Chapter Text
Saturday around noon meant chaos in Wooyoung and San's apartment. The only thing missing was San, who had gone out to buy cheese and would probably get lost on the way back.
“Seonghwa, taste this,” Wooyoung held out a spoon with tomato sauce. “I already tasted it,” Seonghwa replied, not looking up from the spring onions he was cutting. Wooyoung already took the spoon into his own mouth, now licking it clean. "Something's missing though.”
“You’ve said that five times now.”
“And I’ve been right three of those times.” Seonghwa turned towards the younger. “You added sugar, a LOT of sugar,” he gestured wildly towards the saucepan, “your taste buds are off.”
“Are not. If anything, I improved it.”
“You committed a crime!”
Wooyoung gasped, but before he could say anything a loud “Noooooo!” followed by a dramatic “HOW did this happen?” filled the room.
Yunho was on his knees in front of the TV looking as if he had just lost the most important game of his life. On the couch behind him sat Jongho with a smug expression on his face.
“I LOST,” Yunho turned around, “I LOST to YOU in a round of fucking Mario Kart. How could this happen?”
“Guess I’m just more skilled than you are.”
“Skilled? You? That was luck. You drove into a wall twice!”
“That was strategy. Either way, I still won.” With a huff Yunho got back on the couch. “I want a rematch NOW!” Before the other could blink, a new round was started. Mingi walked over and sat between the two. A few moments passed and Yunho was again second behind Jongho. Mingi, basically vibrating on the couch, grabbed Yunho's leg with both hands and shook it.
“LEFT. GO LEFT.”
“Yah, stop it. I cannot concentrate properly if you shake me.”
Mingi pointed at the TV, almost more invested in the game than the two playing. “But you gotta turn sooner. LEFT–”
“If you say left again, I’m unplugging the console,” Jongho said with an annoyed tone in his voice. “NO, you’re going the WRONG LEFT!” Mingi all but shouted just a second after. “Seriously Yunho,” Jongho said, eyes still fixed on the screen, “how do you keep up with him? I would have dumped him like two seconds ago.”
“Guys, be nice with each other.” Mingi looked over at Hongjoong, who sat at the table, “but I am being nice.”
Seonghwa, now leaning over the kitchen island, quickly made his boyfriend set the table, clearly deciding he didn’t want to deal with the chaos anymore. Yeosang didn’t even flinch when Mingi screamed, he just swiped past another TikTok video, the blue light of his phone reflecting his calm eyes.
Wooyoung heard the front door open and shoes hitting the floor. Seconds later San stood in the kitchen, placing the parmesan on the counter. “Sorry for taking so long, but our supermarket didn’t have any cheese, so I went to another one, but I kinda lost orientation.”
Wooyoung snorted immediately. “You got lost going two blocks?”
San frowned, pulling off the hoodie he had thrown over his shirt. “There are three identical streets.”
“If you used maps, you would know which street is which,” Yeosang said without looking up from his phone.
“I do use maps.”
“You open it, stare at it, and decide your instincts are better, just admit it,” Yeosang replied calmly.
San huffed, “my instincts are better than technology.”
“Sure, if you say so,” Wooyoung leaned against the counter, grinning, “but just to remind you, your instincts led you to the wrong dorm building twice last semester.”
“My instincts might have been wrong about the dorm building but they were not wrong about the person I found in front of the room I thought to be my dorm,” he looked directly at the younger.
Wooyoung held up his hands in defeat. “Fine, you win.” With that Wooyoung took the cheese from the counter and San grabbed the cheese grater and followed the other to the table.
“Lunch is ready,” Seonghwa announced.
“Finally, I’m starving over here.”
“Yeosang, you know we could have eaten a lot earlier if someone,” Seonghwa stared toward Wooyoung, “didn’t insist on making pasta from scratch.”
On the couch Mingi suddenly gasped dramatically. “NO NO NO – YUNHO!”
“I’m trying!”
“You're not trying hard enough!” Mingi exclaimed. “Why are you shaking me again?!” Jongho burst out laughing as he won yet again.
Mingi groaned loudly as Yunho stood up and walked towards the table, but followed him quickly, grabbing the other man's waist and leaning in, “aren't you supposed to impress me with your talents as my alpha?”
They sat down and Yunho looked sideways, “but I thought I am impressing you with my talents,” he wiggled his eyebrows at the word talents, and Mingi's cheeks turned bright red.
Wooyoung rolled his eyes. “You two are disgusting.”
“Jealous?” Yunho asked.
“Of that? Please, if I dated someone who drove like you, I’d break up within a week.”
“Wow,” Yunho said, leaning back in his chair like he’d been personally attacked.
