LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES...CHAPTER 8/?
Title: Love Knows No Boundaries
Author: tikibuddy91
Characters: Jongdae (Chen), Zitao, Junghwan (Sandeul), Sunwoo (Baro), Yongguk and Himchan
Word Count: ~3600
Rating: PG-13 for language (because it's Yongguk, come on ;P)
Genre: College, AU, Crossover
Summary: Some of them are college students...You can consider some to be unique...They just feel out of place. Some call it a disability, some call it an ability to prove others wrong. Flirtations lead to relationships, between two parties of people that you could not possibly dream of.
Author Note: The situation with Zitao, Jongdae and a mysterious voice gets resolved with an unexpected visitor. What Yongguk plans to do with Himchan from Chapter 5.
Sign Language Guide
Prologue | Jongdae | Chapter 1 | Daehyun | Chapter 2 | Zitao | Chapter 3 | Kyungsoo | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 |
“What the hell is going on here?” Lee Junghwan says icily to the scene in front of him. Jongdae is sitting at his desk, his arms on the desk table, staring straight ahead. Zitao is standing in front of Jongdae, hands reaching out mid-air, as if he is trying to grab something.
Jongdae quickly looks to the sound source and glares. “Can someone tell me what is going on?” Jongdae asks. Zitao looks frantically between Junghwan standing at the door, and Jongdae, who is up close. He decides to go for it and touch Jongdae’s hand to shake it in an up-down motion. Before he can shake it, Jongdae lets out a yell and tugs his hand out of Zitao’s grasp, looking straight ahead. “Who are you?” He inquires with such disdain that Zitao has never seen before.
“What right do you have to touch my hand like that after not responding to who you are? You’re not Zitao,” Jongdae shuffles his exam and scantron, and rests his arms on top of them. Jongdae glares at Zitao’s midsection. “Are you trying to cheat? Because you would be stupid to know that this is all in Braille.”
Zitao’s throat hitches as he blinks in shock, frustrated with himself for being in a complicated situation, and becoming slightly frustrated at Jongdae for being stubborn. He looks at Junghwan and tries to gesture at him that he is a friend of Jongdae.
“What do you have to explain about yourself?” Junghwan walks a little forward to let the door close, sneering at Zitao. He stops after a few steps with his arms crossed, blocking the door, as if he is warning Zitao that he will not be going anywhere until the situation is sorted out. “And enough of that, we are having a conversation right now.”
Jongdae is confused at who the question is being asked. He turns his hands upward, palms up, in exasperation. “I’m taking my exam!” He indicates the exam on the desk with his hands. He then asks scathingly, “What else do you think? Who are you? Are you with him too?”
“My name is Lee Junghwan” -“oh oops” Jongdae says- “I know who you are, Lee Jongdae. I’ve been told from the professor that you’re taking the Calculus Exam today and that you’re almost done. But there is a student standing in front of you. Are you aware of his presence?”
Jongdae nods furiously. “Yes, sir. He came in and I heard a door click loudly. He started tapping some weird noises somewhere over there,” he points to his right, towards the desk that is close to Junghwan. “Then he started clapping. Mr. Lee Junghwan, I think this student is trying to cheat me!”
“Tsk…tsk,” Junghwan clicks his teeth, cocking his eyebrow at Zitao. “Is that true, student? Are you trying to cheat on the test? And what is your name, so I don’t have to keep calling you ‘student’.”
Zitao shakes his head, trying to explain with his arms and hands that he is not here to cheat but to keep Jongdae company. As for his name, he makes his way towards his laptop bag sitting next to Junghwan, but Junghwan stops him with his hand out. It is almost as if Junghwan’s hand has gained control over Zitao, holding him in place.
“Why the hell are you not saying anything?! You have a mouth and a throat, use it! Listen, if you keep on doing that, you are asking for trouble,” Junghwan snarls.
