Chapter Text
Morning arrived slowly in Jeonghan’s house, not through sunlight alone, but through sound.
It came drifting beneath the bedroom door in layers, the clatter of ceramic plates from downstairs, the sharp hiss of something frying in oil, his sister laughing too loudly at her own joke, followed immediately by his mother scolding her for nearly burning the eggs again. The entire house carried warmth the way old cafés carried the scent of coffee in their walls, thick and lived-in and impossible to separate from memory itself.
Outside the wide bedroom windows, dawn stretched lazily across the neighborhood rooftops in pale watercolor shades of gold and blue, while the curtains breathed softly with the early spring wind, rising and falling like the chest of someone still half asleep. The city beyond looked blurred around the edges, touched by that strange fragile magic mornings always seemed to possess before people fully woke and ruined them with urgency.
Jeonghan remained tangled beneath his blankets like a creature refusing resurrection.
One arm hung limply off the side of the bed, fingers barely brushing the hardwood floor, while dark hair spilled across his pillow in soft disarray, falling into his face in careless layers that made him look less like someone waking for school and more like a painting abandoned halfway through by an artist too in love with the details to finish it properly. Sleep still clung stubbornly to him, visible in the slow rise of his breathing and the faint crease pressed against his cheek from the pillowcase.
Then
“YAH! JEONGHAN!”
His sister’s voice crashed through the peaceful atmosphere downstairs like somebody throwing a frying pan directly at heaven.
“We’re eating without you!”
A groan escaped him instantly.
Not elegant. Not graceful. Deeply offended.
Jeonghan dragged a pillow over his head with the suffering of a man personally betrayed by the concept of mornings, though the movement only succeeded in muffling the sound of his mother calling up the stairs a moment later.
“Get up already! Your food’s getting cold!”
“I’m awake,” he lied into the mattress.
“You sound dead!”
“I practically am.”
His sister cackled somewhere downstairs at that, followed by what sounded suspiciously like their mother smacking her lightly with a kitchen towel.
Jeonghan finally rolled onto his back with dramatic reluctance, blinking slowly toward the ceiling where soft strips of sunlight stretched across the white paint like melted honey. For several quiet seconds, he simply lay there staring upward, suspended in that strange delicate space between dreaming and consciousness where reality still felt negotiable.
Then his phone vibrated faintly beside him.
The sound was small, almost delicate, but enough to pull his attention sideways instantly.
And despite himself, despite the exhaustion and the annoyance and the terrible injustice of being forced awake before noon on a weekend, a smile touched his mouth automatically before he even reached for it.
Because it was probably Mingyu.
The thought arrived with embarrassing ease.
Jeonghan pushed himself upright slowly, blanket slipping from his shoulders as the cool morning air brushed against his skin. His room glowed softly around him in muted creams and pale sunlight, every corner cluttered with the kind of beautiful chaos that only belonged to someone deeply incapable of living minimally. Clothes draped over chairs like sleeping ghosts. Open books lay scattered across the floor beside silver jewelry, half-used perfumes, tangled charging cables, and little folded receipts he kept forgetting to throw away.
The entire room looked like it had exhaled overnight.
Still half asleep, Jeonghan unlocked his phone with lazy familiarity and opened the message without thinking.
The world changed quietly after that.
No lightning struck.
No dramatic music swelled.
The morning remained exactly the same outside his window.
But something inside him shifted so suddenly it almost felt audible.
Let’s break up.
That was all.
No explanation.
No apology.
No hesitation.
Just four words sitting coldly against the brightness of the screen.
For one strange suspended second, Jeonghan genuinely thought he was still dreaming.
His fingers loosened instinctively around the phone, nearly letting it slip from his grasp entirely before he caught it again against the blanket. The movement felt delayed somehow, as though his body had briefly forgotten how to belong to him properly.
He stared.
The message remained exactly where it was.
Unmoving.
Ordinary.
Cruel in its simplicity.
Outside, a bird landed briefly on the windowsill before flying away again.
Downstairs, his mother laughed at something.
The smell of toasted bread drifted faintly beneath the bedroom door.
Meanwhile Jeonghan sat completely still at the center of his bed, phone glowing silently in his hands while disbelief unfolded slowly through him like ink dropped into water.
His expression did not collapse immediately. That would have been easier.
