| w. Rielin


365 Degrees
completing the circle

| chapter one |

bgm 〈 red velvet - russian roulette piano cover by DooPiano 〉

The crescent moon is high up in nightly sky, sheer clouds gently flowing back and forth and covering up the moonlight every couple seconds. Underneath the moon- it's an apartment standing tall and proud, holding onto countless residents with variety, all living their own life. Zooming into one of the window that reflects multiple fluorescent light, a disco ball is spinning from the ceiling. As we go closer and closer toward the window, our ears start to vibrate and the sound of a loud music becomes clearer and clearer. All of these aspects pumps the adrenaline of the students who are washing away their exhaustion from studying day and night and the money spent on countless number of coffees they ordered for the extra caffeine. We enter the window and make our way through the sober students exchanging their conversation, the half-drunk students who actually wants to get fully drunk and is having a shotgun competition in the corner of the living room, the fully-drunk students who are either puking out the toilet, or is just lying down on random places within the house. Ah, then there is the house owner and the host of this party: Elsword.

A junior in a public university that represents the entire state and only the intelligent students are accepted. However he's a complete failure. He absolutely disgusts the concept of studying for an exam and completely agrees on the concept of 'winging it out'. But how did he actually get into this university? Apparently, his father is a psychology professor within the university he attends, therefore Elsword is basically forced to be put into another four years of education and is strained to the major of psychology, all props to his father. Furthermore, because he also dislikes the aspect of not being allowed to party within a dorm and being ruled around by the RA. Therefore, he decided to live off-campus, in an apartment that is literally a mile away from the campus.

As anyone can see, he loves to party. He is an extrovert, he loves being surrounded by people and meeting new people. He is always looking forward to another adventure within this city and loathes being stuck inside of a mere couple hundred square feet area. He also loves seeking attention, he isn't afraid of the crowd and the crowd loves him. Therefore…

He invites numerous people and throws a party in his apartment house.

Every. Single. Friday and Saturday.


Tracking a shot out of this loud and noisy room filled with sweaty and drunk people, we slowly move to next door. It's somewhat quiet compared to the room next door, however due to the obnoxious music coming from the other side of the wall, even this room is vibrating along the beat of the loud bass. However, this place gives off somewhat of a cozy and comfortable feeling, the only source of lighting being a lamp and a light stand near a paper-filled desk. And next to that desk, is the other protagonist: Eve.

She is wearing a circle framed glasses and her short, silver hair is tied off as a low ponytail, all while wearing a chunky cardigan that matches the mood of her cozy room. Overall, she seems to be in a comfortable setting while she is focused working on a writing her story in her word document.

Except that is- her face is scrunched up and her eyes are closed, covering up the once-determined golden eyes that was ignited with concentration. As anyone that lives near the well-known party house, she is annoyed. However, she is way beyond being just annoyed; her mind is filled with nothing but going inside of that obnoxious house and burning the entire place down with oil and fire. Yet she can't. She can't even knock on the front door and tell them to quiet down.

A senior in a public university that represents the entire state and only the intelligent students are accepted. As expected, she is attending that university, majoring in English with full ride of scholarship due to her unique smartness with a fluent writing ability. Therefore, she was able to contact a company which publishes various books and creates new authors, and she is now working on her first story. On the negative side however, the deadline is fastly approaching and she is constantly being tailed down by time to the point where she can barely exit her home and her next door neighbor is definitely not helping her. She decided to live off-campus but reside in a radius near her school since she despises the concept of being put in a compact room with a stranger. Not only that, she loves being in her own personal space without being disturbed and the existence of another human being near her bubble is truly bothersome for the female.

As anyone can see, she is extremely shy. She's an introvert. She loves being inside a cozy room all by herself, surrounded by her favorite items such as a chunky cardigan, a cup of warm coffee, all while doing her favorite hobby: writing a story. She loathes being surrounded by multiple strangers, therefore she have never attended a party, a rave, or anything that involves loud noise filled with a large crowd. That's why she absolutely adores her little apartment, which she have decorated with various types of plants and decorations. Yet the only thing she can't handle is the intolerable noise coming from the other side of the wall, the wall that connects Elsword and Eve.

Especially during

Every. Single. Friday and Saturday. .


The time continues to tick and as every minute passes by, it seems like the noise have dropped down a bit, and so have Eve's dark circles. She glances down at her taskbar within her computer screen and the digital clock displays 2:32 AM.

"Oh my,"

She lets out a sigh as she rubs her exhausted eyes with a grunt. She let out a refreshing stretch and clicks on the 'save' on her word document and closed her laptop. Even though she is extremely tired due to restless work with her story, she quickly washes herself in the bathroom, then walk over to her comfy bed filled with various plushies. She turns on her dim, christmas lights which she have decorated with polaroid pictures taken with her friends from the time when she studied abroad. Then she reaches forward to grab her eye mask that is decorated with kitty ears and there she goes, deep into her sleep which she desperately needed.


