Chapter Text
In hindsight, chemistry was a terrible major.
There were too many words and numbers and not enough cute classmates in any of his laboratory classes, and their lab coats weren’t super fashionable either. Seungkwan had taken to embroidering his with adorable little patches he picked up from Hongdae, even though this was a flagrant defiance of their laboratory rules. He was a grad student at this point—what where they going to do, take away his undergraduate degree?
Anyway.
Seungkwan was very good with both words and numbers, and while the field work came naturally to him, chemistry was a terrible major because it meant spilling all types of shit on his clothes.
It’s not like it hasn’t happened before—his small collection of chemical-stained T-shirts can show for that. It’s just that. This time, it was one of his favorite jeans: light washed and distressed. This time, it was an iron complex that stained everything in its path a dark blue color. This time, it absolutely did not wash out.
“Oh, it’ll be fine, Boo. It’ll just look like tie-dye or something,” Joshua tutted, rolling his eyes at Seungkwan’s theatrics and going back to the assay he was finishing up. “I think it did your jeans a favor.”
Joshua-hyung is older than me, he reminds himself, when he angles his body to dropkick the older boy and decides against it. He huffs loudly and shrugs off his lab coat, making a beeline for the common washroom on their floor of laboratories. What he had in mind was futile—this shit will literally not wash out with water. But, he’ll settle for damage control and try to wash out as much as he can.
Seungkwan was sure, oh-so positive that no other research associates were in that day aside from him and Joshua. He’s sure, because he checked the entrance log twice before coming up to pick up where he left off on his experiments. So, he doesn’t hesitate to slip off his jeans and remain in his tangerine-print boxers at the sink in the bathroom. The plan was to wash out what iron complex he could, then dry the spot under the hand driers. Solid plan.
What he doesn’t account for is a boy coming in the washroom, looking up just as Seungkwan hits the high note in the Ailee song he was singing. It was a precarious sight, he was sure: a 5-foot-something blond man in tangerine-clad boxers washing a pair of jeans in a sink, humming loudly to non-existent music. Their eyes meet. It takes all of his energy to not self-implode right then and there.
“Uhm,” the other boy starts, crinkling his brow in a way Seungkwan wasn’t sure about, “right.” He nods once and shuffles past him, into one of the stalls.
Chemistry was a terrible major.
It was a terrible major because it would be the only one that would get him in this kind of situation. Except for maybe fine or culinary arts, or something. Of course, Seungkwan thinks. It wasn’t enough that his favorite pair of jeans got ruined by an unwashable chemical. This also had to happen.
He mutters expletives to himself like fuck and shit and Boo Seungkwan you should start looking into other universities now because you certainly can’t stay here after something like that as he brings his jeans to the hand driers. He wonders when did one second suddenly felt like it went on for five.
By some divine intervention, the spot on the jeans dries up quickly and he slips them back on, speed-walking back to his lab. Joshua was still poring over his assays.
“This is my two-week notice, Joshua-hyung,” he announces as he slips his coat back on, “I can never show my face in these labs ever again.” He dramatically plops back on his workbench, head in hands. He doesn't see the way Joshua rolls his eyes. He finally finishes pipetting whatever liquid he was characterizing and lets the reaction play out, pulling away to comfort the sulky Boo.
“You sure? ‘Cause we have a few fresh graduates that want in on the lab and I’d be happy to have them onboard in your stead.” He teased, his actions betraying him. Joshua may be an annoying hyung, but he was still a good hyung, and the closest to an actual brother that Seungkwan’s got. He looked up, pouting, much to Joshua’s amusement.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I wouldn’t,” Joshua agrees, “though, only because I’m contractually obliged not to.” This makes Seungkwan jab at his ribs. “Alright, what happened, though? You were there for a while.”
