EARLY MAY:

Felix’s eyes screamed at him while he flipped through the last few pages of his report once again. The time was well past midnight, but he had to make sure the paper was nothing less than perfect. It was his last assignment and a major grade that could possibly interfere with his early graduation if he didn’t get full marks for it. He did not want to chance that in the slightest!

He dragged a hand down the length of his face and leaned back into the mountain of pillows positioned behind him on the bed. His phone would serve as a fantastic distraction, as it had done just an hour earlier when he had found himself in a YouTube black hole of--

○ SpearB99 ‘Liked’ your comment on the video ‘’If [Original Rap]’’
○ SpearB99 has left a ‘Like’ on your video, “y Back”

Felix’s cheeks flushed, and his ears were burning, fatigue forgotten. He had spent nearly an hour going through SpearB’s videos and falling in love with the stranger’s voice and his rapping style. He had written embarrassing comments of admiration on at least five of the thirteen available videos and now the same person he’d just fanboyed over for an hour had watched one of his dance videos?!

Felix wanted to freak out! He wanted to scream out of embarrassment because of ALL the videos he had to go and watch Y BACK?!

It wasn’t like the guy knew which one of the members in the video was him, but Felix had been center for that dance. And some of the moves he’d done… Felix’s cheeks flushed even deeper red than before and his ears were on fire. Even if it was impossible to tell that he was indeed the one who had left the comments on SpearB’s videos, he knew that there was no way this person hadn’t watched him in the y Back video.

Felix threw his phone to the edge of his bed and turned to sink his face into the pillows behind him, willing them to swallow him hole instead of having to go through the embarrassment he was feeling with his entire being.

LATE JULY:

Felix pulled on the designer tie that fit a little too tightly around his neck to allow a bigger flow of oxygen access to his lungs.  The uniform he was chosen to model for was beautiful but unpractical. If he could make any suggestions to the designer Felix would point out that it’d probably be more comfortable for the dress shirts to come with a pre-tied necktie for all the boys’ sakes.

There were two other boys shooting with him for the uniform advertisement, each wearing the winter and gym counterparts of the same uniform. Neither one conversed with each other or even made eye contact with Felix, they only paid him any attention during his solo shoots or when he was paired with the girl who wore the spring and summer uniform, too.

“She was totally checking you out, bro!” One of the boys, the one in winter-wear, bless him, had come up to Felix on their lunch break. It was late summer now and Felix thought the poor boy must have been suffering in so many layers.

Felix spied a drop of sweat falling behind the boy’s neck and immediately offered up his hand-held electric fan to him to which he graciously accepted with a sheepish grin.

He thought through each word before answering, “Really? I didn’t… notice.” His speech was slow, but he applauded himself for keeping his wording steady.

The boy’s eyes widened, but there was nothing to indicate that he noticed or cared much about Felix’s slower speech. “Seriously?!”

Felix smiled a little to himself and nodded at the boy.

“I was too busy… trying not to, uh… melt?” He finished in English, the basic vocabulary escaping him in the moment.

“Whoa.” Now he’d done it. The boy would probably think he was some sort of weirdo foreigner who hadn’t even bothered to learn Korean before moving here.

Felix’s ears burned in embarrassment when the boy took a step closer to him and studied his face with his nose just inches away from Felix’s own.

“You have a really cool accent! Where are you from?”

Felix’s sigh could have been comparable to that of a deflating balloon. Well, that did not go as bad as he thought it could have.

“Uh, Australia.” Felix deadpanned.

The boy’s eyes lit up with recognition, “Oh, neat! I have a hyung from Australia, too!”

Felix raised his eyebrows at him, surprised, “Oh? Small world!”

The boy nodded and extended his free hand out to Felix. “My name is Hyunjin, by the way. And you can totally speak to me in English if that is easier or more comfortable for you. I know enough to understand you. And around the managers I can translate anything you might not catch,” Hyunjin gasped, eyes bright before nearly yelling out his newfound idea. “I CAN BE YOUR IRL SUBTIBTLES!”

Felix accepted his handshake with a shy smile and tried to suppress his laughter.

“My name is Felix. Thank you for the offer, it really does mean a lot to me that you would do that, but I am trying to stay away from English as much as possible since I need to improve on my Korean...” Felix was amused at the thought of ‘irl subtitles’, but he knew that they wouldn’t be doing him any good. He needed to get better at Korean, and the faster that happened the better it would be for his and everyone else’s sake.

