Jaehwan fell his head back to the soft pillow as he failed his already-lost-count-th attempt to - forcefully and very unwillingly - drag his dead tired body out of bed. He felt like a piece of and he was pretty sure he looked like one right now, well you couldn’t really expect someone to look good after basically bathing in alcohol the night before anyway.

He knew it, Jaehwan goddamn knew he’d terribly regret drinking that much when he woke up this morning, mouth painfully dry with a bitter after taste of the whatever kind of liquor he was downing last night, head spinning and aching like it was having its own drinking party up there on a merry go round, eyelids shutting down so heavily on their own everytime he tried to sobber up properly, basically his whole body refused to function and Jaehwan couldn’t hate himself more for having absolutely no self control and his inability to say no, avoiding all the “just one more”s coming from his friends.

After a long while of desperate struggling and wiggling that was pretty similar to the state of a dying fish out of water, Jaehwan finally managed to sit up and stretch out his arm, grabbing the bottle on his night stand. He always had one right there, making very sure it should be able to be grabbed while lying down in bed, for days like this. Waking up in a hangover was nothing unfamiliar to him anymore, college was all about weekend drinking parties and procrastinating doing things that should be done anyway.

“!”, Jaehwan cursed out loud when he somehow spilled himself wet all over, while gulping down water in the hope to wash away that bitterness deep in his throat, just to realise that his throat was burning like it’d been scratched by some kind of bear paws for hours before. Jaehwan was sure that he’d have to shut up for days because of his sore throat, caused probably by embarassing drunk singing or even screaming and shouting last night.  Not like he wanted to know what he did anyway.

Pick up the phone, pick up the damn phone brat

Even though it’d been a while since Jaehwan’s one and only best friend stubbornly forced him to change his ringtone into this recording of his voice, exclusively for his incoming calls, because “i’m special and don’t you ing dare ignore my calls”, Hakyeon’s voice still scared the out of him just then.

“Hey”

“Where are you now?”, Hakyeon spoke unexpectedly softly, almost in a whispering tone, “class is starting in 5 minutes“

“, ! My ing god! my entire existence! I got dead drunk last night oh god oh my god oh my in-”

Of all days to be a wasted piece of worthless trash, Jaehwan had to pick the very worst one – the day in which he'd be presenting his 20% worth of finals grade research project. And it just happened to be Mr. Kim’s lecture, the head of his department, also the strictest professor had been known to mankind (in Jaehwan’s own humble opinion and past self experience).

“Language, Jaehwan”, Hakyeon had always hated it when Jaehwan cursed out loud out of habits, “if you arrive in 15 minutes and be able to make up a good enough excuse, you can still make it”

Jaehwan hung up the phone without a single word after that, trying to press down the urge to bang his head to the wall till death while roughly washing up. He had no time to change, slightly relieved that he’d gone straight to bed last night in his going out outfit – shirt and jeans, which was not different from his everyday fashion choices that Hakyeon insisted on them being “even more boring than your love life if that’s even possible”.

Like a freaking ninja, Jaehwan grabbed all the textbooks and notebooks and shoved them into his backpack and rushed out in an unbelievable speed, trying to think of an excuse for coming late to class while running from the dorm to the actual campus, at the same time - made a mental oath to never ever drink again.

_


“Alive?", during the break, Hakyeon went down to Jaehwan’s seat at the very last row of desks and took out a bottle of water along with a sandwich, the other hand pinching his friend’s cheek. Jaehwan came in late and Hakyeon couldn’t save him the right by seat as usual. He couldn’t bring himself to scold Jaehwan for being careless and got dead drunk the night before either, because it was partly his fault for convincing Jaehwan to come to the party, despite Jaehwan’s strong refusal.

“I told you didn’t I!”, Jaehwan glared up, as soon as the bell rang to mark the end of the lecture, he collapsed on his own desk, back to hating himself for drinking so carelessly.

“Right right, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have forced you to come”, Hakyeon sat down in front of Jaehwan, patting his head. “Anyway, you’re lucky that Mr. Kim didn’t show up, he wouldn’t have let you go that easily like that hot guy did”

To speak of it, Jaehwan really lucked it out today. For “personal reason”, Mr. Kim didn’t come to work. He did manage to send a replacement, though.  When Jaehwan showed up in front of the door, sweating and trying to catch up on his own breath, the class had already started for about 15 minutes. For an instant he thought he got the room number wrong, because even though he was still out of it from hangover, he was pretty sure Mr. Kim - who was in his 60s - couldn't be so young and super tall and had the habit to dress in all black, like the guy who was standing in front of his class did, at that moment. If he didn't notice Hakyeon sitting at the second row, he would have totally run off to find the supposedly correct room for his lecture.

