As Jongin closed the door behind him and stepped outside, the chilly winter air hit him straight in the face and made him shiver involuntarily.

The darkness of the night hadn't let go of the world quite yet, so it was still pitch-dark outside, and if it hadn’t been for the street lights that illuminated the streets (and the fact that he knew his own street like the back of his pocket and could probably walk there backwards), he’d definitely be lost. He fished out his phone from his back pocket, and furrowed his brows when he realised it was still only six thirty in the morning, which, according to him, was way too early in the morning for a person to be awake and out of bed.

He stepped out on the pavement, and pulled his jacket closer to his body, huddling closer to the comfort it offered in the icy hours of the morning.

Holy crap it’s freezing outside.

Thoughts of his warm bed that was just a few feet away didn't make Jongin feel any warmer, neither did the fact that he could have slept for at least thirty more minutes, easily, so instead of dwelling over his miserable life, he started making his way towards the cafe, deciding it would be a nice place to spend his morning before school.

Nothing was better than wasting the time at the cafe. Really.

Snow was slowly falling from the sky as he walked, painting the entire city white in the process. The atmosphere around him was calm, and because of that, Jongin felt at ease too. Despite all the bad things he might have said, he really loved mornings because of the simple peace and quiet that surrounded them. There was no loud noises; no obnoxious songs blasting through the stores; no annoying people trying to force him into buying this and that - just complete silence and calmness.

It was exactly what Jongin needed right now; exactly what Jongin wanted.

★

Upon arriving at the cafe, Jongin realised he had forgotten his iPod at home. Cursing his absentmindedness, he decided there was no point returning home, so instead he entered the cafe, no iPod in hand.

The cafe was buzzing with life as usual, something it did every morning as a result of the cafe's early opening hours. Not that Jongin minded, though; the constant summing in the background only made him feel at home and relaxed. It really calmed his nerves down. Noticing the long queue, he decided to wait before he ordered something, and instead went to sit by his regular table - he wasn't in a rush anyways. He shrugged his jacket off and buried himself into his scarf in an attempt to warm up his frozen nose.

Leaning back in his chair, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, he started studying the people that surrounded him this lovely morning. It was a habit of his; analysing other people's interactions; the way they communicated with each other and how different they actually were. In the process of doing so, he learned a couple of things about his fellow human beings; firstly, there are roughly two types of people in this world - people who are made for mornings, and people who definitely are not. That fact became painfully obvious to Jongin as he watched a group of guys that was seated not too far from him, all of them which were asleep, heads on the table, while another group of guys were talking excitedly in hushed whispers, clearly not aware that it was six thirty am.

Jongin snorted (discreetly, of course, what did you think) as he caught sight of a couple sitting not too far from him, just another example of how different people can be; the guy was practically sleeping with his eyes open, only grunting in response when asked a question, while the girl was talking animatedly with a cup in her hand, eyes shining brightly like stars on a clear night or something cliché like that, obviously not noticing her boyfriend's discomfort.

Well, opposites attract, right?

The second thing he learned was that coffee made the world a much better place.

★

Without any doubt, Tuesdays were Jongin's favourite days of the week. The only classes he had that day was a double period with math - and then he had the rest of the day off to do nothing at all, until the journalist course at three and then volleyball-practice at seven. It was exactly these kind of days he liked, not to mention needed -  calm days where he could do everything he loved.

(Well. Except math. He hated math. But that’s a different story.)

He sighed contently as he sipped at his coffee. A very nice day, indeed.

Seeing as he didn't have any class until ten (and it was still like, what, almost seven a.m.?), he decided that he could as well continue writing his article (the article that was supposed to be done by tomorrow, oops).

He fished out his pen and paper from his backpack, and placed both items on the table. Biting his lip in thought, he realised he had no idea what to actually write, which, ultimately, was exactly the reason why he hadn't written anything yet despite the fact that the deadline was, in fact, tomorrow. Inspiration never seemed to strike him any longer, no matter what he did.

He blamed it on the month.

Oh well. The least I could do is at least try.

Taking a deep breath in order to clear his head from every thought, he started scribbling down the first thing that came to mind. He let his mind wander freely, not thinking about deadlines or word count or coffee or the outside world, nothing else but the words that seemed to be caught in his throat. The same words that now flew effortlessly down onto his paper as if they belonged there; as if they never were stuck; as if they were mocking him, saying haha just kidding, here we are!

He continued writing until his whole hand hurt from holding the pen and writing a little too hard (he always did that). He rubbed his eyes, hiding a yawn, before he leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his coffee. He held his pen between his lips as he scanned the text.

