minhee sometimes thinks stars shine in places you don't always notice.
like the bottom of a half-empty water bottle when you shine a phone light underneath it, so the light disperses into different directions and creates a myriad of dancing lights that bounce off the walls and illuminates the burning loneliness minhee feels when he's alone in his two-now-one-person dorm room on a particularly quiet school night.
but really, sometimes minhee thinks the only stars professor han sees are the ones so far up wooseok's ass it comes out of his goddamn mouth -
no, no , minhee mentally swallows and snaps himself back to sanity, the guilt creeping up his spine at the sudden rant against one of his favorite professors.
as much as minhee wants to deflect responsibility on another party - god bless wooseok for his questionable slytherin upbringing - professor han wasn't at fault at all, really. really .
professor han seungwoo - aka minhee's favorite person on this entire campus and his brother wooseok's fiancé - called minhee up to his office and promptly sat the sophomore down without a word of greeting and quietly pushed the student's recently submitted criminology paper towards him.
"miniyah," seungwoo started slowly, the affectionate nickname he'd always used to simultaneously placate and scold minhee making the criminology student perk up from his post-deadline stupor. it was a nickname that minhee seldom heard as of late due to them mutually agreeing not to know each other in public in a poor attempt to hide their close relationship.
"what is this?"
minhee had glanced at his immaculate paper, and then back at his professor's questioning look, and then back at his paper.
"my criminology paper that's worth 40% of my grade?" minhee quipped.
so long story short, seungwoo calmly and slowly explained that while minhee's paper was near perfect - great deductions, unique perspectives, and an out-of-this-world method of problem solving - minhee was also going to fail his fucking paper because his dumb tree ass wrote his paper on the wrong case topic .
minhee was this close to having a panic attack right then and there in the middle of his brother-in-law's office out of shock at his own carelessness, his heart catching onto his throat and his sudden inability to properly breathe making his head spin and his vision blur.
he could barely remember what happened after, but he knew that seungwoo ended up essentially saying fuck it to student-teacher formality and went to securely wrap his arms around the shaking sophomore, whispering panicked reassurances to the younger boy while rubbing his back in comforting circles; the way he used to do so back home when helping wooseok deal with minhee's sudden and unplanned panic attacks.
"no, no, miniyah , baby, please calm down. it's okay. shh, shh, please don't panic. let me finish speaking okay?"
professor han seungwoo had a special set of rules for his own classes that were well known throughout campus. while he was infamous for his "no extensions unless you're halfway close to death, do it by the deadline or you fail" and "extra credit? i don't know her" work ethic, he was also highly respected for his perfectly legal, "underhanded" way of giving assistance to students who actually gave a shit while keeping slackers on their toes.
his rules were set like this: as long as you submitted your assignments regularly, and on time, and had a positive class participation rate as well as attendance, you were permitted a chance to resubmit your paper within the same day. it was a clever and - minhee might add - a very slytherin way of dealing with latecomers and slackers who thought they could skip class or beg for extra credit while simultaneously helping out students who were struggling or needed extra time to beef up their paper. a quirk minhee was sure the criminology professor picked up from a certain "woosatan".
thus, to minhee's relief, he was allowed to resubmit his paper before the day went out. because seungwoo knew minhee was a really, really fucking smart kid, and a good student to boot.
and if minhee never skipped a single one of his classes - well - that was just an added bonus, really.
and that is how minhee ends up dragging his feet across the hallway towards the dorms at 1AM in the morning, eyes bloodshot and hugging his laptop in his shaky twig arms. he'd barely made it on time with two minutes to spare, but he managed to submit the paper to seungwoo before the deadline and now all he wanted to do was just die on his bed and pass out until monday morning.
that was the plan at first.
it's just that sometimes plans don't usually work out the way you want them to. or in the way you least expect.
because instead of going straight to bed, minhee hears loud sniffling from three doors down and stops in his tracks, and against his better judgement, squints to investigate the source in the dark.
his vision is shit due to the dim lighting of the hallway, but he notices a tiny figure huddled up into a ball outside dorm room 827, and as minhee moves closer, the sniffling gets louder, and minhee isn't aware he's standing literally half a breath away from the mysterious crying person until the latter perks up and looks at minhee in surprise.