“Well, short version,” Seungkwan groaned thinking about it, wanting to simultaneously cave in on himself but also maybe explode. “I knew for sure no one else was in today aside from us two so I took off my jeans to wash them in the washroom, but a guy came in and he saw and we made eye contact and ugh, Joshua-hyung,” Seungkwan says it all in one breath, pausing to sob drily, “what makes it worse is that he was cute. But obviously I can’t, like, interact with him ever again.”
Joshua ponders and absorbs the tale briefly. “Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, I think. Some med students were supposed to be touring the labs today, maybe he was one of them.” Seungkwan blearily looks at him.
“And you didn’t care to tell me that?”
“Well, if I had known you had plans to parade your ass around the labs today, then I would have told you. I think those kids are gonna be here for a while, though, ‘cause they’ve fitted an empty lab to be their classroom or something.”
Seungkwan offers him a look that he hopes conveyed ah yes, thank you Shua-hyung, that is ever so helpful to my case, I hope you never have enough eggs when you make French toast.
Unaffected, Joshua pats him on the shoulder once and then turns to tend to his assays, cooing over the positive result. Seungkwan feels something akin to dissolution.
—
The day couldn’t be worse, maybe, Seungkwan thought.
Though, he is proven wrong when he gets back to his student dorm and Jeonghan expectedly looks up at him from the reception desk.
“Seungkwan.” He greets, but it sounds more like a threat.
“Jeonghan-hyung,” Seungkwan offers, he thinks, enthusiastically, but it comes out strained and anticipative, like he knows what this conversation will bring.
“I hope your little folder there has some info on new housing for you,” he pointedly looks at the Manila-colored cardboard in Seungkwan’s hands filled with atomic spectra print-outs, “I’m sure you remember our little talk.”
Seungkwan sighs. No, the day just got worse.
“Jeonghan-hyung,” he offers again, but more like a plea, because he really is about to negotiate with their housing manager. “I need a little bit more time to—”
“Absolutely not, Boo, you promised me you’d have been moved out by last month, and yet here you are, coming home to me.” He winks playfully, though voice still firm. “I really want to keep you here, I do, but university rules are rules and grad students can’t stay in on-campus dorms anymore. Else, they’ll have my head for it.”
Seungkwan sighs. Again. Airier and resigned.
“I know, sorry, hyung. I promise I’ll be moved out by next week.” He taps twice on the desk, smiling sadly. Jeonghan pats his hand gently and slips a flyer across to him.
“Obviously I wasn’t going to leave you homeless,” he laughed, “someone just dropped these flyers off for posting on the notice board, but I wanted you to take a look at it before I go do that. It looks like a good flat: fair price, two-bedroom, a bus away. Sounds good, right?” Seungkwan scanned the flyer hastily and beamed at Jeonghan.
“Hyung, I could kiss you right now.”
“I’d kill you first.”
—
Seungkwan texted the provided number that night. This would be his first time looking at flats outside of the student dorms, and he doesn’t really know the etiquette around it, if there was. He drafted and re-drafted the text, like, a million times (or maybe closer to ten), until he settled for the one.
to: +820000000000
hi! i’m writing to ask about the apartment ad posted here in the student dorms. is the spot still available? would love to hear back.
boo seungkwan
+821111111111
He anxiously waited for any activity from his phone for the next couple of hours while he prepped for dinner. It seriously would be a shame to move out of the student dorms, especially when he just started to get along with his room mate, Chan.
“Seungkwan-hyung, you’re starting to smell like a trashcan.” Maybe ‘getting along’ was too generous. He had just started not wanting to kill his room mate, Chan.
“You’re one to talk,” Seungkwan scoffed lightheartedly, listening to Chan flutter about their shared space. “Rough day at the studio, huh? Did Soonyoung-hyung train you to near death or something?”
“Something like that,” Chan slipped on a new (clean?) T-shirt and hassled Seungkwan out of the room and into the dining hall. “I think his exact words were ‘conditioning exercises’ but, like, I felt like we were being conditioned for the olympics or something.”
