#AND THE PLOT THICKENS GOOD JOB LEEHAN

[rentenwins]

silly little excuses (newneighbour!leehan x reader)

ch 1 • ch 2 • ch 3 • ch 4

synopsis: and so they scheme... well, at least your friends do. leehan decides to show he cares in the way that he knows best (i.e an attempt that hopes it isn't too obvious). though really, he only has sungho to thank. you being you, know exactly what your friends are trying to do.

content: sungho and taesan being lil shits (pt idk i lost count), mild cussing, a little timeskip, leehan is very very SHY and flustered, riwoo mention!!, jaehyun is probably a finance bro, the bnd members as a plot device, food/drink mention, it's very fluffy, a lot of banter between friends <3

a/n: BEEN A WHILE SINCE THE LAST CHAPTER OMG this was super fun to write, i love this chapter so much. this one's kinda long too oml... once again, if you would like to be added to the taglist, please drop an ask in my inbox or comment under any of the chapters <3 happy comeback szn!!

wc: 2113

taglist: @haechology @jenuinne @saintriots @badaspookie @yveol @yunextdoor @lailols @rawrbamgyu @amarecerasus @pandorahearts19 @luvvhaerin @saritahwang

chapter 4: studying... or not really

The semester carries on. So it goes, even with a good looking-neighbour. Sometimes as you take the elevator down to check on your mailbox, you catch Taesan and Leehan together with the occasional Jaehyun. Often they are huddled outside a little seating area outside your complex, munching on convenience store food as Jaehyun yaps away about his life at business school. Leehan seems to be attentive while Taesan decides the side of his kimbap packaging is more interesting than Jaehyun’s incompetent lecturer. 

One particular night, Leehan catches your eye as you come out of the elevator. He waves a little in your direction before listening in again in the conversation with Taesan and Riwoo this time, a rare occurrence since Riwoo practically lives at the university with his dance practices and club activities. You walk back to the elevator after gathering some letters, but Taesan and Riwoo catch your eye and each suggestively wiggle your eyebrows while Taesan darts his eyes at Leehan throwing his rubbish in the bin a few steps away. You were flabbergasted to say the least, wondering how long they could keep up with their antics. Before you could flip them off, Leehan turns around and comes back to sit with the other two, and Riwoo and Taesan continue chatting like nothing happened. 

Them and their little group, despite all their different majors, you often catch them studying in the same nature too. Sometimes they choose break out spaces with couches to study, sometimes they decide on a big meeting table in a silent area in the times they decide to be studious. You found yourself in one of the said meeting tables with Sungho and Taesan on the other end of the table since your presentation board frankly took up too much space on one end. As you work on your board, you catch these two with shit-eating grins, only to widen as you give them a questioning look, Sungho even having the audacity to wink obnoxiously at you as he tries not to burst out laughing. 

A few minutes later, you realise why they’d been so smug. The door to the silent study area opens gently along with the waft of a familiar perfume. Sungho looks up and mouths a ‘hi’ to Leehan who had just walked through the door, Taesan gestures to the chair in between you and himself for Leehan to sit down on. The grip on your pencil tightens slightly along with a hitch of your breath before you hear your heart thumping in your stomach. Leehan smiles all friendly towards you and you smile back with a nod before knocking your headphones back over your ears and continuing to work, blasting the music to distract you.

You can feel Taesan’s eyes burning into your skull but you couldn’t afford for Leehan to see the blush rapidly forming on your face. You only dare to look up at your work when Leehan gets up for either a bathroom break or to print some of his work. Sungho’s eyes always seem to yell ‘Why are you so quiet, huh?’ and Taesan’s shit-eating grin never needs any elaboration. 

Because of that fateful day, Taesan and Sungho find you in the same spot every Wednesday afternoon, Leehan in tow behind them or coming a few minutes later. On this particular day, you swear you were about to curse Taesan and Sungho out for the rest of eternity.

Almost as immediately as Leehan had arrived at your usual desk, Taesan and Sungho stood, but made no move to clear their study areas. Sungho whispers to Leehan as to not distract anyone else, and you swear you see Leehan’s eyes widen in realisation before whipping his head to Taesan, and the two promptly leave the room. Amidst this whole interaction, you caught on quickly. Leehan, in his shock, looks at you as you simply shrug. The boy next to you reluctantly looks back at his laptop before going back to work.

—

The next day, you catch Sungho at the student cafe. You approach him with an unimpressed face and he looks confused, then catches on right away trying not to burst out into giggles.

“So…” You start. 

“So… how was your little alone time with Mr Corydora yesterday?”

You scoff at Sungho’s joke, “Haha, very funny. A horrible stunt you and Taesan pulled yesterday, by the way.”

“What do you mean?” Sungho feigns innocence as he shoves his hands into his jacket, “Taesan and I just had to a take a little break, what about it?”

You groan as he laughs. “You made it out alive! It’s fine!”. You groan again as you remember what had happened yesterday.

As the two boys left, it left you and Leehan alone. To say the vibe was awkward was an understatement. 

You hear Leehan mutter something under his breath, but when you look up he’s just promptly staring and typing into his laptop.

“Oh, did you say something Leehan?” You say. Leehan darts his head to you to the point where you worry for his neck tendons. Now you realise, there’s never really a time where he hasn’t looked at you without giving himself whiplash.

“Oh! N-no, nothing. Don’t worry about it," He coughs awkwardly, "hey, uh… so what’re you… what are you working on?” Smooth Leehan, he curses to himself.

You chatter about your sketches for your submissions and the difference in each of them, trying to simplify your work and not be too technical. Leehan nods along to your explanations as he looks intently into your work. It endeared you, to be honest, he looked genuinely intrigued by your work and even more intrigued when you mentioned you had to make a model out of it by the end of the semester as well. 

