“So who’s your crush on?” Woohyun tried to ask casually as they joined the throng of hungry teenagers making their way towards breakfast like moths to a flame.

“What makes you think I have a crush?” Sungyeol answered just as casually, enjoying seeing Woohyun just dying inside to know.

Woohyun just settled for punching him not-very-lightly in the back. “Anyway, has the potion worn off yet? I haven’t felt the need to divulge any secrets this morning and my arm stopped itching yesterday. What am I feeling right now?”

“Hungry?” Sungyeol tried, as his stomach gave a rumble.

“That’s not a feeling,” Woohyun said, furrowing his brow. “There’s Dongwoo. Try him.”

Dongwoo beamed from where he was waiting as they approached, slinging his arms over the two of them (he had to tiptoe slightly on Sungyeol’s end) as they entered the Great Hall and was treated to the spectacular sight of food as far as the eye could see. They had experienced this three times a day, every day of the school term for the past five years and yet the tables almost groaning with the weight of delicious food on them still never got old. Professor McGonagall had recently and very cleverly come up with the idea of giving them food from all around the world every Sunday as a means of getting them interested in other cultures and their magic given that more and more students from other ethnicities had started attending Hogwarts; and so last Sunday for their first international breakfast they’d all had exquisite bentos full of beautifully-executed dishes. It had meant a lot of unfamiliar fumbling with chopsticks for those not used to them, and Sungyeol had no idea where the house-elves had learned to cook Japanese cuisine, but he definitely wasn’t complaining. The few Japanese students among them had become mini-celebrities, having to answer questions about the food and how it was made, along with entreaties to teach the others how to make some of the dishes. Having delicious things to eat ensured their attention in Charms and History of Magic when their teachers introduced spells and magical events from the country of the week.

Today, the smell of kimchi hit them before they could register which country’s cuisine it was, and the three of them stopped short in amazement.

“Kimchi jjigae!” An impassioned cry came from their left, and they turned to see Myungsoo – Sungyeol’s stomach did a tiny flip-flop – possessively surveying the table in front of him, laid out with bowls of the steaming-hot stew, gleaming white rice and innumerable side dishes.

“I think I’m going to cry,” Dongwoo whispered, as the scent of bulgogi wafted towards them.

“I think Dongwoo’s really happy,” Sungyeol told Woohyun, who had ceased to pay attention to him.

They sat down almost in a dream at the same table as Myungsoo, other Koreans in the hall already sitting and munching away with gusto while the other students inspected the food with interest. Woohyun picked up a mouthful of kimchi and tears came to his eyes as he chewed.

“It’s better than my mother’s,” he whispered.

The first ten minutes or so of breakfast was spent in silence as they stuffed themselves with everything they could reach, Sungyeol half-watching Myungsoo down the table finish his kimchi jjigae in record time before reaching for another bowl.

“This is the best day of my life,” Dongwoo said in between mouthfuls. “The only thing that could make it better right now was if a certain someone from Ravenclaw would say yes to going out with me.”

“Speaking of a certain someone,” Woohyun put down his spoon, then picked it up again to take one more bite of his rice as if he was afraid it would disappear if he neglected it for too long. “Our Sungyeollie’s in love.”

“I am not in love,” Sungyeol tried to say around his mouthful of japchae. “I just think this person’s really awesome and I like being around them.”

“Which could turn into love,” interjected Woohyun, not willing to back down. “Unless the person, whoever it is, rejects you and your pasty face.”

“How is my face pasty? Dongwoo, am I pasty?”

“You are quite pale, but I wouldn’t call you pasty,” Dongwoo told him, eyeing a plate of tteokbokki. “Do you think we could pack some of this for later?”

“Here, Myungsoo,” Woohyun called out, nearly giving Sungyeol a heart attack. Myungsoo looked up and across at them, smiling when he noticed who’d called his name. “Do you think Sungyeol is pasty?”

“What?” Myungsoo laughed, eyes on Sungyeol. Sungyeol prayed not to blush. “I mean, his skin’s fair, but I wouldn’t say he was pasty. Is someone trying to win a bet?”

“No, we’re talking about the chances of him getting shot down by his mystery crush because he looks like a rice cake.” Woohyun prattled on. “I think it’s someone from his Quidditch team. He came back yesterday after training smiling to himself like a loony.”

Just kill me now, Sungyeol thought. Trust Woohyun to do something like this. Myungsoo’s face was bright, though, and the delight with which he was eating was making Sungyeol want to squish something.

“Since when were you guys friends?” Dongwoo asked, looking between Woohyun and Myungsoo.

“Oh, you know, we just casually saved his life the other day,” Woohyun said airily. Myungsoo rolled his eyes, but continued smiling.

“My heroes,” he said, sarcastically. “I fell off my broom while flying, and the pasty one tried to catch me, but that other one used Immobulus to bring me down safely.”

“’That other one’?” Woohyun pouted as Dongwoo turned to them with huge eyes. Sungyeol was still stuck on Myungsoo’s grin as he called Sungyeol ‘the pasty one’. It really, really didn’t help that Myungsoo had a face that would fit right in in a convention of Veelas.

