Golden Days | Markhyuck

4 | Contact

Mondays suck. Calculus at 9am on Monday mornings sucks even more.

As a Performing Arts student, Donghyuck wonders why he even has to take that class, where he might possibly have to use integrals or functions or whatever the hell they drone on about. The professors call them 'electives' or some other intelligent-sounding Latin-rooted word. The students call them 'forced labor' because they're definitely mandatory. Donghyuck just calls them total bullshit.

The atmosphere in the auditorium is exactly what you would expect: a hundred half-asleep freshmen looking like they just crawled out of bed, each finding their own way to wake their brains up. Donghyuck, with a coffee in hand and wireless headphones on ("Yeah, they were expensive, but so worth it," he'd told Renjun after he'd shot him a very suspicious look), fits right in with the crowd.

He slowly trudges up the stairs and takes a seat somewhere in the corner next to Renjun, who's attempting to catch a few extra minutes of sleep, trying not to wake him. As much as Donghyuck feels like a walking corpse, he doesn't have an actual death wish. So he just sits there, scrolling through his social media feed, munching on a granola bar and sipping his coffee, waiting for some form of wakefulness to creep in.

Then his phone buzzes with a text message. Upon opening it, Donghyuck almost spits out the coffee, eyes widening in shock.

Mark Lee (just don't) [8:58am]
You're taking this class too?

Donghyuck looks around the auditorium, and sure enough, Mark's looking right back at him from his seat a few rows in front of where Donghyuck is, his mouth curled in a barely noticeable pout, or at least that's what it looks like.

He'd been successful at avoiding Mark for an entire week, spending his time in class surrounded by his group of friends, making Renjun take his orders at the coffee shop or simply staying at his dorm playing Mario Kart while eating instant noodles. In fact, besides the shop, he hadn't seen Mark at all, which was great for his state of mind. The idea was that if he could keep this up, everything would be fine, he could go on living his life as he had done so for the last three years and pretend that the meeting was nothing but a bad dream.

And now, as if this splendid Monday morning couldn't get any better, his whole operation has been spoiled by nothing more than a matching schedule. He'd slam his head against the desk at the injustice, but he doesn't feel like provoking the wrath of a pissed-off Renjun.

Donghyuck doesn't respond to the message. Why would he? He's only trying to protect himself from feeling any more pain, no need to rip those wounds open all over again. However, perhaps it'd be in good taste to change that contact name. It was useful at a point in time when he needed the reminder to stop staring at the contact with an unpleasant feeling of longing in his heart, but now it seems a bit petty and childish, even for Donghyuck.

The bell rings, and a choir of subdued, tired groans joins the melody when the professor walks in and begins his monotonous lecture about numbers and stuff.

Renjun shuffles a bit, murmuring sleepily, "I hate everything about this."

"Same," Donghyuck whispers back.

Unlike other times, though, he's actually listening somewhat to the professor, jotting down notes and trying to copy whatever the hell he's doing on the whiteboard. It's far better than the alternative, which would be to return Mark's occasional glances. It's like he's not even trying to be subtle. Every time Mark looks back to him, Donghyuck hunches over his notebook more, trying and failing to pretend Mark's not there, and halfway through the class, Donghyuck's pretty frustrated with him and his relentless attention.

His phone buzzes twice more before he shuts off the sound for it, but he doesn't bother to check the messages. He'd guess it's Mark, judging how he's glancing over his shoulder whenever the phone buzzes, so that's an even better reason to not read it.