Jiho hadn’t slept this well since the beginning of the quarter. He hadn’t been this comfortable and cozy and warm in years basically. He didn't really remember how he got into this super comfortable position but suddenly felt that it wasn’t going to last long as the thing he was laying on moved. His previous feeling of bliss that bordered cloud nine status suddenly sunk to panic attack status as he cracked an eye open to see what exactly he’d been laying on for whatever amount of time he’d been in class. 

When his eyes focused on a side profile that he was all too familiar with, that panic attack feeling turned into one of numb horror as Hojoon apparently felt his gaze and turned his head to stare back at Jiho, a familiar slight smirk gracing his features. ‘As usual…’ 

“Can’t seem to get your eyes off me, huh?” he whispered, reveling in the ghost white complexion of Jiho’s face as he spluttered a mix of unintelligible words in a poor attempt of making an excuse, eventually whisper-shrieking a muffled “no way” before he practically ripped his face off of Hojoon’s unfortunately very comfortable shoulder. His cheek that had touched that same shoulder for who-knows-how-long felt like it was on fire and numb at the same time as he touched it reverently, eyes wide as he stared at the table in front of him. 

Had he seriously just fallen asleep on his friend that he admittedly had a massive growing crush on?! Jiho felt like smashing his head onto the table in front of him and hope that he’d knock himself out so he could avoid his crippling embarrassment for a miraculous couple days if he was lucky. But no such luck. He wasn’t about to injure himself in front of his entire Psychology class for seemingly no reason from their point of view. 

But his flaming face probably wasn’t doing him any favors of lying low, so he decided to stuff his face into his arm and pretend he’d fallen asleep again, not on some other undeniably attractive person. Jiho stopped mid-motion as he remembered that this class required notes and his teacher insisted on them taking notes every time they had class so that they wouldn’t miss out on any important information they had learned that day. . 

Now he had to find a way to get notes.

Since they were doing a project and all.

And missing notes would basically be the academic death of him.

And probably his physical death to since ‘oh Hojoon’s my partner ffffuuuuuu’

Now knocking himself out on the table didn’t sound so bad. 

Maybe if he just—

“Jiho— I swear to god, if you keep squeaking like that I’m not gonna buy you bubble tea after this.”

That was enough to snap Jiho out of his downward spiraling misery and snap his head back up, staring piteously directly at Hojoon’s annoyed face. ‘Okay so bad idea to look at him full on ffuuuu’

“Jiho, shut. Up.” Jiho wanted to punch Hojoon’s grin straight off his face and into a trash can where it belonged along with his feelings but didn’t and just squirmed in his chair as he dragged his gaze off of his annoyed crush’s face and onto something way more interesting than that lovely attractive piece of like the board with an ungodly amount of words written on it. 

Jiho rubbed his hands on the side of his face and screamed internally before practically ripping his backpack apart in search of pen and paper, killing all his future children with the agony he was feeling when he couldn’t find it and decided to take a picture of it like any other idiot would have done at the start of this hell if he had half a brain. 

 He made sure the sound was off as he stealthily slipped out his phone aaaannnd—

*CLICK*

Woke up the dead—and that kid sitting in front of him— with the loudness of his camera taking a picture of the notes on the board. The entire class turn around to stare at him in complete silence, the teacher pushing their glasses up the bridge of their nose as they stared silently at Jiho who had basically become a frozen ice statue, devoid of any emotion with his phone falling out of his frozen hands and clattering loudly onto the table in front of him. 

He could actually feel his soul leave his body as a puff of nervous air escaped his lips in the form of the definition of a nervous laugh, his arms cracking the ice off of them as he slowly picked up his phone and slowly slid it back into his backpack, the zipper practically echoing around the classroom as it slowly, agonizing bit by agonizing bit, zipped up. 

Jiho thought he heard a small chuckle from across the room but was too numb to care as his teacher rolled their eyes and continued talking, the students eventually turning around one by one and returned to normal. Jiho breathed out slowly, his vision dotted with black splotches as he suddenly felt super dizzy as he hadn’t realized he’s been holding his breath the entire time. 

