28/1
Night

Wooyoung's Diary

The last day of semester break. The final hours of careless freedom before a new term started, students swarming each others homes, savouring the time as though each minute would be the last, and where was Jung Wooyoung? Choosing his outfit for the next day.

To be fair, it wasn't an uncommon situation. What was uncommon was that Jung Wooyoung, affamed party-goer, was choosing to stay in his dorm room when there was a party one block away.

It was to the extent that he could hear the music pulsating through the walls, clouding his sense of hearing, yet he paid it no mind.

Even his roommate was surprised when he declined the offer of heading over together. But not as surprised as Wooyoung was when he heard his roommate wanted to go.

While Wooyoung was famous for going to parties, his roommate was the exact opposite, choosing to minimise the amount of social interaction he had, only appearing at parties when there were people he knew.

Today's party in question was hosted by a common friend of theirs, Yunho, and although Wooyoung could see why his roommate was willing to go, he couldn't understand why he was so excited about it, or why he was eager to join with or without him.

He could still hear what he'd said one hour or so ago: "Come on Woo! This is gonna be the party of the decade. You have to come!"

"I think I'm all good for today. The party the day before gave me enough excitement to last through the new term. Thanks for asking though, Sang-ah."

Normally the conversation would end right there, but Yeosang wasn't finished with his argument yet.

"Parties never tire you out. Are you sick?"

"I'm perfectly fine, Sang. Have a good time, drink a few extra shots for me, okay?"

As he spoke, Wooyoung slipped into a reverie, mind spiralling down a series of incomprehensible thoughts, not realising Yeosang had spoken once more.

"... You have to come."

Despite not knowing his full sentence, Wooyoung spoke: "I already said I'm good, Sang. It's really fine. I..."

His gaze fixated on his wardrobe and an excuse popped into his head. "I have to clean my closet. It's long overdue."

If Yeosang felt anything was amiss, he didn't show any sign of suspicion, merely shrugging and leaving Wooyoung's room.

Instantly after he heard the front door click shut, Wooyoung jumped up from the bed and marched to the wardrobe. After all, although he did say he was gonna spring clean the closet, he didn't say that he was gonna have a try on spree while he was at it.

The instant Wooyoung opened his closet, he knew he had made a mistake. Reconsidering his choice of heading to Yunho's place became his utmost priority when the bundle of clothes smacked him in the face.

He staggered from the impact, but surveyed the wardrobe's interior as his assailent slipped to the floor. It was piled to the brim, not just with clothes, but miscellaneous items he'd collected over the past year, including but not limited to accessories, old schoolbooks and an old one metre tall plushie shiba he'd named Tootsie Roll.

Unable to help himself, Wooyoung reached out and grabbed the dog, pulling it out from behind the teetering stack of used workbooks.

He sat down on the lower bunk of the double decker bed, Yeosang's bunk, and patted the head of the stuffie, causing a wave of dust to drift up from the soft fur. Wooyoung wrinkled his nose at the disheveled state his old friend was in, but despite her not so ideal condition, he still gave her a tight squeeze.

Tootsie was the last gift his mom had given him in person, before she'd flown off to Taiwan with her new husband. Her first husband, Wooyoung's dad, had passed away when their child was young.

Truth be told, Wooyoung wanted to miss his dad, but where there's nothing to remember, there's also nothing to miss. Besides, he vaguely recalled a beligerant drunk who abused his mother frequently, and was grateful he couldn't remember more.

Frankly, Wooyoung was happy his mother had moved on from her first failed marriage, not quite so elated when he found out she was migrating without him. Guess her definition of moving on but only meant ditching all memories of it, but also leaving her only child.

She enrolled him in a boarding school year round, made sure to send him money every month to pay for his expenses, but Wooyoung didn't feel loved.

He still remembered that final day at the airport: not a single tear shed, no second glance made, just stepping forward into a new life. And that's what Wooyoung had vowed for himself.

He noticed his mother look away from him to smile at her husband, and that single gesture was all it took for Wooyoung to harden his shell, to give up his old life and smile at a brighter future.

He had not gone back on that promise; if she could move on, so could he.

It might have taken slightly longer for him to find his motivating factor, but patience is rewarding in the form of a roommate named Kang Yeosang.

//

Wooyoung first met Yeosang at the start of the school year, one day before tern started, at the dorm room enrollment counter. At the time, Wooyoung had paid the statue-like guy no mind. He was tired, and all he wanted to do was get to his room and sleep.

He didn't even realise that the beautiful guy had taken the same elevator, got off at the same floor, and followed him down the same hallway.

