| II. a month and three weeks |

Luhan lets out a despondent sigh as he exits Transfiguration, his head aching slightly from the lesson. Now that he was in seventh year, time seemed to be moving very, very fast recently; he wasn't sure how he felt about that, to be honest. The first thing was the upcoming Quidditch season, although that was something he was pretty excited for. The next thing was the upcoming N.E.W.T exams—which he obviously dreaded—but were still a long time away.

The biggest thing was graduating, however. It was something that he always looked forward to doing as soon as he started attending Hogwarts, but as he continued his education throughout the years, he found himself knowing that he would miss the school. Of course, there were definitely other aspects of the school that he would miss—especially most of his close friends.

He stops walking and shakes his head.

This wasn't the time to get all melancholic. Just a month and three weeks had passed since the term began, after all. Things could continue to change, whether he liked it or not.

It was one thing that he learned when growing up—to welcome change, even though it wasn't always a good thing.

He's about to make his way back to the Gryffindor common room when he hears somebody sobbing quietly from a distance. His brows furrow, and he straightens his posture, immediately looking around for the source.

As a prefect, he takes his duties very seriously. If there was any source of bullying, he was supposed to diffuse the situation and prevent anything else from happening. It wasn't a hard thing to do, since there were a lot of people who respected him in general and didn't question his authority; it made him feel good about himself, honestly. Luhan backtracks a bit, noticing that the crying was coming from the other direction. He starts speedwalking towards it and eventually halts when he sees a tall, blonde Slytherin looming over a sobbing Ravenclaw girl. 

Luhan frowns when he recognizes the Slytherin.

"Oh Sehun, what exactly are you doing?"

He's heard a lot about the younger Slytherin because the gossip in Hogwarts made its way to everybody regardless of shape or form. From the snippets of conversation he heard from people of all years, this guy was really mysterious. The only thing people generally knew was that he was friends with Kim Jongin. Other than that, not a lot of people knew what he was up to. 

Honestly, Luhan kind of believed that; he had always thought that Sehun appeared to be a shady character. Actually, he kind of reminded him of Kris, but Kris was nowhere near shady once you actually got to know him. 

Sehun's gaze shifts from the Ravenclaw student and over to Luhan.

"Nothing," he says, voice monotonous, which irritates the prefect.

"What do you mean, nothing?" Luhan says sternly. He crosses his arms and gives the younger a pointed glare. "She's clearly crying right in front of you. You did something to her, didn't you?"

"It's o-okay, he really didn't do anything." The girl says, wiping her eyes furiously. She smiles weakly and teary-eyed at the prefect, who blinks back at her in confusion. "I-I'm just stupid, that's all."

Before Luhan could open his mouth to question her, she runs off in the other direction, leaving him and Sehun standing there in an uncomfortable silence. A couple of heartbeats pass by before Luhan speaks.

"Well... I don't know what that was, but—"

"She confessed to me, and I rejected her." Sehun smoothly interrupts him, studying his nails. He drops his hand and looks at Luhan.

The prefect stares back at him, dumbfounded. 

"Pardon?"

"That's all it was." Sehun raises his eyebrows, putting his hands up in fake surrender.

A mixture of annoyance and slight embarrassment rises up in Luhan, but the prefect pushes it down. It would not be good for him to lose his temper in front of someone younger—yes, younger, but slightly taller—than him.

It really isn't worth it, he tells himself. 

Instead, Luhan clears his throat awkwardly and adjusts his collar before continuing. 

"All right, then." Luhan says as casually as he can. He's about to walk away until he turns on his heels and points back at the Slytherin, who tilts his head slightly in response. "Just know... I'm watching you."

Sehun stares at him, unblinking, and the Gryffindor huffs.

He abruptly turns around and storms in the other direction, so he doesn't see Sehun's lips tug into a small smile afterwards.

---

Baekhyun sighs, resting his head over his arms.

The term has felt longer than usual, for some reason. In reality, it's only been a month and three weeks since the school year started.

