Six of the boys were stood inside the venue for their first activity. They’d been split from the other half of their large group and put together with about seven girls, all of them squealing at the fact that Luhan was one of the boys in their group. Luhan ignored them, used to the attention they gave him. He’d never even talked to these girls before and, yet, they were giggling and whispering his name just to get the doe-eyed boy to look over at them. He didn’t even know their names.

The group consisted of Luhan, Sehun, Kris, Tao, Chanyeol and Baekhyun. They were standing in what looked like a small barn that had been plastered on the inside, renovating it to something of a higher standard. The team of thirteen still looked confused about their activity. All they’d been told by the teachers was that they were going to be doing something called ‘indoor caving’. However, where they currently were looked nothing like a cave, even an indoor one. The instructor came in at last, delayed by another group that got lost and needed directions, or so he said. He was wearing a bright yellow safety helmet as well as elbow and knee protectors. His helmet had a small light attached to it, similar to the ones used by explorers of real caves, just a lower budget version. The girls of the group turned their attention away from Luhan for a moment to look at the beauty before them. The instructor (Mr. ‘call me “Donghae”’) was wearing a skin-tight top, the type you wear when cycling, and shorts, showing off his calves. After introducing himself, he told the group to each put on a helmet and a set of protective elbow and knee pads. They did as they were told, the girls helping each other to fasten the helmets properly and the boys doing the same thing. Once everyone was fully equipped, Donghae stepped back and pointed to a wooden frame. The frame was made of a thick wood, not expensive but practical, with four different quadrilaterals carved out of it. Donghae explained that these were the sort of holes the students would be crawling through in the indoor caves. The girls gasped, shocked at how small they were and worrying that they wouldn’t be able to fit through them.

“Don’t be scared,” Donghae gave them his signature cocky smirk, “You’ll all be able to fit through all of the cave’s sections. I can absolutely guarantee it. You know why?”

The pupils shook their heads.

“Because,” he began, “I can fit through them all easily. I’m a lot bigger than you, physically, so you should have no trouble.”

He explained that, before they entered the indoor caves, he was going to demonstrate how easy it was to get through even the smallest of the holes.

“Pick a hole. Any hole,” he gestured to the wooden frame and asked for the first volunteer to step forward.

The aim was to get each of the thirteen students through one of the holes to prove that they could do it in the caves. The four holes decreased in size, the largest square at the bottom and the smallest rectangle at the top. Most of the girls went through the largest hole, scared of embarrassing themselves in front of Donghae. The boys, however, were a little more adventurous. Kris, Chanyeol and Tao went through the second largest. Sehun and Luhan slipped through the third largest effortlessly and Baekhyun tried his luck with the smallest of the holes, fitting through with ease. Just to make his point crystal clear to the students before him, Donghae squeezed himself through the smallest hole, earning a small round of applause from a few of the female audience members. All he had to do was twist his shoulders a little bit and make sure his hips didn’t get stuck and he was through. Simple as that.

“Now,” Donghae started, turning to his little group again, “Through that little blue door are the caves. It’s going to be dark in there, hence the need for headlamps. There are three settings on the lamp – dim, bright and flashing. Use only the dim or bright settings. The flashing setting is only for if you’re in trouble. We’ve had a few people who suffer from claustrophobia getting stressed out in the caves before. All they had to do was turn their lamp to flashing and I’d come and find them. There are a few emergency exits – one on the bottom level and two on the top. They’re marked with a big blue star but don’t touch them unless it is an emergency. I should explain that, to work the lamps, you need to click the button on the top. Click once for dim, twice for bright and three times to make it flash. When we go inside, there’ll be a flat area – no cave bits yet – where I want you all to sit. There’s not a lot of room so stay close together and I’m sure we’ll all fit in fine. Any questions?”

Silence.

“Okay, cool. Right, I’m going to open the door and you all need to crawl inside and wait for me,” he reached forward to pull the small door, opening it fully and signalling for the first student to head inside, “Off you go.”

