Kim Mingyu often found himself wondering about the boy living in room 705. Jeon Wonwoo, a third year student majoring in International Business was not one shrouded in mystery; neither was he a complete stranger. Wonwoo and Mingyu have known each other for over a year now, ever since Mingyu was a freshman. The stolen glances over the course of their three months friendship and nine months of dating had let him observed the little things the raven-haired boy did, intriguing him to no end. Mingyu smiles when he thought of the ever so emotionless Wonwoo laughing till he is breathless, his eyes turning into thin crescents. Mingyu has felt heartache when he caught Wonwoo looking at the Art and Music majors with so much longing and wanting in his eyes, only to look down at his business textbooks in distaste and annoyance. When Mingyu lays awake, unable to fall asleep at night, he thinks about how Wonwoo always has spare change in his pockets for the homeless and the poor, and that often makes his heart beat a little faster. His daydreaming was interrupted by a sudden knock on his door, a familiar sound of two knocks, and a pause which proceeded with a single knock. The ends of his lips curled upwards, as he walked to the door with light steps.

And there he stood, in a black oversized sweater and a grey beanie pulled over his dark hair. It was Wonwoo’s everyday outfit, a comfortable attire to help him get through the dreadful lessons. There was nothing extravagant about it, just a simple get-up probably thrown on just moments before leaving his room, but Mingyu still felt his heart flutter.

“Hey” Mingyu thought he heard it tremble.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, do you want to grab some coffee before class starts?”

Mingyu found this odd. He had known Wonwoo’s schedule like the back of his hand, and the older male’s ridiculous class timetable states that he only had one class on Friday. International Business Strategy commences at 4:45pm. 4:45pm was three hours away.

“Sure, just let me get my textbooks”

-

The walk to the school’s coffee shop was relatively quiet. Mingyu had millions of thoughts running through his mind, going at high speed. He wanted to tell Wonwoo about the new song that he had just discovered one that he knew Wonwoo would like. He wanted to introduce a date spot to Wonwoo, a place where he knew the older male’s eyes will light up brighter than the lights there. He wanted to ask Wonwoo if they could have their first date in the snow, he promised he is not a ‘flake-y’ person, he knew Wonwoo will say “We’ve been dating for nine months now, ” but still laugh because it is so cheesy.

Mingyu looked over at the boy walking beside him, who seemed to have a grey storm cloud hanging over his head, threatening to rain anytime soon. So, Mingyu doesn’t say anything. He just reached over to hold Wonwoo’s hand, squeezing it gently. The business major looked up and smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Mingyu did not say anything; he just walked beside Wonwoo, just like how he wished to for the rest of his days.

-

The familiar aroma of freshly brewed coffee and newly baked muffins greeted the pair the moment they stepped into the school’s cafe. It wasn’t packed like usual, with only four other students occupying the small round tables. Huddled in a corner were Mingyu’s blue-haired roommate Soonyoung and his jovial boyfriend Seokmin, both Performing Arts majors. Near to the blackboard of specials and resting his head in the crook of a long-haired boy was Seungcheol, who was in his final year as a Sports Science major. His boyfriend Jeonghan, with his strawberry red hair pulled into a low ponytail was also in his final year of pursuing a degree in Child Psychology.

Mingyu stole a glance at Wonwoo, and noticed that the older boy was looking over at the now laughing Seokmin. Wonwoo had the same look of longing in his eyes, with a touch of a foreign feeling. Mingyu could not put his finger on what he thought it was, but ‘desperation’ seemed to be the only word ringing in his mind. But he wasn’t sure why, but like always, the gaze went away quickly the moment Wonwoo heard Mingyu’s voice.

“Why don’t you find a place to sit? I’ll get your drink for you”

Wonwoo fumbled for his wallet, only to have a larger and warmer hand placed on top of his paler ones.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for you. Just find someplace to sit.”

Wonwoo gave muttered a soft and small thanks to the younger before moving around the tables to get to his favorite seat, one by the windows. He could see the school’s garden from there; it was relaxing to see the bundles of colored spots from the third floor of the university. The flowers grown by the Botany students always seemed to calm him down. Wonwoo looked at the boy standing at the counter, drumming his hand on the granite table as he expertly picked items of the menu, and he thought of the first time he laid eyes on the younger boy.

