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Feeling a light buzz in his pocket, Wonwoo lazily draws his phone out of his pocket and sighs at the contact name appearing on his screen before defeatedly swiping.
“What.”
“Oh come on Wonwoo! It’s only my fourth time calling you this morning! And the last one didn’t actually count since you hung up on me so technically it’s only my third time calling yo-”
“Can you just get to the point?!” Wonwoo frustratedly whispers, not wanting to draw attention to himself in public.
“Well as I was saying, can you please try and make some friends for once? I know you’re all mysterious invisible cool tsundere guy and all, but we aren’t together anymore! Not anymore like we were classmates in highschool-” he dramatizes.
“I told you I have Chan.”
“He isn’t even in your course!” Soonyoung snaps over the phone, and Wonwoo hears an obvious sulk in his voice. “Oh Wonwoo, you worry me so much sometimes. Can you at least promise me you’ll try not to shoot looks at everyone like you want them a mile away?” One would think Soonyoung was his mother, not his best friend.
“Yeah okay whatever.” Wonwoo lies, hanging up before Soonyoung even gets to nag. A yawn reaches Wonwoo’s and the lethargy spreads through his whole body, making him tear up uncontrollably. He knows he shouldn’t have spent the whole night gaming with Seungcheol (exactly what Soonyoung and Chan advised him against) and now he would have to deal with nothing but the consequences of his own actions. Spotting a cafe within walking distance just reachable enough for his lazy self, Wonwoo decides to go grab an iced coffee, hoping the caffeine would make his first day at school more bearable.
Yes. Not anyone else’s first day at Wonsung University. Just Wonwoo’s.
Entering the cafe, he eyes many groups of young people. Probably college students on the way to school like himself, Wonwoo thinks. The idea of having to join a friend group, a group of strangers, irked and simply repulsed Wonwoo; he was adamant on going solo for the rest of his college life despite Soonyoung and Chan’s pleas. The three of them had been sharing an unbreakable bond ever since becoming friends in highschool, and especially after going through so many rough patches together, Wonwoo simply didn’t see the need to expand the list of important people in his life. Besides, Soonyoung and Chan were already a handful.
Sensing the vibration of the buzzer in his hand, Wonwoo heads to the collection counter, eager to get coffee in his system. Although he had been acting nonchalant to Soon and Chan, endlessly brushing off their concerns, there was no denying the anxiety and nervousness he felt after deciding to transfer to another University. An uneasy feeling boils up in Wonwoo’s lower abdomen and he quickly shakes it off, nodding at the worker in gratitude and hurriedly grabbing his drink.
Wonwoo suddenly remembers that he’s supposed to meet Chan earlier on campus today, so that he can give him a short tour around the compound. Checking his watch, his face curls up in irritation as he curses himself out silently, quickening his steps towards the exit of the cafe. In his haste, Wonwoo fails to realize in his peripheral vision (or without dumb excuses, simply because he forgot to wear his spectacles before leaving the house) a waiter heading towards the same door, in the same hasty fashion as himself. The difference was him holding a tray full of drinks.
Everything after that plays out like a low-grade comedy show. To nobody’s surprise, the waiter collides with Wonwoo, causing it to rain like cats and dogs in the cafe. Except it wasn’t a shower of water, but a shitshow of drinks, frappuccinos, iced americanos, lemonades, you name it, probably almost the whole beverage menu. The silence and shock in the cafe that followed would have honestly gotten Wonwoo bursting into laughter in any other situation, where the victim wasn’t himself. As if not enough to strike a balance on a mundane Monday morning, the door of the cafe bursts open just before the mess, the bells attached to it ringing violently amongst the pindrop silence.
A man that follows, seems to be running in (everyone seems to be in a rush on a Monday morning) and is on the phone, unaware of the chaos of not even a coffee puddle, but rather almost a swamp, before he stomps directly into the center of it, causing a monstrosity of a splash on himself, Wonwoo and the waiter.
At this point you’d probably be thinking that there it is, that’s the canon story that caused the coining of the term “Monday Mayhem”. But nope, it certainly doesn’t end there, especially not for this poor stranger who’s barely seen the tip of the iceberg containing misfortunes he’s about to encounter. Still on the ground in the midst of collecting pieces of his sanity, Wonwoo eyes the man, whose face drops upon realizing what he had just done. Wonwoo’s face falls further when he sees the man starting to panic and fumble for his steps on the slippery marble tiles, reaching his own hand out in his aid.
