Hyunseung heads back towards the lockers after picking his training bag from the few left littered along the door wall of the tennis hall. He doesn't pay attention to what Joon says, because Joon-hyung knows that Hyunseung isn't more intelligent or more skilled in tennis.

Joon gets distracted when he spots Cheolyong, one of Dongwoon's friends, from the soccer team. Joon waves a hasty goodbye before he runs over and literally tackles the tired soccer player to the ground. Hyunseung thinks Cheolyong must be having fun, judging from the grunts and muffled words coming from the younger boy. Junhyung catches up with Hyunseung after Joon-hyung leaves and Hyunseung glances at the other male, curious. Junhyung doesn't meet his eyes and just adjusts the weight of his heavy backpack.

"Dinner time!" Hyunseung hears Doojoon hollering from his locker to all and sundry in the male locker when he slides open the locker hall door. Several of the other students in the locker hall echo their agreement as Hyunseung heads over to his locker. Junhyung bows and greets all of the people he recognizes on their way to the block of light blue and Hyunseung wonders why he bothers when some of them don't even care about Junhyung anyway. But that's the way Junhyung has always been, always polite, perfectly behaved and absolutely kind-hearted.

Hyunseung wonders if Junhyung's soft-heartedness has anything to do with his constant wrist rubbing, ring twirling and the way he had reacted when he had crashed into the lockers in the Academic Block. The moment Hyunseung reaches his locker he clears all thoughts out of his mind and focuses on the methodical movement of undoing his lock and retrieving his things. He doesn't think of anything else as he strips off his training clothes, down to his boxers, and towels off his sweat.

He does everything meticulously. He folds his training attire neatly and sets it in his locker. He pulls on the white, long sleeved shirt. He puts his pants on, tucking in his shirt and buckling his belt, before he layers on his green vest. He completes his uniform with the black blazer. He puts his training attire into his backpack to bring back to the dormitories so that he can do his laundry after replacing his training bag back into the locker. He also puts on his parka and beanie, pulling the beanie down to his ears like Kikwang does.

He surveys his locker after completing all of the steps of his post-training routine, the reverse of his pre-training routine. He checks to make sure that there are only clean sets of his training attire and his training bag in his locker and that he has stowed his dirty clothes away in his backpack before closing up his locker and locking it, making sure that the combination is set to zero.

"Hungry?" he asks Junhyung, who has piled on his green school vest and duffle coat again. Junhyung shakes his head, a grimace on his face. Hyunseung nods in acknowledgement before he heads over to where Doojoon and Yoseob are. The petite brunet is fussing over Doojoon, whose belongings are strewn all over.

"Have you seen Kikwang and Dongwoon?" Hyunseung interrupts just as Yoseob picks up a black, lacy underwear – "what the hell, this was here? Why is it in your locker?" – although Hyunseung flashes it a look of mild disgust after he speaks. Yoseob frowns at Doojoon and shoves the underwear into his bag before he replies.

"Swim team ended a little late so Dongwoon went to find Kikwang. They're probably making out at the pool chairs right now, so I wouldn't go find them," Yoseob informs Hyunseung, waving a hand around airily.

"Oh, okay. See you guys at dinner then," Hyunseung decides and he walks toward the exit next to the red lockers. Junhyung bows to Doojoon and Yoseob politely as well, before following Hyunseung out of the locker hall.

---

They don't take long to reach the Academic Block, so Hyunseung doesn't even have a chance to cool down from the warmth of his training and the hot air from the Facilities Block's vents. He removes his parka and beanie as soon as he gets into the Academic Block, but Junhyung keeps his duffle coat on. Hyunseung heads for the cafeteria, hungry. He doesn't know what is for dinner, he doesn't check the weekly menu that's up on the notice board, but he's still looking forward to dinner anyway. He hears a growl from a stomach and he stares down at his own belly. He's sure that he isn't that hungry, he doesn't feel his stomach gurgling, so Hyunseung knows that it isn't coming from him.

"Hungry?" he asks Junhyung again, because maybe the other male suddenly feels hungry now. Junhyung shakes his head again, the same grimace on his face again. This time, Hyunseung makes sure to look into Junhyung's eyes. He doesn't understand what he sees in those melancholic brown eyes. He wants to look more, but Junhyung breaks their eye contact and keeps his eyes trained on the floor. Hyunseung supposes the tiles of the floor must be very interesting to Junhyung, so he doesn't pursue the issue. They enter the cafeteria, only a handful of people around.