Instead, confusion arrived first.
A soft crease formed between his brows as he reread the sentence once.
Then again.
Then a third time more slowly, as though additional staring might uncover hidden meaning beneath the words.
Let’s break up.
No punctuation even.
The sheer audacity of that irritated him instantly.
After everything the months of lingering looks, the late-night conversations, the unbearable amount of emotional confusion Mingyu had dragged him through before they finally got together properly this was how it ended?
A text message sent at eight thirty in the morning like a canceled appointment?
Jeonghan let out a short laugh under his breath, though the sound carried no amusement inside it.
“Wow.”
His voice came out quieter than expected.
The room suddenly felt strange around him.
The sunlight touching the floorboards now looked sharp enough to cut.
Somewhere in the distance, clouds drifted lazily across the sky beyond his window, and Jeonghan found himself irrationally furious that the world continued behaving so beautifully when something inside him had just been shoved violently out of place.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
Call him.
No.
Absolutely not.
Another message from downstairs interrupted the silence before he could think further.
“Yoon Jeonghan!” his mother shouted again. “If you don’t come eat right now, your sister’s taking your pancakes!”
“YOU SNOOZE YOU LOSE!” his sister yelled immediately afterward.
Normally, Jeonghan would have shouted back something dramatic and deeply insulting.
This time, he said nothing.
He simply sat there in the middle of the sunlit bed, dark hair falling softly around his face, staring at the tiny glowing sentence that had somehow managed to make the entire morning feel unfamiliar.
And somewhere deep beneath the confusion, beneath the bruised pride and gathering anger, something colder slowly began to unfold.
Because this did not feel temporary.
It felt wrong.
Like a conversation interrupted halfway through.
Like a door closing too quickly.
Like somebody disappearing before the story had properly begun.
.
.
.
It had been exactly seven days.
Seven.
Not even enough time for the relationship to survive a full skincare routine cycle, which somehow made the humiliation infinitely worse.
Jeonghan had spent years liking Kim Mingyu.
Years.
Entire seasons of his life had passed beneath the quiet catastrophe of that crush. He had survived awkward hallway encounters, accidental hand touches dramatic enough to shorten his lifespan, lunch periods spent pretending not to stare, Somewhere between junior high and now, Mingyu had become less of a person and more of a recurring atmospheric condition in Jeonghan’s life, appearing suddenly and ruining his emotional stability every single time.
And then, impossibly, unbelievably, gloriously
He had finally gotten him.
Only to be broken up with through text message one week later like a failed free trial subscription.
The universe, Jeonghan decided, was deeply unserious.
The afternoon sun spilled heavily across the school grounds in soft golden waves, warming the running tracks until heat shimmered faintly above them like invisible ghosts dancing over red pavement. Somewhere nearby, the soccer team screamed at each other with the intensity of men entering war rather than after-school practice, while spring wind drifted lazily through the trees lining the campus, scattering pale petals across the concrete paths in little spirals of white and pink.
Jeonghan sat motionless on the wooden bench near the field, staring blankly toward the sky as though personally waiting for divine explanation.
Beside him, Hoshi was holding two strawberry milks and the emotional patience of a saint.
The silence between them had now stretched long enough to become concerning.
Hoshi glanced sideways carefully.
Jeonghan had not moved in nearly four minutes.
Not a single blink.
Not a sigh.
Nothing.
Honestly, it was frightening.
Usually heartbreak made Jeonghan louder. Dramatic. Theatrical. He should have been delivering emotional monologues by now, probably comparing himself to tragic cinema heroines while threatening to fake his death artistically somewhere beautiful.
Instead, he was terrifyingly quiet.
A cherry blossom petal landed slowly in his hair.
He didn’t react.
Another petal drifted onto his shoulder moments later, followed by a third that caught briefly against the sleeve before sliding onto his lap like the universe itself was trying cautiously to check whether he remained alive.
Nothing.
Hoshi frowned harder.
“…Should I call somebody?”
No response.
“Hannie,” he tried again carefully, nudging the untouched strawberry milk toward him, “you’ve been staring at the same cloud for so long I think you legally own it now.”
Still nothing.
The wind moved softly through Jeonghan’s dark hair where it brushed against his jaw, lifting the longer strands in delicate motions that made him look tragically beautiful in a way Hoshi found deeply inconvenient at a time like this. Sunlight rested lazily across his face, illuminating the sharp lines of his profile while his expression remained distant and hollow with disbelief.
