“Hey, Hyunshik?”

You and Woohyun are sitting on the floor in his room. He’s trying desperately to kick your at his new videogame, because he refused to believe that you already owned it. Not to mention it’s a horror survival game, and he’s the biggest scaredy-cat you know. Honestly, the group of guys can’t even go to a horror movie without Woohyun suddenly grabbing someone’s hands. Once, he even ended up in Sungyeol’s lap. Everyone else except you and Sunyeol have just now stopped teasing him about that.

“What, hyung?”

It’s long since stopped being weird for you to call older friends that. The only guy you ever call “oppa” is Taecyeon. Or sometimes Sunggyu when you want something and are using aegyo. You’ve used it on Myungsoo before, too, but he made you swear not to tell anyone that your aegyo works on him under penalty of death. You’re not even sure what that means, but you aren’t willing to try your dongsaeng.

Woohyun grins at you, but it fades quickly into a thoughtful look. He pauses the game, which definitely gets your attention. He rarely stops a game.

“Wait,” you start, interrupting him before he can begin. “How serious is this? You don’t have cancer right?”

Please, God, no. Anything but him dying. That would leave you too devastated.

Your best friend gives you a weird look. “Uh, no? Not that I know of. Aish, you babo!” He reaches over and ruffles your hair, before shoving your head away a little.

You just grin sheepishly. “Mianhe. You just got all serious and it scared me.”

“Whatever, you morbid kid,” he mutters. Straightening up, he looks down.

What? Is… is he blushing? You have never seen him blush before. Even the first time a girl ran up and kissed his cheek in grade school hadn’t made the greasy kid do that.

Just as you’re about to reach over and feel if he’s got a fever, he looks up at you with a shy grin.

“You know Haeun?” he asks.

You can only nod with a confused frown. “Yeah? She’s in my science class. Wae?”

“I’m going to confess to her on Monday.”

Even as the tinkling of glass echoes in your ears as your heart shatters into a million pieces, you smile at him. With a little laugh to mask the urge to sob, you reach out and shove his shoulder.

“Aigoo, you’ve actually found love? What’s this, Namgrease is going to only have one target?” you teased.

He flushed even more, before huffing and trying to push you away. “Yah! I just like her, who said it was love?”

You only snort. “You did, by saying you’re actually going to confess. Aish, you said it by calling it a confession! You never confess to girls, you let them confess to you, and then date them if you like them enough.”

Woohyun pouts at you. “Stop making me sound so cruel. But at least I’m better than you! You don’t even date the ones who confess. You just randomly ask a girl to go on a date without confessing at all!”

Not liking that this has turned back on you, your gaze moves to the screen and you shrug. “It works out for me. I don’t really like any of the girls in our school anyway. I asked them because I was bored.” Bored, and tired of watching you go out with random girls for the hell of it.

“Your Yang side is really cold, Shikkie,” Woohyun mutters. He turns back to the game and unpauses it.

For about thirty seconds, before he pauses it again and glances at you.

“So… do you think I have a chance with Haeun?” he asks quietly.

The part of your heart that is very much Hyunok in love with her best friend wants to say no, no he doesn’t, that no other girl could love someone as weird and greasy as he is. But Hyunshik, who is an awesome best friend, and puts everyone else first, only bumps your shoulder against Woohyun’s with a grin.

“Of course,” you say with such ease, that it’s obvious this shouldn’t even be a worry of his. “You forget that she doesn’t belong to anyone else’s fanbase. Plus? I totally saw her blush the other day when you came into class and greeted all the girls.”

Now your friend relaxes with an easy grin, but you can see the relief on his face because you know him well enough to look. He just chuckles to himself and starts the game again.

You don’t really pay attention anymore, but still manage to kick his at it. All while glancing at your friend from the corner of your eye. Will Haeun be the one who gets to know all your quirks? Because there’s just some that you will never show your best friend, Woohyun. There’s a part of you that I’m never going to get to see… because you don’t see me as a girl.

With a sad smile that you hide by shaking your bangs into your face, you turn to look at the screen fully.

“Hyung!”

You jerked out of your thoughts from a couple weeks ago when school started. You’d thought this year would be like any other, but apparently not. The fact that Woohyun would probably not see his high school crush again had given him the courage to confess. True to your prediction, Haeun had gigglingly accepted your best friend and they were now the school’s most popular couple.

It infuriated you.

Slamming the locker door, you turned to the source of the voice. “What, Myungsoo?”