Baekhyun went in first, closely followed by Chanyeol who found it hilarious to pull Baekhyun’s leg from underneath him, effectively tripping the older male and making him scream at a ridiculously unmanly pitch. As expected, once the two were seated in the flat area, Baekhyun proceeded to slap Chanyeol’s arm several times, only causing Chanyeol to laugh louder, clapping his hands like a seal. Once everyone was inside, Donghae joined them and closed the door behind him, cutting out any light from the small space. A couple of the girls screamed and even Baekhyun, who had previously been hitting his boyfriend and plotting his revenge against the happy giant, grabbed hold of Chanyeol as tight as he could.

“Turning on your headlamps would be a good idea now,” Donghae chuckled, switching his light onto the brightest setting.

The group of pupils mirrored him, Tao accidentally setting his lamp to flash and needing Kris’s help to adjust it.

“Okay, I’m gonna need to squeeze through here and get to the first cave section so, if you’ll excuse me,” Donghae carefully crawled between the students, making his way to the top of the area, where the BaekYeol couple were sitting.

He directed his headlamp at the hole to his right, showing the pupils who were close enough to see that it was quite a large cave, something easy to get the group started off. Donghae explained that he would be going through the cave first and that the students had to follow after him, meeting at the next available rest point. He went, head first, into the plastic cave design, slipping through easily and avoiding the bumps in the floor and ceiling. Chanyeol was next, pushed forward by Baekhyun who refused to go first, followed by the aforementioned scaredy cat.

The session continued like that, each student passing through a cave and meeting Donghae on the other side, for a while before their instructor allowed them some free time to explore the depths of the fake caves for themselves, choosing their own path and passing through the obstacles they wanted to. Chanyeol immediately rushed off, Baekhyun crawling after him quickly, afraid of getting lost. Kris took hold of Tao’s wrist and pulled him in the opposite direction, suggesting that they race through a section where there were two identical cave passages, one on top of the other. Tao giggled and agreed, quite happy with spending time with Kris alone. Sehun and Luhan stayed put where they were, sitting in one of the small open sections of the caves. Luhan wasn’t too keen on the indoor caving. He claimed that it was too dark for his liking but Sehun thought it was probably because he was still tired. They’d only managed to get about twenty minutes of sleep before Kris came knocking on the door, telling them to hurry up and ‘get their asses down to the main hall before he goes and tells Tao to Wushu them to death’.

“I wonder what we’re doing next,” Luhan thought aloud, hugging his knees to his chest and resting his chin on top.

Sehun shrugged, “I’m not sure but I bet it’s going to be fun.”

Luhan just hummed and turned his head to look at the younger boy, smiling. The doe-eyed boy suddenly yawned, confirming Sehun’s suspicions about him being tired. Sehun swore to himself that he would make sure Luhan got a good night’s sleep that night, even if it meant they were sleeping in the same bed again. He had to say, although slightly uncomfortable and definitely embarrassing, the experience of Luhan sleeping beside him wasn’t an entirely unpleasant one. Sehun found it to be quite peaceful really, if you discounted his racing heartbeat and the fear that Luhan would suddenly wake up and push him away or something like that.

“What’s your favourite bubble tea flavour?” the younger of the two suddenly blurted out, eager to break the silence that had fallen upon them.

“What?” Luhan’s eyebrows raised a little.

“I was just wondering,” Sehun clarified.

“Taro,” was the response.

Sehun nodded, smiling.

“Mine’s chocolate,” he grinned, shuffling a little closer to the other boy as one of the girls came crawling past them, giggling at an annoyingly high pitch.

“At least someone’s having fun,” Luhan muttered, hiding his mouth with his knees, still drawn up to his chest.

“You okay?” Sehun asked, reaching over and placing a hand on the older male’s shoulder.

Luhan flinched a little, surprised.

“Sorry,” said Sehun, pulling his hand away again.

The elder one shook his head, “It’s alright, it was just unexpected, that’s all. Also, I’m okay. Just a little tired, I guess. I should really think about getting an early night tonight”

Luhan smiled reassuringly but, somehow, it didn’t reach his eyes. Sehun frowned when the other boy turned away, looking down the centre of the cave in front of them. He was about to speak up and ask Luhan if he was really alright when he heard Baekhyun yell from the level below, the shout being followed by a garish laugh from Chanyeol.

“Yeollie’s stuck!” came the cry, Chanyeol’s laughing ringing throughout the caves. Sehun swore he could feel the walls move just from the volume alone.

