It was their final September the first welcome back feast. It was the last time that they would ever watch a Sorting. It was the last train ride in after a long and lazy summer holiday; and Jiyong thinks that Seungri is taking the whole thing far worse than he, Seunghyun, and Youngbae combined. And Seunghyun was far more likely to be seen with Daesung than without him (not that that was odd or anything, but Jiyong was fairly certain that he’d seen poor Daesung sitting with his head pressed against the bathroom door at 4:30am a few days ago and that just seemed unfair). Jiyong was sure that he himself was also acting nostalgic and strange, but he didn’t think he was quite as obvious as his friends.

However, Seungri had them all beat, and Jiyong wondered if the younger boy had legitimate issues that they didn’t know about. When he had suggested that thought to Youngbae, all he had gotten was a vaguely dirty look and an “honestly Ji, we’re basically his only friends, be nice.” When Jiyong really thought about it, which he only ever did when it was brought up to him because he hated to dwell on things that made him sad or upset, he would realize that that was precisely true, as he had only rarely seen Seungri hanging out with kids his own age and the younger boy rarely, if ever, mentioned anyone else when talking with them.

Truth be told, all four of Seungri’s older friends worried about him constantly, and they tried their hardest not to show it. They all reacted to their worry in different ways, but they were all thinking about it as they boarded the train for the three oldest boys’ last year at Hogwarts.

What would their little Seungri do when Daesung was busy? What would Seungri do when Daesung graduated? Would he finally make more friends his own age? Would he make any friends at all? They had no answers to these questions, and Daesung in particular felt burdened with the task to make sure that Seungri didn’t collapse in on himself when it truly was just the two of them left. They were silent for a good twenty minutes during the train ride before Big Seunghyun huffed out a breath and made a whining noise high in his throat.

“Just stop thinking about it.” He says, and even though they had all noticed the noise he had made, Youngbae still jumped at the sudden sound of his voice cutting through the silence of their compartment.

Jiyong makes a face as if he was about to argue, and follows it up with just exactly that. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t think.” He whines, and Youngbae nudges him gently with his foot.

“Don’t be a child.” Youngbae admonishes, and Jiyong scoots away from him on the bench, a sour look on his face as he encroaches on Seungri’s personal space in his attempt to get away from Youngbae. “Besides, we’ve been quiet for way too long.” Youngbae adds, and Jiyong is forced to agree with the sentiment, though he keeps the scowl on his face.

“What classes are you signing up for, Dae?” Seungri asks suddenly, surprising everyone.

“Ah…I dunno, I think I’ll stick with Charms and Potions. Maybe keep Muggle Studies…” Daesung’s face turns a light pink as he speaks, hating the fact that all eyes were so intently fixated on him. He was also just a little bit ashamed by how much he enjoyed Muggle Studies. The class really helped him to understand his friends; because even though he was technically considered a half-blood, he had no real understanding of most things in the Muggle world. His love of the class was a source of constant teasing from his friends, but he found the class far too useful to drop it and end the teasing.

The ride to Hogwarts continued on in much the same fashion as it normally did, and for that, they were all rather immensely grateful.

***

“It’s rather lucky that your soul mate was also one of your best friends…don’t you think?” Youngbae asks suddenly, and Daesung is surprised by the outburst.

They were lying on the Quidditch Pitch underneath the hoops and had been doing so in rather companionable silence for about an hour. Youngbae had wandered down to the Pitch about a half an hour before Daesung’s last period class was finished. On Thursdays Youngbae had the last period of the day free. He normally went out to the lake to read or write, but something had been simmering below the surface of Youngbae’s consciousness for the past few weeks and though it was only the 5^th week of the semester, he had suddenly felt the need to break away and hide out in one of his favorite spots.

He had known that he didn’t have long until Daesung found his way down to the Pitch to sit with him; the younger boy always seemed to know just exactly when Youngbae had reached his breaking point and just exactly where to find him (though that part was rather easy as he had been taking refuge on the Pitch since his First year). Youngbae was just as surprised as Daesung by his random exclamation. He had never really talked with Daesung about the younger boy’s relationship with big Seunghyun as he had never really felt that they needed to talk about it. But there was something that was nagging at him, and he needed to here Daesung talk about it today. He just needed it, and that was the only thing he could think of as an explanation as he lay there on the pitch waiting for Daesung to break out of his shock and respond.

