A week passed before either Jisoo or Jeonghan heard anything from the odd pair running the study. The two hadn’t spoken much beyond short texts checking for updates and Jisoo was concerned that at any moment Jeonghan could change his mind about the arrangement. The pinging of his phone alerting him to a text was almost relieving, Soonyoung had sent a mass text informing every participant that a questionnaire had been emailed to each of them, and that it was to be completed before the week was out.

Abandoning his essay, Jisoo opened his browser and was staring at his cluttered inbox in a few clicks. The email from Soonyoung popped out at him ‘Questionnaire: To be completed together’ and Jisoo let out an exasperated sigh. Sliding his smart phone from his pocket, he tapped through his contacts before hovering his finger over the call button; he’d never called Jeonghan before and suddenly he could feel his heart beating hard in his chest. Dismissing the pounding, he tapped the button and held the receiver to his ear. After too many rings, Jeonghan answered.

“Hello?” A groggy voice crackled through the phone.

“Jeonghan?”

“Mm-hm,” the line was dead for a moment as Jisoo pondered what to say.

“Were you asleep? It’s 2 in the afternoon.”

“No, why woul-,” Jeonghan’s lie was quickly foiled by a yawn that interrupted his sentence, “Okay I was having a quick nap, what’s the problem?”

“Well, while you were napping, I just got a text from Soonyoung - one of the guys running the study - he wants us to do this questionnaire.” Jisoo’s voice was monotone, he clicked the link through to the online questionnaire and began reading over the questions. The other end of the line was filled with yawns and noises of agreement. “Are you even listening to me Jeonghan?”

“Yeah, questionnaire thing, is there something up with it or something?” Jeonghan groaned and Jisoo’s ear was filled with banging and scuffling.

“What are you- oh whatever,” Jisoo rubbed his forehead, trying to prevent the onset of a headache, “it’s about how we met and how long we’ve been together and stuff, just basic profiling info but we need to fill it in together.”

The only noises from Jeonghan were ones of muffled chewing and the slamming of cupboards. Through a mouthful of food, he invited the younger boy around to his apartment, reeling off the address in one short breath.

“You want me to come over to yours? And why exactly should I do that, why can’t we go the library or something?” Jisoo wanted to keep his distance from Jeonghan as much as possible and visiting his apartment definitely wasn’t keeping a distance.

“If you’d rather do that sure, you can introduce me to your friends while we’re there and explain to them exactly why you’re taking part in a couples’ study with a guy, and, why he has a video of you doing some very ungodly things on his phone.” Jeonghan’s voice was nonchalant but Jisoo could picture the irritating smirk that would be painted on the genius’s face.

Already tired from a day of working on papers and writing music, Jisoo didn’t have the energy to argue, “Fine, I’ll be over in a bit.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

*

Old receipts and other unsightly rubbish was littered through the concrete building that housed Jeonghan’s apartmen