All told, Hoya was quite pleased with the residence building he’d been assigned to. Having toured the university campus and its residences before applying, he’d originally hoped to be placed into the one closest to the group of buildings that housed the majority of his classes. The assignments, however, were drawn by lottery and based on each students’ ranking of their preferred buildings.

Infinite House was a co-ed building sitting on the outskirts of the campus grounds, and while it hadn’t been Hoya’s first choice, its location meant he regularly passed through some of the most scenic parts of campus, which admittedly wasn’t even all that large. The slightly longer walk home, after hours of sweating it out in stuffy practice rooms, had quickly become one of his favourite parts of the day.

Having befriended students living in some of the other buildings on campus had also served to heighten his appreciation of its modernity. As one of the newest additions to the university’s on-campus housing complexes, it was equipped with amenities that the older buildings lacked. These included a small cafeteria that remained open until the wee hours of the night to satisfy those late night cravings, and common areas perfect for studying and getting to know your fellow building dwellers. Hoya’s friends and groupmates for projects almost unanimously chose to come to him whenever the need called for it, despite it being a bit out of the way.   

As he loped through the front doors after a particularly long day of classes, Hoya was fully intending to take advantage of said cafeteria, having only had the chance to grab a small bite to eat during the day. As he made a beeline towards the source of wafting scents that promised to abate the grumbling of his stomach, a shout of his name made him halt in his path.

“Hoya! Lee Howon! Come over here for a sec!” Turning on his heel, Hoya caught sight of a brunette seated at the duty don’s desk, enthusiastically waving his arms at him and flanked by a familiar blond, who in turn gestured him over with a flapping of his hand.

“Sunggyu-hyung, Woohyun-sshi – how can I be of help?” He asked wryly as he made his way over to his don and floor mate, who had picked up a bit of a reputation as his loyal lapdog right-hand man.

“Just checking in on whether you’ve fetched your mail lately, campus facilities sent out a notice to all residence dons to say that some people’s mailboxes are getting kind of full. They want you all to get into the habit of clearing out your junk mail on a regular basis. Like an adult. Yay!” Sunggyu flashed him a sardonic smile and gestured towards the hallway adjacent to where he sat, its walls lined with rows and rows of small mailboxes.

Hoya wracked his brain trying to remember the last time he’d checked his mail, and chuckled sheepishly. “I think the only time I’ve checked my mail was the week that I moved in, and that was mostly because I wanted to make sure I had the right key.” That had been over a month ago, but it hadn’t really occurred to him to check again since he hadn’t been expecting any post.

Woohyun shrugged and let out a good-natured laugh of his own. “I don’t blame you, anything important from the university usually gets sent to our school email addresses as well anyways. You’ve probably got a load of pizza coupons in there though.”

“Is that why Sunggyu-hyung only buys us pizza to eat when we have our floor meetings?” Hoya asked teasingly, laughing as he dodged the playful punch that the man in question swung at him from across the desk.  

“Hey, don’t forget that you guys all love pizza. I’m just trying to please the majority!” Sunggyu huffed and gave him an exaggerated pout, to which Hoya pretended to gag at while Woohyun gave his back a few reassuring pats.

“Anyways, I’ll go check it now and sort through it after I grab a bite to eat, I’m starving. See you guys!” The two waved him goodbye, Woohyun advising to his retreating back to avoid getting the day’s chicken special with a yell of, “It’s dry as hell!”    

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A short while later, Hoya found himself seated in front of a steaming plate of curry and an absurd number of handouts from local pizzerias. Woohyun really hadn’t been kidding, and Hoya laughed as he sorted through the rest of the stack he’d collected from his mailbox. Maybe he’d save them and make a nice piece of modern art to plaster on Sunggyu’s door the next time he felt like procrastinating on his readings. There didn’t really seem to be much else of note, the rest being flyers from other local businesses, but as he bundled them up for recycling, a solid block of colour amongst them caught his eye.

A bright green envelope sat near the bottom of the pile, meaning it must have arrived pretty early on in the semester, and Hoya chuckled at a rather abstract doodle of what appeared to be a dinosaur trawling over its front. Scanning it over, he saw it was addressed to his unit, but bore the name Lee Sungyeol as its recipient.

Huh. He didn’t know anyone by that name, but why did it seem so familiar?   

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AN:

I know it's short, but I punched this out pretty quickly (for me), and while I did do a quick read-over myself I probably still missed some things. Please let me know if you catch any spelling/grammar issues! I anticipate this having just one more part, and I already know (generally) how I want it to go so hopefully I will have time to write it up sometime soon… But midterms are coming up so no promises hahaha.

And I know, I know – the name of the residence is pretty cheesy. I originally had “Infinite Hall” written and somehow that felt even worse. I just imagined a hallway that kept on going into infinity…

The whole making “modern art” with flyers to procrastinate is also something my roommate and I once did. We always got these coupon booklets in our mail, so one day we gathered them all up and made a large, misshapen heart out of them and taped it to a third roommate’s door. She left it up for the rest of the semester :)