i like your hair
In which soulmates have matching hair colours, and Myungjun finds himself with a surprisingly vibrant combination of colours.
♦ Pairing: uni student!Myungjun x uni student!OC (Minhee)
♦ Supporting characters: the rest of Astro and SinB
♦ Genre: comedy + fluff
♦ Words: 3.4k
♦ Dedicated to: @majesticfudgingeagle from me aka your aroha secret admirer. ❤️ I hope you like my little gift! Thank you so much for always responding to my messages with enthusiasm. You are such a sweet person, and I absolutely loved talking to you! Hope we can stay in contact in the future! ❤️
Kim Myungjun was sure that the whole soulmate thing was nothing but a stroke of luck.
Sure, Moonbin's hair turned blonde the moment Eunbi dyed her hair for the first time in her life, Jinwoo woke up with orange curls one day and the previous victim was Sanha whose hair turned lavender in the middle of a lecture. It was nothing new though as it was said that soulmates had matching hair colours, so when one dyed his or her hair, the other's also turned out the same way. It was said to make the whole soulmate thing easier, but it also meant that the number of people with vibrant colours doubled every single time someone changed their appearance. Not to mention that even if you found yourself with a whole new hair colour, you couldn't be sure that you would find your soulmate. They could still live on the other side of the world, there was no guarantee that they would be beside you like in Moonbin and Eunbi's case.
But him, Kim Myungjun, the jokester of the social studies department, one of the hidden cards of the sociology majors, friends of five dumb but very lovable guys, a loyal son and a true trot song lover, he has never experienced any of it. He was chocolate-brown from the moment he was born, and he didn't intend to change his hair colour anytime soon, thus he hoped that his soulmate didn't intend to change either.
It was supposed to be another one of those chill days when the six guys didn’t have any tests or group projects for their uni classes, so they could peacefully have lunch together, yet of course, even this day had to turn out differently.
“Oh my gosh, look at him!”
“It must be because of his soulmate.”
“Again? I always preferred him with black.”
More and more murmurs filled the university cafeteria as Jinwoo showed up, and even though he was apparently quite short compared to the rest of the guys in his friends’ group, his vividly green hair colour attracted way too many gazes that day. Even though he tried to hide the obvious change of colour by putting on his favourite baseball cap, some of the locks were still very much visible, thus the dumbfounded and overly curious reactions were understandable.
“He looks like a piece of grass,” Sanha chortled whole-heartedly at the sight of the boy who sat down at the guys' table with a silly smile plastered onto his face.
“I'm not the one who looks like a field of lavender,” Jinwoo gritted through his teeth, making the younger boy place a hand on his heart.
“Oh, I'm so sorry that my soulmate has a good taste in colours,” he boasted with a cheeky smile and the elder couldn't do anything but to wave him off.
“Go to your lecture instead!”
“With pleasure,” the younger boy snickered as he said goodbye to the guys one by one, except the one who told him off. Everyone bid their farewell in their own way, Minhyuk with a flick of his wrist, Dongmin with a shy smile, Moonbin with a huge grin and Myungjun with an overly excited wave of both of his hands. They frequently had lunch together at the university's cafeteria, but knowing each other's schedules, they knew that Sanha was the only one who would have a class after their lunch break. To be precise, Minhyuk had one too (technically) but after sleeping through two elective Psychology classes, he decided to spend this time doing something else rather than sleeping.
“Your soulmate must love experimenting with the colours ever since her red attempt,” Moonbin remarked with a sly smirk, knowing all too well that he was lucky because Eunbi didn't frequently dye her hair, the blonde one was her first and last attempt, so he was back to black ever since.
“It's not that bad though. At least, you know what looks good on you and what doesn't,” Myungjun commented in between two little fists of laughter but the one involved couldn't smile whole-heartedly. He looked almost as sad as a newborn puppy when it was reprimanded for something mischievous he had committed.
“I hope your soulmate will dye her hair pink, so that you can suffer as much as I do,” Jinwoo teased, leaning closer to Myungjun who didn't back away from the staring contest. He knew well that Jinwoo was an extra guy but so was he, so he couldn’t say no to such a challenge.
