends with them since forever, but somehow they both turned into crazy arts students who constantly nag at me for being a boring econ major. Ah, speaking of which, I really do need to go see Key soon and make sure he hasn’t drowned in paint or something.”
Sunggyu just nodded, not quite sure what to say. It was times like this that he really realized how little he knew about Woohyun. From their weekly meetings and small conversations it was easy to get a sense of being close, but in reality what did Sunggyu even know? He knew that Woohyun lived at home and hung out in the library on Wednesday because he had a late afternoon class and didn’t want to commute home and back between classes. He knew that Woohyun worked part-time as a waiter at a traditional Korean restaurant (it was one of his favorite things to complain about.) And now he knew that Woohyun was best friends with two art students of questionable sanity.
Things like the meeting with Nicole only showed Sunggyu just how false his sense of familiarity with Woohyun was. And for some reason, knowing that he barely knew Woohyun at all made the pit of Sunggyu’s stomach fall to the floor.
--
Sometime around the third week of the semester Sunggyu had come home to his dorm and found a skinny boy with stylish brown hair sitting next to Dongwoo and Howon on the couch, eating chips and watching Sunggyu’s roommates attempt to beat each other at a videogame.
“Um,” Sunggyu had said, prompting Howon to pause the game so the three of them could turn around and stare at Sunggyu.
“Hi, hyung,” Dongwoo had called out with a wave, cheerful as usual.
“Hey,” Sunggyu had replied while moving over to the kitchen so he could search for something to eat.
The skinny boy had watched Sunggyu curiously, a polite smile on his face. Sunggyu had smiled back and given Dongwoo a pointed introductions-right-now-please look.
Catching on before Dongwoo could, Howon had quickly jumped into the conversation.
“Sunggyu hyung, this is Lee Sungjong, a student at the dance studio we go to. Sungjong ah, this is Kim Sunggyu. He’s one of our roommates, but Dongwoo and I have known him since high school.”
“Yeah,” Dongwoo had cut in with a gleeful laugh. “Sungjongie signed up for a class to learn Girls’ Generation dances, and then out-danced every single girl in the class. So we decided to keep him.”
“Don’t say it like that, it’s embarrassing,” the boy had complained, punching Dongwoo in the shoulder. “It’s nice to meet you, Sunggyu-ssi.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Sunggyu had said, opening a cupboard and rummaging around until he found a ramyeon snack to eat.
And then somehow “let’s invite Sungjong over to play videogames” had turned into “poor Sungjong’s parents want him to commute from home and that takes two hours each way and wouldn’t it be easier if he just stayed over for the night tonight” which had then turned into Sungjong sleeping on the couch at their dorm at least two nights each week. (Which in turn changed into Sungjong sleeping with either Dongwoo or Howon, because the couch was nowhere near large enough for anyone to comfortably sleep on it.)
So when Sunggyu saw Sungjong passing by on the eighth Wednesday of the semester, he didn’t hesitate to call out, “Yah, Lee Sungjong!” loud enough that Sungjong jumped in surprise and several people turned to stare.
Catching sight of Sunggyu, Sungjong smiled and waved before walking over.
“Hi hyung,” Sungjong said brightly as he reached the table. Then he got a good look at Woohyun and his eyes widened. “Wow, Woohyun hyung too?”
Woohyun had barely even glanced up when Sunggyu had yelled, but now that he could see someone else at the table he pulled out his earbuds and grinned.
“Hi, Jjongie. What brings you here?” Woohyun asked cheerfully.
“I was meeting up with some friends to study,” Sungjong replied. Then, turning to Sunggyu, “You two know each other?”
“Yeah, we study together on Wednesdays.” Sunggyu shrugged, wincing internally at how strange that sounded. “How about you? How do you guys know each other?”
“Oh, I was struggling with my econ 101 class and I was really afraid because midterms were coming up,” Sungjong said with a shrug. “And I’m best friends with this guy, you probably don’t know him but his name is Lee Taemin, and I whined to him, and then he’s friends with some guy named Key who apparently knows, like, everyone. So Taemin told me to talk to Key, and Key told me he had a friend who was majoring in economics who could probably help me. And now Woohyun tutors me on Tuesdays.”
Sunggyu nodded blankly, feeling his eyes glaze over slightly as he tried to process the information. “Well that makes sense, I guess,” he said slowly. “More sense than why you and I know each other, at least.”
“Oh?” Woohyun asked, propping his chin up on one hand. “How do you guys know each other, then?”
“Basically, two of my roommates decided to adopt Sungjong and now he more or less lives at my dorm and eats all my food,” Sunggyu explained, sparking an immediate protest from Sungjong.
“I do not eat all your food!” Sungjong complained indignantly. “Not that there’s ever any food in your dorm to eat anyways. I don’t know how you haven’t all starved to death by now.”
“We do too have food,” Sunggyu shot back. “Just. It’s mostly snack food. And ramyeon. And rice.”
“That’s really not healthy,” Woohyun cut in disapprovingly. Sunggyu gave him a look of disbelief.
“I’m a university student. I don’t think the word ‘healthy’ even exists in my vocabulary.”
Sungjong snorted and Woohyun frowned.
“It really isn’t good for you, though,” Woohyun argued.
“Well, none of us really cook so it’s not like we have much choice.” Sunggyu shrugged. “We’ll survive.”
“I’ll cook for you.”
Sunggyu and Sungjong gave Woohyun simultaneous looks of disbelief.
“I, you, what -” Sunggyu spluttered, not quite able to collect his thoughts enough to be coherent.
“My class gets out at six thirty so I’ll head over to your dorm after that. You live in the complex on the west side of campus, right?”
“You can cook?” Sunggyu finally managed to ask, realizing belatedly that it sounded a bit rude.
“Yeah,” Woohyun said with a slight smile. “Both of my parents work late, so my brother and I both picked up on cooking pretty early on. Do you guys even have pots and pans?”
“Of course,” Sunggyu retorted, mildly offended. “Howon does cook sometimes. The menu of what he can make is just a bit limited. And he’s mostly too busy anyways, so yeah.”
