By lunchtime, Hyoyeon's body was sore all over. She had a hard time even walking back to the classroom from her second period class and was glad that Jessica didn't seem like she was in any big hurry.

"Hey, where are you going?" Hyo asked, as suddenly Jessica wasn't walking in the same direction anymore, 'aren't we meeting the girls for lunch?'

Tae, Soo and Seobaby were all in the same homeroom (3-A), whereas Jessica and Hyo were stuck with Tiffany and Yuri (3-B). They were initially all in the same homeroom in the first year but were split out from the second year onwards, so now they really only saw each other after school or at lunch time.

'Oh sorry, I forgot to mention - I'm having lunch with Krystal today. Can you tell the girls?'

'Yeah sure! Have fun, at this rate - I'll miss lunch anyway,' Hyo agreed.

The two of them said good-bye and Hyo continued on her way but this time at an even slower pace.

Jessica and her little sister Krystal (who was a year younger and in the same year as Chanyeol) were close. Jessica was the only one with a sister in their group (Seo and Tae both had older brothers) and Hyo and the others were always jealous that the sisters had someone at home to understand all the girl stuff, share clothes and make up, go shopping together, not deal with stinky boy stuff...

It made sense that Sica would want to spend time with Krystal even at school, after her recent break up with JONGIN. 

Hyo felt her stomach dip just at the thought of him. She still felt funny about Krystal and Jongin's (also known as Kai) break up. None of the girls knew this, but she was freaking out that she might have had even maybe 1% to do with whatever reason they had for breaking upand it was eating her up inside, not knowing exactly why they did.

'Dont think about it, nothing happened. And it was so long ago, this can't be related to that,' she muttered to herself, but it could have Hyo, you were so reckless...

For all the rules of girl world, for all the rules she abided by, for all the IMPORTANCE she placed on making sure she had a drama-free high school life, she had come perilously close to messing that all up last Christmas.

If she hadn't had that single moment of clarity...

'Hyo-noona!!' Hyo's train of thought was broken when she turned to find Chanyeol walking towards her in the corridor, 'good job with training this morning.'

'Same to you,' she responded gingerly, 'but my body is hating myself at the moment.'

'Oh no!! Do you need to go to the infirmary?' his eyes widening with concern, cutely putting both his hands on her shoulders and peering down as if inspecting her body for any injuries (which was silly because of course muscle pain wouldn't be visible).

'Now that I think about it, I might go have a lie down after all. Maybe an ice pack. Especially since there's training again this afternoon,' the last sentence she said lifelessly, dreading even the thought of it.

'Noona, you know you don't have to push too hard right?' reminded her gently, 'everyone should just be grateful that you even said yes to fill in or else the girls would have had to forfeit.'

'Yeah, but if you're going to do something - you might as well do it to the best of your ability, right?' she countered, a little absent-mindedly. 

When she thought it was taking him too long to respond though, she snapped back to present and looked up (way up) at him.

Chanyeol had an unreadable expression on his face. 

'That's what I like about you, I mean -,' he coughed, 'you've always been positive since we were little,' he clarified hastily.

Hyo grinned, 'True.'

'Do you need me to go with you to the infirmary? I can take you,' he offered, changing the direction of the conversation quickly. But before she could reply --

'Yeol-ah! You have a meeting with Zhang-ssam! He's in the teacher's lounge grumbling about how he gave up his lunch break for you and here you are chatting up-- ' the new arrival stopped when he realised who Chanyeol was with, "Hyoyeon.'

Hyo hated fate at that point. 

Because of course it had to be Jongin.

Just as she'd forgotten about him and relaxed, it was like a slap to the face to see him up close. 

The tall, dark and handsome Jongin who was looking at her with weary, respectful, serious eyes. Different from the laughing, cheeky face she'd always been greeted with up until that night half a year ago... 

'Hi.'

'Hi.'

Chanyeol thankfully didn't pick up on the tense atmosphere, freaking out about keeping Lay waiting, 'I have to go - he's going to kill me. He's a demon teacher, he's going to make me do drills until I'm dead - OMG, sorry Noona, I'll have to leave,' by this point he was already running halfway up the corridor, 'sunbae, maybe you can take her to the infirmary? Thanks!'

And with that, he was gone, both Hyo and Jongin staring after him.

'Do you need to go to the infirmary?' there were no pleasantries.

'Yes, but I can get there myself.'

'Okay, I thought so.' Jongin nodded, 'I'll see you around then.'

Hyo felt a lump in as she watched him walk away. Feeling an urge to call him back, if nothing more than the fact that this was the first time they'd spoken in a few months, she bit her lip to stop herself.

Of course she couldn't.

Because that would've been a mistake.

+++

A/N: And here is Kai - in my other WIP, Kai has just started going out with Krystal, and I think one of the oneshots I recently wrote. So I didn't want to go through the same story arc again... but after thinking about it a while longer... I really felt this was the piece missing in Hyo's puzzle. So I think if I've counted correctly, we're only waiting for one more guy to appear...