Your apartment flooding had been the last thing you needed during midterms.

Within a single afternoon, you went from stressing over an upcoming exam to stuffing whatever clothes you could salvage into a duffel bag. With nowhere else to stay on such short notice, one of your friends offered you the spare room at their fraternity house.

You accepted and regretted it almost immediately.

There was always someone yelling downstairs, music shaking the walls at all hours, strangers wandering through the halls, and the unmistakable smell of alcohol lingering in every room. Tonight was somehow louder than usual. A party had taken over the entire first floor, bass thumping through the house while laughter and shouted conversations spilled up the staircase.

Meanwhile, you sat alone in the guest room with a textbook, a notebook full of highlighted pages, and exactly zero progress made.

You sighed for what had to be the tenth time before rubbing your temples. A knock sounded against the half-open door. You looked up to find Juyeon standing there.

He leaned against the frame with his usual indifferent expression, the sleeves of his hoodie pushed up to his forearms. He smelled faintly of alcohol, probably from weaving through the crowd downstairs, though his eyes were clear enough to tell you he wasn’t drunk.

“Your friend said you’ve been in here for like… three hours,” he said, glancing at the untouched notes spread across your bed. “Figured either you’re studying… or doing whatever weird things you do.”

Without waiting for a response, he stepped inside. He placed a mug of hot tea beside your notebook before setting a pair of noise-canceling earbuds on top of your textbook. “Someone left these in the living room last week.” He shrugged. “Nobody’s claimed ’em.”

You blinked between the tea and the earbuds.

“Thought they’d help.”

It was an oddly thoughtful gesture coming from someone with Juyeon’s reputation. Around campus, he was known as the guy who never seemed to care about anything. Parties, classes, drama—it all rolled off his back. He wasn’t exactly rude; he just never bothered getting involved unless it benefited him.

So neither of you questioned why he’d noticed you struggling in the first place… or why, out of everyone in the packed fraternity house, he’d been the one to quietly check on you. “Anyway,” he muttered, already turning toward the door, “good luck on your exam.”