For: after_the_rain_
From: legozai

Title: Vitamin D
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3354 words
Summary: Rockstars don't belong in anatomy classes at eight in the morning.
Warning/s: drinking?

Notes: thank you to my lovely prompter! i'm really sorry if this fic wasn't what you had hoped but i really did try ;;

Junmyeon knew that taking Anatomy and Physiology with his best friend Jongdae was quite possibly the biggest mistake he’d ever made in his entire college career, but he didn’t know just how bad it would be. They were about a month into the semester and while their professor was lecturing about the reason why humans breathe, besides the obvious ones of course, Junmyeon’s eyes couldn’t help but to wander up the rows of students, all staring so intently on their teacher, until they fell on his friend seated in the fourth to last row on the side besides the steps of the large auditorium. Normally, their gazes met and, for a split second, the moment was purely electric, but Jongdae was practically the furthest thing away from normal. He was anything but normal. The both of them had been friends since high school after meeting at an afterschool talent show where the two of them had realized that none of them noticed that they were also in the same music class together. Almost immediately afterwards, Junmyeon shoved his massive crush for the boy down his throat because there was no way he was going to let his feelings get in the way and make things awkward. They got along fast, and with Jongdae came Baekhyun and Chanyeol, who naturally had their own groups and cliques. Their circles collide and intertwined and the rest became history. Their instructor explained the way their blood cells load themselves up with hemoglobin with oxygen to take to all the cells of their body and how carbon dioxide is really just a waste product. And maybe it was the way their professor talked about the different pathways of blood flowing in and out of the heart that confused him, but it might also be the lack of focus he has due to the fact that Jongdae’s pulled out a box of cereal and some milk, clearly looking like he planned on eating breakfast in the middle of a lecture that was probably going to be the topic of their midterm. Ah shit… midterms, he dropped his head to the cold, wooden desk. “Junmyeon, is everything alright?” He lifted his head up and everyone’s peering over to him. Even Jongdae has stopped sloshing his milk in his plastic cereal container, he’s got a lucky charm marshmallow stuck to the corner of his lip that almost makes Junmyeon want to laugh and groan at the same time. Realizing that he still hadn’t responded to the professor, he looks back with wide eyes and stumbles over his words, “Y-yeah, I’m good.” He offered their instructor his trademark smile and soon the lecture resumes. Jongdae catches his eye and flashed him a smirk, tongue flicking out to lick away his milk mustache, and Junmyeon, with cheeks burning, slowly sinks in his seat knowing that he was in for a long semester. The first unit exam had passed by steadily, and Junmyeon thinks that he’s starting to get the hang of things. Between histology, the skeletal system and now the muscles, he found himself spending more time during open lab hours just flat out studying. Some days Jongdae would join him, but he usually doesn’t (not that Junmyeon noticed at all). He was probably getting thinner, but it was all worth it, at least that’s what he told himself on the days where he collapsed onto his bed with dreams of becoming a doctor when he graduated. text → myeontokki! Hyuuuuuung, let’s study together! ლ(́◉◞౪◟◉‵ლ) text → myeontokki! Where are you right now? text → myeontokki! Kekekekekeke are you hiding from me? There was a pause and Junmyeon assumed it was safe to read all the messages but then— text → myeontokki! Seriously hyung, where are you? Junmyeon frowned at the message. He didn’t know if he could afford the distraction. Their test on the muscular system and osteology was coming up on Wednesday and he hadn’t even begun to study the functions of half the lower back muscles. It would take forever so he decided to ignore the message and continue on with his work, burrowing his face deep into the thick book, determined to emblazon the figure of the naked man in the back of his mind. Yeah, this wasn’t going to work. He bit his lip and peered back to his phone, as if expecting another slew of messages but his phone remained silent. Junmyeon pressed his lips together and ignored the small twinge of disappointment when his phone screen background faded. Almost immediately after his phone binged again and he snatched it up eagerly. text → hyung how many scantrons do we need for