Jongdae drains the rest of his caramel latte as he walks with fellow music major, Baekhyun, across campus. Snow flurries float around them and Jongdae starts to miss the warmth of his coffee. Their first vocal lessons of the new semester have already concluded even though it’s still morning and most other students aren’t even out of bed yet.

“You have a break now, right?” Baekhyun confirms. “You should come back with me and meet Jongin.”

Jongdae agrees, curious to finally be introduced to the mysterious lover of Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s friend, Kyungsoo, who Jongdae had met a few times. Apparently Kyungsoo had met Jongin at a club the year before and they were now both freshmen here. This semester they would be living with Chanyeol and Baekhyun, who had extra space in their apartment.

“I should warn you, our place is kind of a mess right now,” Baekhyun says when he turns his key in the lock. Jongdae braces himself; if Baekhyun is actually admitting that it’s messy and warning him about it, it probably looks like a whirlwind of mayhem had its way with the apartment.

They step through the door and Jongdae promptly stumbles into a pile of clothes and other odds and ends. He flexes his twisted ankle as he glances around the rest of the living room, which is covered in similar mounds of miscellaneous. “What is all this?” Jongdae asks. Baekhyun closes the door after them and looks at him apologetically.

Chanyeol pops up from the sofa, extracting a stray sock from between the cushions and tossing it onto the nearest pile before coming to join them near the counter that separates the living room from the kitchen. “Kyungsoo and his boyfriend--”

“...are moving in, I know,” Jongdae cuts in, “I got that part. But the semester already started, so I thought you’d be finished with...” he trails off as he looks around at the clutter again.

“We thought so, too,” Chanyeol says, nudging the fridge shut with his hip. “Turns out that in order to make enough space for all their stuff we needed to get rid of more of our stuff than we originally thought.” He snaps open a can of soda and downs what looks like most of it in one gulp.

“How did you have space for all of this in the first place?” Jongdae asks incredulously, picking up what looks like a giant pillow in the likeness of a banana off the couch. “Does this have a purpose?”

Chanyeol shrugs. “Baekhyun used to be in the drama club.”

Jongdae places it gingerly back down on the sofa. “So, where are they anyway?”

“Who?” Baekhyun asks as he begins shoving items haphazardly into a duffel bag.

“Jongin and Kyungsoo,” Jongdae clarifies slowly. “I thought you wanted me to meet Jongin.”

Chanyeol and Baekhyun exchange a quick glance. “Well...they disappeared into their room a while ago,” says Chanyeol.

“Okay then...” Jongdae takes a breath, what was perhaps the truer reason for Baekhyun’s invitation becoming clearer. “I can’t stand to watch you two be organizationally challenged any longer anyway, so do you want some help?”

Fifteen minutes later, Baekhyun and Chanyeol have started to get the hang of folding clothes and placing objects in bags in such a way that they will fit inside and Jongdae is stretched out on the now mostly cleared off couch.  He has no idea what time it really is, but his eyes are begging to close after waking up early that morning. He decidedly shuts them and snuggles up against the velvety banana-shaped pillow from earlier.

He awakens to a deep murmuring above him. “But he looks so peaceful. I don’t wanna just--”

“JONGDAE GET UP!” Chanyeol shouts, and Jongdae flinches hard enough to roll off the couch.

“Was that necessary?” Jongdae asks from the floor, keeping one eye still closed until he checks the screen of his phone and immediately bolts up again. “! My chem lab started almost an hour ago!”

“Aw, you’re leaving? But you didn’t even get to meet Jongin yet,” Chanyeol says, frowning.

“You didn’t tell us you had a chem lab today,” Baekhyun adds.

“I completely forgot about it,” Jongdae groans, trying to pull on his jacket as quickly as possible and missing the arm hole a few times in the process. “Maybe I’ll see you guys for lunch,” he suggests as he struggles to shove on his sneakers without looking or using his hands because he’s occupied with attempting to flatten his hair, which is probably sticking up awkwardly in about ten different places, and putting on his backpack.