Seungkwan was in line for food when his pocket buzzed and his heart leapt out of his chest. He didn’t have enough hands to check on it, though, so he had to settle for waiting until they were situated on a dining table.
from: +820000000000
hey, yeah it is. just have a couple of questions before we can arrange a viewing. this is chwe hansol btw
Seungkwan let go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The next several minutes were Chwe Hansol dishing questions and Seungkwan fielding and asking them in return. Chan read over his shoulder as they did. By the end of it, Seungkwan learned that Chwe Hansol was a fifth year med student at SNU and his old flat mate had graduated and packed up and left. They organized for a viewing the Saturday of that week.
“You’re leaving me,” Chan pouted up at him from the lower bunk, once they were back in their dorm, “I didn’t think they’d actually kick you out of here.”
Seungkwan shrugged. “Me neither, but it was either move out or cost Jeonghan-hyung his job and I feel like I wouldn’t even survive the latter.” Chan nodded, subtly smiling at the idea of a Seungkwan-less world.
“You’re terrible,” Seungkwan laughed, aiming to kick Chan in the face. All in good fun, of course.
—
The rest of the week flies by, as Seungkwan expected. He made little to no progress on his experiments (“You win some, you lose some,” Joshua would sigh) and begrudgingly reported this to their principal researcher a.k.a. his boss. Luckily, she was a good-natured lady who agreed that chemistry was a fickle thing. They come up with a new working plan for the next week.
Saturday came up faster than he preferred. He didn’t want to jinx it, but Jeonghan had already passed him some moving boxes, and it would be smarter to be packed, anyway, even if this apartment fell through. About half of his earthly possessions were packed in corrugated boxes by the time he was to drop by at his prospective apartment.
He double-checked the address on his phone as he pulled up to the apartment complex. It was a small one; three floors with a sloping roof, each storey fitted with a balcony and about a million flowers and plants to match. From what the flyer described, Chwe Hansol’s would be the one on the second floor. He had told Seungkwan to just ring the doorbell labeled ‘H.V.C.’ when he arrives, and he did just that.
While he waited, he idly wondered what Chwe Hansol would look like. SNU didn’t have the best track record for cute students (except for Seungkwan, of course), but, if anything, the med students weren’t terrible-looking as a collective whole. They were often the cover of the university prospectus, after all. So, a good bonus to this really sick apartment would be a cute room mate and—
The door swings open.
A beat.
Flashbacks of what seemed to be the worst day of his life flooded his mind’s eye. Oh no, he thought, as Chwe Hansol stood there appraising him in an amused manner. Much like the way he did when he caught Seungkwan half-naked in the laboratory bathrooms.
“Look,” Chwe Hansol started, offering a hand, “I won’t think about it if you don’t think about it. Just let me show you around the apartment.” Seungkwan gulped audibly. He nodded, wounded, and shook the proffered hand, stepping into the warmth of the complex.
Chwe Hansol was true to his word and diligently showed Seungkwan around the complex and their prospective shared flat. He showed the bare bedroom, the one bathroom, the quaint kitchen. He even showed the odd bits and bobs littered around the living room. Seungkwan did his best to hold his end of the bargain and not think about it but how could he, really, and how could Chwe Hansol be cool about all of this.
“The space is yours if you want it, you can move in whenever you want.” Something gleamed in Chwe Hansol’s eyes that conveyed a mixture of curiosity and comfort, from what Seungkwan can tell.
Turning it down because of a grand embarrassment would be wasteful and dumb.
“Where do I sign?”
—
Hansol, Seungkwan finds out, is easy to live with.
Easier than Chan, who often left the floor of their shared en-suite flooded with water. He’d have to chastise him to even consider drying the mess up, which usually ends up with Seungkwan mopping it up, anyway. With Hansol (no more Chwe, because it’s a mouthful), Seungkwan would point it out over breakfast. The response would be a nod accompanied by a tap on the back of Seungkwan’s hand. He’d lay down some rags before he left for school and throw them in the wash when he got back home.
