The University of Seoul was quite impressive. A tall construction with white bricks towered the area, being an eye-catcher even from afar.

Although the area is quite busy, large lawns stretched all along the front side of the building. Since this university provided a countless amount of courses, Youngjae was sure that this was not the only building.

Curiosity took over him while walking up the stairs and without a second thought he stepped into the building without waiting for his friends.

He had always been a punctual person, but with today being his first day of University, he was early, way too early. There was still an hour left until he was supposed to meet his friends anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt to look around a little bit, he thought.

His backpack was filled with brand new notebooks and pencils of all kind and the weight on his back gave him a feeling of reassurance.

This was why he had been putting so much effort into his education all his life. To get good grades, enter the courses he wanted and finally graduate at some point and take over his father’s company.

One would think that this path was rather boring but he was actually looking forward to the future that awaited him.

He wasn’t sure how much growing up with only this one vision had influenced him, but he was convinces that he would have picked the same path anyway.

But that didn’t matter anymore, because his life was pretty much planned out and he was determined to make his parents proud. Not only his parents, he mostly wanted to be proud of himself.

He had the chance to study abroad but he had kindly declined that offer. This University had a good reputation and he and his father had agreed on him going to Europe for one year once he had graduated.

The company of the Yoo’s had just successfully expanded to the European market and had opened a local branch in London.

Until then, next to his actual courses he would be taking extra classes in business English. His schedule was packed and didn’t leave him much time to relax or even play around with his friends, but education was his first and currently only priority.

It wasn’t until he heard a group of young men chatting loudly in the hallway, that he realized that he got lost.

He stopped his tracks for a moment and looked around in confusion, trying to find a clue that would lead his way.

His helplessness must have been evident as the guys he had heard before now approached him. They were five people with two of them were carrying large backpacks just like him.

“Are you a freshman?” a guy with a fierce look and blonde hair asked him.

The boy looked quite intimidating with his dark eyes and a look of general disapproval that seemed to be glued into his features. A few years ago he would have actually been intimidated but Youngjae had left behind all his insecurities a while ago, thankfully.

“Yeah, I am! I’m Yoo Youngjae, nice to meet you,” he bowed slightly and his lips automatically stretched into a smile when the boy in front of him did the same.

“I’m Woo Jiho but my friends call me Jico,” the blonde boy explained, “Let me guess, you got lost?”

Youngjae rubbed the back of his neck and nodded, eliciting a few giggles from the other boys.

“You see? I’m not dumb, this University is so huge that all new students get lost,” another blonde boy said, wiggling his eyebrows in victory.

“I’m Pyo Jihoon, by the way,” the blonde said and stretched his arm for a handshake, “I got lost earlier too, these guys just kind of picked me up, just like you.”

Jihoon was lanky and had large doe eyes that gave him a friendly and innocent look. Unlike Jiho, whose hair was messily styled up, his blonde locks were neatly tied into the shortest ponytail Youngjae had ever seen in his life.

“Ey yo, I’m Park Kyung,” a boy with orange hair interrupted their handshake. Kyung bowed politely which was quite the opposition to the way he had introduced himself, but nonetheless, Youngjae did the same, this time with a content grin in his face.

When he observed the ginger boy he noticed that the boy was quite small, and pushed Jongup from the first place of Youngjae’s ranking of ‘the smallest people I know’, and Jongup was already painfully short.

“Aish, what’s that with all these formalities? This isn’t a job interview so you might wanna get that stick out of your ,” Jiho exclaimed playfully, shooting Youngjae a wide grin, “This is Kim Yukwon, another freshman,” he pointed at a boy with a cute face and auburn hair, “and that’s Lee Minhyuk, a Junior in civil engineering,” Jiho pointed at the remaining young man.

Youngjae took a moment to observe these five people. Minhyuk had black hair just like himself and he had to admit that Minhyuk looked really handsome. Not handsome that he would like to flirt with him but objectively handsome.

These guys seemed to be a little weird but weird in a good way and Youngjae could imagine befriending them.

“So, what will you study here, freshman?” Jiho asked him.

“I’m doing business management,” he answered.

“Me too!” Yukwon explained and took a step towards Youngjae to high five him.

“What about the rest of you?” Youngjae asked the other boys.

“Mathematics,” Jihoon simply stated, making the others gape in surprise.

“What? Just because I lost orientation doesn’t mean that I’m dumb,” Jihoon pouted.

Jiho pinched the pouting boy’s cheek and laughed. “Haha, I’m sorry really, so sorry! Anyway, I’m a sophomore, studying music.”