micro again? It was only Sehun. He groaned into his books while his phone pinged. text → myeontokki! yo are you okay? The corners of his lips tugged downwards and he looked around. Was Jongdae around? Somebody softly smacked the back of his head and Junmyeon glanced up, his line of vision meeting with the crinkled edges of his friend’s eyesmile and a familiar pair of curled lips. He slipped his backpack off his shoulder and onto the desk, and proceeded to slide into the seat beside Junmyeon. While the elder flipped through the thick anatomy book, Jongdae unzipped his back and pulled out his notebook and a snack before finally focusing his attention. “You look like shit.” Ouch. “I think you’ve been studying too much, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.” Junmyeon was taken aback and suddenly felt self-conscious about the way his face looked, wondering if he really looked all that bad. After he’d left back to his dorm later that day, Junmyeon found himself stumbling in front of a mirror to examine his face and his fingers felt the dips of where the deep dark circles beneath his eyes rested. They looked like half moons, craters, and he forced himself to sleep earlier that night. The next time they study together, it’s the week before midterms and they decide to meet up at Jongdae’s dorm on the other side of campus since the library is packed with students who all seem to have woken up from hibernation. Junmyeon’s pretty hesitant to drop his bag on the floor amidst piles of dirty clothes and papers scattered about the messy room. He shuddered since it’s even worse than his own room and he wonders how often things get lost there. Either way, Jongdae smiles and that is what eases them into studying joints and articulations of all the bones in the body. At some point, they’re both standing up and facing each other in close proximity as Junmyeon points out where the glenohumeral ligament is (by sliding his hand over the edge of Jongdae’s shoulder) when Jongin, Jongdae’s suitemate, pops in. “Hey Jongdae, do you have some leftover— Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He smirks at Jongdae knowingly and the boy pelts him with the toilet paper roll that Jongin apparently needed. Junmyeon flinches at the situation unfolding before him and the air is most certainly different after Jongin leaves with a cheeky wink. He makes sure to keep his distance, but nonetheless, their fingers do brush up every so often, eliciting minor electric shocks and quiet laughs, as they continue to quiz each other on body parts. He tries to ignore the quickening of his heartbeat when he leaves the other boy behind. On the other hand, day by day the food items that get shoved down Jongdae’s throat only get more outrageous and it only gets harder for Junmyeon to smother his “manly” giggles in the palm of his hand. Some of the items included a popsicle, a lollipop, even a fistful of pocky that he simply wraps his lips around, eyelids fluttering shut as if the taste is so sinfully good. One time, Junmyeon caught the boy licking melted chocolate off his fingertips and it took a whole lot of self control to silence the tingling pit in his stomach from bubbling out a moan. He knew that this was Jongdae’s way of teasing him to not pay attention in class. After all, why else would he have signed up to take the course at eight in the morning when he could’ve been sleeping? At that, Junmyeon would only shake his head and continue to focus on his notes to prepare himself for their lab practicum on cat muscles. Today, it was a banana. Jongdae peeled it back like it was no big thing and he attempted to catch Junmyeon’s gaze which, to nobody’s surprise, was already on him. He sent the elder a flirtatious wink and proceeded to pucker his lips over the top of the banana. It was obscene but Junmyeon found himself wanting to laugh anyway. Sure, it was pretty weird and definitely would’ve made other people uncomfortable but it was different with him. While it made him laugh, he could also feel his pants growing tighter in the groin area. However, he couldn’t place his finger on the feeling that caused his throat to constrict when Jongdae began to drag his tongue up and down the body of the banana, the corners of lips tugging back to flash a secretive smile as though this was some sort of a private show. Except it wasn’t and that fact alone took all the control that Junmyeon could muster in order to stop himself from popping a boner right then and there in front of the rest of their classmates. He exhaled a sharp breath and looked away to the notes that he’d spread all over his desk and tried to focus on the names of the sweat glands which were currently causing him to perspire in