This chapter is a long one.

And clearly, I have a thing for carrots when I was writing this chapter.

— — —

Brian put down his pen, then stopped reading and taking notes from the journal he got opened on his laptop once he saw how his phone screen lighted up and a notification popped up.

One new message.

Brian immediately knew from whom the message was, so he opened it up and chuckled at the meme Jae had just sent him. Brian had so many questions about this whole ‘they did surgery on a grape!’ meme but he found it funny nonetheless, since it had no context whatsoever and Jae was really just that random to send it him out of the blue.

He contemplated for a while on how should he reply to the meme but then decided that a simple sticker of a chubby bear rolling on the floor laughing would be enough as a reply, since Brian was pretty sure that Jae sent that meme to him just to make him chuckle and cheer him up a little bit, so Jae probably didn’t really expect any reply from Brian at all. The older guy had already knew anyway, that Brian was currently slaving his off to prepare for his final project presentation — Brian really needed an A for this project.

After the first message Brian sent Jae months ago, Brian had spent a big chunk of his time to message Jae back and forth every single day ever since. Literally there would be no days passed without Brian sending Jae a message or vice versa, him receiving a random message from Jae. And these messages could be about anything, ranging from random jokes to personal rambles.

In the span of four months of them knowing each other, Brian had told a lot about himself to Jae through these exchanges of messages.

Like how Brian missed his parents back in Toronto and how he would always facetime them at least once every week;

How Wonpil annoyed him with his constant talk about Dowoon — the handsome yet awkward freshman with super deep voice that his roommate’s crushing on;

How he never realised that Christmas in Korea was a celebration more centred around couples and lovers instead of family until Wonpil kept talking about wanting to ask Dowoon out for a Christmas date — Brian was ninety eight percent sure that Wonpil wouldn’t have the gut to actually do it though;

How he still resented Prof. Kim for giving him a D for his Introduction to Management class last year — Brian was sure that man hated him for no reason — causing him to retook the class since business administration major students were obligated to pass this class, and a D was definitely not a pass;

How he was stressed about his study and the load of university work he had to do, especially since he was a scholarship receiver and he really needed to keep his GPA up there in order not to mess up his scholarship — the D he received had make a dent to it, thankfully he managed to fix it by retaking the class and got an A in the end;

How he could sing, play both guitar and bass, and write his own music, but was too embarrassed to actually participate in the university’s annual music festival — to which Jae responded by saying that he himself also sings and plays the guitar so they should totally perform a duet;

And many other little random things about himself.

On the other hand, Jae had also told Brian various things about his own self, like how he too, missed his parents and older sister back in L.A.;

How up until now he still wasn’t sure what happened to the person who was supposed to be his roommate — his name was Mark and he was also from L.A. but he never actually showed up nor enrolled to any of his classes, leaving Jae to have the entire dorm room for himself, not that he’s complaining about that;

How he actually got a cousin-slash-best-friend who’s also a student in their university, in the exact same major as Jae was — environmental engineering, whatever that was — whom Jae kept calling as Bob but Brian was sure it wasn’t his actual name considering how Jae had a weird hobby and tendency of giving random nicknames to people depending on his own likings;

How at the start of the last semester both Jae and Bob were recruited as Prof. Song’s research assistant and had been working with her in her research team ever since — an opportunity that according to Jae was both a blessing and a curse in disguise, a blessing because he actually got paid quite a lot for it but a curse because the workload was no joke at all;

How he sometimes still struggled with his Korean skill, especially when it comes to writing and Bob was the one who usually helped him — Jae told Brian that Bob was convinced the only reason why he was also hired to become Prof. Song’s research assistant was to help Jae writing the reports even though Jae himself thought that Bob was the better and smarter student compared to himself;

And other little things that Brian unconsciously took notes in his head — like how Jae was allergic to basically everything.

It didn’t seem like they would run out of things to tell each other soon.

And that’s only in the text form.

They would literally talk about anything and everything — be it through texting or actually talking to each other — even if their interests didn’t match exactly with each other’s. In a way, Brian thought that was what made it super interesting for them to keep talking to each other. It was because they didn’t like the exact same thing, they would share to each other about what they like and they would also responded enthusiastically about what the other had shared… Or at least that how it seemed to Brian.

Brian and Jae actually also spent a lot of their time with each other after that weird, accidental first meeting at the coffee shop. The fact that they were in different majors with different class schedules didn’t matter much because somehow they still managed to hang out together at least once every week. Well, the term “hang out” was a luxury to actually be used to describe the time they spent together though. Why? Because life as a university student was a , and that’s the truth.