“Oh, you know that it wouldn't happen anyway! My soulmate loves her natural colour way too much,” he retorted cockily and stuck his tongue out at his dear friend while the others laughed whole-heartedly and secretly hoped for a good continuation of the two jokesters’ conversation. They were watching the scene as if it was an episode from a comedy because with these guys, it was a real-life comedy indeed.
“We'll see about that.” Jinwoo huffed as he quirked an eyebrow in question.
“We’ll see, indeed,” Myungjun repeated as he raised his chin up high, hoping that he would look more confident this way, but he looked even sillier than before.
They kept the eye-contact for a minute more and they would have kept it even longer if someone hadn't walked by their table.
“Hey, Minhee! Wanna join us?” Moonbin hollered the moment the said girl wanted to walk past them, probably not taking notice of the group of friends. Myungjun's head immediately snapped at the familiar name and his eyes were immediately averted to the girl.
Minhee was probably the loveliest girl he had the chance to meet during his lectures, they worked on a group project together for one of their classes, plus they were the only two out of the five group members who at least made an effort to contribute to the outcome. He didn’t want to introduce her to the guys on purpose, yet ever since they left the lecture hall together and bumped into Minhyuk and Moonbin, his friends couldn't stop playing the matchmaker. They took each and every chance to get these two to talk because they knew Myungjun had a slight crush on the girl. Not like it had helped him in any way, if anything, he was just more nervous around her ever since his friends knew about Minhee.
“Yeah, sure. If you don't mind,” Minhee said casually and looked at the boys for any kind of disapproval, yet as expected, she didn't encounter any.
Luckily (or not), the only remaining seat at the table was beside Myungjun, and the guys couldn't have been happier about it. Unlike he himself who nearly had a heart attack when she plumped down beside him. Luckily, he had enough time to gather his courage and speak up because she was too immersed into opening her soda can that she didn’t even look in his direction for the first minute or so.
“How’s your week going?” Myungjun turned to the girl with that trademark angelic smile of his, hoping that his slight annoyance from before couldn't be seen. She finally opened the can, and triumphantly took a gulp from the cold drink before she responded.
“Good. How about you?” Minhee nodded with an equally wide smile, turning to the Sociology major. Myungjun found it hard to concentrate on forming words when she was so close to him and he was never one to know when to shut up, so it was quite an achievement on her part. Yet, her beautiful, almond-shaped eyes that resembled tiny little jewels, her lips that always curled upwards, her cute little dimples and birthmarks that were scattered all over her face like dots on a palette, they were all so mesmerizing, and she didn't need neither makeup, nor vivid lipstick to look good. She was naturally this charming.
“I-I'm good, thank you,” he stumbled on his words, and he could see from the corner of his eyes that his friends tried their best not to laugh and they even covered their mouths to not make any noise.
“How about you, guys?” Minhee turned to the others, saving Myungjun from a possible heart attack triggered by her intense stare on him.
“We're doing really well.” Jinwoo nodded fervently, his face red from trying to suppress his laughter. The others couldn’t speak up either because they were too scared of laughing straight into their friend’s face, maybe except Dongmin who regained his usual calm demeanour quite quickly.
Then, Minhee also caught sight of Jinwoo’s green locks, yet instead of staring at him open-mouthed like some girls did, she merely gave him a thumbs-up.
“Oh, what a nice hair colour you have there!”
“Oh well, that's thanks to my soulmate,” the green-haired guy explained with a shy smile, but before things could get out of control, and Jinwoo could get too immersed into talking about his hair, Moonbin cut him off. He had been waiting for this moment for a week anyway, he didn’t need Jinwoo to ruin his big plan.
“Actually, we were just talking about the Halloween party we're about to organize at our place. Would you like to join us?” Moonbin changed the subject ever so smoothly, hoping to take this opportunity to invite her over.
It's not like this Halloween party was anything huge, it would include just the six of them and other friends dressing up, playing games and watching movies together, yet Minhee had never been to any of their parties, and Myungjun wasn't really excited about embarrassing himself in front of her because of his friends (because such party would involve embarrassing storytimes too), so he kicked Moonbin's leg under the table.
Yet, just in time with the girl's answer, did the pain finally set in and Moonbin’s lips parted.
“Yes, sure.”
“Arrrrrghwellthatsamazing,” Moonbin exclaimed as he smiled through the pain, trying his best to act as natural as possible.