Wonwoo glanced at his watch, then back at the large crowd of students, looking for the tall Chinese male. Jun Hui, his project partner and only friend in Pledis University was late again. He didn’t blame him though; the older male was probably at the dance studio again. Jun Hui was part of the school’s dance crew and had been spending the last weeks perfecting his routine for an upcoming competition. Wonwoo figured that Jun Hui would not be walking through the doors of the library anytime soon, so he let out a sigh and packed his textbooks before pushing past the large group of students to get to the café.

The school’s coffee shop was fairly crowded when Wonwoo arrived, but he was fortunate enough to snag a seat by the large window. He placed his books and bag down before sending a quick text to his dancer friend and made his way to the ordering station.

 “Hi welcome to Pledis Café. What can I get you?”

Wonwoo looked up and oh, him. He was looking into the softest and brightest eyes ever known to mankind. They were the color of earth kissed by raindrops, reminding him of the flowers he grown back at home. He swore he saw flicks of gold in them, reminding him of sunlight and all things bright and beautiful.

“Oh erm, can I get a cup of hot lemon tea please?”

“Sure, just wait five minutes”

-

If you asked what four years old Wonwoo thought of five minutes, he would have said it was an eternity. Nearly seventeen years later, with a handsome barista in front of him, five minutes was just too short. He learnt that the barista was tall, very tall actually. His height wasn’t exactly towering over Wonwoo’s; it was just a four to five centimeters difference. Tilting his head upwards to look at the barista, he found it very appealing.

The sound of someone clearing his throat snapped Wonwoo out of his trance. “Oh, my name is Mingyu. What’s yours?” The barista smiled, looking like a kindergarten boy introducing himself on the first day of school. Wonwoo’s cheeks flushed, wondering if Mingyu had caught him checking him out.

“I’m Wonwoo, nice to meet you Mingyu” A smile graced Mingyu’s face, showing off his sharp canines, leaving Wonwoo to wonder if he had died and gone to heaven. Mingyu. Mingyu. The name rolled off Wonwoo’s tongue the moment he said it, and Wonwoo thought if he was meant to say that name for the rest of his life.

-

A steaming cup of tea and an egg sandwich was presented in front of Wonwoo moments later. “I didn’t order this?” Wonwoo asked, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“It’s on the house” Mingyu winked and Wonwoo’s cheeks burnt hotter than before.

Wonwoo returned to his table and tried hard to concentrate on reviewing his materials, but the constant feeling of someone staring at you could be distracting even to the most studious of students. When Jun Hui arrived twenty minutes later, he complained that he felt someone glaring at him.

-

“Ayo wassup Mingyu!”

“It’s Mingyu hyung, call me hyung you brat”

“You never call Wonwoo hyung”

“You’re right, I call him daddy instead”

Mingyu smirked as the young barista’s cheeks turned the same shade of scarlet as the Red Velvet cakes sitting in the display cabinets. Hansol, nineteen years old, an aspiring rapper studying Biomedical Studies was an innocent one and Mingyu found great pleasure teasing him whenever he could.

“What would you like to have today?”

“An iced Vanilla Latte for me, and hot Lemon Tea for Wonwoo”

“Alright, it will be six dollars”

“Hello little boy, I work here”

“But you aren’t now. You’re on a date with your boyfriend.”

As innocent as he was, Hansol was also very infuriating. And honestly, who does he think he was? Mingyu was his senior for goodness sake. Mingyu figured he preferred Seungkwan now, a theatre student who also worked part-time in the café. That was until he realized that Seungkwan was dating Hansol and given his diva like and sassy personality, he was probably the one who made Hansol this way.

Never mind.

-

Two cups of beverages sat between Mingyu and Wonwoo. The cup of hot tea was calming in nature, just like Wonwoo. He was a quiet person who preferred keeping to himself. He made very little friends growing up, but that changed when he met Mingyu and Jun Hui. Mingyu was a man made for the city, just like his cup of coffee. He was outgoing and loved being in the company. He grew up with a group of closely knitted friends, with most of them currently studying in Pledis University.

