Chapter Text
Hyunjin was not entirely sure why Minho was his best friend. The closest comparison he could muster was adopting a grumpy cat—one that complained about everything, perpetually offended by the mere existence of the world.
They had a spare room in their apartment that doubled as an art studio for Hyunjin and a dance practice space for Minho. But when money got tight after Hyunjin lost one of his jobs, the studio had to make way for something far less glamorous: a third roommate.
"Are you absolutely certain we need to do this?" Minho asked, his voice strained with the particular stress of someone who had never wanted to share space with another human being. "Can't we just live off water until you find a new job?"
Hyunjin suppressed a sigh. "It's been months, Minho. We can't keep having dinner at Chan's place and pretending we're there to socialize instead of, you know, eating free food."
Yes, we can, Minho's mind screamed with the intensity of someone facing a personal apocalypse.
"Why not?" Minho blinked at Hyunjin, and it was like he was threatening his life.
Hyunjin shivered but pushed forward anyway. They needed this—Hyunjin really needed this. "Would it truly be that catastrophic to have a new roommate?"
"Do you actually know me?"
Good point, Hyunjin conceded internally, watching Minho's expression darken. This would probably end in disaster.
"Look," Hyunjin ventured cautiously. "There's this guy at work. He'd be perfect. He's perfectly nice. His name is Jisung."
"And he's homeless?"
"No. His landlord asked for his apartment back. Perfectly legitimate situation."
"That sounds like a convenient coincidence." Minho's eyes narrowed with the suspicion. "Are you sure he's not just trying to infiltrate our living space?"
"I didn't even mention anything to him. He mentioned needing a place, and it just... sparked an idea."
Minho closed his eyes, visibly processing this development with the grace of someone accepting a life sentence.
"Look, this sucks. But if you think it's absolutely necessary, I won't argue," Minho said and it pained him to say it.
Hyunjin let out a relieved sigh. "But I need you to promise me something."
"That I won't kill myself?"
"That you'll actually give him a chance."
"You know I hate new people." He trailed off meaningfully. "He better not be loud. I'm serious."
The day Hyunjin scheduled Jisung's move-in, Minho made sure to be spectacularly absent from the apartment. He'd lived with Hyunjin since college—and lived with him willingly, which was saying something—though he'd never seriously considered cohabiting with anyone else. Between every possible nightmare scenario he'd constructed in his mind, living with Hyunjin remained the least awful option. Barely.
Jisung arrived with more boxes than seemed physically possible for one person to own, and Hyunjin found himself already exhausted.
"Where is your other roommate?" Jisung asked, setting down a particularly large box with a grunt.
"Oh, he took some extra classes today," Hyunjin said smoothly, which was only a minor lie.
"He's a teacher?"
"Dance instructor at a gym. He hates it." Hyunjin paused, a smile tugging at his lips despite his anxiety. "Though I'm fairly certain the moms in his classes adore him."
Jisung perked up at this. "You both studied the same thing?"
"Fine arts, yeah. We haven't exactly landed the dream jobs yet, but..." Hyunjin gestured vaguely around the apartment. "That's precisely why you're not homeless right now. So be grateful for our collective mediocrity."
Jisung laughed, genuinely amused. "Oh, I'm grateful. The place I was living before looks like a dumpster compared to this. Seriously, it's nicer than my parents' house."
"That's all Minho," Hyunjin admitted, watching Jisung's eyes widen. "He's... a bit of a cleaning freak. Okay, not just a bit. Like, aggressively so. Please don't leave your stuff where he can see it, because I'm not joking when I say you'll never see it again."
Jisung blinked, trying to determine if this was a genuine warning or an elaborate joke. He settled on cautious concern. "Any other apartment rules I should know about?"
"Don't be loud," Hyunjin said flatly. "He loves music, hates the sound of people."
"Is he like eighty-seven or something?" Jisung asked, genuinely bemused. "He sounds like an old lady."
"He basically is a grumpy cat stuck in a very, very hot body," Hyunjin said, and he meant it. "So that's the disconnect you'll experience."