“What about you?“ you ask in turn, “what’re you working on?”. His smile turns sad as he turns to his laptop. “Just some memorisation on different types of viruses and formation of ecosystems. I have a lab tomorrow so I’m hoping some readings and videos might help.”

You see a notebook near his laptop and you glance at his notes, surprised by the neatness of his handwriting and various diagrams scattered across the pages. He seems to notice you looking over as he continues,

“Then after all of this, my mid-semester is submission-based, which to be honest isn’t my strong suit. I prefer tests and exams any day.” He sighs again as you hum in acknowledgment. 

“Well, you know, if you need any help, I don’t mind helping. My degree is pretty much submission and writing based too.” You offer as you gesture to your sketches.

His face brightens at your words, much like a puppy who’s about to be fed their first meal of the day. Suddenly, his eyes drag behind you and he blushed furiously whilst gritting his teeth. Out of curiosity, you turn around to face the glass walls and catch a glimpse of Taesan and Sungho leaning against the railings across the closed off study area. You catch Sungho’s eye as he feigns innocence with a wave and a disgustingly teasing wink, though you were unsure if it was for you or the boy beside you. Taesan almost creepily mirrors his movements beside him.

You groan internally as you turn back to your work, deciding to just ignore them. It was Leehan’s turn to shrug your way, not without ears as red as a Bloody Mary.

“Sungho, don’t think you were slick with that one. You should’ve seen Leehan when you—“

“When I looked at you and you knew at that moment I figured you out?”

“Yes! Wait, wha— wait no! That’s not what I meant—“

Sungho guffaws almost a little too loud as the other students waiting for their drinks steal glances towards where you and Sungho stood.

“So you admit to it?”

“No! Oh my gosh, you’re impossible,” you wonder what you did in your past life that made you end up being Sungho’s ultimate victim. “you are reading into this too much, stop trying to imagine things in your head that will never happen, it’s like you’re in a fanfiction or something. Geez…” you trail off.

Sungho does nothing but stick his tongue out like a child, before going up to the counter to pick up his drink. 

“Oh hi.” A familiar voice comes from your left and you turn. Before you greet the voice back, Sungho beats you to it.

“Oi Leehan! Hi!”

“Hello, Sungho. Where’s mine, huh?” Leehan gestures to the cup in Sungho’s hands, jokingly.

There’s a glint of humour in Sungho’s eyes. “Lucky day, my man, this one is actually for you!” Sungho shoves the cup his direction and Leehan has no choice but to grip the cup to avoid spilling it onto you. Leehan looks at the writing on the lid and frowns,

“But you know I don’t li—“

“It’s. For. You,” Sungho smiles a bit too innocently as he shrugs his shoulder bag properly. “I gotta meet someone! I’m gonna be late. I’ll see you guys later, yeah? Bye!” and Sungho walks with a spring in his step despite his brisk movements.

You cough awkwardly, as you stare off at Sungho’s form getting smaller the further he walks. Leehan is awkwardly gripping the cup next to you.

“So…”

“So… any chance you like an oat milk chai?” Leehan’s hand extends to yours. The familiar drink order sounds strange coming from Leehan’s mouth, you don’t ever recall telling him your cafe order. Unless—

“Oh, that prick,” You mutter under your breath. Leehan tilts his head at you confusingly. “Sorry, I didn’t catch tha—“

“Nothing! It’s nothing. I’ll have it though, thank you.” You reach out for the cup, not without the tips of both of your fingers brushing against each other’s as light as humanly possible. You swear you see the boy’s ears turn red. Surely he knows too…

“Uh, so. You have class now?” He asks. You answer ‘mhm’ as you take a sip of the drink. “Ah, I’ll walk you to your class if you’d like.”

Had you not already swallowed the sip, you definitely would’ve spat it out at the boys’s question. Instead, you ceremonially almost dangerously choke on your saliva.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to hold you up or anythi—“

“Don’t worry, I just had my last class and I got time to kill anyway.” Leehan smiles at you with an odd determination (friendliness?) in his eyes. It makes you want to smile at him too, so you do. You murmur an ‘alright’ as you lead the way.

You couldn’t tell if it was purposeful or not, but as you and Leehan walked, despite the very wide path across campus, Leehan’s shoulder occasionally brushed yours as he asked about your day. It felt funny, a little dooming if you were to be honest, that a very pretty boy would want to be in such vicinity with you, let alone walk you to class during a time where you often dread to just be home in bed.

Realistically, the walk from the cafe was only five minutes. But with Leehan it felt like it was too short.

“Mid-sems going okay?” Leehan asks after a few beats of silence.

“It’s been alright,” you say with a subconscious sad smile, “It’s been hard to focus since everything is going on at the same time. I haven’t had a lot of chances for breaks of anything of the sort.” You turn your head to Leehan, and his eyes are filled with nothing but sympathy.

“Well, just another week of submissions to go ‘til the study break. You’ll make it through!” Leehan says enthusiastically, bringing a smile to your face.

“You too, of course. But how’d you know that?” You ask him, face beginning to burn not because of the warm drink in your hand.

“Of course I know. You’ve worked so hard there’s no chance you won’t do amazingly.” He smiles at you, genuine and all. You feel flustered at his words, and it seems like he feels the same as Leehan turns his head away with a shy smile. 

You mutter a thank you and Leehan hums quietly in response. You feel his arm linger a little longer against your arm before he pulls away, but you didn’t feel averted to it at all. You were almost disappointed when you no longer felt the contact.

It isn’t until you get inside class after bidding Leehan goodbye that you realise your face was incredibly hot and the adrenaline pumping through you, despite the lack of caffeine in your chai latte.