For the next few days, Woohyun continues his silent observing sessions of Sunggyu, Dongwoo returns to his almost-normal state, and Myungsoo is always almost missing, with Sungyeol joining them these few days to replace his empty presence.

Sungyeol takes on the job of bringing Woohyun around the university, even if both of them are studying completely different courses.

They end up walking to the lecture hall that Myungsoo first brings Woohyun to on his first day.

Today, Sungyeol is very distracted. He’s not cracking odd jokes or talking to Woohyun, he’s completely quiet, and Woohyun finds it weird.

“Sungyeol, where did Myungsoo go?” 

“He’s sick,” Sungyeol replies absentmindedly, eyes on his phone. “Hospitalised.” 

“Hospitalised?” Woohyun repeats, disbelief in his voice. “What kind of sick do you mean?” 

Sungyeol looks up, sighing. “He caught some disease from a kid when he was doing community service. At the orphanage... or was it a childcare center?” 

“Oh,” Woohyun says, shifting the load of notes from his right arm to the left. Myungsoo does community service?

“Myungsoo likes kids,” Sungyeol randomly adds in, almost as though he can read Woohyun’s question off his mind. “I don’t exactly like kids, how Myungsoo deals with them is just...” 

Woohyun finds himself tuning out to Sungyeol’s endless chatter and only manage a half-hearted wave when he reaches the lecture hall.

He finds himself doing the same thing he has been doing the past few days; finding that redhead. But either Sunggyu is purposely avoiding him or has possibly dropped that course, he hasn’t been appearing.

Woohyun knows that Sunggyu is still there, every morning. 

He sits beside a stranger, someone he hasn’t even seen before, but as soon as his touches the chair, the stranger, with a head of messy pink hair, starts talking to him. 

“You’re the guy that hangs out all the time with Kim Sunggyu!” Pink Hair Man marvels, his eyes widening. 

Woohyun is taken aback, his mouth opening and closing like an awkward goldfish. “Um yeah, I’m Woohyun...” 

“You’re cool. I admire you for sticking up for that guy when the world’s against him.” The guy continues, arranging his papers and colourful pens.

He gives Woohyun a lopsided smile before turning back to the front, just as the lecturer finishes setting up his laptop.

Hangs out all the time with Kim Sunggyu? 

Woohyun sighs, remembering the two times he has ‘hanged out’ with Sunggyu.

More like, the only person who’s ever hanged out with Sunggyu.

The two hour lecture ends up feeling like it lasts a whole day.

__________________

The first thing Woohyun spots when he steps out of the lecture hall is a redhead.

He in his breath, thinking that Sunggyu really skipped the lecture to avoid him. His mouth opens, and he is almost about to call out his name—

“Jinyoung hyung!” 

The redhead turns, and at that split second Woohyun immediately sees that he is not Sunggyu. The redhead called Jinyoung is quickly joined by the person who called him; the pink haired guy in Woohyun’s lecture class.

Woohyun walks away, not even bothering to acknowledge the pink haired guy. He should know that the redhead isn’t Sunggyu; for one thing, Sunggyu’s hair is completely straight, not curly. And Sunggyu’s red is a kind of shocking bright red, not the darker, wine coloured red that the other guy has.

He sighs, frowning to himself and wondering why he’s thinking about his roommate so much lately.

And then he remembers Sungjong’s advice and smoothens out his eyebrows.

Frowning gives you wrinkles.

__________________

When Woohyun isn’t being continually pestered by Sungyeol, Howon and Dongwoo are there to relieve his boredom.

But after Sungjong’s extremely cryptic message, Woohyun doesn’t get a single thing. All that’s happened is that the three of them are even more awkward than usual, with Woohyun finding himself unable to trust the other two.

He knows it must be bad when Dongwoo completely avoids him when he’s alone, without Howon.

But the problem is, he needs to talk to Dongwoo. And Howon can’t be there, being a potential er. He doesn’t want to judge them with just that one sentence he heard from Sungjong— it isn’t fair.

Dongwoo wouldn’t pick up his calls.

