#such lovable dorks

Stretching your arms, you decide to treat yourself to a break and reenergize with a small dose of caffeine. The chapter you’d been so busily writing is nearly done, and you want to power through the last few pages before crashing for the night.

As you’re waiting for the water to come to a boil, you glance out the window to the house beside yours, where your best friend-slash-vigilant night guard lives with his roommate. Both of your kitchens face each other directly, which comes in handy when you want to say a quick hello during busy mornings or simply send an obscene hand gesture via cucumber stick.

As with yours, the lights in Kihyun’s house are still on, letting you know that the man has yet to relinquish to his need for sleep. But as you pour the steaming water into your instant brew mix, the person who suddenly appears at the window on the other side isn’t your emoji-abusing friend. Rather, it’s your emoji-abusing friend’s roommate, one Im Changkyun.

He nods when he spots you standing by the sink, and you nod back. It’s another late night for him, you guess, taking in the appearance of puffy eyes and headphones draped around his neck. As he had only moved in a mere two months prior, you have yet to have an actual conversation with the guy, but Kihyun drops the occasional breadcrumb about him when the two of you are together. Changkyun likes to compose his own songs, so he spends a lot of time holed up in his room. He’s a little quiet but he’s a good guy once you get to know him, your friend had said over lunch one day. Definitely never meet him, I don’t want you to defile his innocence with your nasty smut stories.

Changkyun leans against his counter as he waits for his own water to heat up. He takes in your appearance- disheveled hair, oversized reading glasses, the yawn that refuses to leave your lips even at the promise of fresh caffeine- and points at the imaginary watch on his wrist. Shouldn’t you be in bed?

What, and it’s alright for you to stay up? you shrug back.

He points to the ceiling. Roomie keeps crying for Neji to come back, he lets you know with a deadpan expression. Might as well use this time to compose until he quiets down.

Snorting, you take another sip of your hot drink. Changkyun notices the cloud of steam beginning to puff out of his kettle and turns the stove off. Cradling your own mug between your hands, you watch as he busies himself with assembling his beverage. It’s now become a routine, you muse to yourself, trailing your gaze over his mussed auburn locks, the little frown of concentration he wears as he stirs in the latte powder, to meet him at this time of night and share a silent chat over a cup of coffee. It had been purely accidental at first, with only a quick nod of the head and the occasional awkward wave being exchanged, but now, after two months of this purely nonverbal exchange, you’ve grown to look forward to these moments, to the time of 3 AM when it’s only you and the boy next door awake under the eye of the moon (and Kihyun too, you suppose, but he’s too busy watching Naruto at this time so it doesn’t really count).

The two of you quietly sip your drinks and exchange a few more looks through the window. When the last of your coffee has disappeared, you place it in the sink and give Changkyun a little wave. I’ll be going, then. Good luck with your new song.

He nods. Thanks. Good luck with your new story.

And then he does something that you hadn’t seen him do before: he holds out two fingers, making a victory sign, and points in the direction of his kitchen’s entranceway. He repeats this gesture a few more times, lips twitching slightly at your bemused expression, before setting down his mug and turning to leave the room.

It’s only after his kitchen grows dark that you finally realize what he had been trying to say.

If you’re free, let’s meet tomorrow at two. I think it’s about time I finally heard your voice in person.