Chapter Text
Recommendation to listen to while reading this: “Nerves” – DPR IAN
“I’m getting, getting little nervous (Nervous)
I’m getting, getting to the surface (Surface)
I'm getting, getting little nervous (Nervous)
I’m getting, getting to the surface (Surface)”
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Annoying.
Jisung hates when things don’t go the way he wants them to.
Especially when it’s the simple things that go wrong.
And why is it always the simple things that can’t go right? Always the things that are routine.
Always the same. Always simple.
When he wants them to stay that way, they change.
That’s annoying.
He always leaves his dorm at 7:55 to be at uni at exactly 08:15, so he can open his PC right when the professor walks in and take notes. It’s as simple as that.
When he leaves the dorm late by just one minute, he ends up walking in stressed and embarrassed instead of relaxed and ready at his desk.
And that is… annoying.
He hates feeling embarrassed or stressed.
He’s an overthinker, and those feelings make him overthink nonstop.
And that is… annoying.
He hates feeling annoyed.
He’s not a pessimist. Not at all.
Jisung loves to laugh. Loves to feel happy. He loves writing songs. Loves to be comfortable in his shoes. Loves his morning Red Bull that he takes at exactly 07:45. Loves to see the little orange cat on his way in the morning. He loves the simple things.
The simple things are always there.
They’re always comforting and present.
But these little, stupid, simple things are also the ones that, if they go wrong, cause a whole chain reaction of other things going wrong.
And that is so annoying.
When he woke up this morning, he already knew it was going to be one of those annoying days. He woke up on time — but then closed his eyes again.
Big mistake.
When he opened them again, it was already 07:45, which meant he didn’t have time to go to the store between his house and uni to buy the blue Red Bull.
Which meant he had to rush to class without any caffeine in his system.
Which meant he had to deal with the embarrassment of walking in at the same time as his professor. He didn’t even get to see the orange cat on his way there. Even the sky was grey, and the air smelled like rain.
And rain is really annoying.
He hates the rain. He knows that means something bad will happen.
When a simple thing like waking up on time doesn’t go as planned, the whole day is ruined.
The whole morning starts in an annoying way, which means it will just go on being annoying.
And now, the professor announces that the final project for the year 2025 at the Seoul Art Academy has been chosen. Each year they change the theme and structure for the students. This project works as their bachelor’s. Finishing it — along with the exams — means they get to graduate.
And Jisung has to graduate this year. He doesn’t want to study any longer because that would destroy the plan he made years ago.
And going against that plan would be… annoying.
Because that would mean pushing all his dreams further into the future, and he REALLY doesn’t want that.
No — he needs to graduate this year. Alongside his friends Changbin and Bang Chan.
So they can finally open their own production firm together, like they always planned.
The only problem? The project he has to complete to graduate this year is really, really, really annoying.
He hates group projects. Why does it have to be a group project?
All the projects from past years were solo. So why not this year too?
Not only is it a group project — they can’t even choose their partner.
And worst of all? It has to be a dance major.
They have to write, compose, and produce an entire performance of dance and song.
Jisung sighs.
Dance majors are annoying. Why? Because his ex was a dance major, and he was the most annoying person on earth.
Luckily, he graduated last year, so there’s no chance Jisung will be paired with him. He shivers just thinking about it.
But Jisung’s brain works in formulas. Formulas are easy to control. Especially when it’s formulas he himself comes up with.
One shitty and annoying dance-major man means that Jisung needs to keep his distance from all dance-major men.
It makes sense.
Because if a thought as simple as that doesn’t make sense, then nothing will ever make sense.
And that thought is making his head hurt.
He exhales.
Another annoying day begins.
--
“But what if we get paired together? Wouldn’t that be great?” Felix is trying to cheer up his roommate.
Jisung always forgets that his friend is a dance major too.
But Felix is different. Felix is an angel — God’s apology for all the other dance-major men.
With his blond-dyed hair, freckles, and angelic eyes, this sunshine of a guy couldn’t even hurt a mosquito.
Not even when it’s buzzing around his ear all night.
No, literally.
One time, he didn’t sleep the whole night because he felt bad for killing the insect that was terrorizing him, and Jisung wasn’t home to do the killing for him.
“The probability of you two getting paired together is really, really small, Felix. Don’t give him hopes.” Seungmin’s voice of reason cuts in.
Seungmin is always like that — calculating, grounded, precise. It actually fits his major perfectly. His major is Vocal Performance (Contemporary), and his sub-focus is Music Direction. That study path needs a lot more than just a good voice.
Lucky for Seungmin, he has both: an angelic tone and a sharp brain. And a pretty face on top of all that.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jisung mumbles to the younger.
