The thing about beef buffets is that the shop is normally noisier. Middle aged uncles ordering more plates and more beer to go with it, slurring half-drunk, or families with little kids running around and screaming (while being cuties. Not his fault he likes kids). Soonyoung didn’t consider that 3:17 pm on a Wednesday was pretty much dead hour for most beef buffet places.  

Which is probably his mistake. But the sizzling sound of meat on the grill really helps calm his nerves, and the look of anticipation on Seokmin’s face as he watches the meat grill to a deep brown is even for more soothing. He looks so handsome, eyes narrowed as he flips the meat over. Something about having the perfectly formula for grilling meat he wants to show off or something.

“It’s done!” He’s way too adorable, that’s not even fair. Grinning widely like he’s accomplished something that will keep him for days on end or something. Then he’s cutting the meat to smaller pieces, all the while boasting endlessly about his “superior meat roasting skills” or something similarly silly. It’s impossible not to smile, and Soonyoung can’t help but laugh.

“Eat up!”

There’s suddenly a piece of meat from his plate placed at his lips. And those are Seokmin’s chopsticks. Is it really okay to just bite down on them? But from the way Seokmin is insistently pressing the meat against his lips and smearing the grease against them, that’s a green light.

It’s sweet and salty. Soonyoung chews carefully, trying hard to keep a straight face. No need to feed his already over inflated ego. Lee Seokmin is already impossibly perfect; the least he could be is bad at cooking. Except the higher powers clearly don’t have mercy. Because why is it the meat tasty and perfectly roasted? He’s eaten meat from this store before, and it wasn’t quite this good. Maybe it’s because he was fed like a scene out of a ty B-grade rom-com? But nothing about the meat actually changed did it?

“Isn’t it tasty!!”

It’s hard to lie when faced with Seokmin’s widened and earnest eyes. So yes, he does get the compliment on his so-called superior roasting skills. Even though Soonyoung suspects it might just be a good ability at imitating rom-coms. Whatever, the compliment means Soonyoung gets more tasty meat on his plate thanks to Seokmin, so he sure as hell isn’t complaining. Less talking, more eating.

“Cute. You really are a hamster.”  

Soonyoung looks up from his food. Well, maybe the hamster part is true. He’s been happily nibbling his way through the meat, chopsticks moving quickly to snap up the grilled meat and stuff it into his mouth. And his cheeks are all puffed out from the meat. As for the cute part, well, Seokmin is allowed to have questionable taste.

“Aren’t you going to eat too?” Soonyoung turns his head sideways, mouth still full of food. The stupid boy seems way too fixated on grilling the meat rather than eating it, judging from the few stray pieces that are still on Seokmin’s plate.

“Nah, I’ve seen something that will keep me full.”

Huh, that’s weird. That boy is normally obsessed with his food, especially his meat. Soonyoung can still remember the time he hogged the pork cutlet from Seungkwan, refusing to even let him try a slice. It’s my food; Soonyoung can still remember the familiar whining when Seungkwan finally managed to steal a piece. Meat is the best!   

“Was seeing your grades that satisfying?”

“Trust me, what I saw was way better than my grades.”

For some reason, Soonyoung feels goosebumps rise against his skin. Maybe it’s the sweet way Seokmin says it, the honey that seems to be dripping from his words the same way sadness seeps from when he sings about being lonely. He can hear the sincerity in his voice, and he can’t help but wonder what can keep Seokmin so happy and pleased. 

Soonyoung’s stomach is filled with meat, but his heart is also full of something unexplainable. There’s a flush rushing from his feet onto his cheeks, as he grabs the glass of water pretending that the spicy ribs had finally gotten to him.   

----

Maybe it’s just Soonyoung, but there’s this mystical feeling about today. There’s really nothing particularly special about today, no matter how he thinks about it. Just another Saturday where the exams he’s supposed to be studying for are a little distant, where he has that restless feeling in his body that needs to go and dance.

He’s also not going to do anything unusual either. Just head to school, dance a little, maybe do some choreography for the end-of-year events.

But he can’t shake the feeling that there’s some kind of strange magic in the air. There’s this light feeling on his feet, the feeling that the world is some kind of complete and perfect, that he has never been more at peace. The kind of lightness that allows him to wake up at 6 on a Saturday and rather than heading back to dreamland, get changed and head to the Rooftop Shed.

There’s leftover rain from last night causing his shoes to squelch on the way to the bus stop, the familiar creaking of the empty bus all the way to school. The way the stubborn school gate refuses to budge until given a hard shove, the seeming endless trek to the Rooftop Shed.

Absolutely nothing is strange about today. That must mean he’s the strange one. But with the way the wind is gentle blowing and the rest of the world seems to be still sleeping, perhaps it’s just a nice day where Soonyoung is in a Very Nice mood.