“Ahh…I don’t know.” Daesung says finally, and Youngbae lets out a breath and sits up.

“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He says hastily, and Daesung laughs and shakes his head.

“No, no it’s okay…I just don’t really know what to say.” He’s silent for a couple of moments, moving to sit up and lean his back against one of the hoops as he gathers his thoughts. “What makes you say that we are ‘soul mates’?” He asks finally, and Youngbae takes in a breath but doesn’t look up from the ground where he was playing with the grass.

“Um, well, I dunno. It’s the way that you talk to each other, and the way that you are perfectly comfortable in your relationship, even if you are fighting.” Youngbae kind of feels stupid for asking now, especially since he really doesn’t know what he wants to get from this conversation. He keeps his head down to hide the blush he can feel creeping up his neck.

Daesung laughs and pushes a hand through his hair before settling it back into the grass. “We’ve been dating for less than a year, and we were already good friends. It was a little awkward at first, to be completely honest, because we were so close already and then suddenly there was more to it and neither of us really understood where it had come from or how to handle it.” Daesung pauses again for a short moment, his eyes focused on his hand fisted in the grass as he struggles to come up with a way to explain it. “At first, it was like this constant push and pull where neither of us wanted our friendship to be ruined if something big came between us, but then…then I just, I just realized that worrying like that would only cause more issues than it would solve.”

Youngbae nods and they are silent for a moment as Daesung allows his words to process through Youngbae’s analytical mind. For his own part, Youngbae was still trying to grasp why this was so important to him, aside from the fact that Daesung and Seunghyun were definitely two of the most important people in his life. He couldn’t put his finger on it, there wasn’t even a ‘tip of the tongue’ feeling for him to fall back on in order to guess what was going on in his own mind. He lets out a sigh and throws a fistful of ripped up grass to the side.

“It seems far more complicated than just dating someone that you don’t know very well at first.” Youngbae says finally, and Daesung smiles in a way that makes Youngbae think that the younger boy is hiding something from him, but he can’t imagine what that would even be.

“Maybe, but our relationship was always just a little bit more than just ‘friendly’.” He says evenly, bringing his fingers up to act out quotation marks around the last word.

“True,” Youngbae says softly, his thoughts turning inward as he speaks in order to process what he’s hearing and file it properly. “But then again, you could have just been really close friends and definitely not meant to be in a relationship, relationship…” He mutters, unable to stop the thought from tumbling out.

The mysterious smile reappears on Daesung’s face, and the younger boy inclines his head slightly to show that he understood the point. “Yeah, true, but there was a line that we crossed, and it was obvious that there was at least a little bit more there than we had ever really imagined.” Daesung shakes his head roughly. “I don’t know how to describe it, Bae, I really don’t. How does anyone know who they are meant to be with? How is anyone certain unless they take that little leap?” Daesung takes a sharp intake of breath and Youngbae knows that he is about to hear something that the younger boy hadn’t voiced to anyone. “I don’t know if we are ‘meant to be’ or if this is just going to be a singular experience. I can’t know that, I don’t know what the future holds. We will see how it goes, and you know, that’s not something that I can think too hard about at the moment, we’re not even out of school yet, Bae.”

Youngbae takes a deep breath in and leans forward to give Daesung a pat on the knee, realizing that they had ventured into a much less traveled route during this conversation; Daesung rarely, if ever, talked about his feelings unless they were superficial and easy to determine. It wasn’t where he had expected to go, not that he really had any idea what he had been expecting to begin with, but it was still somehow comforting to know that even the calm and collected Daesung was uncertain. Sometimes, sometimes they all forgot that Daesung was younger than them and not years older; his wisdom and maturity were sometimes so overwhelming that they overshadowed his childish traits.

