The doors of the rooms of Apartment 17 opened one by one as Seokmin commenced his daily routine: being the alarm clock of his roommates, while his closest friend Soonyoung went to the kitchen to prepare toasted slices of bread and heat up the water for their morning coffee.

Every single time Seokmin thought about how happy he was to have met him, and the rest of his friends, there was always that bittersweet feeling in the pit of his stomach. He met them only because his most treasured friend had left, and if she hadn’t, then the friends he knew and treasured now would probably be living together with their existence unbeknownst to him.

They met just after Seokmin graduated from middle school. Wanting to run away from the place where he spent his whole life in and with his best friend, he had asked his parents if he could live away from home to finish high school, literally anywhere else but there.

“Hyung, time to wake up,” Seokmin shook Joshua’s leg lightly, which was out while the rest of his body was covered by his blanket. Joshua’s room was quite neat, but not as if it was cleaned to perfection. There were a few music sheets scattered on his desk, a (Taylor) guitar leaning on the wall next to it (his other (Martin) guitar was kept inside his closet). A pillow fell off from the bed and landed on the ground just at the end of it. There was nothing interesting in that room other than his guitars, except for one thing. That one drawer on his desk he always kept locked. Having lived with the others for so long, privacy would’ve been long invaded. Not that Joshua minded, but that was probably the very reason he locked that one drawer. No one knows how many times Boo Seungkwan had opened every single one of his drawers to grab a pen or anything that kid needs from Joshua to use for whatever the hell that boy does in his free time.

The older male jerked slightly after the shake, opened his eyes slowly before lifting his head a little and began looking around. Once he came to his senses, he dropped his head back onto his pillow and realized it was morning already. He began gently rubbing his eyes with the bottom of his palm and then placed it back down.

“Thanks, I’ll be up.”

With that response, Seokmin proceeded to the next room. He opened the door of Wonwoo’s room and walked inside. His room barely had any colours, it was literally all black and white. His bookshelf (which was filled with books, no surprise there) was black, contrasting perfectly with the room’s white walls. His study desk was also black, as well as the frame of his bed, even the quilt was black. The only colours that one would probably see in his room would be from his clothes if his built-in wardrobe was open, the colours of the books on his shelf, and the picture in the frame placed on his nightstand. On his bed, Seokmin spotted a book opened upside down. He lifted it and checked it out, finding out Wonwoo was nearly reaching the end. ‘I swear he only bought this yesterday afternoon’, he thought as he grabbed the bookmark on Wonwoo’s bedside table and placed it on the page the book was open at before closing it and placing it beside the picture frame.

He then continued to wake him up, also shaking his leg slightly. Wonwoo moved a little, and then his eyes opened slowly, blinked rapidly a few times and moved from one side to the other along with his head, and then lastly landing his sight on Seokmin.

He raised his arm to his head, placed his hand on his forehead, and then moved his head back into its previous position to when he woke up as he clutches slightly onto his hair. He let out a deep sigh, “Yeah, I’ll be up soon.” He sounded so exhausted, so Seokmin concluded that he probably stayed up late to get that far in the book… again.

“Five minutes, hyung,” Seokmin told him as he made his way out of his room and then to the others. Two roommates to go.

After opening the door to the third room, he didn’t see Hansol at all. He was there but as always, was wrapped inside his comforter. When they all first moved in, everyone thought Hansol’s room would be a mess, but surprisingly, it wasn’t as messy as they expected. Sometimes there would be a shirt or two scattered on the floor but Hansol would immediately put it in its place. His shelf was mostly filled with non-fiction and informative books, like about discrimination and equality for human rights (and kidney privileges). That boy likes to keep himself informed about the social issues that exists within this world.

There was no leg for him to shake so Seokmin tapped the part of Hansol’s head that was still quite visible from the top. The younger boy opened his eyes abruptly and looked up, “Ah, hyung, is it morning already?”

“Yes, so unwrap yourself,” Seokmin replied.

Hansol only groaned before he rolled to the side of the bed, releasing himself from his comforter. However, Hansol wasn’t Hansol unless he rolls over too much and ends up falling off the bed, which was exactly what happened.

Seokmin only let out a little laugh. He knew something was going to happen and was used to it, but he had to admit, he always found it quite amusing. Without any other exchange of words between the two of them though, Seokmin continued to his last roommate: the big boss.

Out of all his friends, technically, Mingyu wasn’t the actual big boss when it comes to waking them up (they all knew it was Jihoon, no doubt), but waking Mingyu can be a pain sometimes (more like always).

The guy can turn from this ultimate ‘god’ (Seokmin always felt awkward when girls would call him that when the boy they call ‘god’ was a literal goof) to this giant baby who needs to always be given tissues before he wipes his snot everywhere (not to mention, he can’t sleep without Tosun beside him).

Seokmin entered Mingyu’s lair. He never understood how someone as unsanitary as Mingyu (okay, maybe it was a one-time thing, but what is true friendship without making your friends live their mistakes on, right?) can have such a neat-looking room. It was almost perfectly similar to Wonwoo’s, with the level of neatness and the colours too. It just so happened his room had a little more colours than Wonwoo’s. Mingyu liked to use colourful quilts as well.

He saw how Mingyu’s feet were hanging off the end of the bed, ‘We’re the same age, but why were you the only one blessed with the extra tall genes,’ he thought as he approached the sleeping goof, ‘then again, you hit your head everywhere so I’m good.’

Mingyu sleeps with a straight body, for some reason, making the blanket that was covering his whole body look quite stretched. Although Seokmin admitted to himself Mingyu was next in line to Jihoon’s throne when it comes to being the hardest to wake up, he was still getting used to putting in effort to wake him up. Mingyu used to wake up with just one call, but now he has become a stubborn sleeper.

Seokmin shook him slightly at first, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on Mingyu’s sleeping state. He shook him once more, with a little more force and a yell, “Yah, Kim Mingyu!”

Finally, Seokmin heard a small complaining groan come from the boy on the bed, and Mingyu’s arms moved slightly. Seokmin shook him harder one more time, accompanied by another yell of his name, “Mingyu-yah!”

Mingyu merely shuffled, from his position of lying on his back, turning to the side away from Seokmin. Seokmin only let out a sigh, “Every single time, Kim Mingyu, every single time! I swear, if only Joshua-hyung and Jeonghan-hyung agreed to dumping a bucket of water on you, this would be so much easier.”

“I’m awake and I can hear you,” Mingyu replied.

“Then get the hell up.”

“I don’t want to,” he put his blanket over his head.

“I just want to push you off the bed,” Seokmin muttered. He walked to the other side of Mingyu’s bed and pulled the blanket off his head, “Mingyu, either we do this in a way you get hurt or you don’t.”

Mingyu let out a sleepy groan whilst he turned to the other side, away from Seokmin once more.<