Dongwoo did not manage to find Howon that day. He somewhat manages to sneak away from his supporters into the backstage waiting room but there is no sign of the younger male. Howon’s belongings are long gone from the room. Dongwoo chews absentmindedly on his lower lip at the thought of Howon unable to take the impact of the loss. To Dongwoo, it may be just another competition but for the younger, it probably meant a lot. Deciding that he should give his best friend some space to think and breathe, Dongwoo returns to the crowd and indulges himself into the joy and fun, trying to make himself forget about the worries he had for the younger male.

When Dongwoo returns back to their apartment, Howon has long gone to bed. Dongwoo exhales out a breath of relief as part of him is worried that Howon might do something stupid but he has probably underestimated the younger male. Howon is a tough guy and will not resort to such cowardly actions. Feeling the pressure lifted off his shoulders, he takes a quick shower and head straight to bed.

Dongwoo has weird dreams in a sense that it seems so real but is unsure if his dreams are just realistic looking. For the past few months, he has been dreaming of the same thing over and over again but as time flies by, his dreams starts to change slowly, bit by bit.

At first, it is just a landscape of greyness. He stands on an island of sand. Everything around him is all in shades of white, black and grey. There is no one around him on the island but when he glances across the blackish water, he could see other islands and seemingly people on it. Some of them are very far, but some are near to his. There are two islands that are nearest to Dongwoo’s own, where both island stands a male individual – one whom seems so familiar while the other a stranger. The one he finds it familiar looks similar to Howon – his muscularity and his face structures are the same but yet at the same time different. His Howon has short and black colored hair while the one in his dream has slightly longer hair length, seemingly dyed in white. The male looks sad and full of agony, and does nothing but stare into the sea. On the other island, is a male with extremely good looking features but there is a difference between him and the rest of the landscape. His island is full of colors outside the three dull ones.

Dongwoo sighs and falls backwards onto his behind. He brings his knees into his chest and wraps his arms around it. He tilts his head up into the sky and saw the seven stars that glimmer brightly. Out of the seven, three of them are shining brightly with eldritch blue while another star is blinking with the same color and Dongwoo can’t help but feel that the star seems to be calling for help. Then the mysterious remaining three stars with all three of them in different colors – one in purple while the other in red. The last star attracts Dongwoo’s attention the most as how it glows brightly in shades of greyness and black. Even the distance between him and the glowing object is light years away; Dongwoo can feel the subtle agony the star is emitting. Then the landscape starts to shake. Dongwoo sighs as this is the hour of awakening, where in his world, it probably is morning and that he has to wake up now.

As true as it is, Dongwoo opens his eyes in the next moment and the golden light that penetrates through the gap between the drawn curtains answered his question. He groggily flips to his night stand to only put him into a greater state of shock. He is late for school. He turns to his roommate’s bed to find it empty with its duvet’s neatly folded on top of it. The elder male curses loudly and quickly prepares himself for school. He finds it strange how Howon fails to wake him up when the younger male has been doing it for the past few years. Even they fought during the past; Howon will somehow always find ways to wake Dongwoo up but not today.

Something might have happened.

The events of the competition slowly surfaces within Dongwoo’s memories and he sighs out loudly as he rushes to school. The bell rings loudly when Dongwoo just touched the compounds of the school entrance, panting heavily from the sprinting and running. He supports his upper body with hands on his knees as he heaves in and out, to inhale in as much oxygen as possible and to remove the excess carbon dioxide produced while he ran.

He glimpse at his watch to find that he has only three minutes left until his homeroom teacher arrives. He quickly rushes to his locker to grab the books that he need. When he opens his locker, the stuff that falls out from the locker brings a shock to Dongwoo. His locker is in a heavy state of mess and he blinks confusingly at it. His locker is in a neat state the day prior but today it’s in a mess. The books are over turned and there seems to be pieces of unwanted and crumpled paper within the locker.

Someone might have touched his stuff.

But Dongwoo has no time to clean it up. He grabs the books he requires and chucks the fallen stuffs back into the locker and rushes to his classroom. He saw his homeroom teacher just walking towards his classroom. He gave the teacher a respective bow before opening the door.

The next thing Dongwoo feels is him getting drenched from top to bottom and a bucket on his head. He removes the bucket and finds himself the joke of the day – laughed by classmates and all. His teacher stands outside with wide eyes and somewhat feeling relieved that Dongwoo opened the door before him. He excuses Dongwoo to clean himself up.

The elder nods his head and leaves the class but before he steps out, he notices a smirk from someone – One that is cold and menacing. 

To be continued in Chapter 27: Schadenfreude

A/N

Tadah! Today's Chapter ~ Hope you guys enjoyed it ~ 

It's a little bit strange for my part as how I've not revealed both their powers yet ... Hmmmm 

Oh well, time will tell its tale! 

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Please do comment! (I eat them for food)