“Hyung,” His roommate whined into the sleeve of his dark purple sweater. Howon made a disapproving sound, tried shaking Myungsoo off his arm (to no avail, but Howon will later claim that he was distracted by Yoon Bora passing by and those legs ), but all it did was make his roommate (and unfortunately, best friend) cling to him tighter.

When Bora had disappeared off the corner, Howon reluctantly turned to Myungsoo currently drilling his nose into his arm. Upon realizing he had Howon’s attention; Myungsoo turned his head up and gave Howon a full dose of his love-struck grin, complete with a creepy giggle. Sometimes, Howon hated his life.

“What?” He gritted out at the visual arts major.

Myungsoo continued to grin (and by this time, Howon was starting to subtly look around for someone else to throw Myungsoo on) and his normally impassive dark eyes were huge, like really huge—like huge. It was sort of cute, if it weren’t for the serial killer grin that accompanied it. Unfortunately, it was part of the package of one Kim Myungsoo.

“He said “yes”, hyung. He said “yes”.” Howon rolled his eyes at what Myungsoo managed to blubber out.

“You’ve been telling me that every chance you got for the past two days, Myungsoo.” Including a very mortifying Thursday morning where Howon was in the toilet, doing his business, and just when he was about to “drop the package”, his roommate had burst into the room and—okay, Howon was going to try to forget that ever happened. Like he had been doing for the past 24 hours.

“Yeah, I know, but he said “yes”. Sunggyu-hyung said “yes”, hyung, I’m going to die.” Myungsoo wheezed, finally disentangling himself from the psychology major and flopping over his own (abnormally) tall legs.

“Promise you’ll die?” Howon joked, voice deadpan, eyes wide for comic effect. He got a kick to the leg in return.

“Sunggyu-hyung”, or Kim Sunggyu, was a literature major or something, a couple of years ahead of them. Howon often sees him haunting the corner tables of the nearby coffeeshops or performing with his bandmates during intermissions for campus events. Tall, with deceptively soft features (he’s seen Sunggyu scream at one of his guitarists, Woo-whatever, and throw the microphone at said guitarist’s face) and an angelic voice (there was nothing angelic about the way Sunggyu was screaming expletive after expletive) that often got the female (and some male—okay, fine, even Howon) students swooning. He was Myungsoo’s biggest crush, ever since the dork caught Sunggyu stuffing himself silly with ramen one late night at a convenience store. Ever since then, it was love at first sight for his bestfriend (and divine torture for Howon).

For a while, it was silent between them: Myungsoo still pretend (wishes really don’t come true, Howon thought with a sigh) road-kill while Howon returned to his cognitive psychology textbook and tried picking up where he left off before best-friend-from-hell barged in. Just as he was about to get the difference between positive reinforcement and positive punishment, Myungsoo suddenly sat up and, with his unusually loud bass voice, exclaims, “Hyung, I don’t know how to cook!”

A few (an understatement, but can you blame Howon?) heads turn to glare at them, and the librarian stands and hisses at them to “shut up”.

Howon bows his head in apology, before turning to Myungsoo and hitting him over the shoulder with his book. “What the hell was that, you idiot?! We’re in a library!”

“Ah, hyung, stop being a baby,” Howon hits him on the head for that.

“Hyung, stop it. I have bigger problems!” and for that. Howon hears Mr. Lee hiss at them again.

“Teach me how to cook, hyung, please” Myungsoo whimpers, putting on his best puppy face. Howon feels his eyebrow twitch. If there’s one thing having Myungsoo as a best friend for the past two years have taught him, it was that whenever Myungsoo brings out his puppy face, it was best to look away or else risk doing whatever he wants.

Taking his own advice (He’s a psychology major, he knows his , ha!), Howon turns away to stuff his book into his bag. Myungsoo’s still quiet, puppy face game going on strong, aimed at the back of Howon’s head.

He stuffs his phone into his bag, sighs, asks God where he had gone wrong and (curse you to the high heavens, Kim Myungsoo) turns to his roommate.

“Fine.” Was all he managed to say before Myungsoo stands and starts to celebrate. Loudly.

Before either of them knew it, their hair is suddenly, painfully pulled and they’re groaning in pain as the librarian literally kicks them out of the building.

And just like every day since he met this punk with the brooding cityboy good looks and realized that he was dorkier and noisier than half the university population, Howon admits that he hates his life sometimes.

∞

“I don’t see Myungsoo-hyung. Is he out, tonight?” Sungjong’s voice cracks through the crappy speakers of Howon’s laptop as he logs in to Skype that night. One of the closest friends he’d made back home in Busan, Sungjong was two years younger than him, on his last year in high school.