Despite having personalities as different as night and day, water and flame, the young couple shared a common interest for the arts. Wonwoo was an artistic man. He spent countless times painting the walls of his room, transforming the plain white walls of his dormitory room to the night sky the first year he stayed in campus. Besides painting, Wonwoo loved reading. The books he read, spanning over different genres had influenced the way he wrote, the way he composed his lyrics for his songs and raps. Wonwoo was certain that if not for his parents’ expectations, he would have pursued an education in music or arts. Mingyu’s interest in the arts was evident in the course of study he did, as he was a student doing English Literature in the School of Humanities. Unlike Wonwoo, Mingyu was not a genius with a paintbrush or had the ability to adorn the pages of a sketchbook with intricate designs or a picture of a landscape. However, he loved watching the older boy draw. Wonwoo always looked relaxed when he drew.  He was looked serene when he was engrossed in his arts, and Mingyu found that beautiful. But just like Wonwoo, Mingyu had a passion for music, Hip Hop to be exact. And just like Wonwoo, he loved playing the guitar and writing lyrics in his spare time.

“Where do you want to go for the holidays?” Mingyu asked, shattering the silence between the both of them. He looked at Wonwoo, and noticed that he flinched the moment the question left his lips.

“I don’t know. I have not thought that far yet.”  Wonwoo shrugged, and Mingyu raised his eyebrows. Wonwoo was always enthusiastic for the holidays. He always had something up his sleeve whenever they had a break from school. “It isn’t every day we get to escape from hell,” Wonwoo used to explain, and with continued with “we should make the most of it while we’re out there, walking the same ground as humans”. Mingyu found it very strange that Wonwoo was miles away from feeling any forms of enthusiasm for the upcoming holidays.

“Maybe we could go overseas? And never come back” Wonwoo whispered, smiling a little.

Mingyu smiled and held his hands, “I’ll go wherever with you”

-

They made small talk as Mingyu walked Wonwoo to class. One thing Mingyu learnt about loving someone was that time tends to pass really quickly when you are with them. He was in the middle of a hilarious story of how Soonyoung half-assed his essay when they came to a large building where aspiring businessmen will spend four years of their life.

“So, this is it” Wonwoo sighed, looking down

“You sure you’re alright?” Mingyu let out the question he has been holding all afternoon, “If you’re not, we could skip classes today”

“That’s nice,” Wonwoo smiled, “but I’m fine. I’m just a little stressed.”

“Alright, are you still up for the study date?”

Wonwoo smiled and nodded, and for the first time that day, the smile actually reached his eyes. Mingyu ruffled his hair and pressed a kiss against his boyfriend’s forehead.

“I love you, good luck for class.”

“I love you too”

-

Class had just ended and Wonwoo was certain that he was ready to drop dead on the concrete grounds of the school. On top of the three essays that she had assigned, the professor also announced that there will be a test on Tuesday on the Principles of Import-Export Trade. Wonwoo figured that he will be slogging the entire weekend and this afternoon would be that last time he will see the outdoors and sun before Monday morning comes around.

They were trudging along the parking lot leading to the main campus when Jun Hui suddenly squatted down, readying himself to lie down on the tiled ground of the parking lot.

“Jun, get the up. What are you doing?” He whispered, pulling onto his friend’s hand.

“Getting out of Tuesday’s test” Jun Hui answered, closing his eyes.

Wonwoo knew that he would not be able to run away fast enough when the Chinese male gets run over by a car, and he was not interested in spending time at the police station giving witness statements.  Sighing to himself and rolling his eyes, Wonwoo pulled Jun Hui up from the ground.

This was friendship at its finest, he thought.

-

Wonwoo was dividing his attention between his textbooks and almost empty word document when he heard a familiar knock on his door. It was a sound of two knocks, and a pause which followed with a single knock. “Come in” he shouted, not wanting to leave his chair. Mingyu entered the room, and the rustling of plastic bags accompanied his entrance.

“What did you bring?” Wonwoo turned around quickly, eyeing the plastic bags in Mingyu’s hand.

“Hello to you too babe” The taller boy snickers flopping down on the chair next to Wonwoo, resting his head on the said boy.

“The professor was such an today, you know?” Mingyu whined, furrowing his head into the crook of the older male’s neck.