“Ok, cool. I’ll text you when I get out of class. Speaking of which, I have to go now.” Woohyun quickly stuffed his notebook and papers into his backpack and stood up. “I’ll see you later,” he said with a grin and a wave, then hurried off.
Sungjong slid into the seat Woohyun vacated and propped his chin on his hands, giving Sunggyu a smile that would have been completely disarming if Sunggyu hadn’t already developed Sungjong-cuteness-immunity.
“So, hyung, I think I’ll eat dinner at your place tonight.”
--
At six forty-three Sunggyu jogged down the stairs of his dorm building and met Woohyun where he was waiting outside the front door. Sunggyu felt inexplicably nervous as they went back up the stairs together, his hands balled into fists in his pockets. Sungyeol, Howon, and Dongwoo had friends over all the time, but Sunggyu very rarely invited anyone to visit his dorm.
“Here it is,” he said awkwardly when they reached his door, pulling it open and gesturing for Woohyun to go in. As they both took off their shoes, Sunggyu fervently wished someone had remembered to vacuum that week. With Sungjong’s help he had frantically tried to get the kitchen into a semi-presentable state while Woohyun was in class, washing dishes and scrubbing the counters. They hadn’t had time to work on cleaning up the rest of the dorm, though.
Sungjong waved from his position watching TV on the couch, and Woohyun laughed.
“You really weren’t exaggerating when you said he pretty much lived here, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t.” Sunggyu halfheartedly threw a shoe towards Sungjong, who stuck out his tongue playfully when it fell short.
The kitchen and living room area were connected, with short hallways on either side of the living room leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms. The kitchen was tiny, with only a stove, a sink, a fridge, and some very limited counter and cupboard space.
“I’m sorry it’s so small,” Sunggyu apologized, leaning against a counter while Woohyun started looking around and pulling things out of the cupboards.
“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t exactly expecting to find a large kitchen in a dorm,” Woohyun replied distractedly. He opened the fridge, looked at the mostly empty shelves, and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Ok, well first things first, if I’m going to cook I need ingredients.” Woohyun shut the fridge and walked over to the counter. “Hyung, could you get me some paper and something to write with? And Jjongie, how do you feel about making a trip to the store?”
--
“Wow, something smells delicious,” Dongwoo exclaimed when he and Howon stumbled in tiredly from the dance studio half an hour later. After kicking off his shoes, Dongwoo promptly crashed on the couch, ignoring Sungjong and Sungyeol’s protests over him being sweaty and gross. Sungyeol had come home about ten minutes earlier and ducked into the kitchen long enough to try to steal something from Woohyun’s cooking and get chased back out to the living room with a spatula.
“Yeah, um, this is my friend, Nam Woohyun.” Sunggyu rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and Woohyun turned around so he could see everyone from his position facing the stove. He waved with one hand, the other still holding a frying pan. “And these are my other two roommates, Dongwoo and Howon.”
Howon smiled and exchanged a quick greeting with Woohyun before heading straight for his room to grab a change of clothes and take a quick shower. Dongwoo waved enthusiastically from his position sprawled across Sungyeol and Sungjong’s legs.
“Seems like Sunggyu hyung managed to do something useful for once,” Sungyeol drawled teasingly. He shoved on Dongwoo’s legs and the elder slid to the floor, lying on his side and laughing. “By making friends with someone who can cook.”
“Yah, Lee Sungyeol,” Sunggyu snapped, scowling at his roommate.
“Maybe next time he’ll make friends with someone who likes to clean,” Sungjong said, complete with a disgustingly sweet smile. Dongwoo and Sungyeol both burst into laughter and Sungyeol reached over for a high five. Sunggyu pointedly turned so he was facing the kitchen and his back was to them. Without Sunggyu to bother, their conversation quickly changed to making fun of the romantic drama currently playing on the TV.
Sunggyu propped his elbows on the counter and briefly buried his face in his hands. He looked up when he heard Woohyun laughing softly.
“Your dorm certainly is lively,” Woohyun commented while deftly cutting tofu into cubes and sliding it from the cutting board into the frying pan. Sunggyu snorted and Woohyun grinned. They lapsed into silence, listening to the tofu sizzle and Sungjong and Sungyeol imitate the characters on TV in ridiculous voices while Dongwoo rolled around laughing by their feet.
“It’s nice,” Woohyun said finally. “I mean, both of my parents would work themselves into the ground if I let them, so it’s not like they’re around often. And since my brother moved out it’s just been really quiet all the time. Being around so many friends like this, it’s really nice.”
Sunggyu just hummed in response, and that seemed to be enough for Woohyun, who flashed a smile in Sunggyu’s direction before focusing once more on the food. Sunggyu swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. There wasn’t anything necessarily special about the situation, but something about Woohyun - how he was wearing a plain v-neck shirt and jeans, his glasses discarded and sitting on the counter because they kept steaming up and he claimed he could manage to see well enough without them - and the way he was concentrating so seriously on his cooking made Sunggyu’s stomach flutter. He told himself he was just feeling weird because he was hungry.
“Here, be useful,” Woohyun suddenly demanded, shoving a cutting board with green onions on it over towards Sunggyu.
“I’m your hyung,” Sunggyu grumbled. “Why are you ordering me around?” He took the knife Woohyun handed him anyways, and obediently started chopping. Just like the other ingredients he had helped cut up that night, the slices came out rather random and uneven in size. Woohyun snorted when he saw them, but added them in anyway.
Five minutes later everyone crowded around the coffee table in the living room, all six of them squishing together and knocking elbows as they tried to eat. Sungjong complained that the freshly showered Howon was dripping water on his shoulder, and Sungyeol continually stole food from Dongwoo while Dongwoo was talking to Woohyun. It was one of the most enjoyable meals Sunggyu could remember having, and the food tasted better than anything he’d had in a long time - unevenly cut vegetables and all.
