Chapter Text
Jisung worries his bottom lip between his teeth, one hand playing with the curtain to his living room window, rubbing the semi-scratchy fabric between his thumb and index finger, the other holding his phone to his ear in a vice grip, listening to it ring, and ring, and ring, and—
A loud groan fills his ears as the call finally connects. “It is ass-o-clock, this had better be fucking good—”
“Lee Felix you rat bastard.”
“Hey—”
“You did not warn me,” Jisung whisper-yells, cutting him off, “that Minho was a mother-fucking Adonis.”
Felix, now fully awake and not at all sympathetic to Jisung’s panic, laughs. “You asked for a carpool hook up. You didn’t say anything about needing a warning.”
“First of all, I didn’t ask, you suggested it of your own free will. And secondly, I didn’t think I needed to!”
“You said, and I quote,” Felix clears his throat before adopting the shrill tone of some sort of delicate Victorian lady, “Felix, I can’t bear it a second longer! Save me from this public transport hell.”
“I don’t sound like that.”
“You absolutely do.”
Jisung sniffs, indignant.
Felix isn’t wrong, though. Jisung had called him last week to complain for the umpteenth time about his three-hour long commute; as his supposed best friend in the entire world, ranting privileges are his right.
Never mind that Felix had tried to caution him against it when Jisung accepted a job in the city after graduation, and instead of paying up the nose for rent, decided to move to a much more affordable commuter town a ways away. Jisung doesn’t drive—he doesn’t even have his license—but he could always take the bus.
The thing is, he greatly underestimated just how brutal the commute would be. He may or may not have romanticized it, thinking he could use the time to read, or learn a new language, or finally do something with the half scribbled song-lyrics in the margins of his old notebooks. The reality was he woke up at the crack of dawn, spent the whole ride into work exhausted but too motion-sick to sleep, and he was too drained after work to do anything, making the ride home no better. After six months, he spent almost as much time on the bus as he did in the fucking office, and he was absolutely sick of it.
So when Felix had oh so casually mentioned that one of his old dance hyungs had not only recently gotten a job in the city, but also moved to Jisung’s area, and was looking for a carpool situation to cut down on his commute time and split the cost of gas… Well, Jisung should have known the universe wouldn’t give him a windfall like that without some sort of catch.
Jisung shifts the curtain slightly, again peering out the window to see Minho where he waits in his car. With a street-facing apartment on the ground floor, his window-to-curb viewing distance is not far. Jisung can see him perfectly well—he has his glasses on, okay?—and he is so, so hot.
“Felix,” Jisung whines, voice barely a whisper, “I—I can see him. He’s looking at the building. He knows I’m here. What if he can see me? What if he knows I’m watching him?”
Felix—that traitor—snickers. “Of course he knows you’re there, you dork. He’s literally there to pick you up. Just go out and say hi.”
“No, I’m literally shaking,” Jisung says, dropping the curtain and sinking down to the floor, back pressed against it.
Felix’s laughter continues for a moment, but when he speaks again, his voice is soft. “Jisung, you’re fine, I promise. Just put on your big boy pants and go outside.”
“But he’s so hot,” Jisung lets out weakly, rolling onto his stomach and pressing his forehead against the hardwood. It’s not all that comfortable, especially with his glasses on, and he definitely should not be doing this when he can’t remember the last time he vacuumed, let alone mopped, but—desperate times. “And I get—I get weird around attractive people, you know this.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re an awkward little virgin, I know,” Felix teases, using Jisung’s own often repeated words against him.
Jisung purses his lips into a pout. It's not like he is intentionally awkward (or intentionally a virgin for that matter, but whatever). He just kind of... is. A tragic side effect of being an anxious over-thinker, fucking up his few and futile attempts at romantic relationships in addition to the majority of his—at this point practically non-existent—social life. Seriously, sometimes he wonders how he ever even managed to become and stay friends with Felix.
As if reading his thoughts, Felix's voice eases into a tone that's almost too understanding as he adds, “But seriously, Minho’s chill. I swear on my status as your chosen sunshine twin that it’s gonna be okay. Don’t keep him waiting.”
Jisung lets out a sigh that falls somewhere on the scale of long suffering and resigned. He pulls the phone far enough away from his face to properly see the screen, flicking away from his call with Felix to click back into his texts and open his chat with Minho. Scrolling past the previous messages they exchanged introducing themselves and arranging a time to meet, he once again reads the latest message that started this morning’s mess.
Lee Minho [5:47 am]
Hey, I got here a few minutes early. I’m parked outside in the silver Toyota
No rush, come out whenever you’re ready
Jisung looks at his reply—an ignorantly chipper “be out soon (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) !!”—and winces. They’d agreed to meet at six today and the message had been sent almost ten minutes ago, making him dangerously close to being late.
“Okay,” Jisung says, as much to himself as to Felix. “Okay, I’m getting up, I’m doing it.”
“That’s the spirit!” Felix says. “Wait, getting up? Were you on the floor?”
“Good-bye, Felix.”
“Oh I see how it is. You call me, and wake me up, but when I want to talk—”
Whatever he means to say is lost as Jisung hangs up.
Jisung lets himself stew for a few more seconds, enough time to see a slew of faux angry messages from Felix, and just as many ones to assure him he’s just kidding. It is a particularly ridiculous one with a supposedly supportive-looking radish man sticker that finally prompts Jisung to move.
Pushing himself off the floor, Jisung straightens out his outfit: a baby blue turtleneck and white overall combination, perfectly acceptable given his office’s casual dress code, that he thought was cute initially but now makes him feel like an oversized child. He wrinkles his nose—too late to change now—and grabs his work backpack, slinging it over his shoulder and then shoving on his sneakers before heading out the door. His palms are so slick with sweat, it takes him three tries to lock it.
