ram3n [Prompt #32]
Title: ram3n
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2,669 words
Warnings: unbeta’d and awkward Yifan
Summary: College!au. They've been getting and eating instant noodles from the corner store at together 3 AM almost every night for weeks but never spoken a word to each other.
Notes: I really hope this is what you were looking for prompter! Also, I’m sorry if it’s not very good and sort of short, this is one of the first fics I have written in a while.
Yifan is pretty sure it is a college ritual. Staying up late and writing a paper over and over again while groaning at the computer because who in God’s name thought words were something he wanted to spend his entire night staring at until his eyes burn. Obviously his college professor did, and if he didn’t have a failing grade in English because of all of the previous papers he wrote in the dead of the night, he probably would have bullshitted this one too. But all good things must come to an end, so here he is, making an effort to write his paper two nights before it is due (quite the accomplishment if he does say so himself) in hopes of resurrecting a grade that had probably died two months ago. Naturally, Yifan would like to blame his lack of writing proficient papers on the fact that he never got a notice of when his papers were due, but in college that does not quite cut it.
When his professor passed out a syllabus in the beginning of the year, Yifan recalled there being a chart of when all of their important papers were due. So he took it upon himself to take the information and put it to good use by throwing it into the trashcan, which says a lot because normally he would purposefully miss and wait for his roommate to pick it up.
On a side note, he is convinced his roommate does not mind the fact that he sometimes leaves crumpled paper balls strewn across the floor because he has not had the delight of any firecrackers in their toilet since the beginning of the year.
It is around two in the morning when Yifan decides to call it quits. He has gotten about three-fourths of his paper written down and he is tired of hearing his roommate’s whining of how it was too late at night to be doing anything that involved his future because according to him, he was not meant to have a fulfilling one anyway. Yifan closes his computer and sighs in resignation, waiting for its hum to die before standing up and walking over to their tiny, sad excuse of a pantry in hopes of having something nourishing (read: unhealthy) to eat before going to bed. Instead, as he opens the white door, a tiny note sits in the place where he normally keeps his ramen noodles. He picks up said note and instantly recognizes the familiar penmanship on the post-it note:
IOU three packets of ramen. -Jongdae
Yifan scoffs at the tiny slip of paper between his fingers before stuffing it in his pocket. He takes out his wallet to see if he has any money left and finds two dollars to work with until he gets his paycheck the day after tomorrow. Yifan figures he has enough to buy some more ramen for the next few days, so he decides on just that. Grabbing his jacket from his bed and shuffling on his shoes, he heads out to the nearest place open at this hour that is selling ramen, making a mental note to eat all of Jongdae’s favorite cereal before he leaves for his morning class tomorrow.
---
“That will be 50¢,” the cashier says while bagging Yifan’s ramen into a cheap plastic bag. Yifan hands over one of his two bills and then takes his change from the cashier before walking over to the coffee area to put some hot water in his noodles. He takes his noodles out of the bag before opening the paper lid halfway and filling it with the water and closing it. A few moments later, his noodles are done so he takes some chopsticks from a container and walks outside with his late dinner.
It’s around three and Yifan is leaning against the wall outside, almost done with his noodles, when another person walks inside the convenience store. They walk back out with a cup of noodles between their hands much like Yifan had done earlier before leaning against the wall about ten feet away from him. From this distance, Yifan is able to see the person is about a head shorter than him and he’s wearing headphones, a baggy sweatshirt and some cargo shorts along with mismatched shoes. Yifan finds the last part a little weird, but also understandable since nobody is awake enough to dress themselves properly at this hour. Disinterested in this stranger, he chews on one of his last peas before deciding he’s done with his dinner. He then promptly throws the empty cup in the trashcan, readjusts his jacket, and walks back to his dorm to finally call it a night.
---
The next day Yifan feels like he wants to murder everyone; figuratively, of course.
“Wow, you look dead,” mutters Luhan from across the table as he takes his own seat across from Yifan, instantly stealing some of the chips he has on his plate. Yifan doesn’t mind that really, what bothers him more is how obnoxious his voice is and how he wishes he would have picked a better friend to spend time with at lunch.