He inhaled sharply as he leaned over and rested his forehead on the table in front of him, eyes closing momentarily before snapping open again to feel a hand on his back, rubbing, pressing, and pushing small circles into the tense parts of his back. He didn’t even need to glance over to know who was doing this weirdly comforting gesture to him, but he felt like a cat being pet as he almost leaned into Hojoon’s hand as he massaged particularly bad or good parts of his back, biting his lower lip to hold back a cry of pain as he struck on particularly painful spot.

The moment lasted an unfortunately short amount of time as the class was dismissed, the students and professor’s  clattering of books being put away all and the zipping their bags overshadowed Jiho’s quiet sigh of disappointment once Hojoon’s comforting hand left his back. Call him crazy but Jiho almost felt like Hojoon hadn’t wanted to stop, the way his hand slid off his back, but he just blamed it on his hormones and sat up slowly and stretched luxuriously, his back feeling to say the least, wonderful.   

Hojoon hadn’t said a word since the middle of class until he stood up and pushed his chair in slowly, staring at Jiho as he also stood with an unreadable expression on his face. “Waana get some bubble tea before we knock ourselves out on our project?” The tone of his voice was neutral, quiet, and slightly unsettling if Jiho was being completely honest. He nodded, not trusting his tongue or his voice after the rollercoaster he’d been through during class and simply followed Hojoon out the door. 

Their walk to the shop was silent and only broken as they sat down at a table, the same guy who worked there, Sangwon or something, oddly popping up next to them moments after they sat down, a clipboard and pen at the ready on his arm. “One red bean and one milk tea, right?”

Jiho stared bug-eyed up at the weird server as he opened his mouth to say no and that he actually wanted something else but realized red beans actually sounded really good right now and just nodded, flashing Hojoon a questioning glance. Hojoon just shrugged and smiled at Sangwon and gave him a thumbs up. “You know us too well Sangwon.”

Sangwon shrugged as he wrote down their order and walked to the kitchen, muttering something to himself that Jiho just barely caught as a questioning “us?” as he rounded the corner to the kitchen. 

Jiho sighed and put his menu down in front of him, stretching his neck and wincing as some muscle strained in a weird way. He clicked his tongue and rubbed the spot but decided he couldn’t do anything about it and glanced at Hojoon in confusion. “Is he a ninja?”

His question apparently broke the weird atmosphere between them as Hojoon burst out laughing at his question, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he doubled over laughing. Jiho felt slightly put out as he couldn’t really tell what was so funny about his question, laughing half-heartedly with him in an attempt to ignore the blush that was spreading across his cheeks. 

Hojoon’s laughter died down into muffled giggles before he regained control of himself, taking in a deep breath before breathing out shakily, trying to stop giggling. “Okayyyhhaha…. Ahem. To answer your question, no? What made you think he was?” Hojoon asked, a grin still tugging at his lips as he struggling to hold back his laughter. 

Jiho sighed in annoyance and rolled his eyes, crossing his arms defiantly as he stared out the window next to him, muttering out the side of his mouth sheepishly “Cause he just pops up and I never see him till he’s right next to me and it startles me….” 

Hojoon stopped laughing all together after he cleared his throat, nodding his head slowly. “Well he is pretty short so that might be a reason—”

“You’re a Hojoon!” Sangwon yelled from the kitchen, making both boys giggle at his indignant face as he appeared around the corner, their drink in his hand. “I should pour out your drink for saying that” he threatened as he placed Jiho’s drink in front of him, still holding Hojoon’s hostage. 

“Then I could sue you for bad customer service, ” Hojoon chuckled, raising his eyebrows in approval as Sangwon took the hint and slid his drink in front of him, muttering “Well here then. Enjoy, idiots” before he spun on his heel to go stand behind the counter. 

Hojoon rolled his eyes and took a sip of his drink, eyeing Jiho as he drank his. “So did you see him this time” Hojoon asked, mouth half full of boba as Jiho glared at him and nodded. 

They sat in relative silence as they drank their tea and tried to ignore Sangwon’s glare burning into the sides of their faces before a couple other customers walked into the store, occupying his attention. Jiho suddenly felt his stomach rumble and decided to take another look at the menu. He scanned through their food items and raised an eyebrow suspiciously as he saw they had a couple ramen options. 

He nudged Hojoon’s hand with the corner of his menu and pointed at the ramen choices, “Are these any good?” Hojoon squinted and took his menu, looking at the dish’s description before handing the menu back to Jiho with a shrug. “Not sure. I’m also not sure if you really want to bug Sangwon again if you’re going to order it” he pointed out as he up the remaining bit of his tea, pouting in disappointment as it was gone. 

