Alone Together [RIIZE]

11. The World Turned Upside-Down

That morning, Sungchan woke up to the typical noises of his L.A apartment: the skittering of some stray cat on the windowsil, the neighbors hollering, and sirens outside, police cars lining the road.

He didn't think much of it at all, it was all normal here.

It was so early that the sun hadn't come up yet. Sungchan's room was still bathed in darkness, save for the light flooding in from the bottom of his door.

His stomach rumbled because he'd forgotten to eat again. He really didn't mean to, but sometimes he didn't even realize he was hungry or forgot to make food, so he didn't eat. Quite simple really; he remembers Eunseok had mentioned having something like that, but he was too tired to really rack his brain for the term.

Sungchan yawned and checked his phone out of both habit and curiosity, opening it to his friends' group chat blown up with a slew of angry messages. It started out relatively harmless, it seemed. Anton had asked if anyone was available last night because apparently the others never met up like they said. Everyone was too busy, but Sungchan didn't know why until he scrolled up farther.

Last night, Seunghan got kicked out of his house and was staying with Eunseok for the night, which Sungchan was rather surprised about. Seunghan and his dad seemed to coexist just fine as far as Sungchan heard. But maybe the younger boy never really told him the full story and only Eunseok knew. Or maybe not, Sungchan's just guessing best he can, coming off of a sleep-riddled brain.

He scrolled farther to see that Shotaro apparently got his entire Tik Tok account banned because he simply posted something about a current war. And now years and years of his dancing, years of niche internet fame were gone because he was standing up for what's right. Sungchan scoffed at that, confused as to why anyone would be against the right thing.

Anton went silent after a certain point and so did Sohee, which worried Sungchan too. And from what he gathered, neither of them had spoken to each other last night. They probably just missed each other by little bit, since their group messages were sent out only five minutes apart from each other. But the absence of Wonbin completely only furthered his suspicions, inferring that the trio wasn't speaking to each other for one reason or another. Sungchan guessed that it had to do with Anton's feelings, but honestly anything could have collectively pissed them off.

He looked out of his window, hoping to maybe see Wonbin on the balcony, smoking a fresh pack of Newports and smiling discreetly at him. Unfortunately, he saw nothing but the flashing blue and red of police cars and heard nothing but muffled radios.

Sungchan felt kinda bad for whoever's apartment the cops were called to.

Everything outside was falling apart, it seemed. Sungchan felt like everything in his life was falling apart too. Jungwoo still didn't fully trust him despite them making up, he had a chemistry exam in the morning that he hadn't studied for (maybe he could cheat off of Minjeong, who sat diagonal to him), and his friends were all maybe fighting? Or ignoring each other? At the very least, they were stressed.

And he couldn't even go back to sleep because of the goddamn sirens up and down the block. Shouting and yelling and crying from neighbors lined up down the block. High school aged kids crowded around his building for some reason, but he didn't put two and two together.

'Tonight must have been a rough night for the whole city, how nice!' Sungchan thought with a deep, sarcastic chuckle. He'd probably have to sit alone at lunch today and end up getting to school incredibly late because of traffic, which would lead to trouble with administration. Could it get any worse?

Who knows how long Sungchan had been awake for? He spaced out somewhere between stressing and dozing off, now looking out to see the gentle morning light finally flooding into his window. He stretched and sat up again, not-yet ready for another mundane day that faced him. Hopefully his friends wouldn't be too tense after what went on tonight, or else he'd eat in the bathroom like he'd planned to on the first day. He cringed just thinking about what goes down in American boys' bathrooms.