The clock greets Minhyuk as soon as he steps inside his classroom while stumbling upon many desks and chairs along the way. They hit his knees as he walks towards his seat, long strides taking him towards his seat by the window, however, Minhyuk could care less at this point about hurting himself when all he feels is panic. He will check his knees later on, if he remembers and if he has the time to and only if nothing prevents him from doing so. The only thing that is currently occupying his thoughts is that he almost arrived late to class, something he is not really used to doing to the point he loathes the thought of it due to appearing irresponsible. So much for his responsible student image. Agh, he just wants to beat himself up for this on the spot.

Some students are gazing at him as he looks in panic while taking a look at his watch every now and then. Minhyuk tries to not pay mind to them, to not even bother about thinking of the impression they currently have of him but deep inside, he is mad. He shouldn’t have had to arrive late, not today, not on midterms. Actually-he shouldn’t arrive late any day, Minhyuk believes, but he just had a very bad night. One in which he couldn’t fall asleep for even a bit and that resulted in him drifting off to dreamland at around 6.00 AM and then waking up at 8.00 AM, dizzy and alert, paranoid and mad, pushing Jonghyun off of him and shouting at him to freaking get ready. He can’t believe that he let his irresponsible roommate and longtime friend do that again, and that he wasn’t able to push him off of him the moment he dozed off. Now he is cursing himself for being weak, and Jonghyun, his curses are aimed especially at him.

He is really considering the idea of even sleeping on the couch if this continues since he didn’t think that it would get this out of hand, but every time this happens the situation is getting worse to the point that it is not only messing Jonghyun’s life but Minhyuk’s as well. He is already used to be emotionally wrecked even if he doesn’t want to admit it, but messing with his studies is a huge no in Minhyuk’s book. 

However, right now, even his own desk seems like a better place than where he was in the morning. When he drops to his seat and lets his head rest on the wooden surface of his desk, his backpack resting next to him, Minhyuk just sighs in relief that his professor hasn’t showed up yet. Well, everyone is behaving irresponsible, he thinks, but at least this gives him time to calm his erratic heartbeats-consequence of having rushed so early and without having had a proper breakfast. But, he wants for his mind to calm down overall, his morning was nothing short of crazy-and it is something he doesn’t even want to remember at the moment or else all his face will go red as a beetroot.

“Minhyuk-ah” he hears a voice call out to him. A familiar one at that, it isn’t Jonghyun’s-because if it had been him then he would already have snapped and yelled at him to go back to his class because he really doesn’t want him near at all.

“Um…?” Minhyuk looks up slowly to be met with the sight of his classmate and friend, Choi Minhwan, who is looking at him with thousands of inquiries written all over his face. Minhyuk doesn’t really feel like dealing with this so early in the morning, not when he barely got two hours of sleep. Just no questions please, Minhyuk is begging Minhwan in his mind.

But he is obviously going to get asked something, anything-you just don’t see Kang Minhyuk arriving late and stumbling upon desks, tripping, rushing and in an anxiety and panic attack at the time like the white rabbit in Alice in wonderland. Minhyuk kind of wants to scoff at this thought but he just shakes his head instead, to be able to compose himself-the lack of sleep is making him think silly stuff already.

“Hey Minhyuk-ah, morning” he hears the other boy greet him and Minhyuk nods as he greets him good morning as well, okay-so far, nothing has been asked and Minhyuk is hoping that it continues this way,  “Have you been out partying? You certainly look like you had a looong night”

Not. So much for hoping, Minhyuk thinks. He certainly must look like crap right now if he is the one suspected of partying instead of Jonghyun-if he looks like this then he wonders how the pale young man that makes his life a rollercoaster of emotion looks right now, or if he even is at the campus to begin with.

“Shut up, Minhwan” Minhyuk snaps at the mention of partying, but also when he hears Minhwan say ‘long night’, it kind of makes his mind snap, react in a way that he wouldn’t if he was in his level-headed mode and what’s worse; it reminds him of Jonghyun.

Not like it went further than that kiss and the troublemaker attempting to make out with him once more, but goddamn, he’d rather not think about it. He’d rather not remember Jonghyun’s lips trailing the path of his neck and breathing warmly on it, he’d rather forget how Jonghyun was kissing and biting his bottom lip while making him gasp for air. He’d rather not remind himself of that, but he is and he is hoping his snapping somehow masks the mess of emotions he is feeling in his conflicted heart.

“Seriously? Ever so responsible Kang Minhyuk was out partying?” he hears Minhwan tease as he looks at Minhyuk’s sleepy face from above, quite the peculiar sight coming from him. Him out of all people.

“No” Minhyuk states curtly as he takes out his notes from his notebook in a rush to attempt quickly reading through them in an effort to remember some things for his exam that starts in 2 hours.

“Then?” Minhwan inquires as he takes the seat in front of Minhyuk’s desk, resting his head on his hand while tapping his foot on the ground and the sound is just grating Minhyuk. He normally loses his cool when there is stuff that bothers him, yes he nags at many things but you can’t blame this early bird that hasn’t slept well with his hyung on top of him as he remembered the many occasions he has had to deal with that.

“….Don’t make me remember…” Minhyuk says as a frustrated sigh accompanies him, a sigh that carries not only his exhaustion but also his feelings of exasperation-no, desperation. He is desperate, he wants this to stop-he wants for Jonghyun to stop making him conflicted when he already is dating someone else so openly. But he feels lame