Hansol liked grocery shopping, too, which Seungkwan found endearing. Having lived off of dining halls all of his young adult life, he never really knew how to maintain a pantry. But Hansol did, and he would ask Seungkwan what he thought about a particular product before putting it in their cart, which he appreciated even when he had very little to say, anyway.
Hansol wasn’t very loud. Often, Seungkwan would have to ask him to speak up because he has naturally bad hearing. Or maybe Hansol really was just that quiet. He was loud, though, when he played his vinyl records on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Seungkwan couldn’t complain. The music was often not his standard taste but it wasn’t bad. He had taken to noting the lyrics of the songs on Hansol’s queue that week—he realized, quite quickly, after a couple of months of living together that whatever he played that weekend would be some sort of preamble to his mood for the rest of the week.
Seungkwan even strained through the English songs. Once, Hansol played Kendrick’s DAMN. on loop the entire weekend that Seungkwan was sure the vinyl record wouldn’t have survived it. For the rest of the week, Hansol was uncharacteristically explosive, and it scared Seungkwan. He would hear the heavy thud of books through their paper-thin walls, and know that Hansol had resigned himself to sleep after another session of studying medicine. Seungkwan would ask over breakfast that Wednesday, and learn that Hansol had back to back exams, hence, the careful teeter of emotions. This week would also bring about their first outing as room mates (friends?) on the Thursday after Hansol’s last exam for the week.
He sobbed quietly in his room—burned out and disappointed, although none of the exams were given back yet. At this point, Seungkwan cared enough about him to feel bad. So, without a word, he packed them up a picnic and shoved Hansol into bus after bus to Han river. Hansol didn’t like the sun very much, but he seemed grateful for the fresh air away from the university. He ate his sandwiches quietly.
Seungkwan was not a quiet person. But, he was around Hansol, and he thinks that’s for the better. He remembers very vividly the day he moved in. That Sunday, in the space of borrowing Joshua’s car to move his stuff from the dorms to the apartment, Seungkwan resolved to get over the whole bathroom, tangerine-boxer incident. Hansol seemed to be very gracious about it and never brought it up and only stifled a laugh when Seungkwan dragged in his laundry basket, tangerine boxers sitting proudly on top.
He learned quite quickly that Hansol was not very talkative if he didn’t want to be, so when they first shared a dinner, Seungkwan just thought about how devastatingly attractive Hansol was and tried not to fill the air with his dumb musings.
In like, a totally objective and scientific manner, of course.
He had attractive friends, of course, but Hansol perfectly fell into the ‘conventionally attractive’ category that made strangers pause and do a double-take if they crossed paths with him. That’s why it made his chest hurt, objectively, right, because it meant Seungkwan would be prone to falling for this man, just because.
“That is so not cool,” Joshua commented one day, when Seungkwan mentioned how handsome Hansol was in passing while they worked in the laboratory. “Crushing on your roomie—did the situation with me and Jeonghan not teach you enough?” The older boy shuddered at the memory, but Seungkwan had to commend him on his ability to reference his own romantic misfortunes.
“Uhm, that is so not the same thing? Jeonghan-hyung was with Seungcheol-hyung at the time and, I don’t know, he probably wasn’t keen on cheating on him?” Seungkwan can remember quite clearly how it played out, when he was a freshman and the two were his seniors. Joshua would often mistakenly stumble into Seungkwan and Soonyoung’s, his room mate at the time, dorm when he got home from a night of drinking because of his unrequited passion for Yoon Jeonghan.
“My point aside,” Joshua rolled his eyes, a reaction quickly becoming his signature, “does this Hansol guy, like, like guys even? Is he single?”
Seungkwan opened his mouth to speak but found that he didn’t know the answer to either question.
Joshua looked at him pointedly. “I would err on the side of caution, my Boo. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Okay, he thought. Don’t do anything stupid.