Strawberries & Cigarettes- Meanie

III

Play; R.I.P 2 My Youth by The Neighbourhood

Mingyu sits by his friends Boisterously laughing with them, but his focus seems to always drift over to the man named Beanie.

Mingyu's eyes drift over to the booth where the man was sitting like they had numerous times before, but he didn't see what he had the last what twenty times he did it.

Instead only 5 of the once group of 7 remained, they must have gone home he thinks.

"Coups hyung, can you tell me more about that Beanie guy?" Mingyu asks taking another sip of his beer.

"He's like a mystery around here, no one's ever seen him during the day it's like he suddenly appears at night. He goes to a lot of our colleges house parties so there are also rumours he's a student to one of the 3 schools near here." The elder replies sitting back and checking his phone. "Why are you so interested in him? I know he's gay, not sure about you though Mingyu-ah"

"I don't know why I'm curious about him. But I'm not gay." Mingyu replies defensively.

"Okay, sure bud." Scoups chuckles in reply.

They all drink their time away for the next few hours but Mingyu always seems to be brought back to the image of that man, he seems so familiar.

"I'm gonna head home now, I have class early tomorrow. I'll see you all soon." He says as he stands up and grabs his phone.

"See you Mingyu" Vernon says goodbye as Mingyu walks out of the large wooden doors.

He drives back to his dorm with no trouble and enters the shared space. He sees Wonwoo already asleep on his bed.

He quickly showers and goes to bed himself.

~

The next morning both boys get woken up by a loud banging on the door.

"MINGYU GET UP!" A voice shouts from the other side of the door.

Wonwoo gets up to answer the door wondering who was this loud so early in the morning.

"What?" He asks grumpily opening the door. His eyes focus on a short brown haired boy.

"Ah... sorry about that I'm Dino. We've met before haven't we." The boy says smiling sheepishly.

"Yeah we have, Mingyu's there." Wonwoo says motioning to inside the room, he opens the door wider for Dino to walk in.

Mingyu was putting a few books into his bag as Dino entered.

"Sorry about that Wonwoo, my friends are so inconsiderate." Mingyu says throwing a glare at Dino.

"It's okay, I had to get up eventually either way." Wonwoo says sitting on his bed.

"I'll be going now, see you later." Mingyu says as he exits with Dino. Wonwoo hums in acknowledgment.

As the door closes Wonwoo sighs and reaches under his pillow for the pink disposable he hadn't used in a while.

Considering how he can't smoke in his own dorm anymore he's resorted to vapes instead to avoid the pungent smell of smoke.

He lays back on his bed taking in a deep breath of the vape. He sighs remembering he has lessons to go to today. Standing up from the bed he quickly changes before leaving the room, the vape stuffed into the depths of this pockets.

He walks through the bland hallways looking for his room, as he sees the familiar numbers; 3017 plastered in a sign he turns to it and enters the lecture hall.

He remains unnoticed among the sea of students, but across the seats he sees a familiar red varsity jacket and hair. Mingyu and his group of friends, why are they here? Is it a new course maths with the whole school? He thinks.