It is warm.

Drops of sunshine leak through cracking and wrinkled leaves of a tree and scatter, breaking upon his face, spreading the glow across sharp plains and refracting off of sunglasses.

It is early autumn.

Light winds play with his hair, tossing it up and about while ruffling his clothes: a loose t-shirt and worn-out jeans.

It is quiet.

Waiting alone in silence, only the stinging buzz of cicadas accompanying him as he runs his fingers through the grass.

It is mid-afternoon.

The bark of the tree is rough against his back, but more comfortable than the old bench by the pond.

He continues to run his fingers through the tough, drying grass, seeking out the small buds of dying pansies to weave into a project that keeps his hands busy and his mind empty.

Two small flower crowns, already completed, sit beside him on the ground. The one currently undergoing construction is laid in his lap, the end draped carefully over one knee as he works his fingers through knots to tie together.

He leans his head back and lethargically continues his work, tired hands pinching stems slowly and carefully ducking soft blossoms under and out the other side of arcs. The wind still pushes at his form, trying to snatch the petals of the pansies away.

This is the routine every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoon.

His roommate makes three visits to the campus library every week. When he had asked about it, he had claimed it was because he’s “in constant need of new reading material”, but Junhong does not read for fun, Jongup knows that for a fact. He also knows that his friend just wants to see the “cute little smart-” of a student who works shifts at the front desk there on those days.

Jongup loves to be outside when the weather is nice, so he often tags along with Junhong and just waits in the courtyard while his friend tries (and assumably fails) to flirt with his dumb crush.

Junhong is taking longer than usual today, though, and Jongup is growing bored.

He had considered heading back to the dorm by himself, but there were two problems with that.

One: the dorm would be much more boring than this ‘cause he'd have to do his homework.

Two: He doesn’t trust himself enough to not get lost on his way back, despite having gone to this school for almost a full three semesters.

So when he hears Junhong’s soft voice float through the air, he rejoices with a light sigh, only to completely tense up upon understanding that his friend is speaking to someone else, and that a second pair of footsteps follow his.

"––won’t mind,” Jongup catches Junhong’s words from the wind as he approaches.

“Jongup!!” Junhong grabs his arm, pulling him up to his feet.

He lets the flowers fall from his lap to find home back in the grass.

“I have someone for you to meet. This is Youngjae. He’s a senior, and he does his work study at the library.”

Jongup sticks his hand out in front of him, and it is grasped by a smaller, petite one and shaken once, the touch very brief.

“Nice to meet you, Youngjae. I’m Jongup,” he says softly with a smile.

“You too,” the older returns politely.

“We’re gonna hang out for a bit this afternoon,” Junhong continues. “You can come with us if you want, but I know you don’t really––”

“Actually, I should get started on my psychology paper,” Jongup interrupts, adjusting his sunglasses. “So I think I’ll just chill in the dorm.”

“You could just say you don’t wanna hang out with me,” Junhong teases, grabbing Jongup’s arm again and starting off towards their residence hall, pulling him along.

“Hmm, that would be rude of me, though, don't you think?”

Jongup hears Youngjae snicker from the other side of Junhong. “He’s too nice to you, Junhonggie,” he comments.

“Jongup is too nice to everyone ,” Junhong retorts. “But trust me, he’s capable of roasting anyone to a fine, golden-brown crisp when he feels like putting the effort into it.”

Jongup elbows Junhong in the gut.

“Ow! Sheesh, Jongup, I know you don’t mean to actually hurt me but be careful ,” Junhong complains, letting go of Jongup’s arm to soothe the targeted area. “He also doesn’t know his own strength,” he adds to Youngjae as a warning.

Jongup shakes his head.

The trio splits up at the entrance to the res hall, Jongup going inside while the other two make their way to wherever their dumb date is supposed to be.

Their room is on the first floor, so all Jongup has to do is take a left and walk straight for about 10 seconds. He knows his memory is, at this point, good enough for it not to be necessary, but he still runs his fingers over the little bumps on the small signs beside every door, too worried about a repeat of a past incident from the first week of school to just stick his key in a lock he assumes is his.

He had, at first, shaken his head when Junhong came back from their fall break with some weird, sketchy aromatherapy diffuser he had bought online for, like, 40 dollars, insisting that it would help with stress, headaches, insomnia and all that other bad college-y stuff. But Jongup has, admittedly, begun to enjoy the soothing scents Junhong puts in. It’s a little too strong for his liking, but upon stepping into the room more recently, he can feel his muscles start to relax, bit by bit as the air flows through his system and soaks into his skin.

Slipping off his jacket and throwing it into the unknown (Junhong’s side of the room), Jongup lets himself fall onto his bed, curling around a soft, thin blanket. He removes his sunglasses and tosses them onto the dresser, then presses his face into one of his 3 pillows, taking a deep breath. It has really been an exhausting day. Every day is, though, he supposes.