"...,"

It's daybreak, the sun is slowly peeking its way through the earth, creating a mixture of variety within the palette, the sky being the canvas. Some are still asleep, some are wide awake. Nevertheless, this room is dark. Completely dark. Perhaps if someone stayed in this room for a period of time and their eyes adjust in the darkness, maybe they'll be able to outline the shape of the bed. Talking about the bed, there seems to be someone laying on top of it, his position being somewhat unproportional; his arm are hanging loosely in the air while the other one is wrapping the upper parts of his head. His hair is brushed the wrong way and his blanket isn't even on top of him.

Then out of a sudden, his eyes jolt open and the crimson color is revealed.

"Fuck,"

Is the first word that comes out of the male, who slowly raises himself up as he let his fingers run through his bangs. He let out a stretched as he yawn, his current being somewhat resembling a lazy lion in the wild meadow. Without even checking the time by unlocking his phone, he stands up, almost tripping over an empty beer bottle but manages to maintain his balance. He walks outside of his room and turns on the switch of the living room, the harsh fluorescent light flickers twice then illuminates the entire room, a messy room to be exact. There's all kinds of alcohol bottles and trash bags lying around lazily on the floor, even random items such as a basketball. Elsword lets out a stressed sigh as he gazes around his place. At least everyone left with their belongings. With another sigh, he picks up one of the plastic trash bags and decides to throw all of the trashes in that bag. He wishes he could have a maid sometime; he loves to gather up people in his house, but after they leave, it's as if a category 5 hurricane swept by. After minutes of sweeping the floor and picking up the trash, he ties a knot on the trash bag that are filled with various garbage. He gathers up all of the full trash bags and slips into his Nike slippers, still half awake and half asleep. Because of his excess drinking from last night, he still feels the terrible headache lingering within his head; all of these conditions created an exhausted, extremely annoyed condition for Elsword.

He turns of the doorknob that automatically unlocked and walks outside of his house, frowning with annoyance.

"Ah… Ah!"

What the?

Elsword glances toward the sound of a female with shocked voice, only to find a rather petite female standing near a door that's directly next to his own door. He assumed she was his neighbor, but he wondered why does she seem so unfamiliar?

Ah, they've never met.


And that was the first time, when Eve met her next door neighbor she deeply hates.

She've never physically seen him, but she always heard his husky voice through the thin wall separating their rooms. Yet it sounds like he's barely home, always coming back to his place late at night as he talks through his phone as if he was on a call with someone, and that noise was enough to wake the sensitive Eve up during her sleep. Not to mention the fact that he throws a party every week.

Therefore, as she continued to live within this apartment, residing next to this obnoxious male, a deep hatred started to be planted within Eve and grow at a fast rate toward the male. However, because of her shy personality, it's extremely difficult for her to walk next door and knock angrily, telling him to quiet down. Nevertheless, the people she surrounded herself are quiet people like her with similar hobbies, yet this male in front of her that reeks of alcohol is completely different from her, a total contrast, an 180 degrees.

"I- I…,"

Eve feels like she should say something, as she is awkwardly standing there as if she has something in her mind and the male looks as if he was waiting for her words. Nevertheless, no words slips out of her lips and she feels the heat rising to her cheeks with embarrassment. Why is she always like this to new people?!

However, Elsword on the other hand is feeling completely different. The headache from binge drinking last night still lingered, moreover he's still only half awake. He feels drowsy, tired, and annoyed and he has no idea what this lady in front of him is trying to do… yet somehow he feels like she's sick and she's trying to ask for help? Maybe she doesn't speak English…?

Eve can't visually see her physically appearance as of right now but Elsword can. Her face is completely red like a tomato and she's staring at him with hint of anger and fear within her golden eyes, with her hands filled with trash bags as well.

Without another word-

Elsword reaches forward, placing the palm of his hand gently on top of her forehead.

Fever?


note:

y'all i'm on a role with stories these days lol
i decided to write a new story because of sudden inspiration of writing Els x Eve! /i felt like i needed a variety since i only write Els x Ais lol
this story will be very very different from my other stories! it's written in present tense (may have couple past tense mistakes), and it's modern.
although i write many modern setting stories, they normally had nostalgic/emotional feel to it, but i wanted to make this more comedy kind of k-drama like? lol

also there is a reason why this story is called 365 Degrees, not 360 or 180, etc. lol

i hope you guys are welcoming my new challenge and will enjoy this :D

thank you guys for reading,
《 and please, don't forget to follow/favorite/review! 》