"Jiwon!"
"hmmm"
"Ji, wake up, lecture starts in an hour."
"Okay. Nice."Jiwon answered while rolling over. He knew he should listen and get up, but he really didn't want to...Jiwon valued his sleep a bit much, not that he really needed it. His body could easily handle little sleep now, but who doesn't like it? Silas apparently.
"Jiwon!" Silas snapped, "Get up, wash your face, put on some clothes and come have breakfast with me. I give you fifteen minutes, so you'd better hurry up." So that was the problem.
His best friend didn't like to do things alone.
Jiwon blamed it on just becoming alpha. Since he had his own pack, he wanted to spend every possible second with them and do almost everything together.
It was terribly sweet and cute, how much Silas got involved with them, wanted to help them with everything and how he loses his shit when someone even casts a slanted glance at us. As sweet and heartwarming as this was, it sometimes became too much.
Jiwon tried so much in the past week to get his bestie to focus his attention elsewhere, introducing him to new hobbies, books, and series, but nothing seemed to help. He was distracted, but usually, this didn't last much more than a day or even just a couple of hours.
It must be some kind of primitive instinct or an alpha thing, Jiwon thought. urgh, there's so much I don't know about my new life.
"I'll be there in ten, you can already start preparing breakfast if you want?" Jiwon suggested while taking his phone out of the charger on his bedside table.
"Hurry upppp"
Jiwon checked his notifications. Not much, just some messages and a youtube-notification. He answered his mom's message and got up.
He sauntered to the bathroom. Now, who builds a bathroom and bedroom at the two ends of an apartment? Running his hands through his hair, he began to yawn. He heard music and assumed it was coming from their mini-studio, but when he looked inside he saw not Si's but someone else's back.
He remained standing there, still with his hand in his hair, staring at the stranger in their studio.
At that moment Silas came out of the kitchen into the hallway. He stopped in his path and looked at Jiwon questioningly. Jiwon half flew at Silas, pushed him into the kitchen, slammed the door and slammed Silas against the same door.
"The fuck, Ji, wh-"
"Who's that guy in our studio?" he asked hurriedly, completely out of breath as if he had just run a marathon.
"You mean Minseok? He's our roommate, Ji. You know, the one whose apartment we share..." Slowly releasing his friend he made an O-shape with his mouth. He said sorry, feeling ashamed.
"It's ok, Jiwon, but what got to you? Why'd you react like that? You know that if it would've been a, let's say, bad guy, we could've handled it lol."
"I wasn't afraid, Si."
"Then what was it?"
"Nothing, just...just forget about it" Jiwon mumbled while opening the door again and repacking his way to the bathroom.
Silas's right, what got to me? I see a random person and then...I guess it's one of those primitive instincts. Probably. I probably felt...I must have felt threatened or intimidated or something by seeing a stranger in my home...his home...Where did my toothbrush go?
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
They left their apartment twenty minutes before their first lecture would start. The campus wasn't that far away, Silas just wanted to make sure they'd be there in time. Jiwon kept whining about how awful it was to live with only morning people.
When Silas tried to bring up what happened earlier this morning, the other started complimenting him on the fried egg he made for him for breakfast. Silas didn't go into it further.
When they got to campus it was very quiet. The duo were the first ones to enter the lecture hall. Jiwon wanted to sit in the right corner at the very back, so they sat there.
They started talking about everything and nothing and they were so into it that they didn't even realize the room was slowly filling up.
All Silas's attention was on Jiwon and their conversation about Jon Kent. It wasn't until the professor welcomed everyone that he realized the room was just about full.
And his senses were racing.
Where two seconds ago he caught nothing but Jiwon's breathing, words and movements, now he was catching too much. It escalated quickly, far too quickly.
One second he was looking up at the professor, the next he was collapsing on the table. Jiwon looked at him in shock and put a one-handed grip on his shoulder.
"What's up, what happened? Are you okay?"
"Yes, yes I am okay, of course, I am."
"Mate, you freaking collapsed, how can you say you're okay. Tell me what happened"
"I would if I knew it myself, Ji. I don't know either. I was so focused on our conversation that I shut out everything around me. All my attention and senses were focused on you and our conversation.
But then...I don't know... When I looked at the professor and listened to him, my senses were again exposed to everything around us I think.
It was overwhelming. I felt so much at once. But the weird thing is, I can't place everything. I feel, smell and hear so much at once.
Hormones, stress, enthusiasm, many more hormones, the presence of other supernatural beings... And then there's this one other thing...."
"I ehm...I'm not sure if I should go on about this other supernatural thing you feel or about the unknown. Do you think one of those is the reason you collapsed?"
"I'm pretty sure it was, Ji. Well, I don't know about the other supernatural beings, I feel them the whole time, I feel their oppressive presence, but that feeling never...never did this to me."
"So it's the unknown, they say the greatest treasures lay in the unknown..."
"Jiwon what the actual f-"
"DON'T CURSE" Jiwon warned his friend.
Everyone turned their eyes towards them. Silent fell.
When Silas cast a glance at the professor he saw him crossing his arms and looking at the both of them.
"I think they're looking at us," Jiwon whispered in his ears.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Silas looked at him, "No shit."
"Don't curse," he whisper-yelled at Silas. He rolled his eyes and then apologised to the professor and the other students.
He felt everyone's eyes locked on him. While he took a quick look around, he caught himself looking for something. Some feeling. He tried to look as many people in the eyes as he could. But the feeling stayed the same. He could feel the presence of something, something big. But he didn't know what it was.
He saw Minseok. He was sitting at the far left of the middle row along with two more guys, who he guessed were his friends.
Silas smiled and nodded at him as a way of greeting. Of course, he barely got a response to this. The older one looked at him, then Jiwon and began to whisper with the other two again.
When Silas looked at Jiwon, he saw him frozen in place. "Jiwon?"
"Everyone really was looking at us, weren't they?"
"Yeah, but it's okay, they just got distracted by u-"
"Did you know Minseok and us had the same lecture?" Said Jiwon, interrupting his friend
"He doesn't really talk, so I didn't know he'd be in the same lecture, but I guess it's pretty logical since we have the same major."
"mhm... The professor is talking, let's pay attention," said he, looking ahead of him in nothingness, his voice barely audible.
"Okay?" Silas answered. Jiwon has been acting like this since this morning. One moment he is cheerful, energetic and kind to Silas as he almost always is, the next one he falls silent and seems to go cold.
It seems best not to ask about it further, if something was bothering Jiwon he would tell him. When Silas turned his attention back to the professor, he saw that the latter was indeed in the middle of his explanation. He quickly opened his course block and grabbed a pen.