Dropping his bag on the floor, Howon crashes into his bed. It’d been a tiring day—what with being kicked out of the library, the long paper he had to do for one of his majors and not to mention, Kim Myungsoo—and all he wanted to do was sleep until the next century. He promised Myungsoo that he’d help him learn how to cook tonight, though, so sleep will have to wait (and Howon glares at the ceiling as he silently tells whatever god is out there to better record this in their book of good deeds crap).

“He’s doing the groceries. I’m teaching him how to cook for his date tonight.” Howon mutters, eyes closed. He hears the sound of pen scratching against paper as Sungjong hums. Howon looks up. “You have homework to do?”

Sungjong shakes his head in that blithe, still sassy, way he does. He grins cheekily at Howon through the screen. “I’m writing a eulogy.”

Howon frowns. “For who?”

“For you.”

Howon’s frown deepens. “Why?”

Sungjong gives him one of his trademark looks, something Howon has a mental dictionary of. He translates this look as the you-are-an-idiot look. He’s pretty sure Sungjong’s given him that look way too many times to count (times like these makes Howon think that his dongsaengs should respect him better).

“It’s not impossible!” Howon says. Sungjong continues to stare.

“Yeah, okay, he’s hopeless when it comes to cooking but no one’s that bad.”

Sungjong sighs. “Whatever you say, hyung.”

Howon rolls his eyes. “Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

∞

In retrospect, Howon's pretty sure that “it can’t be that bad” is chapter one of the book of Famous Last Words.

∞

“Hyung, what do we do?! What do we do?!” Myungsoo shrieks as tendrils of red-hot flames burst upwards from the pan. Howon, who was standing at Myungsoo’s side grunting instruction after instruction, stares as the flames peel the yellow paint (admittedly it was cheap and whitewashed, but cheap paint was better than scorch marks in Howon’s book) off their kitchen wall.

What started out as Operation: Teach Kim Myungsoo How to Be a Normal Human Being suddenly turned into a nightmare, as Myungsoo pushes Howon into the opposite wall, running to fill a soup pot with water. Just as he is about to fling water into their stove masquerading as dragon (and thereby destroying it and forcing Howon to live off uncooked rice grains for the rest of his university life or until he’s managed to kill Myungsoo and get a new roommate), Howon jumps in front of Myungsoo and closes the gas valve.

He feels frigid water soak him to the bone as the flames slowly die out. Howon and Myungsoo watch as the fire burns itself out, and the smell of burnt onion and garlic that Howon has been trying to teach his bestfriend how to sauté fills the room. There’s a creaking sound and the handle of their frying pan breaks, hits the counter and falls to the floor in a black, burnt heap.

The silence that follows is foreboding.

“Uh…” Myungsoo raises his hand (with the pot still in his grip) and points to the wall above the stove. Howon sees black scorch marks, as wide as wheels, replace the paint. He looks up and sees more marks on the ceiling directly above the stove.

Howon sees the knife block and briefly entertains the thought of skewering Myungsoo in the face.

Stabbing himself in the face didn’t sound too bad, as well.

∞

After managing to clean up the remains of their frying pan (they’ve both said their goodbyes to fried pork and stir-fry), the mess they’ve made and having changed into a new shirt, Howon grabs the soup pot Myungsoo was holding before and fills it up with water.

“Okay, frying’s out. So, we’ll go with pasta.” Howon instructs as he puts the pot on the counter. He kneels, going through the cupboard for the pasta packet Myungsoo bought a while ago.

“That’s okay, hyung. Sunggyu-hyung loves lasagna. Have I shown you the photo he posted last week? His cheeks were so full with lasagna he looked like a hamster!” Myungsoo gushes on about Sunggyu as he watches Howon prepare the ingredients.

“Well, we don’t have stuff for lasagna, so it’s either spaghetti or the garbage bin of the Italian restaurant across the street.”

Myungsoo claps his hands like a seal. “Then we’ll be like that scene in Lady and the Tramp.”

Not. Helping. At. All.

“Yeah, he’s the lady and you’re the tramp. Now, get over here and cut the bell peppers.”

“But you’re better at this than me.” He feels his brow twitch again.

“Cut the bell peppers, Myungsoo.”

“Hyung~” Myungsoo whines, dragging out the vowel.

“Cut the bell peppers or I swear to god, I will show Sunggyu the album you have on your laptop that has three-hundred photos of him.”

Myungsoo gasps, “You wouldn’t.”

