Work Text:
Newton’s first law of motion is that anything in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an external force. Seungmin supposes those he finds an interest in work in a similar way. He finds others uninteresting until someone he knows mentions them or vice versa — he remains interested until given a reason not to.
So far, he’s gone all year without finding interest in someone new, and for that he’s grateful. More often than not he gets obsessed. His assignments get turned in late, his grades drop, everything the professors love him for goes downhill, the gravitational force stronger than the negligible friction.
The year has gone by just fine. But Jisung has to open his big mouth.
“You’ve heard of Minho, right? Lee Minho?”
Seungmin scribbles down the answer to his homework question before answering. “Yeah. He’s in physics with us and in my speech class.”
“You have speech with him? What’s he like?”
“Why do you care? Why should I care? How would I know? The only reason he’s spoken more in speech than physics is because he has to.” He speaks in a monotone manner, really forcing the “I don’t care” attitude.
“I tripped and fell and he laughed.”
Seungmin’s no longer listening, having moved on to the next question on his paper. “Cool.”
“You’re not listening are you?”
There’s only a hum in response, so Jisung finally goes quiet.
“Okay.” Seungmin closes his binder and stands up. “I’m gonna head back to the dorm.”
Jisung groans in response, paying just as much attention to Seungmin as the other has to him. Seungmin takes it as a good enough goodbye, pushing his chair under the table and heading for the door after shoving his binder in his backpack.
Unfortunately, Jisung mentioning Minho was all it took to keep Seungmin obsessed. Did he really laugh at Jisung, or did he just say that to get a reaction? What is Minho like? His speeches reflect a boy who couldn't care less if the final velocity he solves for is greater than the initial despite the acceleration being negative. When they did that stupid get to know you activity in class, everyone had said Minho made a good impression. Seungmin thought so too, but it’s not like a pretty face and soft voice can have a stronger drag force than Seungmin can have thrust.
Seungmin keeps thinking about the physics terms, the gravitational pull towards the Earth heavier on him with his backpack on. The frictional force of his feet on the ground keeps him moving forward, but he supposes the air resistance may be what’s slowing him down.
He feels stupid relating it all together, even more so when his thoughts get in the way of his mindless walking. He stumbles, bumping into the person walking the opposite direction.
“Ah, sorry,” Seungmin blurts out quickly, fixing his backpack and looking at the person he disturbed. He quickly wishes he had just paid attention when he was walking, looking into the large eyes and hastily blinking to look anywhere but in his eyes. Unfortunately, he looks down to the boy's lips, soft and pink, bunny teeth peeking out.
Seungmin straightens his back, looking away to where he’d been walking originally. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
There’s an audible smirk in Minho’s voice when he makes a sound that’s somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “It’s okay. You’re not hurt, right?”
It takes Seungmin a moment to process the question, not expecting Minho to ask him that. “Oh, I’m fine. Are you?”
Minho just nods. “Well, good night.” He gives a final small smile and walks off.
Seungmin stands in shock.
He feels like there’s a rope tied in his stomach, the loose end held tight in Minho’s hand. The tension force begins pulling at his body, putting off the balance of the gravitational and normal forces.
Suddenly he’s in the vacuum they metaphorically work in during physics. He’s in the sky and Minho is below him on the ground. He’s free falling; there’s no air, no air resistance, no friction, no drag keeping him from his goal.
If Jisung hadn’t made him curious. If Seungmin had been looking where he was going. If he didn’t have such a physics-coded mind.
He stands there for a while, feeling Minho walk away and tug on the rope he has around him.
Newton’s first law of motion: anything in motion or at rest will stay at a constant velocity until acted upon by an external force. Lee Minho has caused a change in velocity inside Seungmin.
.
Newton’s second law is an equation. F=ma; Force equals Mass multiplied by Acceleration.
Minho likes this formula. It’s easy. There’s three variables. If you flip it around, Acceleration equals Force divided by Mass. If you flip it again, Mass equals Force divided by Acceleration. It’s. So. Simple.
Right now, Seungmin is the force. The first day of classes, Minho saw the bright smile, the sparkly eyes, and by the first week, the stupid “A ” on his paper. He decided Seungmin was way out of his league.
But Seungmin was the one that looked flustered when they walked into each other.
Minho was going on his nightly walk, taking the route he found the most stray cats on. It became routine for him to stop and feed them, and on some nights, he’d find them sitting and waiting, up to three in a row on the side of the road.
He was eager to see them that day, specifically the short stretch of road with eight cats scattered around, pockets full of treats. But instead, his inertia — one of the few physics rules he understands — was broken when Seungmin stumbled into him.
Even now, a week later, he wakes up cold and alone, having warmed through the night with the single event repeating itself in his mind only to be dropped off the ledge when he wakes. Maybe the dreams are the acceleration.
But no, that’s not right. If Seungmin is the force, or the cause of the force acting on him, the dreams would be… Would they be part of the equation at all? He’s not sure what the mass is either. Minho’s never been the best at finding what is given to him in a problem.
Would the mass be the developing crush? Is it a crush though? He barely knows the guy, maybe he really just wants to be friends. But then again, what else would the mass be?
He forces himself to get up and take a shower. Thinking of Seungmin makes the daunting task of living just a bit more bearable.
Seungmin must be the Force, pulling Minho towards him at a million newtons, the crush being a total of one kilogram and with that logic, the acceleration due to his dreams must be a million metres per second. Wow, love math.
.
Newton’s third and most well known law. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example, a swimmer pushes the water back, therefore the water forces the swimmer forward. A baseball player hits the ball, and the bat in his hand bounces back, the force of the two colliding causing them to swing in opposite directions.
