Important rule number two, Youngjae thinks to himself, only do laundry when most of the human population is asleep, like at 2:00AM on a Friday morning. He picks up the container of detergent and his laundry bag when the elevator dings and the doors slide open to the first floor. The 500won coins in his pants jingle with every step he takes, and Youngjae hums a tune to the sound. It's a relaxing routine he has, he doesn't even mind how dark the hallways are at this time. The floor is empty and quiet with the exception of his humming. Just the way Youngjae likes it.

Getting closer to the laundry room, he hears a low humming noise, followed by something like banging. The jingling stops and Youngae is pushing the door open with his shoulder, still humming a made up song. But that stops completely when he realizes he isn't the only one in the room.

The boy on the floor is quick to turn around, nearly falling over on himself as he does. Youngjae is sure he isn't any better, he almost forgets to close his mouth as he's openly gaping at the stranger. In all honesty, he did not expect anyone else to be doing laundry at 2:00 in the morning. And neither does the other guy, judging by the way he's staring at Youngjae like he's seen the queen of England . (Whoa, wow, he thinks he needs to lay off the caffeine. That's one mental image he does not want in his brain.)

Youngjae manages to school his expression into something he hopes looks pleasant as he acknowledges the other boy in the room. It seems to calm him down, the shock fades from his face and is replaced with reddened cheeks. Youngjae briefly thinks it's cute before he settles his laundry beside the last washing machine and starts loading his clothes in.

He's putting the coins in when he looks over and the other guy is still there. He's still squatting in front of the machine, watching it so intensely Youngjae would think that something other than clothes is in there. It reminds him of when he was a kid and sat in front of the washing machine, watching it spin and spin like it was entertaining. His mom laughed at him, and it took a while but now he does too.

Curiosity gets the better of him and he's shuffling over in his slippers to peer over the mystery boy's shoulder. And oh, now he understands why he's looking so intently at the machine. Youngjae doesn't realize he's said it out loud until the guy turns his head to look up at him. It makes Youngjae stand up straight in shock, not that mystery boy looked angry or anything, he looked confused more than anything, but point is Youngjae was shocked and a little embarrassed at himself.

“Uhm,” he says. He doesn't have to say much else, but the other boy takes it as an invitation to speak and before he knows it Youngjae is met with the same problem he faced freshman year.

“Uhm, sorry but, do you know what this means?” The guy sounds a little panicked, blinking up at him and pointing to the “MACHINE UNBALANCE” on the screen, “My clothes are in there and it's been frozen at 13 minutes for a while and I—the doors locked, and it's really late I don't know what to do!” The whole thing is finished with a pout and Youngjae almost laughs. Yup, definitely like looking into a past version of himself. He doesn't laugh in the poor kid's face though, that would've been cruel.

“Oh,” Youngjae says instead. When he realizes the other boy is staring up at him expectantly he snaps out of whatever daze he's in. Things tended to happen at 2AM, it isn't entirely his fault. “Oh! Yeah, that's not a big deal. It just means you put too little clothes in there so the weight's off. Just give it a few more minutes and it should be fine.” Youngjae grins when mystery boy lets out a sigh of relief and smiles up at him.

“Same thing happened to my freshman year, I was freaked out too. But yeah, it'll be fine,” he grabs his detergent and makes his way to the door. “See you, laundry boy!” He catches the small wave before he's completely out the door.

Well, they did live in the same building. So eventually Youngjae would see him again, right?








Next time comes around when Youngjae has to do laundry again.

Laundry boy's sitting at the table playing with his phone when Youngjae walks in, swinging his bottle of detergent humming Chris Brown's With You. He raises the hand holding his detergent in greeting when the other looks up from his phone and waves at him. He's glad the bottle doesn't accidentally slip out of his hands and drop on his foot. What a sight that would be.

There's not much interaction between the two after that, Youngjae busying himself with stuffing his kimchi stained hoodie from when he was sneaking food during calculus and all his smelly dirty socks into the washer, while laundry boy doing whatever on his phone. All the while Youngjae's bopping his head to the sound of his amazing humming. He's in the middle of searching his pockets for the coins he swears he put in his pocket before he left when he hears a voice from behind him.