"Some people shower before dinner. Some of them of them shower after dinner. During competition season everyone showers after the second training. I usually don't change out of my training attire then," Hyunseung goes to sit at the table that he and the others usually occupy.

"Are you sure you're not hungry?" Hyunseung asks one more time, because he didn't imagine the growl and he couldn't be more confident that it hadn't come from him. Junhyung pointedly refuses to look Hyunseung in the eye and simply shakes his head – no, he's not hungry. It makes Hyunseung think, the way Junhyung behaves. It makes Hyunseung think of things that never occurred to him before. It makes Hyunseung think of problems he never thought would come into his life before. It makes Hyunseung think of eating disorders, the whispered word "anorexia" that he had heard some of his ex-girlfriends saying before.

Hyunseung chooses a random dish of food. He doesn't really think food is so important right now. He glances back at the table, where Junhyung is sitting, rubbing his wrist. He looks down at his tray of food and asks for another Coke and a small chocolate spread sandwich from the cafeteria lady. She frowns at him, but she obliges to his request and fixes up a simple Nutella sandwich.

"Thank you," Hyunseung bows and lifts the tray off to walk back to the table. Junhyung doesn't even spare a glance at whatever Hyunseung has brought back, merely keeps his eyes focused on the plain red surface of the round cafeteria table.

Hyunseung picks up the plate of Nutella sandwiches, just two slices of bread with spread cut into two triangles, and places it in front of Junhyung along with the Coke. Hyunseung pushes uncertain thoughts out of his head, because jumping to conclusions will only cause inaccurate judgement. If he thinks Junhyung has an eating disorder, Hyunseung will just end up seeing everything that Junhyung does as a symptom of an eating disorder, so he doesn't.

Junhyung thanks Hyunseung, as polite and well mannered as always, and picks up the sandwich. Hyunseung sits down and digs into his food, which turns out to be white cream salmon pasta. He twirls the noodle onto his fork and bites into his food, but he watches Junhyung out of the corner of his eye. Junhyung just holds onto the sandwich, his lips, not eating. Hyunseung stabs a piece of salmon and puts it into his mouth, eating but not really tasting, because Junhyung is behaving strangely. If he would just eat the sandwich, Hyunseung wouldn't have to mind so much, but Junhyung doesn't even bring it close to his mouth.

"If you don't like that, you can get something else to eat, you know," Hyunseung reminds Junhyung, just in case the new transfer student doesn't know. Junhyung shifts his attention from the Nutella sandwich half to Hyunseung, almost startled.

"Ah, okay. Thank you for letting me know," Junhyung says and Hyunseung thinks it might be his fault that Junhyung is so formal with him even though none of the others are around. Hyunseung doesn't think it would be possible to just pick up from where they left off in middle school. Hyunseung doesn't think it would be right to treat Junhyung like someone new in his life either. He doesn't know where he stands with Junhyung anymore. Heechul-hyung had said that Junhyung had come for Hyunseung, but that was impossible. Junhyung's parents would never have allowed that. He couldn't be that important to Junhyung anyway.

Junhyung was always the only person that really understood Hyunseung in middle school. He asked a lot of questions, of course he did, it was their way of talking to each other without really conversing like everyone else did. Junhyung was the only one who knew that Hyunseung was not the rude, standoffish person he appeared to be. Junhyung understood that Hyunseung was quiet because he didn't want to hurt people with his honesty. Junhyung understood that Hyunseung didn't think the way the others did. Junhyung understood that Hyunseung wasn't being an annoying, attention-seeking, eccentric wannabe. Junhyung understood that Hyunseung was just being the way that he was.

Junhyung was the only one who could always make Hyunseung feel comfortable. He never asked Hyunseung to be a little less of this way or a little more of that way. It wasn't like Junhyung naturally fit with Hyunseung, not really. They did, at some edges of the puzzle, fit together, but not always. Junhyung didn't know the right things to say sometimes, didn't always know what Hyunseung was thinking, but somehow even though they didn't naturally fit, Junhyung helped them to fit. Junhyung was able to fit next to Hyunseung in the most comforting way.