all the wrong places so he could calm himself down. There was a soft clicking sound that was rather hard to ignore—he squeezed his eyes shut. The heart is composed of cardiac muscle which is striated. Cardiac muscle is involuntary, is controlled by the autonomic nervous system and forms a functional syncytium, composed of branched cells with intercalated discs which contain gap junctions. They are highly fatig—. Somebody cleared their throat peculiarly loud from the back of the room, and wrenched Junmyeon away from his thoughts to be met with the sight of melted chocolate dribbling down his friend’s chin rather messily. His catlike lips were covered with the stuff as he messily tongued the tip of the banana. Junmyeon’s face contorted, flushed, and showed possibly every sign of embarrassment that it could as he signaled for the younger boy to stop but Jongdae was already lost in his fantasy world, mouthing around the body of the fruit, offering it one kittenish lick after another. Books slammed down onto the front table and out of the corner of his eye, he watched their professor walk in, his mouth agape as his line of vision was in the same plane as his friend’s obscene show. Junmyeon was literally ready to melt and die in his seat. Jongdae is allowed to stay in the class for the day, but their instructor warns him about his unprofessional conduct, threatening to kick him out the next time it happens. He nods solemnly, signifying that he does indeed understand the consequences. Junmyeon can’t really tell from the position he’s sitting in, but he thinks the tips of Jongdae’s ears are red. And it was obvious that he was bothered since he rushed out of the class as soon as it ended. Jongdae stopped showing up to class after that day, and at first, Junmyeon thought that he was probably just sick, but subsequent to a second week of turning his head back to find an empty seat glare at him, he seriously gets worried. Junmyeon dials Jongdae’s phone for what feels like the fiftieth time and Jongdae doesn’t seem like he’s going to pick up after he punches the numbers in again, listening to the woman on the other line claim that the person he’s calling is unavailable. He swears under his breath and drums his fingers nervously against his thigh when suddenly the idea to call up someone he knows he will regret. The person he decides to call picks up on the third ring with a low, slurred tone that Junmyeon struggles to hear beside the deafening electronic music blaring in the background. “Hello, this is Baekhyun’s phone, Baekhyun currently not speaking—” Muffled giggles can be heard in the background and Junmyeon struggles not to roll his eyes. He sighs into the phone and pinches the bridge of his nose before exhaling a response, “Chanyeol, if that’s you, can you please tell me if Jongdae’s with y-” There is a pause and once again he gets an earful of the thumping dubstep that screeches over through to his end, so loud that Junmyeon has to hold the phone about a foot away from his face. “Nah, sorry man, it’s just me and Baek- and Baek’s calling me over to do body shots, I gotta go man, good luck.” There’s a flash of a throaty laugh on the other side before the sudden click that makes his stomach twist and he knows Jongdae’s there with them. The one thing he needs to find out is where there is, so he puts on his jacket, grabs his keys, and rushes out the door. Junmyeon’s pretty sure that he’s probably broken at least twenty laws— all of which he had a perfect excuse for if he ever were to be confronted by the local law enforcement— by the time he finds Jongdae in a dingy punk rock club in downtown just south of their main campus. He’d always known the younger to be a huge rock fan, as if the boy’s ripped jeans and assorted t-shirts with random band names that even Junmyeon hadn’t known existed were plastered all over the front hadn’t been proof enough. He found Jongdae seated at the bar, legs swinging with a glass pressed against his lips, looking perfectly pleased as he downed what appeared to Junmyeon to be a martini with extra olives. Chanyeol and Baekhyun were nowhere in sight, but Junmyeon figured they’d scampered off someplace with a bar that served endless refills. The elder crinkled his nose at the smell of alcohol and his friend squinted at him, practically surprised to see him there. “Junmyeon?” He threw his head back to down a shot of what he assumed to be tequila as Junmyeon sidled up into the seat next to him with a firm frown of his face. “What’re you doing here?” “I could be asking you the same thing, what are you doing here, Jongdae?” A chilling guitar riff rang in the background, causing him to cringe while another musician took the stage and announced that