--
The tenth Wednesday of the first semester of his senior year at university, Sunggyu hummed along with his iPod as he climbed the stairs to the library study area. In one hand he held a café latte for Woohyun, and in the other he had a bag with a muffin for himself. He reached the right level and headed straight for the table - their table - without hesitation.
There was someone else sitting next to Woohyun already, but Sunggyu shrugged it off. From the way Woohyun was animatedly talking to him, waving his arms around, it was obvious this was another of Woohyun’s many friends.
“Coffee’s here,” Sunggyu said brightly, placing the cup on the table and then reaching up to pull out one of his ear buds. Both of the table’s occupants turned to look at him, Woohyun with a smile and the other guy with a confused look.
“Someone’s in a good mood today,” Woohyun remarked as Sunggyu slid into one of the seats.
“Yeah, earlier I got my grade back for one of my midterms, and I did really well,” Sunggyu replied while he wrapped his headphones around his iPod and set it down on the table. He glanced over at Woohyun’s friend, who was staring at Woohyun’s coffee cup as if it might suddenly jump across the table and bite him. Somehow Sunggyu got the feeling that his intense stare was as much a part of the guy as his short black hair and handsome face.
“Wow, really? That’s awesome,” Woohyun said, his smile widening until his eyes all but disappeared. “Which cla-”
“Wait,” Woohyun’s friend suddenly cut in, holding up one hand and surprising both Woohyun and Sunggyu into silence. He turned his head to face Sunggyu, fixing his intent stare on the accounting major. “You’re Kim Sunggyu, correct?” Sunggyu nodded slowly, perplexed. “Ok. Then, did you really just bring Nam Woohyun a coffee drink?” Another nod. “Do you do this regularly? And does he drink them?”
“Ye-es?” Sunggyu drew the word out, giving the guy a strange look. He glanced at Woohyun, who was staring at his friend with something akin to absolute horror.
“But hyung,” Woohyun’s friend said, turning back towards Woohyun, “you hate cof-”
Woohyun quickly grabbed him in a headlock, effectively cutting him off.
“What was that, Kim Myungsoo?” Woohyun asked hurriedly. “You say you have to leave to go study with your friends? Well then, that’s just too bad. Better not keep them waiting!” He tightened his grip, and Myungsoo dissolved into helpless laughter. Woohyun glowered and started messing up the younger’s hair. Myungsoo tried to say something, but most of it got lost between laughter and Woohyun’s grip.
“Nicole said -” Sunggyu managed to hear, and “ - didn’t actually believe -” and something that could have been “got it really bad,” but it was also possible he’d heard that part wrong.
Sunggyu watched the entire scene with utter disbelief, eyebrows raised and mouth hanging open slightly. His brain was whirring at top speed, inferring and calculating he came to a conclusion that had him groaning with despair.
“You mean,” Sunggyu asked, making both Woohyun and Myungsoo temporarily fall quiet, “that I’ve wasted close to 30,000 won this semester buying you coffee you don’t even like?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it, per se,” Woohyun started, only to be interrupted by Myungsoo.
“One time Woohyun hyung said that he’d rather drink acid than coffee, because he figured the acid would probably taste better.”
Myungsoo let out a yelp of pain as Woohyun kicked him, then cracked up again when Woohyun gave Sunggyu a desperate look.
“I don’t usually like coffee, and I tried to tell you, but you just looked so sad and I felt like a horrible person so -”
“But my money,” Sunggyu interrupted plaintively. He sent sorrowful look towards his backpack, sitting innocently on the floor with his depressingly empty wallet inside.
“Well on the bright side, because you bought me coffee so much I’ve kind of gotten addicted and actually really like it now?” Woohyun stated it as a question, eyes crinkling with an apologetic smile. Sunggyu groaned again and let his head fall to the table, mumbling something about money and jobs and the lack thereof.
Myungsoo laughed so hard that he fell off his chair.
--
➯
Pairing/Focus: Sunggyu/Woohyun
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sunggyu and Woohyun like to study together at the library on Wednesdays.
Final word count: 11,612
The first Wednesday of the first semester of his senior year at university, Sunggyu found himself standing in the library study area, surveying the tables with a sense of growing dread. It wasn’t packed - in fact, it was nowhere near as full as it would be during midterms and finals - but there was at least one person already at every table. Sunggyu sighed and readjusted the straps on his backpack, trying to decide what to do.
The only reason he had come here to start with was because one of his new roommates, Lee Sungyeol, had gotten back to the dorm about an hour before whining about how he already had homework for his European theatre history class. He had then immediately launched into reading lines from Shakespeare out loud to memorize them. Sunggyu didn’t necessarily mind that, but there’s a limit on how many times one can listen to "Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry" before wanting to saw their ears off with a spoon. Sunggyu had lasted about thirty minutes before packing up his statistics homework and heading to the library.
So now Sunggyu had three options: ask a complete stranger if he could sit at a table with them and proceed to do his homework in awkward silence, find a corner where he could sit on the floor and use the back of his textbook as a table to write on until his legs and butt fell asleep, or head back to his dorm and suffer through who knows how many more hours of Shakespeare. Sunggyu debated for almost a minute, then sighed headed for the tables, trying to decide which person to approach.
He settled on a guy who seemed about his own age, maybe a little younger, with glasses and hair dyed a medium brown. Sunggyu walked over to the table and stood there for a couple of seconds, hoping the other student would notice him. Unfortunately, glasses-guy was completely focused on whatever was on his computer screen - some sort of math or economics problem, judging by the papers full of charts and graphs sitting on the table next to him - and didn’t notice Sunggyu’s approach.
“Um,” Sunggyu finally said awkwardly, and the guy looked up, startled out of his concentration. “Is it ok if I sit here?” Sunggyu gestured towards one of the other chairs at the table.
“Oh, yeah sure,” the other said with a smile, moving his papers out of the way. “Go right ahead.”
“Thanks.” Sunggyu smiled back and set his backpack down so he could pull his homework out. After getting everything situated he sat down and started working through the problems.