He's currently sitting in the Slytherin common room along with a few other students lounging around the couches; his arms were draped over his Charms textbook. Merlin, nonverbal spells were something that were seriously hard to master, and it was becoming more and more integrated in Transfiguration as well as Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Strangely enough, it's been a bit easier to focus. Recently, he's been lounging around more in the common room and trying to get ahead on some of his assignments—something that he could never really see himself doing in the past. He hasn't seen Taeyeon as much since she was getting pretty busy with preparing to take her N.E.W.T exams. They had arranged to see each other soon, but Baekhyun wasn't sure if he was looking forward to it; lately, she seemed to talk more about herself during the times that they were together.

He blows a few strands of silver hair out of his face, staring at one of the windows which gave the Slytherins a pretty good view of what was under the Great Lake. He had decided to dye his previously dark hair silver before the term started purely out of an act of boredom, not malice. He had honestly forgotten that he had that discussion with Kyungsoo, Chanyeol, and Jongdae the year prior and only remembered once he saw them on the train the first day.

Jongdae and Kyungsoo had stone-cold looks on their faces. Chanyeol opted for staring at the floor. It was his fault for souring all of their friendships, so Baekhyun couldn't even blame them. He pushes the memory down, not really wanting to relive the awkwardness he felt at that time.

Instead, he watches as the Giant Squid slowly comes into view. It was one of the things he liked the most about the common room; it was interesting seeing all kinds of aquatic creatures pass by.

"Isn't the Slytherin common room kind of creepy? I mean... green's a cool color, but it gives off that sinister vibe, you know." He remembers Chanyeol mention to him once, a very long time ago. They were holding hands while walking through the hallways.

"And you're saying red isn't a color associated with evil?" Baekhyun scoffed back at him, but there was a teasing smile on his face. "I like it, though. I think it's actually pretty comfortable. Just ask Kyungsoo, he'll definitely agree with me."

Chanyeol let go of his hand and pinched the Slytherin's cheek, smiling down at him.

"There are many other associations the color red has, you know."

"Like what, looove?" Baekhyun replied with a smirk.

"Exactly! Plus, Kyungsoo's a Slytherin, so he'll agree with you, dummy. Guess you'll have to show me then, one day, to prove it."

"Deal. You owe me if I'm right though."

"Owe you what?"

"I dunno, anything that you think is worth owing me." Baekhyun shrugged, and Chanyeol guffawed at him as they continued down the corridor, their linked hands once more.

Baekhyun blinks, wondering why he was thinking about that now. 

He never did get a chance to sneak Chanyeol in and show him what the Slytherin common room looked like. Even when they were still together, there was no good timing; they both went home for the holidays, and although Baekhyun considered himself to be good at sneaking around and doing stuff like this, it was pretty hard to do while there were lots of people around throughout the rest of the term. The next best option would have been using the Polyjuice potion, but the potion was crazy complicated, and Baekhyun was just average when it came to that subject.

It wouldn't be worth risking it now, anyways, now that they were no longer together. 

Baekhyun hums thoughtfully. 

If Kyungsoo wanted to, he could find a way to get Chanyeol in somehow, if the Gryffindor was still even interested. Kyungsoo was super smart as a whole, but Potions was his strongest suit; it was why Baekhyun chose to recommend him to Kim Jongin in the first place.

The Giant Squid passes by the window completely and soon gets out of sight.

Baekhyun shakes his head and checks his watch before deciding to just not study anymore. It would be fine if he took a break... he had finally (surprisingly) managed to catch up on some of his homework earlier. As he continues to stuff his belongings inside his bookbag, he hears a couple of people approaching and looks up at the sound of the footsteps getting closer.

He makes eye contact with Kris and Tao, who both wave at him in greeting.

"Hey, Tao." Baekhyun smiles at the younger male first before turning to address Kris. "Just got back from practice?"

"Yeah." Kris winces as he moves his shoulder. "I'm feeling good about it, we have a pretty promising lineup. Do you know that fifth year Arthur Collins? He just joined the team, but he's a great Beater."