He stumbles out into the hallway and eventually out of the building, some of the initial panic over being late dissipating as he registers that at this level of lateness, saving those extra seconds no longer makes much of a difference. If it hadn’t been the second day of the semester and the first time the lab for this chem class was scheduled to meet, he probably wouldn’t have bothered going at all at this point.

Still, this would be the first time he had literally forgotten to go to a class in his two and a half years at this university. Hoping that’s no indication of how the rest of the semester will turn out, he walks faster.

Entering the biochem building, he finds the room without much difficulty and peers in the window as he walks to the door. A couple pairs of eyes dart up curiously at him through the glass. He tries ineffectively to calm his heart rate by walking slower for the last few steps that it takes him to enter. The professor is seated behind the desk at the front of the room, glasses perched on the end of her nose as she reads a paper intently, occasionally making notes in the margins.

“Sorry,” he says breathlessly as he approaches her. The professor doesn’t even acknowledge him and Jongdae contemplates just turning back around and leaving. After nearly thirty seconds, she lifts her head and looks him up and down once with a bored expression. “Sorry,” he says again. “Should I just...” Jongdae gestures hesitantly with one of his hands.

Apparently realizing that Jongdae is one of her students and was supposed to have been here an hour ago, the professor purses her lips into a thin line as she surveys the room, full of students already paired off and well into their work. “I guess we have an odd number today. You can work with Joonmyun,” she says finally, using her red pen to point out a well-dressed male moving between the aisles of lab benches. “He’s your TA for this lab.”

“O..k..” Jongdae swallows as he approaches him. “Hi, um...I just got here. The professor said I should work with you.”

Joonmyun stares at him with dark eyes that hold a gentle expression. “Oh, okay, uh...” He glances toward the front desk. The professor shrugs at him and he turns back to Jongdae, holding out the lab instruction packet for him to take. “How about you get your materials and we’ll get started then?” He smiles and it’s like rays of sunlight coming out to gently warm the tender buds of a cherry tree on an April morning. Jongdae swallows again.

His serene features now look slightly concerned and Jongdae realizes he’s been staring hard. He scurries off in direction of the cabinets at the back of the room before the other can see him blush. Materials in hand, he makes his way back to the lab bench where the teaching assistant is now sitting, watching him with a faintly amused expression on his face.

“I’ll start setting this up while you read over the instructions,” he says and Jongdae nods, holding the instruction packet unnecessarily close to his face as he scans it for the directions.

He reads about two lines before his eyes wander up to watch Joonmyun set up the equipment, chewing his rosy bottom lip in concentration. “Ready?” he asks after a minute and Jongdae inwardly panics as he remembers he was supposed to be reading.

“Yeah, I think so,” he lies as he scans the rest of the page far too quickly to absorb the information effectively.

“Ok, so we’ll take the temperature of the water first?”

Joonmyun looks pointedly at the thermometer and Jongdae reaches for it clumsily, sticking it into their container of water and flipping to the data table at the back of the packet. He uses the opportunity to read over the rest of the directions properly. They’re not particularly complicated, since it’s the first lab they’re doing. Jongdae exhales through his nose in relief that a middle school student could probably accomplish this. As he decided long ago to dedicate his life to music, chemistry isn’t exactly his forte.

They fall into a rhythm after the first few minutes and Jongdae finds himself staring at Joonmyun again as they wait for the thermometer to read a new temperature. This man’s complexion looks like it’s undergone a thorough treatment with the healing brush and the blur tool in Photoshop CS6. Not a blemish in sight, and Jongdae doubts whether he’d be able to see his pores or a shadow of facial hair even if he pulled out a magnifying glass.

“Why were you late? If you don’t mind me asking,” Joonmyun says suddenly, rupturing the silence Jongdae had been using to shamelessly admire the other’s immaculate skin.

“I fell asleep,” Jongdae admits, feeling a blush edge its way across his face again.

Joonmyun chuckles at him, the sound like a delicate glass wind chime. “Well, lucky for you this is just an introductory lab, so we should still be out of here early. Even luckier for you, you have me as your lab partner.”