Howon glares, “try me.”

Myungsoo returns the glare. “Fine. .”

“Idiot.”

Howon’s pretty sure his life is a sitcom, by now.

∞

“Okay, now we boil the pasta in the pot. Put it all in.” As Myungsoo puts the spaghetti strands into the pot, Howon finishes cutting the garlic and puts the plate away. All that’s left to do is let the spaghetti boil and they can start sauté—

“Hyung, how will we cook the garlic?”

Howon is an idiot. It must be contagious. Just to make sure, he hits his head against the wall.

“We’ll use the pot or something.” Myungsoo frowns at it, but holds back from saying something, trusting Howon’s culinary instincts with a shrug.

As they wait for the pasta to boil, Myungsoo leans against the counter and pulls out his phone. Howon leans against it as well, zoning out (like the way he always did when he was cooking or when Myungsoo was talking), the tap-tap-tap of Myungsoo’s fingers against the phone screen echo faintly in his ears. When he hears a beeping noise, he turns to see Myungsoo grin at the screen. It must be Sunggyu.

“What’d he say?” Howon asks, just because.

Myungsoo turns to him with a grin—and okay, Howon will admit that as much as Myungsoo annoys with on a day to day basis, he’s happy that Myungsoo’s crush on Sunggyu didn’t turn out to be quite as one-sided as he was led to believe two years ago. He’s happy that Myungsoo’s smiling like an idiot and that he’s managed to burn the paint off the kitchen wall trying his hardest to impress his “adorable hamster” and even though it will take the threat of death to make Howon admit this, he’s really happy that the kid with the brooding looks that got introduced to him as his roommate way back when they were freshmen turned out to be this gigantic dork with a heart sometimes too big for his own good.

Howon just hopes that Sunggyu wouldn’t be another he’ll have to beat up for breaking Myungsoo’s heart. Not that he’d admit that. Or any of it.

“He said that he’s excited for later.” Myungsoo says, after a while, turning back to tap a reply.

“Please tell me you will not be making out on the couch.”

“Hyung!” The way the red paints Myungsoo’s face is too funny for Howon to handle as he snickers. In turn, his roommate kicks him in the leg. Again.

“Don’t have tonight, okay, I have to study.” Howon continues to snicker as the red on Myungsoo’s cheeks persist and he kicks the psychology major over and over.

After a few more rounds of laughing and teasing (and Howon already feels the bruises beginning to form on his shin), they grow quiet and end up just grinning at each other.

That was before Myungsoo’s eyes turned to something behind Howon and suddenly, it was, “Hyung, the pot!”

And like a cruel joke (like his life), Howon turns too fast, his arm lashing against the hot pot (ouch) as it wobbles and tips over, spilling boiling hot water and pasta all over Howon’s feet (mother—).

∞

“I don’t even want to know what happened.” Were Sungyeol’s first words the moment he steps into their apartment. Howon considers throwing his phone at the tall man’s head.

Myungsoo’s by the door, having called Sungyeol for help while Howon was jumping and screaming curses at the pot, Myungsoo and himself. To be honest, he was quite shocked that he knew that many curses.

As Sungyeol kneels by his side on the couch, Howon watches Myungsoo fidget as his roommate stares at the painfully bright red skin marring Howon’s feet. Even staring at it hurt, so Howon throws his phone at Myungsoo and the visual arts major flails, catching it while glaring at Howon.

“Don’t give me that look, this is your fault.”

“How is that my fault? You hit the pot!”

“I will kill you, Kim Myungsoo.”

Sungyeol sighs. “Why am I even friends with the two of you?”

Howon has a sassy reply on his lips, but Sungyeol takes the time to dab the burn ointment on his feet and all that comes out is a long, drawn-out moan (looking back, a few stars would be proud at the way Howon moaned) that raises Sungyeol and Myungsoo’s eyebrows.

“Um.”

“Dude.”

Howon frowns, “What?”

Sungyeol shakes his head as he dabs more ointment. Howon moans again.

“Hyung, stop doing that. Our neighbors will think we’re weird.” Myungsoo chastises.

Howon has a few choice words about that, namely “weird” and “Myungsoo” in the same sentence, but he feels to good right now to gripe at his soon-to-be-late-best-friend. Once Sungyeol’s finished putting the ointment, he seals canister and places it on the table by Howon’s right.

“I’ll leave this here, in case you want to put more, hyung. Oh, and don’t walk around so much for a while, it’ll hurt like a .” Sungyeol says as he stands and wipes imaginary lint off his pants—the neat freak.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Sungyeol. No thanks to you, Myungsoo.”