"Oh yeah, I heard he was a decent person. As always, you will hear me screaming my heart out as soon as you enter the pitch."

"Please don't, that's embarrassing." Kris shudders, but his eyes widen upon noticing that the other Slytherin was now in the middle of putting his textbook away. "Wait, were you studying? Are you that bored?"

Baekhyun clicks his tongue.

"Contrary to popular belief, I actually do care about my academics. Sometimes." He places his bookbag around himself and pats the prefect's shoulder innocently. He smiles and looks at his watch again, and his grin falters a little when he notices the time. "I gotta go. Taeyeon wanted to see me in... er, less than ten minutes. Bye now!"

"Bye—!" Tao calls after him as the silver haired Slytherin dashes out of the common room, waving at them before disappearing.

Kris, who just put a hand up in farewell, drops his hand with a despondent sigh.

"He must be really bored." Tao muses. "I haven't seen him study in a while."

Kris shrugs, "Well, I guess it's good to see him actually trying to get work done... when he and Park Chanyeol were still together, those two were usually goofing off around the castle grounds. He had to actually work his off when exams were finally coming up, remember that? That's when we saw a lot of Kyungsoo's stricter side, too."

Tao smirks.

"It's interesting how 'in the zone' Baekhyun gets when he's really focused on doing well on something. You did end up having to help him out with Transfiguration eventually."

The taller Slytherin cringes at the memory.

"Ugh, right... I nearly forgot about that."

"Maybe this change is a good thing, then?"

Kris shrugs helplessly.

"Is it?"

The two of them look at each other, matching expressions of doubt etched on their faces.

---

"I heard that Jongin asked you to tutor him."

In the library once more, Kyungsoo lifts his head to give Junmyeon a confused stare. 

It had been about a month since the year started, and three weeks since the Gryffindor had approached him (not that Kyungsoo was counting)—still, Kyungsoo hasn't made up his mind for an answer. To be fair, the schoolwork started to pile up early into the term, so Kyungsoo found himself pretty occupied. Thankfully (surprisingly), Kai wasn't persistent. Strangely enough, Kyungsoo never really seemed to see him around. 

Kyungsoo also didn't tell Chanyeol nor Jongdae about Kai's request. He didn't think it was something worth mentioning, as he believed that this was a problem that he could figure out on his own. He also didn't want to bother them with this issue, as Chanyeol and Jongdae were both busy with their own things recently, like Quidditch, for example. At least now he was leaning towards an answer even though he was still feeling quite uncertain about it.

"Yes," Kyungsoo finally says, sighing as he places his quill down. "Where did you hear about that?"

"Well... it's Jongin." Junmyeon shrugs; there is a funny look on the Head Boy's face. Kyungsoo notices that Junmyeon doesn't refer to Kai by his nickname. "If it's regarding him, then it's everyone's news, apparently."

He sounds almost bitter, but Kyungsoo doesn't pay too much attention to it.

"Huh," The Slytherin drags his hand down his face in exasperation, feeling more and more doubtful by the second. "If that's the case, I should probably just tell him no. I was considering it, but I don't want the attention. What is there to tutor in Potions, anyways? You just need to read the bloody instructions..."

He scribbles a couple of words down on his essay, irritated, before Junmyeon replies.

"Maybe it is the instructions that are the hard part, they can be confusing sometimes."

Kyungsoo hums.

"...I guess you're right."

They don't say anything for a while, both of them busy with their own load of homework. Kyungsoo tries to wrap his head around the concept of nonverbal spells, which was something difficult that they had started in Transfiguration recently. However, the silence breaks when Junmyeon is the one to speak first.

"Well, it's not like my opinion matters, but I think it would be worth helping him."

Kyungsoo's eyes widen in surprise, remembering what Kai said about him and Junmyeon "not being exactly close". Now that he mentions it, he doesn't ever recall Junmyeon saying anything about his cousin. In fact, Kyungsoo had only found out the two were related through Baekhyun.

"You think so?" Kyungsoo says, twirling his quill in his hands absentmindedly.