Jongdae laughs harder than necessary, clearing his throat after. “Let’s not get carried away. Just because I’m a music major, doesn’t mean I can’t do science.” He removes the thermometer with a flourish, moving to write down the temperature with his other hand, but Joonmyun’s fingers suddenly close around his wrist and Jongdae barely avoids dropping the instrument in surprise.

Joonmyun guides his hand up a little higher and quirks his mouth, but doesn’t quite smile. “Always read the temperature at eye level,” he says, slowly peeling his fingers away from Jongdae’s skin.

As expected, they’re the last pair left still doing the lab when Jongdae records their final data; only a couple other students have remained in the room to talk to the professor. Jongdae hurriedly copies down the information he’ll need to write the lab report later, and stands to clean their area.

“Thanks,” he mutters to Joonmyun as he finishes and he slings his backpack over his shoulder and turns to leave.

“Wait.”

Jongdae turns around at the sensation of fingers resting lightly on his upper arm to find those gentle eyes looking at him again.

Jongdae waits, and silence stretches on between them, time feeling unnaturally slow.  Some of the authority in the TA’s voice fades when he asks, “What’s your name?”

Jongdae stares for a moment, his chest fluttering at the possibility that Joonmyun had found him interesting enough or a good enough student to get to know further.

“You, um, forgot to write it on the data table.”

The fantasy in Jongdae’s mind extinguishes itself in less time than it had taken to form.  “Oh.” Jongdae laughs once, mentally cringing at how awkwardly loud and forced it sounds in the now nearly empty room.

The gentle eyes blink, thick lashes briefly kissing lower eyelids. Jongdae looks down quickly, fumbling for a writing implement before he realizes Joonmyun already has his pencil poised over the paper and is still looking at him expectantly.  “K-Kim Jongdae,” he stammers out, sure that the tips of his ears are reddening as he watches Joonmyun’s slender fingers write his name above the data table with neat, deliberate . The characters are so even that they resemble a computer font.

Thin red lips bend gracefully into a smile. “See you next week then, Jongdae.” One side of his mouth curls up further than the other as he adds, “Hopefully on time?”

Jongdae only nods as he crams things into his backpack, not even trying to file away his notebooks in his usual organized fashion while his hands are shaking so badly. His phone vibrates in his pocket as he practically speed-walks out the door and he whips it out to see a new message from Chanyeol asking to meet him for lunch.

Jongdae enters the cafe in the center of campus and almost immediately recognizes the sound of Chanyeol’s laugh coming from a table in the corner. He heads over with his food and sits down next to Kyungsoo. “Hey guys. Where’s Jongin?” he asks.

“He’s still in dance class,” Kyungsoo replies, taking a sip of his drink.

“You know, I’m starting to think that this whole story could be an elaborate lie. Jongin does actually exist, right? You’re not making this up?” Jongdae baits and Kyungsoo coughs.

“Of course he exists,” he splutters once he regains the ability to talk.

“Hmm...okay.” Jongdae chews with a sly smile. “I’m just saying...it’s suspicious. I haven’t known you very long, but I wouldn’t have expected you to date some y club-goer who people call the ‘dancing machine’ and--”

“Wouldn’t be talking about me, now would you?” a deep voice says over the scrape of a chair across the floor. Jongdae lifts his eyes and finds that he has to crane his head up to look at the owner of the voice, a tall boy with windswept black hair and golden skin. “You must be Jongdae.” He smiles as he sinks into the chair he pulled over, gently tugging Kyungsoo in for a quick kiss that makes the shorter boy’s ears go red before he looks back at Jongdae. “I’m Jongin.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Jongdae says politely, then adds, “I was starting to think you were  imaginary.”

“Not quite.” Jongin grins. “I saw you asleep on the couch this morning. I had to leave for dance class before you woke up, though.”

Jongdae laughs. “Yep, that was me.” He retells the story of how he almost missed the first day of chem lab.

“At least your TA sounds cool,” Kyungsoo says once he’s done.

“Yeah, he is...cool,” Jongdae agrees, swallowing a bite of his food.

“Kind of sounds like he was hitting on you,” Jongin says, and it’s Jongdae’s turn to choke on his drink. Kyungsoo laughs into his fist.

Jongdae clears his throat. “No, no I’m pretty sure he wasn’t. There’s a rule against that, anyway.”