Zitao stares at him in fear. He points to his throat and shakes his head. He crosses his arms while opening and closing his mouth. Meanwhile, Jongdae becomes puzzled with the Junghwan’s statement, especially with the “You have a throat and mouth” part. Being so caught up in the moment with his anger and confusion, he takes a deep breath to relax and exhales, his mind reeling to figure out who the person is.
“What, you are not making any sense. It’s fine to talk in here. If you want, you can whisper,” Junghwan compromises with Zitao. Zitao shakes his head again. Junghwan sighs, “Listen, why don’t you kindly leave through the door while I supervise,” Junghwan assures Zitao. “I won’t say a word about what happens her-“
The door opens again and another student’s head peeks into view. Junghwan whirls around to look at their visitor in surprise. The visitor says, “Guys, I heard yelling here. What is go- Oh hello Jongdae, it’s me, Cha Sunwoo!” Zitao thinks the student reminds him of a squirrel. With chubby cheeks.
“Oh hello, Zitao!” Sunwoo waves at him.
Zitao widens his eyes in shock. How did he know me? Do I know him? Have I even seen him around campus?, he thinks to himself.
“Zi…Zitao?” Jongdae whispers weakly, his bottom lip trembling. Zitao turns around to look at him; Jongdae looks clearly shocked upon hearing the name. “Zitao, was that you all along? Oh god, Zitao. I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, I didn’t mean to say all those words earlier. I didn’t know,” Jongdae is slightly whimpering. He reaches his hand out thinking that Zitao is in front of him, but he only grasps air. Nevertheless, he continues to put his hand out. “Can you forgive me? I’m so stupid for not realizing it was you the whole time. Zitao?”
Feeling relieved that Jongdae realizes it is him, Zitao looks towards Jongdae with slight pity, and then back at Sunwoo and Junghwan. Junghwan frowns, clearly bewildered. Behind Junghwan, Sunwoo places his hand on his shoulder.
“Yah, Junghwan-ah,” Sunwoo murmurs to Junghwan. “Do you not know him?” Junghwan shakes his head in reply. Sunwoo nods his head in Zitao’s direction. “It’s Huang Zitao, the mute student. He’s a brilliant math student, and even is brilliant at linguistics. Some of the teachers talk about him. Even some of the students who have taken classes with him talk about him. He knows Morse code, both in English and Korean, as well as how to write in English, Korean and Mandarin. How do you not even recognize him? He’s studying in the same department as yours after all! And I’m not even majoring in Math!” Sunwoo adds with a light punch to Junghwan’s shoulder. Junghwan raises his eyebrows in awe, looking at Sunwoo.
Meanwhile, Jongdae senses Zitao stepping closer to him, and he feels two hands cradling his hand. Ah, there’s that familiar calloused hand, Jongdae notes to himself. An up-down shake of his hand, saying yes, I forgive you, and Jongdae knows this is Zitao. He asks Zitao, “Why are you here, really?”
Jongdae feels his hand being pried open like a bud opening her petals, with his palm facing upward. He feels tapping and finger strokes across his palm. With every stroke that Zitao writes on Jongdae’s palm, the same stroke is pictured in Jongdae’s head. In the darkness of his vision, Jongdae pictures a white brush imitating the strokes on his palm, moving on to the next character as Zitao pauses between words.
“I was outside waiting when the professor passed by me and made a call to his assistant to come supervise. I wanted to come in and keep you company, to make sure you were okay until the teacher assistant arrived. There isn’t anyone else here except you.”
“Oh,” is all that Jongdae says, realization dawning on him. So Zitao just came in to keep me company, was that it? Jongdae turns his upward palmed hand so he is gripping Zitao’s wrist. He brings his other hand to hold Zitao’s gripped hand. For the first time in a while since the tests were distributed this morning, Jongdae smiles at Zitao.
A noise of throat clearing breaks the silence in the classroom. Junghwan and Sunwoo have been watching the scene the whole time with curiosity.
“So, Jongdae, what is going on exactly, with Zitao? What did he say?” Junghwan asks him.
