Jaejin woke up with a huge headache and all he could see with his blurry vision was the flying curtain of his living room's window. Living room... why was he there? Grumbling, Jaejin sat up, finding himself in his sofa with a textbook on top of his stomach. Did he fall asleep when he was reading?

He stood up, cursing at the slight pain that shot out throughout his back. Damn sofa.

It took him awhile, but he then noticed that his veranda was wide open - which pretty much explained why he felt that his toes were freezing. Despite the fact that he didn't remember why it was open, he walked over to the big sliding door. He always tried to avoid the veranda whenever he could. It might sound weird, but to be able to see whoever lived at the building across his apartment bugged him to no end. It wasn't that his neighbour was disturbing or anything, it just made him anxious to know that his neighbour had just about enough access to observe his life.

“Ah Hyung, you're awake?”

Jaejin narrowed his eyes as he stood by the door, realizing that he wasn't wearing his glasses. His vision was blurry but he recognized the figure that was standing outside at the veranda. He then turned to his coffee table, smiling when he found his glasses there. ”You stayed over?” he asked, before walking back to where his guest was.

“I had to. Para-phrasing is not as easy as you said it would,” his guest complained. “Minhwan is sleeping in your room, by the way.”

“No one told you to stay over. You guys could have just asked me to send my assignment by email or something, and you could do it at home instead of storming into my apartment late at night like that,” Jaejin laughed.

“Aish, Hyung. If we did it on my own, we would be dead by now,” Seunghyun complained again.

Jaejin had known Seunghyun and his roommate, Minhwan, since high school. He thought he had gotten rid of them after he graduated. No more two annoyingly cheerful juniors that would bug him after school because of that difficult project their teacher gave them. No more unpaid tutoring job every summer. And no more sharing his brain capacity with anyone else. At least that was what he thought until he found out that those two then enrolled in the same exact university as him - with the same exact major. He wasn't sure if it was their love to him or just their obsession of surviving their modules by copying his work.

“Oh well. Thanks for the help, though you fell asleep half way. I’m just glad you didn’t do the sleep stripping thingy last night. That would be creepy,” Seunghyun grinned. “I’ll wake Minhwan up and we shall head back before submitting the damn assignment.”

The younger guy gave Jaejin a small tap on his shoulder, showing his mega-watt smile in the process. Jaejin used to find that smile adorable, then there was a time where he decided that it was annoying instead. Now, he just couldn’t be bothered about it anymore. He leaned his bum against the veranda wooden fence, eyes watching Seunghyun dragging Minhwan out from the room he was sleeping at. Minhwan wasn’t the type that was hard to be woken up in the morning, but he looked pretty lost in the morning and Jaejin found it rather adorable – especially because his bloated morning face made his small eyes disappeared.

“Bye, Hyung!” the two of them waved at him once they got to pack their laptops and books, giving Jaejin a ‘thank you’ bow right after. Jaejin smirked contentedly in reply. Well, at least they were well behaved and that made Jaejin didn’t mind helping them with their work.

Turning over to rest his elbows on the fence, his eyes trailed to the apartment that was at the building opposite of his. He had never really taken a good look at that guy’s apartment before, and since he was already there, he might as well do it. It felt wrong to invade someone’s privacy like that, but sometimes he couldn’t deny how much it made him rather curious.

Though he quickly turned around and rushed back into his apartment when the first thing that he saw was his neighbour looking back at him from inside of his apartment, straight in the eyes. How was that even possible?! They were at least 25 metres away.

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Breakfast was always important for Jonghun. It was a hassle to wake up early everyday to make breakfast, but it was always worth it because nothing could beat the soothing feeling of sipping into warm soup and digging into a bowl of rice early in the morning. So yeah, his morning was usually filled with him preparing his breakfast and watching the morning news (it made him feel like he was a middle age lady preparing breakfast for his son at times where Hongki thought it was a good idea to sleep at Jonghun’s place instead of his own).

He pretty much really loved his morning routine. Not that it was a must, but going to work with an empty stomach would usually make him feel so worn out before lunch break. He knew that he didn’t have much of a brainpower to support him, so he wouldn’t want to make himself suffer more with growling stomach at work.

Jonghun had lived at that apartment since he moved out from his parents’ house. Location wise, it was just about twenty minutes drive from his workplace; and back when he was still a student, he just had to walk for about ten minutes to the nearest train station. So when the family that lived across the building moved away and was replaced by a guy that didn’t look that much younger than him, Jonghun quickly noticed it. But it was just as quickly as him not paying attention to the other apartment anymore after only two days.

Of course, he was munching happily to his breakfast when his eyes accidentally landed on the view that his big glass sliding door was presenting to him. His blind was open and he could clearly see two guys at the other veranda, talking while enjoying the morning sun (or as much morning sun you could get at this chilly Spring). He had never really paid attention to that other apartment. The only thing that he remembered seeing was the owner wearing a giant Chopper hat while playing games with his friends. And that was like along time ago.

As he ate his breakfast quietly, Jonghun kept on staring – not finding the morning news as entertaining as it usually was. It took him awhile to recognise his neighbour, and when he did, he mentally told himself to at least remember the face. No matter how common that face was, he should at least remember it. It might be useful in the future.

He didn’t notice that he had been staring for so long until there was an awkward moment of his eyes meeting his neighbour’s eyes, realising that his neighbour’s companion had long gone and he was left alone at the veranda. “Neah, he won’t be able to see me,” he mumbled to himself and continued eating.

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First chapter!! Wuii~. I haven't writen anything in such a long time, so I think I'm getting so rusty. This is my first time writing an FT Island's fic, so I hope everything turned out well. It's pretty short, but I guess it just had to start somewhere :)