It wasn’t that bad actually, though it was a little bit different from what he usually writes. If he was going to be honest, this was probably one of his best works. Kind of? And all that because of an thirty minute intense writing session with scribbling, crossing out and a lot of cursing. Truth be told, he worked ten times better when he was under pressure.

Jongin smiled for himself, pleased with the outcome. It was good enough for today.  

It's funny, really, how writing something can take his mind off everything else. It makes him forget where he is, what time it is and even who he is. Not that he minded - he needed that kind of freedom sometimes, needed the ability to run off when reality got too rough for him to handle.

He spent the rest of the time editing his text, and then re-editing it fifteen more times; nothing was good enough for him. At the sixteenth draft, Jongin decided that it was probably good enough and put down the pen; his hand yet again tired from all the writing. Glancing at his watch, he promptly choked on air as he realised it was only fifteen minutes left until class - and the walk from cafe took roughly twenty minutes. He jumped out of the chair, grabbed his books with one hand and the hot coffee with the other, before he dashed out of the cafe, praying he would make it in time.

A thick layer of snow covered the ground, and it made running much more difficult - not to mention the hot liquid that somehow had made its way out of the cup and was slowly dripping down Jongin's hand.

Ow ow ow ow ow motherf-

Needless to say, running in deep snow with a hot cup of coffee isn't actually Jongin's speciality.

★

Jongin slipped in place exactly twenty-two seconds before the teacher, with the name Choi Siwon (a.k.a. “Mr. Choi, please.”) entered the classroom. He breathed out a sigh of relief, and placed his now half-empty cup on the desk (damn it, I wanted that coffee!), before he leaned back in his chair.

Phew.

The teacher greeted the class in his usual cheery tone but the students only greeted him half heartedly back; math wasn’t what they wanted to do at the moment, nor did they actually want to be at school. Jongin closed his eyes as the teacher started writing something on the whiteboard; repetitions of last week’s lesson. He couldn’t be bothered; he already knew this stuff. That's so last week.

He was about to doze off when somebody poked him in the shoulder, and Jongin looked up to see the concerned face of Joonmyun.

"Why were you so late? Are you ok?" he whispered worriedly, brows furrowed in concern.

Jongin bit his lip, seemingly in thought. He knew Joonmyun would sympathise with him if he used his puppy eyes and sad face, and maybe maybe maybe he wanted to be nice to Jongin and buy him a new cup.

Worth a shot.

He lifted his cup and shook it slightly, the contents sploshing around as he did so. "I was out buying coffee as usual, and somehow I misjudged my time and I had to run, and then I spilled half it," he said, small pout forming on his lips.

Joonmyun, just like everyone else, knew how much Jongin loved his coffee, so he scooted closer to Jongin, draping his arm around his shoulder as he his hair, brows furrowing even more as Jongin retold the dramatic story. He thread his fingers through Jongin’s hair and then ruffled it, smiling gently as he did so.

"Do you want me to buy you a new one?" he then asked, still with the gentle smile in place.

The sparkle in Jongin's eyes screamed yes please, but he nodded nevertheless, just in case.

Sometimes, he just really loved Joonmyun.

★

Jongin was brought back to reality when the teacher cleared his throat, loudly, in order to get the class' attention. He leaned forward, head propped on his hand as the teacher scanned everybody's faces in order to make sure they were paying attention. When he was sure everybody were looking at him, he smiled, making all the girls fawn.

“Okay class, back to focus. Today's subject is quadratic equation. Does anyone know anything about it?”

The whole class groaned in unison; Jongin included. Even the girl that loved the teacher more than anything looked sick. Math was bad enough as it was, but quadratic equation was worse than anything Jongin knew - annoying little sisters and waking up at six a.m. Sunday morning included.

The teacher started scribbling down something on the blackboard and terrorized people into answering the questions that were asked. Jongin was sure he was a sadist. He looked at the blackboard, and bit his lip. This was simple, according to the teacher at least, ("I'm going to take this slowly and simply," he said, emphasising the word slowly, "because not everyone is good at this.") but for Jongin it all looked like Greek - the numbers were swimming and oh what the ,  how is this even math.

He looked out of the window, and swore he could see his soul jumping off the school roof.

I hate math. I hate quadratic equation. I hate December. I hate Christmas. I hate my LIFE. uGH.

★

A slight breeze was what Jongin was met with as he walked towards the library. The degrees had certainly dropped since morning, and, if Jongin was going to be honest, it felt kind of nice. Walking in the cold felt refreshing and it certainly woke him up from whatever tiredness he was feeling. He took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the fresh winter air.