Then finally Without looking away from the sky, Jeonghan spoke.
“…Seven days.”
Hoshi sighed in immediate relief.
“Oh thank God. I thought your soul left your body.”
“Seven,” Jeonghan repeated quietly, as though speaking from another dimension entirely. “Do you know yogurt lasts longer than my relationship?”
Hoshi pressed his lips together violently.
This was a dangerous situation because the joke was objectively funny.
“I’m serious,” Jeonghan continued, still staring upward with the solemn devastation of a Victorian poet dying beautifully from heartbreak. “My conditioner has more commitment than Kim Mingyu.”
A laugh escaped Hoshi before he could stop it.
Jeonghan slowly turned toward him.
The betrayal in his expression could have shattered nations.
“You’re laughing.”
“I’m not.”
“You just did.”
“I inhaled aggressively.”
“You think my suffering is entertaining.”
Hoshi coughed into his drink to disguise another laugh while Jeonghan looked away again with the exhausted expression of a man burdened by terrible companions.
Across the field, somebody kicked a soccer ball directly into another student’s face.
Neither of them reacted.
The world had lost structure hours ago.
“I don’t understand,” Jeonghan murmured after a while, softer now, quieter around the edges.
Jeonghan had only confessed because he finally thought, after years of orbiting each other helplessly that maybe the universe was done humiliating him for sport.
Apparently not.
The breeze swept through the school grounds again, carrying distant laughter and the faint scent of grass warmed beneath afternoon sunlight. Somewhere above them, clouds drifted slowly across the enormous pale-blue sky, soft and dreamlike against the brightness of the day.
Jeonghan stared at them blankly.
.
.
For a while, Jeonghan remained strangely composed.
Not stable, exactly.
More like a beautifully decorated building moments before collapse.
He sat there beneath the drifting cherry blossoms with his untouched strawberry milk sweating quietly beside him on the bench, staring toward the horizon with the distant expression of somebody attempting very hard to process emotional devastation with dignity. Around them, the school grounds buzzed lazily with afternoon life students crossing pathways in noisy groups, teachers carrying stacks of papers like exhausted soldiers returning from war, the occasional whistle from the soccer field slicing through the warm spring air.
Everything felt offensively normal.
Meanwhile, Jeonghan’s romantic life had apparently died in under seven business days.
Hoshi, sensing danger in the silence, cautiously opened his second strawberry milk and slid it toward Jeonghan like one might offer food to a traumatized woodland animal.
“Drink this before your blood sugar drops and you start hallucinating revenge plots.”
Jeonghan accepted the carton automatically without looking at him.
Then, very softly
“…We didn’t even kiss.”
Hoshi blinked.
The sentence floated between them beneath the sunlight like a ghost.
Jeonghan turned slowly toward him at last, eyes suddenly glassy with betrayal so profound it almost looked theatrical.
“We didn’t even kiss, Soonyoung.”
Oh no.
Hoshi recognized that tone immediately.
That was not annoyance anymore.
That was emotional collapse wearing expensive perfume.
“I spent years manifesting that man,” Jeonghan continued weakly, voice wobbling at the edges now. “Years. Entire academic eras.
Several students passing nearby slowed instinctively.
Hoshi noticed with immediate alarm.
Unfortunately, Jeonghan was gaining emotional momentum.
“And then,” he whispered dramatically, one hand pressing against his chest like a dying opera heroine beneath moonlight, “he dates me for one week..one week, and leaves before I even get a proper cinematic first kiss.”
A tear escaped him.
Then another.
Hoshi panicked instantly.
“Oh God.”
“I bought lip balm for this relationship.”
“Oh God.”
“The expensive one.”
That broke him completely.
Jeonghan suddenly burst into tears with the full emotional devastation of somebody abandoned at sea by destiny itself, shoulders shaking violently while he clutched the strawberry milk like it personally represented his failed future.
Around them, conversations began visibly slowing.
A freshman walking past nearly tripped over absolutely nothing because he was staring too hard.
Two girls near the vending machines exchanged expressions of profound concern.