***
By the time the bowls were mostly empty, the conversation had slowed down. Seonghwa stacked the already empty bowls on the table and leaned back in his chair. “Okay, that turned out better than I expected.” Wooyoung looked very pleased with himself. “Obviously! Just admit it, I'm an incredibly good chef.” Seonghwa didn't say anything to that.
Wooyoung had shifted his chair closer to San at some point during lunch, their shoulders pressed together while San scrolled through something on his phone. San didn’t seem to notice the contact at all. Wooyoung, unfortunately, noticed it very much, holding himself back from leaning in even further. He caught a faint scent on San. Something like cedarwood, maybe rain. He couldn’t quite identify it. All he knew was that he couldn’t wait to know what San would smell like once he presented.
The table fell into quiet chatter.
“Midterms are going to kill me,” Wooyoung groaned at one point.
“You say that every semester,” Jongho sighed.
“Because every semester they try to ruin my life.”
“Maybe try studying earlier than the night before,” Yeosang suggested.
Wooyoung gasped. “Betrayal.”
Mingi leaned in over the table, “I also told you to start earlier.”
“You also told Yunho that Mario Kart was about skill, and look where that got him.” San chuckled quietly at that while reaching for his glass. “Speaking of early,” Hongjoong said, stretching his arms above his head, “neither you nor San are early, at least not when it comes to your presenting.”
Wooyoung groaned immediately. “Why is everyone so invested in that?”
“Because you’re twenty,” Jongho said simply. “Twenty is not that late,” Wooyoung argued. Yeosang added, “It’s not exactly early either.”
San shrugged easily. “My mother also presented late.”
“See,” Wooyoung looked over at Yeosang, “plus you’re a beta you don’t really have any more privileges than we do.” At that, the other shrugs. “Well, we’ll see as what you present and then we’ll talk about that again.”
After a while, San stood up and looked around the table until his gaze landed on Wooyoung. “Come and help me clean.”
“But I cooked, so technically I shouldn’t have to.”
“You supervised the sauce,” San corrected. “I improved the sauce.” San just shook his head with a quiet laugh as the two of them carried the dishes toward the kitchen. Behind them, Yunho was already dragging Jongho back toward the couch for another game while Mingi grabbed the controllers for them.
In the kitchen, the sound of running water filled the space. San started cleaning while Wooyoung was in charge of drying, although he leaned far more against San's side than bothering to dry anything handed to him. If San noticed, he didn’t comment on it. Which was probably for the best.
San spoke after a few minutes of comfortable silence between them. “You really think you’d break up with someone for bad driving in video games?” Wooyoung looked up from where he was leaning against San.
“Depends.”
“On what?” The younger one smiled lightly, watching him. “... On the person playing.”
“Good to know, I guess.” With that, San put the last bowl into Wooyoung’s hands to dry and turned the water off.
***
The apartment felt oddly quiet once the others had left. It was a silence they’d grown used to in the few months since they’d traded their cramped, separated dorms for this shared space.
San had taken over the small spot on the floor in front of the coffee table, sitting with spread-out legs, leaning against the couch. Laptop and notebook in front of him and an anatomy book draped over his lap. Behind him, Wooyoung had stretched out across the couch, lying on his stomach with his laptop open in front of him. One leg hung lazily over the edge of the couch, his foot nearly sent San’s coffee flying when he moved a bit too enthusiastically.
For a while neither of them spoke, just the occasional sound of San flipping a page or Wooyoung groaning softly behind him filled the room. Another minute passed. Then Wooyoung reached forward and poked San’s cheek.
“Young-ah! Stop distracting me.”
Wooyoung pulled back with an offended noise. “I’m not distracting you”
“You did.”
The younger sighed and dropped his head onto his arms. “I hate essays.”
San hummed. “That’s because you start them the day before they’re due.”
“Nah, I would hate them at any given time.”
San turned slightly, glancing up at him over his shoulder. “Hate? That’s an understatement,” San snorted, “you literally said earlier that you're gonna cry on Monday if the professor gives you one more essay.”
Wooyoung squinted at him. “I said might.”
“Same thing.” San turned over again, shoving his laptop further away, making space to put his anatomy book there. “I’m guessing you won’t be touching your non-existent essay in the next 10 minutes, right?”
“Good guess, Sherlock.”
“Well then—” In that moment, San takes hold of the younger one's arm and almost yanks him down. Wooyoung, now leaning over the couch, his head upside down and his arm in San’s lap, gaped at the other. He was familiar with San’s strength, with him going to the gym almost every other day it made sense, but it came pretty unexpectedly.
“Could you please..,” Wooyoung started, blood rushing to his head from hanging upside down, “could you please explain right this moment what the fuck you were thinking.”
“You’re obviously bored and I need to learn how to detect certain muscles for my midterm,” San smirked at the younger, “so I’m using you.”
