Wake me up (Wake me up inside) for psharp10

May 29, 2015 21:39

Title: Wake me up (Wake me up inside)
For: psharp10
Author: galestrikes
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2228w
Summary: Minseok is a guy that values sleep more than most people.



It’s about 5pm in the afternoon when Minseok, arms laden with groceries, notices the moving truck outside his apartment building. Burly workers come in and out, each carrying pieces of furniture of varying sizes and colors. He edges past one with a smile and an apology when he accidentally jostles a box that gives off the dangerous sound of glass striking glass.

It’s when Minseok reaches his floor he realizes that they were moving everything into the previously vacant apartment next to his. There’s a guy standing outside the door, ushering the movers in and out of the apartment, his soft voice chiding them to be mindful of the “FRAGILE” boxes. The guy’s wearing a beanie emblazoned with the logo from some anime he remembers Chanyeol watching a few years ago. He’s short and slight, his jeans clinging tight to his slim waist and shapely legs, and his graphic tee hangs loosely around his chest.

He turns around when Minseok clears his throat and stares at him for a moment before his face splits into a smile and wow, that’s bright. He sticks out a hand. “Hi! You must be my new neighbor, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I live next door.” He stands there awkwardly because the guy is kinda blinding him and it’s getting a little difficult to keep his eyes open. “My name’s Minseok.”

The guy looks at him for another long moment, his hand hanging awkwardly in the air before him. “Here, let me help you with those. “ He reaches forward and takes a bag out of Minseok’s grip before Minseok can protest.

“It’s nice to meet you, Minseok,” he says with a smile, leaning over and taking Minseok’s hand in a surprisingly firm shake. “I’m Junmyeon.”

Minseok stares at their hands, wondering if he should consider it rude that Junmyeon suddenly decided to shake his hand, but he decides to let it go.

“So, uh. I guess we should move these to your apartment, right?” Junmyeon says.

“Oh, right. My apartment,” Minseok says intelligently. He walks over to his door, fiddling with his keys and jostling it a little bit into the lock because the damn thing never really works properly. He tosses the key ring into the dish on the wall unit next to the door and deposits his groceries on the kitchen counter.

“Nice place,” Junmyeon says easily with a smile. He sets down his set of groceries and nudges the soccer ball near them with his foot. “You play soccer?”

“Sometimes,” Minseok says. He takes out the box of coffee beans and lays it on the counter. “It’s more like a hobby if anything.”

“I see,” Junmyeon mumbles. He takes out the gallon of milk and stores it in Minseok’s fridge. “I’ve never been really good at sports. Too clumsy.”

Minseok gives a small hmm in response and gets back to sorting his groceries. Junmyeon helps, humming some tuneless song softly as he stacks packets of gummy bears and chocolates into a tiny pyramid.

Other than Junmyeon’s humming, they work in relatively comfortable silence. Minseok’s gaze flickers over to Junmyeon every now and again, taking in his handsome features, his long eyelashes, smooth skin, long nose and god, even his eyebrows are handsome. They’re done in about fifteen minutes, which is about the same time when one of the movers knocks on Minseok’s door and tells
Junmyeon that everything is settled in.

Junmyeon smiles at him and pulls his beanie lower over his forehead. “Well, I guess that means I should take off, huh?”

“Yeah…” Minseok kinda doesn’t want him to go yet. They didn’t really talk much but there’s just something… comfortable about Junmyeon. Like, comfortable in the sense that they didn’t really need to talk much. Of course, Minseok doesn’t say this out loud, so he just sticks with a smooth, “Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it,” Junmyeon says easily. He walks over to the doorway, pausing when he puts his hand on the doorknob. “I guess I’ll see you around, neighbor.” He gives Minseok another blinding smile before opening the door and walking out, closing the door with a gentle click!

Minseok sighs softly, opening up the back of gummy bears and popping one into his mouth.

It’s sweet.

Minseok likes to think of himself as a pretty chill, laid back kind of guy. He’s usually pretty calm, soft spoken, and mild-mannered to a fault. It’s one of the things that people tend to like about him.

He likes to think it’s because he sleeps a lot. (Around nine hours a day plus a cat nap peppered here and there. Zitao tries to tell him that it’s probably not healthy to sleep as much as he does, but then again Zitao almost always looks like he gets about three hours of sleep a year, so what does he know?)

