✴︎ sunburn by callmecarat

ft. romin. e'last.

The soft white glow of the computer screen gently illuminated Hanbin's tired face, his eyes struggling to fight off the late night exhaustion. Had he known that the education course required him to complete this many modules and assignments, mercilessly eating away at whatever free time he had remaining in his schedule, he probably would've contemplated a different career path.

Teaching may have been his lifelong dream, but when the reality was far more tedious and mind-numbing than he imagined, Hanbin had begun to realize that perhaps the end goal isn't worth the sacrifices he has made.

Exhaling slowly, he leaned back against his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if to coax out the weariness from his body.

"Why did I agree to do this... What was I thinking?" An exasperated sigh escaped his lips as Hanbin stared at the significantly blank portion of his group's PowerPoint, which was supposedly meant to contain one of his fellow classmate's research for their end of semester project.  "Okay, I have... 7 hours... no, 6 and a half hours to finish this section... and then submit without proofreading it. Oh, we are so fucked."

Dropping his head into his hands whilst letting out a frustrated groan, he barely registered the noise of his door opening as Jun quietly slipped inside. A small towel was slung over his shoulder, droplets of water dripping from the ends of his freshly dyed hair and falling slowly onto the powder white fabric, staining it a deep crimson.

Making a beeline straight for Hanbin's bed, Jun felt his body physically halt as his roommate's disapproving voice cut across the room.

"Wash it out again properly and dry your hair first," Hanbin instructed, his eyes never leaving the computer as he continued to type out a few sentences. Momentarily, a satisfied look crossed his face before he angrily hit the backspace key.

"How did you..." Jun scoffed in mild surprise, grabbing the towel with one hand in attempts to prove a point to the other, however he recoiled upon noticing the unexpected dark red splotches. Sheepishly, he hid the ruined towel amongst the rest of Hanbin's laundry before approaching the latter's desk with a sly grin, beads of purple-ish-red water now trailing down his skin and onto his t-shirt.

"You know, sometimes when you ramble on and on about things, I do actually listen," Hanbin's features softened as he felt Jun's warm presence manifest behind him, the gentle brush of the other's fingers against the nape of his neck as they settled firmly on the edge of his headrest, filling his heart with a fleeting sense of affection that he knew he wouldn't find elsewhere. "Anyways, red has always been your colour. When you told me yesterday that you were thinking about dyeing your hair again, I knew you'd go back to it."

"Really? And what made you think that?" Jun leaned forward slightly to gain a better view of Hanbin's screen, completely oblivious to his invasion of the latter's personal space as he tried to make sense of what he was currently looking at.

"... People generally crave familiarity. Repeated exposure to certain objects or things enhances our attitudes towards them," Hanbin attempted to steer the conversation down an academic route, despite being acutely aware of how close their faces were in this moment. "Since red is your favourite colour, choosing it would've come naturally to you. That, and I've lived with you long enough to know all your habits. After a while, you always go back to red because that's just who you... are."

His voice trailed off into a whisper as Hanbin turned his head, lips mere inches apart from Jun's.

"Ahh... Is that so?" Jun nodded, his tone purposefully teasing. Then, with a short laugh, he flicked Hanbin's forehead (Gently, of course. He would never intend to hurt him.), adopting his previous standing position. "That pretty little head of yours is wasted on your major. You should've gone into psychology."

'And you should've taken the hint that I only signed up for those psychology lectures because I wanted to spend more time with you,' Hanbin thought to himself, brushing off the foolish idea from seconds ago that something could ever happen between them.

Ignoring Hanbin's words from earlier, Jun plopped his body down onto the corner of the bed, leaning back on his arms for support as he made himself comfortable.

"Did you see the message that Davin sent about that trip to Jeju? Do... you think you'll go?" Jun asked, however there was some hesitation as he felt the hope in his voice waver.

As much as he desired to join all of his dearest friends, if by chance Hanbin didn't want to go, then that would mean being apart for nearly two months after spending every day of the last three years together - and somehow the prospect of that hanging over his head seemed worse than missing out on the vacation altogether.

Their 'friendship' was just that important to him.

"Maybe..." Hanbin was distracted by the daunting deadline of his project, too engrossed with his work to properly give an answer. "... I heard Zhanghao is going, though. I might consider it since-"

"Really? Hao's coming? He told you that?"

Well, that seemed to have piqued Jun's interest.

"... Yes," He replied pointedly, a small frown playing on his lips as he felt the other practically burst with excitement at this revelation.

"Is that jealousy, I hear?" Jun poked Hanbin's chair with his foot, but quickly realised that he was no longer in the mood to play along. Instead of joking around as per usual, he became more serious, more sincere. ".. Listen - it will be fun! I promise. And if it's not - which I'm 100% sure is unlikely - then we can get the next ferry back home... And then you can tell me 'I told you so'."

"...'We'? You'd come back with me if I asked?"

"Duh. Because I'm such an amazing friend. Now, are you in or not? Davin needs to pay the deposit for the airbnb by the end of tomorrow."

"... Let's do it; what's the worst that can happen, right?" Hanbin turned around to face him, beaming brightly, however his smile dropped almost instantly upon seeing the red dye from Jun's hair all over his newly dry-cleaned sheets. Furthermore, that t-shirt he's wearing? Yeah, that was Hanbin's too. Or at least it was, until it got destroyed by cheap, corner store box dye.

"... Have I got something on my face? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Is that t-shirt mine?"

"... Okay, in my defence, I found it in my room from that time when you-"

"You are so dead, Hong Minjun."

Maniacal laughter followed the pair as Jun darted for the door in order to escape getting caught in Hanbin's clutches. With a carefree smile and a longing ache in his heart, Hanbin chased after him through their dorm. For a split-second, Jun looked back at him with the same fondness.

'If you are willing to chase me,'

The words echoed inside his mind.

'I promise I will run slow.'

inside mat's mind

✶ ꒰ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋮ this is literally my son and y'all were so quick to VILLAINIZE him❗❗ you have no idea how it funny it was to see forms coming in saying 'RAHH i hate sunburn he's so stupid 😠 how could he not know that hanbin loves him??' and then seing the relationship with hanbin like '10/10 i love him so much he's my best friend let's run off into the sunset together 🥰' /hj but there were some who had the opposite (which surprised me more LMAO). essentially, every oc either despises jun and loves hanbin, or vice versa... 😇

also, if you thought davin and jiwoong were bad... haha... these two are substantially worse. like, at times you might want to throttle both of them through the screen for being so dumb. the only way i can describe their relationship is imagine being in a friendship where you both have feelings for each other but you never acted upon it and danced dangerously between the lines of friendship and love (speaking from personal experience LMAO... ) so yeah.

✶ ꒰ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋮ if you know me, you probably already knew that i would close this slot for myself haha 😁 i love hanbin a normal amount... i swear... /lh. but seriously, after click cupid, i lowkey can't see hanbin with any other fc other than romin so i took measures into my own hands 😠 so i won't hear any of you say a bad thing about him /j

anyhoo, see y'all next time !!!!!