“Oh, Zitao heard that you were coming and he didn’t want to leave me alone, so he came in to keep me company,” Jongdae turns to look in the same direction where he has heard Junghwan’s voice. “See, he walked me to class this morning because we were taking the tests…oh right, my test,” he bows his head as he lets go of Zitao’s hand to feel his desk around for his exam, scantron and pencil.
“What’s the progress of your test? Are you finished?” Junghwan implores, making his way towards Jongdae.
Zitao steps back to give Junghwan and Jongdae some privacy and space. Jongdae hesitates before saying apprehensively, “I-I…I’m not sure. I know I’m almost done but the whole commotion since Zi...Zitao came in,” he blushes at the memory of his rude attitude towards Zitao, “threw me off guard.”
Junghwan nods in understanding and cranes his head to see Jongdae’s papers. “Well, I hope you don’t mind, Jongdae, but I’m looking at your papers, and it looks like you have one last question left on the scantron to bubble in. There’s only 15 minutes left. Why don’t you finish that up? We’ll be waiting in our desks near the entrance. Give us a shout when you’re done, and I’ll come collect your test, okay, Jongdae?” He claps Jongdae on the shoulder with an assured smile. Realizing that Jongdae cannot see him, he gently squeezes his shoulder as a sign of assurance.
Zitao sits in the desk under which his laptop bag is placed, while Sunwoo and Junghwan sit in the desks adjacent to him. They converse in whispers with Zitao as to not disturb Jongdae, and Zitao replies back on paper. Apparently, Sunwoo was in a class with Zitao the year before. Zitao never knew that he was among the hot topics of the college campus last year; he did not hear gossips about him because he would often stick with Luhan and Yixing. In his first year, no one knew him, and no one bothered to talk to him, except his friends Yixing and Luhan. In his second year, he noticed he would get stares and mutterings from his classmates. Ever since his first year in college, he has never taken any discussion seminar classes, because he was not ready for the feeling of having everyone focusing on each other and being attentive to what others have to say. Zitao has done well on his exams, always being in the top 5 students with high percentages. Sunwoo explains that people were unsure how to communicate with Zitao because he seemed shy and secluded. It does not take long before Jongdae announces that he is finished with the test.
Junghwan, Sunwoo and Zitao turn their heads to see Jongdae packing up, leaving his scantron and test on the desk. Junghwan then gets up to collect Jongdae’s paperwork.
“Alright, you’re free to go, Jongdae. I apologize that we all had to go through that rough patch earlier,” he says guiltily, eyes shifting to rest on Zitao and back to Jongdae. Zitao nods solemnly and Jongdae echoes Junghwan’s apology, feeling very apologetic once again towards Zitao for his harsh words.
Sunwoo, looking a bit grim, lightens up and says, “Alright, enough of this somber mood. Let’s get out of here and enjoy the sun!”
The others agree. Zitao walks to Jongdae and retrieves the walking stick from Jongdae’s backpack. He passes the stick to Jongdae as Jongdae slings his bag over his shoulder. He lets Jongdae wrap his arm around his arm, and leads him to the entrance. Sunwoo has picked up Zitao’s laptop bag and gives it to Zitao before opening the door for the students to exit. Junghwan scans the room for anything left behind and goes to turn off the lights before leaving the classroom as well. The group decides to hang around and wait an hour until noon comes.
- - -
“Alright, class dismissed, everyone. Don’t forget to read pages 341 - 543 for Thursday. I think…we might have a pop quiz, maybe.”
The sound of students rustling to get out of class causes Yongguk to wake with a start, lifting his cradled head from his arm on the desk. The hell, I fell asleep?!? Crap, how did I even fall asleep in this class?!, he panics, looking around. He is a bit relieved seeing a few others who are still napping, oblivious to the hustle and bustle of the classroom. However, it does not comfort him with the fact that he fell asleep for the first time during a professor’s lecture on music theory.
