Chapter One

A little heads up here: Youngjae's also genderbent too :)

Ring

Ring

Ring

Slam

Silence.

An almost-awake Yongguk retracts her hand from its position on top of her (presumably) ringing alarm clock. With her eyes closed, she flips to the side, lazily throwing a leg over her bolster. With her other hand, Yongguk draws the blanket tighter around herself.

The silence is relaxing and her bed is extremely comfortable. There were no birds chirping outside, no sounds of Yongnam, her twin brother, screaming for help (he’s always been terrible at cooking you see—especially when he’s barely awake); just pure, undiluted silence. It’s what Yongguk calls bliss. Smiling, she nuzzles her pillow, happily drifting in between the Land of Dreams And Reality. This is perfect—

The incessant ringing she hears begs to differ.

Yongguk groans. She must have hit the snooze button by mistake. She carelessly rolls to the other side of her bed, reaching out a hand and slapping the damn thing off, hoping to put a stop to the incessant ringing.

No such luck.

The ringing sound is still there.

Yongguk lets out something between a whine and a growl. She had stayed up late completing her pile of homework (most of them which were about a week overdue), and she would kill to have just five more minutes of shut-eye, please-just-shut-up-thanks. She grabs the proclaimed "damn thing" and barely manages to crack her eyes open to glare at it.

Except—the device is curiously silent. The analogue part of it still tick tick ticking away, yes, and the digital screen reads ‘5:59’, but no, it’s not ringing.

'Eh?'

Yongguk is confused, to say the least. By now, any normal person would have immediately realized that it was the doorbell that was ringing instead, and put would put the clock back onto their bedside table, quickly rushing out to open the front door.

But then again, this is Yongguk. Bang Yongguk, who is far from being a morning person, whose brain is never in its best conditions during the mornings. She brings the alarm clock towards her ear, head cocking as her tired brain tries to locate the ringing sound.

Of course, this calls for the perfect moment for it to start screaming right in her ear.

"WHAT THE FU—!"

Yongguk flails, falling out of bed in shock. Her head hits the floor with a mighty thud, the alarm clock also landing on the floor in a similar fashion.

The cacophony of rings follow her all the way down.

Without thinking, the rudely awakened girl grabs the clock and flings it against the wall. It crashes on impact and the glass cover shatters, plastic body cracking open. She’ll clean up the mess later, but there was nothing to do about the additional dent (among many others) in the wall. A part of Yongguk feels remorseful at the loss—she had genuinely liked the device, as it had cost her more than what she would usually pay for a clock—but the bigger, still rather sleep-muddled part of her brain is getting frustrated because why. Is it. Still. Ringing.

‘…Of course. It’s the bloody doorbell.’

Yongguk's eye twitches in annoyance. Grumbling, she yells for Yongnam to get the door. When there came no sound of reply, she starts entangling herself from her blankets.

“Coming!” She yells, deep voice coming out a little weird. She hopes it’s loud enough to reach all the way to their front door.

Apparently not.

Yongguk's eye twitches again. She roughly tears away the blanket tangling her legs, and hauls herself up, the heavy fabric pooling around her feet. Where was her brother when she needs him the most? ‘Probably still sleeping, the lazy …’

She then stomps out of her room, passing by the kitchen down the hall, only pausing momentarily to glare into the kitchen at Yongnam.

(“Would it kill you to get the door?”

“Didn’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you’re getting it, aren’t ya?”

“Ugh.”)

'This better not be some stupid salesman oh so God help me…' was the only murderous thought running through her mind as she did then what many people would deem impossible: opening the front door with a slam.

The guy standing at the doorstep looks at her in surprise, a finger still poised over the doorbell. He’s tall and slender, shoulders broad, blonde hair sparkling under the sunlight like some poor incorrectly described vampire—

It’s the new neighbor.

“Oh, you.” She says flatly. At least it’s not a door-to-door salesman. “I mean—hello. S’there anything you want.”

Up close, Yongguk realizes that he actually isn’t a foreigner, but Asian—most likely Korean, like her. He looks to be around her age, too. New Neighbor’s blonde hair is definitely dyed, and his eyes are narrow and cat-like, with a narrow nose, as well as a set of delicately-shaped lips.

For a long moment, New Neighbor says nothing. Just stares at her, like he’s never seen another human being before. Yongguk crosses her arms, feeling a rise of irritation (and a strange sense of being exposed, even in her Tigger graphic-printed pajamas) as his gaze rakes over her. Discretely, she clenches her fist but does not strike, not yet; if there’s one thing she’s learnt over the course of the past four years, it’s to be less impulsive, exercise more self-restraint, and for ’s sake, fists don’t solve everything.

At least according to Zico, anyway. Yongguk herself rather likes to think it as a sense of striking at the right moment.

Like now, for instance. She’s pretty sure five minutes have gone by and New Neighbor still hasn’t said anything yet. Her irritation continues to surge upwards when he still doesn’t respond to her pointedly clearing .

So she starts cracking her knuckles. One-by-one. Loudly. Because she did not just wake up in an ungodly fashion to get ogled at by a stranger. And maybe because she rather enjoys it when the victim other party is scared. (Mostly she’s just pissed because he’s the reason for her reduced five minutes of sleep.) So screw self-restraint and screw waiting for the right timing, Yongguk’s going to give the guy what he clearly deserves: a sound thrashing with her fists.

And so what if he has an annoying-looking rabbit-toothed smile, except it’s actually kinda cute and, and—what was the word? Oh, yes, endearing at the same time, just like the dimple that formed beneath his left eye, and that he’s reaching out towards her right this moment—

"Mmph!"

—and suddenly Yongguk finds her face hitting the guy's chest, painfully so. For a moment, her brain restarts in shock, sending her mind into overdrive as the faint scent of Americano and cologne invades her nostrils. Yongguk feels his arms wrap around her— so warm and protective, as if he never intends to let her go.

“Yongguk.”

His voice is low and raspy, sending tingles down her rigid spine. Heat creeps up to her cheeks as her heart starts pounding at an abnormally fast pace. She could barely hear his next words over the sound of her pounding heart,

“It’s so good to see you... Noona.”

Barely above a whisper, the tone of his voice, so soft, so full of longing, makes her heart ache. His arms tighten around her and slowly, slowly, Yongguk feels herself melting. The embrace is warm, so, so warm.

‘…Wait. What.’

Apparently all that melting has finally defrosted Yongguk’s brain, because the situation suddenly hits her like a ton of bricks, jumpstarting her brain into working order.

‘WHAT.’

She is being hugged.

By a stranger.

‘What the actual fu—‘

The moment shatters and Yongguk abruptly shoves New Neighbor away. Barely giving the guy any chance to protest, Yongguk quickly raises a fist, letting the first few traces of some hybrid emotion of irritated-ness and flustered-ness seep into her system, fueling her rage--

--And with all her might, punches the stranger straight across the face.

She imagines hearing a sickening crunch as he falls face-first