When he finally became aware of his surroundings, the other was stood beside the door, tapping his foot impatiently on the hard tiled floor, an annoyed expression etched upon his flawless features.

Wooyoung frowned.

"Can I help you?"

The other scoffed.

"If you're not going to open the door, would you kindly step aside so I may enter?"

His response, though formal and polite, held an impudent note which rubbed Wooyoung the wrong way.

"What gave you the right to speak to me like that, dude?"

He rolled his eyes.

"Can't believe I have to deal with a slowpoke like you."

He reached for his own set of keys, which looked eerily similar to Woo's own, and unlocked the door Wooyoung had been ready to open.

"Hey, I wanted to do the honours."

"Can't help that you're slow. Anyway, I call dibs on the lower bunk."

Wooyoung was too tired to argue; he nodded halfheartedly before clambering up the ladder and falling asleep in a matter of minutes.

When he awoke, the sky outside had gone from bright blue to a dull blueish grey, and he was feeling the pangs of hunger. Groaning as he sat up, Wooyoung realised he definitely smelled chicken. The delectable, briny aroma of fresh, crispy fried chicken, and it was making him hungry.

Was he hallucinating? Decidedly not, when he looked around and noticed his roommate seated on the tiny couch in their living room with a plate of aforementioned fried chicken.

Internally, Wooyoung deflated, knowing that most people didn't care to share food easily, and he was too lazy to go out and get his own. He had just laid back down, convincing himself that he wasn't hungry when there was a whirring noise and something plopped onto the mattress next to him.

Looking over, he noticed it was a drone, and there was a square shaped piece of paper taped to it, four corners labelled with corresponding numbers. Slowly, he took the paper and unfolded flap number one.

"Hi roomie."

Flap number two.

"Aren't you hungry?"

Three.

"Come eat with me."

And flap number four which held a single word.

"Hehet," accompanied by an adorable drawing of a blob like human with a flower growing out its head.

Upon reading the note, Wooyoung couldn't help but smile. Perhaps not all humanity was lost, he decided as he climbed down the ladder and walked to the living room.

"You can take any part except the breast meat," was the first thing the seated one mentioned in his clear, deep voice.

"I guess it's lucky I like the legs then."

Wooyoung selected a drumstick and proceeded to sit down next to his new roommate. There was a moment of silence before the other spoke up.

"Hey, um, I'm sorry."

Not expecting any conversation, let alone an apology, Wooyoung choked on his bite of chicken.

"What for?"

"For how I treated you earlier. My mom always said I'm cranky and snappy when I'm tired or hungry, but become shy and quiet when I'm quote unquote sober. I guess this is the first time I truly felt that way. So I'm sorry for giving you such a rude first impression."

Wooyoung felt his heart warm at the apologetic confession: it was so sincere that he couldn't bring himself to reject it.

"It's alright, you'll figure out my bad qualities in time too."

"I could already list a few."

"Ah, shut it. Anyway, what's your name?"

"I'm Yeosang, and you're?"

"Wooyoung, but you can call me Woo."

"We're going to be best friends, Woo, I just know it."

//

Now fazing back into reality, Wooyoung realised he'd been lost in Memory Lane for five whole minutes, and he hadn't cleared his closet a bit. Hurrying his muscles at double time, he unloaded his entire wardrobe, dumping its contents to the ground and sorting them.

The clothes to be folded, the accessories to be untangled, the old books that he could loan to the first years or throw...

As the clock struck midnight, Wooyoung hung the last hanger in the wardrobe and admired his accomplishment. This was as neat as it was going to get apart from the first day when there was nothing in it.

In the landslide rubble that was his closet, he'd also found a few items to form a cohesive outfit for the next day.

Plumb tuckered out, he didn't even bother dragging himself up the ladder. Instead, he collapsed onto the bottom bunk and drifted into slumber.

When Yeosang reentered the dorm room about half an hour later, all he saw was the slightly younger male draped over the side of his bunk, half on the bed and half on the floor, still in a deep sleep.

"Ah, Woo..." He sighed with a soft giggle.

He picked up the younger's legs, lugging them onto the bunk and sitting down beside the dead weight.

"You did well, Woo. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

//

Hi everyone! Happy Valentine's Day! Happy Carat Day!! ❤💎

Send a congratulations to cloudistay for hitting 100 followers and one to pink_soleil for achieving 800 reads on her amazing book Peregrine!

This is my first woosan ff on the platform, please give it a lot of support!

Thanks!

~cey xoxo

ps I was literally thinking of monsters university when I wrote yeosangs final line in the flashback lol