Jiho nodded slowly as he finished his own tea, his stomach’s complaining making him think that ramen was starting to sound better and better the more he thought about it. Eventually he decided against getting it there and stood up, Hojoon following suit cautiously as he followed Jiho up to the counter. Jiho payed for his drink and elbowed Hojoon when he protested and said he wanted to treat him and payed for his as well, ignoring the way Hojoon’s hand on his arm made him light headed as he walked out of the restaurant, smiling as Sangwon as he waved at them. “See ya later you two~” he called after them, smiling to himself. 

Hojoon skipped a couple steps to catch up to Jiho who was walking weirdly fast, and asked almost breathlessly “Where are we… Whew, going? And slow down!”  Jiho continued to speed walk up the hill, planning out a route to get to the place he had in mind, “I’m hungry and I have somewhere I wanna go and I can’t remember when it closes so keep up.”

He smiles as he hears Hojoon sigh in defeat and goes quiet as he follows Jiho to a store a few minutes walk away from the bubble tea place, this restaurant looking a lot more modern and mainstream than the bubble tea place. 

It took Hojoon a moment to realize that they were in a Japanese style ramen street restaurant as they sat down in front of a long counter. He didn’t know how Jiho managed to find them seats in the crowded building, but somehow he did and was asking the man behind the counter something that Hojoon couldn’t quite hear. 

Jiho smiled and nodded at the man, sighing contentedly as he wiggled comfortably into his seat, giggling at the confused look Hojoon was giving him. He leaned over to speak loudly to Hojoon since it was pretty loud in the restaurant, “I was asking him if they had my favorite dish here still and he said yes, so I kinda ordered us both a serving. It’s pretty cheap so don’t worry about it.” 

Hojoon turned his face to respond but was pushed forward suddenly by someone bumping into his from behind, so much so that he half fell off his chair and had to kick out his leg to keep him from falling onto the counter, which resulted in him getting uncomfortably close to Jiho’s face as he responded, his lips brushing against the outer shell of Jiho’s ear, sending shivers and goosebumps down his friend’s entire back. “That’s fine as long as I pay this time— for my portion at least.” 

Jiho could only nod as Hojoon pulled himself back onto his chair and shoot a glare to the people behind him for bumping him. He stayed quiet until their food arrived, and even as they were eating he hardly said a word, obviously because of the food, which he was glad to have an excuse for being quiet instead of just sitting there in awkward silence. 

They finished their bowls and paid, after an extended debate of if Jiho was going to pay for himself or if Hojoon was going to (even though they already talked about it) which resulted in each paying for his own, albeit begrudgingly. They left the restaurant and made their way to Jiho’s flat almost reflexively, not that Jiho minded one bit. Once they got home at around five-ish and sat down at the table, Hojoon pulled out his laptop and sighed deeply. 

“I am so full, holy crap” he winced, poking his stomach painfully as Jiho smiled and nodded in agreement. “But totally worth it though” he replied, arms moving like jelly as he pulled out his laptop and set it on the table. 

They both proceeded to research and put together their project on Emotional Responses and Cues which made Jiho’s stomach do flips as he read over articles detailing how someone reacts when they’re in love with someone and suddenly feels that this probably doesn’t need to be in the project and closes the window. 

Hojoon looks up suddenly, eyes flicking from his screen to Jiho’s face and narrowed. “What did you just do?” he asked pointedly as Jiho’s face turned completely white…

“WH- huh? I d-didn’t — I just cl-losed something I didn’t—“

“You looked like you’d seen a ghost— What were you reading?” Hojoon pressed, his hands off his keyboard and clasped in front of his mouth in concern. Jiho felt like a cornered dear in the headlights even though he was in his own flat and in the middle of the room. The way Hojoon was interrogating him intrigued him as much as it scared him. Had he somehow seen what Jiho was looking at for the past ten minutes? 

“I j-just w-as— I saw a w-weird article in the re-lated searches and clicked i-tt on acciden-t…” Jiho stuttered out, hoping Hojoon would just believe him and move on. 

Unfortunately Hojoon was too keen on figuring out why Jiho looked the way he did with his computer’s light reflecting his face that was drained of all color. 

