#349 Young Years

[seokmonster-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Young Years
Pairing: Xiumin/Sungjong (Infinite)
Side pairing(s): none
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2085 words
Warnings: It's not a warning per se, but in this story, Sungjong falls somewhere along the asexual/aromantic spectrum.
Summary: There's something about Minseok.
Author's Notes: Thanks to the mods for their patience and to the prompter for this opportunity!

The title is from London Grammar's Wasting My Young Years.

There's something about Minseok. Sungjong doesn't know what it is. "Hey," Sungyeol says, bringing his tray to the table, a large coffee and a small sandwich and Sungjong thinks there's something wrong with this picture but he doesn't say anything, because Dongwoo is sitting with Minseok at the end of the table and it's too much fun watching Dongwoo tease Minseok into laughing. At first Minseok is tense, back straight, shoulders a little lopsided from his heavy messenger bag and the MacBook and his lecture notes that he insists on writing out by hand anyway instead of typing on the keyboard because, as he told Dongwoo one time, "this way it's like studying because my fingers remember the words even if my brain forgets." Sungjong grins, just a little, as Dongwoo pulls a ridiculous face and Minseok finally bursts into laughter. "Hey!" Sungyeol repeats, nudging Sungjong's knee under the table with his foot and Sungjong glares at him. Sungyeol just winks, and takes a gulp of coffee, spluttering as he swallows funny and some dribbles down his chin. Sungjong just laughs, serves you right. The sandwich he's eating tastes even better, seasoned with a Minseok smile. "I've never seen you so interested in someone," Sungyeol finally accuses, after wiping his mouth and shirt with a wad of napkins. His words are joking, casual, but his expression is curious. It's times like these, all the time really, that Sungjong remembers how much Sungyeol actually notices behind the jokes and the casually self-depreciating humour. He shrugs, takes a last bite of sandwich and wipes away a few stray crumbs, tongue running over his lips. When he looks up again, Sungyeol isn't studying him thoughtfully, like he usually does, but is instead looking towards the end of the table. Sungjong glances over too, and then drops his eyes to his tray when he realizes that Minseok is looking at him. He's probably just looking at the clock, Sungjong thinks, standing up and sweeping his dirty napkins onto his tray. He has class in fifteen minutes. "Good luck with the 18th century!" Dongwoo calls, as Sungjong passes by on his way to the tray drop off. Sungjong doesn't even bother to correct him, Dongwoo has his schedule all mixed up and there's no point, it's not like Sungjong actually depends on Dongwoo to remember his next class. He chances a glance at Minseok instead and dips his head politely when Minseok's eyes lock with his, a small smile hovering at the corner of his mouth. "Ouch!" Suddenly there's a sharp elbow digging into his ribs and Sungjong glances right to see a very curious Sungyeol peering at him over the remains of a massacred sandwich on his tray, and a very empty coffee cup. "What was that for?" "Your face was strange," Sungyeol says, sticking out his tongue. "It was weird." Sungjong rolls his eyes and purposefully sticks out a leg to trip Sungyeol as he spends too much time looking at him and not enough time actually looking where he's going—it's kind of a dick move because Sungyeol is just being Sungyeol but there's no coffee left in his cup so he only ends up with a sore elbow and some lettuce in his hair, in Sungjong's opinion, a fair trade so that he can get a few moments to think. Because Sungyeol is right. There is something about Minseok, and Sungjong doesn't really know what it is. It's not that Sungjong likes Minseok, though he keeps turning the possibility over and around in his head as he rolls the pencil between his fingers in the library, his mind wandering from the questions he's supposed to be answering. France in the 18th century isn't exactly boring, but it's not half as interesting as thinking about Minseok and that's another thing that's been poking at his mind recently. Sungjong sighs, eyes drifting over a passage in his notes before he scrawls out another answer, and only after he's dotted the period does he realize that his answer is half-English, half-French, probably when