“But come onnnn, Jisung-ah! You can’t be mad at all of us just because of Hoon—”
Before Felix can finish the name, Jisung throws a pillow straight at him, followed by a death stare.
First rule in the dorm: no one is allowed to say that cursed name in this holy space. Just mentioning it might chase away all creative energy.
Seungmin giggles — at Felix, who got hit, and at Jisung, who’s fuming for, in his logical mind, absolutely no reason. He shakes his head and goes back to his phone. He’s a music major, but since he’s a year below Jisung, the project stress hasn’t reached him yet. His time will come next year.
“Why are you here in the first place, Seungmin? It’s not like you want to comfort me.” Jisung looks at him — sprawled out across the couch, shamelessly lying on his stomach, taking up all the space, playing a game. The only time he even reacts is when Felix gets hit by the pillow.
“I get happy seeing you suffer,” Seungmin says casually, eyes still on his phone. He grins. “And Jeongin’s still not back, so I’m bored alone in my dorm.”
“Is Jeongin-ah still at the acting camp?” Felix asks, curious. Seungmin nods.
While Felix starts talking about how fun it would be if the dance department also organized a camp, Jisung’s mind drifts away.
It happens sometimes — he sees something out of the corner of his eye, or hears a sound, and suddenly he can’t focus on the conversation anymore. His brain fixates on it, building melodies and words. If he doesn’t write them down, he feels like his head will explode. And now, the way the sunlight slips through the curtains — forming an orange beam that casts Felix’s shadow on the wall — sparks something. Words start forming in his head. He needs to write them down now. Felix notices Jisung’s stare at the shadow and the strange, focused face he’s making. Being the helpful friend he is, he jumps up to get Jisung’s laptop.
“NO! DON’T MOVE!” Jisung shouts, panicking. If Felix moves away from that exact spot, the shadow — and the melody it sparks — might disappear. Seungmin, now intrigued by the noise, finally looks up. Recognizing the familiar look on Jisung’s face, he reaches out lazily, grabs Jisung’s laptop from the table, tosses it toward him, and goes back to his game like nothing happened. Jisung mutters a quick thank you, opens his writing app, and starts typing furiously.
__
“Can I move now, Jisung-ah?” Felix whines.
Seungmin has long left, still giggling to himself about Felix’s misery. Every time Felix shifts, Jisung yells at him, and Seungmin laughs harder.
Eventually, he gets bored and leaves, leaving the two roommates to their chaos. Jisung loves his friends — and he loves how understanding they are about his little ticks. They all have them. Maybe it’s the creative gene in all of them that makes them act irrationally sometimes. Felix gets choreography ideas from watching leaves fall or water drops hit the ground.
Seungmin sometimes bursts into opera in the car or while shopping. No one bats an eye anymore.
They’ve gotten used to each other’s quirks.
“Yes, you can move now, Felix-ah.” Honestly, the sun set an hour ago, taking the colors and shadow with it. The melody is already finished.
Felix could’ve moved ages ago without ruining the creative flow — but Jisung didn’t tell him that.
Just to annoy him.
Felix deserves it anyway. He ate Jisung’s chicken yesterday, and Jisung has been waiting for payback.
“By the way,” Jisung says with a smirk, “was the chicken good yesterday?”
Felix, stretching his sore back, freezes. He looks up to see Jisung grinning mischievously. He didn’t realize Jisung had already noticed the missing chicken. He had planned to buy new before anyone found out. And suddenly it clicks.
“OMG! YOU MADE ME SIT HERE ON PURPOSE, YOU DEMON! YOU WITCH! YOU—”
Felix starts screaming and throwing baby punches while Jisung bursts out laughing.
Chicken or not.
He loves his friends.
__
The whole morning, the only topic anyone talks about in class is the upcoming announcement of the pairings.
“Did y’all sign up already? If you didn’t register in the system, you won’t get paired. And if you don’t get paired, you can’t take part in the project, which means waiting for another semester! You can write the exams, but without the project, no bachelor's degree!” Chan looks stressed, slipping into the mom role once again.
“We had to sign up?” Changbin yells, making Chan panic instantly. He starts rambling about possible ways to convince the professors to give Changbin another chance to sign up and still join the project.
Jisung and Changbin share a glance, pretending to listen seriously to Chan’s frantic planning until they can’t handle it anymore and burst into laughter.
Chan stares at them for a second, confused, then annoyed. He rolls his eyes and stares daggers at Changbin.
“Hyung, you’ve been reminding me every night for two weeks that I had to sign up. How could I forget? It was always, ‘Good night, Changbin, don’t forget to sign in,’ and, ‘Good morning, Changbin, did you sign in yet?’”
