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Hyunjin texts you at 9:30AM. The message is only two words long, but the emotion contained within it is overwhelming.
Hyunjin: Save. Me.
You snort, abandoning the morning cup of tea in front of you as you text back.
You: are they doing the chicken thing again?
Hyunjin: Bin just put it in a fucking SMOOTHIE. I need to leave. Now.
You: the chicken was cooked, right?
Hyunjin: I don’t care. Please please can you head over now?
Hyunjin: I’m this close to committing murder via blender.
Hyunjin: Think of my future :’(
You check the time, and dutifully start chugging the rest of your tea. When you reach the final dregs sitting at the bottom of the cup, you text back a reply to end his misery.
You: i’ll be there in like twenty minutes. stay safe until then
Hyunjin: You’re the love of my life.
You: yes i am
You: remind me to pick up leaflets on the dangers of salmonella
You: i hear food poisoning is bad for your gains
Hyunjin: Fuck their gains.
You: it sounds like they would if they could
You slide your phone into your back pocket. Stopping only to put your mug in the sink and slide on your most comfortable pair of shoes, you head straight for the front door.
The walk to Hyunjin’s apartment is beautiful. Late summer has brought warm sunshine and the brightest shades of green to the trees that line the streets, almost glowing in their last few weeks before autumn would set in. Part of you longs to detour through the nearby park, where you know the rosebushes will be in bloom, but you keep to the quickest route instead. A good friend chooses to save their friend from whatever meathead jocks he apparently lives with first, and admire the scenery second.
You may or may not slow down near a boutique shop, checking your reflection in the store window. The sudden rush to get to Hyunjin’s meant you didn’t get to add the final touches to your appearance, and you take a moment to adjust slightly – tucking the end of your belt into the belt loop of your jeans, fidgeting with your necklace chain until fell just right across your chest. You had risked wearing a tank-top, gambling on the good weather to continue throughout the day. You always felt so warm when you went on these little trips with Hyunjin, as you navigated through the crowds of tourists.
Maybe you should have worn your boots.
No, that would be stupid. With the amount of walking you’d be doing today, your feet would be aching by the end.
But they really would go with your outfit so well.
And Hyunjin had complimented them when you last wore them, which–
You straighten up, turning sharply on your heel and continuing to walk down the street with purpose. Inside, your stomach flutters a little, and you firmly push the feeling aside. Compliments from Hyunjin do not matter, and you don’t need to think too hard about them.
You also don’t need to think about how this is the first time you get to see his new place.
Because that also doesn’t matter.
Hyunjin has seen your place plenty of times. And you had seen his dorm room multiple times last year, so really what is the difference now? There is no difference, it’s just a new apartment with the same old face living in it.
The same old face that also grew his hair out over the summer. And graduated from simply sending short messages over the dorm floor groupchat to private DMs to long, adorably excited conversations with you over the phone about art to spending almost every weekend hanging out with you.
Same old face. Nothing else to add.
Nothing at all.
Your stomach flutters again, nerves beginning to bubble within you as you draw closer to his apartment building.
It’s a cute building – picturesque, built with old red-brick and has little flowerboxes outside each window. It’s easy to picture Hyunjin living there, gazing out his window and painting in the early morning, descending those stone steps on his way to get coffee from the little café on the corner.
It’s harder to imagine these mystery jocks in the same place. All you can picture is the same copy-and-paste template of a classic gymbro, chugging protein shakes and jogging along the street, grocery bags full of chicken breast swinging from each huge arm.
You stop to double-check the apartment number, and press the right button on the intercom.
It rings. You clear your throat as you wait, shifting your weight to your other foot as you tug your bag strap a little higher up your shoulder.
Then, rather than a voice answering the intercom, you’re met with the loud buzz of the front door unlocking.
You blink, thrown for a moment, but shrug it off quickly. Hyunjin was in a rush to leave, it makes sense that he’d be hurrying you up to the apartment as soon as possible. Honestly, you should have been surprised that he wasn’t waiting on the steps already.
So, you push open the doors to the apartment block, and ascend the steps two at a time. Hyunjin’s apartment must be on the third floor, judging by the number, and you manage to make it up there without too much hassle. You’re only a little out of breath as you knock on the door, your other hand pressed against the wall next to it, supporting your weight as you lean slightly.
There’s a short pause, before you hear footsteps and the scrape of the lock turning.
And then, the door swings open.
You are met with a person who is very much not Hyunjin.
And is very much not wearing a shirt.
