“Woohyun hyung, hurry up! Why are you so slow?”

Upon hearing that, Nam Woohyun stops for a few seconds, resting the suitcases that he had been holding for the past one hour on the hot concrete floor. He takes another few seconds to squat down determinedly and to call out to the impatient boy already going on up front.

The latter senses a lack in activity from Woohyun and turns around, his long fringe unable to hide the slight annoyance expressed on his face.

“Are you a grandpa? Why are you so slow?” The impatient male repeats, huffing before walking back to his already tired-out hyung and picking up several of his suitcases. “This will teach you to pack lesser next time.”

“What are you saying, Sungjong. I’m going to live here. Of course I’ll have to bring everything.” Woohyun tries to reason.

Sungjong doesn’t stop. “There are these shops called convenience stores for a reason, hyung.”

“I don’t mean the convenience stores, I meant the clothes—”

“If you’re not going to move in another ten seconds, I’m leaving you here.”

“Sungjong-ah!” Woohyun half-whines, already reluctant to increase the already strong gravity pull between himself and the Earth by just standing up.

“Ten!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming okay! Don’t you dare walk off with that suitcase, it has my socks, and I like those socks with those cute character guys on them okay!”
 

__________________

They first meet in the university dorm.

For a good moment Kim Sunggyu was relieved that the school probably did not assign him a roommate until a totally fresh, lost-looking male bumbles through the door that Sunggyu opens on the third knock.

He frowns when he realises that his new guest drags in several suitcases of what he guesses are clothes and et cetera, et cetera.

“Hi,” the stranger smiles an extremely bright smile at him, almost as though they are good, old friends. “My name’s Woohyun. Nam Woohyun. I’m guessing you’re my roommate...?”

Sunggyu just nods, and he notices the guy called Woohyun’s smile slip a little.

“Are you not going to tell me your name?” He continues smiling.

Sunggyu mutters something sharp and short under his breath, so fast that the owner himself cannot make out what he’s saying.

Woohyun frowns. “Maybe you’re just shy. It’s okay, I’ll find out your name one way or another.”

Sunggyu just ignores him, standing near the door, staring at Woohyun for a few awkward, tense seconds before opening it and leaving the room.

And that, is when Woohyun’s friendly smile completely wipes off his face, lips twisting into an annoyed scowl.

What’s with him? It’s not like his name is some million dollar top secret.

Woohyun stands up, surveying the room. And then the answer to the question that has been annoying him for the past one minute appears to him, on the cover of a glossy textbook, in all its messily scrawled glory.

Kim Sunggyu, he reads.

And then a small smile appears on Woohyun’s face as he walks back to his suitcases, beginning to sort out his stuff.

Let’s see if I can sell this top secret name for a million bucks.
 

__________________

“Oh, Kim Sunggyu? That’s your roommate?”

“He’s a little weird,” Woohyun confirms. “Weird or shy. Either.”

“More of freaky than weird,” Howon casually slings an arm around him. “You want to stay away from him.”

Freaky?

Howon’s words make Woohyun frown. “But why?”

Howon just gives him a very suggestive smile, and Woohyun flings Howon’s arm off his shoulder before looking towards his other friends for an answer.

“Does he do aliens?” Woohyun blurts out before he can stop himself.

“He’s not Myungsoo, he doesn’t do aliens,” one of his taller friends called Sungyeol replies, yelping when Myungsoo elbows him in the waist.

“What does he do?”

“The rumours,” a pink haired guy called Dongwoo suddenly chirps up, popping in front of Woohyun with so less distance between them that he almost just walked straight into the cotton candy-like haired boy.

“What does the rumours say?” Woohyun is already getting frustrated with the lack of answers.

“He bangs girls up. Deals with drugs. Drinks almost every night. Maybe he’s stabbed a person or two. You never know.”

The image of his shy, muttering and red headed roommate flickers like a television screen in Woohyun’s head, and then it takes no more than two seconds after Dongwoo said his last sentence before Woohyun starts laughing.

“How is that possible? He looks so harmless, just like a hamster!”

Dongwoo frowns, upset that his friend isn’t daunted by the so-called rumours. “Don’t be so quick to set your impressions. They might be true, you just wait and see.”

Even though he has an idea how unlikely whatever Dongwoo says is the truth, Woohyun keeps silent for the rest of the chatter, where his friends start guessing Sunggyu’s true identity.

“Maybe he’s the leader of a gang!”

“A really good hacker, maybe?”

“Dude, we’re talking about Kim Sunggyu here. You mean he’s just a homeless hobo.”

A slight frown makes its way towards Woohyun’s usually smiling face.

 

__________________

Sungjong laughs when Woohyun tells him everything that his other five friends told him earlier.

“You can’t be serious! Kim Sunggyu, right? He’s not like that, not at all.”

Woohyun pauses, propping his chin on the palm of his right hand. “But Dongwoo and Howon say—”

“Never mind what Dongwoo and Howon hyungs say. Sunggyu hyung is a nice person, if not I wouldn’t have recommended him for your ro—”

Sungjong abruptly shuts up, his eyes widening in realisation of what he’d just said. But Woohyun has already heard everything, and with both elbows propped up on the table, he leans his torso heavily against the table, feet dangling a little off the ground, so that his face is just inches from the Sungjong’s.

“What are you doing, Nam Woohyun, get off the table,” Sungjong hisses through gritted teeth.

“You recommended that weird Sunggyu guy to be my roommate?”

“Sunggyu hyung is not weird.”

“Then? What about the rumours—”

“That student lying on the table, get off now before I pull you off!” A gruff male librarian barks, shocking several students that are either burying their head in studies or in sleep. Woohyun hastily slides off the table, his glaring stare fixed upon the younger male who glares right back.

When Woohyun is safely seated back on his seat, Sungjong says icily, “I trust that Woohyun hyung has more brains than to believe a bunch of stupid rumours.”

Sungjong then looks back into the book he probably isn’t reading, flipping a page.

They don’t say another word after that.

__________________

That night, Woohyun decides to stay up and wait for his roommate to return so that he can rule out those rumours and maybe add in some bonding time.

Woohyun thinks that Sunggyu will probably return around eight, since the campus curfew is set at nine.

He finds his self-made theory wrong when he starts yawning at eight-thirty, and his certain red haired roommate hasn’t returned yet. Woohyun gets a little worried, even though the hamster-like man and himself hasn’t exchanged a single word (minus all those sentences that Woohyun seemed to be talking to plain air), and even so, some of Dongwoo’s words return to him.

... Drinks almost every night.

And for the third time that day, Woohyun frowns because of the roommate that he hasn’t even shared a room with for a day.

Come on Kim Sunggyu, prove to me that they’re all wrong.