The silence wasn’t too bad, just the quiet concentration of two people working. If anything, it was almost comfortable - nothing near the awkward situation Sunggyu had pictured in his mind. About an hour later glasses-guy shoved his papers into a folder and jammed the folder and his laptop into his backpack.
“Time for class,” he announced, swinging his backpack up onto one shoulder. “See you around.”
Sunggyu glanced up from his calculator and nodded. “Have fun,” he called out as glasses-guy started walking away. He was answered with a laugh.
--
The second Wednesday of the first semester of his senior year at university, Sunggyu ended up back at the library again. It was pure coincidence, really. There was no particular reason for him to leave his dorm that day; Howon and Dongwoo were at dance practice and Sungyeol was out who knows where. Their suite was empty and quiet, but Sunggyu’s last class of the day had ended at one, and by four he was bored. It had been getting harder to resist the lure of his laptop, so he had once again packed up his homework materials and headed to the library.
Apparently several members of the student population had already abandoned their resolves to study more diligently this semester, and there were numerous open tables in the study area. Sunggyu started to head for one when he caught sight of a familiar pair of glasses and head of brown hair. Pausing, Sunggyu stared at glasses-guy in disbelief. Their university campus had somewhere around 30,000 students, so the likelihood that Sunggyu would actually run into this particular one again was pretty low.
Making a split-second decision, Sunggyu changed his course and slid into a chair at glasses-guy’s table. The other looked up from his laptop, surprised, then smiled when he recognized Sunggyu.
“Hey,” he said, eyes crinkling with his grin.
“Hi again,” Sunggyu replied, starting to pull out his homework. He suddenly stopped halfway and held out his hand. “I’m Kim Sunggyu, by the way,” he said, free hand rubbing his neck in embarrassment. “Sorry if this is kind of awkward or anything, I just figured I might as well sit with you again.”
“No, don’t worry, it’s totally fine,” glasses-guy laughed. “Nice to meet you, I’m Nam Woohyun.” They shook hands, and then Sunggyu went back to getting his work out of his backpack and Woohyun went back to staring at his laptop. After arranging everything to his liking, Sunggyu squinted at the upside down graphs he could see on Woohyun’s notes.
“Is that statistics?” he asked, pointing to the papers.
“Hmm?” Woohyun replied, glancing over to where Sunggyu was pointing. “Ah, no. I did have to take statistics last year, but this is actually stuff for my data and banking class. I’m an economics major, third year.”
“Economics?” Sunggyu asked curiously. “That sounds absolutely thrilling.” Then he mentally punched himself for his sarcasm and glanced up at Woohyun, hoping he hadn’t offended him.
Luckily, Woohyun just laughed and shrugged.
“Yeah, it’s not exactly the most exciting major,” Woohyun said, absentmindedly organizing his papers. “But I think it’s pretty interesting. I like knowing how things work.”
Sunggyu nodded and was about to go back to his homework when Woohyun spoke again.
“How about you?” he asked, catching Sunggyu off guard. “What’s your major?”
“Oh, I’m in accounting. Fourth year,” Sunggyu stumbled out, wincing as his slight lisp made an appearance. Woohyun raised an eyebrow.
“Wow, accounting? That sounds absolutely thrilling.” His words were light, teasing even, and not at all malicious. Sunggyu felt himself turn bright red with embarrassment.
“Yeah, well it’s a major my parents approve of, so I guess that’s all that really matters,” Sunggyu hastily defended himself.
“That’s totally reasonable, I understand,” Woohyun said with a laugh. Sunggyu just nodded again and busied himself with his work, willing his blush away.
They continued working in silence for the next forty minutes, until Woohyun had to leave for class again.
“See you next week, Sunggyu-ssi,” Woohyun called out as he left, and Sunggyu smiled.
--
The third Wednesday of his senior year at university, Sunggyu arrived at the library before Woohyun. He looked around before shrugging and sitting down at an empty table. Ten minutes later Woohyun sat down across from him, dropping his backpack on the floor with a muffled thud.
“Hi,” Woohyun said with a grin.
“Fancy seeing you here again,” Sunggyu replied with a matching smile, and Woohyun laughed. It was only their third time meeting, but Sunggyu had a feeling that this was going to become a routine.
--
On the fourth Wednesday, Woohyun looked so tired that Sunggyu was afraid he would fall asleep on his international finance notes.
“Are you ok?” Sunggyu asked as he sat down, and Woohyun nodded wearily.
“Yeah, I’ve just been stressing out over a concept for one of my classes. My prof said it’s going to be on the midterm, but no matter what I do I can’t seem to understand it.” Sighing, Woohyun took off his glasses and set them on the table so he could massage his temples.
“What time did you go to bed last night?” Sunggyu demanded, frowning.
“Um. Four, I think? Maybe it was five.”
“Depriving yourself of sleep won’t help you understand it any better,” Sunggyu reprimanded sternly.
“Yes, mother.” Woohyun smiled tiredly.
Shaking his head, Sunggyu went back to his principles of auditing homework. His concentration was soon shattered, though, when his stomach let out a growl so loud that he blushed and wrapped his arms around his abdomen as if to silence it. Woohyun burst out laughing and Sunggyu leaned over, laying his forehead on the table.
“Sorry, we’re out of food at the dorm,” Sunggyu mumbled into his papers. “All I’ve eaten today is a banana.” It was the last banana too, and Sunggyu was sure Sungyeol had thrown a fit when he had discovered it was missing.
“It’s ok, don’t worry about it,” Woohyun, obviously amused.
“I’m just gonna go buy something to eat,” Sunggyu said, still into his papers, as he patted his back pocket to make sure he had his wallet. “I’ll be right back.”
“All right.” Woohyun was laughing again so Sunggyu made sure to glare at him when he slid out of his seat and walked towards the stairs.
There was a coffee shop right next to the library so Sunggyu decided to go there and grab to hold him over until dinner. He surveyed the pastries display and decided he wanted a croissant and a muffin before getting into line.
While he was waiting for the three people in front of him to order, Sunggyu stared blankly at the menu on the wall. He had a water bottle in his backpack so he wasn’t very inclined to waste four thousand won on a fancy drink, but as he read through the menu he remembered Woohyun’s zombie-like appearance from earlier.
