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Midterms is hell for anyone, so when Soonyoung enters the cafeteria with his hair looking like an abandoned bird nest, Seungcheol simple pats his back in sympathy. Everyone on the table lifts their heads up to say hi to him and Junghan whose chewing on food lifts up his sandwich in greeting.

The ball of blonde hair finally lifts his face from the table upon hearing Soonyoung’s voice. Jihoon looks as if he took care of his children all night, and he doesn’t even have kids. The power of midterms is magic like that.

Soonyoung places his drink on the table and slumps onto his seat. “I need, something to distract me from thoughts of—“ he whispers as if he’s in pain. “Calculus and a lot of numbers.”

Without being any help whatsoever, Mingyu reaches for Soonyoung’s drink and disappointedly places in back down when he finds out the drink’s finished. “Sorry,” Soonyoung mutters. “Was just keeping the ice for Jihoonie. He looks like he needs it.”

The silence was broken by Junghan announcing proudly, “I’m meeting my baby this evening!” He’s still holding on his sandwich and Mingyu’s hand that was about to reach for the sandwich stops.

With an amused smile, Seungcheol mentions, “in case you forgot, Mingyu’s your boyfriend.”

“Yeah and Chan’s my baby,” Junghan says as if it’s a matter of fact.

Leaning towards the table, Seokmin adds, “and I’m hyung’s idiot!” All while grinning big, looking way too cheery for someone who just finished two papers of exam. Jihoon looks at him in disgust.

Seeing Jihoon’s disgusted expression, Minghao remembers something. “Oh yeah I know we’re freshmen and all but do we all really need to go through Mrs. Han’s class?”

“Did she talk about the man she lost her ity to again,” Seungcheol asks, tone genuinely curious. Junghan snorts. “That was an experience.”

Mrs. Han said as a warming up before starting their real essay, everyone should write a short one on their opinion of true romance. It’s class on Korean Literature but she’s a romantic person. Minghao, who does not have a single interest in romance whatsoever, finds it gross but he couldn’t sleep through her class he has Mingyu sitting beside him.

Unlike Minghao, Mingyu’s happy to explain what he wrote. “I think romance is different for everyone. Don’t you think it’s best when people expect that person to be a serious romantic, then that person ends up confessing with like, a pokemon pickup line, I think their partner would be surprised, but in a nice way!”

“Romantic settings are overrated anyway.” Soonyoung nods in thought.

Eyeing Soonyoung from the corner of his eye, Minghao slurps on his noodles then smacks his lips. “Mingyu’s stupid. Don’t trust him.”

“Wow,” Mingyu says, looking at Minghao in betrayal, always so serious on his take on love and romance, which has increased after he started dating Junghan. “I cook, I clean, I’m doing your mother’s job since she’s not here, and this is what you say about me? You talk behind my back—“

“I literally just said it in front of you.”

Mingyu yells. “You talk behind my back.” He slams his fist on the table, then points at Minghao’s face, whose brows are raised. “I have been too nice.”

 Everyone resumes eating quietly, with Mingyu’s loud voice as a background noise. Leaning towards Junghan slowly, Soonyoung whispers. “Shouldn’t we pretend we care?”

“Kwon Soonyoung you’re the worst at whispering.” Plucking Soonyoung’s drink from his hand, Jihoon opens the lid to take an ice inside the cup. “But nah, Mingyu already knows we don’t care.”

Biting on the ice loudly, Jihoon stands up ignoring Mingyu’s – tragic background storytelling and looks at Soonyoung expectantly. “Wanna go catch some pokemons?”

“Holy , yes.”

Their library is a gym, and the bastard who owns it has a username called ‘FckUrOpinion’. Jihoon thinks the gym owner is a ing coward for not being able to spell ‘’ properly in his username. Nearby that is a water fountain that is actually a pokeshop in disguise. They walk together to the the water fountain, with Jihoon guiding Soonyoung whose too engrossed to his phone screen to actually watch where he’s going.

Just as they reached the water fountain, Soonyoung’s phone vibrates and he runs over to the nearby tree and stands there. All focus has gone to the pokemon and his brows furrow in concentration. Jihoon slowly walks toward Soonyoung and takes his phone out. He’s not that that’ll take someone else’s pokemon they found, no. There’s something else he finds to be more interesting.

“I caught it!” Soonyoung yells in triumph. Opening his pokedex, he taps on the name ‘Ponyta’ and pauses to think of a nickname, then looks up to ask Jihoon. Instead of a face, he sees Jihoon’s camera in front of him. Perplexed, Soonyoung backs away.

Slowly Jihoon lowers his phone. “Ah, sorry. What was it that you caught?”

Immediately Soonyoung’s grin returns. “It’s a Ponyta. I’ve been looking for one in ages and it’s not even a rare pokemon.” He shows Jihoon his phone screen and continues, “I’m gonna be that one cool trainer that has a gang of fire pokemons and rule the gyms!” Soonyoung says with the most animated, sports anime main character voice he could muster. He’s so embarrassing.

Jihoon’s face is about to go into flames because what he’s about to do is even more embarrassing. “I um.. I caught a really cute pokemon I’ve been wanting to catch for a while too.”

With Soonyoung’s curious ‘what is it’, Jihoon shows him his phone screen. It’s a picture of Soonyoung he took just now while he was distracted, and it’s just one of the many pictures of Soonyoung in his phone. Jihoon says, “Mistook you as a pokemon because I wanted to peek at—ah, .”

Jihoon drops his head. “I can’t do this. Minghao’s right – Mingyu’s ing stupid.”

“,” Soonyoung says, staring at Jihoon with the most serious expression. Jihoon feels like dying because that was the cheesiest thing he’s ever done. Still staring at him in disbelief, Soonyoung looks down to his phone where his pokedex is opened to show a Ponyta, tail flaming and all, then looks back at Jihoon. “That’s really ing cute, Jihoonie.”

Jihoon bursts out laughing. “You’re an idiot Kwon Soonyoung,” he says, and his cheeks feel almost as warm as his heart because he’s so fond.  

Soonyoung tries to say, “but I’m your idi—“

“No.” Jihoon’s hand finds Soonyoung’s mouth quick, expression horrified. “I’m getting war flashbacks on Junghan hyung.”

So that’s how their first confession went. Romantic settings are overrated anyway, Mingyu said. Soonyoung likes pokemon pickup lines.

Meanwhile at the campus, Mingyu sits up from his original sleeping position. Junghan who was using his stomach as a pillow groans at the sudden disturbance. Flicking his hair back, Junghan looks at Mingyu that’s been staring at him intensely for quite a while, waiting for whatever Mingyu wants to say to him.

“Hey hyung – if Chan’s your baby, and Seokmin’s your idiot, then what am I?”

Junghan looks at him unimpressed. “Mingyu, you’re my ing boyfriend for god’s sake.”

A quick nod. “Good point. Sorry for asking.”

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