“Yeah, I know,” is all Yifan offers as he falls back into his previous silence, pondering his life decisions in the meantime.
“So what did you stay up for?” Luhan continues as he surveys the rest of Yifan’s food.
“English paper.”
Luhan takes his eyes off of the food and animatedly gasps at that, sending one of the pieces of chip he was chewing on Yifan’s face.
“Damn! That was due today? I have that class in an hour! Sorry but I’m going to have to go and get that done because I can’t afford to get a C in that class,” Luhan rambles as he picks up his stuff he had only previously set down. Before Yifan can even react, Luhan is striding out of the cafeteria at a surprisingly frantic pace and Yifan half expects him to trip but he manages to clear the place unscathed.
“Great talk,” Yifan mutters to himself as he picks at his food and falls back into silence.
---
That night, when Yifan finally finishes his stupid paper, he decides it’s time to go eat his dinner and pray that his essay is good enough to bump him up to a C.
He makes his way back to the same little store he chose to visit last night, but this time a bit later. Yifan walks in at the same time he sees the person with the mismatched shoes from yesterday head down the ramen aisle and return back to the cashier with his cup. The split second he does get to catch a glimpse of their face, he realizes that this mismatched shoe person is a brunet male with a sort of spacey look in his eyes.
They say first impressions mean everything, and from the looks of it, he’s pretty sure this guy just smoked a joint.
He walks down the aisle himself and grabs a beef flavored ramen before making his way to stand behind mismatched shoes, who is currently waiting behind a man who is complaining to the cashier about there being a problem with the gas dispenser not accepting his credit card. After a few moments of bickering amongst the two, mismatched shoes interrupts them with a higher voice than Yifan was expecting.
“Um, I know this may sound weird, but if you run the card in the opposite direction, it normally works for me,” says mismatched shoes.
The disgruntled man gives him a curious look before nodding and heading out of the little store to check if it works. Mismatched shoes smiles as he steps forward, the cashier giving him a warm smile in return.
“Thanks, Yixing. I really don’t know how I would have gotten that guy off my back if you wouldn’t have lied a second ago,” he remarks as he scans his noodles and takes the money the man now known as Yixing offers.
“Oh, it wasn’t a lie. That’s really how you get it to work,” he responds while taking his change and ramen and then walking over to the coffee machines to fix it up. Yifan then buys his own ramen before joining Yixing by the machines and dispensing water into his own noodle cup.
They don’t say a word to each other as they wait the two minutes for their noodles to cook, which Yifan finds extremely awkward. The moment he does think about offering a friendly “Hello” to Yixing, said brunet takes his noodles and a pair of chopsticks before walking outside, standing in the same place Yifan had seen him the night before. In just a few moments, Yifan’s own noodles are ready so he grabs a pair of his own chopsticks and heads outside, taking his place ten feet away from the brunet, quietly eating his steaming noodles. When Yifan is halfway done with his noodles, he decides to pay the brunet a glance and he takes a moment to survey him. With his eyes not being fully adjusted to the dark, Yifan doesn’t see much of his face so he decides to take a few quiet steps towards him, reducing their distance to about six or seven feet.
Here, Yifan can see his features a bit more clearly and he realizes that Yixing doesn’t really look like he has just smoked a joint, instead he looks more serene which Yifan thinks suits his facial features incredibly well. He decides to look away from Yixing before being presumed as a creep and finishes his noodles before throwing the rest in the trashcan and making his way back to his dorm room.
Yifan doesn’t realize the pair of eyes that follow him as he walks away.
---
He goes the next day, and the day after that because of the workload he is currently getting from his professors. It’s almost natural for him to stay up until three in the morning every night, so he decides he has nothing better to do than get some ramen from the shop.
It goes on like that for weeks, maybe months as he becomes as curious as ever to get to know more about the brunet, as weird as it sounds. He isn’t sure why Yixing piqued his interest, or why he decided to establish eating noodles at that little shop as a nightly routine, but it happened, and it’s only been awkward since.