“I don’t think so Jiho. You’ve looked nervous for a while now and I saw something…”

Jiho felt light headed as he struggled to keep a straight face, “S-saw what exactly? Have you been like, watching me instead of working?” he asked, feigning annoyance to hide the fear that was practically dripping out of his voice. 

“What? No, I just saw you made a weird face and closed a window, so I thought you saw something weird like an article on how your star sign affects who you are or something ridiculous like that, that’s all” Hojoon replied, his eyes never leaving Jiho’s face as he watched the other visibly relax. ‘Hmm…’

“Ohhh aha, no that’s not it at all. I just saw something creepy and got freaked out” Jiho almost laughed out, relief washing over his body. ‘He was getting scarily close to what I was actually looking at holy —‘

“Okay… If you’re sure” Hojoon said cautiously before looking back down at his screen, his fingers tapping away as his eyes flicked across his screen. Jiho sighed quietly and went back to work, the words he’d read a few moments ago floating around in his head.

‘Eye contact is very important… Try to make small gestures like touching their shoulder… Make them feel important… Don’t be easy… Remember that—‘

Jiho ran his fingers through his hair and deleted the entire sentence of gibberish he’d just typed out, sighing in frustration as that had been the fourth time he’d rewritten that same line discussing heart rates and how they increased in different situations. 

He hated this topic so much it almost hurt. He wouldn’t have minded it if he was doing it alone, but the fact that he was forced into doing it with Hojoon, his friend, and also the one he kind of liked, just added to the stress he was already feeling. The last thing he wanted was Hojoon to do enough research that he’d figure out Jiho liked him and then their friendship would be ruined and Jiho would be sad for the rest of his life and he’d just want to jump off a bridge into a pile of pillows and just cry for until he died of heart break, which was apparently possible, according to a couple articles he’d read. 

Hojoon’s light and almost humorous voice cut through his miserable thoughts, “Huh, listen to this Jiho: ‘The human body reacts to different stressful situations in different ways. Under situations of stress related to relationships or relationships-to-be, the brain thinks faster than it normally does, using jamming of speech and the dilation of the pupils in the eyes which is believed to happen due to strong desires to see the person of interest in a more full and detailed view. Also, lighter complexion of the face or added redness, aka blushing, on the cheeks or sometimes face also convey the body’s nervousness to stressful situations that could range from nervousness or fear.’ Weird huh? It doesn’t sound very professionally written… I guess that’s what I get for using wikipedia…”  

He chuckled to himself and kept writing, not bothering to look up from his screen to see Jiho practically frozen in time. 

‘He found… A freakishly similar…… God damn article…to the one I was looking at…….’

Jiho couldn’t move. His entire body felt like it had been put under a bucket full of ice. He was paralyzed and felt like his head was going to implode, or he was going to pass out—either one. It took him a good ten minutes to start to actually function again, which turned into him thumping his head onto the table out of pure exhaustion. 

He could hear Hojoon sigh from across the table followed by the quiet tap of his laptop closing. His chair squeaked as it was pushed back, the floor creaking as Hojoon walked over to Jiho and stood next to him. 

“Come on Jiho, it’s late and you need to get to bed” he called out softly, his voice raspy from its lack of use, “Plus your roommate came in a while ago and is already asleep…” 

Jiho whined and wiggled around in his seat, almost jumping out of the chair as Hojoon pulled at his arm. “Oh fine” he muttered and stood up, his eyes trained on the ground in front of him as he walked into his room, thoughtlessly pulling off his shirt and stripping of his pants before hopping into bed, snuggling into his pillows and sheets. A light sigh escaped his lips as he smiled contentedly, sleep cascading over his consciousness. 

He was out like a light within minutes. 

Hojoon smiled as he walked into Jiho’s room to see him fast asleep on his bed, his chest rising and falling peacefully. He debates on if he should check if Jiho’s completely asleep before he can get ready to go to bed (he’ll sleep in the same spot he did last night since the blankets are still on the ground) and decides to anyway. 

Carefully, he makes his way over, freezing for a moment when Dongsung rolls over in his sleep and mutters something under his breath, but continues once he’s sure he didn’t wake him up. Hojoon stands over Jiho for a few moments, leaning over and waving his hands around to see if he’d wake up and smiled once he saw zero reaction from Jiho. He sees a stray piece of fluff on his friend’s head and brushes is off, fiddling with Jiho’s hair as he gets rid of the pesky piece of fluff.   

