Beautiful Life

When Jinki isn’t studying fresh-water fish and baleen whales, he is sipping black coffee in a secluded spot in his favourite café. The barista, a senior named Yunho, knows him all too well and has taken it upon himself to gently jab at Jinki’s lack of life every time he enters.

But it isn’t Jinki’s fault that he is a marine biology student and that he wants to be the best student in his class. And to be the best, he has to study.


Jinki’s interest of all things marine has been there for as long as he remembers. A memory game with sounds as a toddler and ever since then, he’d fallen asleep to the gentle song from the giant whales. Jinki knows his major is looked down upon by some people.

His mother wanted him to be a doctor, his father saw him as a lawyer. Jinki, however, could only see himself as a marine biologist - and a good one at that. So he’d pursued his passion and it led to a lot of black coffee and minimum hours of sleep to become the best.


A group of girls, freshmen Jinki assumes, stumble into the café and chatters loudly about an idol.

“He’s so cute!” one of them says and shows her cellphone to the other’s in the group. They continue their conversation about the idol while they order and Jinki looks up to grin at Yunho. Yunho subtly tries to flip him off but Jinki just shakes his head fondly and tunes out the excited squeals and the male voice that sounds throughout the café when the girls loudly play the music video.

As they file out of the café again with their frappuccino’s and cafe latte’s, they silence after them is both pleasant and deafening. Jinki returns to his text books and he doesn’t look up when he hears Yunho loudly drum his fingers on the desk.


“Jinks!” a shrill voice says and two slender arms wrap around his neck. The weight on his back forces him towards the table. “Junghee!” he says and tries to shake her off but Junghee stands her ground. She’s a lot stronger than she looks, but Jinki doesn’t make the mistakes of assuming anything about her anymore. It would be needless too, considering they’ve been best friends since elementary school and share everything.

When she lets go and removes herself from behind him to sit in the chair opposite of him, Jinki reaches up to massage his neck gently. Junghee leans over the desk and takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee before she scrounges up her nose in that cute way that makes Jinki want to protect her forever.

“Guess who just asked me out on a date?” Junghee says excitedly when she’s forgotten about the disgusting coffee.

“Uuuuh.” Jinki tries to remember, he really does, but he comes up short. There are plenty of people interested in Junghee, but few she has any interest in. Junghee sighs when she realises her best friend really doesn’t know.

“Tall, brown hair, gorgeous body?” she tries but Jinki doesn’t look any less confused. So she continues. “English major, loud obnoxious laughter?”

Jinki shakes his head and sighs.

“Oh for god’s sake, Jinki, come on. It’s Minho!”

“Minho?” he asks. “Wait, Minho? As in Choi Minho who you’ve been pining over the last year Minho?”

Junghee sighs in relief.

“Yes!” she exclaims and her features light up in a giddy, girly smile. That’s not something Jinki often sees on her face and he wrinkles his nose. She laughs and reaches over to close his books. Jinki protests but Junghee isn’t having any of that when she stuffs his now-wrinkled papers into his bag followed by the books and drags him out to “celebrate being noticed by the hottest man on campus”.


Two weeks follow and Jinki is busier than ever. He needs to find scuba-diving gear before the class start in another two weeks and he has yet to finish a big essay on kelp forests as eco systems that is due Friday.

So Jinki feels pretty hung up with dark circles under his eyes and probably wrinkles on his cheek from when he fell asleep over his textbooks in the morning.

Yunho looks at him with pity and hands him an espresso on the side, just to make sure Jinki stays awake, and Jinki - tired as he is - doesn’t watch his steps as he walks towards his table. As fate wants it, his bag is open and the books in it tilt until they tumble out.

With a squeak he tries to grab them with his feet and the coffee is dangerously close to tipping over the edge as well as he balances on one leg. It’s just inevitable, really, that the book Jinki tries to save lands directly on a stranger’s foot. It’s also just an unlucky coincidence that it’s the heaviest of his books. Jinki looks up, ready to apologise when the stranger speaks up.

