as midterms rolled around, many students arrived to school with heavy eye bags and dark storm clouds drifting over their heads.
even sunoo, the literal sun, had trouble staying positive. exams were particularly hard for him, since his weak immune system wouldn't allow him to stay up late studying or else he would get sick.
luckily, this year he had a life saving best friend who would let him borrow his notes or summarize anything he couldn't study. however, he did feel a little bad about making him do all that extra work, but he kept insisting that he wanted to.
"thanks again, i don't know what i would do without you." sunoo said as he received a stack of notes from jungwon. "my doctor said my health's been getting better, i won't need you to do so much when it's time for finals. I don't wanna keep burdening you."
jungwon chuckled. "that's good to hear, but don't worry because you're not a burden at all."
a part of sunoo wanted to believe what jungwon said, but he could see clear signs that the boy was secretly struggling. he was pale with puffy eyes, and a lot thinner than usual. sometimes it felt like he lost so much weight that sunoo couldn't tell whether he was looking at his dimples or sunken cheekbones.
he knew that jungwon would just deny it every time he tried confronting him about it, which made him feel even more guilty. "so, let's go to the library then?"
the two usually spent every free block to study, which ultimately saved sunoo's grades, along with all the extra help he received.
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the school day ended, and the two switched places over to the public library to study instead. despite everything that was going on, sunoo still couldn't shake off the feeling that jungwon was lying about both his mental and physical health.
"ugh, my head hurts..." sunoo mumbled halfway into the session, massaging his temples.
"i have some aspirin in my backpack, just wait." jungwon said, an arm fumbling around in his bag, which was on the table.
he accidentally knocked his backpack over, causing a couple things to spill out. some of them which caught sunoo's attention.
"...why do you carry around so much medicine? " sunoo questioned, signalling to all the fallen things on the table.
"uhh, don't worry about it." jungwon pondered, awkwardly placing the aspirin onto sunoo's palm, in the hopes of it changing the topic.
as sunoo took the pill, he quickly swiped everything up and back into his backpack.
"that doesn't answer my question, jungwon." sunoo reminded. "are you okay?"
'don't worry about it. i'm fine, i swear!" jungwon promised. "these are just things my mom forced me to bring, since she's, well, kinda overprotective when my dad's not here."
"hmm okay..." sunoo said. "I just don't want you to be getting sick because of all the extra things you have to do for me. all the other people are only doing work for one and already hitting rock bottom, and you're doing work for two!"
"hyung, it's okay. have you forgotten that you still do a lot of it yourself?" jungwon earnestly said.
"i know i do, but it's hard for me already. i can't imagine how bad it must be for you." sunoo frowned.
"it"s okay, really. my body's resilient" jungwon assured.
"okay, i believe you" sunoo relented, giving a half hearted smile before looking back down at the papers in front of him.
the two quietly studied, one of their minds filled with doubt, and the other filled with worry.
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