What to do when you are an overachiever with extra free time.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

He was getting tired. He was getting really sick of it.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

How was he supposed to study anything when he couldn’t even hear his own thoughts?

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

And how come anyone could hear music that loud without going deaf?!

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

“Ahhhrgh!”, Minwoo groaned, finally giving up for the night, letting his forehead crash against his notes. It seems like tonight studying wasn’t happening either.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have moved from mom’s… “, he thought, only to shake his head a second after. No, he wasn’t going to give up this early. Not after how much work it had been to convince her that moving closer to the uni was a good idea.

It had been three months or so since Minwoo moved to his new apartment. It was small and a little cramped for his liking (he had only a room for his bed, a small bathroom, and then a kitchen, and that was about it), but it was so, so close to his uni that it had been irresistible. Only a block away! A block!

Besides, the price had been really cheap, which had surprised him a lot. When he asked about it, the state agent had vaguely told him that the whole building was actually owned by one of the associates that owned his university, and that had the prices low to encourage more students to come study there. It made sense to Minwoo, so he hadn’t asked further. It was a great deal, right? Cheap, conveniently located, small apartment, perfect for a single man in his early twenties.

Wrong.

What he hadn’t taken into account about what the seller told him was that, therefore, every person living there was a student. An university student. Ages ranging from 18 to 25-or-so. Living alone.

The result? Not a place to study at all.

On weekends, the place was a literal hell. At least in four of the departments there were parties. People ran up and down the halls, drunkenly shouting and laughing at literally anything. In the mornings, empty bottles of soju and beer were all around like flowers in spring, and most of the times there even was –ugh-vomit on the corners of the stairs.

But, you know what? That was tolerable. It was on weekends. That was normal post-teenager behavior. He could understand it. Besides if he was lucky enough to be able to fall asleep at least mildly early and wake up before 10 a.m., weekend mornings were the most peaceful of all. So he could catch up with his studies, read, or do most anything that required peace.

But there was another huge problem with his place.

His freaking upstairs neighbor and his freaking loud, LOUD music.

Every single afternoon (and he really did mean every single one), his neighbor blasted a selection of the most random music he found, it seemed, and wouldn’t stop it until at least 12 a.m. And he must have had a really good sound system, because Minwoo’s walls freaking vibrated when the bass in a song was low enough, making it impossible to even have a cup of coffee in peace.

And his neighbor didn’t even have a consistent taste in music! Some days, he would only listen heavy American rock from the eighties; some days, it was the girliest of the girl-group songs (those with lyrics that make you cringe with only listening to them). One time he even blasted the same sax solo on loop for like three complete hours before deciding to change to something else!

Minwoo had even thought his neighbor was doing it on purpouse. The guy –or girl, Minwoo have never seen them before –must be a bored loner, whose only way of having fun was ruining other people’s studying schedule.

Okay, maybe not, Minwoo admitted he could get a little schizophrenic when under stress.

But seriously now, did they even study? When did they study?! Because he couldn’t even imagine anyone that could concentrate like that, with all that loud noise. If he himself couldn’t, and he wasn’t even on the same floor, what about them, that must have been sitting right next to the amps?!

Ugh, anyways…

It was a Wednesday, and Minwoo was coming from his last class, Starbucks sandwiches and vanilla latte in one hand, some papers he had been revising in the other, and his mailbag hanging on his shoulder. The hint of a smile lifted up the corner of his lips; it wasn’t every day that his teacher cancelled the afternoon class because of an argument with his wife. With a bit of difficulty, twisting his hips and trying not to make all the things he had in his arms fall, he made the card in his jean pocket that opened his door reach the reader, opened the handle with his elbow, and finally got inside.

First of all, he left the papers and the bag on his desk, and hung the light jacket he was wearing on the hanger, as he sipped the last of his latte, and threw it away. Then, he went to get himself a new pair of socks, and cleaned his hands and feet before putting them on and throwing the old ones in the basket of dirty clothes. He was about to put on his pajamas as well –he wasn’t going to go out anymore anyway– but he felt somewhat guilty, as it seemed it was too early for that.

Then, and only then, he went back to his kitchen, and prepared himself to eat lunch.

As he waited the chicken sandwiches to hastily heat up (bless his mom for getting him that small microwave), he checked the time on his phone. Yeah, just as he had thought, it was five minutes to 3 p.m.

He sat down and began munching on the food. If he ate and showered fast enough, he’d get almost three hours of beautiful, beautiful silent study! And God knew how much he needed as much of those as he could. Soon, (like really soon, in three weeks) he was going to have his first mid-terms of the year, and he wanted to get high scores. He couldn’t let his GPA get lower than back at his mom’s house, or else she’d blame his new single life for that.

Well… it wasn’t like his mom could make decisions for him anymore. He was 20 now.

