I was inspired by the First Kiss AU based on the video, which I think is very cute by the way. Newtmas of course, because I love them.
If there was one thing Thomas learned about living in a same dorm with Minho for the past couple of years, was that to never, ever, trust that kind of look he had on his face. He made no attempt to hide the way his unnerving grin stretched on his lips, and the way his eyes glinted with such wickedness that Thomas was sure there was hell to rise. To make it worse, it always seemed to aim at his way, and his chances of escaping were slight to none, not after being pinned with that look.
Which was why he only kept still in the room as Minho leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, opposite to where Thomas sat at his study table, the bitten apple he held in his hand forgotten momentarily. Swallowing the last bit of fruit, he sighed, breaking eye contact as he shook his head while biting into the apple again. "Whatever it is you're trying to do to me," He mumbled past his food. "The answer is no."
Minho scoffed. "I didn't even say anything, shuck face, and why would you think it's about you?"
Thomas snorted in disbelief, tossing the core inside the bin under the table. "You look like a cat who just got its cream, and I know when you have something in mind that clearly states that I would hate it."
Minho grinned. "Guess what, Greenie? You're probably right, but can't exactly say that when you don't even know what I'm doing now, would ya? For all you'd know, it could make your day."
"Don't call me that," He muttered, facing away from the slightly older boy as he sorted through the papers scattered on the table. "And from the past experiences I'd been brutally faced, I know it's going to be worse than before."
"Don't be such a baby, my crazy adventures are awesome," Minho took another chair and slid beside the other boy with his arms draped over the back of it. "If you hadn't live with me, you'd just be a boring ol' shank doing nothing but busting your brains," He pointed out, gesturing towards the papers in what Thomas would assume was disgust. "Need some life in that head of yours, man."
Shooting him a glare, Thomas jotted down a few things he remembered from class before setting it aside. "That's the thing, your adventures are crazy, almost got us into jail, twice," He huffed, as if offended. "And I like what I'm doing now-"
"I like what I'm doing too, dude, but I'm not exactly too absorbed in it that I forgot what fun actually is," Minho cut him off, slapping a hand on his back that caused him to wince.
"I don't see how getting locked into a piss-smell room for the rest of your life is fun," Thomas muttered, straightening his back to rub the sore spot.
"Anyway," Minho continued as if Thomas hadn't said anything. "I'm doing a favour for a friend, said she has to do it for some project that requires a few number of people, and so she asked me."
"And of course, you're dragging me into this too," Thomas rolled his eyes. "Do I have to gamble my life in this project of hers if I go?"
Minho shrugged. "Dunno, but I assumed it's harmless cause she's actually a photographer of sorts," He held a finger when Thomas opened his mouth to protest. "But, she did tell me the title for it, calls it 'The Unexpected'," He snorted in amusement.
"And that makes me better, really," Thomas replied dryly, stretching in his seat as he eyed the clock, bright red numbers of 00:40 flashed back at him. "So when is she going to do this?"
"Tomorrow. At eight in the morn."
Thomas scowled. "And you're telling me this now?"
"Better than telling you tomorrow, ain't it?" Minho quipped. "Or later for that matter. It's not like we have class, so yeah."
"My exact thought when I plan to oversleep until the next day," Thomas grumbled, rubbing his eyes with heels of his hands. "Fine, whatever, I'll go. But, you better get me some big juicy lunch after that, you owe me big time."
Minho rolled his eyes, getting up from his chair as he grabbed hold on the upper bunk of their double decker and swung himself over, the bed squeaked under his weight. "Whatever." There was a pause. "We'll be using your jeep though."
Thomas hackles rose slightly, the irritation of defending his baby swirled inside him, but he forced himself to relax. "What happened to your car?" He retorted as he settled himself on his bed. As ridiculous as it seems, he actually took great care with his jeep because he had been using his savings from when he was a kid when he brought the wreckage, and after a few fixes here and there and some painting done, it looked good as new. The thought of someone else driving it always made him cringe.
"Busted, need to check on that later," Minho chuckled shortly. "Don't worry Shank, you'll drive your sweetheart."
Thomas grunted, burying himself in his blanket.
After being greeted and ushered inside by Teresa, there were already about a few other people hanging out in her studio. Some were either sitting on her couch, flipping through some magazines while some were having a polite conversation with each other, and two people stood away from the others, eyes lazily studying them with a look of curiosity and slight boredom mixed into one.
Thomas caught the eye of one of the guys that stood near a bookshelf, and the blond gave a twitch of a smile in acknowledgement before focusing his attention to Teresa, who started talking the moment they got in.