Somewhere in the distance, even the soccer game seemed quieter, as though the entire campus had subconsciously paused to witness Jeonghan Yoon experiencing heartbreak publicly and beautifully beneath falling cherry blossoms.
Hoshi looked around in horror.
This was becoming an event.
“How could he do this to me?” Jeonghan cried, voice muffled dramatically behind his sleeve. “What was the reason? We barely even started dating! We still had honeymoon phase potential!”
“You dated for seven days.”
“Exactly! We didn’t even get to become annoying together!”
“That’s… actually a little sad.”
“I know!”
Another wave of tears arrived immediately afterward.
Hoshi sighed deeply and wrapped an arm around Jeonghan’s shoulders in helpless comfort while simultaneously glaring at nearby students who were now openly pretending not to watch.
“Okay, listen to me,” he said firmly, entering protective best-friend mode with the seriousness of a man preparing for battle. “We’re gonna find him.”
Jeonghan sniffed miserably.
“We are?”
“Yes.”
Hoshi nodded with fierce determination.
“And then I’m going to beat his ass.”
Several nearby students visibly perked up at that.
Jeonghan looked up slowly, eyes still wet.
“You’d fight Mingyu for me?”
“I’d fight God for you right now.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I’m serious. I’ll kick him directly into another dimension.”
Despite everything, despite the heartbreak currently dissolving his dignity molecule by molecule beneath the afternoon sun, a tiny broken laugh escaped Jeonghan through his tears.
Unfortunately, this only attracted more attention.
A group of students walking by smiled sympathetically at him.
One girl mouthed “Are you okay?” from across the pathway.
Jeonghan froze instantly.
Mortification arrived all at once.
“Oh my God,” he whispered, horrified. “People are looking at me.”
“Well yes,” Hoshi replied carefully, “you are sobbing like a widowed princess in the middle of campus.”
Jeonghan straightened immediately with what remained of his pride.
“I am not.”
“You compared your relationship to expired yogurt ten minutes ago.”
“That was poetic.”
“You’re wiping tears with a strawberry milk straw wrapper.”
Jeonghan looked down.
He was.
The realization seemed to offend him personally.
With wounded dignity, he lowered the crumpled wrapper slowly onto the bench and pushed his hair back from his face, attempting desperately to regain composure while tears still clung traitorously to his eyelashes.
Around them, petals continued drifting softly through the warm spring air, catching briefly in Jeonghan’s dark hair and on the sleeves of his oversized cardigan like tiny pieces of a universe determined to make his emotional breakdown aesthetically pleasing.
Hoshi watched him quietly for a moment before sighing.
“You know,” he said gently, “for somebody who got dumped after one week, you’re taking this surprisingly seriously.”
Jeonghan stared ahead blankly toward the glittering field beyond them where sunlight burned gold against the grass.
Then, with complete sincerity
“I had our wedding seating arrangement mentally prepared.”
Hoshi nearly choked on his drink.
“You what?”
“There were candles.”
“JEONGHAN.”
“And hydrangeas.”
“YOU NEED THERAPY.”
.
.
.
By the time Jeonghan reached the mingyu's dorm building, he had already decided three separate things.
First:
Kim Mingyu was a coward.
Second:
love was a psychological illness designed specifically to embarrass him in public.
And third:
if one more person asked whether he was “doing okay,” he was going to fake his own death out of spite.
The evening air carried the fading warmth of spring sunlight, soft and golden against the sidewalks stretching beyond campus, while the sky above the university glowed faintly pink near the horizon like watercolor paint dissolving into clear water. Students wandered lazily across the grounds in little clusters of laughter and unfinished conversations, their voices drifting through the breeze alongside the distant hum of traffic and music leaking from open dorm windows overhead.
Jeonghan, meanwhile, walked toward the boys’ dormitory with the emotional composure of a man approaching war.
His sleeve hung halfway over his hand as he shoved both fists into his pockets dramatically, dark hair moving softly in the wind around his face while irritation sharpened every elegant feature into something dangerously pretty. The breakup text still sat unanswered in his phone like an active crime scene.
Let’s break up.
No explanation.
No call.
No decency.
Seven days.
Jeonghan genuinely could not decide which part insulted him more the heartbreak itself or the statistical impossibility of getting dumped before a relationship even properly developed narrative structure.
“You don’t get to ruin my mental stability and disappear,” he muttered under his breath while climbing the dorm stairs. “That’s not how storytelling works.”