Jisung laughs harder. “I don’t even live with you guys, and he was spam-texting me about it,” he says between laughs.
Chan throws them an angry look before turning away in his chair and facing the front. “That’s the last time I care about you guys. The last time, I swear,” he mumbles, pouting.
Jisung and Changbin exchange another look while catching their breath.
After bumping fists, they both turn to face the teacher now entering the room, fully aware that Chan’s threat is as empty as all the others he’s ever made.
Chan is the oldest in all his friend groups — at least, the ones still at this school — and because of that, he naturally slips into the big-brother role. Sometimes, even the dad role. Chan knows everything about everyone but never repeats a word. He’s their trusted parent figure — the one who listens to their drunk cries and happy rambles. The one who hugs them when they need it most and dries their tears. The one they always want to share their good news with first. His friends are thankful for his patience and the softness he has for them.
Not only is he the perfect brother. Chan is talented at everything he does and is loved by teachers and students alike. Jisung just wishes he would take care of himself the same way he takes care of everyone else.
Jisung knows how much pressure Chan puts on himself. Even if he and the others try to take some of the pressure away from Chan, it never seems to go away fully.
He’s known Chan since his early childhood. He even came out to Chan before coming out to his parents. Chan has always been there for Jisung. In every memory, he is there.
Then Changbin came. Fifth grade. New kid from Daegu. He just fits. No awkward introductions, no slow start. It clicks immediately. Something that happens once in a lifetime. Rarely do you see a group of three click the way they do.
They share the same passion for sports and music.
And what makes the three of them even closer is that both Changbin and Jisung are struggling with their sexuality at the same time. Changbin figures out pretty quickly that he likes both men and women and accepts it easily. Jisung needs longer. To him, it felt like something in him wasn’t normal, something threatening the small, simple structure of his life. Something new to control.
And the fact that he can’t control it made him go crazy. He spiraled and is about to lose his mind due to depression.
Luckily, he has his friends to help him. And with them on his side, he accepts the fact that he likes men.
Chan always jokes around that now he feels left out, and Jisung and Changbin replied, suggesting he should just try to kiss boys, and he might join them.
Surprisingly, on a very drunken night, he did exactly that. But he regretted it pretty fast and went to look for a girl to go home with the same night. Not that this is something hard to find for the most adored Chan. Leaving Changbin and Jisung laughing and comforting the poor guy, drunk Chan used to be experimented on.
The next day, Chan felt so bad about what he did, he actually went to the dorm of the guy with gifts to apologize for his drunken behavior. Giving the man more hope than before in his crush on Chan. At first, they all felt bad for the guy until he turned into some sort of stalker. The whole story only ended when Seungmin went to the guy and told him to stop stalking them or he would punch him in the face with a baseball bat. They never saw him again.
But that’s how it is with the three of them.
When they are preparing for the entrance exam, all three of them make a promise. A pinky promise: They will get in together, graduate together, and start their own company — 3RACHA.
The “3” stands for the three friends, “RACHA” comes from Sriracha — symbolizing heat, intensity, and flavor they want their music to bring that same fiery energy.
They all take pinky promises very seriously since the seventh grade when they learned where they come from in the history class. Pinky promises come from Japan.
The word is “yubikiri” — 指切り — which literally means “finger cut-off.”
It started as a childhood oath to show that breaking a promise has real consequences. So, after that class they all interlinked their pinkies and said in their broken Japanese:
“Yubikiri genman, uso tsuitara hari senbon nomasu.” Which translates into: “Pinky swear. If I lie, I’ll swallow a thousand needles.”
For Jisung, this dream has to become real.
No matter what.
They all want that.
--
Bling.
An email comes in.
Or better: an Outlook email comes in.
Jisung hates Outlook. He only uses it for university mail.
So whenever that blue icon pops up, it can only mean one of two things — either a new assignment or a graded one.
And neither of those is the kind of email he wants to open on a Saturday morning.
He thinks about ignoring it until Monday. But then he remembers —
the pairings.
Just as the thought hits, a notification from his group chat with Changbin and Chan pops up.
“We’ve been paired!” Of course, Chan is fast.
With a small smile, amused by his friend’s excitement, Jisung exits the chat app and opens Outlook.
Dear Students,
We, the Dance Department and the Music Department, including the following majors:
1. Music Department
• Composition • Vocal Performance • Instrumental Studies • Music Production
2. Dance Department
• Modern Dance • Ballet • Street / Contemporary Dance …
share with you the pairing list for the project that will count as part of your bachelor’s degree.