Hojoon nearly lurches back in surprise as Jiho leans into his touch and pats his head experimentally and raises an eyebrow as he sees Jiho slightly raise his head towards his hand. He kneels at the side of his bed and runs his fingers gently through Jiho’s hair, reveling at how soft it is. He massages Jiho’s scalp lightly, chuckling softly at how Jiho’s shoulders relax completely and he becomes still, a small sigh escaping his lips. Hojoon rests his chin on his free hand and detangles his other from Jiho’s hair in favor of rubbing soothing patterns into his exposed shoulder with his hand, massaging it. He smiles at how peaceful Jiho was when he wasn’t glaring at him and getting embarrassed all the time 

Hojoon had remembered seeing Jiho wince as he tried to stretch his neck and had made a mental note to ask Jiho if he needed anything, but he’d obviously forgotten since he’d been working on their project all evening. ‘I guess now is the only time he’d ever get that feeling out of his neck… Plus there’s no way he’d let me give him a massage if he was awake… It’s not weird for me to give him a massage, obviously. He seemed fine with it in class.’ 

Hojoon got bored of massaging Jiho’s shoulder after about fifteen minutes and stood up stiffly, wincing as his knees protested him standing up. He removed his hand from Jiho’s shoulder and brushed a stray piece of hair off his face before taking a step back, unsure of how to feel as he watched as Jiho seemed to wriggle backwards for a moment then stayed still. ‘He sure moves a lot in his sleep…’ Hojoon thought as he prepared to go bed, taking off his shirt as he laid down on the floor, adjusting the blankets around him, readily welcoming the thought of sleep. 

Which didn’t come to him easily at all as he proceeded to lay there for the next hour or so, completely awake and kept awake by his thoughts… Why had Jiho moved so much? Did he always move that much? ‘He did kinda move towards me… Is he aware he does that?’ 

The more Hojoon thought about it, the weirder it seemed to him. The way Jiho had acted earlier after he read that article seemed way off. He’d honestly been acting off a lot lately, Hojoon had noticed. It had started not too long ago and he couldn’t quite figure out what was causing it.

It was bothering him that something was clearly bugging Jiho, but he’d chosen to not tell Hojoon. ‘Something isn’t right…’ 

An idea suddenly popped into his head. His ex! Hojoon had almost forgotten about her. Hell, she was basically the reason Hojoon had become friends with Jiho, so she was pretty important, even though Jiho seemed to so desperately wanted to make her unimportant. Perhaps she was bugging Jiho and Hojoon just hadn’t noticed it. 

‘There’s no way it’s that… I’m around him all the time and he’d tell me if she was even near him…’

If it wasn’t his ex… Then who else could it be? Who else was he around consistently? Other than Hojoon…

‘Wait…… Is it me?! There’s no way… but, could there be? I mean… I’m with him all the time… And every time something happens to him I’m basically there to see it… Well except for that one class we don’t have together… What’s happened recently that was weird?’

Hojoon stared up at the ceiling as if he would find answers in the blank space above him. He wracked his brain for possible answers or consistent things he’d noticed. ‘He does seem to dislike being touchy at all with me…… Except for when he’s asleep………’

Hojoon felt something click.

That made sense.

But why? Why did that make sense? 

‘Is it possible he’s hiding something… And the only time he’s being honest is when he isn’t aware of himself?!’

Hojoon almost laughed out loud at the stupidity of his suggestion, but didn’t because that was the only thing he’d thought of that sounded remotely plausible. 

‘Is there something I’ve done that he’s just not ready to tell me about?’ 

‘Probably.’

That was the best conclusion Hojoon figured he was going to come to, and it strangely gave him some sort of closure that he wasn’t sure where it stemmed from. He decided to stop overthinking this ridiculous situation and finally try to get some sleep. ‘Tomorrow is another day. Maybe I’ll ask him about it then…Maybe…’

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

A/N: Sheesh…

That was interesting… And exhausting XD I need to sleep ;-; It’s so late right now…

Well, sorry for the wait! I’ve been drowned with IRL stuff blah blah busy blah blah school

>.> sorry….

Thanks for your patience :) 

Anyway, please let me know your thoughts/feed back in the comments~ ^-^