Yifan doesn’t make a point to start up a conversation and Yixing doesn’t either, so they just stand there in the early morning, noodle cups in hand, eating in silence before one of them throws their cup in the trashcan and leaves down the street.
Good things have come out of the frequent visits Yifan has made to said shop. He’s learned that Yixing goes to a college near his own and that he’s majoring in psychology and is currently working on a year-long project-which Yifan presumes is the reason for his mismatched shoes he has always seen the shorter male sporting. He also has learned that Yixing also really loves to dance and is interested in the arts, which explains why some nights he has different colors of dried paint in his hair. From what Yifan has heard through the conversations Yixing has held with the cashier, he has begun to find Yixing rather endearing.
So Yifan takes it upon himself to strike up a conversation with him one night; he doesn’t know how he’s going to do it, but he is going to do it. He makes a point of looking better than most nights, brushing his hair a bit and putting on rather decent clothes in hopes of impressing the brunet. He also gets there a bit earlier than Yixing normally does and makes his cup of noodles. By the time they are done cooking, Yixing enters, heading down the noodle aisle and retrieving a cup of noodles for himself and paying for them. Yifan can feel the cashier staring at him while he takes his noodles and chopsticks outside but decides to ignore it in favor of focusing on the current task at hand. He then gets in his normal spot and waits for Yixing to emerge from the shop. A few minutes or so later, he comes out with his noodles in hand and stands in his spot, not saying anything as usual.
Yifan takes a few moments to think about how he should approach him and decides he should do it when Yixing is almost done with his ramen. He opens his own cup of ramen and begins to stir it and takes a few noodles into his mouth. He belatedly realizes a few bites in that he has put coffee instead of water into his ramen cup, two things which should never be allowed to go together in the same cup. Yifan holds himself back from spitting out the noodles in his mouth and decides to gulp it down. Ready to throw his wasted dinner in the trashcan, he nearly jumps in surprise as he hears Yixing speak to him from only a few feet away.
“Did you really put coffee in your ramen? How tired are you tonight?” Yixing smiles as he says this, taking another bit of his noodles into his mouth. Scandalized, Yifan turns toward him, closes the paper lid over his ruined ramen and tries his best to spit out a remark.
“I was going for something different. I can eat unhealthy and get caffeinated at the same time,” is all Yifan manages to splutter out, realizing too late how lame it actually sounds coming out of his mouth. Yixing laughs at him, eyes turning into tiny crescents and a dimple appearing on his right cheek, something he had never noticed before.
“Yeah, okay,” is what Yixing responds before turning his attention back to his noodles and eating a few more bites. Yifan then realizes just how close Yixing is to him, maybe one or two feet away, a distance of which he is sure is the closest they have ever been to each other. When Yixing chews, he also realizes that his dimple is always apparent, something Yifan wishes he would have realized sooner because it was ridiculously cute. As they are this close, all Yifan does is stare awkwardly at Yixing, his coffee noodles long forgotten. He’s pretty sure he may seem like a creep, but Yifan doesn’t know what to say after embarrassing himself to such an extent.
It’s about five minutes later when Yixing looks up at Yifan with a smile (who was still staring) because he had finished his noodles. Yifan blushes a bit, something he normally doesn’t do but the situation he is in is not normal in the least, and tries to think of an excuse as why he was caught staring, but Yixing speaks before he has the chance.
“Look, we’ve been staring at each other for weeks and I’ve been waiting for you to strike a conversation with me,” he starts while he takes out a pre-made piece of paper from his pocket, “but you were taking too long and I really hope this is the reason you’ve been staring at me or else this is just going to be awkward,” Yixing finishes as he hands over the piece of paper. Yifan looks it over in his fingers, words stuck in his throat as he tries to compose his awkward self:
Call me: 555-2930 -Yixing
Yixing starts taking a few steps towards his normal route and offers Yifan a shy smile when he finally looks up from the paper, which Yifan responds to with a smile back. Yixing then takes that as a cue to leave and Yifan is left with that tiny slip of paper in his hands, wondering how he managed to score this guy’s number after barely saying a single sentence to him.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2,669 words
Warnings: unbeta’d and awkward Yifan
Summary: College!au. They've been getting and eating instant noodles from the corner store at together 3 AM almost every night for weeks but never spoken a word to each other.