minhee's breath catches in his throat.
crying really doesn't look good on anyone, no matter how much k-dramas try to prove you otherwise, but this boy in front of him makes minhee question every romcom he's watched in existence and wonder why leads don't look as beautiful crying as the boy sitting in front of him.
crying boy's eyes were big and beautiful and watery, lips pouty and pink and a little chapped - minhee doesn't know how he notices this, but all of a sudden everything in minhee's vision seems amplified by the quadrillions - his curly hair damp and plastered against his forehead. and shit, minhee must really be that sleep deprived to think that was even remotely attractive, but it is and minhee's brain starts playing the windows startup sound for a hot second before getting his grip back on reality.
"why are you crying?"
minhee wants to crawl into a hole and die .
why do i sound like an asshole every time i open my fucking mouth -
the boy is still sniffling but - to minhee's relief - his sobbing subsides drastically. maybe out of shock at minhee's bluntness, maybe at the embarrassment of getting caught crying in the middle of the night by a random stranger, but minhee feels a little less guilty for coming off as such an ass.
the curly-haired teen wheezes before angrily rubbing his tears away from his puffy-looking face with the sleeve of his sweater. minhee so badly wants to rub them away for him, more gently too, but stops his hands from doing anything that would warrant a harassment lawsuit.
"my boyfriend broke up with me."
minhee swallows.
"oh."
the crying boy giggles at minhee's one-worded response, and minhee tries not to smile. it's a pretty, pretty sound. it's also a little forced, but it sounds a lot better than his hitched sobbing from just a second ago.
"i'm sorry," minhee squats down in front of the teen, observing the way the other's eyes watch his every move, like a curious deer in headlights, "but why aren't you crying inside? roommate kicked you out?"
the boy sighs, and minhee tries not stare at the way his shoulders just go slack at the question.
"well...you see...my ex-boyfriend is my roommate."
oh.
minhee stares at him in disbelief, information sinking in like a slow injection.
"that is...unfortunate," minhee mutters.
the boy giggles again, with a little more genuineness this time, and minhee thanks every deity out there that it's past midnight and the pretty crying boy can't see the redness on the tips of minhee's ears.
that doesn't stop the begging question though.
"but why did he kick you out?" your ex is a dick for kicking you out of your own fucking room, minhee wants to say, but doesn't want to offend the pretty teen who might still be harboring feelings for his ex. he doesn't notice the smaller boy humming at him curiously, lips quirking into a tiny smile at minhee's badly hidden display of concern.
"he didn't kick me out," pretty-crying-boy-who-was-no-longer-crying answers softly, now playing with the cuffs of his sweater paws, pulling onto a stray thread, "i just didn't want to confront him about it yet. wonjin hyung's not even inside anyway, he went to crash serim hyung's room."
the pretty poodle-haired boy sniffs one last time and leans against the wall, tilting his head slightly in minhee's direction, a sad smile on his face. the moonlight beaming in from the window at the end of the corridor seems to shower the smaller boy like a gentle spotlight, and minhee just quietly stares in awe. with the unexpected welcome of the light, he notices how big and brown and glittery the smaller boy's eyes were. like little specks of glitter dust in pools of milk chocolate.
"then why are you still out here?"
pretty boy's lower lip quivers, and his eyes meet minhee's own. minhee sees little, jewel-like tears forming at the corner of those brown orbs.
"because i don't wanna be alone in a place where i'm reminded of him."
ah.
i understand.
minhee does, he truly does. moving so far away from home, far away from his only family wooseok and his dongsaeng for the first time, was painful. he felt like a huge weight was suffocating him when he hugged his brother goodbye, when he breathed in the soon to disappear scent of his home, when he had to wipe the tears off his baby dongsaeng seongmin's face as the younger boy promised to visit minhee during break through angry whiny wails. even when he was reassured that seungwoo would take care of him during his stay here, it just hurt whenever he thought of them, thought of how far away his family were from him, and counting the days off his calendar for when he could just go home .
so minhee makes up his mind, right there and there, a decision that he hopes isn't the byproduct of sleep deprivation and sudden emotional distress.
he reaches his hand out towards the boy, and blurts out:
"my name is kang minhee, and my room has an empty bed. so if you'd like, you can come crash at mine."