HUMAN | YUWIN [ ✓ ]

FOUR | THE BOSS

sicheng woke up the next day in a better mood then he expected, though his hunger hits him like a tsunami wave. only eating breakfast only does so much when you end up skipping two meals, anyways, with no snacks.

with a yawn and his cheek pressed against his comfortable, soft pillow, sicheng slapped the alarm clock over the top to turn it off and saw the note attached to it, just like the two days before. his eyes narrow and his eyebrows furrow when he reads gibeom's neat handwriting on the small, neatly trimmed piece of paper.

keep up the good work!
— yang gibeom

simple enough, sicheng thinks. now it's time for breakfast. his stomach just rumbles again at the thought. plus, he's already happy enough to go because he'll see his new friend, yuta. the cheerful superhuman had a habit of bringing smiles effortlessly to sicheng's face, when no one else can.

when sicheng reaches the break room, he's a bit thrown off not seeing yuta beat him there. well, he hadn't beaten him the first time he actually went here either, but he was still expecting it for some reason. when he makes himself a bowl of cereal and sits down at the empty table away from mark and donghyuck once more, someone comes up behind him and grabs his shoulders.

for a few moments, sicheng genuinely thinks it's yuta and feels himself grow somewhat happy until he hears the voice. "chengie!"

never mind. it's kim hangyeol. sicheng's smile immediately falls as he makes no attempt to hide is clear discontent with this realisation. he wants to hang around yuta, not him. not a single greeting slips past his lips as hangyeol lets go of shoulders and takes the open spot on his left, pressing his shoulder up against sicheng's.

"did you sleep well?" hangyeol asks.

"yes," sicheng says monotony, preferring to pick up his spoon and take another bite of cereal. was he about to get pissy about not being surprised by his actual friend? yes, yes he is.

hangyeol either misses the tone of his voice or decided to ignore it completely, because he just keeps pressing on. "that's good. how are you feeling?"

sicheng picks the choice of not telling him to go away with his words, so his actions would have to work. "good," he says with a tight frown. another spoonful of cereal enters his mouth.

"just checking on you," hangyeol says rather carefully, as if he was avoiding saying something. he then looks over at the front door as it opens, revealing someone walking inside.

sure enough, to sicheng's relief, it's yuta. though, hangyeol doesn't get up and leave, preferring to stay right where he sat next to sicheng. yuta's smile in their direction, however, was only meant for sicheng. or, at least a feeling in his gut told himself that. but yuta only greeting him personally rather than also acknowledging hangyeol just fuelled sicheng's gut feeling.

"what am i learning today, sicheng?" yuta then asks, his eyes briefly catching sicheng pushing his bowl of cereal toward him.

"i'll decide soon," sicheng says. he admittedly hadn't thought about it since any ideas for training had completely abandoned his mind entirely. "what do you want to do?"

"i want a redo of the first day, to be honest," yuta says cheerfully. "a quick review day and maybe some new things."

"that works," sicheng smiles.