The moment he stepped inside, however, reality immediately lost organization.
Chaos greeted him with open arms.
Somewhere down the hallway, somebody screamed:
“WHO ATE MY PUDDING?”
A second voice shouted back instantly:
“IT WAS LABELED WRONG!”
“IT HAD MY NAME ON IT!”
“THAT COULD’VE BEEN ANYONE!”
A basketball bounced violently past Jeonghan’s feet before colliding with the wall hard enough to shake a nearby fire extinguisher. Two boys sprinted after it carrying instant ramen cups and absolutely no survival instincts while loud music blasted faintly from somewhere upstairs, interrupted every few seconds by somebody singing off-key with horrifying confidence.
The entire building smelled like detergent, cheap cologne, and emotional instability.
Jeonghan stood motionless near the entrance for a long moment, blinking slowly.
“…This is where he lives?”
A boy carrying laundry glanced at him while passing by.
“Honestly? Barely.”
And then kept walking.
Jeonghan stared after him in disbelief.
Another student nearly crashed directly into him while dragging what appeared to be an entire gaming chair through the hallway.
“Move,” the student said urgently.
Jeonghan closed his eyes briefly.
Maybe heartbreak had finally caused psychological damage.
That had to be it.
Because surely no normal human environment sounded like this.
A door suddenly burst open somewhere nearby.
“WHO TOOK MY BLACK HOODIE?”
Immediately, three separate voices yelled:
“WHICH ONE?”
“That narrows absolutely nothing!” somebody else screamed.
Jeonghan felt a headache forming behind his eyes.
Still, he pushed forward deeper into the hallway with determination sharpened entirely by wounded pride. Students continued moving around him in complete disorganized madness some laughing loudly, some carrying snacks, some arguing about lecture notes with the emotional intensity of courtroom lawyers.
And somehow, despite all this noise, all this chaos, Mingyu had still found the time to destroy Jeonghan’s emotional well-being through text message.
Amazing.
Truly inspiring multitasking.
Jeonghan stopped the nearest passing student with the expression of a man approaching his final thread of patience.
“hmm .. do you ..do you know Where’s Mingyu? Is ”
The student blinked.
“Mingyu who?”
Jeonghan stared at him.
“…The tall one.”
“Bro that describes half this building.”
“The other half are also tall.”
“Fair.”
Jeonghan inhaled slowly through his nose.
Darkly.
The student squinted thoughtfully toward the ceiling like he was consulting divine guidance.
“Maybe room 304?”
A voice shouted from upstairs:
“He switched rooms!”
“Oh right,” the student corrected. “209.”
Another voice somewhere farther down the hallway yelled:
“NO HE DIDN’T.”
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know!”
“Then stop participating!”
Jeonghan looked physically exhausted by humanity.
A different student suddenly approached carrying cardboard boxes stacked dangerously high in his arms.
“Oh thank God,” he said immediately upon seeing Jeonghan. “Can you hold this for one second?”
Before Jeonghan could answer, the boxes were dumped directly into his arms.
“What”
“Thanks!”
And the boy vanished instantly into another room.
Jeonghan stood there in complete silence, now holding somebody else’s packages for reasons entirely unknown to him.
“…I look too approachable,” he muttered bitterly.
The boxes smelled faintly like instant noodles and fabric softener.
Somewhere nearby, a shower turned on accompanied by somebody loudly singing heartbreak ballads with the vocal control of a dying goat.
Jeonghan shifted the boxes awkwardly against his chest and continued searching through the hallway with increasing irritation.
“If one more person gives me incorrect directions,” he announced to absolutely nobody, “I’m burning this entire building down and starting over.”
“Valid,” somebody replied while walking past with a toothbrush in their mouth.
Jeonghan turned another corner.
And nearly collided with someone immediately.
Except unlike everybody else in the building, this person wasn’t loud.
Wasn’t rushing.
Wasn’t shouting.
Instead, amid all the moving noise and chaos and bright fluorescent hallway lighting, somebody quietly reached forward and lifted the heavy top box from Jeonghan’s unstable grip before it could fall completely sideways.
The movement happened gently.
Almost instinctively.
Jeonghan looked up.
And there he was.
Oversized gray hoodie.