Jisung set his hands on his hips, processing the warnings like a man mentally preparing for battle. "So: don't leave my things around, don't be too loud, probably don't sneeze too enthusiastically. Got it. I guess I'll be homeless again soon, because that seems to be my factory setting."
"I vouched for you," Hyunjin said, and there was real worry in his voice now. "Please don't make me regret this."
"At least I have a car," Jisung offered as a peace offering. "We can commute together to work. But seriously, if your roommate ever tries to assassinate me for committing the cardinal sin of leaving a towel on the sofa, you have to defend me. That's the roommate code."
Hyunjin laughed despite his spiraling anxiety. "Oh God, please never leave a towel on the sofa. You haven't seen weird yet. If Minho ever wants us dead, we'll be dead, and we'll be able to do zero about it."
"I'm joking around," Jisung said, grinning. "I promise. I'll be on my best behavior. Scout's honor."
But even as Jisung said it, Hyunjin felt the weight of what he'd done settling onto his shoulders. Minho was already a difficult person—it had taken years for them to establish a livable peace. Now here was Jisung, cheerful and chaotic, ready to upset the delicate balance Hyunjin had spent so long constructing.
He showed Jisung the apartment with the careful precision of someone defusing a bomb: the utilities, the grocery etiquette (Minho had very specific feelings about this), the temperamental shower, and finally, Jisung's room—which at the moment was an empty space dominated by an enormous mirror that Minho used for dance practice.
"Wow, that's massive," Jisung said, stepping inside and immediately avoiding eye contact with his own reflection. "I don't know how I feel about staring at myself that much."
"That's Minho's," Hyunjin warned, his voice taking on the tone of someone describing a sacred artifact. "It's wall-mounted. Do not touch it. I'm not joking."
"Okay, okay. I got it. That's his emotional support mirror, or whatever." Jisung was still smiling, still unbothered, still completely unaware of the precariousness of his new living situation. "I can figure out how to coexist with a wall of narcissism."
Hyunjin didn't have the heart to correct him.
Later, after Jisung had settled into his room and Hyunjin had exhausted himself with the logistics of a new roommate, Jisung emerged from his bedroom and collapsed dramatically onto the couch beside him.
"I'm hungry," Jisung announced, as though this was earth-shattering information.
Hyunjin was scrolling through his phone, contemplating the financial reality of feeding another person. "Should we go to Chan's?"
"Chan's?" Jisung sat up with renewed interest.
"Our neighbor. He's a producer. And he has this lovely habit of feeding us without asking questions," Hyunjin said, with the tone of someone describing an incredibly lucky situation. "We show up around dinner time, and he... well, he pretends not to notice the pattern, but eventually he feeds us anyway. It's a system."
"So you just show up at his apartment and expect to eat?"
"Yes, and it's worked remarkably well for months," Hyunjin said proudly.
Jisung grinned. "I like your strategy. That's the energy I can get behind."
They walked across the hall with the confidence of people who had done this many times before. Chan answered the door with that smile—the one that apparently caused actual cardiac events in people—and welcomed them in without question. His roommate, I.N, rolled his eyes with the weary acceptance of someone who had witnessed this dynamic far too many times to be shocked anymore.
"Guys, I want to introduce you to our new roommate," Hyunjin announced cheerfully. "Jisung, this is Chan and I.N. Guys, this is Jisung—he works at the ad agency with me and does something sound-related."
"Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me," Jisung said politely; his eyes somehow managed to entirely skip over I.N and land directly on Chan like a satellite finding its target.
"Hi, I'm Chan," Chan said, extending his hand. "Welcome."
It was at that precise moment that something in Jisung's chest did a curious flip—the kind of flip that usually preceded bad decisions. Chan had this smile that seemed to contain entire galaxies, and his presence had the inexplicable quality of making a person forget basic social courtesy.
I.N noticed immediately and suppressed an amused snort.
"Are you guys joining us for dinner?" Chan asked, already moving toward the kitchen with the comfortable assumption that yes, they absolutely were.
"It's not like we planned that," Hyunjin said with transparent dishonesty. "But if you insist..."
