#Joshua is internally freaking out and is very excited lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pixiewriting · 7 years

Text

college!au minghao (pt 1)

summary: you're in your first year of university, and you find a best friend in joshua hong. He introduces you to his friends, and a interesting relationship ensues when you embarrass yourself in front of his friend minghao.

genre: fluff

pairing: minghao/the8 x reader

warnings: has some language sometimes, though I'm assumin f*ck and sh*t don’t bother you guys lol

word count: 3.9k

a/n: hey y'all! here’s my first little story I’m posting on here. the first chapter is kind of long, sorry lol. i’m not sure how long it’ll end up being, but it’s more of a ‘figure it out as you go’ kinda thing lol. i have it posted on archive of our own too!

(part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5)

You scurried through the courtyard, a little out of breath, as you were late for class. You were hopping over bushes, and dodging tree branches. You’re almost to class when you feel a branch catch your sweater, and pulls you back abruptly. You keep pulling away, and the branch tears your sweater and cuts your skin a little. You let out a little ‘ouch,’ and pull the branch out of your sweater. You’re hoping subconsciously that nobody saw that little fiasco, and as you look around, you see one tall boy covering his mouth, laughing. You felt mortified that one of your peers had seen you sprinting through the courtyard and cutting your arm on a tree branch. You tossed your hair behind your ears and kept running, class still on your mind.

After making it to class with only minutes to spare, you sat around the rest of class trying to catch your breath and pay attention. The teacher was talking about chemical bonds, and normally this would be interesting to you, but for some reason you just couldn’t focus. You sat back against the chair, and blew out a puff of air, and tapped your pencil methodically on your paper for a minute. An image flashed into your mind of that tall boy laughing at you, and you almost smacked your head to get the picture out of your mind. It wasn’t something you wanted to recall! So what if he saw me? You thought, beginning to pep yourself up from your embarrassment. Fuck other people’s opinions! you nodded to yourself. Besides, he probably guessed you were late to class anyway. It’s not that big of a deal! you reassured yourself. You made this weird face that was kinda like ‘hell yeah I love being my biggest supporter.’

At this moment, the teachers voice broke through your self absorbed haze, announcing class was up, and to not forget about the paper due next week. You were already about half way done with that paper, and you made a mental note to finish it up early next week, with time to spare before it was due. You walked out of class slowly, tired from the sprinting you did earlier. You might as well have not gone to that class anyway, seeing how you couldn’t focus the whole time and missed the lecture. You waved your hand around your face, knowing it was fine because you were a good student and there were resources online. You pass by the courtyard, and you find the culprit tree that caught you, and give it a dirty look. You notice a bit of your sweater and a tiny blood stain on the branch. “God.” you mumbled.

You were in your first year of college, and on the path to studying international business, though you knew that your interest could probably change next week. You were more introverted, so you didn’t mind being alone, although you did have a few friends. One friend you had made recently, Joshua, in your bio class, was very nice. He helped you with his notes if you missed something, and was a nice person to have around. He was one of those people that you could sit around and not have to say anything to enjoy each other’s presence, which was something made the good-friend-siren in your head go off. You were about to meet him in the courtyard, nearby that goddamn fucking tree. You waited at a picnic table, head resting on the wood, sun warming your back, eyes comfortably shut, and ready to snooze.

You hear Joshua coming before you can completely fade away, and sit up, chin resting up in your hand. “Hey, Josh,” you said, as he was sitting down. “What’s up?”

He smiled, and set his bag on the picnic table. “My lit class was incredibly boring.” He said. You groaned in sympathy. “Dude, fuck Shakespeare,” you said nonchalantly. “The guy just kills lovers and writes in this old english no one can understand, so you have to completely rely on the Spark Notes translation.”

Joshua laughed. “He’s considered one of the greatest english writers of all time.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to continue considering that.” you countered.

The two of you kept talking for a while about some bullshit stuff, and then Joshua looked over and yelled some hellos at someone. You looked over, and saw the boy that had been laughing at you earlier. He was waving to Joshua from across the courtyard. Your cheeks flushed bright red, and you slapped your hands against your cheeks. “Shit!” you cursed. Joshua looked over in confusion, and you watched as the boy was making his way to the two of you. “I gotta go! I embarrassed myself in front of that guy and I’m not about to make this weird!” You grabbed your book bag in a hurry, and scrambled off, tripping over your shoe as you do so. You landed on your stomach, and just closed your eyes as you laid in the grass and accepted your fate for death. Being clumsy is a personal hell. You groaned, and rolled over. Sunshine was streaming over your face, and you squinted against the sun. Remembering the boy, you jolted up, and jogged across the courtyard, not daring to look back, because you knew Joshua and the boy had seen you fall. You’d heard Joshua laugh. God.

