The calm sound from the alarm clock, slowly ticking away on the nightstand, wakes Minhyun from his very comfortable slumber. Eyelids fluttering open, Minhyun tries adjusting to the intensity of light that attacks his vision with the help of his palm to block the sunrays. The sight that welcomes him back to the world is the familiar white walls and ceiling of his bedroom and also a pair of shocked eyes. 

Wait.
Eyes?

“He’s awake!” the figure hollers and dashes out of the door in a blink of an eye.

There’s a tiny part of him that wants to ask what the hell is going on and who the hell was that but his throat is somehow constricted with pain so no words came out. With much reluctance, Minhyun slowly sits up and dangles his feet by the edge of the bed before making his way out of the bedroom. 
It’s been a freaking long while since he had enough sleep. And do you know how it feels to finally have a peaceful slumber? Magnificent. If you ask Minhyun how it feels after finally getting enough rest and finally able to sleep without the constant nagging in his head to work all the time, he’ll say it’s ing good. Hell, it’s awesome.

The guy stretches his arms like how a cat would while sauntering over to the living room of the apartment, yawning loudly until his mouth starts to hurt from opening his mouth too wide. He expected to see Daniel sprawled on the couch while watching TV or Seongwoo making coffee in the kitchen but he did not expect to see sleeping bags over sleeping bags covering what previously was the main hang out area of the apartment, the living room. And is that a camping tent near the balcony? 

“Minhyun hyung!” 
Seonho’s screech makes the older male flinch. Minhyun turns around to find the younger running in full speed and tackles him with his infamous bear hugs.  

“You can let go now, kiddo.” Minhyun says with much difficulty, feeling the air in his lungs being squeezed out with the kid’s weirdly strong grip around his body.
Seonho lets go and stares wide eyed at his favorite hyung.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Minhyun raises an eyebrow cautiously.

“You’re back,” Seonho mumbles. He sniffles and literally breaks down into tears. “You’re finally back!” Seonho was about to launch himself forward for another pain-inducing hug but thankfully Minhyun was fast enough to hold onto the younger’s head to keep him off at a safe distance which is his arm length.
While struggling to get away from Seonho, Minhyun looks around and sees Jisung approaching them with his comically surprised face ever so slowly.

“Get this kid away from me!” Minhyun begs. Soon, more familiar faces enter the scene in the living room, quickly aiding the man in need. Woojin struggles to keep Seonho away so Jihoon decides that it is safe to just tie the kid with the rope he recently bought for occasions similar to this. Yoo Seonho is now wrapped in coils of a long rope, not allowing him to move even an inch, mouth taped with Sungwoon’s duct tape and now placed in Daniel’s room to avoid causing needless ruckus.

Minhyun huffs when he was finally free, “what the hell is wrong with that kid?”

Seongwoo steps forward, arms crossed and eyes his housemate with a sharp gaze. Minhyun takes a few steps back, weirded out by the whole ordeal because not only Seongwoo, the others are doing the same to him. He staggers backwards until his back hits the nearby wall and Minhyun finally realizes that everyone is cornering him.

“Guys you are creeping me out. What do you guys want from me? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, but we have a question. Do you want any hugs from us?” Seongwoo asks carefully.

Minhyun frowns. “Why would I need hugs from you guys? Cut the crap and tell me what’s wrong!”

Jaehwan is the second person that day to tackle Minhyun with a hug until the taller male had a hard time breathing, asking for another help to be released. Jinyoung shouts out something incoherent and all the boys scream out in joy.

Minhyun finally finds the energy and power to push Jaehwan away and runs away to save himself by trudging towards the other side of the living room, enters the kitchen and slumps himself on the stool near the kitchen island. 

“What is wrong with them?!” he asks no one in particular as the spacious kitchen replies with silence.

He grabs an empty mug and pours himself a decent amount of water. This day has been strange enough. Why is everyone acting like psychos? While drinking away the shock and sleepiness that remained, Minhyun looks around for the clock.

Hmm, it’s 5 o’clock now. 

To be honest, Minhyun isn’t completely conscious yet. He’s still stuck in the limbo where he can’t even differentiate day to night so to see that the hour hand is pointing at number 5 right now is confusing. Is it early at dawn? Or is it nearing the evening? But considering everyone is currently wide awake, that means it is 5 pm, all of them aren’t exactly the early birds.

Minhyun nods to himself a few times, patting himself mentally for doing a good job of adapting to the new time. But what day is it?
He glances to the daily wall calendar just beneath the clock. 
Friday. 

Hmm, Friday. 
He should be doing something on Friday, something important, but what is it?

Minhyun tries brainstorming and tries to remember what the heck happened just last night or even two days before that. Well he remembers the sleepless nights, the coffees, the all nighters, books scattered everywhere. But all those pictures only appear as fractions and do not actually help in recalling anything. 