You blink, trying to ingest this new information all at once, too floored to even try to back up and give the half-naked guy some space.
He stares back, eyes widening. His mouth parts, as if he’s about to speak, but no words manage to make their way out.
He’s pretty, your brain notes in a daze. Big brown eyes, almost like a Disney Princess.
“…You’re not the delivery guy,” he finally says, still staring.
“Uh…no, not last time I checked?” You reply, just as thrown.
He nods, dimly – and suddenly snaps out of it. You watch the way he starts to flush, pink staining his cheeks. Thanks to his wardrobe choices, or lack thereof, you’ve got a front-row seat to watch the way it travels down his neck, fading slowly until it just barely lingers near his collarbones.
Your eyes flicker back up to his face, only a little guiltily. You clear your throat again, and raise an eyebrow. “Wait, are you usually shirtless for the delivery guy?”
“No,” he says, so defensively that it’s almost definitely a lie. “I – wait, why…who even are you?”
“Hyunjin’s friend,” you reply, straightening up and removing your hand from the wall. “This…this is Hyunjin’s place, right?”
It has to be, unless by some miracle, there are two apartments in this building with shirtless gymbros walking around.
Which…also wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, now that you think about it.
The guy’s eyes light up in recognition, as his body relaxes slightly. Suddenly, to your slight confusion, his eyes flicker downwards and back up, as if he’s taking you in from head to toe.
“Wait, that’s you? You’re the one he does the nerdy art shit with?”
You want to take offense at the phrase ‘nerdy art shit’, except that honestly might be the most accurate way to describe what you and Hyunjin do with your weekends.
“Yep.”
His flush suddenly deepens as he realises exactly what he said. “Uh, I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean ‘shit’ like shit, I meant…you know, like stuff.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“And not, like…not ‘nerdy’ in a bad way–”
“I mean, it’s pretty fucking nerdy, I can’t lie,” you say, fighting the urge to smirk at his verbal backspacing.
“Nerdy’s good, you know? I like nerdy,” he clarifies. And then almost chokes as he hurries to add. “But not, like, in a–”
Before he can finish shoving his foot any deeper into his mouth, Hyunjin suddenly appears from behind him, smiling at you with a look of pure relief. “Hey! You’re early!”
“Am I?” You ask, checking the time on your phone. Apparently, the journey had only taken you about twelve minutes and not the twenty that Google Maps had promised. “Huh. I guess I am.”
“I’m just getting all my shit together. While you’re here, actually, I could show you that new easel I thrifted,” Hyunjin says. He then glances at his shirtless roommate, unimpressed. “If this asshole wants to…you know, move anytime soon?”
The roommate, who had been sneaking little looks at you out of the corner of his eye throughout this exchange, suddenly blinks and whips his head towards Hyunjin. “Huh? Oh, right, yeah.”
He shuffles backwards, giving you plenty of space to slip past him.
“I’m Han, by the way,” he says, lifting his hand up in a strange almost-wave.
“Nice to meet you,” you nod back, returning his half-wave before you start following Hyunjin to his room.
His room is at the end of the little hallway, and you can’t hide the way you stare in awe as you step through the door behind in.
It’s so perfectly…Hyunjin. A strange combination of stylishly sleek and wonderfully cosy, from the stark minimalism of the black furnishings to the knickknacks on his shelves to the cluster of photos pinned up above his desk. There was a huge window, stretching almost from the ceiling to the floor, with a perfect view of the tree-lined streets outside. And next to it, complete with canvas and a rough half-finished sketch of a future masterpiece, stood the easel Hyunjin had gushed about for a full half-hour the afternoon he found it in a second-hand store.
“Oh, that easel looks fancy,” you say, smiling as you look over it. You don’t know enough about art supplies themselves to form a more educated opinion, but you can certainly appreciate a cool easel when you see one. “Was it expensive?”
“Nowhere near as expensive as it should have been,” Hyunjin says, with no small delight, turning around to beam at you as he stands next to it. He’s illuminated by the soft morning light from the window, giving him an almost ethereal glow. His hair is loose, dyed back to the dark black it was when you first met him, and frames his face so perfectly.
Not for the first time, you think of how Hyunjin is just as much a work of art as the paintings he raves about.
You realise Hyunjin is speaking again, and try your best to snap out of the daze he’s put you in.