As they left Chan's apartment, fully content and well fed, Jisung leaned over to Hyunjin with barely contained excitement. He made it approximately two steps before the words burst out of him like water from a broken dam.
"Oh my God, I think I'm in love," Jisung whispered urgently. "Chan is absolutely beautiful. Like, are we sure he's a real person?"
Hyunjin's expression shifted to one of pure, undiluted dread. "Jisung. Please do not fuck the neighbor who feeds us. Please."
"Why not?" Jisung asked, grinning at the sheer chaos potential. "I'd be double satisfied—heart and stomach."
"Because Chan doesn't do relationships," Hyunjin said flatly. "Then you two would have to avoid each other forever, and it would become this whole thing, and we'd lose our primary food source. Please, I am begging you, do not do this."
But Jisung's expression only grew more determined. There was something about a challenge that made his eyes light up like he'd been given permission to be destructive. Hyunjin could already see the chaos unfolding.
When they returned to the apartment, Minho was sprawled across the couch with his phone, watching something with the intensity of someone documenting evidence for a lawsuit. He'd mastered the art of looking simultaneously bored and dangerous.
"Minho-hyung, you're home," Hyunjin said carefully, offering a small bow that made the moment between them feel formal—hierarchical in a way that made Jisung's head tilt with confusion.
Minho glanced up, processed the presence of his new roommate, and rose from the couch with the fluid grace of someone who had trained his body to move like art. No pleasantries graced his expression—just the polite distance of a stranger at a bus stop—but he extended his right hand to Jisung with the formality of a business meeting.
"You must be Jisung. Welcome. I'm Minho," he said, and his voice was perfectly pleasant. Warm, even.
He's actually nice, Jisung thought, with the kind of certainty that comes from catastrophically misreading situations. Hyunjin was totally exaggerating.
He had no idea what he'd just gotten himself into.
"Hi, Minho. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me," Jisung said with genuine warmth.
Minho's eye twitched—just barely, just enough for Hyunjin to notice.
Oh no.
"I thought you said he was your age, Hyunjin," Minho said mildly, which was somehow worse than if he'd shouted.
Inside his head, Minho was running a rapid assessment: This guy has no idea how he's supposed to interact with someone senior to him.
Fuck, Hyunjin thought, and it felt like watching dominoes begin to fall. Strike number one.
"Hyung, please," Hyunjin tried, watching as Minho simply grabbed his phone from the couch and headed toward his room with the gait of someone containing multitudes of disappointment. "Please be reasonable."
But Minho was already gone, his door closing with the soft finality of a sentence.
"He's nice," Jisung said cheerfully, completely oblivious to the nuclear reaction that had just occurred.
"Oh God, he's going to kick us both out," Hyunjin said, running his hands through his hair with the distress of watching a controlled experiment explode.
"He can't, though," Jisung said pragmatically. "He needs us to pay rent."
"Oh, but he doesn't," Hyunjin said quietly. "Trust me on this one."
The truth was complicated, and it sat heavy in his chest: Minho didn't need anything from either of them. His family was wealthy—wealthy in the way that removed all necessity from the equation. He could have accepted their help at any point, could have let his family subsidize his life into comfort. But he was stubborn in the way that only wealthy people could afford to be—stubborn with the privilege of choice. He shared the apartment with Hyunjin because he wanted to, which meant he could un-want to at any moment.
"I think this is going to give me an ulcer," Hyunjin announced, rubbing at his temples.
"I don't think you actually know what an ulcer is," Jisung offered.
"I don't," Hyunjin agreed miserably. "But I'm going to develop one anyway."
Hyunjin let his head fall back against the couch and stared up at the ceiling, as if it might offer a refund on all his recent decisions. Somewhere down the hall, Minho’s door stayed firmly, ominously shut; beside him, Jisung hummed under his breath, already making himself at home in a life he had just crashed into. Between the grumpy cat with a trust fund and the sunshine disaster with a death wish for apartment rules, Hyunjin realized with a dull, inevitable sort of clarity that the ulcer was probably the least of his problems.