The guy closes his eyes and begins another round of his brain shock.

There are books and papers in his memory. He remembers typing on his laptop like crazy. He remembers the countless bottles of red bull on his table. He remembers listening to slow songs on his headphone. He remembers looking for his phone. 

His phone. What does he want with the phone? Yeah, contact the professor to ask something. But ask what? 

Then it clicks in Minhyun’s head, zapped away like lightning and effectively snaps the guy out of his short memory lane.

“My project…”

Minhyun’s eyes are wide, fear and shock written on his eyeballs with red ink.

“!” Minhyun curses as he dashes out from the kitchen with a haywire brain and unclear conscience. He was about to dash to his bedroom when Guanlin blocks his way right in the living room. Soon, everyone joins the barricade parade, blocking Minhyun from his own room.

“Get out, I don’t have time for this!”

Minhyun’s threats of kicking or strangling anyone on his way fall on deaf ears as Daniel and Seongwoo drags the thrashing Minhyun in their arms before dumping the guy on the couch. Jaehwan is quick to act as the anchor as he sits on the stressed out male’s lap. Jisung and Daehwi hold unto Minhyun’s arm to stop him from moving too much.

“We’ve done the first few instructions from Dongho hyung, go get the guide book,” Jihoon orders.

Guanlin runs quickly and returns back from Seongwoo’s room while bringing a book that looks quite familiar but Minhyun really does not have time for some stupid prank.

“Let me go before things get messy,” Minhyun says, voice dripping with hidden anger and frustration that the kids would not want to see unleashed. “I have a project to submit so if you would just let me go right now, I’ll pretend that everything never happened.”

Daniel, who has been holding Minhyun’s legs on the floor, clears his throat, “actually, Dongho hyung submitted it already.”

Everyone can see how Minhyun’s eyes darken. “He. Did. What?”

Jisung is quick to intervene. “Dongho meant well and really, you should chill down a second. Everyone is having pretty rough day already so please tone it down.”

Hearing this, Minhyun actually softens because he never meant to cause so much commotion and what kind of hyung would he be if the kids can’t rely on him, even more, taking care of him right now. He just wanted all the hard work he has put in for the past week would come to good result. 
He sighs, “I’m sorry. You guys can let me go now, I won’t try to run anymore.”

Warily, everyone lets go and Jaehwan moves away.

“What’s next on the guide book?” Daniel breaks the silence.

Guanlin, who has been reading the said book silently, looks up, “it says written by the great and powerful kang dongho. That’s it.”

Jisung rolls his eye, “flip to the next page.”

The younger mouths an ‘O’ while reading on another page. “First, ask Minhyun if he had a good sleep.” Guanlin then faces Minhyun. “Did you have a great sleep, hyung?”

“Yes, I did. Just quickly finish the questions I’m suddenly dizzy,” Minhyun complains while rubbing his forehead, now knowing it belongs to Dongho. This means he will be facing more questions and scolding from the latter.

Guanlin nods, “okay be patient. Second question, do you remember what happened yesterday?”

There are flashes of memories flooding Minhyun’s head but not entirely complete. He sees Dongho smiling ever so brightly in his head, hears the echoing of Dongho’s laughter, remembers the harsh wind that made a mess to their hairs. Why isn’t his brain cooperating at this timing? He can’t see anything aside from Dongho in his brain. And also burgers, for some reason he remembers the fast food and soda drinks. He can’t recall anything else. The male rubs his temples furiously while answering, “only a little part of it.”
 

“That’s okay, Dongho hyung said it happened before so you most probably won’t remember anything about your stressed out habit.”

“What stressed out habit do I have? I wasn’t stressed. Wait… did I start touching people again? Dongho always says I do but I never believed him.” Minhyun scowls.

Guanlin takes a seat on the floor, directly facing Minhyun and reads aloud. “This brings us to point number 3. You will forget about hugging and literally latching on people, denying to have done such things even when everybody else said otherwise. That’s why I have asked Guanlin to record everything that acts as a proof. While you are currently in denial over the accusation, you are slowly forgetting about your project. Gotcha.”

“He knows you well,” Seongwoo comments.

“Too well.” Minhyun crosses his hands and wonders why his best friend knows him better than himself.  

“Shh,” Guanlin shushes everyone as he continues. “Where was I? Oh yeah. The project is now safe and sound in the hands of your professor. If you are scared that your masterpiece is yet to be completed, fret not cause I had done it for you. I have the copies on your laptop so you can check it later but I assure you that it will not receive scores lower than an A minus. Thank me later, .” The boy pauses. “Wait I think I shouldn’t have read that part out loud. I’m sorry, hyung.”

