Yooncheol stumbles out of his flat, books in one hand and 5000 won in the other, and dashes over to the coffee shop on the other side of the road. It’s early yet late enough for the line to usually be only a few people long, and it holds true for today.  Mood brightened considerably at the promise of a hot coffee, Yooncheol skips into line behind a short boy with obnoxiously blond hair and a snapback.

 

When he receives his coffee, he thanks the cashier with a smile that would have made Hyosang, his roommate, faint with fear, and turns around to finally go to class. But instead of doing just that, he feels himself colliding with another body and hears the telltale slosh of coffee just before it falls out of the cup and onto blond snapback boy.

 

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As cliché as it seems, strange things start to happen after that. First, his roommate’s boyfriend has started looking at him weirdly, as if Yooncheol has suddenly grown an extra nose. Secondly, he realises that girls in his faculty have started looking at him and turning away when he notices, giggling into their hands. He wonders, but doesn’t really suspect, because he still has finals to worry about.

 

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He sees snapback-boy-that-got-coffee-spilled-on-him a total of three times almost every week, except he never realises because snapback boy’s hair got dyed a mousy, unattractive shade of brown and then it went back to black after he got tired of re-colouring his roots every fortnight.

 

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When Yooncheol bursts into the coffee shop after his finals are over, he stops short. Seated at a table laughing over something together are Seokjin, Hyosang’s boyfriend, and snapback boy. Yooncheol knows that his jaw has probably smashed a hole in the floor with the speed at which it dropped, but… “Is that why you’ve been eyeing me differently for the past month?!”….some things are slowly starting to make sense.

 

Seokjin cackles, standing up. “I’ll leave you to it, Taeyang-ah.”

 

And before Yooncheol’s horrified and accusing eyes, Seokjin waves goodbye and struts out of the café. Snapback boy sighs heavily and stands too.

 

“Wait wait wait don’t go too! We haven’t been properly introduced. Hey, my name is Yooncheol but you can call me Nakta. I’m really sorry for spilling my coffee on you last month! I hope you can forgive me and that we can become friends,” Yooncheol blurts. He covers his mouth with both hands once the words have stopped spilling out, mumbling a sheepish, “oops.”

 

Snapback boy grins, smile lighting up his entire face. “Hello, it’s nice to finally know your name. I’m Taeyang, but you can call me Jenissi.”

 

And for the both of them, it only goes upward from there.

 

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Hyosang feels like screaming, if only to drown out the noise coming from Yooncheol’s bedroom. Grabbing his phone, he texts Seokjin.

 

Hey, wanna come over and drown the other two out?