Frowning, Sunggyu moved up in line as the people in front of him slowly filtered through, mulling the memory over in his head. When it was finally his turn to order he asked for the croissant and muffin he wanted then quickly, before could change his mind, asked for a medium-sized house blend as well. He paid for his order and then sat in an empty seat, clutching the bag with his pastries in a death grip and resisting the urge to bash his head into the table. He didn’t even know if Woohyun liked coffee.
But if anyone needed a caffeine fix right now it was Woohyun, so Sunggyu took the coffee when his order came up, grabbed a handful of sugar packets and some creamers, and headed back to the library.
Woohyun was once again immersed in his homework, eyebrows drawn together in concentration as he stared at the laptop screen like looking harder would magically force whatever he was reading to make sense. Before he could chicken out and just keep the drink for himself, Sunggyu put the coffee down next to Woohyun’s laptop, dropping the sugar and creamer beside it.
Startled, Woohyun looked over at the coffee, blinked, then looked up at Sunggyu. Sunggyu just shrugged and sat down, busying himself with taking his croissant out of the bag.
“You seemed like you needed some caffeine,” Sunggyu said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Ah, thank you but… I actually don’t drink coffee.”
Sunggyu’s head shot up and he stared at Woohyun in panic. Woohyun had apology written all over his face and was chewing nervously on his bottom lip.
Sunggyu opened and shut his mouth a few times, trying to think of what to say, and then Woohyun suddenly burst into laughter. He laughed and laughed, doubling over and bracing an arm against the table.
“Oh my God, Sunggyu-ssi, your face,” Woohyun gasped out. “You should have seen your face.”
Sunggyu stared at him in shock, before indignantly throwing a pen at Woohyun’s head. By now several people had turned to watch them, and Woohyun was more or less in tears.
“What the fuck, Nam Woohyun!” Sunggyu complained, looking for something else to throw since the pen had missed.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Woohyun wheezed. He finally managed to get a hold of himself and calm down enough to speak normally. “It’s just, you looked so absolutely devastated. Like a kicked puppy or something.”
Sunggyu picked up his textbook and brandished it as he was going to throw it at Woohyun. Woohyun quickly ducked partway under the table, waiting until Sunggyu put the book down before sitting up again.
“Thank you, though,” Woohyun said with another of his eye-crinkling smiles as he pulled off the lid on his coffee and started dumping in sugar. “I really appreciate it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sunggyu grumbled. He tried to sound annoyed, but was undermined by the small smile pulling at his lips.
--
The next Wednesday, Sunggyu stopped by the coffee shop on his way to the library. After watching Woohyun dump all of the creamer packages into his coffee the week before, Sunggyu decided to buy him a café latte this week instead, and got a cookie for himself. Even though he hadn’t seen Woohyun yet, he figured that since midterms were starting in less than a week it was extremely unlikely his stress level had decreased in the past seven days, and he would probably be in need of caffeine again.
While waiting for his order to come, Sunggyu looked at his wallet. He flipped through the paper bills idly and winced. Somehow he sensed that he would be making many more stops by this café before the end of the year; the same way he’d had predicted that his library meetings with Woohyun would become a weekly ritual. Sunggyu sighed and shut his wallet, shoving it back into his pocket. At this rate he was going to have to get a job.
--
“You really don’t have to keep buying me coffee,” Woohyun said on the sixth week, carefully taking the cup Sunggyu was holding out for him.
Sunggyu just shrugged and slumped into his seat across from Woohyun clutching his own cup as if it were a lifeline. In light of midterms he had decided to splurge and buy himself a drink too. Something with as much caffeine as possible, because he wasn’t actually sure that he could actually survive the rest of the day without some artificial energy to help.
“At least let me help pay,” Woohyun said with a frown. He started to reach for his wallet, then caught sight of the glare Sunggyu was giving him and stopped.
“I don’t buy you coffee because I want your money,” Sunggyu croaked. He grimaced internally because his voice sounded like he hadn’t slept in the past three days (probably because he hadn’t.) “If you want to pay me back then just do well on your tests.”
Woohyun laughed, and Sunggyu glared harder over the top of his coffee cup.
“Sorry,” Woohyun said, grinning. “But did you just quote that directly from a drama or something? If that wasn’t cliché, I don’t know what is.”
“Shut up,” Sunggyu grumbled. “I’m being encouraging and stuff. I’m your hyung, that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“Ok then, hyung.” Woohyun raised his coffee cup in a mock salute. “I’ll do my best.”
Sunggyu snorted and took a long drink of his coffee before forcing himself to focus on his work, hoping he could manage to understand enough to pass his tests.
--
By the seventh week, Sunggyu was convinced that Woohyun knew at least half of their school’s student population.
They were studying like usual, only interrupted by occasional short conversations, when a girl with light brown hair seemed to appear out of nowhere, and promptly sat on Woohyun’s lap. Woohyun jumped, accidentally drawing a line through the paper he was writing on. Sunggyu looked up from his laptop, his pen held between his teeth.
Occurrences like this weren’t too uncommon, although this was the first time Sunggyu had seen quite this level of invasion of personal space. Every Wednesday at least one person would stop to talk to Woohyun, or wave and smile as they walked past. Sometimes Sunggyu would see his own friends too, but not with anywhere near the frequency that Woohyun did.
Before her element of surprise could wear, off the girl started shaking Woohyun until his glasses slipped down his nose.
“What the hell, Woohyun-ah,” she complained, continuing to shake him. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages. You don’t seem to ever have any time to hang out anymore.”
“Sorry,” Woohyun apologized as he let himself flop around. She finally stopped shaking him and he pushed his glasses back up his nose, pulling a face at her. “I’ve just been really busy because of midterms and stuff. I’m almost done now, so I should be able to hang out again soon. Promise.”
Perplexed, Sunggyu watched the whole scene play out with his pen still dangling from his mouth. He wondered if he should say something but ultimately decided to keep silent, regarding them warily in case he suddenly had to jump in and save Woohyun’s life or something.