Most of the time they would meet either in the coffee shop, in the library, in the student hall, or in Jae’s own room, with each of them got a laptop open in front of their faces, doing whatever work they needed to do for their classes. Brian was contented with that though, because Jae was a fun person to “hang out” with, and despite them learning different things in university, Brian found that he could discuss and talk basically about anything with the older guy.

Brian picked up his phone again and scrolled up, chuckling at the memes that Jae had sent him the past several days. It had been almost two weeks since the last time he met the older guy.

With the beginning of December rolling in, came with it the impending doom of what was known as the end of the semester; Which means that the final week and assignments deadlines were upon them soon. So while the both of them were busy trying not to fail any of their classes this semester, all they could do to stay in touch with each other was through these random exchange of messages — mostly contained memes — and maybe occasional phone calls.

Brian scrolled back down again, to the newest reply he had sent Jae, noticing how Jae had seen the sticker he sent him but didn’t reply to it again, probably because the latter didn’t want to disturb Brian’s study too much. So he locked his phone screen, put it down onto his desk, and took his pen up again, starting to continue the work from where he left it off earlier.

— — —

Saturday was supposed to be a day where you had fun… Unless it’s the last Saturday before finals week rolling in. That was why instead of doing anything remotely fun, Brian and Wonpil both got their laptop opened in front of them, sitting in their university’s study hall. They didn’t really say anything to each other, since they both were busy trying to finish their final papers.

“Uh… hyung?”

Wonpil suddenly called out after around two hours of them not talking to each other despite sitting next to each other. Brian looked up from his laptop and sent a questioning look to Wonpil, wondering why the younger called him.

“Your phone.”

Wonpil simply answered while pointing at the black square in front of Brian’s laptop before focusing again on his laptop. Brian took the cue and checked his phone, only to find a message from Jae.

From: Jae hyung

Message: Bri, you’re still in the study hall?

Brian remembered how earlier this morning Jae asked what he’s going to do today and he told Jae that he’s going to spend the entire afternoon and evening with Wonpil in the study hall, finishing his papers and studying for the upcoming finals week. Jae then said that he too was going to study together with Bob, probably in the library because Bob was sensitive to noise and studying in the study hall really distracted him.

Brian decided to only reply to Jae’s message with a sticker of a cute cat holding up a sign with “Yes!” written on it and noticed that Jae read his message immediately after. Jae didn’t reply again though, so Brian supposed that Jae was just checking up on him. So Brian put his phone back down and focused his eyes back onto his laptop again, resuming to write his paper… Until about half an hour later, he noticed two people had slid onto the seat across his and Wonpil’s.

“Hey, boyfriend.”

Brian heard the greetings and realised that the voice was familiar to his ear, so he looked up from his laptop. He found Jae in his glory fluffy brown hair and gold-rim glasses, with his cheeks and nose slightly rosy from the chilly winter air, sitting in front of him while grinning. He then noticed a small box of food and two cups of beverages was put in front of him.

“Hey, hyung!” Brian grinned back, pleasantly surprised by the sudden intrusion.

Jae pointed at the food and the beverage, “Cake and hot chocolate for you and Wonpil. I know how cranky you’ll get without your sweet treat.” He chuckled and then continued, “I’m not sure what Wonpil would like so I just get him the same thing as you.”

Jae chirped and explained everything in English, which had become a habit of his. (For some reason, Jae loved to alternate between English and Korean so much when he talked to Brian.) Brian nodded and smiled his thanks to Jae because Jae really didn’t have to do it, but he did it anyway, buying Brian his fix of sweet treats and even buying it for Wonpil too, even though the older guy hadn’t even met Wonpil before, he just knew Wonpil because Brian mentioned his roommate so much.

Talking about Wonpil, the younger guy just stared curiously at the exchange between Brian and Jae, even though Brian was sure that Wonpil didn’t understand a thing Jae just said. Brian just chuckled at Wonpil’s expression because the only thing that Wonpil caught was the fact that Jae greeted Brian with ‘boyfriend’ earlier.

“Wonpil-ah, this is Jae hyung. He was the one who helped me when I ran into Terry that one time.” Brian explained briefly to his roommate in Korean and noticed how Jae held up a V sign with his hand while grinning towards Wonpil. “Oh, he also got us these cakes and hot chocolate.”