Well, it was a pretty monotonous lecture, but I should have been alert anyway because I was taking not- oh shit, the notes. He looks down at his notes and his hand. The pen has disappeared from his hand and his notes read, “There are three types of court/ritual music in traditional music: Aak, Dang-ak, and Hyang-a…” and there is a long, doodling line trailing from the Hangul “A” character. Yongguk notes that that must be the point where he fell asleep and lost grip of his pen. He looks down to the big set of 3 chalkboard panels, where the teacher is erasing the first panel on the left. No no no no no, please do NOT get to the second board until I’m done, Yongguk freaks out and scans the board to see where the professor wrote about traditional court music. Finding it on the bottom half of the second panel, he groans that he missed out a lot of notes to catch up. He looks under his desk to find his pen almost teetering near the edge of the steps, so he quickly grabs it before it can totter over. He squints at the board as he hurriedly writes down the notes before the teacher moves on to the second board to erase it. Ack, okay whew, can’t stop now better get that third panel now, he thinks to himself, his eyes glancing up and down quickly, between his notebook and the board. He notices that he has very sloppy writing when he rushes, but he tells to himself, I’ll figure this out later, anyway. His poor hand becomes too slow to copy the third panel’s notes when the teacher comes to the third panel, obstructing his view, and starts erasing it. Defeated, Yongguk lets his hand fall to the side, glaring at the professor’s back.
A notebook is carelessly tossed on Yongguk’s desk, startling him from his glare. He looks down at the notebook and sees the initials “M.H.C.” Ohoho, well this changes things. I didn’t have to go up to him like how I planned at first. Changing tactics now, Yongguk thinks to himself. Instead of glaring at Himchan and bickering with him to anger him, he decides to flirt with him.
Figuring out whom the notebook belongs to, Yongguk smirks and says without looking up, “So have you come to aid me, princess? That’s awfully kind of you, though it should have been the other way around.” He then looks up to see Himchan, who is staring down with a slightly irritated look. “I am ever in your debt, O most Honorable One.” Up close, he’s almost too pretty. Like a princess, a pretty princess.
“Listen,” snaps Himchan. “First of all, I am doing you a favor by saving your ass in this class, even though I don’t really know you.” Yongguk sighs, a smile itching on his face. “Second of all, the professor doesn’t like students sleeping, and he called your name three times. Three freaking times. You didn’t answer; I had to make an excuse for you, saying that you had a rough night due to family issues.” Yongguk’s jaw slackens and he goggles at Himchan. Mr. Traditional Music Princess lied to the professor? Ohhh damn, this is worth hearing from the person himself. Yongguk gathers his materials, including Himchan’s notebook, and stuffs them in his backpack before standing up and slinging it over his shoulder.
“Third, you better be freaking careful with my notebook, because I will kill you if you ever rip a page. I see any kind of evident damage, no matter how small or big, so help me, God,” Himchan warns, finger jabbing at Yongguk’s chest. Yongguk looks at Himchan’s finger and back up at the owner, cocking his eyebrow. Brushing past Himchan, he goes to walk up the stairs, smirking as he murmurs, “Whatever you say, pretty princess.”
“Hey! And fourth, would you stop calling me princess? Do I look like a girl to you, honestly? I have short-cropped hair. Look, see? See??” Himchan scrambles up the stairs to stand in front of Yongguk, pointing at his own head.
“Aw, you’re so freakin’ adorable when you get so demanding and throw a fit, Himchannie. I like my partners demanding.” Yongguk shoots a gummy smile at Himchan.
Himchan makes a noncommittal noise in his throat, and gawks at Yongguk. The slight red tint on Himchan’s face does not do any good for him, as Yongguk continues to move past him, the gummy smile still plastered on his face. “Thanks for the notebook. Did you put your number on it, perhaps?”
Himchan sputters, “What. No. Psh, as if I would give you my number!” His yell attracts some students’ attentions as they walk around him to leave the classroom.
“Erm…sorry,” Himchan apologizes to the crowd as he ducks his head and follows Yongguk and the crowd outside. Once outside, Himchan sees Yongguk waiting, leaning with his back against the wall. He storms over to him and says, “You are such a…a…” He racks his brain for an alternative insulting name to say instead of the bad names.