“Please stop by the art studio soon,” the girl begged. “I swear the stress is starting to make Key actually lose his mind. I’m never quite sure if he’s going to snap and start throwing paint tubes at people.”
“Key never had his mind to start with,” Woohyun replied easily. “I’ll try to go by the fine arts department soon, though. Maybe I can find some time tomorrow.”
While Woohyun lost himself in his thoughts the girl let out an exclamation as if remembering something, and turned so she was facing Sunggyu. “I’m sorry I disrupted your studying,” she said and Sunggyu blinked, starting to reply before remembering the pen and quickly taking it out of his mouth.
“It’s no problem,” Sunggyu quickly reassured her. “It’s worth it to see Woohyun get beat up.” The girl laughed and Woohyun let out an indignant protest.
“I’m Jung Nicole.” She reached out a hand over the table. “I’m Woohyun’s friend, if you hadn’t already guessed.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured,” Sunggyu said, taking her hand to shake. “I’m Kim Sunggyu. I’m -”
Sunggyu paused, suddenly unsure of what to say. ‘I’m Woohyun’s senior’ didn’t seem right - they weren’t even in the same program. ‘I’m Woohyun’s classmate’ didn’t work for the same reason. But after seeing the close relationship Nicole and Woohyun had, Sunggyu suddenly felt wrong calling himself Woohyun’s friend. So where did that leave them? Study partners? Acquaintances?
Luckily Woohyun cut in, erasing any need for Sunggyu to come up with a category for himself.
“He’s my friend,” Woohyun said. “My wonderful, nice friend who doesn’t try to kill me when he sees me.”
Nicole just laughed and hit Woohyun’s shoulder before standing up.
“Well, I have an art history paper to finish writing. I’ll see you later, Woohyun-ah. It was nice meeting you, Sunggyu-ssi.”
“I’ll text you later,” Woohyun called out as she waved and turned to leave.
“Yeah, sure.” Nicole flapped an arm at him dismissively and headed off towards the stairs.
“Well that was interesting.” Sunggyu blinked a couple more times and shook his head, making Woohyun laugh.
“Sorry about that. I think most of my friends are crazy or something,” Woohyun apologized. “Especially Nicole and the guy she mentioned, Key. I’ve been friends with them since forever, but somehow they both turned into crazy arts students who constantly nag at me for being a boring econ major. Ah, speaking of which, I really do need to go see Key soon and make sure he hasn’t drowned in paint or something.”
Sunggyu just nodded, not quite sure what to say. It was times like this that he really realized how little he knew about Woohyun. From their weekly meetings and small conversations it was easy to get a sense of being close, but in reality what did Sunggyu even know? He knew that Woohyun lived at home and hung out in the library on Wednesday because he had a late afternoon class and didn’t want to commute home and back between classes. He knew that Woohyun worked part-time as a waiter at a traditional Korean restaurant (it was one of his favorite things to complain about.) And now he knew that Woohyun was best friends with two art students of questionable sanity.
Things like the meeting with Nicole only showed Sunggyu just how false his sense of familiarity with Woohyun was. And for some reason, knowing that he barely knew Woohyun at all made the pit of Sunggyu’s stomach fall to the floor.
--
Sometime around the third week of the semester Sunggyu had come home to his dorm and found a skinny boy with stylish brown hair sitting next to Dongwoo and Howon on the couch, eating chips and watching Sunggyu’s roommates attempt to beat each other at a videogame.
“Um,” Sunggyu had said, prompting Howon to pause the game so the three of them could turn around and stare at Sunggyu.
“Hi, hyung,” Dongwoo had called out with a wave, cheerful as usual.
“Hey,” Sunggyu had replied while moving over to the kitchen so he could search for something to eat.
The skinny boy had watched Sunggyu curiously, a polite smile on his face. Sunggyu had smiled back and given Dongwoo a pointed introductions-right-now-please look.
Catching on before Dongwoo could, Howon had quickly jumped into the conversation.
“Sunggyu hyung, this is Lee Sungjong, a student at the dance studio we go to. Sungjong ah, this is Kim Sunggyu. He’s one of our roommates, but Dongwoo and I have known him since high school.”
“Yeah,” Dongwoo had cut in with a gleeful laugh. “Sungjongie signed up for a class to learn Girls’ Generation dances, and then out-danced every single girl in the class. So we decided to keep him.”
“Don’t say it like that, it’s embarrassing,” the boy had complained, punching Dongwoo in the shoulder. “It’s nice to meet you, Sunggyu-ssi.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Sunggyu had said, opening a cupboard and rummaging around until he found a ramyeon snack to eat.
And then somehow “let’s invite Sungjong over to play videogames” had turned into “poor Sungjong’s parents want him to commute from home and that takes two hours each way and wouldn’t it be easier if he just stayed over for the night tonight” which had then turned into Sungjong sleeping on the couch at their dorm at least two nights each week. (Which in turn changed into Sungjong sleeping with either Dongwoo or Howon, because the couch was nowhere near large enough for anyone to comfortably sleep on it.)
So when Sunggyu saw Sungjong passing by on the eighth Wednesday of the semester, he didn’t hesitate to call out, “Yah, Lee Sungjong!” loud enough that Sungjong jumped in surprise and several people turned to stare.
Catching sight of Sunggyu, Sungjong smiled and waved before walking over.
“Hi hyung,” Sungjong said brightly as he reached the table. Then he got a good look at Woohyun and his eyes widened. “Wow, Woohyun hyung too?”
Woohyun had barely even glanced up when Sunggyu had yelled, but now that he could see someone else at the table he pulled out his earbuds and grinned.
“Hi, Jjongie. What brings you here?” Woohyun asked cheerfully.
“I was meeting up with some friends to study,” Sungjong replied. Then, turning to Sunggyu, “You two know each other?”
“Yeah, we study together on Wednesdays.” Sunggyu shrugged, wincing internally at how strange that sounded. “How about you? How do you guys know each other?”