“Oh, so you’ve looked this up?” Baekhyun says teasingly, side-eyeing Jongin and making Chanyeol laugh.

“No,” Jongdae says, a little too quickly for someone who actually was being honest. “I just...I’m pretty sure there is.”

“Since when are you so concerned about the rules, Jongdae?” Chanyeol smirks.

“I’ve always been...well, ok just because I have a tendency to bend rules now and again doesn’t mean I want to get anyone else in trouble.” Jongdae looks around at his friends, who were all still smiling suggestively even though he was sure that none of them could argue against that. “But it really doesn’t matter, because no one said I was interested!” he adds vehemently.

“I know someone who dated a TA,” Jongin continues casually. “He can get in trouble for it if there’s a conflict of interest, like he has a say in your grades or anything like that, but it’s not totally unheard of for them to date students.”

Jongdae marvels that Jongin is only a freshman and yet acts so streetwise.

“I think you should go for it,” Baekhyun adds. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo nod enthusiastically.

“Guys--”

“If you’re worried about it, just wait until the semester ends to ask him out,” suggests Jongin.

“Guys, no one said I wanted to--”

Jongin pointedly ignores the way Jongdae keeps butting in and continues as if there had been no interruptions. “But you should flirt with him a bit. Make sure he knows you’re interested.”

“I did not say I was interested!”

“You really didn’t need to,” Jongin says, doing a poor job of holding back his laughter.

Jongdae hadn’t wanted to entertain thoughts like that but now that they’re there, they won’t leave and he can’t think of Joonmyun anymore without Jongin’s words replaying in his head.

“My life was easier when I thought you were imaginary,” he says darkly and the other four crack up.

----

Jongdae still finds himself rushing to get to chem lab on time the next week, despite managing to stay awake the whole morning. Baby steps, Jongdae, he tells himself. He bumbles into the room around the same time as a freshman named Sehun, who he ends up partnering with.

The lab they’re doing is significantly more complicated than the one from last week, but Sehun seems to know what he’s doing and Jongdae just follows his lead.

Near the end of the period, Jongdae concentrates on writing the answer to one of the assigned questions, pausing in thought.

“Good work, Jongdae,” someone says quietly behind him and he nearly falls out of his chair. He turns his head to find himself looking at the ethereal side profile of Joonmyun, who’s smiling again as he reads Jongdae’s answers over his shoulder, and Jongdae is embarrassed to the core by how giddy he feels that the TA remembered his name. He almost falls off his chair again when Joonmyun’s warm hand touches his shoulder briefly before he walks away.

Jongdae stares at Joonmyun’s sweatervest-clad back in something like awe until Sehun turns to him and says, “I think I’ll just finish answering these later. I’m starving.”

“Yeah...maybe I’ll do that too,” Jongdae responds as he realizes that he is, once again, half of the last pair in the room still working. Sehun packs up his things and is out the door before Jongdae can even zip his backpack.

He stands up at the same time as the professor. “Joonmyun, I have to get to a faculty meeting. Would you mind straightening up this room a little more before you go?” he hears her say.

“No problem,” Joonmyun chirps, walking over to the nearest lab bench and cleaning off the debris left by careless students.

The professor closes her briefcase with a clack as she exits and Jongdae is left paused ungracefully between his seat and the door watching Joonmyun. He reminds Jongdae of Cinderella, the way he’s cleaning the tables and organizing objects with pep and a tiny smile on his face. All that’s missing are the woodland creatures.

Jongdae struggles to swallow as he walks slowly over to the TA. “Do you, um...want any help?”

Joonmyun looks up at him and breaks into a smile that shows his toothpaste CF-worthy teeth. “Ah, Jongdae. That’s nice of you, but you don’t have to--”

“I want to,” Jongdae says, taking a step closer and resisting the urge to cringe at how cheesy that sounded.

Joonmyun raises his eyebrows. “Well then, how can I say no?” He hands Jongdae a sponge and he takes it, feeling the color rise in his cheeks.

He sticks the sponge under the sink at the neighboring lab bench. “So...where did you go to college?” he asks, unable to stand the silence as he turns off the faucet.