“You just broke my toe!” he says and clutches his foot. Jinki widens his eyes almost comically and places the coffee on the table so he can bow 90 degrees before he sinks to his feet and gathers his book and the few papers that went with it.

“Did you hear what I just said?” the man says and Jinki looks up to get eye contact. The man is beautiful and angry. He’s probably also in pain if his facial expression is anything to go by. “You just fractured my toe. You’re going to pay for medical expenses. Give me your name and number.”

Jinki blinks unintelligently.

“I … it’s a book. I’m pretty sure they don’t fracture toes…” Jinki says nervously, not entirely sure. But it’s just a book, right. A book can’t fracture bones, even if it is a heavy book on marine mammals.

“Oh yeah?” the man challenges. “But I’m sure your book just broke my toe, so…”

Jinki sighs.

“I’m sorry, I really am. I can take you to the hospital?”

The stranger looks up as if Jinki is an idiot and shakes his head.

“No, I just want you to pay, is all. Hand me your name and number.”

Jinki frowns.

“I’ll pay if I take you to the hospital. I don’t want to just receive a huge bill for some procedure you might not have needed. I’m not stupid.”

They glare at each other, but Jinki doesn’t back down. A minute later the stranger exhales deeply and agrees. He acts out his injury and Jinki lets him because he’s too tired for another argument.


“What’s your name?” Jinki asks while they’re waiting to see a doctor in the ER. The man looks at him with suspicion and Jinki doesn’t understand. “It’s just a name?”

The man looks towards his feet and nods a little.

“Kibum. My name’s Kibum.”

Jinki nods in understanding.

“I’m Jinki,” he says and leans back against the chair.

“I didn’t ask,” Kibum counters and Jinki just hums.


Jinki is about to fall asleep when the nurse finds Kibum and asks him to follow. Jinki stays in the waiting area and instead fumbles with his phone. He could read up on toothed whales while he’s waiting or he could finish up the kelp forest essay but he doesn’t really want to study.

Instead he texts Junghee who answers immediately despite having classes. He tells her about Kibum and their trip to the hospital and Junghee tells him he’s a clutch before she digs for information on the stranger.

When Kibum returns, he’s looking rather grim. Jinki smiles widen when he notices that Kibum’s foot isn’t in a cast or a boot or shows any other sign of injury.

“Don’t say it,” Kibum says when he’s in ear-shot and Jinki just grins.

 “Not broken?” he asks anyway and Kibum mumbles incomprehensibly. He sits down, defeated, on the chair next to Jinki and then he steals Jinki’s phone. When he hands it back, he closes his eyes and leans back.

Then a whisper sounds and Jinki looks around and finds a pre-teen girl gossiping with a slightly older girl. Kibum ignores them too, but Jinki catches the words “isn’t that Kim Kibum?”

He doesn’t know Kim Kibum, but it’s obvious to him that Kibum next to him doesn’t want anything to do with the girls, so Jinki stays quiet.

After 5 minutes of being silent, he stands and grabs his bag. Kibum reaches out to grab his wrist and prevent him from leaving.

“I’m coming with you,” he says and stands. Jinki just looks at him, exhaustion slowly overtaking his body again and reminding him that he only slept 3 hours in the morning.

“Sure,” Jinki agrees and he walks out of the ER, followed by a limping Kibum who may be clutching his lower arm a little too tight.


Jinki doesn’t think much of the encounter until he sits on his bed and finds that he has a new contact. The text message sent from him to the new contact says “for injury money” and the name of the contact is ‘Kibum’. He slowly pulls his feet towards him and leans back against the wall when he sends a text to Kibum.

author's notes

Okay, so this is actually the first thing I've written in months that I managed to finish. It's a part one of the Beautiful Life AU. Jinki is - obviously - a marine biology student and Kibum, well, Kibum's that famous idol that everyone gushes about. If only they knew he claimed a fractured toe by a book. 

Anyway, it all ends up pretty happy as - well, you'll see in part 2, LOL. They're good kids. Truly.