“Oh, I was struggling with my econ 101 class and I was really afraid because midterms were coming up,” Sungjong said with a shrug. “And I’m best friends with this guy, you probably don’t know him but his name is Lee Taemin, and I whined to him, and then he’s friends with some guy named Key who apparently knows, like, everyone. So Taemin told me to talk to Key, and Key told me he had a friend who was majoring in economics who could probably help me. And now Woohyun tutors me on Tuesdays.”
Sunggyu nodded blankly, feeling his eyes glaze over slightly as he tried to process the information. “Well that makes sense, I guess,” he said slowly. “More sense than why you and I know each other, at least.”
“Oh?” Woohyun asked, propping his chin up on one hand. “How do you guys know each other, then?”
“Basically, two of my roommates decided to adopt Sungjong and now he more or less lives at my dorm and eats all my food,” Sunggyu explained, sparking an immediate protest from Sungjong.
“I do not eat all your food!” Sungjong complained indignantly. “Not that there’s ever any food in your dorm to eat anyways. I don’t know how you haven’t all starved to death by now.”
“We do too have food,” Sunggyu shot back. “Just. It’s mostly snack food. And ramyeon. And rice.”
“That’s really not healthy,” Woohyun cut in disapprovingly. Sunggyu gave him a look of disbelief.
“I’m a university student. I don’t think the word ‘healthy’ even exists in my vocabulary.”
Sungjong snorted and Woohyun frowned.
“It really isn’t good for you, though,” Woohyun argued.
“Well, none of us really cook so it’s not like we have much choice.” Sunggyu shrugged. “We’ll survive.”
“I’ll cook for you.”
Sunggyu and Sungjong gave Woohyun simultaneous looks of disbelief.
“I, you, what -” Sunggyu spluttered, not quite able to collect his thoughts enough to be coherent.
“My class gets out at six thirty so I’ll head over to your dorm after that. You live in the complex on the west side of campus, right?”
“You can cook?” Sunggyu finally managed to ask, realizing belatedly that it sounded a bit rude.
“Yeah,” Woohyun said with a slight smile. “Both of my parents work late, so my brother and I both picked up on cooking pretty early on. Do you guys even have pots and pans?”
“Of course,” Sunggyu retorted, mildly offended. “Howon does cook sometimes. The menu of what he can make is just a bit limited. And he’s mostly too busy anyways, so yeah.”
“Ok, cool. I’ll text you when I get out of class. Speaking of which, I have to go now.” Woohyun quickly stuffed his notebook and papers into his backpack and stood up. “I’ll see you later,” he said with a grin and a wave, then hurried off.
Sungjong slid into the seat Woohyun vacated and propped his chin on his hands, giving Sunggyu a smile that would have been completely disarming if Sunggyu hadn’t already developed Sungjong-cuteness-immunity.
“So, hyung, I think I’ll eat dinner at your place tonight.”
--
At six forty-three Sunggyu jogged down the stairs of his dorm building and met Woohyun where he was waiting outside the front door. Sunggyu felt inexplicably nervous as they went back up the stairs together, his hands balled into fists in his pockets. Sungyeol, Howon, and Dongwoo had friends over all the time, but Sunggyu very rarely invited anyone to visit his dorm.
“Here it is,” he said awkwardly when they reached his door, pulling it open and gesturing for Woohyun to go in. As they both took off their shoes, Sunggyu fervently wished someone had remembered to vacuum that week. With Sungjong’s help he had frantically tried to get the kitchen into a semi-presentable state while Woohyun was in class, washing dishes and scrubbing the counters. They hadn’t had time to work on cleaning up the rest of the dorm, though.
Sungjong waved from his position watching TV on the couch, and Woohyun laughed.
“You really weren’t exaggerating when you said he pretty much lived here, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t.” Sunggyu halfheartedly threw a shoe towards Sungjong, who stuck out his tongue playfully when it fell short.
The kitchen and living room area were connected, with short hallways on either side of the living room leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms. The kitchen was tiny, with only a stove, a sink, a fridge, and some very limited counter and cupboard space.
“I’m sorry it’s so small,” Sunggyu apologized, leaning against a counter while Woohyun started looking around and pulling things out of the cupboards.
“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t exactly expecting to find a large kitchen in a dorm,” Woohyun replied distractedly. He opened the fridge, looked at the mostly empty shelves, and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Ok, well first things first, if I’m going to cook I need ingredients.” Woohyun shut the fridge and walked over to the counter. “Hyung, could you get me some paper and something to write with? And Jjongie, how do you feel about making a trip to the store?”
--
“Wow, something smells delicious,” Dongwoo exclaimed when he and Howon stumbled in tiredly from the dance studio half an hour later. After kicking off his shoes, Dongwoo promptly crashed on the couch, ignoring Sungjong and Sungyeol’s protests over him being sweaty and gross. Sungyeol had come home about ten minutes earlier and ducked into the kitchen long enough to try to steal something from Woohyun’s cooking and get chased back out to the living room with a spatula.
“Yeah, um, this is my friend, Nam Woohyun.” Sunggyu rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and Woohyun turned around so he could see everyone from his position facing the stove. He waved with one hand, the other still holding a frying pan. “And these are my other two roommates, Dongwoo and Howon.”
Howon smiled and exchanged a quick greeting with Woohyun before heading straight for his room to grab a change of clothes and take a quick shower. Dongwoo waved enthusiastically from his position sprawled across Sungyeol and Sungjong’s legs.
“Seems like Sunggyu hyung managed to do something useful for once,” Sungyeol drawled teasingly. He shoved on Dongwoo’s legs and the elder slid to the floor, lying on his side and laughing. “By making friends with someone who can cook.”
“Yah, Lee Sungyeol,” Sunggyu snapped, scowling at his roommate.
“Maybe next time he’ll make friends with someone who likes to clean,” Sungjong said, complete with a disgustingly sweet smile. Dongwoo and Sungyeol both burst into laughter and Sungyeol reached over for a high five. Sunggyu pointedly turned so he was facing the kitchen and his back was to them. Without Sunggyu to bother, their conversation quickly changed to making fun of the romantic drama currently playing on the TV.
