Junmyeon wakes up in a bed that is not his own, but he's spent enough time in Jongdae’s house to know where he is, even when his brain is muddled with sleep and illness. The blankets are warm, an unusual thing to Junmyeon because his room is always freezing, and he wants to just burrow deeper into them and sleep forever. But he is not home, this is not his bed, and he is intruding. Junmyeon pushes his way up and drags his feet over to the door to the room, pushing it open and wondering idly if he'll be able to make it down the stairs safely.

He does, and thinks that he's really actually very spoiled when he sees nine boys settled in the living room and can hear two more conversing in the kitchen. It must be Kyungsoo and Yixing cooking, because everyone else is settled on or near the wrap around couch watching TV.

It's Jongin that notices him first, and he scoots closer to Sehun to make room for Junmyeon on the couch. He sits carefully, trying not to draw attention to himself. 

Jongin tenses when Junmyeon’s arm brushes his. His face tightens and splays his hands across his legs, and Junmyeon figures his temperature has not gone down. Before Junmyeon can feel any more awkward, though, Jongin smooth’s his face into a reassuring smile and starts squirming around. He moves to face away from Sehun and leans his back against Sehun's shoulder, and then holds an arm out and pulls Junmyeon closer so that his head rests on Jongin's chest. 

Jongin and Junmyeon still aren't the closest out of their large group of friends, but they've all become pretty close and Junmyeon is comfortable enough that he falls asleep with his head on Jongin’s chest with Jongin’s fingers his hair. 

---

This time, Junmyeon wakes where he fell asleep, still cuddled with Jongin on the couch. Only now they're lying down completely and Jongin’s asleep with both arms wrapped loosely around Junmyeon. 

Junmyeon briefly wonders if he should be embarrassed. He thinks that if someone outside their group were to witness their interactions, there would need to be an incredibly awkward explanation about cuddly platonic relationships. 

Junmyeon squirms out of Jongin’s grip and moves to the kitchen, where it seems everyone but he and Jongin have moved. Minseok smiles at him as he enters, and Chanyeol pats an open seat between him and Luhan. He moves to take it, thinking all the way that Luhan will be shoving food down his throat within three seconds of sitting down. 

He's right, of course, but he's hungry, so he takes it. He thinks back to his house, and he knows that if everybody's here school must be out, which means he should be home. He'll be in a lot of trouble tonight, for sure, and he might even have to call in to work tomorrow and take a sick day. It's Friday, thank goodness, so he won't be short on any of the money he "owes" his father, but the next week is going to be hard on his stomach. He lets Luhan baby him for a few more minutes before thanking them all and apologizing for the bother. They protest, saying it's their job and he should have just told them, but he's out the door before they have time to get the real scolding in. 

Junmyeon’s never felt as much pain as he was subjected to that night. 

---

He went to work, dragging a bruised body through his morning routine, down the street, onto the bus and then into his uniform. It was slow going, and he'd had to get up earlier so he wasn't late. It hurt to breathe though, and he thinks that maybe he has a broken rib, but he's out of gauze to wrap it in, anyway, and there's no way he can go to Jongdae. They used to be disconnected enough that even if Jongdae thought there may be something not right, he'd be too scared of being wrong to say anything. But now they're closer, and there's nothing stopping Jongdae from pushing into the bathroom and pulling Junmyeon’s shirt off.

Needless to say, that would be bad.

The day goes slowly, and he hasn't been there two hours before he starts thinking that maybe it would be less painful to just starve until he dies. But, of course he can't do that, because Yixing or Luhan or somebody would find out and then he'd never hear the end of it.

Junmyeon thinks he's been nothing but a bother since he's gotten closer to the others.

---

“No, sweetie, that one needs to be a negative. See, there’s a negative one outside the parenthesis, so everything inside the parenthesis needs to change signs, remember?”

Sehun chews on the end of his pencil and nods, looking back over his paper while Junmyeon goes to wipe down a table. Sehun’s grades, it turns out, had been below average in nearly every class, and while they weren’t horrible, weren’t failing, they were definitely not where he wanted them to be.

Junmyeon has yet to figure out why Sehun’s grades are so low to begin with, because, from what Junmyeon can tell, he’s really smart. He picks up everything Junmyeon says easily, and Junmyeon only finds himself pointing out a mistake once or twice before it doesn’t appear anymore. It’s almost like just never learned any of this to begin with, which doesn’t make sense because Sehun is always at school.

“What about this one? What do I do here? It says to complete the square.” Sehun asks when Junmyeon gets back. Junmyeon leans over the counter and reads the question upside down, taking a little longer than usual to reread the question so he doesn’t get anything backwards.

“Right, I haven’t taught you that one yet.” Junmyeon glances up to check for customers, and then grabs Sehun’s paper when he doesn’t see any. “You remember which numbers are a, b, and c?” When Sehun nods, Junmyeon writes down the new formula. “So you move c over to the other side of the equals sign and then take half of b and square it. Add the squared number to both sides, like this, and then take half of b and put in the place of the original b. See?”