Well, something does kind of ruin his mood. Instead of being greeted by an empty Rooftop Shed, there’s an idiot lying on the floor eating chips with a mic at his mouth. Seokmin’s rigged up some kind of lazy man’s karaoke, laptop displaying song lyrics and an unplugged microphone lying at his side. And it seems like he’s taking a commercial break from loud singing to eat chips at 8 in the morning.

“Yo. What died for you to wake up this early?” Seokmin asks, waving a greasy finger up in the air like he’s invoking some higher powers with his mouth still crammed full of chips.

Tsk, rude. Speaking with your mouth full, he deserves to be struck by lightning.

“You. Can’t you just greet someone properly in the morning?” Soonyoung kicks Seokmin lightly, who immediately curls in on himself yelling dramatically.

“Hello.” Seokmin says this time, with his normal wide and slightly lopsided smile. Ah, there’s the type Soonyoung really hates. The guy who thinks just by smiling and acting cute he can absolve all sins and wrongdoing he’s committed to-date. It only works because he’s handsome.

“Move your stuff over, you’re crossing the Line. I want to practice.”

Yeah, what line. The chalk’s been wiped clean with eight guys and the occasional Seungkwan trampling all over it. Now it’s whatever imaginary border they bring up when the Dance Club’s taking up the entire room. Or when Lee Seokmin is singing too loudly. Which is totally what will end up happening later. Oh well.

Soonyoung has gotten smart. That means he has pretty decent noise-cancelling headphones for cheap from the department store for when he’s practicing by himself. However, “pretty decent” means he can still hear Seokmin singing, just muffled. Soonyoung has no idea how expensive the industrial-strength noise-cancelling headphones must be, and if they’ll even work on Seokmin who playfully sings even louder when Soonyoung puts them on.

And as amazing as the day has been so far, Seokmin shows no regard to it at all. He’s cranked his makeshift karaoke up once again, propping himself up against the wall. It’s a song Soonyoung’s heard before but hasn’t bothered to find the title of since Seokmin will end up singing it again.

Really, having both the Dance Club and the Rock Band in the same space hasn’t been a problem in forever. They’ve even talked about doing some kind of ty collaboration to reduce the number of proposals they need to submit to the y vice-Principal.

Except right now it kind of is. Whatever “good vibes” as Junhui would call it is kind of destroyed by Lee Seokmin singing some song about how oh so lonely he is. The last few times he heard these songs they sounded just fine, but today it’s ringing a little hollow. Lacking the normal sincerity he tends to have when singing these songs, the faint whispers of a lonely heartbroken guy he normally has.

Fake. The words ring hollow, almost mocking. It’s dripping insincerity.

And still Seokmin is dramatically beating at his chest, pretending to pine over some unattainable girl.

There’s a fury in Soonyoung’s gut, a burning desire to beat Seokmin up and teach him what pain feels like. Because if he’s so happy he can’t even sing songs about being lonely anymore and still insists on doing it terribly, Seokmin deserves a little more suffering in his life.

Yet who is he to actually say anything? It’s nothing, Kwon Soonyoung is nothing to him really. Just an annoyance who disrupts his ty karaoke sessions and keeps nagging at him to pipe down when he’s singing so loud they can hear him from the ground floor.

So even though he’s not in the mood, he tries. Puts together a couple of typical dance moves, trying to string something logical together. Uninspired.

“I’m so lonellyyyyyyy, somebody save meeeeeeeeee”

Oh hell no. This guy seriously did not decide to finally pick his lazy body off the floor and dance around frivolously. He’s flouncing around, carelessly making a crude circle around Soonyoung. Mocking him.

“Would you stop that?” He says, finally bursting with annoyance.

“I’m just practicing. Don’t mind me, you can play some music instead. Put those headphones to good use.”

It feels like he’s been seen through. Like Seokmin always knew the headphones weren’t for listening to music, and excuse to listen to Seokmin's singing just a little quieter.

“But you’re too noisy!

“Me? Noisy? Me? Never! I’m always quiet! Never noisy! Noise? What noise?”

He’s full blown petty right now, hands on hips and pouting like someone’s taken the last of the candy he’s been saving up for forever. The worst part is that he doesn’t even believe it at all. Lee Seokmin knows just how loud he can get when singing, even when Seungkwan isn’t grumbling he heard him 50 meters from the Rooftop Shed. Seokmin’s just acting. Acting super childish and petty, like he’s some kind of five-year old saint who’s never committed a single sin ever.

“Ya, just because I like you doesn’t mean you’re not noisy!”

Silence.

“You like me?”

Hang on. He likes Seokmin?

Was it something like that? Something small and stupid like feelings that finally bubbled out? Since when was this true? Is it even true?

