(20 January, Sunday)

After a moment of hesitation, I knocked on room 315. When there was no reply, I sighed dejectedly. It was almost 10:30… in the morning. Was Woohyun seriously still sleeping? I gave the door a couple more knocks, and then decided to give up. Just as I turned to leave, the door slowly opened. Surprised, I turned back around and saw Woohyun leaning against the doorframe, looking tired and cranky. He was only wearing flannel pajama pants and his hair was a mess.

“What?” he growled with irritation.

“S-sorry,” I said, losing all of the little confidence I had. He looked so angry and pissed off. “I was just going to… give you your part of our duet…”

Woohyun gave me a long stare, and then sighed, “Come in.”

He pushed the door open and let me in. I walked in with unsure footsteps, looking around the dark room. It was slightly messy, clothes hanging from the bed posts and the desks littered with papers. A guy was passed out on one of the beds, he too was shirtless. I felt slightly uncomfortable, but I tried to hide it.

“Stop looking so scared. I’m not going to eat you…” Woohyun sighed, sitting down on his bed. “So, what do you have for me?”

I took a step closer, and I instantly realized why Woohyun looked like crap. I could smell the stale alcohol on his breath.

I quickly set down my bag on the ground and said, “Sorry, I left something in my room. I’ll be right back.”

Before waiting to hear Woohyun’s reply, I quickly stepped out of the room and went to mine. I grabbed two water bottles, a pop tart, a bottle of Advil, and some motion sickness pills. When I went back to Woohyun’s room, he hadn’t moved at all.

“Here,” I said, handing him a water bottle, an Advil, and a motion sickness pill. He took them but frowned at me.

“What is all this?”

“Advil for you headache, motion sickness pill for your queasiness and dizziness, and water to keep you hydrated,” I said, sitting down next to him on the bed. “You went drinking last night, right?”

Woohyun sighed and took the pills, then drowned half the water. “And you would be an expert on hangovers because…?”

“I like to get wasted,” I said bluntly. Woohyun froze for a moment, staring at me with a ‘did you really just say that?’ look. Then he laughed softly.

“Do you expect me to believe that?” he said, still laughing a little. It was the first time I made him laugh. Actually, it was the first time I’ve had a conversation with him without one of us getting mad at the other.

“No,” I sighed. “But a lot of my friends back in Chicago liked to get drunk. I was the only one capable of anything in the morning after a party, so I was the one in charge of treating the sick.”

“Ah,” Woohyun said, finishing the water and reaching for the second bottle. I handed him the pop tart too. When he frowned at it with distaste, I insisted for him to eat it.

“Anyways,” I said, pulling out my notebook from my bag. “I thought we might do ‘Love Day’ by Yoseob and Eunji? I already transposed your part to fit your range better since Yoseob sings pretty high. Here.”

I handed a few sheets of sheet music with my neat writing on it. It had the transposed part and the lyrics.

“Wow, didn’t this take you a while?” Woohyun asked, looking through the few pages.

I shrugged, “Not really. But that your range, right?”

Woohyun nodded, then commented, “You write really neatly.”

I was a little taken back by the compliment. It wasn’t everyday that he said nice things to me. “Thanks.”

[Hyunseung]

I absentmindedly stared at the ceiling, lying on my bed. I had said something rash to Jiyoung the other day, and I was still regretting it. I didn’t know how I planned to make Eunseol fall in love with me. And even if I did, what would I do after? Jiyoung was right… it wasn’t a good idea.

I was so conflicted about my feelings. There was the overpowering emotion of wanting to keep Jiyoung happy, but a new feeling was starting to sprout. I wanted to keep Eunseol safe. Everything about her, her shyness, her small figure, her gentle personality, made me want to protect her. But I quickly buried away that feeling. It was just because she reminded me of Yoojin, my ex.

“You know, Eunseol’s coming over later,” Junhyung said, intruding my thoughts.

It took me a moment to process this. “What?”

“Eunseol,” Junhyung repeated. “I told her to come over so that we could hang.”

I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling tired.

“Junhyung, do you like her?” I asked.

“She’s cute, but I wouldn’t say I like her,” Junhyung replied easily. “Do you?”

“Really Junhyung?” I asked quietly. He knew how I still felt about Jiyoung. Being my roommate and all, he was one of my closest friends.

“I know, but… you act differently around her, and you treat her specially,” Junhyung said. He added softly, “I thought maybe… you moved on, because Hyunseung, you need to.”

“It’s not that easy, okay?” I groaned. “And I know I treat her better than other girls, but it’s not because of the reason you think, okay? I’ll explain some other time…”

I felt so sulky. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. My mood was quickly hitting rock bottom.

About an hour later, a small knock came on our door. Junhyung got up to open it. I didn’t bother to move.

“Hi Eunseol,” I heard Junhyung greet Eunseol warmly. I kept my eyes closed. Maybe I’ll pretend to be asleep.

“Hi,” Eunseol’s clear voice came. “Sorry I’m a little late… I was having some… issues with a classmate.”

Junhyung let her in and asked, “Don’t worry about it, but what kind of issues?”

Eunseol sighed, “Remember the guy that was bullying me the other day? He’s my partner for a duet project, so I went over to his dorm to practice. He was pretty pleasant at first, but then he kept getting distracted…”

“Should I go beat him up for you?” Junhyung jokingly offered. Eunseol laughed softly.

“Is Hyunseung sleeping?” Eunseol asked.

“I’m not sure,” Junhyung said, a slight laugh in his voice. I sensed Eunseol approaching my bed and she crouched down near my face.

“Hyunseung?” she said quietly. I stayed still, debating what to do.

After a moment, I opened my eyes and said, “Boo.”

Eunseol’s eyes widened as she gasped and she lost her balance. Knowing that would happen, I reached out to grab her arm and steadied her.

“Sorry,” I laughed slightly, sitting up. “I had to do that.”

My bad mood was gone. I didn’t feel totally happy, but I was in a pleasant mood now.

Eunseol laughed too, “Whatever.”

There was definitely something special about her; something special that even Yoojin hadn’t had. Even though she was the complete opposite of my ideal type, even though I didn’t like cute girls like her, why was she always able to put a smile on my face? Maybe Junhyung was right… Maybe I did have some sort of feelings about her. 

please ignore the fact that yoseob is actually a character in the story... T.T i like the song Love Day, and i wanted to use it. so let's all pretend that song isnt sung by yoseob.