“You never even said anything! I would have taken it very hard if Myungsoo had died,” Dongwoo said sincerely, making Myungsoo laugh and Woohyun shake his head fondly.

“He’s a really nice guy, and he’s going to help us crush you Reds this season,” he carried on innocently, finally losing the war with his full-to-bursting stomach and spooning some tteokbokki onto his plate. Myungsoo made an incoherent noise of affirmation while Sungyeol stole Dongwoo’s spoon and chopsticks in retaliation, effectively stopping him from being able to eat his tteokbokki.

Myungsoo left a short while later with a few of his housemates, turning back to wave and look over his shoulder at them as he got up from the table to go.

“See you Tuesday, Red,” grinning, Myungsoo called out to Sungyeol, Dongwoo egging him on with a little made-up-on-the-spot song about Myungsoo the Hufflepuff Seeker of Awesomeness.

“Yeah, see you, Huff,” Sungyeol replied, trying to put as much I-wish-I-had-a-reason-to-see-you-every-day into his answering smile.

“Oh?” Woohyun piped up with interest, poking Dongwoo to turn his attention away from his tteokbokki and to Sungyeol. “Look. The moony eyes are back.”

Woohyun and Dongwoo looked at a still-smiling Sungyeol, and then at Myungsoo’s retreating back.

“Ohh,” Woohyun breathed as Dongwoo started laughing.

*

The itching had indeed gone away, and Woohyun no longer was in danger of seriously offending the people around him by blurting out unwelcome facts about themselves or himself. Sungyeol had also lost the ability to share the emotions of those he was near to, which left him feeling oddly bereft. It hadn’t really been all that fun to grab disorienting random spurts of other people’s worry or joy, or in one memorable instance as he was showering the night before – ual desire. That had left him rather overwhelmed and speechless, the person in the cubicle next to him doing who-knew-what – or persons? His mind boggled – while he ignored the fact that he had hardened involuntarily and quickly finished up so that he could hustle out of there. But he knew that it also meant losing the ability to feel Myungsoo as they flew together.

He wasn’t really a romantic, so he recognized the signs of hero worship just as much as he acknowledged he was genuinely attracted to the person Myungsoo appeared to be. That beautiful face, and his gorgeous flying; Sungyeol had to admit he didn’t have a chance.

It was funny; he’d known of Myungsoo since he’d become Hufflepuff seeker in third year, and they’d had a few classes together since then, like Potions – Sungyeol cringed at the realization of this in view of his new feelings, knowing that Myungsoo knew how pathetic he was at Potions – but Myungsoo was never more than a handsome face and good Quidditch player to him. He knew Dongwoo knew Myungsoo, but they moved in different circles and that was that. Yet, just two days were enough for Sungyeol to see Myungsoo in a new light. Knowing how much Myungsoo loved to fly, how much he enjoyed it, and the skill he had in the air had endeared him so thoroughly to Sungyeol even while it worried him – was it just superficial, then? Was he in love with Myungsoo’s love for flying, or was he in love with Myungsoo?

In love. Sungyeol scrunched up his face in annoyance at himself, and then remembered he was in the middle of Charms and quickly let his features go back to normal before Professor Flitwick looked askance at him. He sure was getting ahead of himself.

He walked Woohyun to his project meeting later that afternoon before meeting his own DADA groupmates in order to help explain away Woohyun’s weirdness during the meeting on Saturday, because he was a Good Best Friend. The Snakes had given him twin looks of ill-concealed disbelief at his excuse of having hexed Woohyun with an embarrassing verbal-vomit curse, while Dongwoo tried his very best not to give anything away (they’d told him everything after their wonderful Sunday breakfast). Sungjong raised a perfect eyebrow at Sungyeol, which he answered with a wink on his way out. He knew Sungjong would be disappointed to think he hadn’t actually gained another devotee in Howon.

Woohyun felt the need to giggle nervously, now that Sungyeol was gone and he was alone with his groupmates, but he knew that if he did that he would just be hammering in the last nail in his coffin. He tried for sincerity instead.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, turning to the Slytherins. “I would never have said those things if not for my dumb friend. I’m sorry I said things about your eyes,” Sunggyu’s face remained impassive, “or about you and – er, you,” he finished lamely, darting his gaze between Howon and Sungjong. He forged on. “And, to try and further redeem myself, I think I have the perfect project idea. Hereditary curses!”

Even Sungjong looked interested. Sunggyu looked grudgingly approving, while Dongwoo and Howon nodded in unison.

“That’s good,” Sungjong told him, rare words of praise.

“You know, you could have just given us an idea of your own and saved us all this time,” Woohyun nagged him as they got ready to discuss the parameters of their project.

“What’s the point in that?” Sungjong scoffed. “I might as well just do it alone, then. Professor Filtwick told me to stop doing work for other less-intelligent people.”

Sunggyu exchanged a look with Howon just as Dongwoo and Woohyun suppressed grins at this.