__________________

Failing to contact Dongwoo, Woohyun decides to go and visit Myungsoo.

He gets the name and address of the hospital from Sungyeol, and manages to flag down a taxi after being obliviously ignored by several empty taxis— the hospital is one hour's drive from the university campus.

In that one hour, varying images of Myungsoo connected by a million hospital tubes to those infuriatingly beeping machines appears in Woohyun's mind. Sungyeol says it's a bad disease, and Woohyun believes him. Wholeheartedly.

One hour later, he is at the hospital, fumbling on and off lifts trying to find the block and the level Myungsoo is hospitalised at. He contemplates calling the patient himself to ask for help, but Woohyun dismisses it soon enough when he sees little, sick kids vomiting on the floor.

He helps the first kid he comes across, lightly rubbing the little child's back, successfully dodging when another fresh wave of vomit reappears. When the nurse arrives and thanks him for his help, Woohyun just bows and smiles sheepishly.

The moment he looks up, he spots a very familiar shade of red. Bright, shocking red, and before he even knows what he is doing, Woohyun starts to follow him.

The red disappears after Woohyun turns the corner, and he turns in circles, trying to spot that one shade of red. 

He fails, but when he looks up again, at the glossy metal plate imbedded in the walls of the hospital, he realises that the red has brought him to the block where Myungsoo is hospitalised.
 

__________________

“Took you long enough,” Myungsoo comments dryly when Woohyun pokes his head through the half-opened door. “You might not want to come close to me, because this disease is y.”

Woohyun blinks, a little shocked at Myungsoo’s ability to diss him off so quickly. “I thought you had a disease! And that you were in a coma and attached to like a million tubes and and and...”

“Sungyeol’s been telling you bedtime stories again, huh?” Myungsoo’s trademark smirk hangs loosely on his pale lips. “No, there isn’t a million tubes in here. Just me and flowers.”

“You had visitors,” Woohyun comments, walking over to the vase of flowers. They are bright pink roses, almost like those you will send to your girlfriends if you had one. “Did Sungyeol send these to you?”

“No, hyung did,” Myungsoo answers truthfully. “I told him I didn't like pink but he wouldn't get me black roses.”

“Myungsoo, a black rose signifies death.”

Myungsoo grins, a little pink returning to his pale cheeks. “Who cares, I like the colour.”

And then Woohyun remembers the ambiguous ‘hyung’ that Myungsoo mentions.

“Who is that hyung?” He questions, his face curious.

Myungsoo just smiles. “I don't think you'll know him.”

“You ,” Woohyun pouts. “Can’t you even give me a name? I’m not as an introvert as you think I am, okay.”

Myungsoo shakes his head. “Hyung’s name is confidential.”

Woohyun sighs, immediately dropping the topic. When Myungsoo doesn’t want to tell you, he doesn’t want to tell you. And that’s final. “I didn’t know you did community service.”

“I like kids, okay,” Myungsoo retorts quickly, reaching for the newspapers and rolling them up so that it becomes a long, newspaper stick. “Maybe one day you should come and do with me.”

Woohyun shakes his head, slapping blatantly at the newspaper stick that Myungsoo is trying so hard to hit him with. “I don’t really like kids, I mean, they’re annoying.”

Myungsoo retracts his weapon, unrolling the dented newspaper stick and rolling it back again.

“That’s it hyung, you’re coming with me next next week.”

__________________

Woohyun sighs, his eyes scanning lightly over the messily scrawled words on his favourite stack of post-its. Myungsoo insists on Woohyun following him to community service, and warned Woohyun that if he was late, he would personally kill him with his newspaper sword.

He peels off that post-it, and stares at the fresh new piece of post-it, picking up a pen.

Woohyun scratches his head in thought, his pen hovering a few inches above the surface of the bright orange paper.

He stares thoughtfully into the small, bright square, before carefully writing 'Hi (:' neatly on the paper. Pulling the post-it out from the entire stack, Woohyun scans their dorm thoroughly, trying to find a good place to stick the paper, a place where Sunggyu will definitely see it.

He awards himself a small smile when he finds the perfect place.