"You can't like him, he's from product!" Baekhyun is, understandably, distraught by Jongin's revelation. "Product designers are useless, they hardly know how to do anything. I had to teach one of them how to use a hammer." He reminds Jongin, harking back to when the entire art building had had to mix up their students and do group work. Baekhyun has been stuck with a fine artist and a product designer, making a shed. It has been a disaster: neither of them knew how to do anything and Baekhyun has been doing the bulk of the work.
"They know how to use software." Jongin defends his crush. "Can you use Rhino?" Jongin asks pointedly.
"Why would I need to? I can do an orthographic drawing and then actually make the thing rather than just a digital version."
"You know, Kyungsoo would actually love to learn how to do the stuff we do. I've been giving him throwing lessons."
"Oh my god." Chanyeol butts in, looking up from where he's been working on another one of his clay chickens. "I hope you've been keeping things PG down there." He has an annoying glint in his eye; Jongin splutters and flushes.
"It's strictly platonic." He insists, kind of wishing that it weren't. "Just teaching how to centre and raise a pot. I'm gonna teach him how to pull a handle on Friday as well."
"But I think we're still skimming over the most important point here; he's a product designer. His type and our type cannot mingle. I don't make the rules."
"The ? Yes you do, you make up arbitrary rules on the spot all the time. Remember ‘Pass Out’?" Chanyeol leers at him, making to pull out his phone, where he no doubt has video evidence.
"Let's not." Baekhyun makes a face. "I still don't approve though."
"What if I told you he wants to change to our course? He doesn't actually like what he's doing right now." Jongin leans forward resting his chin on his palm.
"Well it's a bit late in the year to be doing that, but... I'd be willing to meet him."
"He sounds like a smart guy. It would be nice to have another guy up here." Chanyeol muses, still carving the feather texture onto his chicken. There are only three boys in their year group, the rest of them all girls and one non binary; so it would be nice to have another boy.
"Well you're in luck then, because I told him to come visit at about half twelve which is... In like five minutes. So you have until then to chill about him being from product, and also not to ask him anything embarrassing." Jongin kind of wishes he had introduced them, before he'd told them about his crush. Maybe then they would act normal.
"Does he know you want to get with him?" Chanyeol asks.
"No!" Jongin barks, "please don't be weird."
"I think asking Chanyeol not to be weird is like asking the sun not to set." Joohyun remarks, passing by with several jars of glaze in her arms.
"Hey!"
"You're making chickens. You want to have a recording that clucks at people when it senses them walking by." Jongin laughs.
"I like chickens." Chanyeol pouts, the crest of one of his bisqued brood.
"I like them too, but not quite as much as you seem to."
"Nah, everyone knows your thing is pots." Baekhyun says, making a 'shoo' motion with his hand. Joohyun's desk is filled to the brim with pots; she has so many that she's had to buy a set of shelves of her own, just to put all of them on. Joohyun sticks her tongue out and leaves again, probably heading to the ceramics department for some last minute glazing done before the tech dems close for lunch.
There is a loud noise and Jongin startles, but there's no shouting or screaming so nothing is broken, probably.
The next person to arrive is Wendy, wearing a lab coat and covered in sawdust. Jongin tries to hide his disappointment, having been hoping that it would be Kyungsoo next.
"How was the lathe?" Baekhyun asks, "also did you know you have dust-"
"Everywhere? I know." Wendy laughs, brushing a bit out of her hair. Lathing is dusty work and she's had to buy a specialist mask for it. "It's going alright. I haven't broken anything yet, so that's better than yesterday."
"Cool. I really like those captive ring things, by the way, they’re so cool." Baekhyun picks one of the things she's been working on up, and starts playing with it; testing the weight, smoothness, colour. All important things.
"Yeah, I love them but they take ages to do though." Wendy laments, pulling out a tub of leftovers.
"They're worth it." Baekhyun reassures. He uses the lathe too, but he works with resin and twigs, to make some of the cutest bowls that Jongin has ever seen.
"Thanks. How's your work going?"