Feels nice.

After working with quadratic something-something for the past hour-and-half, Jongin's brain literally felt fried. It was as if someone had left it too long in the frying pan, making it mushing and disgusting as .

That didn't even make sense; does food get mushy when you leave it too long in the frying pan???? Jongin shrugged - how would he know? He never made food, anyways.

Not the point. Damn it Jongin stop spacing out like that I'm trying to write a story here.

Anyways.

Jongin kept walking at snail's pace, feet shuffling through the snow, as he studied the environment around him. He loved everything about this place; the calmness, the way the snow seemed to glitter as the sun shined down at it, the people - okay, maybe not the people but you get the gist. He smiled a rare smile for himself, before he sped up - he wanted to get to the library before it got too dark and too cold and too scary. I mean what.

Arriving at the library, Jongin felt relieved to find it somewhat empty, spare from a few students scattered around the many tables. He needed peace and quiet if he was going to work on his homework - something he really needed, seeing as he was weeks and weeks and weeks behind.

Seating himself at a table near the window, he picked up his books and placed them strategically on the table. He blew on his fingers in an attempt to warm them up while he decided on what he was going to start with.

Why do I never wear gloves. Why can't I learn. Why, Jongin, why.

Heaving a sigh, he decided that he might as well start with the math-homework, seeing as the lesson from earlier was still fresh in his mind. He put away everything apart from his textbook, calculator, pen and notebook, and spent as long as twenty-seven seconds staring at the page before his head crashed with the table with a loud bang that had everyone within a mile radius jump.

He stared at the doodle that he drew in class; a stick figure of his teacher with long- beard, lightsaber and cloak. He looked like a mix between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Gandalf - it was a fine piece of art. Jongin was proud of himself, for being able to draw something as pretty as this.

He giggled for himself (yes he is very manly thank you very much), before he sighed heavily and furrowed his brows. How in the world was he supposed to work on something as intricate as this, when he didn't understand anything and didn't have Joonmyun anyone there to do the work for him help him?

Huffing, he closed his eyes for a minute, only in an attempt to relax and save up energy before he started his work, but before he knew it he was dozing off, drool already running from the corners of his mouth.

And no, Jongin does not have a habit of falling asleep everywhere, where did you get that from. At least not on purpose. He's just very fond of sleeping. Yes. That's the answer. He likes sleeping.

★

A slight buzzing was what woke Jongin up from his slumber. His mouth felt like a washing machine or whatever, and his head was as heavy as lead. He groaned as he sat up from his uncomfortable position, halfway lying over the table, and wiped off the drool that had run down his cheek.

Ew. Gross

He sniffed as he reached for his phone, checking to see who had texted him. He wiped his eyes as he opened the text, yawning.

From: Father Joonmyun
Recieved: 2:30 pm
Sorry, I totally forgot I was supposed to buy you another coffee! I'll make it up to you later ~^^,

Jongin blinked tiredly at the screen, not quite understanding what Joonmyun meant, sleep making his brain muddled and slower than usual. It took him longer than he want to admit to get what the Joonmyun was talking about, and when he did, he slammed his head on the table, groaning. Sleep did not do him good; maybe he should stop sleeping. After slamming his head on the table, he felt more awake though and that's when realisation dawned in. He lifted himself up again, and glanced at the watch - 2:45 pm. He sniffed - the journalist course was supposed to begin in fifteen minutes, and seeing as he didn't want to be late, he started gathering his stuff, before he threw them carelessly into his bag. It didn't matter if he came late or not; the course leader was going to be late again, as usual, but Jongin never knew. Luckily for him, he didn’t have to go very far - the conference room where the course was being held was at the library. All he needed to do was to go up to the fourth floor, and voila.

As he zipped up his backpack and pulled the straps over his shoulders, ready to go he realised one more thing.

Did he really just sleep for nearly two hours? In a library? Hunched over some books?

★

Unsurprisingly, the course leader was late - again. Jongin wasn't shocked, really; he couldn't remember a single day where the teacher wasn’t late. He knew exactly where he was, though - out buying coffee. He was worse than Jongin, like ten times worse; if he didn't get his daily dose of coffee, he could fall asleep standing and with his eyes open. Not even kidding.

I mean, I love coffee, but not that much.

He leaned back in his chair as he waited and glanced around the room, studying the details. He had been in the exact room a million and fifty five times before, but it always fascinated him. It was clean and sterile; no pictures hanging on the walls and no other type of decoration, but it was still stylish. The desks were modern; white table surface and silver legs, and the chairs comfy and he really didn't mind spending the rest of his life in this room.

