“Why is our Psychology teacher such a freak?” Hojoon mused to himself dryly as Jiho stirred, slowly waking up from the nap he had been trying to avoid the entire class period. Hojoon stood up, already prepared to leave and waited not-so-patiently for Jiho to rub the sleep out of his eyes, yawn like the idiot he was and proceed to stumble his way to the front of the classroom, intent on ignoring Hojoon offering to help him walk like a normal human being. 

“Wow, you really crashed didn’t you?” Hojoon chuckled out quietly once they began walking up the hill towards the library, Jiho grumbling in annoyance at being cold and still sleepy. He interrupted his own grumbling long enough to reply with “Yeah whatever. I just wanna get home and go back to sleep— Ughhh!” 

Hojoon snorted unsympathetically. “Okay you oversized toddler, whine all you want. But I’m not going to be the one responsible for you getting a failing grade on that project we were assigned today that you just so happened to have slept through all of the instructions regarding it. Oh well, for you, I guess.” 

‘Well, that certainly got his attention’  Hojoon thought smugly to himself as Jiho’s eyes widened in alarm, panic spreading across his face like a tidal wave, wiping the sleepiness away so quickly that it only felt like a memory that lasted a mere few seconds in comparison to his newfound horror that set in. “WHAT?! Seriously?! Oh my god, you should have woken me or something!” Jiho all but shrieked as he pulled at his hair in mental agony, walking straight through a shallow puddle of melted snow in his distracted state. He cursed and flashed Hojoon a dirty look as the other snickered at his sequential unfortunate turn of events. ‘But you looked too cute and peaceful. I couldn’t just interrupt that—plus you would have gotten pretty pissed if I had woken you’. But it’s not like I can actually tell you that.’ 

“Oh shut up would you? It’s not like your day just got significantly more difficult or anything,” Jiho mumbled loud enough for Hojoon to hear him as he trudged up the hill, nearing the library with every step. Hojoon shook his head, his smile never leaving as it hadn’t yet found a reason to. “Well, I can think of a way to make ‘your significantly more difficult day better’. But as far as I know, you’re throwing too much of a tantrum to care so I’ll just shut up.”

“Wh- what?” Jiho spluttered, unprepared for the change of mood that Hojoon brought up, “You can’t tease me like that! What do you have in mind?” He muttered the last question out somewhat sheepishly, as if he were embarrassed to completely contradict his previous statement, his spirit feeling crushed even further when Hojoon let loose a victorious, cocky grin. 

“Well, I was thiiiiiinking….” He mused slowly, reveling in the helplessly annoyed glare Jiho sent him as he knew he could do nothing to make Hojoon go any faster if he wanted him to answer, “Maybe I could lend you my notes— or something ridiculous like that. You know, casually save your sorry .” Hojoon made sure to emphasize the last bit, but clearly Jiho was ignoring that as his face lit up with relief and gratitude. 

“That’d be sort of great,” Jiho all but burst out but was cut off by Hojoon holding up his hand, a slightly unsettling smirk set in place of his previously victorious one. “Hold on, I wasn’t done yet. I’m willing to let you borrow or copy or do whatever— take a picture for all I care. Point is— You’re going to owe me one for this.” 

Jiho raised an eyebrow, curious but cautious. Know Hojoon, which he didn’t that well but enough, he’d be the type of person to hold this against him until the worst possible moment since that was his little type of personality. ‘At this point I don’t think I can avoid needing these notes, so I guess I’ll just have to see how his little plan will unfold.’ 

“Okay,” Jiho agreed, nodding slowly as he opened the door for the both of them, wordlessly acknowledging Hojoon’s nod of thanks as they headed towards a few seats next to a table in front of a massive window that spanned the entire first floor of the library, giving the room excellent natural light that was quickly fading due to the onset of nighttime. Jiho sat down first, getting out and opening his laptop, “Alright, I’ll do it, but exactly what am I going to owe you?”