“With you, right?” Youngjae turns around to see laundry boy facing him, a shy smile on his face. “The song you were humming, it's Chris Brown's song, right?”

Cute, he thinks when he sees the other boy smile, all teeth and crescent moons. But then Youngjae catches himself and wonders what he's doing thinking another guy is cute at 2AM in the morning. Then again, stranger things have happened.

“Uhm.”

“Oh,” Youngjae shakes his head, it's the second time he's zoned out on this kid. He doesn't even know where this habit came from. “Sorry, blame the time.” Yeah, sure. Youngjae's been at this for two years, being up at o' clock in the morning didn't bother him at all.

“And yeah, you know Chris Brown?” He tries not to sound too surprised, he hardly found anyone on campus with the same music taste as him save for a few International students.

While he tried to play it cool, laundry boy's entire face lit up. Youngjae could hard see his eyes anymore with the bangs covering them up. They bounced up and down when he nodded and Youngjae couldn't help the grin that appeared on his face.

“Yeah! He's my idol,” laundry boy tells his excitedly. “He inspired me to keep dancing in middle school, and I hope I can dance like him one day! Though my friends like to make fun of me for it, I know they're just jealous.” Youngjae almost chokes on his laughter when he starts to move around in his seat.

“You dance? Ah, that's so cool,” Youngjae replies, impressed. He was never much for dancing, or much physical activity in general, but he liked watching other people do it. “I really like Chris Brown too, his music inspires me. With you's actually one of my favorite songs, I like R&B a lot.”

“Do you sing too?”

“Ah,” Youngjae scratches the back of his neck, a habit he had whenever he got embarrassed, “..maybe just a little. I actually wanna be like him too, you know, make songs like that.” It's always embarrassing tell people about what he wants to do, to a complete stranger no less. Even if they had a common idol.

“That's great! Maybe one day I'll hear you sing on the radio!” Laundry boy bursts into a fit of giggles and Youngjae can't help but laugh too. “Let's both work hard, fighting!”

“And we'll meet each other on stage, as the next two Chris Browns of the century!”

A comfortable, maybe 40% comfortable and 60% awkward silence falls between them and Youngjae's looking every where except at laundry boy. He doesn't know if he's supposed to say anything at this point.

“Uh, hey..” he looks up from his slippers to the other guy blinking curiously up at him, “is the washing machine not working?”

“Huh?” Youngjae turns around and—yeah, right, he was looking for coins to put in the machine. “Oh, yeah I was looking for the coins that I swear I had...” He pulls both his pajama pockets out and all that falls out is a paperclip. The universe was frowning on him.

“Ugh, guess I'll have to run upstairs real quick, do you mind..” he trails off and points at the machine where all his clothes are in, hoping laundry boy will agree. Although he isn't sure why he even asks, it's 2AM and no one else is doing laundry. Oh well.

Laundry boy tilts his head to the side a little and Youngjae definitely finds it cute. “I can lend you 1000won if you want,” he offers, rummaging through his pockets.

“That's okay, I can just run upstairs!”

“It's no big deal, plus you're already here. I don't mind,” he smiles up at Youngjae as he pulls out what looks like hippo coin purse. This time Youngjae can't control his laughter and it comes out before he could slap a hand over his mouth.

He catches laundry boy roll his eyes at him and grins. “It was a gift from my hyung, okay!”

“It's...cute,” Youngjae clears his throat and accepts the two 500won coins the other drops in his hands. “I owe you.”

“No problem!” A peppy tune started playing from one of the washing machines, signaling that it was done and stealing laundry boy's attention away from him.

“Looks like I'm done,” he says, going over to take his clothes out and into his hamper, “I'll see you next time, singer boy!”








“So you've met this guy twice, held a conversation with him, both times at 2:00 in the morning while doing laundry of all things, and you never thought to ask for his name?”

“Does calling him laundry boy count? And he called me singer boy. Those are perfectly good names, in my opinion.”

His roommate throws him a look of utter disbelief, even more intense when Youngjae announced to him that he swears eating cucumbers has something to do with people with sour personalities.

“That's not how you make friends.”

“No one said I wanted to make friends, hyung.” That's a lie, but for argument's sake Youngjae pretends it isn't.

“Boyfriend, then?” His roommate's boyfriend pipes up.