Blah blah blah… Jisung skips the formalities and scrolls straight down to the shared document.
He opens the Excel file, eyes scanning quickly.
H for Han. J for Jisung.
There it is. His name. Next to it, the name of the person he’ll be paired with for the next month.
Lee Minho.
Jisung frowns. The name rings a bell — a very quiet one.
He can’t place a face to it. He’s not sure if he even knows who that is.
Still, that’s probably better than recognizing the name and knowing it belongs to someone awful… right?
He scrolls further, checking his friends’ names.
B for Bang Chan.
He pouts.
Of course, Bang Chan and Felix get paired together.
Before he can spiral into the thoughts of how unfair this is, he brings himself back to reality and looks up the next name.
S for Seo Changbin.
Next to him: Hwang Hyunjin.
Another name Jisung doesn’t recognize.
He sighs. He’ll have to interrogate his roommate about them later.
__
“You never listen to me!” Felix nags, poking at his noodles.
They sit at the dining table, surrounded by takeout boxes.
Neither of them can cook. On days when burnt toast or overcooked eggs aren’t an option, they take turns ordering food. Today’s pick — Chinese.
“I do listen!” Jisung protests through a mouthful of noodles. He really does.
It’s just that Felix’s stories have way too many names and way too many detours.
The man knows half the campus. No surprise, though.
Felix’s charm draws people in like light draws moths.
Jisung’s glad he lost the rock-paper-scissors match with Chan and Changbin. The loser had to room alone and get paired randomly by the university.
He has prayed nights in, nights out to all possible deities that he will get a good roommate. His prayers for a decent roommate were answered in the form of a blond angel.
Felix turned out better than decent.
The sad part of the story is that Jisung now has no idea which deity has answered his prayers.
“Lee Minho,” Felix says, leaning forward, “the really handsome, really talented guy I told you about! He’s the one who caught my hat mid-performance at the dance competition!”
The bell that is rung gets louder in Jisung’s head. Jisung remembers Felix’s story from that night, how Minho’s reflexes saved the performance, how he caught the flying hat and wore it like nothing happened. He was going on and on about how cool Minho’s Spiderman reflexes are, catching the hat that flew from Felix’s head in the middle of the dance and wearing it himself in seconds.
The audience didn't know that he wasn’t wearing it the whole time. He was that fast.
Felix wanted to show Jisung a picture of the handsome Minho back then, but Jisung’s then-boyfriend, who was also there in the room with them, heard everything and felt extra jealous that night, forbidding Jisung and Felix to talk about Minho again and saying that if Felix showed Jisung the picture, he would break up with him.
Just one of the many toxic threats that Jisung had to endure. Back then, he thought that this was love.
“Do you still have a picture?” he asks. Felix shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t backed up, and I broke my old phone.”-“What about Hyunjin?” Jisung asks. Felix lights up. “I love this man! He’s insanely talented and hilarious. Though at first, he can seem a bit… bitchy?”
The last part seems more as if he is the one asking Jisung about it.
“What do you mean by that, Felix-ah?” Jisung asks and tilts his head, surprised by the word his friend chose. Felix shrugs.
“You’ll see. All I can say is that the next couple of months are going to be fun,” he smiled sheepishly.
They finish their food, chatting about weekend plans and the project that starts tomorrow.
Hopefully, it won’t be as annoying as Jisung thinks it will be.
He really just wants to graduate.
--
Recommendation to listen to while reading this: “Forever Only”– JAEHYUN
“The empty space you left behind
Fills me with deeper longing for you
Bit belated this irony
Heart is lost and lonely, lonely (I'll be forever lonely, yeah)
Leaving a pain that spreads
Goodbye, and a final kiss
Now I see you walking away
Be my forever only, only”
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This night, when lying in bed, he looks out of the window.
Whenever Jisung sees stars by looking out of the window, that means that he will have a good sleep and he will have a good next day. Another one of his mind ticks that gives him the feeling as if he has control over his life.
Without those little thought rules that he sets for himself, he cannot survive the spirals his brain buries him in. Seeing the orange cat on the way to the morning class means he will get good news that day.
Buying his favorite blue Red Bull on time means he will have a good day. And an even better day if the said Red Bull is on the left side of the fridge shelf. The left side cools the drinks better than the right side.
And if he sees stars while lying in bed after being done with his whole routine, that means he will have a good sleep and an amazing morning tomorrow.
Tonight, he is seeing stars.
So before closing his eyes, he decides that he won’t let a dance major man take away another semester of his.
He will make the best out of an annoying situation.
He will get a good grade.
And he will graduate.
He won’t let his world come crashing down on him.