“Oh, you’ll see,” Hojoon purred, smiling at the confused face Jiho made at his cryptic statement as he pulled out his own laptop and supplies, preparing for the homework session that they were both going to inevitably have. “That’s all you’re going to say? Nothing else of actual merit or quality?” Jiho pried, vague annoyance tingeing his tone of voice that was left unheard by Hojoon as he simply hummed a quick “yup” as he was already distracted by whatever he was working on. 

Jiho sighed in resignation and decided on finishing whatever work he had before trying to talk to Hojoon again. “Okay, so English first,” Jiho whispered to himself, eyes flickering across the screen as he scanned the page set up by his professor. He stared at the same page for a good thirty minutes, trying to at least understand it first— answering the questions, at this point was seeming to be more impossible the longer he looked at it. Finally letting out an exasperated and quite fed up sigh, Jiho nudged Hojoon’s arm shyly, unable to meet his gaze as the other tore his own off of his screen to look over at him questioningly. “What?”

“Um, I’ve been staring at this for basically an eternity and I don’t get it,” Jiho admitted sheepishly, kicking at the wall in front of them distractedly as he pointed at the paragraph of English then the questions about it below. Hojoon smiled pityingly and adjusted his glasses as he leaned over to get a better look at Jiho’s screen, his shoulder pressing and brushing up against Jiho’s. He hid a smirk as he felt Jiho shrink away at his touch, his body language shifting from comfortable and relaxed to alert and tense. Hojoon pretended not to notice and he reached up and pointed a finger at the screen as he cleared his throat. “This is explaining the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’. Basically, ‘your’ is used when you’re talking about something that you or someone else owns. It’s a possessive pronoun. You use ‘you’re’ when you are saying ‘you are’ but abbreviated— or shortening it. Don’t mix these up when you’re writing because people get really annoyed when you use it wrong.”

Jiho nodded as Hojoon explained patiently, trying to ignore the hurricane of butterflies that were hurling themselves around in his stomach and the blood rushing to his cheeks. ‘Seriously, he’s just explaining some English stuff and is just sitting really close to me. It’s not a big deal! Hell, Dongsung practically body slams me all the time whenever he’s rushing around and I was fine then…’  

Hojoon his lips and glanced over expectantly at Jiho, “So, does it make more sense now?” Jiho nodded absently, shaking his head vigorously as he re-focused his mind. “Yeah, yeah it does, but can you give me some examples or something so I have like, context…”

“Jiho, if you want me to help you with the questions then just say so. You don’t have to beat around the bush or anything,” Hojoon chuckled in a slightly disapproving tone as he nudged Jiho playfully. Jiho laughed awkwardly as he scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment, “You sure read me like a book don’t you? But um… Yeah, I need help with the questions… too…” 

Hojoon nodded and proceeded to walk Jiho through the entire page of English homework he had slowly, allowing for the occasional question before he kept going, spending a grand total of half an hour on his little tutoring session with Jiho before he went back to his own work, stretching to loosen up from leaning over for such an extended period of time. They both worked fairly quietly for a few hours after that, the sun having been long gone before Jiho tapped Hojoon’s arm once again, his pleading gaze met with Hojoon’s blank and tired one. 

“What…?” Hojoon sighed out as he rubbed his eyes that had gotten dry from not blinking due to his intense concentration. “You never showed me your notes from today… Um, can you now?” Jiho asked almost painfully as he watched Hojoon nod slowly before he brought up a document on his laptop ad shifted the screen over to show Jiho its contents. “Here. I took notes on here so just… Take a picture. That’ll probably be easiest.” 

Jiho nodded and pulled out his phone and quickly snapped a photo of the notes, scrolling down to see if he missed any. “Oh, by the way, when was this project due again?” Jiho asked once he finished, nodding in thanks to Hojoon as he pushed the laptop back over to its owner. “I think it was due by early December, which is like six -ish weeks away since October’s almost over already.” Hojoon replied as he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, glancing at the time. “Wow… It’s already eight.” 