The younger guy winced a little, before scowling at you. He still hated the fact you refused to call him L, which you had just laughed in his face about. He didn’t resemble the character from the manga at all, or even look like the actor in the live-action version. Therefore, you saw no reason to not call him by his name.

Plus you had this issue with name-changing…

He just huffed. “What’s your deal, hyung? You’ve been in a bad mood all week. And I was just trying to get your attention from down the hall.”

You frowned, but weren’t really sure how to explain spacing out. Figuring it wasn’t a complete lie, you looked away.

“’s not so great at home,” you muttered with a little shrug. You missed the concerned look on the younger classman’s face before he could school it away. When you looked back, you offered him a small smile. “Mianhe. Forgive your hyung?”

He glanced away quickly. Sometimes you didn’t even have to aegyo on purpose for him to find you unfairly adorable. He was just glad you’d cut your hair shorter, because with it long, you’d kind of looked like a girl sometimes and that made him feel incredibly awkward.

“Yeah, whatever, it’s fine,” he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You gonna eat with us at lunch today? You’ve been avoiding our table.”

You reached up with the pretense of fixing your hair, but really you were just trying to coax it into your face so you could hide your emotions behind it. The reason you avoided the table so much recently was because Woohyun insisted on Haeun joining the group. You were pretty sure you weren’t the only one annoyed by it, but everyone else managed to put on a happy face. Still, even without the feelings for your friend, you found the queenka really annoying.

“Is she going to eat with us again today?” you asked monotonously.

Myungsoo looked confused for a minute, before his own expression matched yours in enthusiasm. “I hope not. I’m really tired of hyung rubbing his girlfriend in our faces. We get enough stupid girls just from the ones who like us.”

You couldn’t even stop the smirk if you wanted to. It felt good knowing that Myungsoo was on your side about this, even if only partially, and for different reasons.

“Yeah,” you muttered. “Is he trying to subtly encourage us to get girlfriends, too? Because if I wanted one, I could have one. I just don’t.”

Myungsoo chuckled. “And his efforts just make me want to swear off girls forever.”

“You sure that’s not just Haeun?”

“What’s not just Haeun?”

You jumped a little at the voice of another of your friends. Howon had a bad habit of sneaking up on people. That or you were just good at ignoring him.

Myungsoo glanced at Hoya, too. “Woohyun’s parading her in front of us is making us want to swear off girlfriends forever, hyung.”

Hoya’s curious expression shifted into that of exasperation. “So it’s not just me? I was thinking of trying to ban him from our table, but he’s older than me.”

“You’re the closest one in birth-age to him, Howon,” you pointed out. “My birthday isn’t until October.”

Hoya just huffed out a grumpy sigh and nodded. “I wish Dongwoo was still here. He’d easily fix this.”

“My aegyo doesn’t work on Woohyun, or I’d try it,” you offered with a little sigh.

You missed the knowing looks on Hoya and L’s faces as they glanced at each other. What you didn’t know was that your aegyo worked on Woohyun just as much as the rest of them, but your friend was so used to girls throwing aegyo at him that he could hide the effects it had.

Hoya coughed a little. “If you grew your hair out again, it might.”

L glared at his hyung, because that was the last thing he wanted you to do. You looking even more like a girl wasn’t on his list of favorite things.

You shrugged. “I might. I cut it to keep cool over the summer. Plus my parents hated it long.”

The only two people who really knew your home problems were Sunggyu and Woohyun. Sunggyu learned when you had run away to his place one night because Woohyun was busy with family things. He’d refused to believe you when you had him patch you up. It had been nerve-wracking the whole time, waiting for him to notice you were a girl. But apparently you passed well enough at being so shy over the years, that when he saw all the scars that were your explanation for why, that he hadn’t even questioned you clinging to a blanket as he bandaged up your back and sides.

Still, Hoya and L were aware that your home life wasn’t pleasant, so they just nodded.

“Maybe he won’t eat with us today?” Hoya offered hopefully. “I mean, she probably wants him to eat with her friends too, right?”

“Not if she’s afraid her friends will steal him away,” you muttered, expression hopeless.

“Let’s go, though, I’m hungry,” L said, nudging both of you to move towards the cafeteria.

You trudged behind your friends, but really you just wanted to go find a place in the school and sleep. Any appetite you’d had was long gone after talking about Haeun and Woohyun.