"Alright. Hey everyone, and thanks for agreeing to do this with me. Before we start, does anyone here know each other?" When there were shake of heads and echo of no's, she nodded in satisfaction. "Good, because that's the aim of this project Aris and I are doing," She gestured towards an olive skin guy leaning against the door frame of their small kitchenette, waving his hand with a crooked grin on his face. "We'll be asking you to do one thing only, and you're good to go. I'll be pairing you up though, I need two people to make this work," There was a way she smiled that made Thomas feel wary, because it was almost the same Cheshire grin Minho wore earlier. And he didn't like it one bit. She clapped her hands once. "I need your names first. I'll give you guys a paper and you pass it around, yeah? So here you go..."
Once it was his turn, Thomas scribbled his name on the paper, before passing it to Blondy beside him.
"Okay so," She quickly scanned the names on the paper. "Minho and Harriet? Oh yeah," Her shocking blue eyes glinted when she looked up. "You're not supposed to tell the others who haven't done it once we're done. Don't want to spoil anything now, do we?"
Thomas truly didn't like the way she said those words.
It wasn't that long, it took fifteen minutes tops for Minho and the dark skin girl, Harriet, to come out from the room Teresa and Aris had led them. Thomas eyed them suspiciously as they walked side by side, the grin on Minho's face was too wide Thomas was sure his skin would rip. Harriet's eyes seem to brighten slightly, and she had a delicate smirk that made her look absolutely secretive.
Thomas didn't like that either.
The others seemed to inherit the same thought. "Why do you two look like you just had monkey sex in the room?" One dark haired boy asked from where he was perched on the stool, a scowl tugged on his face. Thomas was actually glad that he wasn't the only one not exactly enthusiastic with where he was at the moment.
Harriet shook her head, the curve of her lips still visible. "Sorry hun, they said no telling."
"So, what happened?" Thomas muttered once Minho sat on the couch beside him, eyes trained on Aris when he called for the same guy who voiced out his thoughts, Gally he heard, and another girl he didn't catch her name.
Minho only shook his head with the grin still intact, and the two friends watched the three of them disappeared in the room. "Dude, you just gotta find out by yourself."
Thomas was surprised when Gally came out of the room red in the face, his eyes avoiding everyone in the room as he sat in the same stool. He hunched in his seat, ignoring the girl's eyes as she merely chuckled at his way.
By then, everyone was already sitting at the edge of their seats, waiting for their turn as the next couple were called. This time, they were two girls called Brenda and Sonya.
Minho almost snorted in his drink. "Oh man," He chuckled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "This is gonna be good."
Thomas was drumming his finger on his knee when he stopped. "What?" Glancing at his friend at the corner of his eye.
The response he got was the same. "You'll see."
Then they came out, Brenda had a look of embarrassment etched on her face while Sonya was giggling slightly, gently nudging the other girl with her elbow teasingly. Thomas dread what they would do to him.
"Thomas and Newt."
Thomas snapped his head up and saw Aris waiting for him, a smile on his face. Minho was busy snickering beside him when he stood up, at the same time Blondy did too, Newt his name, his blue eyes wide with surprise.
"Good luck," Minho managed a quiet snide before Thomas went first, Newt walking behind him. Surprisingly, Thomas could feel his heart thudding anxiously as he buried his hands in his pocket jeans, could feel the body heat from the blond as they walked inside the bright room. Thomas had to squint slightly to let his eyes adjust to the white walls. It was empty, exception for the flashes that stood and the camcorder Teresa was setting up at one side of the room.
She glanced up when they walked in, giving them a smile. "Hey," Thomas nodded in greeting while Newt responded with a small smile of his own. "Okay, it's just simple really, you two just have to stand there," She gestured to the empty space where the camera was pointing at. "And we'll get started."
"What are we doing exactly?"
Thomas was startled when Newt spoke, his thick accent ran smoothly in the room as the blond ran his long fingers through his hair, big curls flopped on his forehead when he released them from his hold. Thomas had to look away before he was caught staring, wiping his clammy hands on his jeans.
She merely smiled. "Why don't you stand there and I'll tell you."
Newt raised his eyebrows at him, and Thomas shrugged to inform him he was lost in this as much as he was. Also, he was trying to ignore how define his jaw was as they did as she told.
"Okay so," She pressed on some buttons before finally sitting on the chair. "The camera's running, and you guys ready?"
Thomas shrugged again while Newt nodded slowly. "I guess."
She gave a reassuring smile. "Relax, it's not going to be anything that would scar you for life, quite the opposite probably. Okay, so here's the deal," She cleared her throat. "I want you to kiss each other."