But when Soonyoung closes his eyes, when he thinks about Seokmin, there’s this warm feeling. The taste of hot chocolate on a bitter cold day, a disarming smile when he’s feeling stressed. A gentle aura, a sense of peace with the world.

Bliss.

It isn’t quite love, but it’s something close to that.

This is when Seokmin should walk away. Realise that he’s made a mistake, that the stupid kid he hangs out with has taken things too far, taken all his friendly gestures and has done something stupidly like have feelings.

And when Soonyoung finally glances up, Seokmin’s smiling. So close that their noses are practically touching. His lopsided smile is blinding, wrinkles near his eyes deepening even further.

“That’s good. Because I like you too. And it would if you didn’t.”

There it is again, the rich laughter, the foolish smiling. He can only see the soft sides of Seokmin, whatever cold and harsh feature melting away. 

“Really?”

Seokmin grabs onto his hands. Soonyoung hasn’t even realized that they’re shaking, that he’s scared. But in his slightly larger bony hands, Soonyoung’s smaller ones stop trembling. And suddenly it feels like he can breathe easily again. Because Seokmin’s here. He’s never left.

Seokmin gingerly removes his hand, pushing on Soonyoung’s chubby cheeks as he forces their eyes to meet, for his sincerity to be seen and felt.

“I like you, Kwon Soonyoung. I like you so much.”  

“This is humiliating.” Soonyoung tries to hide his face in his shirt. Did he really just embarrassingly confess to Seokmin in a moment of foolish impulse without thinking it through? He doesn’t even know how to date for crying out loud.

“You’re so cute. How are you always so cute?” Seokmin is cooing and poking at Soonyoung’s cheek, smothering him with hugs and affection. He seems so cool and unaffected that Soonyoung just has to take it out on him, hitting his chest softly with loosely clenched fists.  

“But you knew! You knew I liked you even before I did. How long have you known?”

“Dunno. I just liked you. Honestly, I had no idea you liked me too. But I hoped so. Because when you look at me-“

I smile like an idiot. That’s all Soonyoung can gather from Seokmin’s ty imitation of his smile, all crinkled nose and tiny eyes. Super unattractive. What on earth did Seokmin see in him? How can he call him cute so casually?

“Fool.” His mouth says one thing, but really, how can he stop himself from smiling? Already Seokmin finds it so easy to fish smiles and laughter out of him. With this it’s just going to be even easier.

“Your fool.”   

And they’re both laughing. It’s warm and comfortable; the kind that makes the entire Rooftop Shed feel like it’s a small cosy corner just for the two of them. Soonyoung leans heavily against Seokmin’s chest, resting against it. And inside Seokmin’s arms that embrace him, it feels like home.

“When did you start liking me? Because I realized that I like you maybe just yesterday and now I think about it maybe I’ve liked you for a long time already.” 

Seokmin smiles, pressing small kisses all over his face.

“I don’t know either. I just woke up one day and realized I would like to spend tomorrow with you too. And the next day. And the next. So I figured out I just really really liked you.”  

It’s silent afterwards. Has he always liked Seokmin? Has he liked Seokmin for as long as Seokmin’s liked him? Soonyoung doesn’t actually know. But there are some things that he’s certain of. That he likes Seokmin, that he trusts Seokmin. That yes, he would like to spend today, tomorrow and the next day with him everyday.

“Me too.”

Their lips meet for the first time, softly colliding and melding. It’s careful, a little cautious, a little afraid of getting hurt again. Yet there’s a certainty, an unspoken promise of something more.

There’s a heavy silence in the air when they break off. Then the both of them burst out laughing simultaneously. It was romantic, yes, it was nice, yes, but it was sure as hell funny for some reason. It’s like every awkward first kiss ever mashed into a messy five seconds.  

“We at kissing.”

“Well, there’s lots of time for us to practice and perfect it.”

“Oh my god, how on earth are we going to tell Seungkwan?”

“Kiss in front of him. Better still, make out with tongue. Sure to give him a heart attack.”

“Seokmin!”

“Don’t be angry at me, my cute boyfriend.”

And almost instantly Soonyoung can feel his mild annoyance fizzle out, and the hot flush rush to his cheeks again. Forget Seungkwan, he’s going to be the one driven to an early grave. Now he can remember just why he hated Seokmin so much. His first instinct was totally right, Lee Seokmin is bad news.

Just not quite the type of bad news he expected. Lee Seokmin is super bad news for Kwon Soonyoung’s poor heart.  

----

a/n: aannnnddd it's finally ended!! sorry for the constant delays/hiastuses and thank you all for sticking around this long ^^ school wars may be over, but you can expect a short sequel or two to this ^-^ really hope you've enjoyed this (long) ride with me on this soonseok fic!! <3 i've had fun writing this, so hope y'all enjoy this too!

thanks for sticking with me, dustie-nim out!! <3 <3 see you soon!