“Hyung.”

“Okay, I’m out before this gets worse.” And with that, Sungyeol basically runs out of the apartment. Howon stares after him. Dude.

Myungsoo crosses the distance and sits beside him on the couch. He presses himself to Howon’s side, but Howon feels a bit antagonistic at the moment (and rightly so, just saying) and gives Myungsoo the cold shoulder.

“Hyung,” his roommate begins, voice low.

Howon ignores him.

“Hyuuuung.”

Howon mentally tells himself to ignore him.

“Hyuuuuung, please.”

Howon actually, vocally tells himself to ignore him.

“Hyung!”

“What?!”

“I’m sorry.” And there it is, the wide guilty eyes, the sad pout and Howon’s not angry anymore. And what’s worse is that this is how Myungsoo worms his way out of Howon’s rage all the time. He closes his eyes, and prays to God, Allah, Buddha, friggin’ Queen Latifah to give him strength.

“Just. Don’t do it again, alright?” Myungsoo nods like the overgrown puppy he is, and leans over to grab the canister with the burn ointment from the table. He gathers a generous amount of it on his pointer finger and dabs it on Howon’s burns.

Kim Myungsoo might be annoying, might have burned Howon’s feet and might have made Howon question his own sanity more times than he’s comfortable with, but he’s Howon’s bestfriend and he loves him to the ends of the earth.

“So, I was thinking that I’ll just go with soup, because Sunggyu-hyung loves this stall near...”

Howon throws his head back and asks for patience instead of strength; otherwise he’ll strangle Kim Myungsoo.

∞

“Do exactly as I say.”

“Yes, hyung.”

“Don’t get distracted by anything.”

“Yes, hyung.”

“Don’t even look away from the pot.”

“Yes, hyung.” Myungsoo nods, as Howon watches from the couch. He’s standing over the stove, eyes on the pot, waiting for the water to boil.

“Hyung, what if I need to pee?”

“Pee your pants, do not move.”

“Hyuuuuung.”

“Do. Not. Move. At. All.”

“Fine.”

Howon wants to roll his eyes, but he’s too exhausted so he just sticks his tongue out (granted, he’s a twenty-two year old psychology major and Myungsoo has his back to him, but hey a man can dream). Soup was easy. It was just water, some spices and voila! Soup. Even a blind person can make soup. Feeling safe enough that not even Kim Myungsoo could jeopardize soup, Howon smiles to himself before closing his eyes, letting them rest for a minute.

∞

“Thank you so much, ahjussi. Have a good night.” Myungsoo says, bowing to the firemen as they troop out of their apartment. From his place on couch, Howon stares wide-eyed as the men slowly file out. One of them turns to glance at him, then to the kitchen and snickers before shutting the door behind him.

Howon doesn’t even know what happened.

From across the room, Myungsoo still looks immaculately dressed but considering the battlefield he came from, that was a miracle in of itself. Howon can still smell smoke. It would probably take two weeks to air out the smell out of their unit.

Myungsoo walks to the couch, plops himself down and starts wailing. Howon jumps as Myungsoo wraps his arms around his shoulders and starts crying on his arm, screaming out words and phrases like “Sunggyu-hyung” and “can’t cook” and “dump me”.

Howon sits there, still shocked from the aftermath of, well, everything.

“Hyuuuuuung.”

Howon’s hands fly to his phone and texts Sungjong to make another eulogy for one Kim Myungsoo.

∞

Sunggyu is smiling widely when Myungsoo greets him at the door. He takes his shoes off and he waves at Howon, who’s now taken to turning the couch into his impromptu bed for the night. Howon waves back and returns to the manga he was reading.

He hears Myungsoo lead Sunggyu to the kitchen area and even hears “Ah, you sit here, hyung” and yeah, Myungsoo’s a sweet kid. Just a walking life insurance policy waiting to happen.

Sunggyu chuckles, tells Myungsoo that he’s not a girl and he can pull his own seat, but thanks him anyway (and Howon smiles at that, because Myungsoo needs someone who he can rely on and not the other way around). Sunggyu exclaims that the food smells good, and Myungsoo laughs in that shy way he does when people compliment him (Howon can already see it in his head: head bowed, shy grin and shoulders moving side-to-side as he giggles).

And if Sunggyu doesn’t say anything about the take-away boxes haphazardly under the table or the yellow-green splatter of corn soup across the expanse of the kitchen, then that’s a plus in Howon’s book any day.

∞

AN: Can you tell Hoya is more me than, well, him?