When Sunggyu got ready to return to school on Monday, all of his muscles and every single cell in his body groaned in protest. He was almost certain that the mitochondria count in his body must have tripled over the weekend, because that was the only reason he was going to accept so much pain. He couldn’t even walk in peace without feeling like one of his limbs were going to detach and fling themselves into the deepest depths of hell because they wanted no part in the pain that they were experiencing.

He only had one enthusiastic health freak to thank for almost all of the pain in his life, and he went by the name of Nam Woohyun.

That aside, it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to him that morning, believe it or not.

He had opened his fridge to look for some leftovers for breakfast (he was way too dead to even try cooking) when he realized that at some point when he had visited, Woohyun had somehow managed to dump all of his unhealthy food. Sunggyu had also been planning to help himself to a healthy dose of ice cream, which he usually kept in stock in his fridge’s freezer section.

But it was missing.

Every. Single. Freaking. Bucket. Of. Ice. Cream.

Sunggyu almost felt like his world had stopped and he was ready to weep to his heart’s abandon. Yes, for ice cream. No, he was not the slightest bit okay.

He had an entire collection that would have made his parents declare him extinct, since he had promised that he would be responsible after moving out of the family home some years ago. He had been especially looking forward to eating his limited-edition chocolate chip ice cream made from dark chocolate chunks that he had bought recently. It didn’t taste the same as every other brand and it was expensive—but worth the price.

His wallet cried from the price of it, but it was worth every penny.

Woohyun had somehow gotten rid of all of his junk food under his nose, that also meant that he had pretty much nothingleft in his fridge.

He swore so much right there and then that he was sure that the Sunggyu of last week would have blushed from such profanity.

Sunggyu was almost ready to call it quits for the week, head back to bed, and watch dramas like he had planned to for the weekend. However, the only thing that was stopping him from doing so was because it was his second year as a teacher, and he had also gotten onto the teaching team at a great school because of Woohyun, who had put in a good word to the principal.

As he stood in front of his fridge, contemplating life and pretty much everything that could have led to this exact moment in which he was crying for his wallet and all of the ice cream that had disappeared, his phone notification went off.

It was a message from an unknown number.

Hi, it’s Jeon Gayoung. We need to talk.

It was short, sweet, and to the point. Just like the woman herself.

Sunggyu had a really good idea what this was going to be about. He groaned—was it Friday yet? He also had a very good idea as to how Ms. Jeon had gotten his number. Woohyun had been more or less obvious about it.

During their “light” morning jog on Sunday morning, even though every muscle fibre was protesting in Sunggyu from their jog on Saturday, Woohyun kept asking Sunggyu if he got a text yet, wiggling his eyebrows in a strange way.

Sunggyu kept on saying no during the jog until he was so fed up, he screamed at Woohyun to leave him alone. That of course, had sparked strange looks from the people around them. Not that Sunggyu cared much at that point anyway.

Anyway, Sunggyu wasn’t sure if her message solicited any sort of response, so he decided to leave it that way.

He was going to forget feeding himself something that he actually wanted to eat, because there was no time to order from a nearby café and make it to school at the designated time teachers had to arrive by. But at least he could fix himself a cup of coffee before he left for work.

He needed coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

And probably some painkillers. Lots and lots and lots of painkillers for his muscles and the migraine he could already predict was going to form sometime during the day.

Sunggyu started his day with a cup of warm coffee and a very sad-looking bowl of cereal that did not even have milk.

He packed the bottle of Tylenol for use at school—there was no telling what was going to happen, and he had a feeling he would probably need the placebo effects more so when he arrived and had to face Woohyun for another typical day in his life.

When Sunggyu arrived at school by his bike, the school grounds were still empty, but Woohyun was already there by the bike rack. And he was definitely waiting for him.

Gods no.

Not this early.

“Hello Gyu-Gyu!”

Sunggyu was almost sure he already needed the Tylenol right that moment.

All he could think of as he rolled into his usual spot at the bike rack was how much the chocolate chip ice cream costed, as well as the hell on earth he had experienced on the weekend during the jogs.

He was never going to walk in his neighbourhood ever again without some form of mask, so no one could recognize him as one of the men in the strange, comedic duo that went on a jog. (Honestly, he was more concerned about being known as the man who couldn’t run for in the neighbourhood, but whatever.)

“Don’t speak to me,” Sunggyu said, pinching his nose after locking his bike to the rack. “It’s way too early for this.”

His hands were itching for the Tylenol that was carefully tucked away in his bag. He had triple checked that it was in there before he left his place that morning.

“But we always talk!” Woohyun exclaimed, slinging an arm around Sunggyu’s shoulders. “You’re so funny Gyu-Gyu!”

Sunggyu opted not to respond and the two of them trudged together to the teachers’ office. Woohyun chatting his ear off, and Sunggyu tuning him out for the sake of making it through the day.

When they arrived at the teachers’ office, Howon was already there standing around by the water cooler, sipping on his usual morning tea. He arrived at school early some days to exercise in the field. Today was probably one of those days.

He smirked knowingly at Sunggyu, who was too tired to even engage in a stare down.

“So, how were your weekends?”

That prompted Woohyun to go on a ramble about how he had a great weekend with Sunggyu, the slob who couldn’t do anything like exercises without dying. As the physical education teacher, Howon took great joy in hearing about Sunggyu’s near-death experiences on the weekend.

Sunggyu decided to pretend the conversation was just part of a figment of his imagination, because it was only Monday and he needed to keep (or what was left of) his sanity in check. He opt