Before the stranger manages to take it, he slips and falls on his back, like a character would in a kid’s cartoon show, as if there were wheels attached to the heel of his sneakers. Wonwoo pushes himself up on his feet and brushes his sides hastily before helping the man up with an arm. He manages to get a brief look; he’s freakishly tall, hair swept across his face stylishly, muscles on his body packed and defined through his shirt. Despite the current hellhole of a situation they’re in, the beauty of this man remains a constant, face sculpted as if an artist had dedicated his whole life to crafting the face of a man nothing short of ethereal. In that split second, Wonwoo swears that if he had encountered this gorgeous stranger in any other setting, under any other circumstances, no matter how inappropriate, might he have shamelessly held him in place and to get a second take at his beautiful eyes.
This beautiful stranger unfortunately doesn’t seem to share the sentiment. Without taking Wonwoo’s hand, he lets out a pained howl and scrambles to his feet after falling on his back, soul leaving his eyes. He swiftly moves his hands to an item carried on his back, thereafter anxiously edging away from the mess and getting on a knee, setting the item on the floor cautiously. From the back, Wonwoo sees the figure unzipping what looks like a casing and taking out the item inside with a miserable groan, and that’s when the realization hits him. Ah, it was a guitar that he was carrying on his back. He fell on his back, on the guitar.
“OH MY GOD! NOOOOO!” the man wails in grief, hands covering his mouth in pure shock.
He fumbles around with the instrument in his arms, turning and twisting in all directions in efforts to get a good look at it. From a short distance, Wonwoo sees that the instrument seems to fortunately retain its shape, but there are an alarming number of scratches and chips on the body of the guitar. A pang of guilt hits his chest. Well sure, he wasn’t the direct cause of this happening, but if he had kept his mind on the path ahead of him maybe he wouldn’t have caused this, this huge mess, and this random man’s electric guitar being crushed below the body weight of its owner.
As if hearing Wonwoo’s thoughts, said owner shoots his head behind him, setting his eyes on Wonwoo like a laser, ready to stare holes into his face. His beautiful eyes this time are filled with maybe just a little bit of hatred and blame.
Flustered and guilty, Wonwoo throws up his hands in an attempt to explain himself, except there isn’t that much to explain. “I was the one who caused the spill, I’m so sorr-”
“Urgh! As if I wasn’t already running late for morning practice! I just wanted to get some coffee for the hyungs as an apology for always being late but now I’m gonna show up even later than usual, with no coffee, and a guitar I practically just sat on! Damn your luck, Kim Mingyu!” The man, who’s no longer a man but a certain Mingyu, hissed.
As if trying to commit the face of the sinful perpetrator to memory, he takes one more resentful look at Wonwoo. Wonwoo gulps.
Mingyu packs up his instrument and dashes out of the cafe in the direction of the bus stop. It’s a rough start to everyone’s mornings.
After meeting up with Chan and explaining that he had a horrendous morning and currently had no energy to explain the story behind the eye-catching brown stain on his pants, Wonwoo attends his first lecture in this school. As he expects, the environment is unfamiliar and makes him slightly uncomfortable, the gazes of everyone else on solely him not helping either. Whether it be the stain on his clothes or him being a new transfer student as the cause of these judging stares, Wonwoo tries to brush them off and tries to maintain a distance between him and everyone else, expressing clear interest that he has no plans to make new acquaintances around here.
He’s used to doing this all his life as a student, and he often thinks about how lonely he would be if Soonyoung and Chan hadn’t pestered him relentlessly in the past into hanging out together. He smiles a little fondly at the thought of his friends.
It’s lunch break, Chan appears where Wonwoo is waiting for him at a corner of the school cafeteria and announces his presence with a light slap on his back.
“Oh, hey Chan.”
“So? how was just now??”
“Fine, I guess.” Chan’s pouts at Wonwoo’s cold reply and Wonwoo shrugs.
They make their way to the central dining area of the cafeteria, where everyone is packed like sardines, students heading in all directions, awkwardly shuffling and squeezing past each other among the crowd to get to their destination. Wonwoo frowns at the sheer number of people, he’s not used to this. He notices Chan next to him, whose eyes suddenly light up at a thought.
“Right, Wonwoo! Since it’s your first day eating here, you have to try the Japanese stall. You’ll love it, I promise! Except the queue might be a little…” Chan trails off unsurely. Wonwoo looks in the direction where Chan seems to be facing, and the queue is just as long as Chan makes it out to be, trailing and extending all the way to nearly merge with that of another stall. Wonwoo isn’t a fan of waiting, but he can’t bear to reject Chan, so they make their way to the snaking-long lines.
After spending a gruelling long time at the back of the queue, Wonwoo says before turning around, “Chan, at this rate I don’t think we’ll be able to-” “Chan?” He’s gone. Wonwoo frowns and whips out his phone to check for any messages explaining his disappearance.
