There could be days when it would feel like time was passing too fast with an ominous future's footfalls rushing in. Foreboding and bringing nothing but misery.

And there could be days when it would feel time was going slower than an old man walking down the road with arthritis. Excruciatingly painful, still, filled with misery.

Time was relative as per Einstein's theory and Yoongi knew better of it.

His nights would always go maddeningly slow, thoughts provoking his brain to keep him up. And when he'd close his eyes, it would go fast, a nagging feeling always present that he had to run. He had no scope to just sit, just breathe.

The earphones on Yoongi played fall out boy but he wasn't particularly listening to the music, nor was he really reading through his assignment. He wasn't eating too, he knew he had to because the lunch before him was getting cold. At that moment, Yoongi was dozing out, being in his own head space and being nowhere at the same time.

Yoongi really wanted some sleep. A little more of sleep, just a little more.

"Hyung, can I sit here?" Yoongi looked up to find a boyish grin, head filled with sweat, clad in a sports trouser and shoes. Jungkook sat before him with his tray, without hearing a response.

By then Yoongi had plucked out his earphones and focused on his papers instead, the metal chopsticks clanking against the bawls knocking on his ears.

Yoongi felt dizzy, the bustling cafeteria was filled with a cacophonous noise and even amidst that Yoongi could shove his tray aside and let his head rest until it wouldn't feel so heavy.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you." Jungkook's voice reached him again. "I always see you at this hour and you always look really busy, hyung."

Through half lidded eyes Yoongi looked up at the boy, filled with youth and saved from all the burden, just like the others around Jungkook's age.

"I like eating at the engineering cafeteria because there aren't many girls here." Jungkook gulped down some of the food, his voice an octave lower and then he stared up with his eyes doe. "Oh, sorry hyung. I'm disturbing you with my chitchat."

Yoongi only responded with a shaking of his head, even though his neck hurt. He was exhausted beyond point, drowsy and drained.

He had the tutoring job right after lunch and that thought was nagging him again, telling him to stay awake, stay present. Even though he could barely manage, even though he could feel himself drowning in an abyss with the weight in his shoulders pulling him down.

The figure he had seen the other night showed up in his hazy memory, a strange woman loitering outside the dorm, pacing back and forth. He wondered if he should ask Jungkook, since the only other dorm-mate he had seen since that day was the basketball major, sitting with him.

However, he chose not to. Instead he sunk in the abyss once again, asking himself when did that incident really occur?

When had he seen that woman? Was it the previous night? Or the night before that? Or was it last week?

Yoongi scrunched up his eyebrows in thought. Everyday was the same, the same banal days repeating over and over. Making Yoongi more jaded, more worn out with each day passing by.

His memories had started to fog. When was the last time he really had a moment to himself? When he laughed? Or simply cried? Or ate anything good?

Or just enjoyed living?

Ten years in his life had passed by so fast yet so painfully slow, from his father being bedridden to him now sitting at the cafeteria poking on his lunch with his chopsticks.

Where was Yoongi's days of youth? From fifteen years of age to twenty six he had only survived, nothing else.

Again, time was relative and always would be.

What if his whole life would go by like this? Someday, he'd be seventy and he'd still look back to find no joyful memories of youth.

What then?

The unnecessary thoughts could pummel him down to the earth, albeit Yoongi knew it was the harsh truth. Gravity felt like it had a stronger pull when Yoongi found himself before his student when afternoon was at its full glow, the wintery air not retreating even with that.

Yoongi's eyelids were so heavy he could barely keep them open, he could barely keep his head from smashing on the study table.

When would this end?

Why wouldn't this end?

Would it actually feel better if it all just ended?

"Oppa?" A mellow voice whispered from close. Yoongi thought he was still at the boisterous cafeteria during lunch hour, but it was Nam Yejoo, his student sitting next to him as she was chewing at the bottom of her pencil.

Yoongi squinted his eyes close and opened them again, a hand meeting the back of his stiff neck, the strands of his hair kissing his fingers. He needed a haircut.

