“Wake up... Wake up, Ryu Hwan. WAKE UP YOU LAZY SONEVA-”

Ryu Hwan quickly disabled the alarm in his phone with practiced ease before Hae Rang’s recorded string of vulgarities woke up his entire family. 

That crazy bastard, Ryu Hwan thought. He should have never allowed Hae Rang access to his phone. This wasn’t the first time Hae Rang managed to record what he fondly called ‘wake up love calls’. 

“But it works”, Hae Rang would quip flippantly everytime he confronted the orange-haired musician. Worse thing was, Ryu Hwan couldn’t argue with that. 

It worked like a charm. 

The worst kind. 

At least it wasn’t another badly sung song. During the first few times when Ryu Hwan woke up rudely to these ‘love calls’, he had to spend the good half of his breakfast explaining to his parents what did Suzy (his next door neighbor) have to do the length of his bathing time; and why was “Hae Rang singing this weird things with the tune of the classic Im Jin River”. 

Indulging in the last lazy stretch in bed, Ryu Hwan got up and started packing for  morning practice in their school’s martial arts dojang with the mad love caller. Well, technically it would only be Ryu Hwan running through his sequences, while Hae Rang would run through his guitar and vocal scores for the week in the other side of the dojang. He couldn’t remember when this practice started, but after a while Ryu Hwan stopped questioning the absurdity of the situation. Never would he admit this to the musician, but on days when Hae Rang had to miss their practices altogether, Ryu Hwan would play some of the better (and censored) recordings from his phone to practice his moves to. 

The idiot would have a field day if he ever found out I never deleted his audio recordings, Ryu Hwan scoffed to himself, promising himself to always remember to re-name the good recordings to prevent the nosy musician from finding out. Naming them “Taekwondo: The History Of”, “The Art of Meditation” seemed to have worked so far. The musician never had interest in the philosophy behind anything outside his field of study. 

Grabbing his backpack and breakfast-to-go, Ryu Hwan unlocked his bicycle and began to cycle his way to the school dojang. 

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“I’m earlier today, Mr. Captain Taekwondo. But you’re still 8 minutes earlier than our agreed meeting time. Just saying.” 

Ryu Hwan heard Hae Rang’s trademark nonchalant drawl right before entering the dojang. 

“Thanks to your love call.” Ryu Hwan retorted plainly, and quickly added on before the musician could interrupt him, “But it works, I know.”

The orange hair musician smirked widely, and gave his guitar a loud strum while flicking his long fringe back. Ryu Hwan rolled his eyes and adjusted his Taekwondo uniform, preparing to start today’s practice with a deep meditation. Wordlessly, Hae Rang started to arranged his scores on the practice mats in front of him.

With that, the two college seniors began their individual practices. 

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“Ryu Hwan... You know it’s weird that I’m the one eating 3 servings of what you have when you’re the one exerting your body in the practice, right?” 

Ryu Hwan looked at Hae Rang, who was currently wolfing down plate number 2, and gave a noncommittal grunt while continuing with his breakfast. 

The musician continued, “No like seriously. You have to have it checked man. Anyway did you hear the piece I played when you were finishing your last set? It’s the first time I’ve been able to sing and play the entire piece without stopping....”

Hae Rang’s passion, Ryu Hwan decided, was what kept them two polar opposites together all these years. Half listening to the passionate onslaught of musical terminologies that he slowly understood over the years, Ryu Hwan remembered how they’d met as kids in the town’s playground. 

A lanky kid sits on the see-saw while fiddling clumsily with a tiny guitar (later Ryu Hwan learns from said kid that it’s called a ukelele). Uninterested, 13 year old Ryu Hwan heads straight to the swings to see how far he’d go this time. That is, until 3 boys start to crowd around the guitar kid laughing at his dismal looking guitar and lack of skills. One of them starts to rock the seesaw to distract the guitar kid, the other two wrench the guitar away from the kid and starts to push him around. 

At this moment, the one holding the guitar carelessly throws the guitar on the ground. The initially unconcerned kid who seemed prepared to silently accept the taunts swings a strong right lower cut at the bully who threw his guitar. Bully 1 falls onto the ground spotting a huge bruise on his jaw. Bully 2 and 3, now sparked by guitar kid’s initial outburst, try to return the blows, but to no avail. 

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...For a while, Ryu Hwan counts the number of blows Guitar Hulk lands on the two flailing bullies.

Now, concerned with the injuries the bullies might possibly receive from the Guitar Hulk, Ryu Hwan steps in the middle of their fist exchanges to stop the fight. 

“Get lost.” Ryu Hwan shouts. 

The losing bullies gather each other up, at least smart enough to acknowledge a fight lost, prepare to scurry away. 

“Touch my guitar again... It’ll be more than your face that hurts.” Guitar Hulk says softly and slowly, as the three bullies nod quickly and make their exit. 

Silence.

Then, Guitar Hulk turns to face Ryu Hwan with a wide grin and arm outstretched for a handshake, “I’m Hae Rang. I am going to be a great musician one day.”

“I’m Won Ryu Hwan. I will be the best martial arts fighter.”

“FOOD FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 

A shrill cry broke his nostalgic recollection, as Ryu Hwan barely dodged a stray piece of pajeon heading towards his face. 

“I love the first day of school,” Hae Rang sighs proudly, while looking over the battle scene, mostly concentrated where the first years and new students were. 

Food fights. 

They were the welcoming party for all new students on the first day of school by the seniors. Ryu Hwan had to give it to the liberal school administration, for letting this practice stay on for so long. Well at least, as long as he had been in the country’s top arts college, food fights had already been around on first day of school. Probably explains why Hae Rang and half the school population sport flashy hair colours without fearing any repercussions.

Ryu Hwan allowed himself a small smirk (he blamed Hae Rang’s excessive smirking for this one), as he observed the new students’ frantic dodging, and lazily avoided some that flew to his side. 

Amidst the excited screams and running, a brown head caught his eye. The student continued to eat his food, dodging the food comfortably when they flew towards him, while occasionally flicking some off his plate slyly. The ones he avoided landed on the other students around him, who on one hand, were too slow to avoid most of them, and had to dodge the brown head’s own mischievous attacks. 

Ryu Hwan was about to look away from the laughing boy, when he saw the boy freeze momentarily and move to his left, right into an incoming ceramic plate that hit the back of his head before crashing on the floor. 

“Ouch. That looked like it hurt.” Hae Rang drawled, half-sympathetically, “...Well a little bruise never hurt nobody.” 

The new student gave his shocked schoolmates a sheepish smile, scratched his head and started to head towards the direction of the infirmary. 

Ryu Hwan’s body moves before his mind registers his leaving. Ignoring his friend’s calls for him to finish his breakfast, Ryu Hwan found himself following the trail of the new student. 

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Aish. Hae Jin rubbed his swelling head as he entered the infirmary looking for the nurse-in-charge, but nobody was in sight. 

Ointment will do. He started to rummage through the nurse’s medicine cabinet, looking for familiar bottles that he would’ve used before. 

Just as he was about to give up and leave his swelling head be for the rest of the day, he heard a deep voice behind him saying softly, “Let me do it.”