Though his plan worked despite every opposition on Myungjun’s part. Minhee said yes, and if anything, that was surely nerve-wrecking for him. He really didn't see that coming. What was he supposed to dress up as anyway? What was he supposed to do with her at the party?
What was he supposed to do now?
“What the... Oh my gosh... No no no, it can't happen... Oh my gosh... NO!!!”
Myungjun's high-pitched scream could be heard from all floors of the dormitory, his almost life-or-death kinda exclaim waking up at least 5 clueless students in the building including poor Jinwoo who could hardly fall asleep after staying up to finish one of his papers in the last minute. Needless to say, he wasn't all too happy to be woken up at 7 when he didn't have classes until 11.
“What on Earth is wrong with you?” Jinwoo yelled as he knocked on the bathroom door, knowing that the voice was coming from there.
“Jinwoo, please, don't laugh at me!” Myungjun pleaded as he opened the door and it was already on the tip of his tongue that he would never laugh at him (which wasn't the truth, of course, it was more like a friendly reassurance) when he immediately burst into laughter.
“Oh man, karma is really something.” He chortled non-stop as he caught sight of his friend's slightly interesting and slightly not common hair colour(s).
“Yah, it's not funny!” Myungjun sulked as he smacked Jinwoo in the chest, but the boy was laughing nevertheless.
“Well, I guess you could say that you don't need to come up with an idea for the costume. You already look like the male version of Harley Quinn,” he remarked casually as he pointed at his hair which really resembled that the said female character's style. Now that he looked at it this way, Myungjun could finally see why his soulmate must have chosen these exact colours, otherwise it looked quite random, especially on his short hair.
“Do you think that makes me happier?” Myungjun exclaimed frantically, his voice ridiculously higher than usual.
Jinwoo shrugged his shoulders, the smirk not leaving his face.
“Well yeah. After all, you are the one who always looks at things on the bright side.”
“This is the worst thing that could have happened to me, especially on this day!” He complained furiously, thinking how he could make up an excuse not to go to Moonbin's Halloween party. There's no way he would want to represent himself in front of Minhee with such a look. No way!
Myungjun spent the whole morning complaining, childishly sulking and bawling his eyes out because he was sure that he would mess up his chance with Minhee at the party if he looked like that. After two hours of trying to ignore him by putting on his headphones and listening to his favourite punk-rock songs, Jinwoo couldn't bear it any longer, and told him that he would help him with his costume if he stopped acting like it was the end of the world when it wasn't even that big of a deal. At least, he didn't need to come up with a costume idea like him who never knew with which hair colour he would end up in the morning.
In the end, Jinwoo managed to convince his friend to actually dress up as the male version of Harley Quinn, and he himself chose a fairy outfit. A modern one, to be precise, more like a fairy prince. Though Myungjun didn't really like the idea in the beginning, at least he could say that the sudden change in his hair colour was because of his costume and no one could question him. He prayed that his soulmate would get back to the natural colour once Halloween is over. Why would anyone dye their hair like that if not for Halloween? At least, he hoped so... He prayed... He would give anything to go back to his beloved chocolate-brown, he would even trade Jinwoo for it. Okay, maybe not him but anyway, the thing is that he was very, very desperate.
It didn't help either that Jinwoo used his yearly amount of compliments on that one day to make him feel better.
“You look absolutely fine, dude, believe me!” Jinwoo tried to reassure him as they were in the elevator to reach Moonbin's flat on the 9th floor. Unlike Jinwoo and Myungjun who were in the dormitory together, Moonbin, Dongmin and Minhyuk shared a flat together close to the university while Sanha with his parents in the downtown of Seoul.
“I just hope people won't be curious how I dyed my hair like this,” Myungjun declared rather sadly, and as soon as the words left his mouth, he turned to his friend with sheer panic in his eyes. “Do you know any famous hair care brands?”
“It's going to be fine, dude.” Jinwoo rolled his eyes and pushed Myungjun out of the elevator. He may have been able to keep his cool longer than other people in general, but his patience was wearing thin this time. He didn't know how long he could take it.
Luckily, Moonbin, Dongmin and Minhyuk's flat was just in front of the elevator, so after a knock on the door, the hosts were already inviting them in.
“Cool costumes, guys!” Dongmin complimented with a bright smile when he caught sight of the guys, his eyes scanning them from head to toe. Though he wasn't the most enthusiastic about their appearance.