Apart from his obsession with coffee, the teacher was actually a very cool guy. He was relatively young, probably in his late 20s (or maybe younger, Jongin was never good with guessing ages), he worn modern clothes and even though he sometimes acted like an old man, he was actually pretty cool - he even let his students call him his real name, Dongwoo, instead of something stupid like professor Jang or whatever (was he even a professor?).

Jongin was in the middle of an internal discussion whether Dongwoo was a professor or not, when, out of nowhere, the door to the room flew open and in came said man, all flushed and with heavy breath. Jongin snorted as he saw the cup of coffee in his hand.

Of course.

He hurriedly walked to the front of the room, put down all of his things and gulped down his entire cup at once (wow, Jongin thought, doesn’t that hurt?), before he started speaking.

"Sorry I'm late!" he said, flashing an apologizing smile, "I just," he waved his now empty cup, "coffee."

A few giggles erupted from throughout the room, but he seemed unfazed with it as he sat down the mug and his computer and the projector it was connected to. A faint buzzing was heard from the computer as it was working, until, finally, it , and a PowerPoint-presentation popped up, only two words blinking:

“Catch me!”

Jongin blinked in disbelief and furrowed his brows.

Bad TVXQ reference.

Dongwoo, however, seemed very proud of his pun and nodded proudly, before he turned his attention back to class.

“This caught your attention, right?” he said, grinning. He always seemed so eager when he talked, almost like a little kid on Chr- oh whatever.

He sat down on the desk and surveyed the class as some of them nodded, while a few of them still had no clue what he was talking about.

“The most important thing while writing,” he said as he stood up again and walked over to the whiteboard, “is catching the reader’s interest.” He held the pointer over the two written words, “This made you interested, right?” drew a circle around them, “It made you curious. It made you think - what the hell does that mean? Catch me??” and smiled again as realisation dawned upon the class. He clicked the mouse button on his computer, and a new page popped forth:

“HEY! YOU! SEE! SO!”

“I know most of you write nonfiction, so that’s the model I’ll be focusing on. When writing a text, it is important not only to get the reader’s attention, but to keep it. How, you say? By using this,” he said as he pointed towards the whiteboard again, “model. It’s also called the news triangle - you write the most important things first, then all the details and not so important things come later, just like a triangle. Remember when Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens? The first thing he said was joy to you, we’ve won - and then he died. He would probably have told more, but hey, at least he told the most important thing, right?”

Jongin bit his lip in thought. He had no idea where the Greek messenger came from in a presentation like this, but, thinking of it, it totally made sense. This was why Jongin loved Dongwoo so much - he always used practical examples instead of talking just about theory, theory, theory.

The teacher was about to take a sip from his cup before he realised it was empty, and instead put it down again, all in a very smooth motion. He straightened his back before he continued talking.

“That’s what I want you to think about - tell the most important thing first; the rest can come later. This is where the hey! you! see! so! principle come in. Hey is an expression for an appeal; something that gets the reader interested in actually reading. Usually we find this in the headline and an eventual picture, but it should take place in the introduction . You means the material has to give the reader an identification, so that they get the feeling that oh, this is about me. See shows, illustrates and specifies the core of the case, and so prevents the case from being superficial by explaining, illustrating and showing consequences.”

He was talking fast, something he always did when he got eager (and he was always eager) and Jongin had to clear his mind in order to keep up, but he found it interesting nevertheless; learning things like this always cheered him up. He strived to become a better writer and by learning this, he was definitely getting somewhere. Smiling for himself, Jongin cleared all other thoughts as the teacher continued with the main principle of getting the reader’s attention.

“So, I want you to pair up...”

★

“Okay class, this was all we had time for today. Next time we’ll talk about the most important way of getting the reader’s attention - the headline - so please be there!” Dongwoo said as his class gathered their things and got ready to leave. He almost seemed sad that class was over - and he probably was. No one loved his job more than he did.

Jongin stood up and stretched his sore muscles; it had been a productive two hours, but he really couldn’t wait until volleyball practice later so that he could use some of the muscles he had failed to use for the past time.

He glanced at the lone watch that was hanging on the wall (the only sort of decoration there was) and figured he still had about two hours left to spare. Picking up his bag and giving a final wave to the teacher, he shuffled out of the conference room and walked down the four flights of stairs before he reached the bottom. Exiting the library, he looked up just in time to see snow falling down from the sky. He smiled for himself, before he hurriedly walked in the direction of his home.

This had been such a good day.

God, he loved Tuesdays.