“My best friend Himchan will join the music department this year, I’m pretty sure you two would get along quite well,” Youngjae mentioned with a laugh. He could really imagine Himchan befriending this people.

Yes, he would definitely be enjoying the time with these people around, he already liked them.

Youngjae was glad that he had met Yukwon before their first class had started. All students who entered the room looked equally awkward, trying to find a good place to sit.

He and his new friend were both eager to actually study and not only sit around and sleep during the lessons, that’s why they took the opportunity to take some of the popular seats in the front row.

While the other students were busy with their seating arrangement, he and Yukwon used this chance to observe the people they would be seeing recently for the next few months at least. Both of them were equally curious about their new classmates.

Suddenly, a familiar figure entered the lecture hall, looking around in order to find a seat. When Youngjae met the searching gaze of the boy from Busan, the said boy’s eyes lit up for a second and Youngjae could tell that the other was relieved to see a familiar face that saved him a lot of awkwardness.

While the pretty boy was approaching him, he used that time to remember his name. Just in time, it clicked.

“Jaehyo! I didn’t expect you here at all,” Youngjae said enthusiastically, being actually happy to see another person he already knew.

“It’s been a while, cool to see you again. How are your pants?” Jaehyo laughed at his remark as he dropped down in the seat next to Youngjae that fortunately hadn’t been occupied so far.

Youngjae sent him a death glare but burst out with laughter less than two seconds later.

He had almost forgotten about his infamous encounter with the ice cone, almost.

“Who’s that?” Yukwon nudged his ribcage.

“Oh I forgot. That’s Jaehyo, someone I met in holidays a few months ago. He’s from Busan,” he leaned back in his seat to allow the two boys to his left and right to make eye-contact.

“And that’s Kim Yukwon, a friend I just made today,” he said, pointing at Yukwon.

They exchanged a cheerful ‘nice to meet you’ and shook hands.

Jaehyo’s hair was tied into a ponytail, with his bangs and a lot of strands hanging down on the sides and he wondered if this was a new trend or something like that. He would ask Himchan about that later.

He had yet to meet with his two best friends who were late on their first day already, not that it really surprised him.

Junhong had texted him earlier, excusing the two of them. Himchan probably, or most likely, couldn’t decide what to wear (again) and urged the poor Junhong to advise him.

But Youngjae couldn’t blame his friend, he too had put a lot more effort into his appearance than usual. Just like everybody else, he wanted to make a good impression on the first day and didn’t want to look like a slob, something that had become a bad habit of him a few months ago when he fell into a depressive moot for weeks.

The parting with Daehyun had hit him harder than he had expected and spent a long while moping around in grief.

One day though, Himchan had had enough of it. He had forced him into the shower, almost ruining his cashmere jumper when Youngjae decided to behave like a stubborn kid and refused to walk by himself, and dragged him to a friend of his mother who was a hair stylist.

An hour and a half later, he had left the salon with shorter hair and a new hair colour.

Himchan had helped him a lot when that unexpected phase of sorrow had overcome him. It had been the first time that Youngjae had ever gotten attached to someone and simply didn’t know how to react to the sudden rejection that held so many questions open up until now.

He had tried to get in touch with Daehyun again, but Yongguk had been suspiciously secretive about his friend, to the point that he and Himchan almost broke off their contact, and after a few weeks he gave up.

Himchan had tried to bring up the topic a couple of times again, but Youngjae had stubbornly refused to participate in any kind of conversation about that boy and after a while it somewhat became an unwritten rule to never mention his name ever again.

After that, Youngjae’s mood got better and he finally started to move on. He wasn’t completely over the older yet, but he was getting there.

The fact that he didn’t even flinch at Jaehyo’s presence told him that he was doing a pretty good job but he knew that meeting Yongguk and Jongup, the people who were actually close to Daehyun, would be a lot harder for him.

He didn’t have time to think about it any longer since the teacher just entered the room. Youngjae took out one of his new notebooks and straightened his back to pay attention, thankful that his thoughts of Daehyun were stopped.

When the bell rang to announce the first break, Youngjae already had a headache.

Yukwon had left to find his best friend Minhyuk, leaving Jaehyo and Youngjae to find their own friends. They had arranged to meet in the cafeteria as soon as they had gathered their circle of friends, though.

Youngjae was quite sure that his friends would be in the company of their Busan lovers but despite the fact that the thoughts about them made him nervous a little bit, he actually looked forward to see them again.