“Oh my god, look at you, MJ! Oh my god!” Moonbin hollered, and constantly shook Minhyuk's body, almost as if he had been playing with a mere toy. The younger boy glanced at him but didn't say a single world. “Are you trying to steal my best costume of the year trophy?” The boy asked as he theatrically put a hand over his heart.
Moonbin was indeed last year's winner with his Jack Sparrow costume which was (of course) not his idea but Dongmin's, yet Dongmin was okay in his tiger onesie, said to be Tiger from Winnie the Pooh while Minhyuk was Pooh. Though this year the three of them had a group costume, Dongmin was Jungkook, Minhyuk was Hoseok and Moonbin was Jimin from BTS, all of their clothes from the Blood, Sweat and Tears era. Needless to say, they were already popular with the ladies much to Eunbi's dismay.
“Ah no, not at all!” Myungjin laughed nervously, hoping that the others couldn't see how uncomfortable he was.
“Alright then, I'll let you in!” Moonbin joked accompanied by his trademark eye smile and made way for the two to come into their flat which was already buzzing with familiar and not-so-familiar people dressed up as more and more eccentric figures. There were the traditional costumes like Sailor Moon, vampires, witches, Batman, L from the Death Note, yet there were people disguised as The Pope, Harry Styles and even the dude from the PPAP video.
Seeing all the colourful clothes and all the different hair styles, Myungjun's frazzled nerves weren't so frazzled anymore. He could easily mingle in with the others, and even just the thought of being normal amongst all these costumes helped to put his mind at ease. Not until Minhee showed up, did he start panicking again, though it was a different kind of panic than before. Why?
Because Kwon Minhee, his one and only crush, the one with the prettiest smile and the brightest star-lit eyes, the brain of the social studies department, the owner of the cutest laugh ever, was dressed up as Harley Quinn. The Harley Quinn.
“Dude, you didn’t tell me that you two had a couple costume.” Jinwoo smacked his friend in the chest when he caught sight of the pretty girl who looked really badass in her torn shorts, white sleeveless shirt, red elbow pads, grey fishnet and black boots. Her hair was dyed red, blue and white just like Myungjun’s, parted in two and put up in two high ponytails. He had never thought that he would see her in such a costume! It was absolutely unbelievable, his jaw literally dropped when he saw her.
“Because we‒” Myungjun tried to speak up but he was immediately cut off by Jinwoo who put the pieces together after seeing his dumbfounded expression.
“Oh my gosh, you can’t say that….” He exclaimed as the realization hit him hard, yet the moment the girl looked in their direction, Jinwoo waved at her to gain her attention. “Minhee, hey!” He shouted despite the silent disagreement of Myungjun who wished nothing but to evaporate right then and there. “Quick question, when did you dye your hair?”
Minhee looked absolutely stunned, not just because of the Myungjun’s similar costume, but also because of Jinwoo’s prying. She was still in the state of utter shock when she answered his question.
“Last night.”
“When exactly?”
“Around 11pm,” she answered still in awe, her eyes darting between the two guys' faces.
Jinwoo squealed a bit like a fangirl when she sees her favourite idol on stage, and Myungjun didn't even know that he (that any human being) was capable of such a sound. Though it was still better than being hit on the shoulder multiple times after his fairy prince friend also realized what had been circulating in his head ever since Minhee showed up at the party.
“So you guys are...” He stopped mid-sentence, so that he could yell as loudly as possible when the thought really hit him hard. “SOULMATES???”
A couple of people glanced in their way at Jinwoo's choice of words (and his loudness too), one of them was Moonbin whose eyes widened, looking like they were about to pop off.
“SOULMATES?” He exclaimed just as enthusiastically as his friend, and immediately started clapping.
It didn’t take long until everyone joined in and congratulated the two very flustered and very nervous youngsters who exchanged a knowing look. Now everything seemed to make sense. Why they got along so well from the start even though they were quite different and usually liked completely different things, how she could laugh at his lame jokes even though they weren’t even good, how he could always sense when she needed support from him, how they always seemed to bump into each other after their very first encounter…
It was all so obvious now. They were meant to be, and it was (with the Halloween party, their unintentionally chosen couple costume and the best costume award that they took home after the event), well, it was really just the beginning.