"Just waiting for my resin to set before I can carry on." Baekhyun says, mouth set in a straight line. He's running close to the deadline and is hoping he can get everything done in time. It will mean late nights but everyone will be doing that closer to the hand in date.
Jongin is just getting a closer look at Wendy's lathed thing, which has yet to have a defined purpose, when suddenly Chanyeol is nudging him roughly.
"Is that him?" He stage whispers, as Jongin’s crush comes into view. He looks just as cute as always, his wide framed glasses perched on his nose; making his expression look just a tad confused. His sweet appearance is misleading, however, as Kyungsoo has a sharp sense of humour and is very witty. It's a delight to talk with him.
Jongin nods, grinning from ear to ear as Kyungsoo spots him. Waving him over, Jongin scoots over to allow Kyungsoo a space at the shared maker table.
"Hi guys. You're all makers, right? I'm Kyungsoo, from product design, downstairs." He nods politely to everyone sat around the table and everyone greets him, introducing themselves in a circle. When it gets to Baekhyun, Jongin rolls his eyes.
"How does it feel to finally be on the upper crust? The elite, if you will." He says, in an over-done snotty voice. He always plays up the difference between their course and all the others, but Jongin is about 80% sure it's just for the bants. The makers are situated directly above the product designers on the second floor next to soft modelling. There is a balcony that separates them but still allows them to look down over them. The wood and ceramics are on the ground floor and fine art can be found upstairs, in their mysterious labyrinthine studio. Only fine artists go up there, for fear of getting lost. Or drawn , or something. There’s one girl who’s been working on a mask every day for the past week, Jongin has seen it.
Illustration and graphic design are in another building, which is connected with a corridor on floor level but it's often pretty empty, unless it's near deadline dates.
"It's wonderful to be here, with you guys." Kyungsoo plays along, holding his hand over his chest.
"Good." Baekhyun nods. "Can you also please tell the other hooligans down there to stop playing their music." Kyungsoo laughs at this.
"That's got nothing to do with my lot; I'm a second year and the guys playing that are all third years. Sorry."
"Oh. Well it was with a try." Baekhyun shrugs. Once Kyungsoo's met everyone, most people devolve into their own, smaller, conversations.
"How are you?" Kyungsoo asks, leaning against his shoulder. Jongin clears his throat.
"I'm doing alright." He says, noncommittally.
"Yeah? How's your work going?"
"It could be better, probably. I'm doing these little, modern, teapots. I need to wait for the next firing, which is tomorrow."
"Are they​ on your desk? I'd love to see them." Kyungsoo smiles.
"Oh, yeah. Sure." Jongin says, getting up from his stool. "Follow me, I'm round the corner." Their desks are in short rows, with shelves in between the ones that are back to back. The area is actually part-corridor, and people walk through here all the time. Their building is weird, but Jongin loves it, even if it's crazy loud sometimes
"It's cool that you guys all get your own desks up here; we have a hot-seating system in place."
"Well there's less of us, most of you guys don't have that much that needs storing anyway? Like you just have your laptop until the end of the year, and then you have like... One object or maybe two."
"True." Kyungsoo concedes, as Jongin slows to a stop in front of his desk. It's a cluttered mess, covered in things he doesn't really need; things that should have been thrown away, but at the front are some of his unfired teapots. "These are adorable. Can I..?" He asks, reaching out to touch. Jongin nods, shyly scratching the back of his head. Kyungsoo picks it up and turns it over in his hands.
"It's not my best and it's really not going to plan, but I think it might be alright by deadline." Jongin says, seeing all the flaws.
"What are you talking about, this looks great!" Kyungsoo enthuses, running a finger along the spout. Jongin practically glows under his praise.
"Thank you." Jongin mumbles. Hopefully it will look better when it's been glazed and fired, not worse.
A scream followed by raucous laughter from the other side of the desk-wall has them both jumping about ten feet in the air. Jongin uses his extra few inches on Kyungsoo to peer over the edge and investigate.
Joohyun is back, this time with her hands covered in glaze. She's threatening to touch people, wiggling her fingers ominously.