At the introduction, Wonpil suddenly gasped, “So you’re the infamous boyfriend of Brian hyung?!” Which caused him to receive a light punch on his left shoulder, courtesy of Brian Kang. While Jae just laughed at Wonpil’s sudden outburst but still nodded anyway.

“Yeah, I am.”

Brian rolled his eyes at Jae’s response. He snickered and waved his hands to motion an air quote while muttering, “Boyfriend. With a quote.”

Jae shrugged at Brian and then suddenly spoke in English again, “Oh by the way Bri, Wonpil, this is Bob. My cousin. Bri, I’m sure I’ve told you about—”

“Yah, Park Jaehyung.” Bob talked even before Jae finished his introduction, “Just because I don’t speak English doesn’t mean I don’t understand what you said. So stop introducing me to your friends using that name!” He sighed, “Your friends Sammy, Kevin, and Jamie actually started calling me Bob, you know.” He then turned his attention towards Brian, “Not Bob. Sungjin. This idiot’s cousin.”

Brian suddenly laughed at Bo— Sungjin’s greetings.

“Sorry,” He said between his laugh, “I already suspect that your name isn’t actually Bob, but really. From Sungjin to Bob? That’s… Ridiculous.”

Brian laughed again which was responded by another sigh from Sungjin.

“And I only have this idiot to blame.”

— — —

Brian Kang truly and genuinely hated Wednesday, even if that Wednesday was actually his own birthday. Or at least, Brian thoroughly hated Wednesday for the entirety of this semester. He hated the fact that he was stuck with his three hardest classes scheduled all on a ing Wednesday. That was why he could only laugh sadly at his own luck when he saw his schedule for the final week. For those three classes, he had to do two exams and one final project presentation all in the same day — on a Wednesday, on his own birthday.

If there was anything that Brian really hated more than a Wednesday in this particular semester, then it was not being able to give his one hundred percent on his work. That was why when Brian ended up not concentrating at all while doing the exams and kept stuttering and forgetting the content of his own project presentation, to say that Brian was upset was an understatement. He was disappointed — mostly at himself — so much to the point that after the classes ended, all he wanted to do was to face plant onto his pillow and cry. Wallowing in a pity party for himself sounded really tempting in his mind right now.

In his more rational side of brain, Brian knew that getting a B or a C on a subject in university wouldn’t make the world ends. It might affect his scholarship a little bit (that was why he was aiming for an A), but other than that, it wouldn’t really be the doom for him.

But with him averaging only three hours sleep per night for the last two weeks, Brian’s emotional side of brain won. He didn’t even care for the dozens of birthday messages that was flooding his phone right now. He knew that at least two of those messages were from his parents but he really couldn’t be bothered with it right now. All he wanted to do was to cry, sleep, and then maybe he would feel better afterwards. Maybe then he would actually care that it was his birthday.

Brian was sure that Wonpil read his mood the moment he stepped into their shared dorm room at around 6PM. Because as soon as Brian saw him, the younger asked, “Hyung, are you okay? Do you want me to accompany you tonight?” And Brian could only smiled to that.

It was a nice gesture that was so Wonpil, and Brian really appreciated that. He was tempted to let it all out and cry and let his roommate know how upset he was but Brian didn’t have the heart to actually make Wonpil stay back and accompany him, knowing full well that the boy got a study date with Dowoon and would finally get a chance to spend times with his crush. Because Brian knew that Wonpil would one hundred percent do that — cancelling his study date with his own crush — if it meant he would be able to console Brian. That just how Wonpil was.

(Brian remembered how excited Wonpil was when he told Brian that Dowoon agreed to the study date he proposed. Brian could only chuckled at the younger but also mentally applauded Wonpil’s bravery to finally asking Dowoon out, even if it was just for a study date. Because he previously believed that Wonpil couldn’t even say a proper hi to the freshman.)

“No, Wonpil-ah. I’m fine.” Brian answered in strained voice, exhaustion apparent in his whole being. “You finally got a date with Dowoon, you should meet him soon.”

He added again while retaining a blank face while leaning onto his right hand, stabilising his whole body on the kitchen counter. Brian slightly winced when he noticed how cold his voice sounded but he just hoped that Wonpil understood and didn’t take any offence on that. And Wonpil didn’t actually say anything back. Instead he just went to briefly hug Brian, a simple way to say, “Okay. I hope you’ll feel better soon.” And left afterwards.

