A few days later, Chanyeol woke up early. An awful amount of books were piling on top of his desk and he kept gnawing on the end of a pencil, looking a the scribbled sheet of paper in front of his eyes.

"Why am I even trying..."

He sighed and tore his paper, writing on the next one as he tried to remember notions he always had trouble with. The screen of his phone lighted up, showing a message from Naehee, and his eyes rolled in their orbits. How he envied Naehee. She was such a hard-working student. Every teacher liked her. And there he was, struggling with definitions and diagrams he would never remember because he had never been the brightest student.

He had been lucking, during the first few years of his studies : always the right questions at the right time. Answering a multiple-choice quiz was easier, when the questions where the one you knew. But his recent failure gave Chanyeol the feeling he could not just do whatever he wanted and hope for something to happen. No matter what his mother could say, angels did not exist and he was the one who needed to act on his poor results.

Sipping from a huge mug of coffee, Chanyeol read a page over and over again. His eyes were still tired from sleep. He was not even sure he could understand everything, and chances are that everything would be forgotten by the time he went to bed. Yet, it was one of those many rituals Chanyeol observed when he realized that he could not count on anything except himself : he worked hard for a few days, then stopped, going back to his old, bad habits.

"As if." Another sigh. Another paperball in the bin. Chanyeol laid his elbows on his desk, pressed his forehead against his palms and closed his eyes, whispering things to himself in the most inaudible way.

About noon, the screen of his phone lighted up again, and Chanyeol picked up the call as he recognized his mother's face in the background.

"Hi, mom." He said, trying to hide how tired he was.

"Hi sweetheart, how are you doing?"

"Studying, and you?" He did not want to talk. Not to his mother. Not when she was going to be disappointed by his failure. 

"Fine, fine. Well, we've been thinking about visiting you someday and..." She went on, her voice smiling into the phone.

Chanyeol could see her smile without her being in front of him. Yet, it did not help him to forget what had happened a few days ago and his smile fainted as quickly as it had appeared.

"I don't need you to visit me. It's alright."

"But we haven't seen you in such a long time, your father..."

"I'm fine, mom. No need to baby me like that. It's been years now."

He hung up abruptly after wishing her a good afternoon. A decision he regretted the next second, as he realized how rude he had been towards his caring mother who was just so worried about his well-being. How came mothers were able to read your mind that easily? His phone vibrated, showing a message from his mom. It's alright if you don't want to talk about it, it said, but remember there will always be someone looking after you when you need it. Chanyeol switched off his phone. It was enough.

He stood up and walked to his window with crossed arms, laying against the frame as he looked down at the streets. He felt like a king, ruling over that small crowded street. He felt powerful, accomplished. But he knew he was not. As Chanyeol tilted his head to the back, the building in front of his own looked so high that he had the feeling of being crushed under its weight. It was impressive, but also and foremost oppressive.

"You can't even see the sky." He shook his head. "Please, who cares about the ing sky, I have exams to pass. I wish I could be that naive."

Chanyeol ran a hand through his hair, sitting on his bed and contemplating the wall for a few seconds. He wished his mother was right. He wished that someone, somewhere, was actually looking after him, making sure everything was alright, but it was impossible. He had failed, and there was nothing such as angels, protectors or whatever his mother used to call them. Only humans. And humans were unable to predict their destiny. The only thing he could predict, at that moment, was that he was having pizza for lunch.

As he was standing up to get his phone and switch it on again, getting notifications from the incredible amount of messages Naehee had sent him, someone knocked on the door.

"You can go home, I don't care." He replied instantly, sighing in the process.

"It's Baekhyun!" A voice called, on the other side of the door.

What? Chanyeol furrowed his brows and walked to the door, opening it to face Baekhyun.

"What the... Man, you look like a dead warmed-up." He said, looking Baekhyun's features. The dark circles under his eyes were hard to overlook.

"Ah, bad sleep. It's alright." He shook his hand, smiling as brightly as he could.

"What do you want?"

"Wanna go out?"

"Out?" Chanyeol glanced at his desk, repressing a sigh as he realized how stupidly he was acting. "I don't know I... I have a lot of things to do and..."

"Oh, I see..." The smile on Baekhyun's face fainted so quickly that Chanyeol had the feeling he was about to collapse.

"Just give me a second to dress up, okay?"

"Alright!"

Chanyeol closed the door and pinched his nose. Why was he so easily convinced ? But Baekhyun seemed so tired : maybe he had been feeling bad and needed someone to lighten up his mood ? He did not know him enough to figure out what his thoughts might be, yet he had never felt so close to someone in a very long time. Not even with Naehee, who was supposed to be his closest friend.

"Okay, so where do you want to go?" He asked, once they were out of the building. Baekhyun looked in front of him and shrugged.

"What about something to eat? Pizza?"

Chanyeol snickered. "I'm starting to wonder if you can't read my mind. I was about to call for that when you knocked on my door."

"I knew it."

"As if. How could you?"

"I know everything."

Baekhyun smiled playfully before walking on, a few steps ahead of him. His hands tucked in the pocket of his jeans.

"As if."