“…And honestly, I almost felt bad about it. But one of the legs was damaged, so they knocked off a little more from the price. Chan helped me fix it up in, like, ten minutes so that wasn’t even a problem. And it doesn’t take up as much space as I thought, I thought I’d have to move the desk over but look! It fits so well. It’s literally the best thing I’ve ever bought in my life. I didn’t even want to touch it for a few days, and I didn’t know what to paint, because I figured the first one had to be special but as soon as I started, it was like…so cool.”
Hyunjin pauses his excited rambling to take a breath, and you can’t help but smile at him.
“It’s pretty cool,” you agree, and your chest warms a little at how wide Hyunjin smiles at your words.
“Yeah. I…” Hyunjin trails off, and begins to look a little sheepish. “I like it a lot. As you can probably tell.”
“Just a little, yeah,” you tease him lightly. “But that’s good. I like seeing you so excited.”
Bashful, Hyunjin laughs a little and steps away from the easel. “Yeah, I…uh, right, just give me a minute to grab my keys and stuff.”
He turns toward his desk, rummaging through the stray pieces of paper, the notebooks, the odd sketching pencil or two. You wander up behind him, wanting a closer look at the photos he has pinned up.
You recognise some of them as Seungmin’s, taken last year when the three of you shared a dorm floor. There’s some artsy-looking pictures of the university campus, mixed in with pictures of Hyunjin and his friends. There are some that Hyunjin must have taken himself, and you recognise one of the faces in the photos as the roommate you just met in the hall. There’s some of a younger Hyunjin, with an arm around his siblings, hugging his mother, beaming as he sits tall and proud on his father’s shoulders.
And you see yourself in a few. More than a few, honestly. There’s one or two from the first year you knew Hyunjin, all of them in group shots. But so many more in the months since you’ve grown closer – photos of you posing by a gallery sign, of you smiling with delight as you feed ducks in a nearby park, candid shots of you looking at exhibits with the slightest furrow of concentration in your brow. One photograph in particular catches your eye – you in profile, sat by what looked to be the living room window of your own apartment, smiling faintly as you stared out through the window at the night-time lights of the city.
“Is that one from my birthday?” You ask, absently – and Hyunjin jolts in front of you, almost dropping the papers he had in his hand. He turns – his arm brushing against your chest – and you only realise then how close you had wandered to look over his shoulder.
You take a step back, slightly embarrassed.
“Sorry, I just saw the…” you gesture vaguely to the photograph behind him.
Hyunjin takes a moment to register what you said, and follows your line of sight to the photo. “Oh! Uh, yeah, I think it was. Yeah, it was after the party. I was trying to help you clean up, and you stopped to show me what the view was like at night.”
“Right,” you say, remembering. You look at the photo, remembering that night. “It’s a great fucking view. Like you can’t tell the difference from the sky and–”
“–and the city, because the lights look like stars,” Hyunjin finishes for you. “Yeah. You were right. It was amazing.”
“Clearly. You took a photo and everything,” you point out.
Hyunjin pauses, and nods. “Yeah.”
The two of you fall silent, a strange quiet settling over the both of you. Your gaze shifts from the photograph to Hyunjin, and you find him already looking at you. Your eyes meet, and for a second, your breath hitches.
It’s quiet. So quiet. And he’s still staring. You can feel your heart starting to pound, as the moment stretches on.
And then Hyunjin clears his throat, and turns back to look through his desk.
Your breath leaves you with a sudden sharp exhale. You feel strange, almost like a weird post-adrenaline crash, as if you’d just jumped from a great height or finished riding a rollercoaster. Your heart is still beating fast.
You swallow, and take another step back to allow some more distance between the two of you. The silence now seems heavy, almost smothering, and you’re eager to break it.
“So, was that the one who put chicken in his smoothie?” You ask, gesturing over your shoulder to the door behind you, and the hallway you had met the roommate in.
Hyunjin glances over at the door, not quite looking at you.
“No, the smoothie one was Changbin,” Hyunjin says, pulling a face at what must be the memory of watching him feed chicken to the blender. “I think he went out for a run. Which is good, because I was about to grab that blender and brain him with it.”
“For making the smoothie?”
“For looking me dead in the eye while he drank the whole thing.”
You can’t help but laugh, just a little bit. Your chest feels lighter because of it, as if your laughter had lifted some kind of weight off of you. “I think your roommates are a little…”
“Gross?”
“I was going to say ‘odd’, but chicken smoothies do sound pretty gross.”
“They are,” Hyunjin says, voice low with deadly seriousness. “But yeah, you met Han. Changbin is out. And I would introduce you to Chan, but I’m pretty sure he’s wearing even less than Han.”