his mind started wandering again, tracing the curve of Minseok's mouth. And it's not like Sungyeol might tease him if he knew, it's not like Sungjong wants to kiss him or anything. Just as an experiment, Sungjong imagines himself leaning forward, Minseok's face growing with the proximity, filling his vision— "Hey," a voice says, and Sungjong's eyes blink open, meeting a face only centimetres from his own, slumped backways against the back of the library where he must have falllen asleep and Sungjong jumps, startled, his forehead colliding with the other person's chin and they both protest in pain as Sungjong snaps his head straight on his neck, wincing at the knot in his vertebrae, and the other person moans, clutching his chin. "Dongwoo?" Sungjong asks, as he finally wakes up all the way, shaking the cobwebs of dreams out of his head, the last thing he could remember thinking about before he'd drifted off had been— "Oh, Minseok!" Dongwoo calls, waving him over from the door, before he turns back to Sungjong. "That hurt!' "You surprised me!" Sungjong protests, no remorse coloring the tone of his voice as he glances over at Minseok, trying to figure out what expression to wear as he walks towards the table. Why am I even worrying about this? He settles, slightly panicked, for a vaguely sleepy, vaguely annoyed expression and that seems to do the trick, as MInseok says hello, grinning and elbowing Dongwoo familiarly in the ribs before pulling a textbook and notebook out of his bag. No one says anything, and Sungjong manages to finish his questions in record time as he avoids looking at both Minseok, chewing the tip of his pen and mumbling over his textbook, as well as Dongwoo who seems to have given up on homework entirely and has resorted to rocking back and forth on his chair, humming some kind of dubstep remix of a popular pop song until the chair inevitably overbalances, dumping him on the floor. Minseok laughs instead of helping Dongwoo, who doesn't need any help anyway as this kind of thing happens to him, from Sungjong's experience, at least ten times a day, as he picks himself up off the floor, dusting his elbows and knees and slipping back onto the chair. Sungjong finds himself angling towards Minseok's laughter instead, the heart-shape of his smile, and he just—he doesn't know what he wants. Minseok glances back at him, their eyes meeting for a moment and Sungjong doesn't know what expression he has on his face right now. He doesn't want to know. Instead, he mumbles something about a study session, tearing his eyes away as he gathers up his pencil, notebook and textbook and practically runs out of the library. "Sungjong?" He can hear Dongwoo calling from behind him, and his voice sounds confused, but Sungjong doesn't turn back. Sungjong doesn't really like people, not the way Woohyun likes Kibum but pretends he doesn't, the way Kyungsoo says he hates Amber but then Sungjong spots them together in the science room, heads bent over some book spread across their laps, or even the way Seungwan smiles when she thinks Joohyun isn't looking. And he's okay with that. But there's something about Minseok. "Myungsoo?" His friend looks up from his camera, where he's flipping through the shots he just took for the school yearbook, though from where Sungjong is sitting it looks like there are more photographs of clouds and trees and the angle of the windows in the art wing than the soccer finals, but that's okay. Everyone knows that Myungsoo is going to grow up to be a fabulous photographer, and if they have any doubts, Sungjong has no compunctions about shutting them up. 'Do you think it's possible to like people without like, liking them?" Sungjong realizes, as soon as the words have left his mouth, that they don't make much sense, but Myungsoo seems to understand anyway. Myungsoo is like that. He hums, eyes peering at the camera preview screen, and Sungjong knows that he heard; he's just thinking. "Is it friend like or a different kind of like?" he asks, eyes lifting so that his gaze peers right at Sungjong's face, and Sungjong feels oddly exposed, even though he hasn't given anything away. "You like me, right? What kind of like is it compared to that?" Sungjong sighs, running his fingers through his hair. There are so many feelings and so few words. "Well, it's not like how I like you, but it's not like how Jaehwan likes Hani. Does that make sense?" Sungjong doesn't even know what he's saying