Dark hair slightly messy like he had run his hands through it too many times.
Round glasses slipping faintly down his nose.
Quiet in a place overflowing with noise.
For one strange fleeting second, the hallway itself seemed softer around him somehow, the fluorescent lights above turning pale gold against the edges of his silhouette while voices echoed distantly behind them like waves breaking far away.
The boy did not introduce himself immediately.
Which, strangely enough, made him feel more real.
In a building overflowing with loud personalities and weaponized stupidity, he moved with quiet steadiness, carrying the heavy box from Jeonghan’s arms as though rescuing strangers from cardboard-related suffering was simply part of his daily routine. The fluorescent hallway lights washed softly over the sleeves of his oversized hoodie while students continued stampeding around them in every possible direction like emotionally unstable wildlife.
Meanwhile, Jeonghan followed him instinctively.
Mostly because the box had been heavy.
Partly because he was emotionally vulnerable.
And slightly because the boy had very kind eyes behind those round glasses.
Not that Jeonghan was noticing details.
Absolutely not.
“You can leave those in the old showroom,” the boy said softly after a moment, adjusting the weight of the box carefully in his arms.
His voice surprised Jeonghan.
It was low and calm in a way that made the surrounding chaos sound strangely far away.
“The what?”
“The storage room,” the boy corrected immediately. “People just call it the showroom because one senior tried decorating it once.”
“Did it work?”
The boy considered this thoughtfully while turning down another hallway.
“…There’s a broken rice cooker in there.”
“Ah.”
“A motivational poster too.”
“That’s beautiful.”
The corner of the boy’s mouth twitched faintly upward.
Not fully a smile.
Just something small and quiet enough that Jeonghan almost missed it.
The dorm hallways stretched endlessly around them beneath warm yellow lights, doors left half-open while noise spilled freely from every direction. Somewhere nearby, somebody was vacuuming aggressively while another student yelled dramatic song lyrics from inside a shower with the emotional pain of a divorced father in a music video.
Jeonghan genuinely could not believe Mingyu survived in this environment.
Actually no.
Correction.
Mingyu probably thrived in this environment.
Which somehow made sense in the most irritating way possible.
“So,” Jeonghan said while stepping over a random hoodie abandoned in the hallway floor like a crime scene victim, “do you know Mingyu ?”
The boy’s steps slowed almost invisibly.
Only for a second.
Then he continued walking.
“yes. He hasn’t been here for two days.”
Jeonghan frowned immediately.
“Two days?”
A quiet nod.
“He left suddenly.”
Something cold shifted briefly inside Jeonghan’s stomach.
Not fear exactly.
More like frustration turning sharper around the edges.
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly this time.
Jeonghan sighed dramatically and leaned his head briefly against the wall while they walked.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered. “He breaks up with me through text and then vanishes into the wilderness like some emotionally constipated cryptid.”
The boy glanced sideways at him.
For one dangerous second, Jeonghan thought he saw amusement flicker in his expression.
“You dated him?” the boy asked quietly.
“For one week.”
A pause.
“…Oh.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You emotionally did.”
The boy looked down quickly afterward, clearly hiding another tiny smile.
Jeonghan narrowed his eyes immediately.
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you’re silently making fun of me.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m just listening.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
This time the smile became slightly more visible.
Soft.
Brief.
Gone almost immediately afterward.
And weirdly enough, Jeonghan found himself less irritated than before.
Which was annoying in itself.
They finally stopped outside a faded wooden door near the end of the hallway.
The storage room apparently showroom looked like somebody had attempted interior design during a psychological breakdown. Folded chairs leaned against old shelves overflowing with forgotten sports equipment while random boxes towered dangerously beneath flickering fluorescent light. The motivational poster hanging crookedly near the ceiling read:
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
Somebody had drawn devil horns on it.
“…This place feels haunted,” Jeonghan said honestly.
“It probably is.”
They set the boxes down together in the corner of the room, and for the first time since arriving at the dorm, the silence around Jeonghan felt oddly peaceful. Outside the storage room, chaos continued faintly through distant hallways, laughter, footsteps, doors slamming but here the noise softened into something far away and harmless.
Jeonghan suddenly realized he was thirsty enough to collapse.
“Do you guys have water somewhere,” he asked dramatically, pressing one hand against his chest, “or do students here survive entirely on instant noodles and emotional damage?”