No, this had been a good reminder that Daesung was just as fragile and human as all of them. Now, if only Youngbae could figure out his own thoughts and what was bothering him…

***

Daesung called him out on the staring for the second time while they were at their Thursday night Quidditch practice. It was during the first part, where they are basically just exercising, that Daesung had had enough. He was curious, and had been meaning to bring it up again for quite a while.

It was the Spring of Jiyong, Seunghyun, and Youngbae’s 7th year, and the staring was becoming far more common than it was the first time Daesung had asked Jiyong about it. Daesung can’t help but to let a small laugh bubble out of him as he remembers when he, Seunghyun, and Seungri had confronted Jiyong the year before. Jiyong’s pitiful excuse of being ‘severely aesthetically appreciative’ of Youngbae had been amusing enough on its own when Daesung didn’t dwell on how sad it was. But, it was Seungri’s reaction that was what made Daesung laugh at the memory; Seungri had thought that Jiyong was legitimately suffering from something, but Daesung was certain that that was because he was just 12 going on 13 when the conversation had happened.

But regardless, Daesung and Seunghyun knew that ‘severe aesthetic appreciation’ was most definitely not the reason, no matter what Jiyong said.

“Nice view, huh?” Daesung asks nonchalantly, continuing to stretch. Jiyong was facing the opposite side of the pitch where Youngbae was jumping around, getting ready to run.

“Huh? Yeah, it’s nice.” Jiyong wasn’t paying attention, even though he was supposed to be helping Daesung stretch.

“I wasn’t talking about Taeyang.” Daesung says, keeping his face controlled so that he doesn’t laugh, even though he really wants to. He couldn’t believe how out of it Jiyong was acting.

“What? No, I was, what?” Jiyong drops his head down and turns so that he is looking at Daesung. His face is flushed with embarrassment, and, Daesung notes, the stuttering was new.

“Was he doing toe-touches? You always turn red when he does that.” Daesung was being slightly cruel, he knew, but he couldn’t help it; he wanted Jiyong to quit lying to them, and more importantly, Daesung wanted Jiyong to stop lying to himself..

“Yes he…I wait, what?”

“If you stare at him any more obviously, he will eventually catch you doing it. I would be surprised if he wasn’t already aware that you do it.”

“No, he has no idea. What are you trying to say, Daesung?” Jiyong had controlled his face, and was paying attention to the stretching that he was supposed to be helping Daesung with (and maybe being a little cruel, Daesung isn’t sure his leg can bend that far).

“Well,” Yeah, definitely being a little cruel, he thinks as he has to pause before continuing because of the effort he was exerting. “Neither TOP nor I are able to believe that your—” He had to pause again because Jiyong switched to his other leg, and yes, yes he was definitely being cruel, “You aren’t just aesthetically appreciative.”

Jiyong drops Daesung’s leg like it’s hot and backs up onto his feet from his previous position on his knees. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Daesung sits up, and rubs his legs, keeping his eyes trained on the fidgeting Jiyong. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. We all know he’s attractive, but we don’t stare at him like lovesick schoolgirls.” He wasn’t yelling, but it sounded like an accusation to Jiyong, who backed up even further, eyes wide.

“Ji! Can you help me?” Youngbae’s voice cut through the air and effectively distracted Jiyong from the conversation at hand. Daesung kept his eyes trained on Jiyong as the older boy turned toward Youngbae. He didn’t know what Youngbae wanted help with, but judging from the way that Jiyong’s face went from ‘oh God please don’t keep talking’ to just ‘oh God’, made Daesung feel that it was safe to assume that Youngbae either needed help stretching, or he was shirtless.

“It’s alright, GD. I just don’t want you to get hurt because you aren’t being truthful.”

“I’m fine.” He says, standing up and helping Daesung get up with him, “Don’t worry about me.” He continues, his tone indicating that he doesn’t want to continue on with the topic and that they would not be continuing the conversation later.

But as Jiyong jogs over to Youngbae who was, indeed, shirtless, Daesung can’t help but feel that Jiyong is trying just a tad bit too hard to fool himself.