Within These Shadows || Park Chanyeol/Do Kyungsoo || Book 1

8

On a fine Saturday morning, Seung Mae had woken up rather early. She would've chosen to sleep away the morning, had the Econ professor not given them an assignment. And since she had missed out one lecture, she couldn't do her assignment without understanding that lecture. Hence, she planned a study session with Chanyeol.

She took less than thirty minutes to get ready; yellow T shirt, denim pants, hair pulled back in a ponytail, round glasses and white vans. She checked herself one last time on the mirror to make sure everything was okay. Standing before the mirror, she caught sight of Jay's reflection; still in bed, sleeping like a corpse, blanket wrapped around herself. She had a very good sleeping habit; she always stayed in one place on the bed, didn't move around at night, didn't like sharing her bed either. Mae sighed, 'Typical Jay.'

She turned around, walked over to her best friend's bed and kicked her on the rear.

"Yah, wake up!"

"It's the weekend, Mae! Let me sleep! Go away!" Jay groaned, pulling the blanket over her head.

Mae huffed, blowing the loose strands of hair from her face. She felt a slight bit of envy on seeing Jay sleep so peacefully, while she had to run for a study session.

"I'm going to the library; I have a study session with Chanyeol. I'll have breakfast with him too, so you can have brunch later, if you want."

As a reply, Jay brought out her hand from underneath the blanket and gave a peace sign. Taking that as her signal to leave, Mae walked out of the room, locking the door behind.

*

"So, where are you from, Mae?" Chanyeol asked, taking a bite of his sandwich.

"Changwon."

"Really? You don't seem to have an accent to your Korean. That's cool."

"Well, three years in Seoul does its magic you know." Mae chuckled. "Where are you from?"

"I'm from Seoul," Chanyeol gave a beaming smile, earning one back from Mae. "Do you have any siblings?"

"No. I'm the only child. You?"

"An older sister."

"A sister is nice. They act like a second mom in the absence of a mother. That's a blessing I think. Although I've never felt lonely or like I didn't have siblings because of my cousin, Aiden. He's always taken care of me like an actual older brother. He, Jay and I grew up together, so we're practically like actual siblings."

"Jay?"

"Jay—Jayline Woods, my roommate."

"Oh! So, you both are childhood friends?"

"Yeah."

"That's really cool. The roommate I had in first year's first semester was a living, walking, breathing nightmare. After several complains to the housing committee, they changed my room."

Chanyeol's words made Mae laugh while on the verge of taking another bite of her sandwich.

"Why? What did he do?"

"He…isn't the kind of person one would want to associate themselves with. He has habits, that I couldn't habituate myself with. And it was suffocating, being in the same room with him. So I wanted to change my room."

Something about Chanyeol's words struck Mae. The guy had clearly stated about why he changed his room, but none of his sentences had any negative words about his roommate. Everything he said, was about what he felt and not a single bad word about his ex roommate. And that made Mae smile; Chanyeol was a different person.