The boy hesitated briefly.
Then nodded.
“My room’s nearby.”
Jeonghan followed him again.
At this point, honestly, he had accepted fate.
The hallway they entered now was quieter than the others, touched by softer evening light spilling through long windows at the far end. The atmosphere here felt calmer somehow, less chaotic, though abandoned sneakers still littered the floor like evidence of previous disasters.
“You live near Mingyu?” Jeonghan asked casually.
The boy adjusted the strap hanging from his shoulder slightly before answering.
“Next room.”
“Oh.”
Jeonghan brightened immediately.
“That’s great actually. So when he comes back, you’ll know?”
A pause.
“…Probably.”
“Perfect.”
The boy opened the door quietly.
And unlike the rest of the dorm, the room felt unexpectedly warm.
Not luxurious.
Not perfectly clean either.
But lived-in gently.
Soft lamp light glowed near the desk by the window while books sat stacked unevenly beside scattered papers and camera equipment. Hoodies hung carelessly over the back of a chair. The room smelled faintly like detergent, coffee, and something quietly familiar Jeonghan couldn’t explain.
Then his eyes landed on the camera resting near the desk.
“Oh wow,” he said immediately, stepping closer. “You’ve got a real camera?”
The boy visibly froze.
Jeonghan picked it up carefully with both hands, curiosity brightening his expression for the first time all evening as he examined it beneath the warm lamplight.
“It looks expensive,” he murmured. “Do you do photography professionally or....”
The strap slipped suddenly against his wrist.
Everything happened too fast after that.
The camera slid.
Hit the edge of the desk.
And crashed directly onto the floor.
The sound shattered through the room with horrifying clarity.
Jeonghan froze instantly.
The camera lens cracked slightly against the hardwood floor, the sharp sound still echoing faintly through the silence afterward like something irreversible had just happened.
For one terrible second, nobody moved.
Jeonghan stared down at the broken camera with widening eyes.
Then slowly looked back up at the boy standing across from him.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
His soul genuinely began leaving his body.
Because that camera did not look cheap.
At all.
The sound of the camera hitting the floor seemed to echo forever.
Not loudly.
Worse.
Soft enough that the silence afterward became unbearable.
Jeonghan stared at the cracked lens with the expression of a man witnessing the complete collapse of his future in real time. The warm little room suddenly felt airless around him, every object sharpened painfully by panic the scattered books on the desk, the dim lamp glowing softly near the bed, the faint movement of curtains near the open window where evening wind slipped quietly inside.
“Oh my God.”
The words left him in a whisper.
Then louder
“Oh my God.”
He dropped immediately to his knees beside the fallen camera with all the emotional devastation of someone reacting to a body at a crime scene. His hands hovered helplessly over it for a moment before finally picking it up with terrifying caution, as though enough gentleness could reverse the laws of physics entirely.
It could not.
The lens was visibly damaged.
Not destroyed beyond repair maybe, but definitely broken enough to financially ruin him spiritually.
Jeonghan turned the camera carefully beneath the light, horror blooming across his face second by second like watercolor spreading through paper.
“No no no no no”
Behind him, the boy remained completely silent.
Which somehow made everything infinitely worse.
Jeonghan looked up sharply.
The boy was still standing near the desk exactly where he had been before, shoulders slightly stiff beneath the oversized hoodie while his gaze rested quietly on the broken camera in Jeonghan’s hands. His expression wasn’t angry.
Not even shocked really.
Just… still.
Like somebody watching rain ruin a photograph left outside too long.
And honestly?
That calmness was psychologically devastating.
“Say something,” Jeonghan blurted immediately. “Why are you standing there like a widowed Victorian husband?”
The boy blinked once behind his glasses.
“I…”
Nothing else came after that.
Jeonghan groaned loudly and pressed one hand against his forehead.
“This is insane. This is actually insane. Yesterday I got dumped after dedicating years of emotional labor to Kim Mingyu, and today I break a stranger’s expensive camera within ten minutes of entering his room. At this point I think God is experimenting on me personally.”
Still no response.
The silence grew heavier.
Jeonghan looked down again at the camera in his hands before inhaling deeply with the courage of a man about to receive terminal medical results.
“…How much was this?”
The boy hesitated.
Which terrified Jeonghan instantly.