“Are your roommates just allergic to shirts or something?” You ask.
“Honestly, they might be,” Hyunjin replies, finally grabbing his keys from their hiding place under the flyer for a future gallery exhibition. “That would explain a lot.”
“Not the chicken, though.”
“Nothing could explain the fucking chicken,” Hyunjin mutters. “OK, I’m ready. You want to head out now?”
“Sure,” you reply, and the cheerful tone in your voice is only half-forced. “Let’s go.”
You leave his bedroom first, Hyunjin taking a second to put on his shoes – and you step into the hallway just as Han exits what seems to be the kitchen. He seems to have managed to find a shirt since you last saw him, but the same cannot be said for the guy behind him – the one that almost collides with Han’s back when he stops at the sight of you.
“Hey,” Han greets, with another wave. “Again.”
“Hi,” you reply, although your attention can’t help but be caught by the guy currently sidling around Han. No shirt, of course, but he was wearing a pair of black sweatpants only loosely tied, low-slung enough that you could see the faintest line starting at his hips that led downwards to–
You force your eyes up, looking very pointedly at the guy’s face and nothing else.
Your brief ogling seems to have gone unnoticed, as the smile the guy gives you is perfectly friendly without even the slightest hint of a smirk. He seems genuinely innocent, even in the current state of his undress. “Oh, you must be Hyunjin’s friend. Hey, I’m Chan.”
You nod, again keeping your eyes fixed on this dude’s face. “Hi, Chan.”
Looking at Chan’s face might be slightly less embarrassingly than just openly staring at the rest of him, but it doesn’t do much to ease your flustered mind. On the contrary, you take note of his dark curls, seemingly damp as if he’d recently taken a shower. And fuck, are those dimples?
“Are you guys off somewhere?” Chan asks, perfectly polite.
“Yeah, that art museum across the city,” Hyunjin says, and you note the slightest hint of impatience in his voice. Was he really that eager to leave?
“Oh, cool,” Chan says, nodding.
You smile. “I mean, I don’t know if ‘cool’ is the word for it, but we have fun. Hyunjin tells me about brush strokes and perspective and artsy stuff, and I tell him about historical context and little biography facts.”
“Oh, so you’re like…” Han trails off, staring. “You’re like…smart-smart.”
You blink, face warming a little at the awe in his words. “Uh, I mean…I–”
“Yes,” Hyunjin affirms for you, and your stomach flutters again. He starts slowly edging towards the front door. “But we should probably start moving, if we want–”
The front door suddenly flies open. You watch, wide-eyed, as someone walks through the door, skin flushed with exhaustion and just the faintest sheen of sweat. He’s broad, clad in a skin-tight black t-shirt and work-out shorts, and the muscles in his arm swell and contract as he lifts one hand up to remove the airpods he’s wearing.
He looks at you, and you–
You just–
Was everyone in this apartment just…exclusively fucking hot? Was it written into the fucking lease?
“Hi,” he greets, slightly breathless from what seems to have been some kind of morning run.
The sound of his voice is enough to make you swallow. “…Hi.”
“Hi,” Hyunjin chimes in, deadpan. “Sorry, we’re literally just about to head out.”
“Oh,” Changbin – because this has to be Changbin, the third housemate, and you can’t believe you can almost forgive the chicken smoothie thing because fuck, those arms – blinks, looking from you to Hyunjin, and then back to you. “OK. Introductions later, I guess?”
“Sure,” you say, trying to seem as calm and composed as you could as you’re forced to brush past him to get through the door.
Hyunjin is right behind you, barely stopping to throw a brief “see you guys later!” over his shoulder before closing the front door.
You wait, still trying to adjust to what just happened in the span of about five minutes, watching Hyunjin lock the door.
“They seemed…nice,” you note, still reeling. You feel like you’re in shock. You can’t be in shock, right? There’s no such thing as ‘hot-guy shock’.
Hyunjin turns, slipping his keys into his pocket. His lips are pressed together into one thin line as he replies. “Mmhm.”
You blink at his response, at the tension in his response. “Is…everything OK?”
“Everything’s fine,” he says quickly, almost convincing. It’s only then that he relaxes a little, and looks at you. “So, art museum?”
“Yes. Coffee first though,” you demand, and begin walking down the hall, away from the apartment. You point an accusing finger at him as you walk. “You made me rush through my tea to get here so soon, so you’re paying.”
“Sounds fair,” Hyunjin sighs, but you don’t miss the way he smiles as he follows close behind you.