Jiho nodded and raised an eyebrow, staring at his own laptop in disbelief, the clock’s time reading 8:06 blaring back at him in conformation of Hojoon’s words. “Man… I didn’t think I’d be doing homework for that long today,” Jiho admitted, his words falling on deaf ears as Hojoon went back at it, but only for another thirty minutes or so before he finally closed his laptop and began packing up his things, nudging Jiho awake as he’d fallen asleep on his laptop, waiting for Hojoon to finish. He packed up as well and soon both boys were heading back to their dorms but were seemingly going the same way for some reason.

Jiho knew Hojoon didn’t live in the same dorm building as he did, so it took him by surprise as Hojoon continued to walk next to him as he walked to his own dorm. ‘If I remember correctly, he lives in the building that connects to mine… Doesn’t he? So why…?’  Jiho shook his head and pushed the thought back, deeming it unimportant for now and decided on focusing on not bumping into Hojoon every chance he got. 

Hojoon finally spoke up and broke the silence as they neared the doors that lead into Jiho’s dorm building, “So, I still have some things I need to go over it you and they’re sort of due in two days. We basically need to finish it tonight ‘cause I’m not sure if I’ll be able to tomorrow…”

“Hold on, what? What do you mean ‘we’?” Jiho asked, thoroughly confused. Hojoon sighed and closed his eyes, thought for a moment and then stopped walking. Jiho jerked to a stop and stood in front of him, curious and wanting answers. “I forgot to tell you. This is a partner project… I would have picked someone else, but…” He trailed off, kicking at a stray pebble that was laying on the stone path before he finally said “I didn’t know anyone else and I couldn’t really wake you up, so I just figured it’d be fine.” 

Jiho cleared his throat, trying to calm his racing thoughts and equally pounding heartbeat. “No, that’s fine! It’s probably better you did anyway….” Honestly he didn’t know what else to say. Basically he’d signed himself in for six definite weeks that basically required him to be around Hojoon even more often than he already did, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was just… Unexpected to say the least. Hojoon nodded and opened the door, “Yeah so since that’s done with, is it cool if I go over it at your place? I think my roommate forgot to give me my key to the place back and I don’t know where he is. He sort of likes to wander.” 

Jiho shrugged, despite his brain practically screaming at him ‘no oh my god what are you doing?!’  and walked in, sighing as the warm air washed over them. The elevator ride up was far from comfortable considering the sheer amount of random college girls that showed up on the second floor. Jiho was squished into the corner, trying to breathe through his mouth as the overwhelming scent of cheap perfume wafted around in the small space. The one good thing in the situation is the girls were quiet and a few of them quite cute and appealing for Jiho’s tastes. 

Despite that he was all too ready to leave that cramped space in favor of a more open and fresh smelling hallway— as fresh as any college hallway can get, that is. He walked for a ways before he finally ended up in front of his door at the end of the hallway. Once Hojoon had caught up with him he had already unlocked the door and gone inside, leaving the door slightly ajar. “I thought I’d make us some coffee since I have a feeling we’re going to be up pretty late,” Jiho called out from the kitchen as he heard the door close, Hojoon obviously already inside and sliding off his shoes. 

“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks,” Hojoon replied, rounding the corner as he spoke. He walked to a small table next to the window and set his bag down next to Jiho’s, not bothering to open it just yet as he wanted to take at least a small break before diving back into his boring homework. The scent of coffee wafting throughout the apartment certainly set a nice, relaxed mood that made Hojoon want to doze off into dreamland, but his wants were swiftly interrupted by the sound of the door opening again and someone grunting as they bumped into the wall nearest the door. From where he was standing, Hojoon could see down the hallway and watched as a tall boy struggled to take his shoes off and stumbled down the hallway, either drunk or extremely tired. 

Hojoon put on a small smile and bowed slightly, “Hello. I’m Jiho’s friend, Hojoon. It’s nice to-”

“Yeah nice to meet you—Oh my god, Jiho- you makin’ coffee?” The taller boy slurred out, sitting down heavily onto a couch in front of a small TV, a Wii next to it with a few games stacked up on top of it. “Yeah, but I’m only gonna give you some if you’d be more polite to my friend you jerk,” Jiho replied sarcastically, not taking his attention off of the coffee. The other boy rubbed his eyes and nodded, a bright smile lighting up his face as he squinted up at Hojoon who hadn’t yet formed a decisive opinion on him. “Hey, sorry for the weird introduction, thing, anyway I’m Dongsung— that sassy kid’s roommate. Nice to meet ya.” Hojoon smiled comfortably this time and nodded, “Nice to meet you too.” ‘Okay, so he’s not drunk, just weird.’ 