Back in your dorm, you hopped on the bed and kicked your legs around, and rolled over a bit in frustration. I’m such a dumbass!!!!!!! was the ringing phrase running through your head for a good five minutes. You decided to text Joshua, and you typed “fml.” That simple phrase was all you needed to convey your absolute embarrassment to Joshua. He replied with a long “lmaoooooo” and you groaned. You sent a frowny face back and Joshua told you that it was okay, and tried to make you feel better like the nice guy he is. You really hoped you’d never see that guy again. Joshua typed, “Minghao and I thought it was funny! You’re just a comedian don’t freak” and you could finally put a name to the boy who’d you completely ruined your image in front of. Minghao. Alright.

You sent back something about never being so embarrassed in your life and hoping you’d never see Minghao again and you knew Joshua was probably just laughing back in his dorm. The fuck! You’d just have to forget about it and never think about it again. Might as well pour bleach over your brain to completely get rid of the memory. You jumped up and shook your body out a little, and decided a shower would clear your mind.

Freshly cleansed and now a bit more level headed, you sat down to catch up on some homework, and then found yourself knocking out for the night.

The next few days passed without incident, thankfully, and you and Joshua continued to meet in the courtyard and just do homework together, sometimes making a comment about how nice the weather was or a comment about being pissed off about class. It was ideal.

This weekend there was a big party at this frat house, and Joshua suggested for you to go with him. You easily agreed. You weren’t about to turn down an opportunity to party, because after a few weeks of being introverted you look for a big social interaction for have fun at, and then withdraw for a few days again afterwards.

You and Joshua were fast becoming close friends, and could predict each other’s sentences and reactions. You liked to call him Joshy sometimes to see how frazzled he would get and then this exasperation would wash over him.

You two arrived at the party, expectant. You went into the party excited, ready to let loose after dedicating so much time to school recently. You and Josh didn’t stay together the whole time, you both separated off and found your other friends eventually. Your other friends liked to tease you about Joshua and that you liked him, and you would just sigh. Joshua? A boyfriend? No. That’s not what you wanted, and not what he wanted either. You two were just friends, and could relate to one another easily. You eventually were a little tipsy, and having fun dancing with your friends. Joshua came by and laughed at your tipsy state for a while, and then told you he had to go because he forgot about a paper. You gave him a thumbs up, and wished him luck on the paper.

Once he left, was when things went… different.

You, in your tipsy state, were just a social butterfly and wanted to tell everyone how happy you were. Embarrassing. You didn’t notice him across the room, laughing at you again. You excused yourself to the kitchen, to get some water and rewind. You were kind of dizzy from all that dancing and singing. Someone entered in the kitchen behind you, but you were focused on drinking this water to get the small amount of alcohol out of your system. A voice behind you caused you to jolt and drop the red solo cup of water into the sink. “Nice dance moves; they look a bit similar to the way you run frantically.” A feeling in your gut told you who that was.

You closed your eyes, and immediately started screaming internally. Just when you thought that everything was fine! You reluctantly turned around, and found the tall boy just a few feet away. You cursed under your breath, a habit you couldn’t break. “Uhhhh…” you said, floundering. “Hi.”

He laughed, this time not covering his mouth with his hand. “Hi.” He said back. Why couldn’t he just have ignored you and not ever brought up the incidents again! Why must he torture you!

You were going to make a move to slip away, anything to escape this dreaded situation, but you felt the dizziness hit you again. You did feel dehydrated, as you didn’t get to drink much of that water, or anything that whole night, before you spilled it in the sink. You stumbled, and held on to the counter, almost forgetting the boy beside you for a minute. Minghao, you remembered his name, reached out to steady you. You gritted your teeth. Were you about to embarrass yourself in front of him again? Probably.

“Sorry,” you stuttered. “I’m just kinda dizzy.”

He looked worried. “Come on, let’s go find somewhere quiet.”

He led you around the house, and your cheeks were flushed in anguish. Eventually, you two had to settle for outside, because the house was full of drunk dancing people. He wasn’t drunk though, which you found a bit odd, because it is a frat party. Isn’t that what people do at frat parties?

He sat you down on this brick stone wall, and he sat down next to you. Your heart was hammering in your chest with him this close to you. Your embarrassing antics kept flashing through your mind, as well as the way he had laughed at you. The warm late summer air was a bit chilled at night, and it felt nice on your skin. You sighed. “I’m sorry for being a weirdo.” you mumbled. You couldn’t dare look at him.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” His voice was soothing, and made you feel weirdly better. “Why were you so weird around me anyway?” he asked. You looked over at him, curious. “You don’t know that already?” you asked. He shook his head. He had this slightly confused look on his face, his brows pulled in, eyes darting around your face, studying your expression.

