"Hi, uh, so." Wooyoung desperately tries to shake off the blankness that washed over him as soon as the pretty receptionist looked up from his laptop and smiled at him. "Do you have a phone?"
A moment passes. Wooyoung wants to facepalm.
~~~
Growing...
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Everything is... different. Everything is so much different from what San had expected that February, instead of creeping slowly by like the last days of January did, almost passes in a flash. He arrives back in Namhae at his parents' house after dull hours of bus and train rides, and greeted more warmly than he expected. His mum pulls him into a hug, his dad pats his shoulder, saying that he is glad that San is back. In the evening, they toast to San getting accepted for university until San withdraws to go to his room and call Mingi—although he doesn't tell them that.
He only tells his grandparents about the new friends he's made on the island when he visits them the next day. To his relief, they don't seem to think he's dating any of them in secret, but that might also be because he didn't come out to them. His grandma and grandpa are great - but they also are more on the conservative side and San doesn't ever want to risk losing their support and love by telling them something as vague as, I'm queer, but I'm not sure what exactly that means for me yet.
A few days later, he gets a new text from his noona. Even though it doesn't say anything in particular or exciting, San is glad she finally remembered to text back.
And then there's course applications. San goes to a PC room downtown, too anxious that his parents' wifi isn't fast enough and all good classes will be taken before he has the chance to apply for them. Yunho calls him five minutes before applications start. Mingi is at Yunho's too, and though San is happy to hear them both, he also has to fight the jealousy gnawing in his chest at their togetherness.
They spend four minutes chatting about the classes they want to take before they fall silent, counting down the seconds to application start. As soon as the clock hits ten, San logs in and types the number of his top four classes in economics, biology, English and drama with flying fingers—and is amazed that he actually makes it into two of them. "Yunho is using up all the fast internet," Mingi whines through the phone, "I only got into one class, do I have to take advanced levels or languages now?"
And then there's moving. San's father drives him all the way up to Seoul with one suitcase and two boxes. After they've checked San into his dorm and carried San's moving boxes to his room on the second floor, San is astonished when he realises that he feels like crying saying goodbye to his father. Having Mingi and Yunho by his side probably would have made things easier, but they're only coming the next day, so San holds back his tears as his dad leaves and spends a very restless first night in his new room.
Things start to look brighter the next day when Mingi and Yunho arrive. They quickly settle in after a semi-serious pillows-and-blankets fight over who takes which bed and together they leave their rather grey dorm to explore the Chugyeong University campus that, although not as beautiful as on the photos on the internet, has a green picnic area in its heart and a huge library that blows Mingi's mind, though he declares to not read a single book inside. "It just looks cosy," he says, and San agrees wholeheartedly at the sight of warm white lights and bean bags cluttered on the edges around a big, wooden table in the middle of the reading room.