“Hyung, make him stop,” Youngjae whines, and Jinyoung hits Mark on the arm.

“Hey, hey it's totally possible. I asked Jinyoung out after a week of knowing him, didn't I?”

“No one asked for your life story, hyung.”

“Just saying, it doesn't take long to have a crush on someone. Love at first sight, you know?” Mark says the last part in English with a wave of his hand.

“You wanna fight?” Youngjae replies.

“Both of you quiet down, Domyouji is about to kiss Makino.”

“Yes, Jinyoung,” Youngjae and Mark chorus.

(Why are they even watching the Japanese version, Youngjae wonders...)








“Good morning,” a voice greets him as soon as he pushes the door open. Youngjae laughs, and responds with an energetic “Yo!” In all honesty, he wasn't sure if laundry boy would be there again. Two weeks in a row was probably pure coincidence and Youngjae wasn't sure if there was going to be a third time, but lo and behold, there the other kid was, sitting at the table just like the week before.

He's starting to like having this type of company.

“Gosh,” he says, looking over at the machine next to his. Fifteen minutes left. “Do you always do your laundry this early?”

“Says the one walking in here every week at 2:00,” laundry boy retorts. “Plus, it's not like I have morning classes tomorrow, I can sleep in if I want to!”

“Same, but don't you have a roommate to deal with?” Youngjae pauses and thinks back to the first time Jinyoung found out about his laundry habits. “Mine nearly smashed my face in with a pillow when I woke him up setting up the drying rack, hehe.”

“Ayyy,” the other boy drawls out, looking amused at his story. “That's violent! My roommate's always still up at this time so I can make all the noise I want.”

“Energetic guy,” he comments. “Normally I wouldn't be up, willingly anyway, but Friday's are special.”

“Right, your 2:00AM laundry trips.”

“The same goes for you, Sir 1:30AM.”

Laundry boy laughs, leaning back in his chair. “Can't argue with you there!” The sound of the washer finishing cuts Youngjae off before he can say anything else, not that he would've remembered what he was going to say anyway. Because as soon as laundry boy stands up, all Youngjae can think is whoa.

He doesn't realize that the other boy was always sitting whenever Youngjae saw him, so he never thought much about his height. Average guys like him were of average height, and laundry boy seemed like any other average guy. So color him surprised when laundry boy is actually pretty tall. Like a tree. A tree with teddy bear pajama pants and pink slippers.

“I guess I'll be seeing you next week?” Laundry boy asks, hobbling over the door with his hamper in tow. Youngjae hadn't even noticed that he was done, lost in his man he's tall thoughts. He only snaps out of it when the other guy laughs, loud and clear in the laundry room.

“Oh, sorry,” Youngjae grins sheepishly, “Yeah, next Friday. Don't think about about skipping out on me!” He says playfully, pointing a finger at the taller boy.

“Wouldn't dream of it,” the other sing-songs, halfway out the door. Youngjae smiles and is about to turn back to put the coins (he remembers to check twice this time) when he remembers Jinyoung nagging him to get his mystery friend-not-friend's name. “Hyuuuung, does it matter!” “Yes, get his name so I can check if he's a serial killer or not. I'm only looking out for you, you know.” “I think you need to stop watching dramas so much, it's affecting your mind.” “Hush, now go and ask for his name like you should've done three weeks ago.” He almost trips over his hamper sprinting over to the door.

“Choi Youngjae, second year!”

Youngjae watches laundry boy turn around, wide eyed and mouth hung open in a manner that still manages to be cute—which it shouldn't, if he is to be completely honest. He ignores that he abandoned one of his slippers by the washer in his rush to “introduce” himself, so one foot bare and cold, he waits for the other boy's response.

It's quiet and Youngjae has the urge to just slink back into the laundry room and maybe stuff himself into the washer out of embarrassment. He really is about to when a laugh cuts through the air, and laundry boy is trying to muffle his laughter behind his hands. Youngjae's pretty sure something is wrong with him when he thinks the way the taller boy's eyes sparkle in the dim hallway is amazingly pretty.

“Kim Yugyeom, first year,” he says, a small smile appearing on his face. “It's nice to meet you, Youngjae hyung.”









Youngjae's so not telling Jinyoung.