"I think it'd benefit both of you, actually." Junmyeon says, not looking up from the textbook he was currently reading. He pushes his glasses up the rim of his nose and gives Kyungsoo a mother-like stare. "Jongin would benefit through being able to learn through you, and in turn, through re-teaching the subject, you would be able to strengthen your own skills."

Kyungsoo looks at him.

He's honestly not really sure what to say, and it is especially because Junmyeon is right.

Eventually, he settles with: "You're the only one I know who calls Kai by his actual name."

"It's only natural for me, as I knew him long before he started using that nickname." Junmyeon smiles a little at the subject change. There is a faraway look on his gaze this time, and Kyungsoo has a feeling that he's reminscing about something.

Before Kyungsoo could say anything in response, Junmyeon suddenly notices that several students are starting to leave the library, and he moves to put away his belongings. He looks outside the window, where the sun was currently setting, causing the sky to produce a red-orange color.

"I didn't realize that it was time for supper already."

"Time flies when you're having fun," Kyungsoo replies sarcastically, earning a laugh from the elder of the two.

They walk silently towards the Great Hall together, but as soon as they arrive, Junmyeon stops a few steps before actually entering. Curious, Kyungsoo stops walking too, despite the fact that he was seriously hungry. He hears the chatter and noise inside the Great Hall gradually become louder and louder, signifying that more and more students were arriving for dinner.

"Kyungsoo," Junmyeon smiles reassuringly at him. "I don't want to force you into making a decision, but just know that I will support you with whatever you end up doing."

With that, he pats Kyungsoo's shoulder comfortingly and walks into the hall.

That was so dramatic for absolutely no reason. Kyungsoo can't help but think, but he's smiling a little as he joins his classmates at the Slytherin table.

After a satisfying dinner, Kyungsoo leaves Great Hall and lingers outside to wait for Jongdae and Chanyeol. Before Quidditch practice, they had told him to wait for them after they finished eating so that they could hang out for a bit before going back to their respective dormitories.

He's patting down his hair until he sees someone approaching him out of his peripheral vision.

Thinking that it's either Jongdae or Chanyeol, Kyungsoo has a small smile on his face when he looks up, but he immediately drops it once he realizes that it was none other than Kim Kai himself.

Kai was in his Quidditch attire; his hair was windswept and unkempt. It must've been muddy on the pitch, for the bottom of Kai's robes and shoes were dirty. 

"Oh, it's you." Kyungsoo finally says, eyes wide.

He takes a step back; he had forgotten that Kai was on the Gryffindor team too. For some reason, Kai in his Quidditch robes seemed a bit more intimidating in comparison to him clad in regular uniform. There was a relaxed smile on the other student's face when he came up to him, but it falters as soon as Kyungsoo's expression changes.

"You look so disappointed to see me." Kai blinks, frowning slightly.

"I was expecting somebody else—nevermind." Kyungsoo mutters, inwardly cursing this timing. Kai's still looking at him with that frown on his face, so he continues, "Just because I'm not smiling doesn't mean I'm necessarily unhappy. It's just... normal. I'm being normal. I'm just surprised that it's just now that I've seen you again after—"

"—A month."

"It's only been three weeks, actually." The Slytherin corrects, but he coughs awkwardly when Kai raises his eyebrows at him in confusion. After a while, a look of amusement seemed to spread over the Gryffindor's face.

"You were counting?"

"Not on purpose," Kyungsoo winces, which was sort of true. Somehow, something inside of him was subconsciously keeping track of how long it's been since then. Kyungsoo was also extremely conflicted about Kai's request, so he was wondering how long it would take until the Gryffindor somehow managed to find him again.

Even now, when Kai was in standing right in front of him, he was still not entirely sure about what he wanted to do.

"I'm assuming it took you this long because you got busy." Kai then says. He combs a hand through his hair before continuing. "I don't blame you. I have sixth year friends who are pretty stressed out already, too. I didn't want to bother you during the past month because I thought that you also had a lot to handle at the moment."