Once he saw Wonpil was out of their dorm room, Brian suddenly felt so tired and took a seat on the dining table. He knew that university wouldn’t be easy, especially with the expectation that was put on him and everything, but sometimes the stress level was too much, even for the resilient and unbreakable Brian Kang. Well, at least he could get some rest for now before his last exam on Friday, since he had already finished his final papers that he had to turn in for Thursday’s classes.

Brian rested his head on top of his hands on the table and stayed in that position for he didn’t even know how long, wanting to let all of his stress out but felt that he was way too tired to even cry.

Buzz.

He felt his phone was vibrating repeatedly in his pocket. He took it out, expecting to see yet another message coming in to give him a birthday greetings or either of his parents’ number to show up on his phone screen, since he still hadn’t reply to their birthday messages — yes, Brian did feel bad about that.

But no. Instead he saw Jae’s contact name and picture flashing on it. Brian paused for a second and took a deep breath, wanting to mask the tiredness in his voice from Jae. As close friends as they were now, Brian didn’t want Jae to be burdened by Brian’s own problem, especially when Brian knew just how much university work Jae got in his own basket.

(He suddenly remembered how once a drunk Wonpil ranted to him about his tendency to keep everything in instead of telling the closest people around him and somehow Wonpil cried because of that and Brian wasn’t sure why Wonpil was the one who cried, because if anyone’s supposed to cry, it was probably Brian himself. Wonpil totally didn’t remember anything regarding what happened the next morning though.)

“Hello, hyung.”

Brian faked a cheery voice to answer Jae’s phone call. He knew that Jae probably noticed it, but at least the latter didn’t comment on it.

“Where are you right now, Bri? In your room?”

Jae questioned right away, and Brian just hummed his answer to the question. Upon hearing the answer, Jae paused for a moment before continuing, “I’ll be there in ten. We’re going to the supermarket.”

The older answered at the other end of the line, his voice light. Brian on the other hand, was confused. Supermarket? In the middle of the week? Suddenly? WHY?

“Wait, what? What for?”

Instead of answering, Jae just laughed his signature giggly laugh. Brian already knew that this senior-slash-friend of his was a very random and unpredictable person, so Brian didn’t know why was he still surprised at this point.

“It’s pretty obvious, Bri. We’re going grocery shopping.”

And of course, twenty minutes later Brian was actually standing inside a big supermarket near their campus’ dorm, although he still wasn’t fully sure why he’s there. He just stood there near the entrance, waiting for Jae to come back with their shopping trolley and shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of his winter coat. The chilly winter air of December at night was really unforgiving, despite the fact that he’s already inside the supermarket’s building while wearing at least three layers of clothing. Brian didn’t have to wait for long though, Jae was back, pushing the shopping trolley and motioned for Brian to follow him around.

They arrived at the vegetable section when Brian finally let his curiosity took over and asked Jae again, “Hyung, why are we here? Are you running out of food in your room or something?”

Brian was staring at the back of Jae’s head, because the latter was busy picking out carrots — CARROTS!! — and didn’t pay any attention to the still confused look decorating Brian’s face.

“Not my room. Yours.” Jae started and still didn’t look at Brian’s direction. “If I wanna cook something for us to eat tonight, we need to buy some ingredients first.”

Jae answered Brian’s question flatly, as if that was something regularly happened. But of course, it wasn’t, so the explanation didn’t help Brian’s cause at all. Because right now, Brian got so many questions regarding of what Jae had just said. Like how did Jae know that Brian and Wonpil’s fridge had run out of food?  Did Jae even know how to cook? DID JAE EVEN KNOW HOW TO CHOOSE CARROTS?!

“You…? Cook??”

Brian incoherently asked Jae while still staring at the back of the older’s head. Though the question successfully made Jae put the carrots back to the shelf and turned around towards Brian, staring back at the younger with a slight unimpressed expression on his face.

“Bri, my mum didn’t send me all the way to study here in Seoul from L.A. all by myself without arming me with any skill to feed myself, you know.” He pointedly stated, “She’s not that cruel.”

The older of the two then shrugged, “I’m no chef, but it’s edible. Believe me, Bri.” He then chuckled and turned his back to resume his carrot picking after he saw Brian pouted and heard the younger muttered quietly to himself,

“My mother also sent me all the way here from Toronto, yet here I am, alternating between takeaways and ramen day in day out.”

— — —

Around an hour later, the both of them were back at Brian’s dorm room, with at least three bags worth of groceries sitting on Brian and Wonpil’s kitchen counter. Brian was starting to take the groceries out from the bags to sort it out when he saw Jae stood in the middle of the room while fiddling with his phone. It looked like Jae was sending messages to someone and Brian grew curious who that person might be, even though he knew that it’s totally now his business.

