Happy Without Me | WooJun

06. E G G S H E L L S

friendship is like paper... it's never the same once it has been crumpled.
~

The day that Yeonjun was dreading was here and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and never come out. Reluctantly, he got dressed and waited for Wooyoung to arrive. Yeonjun's parents wouldn't be home, so they decided to do it at his place.

After a while of waiting, Yeonjun heard the doorbell ring and his stomach churned. He just had to get this over with. Opening the door, Yeonjun looked at Wooyoung who only stared right back at him with an emotionless expression.

"You haven't even moved house but bothered to come to a school in a completely different neighbourhood," was the first thing Wooyoung said, pushing past Yeonjun.

"I thought you said we didn't know each other?" Yeonjun muttered, closing the door. "Just so you know I didn't choose to go to your school; I didn't have much of a choice." He followed Wooyoung to the dining table, where he had set up a couple of books.

"Why not? There are a hundred other places you could've gone to," Wooyoung said, making himself comfortable since he would be there for a while.

"Because..." Yeonjun looked away from Wooyoung, a feeling of shame washing over him. "I've been to them all already."

Wooyoung blinked at Yeonjun in surprise. "A-All of them?" he asked quietly.

"Well, most I guess," Yeonjun muttered. "Whatever, let's just get this over with."

Wooyoung emptied his backpack, and he began to work on the project. Yeonjun sat there for a few minutes because he didn't even know what to do. He was lost as always because chemistry was too hard. Yeonjun was debating on whether to ask for help. However, after a while it didn't seem like he needed to because Wooyoung noticed.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Wooyoung asked. Yeonjun just stared at the blank page and shook his head. Wooyoung seemed to be fighting his own battle; should he help or keep up his cold act? Eventually he sighed and shuffled closer to Yeonjun. "Tell me what you need help with."

After about two hours, Yeonjun had finally understood the topic and now all the work he was supposed to be doing made sense. He was going to thank Wooyoung genuinely, but as soon as he was done helping, he returned to silently working on his own, an unbothered expression on his face.

Yeonjun frowned, then stood up and went to the kitchen. He wondered what he should do for lunch since Wooyoung would be here for a while. Not long after, he decided to order food because he didn't want to spend time cooking. Yeonjun ordered pizza and waited in the kitchen until it came since he didn't want to go back to the awkward atmosphere.

Carrying two boxes of pizza, Yeonjun walked back to the table. Wooyoung looked up at the smell and moved some of the books and papers away so that Yeonjun could set the food down on the table.

"I thought you weren't coming back," Wooyoung said.

"Let's eat first, we can finish this later," Yeonjun suggested.

As they ate the pizza in silence, Yeonjun had the urge to start a conversation, but he didn't know what to say. He glanced at Wooyoung a few times, but couldn't bring himself to break the silence, so he was surprised when Wooyoung did.

"You said you've been to all those other schools... Why did you change schools so many times?" Wooyoung asked, not looking up from his pizza box.

Yeonjun didn't want to say the real reason, which was that he was never the same after Wooyoung left. He ended up telling some of the truth.

"They said it was my behaviour, whatever that means," Yeonjun said.

"There has to be a better reason than that," Wooyoung said, seemingly disappointed by that response.