After rescuing Chanyeol from being trapped in the smallest hole, Donghae suggested that it was time to finish up and head out again. He instructed the group to make their way back to the meeting area where they had first sat down. He also said that, when they got there, the exit door would already be open for them to just make their way outside, back into the real world again.

The thirteen students exited the caves, removed their safety equipment and walked back outside to join the other groups. The teachers and instructors were all gathered to split the pupils off to their next activity. Luhan and Sehun’s group were assigned to do the obstacle course – nothing too difficult and, thankfully, nothing to do with heights. The other half of the twelve boys (Kai, D.O, Chen, Xiumin, Lay and Suho) were told that they would be raft building with the rest of their group. They had fourteen people in total in their team with five girls and three other boys.

Once everyone had been given the name of their next activity, they joined with their instructors and made their way over to each of the individual venues or arenas. Suho’s group reached the lake and laid eyes upon the equipment they had to use. The materials were still wet from when the previous team had used it before them. There were some empty blue plastic barrels, lengths of thick rope and some wooden planks. That’s all they had to work with on this activity. They had two instructors for this task, a male and a female. The male instructor introduced himself as Yesung and the female staff member said that her name was Hyoyeon. They were quite bubbly, the sort of people you would expect to work in such a place as the residential venue. After explaining the rules of the task, the two instructors told the group to split into two. The pupils split so that the six boys were in one team and the other eight students were in the other.

“Can one of you move to the other team?” Hyoyeon asked, “Just to make the numbers even. It’ll be fairer that way.”

The girls looked at each other but made no move to switch groups. The same could be said for the three boys. Chen suddenly spoke up, causing both instructors to look in his direction.

“It’s okay,” he started, “We’re fine with just the six of us. Even with less people, I’m sure we’ll win.”

He grinned brightly and a couple of the girls giggled at his playful antics. Hyoyeon agreed to leave the two teams as they were and turned to Yesung to start the timer.

The rules were pretty simple. Each group had twenty minutes to build the best raft they could with the materials provided. They had to all be able to fit onto said raft for a total of one minute. If the raft collapsed or any of the team members fell into the water, they would lose. If both teams ended up in the water for one reason or another, the group that stayed on for longer would be the victor. Lay was seriously regretting wearing jeans at this point. If he’d known that they were going to do something involving getting wet, he would have dressed more suitably for the task. He just prayed that he didn’t fall into the lake and stayed as dry as he possibly could.

As soon as the timer was started, Chen and Xiumin sprinted over to the barrels, pushing each other despite the fact that they were on the same team. They rolled the barrels down to their teammates who caught them and began to arrange them on the bank, with instructions from both Suho and D.O.  Chen was grabbing some of the rope, wrapping it around his arm for easy carrying, while Xiumin picked up a couple of the wooden planks. The older of the two swung the planks over his shoulder, accidentally hitting one of the girls from the other team.

“Hey,” she yelled, clutching her head where the wooden board had hit her, “Watch what you’re doing, fatty!”

Xiumin felt a stab of pain from the hurtful nickname but apologised nevertheless. He rushed over to the others, hoping that Chen hadn’t heard the dumb and her comment.

They began to wrap the rope around the barrels, trying to secure them together. The rope kept slipping off of the barrels and time was running out fast. Suho had the idea to fix the wooden planks to the top of the barrels and then wrapping the rope around both of the objects, securing them together. This worked better than their first plan and, in a matter of minutes, the materials were tied together fairly securely. It wasn’t perfect but they were in with a chance of winning. They decided to get their raft onto the water of the lake and make sure it was all still attached when they were there. Chen and Kai volunteered to step into the lake, the icy water coming up to their knees, as the others pushed the raft in. Chen was jumping up and down, complaining and nearly screaming at the coldness of the water, making Xiumin laugh uncontrollably. Kai, on the other hand, was trying his best to place the raft into the water as carefully as he could, Suho, Lay and D.O passing the creation over to him. It took a loud yell from D.O for Chen to come back to reality and help Kai with the raft. There were only two minutes remaining before the instructors would call the building time to an end so the two boys in the water spent the time securing the ropes, tugging on them tightly and doubling up all of the knots. It looked pretty safe but only time would tell whether it was actually suitable to sit on or not.

