Dino leans back against his chair, toes nudging the front legs up and down as he's facing the ceiling. There's a pen in his hand that he's tapping against his cheek, seemingly lost in thought, but actually he's just looking up at his new Michael Jackson poster. Its the weekend but everyone's busy studying. School's almost over.

Which meant it was time for finals.

Jun and Hoshi had barged in, announcing how they'd been unfairly kicked out of the study group, crying about how mean Woozi was (and how hard his kicks were), and promptly asserted themselves into his room. Dino couldn't really complain. They did bring peace offerings - the salt and vinegar variety. Still no amount of grease and potato could allow him to just accept the current situation. He reaches for the bag of chips before speaking.

"Lately, I've been kinda worried."

Hoshi turns to glare at him, and Dino realizes - a bit too late - that really, he shouldn't have said anything at all.

"What the do you have to be worried about you fetus ? You don't have to worry about anything, ninth grader," Hoshi snaps. Dino doesn't reply, just glances over to Jun, who shrugs from bed, before both of them avert back to their friend. Hoshi huffs under his breath as he snaps his head back down, muttering something about "damn middle schoolers and their easy lives", while frantically flipping through a battered copy of Murakami's collection of short stories. But his fingers are sweaty so they keep sticking to the dry pages and smudging black-inked annotations. The dark circles under his eyes - they match with Jun's - are illuminated by the brightness of his laptop screen. He's got it plugged to the only charger in the room (along with his phone) so there's no worries about the batteries running low, but he is running low on caffeine and sugar. There's only mild convulsions from what's left of the three Red Bulls he downed two hours ago.

"!"

He's been up for the last 48 hours, everything's sore, his 's on static from sitting on hardwood, and he can't blink without cringing from the fatigue and stress. With an agonizing groan of fustration, Hoshi rangles off his sweat-soaked headband, flings it across the room - Jun flinches as it hits the wall beside him - and falls to the floor. He wishes his life would distort and retire him from reality like one of Murakami's nameless protagonists, so he'd be able to step into his laptop, engulfed in a technological prison, or shrink to an impossibly small size so he wouldn't be able to hold a pen. English is such a pain in the , he thought. What a pretentious subject.

"Chan, I want you to strangle me," Hoshi says after a brief moment of silence. "If I die of asphyxiation, then they'll have to excuse me from writing finals." He rolls to his side, curling into fetal position.

"I want to be free."

Dino feels bad for him. Jun doesn't.

"Get used to it," Jun sneers. "We've been studying together for the past two days and you don't see me whining like a little , so ju-" And suddenly Hoshi's lunging at him, hands at his throat, and Dino can't do anything because, after all, Jun brought it onto himself.

"Let go you boy!" Jun manages to grasp at the the other's arms, before kneeing Hoshi in the gut. Dino isn't watching (he's got his phone out, texting) but he can tell by Hoshi's screams and sudden thump! that Jun has probably thrown Hoshi off the small twinsized bed.

"Stop struggling and let me strangle you!"

"You charger hoe, you ing took all the AC for yourself! My phone's at 5%!"

Their struggle continues but Hoshi starts choking up (and not because Jun's got him in a chokehold) and Jun follows as they both begin blubbering apologies. Things were said, feeling were hurt. Finals were a .

Ah, they're crying again, Dino thinks. This is what he was worried about.

After they've cried themselves out, both teens had collapsed in exhaustion and were, at the momemt, napping on the floor like the five-year-olds they are. Dino's still on his phone, he's got it poised by his ear and it only takes three rings before his call is picked up.

"Hyung, please take them back."

☆☆☆

A/N

Hey so like,  IB exams are this week and in a moment of desperation I made the irrational decision of starting up a fic. Aha I was actually studying for my Japanese paper 1 yesterday when I got the news that Seventeen won so that was cool (definetely did not cry). Anyways, so this is just a little prologue to the actual first chapter and a preview to how the fic's gonna be like.  I'll probably update sometime next next week cause IB exams are still a thing I'm not free from. Peace.