“You know the part I love about your physical therapy major is that I’m getting free massages out of it,” Wooyoung stated, while he slowly slid down the couch like a cat, now lying with his back on the floor, head resting against San’s thigh, “but I did not agree on being a human test object for you to squeeze at.”
“Sure, if you say so.” However, San still didn’t let go of the arm. He held it carefully and his other hand came around the back of Wooyoung’s open one in his lap.
Wooyoung’s thoughts stopped instantly. San had grabbed his hand dozens of times before, dragging him somewhere, pulling him off the couch, holding him when he was nervous, but this felt different. Or maybe Wooyoung was just suddenly very aware of it. His pulse quickened and the touch set his skin on fire.
In moments like these, he was thankful for the fact that neither San nor he himself had presented yet, because Wooyoung knew he could have never hidden the way his scent would have spiked at that contact. Wooyoung internally scolded himself for having a crush on his best friend of all people.
The reason San had taken hold of his hand was so that he could flex it backwards while pressing his thumb against the other's forearm to detect the muscle there. “According to the textbook, this,” he pushed his thumb a bit more, “is the flexor carpi radialis.”
San’s voice trailed off for a second. His thumb didn’t move to the next muscle, instead it traced the dip of Wooyoung’s wrist with a slow, mindless pressure that definitely wasn’t described in the anatomy book. For a heartbeat, San just stared at the pulse jumping in Wooyoung’s arm. He looked almost dazed, his focus blurring from muscle groups to just… Wooyoung. Then, as if snapping out of a trance, San cleared his throat and adjusted his grip, searching for the next muscle.
The whole time Wooyoung only stared up at San, and all of a sudden he couldn’t take it anymore. Otherwise he would have done something way too stupid. So he sat up, took his arm out of San’s grip, already missing the warmth of his hand, and asked, “you know what’s still embarrassing?”
San, obviously confused by the sudden change, looked over at him. “What?”
“The fact that you got lost in my dorm building.” San raised an eyebrow, “you know that was more than a semester ago. You've been holding onto that for months.”
Wooyoung completely ignored San’s comment and just grinned. “You stood in front of my door like it personally betrayed you.” San groaned and threw his head back onto the couch. “I was only trying to figure out why my key didn’t work.”
“That should’ve been your first clue that it wasn’t your room.” San rolled his head to the side and made a pouty face. “The hallway looked the same.”
“It absolutely did not.” Wooyoung mirrored San’s position with his head on the couch and stared at the ceiling.
“You still helped me find the right building tho.”
“Hm. Because you looked like a confused cat who just lost his owner. I’m never forgetting that image.” At that, San laughed softly. Wooyoung hated how much he liked that sound.
He closed his eyes, the sound of San’s breathing slowly blurred out as he let his thoughts trail off.
***
It was late in the evening. Wooyoung had just come back from dance practice, tired and sweaty, ready to shower and fall into his bed and stay there until the next morning. His backpack hung loosely from one shoulder as he walked down the dorm hallway. And right in front of his door stood a stranger.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Looking completely lost.
The guy stared at the door number, then back at the key in his hand. One hand running through his hair in frustration. Wooyoung had stopped a few steps away, watching him for a moment.
“Are you planning on breaking in,” Wooyoung asked with a smirk, “or just staring at my door all night?”
The boy had turned around immediately. That’s when Wooyoung noticed how good the guy actually looked, except for the confused look he had on his face.
“...This is room 312 right?” The guy asked, taking Wooyoung out of his thoughts back into reality. “Yeah. It is.” The boy’s expression had gone blank.
“That… doesn’t make sense.”
Wooyoung laughed. “You know that the different buildings have the same room numbers, right?”
The other's face turned bright red. “Shit, I…I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay man. Happens to the best of us.”
“So this isn’t building C, I guess?”
“Nope, you're in B,” Wooyoung casually offered. Despite being tired, Wooyoung wanted to help the very handsome-looking guy in front of his door. So he said, “Come on, I'm leading the way before you get lost a second time.”
They walked in silence to the other building and stopped once they reached room 312 C. “There we go, try if your key works for this room now.”
The door opened easily. “Thank you, and sorry again for wasting your time with that.” Wooyoung snorted. “You didn’t waste anything. By the way, what's your name?”
“I’m San, Choi San.”
“I’m Wooyoung. Nice to meet you or well, finding you in front of my door, I guess.” He smiled. Both were silent again, staring at each other.
“Well then have a good evening, San.” Wooyoung waved at San then turned around.
“You too, Wooyoung. See you around?”
“Sure,” Wooyoung turned to look over his shoulder, “and hey, next time you can’t find your dorm, come to mine agin, and I might help you a second time.” And with that, he left.