Hyunjin’s smile never faltered, “I can help you, then!” He offered quickly and the same sheepish smile as before when Felix looked up at him, surprised. He turned the hand-held fan back on him when he noticed small beads of sweat that had broken through the layer of makeup around Felix’s temple.

“I’d like that a lot, thank you.”

Hyunjin shook his head, smiling.

“No need to thank me! I have a feeling we will probably be placed together for shoots like this more often,” Hyunjin paused to lean in and whisper, “Because, no lie, you and I are the most handsome teenagers our company has signed at the moment.”

He straightened up and observed Felix head to toe, as if he was analyzing him. “I mean, I assume you’re a teenager. How old are you?”

“I will be eighteen in September.” Felix answered the question with confidence. He knew he had a baby face, so Hyunjin was probably thinking he looked much younger than eighteen. He got that a lot. It was a big part of the reason he was casted by this company; all of his shoots up ‘til this one had been for pre-teen clothing and the occasional toy commercial meant to appeal to young boys.

“Really? I just turned eighteen in March! You can speak comfortably with me, if you would like to.” Hyunjin’s smile grew impossibly wider and his eyes turned into beautiful crescents. Felix was momentarily stunned at the other boy’s beauty; he hadn’t been kidding when he said they were the most good-looking teens in the company, but Hyunjin was the superior visual between them by far.

“Ah, okay!”

The boys cleaned up their lunches together when Felix was called back to get his makeup redone for their next shoot. Hyunjin followed Felix to the hair and makeup area because he knew they would also be calling him back there eventually.

They sat at twin vanities in silence while Felix got his makeup done, Hyunjin playing a zombie shooter game on his phone while he waited on his turn. He glanced up from his phone for a moment while he had to wait for a level to load and gasped quietly when he saw Felix’s face in the mirror catty-cornered from him.

“You have freckles.” Hyunjin stared, wide-eyed.

Felix blushed. “Mhmm,” was all he could get out in attempt to not mess up the makeup stylist’s hard work thus far.

Hyunjin sighed, exasperated. “That’s it, I think you are going to have to take the “Best Looking” title from me at this point. I don’t deserve it anymore, not when those exist on your -already perfect- little face.”

Felix strained to keep himself from laughing aloud. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he murmured when the makeup stylist stepped away for a moment.

“So,” Hyunjin decided to change the subject. “Which high school will you be attending? My friends and I all attend Seoul-“

“I, uh, I’m not going to high school…” Felix murmured again as the lady worked to accentuate the array of freckles across his cheeks with an eyebrow pencil and an assortment of creams and powders.

“Is the agency getting you a tutor? They did that for Mark-hyung while he was still in high school, like, forever ago.”

“No, no tutor, either.”

Hyunjin looked back up from his game, confused, just as Felix was hopping down from his makeup chair so the two of them could switch places.

“I’m uh… early admittance…?” Hyunjin’s confused expression stayed the same as he moved to take the seat that Felix had vacated. “To, you know, university?”

“Oh, seriously?! That is actually so cool, Felix! You must be super smart, oh my gosh!”

“Hyunjin-ah! Keep still!” The makeup stylist scolded the overexcited boy after he flailed about in his seat with excitement.

“Sorry.” He answered, clearly embarrassed by his sudden outburst.

Felix chuckled at the sight. Hyunjin was like an easily excitable puppy, but a very unpredictable one.

“Eh,” Felix sighed, “I’m… okay when it comes to academics, but I’m going for a dance major with a minor in music.”

“That’s exciting! How did you happen to land a spot all the way over here, though?” Hyunjin gestured around the room, implying that he meant their modeling agency, and probably South Korea as a whole, too.

“I’ve been modeling since I was really young, and my parents really wanted me to continue with it. Signing on here was the only way they let me come to South Korea for my dance and music studies, too. They mailed off my profile and portfolio to a few other agencies, but this one responded first and had the most promising benefits and such. And yeah… that’s how that happened.” He rushed out all at once, having kind of rehearsed the answer a few times on the flight here. He knew he was bound to be asked such a question at some point, it had just taken a little longer for someone to ask him than he’d originally thought.

Felix took a deep breath to calm his quickened heartrate. Had he even said that all in the correct order? Did it make enough sense for Hyunjin to understand him, or would he have to reiterate once more? Felix was so done with Korean for one day, but there was Hyunjin, smiling at him terrifically, once more. Talking to Hyunjin had come easily to him; he was comfortable and that made Felix grateful.