anymore. "Forget it, this is too complicated." He starts to get up, but Myungsoo pauses him with a fleeting brush of his fingers, because even though Myungsoo is a cuddler, Sungjong isn't like that and Myungsoo respects that and that's probably one of the reasons they're still good friends. "I think," Myungsoo says, "that you don't have to define like at all." He smiles, flashing a happy grin at Sungjong before he goes back to his photographs. Sungjong smiles back, even if Myungsoo isn't looking anymore, because that's what friends do. "Thanks!" Sungjong knocks on the door of the Student Council office before walking in to see Dongwoo. "Dongwoo, I have a ques—" He stops, mid sentence, when Minseok looks up instead. "Dongwoo isn't here right now," Minseok says, his smile friendly. "Can I help you?" Sungjong stops, hovering over the threshold, and bites his lip. "Um, not really, unless you know anything about 18th century France?" Minseok blinks. "I didn't know that Dongwoo knew anything about 18th century France either?" He looks so puzzled, as though he's running Dongwoo's environmental major over and over in his head, trying to fit historical France into it, and Sungjong can't help it. He laughs, first a trembling of lips followed by a tickling in his chest, building to bubbles of laughter bursting from his mouth, because he wants nothing more than to reach out and touch Minseok's cheek, unravel the puzzlement of his expression with the tip of his finger but he can't. Minseok and he are barely friends, more properly acquaintances with a mutual friend. HIs laughter fades slightly as he thinks about it, vanishing into the dusty silence of the Student Council room. Sungjong looks at Minseok and he wants—? What do you want, Sungjong? What is it that you want? Sungjong opens his mouth, closes it again. Opens it— Just say you want to be friends. "I—" Sungjong chickens out, likes he knows he was going to, because he's only brave when it doesn't matter, when it's not about himself. "I usually just. . .talk to him about it, it helps me figure it out by myself. I'll go see if I can find Dongwoo, maybe he's in the library. . ." He backs away from the doorway, eyes already sliding towards the ground. "Wait!" Minseok calls after him, and Sungjong stops. "If it's just listening, you can talk to me too? I don't mind." Sungjong looks back at Minseok's who's glaring distastefully at the papers stacked on the desk before he looks up and meets Sungjong's gaze. "It would be doing me a favour." He smiles, a flash of sun, and Sungjong can't help turning back, feet crossing the expanse of the Student Council room, skirting the meeting table and chairs filling the centre of the space. "Are you sure?" he asks, and Minseok nods. "One hundred percent," he says, sweeping a stack of papers to the side. Sungjong takes that as an invitation to pull up a chair and sit down, his notebook flipped open and spread across his knees. "Hey, Sungjong!" Sungyeol calls across the cafeteria. "Want to hang out after classes?" Sungjong makes his way to the table, lunch tray in hand. There's soup today, and the aroma drifting up towards his nose is making his mouth water, the sensation almost painful, like drawn out anticipation. "Sorry," he says, plopping down on the bench next to Sungyeol. "I'm meeting Minseok for coffee, he's helping me with my French project." The expression on Sungyeol's face is all kinds of satisfying, as Sungjong take a spoonful of soup and his eyes flutter shut at the taste on his tongue. "You really—?" Sungyeol asks, poking him in the shoulder with excited jabs, and Sungjong doesn't even mind. "Yup," he says, and grins back.

Comments

[ma-laise.livejournal.com]

my prompt!

ahh infinite/exo.. my faves together. *-*

i liked how sungjong was unsure what his feelings were, that he all he knew was that something was different. there's something about minseok. and that in the end it didn't matter what he called them.

not the way Woohyun likes Kibum but pretends he doesn't it's a very brief mention, but i was like yes! wookey, yes!

thank you so much for writing this!

[fairyminseok.livejournal.com]

This was so cute
Sungjong is literally; I want to sQUISH HIM
This is just so lovely ;;; I love the way you approached this new crush and was it really a crush because different kinds of like is confusing especially this line
"I think," Myungsoo says, "that you don't have to define like at all."

Thank you for writing this <3