---
He calls out again.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed.

Time didn’t stop.

It kept going on.

---

       “Earth to Woohyun-oppa!”

       Woohyun suddenly flinches in recognition of his name and snaps out of his reverie.

       “Huh?!” 

       “What’s wrong?” She voices full of concern and worry. He holds her hand, squeezes it once and reassures her everything is fine.

       “Nothing, I was thinking… about something.”

       “What? About us?” She hints humorously and bumps his elbows. The answer is a definite no because Woohyun doesn’t even know what he was daydreaming about.

       “I guess…?” He scratches his head, perhaps a lie or two wouldn’t hurt. They stroll down the damp streets and goes to a café for their date. Woohyun didn’t talk much, he lets her spill everything that’s annoying her lately.

       With a cup of latte in his hand, he looks out the window to see that the sky is into a light orange color and the sun is settling into the night. Little snowflakes fall into even more piles of snow outside and there aren’t a lot of people anymore. But he feels like there will be a storm approaching soon. Woohyun didn’t bring an umbrella for it either. He’s not prepared.

       “Oppa, listen to me, will you?”

---
After a while,

He realizes,

That person beside him left too.

He’s alone.

---

       When Sunggyu thinks the work load for his classes are no joke, you better believe the class gives the students a ton of papers and essays to do. He literally has piles of work on the upper right corner on his desk, and a laptop that is being pounded on intensely to finish this one of the many essays he was assigned to.

       Sungjong often cooks for him because the elder would probably have no time to even eat and die due to overworking himself too much. So basically, Sunggyu is being taken care by Sungjong because of his inability to do so alone and he doesn’t mind because Sungjong’s a nice guy.

       But they don’t eat together during dinner as the younger is slightly (okay, more than slightly) disturbed when he sees Sunggyu plowing through the food  because , he has too much work to do to be able to sit here and take his time eating, which wastes his time.

       Not to mention Sunggyu’s whole entire schedule is screwed up even more after school began. His classes doesn’t start at five in the morning, thank god, but he eats his dinner at midnight or even later while he goes to bed around at seven o’clock when the sun is shining brightly at his face as if mocking him, ‘I’m going to make it ing difficult for you to even catch a wink because you obviously didn’t rest and kept on doing your stupid work while I was busy making my trip glowing around the world, .’ It doesn’t even help that Sunggyu have to wake up after four hours of sleep to prepare to go to his first class of the day.

       On days where he finishes his work early, he would sleep at around four or five, but all the stress drowns him to the point where he would lie in bed worrying about pointless thoughts and he’d finally sleep at six in the morning, which unfortunately for him, the time Sungjong wakes up.

       He thinks he himself is lucky he’s still sane, for he has seen other students almost losing the battle to the work load and he hears that some of them even have jobs or are doing internships for experience. Being the smart person that he is, he knows he’s not the only one suffering like this and he doesn’t let it get the best of him.

---
Everything is over.

It’s gone.

If only time travel was possible.

---

       Maybe on days where he doesn’t have class, he’d slowly calm down and think of other things rather than work and looking for an internship. And then his mind would gradually go back to this lingering feeling he has developed for quite a while ever since college.

       It doesn’t bother him much anymore because people forget, even if the memories are still there. They will forget the feeling and they won’t experience it again. So Sunggyu doesn’t let that problem him into over thinking or stress him out, as if he doesn’t have enough.

       Only on days like these are when he can peacefully think to himself without constant worrying and he would think how things would be like without him over at his home. He doesn’t have an apartment there any longer but he still considers that place home with or without a roof over his head. But sadly, time isn’t really Sunggyu’s friend and he’s persistently racing against it rather than running along with it. So he doesn’t have time to think back so far ahead, and without realizing, he doesn’t think about the people back home as time races past him and he’s off to catch up with it again.

       Weeks of hard work fly by just like that. To Sunggyu, at the very least.

---
What are you doing?

Why are you still here?

Shouldn’t you be chasing after it?

---

       “I feel like .” Woohyun unsurprisingly croaks out with his worn-out voice. Dongwoo stares at his face and takes a sip of his bubble tea.

       “You don’t look so well either, have you been eating properly these days?” He replies while feeling concerned for the younger’s health. Woohyun can barely hear the other because he’s so busy dozing off these days. And he’s tired as hell after finishing all his work few hours ago.

       To make it even worse, he only got two hours of sleep after struggling to even close his eyes due to anxiety of a test he has to take today. He’s about to fall asleep again when he feels Dongwoo shove an unused straw right up through his nose, causing him to yell incoherent words and cough multiple times.

       “Sorry! You did not have to do that though, ugh. Just tired…” Woohyun complains and wipes his nose with the napkin that was next to his untouched latte.

       “When did you sleep last night?” Dongwoo tilts his head innocently, not bothered by the reaction at all.

       “I don’t know, maybe six?” He mumbles in an annoyed tone. Dongwoo glances at his watch to check the current time.

       “Dude, it’s eight thirty right now.” Woohyun dozes off, completely missing what he said until he receives a slap from Dongwoo. He shakes his head and rubs his tired eyes, hoping that it won’t look as bad when he gets to class.

       “Thanks, wide awake now.” Dongwoo ignores that comment and asks him,

       “You slept for less than two hours; this is really unhealthy for you, Woohyun.”

       “I know, I know. I didn’t mean to, got caught up with something…” Dongwoo frowns at his answer and responds, “Maybe you should drop a class to get more sleep. Are you taking way more than you should?”

