[x]

“Hey, Jongin. Do you think it’s too cliche to write a high school!au where the main characters knew each other as kids, but one’s dating someone else now, and the other is jealous, and then there’s a hot senior who’s in love with the single guy, but because he loves him so much he’s going to try to wreck the other couple so the guy he loves can actually get with the guy he loves?”

How on earth did God gave a pair of lungs to Kyungsoo that he could spit out such nonsense in one breath without even looking at his recipient or acting like he cared if anyone replied, Jongin would never know. 

“Uhm…. what’s an au?”

“Yeah I thought it sounded a little far-fetched. Besides, I just don’t see how Lay would want to help Luhan like that. Nobody’s that selfless (well, maybe Lay), but Xiuchen in a Xiuhan? Not in my fic!” He snorted, “Pfft. Romantic fool. I’ll just respond to this Suho guy and tell him: prompt-request-denied!”

Was there such a thing as the sound of evil typing? Jongin thinks Kyungsoo just invented and defined it.

When he first started college and met his roommate, Jongin couldn’t spazz enough to his bff Sehun about the most perfect specimen alive and how he was going to make it his mission this year to have Kyungsoo fall in love with him, and they’d be perfect boyfriends and eventually graduate and get married and buy a house, and live happily ever after, and then some. 

“I think I’ll just stick with a Coffee shop!au. Can’t have too many of those in this world. It’s too canon, don’t you think, Jongin?”

Did Jongin forget to mention that his happily ever after was now heavily tarnished by Kyungsoo and his computer and his fanfiction, and six gorgeous men plastered all over everything in Kyungsoo’s side of the room? (Five now, but Kyungsoo didn’t dwell on that too much or else he’d start to cry.)

“Uhm, do you want me to go get you some coffee?”

Now he could only talk about the dreaded friend-zone and how all of Kyungsoo’s friends were apparently supposed to love and cherish afore-mentioned six five man group EXO-M as much as Kyungsoo himself. Jongin knew at least one or two names, and that was because they were all Kyungsoo ever talked about. Incessantly. However, he'd yet to reach the point where he could match faces to names.

“Did you say something, Jongin?”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“So how is your love mission going?”

“Is it still going anymore? I don’t even know,” Jongin sighed.

Sehun’s attempt at sympathy was pretty poor. “If it helps, I know a couple guys who are also fans of that group. I can invite them over sometime and maybe they’ll give you lessons.”

“Lessons? In what? Fanboying?”

Sehun shrugged.

“I’ve already got the biggest fanboy alive sitting in my dorm room, day in and day out. I don’t need others!” Jongin fussed.

“Well yeah, but it sounds like you just don’t know this band well enough to talk to Kyungsoo. So I was thinking, if you let some other guys, more impartial guys, teach you everything you need to know, then you’ll actually have a starter kit to conversation.”

Perhaps his lack of a love life was a serious enough damper on his powers of logic and reason, but it didn’t sound half bad when Sehun put it like that. 

“Jongin, read this for me okay, and tell me if it sounds good?” 

“What is it?”

“Just a Xiuhan drabble about soul mates.” 

He was always there in the little things. Those secret touches and gazes from across the room that none other could interpret. Wherever he went and whatever he did, Luhan sensed him. Across the dance room or in separate corners of the van, they were all the same as if Xiumin was right next to him, touching, or sleeping at night. They were close, closer than anything, and the secret of it all nagged and burned him inside like a fire he couldn’t put out. 

Xiumin was better at hiding it, Luhan knew. But then Luhan knew how his face stood out, and how his expressions were always obvious, so sometimes he purposefully hyped it up in front of cameras, or pretended to look at the other members in the same way so that no one would find out. It’s just Luhan and his crazy unhinged jaw, they would say, and laugh at him later. But then much later, Xiumin would come in and laugh even harder, and they’d shut the door and lock it and laugh until their stomachs ached and then they wouldn’t laugh anymore. Not with the way Xiumin locked his lips with his own and kept his attention. 

Shhhhh, Xiumin would whisper under the sheets. Someday we won’t have to hide. Someday I will be able to kiss you publicly and nobody will be able to say a thing then. Will you wait for me, Luhan? Will you wait for the day when we can come out of his hiding place and take our place under the stars as soul mates? Until then will you stay with me?

Jongin cleared his throat loudly. “It’s… good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean it’s… romantic. A little cheesy maybe—“

“You think it’s cheesy?” Did Kyungsoo’s cheeks just redden? 