She said the sentence with a monotone that Thomas had a moment to process the words before he managed to choke out a response.
"What?"
Newt blinked at her. "I think y'need to explain this project of yours properly," He said calmly with his brows disappeared in his hairline. "Because you just bloody told us to kiss someone we don't even know."
"Well, that's the whole point of this project you see," Aris spoke up from Teresa's side. "The title of this project is called The Unexpected for a reason, our professor told us to capture something so blatantly raw and full of emotion, so we chose surprise," He snickered. "Gally didn't take it too well."
"I can imagine," Thomas muttered.
"We figured that we find a few people that have never met each other before, tell them to kiss and there you go," Aris continued. "We'll pay you of course."
"So, you plucked us out like bloody daisies and put us together in a vase?" Newt wasn't even mad, but rather chuckling as he shook his head at what he got himself into.
To be honest, Thomas was expecting something as absurd as what he was facing now to crash onto him like a pile of blocks, so he wasn't entirely as flabbergasted as he would have been if he hadn't steeled himself for it. Minho had set the warning bells in his head so that he knew he had to be careful to what was in it for him. But he had to hand it to Newt though, he was taking this particular situation way too calmly like he was used to weird problems.
Teresa smirked. "If you put it that way."
Then he turned to Thomas, his shoulders broadening as he took a deep breath. "Might as well get this over with," Newt raised an eyebrow. "Thomas yeah?"
Thomas nodded, swallowing the obstacle lodged in his wind pipe as he slowly faced him. "Yeah," He cleared his throat. "Um, Newt, right?"
Newt grinned. "Right," Biting his lower lip, he craned his neck to look at the other two people in the room. "How are we supposed to do this?"
"Up to you." Teresa responded back as Aris crossed his arms over his chest.
"Right." Newt muttered. "So," He trailed off as he searched Thomas' face, hesitantly taking a small step forward. "I know this might be a wee bit weird," He began in a low voice. "But have you kiss a guy before?"
His heart lurched in his chest when Thomas could smell a hint cologne. "Well," He was surprised how stable his voice sounded when he replied. "I was forced into a dare once, we were wasted though, so I didn't remember much." His tongue darted out to wet his dried lips, his fingers messing around with the hem of his shirt.
Newt chuckled lightly, another step taken. "I buggin' haven't, never thought I would either."
"No one's actually stopping you though." Thomas mumbled out the words, his eyes darted to the bright blue eyes and then to the owners lips. His own eyes widen when he realised what he said and started to stutter. "W-what I mean is-"
Newt snorted lightly. "Oh, shuck it, Tommy." He whispered, his warm breath now tickled against his cheek that Thomas realised with surprise how close they were to each other. "Just relax, we'll make this quick enough for them to actually agree with it."
Thomas swore he was going to screw it up as he clutched his own hand so tight when Newt leaned forward, and brushed their lips once, twice, before pressing them fully, Newt's fingers grazed lightly on his cheek. It completely blew his mind, even though he knew this was completely an act of sorts. It felt too real for his own good though. For one, he was kissing a stranger, a completely attractive stranger he had ever laid eyes on with bright blue eyes that seem to twinkle. His lips were soft, Thomas mused as he gingerly clasped his neck, and for some reason he smelled like coffee.
Rich black coffee.
They withdrew slowly, and Thomas couldn't stop the grin from stretching on his face while Newt laughed breathlessly. Newt took a step back, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "That went well."
"Absolutely."
Both of them whirled towards Teresa and Aris, blood rushing to their faces when they remembered they had an audience in the room. She gave a grin. "That was excellent by the way, we captured everything and we're happy with the results," She paused. "No hard feelings about plucking you out like flowers?"
Thomas scoffed while Newt shook his head with a small smile. "Good," She continued happily. "Well, thank you so much to both of you, and we'll come out to talk to the rest of you once we've finished with the other two couples."
Gathering his wits, Thomas faced Newt with a wry smile and a hand held out at his way. "A pleasure meeting you by the way."
Newt laughed, a sound that was welcomed to his ears, and clasped his hand with his own. "That makes the both of us, Tommy."
When they walked out, Minho's devious grin was obvious enough it could probably be seen a mile away. Thomas plastered on a blank look, making his way around the coffee table as he made himself comfortable beside his friend on the couch, while Newt took his former position beside the bookshelf.
"So," Minho started, the feign look of innocence didn't go unnoticed. "Not exactly what you were expecting, ain't it?"
Thomas glanced at Newt, an eyebrow raised. The blond merely smirked in return, shrugging at the same time. "You could say that, mate, t'was unexpected, no?"
Thomas chuckled lowly. "Absolutely."