Hyunseung thinks Junhyung makes him feel the things that he normally doesn't feel, because it hurts that Junhyung isn't eating. It hurts that Junhyung isn't just rejecting him, it hurts that Junhyung is actually possibly hurting himself. In a way that he cannot feel with anyone else, Hyunseung feels something piercing deeply into him as he watches Junhyung shred off the crust of the sandwich, still not eating at all.

Hyunseung thinks that with Junhyung, everything he feels is much richer, brighter, stronger.

Hyunseung finishes his pasta quickly, because if Junhyung doesn't want to eat, there isn't a point in forcing him. He hears the growl that comes from Junhyung's stomach – even though it should be muffled by his duffle coat and the layers of his uniform – loud and clear. Hyunseung leaves the table to dump his dirty plate and utensils away before he goes back to the cafeteria line. He asks one of the serving ladies for a plastic bag and brings it back to the table, taking the sandwich out of Junhyung's hand and putting both slices into the bag. He hands the wrapped Nutella sandwich back to Junhyung and picks up his own backpack.

"What room did you get assigned to?"

"Hey, what, you guys are done already?" Doojoon asks as he walks toward their table with an arm slung around Yoseob's shoulders. Both of them are showered, clean and wearing casual clothes. Hyunseung has a sweeping thought of whether Yoseob is wearing the strange underwear that he had found in Doojoon's locker, but it disturbs him so he stops.

"Yeah, we haven't showered yet, if you haven't realised," Doojoon's mouth forms a nice round 'O' as he looks at Hyunseung and Junhyung's clothes.

"See you back in the dorms, then," Yoseob waves with a bright smile before he proceeds to drag Doojoon to the food line, which is starting form from the amount of showered and fresh students piling into the cafeteria.

"Yoseob loves food a lot," Hyunseung muses as he watches the tiny brunet abusing his soccer player boyfriend probably for being so slow, because now the food line is longer and they will have to wait longer for dinner.

"I got assigned to B416," Junhyung says quietly and it startles Hyunseung a little. There hasn't been anyone like Junhyung for the past three years after all. Hyunseung tries to think of who is already in B416. Doojoon rooms in B419 across the corridor of B416 with Joon-hyung. Hyunseung heads towards the Dormitories Block, pulling his beanie and parka back on.

"You're rooming with Taecyeon," Hyunseung realises and it feels like something has just punched him in the gut. He is halfway down the hallway, between the cafeteria and the door that will lead out of the Academic Block, but he turns on his heel and marches back into the cafeteria. Doojoon and Yoseob are a little further along the line now, but it is nowhere near close to their turn to get their dinner. Hyunseung goes straight to the both of them and ignores everyone else in his path. He goes so fast that he almost loses Junhyung who is still greeting everyone he recognizes politely.

"Junhyung is rooming with Taecyeon," Hyunseung states as he stands in front of Doojoon and Yoseob, who are talking about one thing or another, Hyunseung doesn't really pay attention to that as he interrupts them. Yoseob's eyes widen immediately and Doojoon stiffens.

"Taecyeon? Ok Taecyeon? That Taecyeon? The one across my room, Taecyeon?" Doojoon asks. There is a hard edge to his words and Hyunseung finds himself appreciating his friends a little bit more. Doojoon is the only one who will precisely understand what Hyunseung is feeling right now, because he is the only one who has felt it before. The suppressed memory of Kikwang's frightened face flashes through his mind and he remembers Junhyung's expression from the afternoon. It makes Hyunseung feel sick.

"B416 Ok Taecyeon," Hyunseung reassures Doojoon. Hyunseung knows Junhyung is probably confused by the fuss over Taecyeon, but it isn't his place to explain the story to him. Yoseob looks worried and Hyunseung thinks it is justified.

"No. He's not going to room with Taecyeon. He can put his stuff in the room, but I'll go and sleep there. He'll sleep in my room with Joon-hyung. He knows Joon-hyung right?" Hyunseung feels relieved that Doojoon can understand his worry and his anxiety.

"But it's against the dorming rules and tonight there's going to be a check," Yoseob points out. Hyunseung thinks he must be torn between wanting to protect Junhyung, whom Yoseob has already taken a liking too, and making sure Doojoon is alright as well. Hyunseung thinks, if it were him choosing between Doojoon and Kikwang, it might have been hard too but in this case, he just wants to make sure that Junhyung doesn't go within a ten meter radius of Ok Taecyeon.