“No, Yes, I mean but, that’s not the point. Cheesy is good! It’s really good. It’s about soul mates and stuff so that kind of thing is supposed to be a bit cheesy and—“  .  “You’re a really good writer, hyung! Uhm, keep up the good work? Are you going to write more to this? I mean is it done or is there more? Because I’d definitely like you to write more. When, you know, you want to.”

He was rambling, and a rambling Jongin wasn’t a good thing because who knows what crap might come spouting out of his mouth and now Kyungsoo will think Jongin was just being condescending and now even their friendship would come to an end — 

“Thanks, Jongin.” He smiled. He actually smiled! “I think I’ll be adding more to this. Probably this weekend. I’ll let you read it again then!”

Kyungsoo turned away before he noticed the sweat starting to trickle down Jongin’s temples, but Kyungsoo smiled and with those heart-shaped lips this was definitely a big deal in Jongin's world. Crisis averted, for now, but Jongin decided he definitely needed the help of whatever Sehun’s two friends could offer. And quick. 

"So the pretty one with the tiny face is..."  

"Luhan, that's right."

"And the one with the cute, puffy cheeks is..."

"His baozi!"

"Uhmm, what?"

Jongin could probably strangle Sehun right now, because his two friends who were supposed to save the day for Jongin's love life were in every respect just as crazy if not more so than Kyungsoo. Did they even speak Korean? Because to Jongin's ears Baekhyun and Chanyeol only spoke in a fanboy's code, and their particular language was a shade off from Kyungsoo's own code language, and so still Jongin was confused.

By the end of their first session he was starting to recognize faces, but then half the group members had two names, or three, and then there were the nicknames and the ship names and the alternate ship names that Baekhyun scoffed at "(Lumin! Hah!) but insisted Jongin needed to know anyways, just in case.

They were meeting in the other dorm's cafeteria where Baekhyun and Chanyeol lived just to be safe. The last thing Jongin wanted to admit if Kyungsoo happened to walk by was that he still couldn't figure out which guy in the group Lay was, or which other member Lay was supposed to be in love with.

"Okay see the guy with the dark circles under his eyes? He's easy to remember because he looks like a panda, and his name is Tao. He's the rapper. Remember: the rapper of the group. Got it? I think he's my favorite." Chanyeol's finger indeed pointed to a tall, panda-like figure, but Jongin could already see the problem with this line of memorization.

"Tao. Panda. But, what if he's had more sleep since the time this photo was taken? How will I recognize him then?"

Chanyeol stared at him blankly, uncomprehending. Baekhyun had to answer for him, in slight tones as if he were addressing a baby, which technically he was. "No no it's okay. Tao always looks like this. No matter what. See? It'll be easy for you to learn."

"Fine." Jongin knew he needed to make some concessions. "Okay so this one here is with the weird jawline is... Chen?"

"Hooray!"

"You got it!"

Little victories, Jongin sighed.

"And the guy who looks stoned is... Lay?"

"Correct!" Baekhyun danced on the spot. 

Jongin's eyes scrolled from the poster to the postcard to the pictures on Baekhyun's phone and back again. "But then who is this hot one?"

"That's still Lay."

"And the cute dimply one?"

"Also Lay..."

Jongin scrolled through a few more images. "And this guy hopping around is..."

"That's Yixing," Chanyeol answered this time.

"So... not Lay?"

"No, Yixing is Lay," Baekhyun explained.

"But I swear they all look like four different guys."

"Ahah! But that is the magic of our dear unicorn." Baekhyun and Chanyeol smiled at each other.

And the code words returned. Moving on!

"I'm scared to ask, but who is the tall guy you keep skipping over in each of these pictures?" 

Baekhyun tittered indecisively before claiming Jongin didn't need to know, but then Chanyeol took offense and told him in no uncertain terms that this is Kris ("was Kris" Baekhyun chimed in/"is Kris. He's not dead, Baekhyun") and Jongin let them duke it out for another few minutes while he gathered that this was the member who'd left and occasionally made Kyungsoo teary-eyed or throw things across the room. Jongin let them talk the subject to the ground before trying to reiterate some of the basic facts.

"You said two of the guys were Korean?"

"Uh huh! Chen and Xiumin. Or rather, Jongdae and Minseok." Baekhyun's hand directed Jongin's gaze to the same puffy cheeked boy he'd seen earlier.

"I thought you said his name was baozi?"

"It is baozi."

Done. Jongin was done with the whole lot of them.

1,738 words

Yay! I'm finally getting started with this project! In case it's not evident, this will be just a nice, humorous fic without a whole lot of drama, except for the drama that Jongin's in love with a fanfiction-writing-fiend. Hope you like it!

<3 Rosie