He was tired.

That was all Ryeowook could really think about while he was sitting in his first lecture.

While usually he would spend his time filling page, after page of his pad with notes, today he couldn’t even concentrate enough to doodle on the corner of his paper.

At first he didn’t even notice that his class had ended and that everyone else had already gotten up to get some lunch. When he did realize it, it took about all the energy he could muster, to even get up from his chair and start making his way towards the cafeteria. When he finally reached and sat down at his usual chair and table, he noticed that a significant, constant part of his lunch was missing.

Or rather a significant someone.

“Just what is keeping Donghae so long…?” Ryeowook said aloud, half to himself, half to the chair right in front of him, where his best (and only) friend usually sat.

After a while Ryeowook realized, (After a pretty loooong while as he had to admit to himself. This fatigue was really getting to his brain cells today) that Donghae probably wasn’t even on campus today if he hasn’t shown up by now – as it always was the case when he didn’t make it for lunch. 

Great.

He shouldn’t even have gotten up this morning. As things where going for him today, he might manage to get himself ran over by a bus on his way home, or something.

Recognizing his limits, Ryeowook decided to do something he had never dared to do before: Leave early and get some more rest at home, before he made a complete fool of himself, passed out on the hallway, or similar.

The world around him seemed to pass by in a blurry mess of colors during his walk back and his feel for time was gone completely. If someone had asked him later on, when and how he got home, he wouldn’t have been able to give a proper answer.

When he woke up, he just barely registered that he was lying on his bed, fully clothed, and just as exhausted as he had been a couple hours ago when he decided to leave campus.

Maybe it was about time to go visit a doctor, Ryeowook mused. He was beginning to get rather worried about his health. He might even have caught some kind of dangerous virus somewhere or something.

But it was seriously difficult to hold onto any kind of coherent thought, when your head is throbbing from lack of sleep and the constant ringing of the doorbell was annoying the heck out of you, as it was the case for Ryeowook.

Doorbell?

Taking his time to gather his power to get up from his bed, Ryeowook slowly managed to make his way to his front door. Hopefully it was Donghae on the other side, wanting to check up on him since he left early, and not just some random package delivery guy. Ryeowook could really need a little care and pampering right now to get back on track, and he knew that Donghae would be more than happy to give him that.

But when Ryeowook opened the door with tired hands, he wasn’t looking up into Donghae’s worried, kind and handsome face, ready to fuss over him in any way possible, but into another, equally handsome, but evidently pissed of face.

“Heechul…?” Ryeowook managed to ask drowsily. The guy on the other side looked, if possible, even more pissed of than he already had, when he began to talk.

“You have exactly five minutes to go and make me a latte macchiato with whipped cream on top of it, or I swear you will regret the day you made me wait in front of your stupid door and ring your damn doorbell for ing twenty minutes! Got that?”

And there wasn’t really any necessity to say anything else at that point.

<3<3<3

Exactly five minutes later an not exactly happy, but definitely less unhappy Heechul was sitting on the only armchair in Ryeowook’s little living room, sipping on his latte macciato, while the owner of the house sat in the couch to his right.

After another ten minutes of silence or so in which Ryeowook didn’t dare to start a conversation (so what? Heechul was scary as hell when he was mad) and Heechul apparently didn’t feel like speaking as well, Ryeowook was slowly starting to get impatient. He was really tired. And his head was hurting like crazy. All he wanted to do was go back to bed and suffer in peace. Or at least have Donghae by his side so he didn’t have to face Heechul by himself. Just why the heck did his brother have to visit home today?

Suddenly realizing something, Ryeowook lifted his head to look at Heechul “Shoudn’t you be at work right now at this fancy private university? Or are you here for scouting? If so I am sorry to tell you, but Donghae probably wouldn’t come by today, he wasn’t even in school,” Ryeowook said. Donghae had gotten a lot of offers from all kinds of prestigious universities lately so it wouldn’t be strange if the one Heechul was working for wanted to cast him as well.

 After realizing that he was basically telling Heechul, who was probably here to offer Donghae a free ride to a much better university than the one he was going to now, that the star athlete was skipping class, hastily added “He is probably sick and at home right now.”

To this Heechul merely shrugged and said: “He is not at home and certainly not sick. But don’t worry; he will be with us soon. I send Leeteuk to go and pick him up for me.”

“Leeteuk?” Suddenly Ryeowook perked up a little. Leeteuk was one of Heechul’s friends from high school. While Ryeowook and Donghae where in primary school, Leeteuk was over at Ryeowook’s place almost every day to hang out with Heechul. But Ryeowook never really understood WHY they where such good friends in the first place. If Ryeowook where to describe Heechul as a scary and violent demon, it was only appropriate to call Leeteuk a kind and mild tempered angle. It was just unnatural for them to spend time together… well but they did spend most of the time fighting anyway if Ryeowook recalled correctly.

Anyways.

If Leeteuk was coming that meant at least someone was there to keep watch on Heechul and keep him from bullying Ryeowook (and ultimately Donghae since he apparently was going to show up as well) too much.

“And I am here to talk to you as well. Actually: It is probably a good idea if I talk to you first since that idiot wouldn’t be able to make a decision without your approval anyways.” Heechul claimed, looking straight into Ryeowook’s eyes.

Ryeowook wanted to disagree and defend his friend, but it was still Heechul he was talking to, so he decided to go ahead and just ask was the other wanted from them. As an answer Heechul just gave him a big grin while handing him a letter at the same time. On the envelope ‘To Kim Ryeowook’ was written in big letters.

“Read.”

And read he did.

Dear prospective student,

It is my pleasure and my privilege to inform you that you are being invited to train and learn at the “SM Institute for potential survival”. More details and a detailed class schedule will be provided by your representative scout. We will be happy to welcome to our Institute and see you at the opening ceremony/ level check day!

Have a nice day and a lot of fun trying to continue surviving <3

Boa – Director of SM Institute for potential survival

(^o^)/

Ryeowook just starred at the later for a couple of seconds after he finished reading.

“… How informative.”

Heechul just gave him a smirk.

“That is why we don’t just send the letter but let scouts deal with the whole scouting stuff. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Ok, if this was all I would ask you to please get your upstairs and pack your stuff so we can leave as soon as Donghae shows up. I will explain everything on the way.”

Ryeowook just continued starring. At the letter, at Heechul, at the ugly pattern of the carpet his mom had loved too much for Ryeowook to just burn it outside or throw it out.

He was thinking.

That didn’t make sense. Why would some big name university want to scout him? His grades where alright, but not extraordinary enough to make him a target of scouting. And what the hell was up with this weird letter? What “potential survival”? Was this whole thing some kind of joke?

Still trying to sort out his thoughts and to for a coherent question (while still fighting a major headache by the way) Ryeowook was unmoving when the door to his house soundly burst open in an explosion like manner.

“What-“

Ryeowook began, but the words were stuck in his throat. Standing in the doorframe was a heavily panting Leeteuk carrying a lifeless, bleeding person on his back.

Donghae was all Ryeowook could think about as blood was slowly dropping on his threshold.

-------------------

Author’s note:

Hey to all you lovely people who are still reading this story (which I didn’t upload in forever) and reaaaaaaallly sorry for not posting anything for so long T.T

I was out of the country and without internet connection for a while and had to fight with some story development problems as well, but I think that should be taken care of for the time being.

Sorry for the horrible update… I wasn’t really going to post thins but I came to the conclusion that my writing is not going to get any better any time soon so I will not make you wait unnecessarily long >.<

Hope you could drop a comment <3!!!!