On top of that, life at home really had been difficult the past couple of weeks. Whether it was because Bongcha had her own homework and had to spend a while doing it every night after the two of you got home, or something else, it was like your parents had finally decided to go back to their old ways with you. Only instead of the shouting and screaming, they kept you as quiet as possible.

Their issue now? You were going to turn eighteen soon. You’d be graduating soon and entering college. They wanted you to start the testosterone hormone therapy so that after graduation, you could disappear for a “personal vacation” and get the gender reassignment surgery to make you permanently Hyunshik. You’d lose all hope of ever being Hyunok again if you did either of those things. It was the last thing you wanted to do.

But you couldn’t let them figure that out until you were old enough to move out.

You couldn’t do that until you found a job and saved up.

Somehow you tried to pacify them into not figuring out your ulterior motives, while at the same time keeping yourself free of really changing your body. It helped that you’d gone ahead and decided to play soccer during the fall and not just winter. That, combined with taekwondo, kept you busy with your extracurricular time. Your parents weren’t even upset that you couldn’t bring your sister home at night, since it meant you were out being active and masculine with other guys.

It .

On top of that parental stress, Taecyeon was getting even more insistent about meeting up with you and hanging out again. There were only so many excuses you could use before he’d catch on that you were seriously avoiding meeting in person. If he did, there’d be no stopping the older guy from just showing up at your house unannounced.

Like a robot, you went through the food line and got your lunch. It didn’t actually look too bad, and you were irrationally angry at Woohyun for unknowingly ruining your appetite so you couldn’t enjoy it today. But that faded quickly enough, so you just sighed and shuffled behind Hoya and L as they led the way to the “kingka table”.

To all three of your surprise, Sungyeol and Sungjong were the only two still sitting there. Woohyun and his hip ornament were nowhere to be seen.

Both of the guys looked surprised to see you.

“Shikkie!” Sungjong cheered, smiling at you.

You just smiled a little at him. “Hey.”

He pouted. “I missed you! Where did you go? I kept asking if you died, and hyung kept hitting me for no reason!”

Sungyeol swallowed hard and glared at the youngest of the group. “Yah! It was for a reason! You were being a diva again. Of course Hyunshik wasn’t dead. You shouldn’t talk about such things.”

It kind of reminded you of how Woohyun had said you were morbid when you asked if he had cancer. Smiling more easily now, you sat next to Sungjong and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, before pouting at Sungyeol.

“But, hyung,” you whined. “Jongie just missed me so much he was afraid for me! That’s no reason to hurt him.” You rested your chin on Sungjong’s shoulder.

Sungyeol gulped a little at the look you were giving him. It was a combination of aegyo and your general femininity that had him feeling guilty. He just looked down at his food to avoid the puppy-eyes you were giving him.

“Aish, whatever. He still shouldn’t be so morbid,” he muttered.

You let go of Sungjong and ruffled his hair, even if you had to reach up to do so. You really hated only being five-five even when the shortest of your group was still four inches taller than you. Stupid tall freaks.

“Don’t worry, Sungjong, this hyung still loves you,” you said with an eye-smile.

Sungjong just smiled back at you happily, the only one of your entire group to be unaffected by your aegyo. He just looked up to you too much, and had accepted how feminine you could be in stride. After all, he too had his moments.

“Yay!” he cheered.

Meanwhile, Hoya and Myungsoo were just watching in amusement. Only when the five of you started to eat, did Hoya glance around.

“Where’s Namstar?” he wondered.

Sungyeol jerked the back of his rice spoon over his shoulder. “With the queenkas and their friends.”

“Minions,” you corrected, glancing over your shoulder as well.

Sure enough, Woohyun was seated amongst a group of girls, all of which were hanging onto his every word. Well, if they weren’t exclaiming about how cute of a couple he and Haeun made.

Your eyes moved to his girlfriend critically. You had to admit, she was a beauty. She had the kind of S-line figure that most girls would kill themselves for. She had curves in all the right places, and on top of that, she was the complete opposite of the y queenka portrayed in the dramas on TV. She was sweet, kind-hearted to everyone, and actually fairly intelligent.

It was so unfair, even the rice in your mouth left a sour aftertaste.

You just turned around and glared at your lunch. “Whatever, better over there than over here.”

The other four glanced at you in surprise. Honestly, none of them had ever seen you like this before.  You usually were upbeat and smiling, cracking jokes about stupid things, and teasing everyone about their most recent confessor. You even teased them lightheartedly when they did have girlfriends, and accepted it the few times they teased you about yours.