"Can someone tell me what's going on?" Junhyung finally asks and that reminds Hyunseung that Junhyung is actually next to him. Hyunseung looks at Doojoon who has furrowed his brows, deep in thought. None of them speak, but Doojoon and Yoseob move down the line a little when the people behind them start shooting them dirty looks for holding the line up. Hyunseung and Junhyung move along with them as well.

"Ok Taecyeon, essentially, is an . He has some to pick with me, so he might try to strangle me in my sleep, but that's better than what he might do to you. We can't let you dorm in the room with Taecyeon," Hyunseung can hear the anger bubbling beneath the surface, just barely controlled in Doojoon's voice. He thinks Doojoon might be remembering the events of sophomore year when Kikwang had just entered the school as a freshman. It's something Hyunseung consciously avoids. He doesn't think about the incident if he can. He doesn't think about how Kikwang was in freshman year, before Dongwoon came to the school.

"I think I'll be okay, I mean, what's the worse he can do, right?" Junhyung speaks with a joking tone, but it's not because he doesn't feel the tension that is radiating in waves off of Doojoon. Hyunseung thinks it's the reverse. It's precisely because he feels it and wants it to stop. It's been a while since Hyunseung has seen Doojoon this serious. Hyunseung thinks of alternatives for the situation, because if there were ways to keep Junhyung safe and Doojoon out of trouble, Hyunseung would rather use that alternative. He digs his cell phone out of his backpack.

"He can do some really horrible things, Junhyung, and you're exactly the kind of guy he would do it to. You have to trust us on this one," Yoseob speaks before Doojoon does and Hyunseung thinks it was a good move. The temple on Doojoon's forehead looks dangerously like it's about to burst.

"What are you guys doing?" Kikwang's voice is light and singsong, because he has no idea and as he drapes himself over Hyunseung, the redhead watches Doojoon's face turn from anger to horror.

"Nothing, we were just talking about some stuff," Yoseob covers up slowly, he doesn't mention Taecyeon, doesn't mention anything about Junhyung rooming with Taecyeon. He doesn't whisper a single thing that might inform Kikwang of what they're talking about and Hyunseung thinks that Yoseob might sometimes be the reason why the five of them, now six, never fight.

"Hyung, are you okay? You look like Yoseob just banned for a week," Kikwang teases as Hyunseung slides his phone back into his pocket. He looks at Junhyung, hoping that the other had at least a brief grasp of the situation. Hyunseung really could not allow him to room with Taecyeon. It was impossibility.

"Yah, who said you could make fun of your older brother like that?" Doojoon snaps playfully, traces of their previous conversation leaking into his speech, but Hyunseung doesn't think Kikwang notices because Dongwoon has just pulled him into a tight hug. Maybe Dongwoon has caught on to the situation, maybe he knows, but Hyunseung is grateful that Dongwoon distracted Kikwang at the right moment, intentional or otherwise.

"I'm just going to go back to my dorm," Junhyung says and turns to leave before anyone replies. Hyunseung moves to follow, but Dongwoon stumbles back when Kikwang squirms in his arms and they collide, crashing to the floor.

"Oops, sorry, Hyunseung-hyung," Kikwang says with round, pitiful eyes and Hyunseung can't find the heart to get angry at him because Doojoon is looking at the both of them with the kind of eyes that makes Hyunseung think that Doojoon has gone through more than anyone their age should.

"It's okay," Hyunseung says as he climbs back onto his feet, even when it actually isn't because Junhyung is already out of the cafeteria and closer to Taecyeon than Hyunseung thinks is acceptable.

But by the time Hyunseung waves off the other four and brisk walks out of the cafeteria, Junhyung is already gone.

A/N: My laptop is still dead, my All-Stars background information and etc is still stuck inside there and yeah. I hope you guys liked this one, I was pretty excited while writing it. Actually, I just realised I liked chapter 7 and 8 a lot. They were incredibly fun to write. Not that I enjoy torturing Junhyung, but yeah. I hope you guys like this one as much as I do and I always encourage comments!

Also, I don’t think that Taecyeon is really the sort of he’s going to be in All-Stars. I just needed someone to play the character and he has the most cocky/arrogant kind of feeling when you see him at first, even though he actually isn’t. I didn’t want to create an original character either, so I chose Taecyeon. I’m sorry if this bothers any Hottests.