Leo vividly remembered the day N joined his school the year before.

On that day, the boy with red hair brighter than Leo's future was nothing but smiles as the teacher gave a half-hearted introduction.

"This is Hakyeon," Mrs. Reeves had said, not quite looking up from her class register. "He would like you all to call him...N?"

Hakyeon/N nodded violently.

"Well, he's a few months late, but don't give him any trouble." Mrs. Reeves closed the register. "And don't you give me any trouble either."

N gave an ironic salute before taking the one empty seat, one seat back and to the right of Leo, ignoring the stares of the students around him. Whispers rose up.

"Who does that idiot think he is?"

"Airhead."

"Well, now we know why he's in this school. He's a nutcase."

Leo, meanwhile, was staring hard down at his book. 

Something cold ran down his spine, and he shuddered. He hadn't taken his medicine that morning, and that never ended well.

His shoulders felt unusually heavy, fingers drumming too fast on the tabletop.

Abruptly, someone tapped on his shoulder.

N was holding out a can of tomato juice from his desk, smiling but concerned.

"Class ended five minutes ago," he said. "You okay?"

Indeed, the class was empty, even of the teacher.

Leo didn't say anything, just looked down at the tomato juice and back up, vision suddenly clear.

N nudged him again with the tomato juice. "You spaced out," he said. "I do that too. Tomato juice helps me, because it tastes so bad." He laughed and stuck the can into the water bottle pocket of Leo's backpack before picking up his own and leaving, whistling some country tune. 

Things weren't that different now.

N poked Leo for the seventeenth time with the of his prized Rilakkuma pen.

"Leoooooo," he whined.

The person in question looked up through his hair, in dire need of a haircut. 

"You keep ignoring me," N huffed, drawing out his syllables like a child.

Leo flipped to the next page of his textbook.

"I want candy," N said, dropping his chin down on his notebook and pouting.

Leo rummaged through his outer backpack pocket and rolled a Jolly Rancher across the table towards the grousing redhead, all without looking up from his book.

"I hate grape," N muttered, but he popped it into his mouth anyways, biting down hard and making a crunch loud enough to have the librarian look over with her signature pursed lips. "Sorry, Mrs. Grossman." He giggled and leaned in towards Leo. "Isn't that name so fitting?"

Leo pushed N's head away gently and sighed.

"You made a sound!"

Eventually, the librarian kicked them out, and it was by some miracle that Leo didn't strangle the unperturbed Cha Hakyeon as he walked away whistling. 

"Aww, come on," N said, noticing without fail the distaste on Leo's face. "It's not a big deal."

Leo opened his mouth, and N hopped closer, eyes wide. 

"You're gonna say something!" N clapped maniacally. 

Leo shut his mouth and N visibly deflated.

When Leo was in middle school, he was a consistent top student, regularly topping the class rankings and never failing to get on the good side of the teachers. 

"He's such a nice boy," faculty and staff alike would coo. "So polite and hard-working. And handsome, too!"

But standing tall means risking having your head cut off, a truth Leo learned in stereotypically young adult novel fashion. 

A few students started making Leo's life hard when he was twelve. It started with boys pushing him in the halls and feigning innocence if caught. Next it was girls moving out of Leo's way when he walked by, giggling not-so-subtly behind their hands. It culminated in Leo being trapped in a prank with a girl pretending to like him. Each and every time, he had tried to talk his way out and make amends.

And each and every time, they made it clear his words weren't welcome. So finally, Leo just shut up.

At the start of high school, Leo stopped talking completely, even to his parents at home, who became worried and took him to a psychiatrist's office, where Leo sat silently for a solid hour. The psychiatrist, unoffended but worried, suggested sending Leo to a school for special needs children. Leo balked at the idea, but his parents thought it was good. So off he went to JE Institute For Special Students, affectionately known as Jeffy.

There were all kinds of people at Jeffy, from younger children with drug problems to older kids with learning disabilities and everyone in between. More than once, Leo thought he didn't belong there; it seemed everyone else had an obvious problem, while Leo was just...scared. To talk.

Though to be honest, Leo didn't really know why N was there, either.

N hummed cheerily, even skipping for a few seconds before noticing two girls staring at him.

"They're acting like I'm not normal," he said, completely undisturbed.

Leo rolled his eyes.