“No no no, don’t hesitate like that. Hesitation means prison numbers.”
“It’s okay,” the boy said softly.
“That answer means it’s expensive.”
Another tiny pause.
Then quietly
“About three million won.”
Jeonghan stopped breathing.
For one deeply spiritual second, his soul visibly disconnected from his body.
“…Three what?”
The boy adjusted his glasses slightly.
“Million.”
Jeonghan collapsed backward dramatically onto the floor.
Not metaphorically.
Actually collapsed.
His head narrowly missed the side of the bed as he stared upward toward the ceiling in complete existential devastation while the broken camera rested against his chest like evidence presented before court.
“Oh my God,” he whispered weakly.
Then louder
“Oh my GOD.”
The ceiling fan turned lazily overhead.
Outside the dorm window, somebody laughed in the distance, unaware that inside this tiny room a university student was experiencing financial death.
“I can’t afford that,” Jeonghan breathed. “I don’t even emotionally afford that.”
The boy opened his mouth slightly for the first time since the disaster happened.
“It’s okay..”
“Stop saying that!”
Jeonghan sat upright immediately, clutching the camera protectively.
“It is literally not okay! This thing costs more than my future!”
The boy fell silent again.
Jeonghan pushed his hair back dramatically and stood, pacing the small room now with frantic energy while continuing to spiral verbally.
“I knew this week was cursed. I knew it. Mingyu ruined my life spiritually and now the universe wants me arrested.”
“That’s not--”
“No because think about it,” Jeonghan interrupted helplessly. “If he didn’t dump me, I wouldn’t be here. If I wasn’t here, your camera would still be alive.”
Somewhere deep in the hallway outside, someone yelled:
“WHO STOLE MY SOCK?”
Jeonghan pointed violently toward the door.
“See? Evil environment.”
A tiny sound escaped the boy suddenly.
Jeonghan stopped pacing.
Wait.
Was that
A laugh?
It vanished almost immediately, but Jeonghan caught it.
And somehow that made him feel slightly less like throwing himself into traffic.
“No,” Jeonghan declared firmly after a moment, gripping the camera with renewed determination. “We’re fixing this.”
The boy looked up.
“I’ll pay for it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I absolutely do.”
“It’s fine.”
“Please stop saying that,” Jeonghan groaned. “You being calm is making me feel worse.”
He inspected the damaged lens again with profound emotional suffering.
“Okay maybe I can’t pay all at once,” he admitted weakly. “But I can do installments.”
The boy blinked.
“Installments?”
“Yes.”
Jeonghan nodded with the seriousness of a businessman finalizing contracts.
“I’ll dedicate my life to this debt if necessary.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“You don’t know my bank account.”
Another tiny smile appeared briefly at the corner of the boy’s mouth before disappearing again.
Jeonghan pointed at him immediately.
“There! You keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking secretly amused by my suffering.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Your face just hides it badly.”
The boy looked away afterward, ears turning slightly pink beneath the warm lamplight.
And weirdly enough, that tiny reaction softened something inside Jeonghan instantly.
The room no longer felt as tense as before.
Outside the windows, evening settled deeper over campus in shades of gold and blue while distant dorm noise faded into softer background chaos the muffled sound of laughter, footsteps echoing through hallways, doors opening and closing somewhere far away.
Jeonghan finally sighed.
Then held the camera carefully against his chest before walking closer again.
“Okay… first, what’s your name?”
The boy adjusted his glasses slightly, almost nervously, before answering in a quiet voice.
“Seungcheol.”
The name lingered softly in the warm little room.
“Seungcheol,” Jeonghan repeated slowly, as though testing the sound of it. Then he sighed dramatically again and held the damaged camera against his chest like an apology itself. “Okay, Seungcheol… I’m really, really sorry for breaking your camera.”
For the first time since entering the room, his voice lost some of its chaos and became softer around the edges.
“And I’m Jeonghan.”
A small silence settled between them, filled only by the distant noise of the dorm outside and the evening wind brushing gently against the curtains near the window.
Then Jeonghan straightened slightly and pointed determinedly at the camera.
“We’re fixing this.”
And somehow, standing there beneath the soft lamplight with a broken camera between them and complete disaster hanging in the air, neither of them realized that this was the exact moment their lives quietly began changing.