Yesung called time on the first part of the activity, telling the other team, who had not yet done so, to put their raft in the water. Their design was to have four barrels tied onto their two wooden planks, two barrels per board. The two boards were connected by ropes underneath. It didn’t look that stable but no one knew what would happen until they started the second section of the task. Suho’s team, on the other hand, had six barrels, two lines of three, with two planks on top. There was rope and knots everywhere, making it look fairly stable but, again, they didn’t know what was going to happen until they sat on the raft.

Once both rafts were in the water, Hyoyeon told Kai’s team that they would be going first. Kai hauled himself onto the raft first, glad to be out of the cold water. Chen went next, making the creation wobble a little bit. D.O stepped on next, followed by Suho. Lay was helped onto the raft by Suho, taking the older boy’s hand and almost falling into his arms. He steadied himself and lowered himself down into a sitting position, moving closer to Suho so that Xiumin could get on last. After everyone was on safely, Yesung started the timer. They just had to stay on for one minute and they were in with a fighting chance of winning.

At around twenty seconds, Chen was getting uncomfortable in the position he was in. He shuffled around slightly, making the raft bob up and down on the water. The other five boys yelled at him, telling him to stay still. Unfortunately, it was too late. Chen wobbled a little more than before, leaning back.

“, guys, save me!” he cried, smiling in amusement.

He reached forward and grabbed hold on Xiumin’s sleeve, tugging at the material.

“Don’t you ing-” Xiumin was cut off by Chen pulling him into the water of the lake.

The two males screamed as they fell, splashing the remaining team members still on the raft. Suho sighed and D.O muttered various profanities under his breath. Chen was laughing like an idiot and splashing Xiumin playfully. Xiumin couldn’t help but grin at the younger boy. They didn’t really care that they’d fallen in. They were just having some fun. Plus, the fact that they had fallen into the lake didn’t necessarily mean that they’d lost just yet. If the other group fell in earlier than they had, they could still win.

However, luck wasn’t on their side as the other team managed to stay afloat six seconds longer than when Chen fell off, dragging Xiumin with him. Their raft fell apart though, rather than someone just falling in. The whole group of eight fell into the lake, sitting in the shallow waters that reached just above their waists. They all screamed when the structure collapsed, soaking their shoes and trousers. One of the girls even jumped into another’s arms, swearing that there were small fish in the water.

Both of the instructors helped the two teams out of the water and announced that the winner was the large group. They didn’t seem too happy about it though, shivering at the dropping temperature of their legs. Hyoyeon told them to go and get changed and, preferably, to take a shower before meeting back in the main hall. The other groups still had twenty minutes left of their activities but the instructors believed it was best for the pupils to go and dry off before they got sick.

Trudging back up to the main buildings, the six boys split, walking back to their separate dorms. Suho and Lay went to the left and the other four turned to the right. When they got to the door, Chen made a run for it down the corridor, not wanting to get the carpet too wet. Xiumin followed behind, sprinting as fast as he could for the same reason. D.O and Kai walked at their own pace, not having to worry about any drips because they weren’t soaked, unlike the running, screaming idiots legging it down to the dorm room.

Eventually, all of the groups had finished their activities and those who needed to had gotten changed into something more comfortable – or less drenched. The entire year group were sat in the main hall area, once again, waiting instructions from their teachers. Chanyeol’s stomach was making loud grumbling sounds so he was relieved when Mr. Lee announced that food was being served in about ten minutes. The pupils were told to stay seated and the staff would call them to line up outside the canteen when the preparations for the evening meal were complete.

The twelve boys were sat in a circle so that they could all see each other. They spent the ten minute period discussing the activities they’d just done and telling each other what they thought about it. The first half spoke about how much fun the indoor caving was (apart from Luhan who stayed relatively quiet) and then about how exhausting the obstacle course was. Kris had managed to trip himself up, landing in the netting they were supposed to crawl under, and then got his necklace tangled in the thin rope, needing the instructor to rescue him, as embarrassing as that was. The second half, on the other hand, told the first group how boring the low ropes were. All they were doing was walking around this little course, holding onto ropes and tied up wheels to move across. They weren’t supposed to touch the floor but Chen got fed up and just strutted to the end of the course, not caring what their instructor was yelling at them. They followed that review with what happened in the raft building activity, mentioning how Chen, being the mischievous little troll he was, pulled Xiumin into the lake water and splashed the others, meaning that they had to get changed out of their clothes.

