* ♪ – nothing to see here
kou is a little strange, but very nice. this is what joomi has learned after being neighbors and friends with him for a while. however weird it may be that they both ended up on a kpop survival show together, joomi is more relieved they’re on the same team this round than he thought he might be. to be fair, he never really considered working with kou as a possibility, too focused on merely surviving last round and refusing to think about his fate on the show longterm, but here they are now.
the other day, he and kou left practice at the same time and took the bus home together. that much happens often enough, but joomi crashing on kou’s couch is a little more unusual. he lives right next door, after all, but kou always tells him his apartment is open for him and sometimes joomi just doesn’t want to deal with his roommate at all while he’s already under the stress of next gen. he doesn’t need extra bullshit on his plate, so sometimes he does hide out with kou to avoid him. thankfully, kou isn’t all that bright and never really asks him why he chooses to stay over sometimes. joomi hopes he thinks he just wants to hang out or something, and it’s not like he doesn’t. that’s just not his main priority for falling asleep on kou’s sofa.
the other day, he woke up way too late, forgot to pack a new set of clothes for that day, and didn’t have time to go next door and pack up his own things, so he borrowed one of kou’s shirts and decided the pants he wore the day before weren’t too gross to wear a second day in a row.
after practice that day, he did the only polite thing and washed the shirt of kou’s that he borrowed, but naturally...he forgot to return that to kou at a reasonable time, too, and then they somehow keep missing each other outside of practice, so joomi just resolves to keep kou’s shirt in his practice bag, which brings him to today.
he and kou both end up at their group’s arranged practice session a little early, so joomi sees this as his opportunity. “kou!” he gets his attention, a bit more enthusiastically than is typical of him. “i have your shirt,” and with that, he rolls the shirt up in a ball and throws it toward his friend. in retrospect, he probably should’ve just gone over and handed it to him, and he surely could’ve given the shirt to him sometime outside of filming hours, but...too late for that now. he justifies this to himself: maybe kou really liked the shirt and wanted it back as soon as possible? what if joomi kept forgetting or the timing of them seeing each other out of practice continued to not line up? whatever. this will work.
* @kouxbe