“I think so…” Sehun nods. “I’ll try the next one and ask you if I get stuck.”

Junmyeon smiles and ruffles Sehun’s hair, snorting when the younger gives him a disgruntled look, and moves off to make the customer at table four another iced mocha. This tutoring thing might not be so bad, after all.

The pride he has in Sehun and the satisfaction he has in himself for helping almost drown out the guilt he feels for being such a bother. Almost.

---

Junmyeon finds out why Sehun’s grades had been so low a week later, when Luhan comes to pick him up from the café that night and says that Junmyeon is taking the rest of the night off. Junmyeon panics for a moment before Luhan tells him that he called Junmyeon’s boss and they’d both agreed that one night’s paid vacation for the boy who works every single night was more than reasonable.

Luhan buys Junmyeon a muffin from the café before taking him by the hand and leading him to the car. Junmyeon doesn’t bother to ask where they’re going, just curls up in the seat with the heater on full blast and tries to eat his muffin as fast as he can without clueing Luhan in on the fact that it’s the end of the week and Junmyeon ran out of money to buy food with two days ago.

He ends up drifting off in the car, snuggled up with a blanket Luhan pulled out from the back seat, and wakes up only when he’s blasted in the face with cold air. He mumbles sleepily, and the blanket is pulled more tightly around him before he feels arms underneath him and pulling him out of the car.

They’re at a dance studio, he finds out. There’s a class going on right now, so Junmyeon sits in the waiting room with Luhan and Chanyeol, but he can see Sehun and Jongin in the practice room through the glass. There are a bunch of other kids in there, too; a kid that looks a little like Jongin but with lighter hair, a brunet with colorful streaks in his bangs, and a few girls off to the side. Jongin and Sehun are the only two dancing at the moment, movements perfectly in sync as they move with the beat.

Junmyeon doesn’t think he’d be much of a dancer, but the music is really nice. He doesn’t spend too often listening to music, what with all the work and school and then at home making noise is a very bad idea, but he thinks he really likes this. Whatever song the boys are dancing to is fast paced and exciting, and Junmyeon finds himself humming along after he gets the hang of the chorus.

He pretends he doesn’t notice Chanyeol and Luhan grinning from either side of him.

When the other kids all start gathering up to leave, Luhan guides Junmyeon into the practice room. He feels a little awkward, after all, he’s not a dancer, he shouldn’t be in a dance studio, but they all just smile and wave at him on their way out. He finds himself waving back, completely out of his element and unable to form proper human responses. Jongin laughs at him when he sees it, and pulls Junmyeon down to sit next to him on the floor.

“They know of you because Sehun and I mention you sometimes. Don’t worry so much about it.”

“Oh,” Junmyeon says, still slightly dumbstruck, “why do you talk about me?”

Sehun snorts from Jongin’s other side, sprawled out on the floor. “Because they got tired of listening to us talk about everyone else. Taemin is in our grade and asked about you, Minseok, Yixing, and Tao when we all started hanging out.” He sits up and flashes Junmyeon a smirk. “Some of the girls think you’re pretty cute, too. Yuri even left early when we told her Luhan was bringing you by because she said she didn’t know how to talk to you.”

And what was Junmyeon supposed to say to that? “So, uh, you guys dance.” He says, deciding to just change the subject to a safer topic. “You’re really good.” And then, as an afterthought, “Are we allowed to still be in here?”

Sehun grins and lays himself across Jongin’s legs to be closer to Junmyeon, putting his feet in Chanyeol’s lap in the process. “You thought so? Thanks, we practice a lot. Well,” he says, “I practice more than Jongin, though. He’s more natural than me. I have to work more to keep up.”

Junmyeon shrugged. “It didn’t look that way to me. It looked more like you two have different styles of dancing that you’re good at. Maybe you wouldn’t have to practice so much if you stopped trying to imitate Jongin. He’s more fluid, but you’re sharper. They’d look good together.” Sehun doesn’t answer right away, staring wide eyed up at Junmyeon instead. He blushes when he feels all of the others staring at him as well. “So, you’re sure we’re allowed to still be in here?”

“Yeah,” Luhan says slowly, still looking at Junmyeon like he just fit a new piece to the puzzle. “Jongin and Sehun both have keys to this place. They’re allowed in here whenever.”

“Oh…” Junmyeon says. “Oh! So I bet that’s why you’re having trouble in class, huh?” He says to Sehun. “You’re too tired.”

Sehun smiles sheepishly as Jongin snorts. “He forgets to go home, sometimes. I have to bring him clothes to change into. He keeps extra shampoo in the storage closet in case he can’t go home for a shower.” Sehun swats at him (Junmyeon barely contains his flinch.)

“I see,” Junmyeon smiles. “I’ll just have to text you and remind you to go home from now on, then.”

He leans back against Luhan, still wrapped in that blanket, and watches Jongin and Sehun practice for another hour before he convinces them to go home.

He’s late getting home that night, too.