Sleep is a beautiful thing. There’s just something, well, beautiful about having that one period of the day where you let the tension bleed out from your body and clear your mind. There’s something beautiful in the way that you’re at your safest when you’re alone in your bed, curled up under your sheets, warm and secure. There’s something beautiful in the way that your pillow can become a television for thoughts to become dreams.

Sleep is just beautiful.

What isn’t beautiful is waking up, especially to an alarm. Minseok doesn’t own an alarm. He relies more on his internal clock, which never fails to wake him up at the same time every day, 8:45am. It’s precisely for this reason that Minseok is more than slightly annoyed when he hears the sound of some crappy overly auto-tuned Japanese pop song breaking the peaceful silence of his bedroom. It’s loud, but still muffled, so it’s probably coming from one of his neighbors, which is odd because in the three years Minseok has lived in this apartment he has never once heard an alarm clock this loud and obnoxious.

He reaches over and grabs his cellphone off the nightstand. The numbers blinking back at him read 5:15am. He groans, and buries his head underneath his pillow to try and drown out the music to no avail. If anything, the music just ends up getting louder and louder, and it gets to the point that Minseok throws his duvet off his body and stomps over to the wall, pounding his fist on it to try and make whoever’s playing it to shut the fuck up.

It seems to work, because after about ten seconds the music suddenly cuts off. Minseok sighs in relief and shuffles back over to his bed. He lays there for a few minutes, hoping that sleep will come and overtake him, only that it doesn’t, which is odd, because Minseok has never had a real problem of falling asleep before.

He huffs. Maybe it’s my pillow? He turns it over and buries his face into the cool fabric. It doesn’t help.

Maybe it’s my blanket… He tries sleeping without his covers for as long as he can before his aircon comes back to life and threatens to freeze his balls off.

Minseok tries in vain to fall back asleep. He even tries counting sheep, but by the 325th sheep he realizes that it’s almost time for him wake up. He lets out a whimper and drags his body out of bed and tries to swear to himself that he won’t let it affect his performance at work.

“What’s wrong with you?” Zitao asks him later that day as the both of them are standing behind the main counter of the gym.

“Didn’t sleep well last night,” Minseok mumbles back. He’s resting his forehead against the cool glass, his breath causes tiny droplets of moisture to bead on the surface and stick to his cheeks.

“Really? That’s not like you,” Zitao says as he absentmindedly flips through the newest issue of Men’s Health that he swiped from the coffee table in the middle of the lobby of the gym. “You sick or something?”

“No,” Minseok replies moodily. His eyelids stick together longer when he blinks. His really annoying. “It’s one of my neighbors. I have no idea why but one of them-”

“Heads up,” Zitao interrupts, giving him a pinch under the arm. The bell above the front door of the gym chimes. “Fresh meat.”
Minseok grudgingly sits up, rubbing at his eyes with a yawn as Zitao goes through the motions of welcoming the new customer.

“Minseok? Is that you?” Minseok’s eyes snap open to see Junmyeon standing on the other side of the counter. He’s dressed in a pair of form fitting sweatpants and a loose tank top and looks really good.

“You two know each other?” Zitao asks, his catlike eyes darting back and forth between them.

“Neighbors,” says Minseok dumbly. “He just moved in next door. We’re neighbors.”

“Yeah,” Junmyeon says with a laugh. “Neighbors.”

Zitao hums. “Neighbors. Okay.” There’s a hint of mischief in his eyes and Minseok doesn’t like, but he decides not to vocalize his opinion because Junmyeon is right there and Minseok doesn’t trust Zitao’s mouth.

“Anyway, what are you doing here?” Minseok asks Junmyeon, resting his cheek against the palm of his hand and his elbows bear most of his weight.

“I’m here to sign up for a membership,” Junmyeon says. He fiddles with the strap of his gym bag. “Y’know, to work out.”

“Right, work out.” Minseok straightens his spine and walks over to the computer. “Well, I can get you signed up if you could just come over here…”

The entire process takes about fifteen minutes and it takes another five to print out Junmyeon’s gym ID. “Thanks.” Junmyeon says with another blinding smile that has Minseok blinking away spots from his eyes.

“No problem,” Minseok turns to Zitao. “Do you wanna give him the tour now?”

