The 12th Floor of Apartment E

Day____

Day One

D-40 Project Due Date

Kyungsoo is determined to come out of this with minimal irritations, minimal damage, the minimal amount of migraines, and the minimal amount of money wasted on Tylenol (which he isn't too worried about because recently Baekhyun's been giving him discounts). And in order to minimize all of that but still maximize his grade, Kyungsoo has laid some basic ground rules that are to be followed while he works with Kim Jongin.

Jongin looks down at the piece of paper Kyungsoo has just given him, as he takes a seat across from Kyungsoo in the desk pit (they have to work in the lobby because the only free time Kyungsoo has is when he's on his shift). "This is it?" Jongin asks, frowning at the paper.

"For you," Kyungsoo says shortly. "I'm doing the rest." He waves his own project schedule in the air.

The frown on Jongin's face deepens. "Wait—why—"

"Less work for you," Kyungsoo cuts him off, meeting the dancer's gaze head on (and feeling another brush of irritation when he's met with perfect eyelashes, perfect eyelids, perfect clear dark eyes), "and less worrying for me."

Jongin falls silent then and Kyungsoo breathes an inward sigh of relief. He's glad that there's no further opposition because the last thing he wants to have to do is argue with someone he already doesn't even want to talk to. He supposes though that it'd be far stupider for Jongin to try and argue against Kyungsoo's decision anyway because this way Jongin can maximize the sex and drugs and alcohol and whatever other vices the dancer has, while minimizing his work—while Kyungsoo can minimize the headaches and maximize his grade (because it's not like he's going to trust Jongin with any of the work that actually matters).

There's a total of three things on the piece of paper, the project agenda, that Kyungsoo gave to Jongin—buying two new thumb drives for all the project material to be put on so each of them always has a portable copy of everything, getting their topic checked over by the professor before this weekend, and transferring the project material through each thumb drive whenever there's new material ready.

That's it.

Jongin understands that Kyungsoo is one of the top students in their year because he's a scholarship student, and he also understands that Kyungsoo probably doesn't trust Jongin because of the reputation that seems to come hand-in-hand with the old money he, Sehun, and Joonmyeon all have entitled to their names—but he thought that, if anything, Kyungsoo would put at least some of that aside considering that this is a major project and Kyungsoo can't possibly have time to do over seventy-five percent of it alone.

(He tries to convince himself that he just wants to help with Kyungsoo's workload—tries to convince himself that he has no reason to feel hurt over something like this because Kyungsoo's just being objective and efficient)

Day Five

D-35 Project Due Date

This is their routine.

Jongin drops by at the desk once Kyungsoo is already on his shift after both of their respective lectures for the day are over with—once both of them are back at the apartment. Kyungsoo doesn't mind all too much because Jongin, at the very least, brings a laptop along with him so Kyungsoo can get double the work done by asking Jongin to keep certain windows open on the dancer's laptop while Kyungsoo does all the research-compiling on his own.

Kyungsoo researches while Jongin does whatever Jongin does (Kyungsoo tries to remain behind his laptop so he doesn't have to look at Jongin, whether by accident or with his peripheral, so he has no idea what Jongin does to keep himself occupied when the dancer could just go the fuck home and leave Kyungsoo alone) for about two-and-a-half hours on a normal day, one hour on a busy day, and three hours on a really good day.