“Oh and sorry I look like I’ve just come from a party because I have—But I’m not drunk I swear. Just reaaally tired,” Dongsung explained as he stretched luxuriously. “Yeah right,” Jiho snorted as he handed Dongsung a hot cup of coffee, smacking him on the top of the head, eliciting an annoyed grunt from Dongsung. “I’m not, I’m just tired ‘cause I had to help a couple friends home since they were drunk, okay?!” Jiho shook his head and chuckled in disbelief as he handed Hojoon his cup of coffee, slightly jerking his hand back as their fingers brushed together. “Sorry, the cup was hot,” he laughed awkwardly and sat at the table, gesturing for Hojoon to do the same, which the latter readily complied.

The trio sat there for a half an hour or so, sipping on their drink and idly chatting about the day until Dongsung finally called it a day and bid the two goodnight, still arguing with Jiho that he wasn’t drunk. Hojoon already dismissed the idea as obvious since he had kept up a conversation very well and didn’t slur his words after the coffee began to kick in. “But if he drank coffee, why’s he going to bed? Doesn’t he know how caffeine works?” Hojoon mused out loud, mostly to himself but Jiho couldn’t help but overhear him and smiled. 

“Well I might have given him some decaffeinated coffee that I forgot to drink this morning and just heated it up for him. He wouldn’t have known the difference anyway, plus I’m doing him a favor,” Jiho explained as he stood up and collected their empty glasses and took them into the kitchen. “I see. Well, I wouldn’t have guessed it. Jiho, a caring friend.” Hojoon spoke out, the hint of sarcasm lacing his words clearly being picked up by Jiho as he glared at Hojoon as he returned form washing the cups and sat down again. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he retorted as he pulled out his laptop and opened it, his gradually reddening face thankfully obscured by the screen. 

“I just didn’t think you’d be the caring type,” Hojoon sniffed airily, already scrolling through a webpage on his own laptop and missed the odd look Jiho flashed him. “Really…? Clearly you have a lot to learn then,” Jiho sighed, nearly jumping out of his skin as Hojoon tapped his hand and turned his laptop screen around. “This is our topic for the project,” Hojoon explained as he gestured to the pictures decorating the first slide. 

“Emotional… Responses and Cues?” Jiho read slowly, his stomach churning just at the title of the project for some reason. “That’s sort of… Broad. Does the project need to have a ton of content or something?” 

“Well, enough for ten to fifteen quality slides not including the title slide—Oh and we need to conduct some experiments too, so it can’t be all research.” 

Jiho felt his stomach drop and began to feel very lightheaded. “E-experiments? Why? Is this Chemistry or something?” he asked shakily, trying desperately to keep his voice in check. Hojoon laughed at Jiho’s panic-stricken face and shook his head, “No, that’s just your favorite class getting in the way of your thoughts-” 

‘Huh, yeah. That’s what’s getting in the way…’

“-But no. If you hadn’t slept through the whole class, you’d know that our teacher is really weird and wants us to experience part of what we’re studying as a way to ‘learn more without me teaching you’ —which makes no sense but whatever.” Jiho swallowed hard and forced down his hurricane of funny feelings whirling around his head, “Well it sort of makes sense in a really backward kind of way but—whatever. So basically he’s torturing us,” Jiho sighed in conclusion, Hojoon’s nodding confirming his theory, unfortunately for him. 

The duo stayed up until the early morning, talking over what they were going to research and such until Jiho could hardly keep his head up and Hojoon couldn’t, for the life of him, say the word ‘consequentially’. Jiho glanced at the time let out a drawn out groan. “Ughhhh it’s 3 in the morningggg…. Do I have class tomorrow…?” 