“Actually I’m going on my lunch break right now.” Zitao says quickly.

“It’s 10:30.”

“Brunch break. Anyway, see you later!” Zitao squeezes past Minseok and shuffles out the door.

“Well, I guess I’ll just give you the tour then.” Minseok presses his palm gently against the small of Junmyeon’s back. “Just. Y’know. Follow me.”

While they’re walking through the free weights section Minseok can’t help but notice the smooth lines of Junmyeon’s back through the thin fabric of his tank top. He also notices Junmyeon’s lips are moving, but Minseok can’t really seem to hear him.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“Oh, um. Well, I’ve been meaning to start bench pressing but never really had a spotter…” He shuffles his feet a little bit. “Do you think you can give me a hand?”

“Oh! Sure. Uh, do you wanna lay down for me?”

“Of course.” Junmyeon lays his back flat on the bench and looks at him expectantly. “You ready?”

“Yeah, sure.” Minseok walks over to the head of the bench but tries to keep his distance because wow, Junmyeon’s head is like right next to his crotch.

“Why are you so far away?” Junmyeon looks up at him with a smile. “Don’t be so shy.”

Minseok swallows down a gallon of saliva and scoots closer. His back is bent at an awkward angle because, again, Junmyeon’s head is right next to his crotch. He leans over and takes a handful of a barbell and at Junmyeon’s signal, braces his feet against the floor and lifts. To his credit, Junmyeon seems to be doing alright. The muscles in his arms tense and relax as lifts, and his breath fans against Minseok’s crotch and wow.

“So, Minseok,” Junmyeon grits out between clenched teeth. “Do you wear boxers or briefs?”

Minseok nearly loses his grip on the barbell and uses all he can to keep himself from accidentally killing Junmyeon. “W-Why do you ask?”

Junmyeon smiles, and exhales again. “No reason.”

It becomes somewhat of a routine for the two of them. Minseok ends up spotting Junmyeon twice a week, on Saturdays and Sundays. They make small talk, about as casual as one can have when one participant has their face practically buried between the other’s legs.

He finds out that Junmyeon works at some hotshot accounting firm, and that he graduated from one of the best universities in the city. He also learns that Junmyeon has been taking yoga since he was in high school and can do a near perfect split.Junmyeon is all awkward smiles and soft laughs, crescent eyes and white teeth. He's just lovely.

His sessions with Junmyeon somehow manage to make him a bit less cranky because he hasn't been getting his usual nine hours because he still manages to get woken up by the same fucking alarm for the past week and a half.

It's a Wednesday and the same alarm permeates through the walls of Minseok's room and it also happens to be the last fucking straw.

Now, Minseok is a pretty understanding guy, so he’s tried to ignore it as best as he could for the past twelve days, but even for someone as patient as he is there tends to be a breaking point.

He grabs his robe, tying the knot the tiniest bit too tight and yanks his front door open. He follows the sound of the music and bangs incessantly on the door until it finally opens.

“Do you have any idea what fucking time it is? It’s five thirty in the morning! Five fucking thirty! I've tried to ignore you and your fucking clock for as long as I could and I can't fucking take it anymore so shut it off or I swear to God I’ll go in there and throw your clock outside the Goddamn window!”

When he's done, he stands there for next few minutes, breathing heavily and his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

A tiny “oh,” is what he gets in response. When Minseok's eyes clear and he’s no longer seeing red, his eyesight finally focuses for him to see that it’s Junmyeon standing on the other side of the door. Junmyeon stares at him, eyes wide, probably having just woken up himself. His hair is sticking up at odd angles and there’s a bit of dried drool on his chin. “I’m sorry,” he says in a tiny voice.

Minseok stands there, all of his anger flooding out of him in a rush. "Shit, Junmyeon, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that it was you, I just-"

Junmyeon puts a hand on his shoulder and Minseok finally remembers how to breathe. "No, no, it's okay. You're right." He gives him a smile. "I didn't realize how loud my alarm clock was."

"I still feel bad, though..." Minseok shuffles his feet. "Listen, how about breakfast? I'll treat."

Junmyeon smiles again and runs a hand through his hair. "I'd like that. I'd really like that."

a/n: what is this asdfghjhjk im sorry if this wasnt exactly what you wanted! i hope you like it

for:psharp10, pairing:xiuho, rating:pg15

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