Their sophomore year at Haneul High doesn’t seem any different than their freshman year, but Chanyeol shoots up a few more inches and towers over everyone else in their year, Jongdae’s baby fat melts off his cheeks (thankfully, and finally), Soojung claims her diet is working when she turns several heads on walking into school, and Kyungsoo’s voice cracks and deepens.

Baekhyun, of course, gets even more attractive than he already is (in Jongdae’s eyes), and develops a penchant for wearing thick eyeliner, masterfully applied and making his eyes even prettier than before. The first time he comes to school, eyes rimmed dark, Jongdae nearly walks into a locker and slams his knee into one of those rockmonster kids.

“,” chokes out Jongdae, doubling over and clutching at his leg, while Chanyeol and Soojung laugh at him. Evil friends. “God, Junhong, why do you always have to show off in the hallways.”

Yixing floats over, wiggles his fingers over Jongdae’s knee, and says, “Wsshhuhhuffsshushuhsssss.”

Oh. That’s much better.

“That’ll be three bucks,” says Yixing, and Jongdae splutters. “Just kidding. What? A man’s gotta earn to eat.”

“You mooch off Lu Han, anyway,” points out Baekhyun, and Yixing just smiles that sage smile that he always does, flitting off to where Wu Fan is leaning against his locker, and Baekhyun turns to Jongdae and smiles. “Hey.”

Jongdae is immediately healed (not that Yixing didn’t heal him just now, he’s talking an internal healing, of his love-sick soul, “oh god,” mutters Kyungsoo, “he’s gone off the deep end”) and he replies, “Wow.”

Soojung sniffs. “How is it you look better in eyeliner than I do?”

“It’s a work of art, a masterpiece,” Baekhyun sing-songs, and Chanyeol immediately catches on and starts rapping the entire song, all the way to class, and Soojung looks ready to freeze his face off with her glare. Jongdae just laughs.

Class is as boring as usual, but they finally delve into Power Control lessons, where they attempt to determine uses for their powers that might help them and their future hero partner in battle or in any other way. Jongdae has to sit these out, as he still doesn’t have a power yet, but he watches in amusement as the experiments go underway with Professor Ha, who’s almost as eccentric as the class is hopeless.

“You can do it, boy, just concentrate your breath into one larger flame,” drives Professor Ha, and Chanyeol breathes so hard that he burns the potted plant sitting on the table, but the teacher merely claps and laughs like a hyena and sends him back to his seat, telling him that he’s on his way to getting it.

Soojung leaves a snowcloud hovering over Professor Ha’s head after her turn (“I can pretend I have dandruff and make the other teachers feel uncomfortable!” says Professor Ha thoughtfully, brushing off his shoulders) and Baekhyun discovers that if he pushes hard enough, he can concentrate the light energy into a small ball, outside of his palm, and this makes him grin for the rest of the day.

At lunch, the usual table converges, and Lu Han is practically bouncing up and down in his seat. “I got my power!” he all but shouts when they sit down, and Jongdae feels hope rise inside him. “Guess what it is!”

“The power to be evil,” says Kyungsoo flatly, waving his fork at Lu Han, “because I know you’ve been picking off my muffins when I look away, and I do not appreciate my muffins being eaten by other persons.”

“Close enough,” says Lu Han, and there’s his wicked grin in place, and he raises a hand at Kyungsoo’s tray. The muffin shoots off his tray and straight into Lu Han’s hand. While Kyungsoo’s mouth falls open in horror, and Lu Han chomps down onto the muffin in pure joy, the others are staring at him with surprise and excitement.

“Telekinetic!” laughs Joonmyun, who’s joined them for today, taking a break from his new student body president post, and he reaches over to pat Lu Han on the shoulder. “Congrats!”

“He stole my food!” whines Kyungsoo.

“Mind powers,” whispers Chanyeol, eyes wide, “you’re transferring straight to Hero track, holy .”

Jongdae knows how rare mind powers are, seeing that there’s only one other student with mind powers currently enrolled in the school, and there hasn’t been a telekinetic student in five years. Lu Han catches his eye and grins at him. “See? You’ve got a chance.”

“Yeah,” says Jongdae, and for the first time, he might actually believe it. “I might.”

Baekhyun beams at him, and Jongdae beams back, and they can see Lu Han whispering furiously into Yixing’s ear. Probably about them. His secondary ability must definitely be the power to be evil. Kyungsoo is always right about these things.

“You’re replacing that,” says Kyungsoo slowly, “or I’m never baking you another cookie ever again.”

“No need for me to do that.” Lu Han turns back, and flags down a kid, probably a freshman, who looks shyly at the table. “This is Jongin. He’s new.”

Jongin says, “Hello.” He’s tall and tanned and attractive. His eyes shift to Kyungsoo, and he says again, “Hi.”

Kyungsoo’s mouth opens and closes several times.

Jongdae nudges Chanyeol in the side, and whispers, “Well, well, look who’s got a taste of his own medicine.”

Chanyeol snickers.

“I promised to help show him around. You can be friends with everyone here!” says Lu Han cheerfully, and the boy smiles, and Jongdae can feel Kyungsoo on the verge of fainting. “Also, could you get Kyungsoo a muffin? There was an accident with his.”

“Sure!” says the boy, way too cheerfully, and he disappears into a bunch of shadows, and reappears with a muffin in hand.

“Gah!” shrieks Chanyeol in shock, because he’s only ever seen that in books. “Umbrageous teleportation?”

Jongdae blinks. Teleporters are common nowadays, but umbrageous teleportation is a whole different level of teleportation. Using shadows to disappear and reappear. In the years before it was often seen as a supervillainous ability, but now that the age of powers has caught up with the world, it’s seen in a better light. And wow, if he’s not just the slightest bit jealous that this kid has a cool power.