“That seems fair enough.” Hyunjin’s smile had dimmed, but still held the initial warmth and reassurance that Felix was starting to grow accustomed to.

Hyunjin sighed after a moment, “I’m jealous of you, though. All my hyungs go to university and I still have a whole year left until I can join them.”

Felix pouted, thinking of something to say to sympathize with Hyunjin, but the other boy shook his head with a smile, “It’s okay, though! I still have Seugminnie, Jisung-ah, and Jeonginnie to keep me company at school.”

Hyunjin didn’t miss the bewildered look on Felix’s face as he tried to process the overload of information and names. “Don’t worry, I’ll introduce them to you over time. I am more than sure that you will fit right in with our friend group.”

Felix opened his mouth to respond, stopping short to sort the mess of a sentence out in his head, but Hyunjin was being dragged away by other staff members to change him into the next outfit before he could get a single word out. He would have sulked, but he was being whisked away by another staff member in the opposite direction to change his own outfit.

-

“Felix-ssi, we’re going to do a closeup of the tie for the next shoot. It will have just below your eyes and down to the bottom tip of the tie, alright?”

Ah, Felix thought to himself, the selling point must be the tie. That’s probably why it’s so suffocating.

“Okay!” He answered politely. He had wondered why the makeup stylist had touched up the makeup from around his freckles to make them visible. She had only supplied that they were an ‘eye-catcher’ and that this particular shoot would be featured on a billboard and on small ads all over the city. But no pressure, Felix.

“Good work today, everyone!”

Being the last shoot of the day, Felix made sure to make a round to thank the staff members and the photographer, and lastly his managers and director, who stopped him before he could go back to his changing room.

“Felix, we were discussing the possibility of bleaching your hair for the next schedule…”

MID-AUGUST: CHANGBIN

Changbin’s body swayed with each harsh jerk and turn the subway train made. It was early, way too ing early, for someone who loved sleep as much as he did. No one should ever have to leave the warm comfort of their bed at an ungodly time such as 4:30AM to be dressed and out the door by 5:00AM in order to catch the 5:15AM train to make it to their destination by 6AM. If he had been in his right mind he would have asked to meet his soon-to-be new manager at a more reasonable time that was not 6:30AM. What was worse was that after the meeting he would have to hop back on the train to make it back in time for his shift at his current work location by 10AM!

It was only 5:26AM, now. Changbin sat in his seat quietly and observed all the shift workers who were either just getting off and were on their way home, or just starting their day, like Changbin. He envied those who were headed for home and pitied the others who shared his fate. Among the other passengers around him there were businessmen in their suits, sipping at disposable coffee cups and browsing on their cell-phones or reading the occasional newspaper. Hospital workers wore their scrubs without the layering Changbin was used to seeing them in due to it being late summer and still disgustingly humid out, especially in the morning fog. It made Changbin feel sticky just thinking about it. There was a high school student, Changbin assumed they were taking additional classes over the summer to help their grades, wearing a uniform that he did not miss even the tiniest bit.

They must have a long commute to be traveling so early in the morning. He thought to himself before sending silent well wishes of encouragement to the student.

It was 5:35AM when Changbin decided that he had grown bored of people-watching. He moved his attention to the advertisements that littered the walls of their train car. He didn’t find any of them very interesting, but some were at least quite informative.

He was reminded of the lone student as his eyes passed over a rather large poster showing off some new upgraded school uniform. The entire left half of the poster showed a close-up of the bottom of a boy’s face, one that had Changbin furrowing his eyebrows in thought. The boy had cute lips, but that was beside the point. Changbin stared above them, awestruck at the mass amount of freckles that dotted the model’s otherwise perfect and porcelain complexion.

Changbin scratched at his unmade hair. He couldn’t understand why the model’s unique features seemed so strangely familiar to him.

“Oh!” Changbin coughed out loud, earning stares that went unnoticed by him. He was too focused on pulling his phone out from his jeans pocket and dialing a phone number from his memory because he just couldn’t be bothered to scroll through the list of contacts in his phone.

“Hello?” A sleepy voice answered on the third dial-tone.

“Your advertisement!” Changbin whisper-shouted into the receiver. He kind of wanted to yell it out, unable to contain his excitement, but he had already gained enough unwanted attention from the other passengers from his previous outburst.

“Hyung… it’s like, stupid early. You’re gonna have to help me out a little, here.” The grogginess in his voice was thick with a slight annoyed undertone.