The psych paper can wait until after his nap.

Too soon (a couple of hours later), Jongup wakes up to his shoulder being shaken by a firm, gentle hand. He stirs a bit and curls further into his blanket, a weak attempt to boycott facing the world.

“Hey, Jonguppie~”

It’s Junhong, of course. Jongup whines and pulls a pillow over his face, vanishing into the bed.

“Oh, come on, don’t make me drag you out and carry you to the table again,” Jongup feels Junhong tugging at a corner of the blanket. “You need to eat dinner. It’s, like, 6. Don’t tell me you’ve been sleeping this entire time…”

Jongup mumbles something about not being hungry into his pillow and shifts to face the wall.

“I can’t believe you,” Junhong pulls the blanket from Jongup’s body with a loud whoosh and what Jongup pictures is a graceful, ballet-worthy twirl and folds it, placing the fabric at the end of the bed, only for Jongup’s bare feet to delve beneath the folds immediately following the action.

“Jongup,” Junhong whines, hitting softly at his friend’s exposed back. “Get up, I thought you promised to come to my art show. You know I need you there.”

Right.

Remembering his promise, Jongup slowly rolls over and sits up, reaching for his sunglasses and slipping them over the bridge of his nose.

He hears Junhong clap his hands together. “Good! I’m gonna make ramen before we need to go, too. Do you want some?”

“Not really,” Jongup runs a hand through his hair, standing and making his way to his desk, stumbling a bit as the blood rushes to his feet.

“Alright, I’ll make two packs, then,” Junhong says cheekily, his voice getting gradually softer as he approaches the microwave.

Jongup shakes his head as he powers up the desktop, waiting for JAWS (a screen reader), to boot so he can outline his paper for psych quickly before they have to leave. He plugs his headphones into the jack at the back of the computer, not wanting to disturb his roommate, and begins working. A few minutes and a page later, Jongup feels Junhong nudge his shoulder, and he removes his headphones.

“Come on, let’s eat at the table.”

“I can just eat here, I need to work,” Jongup argues.

“We only have, like,” Junhong pauses briefly; he must checking the watch he always wears. “10 minutes,” he finishes. “Plus it’s really hot,  and I don’t want you to spill something and short circuit your keyboard or whatever…”

Jongup sighs, standing up. “When have I ever spilled anything?”

“Well, there was that one time––”

“You left your backpack on the floor,” Jongup defends. “In the middle of the room ,” he emphasizes.

“Good point, I’ll take that hit.” Junhong hands Jongup a pair of chopsticks as he sits at the table anyway, across from him.

Jongup hates it when people worry about him. Everyone always coddles him, trying to take care of him and do everything for him. It’s been nearly four years now. Jongup knows how to take care of himself this way. He had adapted very quickly right off the bat, surprising all of his doctors and therapists, and took pride in his motivation to continue on the track he had been on before the accident. He is going to college, he is going to dance, he is going to make music; and he knows he can. He is. But for whatever reason, and, he supposes, understandably, everyone around him seems to lack the trust he knows he deserves. There hasn’t been a single incident since the first few months, but everyone always wants to help him and make things easier or simpler for him. Jongup has debated just coming out and saying straight up that he hates it, that he is absolutelysuffocating under all of the supervision and all of the “assistance”; sometimes he wants to tape a sign to himself that says “I DON’T NEED HELP” or something. But of course he won’t. He’s has always been a master of hiding his struggles, at acting through the pain.

“You ready to go?”

Jongup hears Junhong place his presumably empty bowl into the sink, not bothering to wash or at least even rinse it, as per usual.

“Sure, just let me get my shoes and jacket.” He stands quickly, grabbing his bowl and making his way towards where he knows the sink is. Junhong stops him with a hand to the chest, taking the bowl from his hands and carrying it to the sink himself. Jongup holds back a dissatisfied grimace and turns to retrieve his jacket from wherever it landed earlier. He’ll find it.

“Tell me about the pieces you’re showing this time,” Jongup says as they begin the walk to the campus gallery. He can feel Junhong start to bounce excitedly next to him, and he shoves his hands into his pockets.

“I only have two on display, actually, but I’m really happy with how they turned out,” Junhong starts. “One is really small, it’s just a 3 by 4 canvas, but I tried to focus on tiny details, too.” Jongup nods, and he goes on. “It’s an oil painting. There’s a girl in the bottom left corner, but you can only see about half of her, and she’s holding something that makes a kinda-silvery glow thingy. I had a lot of trouble with the glitter,” he mumbles. “She’s standing on an empty street, but it’s all shiny and foggy ‘cause it’s been raining, and from where she stands, it fades into black as you get further away from the light.”

Jongup smiles. “That sounds awesome,” he says. “What color is her hair?”

