The rest of the days of August quickly passed by, Soobin successfully submitted his project work with Yoonho and even if the latter would once in a while pop up to try bully Soobin, Soobin would stand up for himself, learning to do so with the support of his friends.
The September started and the weather slowly transitioned to be colder and the days slowly grew shorter. The boys had midterms during the last week of the month and they studied hard during the month, determined to do good.
It was the last day of September and the boys were walking back home after giving the last examination.
"Woah! I feel so free now!" Beomgyu cheered.
"Pretty sure I messed up question no. 10 and 11 but at least we're finally done!" Kai sang.
"I worry for you, dude," Yeonjun laughed at Kai.
"No need to, he always does something like this," Taehyun commented, making everyone but Kai laugh.
"Not everyone spends their whole days studying like you do, Taehyun-hyung," Kai retorted.
Taehyun playfully rolled his eyes.
"Say, guys? Y'all want to hangout or something?" Beomgyu suggested.
Kai yawned, "If hanging out means napping, I'm in."
"Yeah, same," Taehyun agreed.
"Sure, we could hangout," Soobin agreed.
"Fine by me too," Yeonjun added.
"Well, where?" Kai asked.
"Since you two want to sleep, we could just go to my place," Beomgyu said.
"Cool!" The four agreed unanimously.
At Beomgyu's place, they all greeted Beomgyu's parents and quickly hurried to Beomgyu's room, Kai hurrying towards the bed and jumping on.
"MY SPOT!" Kai declared, grabbing one of the pillows and laying down comfortably.
The rest of the four casually followed, Soobin sitting on a chair, Yeonjun on the desk, and Taehyun and Beomgyu cuddling on the bed besides Kai.
Soon, Kai, Beomgyu and Taehyun were sound asleep, probably tired after the long examination period which consisted of many late night study sessions.
Soobin yawned as he watched Yeonjun drape blankets over the three asleep ones.
"Tired?" Yeonjun asked.
"Just a little," Soobin smiled a tired smile.
"You can sleep too, Binnie."
"I just might," Soobin replied.
Yeonjun hummed in reply as he say back down on the desk.
"Want to lay your head down here?" Yeonjun asked, patting his lap.
Soobin turned faintly pink, "S-Sure."
Soobin dragged his chair towards the desk and slowly put his head down on the older's thighs, feeling giddy with nervousness.
"Goodnight, Binnie," Yeonjun stroked Soobin's hair.
The stroking calmed Soobin's erratic heart down and he slowly drifted off to sleep.
While asleep, Soobin had a dream, the same dream he'd had, a month ago.
Soobin was in a park, the park near his old house. There came another young boy, Choi Yeonjun. They were both five and were happily playing around.
Suddenly, the dream took a turn and Soobin was free-falling in a dark hole, he watched his parents wave at him and walk away in a distance, Yeonjun too, slowly faded away in the dark.
When Soobin finally reached what must've been the bottom of the pit, he reached the park, the old park near his house where he'd spent his childhood. But this time, the park seemed old and was a right dump, the grass was overgrown and the play-sets were rusty.
Soobin realized that he was now in the body of his current seventeen-year-old self, he watched himself walk towards the slide. Soobin climbed up and his hands wondered around the rusted metal. When he finally got around to the handle bar where there was supposed to be the carved names, right before he saw the carving, his body jerked, waking him up.