“The uniform advertisement you told me about a while ago! I’m looking at it right now on the train!”

“Hyung.” The sleepy voice deadpanned.

“Hyunjin-ah.” Changbin answered it back, dumbly.

“I am going back to bed for an hour. Call me later.”

Three beeps signaled the end of their call, Hyunjin preferring sleep over listening to this hyung’s over-excitement.

Changbin wasn’t bothered by his dongsaeng hanging up on him. He knew he would have done the same had the roles been reversed.

He glanced back at Hyunjin’s half of the poster; a full body shot that labeled each of the uniform’s pieces and priced them. Changbin’s wallet ached just looking at the number of zeros.

He sighed when he remembered the mysterious freckle boy just a little too late. He would have to ask Hyunjin about him another time, and preferably when the younger was his happier peppy self!

LATE AUGUST: FELIX

Felix groaned at the muffled banging noises coming from outside his room.

“Mm, whaaat the ?” He mumbled, natural English slipping into his sleepy vocabulary.

Bright light shone through the closed blinds that covered his windows letting him know that it was already well into the morning and that any normal person probably would have already been awake by now. But today was his day off! He was free from all schedules due to it being “move-in day” on campus and Felix never bothered to remind his agency that he had been living in his dormitory alone since the beginning of summer.

“OH , IT’S MOVE IN DAY!” Felix scrambled to sit up in his bed and removed the three layers of blankets he had used to shield himself from the frozen tundra that was his bedroom inside the dormitory. He had messed with the thermostat in his room only once when he first arrived at the university and somehow managed to break it in the process. He would have switched to the second bedroom when it happened over two months ago, but the RA only gave him a key for bedroom A, the other one saved away for his roommate, who still beat -kicked?- urgently at the door.

“Hold on, I’m coming!”

Felix made it out of his bedroom without much trouble, as he’d pretty much memorized where each of his stuffed animals were positioned across the floor. The plush dolls left hardly any space to walk around in his bedroom, but at least if he was ever to fall, Felix knew he would be in for a soft landing.

The incessant banging grew louder once he made it to the common room that held a couch and chair that Felix deemed comfortable enough to sleep in every once in a while when he’d come back from a particularly tiring day full of schedules, a mini fridge with some counter space, cabinets, and a microwave were also furnished to them with a cheap coffee table in the middle of it all which Felix had minimally decorated with a small bamboo plant when he first arrived. It didn’t look so pristine now as it had when he moved in; there were multiple pairs of shoes next to the door and a pile of dirty socks next to them where Felix would remove both after coming in after a long day of shooting. Empty bags of veggie chips and protein bar wrappers littered the counter tops and there was still a half-full bowl of cup ramen sitting out on the coffee table next too the graveyard of empty water bottles lined up to look like a formation of bowling pins before they’re knocked down, for Felix’s own amusement.

The angry sound of sneaker meeting the door made Felix almost wary of opening it. What if this person really was angry with him? Who knows how long Felix had slept through the banging? It could have been going on for half an hour, Lord knows he’s a heavy sleeper!

He stopped himself short in front of the door, delicate fingers held on to the metal lock, others placed over his heart that beat frantically in his chest.

Deep breaths, Felix.

He switched the lock over slowly and swung the door wide open, revealing a disheveled boy who looked equally as tired as Felix felt.

The boy barely so much as opened his mouth and the apologies began falling out of Felix’s own without any intentions of stopping.

“I am so sorry, I slept so late! I totally forgot what day today was and I was so exhausted I forgot to clean up the common area last night- God, can you even bring your suitcases through here, what a mess!” Felix took a second to breathe in and didn’t miss the bewildered look on the stranger’s face. “Wait, you are moving in, right? Please don’t hate me, I- mph!!”

The stranger had removed a hand from the handle of his luggage and placed it over Felix’s mouth, “It’s okay.” He spoke softly and slowly, watching Felix’s face with careful eyes as if he was making sure the younger understood his words.

Felix bit at his bottom lip once the hand was removed. How much of his spiel did the boy even understand? He probably started spouting off in English for all he knew. Good job, Felix. Great first impression.

“You must be Felix.” He continued, still slowly with the same careful expression on his face. “Rad hair, dude.” He said, glancing up at Felix’s hair before moving past him into the common area with half of his bags, the other ones still sat on the ground in the hallway outside the door.