they’d now be playing ‘Wonderwall’. “I asked you fiiiiiiiiiiirst~” Jongdae whined before giggling, and Junmyeon oddly felt annoyed by the current situation. “I’ve come to take you home.” With that, he leapt out of his seat and looped his arm around the latter’s elbow, but Jongdae wouldn’t budge. His lower lip jutted out to form a half pout. “I’m not coming with youuuuu.” He pushed at the elder’s chest forcefully with his index finger. “You’re not the real Junmyeon.” At this point all Junmyeon could do was sit and listen, as Jongdae gave a long tirade about how pretty and smart his friend Junmyeon was. It almost inflated the former’s ego a bit just to hear how much the younger admired him on so many levels. In conclusion, Jongdae was a talkative drunk. “I even started licking stuff to get him thinking about my mouth around his dick,” He exhaled a sigh. “I’ve had this crush on him for the longest time. Junmyeon’s eyes widened in horror, what. And suddenly, everything started to piece itself together. Rockstars didn’t belong in the back of anatomy classes at eight in the morning. They belonged on a stage in front of a crowd of people and Jongdae had given that up to entertain him because he liked him. Whatever feelings there were that Junmyeon had tried to drown since the day he’d met Jongdae instantly reignited. However, a dirty downtown punk bar wasn’t the place that he’d imagined himself to be confessing. The only way he could do this was to sit the boy down when he was sober again and do it properly. It was a struggle to get Jongdae out of his seat and to convince him that they should leave together, and a part of Junmyeon wondered if he looked like one of those creepy guys who hovered at bars and coaxed women to come home with them. Somehow, he managed to get Jongdae into the car and kept him from vomiting all over the leather interior as he drove them back to his place, falling asleep immediately with Jongdae right by his side. That was probably the first night that he hadn’t slept soundly all semester as his body would often cause him to crash out of fatigue. But there was something about having another body right beside yours for hours that kept him on some type of edge. He wanted to sleep but he couldn’t so he spent the long hours coming up with all the words that he wanted to say to project just how much Jongdae meant to him until his eyes drooped with weariness. He woke up the next morning with Jongdae perched at the edge of his bed. “Hey—” “Sorry about last night, I wasn’t thinking straight.” The younger interjected. “I’ll be—” “I like you.” Junmyeon blurted out and surprise began to shadow Jongdae’s face but it was also guarded with suspicion. He shook his head and looked down at his legs. “Did I say something dumb last night?” The elder rolled his eyes and smacked him with a pillow. “You’re always saying dumb things. Everything that comes out of that big mouth of yours is dumb.” Jongdae glared and hit the side of his head with the other pillow. “Take that back or else I’ll wage war.” He narrowed his eyes so much so that he almost looked serious and all Junmyeon could do was laugh. “It’s on.” (Junmyeon may or may not have suggested other things that Jongdae could do with that big mouth of his as they laughed and rolled around in the sunlight that crept in each other’s arms.) On the day of their lecture final, Junmyeon arrived an hour early and found a folded note placed on top of his desk. The lecture hall was empty so he curiously sat down and unfolded the piece of paper. It read: Are you my appendix? Because I have a funny feeling in my stomach that makes me feel like I should take you out. Beneath it was a sloppy winky face that oddly reminded him of Jongdae except he knew for a fact that Jongdae was the one who sent this note and all he could do was smile to himself when their exam started. He left the note atop of the other’s desk once he’d left with his answer scrawled in the bottom right-hand corner, leaving without another word. He didn’t wait for Jongdae when he finished because he knew they would meet up for dinner afterwards, and maybe there’d be something a little bit more waiting for him when he got there. (Later that day, he surprised Jongdae by wrapping his arms around the younger’s thin torso, murmuring in his ear, “If I were a Schwann cell, I would squeeze around your axon and give you a fast-action potential.” The latter gasped and turned to face him, the look of shock quickly replaced with a twinkle of mischief and his lips curled with expectation, causing Junmyeon to gulp, suddenly feeling unsure about such a bold line. But then Jongdae laughs when he buries nose in the crook of his neck and he thinks it’s all going to be okay.)