[Lee Chan]: I’M SORRY HYUNG. I suddenly got a stomach ache so I ran off to the toilet without saying anything, please don’t leave the queue!! I’ll be back soon, promiseee. Meet you at the table >< love you <33
Wonwoo shakes his head and sighs heavily. It’s a few people left to his turn, yet Chan seems to be nowhere in sight. Recalling Chan raving about how the food often sells out fast at this stall, Wonwoo can’t help but grow anxious at how he’s still the last person in the queue after such a long wait. The relentless grumbling of his stomach seems to feel the same way. “Hi, can I get two bowls of oyakodon please.” Chan had mentioned that the oyakodon was the best thing one could’ve gotten here.
“Boy are you lucky! You managed to get the last two, young man!” the old lady at the store says with an amused expression. Wonwoo returns with a polite smile, heaving a heavy sigh of relief on the inside. Not until he holds the tray of food and turns around, the sight causing his stomach to do an unpleasant flip.
The man he met this morning while getting coffee. While spilling the coffee on the floor and causing him to trip and fall on his instrument. What was his name again? Minho? Minhee? Mingyu? Oh yeah, Mingyu. Kim Mingyu. Unable to hide the obvious panic on his face, Wonwoo gulps anxiously and shuffles his way out of the stall while keeping his head on the ground shamefully, his gut still stained by guilt from what happened in the morning. Mingyu seems to be caught off guard and tilts his head in confusion, rummaging through his closet of memories in search of this stranger’s panicked face that seemed to suggest they had met somewhere before. Mingyu is THAT social butterfly, and although he meets many new people everyday through networking events like parties and outings across various committees, he struggles with memorising their faces and names. He finds it weird that this man’s face doesn’t seem to invoke any joyful memories though.
“Mingyu? Ah, it seems like you’re out of luck today! If you had come just a bit earlier than that gentleman, there would still have been food!”
Mingyu’s shoulders sag in disappointment as he nods understandingly, as he can’t help but get slightly pissed at the mysterious guy that came before him that beat him to his comfort cafeteria food. Not to mention he was carrying what, two bowls?! What on earth did a scrawny and bony looking man like him need to order two bowls of rice for?
“Wait… It’s that asshole that caused me to damage my guitar!” It was then when it suddenly struck Mingyu and at that moment, there was nothing in this world that could have described the amount of hatred and despise he felt for this stranger that kept getting in his way, since the start of the day.
“Hey hyung, sorry for making you queue there all alone, heh..” Chan looks at Wonwoo with apologetic puppy eyes. Wonwoo rolls his eyes and ruffles Chan’s hair endearingly.
“So is your stomach okay?”
“I mean, yeah… ate something rough last night I guess. Anyway, enough about me. How’s school been so far? It’s pretty good over here right?”
“Eh.” Wonwoo still averts himself from Chan’s eye contact. Chan carries the same worried and pitiful expression on his face, the one Wonwoo especially hates because of how weak and useless it makes himself feel. Taking his hands off his cutlery for a moment, Wonwoo starts fiddling with his fingers under the table, which he doesn’t realize until Chan has to walk over to his side of the table to forcefully pull his hands apart, that they’re bleeding and peeling at the nails.
Chan’s eyes soften as he leans closer to Wonwoo and loosens his grip on his hands, still not letting go of them. Wonwoo doesn’t know if it’s the trick of the light, but he thinks he sees Chan’s eyes get glossy for a moment, before he blinks something away.
“Hyung, please. I know you hate hearing this but all of us, me, Soonyoung, your mom and dad can’t help but worry about you. Can you at least promise to tell me if things get hard? I know you hate receiving help from others, but I want to be here for you. Hm?” Chan’s eyes are no longer just left at being glossy, as a light tear streak appears down the side of his cheek. Wonwoo’s heart drops a little at the sight, and he simply nods in silence, giving Chan, everyone, the answer they want.
Yes, dad, don’t worry about it. I’ve gotten over it. Besides, I’m going to a new school now, what could possibly happen?
Mom, please don’t look at me like that.
Bohyuck, can you stop fussing over me as if I’m not the hyung between the two of us?!
It’s not that Wonwoo doesn’t love or trust these people, in fact, he just loves them so much that on most days, he can’t seem to shake off the thought that he doesn’t deserve such loving people in his life, that he’s simply a burden, a dead weight to them. It’s what makes him lie so much about his well being nowadays.
After all, how could he ever bear to tell his beloved ones that till this day, he can’t seem to shake off the accusing, disgusted looks strangers shoot at him whenever he walks past a crowd? How was he supposed to tell Chan that when he had walked into the lecture theater earlier that morning, he just couldn’t get his body to stop shaking before the entrance, that he felt all the eyes in the room on him and how the heat of their lazer-like stares almost melted him into a puddle? Demonic, all their stares were demonic. Not because their ghastliness resembled that of a demon, but because they made him feel like one himself. It was all familiar to him.