merry christmas, meanie

Forgotten assignments

"Hey Gyu, I'm so sorry for leaving her with you again... Gosh I feel so terrible..."

Jeon Wonwoo's ever-frail voice trails off towards the end of his sentence as he looks at his best friend crouched with his back to the bed, knees pulled all the way to his chest with a textbook balancing on them.

Right over him, on Mingyu's bed, lies Wonwoo's daughter - Jieun - fast asleep, drool pooling around her tiny little mouth.

Jeon Wonwoo and Kim Mingyu have been each other's halves since middle school. Anyone who knows them, anyone who really knows them, has never seen any of them without the other. The only time when you would have found both of them alone was back when Wonwoo was in his first year at university, too ashamed to face his friend after the responsibility of a tiny life was put on his shoulders.

Like most freshmen at the welcoming party hosted by 'cool' seniors, Wonwoo had screwed around with some random girl whilst drunk, and was wordlessly left alone with a daughter nine months later. Heck, Wonwoo still has no recollection of the girl who is supposed to be Jieun's mother. The last time he saw her, she looked like she purposely didn't want Wonwoo to see her, and now he tries his level best to make the child feel loved, while juggling his studies simultaneously.

He loves Jieun, he really does, but Wonwoo spends most of his time buried in textbooks or guilt. Guilt, for he believes he does a terrible job at being a responsible dad. His best friend has the exact opposite to say.

Mingyu strongly, almost annoyingly, thinks that Wonwoo is doing a great job, considering he's a university student in his last year, with a shit ton of studies. Others his age barely have any responsibility to not lose their own underwear, while Wonwoo here is raising an entire tiny human.

Though Mingyu nearly has half the credit of taking care of baby Jieun, only possible because of his and Wonwoo's mismatched timetables. Luckily, Mingyu is at their rented apartment when Wonwoo's taking his classes, and vice versa. The few times, especially before the exam season, none of them gets a chance to look after Jieun, Wonwoo leaves her at Seungcheol, one of his friends who's graduated already.

Wonwoo's relationship with Seungcheol is quite cliched. It started when Wonwoo developed, and refused to admit, his tiny crush on the popular senior, when he was in his first year; that was a few months before Jieun came into picture, when Wonwoo was blissfully unaware of his daughter-under-construction in some random girl's uterus.

Seungcheol eventually found out through sources, aka his long-term boyfriend, who seemed to always be updated with the latest gossip swimming throughout university. Gladly, Seungcheol took it in a friendly manner, and Wonwoo soon got over him in a matter of a few days. Since then, they have been good friends, and Wonwoo was introduced to Seungcheol's charming boyfriend, Jeonghan, as well.

But nothing could match his friendship with Mingyu in any way.

"Jeez, Wonu, Jieun's the sweetest baby i've ever seen. Even Minseo wasn't this easy to deal with when she was a baby," Mingyu rolls his eyes, while a blunt pencil desperately scratches on a blank page sitting near his feet.

Wonwoo sighs. The day has been especially exhausting for him, with his backpack trying to make it harder for him by dragging him down until his knees give out and buckle. Wonwoo slings it off his back, a sliver of relief rushing through his back as he drops to the floor right beside Mingyu.

He silently observes Mingyu concentrating on the list of questions on the assignment with his lips in a thin line, the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. Mingyu's eyes dart swiftly across the questions, and within a matter of moments, he scribbles his answers on the notebook at his feet.

Looking at his best friend working so hard, with his ears open for any sound Jieun might make, Wonwoo feels even worse for burdening Mingyu with the task of looking after his three-year old. Wordlessly, Wonwoo shuffles and drapes a lazy hand around Mingyu's scrunched shoulders in an attempt to give him a hug.

Mingyu knows Wonwoo isn't normally open to skin-ship, although they have their fair share of hugs every now and then. He immediately catches that Wonwoo must be bothered, for a multitude of reasons. He drops his book and lets the pencil fall from his fingers, hugging Wonwoo back tightly. He understands Wonwoo needs the hug right now, so he doesn't question it. He feels Wonwoo's fingers card through his newly permed hair, and he does the same.

Last week, the duo had decided to get a perm together, just for the sake of it. If they liked it, they had agreed to keep it longer. Mingyu didn't have a fixed opinion yet, but he could definitely tell Wonwoo loved the perm on him. In the past week, Wonwoo had taken each and every opportunity to touch Mingyu's fluffy hair, even blatantly admitting that it was difficult to keep his hands away from his hair, and in Wonwoo's words, it 'made him look like a giant teddy bear'.

That was quite unlike the usual Wonwoo, who kept his opinions and emotions to himself for the most part, until they reached a breaking point and Wonwoo would pour it all out to Mingyu. Mingyu secretly found Wonwoo's talkative side endearing, but he knew he'd be choked to death if he ever let Wonwoo know. In spite of it, Mingyu liked helping Wonwoo sort out the tangled mess he carried in his head whenever Wonwoo was ready.

They pull away when a tiny yawn breaks through the silence in the room, as Jieun begins rolling around on bed, and Wonwoo immediately gets up to pat her back lightly until she's ready to wake up, or sleep again. Babies can be really unpredictable, and Mingyu had first-hand experience of the same on several occasions.