       “Huh? No, I’m fine. I can’t afford to drop any classes. My parents paid for them. It’d feel like a waste of money, you know? College is expensive. Plus, I don’t even have that many classes…”

       Still not very convinced, Dongwoo suggests a helpful proposal that Woohyun would not like to hear so much.

       “Are you sure you don’t want to ask your girlfriend or someone to move in with you for the time being? You look like you’re turning 60 with all these gray hair on you. ” Woohyun quickly turns away from his gaze and stares straight at his cup that’s empty now.

       “Uhh… That’d be an inconvenience so…” The chestnut-haired fidgets around in his seat, with a face that screams that he’s somewhat uncomfortable towards this topic. Dongwoo is confused by the look but goes on with the conversation.

       “Why?”

       “…” He finds the word stuck in his throat, refusing him to speak that dreaded phrase.

       “…Woohyun?” Dongwoo places a hand on his shoulder to encourage him to go on. Ten extremely overwhelming seconds pass and he finally finds the ability to speak again but it’s squeaky and barely audible.

       He blurts out with a voice full of pain, as if not believing what he was about to say, “We broke up.”

---

Who are you?

Where is the voice coming from?

Who am I chasing after?

---

       “Hyung! You have to eat or else I will personally shove this down your throat and that is NOT a pretty sight!” Sungjong scolds the elder for missing his dinner yet again and it’s now two forty-five in the morning. The younger of the two was studying so he headed to the kitchen for a glass of water when he noticed the meal he cooked was still there.

       When did Sungjong become so violent and disrespectful? Sunggyu thinks.

       “Later. Busy right now.” Wrong answer, Sungjong sighs and places the plate down before approaching the elder.

       “What are you doing? You told me you finished all the work an hour ago, you even studied.”

       “Looking for a job.” Sunggyu briefly replies. “I don’t want to rely on my parents anymore, we’re not rich and these bills are expensive.”

       Sungjong nods in understanding and looks back at the plate that’s been refrigerated for over five hours now. He goes to the kitchen and opens the bottom cabinet where junk food is stored in case of “emergency” (when Sungjong isn’t home yet and Sunggyu doesn’t have time to prepare anything). Taking out a pack of noodles, he lights up the stove and begins to boil the water in the pot.

       Sunggyu isn’t deaf, so he hears the younger scrambling around and he knows what he’s doing, cooking something warm for him.

       “Thanks, Jongie.” He calls out loudly to the younger.

       Sungjong laughs and play along, “It’s not for you, hyung.”

       Ignoring the comment, Sunggyu adds, “Can you add some dishes too? I’ll help out as soon as I’m done.”

       “Yeah. I will.”

       The elder closes his eyes and is extremely grateful for his wonderful dorm mate. Maybe he would’ve died from hunger if not for Sungjong.

---
The answer is simple.

Towards the one you lost.

The one who is the most important.
---

       It’s five in the morning and Sunggyu is still up for no reason. After staying up and eating what Sungjong cooked for him, he’s feeling drowsy but not to the point where he can immediately sleep.

        His eyes start to close more often and he’s about to fall into a deep slumber when his phone starts to ring. Perfect. He stares at the caller ID, surprised at the person who is calling, and picks up the device right away.

       “Woohyun..?” He calls out in an unfamiliar tone, he feels distant because over the past few months, he never called his best friend’s name with his voice. There wasn’t a need to when you don’t even see him.

       “Hyung? Did I wake you up?” Sunggyu chuckles to himself, thinking back to when Woohyun asked him the same question whenever it was early in the morning.

       “Go back to sleep.” He replies to him like he always did, “Your classes are in a couple of hours, aren’t they?”

       “Uhh…I haven’t slept yet. I still have some stuff to do.” Woohyun admits sheepishly. Sunggyu sits up from his bed upon hearing this and frowns, abruptly forgetting that he’s on the phone and the younger can’t see his unamused face.

       “Why? You have less than three hours to sleep. You told me you’d get enough sleep. What is this?” Sunggyu interrogates intensely with a chock full of concern, unlike the usual Sunggyu.

       He continues on, “Have you been up this early these days?”

---

And who is that?

I’ve lost everything.

I don’t know anymore.

---

       Woohyun doesn’t want to answer; he just listens with the phone up his ear. Lately, he’s been calling Sunggyu a few times during ungodly hours but he never picked up so he’s shocked that he actually did this time. He wants to hear Sunggyu talk with his voice all day long instead of going to college and doing stupid work.

       “Woohyun, answer me.”

       “Yeah, sorry.” He answers back, “It’s just… I’ve been kinda stressed recently, I guess. A lot of things happened while you left, Hyung.”

       Sunggyu doesn’t overlook the voice Woohyun used to talk, it’s different. It’s not the voice he’s used to hearing; it’s not the one he misses and wishes he could hear once in a while during times where he’s struggling. No, he sounds tired, stressed, broken, and completely drained from overworking himself.

       He hates hearing it. And he feels absolutely useless when Woohyun speaks in that voice. It’s been way too long since he’s used it so it must be difficult for the younger right now.

       “Hyung?”

       “Yeah?”

       “Come home soon.”

       “I will.”

       “I miss you.”

       “I miss you too.”

       “Promise you’ll be back soon?”

       “I promise. Now go sleep.”

       “You too.”

       “My classes are in the afternoon, yours is not. Go.”

       “Okay.”

       “I’m hanging up.”

       “Bye.”

        “I love you. I’m sorry.” He adds in before hanging up, oblivious that the latter heard every word because he left the phone call on.

---

A/N: I really enjoyed reading the comments! ^^ Thank you. Guess who that was but I'll never tell you lul.