“I don’t know,” Junhong says simply. “I forgot, it’s all in grayscale,” he finishes sheepishly.

“That would’ve helped with the imagery.”

Jongup leans back against the cold, stone wall outside the gallery, waiting for Junhong to finish talking with one of his professors. The show had a good turnout, and Junhong seems happy with it. The poor kid always gets super shy when it comes to his artwork, but apparently, having Jongup around somehow seems to quell his nerves a bit.

It’s a little colder tonight than it has been recently. Jongup can tell there won’t be much time until winter takes over, spraying crunchy frost across the grass and snipping curled leaves from their chilly, frozen branches. Jongup has always loved that season. He appreciates the quiet stillness it always brings.

He’s suddenly yanked out of his thoughts when a small yelp fills his ears, and a pair of hands grab his arm, tugging down with an unexpected force. Jongup had heard footsteps a few seconds prior to this, but he had figured the person was just going to quietly walk past him like everyone always does, so he’s not prepared to resist the motion, and is swiftly brought to the ground, landing hard on his right elbow and his left side resting on top of what he assumes is his attacker. He grimaces and scrambles into a sitting position, away from the other person and rubbing at his likely bruised elbow. It’s now that he realizes his sunglasses must have slipped off when he fell, and he quickly brings a hand up to cover his eyes, fumbling around to find the lost article.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry––”

Jongup’s motions pause. He’s heard that voice before.

“––I’m just so clumsy, and I was in a rush and I didn’t see the bench… are you alright? Did you hurt anything?” The boy starts to pat Jongup’s arms frantically as if he is going through airport security, then pauses for a second. “Why are you covering your eyes? I can’t be that ugly,” he jokes.

Jongup swallows but doesn’t say anything, his hand finally coming into contact with his glasses. The other guy must catch a glimpse of the scars on his face when he removes his hand from his eyes to quickly slip the glasses on, because he hears a quiet gasp that is quickly masked by a not-so-convincing cough, and Jongup feels his cheeks flush red.

There’s a bit of an awkward silence as Jongup stands up, patting his elbow to inspect the damage. It doesn’t seem too bad, but he sure as hell stillhates interacting with strangers.

“I––”

“Jonguppie!” Suddenly Junhong’s gleeful voice fills the chilly air, cutting the other boy off, and Jongup gives a small prayer of thanks. “I can’t believe it! My professor just–– oh, hi, Daehyun… what are you doing here?” Junhong grabs Jongup’s arm and pulls him to his side.

The guy who crashed into him, apparently Daehyun, lets out a surprised sound. “Junhong, hey!” Jongup can hear the grin in his voice. “Well, actually I was heading over the the music building, but I kind of almost killed your friend here before I could get too far.”

“Huh?” Junhong sounds confused.

“We took a bit of a fall,” Jongup supplies quietly, speaking for the first time since his run in with Daehyun.

“Ah, he speaks!”

Jongup can hear Junhong smack Daehyun (hopefully just on the arm or something). “He probably doesn’t want to talk to you, seeing as you apparently almost killed him,” Junhong says. “Not like he’d need to anyway; you talk enough for, like, six people,” he teases.

“Whatever,” Daehyun replies. “I gotta run, Youngjae’s probably planning my demise for being late. Nice to meet you, Jongup!”

Junhong snorts. “I’ll pray for you. Come on, Jongup, I’m freezing.” He begins to pull the latter down the sidewalk, leaving Daehyun behind as he runs the opposite direction.

Jongup pulls his arm from his roommate’s hold. “I know how to get to the dorm from here, Junhong,” he snaps, uncharacteristically.

There’s a small pause, and he bites his lip, immediately regretting his actions. “I mean, it’s just…”

“I know,” Junhong said softly. Jongup can hear the small smile in his voice. “I just like holding onto you, you’re so small and warm,” he laughs.

Jongup shakes his head as Junhong huddles closer to him, leeching his apparent warmth. It’s true that Jongup has always run on the warmer side, so he lets it slide, knowing full well Junhong does get cold easily.

“I am not small ,” Jongup feigns annoyance, “I’m the national average height, for your information.”

Junhong laughs again, and Jongup sighs. “I let you take advantage of me, don’t I?”

“You make it pretty easy, yes.”

Jongup hits Junhong’s arm.

“ Owowow ,” Junhong flinches away. “Sheesh, how many times have I told you to watch it?”

“Ah, sorry. I forgot you have delicate skin.”

“Excuse you, my skin is extremely manly, thank you very much. You just don’t know your own strength!”

“Who said delicate skin wasn’t manly?” Jongup argues. He feels Junhong shrug, and a small, indecisive noise escapes his mouth.

“So what is it you were so excited about before?” Jongup changes the subject smoothly.

“Oh, right!” Junhong starts bouncing again, and Jongup can’t help but smile at the action.