Notes: I really hope this is what you were looking for prompter! Also, I’m sorry if it’s not very good and sort of short, this is one of the first fics I have written in a while.
Yifan is pretty sure it is a college ritual. Staying up late and writing a paper over and over again while groaning at the computer because who in God’s name thought words were something he wanted to spend his entire night staring at until his eyes burn. Obviously his college professor did, and if he didn’t have a failing grade in English because of all of the previous papers he wrote in the dead of the night, he probably would have bullshitted this one too. But all good things must come to an end, so here he is, making an effort to write his paper two nights before it is due (quite the accomplishment if he does say so himself) in hopes of resurrecting a grade that had probably died two months ago. Naturally, Yifan would like to blame his lack of writing proficient papers on the fact that he never got a notice of when his papers were due, but in college that does not quite cut it.
When his professor passed out a syllabus in the beginning of the year, Yifan recalled there being a chart of when all of their important papers were due. So he took it upon himself to take the information and put it to good use by throwing it into the trashcan, which says a lot because normally he would purposefully miss and wait for his roommate to pick it up.
On a side note, he is convinced his roommate does not mind the fact that he sometimes leaves crumpled paper balls strewn across the floor because he has not had the delight of any firecrackers in their toilet since the beginning of the year.
It is around two in the morning when Yifan decides to call it quits. He has gotten about three-fourths of his paper written down and he is tired of hearing his roommate’s whining of how it was too late at night to be doing anything that involved his future because according to him, he was not meant to have a fulfilling one anyway. Yifan closes his computer and sighs in resignation, waiting for its hum to die before standing up and walking over to their tiny, sad excuse of a pantry in hopes of having something nourishing (read: unhealthy) to eat before going to bed. Instead, as he opens the white door, a tiny note sits in the place where he normally keeps his ramen noodles. He picks up said note and instantly recognizes the familiar penmanship on the post-it note:
IOU three packets of ramen. -Jongdae
Yifan scoffs at the tiny slip of paper between his fingers before stuffing it in his pocket. He takes out his wallet to see if he has any money left and finds two dollars to work with until he gets his paycheck the day after tomorrow. Yifan figures he has enough to buy some more ramen for the next few days, so he decides on just that. Grabbing his jacket from his bed and shuffling on his shoes, he heads out to the nearest place open at this hour that is selling ramen, making a mental note to eat all of Jongdae’s favorite cereal before he leaves for his morning class tomorrow.
---
“That will be 50¢,” the cashier says while bagging Yifan’s ramen into a cheap plastic bag. Yifan hands over one of his two bills and then takes his change from the cashier before walking over to the coffee area to put some hot water in his noodles. He takes his noodles out of the bag before opening the paper lid halfway and filling it with the water and closing it. A few moments later, his noodles are done so he takes some chopsticks from a container and walks outside with his late dinner.
It’s around three and Yifan is leaning against the wall outside, almost done with his noodles, when another person walks inside the convenience store. They walk back out with a cup of noodles between their hands much like Yifan had done earlier before leaning against the wall about ten feet away from him. From this distance, Yifan is able to see the person is about a head shorter than him and he’s wearing headphones, a baggy sweatshirt and some cargo shorts along with mismatched shoes. Yifan finds the last part a little weird, but also understandable since nobody is awake enough to dress themselves properly at this hour. Disinterested in this stranger, he chews on one of his last peas before deciding he’s done with his dinner. He then promptly throws the empty cup in the trashcan, readjusts his jacket, and walks back to his dorm to finally call it a night.
---
The next day Yifan feels like he wants to murder everyone; figuratively, of course.
“Wow, you look dead,” mutters Luhan from across the table as he takes his own seat across from Yifan, instantly stealing some of the chips he has on his plate. Yifan doesn’t mind that really, what bothers him more is how obnoxious his voice is and how he wishes he would have picked a better friend to spend time with at lunch.