"You fell asleep again. I finished the math questions a few minutes ago." The short haired girl pushed her notebook towards him.

Yoongi stared at the equations, the lines blurry through his eyes. Maybe it was because of the cold that Yoongi was feeling more tired than usual, because the frosty air was pushing on his shoulders.

"Did you call me oppa?" Yoongi spoke, his voice gruff and his eyes still on the notebook. He could feel Yejoo shift in her seat uncomfortably.

"You heard that?" She asked bemused.

"I was not sleeping, Yejoo." Yoongi turned to her, and he knew his tired eyes were as stern as a layer of ice right then, as if they were in a competition with winter herself. "I told you to address me as your teacher."

Yeojoo looked down, hands clasped together over the wooden table and her thumb scratching on the surface of the other. "Sorry," she said through her pursed lip.

"Now." Yoongi pushed the notebook back to her, red circles dotted on the pages. "You made some easy mistakes. You need to concentrate a little more. Your entrance exams are right here."

Yoongi massaged his temples, eyelids closing off again involuntarily. "I..., I really think you should go for the medical sector. You're better in biology related subjects, and you're better at memorising than solving equations."

He could tell the nineteen year old girl's eyes were getting filled with tears as he spoke. There was no better answer than this. It couldn't be more clearcut that Yejoo shouldn't pursue Engineering just because Yoongi was an engineering student.

And Yejoo shouldn't pursue him too because both were out of her reach.

Yoongi was out of his own reach. This girl knew better, even then, why did she covet for him?

Why did Yoongi desire to achieve his dream too when he could be surviving on scrapes till he was seventy, till his deathbed even?

The nagging thoughts were there again, same thoughts that would keep him awake at night.

Later Yoongi staggered out of Yejoo's room, wearing his padded jacket to embrace the harsh winter outside, albeit he wasn't ready. He would never be ready for such a low temperature that would make his bones rattle.

"Teach, you're done for the day?" Before he could open the front door a middle aged woman with her hair tied in a bun quickly approached him.

"You tutored only for an hour today! You know, her exams are right around the corner and I wish you could spend a bit more time," she complained with a frown on her face. Yoongi's grip on the handle got tighter, he was paid for an hour and he did not have much than a minute to spare.

His evening job at the convenience store was waiting for him.

"Please think about it, teach." A forced smile made it to her red lips. Yoongi only nodded.

"And eat a little more too, you're all skin and bones. You look so pale!" Her voice reached higher, hands maneuvering in the air exaggeratedly.

But Yoongi was always pale. His time and patience, both were wearing thin, before the conversation could lead to a dinner invitation with the Nam family he bowed and stepped outside the apartment.

He immediately missed the conditioned air, the warmth of the heater when he got off the lift and chill air outside whispered on his naked ears, sending a shiver down his spine.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and with trembling hands he checked to see that Yejoo's mother had just wired the pay for this month to his bank account. Adding a, 'please eat something delicious, teach' in a text message.

When was the last time he had eaten something good?

Shoving his cellphone inside his pocket he walked, and walked, the road seeming like it was never ending. The winter giving him a feeling that would never end either.

The money they had wired in his account would be gone the next morning, Yoongi knew. His brother was graduating middle school, he needed money for tuition, his father needed medicine, their house mortgage still hadn't been paid off, their debts from going bankrupt was still chasing them around, Yoongi's student loan was still haunting him. It would really take years to pay them off.

Would sleeping a little more make him feel better?

If he just laid on a bed with a warm blanket and a full stomach and just, slept, for the new few hours, or a few days, would it be better?

Or if he slept and never woke up?

With Yoongi's eyes low and back leaning forward to walk faster through the icy and suffocating atmosphere, Yoongi could focus on his gray converses that were once white.

Worn out, tattered and torn just like him.

Why was he running with his feet filled with all these scars? Wounds that might never heal, yet he was running. And he kept running.

---
A/n: congrats! You have read 20 chapters and more than 30k words of young and free.

You could be spending this time and energy on millions of other things. But you're here, reading my book. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

Thank you so much for spending your valuable time on me.