Notes:

sorry for taking so long to update! karaoke has finally come around. theres no real informative stuff in this chapter, but i think thats fine (???). next chapter will zoom like 2 days in the future to the start of school! this is where the fun begins!

“There are so many people in here,” Jihoon said. Although they had arrived to karaoke early, they had trouble finding a place to sit. Sewoon waved them in and urged them to ‘sit wherever’, as if there were many seats to choose from. Jinyoung held only Jihoon’s sweater, letting the other lead him through the room.

“Let’s sit here,” Jihoon announced. “You can sit between me and Seonho,” he said, showing Jinyoung his seat. “We’re kind of in the middle of the place, if that’s okay.”

Jinyoung nodded. Something about the way he sat with his fists balled on his lap made Jihoon worry. Was he uncomfortable sitting so close?

“Wait, Jinyoung, how are you gonna do this?” Seonho asked, grabbing the boy’s hand in his own.

That must have been what was making Jinyoung so uncomfortable. Jihoon had forgotten that karaoke involved reading the lyrics on the screen, which Jinyoung obviously wouldn’t be able to do. The boy shrugged. “I just have to pick a song I know. Is there a list anyone can read to me before we start?”

Jihoon quickly got up and ran to the front. Under the screen, there was, in fact, a list. Jihoon brought the list back to his seat and for the remainder of the time, he read off the songs and their corresponding numbers. When Sewoon got to the front of the room and tapped the microphone, he finally stopped.

“Hello everybody, again! I’m Sewoon, if you forgot, and it’s finally time for our annual dorm karaoke party!” He threw his hands in the air, and everyone gave a belated sound of excitement. “For those who don’t know the rules yet, they’re very simple. Everyone needs to do one solo song, and once those are done, we can just fool around.”

After the rest of the instructions were given and a few nonsense questions were answered, the first person finally went up to sing. Some were better than others, but in all, Jihoon was quite impressed. He waited nervously until his turn (they were going around the room). When it came time for him to go up, he repeated his number in his head all the way to the front of the room. One forty nine, Fantastic Baby. One forty nine, Fantastic Baby. One forty...five?

Jihoon pressed the one and four buttons, since he knew for sure the song started with those. However, he could not for the life of him remember what the last number was. “Hey hurry up!” someone shouted. Startled by the sudden noise, Jihoon pressed the enter button.

Oops.

On the screen popped up “14. Arirang”. He silently cursed as the music began. There were soft giggles behind him, but he decided to ignore them and just sing the song. It was a grueling two minutes before he could scurry back to his seat and let Jinyoung go up. Before the latter stood up, he whispered “cute”. Seonho laughed at Jihoon, and got up to help Jinyoung find everything. However, the older didn’t need much help after he knew where the number pad and microphone were. It just occurred to Jihoon that the keypad must have had the numbers written in braille.

Jinyoung turned to face everyone, and the screen lit up with “87. Darling (Lee Seungchul)”. A random person called, “Hey, you should look at the lyrics!”

Jinyoung straightforwardly replied, “I’m blind,” before the music started.

Jihoon swore that even Lee Seungchul himself couldn’t have sung that song any better. The way Jinyoung said “darling” set Jihoon’s cheeks aflame.

Maybe Jihoon liked Jinyoung a little more than expected.

The night was fun for everyone. Jihoon, Jinyoung, Seonho, and Guanlin went up as a group to sing “Sober” by Big Bang, and Jihoon redeemed himself for singing an old folk song during his solo. By the time they realized what time it was, it was already 11:30, and they were all running back to the dorm. Jihoon and Jinyoung finally had to part ways with Seonho and Guanlin, who looked like they were going to have a rap battle in their room for the next few hours. (“I can so rap!” Seonho had said, earning a violent laugh from Guanlin.)

Jinyoung pulled off his shirt when they got back into their room. “That was funner than expected.”

“Y-yeah,” Jihoon said, tearing his eyes away from his friend. Don’t be a creep.

Jinyoung pulled his pajama shirt over his head. “Also, Arirang was cute.”

“I didn’t mean to pick it,” he admitted, starting to get dressed himself.

“It was still cute. It fits you.”

“W-what?!”

Notes:

hope you liked it! dont forget to comment! ill try to get back to everyone. also, im gonna put this story up on my wattpad when i get a chance. its snowyxiu if you wanna check it out <3