“Yeah, I know,” is all Yifan offers as he falls back into his previous silence, pondering his life decisions in the meantime.
“So what did you stay up for?” Luhan continues as he surveys the rest of Yifan’s food.
“English paper.”
Luhan takes his eyes off of the food and animatedly gasps at that, sending one of the pieces of chip he was chewing on Yifan’s face.
“Damn! That was due today? I have that class in an hour! Sorry but I’m going to have to go and get that done because I can’t afford to get a C in that class,” Luhan rambles as he picks up his stuff he had only previously set down. Before Yifan can even react, Luhan is striding out of the cafeteria at a surprisingly frantic pace and Yifan half expects him to trip but he manages to clear the place unscathed.
“Great talk,” Yifan mutters to himself as he picks at his food and falls back into silence.
---
That night, when Yifan finally finishes his stupid paper, he decides it’s time to go eat his dinner and pray that his essay is good enough to bump him up to a C.
He makes his way back to the same little store he chose to visit last night, but this time a bit later. Yifan walks in at the same time he sees the person with the mismatched shoes from yesterday head down the ramen aisle and return back to the cashier with his cup. The split second he does get to catch a glimpse of their face, he realizes that this mismatched shoe person is a brunet male with a sort of spacey look in his eyes.
They say first impressions mean everything, and from the looks of it, he’s pretty sure this guy just smoked a joint.
He walks down the aisle himself and grabs a beef flavored ramen before making his way to stand behind mismatched shoes, who is currently waiting behind a man who is complaining to the cashier about there being a problem with the gas dispenser not accepting his credit card. After a few moments of bickering amongst the two, mismatched shoes interrupts them with a higher voice than Yifan was expecting.
“Um, I know this may sound weird, but if you run the card in the opposite direction, it normally works for me,” says mismatched shoes.
The disgruntled man gives him a curious look before nodding and heading out of the little store to check if it works. Mismatched shoes smiles as he steps forward, the cashier giving him a warm smile in return.
“Thanks, Yixing. I really don’t know how I would have gotten that guy off my back if you wouldn’t have lied a second ago,” he remarks as he scans his noodles and takes the money the man now known as Yixing offers.
“Oh, it wasn’t a lie. That’s really how you get it to work,” he responds while taking his change and ramen and then walking over to the coffee machines to fix it up. Yifan then buys his own ramen before joining Yixing by the machines and dispensing water into his own noodle cup.
They don’t say a word to each other as they wait the two minutes for their noodles to cook, which Yifan finds extremely awkward. The moment he does think about offering a friendly “Hello” to Yixing, said brunet takes his noodles and a pair of chopsticks before walking outside, standing in the same place Yifan had seen him the night before. In just a few moments, Yifan’s own noodles are ready so he grabs a pair of his own chopsticks and heads outside, taking his place ten feet away from the brunet, quietly eating his steaming noodles. When Yifan is halfway done with his noodles, he decides to pay the brunet a glance and he takes a moment to survey him. With his eyes not being fully adjusted to the dark, Yifan doesn’t see much of his face so he decides to take a few quiet steps towards him, reducing their distance to about six or seven feet.
Here, Yifan can see his features a bit more clearly and he realizes that Yixing doesn’t really look like he has just smoked a joint, instead he looks more serene which Yifan thinks suits his facial features incredibly well. He decides to look away from Yixing before being presumed as a creep and finishes his noodles before throwing the rest in the trashcan and making his way back to his dorm room.
Yifan doesn’t realize the pair of eyes that follow him as he walks away.
---
He goes the next day, and the day after that because of the workload he is currently getting from his professors. It’s almost natural for him to stay up until three in the morning every night, so he decides he has nothing better to do than get some ramen from the shop.
It goes on like that for weeks, maybe months as he becomes as curious as ever to get to know more about the brunet, as weird as it sounds. He isn’t sure why Yixing piqued his interest, or why he decided to establish eating noodles at that little shop as a nightly routine, but it happened, and it’s only been awkward since.