He had to stand there awkwardly for a good while, couldn't find the right timing to interrupt the unfamiliar guy who was passionately explaining something to the class. Soon later the guy noticed Jaehwan's appearance and let him in without asking much, and Jaehwan was glad he didn't have to say his lame made up excuse out loud. He did notice that the guy had a really nice soothing voice though, a perfect gentle tone contrasting to his somewhat cold and expressionless appearance. He thought maybe lectures would be a tad less boring than they originally were, if bioscience was explained by that soothing smooth and mellow voice.

He learnt soon later that the guy's name was Taekwoon, a post-graduate student, definitely the professor's favorite and he had to be some sort of genius to earn that spot, considering the fact that Mr. Kim trusted him enough to let him take over the class when he wasn't there.

"He definitely tried to embarass me just now, though"

"Swallow first then talk", Hakyeon sniffed, "but seriously you came in late and slept during the discussion on top of that, you'd be in no position to question why he called you up, sweetie"

After they were informed that the presentation day would be postponed until next week, and they'd be having a discussion over a topic (that information went lost somewhere in between the merry go round in his spinning head) instead, Jaehwan immediately decided to take a nap. When you sat on the very last row in the furthest corner, with a crazy headache, sleeping would be the best option. However while he was in the middle of the sweet nap, Taekwoon called him up, "Mr. Latecomer", Jaehwan bitterly recalled.

Fortunately he always tried his best to pay attention to classes even though he hardly ever understood anything, plus he was blessed with the natural-born talent in improvised bullting, that Jaehwan managed to get out of Taekwoon's spiral of tricky questions. When he finally nodded, allowing Jaehwan to sit down, Jaehwan thought he saw the corner of the guy's lips curl up very slightly, and if combined with his relaxing expression, it could be roughly considered as a smile or a smirk of some sort. Or it could be Jaehwan's alcohol drowned brain messing around.

After that, Jaehwan got wide awake then started to observe the guy who was already walking away very carefully, and spent rest of the lecture focusing his eyes on Taekwoon's overbearing long legs in those well fitting formal plain black pants.

Hakyeon talked for a long while later about many  things, but Jaehwan's brain had soon given up on taking in whatever his best friend was saying, so he just flopped down right there for the rest of their break time, a strangely soothing voice echoing in his half concious his mind.

_

Jaehwan went home after classes ended. The headache lasted for the whole day, and by the time he reached his room, Jaehwan could swear he felt literal death. To make it worse, the sight of the unwashed dishes in the sink and dirty laundry piled up, empty cans of redbulls with coffee stained cups lining on his studying desks made him feel sick in his stomach.

Yesterday party was to celebrate the end of the busiest period during the semester, when everyone had to finish 3 or 4 assignments a week, and never had a day passed without a midterm exam or something. No one remembered what the ever loving was 'sleep' anymore, but instead of going straight to sleep to make up for the loss as he planned after turning in the very last assignment, Jaehwan was dragged to a drinking party with Hakyeon.

Jaehwan gathered the very last bit of his energy to tidy up the dorm room, washing the long overdue dirty dishes and cups, taking out the trash and opened the big window to let the fresh air in. By the time his room came back to the state of one that seemingly belonged to a perfectly functioning human, it was about time he had to leave for his part time job. He hesitated whether he should just stay at home today because heck, the headache was seriously killing him, but then Jaehwan decided to show up anyway, because they wouldn’t be able to ask someone to cover up for his place if he called in sick just fifteen minutes before his shift started.

He worked in the dining restaurant near by, 3 days a week in the evening. The pay couldn’t cover all the bills and monthly rent obviously, he still had to depend on his family for that, and it was not like his parents had any problems with it at all, considering their stable financial background. On top of that, as the youngest born of three sons, Jaehwan was everyone’s sweetheart and grew up being showered in love and adoration. When he told them he’d be moving to Seoul for college, it took Jaehwan many, many long and serious talking session with his parents including a bit of whining, a whole lot of promises and definitely added some cute actions here and there, for the Lees to finally let go of their precious youngest sweet angel baby.

And a year later since the day he told his parents that he’d be working part time in a restaurant, countless times a week, his mom still texted him to be careful not to accidentally cut himself while working, even though he already told her over and over and over that he was only a waiter.

Starlight was a small Italian restaurant owned by the two friendly managers, who were only few years older than him. On special occasions and weekend nights, it could get really busy, and you’d see customers filling up the whole restaurant, dim yellow lights and noises of people talking, dishes, forks and knives clinking together creating a strangely warm and comfortable atmosphere. Jaehwan loved working here.

As soon as he got changed into his uniform of white shirt and black pants, their first customer of the night came in. They opened at 6PM, but most people came after that at least half an hour or so, especially during week days like this. Jaehwan walked out with the menu in hand, and when he noticed one familiar guy sitting there by himself, long legs crossed, looking out of the glass window, for one brief moment he stopped breathing, and the usual friendly smile on his lips froze at that.