After a few minutes, the teachers announced that the pupils could start lining up outside the canteen and get their food. Chanyeol jumped up, dragging Baekhyun with him as he skipped up to the canteen, eager to be one of the first people in the line. Baekhyun followed behind unwillingly, complaining in a whiny voice at how stupid Chanyeol was being. The others joined them slowly, a little worn out by the day’s activities.

They ate at their own pace, in no rush to finish quickly. The staff had told them that, after they’d finished with their food, they could do as they pleased as long as they stayed inside the buildings and didn’t go wandering off into the dark. That meant that they could either go back to their dorms, go back to other people’s dorms or just hang around in the halls and corridors. Once they were finally finished, a couple of them going back for seconds while the others went to pick a dessert, they left the canteen and asked each other what they wanted to do. It wasn’t every day that they could spend the evening together as a group so they wanted to make the most of it, hanging out together until the last possible moment.

“So, should we just stay in the main hall?” Luhan asked, clinging to Sehun’s arm again. He had been doing that a lot, especially during their obstacle course session. Sehun didn’t mind though.

Kris shook his head, “There are too many people in there.”

D.O agreed, “I think we should go to the common room in dorm block 2. It’s quite big from what I’ve heard from Baekhyun.”

Nodding, Baekhyun offered to lead the way, aware that half of the group didn’t know where that building was because they were staying in rooms in different blocks.

They arrived quickly and found an empty corner in the large common room. It was well lit with lights designed like old-fashioned oil lamps and the walls and carpet were coloured with reds, oranges and yellows, giving the room a very warm feel to it. Walking over to the corner, they all sat down in a vague circular shape. Chanyeol pulled Baekhyun into his lap and wrapped his arms around the smaller boy’s waist. Baekhyun leaned backwards, snuggling into the younger male’s chest and relaxing. He just wanted to chill out after the obstacle course they had to overcome. It was tiring for the shorter one; his legs weren’t as long as his boyfriend’s and, therefore, he had to work much harder to keep the same pace. D.O and Kai decided to pull up chairs from the middle of the room whilst the others just sat on the floor. Sehun sat down and crossed his legs and smiled when Luhan came to sit next to him, clinging to his upper arm once more and resting his head on the younger boy’s shoulder. Tao envied how Sehun and Luhan could be so close to each other already and, yet, he didn’t even have the courage to move nearer to Kris, sitting on his right and laughing at one of Chanyeol’s stupid jokes. Baekhyun saw Tao’s defeated expression whenever he glanced over to the tall blonde male. He frowned at the raven-haired boy, determined to help him get closer to Kris and to make the older one realise just how Tao felt.

They chatted for a while – it must have been at least a couple of hours – before the teachers came to shoo them off to their dorm rooms. The staff at the centre locked each building at a certain time at night and, if you went out after that time, the fire alarm would sound and wake everyone up. It was about half an hour before that time so the teachers thought that it would be best to send the pupils off to their individual dorm buildings. They were told to stay within their own rooms but everyone knew that this wasn’t going to happen. Students would be moving from dorm room to dorm room and probably wouldn’t get a whole lot of sleep because they were so excited to be rooming with their friends for the night. The teachers didn’t particularly mind, as long as no one set off those fire alarms by leaving their building.

The six boys said goodnight to those who weren’t in their dorm block and began to make their way to their own rooms. Lay and Suho walked over to their block while Kai, D.O, Chen and Xiumin made their way to their building. The remaining students ventured over to their rooms and stayed there for about ten minutes, just until they were sure that the teachers had gone and the coast was clear.

“Is it safe?” Baekhyun asked, sitting on his bed while Chanyeol poked his head out of the door, looking around.