How nice, Kyungsoo thinks sarcastically.

"In the meantime, I've tried to ask help from other people. I appreciated them taking time out of their day to help, but a lot of them aren't good teachers. My grade is already kind of suffering..." He shudders at the mere thought of it. "But, well, now that I'm here, and you're here... do you have an answer?"

Kyungsoo lets out a deep sigh, Junmyeon's previous words echoing in his mind. If he had a choice, he would much rather continue to prolong his decision, but this confrontation was going to end up happening eventually. 

He opens his mouth to respond, but he is immediately interrupted by a loud voice coming their way.

"It's going to be yes, of course!"

He freezes, and Kai also jumps in surprise. 

Jongdae is grinning mischievously at Kyungsoo, a twinkle in his eye as he approaches the two. Chanyeol is right behind Jongdae, a bright smile gracing his features as well. Jongdae swings an arm around Kai, who instantly brightens up at the sight of the other Gryffindor.

Jongdae winks at Kai while Chanyeol gives him a thumbs up.

"Trust me, mate, Kyungsoo will for sure help you get your grade up." Jongdae continues. "I can't even begin to tell you how many times he's saved my . It's thanks to him that I was able to get an E in Charms in our O.W.Ls last year. You made a good choice choosing him as a tutor."

Why does it sound like I'm being advertised? Kyungsoo inwardly facepalms.

Kai looks over to Chanyeol, who nods vigorously in agreement.

"Yeah, he's actually a pretty good teacher when it comes down to going over different subjects—"

The Slytherin glares at him to stop, and the taller Gryffindor cuts himself off with a nervous laugh.

Kai turns back to Kyungsoo abruptly, his eyes now shining with excitement.

"So—"

"Yes," Kyungsoo finally manages to drag out, feeling like all of his energy was being out. "Yes... I'll help you with Potions."

"Do, you're the absolute best, you know that?" Kai shouts, shaking Kyungsoo back and forth vigorously. Kyungsoo scowls at Kai after he finally lets him go, way too exhausted to retort (or attack back). It appeared that the younger Gryffindor's imaginary tail was wagging again. "Thank you so much, I'll make it up to you, I swear...!"

"Calm down, will you?" Kyungsoo hisses, trying to make the world stop spinning. When he's able to focus again, he sees that the Gryffindor is still smiling stupidly at him.

"Are you fine to meet tomorrow? At the library? After lunch?"

The Slytherin blinks; Kai was talking way too fast.

He asks for clarification, "Tomorrow after lunch?" 

"Yeah, well... I'd like to get my grade up as soon as possible." The Gryffindor says sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "Plus, it's already been a month and three weeks, like you said. We already covered a lot of material ever since the term started."

Jongdae elbows the Slytherin, whispering loudly, "You're always in the library anyways." 

"Shut the hell up, Jongdae." Kyungsoo grumbles, but he sighs in resignation. "Tomorrow's fine. It's just that I have an essay due at the end of next week, and I wanted to get a head start on it."

Kai shifts on his feet a little, looking a bit uncertain. "Ah, I see."

Jongdae and Chanyeol glance at Kyungsoo expectantly. The Slytherin purses his lips.

"It'll be fine."

"Okay," Kai says. He started to smile again. "Well, I'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Do! Cheers, Jongdae, Chanyeol."

Kai leaves after that, a noticeable spring in his step as he makes his way up to the staircases. Kyungsoo releases the sigh he doesn't realize he's been holding in as soon as he leaves, rubbing his eyes afterwards.

"You absolute idiots," Kyungsoo then grumbles before socking both of his friends in the arms.

"Now what was that for?!" Jongdae yells in pain. "Don't tell me that you were going to make him wait that long for you to end up saying no to him...!"

"That was for interrupting our conversation," Kyungsoo frowns, crossing his arms. He continues, "And I was going to tell him yes anyways, Jongdae. I was talking to Junmyeon earlier, and he told me that I could benefit from this tutoring thing too."