As far as he knew, Daehyun had been accepted into a decent University in Busan, that was the last information he had gotten about the older. He was thankful that he didn’t have to meet him again.

He quickly dialed Himchan’s number to find out about their whereabouts. The campus was huge and there was no way he would find them before their break was over.

Himchan had sounded grumpy on the phone which surprised Youngjae, because he could clearly hear Jongup’s voice in the background, which meant that Yongguk must have been there too. But he shrugged it off, knowing that Himchan often had random mood swings, not that he was any better.

The walk to the place Himchan had told him to go to took almost five minutes and it would have taken even longer if Jaehyo hadn’t paid attention and prevented them from getting lost. It was the first time he had such a deep conversation with the other, to be exact this was their first conversation in general, but they got along like a house on fire.

By the time they reached the four boys they were looking for, they were out of breath from laughing. They had shared quite a lot of details and Youngjae was surprised how many similarities there were, they even had the same sense of humor.

“Youngjae!” Junhong chanted, running towards his friend. It had always amused Youngjae that Junhong consistently greeted them as if they hadn’t seen each other in weeks.

After a short hug, he approached his other best friend, who wore a murderous expression. He carefully avoided the older, greeting the two boys from Busan instead.

“What’s wrong, hyung?” Youngjae asked with a smile that was supposed to cheer his friend up.

Before Himchan answered, he shot a glare to Yongguk, who lowered his head to watch his feet.

“There’s a surprise for you,” Himchan stated, giving Youngjae a look that made his insides churn. Youngjae was confused about what was going on, and the way his friend spoke in riddles didn’t help him very much.

Before he had time to question this any further, his heart skipped a beat when he heard Jaehyo shout out that one name he didn’t want to hear anymore.

No, this couldn’t be true. Slowly he turned around, his eyes scanning his surroundings until his eyes stopped on him. There was his surprise.
A thick lump formed in his throat and he suddenly felt sick. His heartbeat accelerated and with every step the boy came closer, his heart beat a few more times.

He watched the boy up and down, watched how his brunette hair bounced with every step he made. Watched how the boy blew the blonde strands that looked ridiculously attractive, out of his eyes.

Youngjae eyed the boy’s clothes and furrowed his eyebrows. Did he actually dare to show up unannounced and wear his cardigan?

He locked eyes with him, noticing the uncertainty in the boy’s eyes. When Daehyun stood in front of them, none of his friends said a word.
Youngjae watched how Jaehyo greeted him with a rough pat on his shoulder and nearly snorted when Daehyun almost fell over.

“Daehyun, what the hell are you doing here?” Jaehyo half shouted in surprise, “Is Sunhwa here with you?”

Daehyun bit his bottom lip, looking uncomfortable. He lifted his weight from one leg to the other and slowly shook his head, his wary eyes never leaving Youngjae.

“Oh my god, if I had known that you would leave your girlfriend behind, I actually would have considered staying in Busan,” Jaehyo laughed and gave Daehyun another pat on his shoulder.

Youngjae’s stomach twisted when he heard these words and his eyes searched for Yongguk and Jongup, who looked equally uncomfortable. Was this why Daehyun hadn’t turned up and refused the contact?

So his thoughts were true, Daehyun had only played with him. He had already guessed that much but knowing it for real did hurt.

Youngjae stood there, frozen. The thick tension was awkward, with Jaehyo being the only one who looked around into a group of six gloomy faces, trying to work out what’s happening around him.

“Youngjae, I..,” Daehyun started but was instantly cut off by Youngjae. “I guess you wanna catch up with your friends,” Youngjae didn’t want to hear whatever the other had to say. He turned to Himchan and said, “See you later.”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned around and made his way towards the cafeteria. He knew he would have thrown up any time soon if he didn’t get away from him, as far as possible.

Surprisingly, Jaehyo tagged along, eager to meet the ‘weird guys’ that Youngjae had mentioned before. He was annoyed but he wouldn’t take it out on Jaehyo, it wasn’t his fault after all.

Right before they entered the cafeteria, Youngjae felt his mobile phone buzzing in his pocket. Watching the caller ID, he reluctantly accepted the call from Himchan.

“Youngjae? Where are you? Look, Daehyun wants to talk to you, he wants to explain,” Himchan said warily, expecting his friend to burst out with anger.

“Drop it, I’m not dumb.” With that, Youngjae hung up and turned off his phone, gratefully shooting back a smile to Yukwon who happily waved at them.

His new friends proved to be very helpful to forget his anger, they would definitely make everything more bearable.