Chapter Text
The campus locker room is mercifully empty when Kim Seungmin ducks into it after his run. He was out there jogging in circles on the track to avoid people for a little while in the first place, so his prayers have really been answered as far as he’s concerned when there’s still no one lingering inside as he finally slows to a stop and wanders toward the showers.
His brain is a mess—too much schoolwork, too little sleep, too many of the same drills during baseball practice, and far too much bitching from Minho after too many of the same drills—he’s exhausted.
The plan had been to run until he was too tired to keep going and pass out the second he stepped foot into his dorm, but the moment that Seungmin slips under shower’s spray, his scrambled thoughts suddenly matter much less than the new ache in his muscles. He knows he pushed himself too far, but Seungmin is not unlike a dog in that lulling himself to sleep with a good run every once in a while is worth a shot when all else fails him.
That, or maybe a ride in the car.
The water is warmer than it’s ever been in the locker room’s showers, or maybe this is the best shower of his life; Seungmin isn’t sure, but he stands still underneath the water for a long moment either way. He rolls his shoulders, stretches his back, sways a bit in place to a song that’s been stuck in his head for days. By the time he’s finally starting to wash his hair, he’s singing along to the song he can’t stop hearing even without headphones, his voice echoing gently and oddly in the tiled shower space.
Seungmin has always loved singing. Second to baseball, maybe his favorite thing, though much less of a realistic ambition for someone going to school with a sports scholarship. A hobby, one could say, but one that he knows in his heart is something he was born to do, and to do well. He was in choir in high school, but too shy by then to really step out under the spotlight. Oh well. Ship sailed. That doesn’t stop him from practicing when he’s alone in his dorm room or a study hall or anywhere else. He likes the way his voice echoes in the campus showers, bouncing back to him like he’s serenading an underground lake.
It’s slightly embarrassing to think that he may have run himself to death just for an excuse to shower immediately in the locker room instead of in his dorm where he knows his roommate is lounging doing his own homework, so he doesn’t think about that. At all.
He also doesn’t hear the single locker slam shut somewhere in the far back corner of the men’s locker room.
Nor does he hear the person approach the tiled alcove the showers are tucked away into in the corner, their sandals slapping against the concrete as they do.
When Seungmin turns to rinse the shampoo out of his hair—not at all expecting to be observed in any capacity, let alone naked, singing, alone in the campus showers—and sees a broad man standing in the shower doorway, twenty feet away from him and staring directly at him like a predator, he nearly bites off his tongue in surprise.
The man’s shoulders are so wide he almost fills the doorway, thick and imposing and hot, his expression utterly unreadable. He’s wearing a black tank top that hugs his chest in a way that Seungmin has only ever seen on professional athletes, his sweatpants hung low on his hips and bright school spirit blue baseball cap worn backwards. His arms are slack at his sides, but his arms are so large that when Seungmin sees his hands flex in annoyance, they’re more than a few inches away from his body.
Seungmin swallows.
His eyes are saucers, his hands frozen in his own hair and ready to rip it out in sheer embarrassment as the man just… stares at him, blinking, lips parted like he’s amazed at Seungmin’s audacity. Seungmin is suddenly too warm under the shower’s spray, feeling his face, neck, ears, entire body heat under this stranger’s neverending gaze. Not only is Seungmin embarrassed beyond belief to have been caught bothering someone like this, but the man pinning him to the wall with his eyes is so unbearably attractive that it makes his head spin a little bit. He feels like he might pass out. It takes him a long moment to realize that the man is now also talking to him before he blinks back to himself.
“What,” he says, doing his best to appear anything but flustered. “Start over,”
The man scoffs a laugh at him, folding the arms Seungmin is absolutely not staring at over his ridiculously expansive chest. “I asked what you were singing,”
“What,” Seungmin repeats. Then his brain restarts. “Oh. It’s, um—it’s this pop song my roommate showed me. I don’t know wh—” The man interrupts, rattles off a name that sounds vaguely familiar. Seungmin shrugs. “Yeah, probably. Is that—was that what you just… appeared out of nowhere to ask me?!”
“I—” the man starts, pauses. His mouth hangs open for a quick second before he recovers. “No, I just—”
Seungmin realizes, admittedly a few seconds too late, that he is fully naked in front of this insanely hot stranger.