Yifan doesn’t make a point to start up a conversation and Yixing doesn’t either, so they just stand there in the early morning, noodle cups in hand, eating in silence before one of them throws their cup in the trashcan and leaves down the street.
Good things have come out of the frequent visits Yifan has made to said shop. He’s learned that Yixing goes to a college near his own and that he’s majoring in psychology and is currently working on a year-long project-which Yifan presumes is the reason for his mismatched shoes he has always seen the shorter male sporting. He also has learned that Yixing also really loves to dance and is interested in the arts, which explains why some nights he has different colors of dried paint in his hair. From what Yifan has heard through the conversations Yixing has held with the cashier, he has begun to find Yixing rather endearing.
So Yifan takes it upon himself to strike up a conversation with him one night; he doesn’t know how he’s going to do it, but he is going to do it. He makes a point of looking better than most nights, brushing his hair a bit and putting on rather decent clothes in hopes of impressing the brunet. He also gets there a bit earlier than Yixing normally does and makes his cup of noodles. By the time they are done cooking, Yixing enters, heading down the noodle aisle and retrieving a cup of noodles for himself and paying for them. Yifan can feel the cashier staring at him while he takes his noodles and chopsticks outside but decides to ignore it in favor of focusing on the current task at hand. He then gets in his normal spot and waits for Yixing to emerge from the shop. A few minutes or so later, he comes out with his noodles in hand and stands in his spot, not saying anything as usual.
Yifan takes a few moments to think about how he should approach him and decides he should do it when Yixing is almost done with his ramen. He opens his own cup of ramen and begins to stir it and takes a few noodles into his mouth. He belatedly realizes a few bites in that he has put coffee instead of water into his ramen cup, two things which should never be allowed to go together in the same cup. Yifan holds himself back from spitting out the noodles in his mouth and decides to gulp it down. Ready to throw his wasted dinner in the trashcan, he nearly jumps in surprise as he hears Yixing speak to him from only a few feet away.
“Did you really put coffee in your ramen? How tired are you tonight?” Yixing smiles as he says this, taking another bit of his noodles into his mouth. Scandalized, Yifan turns toward him, closes the paper lid over his ruined ramen and tries his best to spit out a remark.
“I was going for something different. I can eat unhealthy and get caffeinated at the same time,” is all Yifan manages to splutter out, realizing too late how lame it actually sounds coming out of his mouth. Yixing laughs at him, eyes turning into tiny crescents and a dimple appearing on his right cheek, something he had never noticed before.
“Yeah, okay,” is what Yixing responds before turning his attention back to his noodles and eating a few more bites. Yifan then realizes just how close Yixing is to him, maybe one or two feet away, a distance of which he is sure is the closest they have ever been to each other. When Yixing chews, he also realizes that his dimple is always apparent, something Yifan wishes he would have realized sooner because it was ridiculously cute. As they are this close, all Yifan does is stare awkwardly at Yixing, his coffee noodles long forgotten. He’s pretty sure he may seem like a creep, but Yifan doesn’t know what to say after embarrassing himself to such an extent.
It’s about five minutes later when Yixing looks up at Yifan with a smile (who was still staring) because he had finished his noodles. Yifan blushes a bit, something he normally doesn’t do but the situation he is in is not normal in the least, and tries to think of an excuse as why he was caught staring, but Yixing speaks before he has the chance.
“Look, we’ve been staring at each other for weeks and I’ve been waiting for you to strike a conversation with me,” he starts while he takes out a pre-made piece of paper from his pocket, “but you were taking too long and I really hope this is the reason you’ve been staring at me or else this is just going to be awkward,” Yixing finishes as he hands over the piece of paper. Yifan looks it over in his fingers, words stuck in his throat as he tries to compose his awkward self:
Call me: 555-2930 -Yixing
Yixing starts taking a few steps towards his normal route and offers Yifan a shy smile when he finally looks up from the paper, which Yifan responds to with a smile back. Yixing then takes that as a cue to leave and Yifan is left with that tiny slip of paper in his hands, wondering how he managed to score this guy’s number after barely saying a single sentence to him.