Baekhyun whispers, “Woah. That’s rare.”

Kyungsoo takes the muffin, still staring at him, and he says, “Thank you.” Jongin smiles, flushing, and Kyungsoo goes red too. Lu Han looks way too happy for this to be real. On his right, Joonmyun and Yixing are just shaking their heads.

“This is going to be worse than you and Baekhyun,” snorts Soojung, and Baekhyun whips his head around and gives her a look, that girl-are-you-asking-for-it diva look that the two of them regularly exchange on a weekly basis, and Soojung gives him another look, the you-don’t-even-know-who-you’re-dealing-with diva look, and they stare each other down.

Jongdae watches helplessly. They’re both such drama queens, god.

“Fierce and unattainable drama queens,” whispers Chanyeol, “well, Soojung is unattainable, anyway.”

“Don’t worry, I think you can thaw her someday,” whispers Jongdae back, watching as Baekhyun snarks at Soojung, and Soojung flips her hair indignantly. “Like, a long, long time from now.”

“Which probably translates to never,” adds in Kyungsoo, who seems to have finally come back to his senses, “and not a word out of you two, or I’m pulling out the photo blackmail and plastering it across the school.”

The both of them inhale sharply. “Not the photo blackmail!”

“What photo blackmail?” chirps Lu Han, smiling widely.

Jongin takes to hanging around Kyungsoo like a little puppy from then on, and it’s sickeningly endearing, the look on Jongin’s face every time Kyungsoo smiles at him, and the flush that appears on Kyungsoo’s skin every time he watches Jongin do something that requires full concentration, and Jongin sticks his tongue out the side of his mouth and nips the tip of his pen.

He feels for the guy, Jongdae does, he really does, but it is funny to see Kyungsoo tongue-tied over a younger kid who’s equally as tongue-tied over Kyungsoo. It’s sweet.

And then he looks at Baekhyun, and Baekhyun does his come-hither expression, and it’s just as bad, the way Jongdae immediately skips over to him.

“So whipped,” says Soojung, and Chanyeol nods solemnly. “That’ll be you in a year.”

“No way!”

Jongdae ignores the bickering again, and slips into the seat beside Baekhyun. “Hey,” he says, pretending to be cool and casual, but then Baekhyun smiles, and Jongdae knows he’s probably grinning back like a goofball himself. “So.”

“So,” echoes Baekhyun, “you coming over tonight, right?”

“Definitely,” says Jongdae, and Baekhyun mouths, this will be fun, and he’s grinning. Jongdae’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and his heart thumps in his chest. Oh.

They settle back into their seats when their War History lesson starts, and every now and then, Jongdae can’t help but glance over at Baekhyun, and thoughts run wild in his mind. He’s almost sixteen, and he doesn’t want to rush into anything, but Baekhyun is good-looking, and gorgeous, and more or less his boyfriend, and wow, Jongdae’s never really looked at it that way before.

He’s got a boyfriend. How strange.

And then it hits him even harder: his family doesn’t even know that he’s gay.

And he’s going to have to break the news sooner or later.

Well, .

“So, we’re not going to be doing homework, are we?” are the first words that come out of Jongdae’s mouth when he steps into Baekhyun’s room.

“Maybe a little,” says Baekhyun thoughtfully, “I still have some Math I’m lagging behind on.”

“Anything but math, please,” says Jongdae, and Baekhyun’s smile turns into something a little cheekier. “Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun saunters over and curls his fingers into Jongdae’s collar, leading them back to his bed. “Anything?” he murmurs, and he pushes Jongdae down onto the bed.

Jongdae exhales, looking up into Baekhyun’s eyes. “Do you also have secondary powers of evil?”

He doesn’t get an answer, but Baekhyun laughs, before leaning down and pulling his legs up, and he  straddles Jongdae’s waist, ankles dangling off the edge of the bed, and he kisses Jongdae properly for the first time, after half a year of chaste, half-second kisses and light petting, and Jongdae’s hands automatically find their way to Baekhyun’s hips, fingertips peeking under the hem of his shirt.

Jongdae lets Baekhyun coax his mouth open, tongues meeting hesitantly, but then Baekhyun shifts slightly and deepens the kiss, into Jongdae’s mouth, warm and wet and slow, and Jongdae feels himself melting under Baekhyun’s touch. A soft whine escapes his throat and Baekhyun shudders, nipping at Jongdae’s lower lip slightly, and Jongdae pulls him nearer, rubbing soft circles into Baekhyun’s skin with his thumbs.

Their noses bump a few times and Baekhyun has to switch the angle of their faces several times, and their teeth clack together and it’s slightly embarrassing, that neither of them can really kiss properly, but it doesn’t have to be perfect, Jongdae knows that.

It’s still deliriously good though, and Jongdae is ridiculously heady and contented by the whole thing, and when Baekhyun untangles himself from Jongdae many minutes later, he’s smiling softly, skin glowing mutedly, and it makes butterflies explode in Jongdae’s stomach. “That was nice.”

“Mmm,” is the only thing Jongdae can say at the moment, and he’s glad they stopped when they did, because he doesn’t think he could have restrained himself from ravishing Baekhyun for the rest of the night if they’d went on.

“Homework now?”

“Mmfjdnjf,” goes Jongdae, still unable to form proper sentences clearly, and he tries again, “Really?”

“If you haven’t realised it yet, your boyfriend is the top student in Hero Support, and intends to keep it that way.” Baekhyun smirks, and Jongdae wants to the lighted smirk off his face. “Besides, there’s no way Soojung is usurping my throne.”

“The two of you are such divas,” mumbles Jongdae, and Baekhyun laughs, getting up to reach for their books.