“No idiot, we don’t. Remember? Our professor is sick so we don’t have it till tomorrow.”

“But how come we had it yesterday, or today, or whatever?” Jiho asked slowly, his brain running on fumes.

“Yesterday. And he barely made it through class, which you obviously don’t remember,”

 Hojoon mumbled, still managing to be sarcastic even if he was exhausted to the point of slurring his words a bit. Jiho flapped his hand around in dismissal and pushed himself up and off the table with a considerable amount of effort and helped Hojoon stand up, not even bothering to worry about how little space was between them as he helped him towards his room. 

“I’m guessing you going back to your dorm is out of the question by now?” Jiho whispered as he opened the door to his room, wincing as the squeaking of the door hinges made Dongsung groan and turn over in his sleep, but thankfully didn’t wake up. “Yeah, I thought that was obvious,” Hojoon whispered back playfully as he carefully followed Jiho into the room, unsure of what to do as the other went over to his bedside and struggled to pull a blanket from underneath his bed. He eventually got it out and laid it on the floor next to his bed and tossed a pillow from his bed onto it, gesturing for Hojoon to lay down on it. 

Even in the dark room Jiho could see Hojoon’s skeptical look and sighed. “Look, it’s the best I can do unless you want to sleep with nothing but you and your clothes,” he whispered in annoyance as he crawled into his own bed, ignoring Hojoon’s snort of uncertainty. “When was the last time you washed this stuff? What if I get sick from your grossness?”

“Oh my god, Hojoon shut up and sleep already,” Jiho yell-whispered as he rolled onto his side, his back facing the pouty Hojoon. Realizing that Jiho probably wasn’t going to talk to him anymore, Hojoon shrugged his jacket off and tugged at his shirt, contemplating whether or not he should leave it on or take it off and eventually went with the latter. He wrapped the blanket around himself and laid his head down carefully onto the pillow Jiho gave him, treating it like a fragile piece of antique something-or-other that he didn’t want to damage. Although, why should he? It’s only a pillow. ‘Then again, I’d hate to give someone else my pillow. It’s kinda gross…’ 

With that lovely thought, Hojoon snuggled further into his makeshift bed, the light sound of Jiho breathing next to—er, above him, lulling him to sleep. 

——————————————————————————————————————————

Jiho’s eyes cracked open slightly, the sunlight pouring into his room stinging his sensitive eyes that were screaming in protest to their break ending so soon. He rolled over lazily and stared across the room, noting that Dongsung had already gotten up and was probably the reason behind the curtains being pulled back to let the sun blaze into his room. Jiho sat up slowly, supporting himself with one arm as he rubbed his free hand into his eyes, groaning at the head rush that came with sitting up too quickly. Once the black dots left his vision, he swung his legs over the side of his bed and nearly jumped out of his skin in surprise as his foot bumped against something soft on his floor that groaned in protest.  

“What in the…..?!” Jiho muttered to himself, clearing his throat to get the morning frogs out and help him not to sound like an eighty year old smoker as he leaned over the edge of his bed cautiously, peering over the side to see what, exactly, was on his floor. Clearly his balance wasn’t up to par in the morning as, with a squeak of dismay, Jiho came toppling down off his bed and hit whatever was on his floor with a soft thud. He scrambled off of the lump as fast as he could as pulled himself back onto his bed, eyes wide as a head with a fluff ball of hair poked out of the blanket cocoon and glared at him. 

“What the hell Jiho…” it whined as it rubbed its eyes as the sun also was irritating it’s eyes. It took Jiho a full minute to realize the thing on his floor was Hojoon, and not some weird creature that crawled into his room in the middle of the night. “Um, sorry, Hojoon—I kinda fell off my bed.”

