Waking up the next day, Hyukjae rose up rubbing his eyes which were in pain due to much crying from the previous night. Damn it, he thought.

With a heavy head, he willed his body to the bathroom to start out his day.

Upon getting nearer, a slight sting from the back of his head made his eyesight black out for a while, and caused him to lose his balance. On reflex, he raised his hand to reach out for the bathroom’s door frame, and then gripped on it for support before he falls onto his carpeted bedroom floor.

“Oh, God… why today?” he hissed.

When his vision finally cleared out, he continued with his morning routine. He had his breakfast of toasts and orange juice before he headed out.

“Oi, Hyukjae!” a voice yelled out as soon as he had set foot on the school grounds after the huge front gates.

Hyukjae turned his head towards the voice’s origin, managed to pull up a smile and said, “Hey, Junsu… Morning…” His smile didn’t cover up the tiredness his body felt. And Junsu didn’t fail to notice that either.

“Problem? Dude, you can’t be like that… not today! We have to defend our title!” he said, quite panicked.

“Don’t worry, Junsu. We’ll handle them.” Hyukjae replied, adding enthusiasm to his voice. Yet, still a fail.

“Of course, we will! But you should take care of that first, dude. You can still go to the clinic since we still have two hours before the contest.”

Oh, my ever concerned best friend. “Mkay, thanks. I’ll head straight there now.”

“Would you like me to accompany you?”

“No, thanks. I’ll be just fine, bro.”

Hyukjae walked rather elegantly despite the nasty headache he had. Even with the current condition, he still managed to greet the teachers he came across with, and the students who wished him ‘Good luck, Pres!’

He diligently answered all of the school nurse’s questions. In the end, she gave him medicine that he had to take every four hours.

“Feeling better?” A deep voice from his left sounded.

“Oh, Professor Kang... Yes, I am. I’m feeling much better now, sir. No worries.” Hyukjae reassured his coach, tugging both corners of his lips up.

“If you say so, but don’t work yourself out during the contest, alright? Your team mates can handle the out if you really can’t make it, especially Junsu. I’ve noticed his passed activities in class, and I’m pretty impressed. I must say he finally managed to let go of his inhibitions when you talked to him about joining our group. I thank you for that.”

“It’s all well, sir. I knew him since second grade, so I just enlightened him that high school’s just the same. And since we’re together, we’re cool just as before.”

Without much further talk, both men marched to the venue where the Science related contests were being held. Slowly, the gymnasium was being filled with students with mixed colours of green, red and blue uniforms. Blue was the dominant one amid the bleachers of student since it was the school who’s hosting this year’s tri-school competitions in both academic and sports.

Cheers for the participants from the host school, Sapphire Academy, overpowered the ones from the Cassiopeia Institute and Triple S Colleges.

And it powered up Jun