"I can't believe you made him wait for three weeks!" Chanyeol adds. His eyes widen as he rubs his arm. "Damn, he's got a lot of patience. Not to mention the fact that we see him at practice a lot too, I seriously thought that he would've tried to get us to persuade you to say yes."

"Kyungsoo," Jongdae continues, and the Slytherin realizes that he looks genuinely upset. "You didn't even bother telling us in the first place."

"About that..." Kyungsoo mutters, feeling immensely guilty all of a sudden. "I just didn't think it was worth mentioning, especially because you were both busy with your own things. It was something that I was not even sure how to bring up in the first place. Honestly, a week after it happened, I forgot about it for a while since schoolwork started to pile up. I started leaning towards helping him anyways; in the end, Junmyeon was that final push. I... just thought that this was something that I could figure out on my own."

Jongdae and Chanyeol look at him wordlessly.

"I'm really sorry," The Slytherin finally apologizes.

It's silent for a while, but then Chanyeol finally smiles gently at him (Kyungsoo feels his stomach drop at that). "It's okay, Soo."

"Yeah, it's no worries." Jongdae adds, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "We were just confused, you know. We weren't sure if it even was real since we didn't hear it from you first."

Kyungsoo nods in understanding. 

"Who did you end up hearing this from, anyways?"

"Oh, it's really not anyone worth mentioning." The shorter Gryffindor waves him off nonchalantly. "You know how fast word spreads around school. We just found out today, though; we were going to ask you about it after dinner."

"...I see."

"You know, you're probably going to climb up the ranks because of this." Chanyeol jokes. "A lot of people are pretty interested in the fact that Kim Kai picked you to be his Potions tutor."

"Already?" Kyungsoo grumbles.

"Don't sweat it, man." Jongdae pats the Slytherin's shoulder comfortingly. "You've already been out there, you just don't really realize it. You can't really hide much in the background if you're friends with us."

Kyungsoo didn't think that was true, but he's already too tired to argue.

"If something like this happens to you again, we want to hear all about it, or else." Chanyeol stresses the last two words for emphasis, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at the Slytherin. Kyungsoo immediately breaks eye contact, feeling awkward.

"Yeah... I know. I'm sorry." He mutters, staring at the floor.

"Blimey, Kyungsoo, I was just messing with you." Chanyeol laughs, his expression changing to a more playful one. "But seriously, though. You can tell us anything."

Anything, huh?

Kyungsoo purses his lips... if only Chanyeol knew.

With that, Chanyeol ruffles Kyungsoo's hair. The Slytherin's eyes widen and he immediately swats the other Gryffindor's hands away. As Chanyeol chuckles at him, Kyungsoo slowly adjusts his bangs again. At the corner of his eye, he catches Jongdae raising his eyebrows at him suggestively. He swiftly steps on the shorter Gryffindor's foot, eliciting another loud yelp from him. 

Luckily, at that moment Chanyeol was waving to someone that he recognized who was leaving the Great Hall, so he failed to notice the pained look on Jongdae's face when he turns back to face them.

"We should head back, Jongdae, we still have to do." Chanyeol then says worriedly after checking his watch.

"Crap, you're right. Sorry to leave you alone like this, Kyungsoo," Jongdae adds, wincing a little. He continues, "Let us know how your tutoring session turns out!"

"I will," Kyungsoo waves them both off with a small smile of his own. "Bye."

The Gryffindors leave after that. Kyungsoo straightens up before finally heading towards the Slytherin common room, suddenly feeling a new wave of nervousness wash over him.

---

A/N: second chapter is done!! i was working on this simultaneously with my other story LOL since i had time,, but my spring break is ending and online classes are officially starting tomorrow so an update might not come for a while :,0 regardless, i wish y'all the best of luck with school and life in general, and i hope y'all enjoy this chapter <3 i already have an idea for ch 3 so imma try writing it here and there after i finish hw hahaha. thank you for all the subscribes and comments so far!! i appreciate them all so much, thank youuu *cries* see you all soon, hopefully!

-seokminz