“Why don’t you tell him that?” Wonwoo answered absentmindedly, while searching through the plastic bags. Mingyu grumbled softly, causing Wonwoo to laugh a little and turn to his boyfriend.

“Alright, fine. What happened?” Wonwoo asked while playing his lover’s hair.

-

Three hours have passed since they started studying. It was nearing eleven, and the sky wasn’t painted pink and lavender anymore. Instead, it was a mixture of black and dark blue, coupled with stars shattered across it. Wonwoo was reading his textbook, highlighting essential parts for his essay. His almost empty word document of only fourteen words was filled with words this time, crammed with business terms forming an almost complete essay. He looked over at his boyfriend, who was hunched over his laptop, occasionally jotting down notes at the margin of his copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

“Are you tired?” Wonwoo asked, stretching his arms.

Mingyu nodded, putting down his pen. “Wake me up in ten minutes” he said. He laid his head on the table, feeling Wonwoo tracing patterns on his back. His eyes were fluttering close and he was drifting to sleep when an obscene sound could be heard in the room, jolting Mingyu awake in 1.72 seconds.

“Seok…Seok”

Soonyoung’s moans were heard through the paper thin walls of Wonwoo’s room. Mingyu turned to Wonwoo who was cringing from disgust but also in tears from laughing too hard. The pair locked eyes with one another, with Wonwoo taking in Mingyu’s ‘this-is-the-reason-why-I’m-suffering’ look, another wave of laughter ensued from the raven-haired boy.

Mingyu smiles when he sees the ever so emotionless Wonwoo laugh till he is breathless, his eyes turning into thin crescents.

-

It was Wonwoo who jolted awake this time. He was used to this, waking up in the middle of the night, with a racing heart and short of breath. It had happened so many times in the twenty years of his life that he often disregards it.

This time, however. It felt so real. The scene of the orchestra playing the wedding march, as the doors opened. The bride walks down the velvet carpet, with flower-girls trailing after her, throwing rose petals. The attendees being quiet as the preacher said “speak now or forever hold your peace”. Him wanting to scream that it was Mingyu he loved, him wanting to run away. He was stuck, unable to move, as the preacher announced them husband and wife. Tears ran down his face like a broken pearl necklace when he pressed his lips against hers. The crowd, thinking it was tears of joy, cheered.

It was all their fault, he thought. In the process of making Wonwoo the perfect heir to the Jeon’s successful Jupiter Hotel Group, his parents have twisted and tore him apart so many times in order to fit the mould of a business man. At age ten, he was uprooted and moved to Los Angeles to polish his English, allowing better communication with future business partners. At age eighteen, he was forced by mommy and daddy dearest to study business instead of pursuing an education in music. At age twenty, his parents barged into his dormitory on a Friday afternoon to announce that he was to get married to the oldest daughter of a long-time business partner, with the wedding taking place the first week of the summer. He left before they could go in detail, hurrying to his boyfriend’s room, asking to get coffee before a class hours too early.

Wonwoo looked over at the sleeping figure next to him. Beads of salty tears started falling down one after another, without a sign of stopping. He bit down on his lips, struggling to keep quiet. The last thing he needed was Mingyu waking up and asking why was he crying. He held out his hand, tracing a slender yet shaky finger along the defined features of his boyfriend’s face. He closed his eyes, trying his best to memorize every inch, every curve and every feature Mingyu’s face has to offer, knowing that there will never be a moment like this in the future.

It’s all their fault, he thought once again, at 2:05 am when Wonwoo realised his days with Mingyu were running out.

-

Morning came quickly. Dots of clouds were drifting lazily along the blue sky when Mingyu woke up at eight in the morning. Pale sunlight filtered through the curtains that Wonwoo hung by his window, offering light to the room. He turned and glanced at the boy sleeping next to him, and the ends of his mouth tugged up to form a soft smile.

It’s Wonwoo. It has always been the raven-haired boy. The boy that made him feel the sky was theirs just by simply laying next to him, who has paradise lingering after his every touch, whose brown eyes reminded him of home. To love and be loved was all that Mingyu ever wanted, and he has found it in Wonwoo. The older boy had given him the world when all he thought he deserved was a speck of the universe.

One day he will become his husband at the altar, Mingyu promised.