It's Thursday night when Youngjae takes a stroll off campus to the nearby convenience store. Sometimes he doesn't want to eat a normal meal, instead he wants that typical university student diet of instant ramyun and kimbap. Sometimes he just doesn't want to wait for food. He probably has better things to do than wait around for food to be finished cooking. (It's not because he's lazy at all, he tells his roommate when he leaves.)

He's in the store standing in front of the refrigerated packaged foods and drinks, thinking between the tuna and spam rice ball and the bulgogi kimbap. Youngjae knew he told himself just plain kimbap and a pack of shin ramyun, but the choices he has makes him rethink a little bit. Everything looks good to him, but he shouldn't. He really shouldn't. Jinyoung wouldn't definitely ask for some if he got it all, and Youngjae doesn't really want to share. He didn't want to come with him so he has to deal with the consequences. But on the other hand, they didn't cost very much anyway. The rice ball is just 1000won. They're practically calling his name, begging Youngjae to buy them. Grabbing both, he tucks the ramyun under his arm and makes his way to the register.



"Hey," Youngjae says when he walks in, half an hour earlier than normal. It's deja vu, laund—hYugyeom, rather, is squatting in front of his machine watching the clothes spin. He nearly falls when he turns around, just like the first time they met. Youngjae's allowed to laugh this time, so he does.

"Rude," Yugyeom says, sticking out his tongue. Youngjae watches him stand up and look past him to the clock on the wall. It's almost comical how quickly Yugyeom's expression changes. "It's not 2:00."
"Bingo, dongsaeng of mine," Youngjae says, walking over to the table and setting down the plastic bag he brought with him. "I felt like coming down a little early."

"Without your laundry?" the other boy asks, sitting in the seat across from him.

"It'll be down at 2:00, don't worry about it!" he replies. Youngjae doesn't feel like telling him he roped Jinyoung into carrying his laundry down for him as punishment for drinking his last bottle of yakult. All's fair in roommate ship and food, he thinks.

Yugyeom just laughs and goes along with it; Youngjae likes that. He takes out the rice ball he bought a little while ago and places it in front of the younger boy, and takes the kimbap for himself. He smiles when Yugyeom points to it and them to himself. "Yup, it's for you. I hope you like tuna."

The other boy gives him a weird look before reaching out to take it. He lifts it up to inspect it or something, cause he's holding it at all sorts of angles like he thinks it's poisoned or something.

"I didn't do anything to it if that's what you're wondering, trust hyung," Youngjae reassures, taking a bite of his own food. "What kind of psycho do you think I am?" he manages to say with a mouthful of rice.

"I don't know hyung, who really makes friends with people in the laundry room at two in the morning and then brings them food after like what three meetings? That's giving off some serious serial killer vibes, you know," Yugyeom playfully—Youngjae hopes it's playful judging by the grin on his face—jabs. "Luring innocent first years into your trap with food, that's your plan right?"

"Right like I'd try and kill someone who could probably sit on me and be done with it," Youngjae rolls his eyes.

"Ah hyung, don't worry. You're at a perfectly fine height," Yugyeom responds, finally opening the package and taking a bite. Youngjae doesn't miss the smirk hidden behind the rice ball though.

"Oh shut up and eat your 1000won."

"Oooh, so that's what this is," the other boy says. “And here I thought you were being nice, hm.”

“Hey, I am being nice, I just happen to be repaying my debt to you too,” Youngjae replies, sticking his nose in the air. “Kids these days can't appreciate anything.”

“Alright hyung,” Yugyeom says before taking another bite, “Thanks for the food. Even though it's bad for you to eat so late at night.”

Youngjae doesn't even care that his mouth his full, this kid..! “Hey, if you're hungry you're hungry!” Rice almost shoots out his nose when Yugyeom makes a really, really dumb looking face at him. It's not long before they're both laughing and rocking back and forth in their chairs.



“Can you open the door for me? God—”

“Wow, how much clothes does that kid go through in a week?”

“Good,” grunt, “Question. I'll ask him.”



The laundry room door opens and Youngjae would've never noticed if Yugyeom hadn't suddenly stopped mid-sentence and stood up.

“Hyung?”

“Hyung?” Youngjae repeats, turning around. “Hyung!” He takes one look at Jinyoung (and Mark) at the door, but just as quickly he looks back to Yugyeom. “Wait, hyung?”