“Where did you even come from?!” Seungmin asks, panicked, looking for a towel he knows is hanging closer to the man in the doorway than it is to himself. He forgets how to move. But not how to talk. Thank god. “It was empty in here when I came in,”
The man blinks at Seungmin, horrified. “I was working out,” he all but shouts, agog for a completely different reason than Seungmin anticipated. “This locker room isn’t yours,”
“No, I—” Seungmin wants to disappear. Melt. Become dust and drift down the drain, out to sea forever. “That is not what I meant, first of all. Second—” he points a finger at the man, whose face reddens under the attention. “You snuck up on me, and you’re annoyed? Go away,”
God help Seungmin, the man laughs. It’s a lovely sound.
“Shit, yeah, I’m sorry,” he drops his gaze to the floor, an arm reaching up to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck. “You’re—” he pauses, starts over. “You have a really nice voice, is what I really wanted to say. I didn’t think about… this,” he motions between them with his hand as he drops it from the back of his neck, stuffing them both into the pockets of his pants. Seungmin almost wishes he would look up again just so he could look at something other than his arms. “Do you do music here?”
“What? No,” Seungmin answers quickly, bewildered that this conversation is still happening despite it all. “I’m—sports. Baseball,”
“Oh,” he does look up then, squinting at Seungmin like he’s trying to solve a riddle. “Really? I don’t—okay, that doesn’t matter. Would you sing for me? Like, professionally, I mean?”
Seungmin feels like he’s losing his mind. “You want to hire me to sing for you right now?!”
“Not right now, Jesus! I’m a music student!” He explains, blurting the words out like they’ll save him somehow. “A producer, specifically, and I have this song that I think yo—”
“No way,” Seungmin laughs in disbelief, shaking his head. This cannot be happening. None of this. He passed out somewhere and this is all an awful stress dream. “I can’t do that. There’s no way I—”
“Please,” the man asks, taking the step down from the entryway into the showers, toward Seungmin. “I know this is weird as hell but I promise, I’m cool. I know Ch—”
“I really can’t,” Seungmin cuts him off again, holding his hands up like he’s surrendering. But he’s terrified. The most attractive man he’s ever seen is walking toward him while he’s naked and alone in the shower and he’s never been more horrified or turned on in his life. He’s not sure which feeling is winning, and that makes it all infinitely worse. “I’m sorry. I really don’t think this is a good idea,”
The man stops in his tracks, frozen, like he’s just now realized the reality of their situation himself. He covers his face with his hands, shoulders rising and falling in an obvious sigh before he turns on his heel and uncovers his face. The back of his neck is flushed pink, too.
“I am so fucking sorry,” he mutters over his shoulder, shaking his head back and forth slowly, like he can’t believe this is happening either. “Please, forget this ever happened,”
“Yeah,” Seungmin exhales, disappointed for a completely different reason now as the stranger walks away from him. “I’ll do my best,” he lies, knowing he’s going to think about this interaction every day for the rest of his life.
Seo Changbin takes the long way home, replaying every single second of the evening in excruciating detail in the theatre of his mind.
His head is ducked low, headphones wedged into his ears, but he isn’t listening to anything. Music is playing, sure, but he could not care less. He isn’t sure he could hear anything other than that voice if he tried, anyway, so he doesn’t try.
The night had been completely normal up until whatever that ended up becoming in the locker room after his cooldown.
He cooked and ate dinner with his roommate while they watched a soccer game he had recorded earlier in the day.
Normal.
He did a few more reps than his required workout, just to keep pushing himself a little bit further.
Also normal.
He heard the voice of an angel, singing like a siren just for him, and followed it to find the most beautiful man he’s ever seen, naked and wet and fit. Adorable face and quick, hot mouth. Changbin doesn’t think he’s seen a more attractive person in his life, or all of them so quickly.
That’s about where it starts to stray for him.
Changbin tries not to think about his ass, his tiny waist, the bright pink of his cheeks and the soft o of his mouth as he stared at Changbin like he was witnessing the apparition of a weird, peeping ghost.
He can’t imagine a less cool way to meet someone, let alone someone in the baseball club with his roommate.
Changbin stops mid-step on his walk home.
Another mortifying wave of embarrassment washes over him as he realizes he tried to name drop said roommate to the beautiful naked man with the voice of Changbin’s dreams in a last-ditch attempt to smooth things over with him in the moment. And it hadn’t worked either.
He squeezes his eyes shut tight, breathing deep as he begins his shuffle home again, but this time only in order to pass away somewhere comfortable where he’ll be found and taken care of quickly.