It was a late autumn evening, the air just starting to have a nip, and the lights from the dorms were bright, even though most students should be having dinner in the dining hall on the other side of the quad. N wrestled with his keys for a moment, then pushed open the heavy steel and glass door to the lobby of the boys dorms. 

A few other students were there, all from the tiny school choir: Ravi, the rapping kid with dyslexia; Ken, one of whose multiple personalities was more talkative than N; Hongbin, with severe social anxiety and a beautiful face; and Hyuk, the gigantic sophomore with a case of Capgras about his parents. The moment N and Leo stepped into the warm lobby, Ken jumped to his feet. 

"Agree or disagree, CL is the queen of the music industry?" Ken shouted across the room.

Ravi hissed. "That's Ailee, dumba !"

Hongbin shivered on a couch, and Hyuk wrapped his lanky arms around him.

"First of all, stop yelling," N said, suddenly authoritative, as he always was with the six choir misfits. "Hongbinnie's scared."

Ravi and Ken both glanced over at their fellow junior, being comforted by the sophomore twice their size. 

"Second, I'm gonna go with Jessi as queen." N waved flirtily at Ken, who looked about two seconds away from bursting something, and made his way to the stairs, with Leo following closely.

"I like Ailee and CL but, like, Jessi," N chattered, voice echoing in the staircase like a metallic parrot's. 

Leo shrugged, and they stopped in front of the third floor entrance. N punched in the combination on the door and ushered Leo in with an affected flamboyance. 

The third floor was the emptiest, mostly because it was notorious for being bug-infested. Luckily, Leo wasn't scared of bugs, and the quiet was a plus. What he didn't like, though, was the way his roommate screamed every time he saw one. That roommate being N, of course. Who hadn't known about the bug problem when he requested to room with Leo.

"F ing moths!" he screeched, swatting the small winged insect that flew out from the shared dorm. 

Leo caught the bug right out of the air and threw it into the stairwell.

Their room wasn't the best; their heating worked half the time, which was a bad thing in the long winters they had. They did, however, have a kitchenette right across the hall, where they could keep their food and heat things up without having to fight against other students for fridge space. Plus, the dorm supervisor promised the two extra blankets for the winter. 

Aside from their rattling, useless heater, the dorm was typical: two beds pressed against the walls, desks pushed against each other in the middle, closets on either side of the door. A window looking over the quad, for N to people-watch (and judge loudly) on social nights. An unexpectedly big bookshelf for Leo, with permission from N to move into his.

It was a good life.

N flopped onto Leo's bed, curling up with the fluffy stuffed animals that lined the wall side. "I want one," he said quietly, nuzzling under the chin of Leo's favorite pig stuffie. 

Leo sat down heavily, taking the pig not-so-gently from N's grip and replacing it with a cactus stuffie. N pouted a bit, but he sat up and hugged the cactus closer.

"Well?" he said. "Anything to say today?"

Leo played with the pig's ears.

N stared at him intently.

Finally, Leo spoke. "...I'm just tired."

"Ooh, three words in a row today. Not bad." N clapped formally, then clambered over onto his own bed. "You know that the choir kids are good, right? They'd never make fun of you or anything for talking."

Leo shrugged and gave the pig little kicking motions.

"I won't pry." N grinned. "But I'm eating from your stash of ramen tonight."

"I'm...not...afraid of them...making fun of...me."

"Then what is it?" N tossed one of his granola bars over to Leo's side of the room. 

"I just...don't...want to."

"You talk to me," N said, taking a massive bite of the bar. 

Leo shrugged again, but there were a thousand words he could have said at that moment.

Because who could you ever tell? Why would you care whether or not I talked? Who else would try to listen?

"Maybe you're Superman," N said, jabbing his decimated half of granola bar at Leo like a sword. "And you can't let anyone know because then Lex Luthor's gonna come after you. Wait. His name isn't Lex Luthor. Hang on..."

Leo watched as N searched frantically online for the name of Superman's archrival. 

It's nothing that dramatic. I'm just a coward.

"I'm smart. It is Lex Luthor." N gobbled down the rest of his granola bar and patted his stomach happily. "I should exercise."

Leo looked N up and down and raised an eyebrow.

"Don't tell me I'm thin. I need to be healthy, too."

You do you.

"Well, then, you can be Superman," N said, eyes half-closed as he settled in for his usual pre-dinner nap. "I'll be the dynamite."

Leo rolled his eyes, but he didn't say anything more.