merry christmas, meanie

Worries

Jieun chooses to wake up. Wonwoo internally sighs, he was about to go through the day's notes, but it now seems that he has to look after Jieun. Wonwoo catches Mingyu's concerned gaze flash his way, and he chooses to conveniently ignore it.

Before Wonwoo could step out of the room, into the little balcony adjacent to the living room, Mingyu springs into action, and demands Wonwoo to hand Jieun over. "I was done with my assignment anyway Wonu, I'll take care of her dinner and stuff, you go ahead and study." He says, when a flicker of annoyance runs through Wonwoo's eyes.

"Gyu I told you-"

"I'm not listening to that shit again, I said I'm done." Well, that was a complete lie. Mingyu was far from finishing the assignment, but for Wonwoo's sake, he could always wake up during the ungodly hours of the night, after a ridiculous sleep of two hours, to get it over with.

Wonwoo looks like he's on the verge of a serious breakdown at the moment, but his aura washes away just as quickly as Mingyu had noticed it. The usual, blank Wonwoo makes a comeback for the time being, as he returns to the bedroom to his desk, and settles on the chair after dumping his books on one end of the desk.

As swiftly and efficiently he could manage, Wonwoo brushes past his work from the day. He groans at how unpleasant the current syllabus is, and he reminisces about the kinds of assignments he had during his first year. Those seem like a child's dream, looking at the given situation.

He hears faint noises of Jieun's giggles and Mingyu's weird sound effects through the closed door, which he's probably making to entertain Jieun who doesn't understand shit except the wide grin Mingyu must be wearing at the moment.

The noises die down in a while, and loud feet patter on the floor, coming nearer to the room and leaving just as fast. "They must be in the kitchen," Wonwoo wonders to himself, the books momentarily forgotten, in the midst of thinking about his adorable daughter.

Shaking his thoughts out, Wonwoo focuses on his work once again, determined to revise all of it before dinner. That's another plus of living with Mingyu. The man knows how to whip up literally anything in the kitchen, well, along with the inevitable ritual of creating chaos around him. As clumsy as he was, Mingyu was the best roommate Wonwoo could have asked for.

Just when Wonwoo nears the end of his 'study session', Mingyu's exceptionally loud voice calls him to dinner. Slamming the thick textbook shut, Wonwoo drags himself back from the desk and reaches the kitchen to plop himself onto another chair.

"Done?" Mingyu questions while plating the simple dinner. It wasn't much, but Wonwoo was very understanding that way. As long as everyone in the house had enough food on their plates for every meal, Wonwoo wasn't going to complain.

"Pretty much, but you know you can never completely be 'done' with studies." Wonwoo answers blandly, spooning a tiny portion of rice on a small spoon to feed Jieun, who sat staring inquisitively between her dad and another guy who always seemed to be with her dad.

Wonwoo stretches back into the couch, after twenty minutes of patting Jieun's back when she got sleepy, and eventually fell into slumber. She was placed safely in Wonwoo's bed with a dim night-light on the bedside table. As tired as he is, Wonwoo can't seem to fall asleep. Everything just seems to be burdening him lately, there's nothing that's capable of lifting his moods.

And then there's Mingyu, who can easily lift Wonwoo, not his mood, throwing him over his shoulder and moving to the balcony.

"Mingyu, what the- PUT ME DOWN!" Wonwoo shrieks, shaken by the sudden whiff of movements when he was enjoying a relaxing session of overthinking on the couch. He lightly punches Mingyu's back, which is weirdly muscular for some reason, and Mingyu finally ends up setting him down.

"What was that for?!"

"I was calling you for a while, but you clearly didn't hear any of it so, y'know, last resort," Mingyu shrugs, leaning forward onto the safety bars, the chilly night draught spitting in his face.

"Hm," Wonwoo feels sheepish, and stares into the night sky, disappointedly devoid of stars, unlike what used to see each night at his parents' house.

"I miss Mum and Dad," He says, voice barely a whisper, a while later.

"I do too, I wonder why none of them have called in a while. Neither has Dad." Mingyu sighs.

"Maybe they're just busy, It's okay. We should call them soon,"

A fond smile gleams on Mingyu's face. "We should. They get so happy looking at Jieun. They'll be happier when they find out she's been talking more and more these days."

Wonwoo lets out a longing sigh. "Yeah," He turns to face Mingyu, "They really would." He returns the smile.