“Uh, y-yeah,” Felix stuttered as he stopped the door from closing and moved to help grab the remaining bags. “My name is Felix, but how do you kn-“

“The name plates on the door.” He pointed to the door as it fell shut behind Felix.

Oh.

“My name is Minho, don’t worry about checking the door since I’ve told you my name, now.” Minho smirked, setting down his luggage in front of the closed bedroom door and holding out a hand to Felix. He set down the bags he’d brought in for Minho and returned the handshake with a slight hesitation.

“And to answer your question from earlier, as if it isn’t obvious at this point, yes, I am moving in. ‘Sup, roomie?”

FIRST DAY OF CLASSES:

Felix observed the circular auditorium before choosing a seat in the second row of the first section of folding theater-style seats. There weren’t many other students in the auditorium, yet, but he imagined it would fill up quickly as 8AM approached.

The faint sound of trap beats through headphones and the eraser-end of a pencil tapping on the wooden fold out desk-top brought Felix’s attention to the rear view of the boy who sat directly in front of him in the first row. The boy had his hood drawn up and the ankle of his right leg balanced on his left knee under the folding desk top of which laid an open composition notebook. Felix observed the pencil he held and noticed it was half the size of any normal #2, probably the result of being sharpened and re-sharpened dozens of times, but it still served its purpose all the same.

Felix started when said boy suddenly straightened in his seat for a moment – pencil tapping ceased – and leaned forward to jot something down in the notebook. His curiosity got the better of him as he leaned forward, just slightly, to glance at the spot on the paper that was momentarily revealed to him while the boy was writing.

He gasped hard enough to choke on air at the single word, or rather, name, that he was able to catch a glimpse of.

Felix hid his face in the sleeve of his burnt orange hoodie while he rode out the short coughing fit until he could breathe normally again.

The boy sat back so that the paper was once again out of Felix’s view, but Felix swore he saw the name. There was no mistaking that he had seen “SpearB” scribbled along the header of the paper.

Felix fidgeted with the sleeve of his hoodie. He wanted to get the boy’s attention, but he wasn’t sure how to go about it.

After a moment he decided to take Hyunjin’s motto that had been engraved into his entire being over the summer and yolo’d it.

“Uh, excuse me?” Felix was bent forward over his own desk top. He was already close to the boy before since there was very little walking space between the rows of seats, but he had leaned in until his face was right behind the boy’s head.

Still, there was no answer from him and Felix felt far too embarrassed to try to gain his attention anymore. He needed to plan out exactly what he was going to say in advance. He was too afraid that his lacking Korean could form a misunderstanding to someone else and he wasn’t willing to risk it with the first person he meets in an 8AM biology lecture course. Yolo-ing it would not be his first option ever again.

He made a mental note to talk with Chan or Minho about it, whichever one of the older boys he saw first later in the day. He would have one of them help him map out how he wanted the conversation to go and try again with the boy during their next class on Wednesday.

CHANGBIN

Changbin pulled off his earphones when the lecturer had situated himself behind the podium that stood at the front of the science auditorium. He was thankful to his roommate for (accidentally) waking him up early when he was on his way out for a morning run. It motivated him to get ready and arrive to class nearly forty-five minutes early, which was how he was able to get a good bit of lyrics down up until class began.

“I’ll pass the roll sheet around, now. Please initial next to your names on the sheet and jot down your student ID numbers in the space next to your initials, as well. That is how I will display your class averages on the monitor after midterms.”

Changbin thought it sounded fair enough and did as they were instructed when the sheet was handed to him from the only other student who had sat in the front row with him. He skimmed through the names, stopping with a start at the “Lee” section on the list.

Lee Felix? Changbin squinted at the name as if it would jog his memory. Why was the name familiar to him when he’d never even met someone by the name of Felix in his entire life?!

He bent forward over the list to cover the ‘Fe’ in ‘Felix’ with the eraser end of his pencil and had to stop himself from gasping, instead his eyebrows furrowed deeply in place of it.

“No way,” he mumbled under his breath.

Changbin straightened up from his bent position and looked around the room, completely oblivious to whatever his professor was droning on about up until now. He scanned the auditorium seats slowly. Of course, it could be a coincidence that the names were just similar, which is what Changbin ended up telling himself when he didn’t recognize a single face in the room.

He signed his initials and number as instructed and passed the list directly behind him, not bothering to look at whoever grabbed the papers away from him.

a/n: it was a long wait, right? i'll try to finish the update quicker next time. thanks for reading ^^ what do you think so far?