He could almost hear Taekwoon’s strangely soothing voice echoing in his mind at that moment.

“Good evening”, Jaehwan approached the older guy, trying his best to keep cool, “Welcome to Starlight. Please take a look at our menu and call me anytime you’re ready to order, thank you.”

“Hello, Mr. Latecomer"

Jaehwan saw it again, that almost-smirking expression on Taekwoon's face, with his eyes showing obvious interests and corner of his lips curled up very slightly.

Taekwoon didn’t say anything more, just silently shifted his eyes back to the menu, long and slender fingers turning the pages. Jaehwan just awkwardly stood right by the table, unknowingly became fidgety and nervous for no apparent reason. Taekwoon was wearing a formal suit in navy blue, his full displayed broad shoulders giving Jaehwan a weird pressure.

He must be on a date then.

The thought came into Jaehwan’s mind together with a vague sense of disappointment. Someone like Taekwoon would definitely not be single. Right. In the midst of Hakyeon's endless blabbering he was forced to listen to that day, Jaehwan recalled his best friend did mention something about Taekwoon apparently being really famous amongst the female students and even young staffs/teachers at their college. "You can't believe all the oooohhhhs and ahhhhs when he walked into the class", Hakyeon said, "almost made my gay heart flutter, too".

“Are you waiting for your date?”

The question slipped out and Jaehwan regretted it immediately, “well just in case you’d want to wait for them to arrive then order later, I’d excuse myse-“

“No”, Taekwoon put down the menu, “I did come to see someone so it’s not entirely wrong, though”

Jaehwan scratched the back of his neck, bashful smile appeared on his already blushing from confusion and embarassment face.

“Then, would you like to order now?"

"I'll take your recommendations, thank you"

Jaehwan explained the menu and Taekwoon quickly made his choices. After Jaehwan got back to the counter, his coworker Hongbin smacked him hard on the arm to pull Jaehwan back to reality, and reminded him to put up Taekwoon's order, because Jaehwan had been standing there with a hand on his chest for a solid minute.

_

Taekwoon ended up staying until the restaurant was about to close, and Jaehwan’s shift was ending in fifteen minutes. He quickly finished his dinner, all by himself, then spend the rest of the time sitting there watching Jaehwan. Along the evening, Jaehwan always felt like someone was watching him the whole time, and some of the many times he carefully shifted his eyes to the direction of the table Taekwoon was sitting in, he’d catch the guy looking directly at him, didn’t even flinch or tried to look away, long legs neatly crossed and both hands resting on his lap, and Jaehwan’s heart fluttered shamelessly under the gaze showing obvious interest in Taekwoon’s sparkly eyes.

When Jaehwan approached him with the dessert – a fine piece of their signature tiramisu, Taekwoon didn’t even look surprised, like he expected Jaehwan to come.

“I don’t know if you like sweet things”, Jaehwan his upper lips out of habit, “but this is for letting me in this morning. Thanks.”

“I didn’t do anything, though”

They had a little conversation while Taekwoon was enjoying the dessert, most of the talking was done by Jaehwan and Taekwoon only let out short and simple replies, but Jaehwan didn’t have any problem with that. He soon figured out that Taekwoon didn’t seem like the type to talk much anyway, he didn’t even show much expression at all on his stone cold face. He was definitely not the approachable kind looking from the outside, maybe it was because Taekwoon was not at all similar with Jaehwan himself in any way - he talked a lot, smiled easily – that he found it super interesting when he noticed the slightest change in Taekwoon’s expression.

“Oh, it’s already time for us to close down”, when Jaehwan looked down to the watch on his wrist, it was already 10:30, “Nice meeting you here today”

“Yeah I should head off”, Taekwoon stood up, “The food was really delicious”.

Jaehwan just then remembered about the fact that Taekwoon was here alone, eating by himself for the whole night even though he said he was meeting someone here. But Taekwoon didn’t seem like he was waiting for anyone the whole time either, and he didn’t look sad or upset like someone ditched him last minute on their dinner date at all.

“Didn’t you say you were meeting someone?”

When Jaehwan was still thinking if it was okay to ask such question - they did get more comfortable during the small and delightful chitty chatty session they had earlier, but it was not like they knew anything about each other at all, definitely not to the point of asking personal question like this – Taekwoon’s answer came out definitely made Jaehwan’s mind go completely blank.

“Well I did meet the person I wanted to meet”, Taekwoon smiled, this time it was clearly a smile, eyes wrinkling and thin lips bloomed beautifully, “And next time, don’t drink when you have early morning class, Mr. Latecomer, or should I say, Mr. Hangover”