“Well no , I know that,” Hojoon snapped, wiggling around on the floor until he successfully un-cocooned himself and wobbled to his feet, shivering at the sudden lack of warmth that caused goosebumps to arrive in waves all over his arms. Jiho coughed in surprise. “Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?!” he spluttered, getting flashbacks of Dongsung walking around without a care in the world or a shirt on. Hojoon stumbled slightly before turning to squint back at Jiho in confusion. “You make it sound like it’s a crime to not wear a shirt. And I’m wearing my pants thank you very much, I’m not ,” he retorted with as he made his way over to the bathroom and began washing his face, leaving Jiho to turn into a tomato all by himself. 

‘What’s with everyone I know and being half- all the damn time?! Is it some weird trend or something?!’ Jiho simply could not wrap his mind around that theory and opted to speed walk past the bathroom containing the scandalous Hojoon, intending on heating up some instant ramen packets for lunch—or breakfast? What time was it even? Jiho walked over to his laptop that he forgot to put away and opened it to check the time. ‘12:30… Huh, sounds about right for a sleep in day considering the time we went to sleep….’  

Jiho had almost finished boiling the water when he heard the sound of Hojoon’s feet padding across the floor and the chair screeching in protest as it was pulled back, Hojoon eventually sitting down with a content sigh. “You cook more than I expected,” Hojoon commented dryly as Jiho poured in the seasoning packets and dry vegetable bits into the water on top of the noodles, breaking them apart with his chopsticks slowly and string the pot slowly. 

“I don’t really. I only made coffee yesterday and instant ramen today,” Jiho chuckled, “You make it sound like I make gourmet meals all the time.”

“Well, you can’t get much more gourmet than coffee and instant ramen.”

“Exactly my point,” Jiho snickered, hissing in pain as the hot broth splashed his hand slightly as he poured the finished product into two bowls and carried them over to the table, setting one down in front of Hojoon and one in front of his spot as he sat down. Hojoon raised an eyebrow and stood up to go walk into the kitchen, returning with two pairs of chopsticks. Jiho sighed and smiled, accepting the utensils Hojoon handed him with “Right…”. Hojoon only rolled his eyes as the two of them downed the meal at a surprisingly slow rate for two college-age boys. 

Jiho sighed in content as he set his bowl back onto the table, Hojoon’s bowl also clinking onto the table. “Now what?” Hojoon asked idly, his chin resting on his hand as he stared out the window, watching a droplet of water trail down the transparent glass. “Well, for starters, how about you clothe yourself like a human being,” Jiho mumbled pointedly, his own gaze elsewhere for reasons. Hojoon snorted and stood up, taking his bowl with him to the kitchen before he disappeared back into Jiho’s shared room, calling from within it “I don’t get why you’re so insistent on this.” 

“It’s just a preference okay?” Jiho hollered back, face flushing red in annoyance that Hojoon too thought his preference was weird. He could practically hear Hojoon shrug before he walked back into the room with a shirt different from the one he had on yesterday. Jiho blinked in confusion before it finally dawned on him that ‘that’s my shirt.’ He decided to play it cool and folded his hands in his lap casually, face impassive. “Where’d you get the shirt?” 

‘Smooth Jiho…’

“Your dresser? I think I pull it off pretty well, don’t you think?,” Hojoon replied jokingly, a smile tugging at his lips at Jiho’s horrified expression that he struggled to hide. “Yeah, sure— whatever,” Jiho answered hurriedly, “Just, ask me next time, would you?” 

Hojoon chuckled and nodded, a childlike smile playing across his face as he tugged at the end of the shirt that hung near where his hands naturally rested. “It’s longer than what I’m used to. Kinda fun though, not gonna lie,” Hojoon half muttered to himself as he stared down at the blue and e striped shirt, not noticing Jiho struggling to either not die of embarrassment or strangle him. “Just— Don’t make a habit of stealing my clothes,” Jiho managed to choke out, his stomach churning making his throat feel tight and made it very hard to breathe for some reason. Maybe he just felt funny having someone else wear his clothes again. 

‘Yeah… That’s probably it. Yup. Nothing super out of the ordinary. My reason makes sense. Perfect sense… Yeah…’   

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A/N:     .-.  //crawls out of cave 

Hi

Sorry for the deadness. Life hit me in the face like a ton of bricks. ;u; I hope this chapter was a sufficient apology… <3