all the stupid things i've done (only made me closer to you)

For dongyas

Couple: Yadong

Prompt: Yadong being stupid

00.

It's a typical story for Lee Howon: his father went and got himself promoted (for the second time) from his company. It became an exciting moment for the family but it was also the moment they decided to move from their countryside home to the bustling city of Seoul within a few weeks. And from there, he has to start anew from his old life; that would mean new home, new school, new people. 

Well, that’s going to be hard, he thinks as he kicks off an invisible sheen of dirt off the concrete floor, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his gray hoodie and a grape flavoured lollipop protruding from his lips. He’s supposed to come straight home from the studio to help pack but has decided to go on a little detour through the park.

( “Hey, mister? Want to buy cookies? It’s for charity and I have to sell these before the day’s over.” A little girl adorning a thick coat over a cute girl’s scout uniform stares up at him with big hopeful, pleading eyes and pouty lips.

“No, tha-“ the stare seems to intensify into more of a kicked puppy look and damn, Howon can feel himself waver into submission.

By the time he gets home, he passes his mother, his father, his brother, and his dog three box worth of oatmeal raison cookies, mumbling out, “someone gave them to me”. 

There goes a chuck of his savings. He’d better watch out for those girls in the future. )

01.

Jang Dongwoo happens to be quite a popular figure in school, Howon finds out approximately one hour and thirty seven minutes after arrival as the new transferred second year student from Busan. Sunggyu, the school’s representative and a third year, tells him minutes after their introduction from their first shared class ( cooking ) only for the fact that he had searched through Howon’s information earlier and found out that he had an interest in dancing. Howon doesn’t tell him but despite the wavy auburn brown hair, sharp narrow eyes, and thick rimmed glasses against pale skin, his overall appearance gives him a sense of a hamster.

( And to relate to this Jang Dongwoo, he's getting a name for himself as well because really, who would transfer schools in early December? It's snowy, it's gusty, it's cold, and it's the middle of the school year, to boot )

“Who is he, anyway?” Howon inquires out of mild curiosity, arching an eyebrow just slightly.

“Someone with a very likeable personality.” Sunggyu says. It’s quite vague. “Perhaps you’d like to hang out with Dongwoo and I? We could show you around more and that way, you can trust on the first hand experience than my words alone.” He then offers as he slightly inclines his head in greeting to the many students waving back at him. Howon wonders if the male is actually popular himself but overlooks it when he decides that yes, he’d like that and where is it going to be held at?

02.

The moment Howon walks into his next designated class- which happens to be math, his worst subject, the first thing he takes notice of is the shockingly bright color of bubblegum pink amongst the sea of monochromic blacks and whites and grays sitting on the side of the room by the window.

(You’ll take notice of Dongwoo really easily, whether you like it or not. He stands out like a sore thumb, he recalls Sunggyu’s words of mirth. He doesn’t think it’s true until now…if the aforementioned person is really him )

As he strides forward with his mind occupied and face blank, he doesn’t realize the fact that his left foot is overlapping with his right and before he knows it, his face is planted to the floor a few inches away from the teacher’s desk.

Silence fills the air in all but a few seconds, until a strange sound erupts in what seems to be laughter, and it’s breaking the tension as well as building up the embarrassing atmosphere even more than necessary. Howon slowly raises himself up and dusts himself off by the time other students joined in, by the loudest seems to be the one who started it and it’s none other than the pink mop of hair that’s now rolling on the floor.

Ha ha, very funny.

03.

First impression of Jang Dongwoo after approximately three hours of arrival: a complete airhead.

Sometimes, he sees the male around with Sunggyu, laughing over some joke or the likes. Other times, he sees him standing around in and laughing for no reason as he stares up the sky. And this time, he sees Dongwoo laughing over something he’s seeing on his phone, his face half obscured with a red horned cap over his head. ( Where does he get that and why isn’t anyone saying something about it? )

But he supposes there are things he can’t help but to be impressed with- like how the way Dongwoo danced when he stepped into the practice room for his elective class. The older male was demonstrating hip hop with sharp limbs and fluid motions that he ended up thinking, wow, that’s really cool.

The only problem that- like the first time they’ve seen each other, Howon trips and stumbles and catches everyone’s attention.

( Howon finally reacts and throws a discarded sweater he found towards Dongwoo’s direction when familiar laughter reaches his ears. It hits him square in the face. )

04.

