Nocturnal Sunshine - Lee Donghyuck

✧53✧

*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*

Jiyoung

I jolted awake from the sound of my alarm giving me the consistent heart attack it had been giving for the past couple of years. Immediately I sighed, remembering that it was another Monday. I pushed the covers off me and swing my legs out of bed, absolutely not ready to function for the day ahead.

No matter how kindly my uni had arranged my timetable, there was nothing that could make me enjoy a Monday morning. Especially when it was the first of many Monday mornings.

I stumbled through my morning routine, clumsier than usual due to tiredness and alone in the apartment since Sofia had already left to go to the gym before her lecture.

I entered the kitchen and reached for the radio to add some background noise to the otherwise silent room. Even the sound of traffic outside was distant this morning.

I sat at the kitchen, chucking some bread in the toaster and grabbing peanut butter from the fridge. It had been a while since I'd last had some so I decided this morning was worth the treat

Whilst the bread was toasting, I sipped at my smoothie and scrolled through my phone, checking the updates from overnight. Hyuck had sent me a couple of messages which I promptly replied to. He had pre-empted me being tired this morning and had sent me a motivational picture of him just before bed.

The rest of his messages brought a smile to my face, leaving me carefree enough to open Instagram. Even though I had finally set my account to private, it hadn't stopped people from tracking me. There were ten times as many followers already in my account plus there was close to a thousand follow requests sat in my inbox, all from nctzens, and I didn't have the effort to scroll through them and decline them all.

The toaster popped, and I decided to leave Instagram for another day. I rarely used it since it had slightly blown up because I knew nctzen would be analysing my every post and story, which was way too much stress for me. And none of my friends had posted anything much over the last week.

I nibbled on my toast, gradually feeling less tired and more awake. I had been tempted to stay up and call Hyuck after his practice last night but he had insisted I get a full nights sleep, which I begrudgingly agreed to. And I was very appreciative of his persuasiveness right now.

The rest of the morning flew past and it was time for me to start my commute to uni. It took fifteen minutes on the bus to get to the campus, and I took that opportunity to read the management group chat. Someone was stressing over unwritten assignments. I myself had only finished the most recent one a couple of days ago, making me much more fortunate than that one person. I felt bad for them, but there was not much I could do to help them. They'd had two months after all to complete it.

The campus was very familiar to me after spending two years navigating it, so my new lecture halls were not too complicated to find.

"Jiyoung!" A voice called from behind me. I turned and saw Rachel dragging a bleary Oliver in her wake.

"Hey." I greeted them, thankful to have found some people on my course before I entered the lecture hall. We continued walking in the direction of the management building.

"Hi, how are you? How was you summer?" Rachel asked, drawing me into a brief hug. She obviously knew some finer details about my summer since we had already caught up with each other about the coarser details.

"Pretty busy. I was at my uncle's hotel for two weeks and I spent the rest of the summer recovering from that." I replied, remembering how long ago it all seemed.