But it was her lawyer’s studio that was paying for his rent. So, yeah.

As soon as he finished the sandwich he was currently eating, he didn’t feel like eating anymore, too anxious to begin, and put the rest inside the fridge. After ten minutes inside the shower, and the five more it took to dry his hair and get changed, he was ready to start.

He had to study from five books, and two Power Points for one class, and two books and three Power Points for the other. With quick mental math, he resolved that had to study, in total, 27 chapters for the first one, and 15 for the other one.  So, 42 chapters… He set his goal for that day on 10 chapters. That should be enough for one day.  In fact, it would be more than enough, taking into account that when the hellish sound that came from upstairs was on, he only managed to concentrate just enough to go through 4 chapters a day.

But music didn’t start until 7 or so, and it was barely 3.30.

He quickly gathered all the things he needed (notebook, highlighters, pens, a water bottle) and organized them on the spacious desk, and began.

One chapter, two chapters… take notes. Three chapters, four chapters, take more notes. Five chapters, take notes, food break. Half a sandwich later, he was at it again, marveled at how much he had gotten done.

Ah, what a blessing, this quiet silence.

He continued in a similar fashion, and almost without noticing it, he finished the whole ten chapters he had set himself to. Minwoo smiled to himself, as he organized the papers he had written his notes on. 

He quickly checked his phone. No new notifications (surprising), his e-mail inbox (no new mails), and… the time? It was still 6:30!

Well, he might as well keep on resuming, right? Nothing wrong with going a bit ahead of one’s own scheduled work.

Eleventh chapter.

Twelfth chapter.

Thirteenth chapter.

Wow, half an hour sure passed slowly.

Fourteenth chapter.

Fifteenth chapter…

When he was about to start the sixteenth chapter, a nailing pain began taking place in the higher up of his forehead. He sighed as he rubbed it. Ugh, really? Now that he was actually being able to get work done?

But even after chugging the rest of his water, the headache wouldn’t go away. He guessed he’d have to stop there. To be honest, he had done a lot for one day. He was sort of thankful for that.

So, after cracking his back, stretching his neck, and putting aside his papers, he threw himself on his bed, which was just next to the desk.

“Ahhgh...!”, he moaned, as he stretched once again, feeling his muscles relax on the sweet softness of his bed.

Sometimes he felt sort of guilty. He knew not everyone was in his economical position; much less in that building. And when he moved, he had been shy to ask the landlord to take away the default mattress, fridge and desk that came with the housing. In fact, had it been for him, he wouldn’t even have changed anything from the original setting. But his mom had insisted on him having at least the closest to the commodities he had had back at home.  And he knew refusing meant no permission to move.

His mom liked to baby him a bit too much, yeah. But, to be honest, as he buried his nose between his fluffy pillows and turned around on the feather baby-blue bed cover, he was really glad his mom had been like that.

 He checked his phone agai… –wait, what? It was ten past nine already?! And no music?!

…

Wow, that had never really happened until now.

Well… perhaps his neighbor wasn’t at home today? Sure, it was probably that. He wasn’t going to bother with that train of thought.

He opened one of his selca taking apps, and began playing around. He took a few, and sent one to his mom (a cute one, he was pouting but he had put happy stickers on it) thanking her for his bed, and uploaded other to his Instagram account (a smirking one, he thought he looked kind of y. the instant 16 likes he had gotten proved him right).

…

Well, it was weird without all that annoying noise. If this had been a normal day, he’d still be re-reading the same paragraph of some constitutional law, trying to figure it out. Laws were hard to understand most of the times, and for some reason, the government insisted on wording them so weirdly that maybe you thought they stated one thing, when it actually was the complete opposite.

He had more than once wanted to have a word with the one that wrote them.

…

…

It was Wednesday, right? It would have been a girl’s group music night. His neighbor always listened to Apink, Girls Generation and After School on Wednesdays. What had been that annoying song that had stuck on his mind last Wednesday?

It went something like… Ah yes, ‘dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb’.

For some reason, he found himself searching for it on Youtube. He quickly found that it was called ‘Dumb Dumb’, by a band called Red Velvet.

Surprising, he thought with sarcasm.

Still, he watched the whole music video. It was bright, colourful, and had many things happening at once at all times. The girls weren’t especially pretty, but they weren’t ugly either. Just… you know, idol like.

He found himself giggling to it, though. 

After a few more music videos, (all girl bands, all girlish and annoying), he found himself yawning. He decided to eat the rest of the sandwiches and get in his pijamas.

Few minutes later, he was inside his bed.

What a weird night.

DISCLAIMER: I love RV okay minwoo is just a lil too stuck up. but don't worry, he'll soon begin to change. be prepared to meet the upstairs neighbour next chapter!