“Why are you following me?” Howon can’t stay silent anymore, not after ten minutes of riding the bus and another ten striding down the neighbourhood area that he’s trying to familiarize himself with. The only reason why he’s able to figure out his way home so far are the family mart by the stop he gets off at and the quaint baby blue two story right beside his own at the far end of the block.

The only disturbing thing about this is the fact that Dongwoo heading the same direction as well.

He stops. So did Dongwoo. “Are you stalking me?” he says before the short male can open his mouth.

“…Pfft.” Howon watches as the other swivels to the side and doubles over in laughter, much like he does in their math class. “Yah.” It isn’t funny.

“Ahh, sorry.” Dongwoo speaks up after another minute of continuous laughter and another two just trying to calm down. “You really didn’t know? Really?"

“Know what?” he inquires slowly, taking more notice of the light flush blooming across Dongwoo’s face than his words of response. It’s a good color on him, he can’t help but to think.

“See that house over there? The baby blue one?”

Howon turns to the house in question. The house he had been taking notice of? “…Yeah?”

“I live there!”

Well, . Howon grows silent, even as the older male gets up from his position and trots close enough to incline toward him with a bright smile. “That means we’re neighbours. I thought your mom told you about us.” And with that, he gives Howon a friendly pat on the shoulder and passes him straight towards the door. “See you tomorrow, Howonnie!” he waves and just as he pushes the door open, he gives a yelp. 

( Apparently, his kid brother had attempted to spy on them. )

05.

“Call me Hoya.” Howon says when he catches Dongwoo working on his morning jog. “And change your hair color, it stands out too much.”

( he doesn’t tell him that he had lost his last hour of sleep and he’s been thinking ( hoping ) that they could become better friends. It’s only a coincidence that he sees the older male barely racing out of his home and warming up a little. But really, next time, he shouldn’t try to run after the male in purple cartoon-decorated sweats and a large hair clip on his bangs just to say that. )

06.

“…It’s green.” Sunggyu states monotonously as he arches an eyebrow over to the bright neon green color that is Dongwoo’s hair. The two are sitting in an empty room used for acting. School doesn’t start for another 15 minutes and the club doesn’t have activities for the day so Sunggyu thinks it’s fine to use it. Howon had texted him earlier, stating that he’d be coming around in a few minutes.

“It’s green.” Dongwoo confirms with a look of accomplishment. “I’ve been thinking about changing it since yesterday.”

The bespectacled male blinks a couple of times when he catches something he thought he isn’t sure of. “There’s a patch of hair that’s still pink.”

“What? Really?” 

He nods and indicates the area with a finger. It’s like a patch of (green) skin got scraped off and he dips an eyebrow down. “It’s going to be hard to hide it.”

Dongwoo groans in disappointment. “What am I going to do? I want to show Hoya.”

Blinking several times, Sunggyu feels the corner of his lips twitch up. Oh, so that’s what it is.

( Howon walks in to find Sunggyu attaching a long curly brown wig onto Dongwoo’s head. There’s a cute white bow tie perching on top of it and for a second, he thinks he might’ve fallen for the latter…naaah.

“Hey, Hoya!” Dongwoo chirps out in greeting when he sees him. “Like my hair color?”

Howon blinks. Then, he says, “It doesn’t suit you. Go for green or something.”

“But I did!” Out of impulse, Dongwoo yanks the wig off- as well as the pins and bowtie and causing them to scatter away in mid-air- and shows him the neon green (and bubblegum pink) hair. Sunggyu makes a face, feeling miffed over the fact that his efforts have been wasted.

There’s a bit of silence before Howon speaks up, his lips twitching up a little out of impulse. “You look like a watermelon now.” )

07.

"Dongwoo, stay here after class." The math teacher instructs as he passes out the latest quiz results from yesterday. This is new, Dongwoo thinks to himself as he nods absentmindedly, his eyes trailing off toward the window. A pair of sparrows flitters by, chirping their own special song.

He then turns to the person sitting parallel to the teacher’s desk. Howon. He seems to be listening pretty intently, jotting down notes every so often.

So serious…yet kind of cute.

He suddenly blinks and laughs awkwardly to himself, questioning whether or not he really thought that.

“So you find algebraic expressions funny, Dongwoo?”

Oops. He laughed louder than he originally anticipated. “No, of course not.” He says, meeting the gaze of the older man. The teacher simply raises an eyebrow and hums before returning to his lecture. As he does so, Dongwoo catches Howon’s gaze. He smiles and waves a hand in dismissal. 