“Yugyeom?” Mark says incredulously.

“Youngjae, what—” Jinyoung starts to say.

“Jinyoung hyung!” Yugyeom exclaims, pointing at Jinyoung.

“Mark hyung?” Youngjae gives Mark a look of despair.

“Wait he's the one you told me about?” Both Mark and Jinyoung say, Mark points to Youngjae and Jinyoung points to Yugyeom.

“Huh?” Youngjae replies intelligently. He's trying to process what's going on while Yugyeom faces him with a confused expression on his face.

“You talk about me?” He asks.

“I should be asking you that!” He replies back, standing up as well. He hopes his face isn't turning red because he's feeling real hot at the moment. There really should be windows or something in the room, it's really not just him, right?

“Oh my god,” Jinyoung groans, slapping a hand over his eyes. “This is painful to watch.” Youngjae thinks he should keep his comments to himself. He's going to have to add on another punishment just for that.

“You guys should just go out,” Mark butts in, taking advantage of the silence that suddenly fell between the four of them. Taking Youngjae's hamper out of Jinyoung's hands, he pushes it over to Youngjae. “We'll just take our leave now. C'mon Jinyoungie,” He wraps his arm around Jinyoung's shoulders and leads him out. Youngjae can hear his roommate whining about “stupid kids” and “I don't want to be a part of this weird drama.”

He resists the urge to slap himself in the forehead. What were the chances that they all sort of kind of knew each other. He thinks back to that idea of stuffing himself into the washer, it really isn't a bad ide—

“I shouldn't even question it, huh?” Yugyeom's voice snaps him out of his thoughts. The other guy is laughing, and Youngjae can't tell if his cheeks are red because of that or a whole other reason completely. “I can't believe Jinyoung hyung's your roommate!”

“I can't believe you know Mark hyung,” he groans.

“He's friends with my roommate so I see him a lot, but I've only met Jinyoung hyung a handful of times.”

“Yeah, well maybe you can follow Mark hyung whenever he comes over. You can see Jinyoung hyung all you want then,” Youngjae grumbles, still trying to process what just happened. Just what were the chances, what did he do in his past life to have this happen to him. (It really isn't all that bad, Jinyoung just makes everything worse because he's such a prissy little princess. Kidding, Youngjae loves his hyung to bits, even when he's dramatic. Wait, where was he—)

“Maybe, but maybe not to see that hyung,” Yugyeom says, and when Youngjae turns to look at him, he's conveniently looking at the ceiling.

“Oh really? Which hyung is it, then?” He grins, plopping back into his chair and propping his chin on his hand. Youngjae's internally giggling at the way Yugyeom's face is slowly turning red, all the way to the tip of his ears.

Yugyeom doesn't say anything for a little bit, but Youngjae doesn't care. He knows. He know and he's having so much fun at the younger boy's expense. It doesn't even surprise him when Yugyeom suddenly moves and practically collapses back into his chair and hides his face in his arms. His grin gets wider when he hears Yugyeom groan.

“This is fun,” he says. But he's only met with silence.

A few more seconds pass by when Yugyeom looks up at him from across the table. Only his eyes are visible, but Youngjae's pretty sure his cheeks are still red. He hopes his own aren't though, that would be giving away too much.

“Let's take Mark hyung's advice,” Yugyeom says finally. He sits up straight and looks Youngjae right in the eyes. This time it's Youngjae's turn to get flustered. He did not expect that and mostly certainly did not want the tables him like this.

“What?”

“Let's go out!”

“Wait, are you serious?”

“Yes, let's go out! What are you, scared, singer boy?”

“Oh that's it,” Youngjae breaks out into a smile, “You can't even handle how great of a date I am, laundry boy.”

“We'll just have to see, won't we?” And they both laugh.



Outside, Jinyoung has his face in Mark's shoulder, cringing at how awfully cheesy and stupidly cute that conversation went. One hand clutching the front of his boyfriend's shirt and the other hand holding the bottle of detergent they forgot to bring down for Youngjae.

All Mark can do is pat Jinyoung on the back and tell him it's all going to be okay.

the machine unbalance happened to me and it was the worst

i wish i met youngjae though i wish this happened in real life im so