His curiosity was answered a minute later though, when Jae walked into the kitchen nonchalantly stating, “Just reported back to Wonpil that we’re back home and that I’m about to feed you.”

“Wonpil knows your number?”

Jae nodded and then lightly chuckled, “He asked for my number after you introduced us the other day. He said he needed my number just in case of emergency. Seems like this is the kind of emergency he was talking about.”

Brian stopped sorting out the groceries and stared at the older. Jae on the other hand, had started to put the groceries away into the fridge while selecting the ingredients he wanted to use to cook for dinner before he realised how Brian was staring curiously at him.

“Oh yeah. Wonpil called me earlier.” Jae started to explain, hands still busy with the groceries. “He said that you were having a bad day even though it’s your birthday today.” He suddenly put down the carrots he was holding and stared back at Brian. “I’m offended Bri, you didn’t tell me it’s your birthday.”

Brian was dumbfounded and then he started to panic.

“No, hyung… It’s not… I didn’t think…” He couldn’t think why he didn’t tell the older it’s his birthday, he supposed it’s because the topic never really came out so they never really talked about it. He himself also didn’t know Jae’s birthday, he realised.

“…It’s not that important anyway. It’s just birthday, you know. Right, hyung?”

Brian nervously laughed when he saw Jae’s blank face turned into a smile and his right hand do that thing where he held in a fist in front of his mouth to contain his laugh. A totally Jae’s thing, Brian noted.

“I’m just kidding, Bri. No need to panic like that.” Jae paused and fiddled with the carrots again, “Why were you having a bad day, though? Was it because the exams and presentation you told me about?”

Brian just shrugged and nodded, not really wanting to discuss it in length when he heard Jae spoke again.

“How are you feeling right now? Are you okay?”

The older of the two gently asked, and Brian suddenly felt like crying again, though for different reason. If earlier he wanted to cry because he was just so upset, now he wanted to cry because how could he be so lucky and got such great friends like these two?

Brian was so deep in his own thought that he didn’t realise that he hadn’t answered Jae’s question and that Jae had put the carrot he was picking up earlier and had walked closer to him. He didn’t realise it until he felt a big hand and long fingers patted down his fluffy dark strands, messing up his hairstyle ever so slightly, which made Brian to look up and found a soft smile of assurance plastered on Jae’s face.

Jae was so close and Brian suddenly lost focus of everything around him. He just focusing his eyes on probably the most ethereal face he had ever seen in his entire life.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Jae said in a light tone, “I saw how hard you’ve worked. It’ll somehow pay off in the end.”

Jae ruffled Brian’s hair some more — he always did that, by taking advantage of the fact that he’s older and taller than Brian. (And Brian never really protested it either.) It seemed like Jae had a thing for messing up his hair even though Brian wasn’t sure if Jae only did it to him or it’s just what Jae generally did to other people. Jae didn’t do it to Bo—Sungjin, though.

The older then wrapped his hand around Brian’s shoulder and Brian suddenly didn’t know what to do. He didn’t expect to be comforted like this — with a hug, from Jae. He felt one of Jae’s hand patted his back and the other caressed the back of his head while Brian had his face on Jae’s shoulder. He then heard Jae said,

“Don’t worry, BriBri. You’ve done well. I’m so proud of you.”

Brian didn’t know that those words were what he needed to hear, because as soon as he heard Jae said it, it was as if some of his burden was lifted. Sure, if he didn’t get the A he wanted it might affect his scholarship a bit; Sure, it would cause him to work even harder next semester; But it also made him realise that it’s okay to mess up once in a while. The fact still remained, he had tried his best and that’s what counted.

Brian suddenly felt like crying again, so he did. He vented all of the upset he had been feeling since earlier, with Jae’s hand kept caressing Brian’s hair even though the older of the two didn’t really say anything and just let Brian to cry it all out. After several minutes, Brian finally calmed down so he detached himself from Jae. He then chuckled while wiping out the remaining tears he got on his eyes.

“Sorry for ruining your shirt, hyung.”

Brian laughed while staring at the wet spot on Jae’s shirt. Jae on the other hand, got his right hand back on Brian’s hair and this time completely messing his hairstyle while smiling back.

“You’re feeling okay, now?”

Brian nodded, “Yes. Thanks, hyung.”

So Jae just grinned before getting back to his carrots,

“Sure, BriBri. I’m your knight in shining armour, remember?”