“Here,” Joonmyun replies. “I graduated last spring, so it’s just my first year in grad school. I was lucky to get a job TA-ing this class.”

He looks over at Jongdae, who is first to break the eye contact, swiping a paper towel over the slick surface of the table.

“What are you studying?” asks Joonmyun.

“Vocal performance,” Jongdae answers easily.

“Really? That’s kind of awesome,” Joonmyun responds.

Jongdae stops cleaning for a moment to look at Joonmyun again. “You think so?”

“Sounds a lot cooler than chemistry, doesn’t it?” The TA laughs. “Can I hear you sing something?” he adds after a pause. His voice sounds softer, almost timid when he asks.

Jongdae wrings out the sponge and crosses back over to the lab bench Joonmyun is now leaning against. “What do you want me to sing?”

Joonmyun shrugs. “Anything.”

“Everyone always says that, and then I never know what to pick,” Jongdae complains, hoisting himself up to sit on the counter across from Joonmyun.

“But I don’t know what to pick either,” Joonmyun whines in response.

“What’s your favorite song?” Jongdae tries.

“What if I want to hear you sing your favorite song?” Joonmyun counters, taking a step closer to where Jongdae is sitting.

“Nope, that’s not how it works,” says Jongdae, a smirk gradually working its way across his face. He stands up again and discovers that he’s taller than Joonmyun by just a little bit--he hadn’t noticed until now. “Until you give me a request, no singing demonstration for you.”

“Well then...” Joonmyun pauses, as if in thought. It hits Jongdae how close together they’re standing, the realization that there’s less than a foot of space between them making his heart race. It’s too close. But if he wanted to, he could lean in just a little closer to reach those perfect red lips, and then... “I actually am supposed to be somewhere right now, so I guess I’ll have to get back to you with my request,” Joonmyun finishes. He turns to gather his things and Jongdae takes a shaky breath at the loss in proximity.

“You will sing it for me if I think of a song, right? Is that a promise?” confirms Joonmyun, edging his way toward the door.

“Absolutely. You have to think of a song though,” Jongdae prods.

“I will.”

Jongdae smiles at that, flexing his hands over the straps of his backpack as he enters the hallway a minute later. He blinks and he still sees the image of Joonmyun’s face so close to his. He jumps as his phone vibrates against his thigh, signaling a new message.

From: Baekhyunnie

Where are you?

They exchange a few more navigational texts before he finds Baekhyun and Chanyeol with Kyungsoo at the table in the cafe that’s become their usual.

“He’s interested. I told you,” Baekhyun declares after Jongdae finishes telling them about how Joonmyun asked to hear him sing.

Even unconfirmed, the idea makes Jongdae feel slightly fuzzy. He pushes the feeling down as he protests, “This isn’t right. I shouldn’t be trying to--”

“Get in his pants?” interrupts Chanyeol.

“Well, that’s not what I was going to say...”

“But you’re doing really good! Don’t give up!” Chanyeol insists.

“I’m not trying to get into his pants,” Jongdae argues weakly.

“You’re not?” Chanyeol says dubiously.

“Well...I...” Jongdae stuffs some rice into his mouth to avoid answering.

“Because it kinda sounds like you want to pin him against a wall and--”

Baekhyun ruffles Chanyeol’s hair and he stops talking. “Channie, I think you’re making Jongdae feel uncomfortable.”

Jongin snorts into his wrist.

“I just--why is this happening.” Jongdae claws at his blushing face.

“It’s just flirting, hyung. You’re not doing anything wrong,” Jongin offers. “...Yet,” he adds with an evil glint in his eye that makes Jongdae highly uncomfortable, but he can’t cast aside the spark of excitement that comes with it.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N:  HI  ;3; So I know this probably isn’t what those of you who wanted something else from Social Experiment’s verse had in mind, especially if you wanted more Kaisoo or Baekyeol, but try not to hate me too much yet if that’s you! I might still continue to write stories in this AU since I like it and all its cheesiness

Also...I just realized that coffee is mentioned in like every single one of my fics and I regret nothing.

I will post the second part up soon