“Big boy pants, big boy pants,” Jisung chants under his breath as he run-walks toward the car. Steps away, Minho looks up from where he had been fiddling to connect his phone to an aux cord.
He looks even better up close, much to Jisung’s dismay. Straight nose, sharp jaw, pouty lips. They make eye contact, Minho’s big brown eyes staring into Jisung’s with an intense gaze, and he nearly trips. Fuck. He catches himself and lifts his hand in an awkward wave.
“Um, uh, h-hi,” Jisung stammers once he’s slidden into the passenger seat. “I’m—I’m Jisung.”
Minho doesn’t say anything, just blinks at him a few times. After a beat he says, “I know.”
Jisung flushes. Of course he knows. They’ve texted. He’s here to pick up Jisung, for Christ’s sake. “Right! Right, of course. Uh, nice to meet you—in person! Nice to meet you in person. Since we, uh, kind of already met, over text? An—an e-meet, I guess…?” Jisung trails off, shrinking in his seat. What the hell kind of a first impression is this? Why can’t he ever stop talking? He’s absolutely mortified.
Minho doesn’t comment on his frantic rambling, but Jisung still dies a little bit inside at how calm and collected he sounds when he says, “Nice to meet you too.”
His eyes flick down the line of Jisung’s body, lingering—do they linger? Is he imagining it!?—for a moment before he asks, “Are you going to put your seatbelt on?”
The question makes Jisung feel even smaller.
“Oh, oh right!” His hands jolt out and fumble to drag the strap across his chest. “S-sorry,” he says as it clicks into place.
Minho just hums, keeping one hand on the wheel and reaching out the other arm to rest along the back of Jisung’s seat as he navigates out of the parking space. He’s parallel parked; the ease with which he backs out is unfairly hot.
“Thanks again for giving me a ride,” Jisung says as they make their way out of his neighborhood. He feels so awkward, sitting primly in his seat with his hands folded neatly in his lap.
“No problem.” Minho says it nicely enough, but still in a way that doesn’t exactly welcome further conversation.
Jisung glances sideways at him, which he immediately realizes is a mistake. He’s wearing a long-sleeve cream henley, the top button left open, with a bomber jacket, the combination somehow making him look at once sexy and soft. Jisung has to look away when he sees his pants, a simple pair of fitted black joggers, due to the obscene thoughts he starts having about Minho’s thighs.
God, how does he look so good while just sitting? Since when did Jisung find good posture attractive? He tries to emulate him, rolling his shoulders back and widening his legs. He closes them a second later, feeling like an idiot. “Felix said he knew you from dance, back in school?”
“Mmhm,” Minho affirms. Jisung waits for him to elaborate. He doesn’t.
“That’s cool.” Jisung twirls his thumbs once before reaching out to rest his hands on his knees. “I met Felix in college, freshman year. We were roommates. Well, random roommates at first, but then uh, roommates by choice? I guess? For the next three years.” He taps his fingers a few times. “It’s weird not living with him now, but ya know, good for him for going to grad school. Even if it meant he abandoned me to go live on the other side of the country.”
Minho only makes a humming sound in acknowledgement. Jisung squeezes his knees.
They hit a red light at the last intersection before the freeway. Minho flips on the blinker as the car slows to a stop. He reaches for his phone, taking the opportunity to skip through a few songs. He settles on something pop—Ariana Grande, Jisung thinks. He wonders if it’s random or if Minho has some kind of playlist.
“I bet we’ll make great time today,” Jisung says, cringing at his apparent inability to shut up, “with the carpool lane and all.”
To his relief, it is at this that Minho finally responds. “Seriously, I’ve only done this commute for two weeks and I was already so jealous of those fuckers.”
“Right?!” Jisung says, unable to keep the excitement from creeping into his voice. “Driving is already so much faster than the bus since we don’t have the weird route and all those stops. But in the carpool lane? Woosh.” He lifts a hand in the air and makes a flying motion to emphasize his point.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Minho smile. Or well, calling it a smile is generous. It’s more a slight lifting of his lips—a twist of the mouth. Still, as the light goes green and they turn onto the freeway, Jisung takes it as a good sign, as a win. He gets properly giddy from it.
Relaxing back into his seat, Jisung says, “Yeah, this is going to be so much nicer. Like, I liked how I could take the bus, since I don’t drive. It’s good that there’s that option. And it’s, like, one of the more eco-friendly ways to get around. So, ya know, I liked that I was helping the environment.”
He doesn’t think before he speaks—hears how those words might sound only after they leave his yap. Minho’s responding, “Hmm,” speaks volumes.
Jisung feels his face go red. “Uh, I-I mean, not that driving isn’t eco-friendly. Especially since we’re carpooling!”
Minho, his eyes on the road, lifts his eyebrows in acknowledgement.
“And not that you weren’t eco-friendly before when it was just you driving. You said it was only like what, two weeks? Not that it would have been bad if you did it for longer! Just—I—um.” Something squiggly and white-hot crawls in Jisung’s chest. He licks his lips. “Besides, there are so many ways to help the environment. Like, uh, recycling?”
“Recycling,” Minho repeats.
“Yeah, recycling. Good ‘ole recycling,” Jisung says lamely, “I’m even thinking of learning how to compost.”
“Thrilling,” Minho deadpans. Before Jisung can dig himself into a deeper hole, he reaches one hand forward, turning the volume of the car stereo up.
Jisung wilts in his seat as an old k-pop song fills the car, way too upbeat considering he wishes that he could shrivel up and die. He clenches his teeth together just to ensure he keeps his mouth shut.
It’s silent for the rest of the drive.