“You know, when compared to him, ‘less-intelligent people’ just means normal people,” Woohyun offered to the two Slytherins who were new to Sungjong’s bluntness. “Sungjongie, you’re never going to make new friends this way.”

Sungjong had the grace to look abashed, and laughed at a joke Howon made later on that Woohyun and Dongwoo knew he didn’t find funny in a million years.

*

“Hey, pasty,” Myungsoo greeted Sungyeol as he walked onto the pitch, chilly air making him shiver slightly and grumble inwardly about early-morning trainings.

“Do not make that a thing,” Sungyeol warned, amazed at how much more cheerful Myungsoo’s smiling face made him. He knew he was avoiding steady eye contact and cursed himself for not being able to look at Myungsoo straight-on because of how overwhelming his face was, as stupid as that sounded. The bigger his crush grew, the more awkward he became.

He missed feeling the rush of Myungsoo’s thrill as they passed one another in the air, so he subconsciously began scrutinizing Myungsoo’s face and body language as he flew. Myungsoo’s face was mostly a study in concentration, intense eyes and body held tense – not rigid, but coiled for any sudden move he had to make. However, here and there his mouth quirked in a slight grin after he pulled out of a particularly electrifying dive or roll; and Sungyeol imagined he could remember what Myungsoo’s pure delight at being able to execute those moves felt like. It made him ache.

It was only when Sungyeol was hit in the stomach by the bludger he wasn’t paying attention to that he realized how much of the practice he hadn’t been mentally present for, reality rushing in in the form of the pain blooming in his midsection. He managed to keep a hold on his broom, and headed for the ground where he tumbled haphazardly onto the grass, winded and gasping to get his breath back.

Myungsoo wasn’t the first to get to him so he hung back while Sungyeol’s teammates crouched around Sungyeol and checked for broken bones or internal bleeding, but Sungyeol registered the concern and alarm on his face. For all it may only have been reasonable for anyone to feel that way over someone else who’d just been bamboozled by a bludger, Sungyeol still felt a warm sense of gratification. When he was given the all-clear and a helpful pain-numbing potion from their first-aid kit, they moved him to the bleachers to allow him to recover. He spent the rest of the training before they broke for breakfast and lessons watching Myungsoo fly, the warm feeling returning every time he imagined he saw Myungsoo’s head turn to look at him far down below.

*

He was sitting up by the time the others descended, and he could see that Myungsoo was torn between leaving Sungyeol to his teammates and coming up to check on him, a thing he fiercely tried to stop himself celebrating. He waved off the others’ help, and lingered for as long as he could without making it obvious he was waiting for Myungsoo – how easy it was to forsake the sworn-upon bonds of Quidditch and friendship when a beautiful boy who flew like a pro wanted to talk to him. He slowly took off his shin and arm guards, boots and Quidditch robes, and when there’s nothing left but for him to get his stuff and broom and put them away into the locker rooms, Myungsoo finally walked up to him, his own robes hanging over one arm and his broom in another.

“Are you okay? That was a bad hit,” he said sympathetically. “Can you walk?”

“Nothing a seeker hasn’t had to deal with before,” Sungyeol smiled at him. “I’m just going to have a really bad bruise for a few days, that’s all.” He got to his feet slowly, fighting the urge to act more injured than he was in order to gain sympathy – or better, an arm around his waist to help him walk. Myungsoo grabbed all his stuff so that Sungyeol didn’t have to carry anything, and Sungyeol suppressed a huge grin. That was good, too.

“Do you want to go for breakfast?” Myungsoo asked after all their things had been put away, Myungsoo getting to see the inside of the Gryffindor locker room for the first time. (“Hmm,” he’d said, pretending to be unimpressed at the trophies, supportive and congratulatory messages and team posters. “A locker room is a locker room.”)

Sungyeol grimaced at this. A bludger to the stomach was never the best thing to whet the appetite. But if he didn’t eat there was no way he’d be able to make it through to lunch alive –

“You should at least have a milkshake or something,” Myungsoo suggested, concern in his eyes shining true. “And your friends will worry if they don’t see you at breakfast.”

Sungyeol hesitated. On one hand, he truly didn’t feel up to going for breakfast or socializing – even though he wasn’t badly injured any hit to the stomach always made him feel nauseous for hours after, and the dull persistent feeling of wrong that accompanied the pain just made him distracted. Plus, there was a chance Myungsoo would stay with him if he acted pathetic enough. On the other hand, he wasn’t looking forward to the gnawing hunger he knew would assail him sometime around eleven o’clock, and Myungsoo was right; he didn’t want Dongwoo and Woohyun worried when he didn’t show up at the Great Hall.

Myungsoo, proving to be ever full of surprises, solved his problem for him.

“I’ll go grab something liquid-y for you from breakfast, okay? And I’ll tell your friends where you are. Do you want to stay here? Do you want me to stay with you?”

Sungyeol wondered if moony eyes, internal screaming and a dreamy smile was a good enough answer.

*