A person pulls a second one close and in response, the second person gets closer…
Seungmin frowns at his physics notes. Jisung has abandoned him for the night, leaving him at the library. The last time Seungmin left the library alone at night, he walked into Minho. That was a month ago.
He guesses that’s the night things changed. He started asking Jisung to stay a little longer, leaving alongside him at roughly the same time as that night. Seungmin learned quickly that Minho was always there at that time. After about a week of seeing each other on the sidewalk, he gathered the courage to ask Minho what he was doing out at that time if not leaving the already closed library.
Instead of telling him, he invited Seungmin along. Of course, this also included Jisung, who would barely pay attention to the stray cats Minho introduced them to. Seungmin, on the other hand, thought it was cute how they all mewd at the sight of Minho, instantly coming to meet his hand.
The second time Minho offered for Seungmin to go with him, Seungmin told Jisung to just head back to his dorm. Jisung obliged, albeit hesitantly, leaving Seungmin and Minho alone for the first time since they ran into each other.
Nothing happened other than them feeding the cats. Newton’s third law was sure of it. Neither of them tried anything, neither of them made any moves. The cats nudged Seungmin’s hand and in response, Seungmin’s hand moved slightly. That was that.
It’s not until it started raining during their walk that the inertia of their friendship is affected.
The gravitational pull on the raindrops brought them down fast and heavy, slamming down on their heads. They both had thick hoodies on, flipping up the hoods and pulling the strings tight before looking at each other, each boy’s sight obstructed as only their noses poke out.
They both laughed and Minho reached forward, pulling at Seungmin’s hoodie. Newton’s third law. The fabric moved and revealed Seungmin’s bright smile.
Seungmin, more aggressive than Minho had been, pulls at the other’s hood, pulling harder to bring him closer.
Newton’s first law. Seungmin’s loveless and uninterested inertia was undisturbed until Minho’s force entered the question, leading to Newton’s second law. There was a tensional force keeping him tethered to Minho, the magnitude solved for by multiplying Seungmin’s thoughts with the mass of his stupid, silly crush.
The third law is all that was missing. And Seungmin’s a chicken.
That night ended with them running back to Minho’s dorm which was closer than Seungmin’s across campus. Seungmin spent the night there and Minho went as far as to sleep on the floor beside the couch instead of leaving him alone for the night. He lent Seungmin some clothes too. Seungmin believed that night added another force of acceleration to the equation.
That night goes through his head as he stares at his paper until his eyes tear up and the librarian apologises for asking him to leave. He assures her that’s not why he’s crying — he hadn’t even noticed she asked him to go — and packs his things, hoping he wasn’t too behind schedule and hadn’t missed Minho.
Seungmin barely reaches the bottom step when there’s a small meow from his right. Looking down, there’s a small orange cat — one of the cats Seungmin sees every time he goes on a walk with Minho. Another variable?
Fixing the strap of his backpack, Seungmin balances the weight and leans down, lifting the cat into his arms the way it enjoys.
“I waited for you here and Soonie came walking down the street.” Seungmin jumps at Minho’s voice, the boy sitting at the base of one of the pillars holding up the library. He’s wearing yet another black hoodie, hood over his head. If Seungmin didn’t know him, he would’ve ran for his life with the way Minho’s gaze is sharp and seems to burn into him.
“You waited?” The question is all Seungmin can get himself to say under the stare. He wants to say more, maybe comment on how smart Soonie is to have come looking or how stupid Minho is to be sitting in the dark, wearing black, and looking like a creep.
Minho nods and stands, walking over to Seungmin. He takes Soonie into his arms, lowering the cat to the ground as it lets out a soft meow or protest.
“What took you so long?”
The gaze that used to be threatening looks almost worried, and despite being slightly taller, Seungmin wants to curl up and cry in Minho’s arms.
There’s nothing to cry about. Minho’s not mad at him, nobody’s mad at him, his eyes don’t even tear up, but the urge to cry is strong. He almost laughs when he thinks of the force of tension pulling him toward the edge while the friction tries to keep him still.
Seungmin bites his cheek and shakes his head, looking at his feet. “Sorry, I had a lot of homework to do.”
Minho stays quiet long enough for Seungmin to look up, confused. When he does, he finds Minho’s hand partway to his face, the hand shaky and unstable.
Newton’s first law. Minho’s hand stays suspended and relatively still until Seungmin reaches out to grab his wrist, bringing it the rest of the way to his face. It’s a bold move, much more than his quiet, book-smart brain is used to, but he’s done with his homework and done with putting forth too much thought.
Minho stares silently, hand gently holding Seungmin’s chin. Seungmin drifts to think about Newton’s law again. The first one states an object at rest will stay at rest. So, how long will they stand there? Will they be there until morning? He doesn’t care if his legs become sore or if they fail their classes from not attending — he’ll stand there with the heat of Minho’s hand on his skin forever if he can.
But law three comes into play when Minho tilts Seungmin’s head down and air pushes him forward. Their faces are so close, Seungmin can feel Minho’s breaths tickling his cheeks.
“Kim Seungmin.” Minho says his name and Seungmin swallows hard. “You nerd.”
Two last words before Seungmin is pulled to meet Minho’s lips, warm hands gently cupping his cheeks. It’s only a small peck, but when Minho pulls back and rubs a thumb over Seungmin’s cheek, Seungmin pulls away and hides his face in his hands.
Minho laughs fondly at him. “You’re the reason I understand anything in physics.”