★

“Okay kids, up up up, you haven’t come all the way here to gossip and rest, have you? No? Then get going, you know how it goes,” the volleyball coach, a.k.a. Lee Donghae, said as he walked into the room, successfully getting everybody’s attention. The boys jumped to their feet and immediately started jogging around the sports hall.

The coach sat down the water bottle he was holding and joined in, jogging backwards with a whistle in his hand.

“You all know the trick,” he said and whistled once. The whole team dropped to their stomach before they got up as fast as they could and started jogging again.

“Chanyeol, a little faster, if you don’t mind,” he commented, still jogging backwards. Chanyeol nodded and did as he was told, before the coach blew the whistle twice this time. Everybody dropped to the floor and sat down on their bum before they stood up and started jogging again.

“Yes, yes, that’s much better.”

Jongin shook his head lightly and smiled. He was amazed over how the coach was able to jog in the same tempo as Jongdae, backwards, and make it look like it was the simplest thing in the world. It always struck him as odd and unbelievable.

The coach joined the team around the same time as Jongin, and he remembered very clearly their first training. He did not hold back on their first exercise with a new trainer - rather the opposite. He set the standard that time, showing all of them that he would not tolerate any nonsense from anyone. Jongin had gotten slightly used to it, but nevertheless it never stopped to amaze him that he was able to to that; jog backwards and coach at the same time.

You may think that it’s only jogging - but let me tell you something. They were jogging a lot faster than what they used to do at school - it was closer to running, actually, but the coach called it jogging, so no one really argued with that. Some of them (including Jongin) had trouble keeping up with the jogging at first, but after playing volleyball on this specific team for the past four years, he had gotten used to it.

Donghae blew the whistle once more; three sharp chimes were heard and the boys dropped to their stomach before they turned and sat on their bum, hurried up and continued jogging. Since this was a lot harder than the first two, many of the guys used some time before they all were jogging again.

“You can all do much better than that,” he called and blew three times. This time they were slightly faster, but not much to see any difference.

“Okay then, give me ten,” he said and blew once. All of the boys dropped to the ground and took ten push ups. Not surprisingly Jongdae was the first to start jogging again, followed by Kris and then Luhan.

“Come on, boys, are you all sleeping today? I know you can do better!” the coach shouted and blew the whistle again; repeating the routine.

After about twenty repetitions, the coach called them off and they started the drop and roll exercises; Jongin pairing up with Luhan since they were quite even with their playing.

The drop and roll worked something like this: The first one sends the ball to the second one, making him have to throw himself on the ground, dodge the ball and stand up - all in one move. This was something Jongin was quite good at, but not as good as Joonmyun, since Joonmyun was, like, lightning. He was the one that had the quickest reactions among them and it was thanks to him that they won saved some points in a match.

After a good fifteen minutes of this exercise, they formed two teams and started to send the ball over the net. They worked on dodging the ball in a serve, seeing how high they would get when they jumped and some other things.

The coach was up their track the whole time, making sure everyone was working on the field. You may think that if the ball does not come towards you, you can just stand there doing nothing, but let me tell you something, you can surely not do so. You have to be your best, support your team members so you should always act like it’s you that have to take the ball.

(Without getting in the way, of course.)

That’s what the coach was trying to do - if he caught someone sleeping on their watch, not working towards the ball, he got him to take ten push ups as a punishment. Very effective way to make sure all of the boys worked on the field, if you ask me.

The training felt relieving on Jongin, since he could focus one hundred percent on what he was doing without worrying about anything else. His main problem was Jongdae’s power serve, that was nearly impossible to dodge. He also had to work hard if he even wanted to have a chance to block the tall and pushing Kris. Not only did he have a big advantage being so tall, he was also the one who was the most competitive, and because of that, nearly everyone on the team worked to par up with his skills.

When the coach blew the whistle, a short then a long tone, Jongin jogged to the bench and took out his water bottle and drank almost half of the contents. As he was drinking, the coach went through what the boys needed to focus on for next practice, and then he sent them out to the showers.

★

Jongin shivered in the cold wind and huddled closer into his jacket, cursing because he forgot to bring his beanie today. He had showered after practice, and he was sure that by the time he would reach home, his hair would be covered with icicles and he would look like Jack ing ice-cold Frost!

He was, for once, looking forward to coming home, where he knew his family would sit in the couch, drinking hot chocolate, tucked into big, fuzzy blankets.

He smiled at he readjusted the bag hanging from his shoulder, and stuffed his bare hands deeper into his pockets in an attempt to heat them up.

Christmas joy, here I come! he thought, sarcastically, and prepared to portray a happy Christmas child for the rest of the evening.

 

★