You kind of made this exasperated laugh, like the one Joshua made when you called him Joshy. “ I made a fool out of myself in front of you and I was just assuming you would make fun of me if we confronted one another. I just choose to avoid situations like that. ”

Minghao chuckled a little. “I might’ve teased you, you’re right about that.” You rolled your eyes. Here it comes. The beginning of never ending teasing. “But, you have to admit. It was funny.”

“From an outsider’s view, yeah, it was.”

“You should learn to laugh at yourself.” He said bluntly. You were a little taken back, but you mused on this, and nodded.

“You’re probably right. I just overanalyze everything I do and it makes me feel like everyone is laughing at the stupid shit I do.”

“They are.” He said truthfully. “You’re known as the funny freshman girl on campus.”

You looked at him in shock. “What? I never knew that.”

“People aren’t making fun of you like you think. They’re laughing at you.”

“That doesn’t sound much better.” you raised an eyebrow.

He rubbed his forehead, trying to find the right words. “What I’m trying to say, is…” he furrowed his eyebrows.

You laughed, and shook your head. “I understand, don’t worry. I just need to learn to not take things so seriously sometimes.” You were doing stupid shit and it was funny, but people didn’t think you were a fool because of it. You were just funny. He nodded, grateful you understood.

You rested your hands on the brick wall, and leaned back to stare up at the sky. “So, are you friends with Joshua?” you asked, trying to divert the conversation away from your catastrophes.

He nodded. “He’s in this friend group of ours. It’s us thirteen guys. We’re all pretty close.”

“Oh really?” you mused. “I don’t really think Joshua has mentioned you guys…” you trailed off, thinking. “Or wait. He talks about this guy Coups sometimes, is he in your friend group?”

“Yeah! He’s the oldest out of all of us.” Minghao asserted. “I’d be surprised if Joshua didn’t talk about us to you. He talks about you a lot.”

You almost choked, and looked over at Minghao. “What?”

Minghao looked unconcerned. “Yeah, he always shows us the funny things that you text him, and sometimes talks about the times that you get all embarrassed about.”

You were seething. Your eyebrows furrowed, thinking about how you were going to skin Joshua. “I can’t believe this!” you exclaimed. “Joshua…” you shook your head.

Minghao laughed. “I think you’re getting too worked up about this. From what we’ve heard, we all think you’re pretty funny.” Your heart warmed slightly.

“Well I hope my foolishness is funny sometimes.” You scoffed, in a jokingly way. You remembered that you were dehydrated, when a wave of dizziness fell over you. “Woah.” You said, holding your head. Talking to Minghao made you forget how dehydrated you felt.

“Are you okay?” Minghao asked.

“Uh, yeah. I think I just really need some water. I feel dehydrated.”

Minghao shot up. “Stay here, I’ll be back.”

While he was gone briefly, you thought about how this boy didn’t seem to mind your antics, and almost found it endearing. Just an hour ago you never wanted to see him, ever, and now you were talking to him and it was… nice. What the fuck!

You reached up to pull your hair behind your ears, and rubbed your forehead. You were thinking about Minghao, and how now that you were seeing him up close, his features were cute. He had high cheekbones and a boyish smile. You pff’t at the thought of him being cute.

He returned with a big glass of water. You couldn’t help yourself from smiling like an idiot. He kind of looked like an angel, with his lightly bronzed skin, holding your saving grace, water, in his hand, and the outdoor light behind him shining around his head like a halo. You let out this little wheeze of a chuckle, but you didn’t really care because you wanted that water.

You could feel his amused eyes on you while you chugged that water. When you were done, you let out a little burp, and laughed. Minghao laughed along with you. “Sorry,” you said. He shook his head. “Don’t apologize.”

“Sorry I acted like a fool in front of you and then avoided you so you couldn’t make fun of me haha,” you laughed emotionlessly.

“Really don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

“Sorry if I ruined your fun time at this party.”

“It’s okay!”

You kept apologizing for stupid things, until eventually, he just put his finger over your lips, effectively cutting off your speech. “___ please, it’s alright. Stop apologizing. I liked getting to talk to you.” Your heart was hamming in your ribs.

You nodded, and he took his finger away. “You should come hang out with all the boys sometime, so the other guys can put a face to a name.”

You shuddered. “We’ll see.”

He looked hopeful that you would come, or maybe you were deluding yourself. Thirteen boys kind of sounded like a nightmare. You weren’t sure what Joshua might do. What if he brought up something embarrassing you did in front of all those boys? You’re being overly dramatic and kinda paranoid. The voice in your head told you. Knock that shit off!