Yongguk grins at him, waiting for him to finish his sentence. He tilts his head, teasing Himchan. “Yes, Himchannie? I am a…a…?”
“A…a…a nincompoop, yeah. A nincompoop.” Himchan nods as he says it out in English, before returning back to Korean. “And what’s with the ‘Himchannie’ now, are we like friends or something?”
Yongguk stares at him with a deadpanned look. “A what?”
“Nincompoop,” responds Himchan promptly. “It means a stupid or foolish person, which you are, from what I’ve noticed. Hmph.” He looks to his right to watch the students disperse outward from the classroom he and Yongguk have just exited.
Yongguk smiles, eyes glinting. “I’m a nincompoop for you then, Himmiechan~”
Himchan turns his head slowly, eyes shooting daggers. “You. Cut with the cheesiness. I am a dignified student, and I have my pride. You obviously do not have any shame. Are we not of the same age?” He slaps Yongguk’s shoulder. “Act mature, will you?”
Yongguk frowns and squints at Himchan. “Are you trying to make me feel unworthy to not get close to you on purpose?” Yongguk’s sarcasm drips a little in his mocking tone.
Himchan scoffs and studies Yongguk, eyes traveling down and up his body. He rolls his eyes. “Sorry, Casanova. I hardly even know you, like I said earlier.”
“Bang!” Yongguk replies with a slight yell and he quickly draws his hand out in a shape of a gun, pointing at Himchan. He bites his inner cheeks to refrain from laughing at the sight of Himchan looking a bit ruffled from his small outburst.
“Bang?” Himchan eyes him warily.
“You,” Yongguk breathes out as he steps closer to Himchan, his hands daringly gripping Himchan’s hips. Smirking, he intensely gazes slightly downward at Himchan’s eyes; both Himchan and Yongguk are almost the same height. For a slight moment, he sees Himchan widening his eyes in shock and his voice faltering. They stand like this for a few seconds, before Yongguk puffs at Himchan’s face, snapping Himchan out of his shock.
“YAH!” Flustered, Himchan violently shoves Yongguk away, and Yongguk steps back a few steps. A red blush floods Himchan’s face. “W-WHO…DO YOU THINK YOU ARE…T-T-TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT, HUH? YOU COULD HAVE JUST SAID YOUR NAME, GOSH. YOU ARE SUCH A…SEX FIEND.” Himchan does not realize that the commotion he caused has left many students looking in his direction.
Yongguk snickers as he leans back against the wall again, hands up in defeat. “Sex friend, Himchan? Did I hear you wrong?”
“WHAT,” Himchan’s heart stops as he tries to remember quickly what he just said. Pretty sure I said sex fiend, not sex friend. What the heck is a sex friend, it makes no sense. His eyes shoot daggers at Yongguk, “NO I DID NOT. I called y-“
“Just messing with you, princess,” Yongguk chortles, eyes gleaming at the sight of Himchan baring his teeth, looking really annoyed. “Moon Himchan, O most Honorable One, allow me to introduce myself. My name’s Bang Yongguk.”
Himchan huffs, still blushing from earlier, “You sure have taken a liking to calling me ‘princess’. Well, Mr. Bang Yongguk, you better take care of my notebook and give it back to me in the same condition as it was when I gave it to you earlier. Sheesh, you’re so full of yourself. Thinking you can flatter your way through everyone.” Himchan shakes his head, annoyed.
Yongguk still stands there, with a big smile on his face lighting up again. “Only you, Himchan.”
“UGH! Leave me alone, you…you…whatever. I’ve got other more important things to do than talking with you,” Himchan turns around and goes to leave. Yongguk watches as Himchan walks away before he turns around to shout, “AND DON’T FORGET TO GIVE ME BACK MY NOTEBOOK IN PRISTINE CONDITION!”
Yongguk watches as Himchan storms off, and chuckles to himself. Bang Yongguk 1, Moon Himchan 0.