Minhyun only sighs, “it’s fine. You can continue.”

The younger male flips another page, “Part 4 states Share your burden, idiot. We’re all here, aren’t we?” Then Guanlin closes the book.

For a moment, Minhyun finds himself smiling oddly. He knows now that everyone is worried about his well-being and for him, it actually feels nice to receive this much of support.

“So that’s why you guys had sleepover here?” Minhyun asks with a relaxed grin.

Daehwi pretends to cry, “my back is starting to hurt now. The floor was rock hard and you know I pamper my body like a baby. Consider yourself loved because I wouldn’t sacrifice myself for just any idiot. But you are my idiot hyung, so be thankful.”

“We all were scared that you might need our help or, on the hand, you might strangle Daniel or Seongwoo when you three are alone so we decided to camp in for further measures considering you were not exactly in your best mental state but now that you’re okay and after seeing Dongho works his magic, I might say that our worry is for nothing,” Jaehwan adds in.

Minhyun was about to reply because somehow he feels offended but then the doorbell rings, breaking everyone’s attention on the male. Sungwoon dashes to the door and lets the three figures enter the apartment with a high pitched shriek of a welcome.

“Aron hyung!” Minhyun calls excitedly, unexpected at the sudden visit. He walks to the newcomer and receives a hug. “When did you get back from LA?”

“A few hours ago,” Jonghyun answers instead. “We picked Aron up from the airport and do you not realize that Minki and I were missing when you woke up?”

Oh right. Jonghyun and Minki were absent. Right. He forgot they existed. In fact, with them gone, Minhyun somehow felt completely at ease. But nevertheless, he offers Jonghyun and Minki an apologetic smile.

“I brought presents,” Aron says with a smile after breaking free from the hug. He swings the plastic bag in his hand and places it in Minhyun’s hands. Curious, the male quickly opens. 

“Hyung,” Minhyun fakes a smile, cocking his head to the left and swings the bag of stuff in Aron’s face. “For real? Medicines? Fever packs? I should have known you were Dongho’s accomplice.”

“Hey, he’s the one who begs me to buy it on my way here! Besides, you’re really sick. Take a look at your tomato face on the mirror. I didn’t know it would be that bad.”

Minhyun turns around and faces the rest of the house occupant, slightly annoyed. “Please tell that old man I’m not sick. I may act a bit strange yesterday but I am in no way ill.”

Daniel struts lazily towards his clean freak of a housemate and takes Minhyun’s hand, places the hand on the owner’s forehead and leaves. Seongwoo gives him the thumbs up for doing something useful.
Even though he wouldn’t want to acknowledge it but Aron’s right, he was indeed sick and the fever is quite bad. Minhyun is actually shocked that he would have such a high body temperature, no wonder he’s been dizzy since this morning.

“Kang Dongho 2, Hwang Minhyun 0,” Minki shouts like a football announcer. The living room is filled with hollers and cheers of ‘KANG DONGHO!’ on loop while Minhyun glares at everyone. When everybody else approaches Aron to welcome him back, Minhyun trudges to his bedroom to find it completely in disarray, messy and a total shipwreck. He flinches when he sees every corner of his room is far from neat, well, except for his study desk. 
Cleaning can come later. 

Minhyun slowly walks to his empty table, only spotting a tiny USB and his trusted laptop along with the desk lamp.He takes a seat and turns his electronic device on, plugging the flash drive to check the content. In the file, only a single video was present with a title of FROM YOUR DEAREST.

At first, the video showed Dongho’s confused face in full zoom that causes Minhyun to cackle out loud. Then the man in the video pulled out a phone that shows the date and time it was recorded which is yesterday at 10 pm. Soon, the camera or the recorder was placed on the top of the cabinet that serves the best spot to capture the whole room. To Minhyun’s surprise, he saw himself sleeping soundly at the bed while Dongho waves to the camera silently. The other male pulls out a sketch book out of nowhere and holds it up. 
I took a power nap before this and I drank your energy drinks so don’t worry.

From then onwards, Dongho was always seated and working away on Minhyun’s laptop but now the video is in fast forward. Sometimes the guy would take a break from typing tirelessly, stretch his body a bit and turn to the camera for a quick smile or checking Minhyun’s sleeping figure before focusing back to his job. Minhyun zooms in to the clock on his bedroom wall. It was in the middle of dawn.

After another minute of watching, Dongho stood up from his position and holds up his previous sketch book to the camera with different writings. 
FINISHED! I’ll bring this to the prof. Gonna tutor Guanlin with his upcoming test after this. I’ll be back to see my mom (in Jeju) too after this. See you on Monday.
 

P.S. Get poor Seonho out of Daniel’s room. 
   

Minhyun chuckles. They planned out the whole thing.