Myungsoo slid his phone out of his pocket under the table and quietly sent a text to the leader of the group, before returning to his lunch. If there was something going on with you, then the only person other than Woohyun that could console or help you was Sunggyu. You didn’t let the others that close.

“You don’t like Haeun-ssi?” Sungyeol wondered.

You shrugged. “She’s perfect for Namu, I just get tired of her being over here. It’s like she’s… too nice.”

L understood what you meant, but that was his personality. Optimistic and friendly people got on his nerves. He still didn’t understand why you managed to befriend him, but blamed it on your ability to be rational and serious when just hanging out with the group. You were a lot calmer then.

“I guess?” Sungjong said, nose scrunched up in thought. “I like her, though. She’s really pretty.”

Every one of his hyungs gave him a look, including you. Sungjong was only a second year in high school, so his thoughts were still pretty much shallow and appearance-based. He hadn’t had too hard of a time, because he’d been friends with Myungsoo before entering. That had given him a quick in into the group of friends, combined with his kingka-worthy looks.

Hoya shrugged. “I just hate that he’s rubbing her in our faces. If we wanted to, we could have girlfriends.”

Sungyeol nodded in agreement with this. “I don’t like that part, either. He even hinted earlier that he might not come to practice tonight.”

Your nose wrinkled. Although the other seven had collectively come together as a dance group, all with the hope of training to become idols, you didn’t share their passion. However, you still attended when you could. It was good exercise, and if the particular choreography called for it, you often took the part of the female dancer. You were short and lean enough to be lithe like a girl, even lacking the curves.

“He told me he was going to bring her next time,” you muttered, getting scandalized looks. You only shook your head. “No, it gets worse. He was going to see if she wanted to do the girl parts for you all.”

“What would you do, then?” Sungjong asked with a pout. “I like it when hyung does the girl parts. You’re really good at it, Shikkie!”

You managed not to blush, but pushed his head away from you. “Yah, that’s not a compliment, Sungjong!”

The others laughed, and all of you missed the look from Woohyun. When he saw you sitting with the group, he frowned, before forcing his attention back to the girls.

Hoya just shrugged. “It isn’t like Sunggyu will agree. He hates the fact girls follow us everywhere. There’s no way he’d let one into the practice room, let alone have her participate. He’d be afraid she’d be our first sasaeng.”

“With good reason,” you pointed out, trying not to smirk too soon. “Some of those moves you guys do even make me blush.”

Everyone gawked at you, Myungsoo’s jaw was even hanging slack so you could see inside his mouth. Fortunately he had no food in there to fall out, but you were pretty pleased to see his reaction. You managed to hold it another moment, before laughter bubbled out of you.

“Y-You should’ve seen your faces,” you laughed, pounding on the table a little.

Sungjong recovered first, pouting a little, but the others didn’t. Sungyeol and Hoya scowled at you, rolling their eyes and shaking their head respectively, before returning to their food. However, Myungsoo continued to gape at you.

Leaning across the table, you smiled sweetly and closed his mouth with a couple fingers on his chin. “What’s the matter, Myungie?” you asked with a little pout, pushing your lower lip out a little.

Feeling his neck and ears getting hot, he jerked back out of reach, before quickly shaking his head. “Nothing, nothing. That wasn’t funny, hyung,” he grumbled, before shoving a few mouthfuls of food in.

You just chuckled and sat back down. Amusement had restored your hunger, so you quickly joined in and shoveled food into your mouth.

Times like this made all the pain and suffering from the hands of your adoptive parents worth it. You just hoped that Woohyun could go the entire couple hours of practice later tonight without mentioning Haeun more than once.

One could always hope.

Annyeong!

It's really early and I haven't slept, so I apologize for any typos and grammatical errors. I'll be reading this over again later and fixing it then, I promise!

This is a really long update. I hadn't originally planned to skip so far, but I had this idea and wanted to roll with it. Plus it wouldn't leave any gaping holes in the story to skip from the first chapter, so yay!

You got to meet almost all of Infinite this chapter! Just missing Sunggyu and Dongwoo. They've already graduated, unfortunately, so you'll have to see them at the dance practice, or otherwise out of school. Any suggestions on what they might be doing while waiting for their dongsaengs to graduate as well? XD

Woohyun is in love, and Taecyeon is impatient. Uh oh...

Until next time~