By the time he’s finally slipping his shoes off in the tiny hallway foyer of his shared apartment, Changbin thinks he has an idea of how to explain the situation to his roommate. A lot of his plan hinges on Chan knowing which of his teammates he’s talking about, but as Changbin explains his misfortune to his closest friend, Chan offers nothing more than a look of confusion and about as much laughter at his expense as Changbin expected.
“I’m sorry, Bin,” he says, shaking his head. “I really don’t know who you’re talking about,”
Changbin groans, long and loud, throwing himself dramatically against the back of the couch. “I don’t know how else to describe him,” he pleads, tossing his hat on the coffee table in front of them. “Perfect ass, perfect voice, probably hates me now, or at the very least, doesn’t want to see me again after all of that,”
Chan is cackling at his distress, arm draped across his stomach like he’s holding himself together physically. “Listen, just come to the next game and tell me his number afterwards. If we win, you can congratulate him yourself at the afterparty,”
“He hates me, you’re not listening,” Changbin pouts. Chan just laughs harder. “I’m saying I can’t approach him even if I know who he is,”
“Yes, you can,” Chan rolls his eyes, exasperated but still fond. “There’s no one on the team that wouldn’t give you a second chance after something silly like that, especially if you took the time to clear things up with them,” he pauses, shrugs a shoulder. “Except Minho, but you know him already,”
The next baseball game is little more than a week later.
Changbin shows up to support his friend, first and foremost, but with his secret mission tucked away safely, as well. He’s absolutely running up the walls at this point. He’s thought about the man from the locker room every day since they met, sometimes going so far as to scan the rows of lockers for him after a workout. Changbin moves like he’s an animal hunting, holding his breath the entire time, but he never catches a glimpse of anyone that looks even remotely familiar, never hears him singing again. That doesn’t really surprise him, after all.
He works on a handful of melodies with the man in mind, feeling delusional and rabid. Up all night. Changbin feels like he’s known this voice forever, somewhere in the back of his mind, singing to him for years in a way that he could never capture with a vocalist before. Something ephemeral, mythical and unreal until it wasn’t anymore. Until it was right in front of him.
And Changbin fumbled. Because of course he did.
He doesn’t tell his performing arts friends about that night. It’s too much—embarrasment and loss and grief and pure, utter stupidity on his part. Changbin knows exactly how they would react, and has no desire to have Hyunjin and Jisung, of all people, dangle something like this over his head for the rest of their lives. They don’t need more ammunition against him. They knew him in high school, long before he had the bite to back his bark.
Changbin does, however, invite them to the baseball game with him.
Their seats are good—perks-of-knowing-the-team-captain good—landing them right behind home plate. The three of them buy snacks and beers from the concessions booth, laughing and sharing food by the time that the game actually starts. Changbin points his roommate out to his friends, a little surprised that they haven’t found an excuse to cross their paths together like this before now, but it doesn’t seem to bother them too much. Chan waves at them briefly before turning to talk to the umpire and opposing team’s captain.
Hyunjin spends half of the first inning trying to get the perfect photo of his hotdog, and the second half eating it slowly and methodically while squinting at the field behind his sunglasses. He doesn’t say anything, but he looks focused, like he is at least having thoughts, and Changbin thinks that’s good enough for now.
On his left, Jisung is staring with hearts in his eyes at the first baseman, who, Changbin realizes with horror, is Minho. He knew that his roommate’s long time friend was on the team with him, though he never cared enough to really iron out anyone’s positions before now. Baseball games to Changbin have always been about kicking back and watching his friend do what he does best: lead the team from the front. The beer and snacks of it all are just an extremely nice bonus.
Now, however, Changbin has a mission, and noting Minho’s number out on the field only helps him narrow it down. Minho is close enough to them that when he sees Changbin and his friends staring at him as the teams come in for the second inning, he blows them an exaggerated kiss, ending the charade with a wink.
Jisung looks at Changbin like he’s been caught committing a crime. Fitting.
The three of them watch the entire game, but Changbin has a hard time.
It’s difficult seeing anyone’s eyes under their bangs and baseball caps. Finding the same horror he had seen in the locker room when the team in front of them exudes confidence and pride proves to be harder than he thought it would be. He watches each of Chan’s teammates take their turn at bat, stares at each of their asses with respect and scientific curiosity, but lands nowhere in the end. He leaves the stadium frustrated, already kind of tipsy and woefully turned on from staring at fifteen men’s asses in baseball uniforms for two hours.