Sunggyu propped his elbows on the counter and briefly buried his face in his hands. He looked up when he heard Woohyun laughing softly.
“Your dorm certainly is lively,” Woohyun commented while deftly cutting tofu into cubes and sliding it from the cutting board into the frying pan. Sunggyu snorted and Woohyun grinned. They lapsed into silence, listening to the tofu sizzle and Sungjong and Sungyeol imitate the characters on TV in ridiculous voices while Dongwoo rolled around laughing by their feet.
“It’s nice,” Woohyun said finally. “I mean, both of my parents would work themselves into the ground if I let them, so it’s not like they’re around often. And since my brother moved out it’s just been really quiet all the time. Being around so many friends like this, it’s really nice.”
Sunggyu just hummed in response, and that seemed to be enough for Woohyun, who flashed a smile in Sunggyu’s direction before focusing once more on the food. Sunggyu swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. There wasn’t anything necessarily special about the situation, but something about Woohyun - how he was wearing a plain v-neck shirt and jeans, his glasses discarded and sitting on the counter because they kept steaming up and he claimed he could manage to see well enough without them - and the way he was concentrating so seriously on his cooking made Sunggyu’s stomach flutter. He told himself he was just feeling weird because he was hungry.
“Here, be useful,” Woohyun suddenly demanded, shoving a cutting board with green onions on it over towards Sunggyu.
“I’m your hyung,” Sunggyu grumbled. “Why are you ordering me around?” He took the knife Woohyun handed him anyways, and obediently started chopping. Just like the other ingredients he had helped cut up that night, the slices came out rather random and uneven in size. Woohyun snorted when he saw them, but added them in anyway.
Five minutes later everyone crowded around the coffee table in the living room, all six of them squishing together and knocking elbows as they tried to eat. Sungjong complained that the freshly showered Howon was dripping water on his shoulder, and Sungyeol continually stole food from Dongwoo while Dongwoo was talking to Woohyun. It was one of the most enjoyable meals Sunggyu could remember having, and the food tasted better than anything he’d had in a long time - unevenly cut vegetables and all.
--
The tenth Wednesday of the first semester of his senior year at university, Sunggyu hummed along with his iPod as he climbed the stairs to the library study area. In one hand he held a café latte for Woohyun, and in the other he had a bag with a muffin for himself. He reached the right level and headed straight for the table - their table - without hesitation.
There was someone else sitting next to Woohyun already, but Sunggyu shrugged it off. From the way Woohyun was animatedly talking to him, waving his arms around, it was obvious this was another of Woohyun’s many friends.
“Coffee’s here,” Sunggyu said brightly, placing the cup on the table and then reaching up to pull out one of his ear buds. Both of the table’s occupants turned to look at him, Woohyun with a smile and the other guy with a confused look.
“Someone’s in a good mood today,” Woohyun remarked as Sunggyu slid into one of the seats.
“Yeah, earlier I got my grade back for one of my midterms, and I did really well,” Sunggyu replied while he wrapped his headphones around his iPod and set it down on the table. He glanced over at Woohyun’s friend, who was staring at Woohyun’s coffee cup as if it might suddenly jump across the table and bite him. Somehow Sunggyu got the feeling that his intense stare was as much a part of the guy as his short black hair and handsome face.
“Wow, really? That’s awesome,” Woohyun said, his smile widening until his eyes all but disappeared. “Which cla-”
“Wait,” Woohyun’s friend suddenly cut in, holding up one hand and surprising both Woohyun and Sunggyu into silence. He turned his head to face Sunggyu, fixing his intent stare on the accounting major. “You’re Kim Sunggyu, correct?” Sunggyu nodded slowly, perplexed. “Ok. Then, did you really just bring Nam Woohyun a coffee drink?” Another nod. “Do you do this regularly? And does he drink them?”
“Ye-es?” Sunggyu drew the word out, giving the guy a strange look. He glanced at Woohyun, who was staring at his friend with something akin to absolute horror.
“But hyung,” Woohyun’s friend said, turning back towards Woohyun, “you hate cof-”
Woohyun quickly grabbed him in a headlock, effectively cutting him off.
“What was that, Kim Myungsoo?” Woohyun asked hurriedly. “You say you have to leave to go study with your friends? Well then, that’s just too bad. Better not keep them waiting!” He tightened his grip, and Myungsoo dissolved into helpless laughter. Woohyun glowered and started messing up the younger’s hair. Myungsoo tried to say something, but most of it got lost between laughter and Woohyun’s grip.
“Nicole said -” Sunggyu managed to hear, and “ - didn’t actually believe -” and something that could have been “got it really bad,” but it was also possible he’d heard that part wrong.
Sunggyu watched the entire scene with utter disbelief, eyebrows raised and mouth hanging open slightly. His brain was whirring at top speed, inferring and calculating he came to a conclusion that had him groaning with despair.
“You mean,” Sunggyu asked, making both Woohyun and Myungsoo temporarily fall quiet, “that I’ve wasted close to 30,000 won this semester buying you coffee you don’t even like?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it, per se,” Woohyun started, only to be interrupted by Myungsoo.
“One time Woohyun hyung said that he’d rather drink acid than coffee, because he figured the acid would probably taste better.”
Myungsoo let out a yelp of pain as Woohyun kicked him, then cracked up again when Woohyun gave Sunggyu a desperate look.
“I don’t usually like coffee, and I tried to tell you, but you just looked so sad and I felt like a horrible person so -”
“But my money,” Sunggyu interrupted plaintively. He sent sorrowful look towards his backpack, sitting innocently on the floor with his depressingly empty wallet inside.
“Well on the bright side, because you bought me coffee so much I’ve kind of gotten addicted and actually really like it now?” Woohyun stated it as a question, eyes crinkling with an apologetic smile. Sunggyu groaned again and let his head fall to the table, mumbling something about money and jobs and the lack thereof.
Myungsoo laughed so hard that he fell off his chair.
--
➯