He has a feeling Howon won’t prod the information out of him anyway. He’s not a nosy person, not like Sunggyu.

After half an hour of staring off into space, class is over and when the last person leaves the room in favor of lunch, Dongwoo folds his hands over the back of his neck and eyes the older male as he heads over to shut the door. "So what's up, Woohyun? Normally, you wouldn't call me to stay back."

Sliding the door close with a soft, sharp snap, the teacher takes his time before shifting his gaze over to his student, nose scrunched and lips thinned. 

"It's hyung to you and I have a reason for this." He heads over to pick off a single sheet of paper off his desk and passes it to Dongwoo. "I never thought I see the day you got a mistake in a quiz. And look" he emphasizes by pointing to that sole mistake, gesturing him that he checks. "What's the answer to x + 2x = 5 + 10?"

Dongwoo takes a glance at the response he had written down and pauses.

"Well? What is it?"

"...Hoya."

Woohyun suddenly looks amused, his lips twitching up involuntarily and a hand rising up around his ear. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”

Dongwoo gives him a scrunched look but that doesn’t save him from the heated flush that creeps across his cheeks. “Hoya.”

The teacher takes a second long glance at the male and sighs hopelessly, shaking his head. “Minus point for not catching on sooner.”

08.

It’s not so bad, Howon admits to himself on the day of Christmas Eve. Sunggyu’s a cool guy and a person he can well rely on whenever he needs help. He had also befriended his teacher, Woohyun, of all people and he supposes it’s safe to say that he’s doing remarkably better at his worst subject than ever before ( “Doing better, Howon.” Woohyun comments, passing back a test that marked a three out of ten. ) 

But most of all, he starts to become really close with Dongwoo. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that their neighbours or the fact that they’ve been meeting up at every possible moment (though it’s more of Dongwoo looking for him at every possible moment), but he has come to like the older male.

Sunggyu’s right- Dongwoo does have a likeable personality. Likeable enough for him to think that maybe, maybe, he’s on the verge of crushing on said male.

And he’s now afraid because…how is he going to handle this?

09.

After long hours of debating and thinking (and distracting himself through dance and pop idols and maybe a bit of ), Howon decides to make his feelings known. There is a 50-50 chance that the outcome will be good and what’s not to say about taking risks? What he wants is a result.

However.

However, as he progresses into showing signs of interest towards Dongwoo, it appears the other male doesn’t take notice of it.

Like trying to pass a bottle of banana milk with note attached to it. ( Said male passes it on to a classmate as a trade in for strawberry milk. Classmate gives Dongwoo a weird out expression when he finds the note. )

Or that time he placed a white daisy he picked from the front lawn into Dongwoo’s locker. ( Tried to, more or less. He couldn’t recall the combination number he was once informed so he tried squeezing it though one of the thick slits. Sad to say, the flower crumpled in the process. )

Or when he turned to Sunggyu for help. ( “Figure it out yourself” was all he said as he headed out, claiming that Woohyun had called him earlier regarding a new club he want approved. Some help. )

And several other methods that were too embarrassing to name once he thinks about it. They had involved getting the other party jealous, red heels, and a huge food fight in the cafeteria.

He isn’t giving up though. He just needs to find some other methods.

( But it’s only until Dongwoo comes knocking at his door five minutes before midnight on Christmas with a shiny purple bowtie around his neck, a mistletoe leaf peeking out of his grip, and a brightest smile he has ever seen that he realize, oh, maybe he does know after all. 

He’s only more reassured when those soft, plump lips meet his own. )

10.

Apparently, Dongwoo’s not oblivious at all. 

But when he realizes that, he wonders if the male notices every attempted move he had tried over the past day.

( “I doubt there’s anyone who didn’t know. But don’t worry, I think it’s endearing.” Dongwoo swivels around him to press a short kiss to his lips, stating that he has landed himself under a mistletoe. That’s clearly a lie but he pulls the short male back and kisses his breath away because there’s no reason not to. )

A/N: Santa is sorry if this is not what you’re expecting because this turned out to be ‘yadong being stupid(ly in love). To boot, it’s also in a drabble-series kind of way; I’m not sure whether you approve of that? orz but I still hope you like it. Happy holidays to you!

StarlightSpirit: This was so fun to read and I loved it! I loved the drabble style of this and it was well written and cute and airy and fluffy and awww <3 Great job!