“Do you not like alcohol?” you asked rather brashly. You hit yourself mentally for asking that so suddenly.

He looked a little surprised, his eyebrows flying up. He recovered, and pushed his brown hair out of his eyes and back, and then you watched it slowly fall back down. “I do, sometimes. But, it’s pretty funny to watch drunk people while you’re sober.”

“I see.” You mused. “What year are you?”

“I’m a freshman. The older boys in our group are sophomores.” You nodded.

“Do you know what you’re studying?” you asked, rolling the solo cup around in your hands.

“I’m looking at marine biology. What about you?” A marine biologist. It suited him.

“International business.” He whistled. “That sounds like it could be hard. Having to learn how to approach a certain country.”

You shrugged. “I’m willing to work hard to study something I love.”

“Wow, poetic.” He joked. You looked over, and pushed his arm. “Shut up.”

It was so easy to talk to Minghao. This was your first conversation with him, all based on you running into a tree in front of him. He wasn’t going to make it awkward by making fun of you, but he also knew how to tease you without making you feel like an idiot, and instead laugh at yourself.

You two sat in silence for a while and just looked up at the sky, and again, that good-friend-siren was going off in your head. Anyone who tolerated your antics and sat and stared at the night sky with you in silence sounded like a good friend. Your thoughts shifted to the way he had pushed his hair back earlier, and you shuddered.

You sighed. “I should probably leave soon. This party has drained me physically and emotionally.”

“Do you have a ride back or a friend to go with?” he asked.

You thought. “Shit. Now that I think about it, Joshua was who I was going to go back with, and he left. My friends live in different dorms across the campus.” You groaned. “I really don’t want to die tonight walking back to the dorm, but it seems that might be what happens. I had it coming.” You joked, getting up and stretching.

He hopped up immediately. “No way am I letting you walk home alone this late at night!”

You were a little shocked. He looked so… determined to walk you home. He had looked cute and innocent thus far, but he seemed to secretly be a bit fierce and strong. His arms were crossed, his rolled up long sleeve tee shirt stretching across his shoulders. You gulped. “Are you sure? Are you okay with leaving the party?”

He waved his hand. “I wasn’t going to stay much longer anyway. You were the funniest person here, anyway. Once you leave no one will be as funny to watch or listen to.” You blushed crimson, and cleared your throat.

“Okay, well, shall we go then?” you asked, scratching the back of your head, trying to ignore your red cheeks. Minghao was so forward and blunt.

He nodded, and the two of you walked through the house, you saying bye to your friends if you saw them nearby. They raised their eyebrows at Minghao, but you really didn’t feel like explaining. After all, you weren’t really sure what to explain. You’d made a fool out of yourself a few times in front of him and shied away, and you guys talked tonight and he got you water? There wasn’t much to explain. Your heart fell slightly. You kind of wanted to keep talking to him, because he was a good listener, but he didn’t have much reason to come see you again. Unless you hung out with all thirteen boys. You shuddered at the thought.

The two of you walked along the frat house street, the large trees reaching over your heads. He was humming under his breath. His voice was soft and melodic. “You have a nice voice.” You said shyly, and quietly. He flashed you a smile in thanks.

The two of you didn’t talk much, just walked in silence side by side enjoying the college campus late at night. It was nice. You didn’t feel like you needed to say anything. Minghao was very easy to be around. He was easygoing.

You stopped in front of your dorm, and looked up at him. You finally noticed that he towered over you in probably five inches or so. “Well,” you sighed. “I live here.”

He was looking at you like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. “Thanks for walking me home,” You finally said. “I really appreciate it. I might’ve gotten jumped and died if you hadn’t tagged along.” You were joking, but you also knew that was a very real possibility of happening, and that depressed the hell out of you.

He nodded. “It’s no problem, really. Let me know if you need someone to walk with from a party again, I’ll gladly do it.” You smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Minghao.” You said, voice light and airy.

You turned to walk away, but you stopped and said, “I hope I’ll see you again sometime.” Your cheeks tinged pink.

“Me too,” he smiled. “If I see you I’ll come say hi.”

You pulled your hair around your ear, smiled slightly, and turned to walk up the sidewalk to the door.

Once you had gotten to your room, you quietly walked around the room and got to bed, trying not to disturb your sleeping roommate. Once you were in bed, you stared at the ceiling and reached up to hold your cheeks. Tonight’s events kept flashing through your head, and the way Minghao smiled was one you distinctly remembered. Shy, but as the night went on he smiled bigger and bigger. You sighed in the darkness, and turned around to fall asleep, hoping for a good night’s rest.

234 notes · View notes