"That scared the out of me!" Yeri exclaims, holding her hand to her heart. It seems she hadn't noticed joohyun sneaking up behind her and now has smudge of glaze on her cheek. Joohyun is barely able to breathe from laughing so hard.
The regular kind of antics.
"You wanna go back over? Just beware of Joohyun, ok?" He steers Kyungsoo in the right direction, lightly pushing his lower back. He's warm.
More makers have congregated, now that it's officially lunch time. Jongin introduces all of them to Kyungsoo, but he’s not sure that he'll retain all of their names. They may be crazy and memorable, but there's still like 20 of them to remember.
They sit back down, in different seats this time, since somebody had sat in their old ones while they were away.
"Jongin tells me you're thinking of joining us?" Chanyeol asks, deep voice loud and cutting through the chatter. Kyungsoo nods.
"I've been struggling against the criteria of product design for a while, I just don't think it's for me anymore." Chanyeol, along with everyone else, seems to consider this. There will surely be more questions about that later.
"Do you think you can handle all this lot?" He asks, inclining his head to Baekhyun in particular, who lets out an enraged squawk.
"I think I'll manage." Kyungsoo nods sagely.
"I'm glad." Jongin smiles, glad that Kyungsoo already seems comfortable with his coursemates. A lot of people offer to tutor him in their specialisation, if he wants to try it out, and Jongin is proud of everyone for being so welcoming.
Everything stops for a little while when Amber storms into the room, distraught. Her work has just cracked and is unusable, with only two weeks left until hand in day. She has two weeks to either fix it or make something else and she'd spent almost a month working on her bronze cast idea.
A little while later, after the calming effects of a tea-run and a selection of biscuits stolen from Soojung's desk, for emergencies, she's feeling well enough to go visit the tutors and explain the problem. Jongin hopes that they can help her.
"Are you guys always like this?" Kyungsoo asks when most people have cleared off back down to the workshops to get on with things, leaving the two of them alone; except for seulgi, who is sat whittling away at her wooden cutlery. Kyungsoo has taken him back to the relative privacy of his own desk space, however, so she can't see them. Not that she'd be paying attention anyway; when seulgi is focused on a task she doesn't hear anything.
"Like what?"
"I dunno. Manic?"
"Yeah. Well we don't normally have a breakdown like Amber’s, but we're usually like that otherwise."
"Cool."
"Hm?" Jongin queries, worrying that he means it in a bad way. What if he’s changed his mind about switching course?
"It's entertaining." Kyungsoo clarifies, "I'll probably come up here more often." He says, smiling. "Oh, one last thing- do you maybe want to go see a movie with me?" His cheeks are turning pink. "Maybe... just us?" Jongin's heart rate picks up, and he grins shyly.
"Yes. I'd love to."
"Awesome." Kyungsoo laughs breathlessly, deflating in relief. "What do you want to see? Is Friday good for you? Or Saturday?"
"We could go watch that new ‘Guardians of the Galaxy one’. Saturday?" He suggests, even though he's already seen it. He had to pinch himself to make sure he's not dreaming.
"Yes. Nice." Kyungsoo beams at him. " Ok, I've got to go back down and get some work done." He points in the general direction of his studio, over the balcony. "I'll see you later though."
"Yeah. Ok, bye!" Jongin nods, butterflies in his stomach. Kyungsoo backs away and waves at him, before going.
The moment he's alone again, he can't stop flailing. He's just too happy. He's got a date with Kyungsoo, the cutest product designer in history. He allows himself about 10 minutes before he makes himself get back to work, rolling out a long sausage of clay.
Giggling at his level of high school giddiness, he makes it into a heart shape, before continuing properly.

sorry this doesnt have a cool title... i may think of something later on but i decided its ok bc this is a ficlet dump :) hope u guys dont mind

i wrote this as i was waiting for my laser cut to finish, so ...in like an hour? its based around my experiences and my art school looool

also sorry if it doesnt make sense? if u have questions about anything ill try to answer them haha