The taller one looked back into the room and gave a ‘thumbs up’, smiling widely. With that, Baekhyun jumped up from his spot and Tao joined him, all three boys walking out of the room and down the corridor to Luhan, Sehun and Kris’s dorm room. Tao knocked, pushed forward by the BaekYeol couple. Kris opened the door and, seeing that it was Tao and the other two, opened the door wide, welcoming them inside. Luhan was still pulling a loose jumper over his head when his three neighbours entered. He yelled out a quick ‘hey!’ before speeding up and tugging at the material. Finally dressed, he went to sit on Sehun’s bed, next to the taller male. Sehun didn’t mind in the slightest and welcomed the older boy to join him, shuffling over and opening his arms for the doe-eyed boy to cuddle up to him. He liked cuddling with Luhan. It was comforting to hear the other’s soft breathing and to feel the vibrations in his chest whenever he spoke or laughed.

Kris pulled a small bag out from under his bed, emptying its contents into Tao’s lap (who was currently sitting on Kris’s bed, legs crossed) and telling the others to just grab what they wanted. He’d made a trip with the raven-haired male, equipped with money from the group, to the vending machines after they’d eaten. He’d bought so much junk food, it was unbelievable. Chanyeol immediately dived for a packet of Skittles, much to the dismay of his boyfriend.

“Don’t you even think about it, Mister,” Baekhyun yelled, trying to grab the packet from Chanyeol’s hand.

The hyperactive giant just laughed and held the sweets up in the air, out of the shorter boy’s reach.

“That’s not fair,” the older of the two whined, jumping to try and reach up to Chanyeol’s height, “You’re too tall. I can’t reach.”

“That’s the point, dummy,” Chanyeol chuckled, standing on top of Kris’s bed, making a dip in the mattress and causing Tao to lean slightly to the side.

“I swear I’m going to kill you one day, Park Chanyeol,” Baekhyun threatened, pointing a finger at the teasing boy.

Kris attempted to pull Chanyeol down but didn’t want to risk the tall laughing idiot falling onto Tao and hurting the younger male so he tried to use words instead.

“Baekhyun, why does it matter whether or not Chanyeol eats those?” he asked, turning to the shorter male who was now standing with his arms crossed, tapping his foot.

“Because,” he began, sitting down on the floor and ignoring his boyfriend for the time being, “he’ll just get even more hyper than he already is. Do you know how difficult it is to calm him down after that? Whenever he eats anything with E numbers in, it takes me hours to get him to go to sleep. He’s like a 5-year-old, I swear.”

Chanyeol had opened the packet at this point and poured half of its contents into his mouth, chewing the fruity pastels and swallowing them. He jumped down from the bed, causing Tao to bounce a little upon the springy mattress, and walked over to Baekhyun, kneeling down in front of him.

“You forgot one little detail, Baekkie,” he grinning, kissing the shorter male’s cheek slowly.

“And what’s that, Yeollie?” Baekhyun asked, rolling his eyes for added effect. He wasn’t really angry at the taller one – he just didn’t like being teased like he was.

“There’s a sure-fire way to calm me down and you know what it is,” he whispered into Baekhyun’s ear, still loud enough for the others to hear it.

Baekhyun shivered at the feeling of Chanyeol’s warm breath ghosting down his neck.

“Tell them, yeobo,” Chanyeol grinned and kissed the corner of Baekhyun’s lips.

Kris made a gagging noise and covered his eyes, “Oh, Jesus Christ, you two. Save it for when you get back to your own dorm room. Plus, I don’t think any of us want to hear it so keep it zipped.”

“But Krissy~” Chanyeol turned around to face the older male, pouting, “Aren’t you curious?”

Shaking his head, Kris replied with a simple ‘No’.

“You’re just making everyone feel uncomfortable, Yeollie,” Baekhyun poked his boyfriend’s back.

“No, I’m not~” Chanyeol giggled, “Anyway, because I know you’re all wondering, the way Baekhyun can calm me down is to let me -”

Baekhyun lunged at the taller one, clamping his hands over that big mouth of his to prevent any more words coming out.

“Shut the hell up or I’ll drag you back to the dorm and lock you in there all by yourself,” Baekhyun threatened.

The room fell quiet for a few seconds before Baekhyun screamed and removed his hands from Chanyeol’s mouth, flapping them around before wiping them on the hyperactive boy’s sleeve.

“He me,” Baekhyun cried out in disbelief.

“Well you should know better than to try and shush me,” Chanyeol stated in his defence.

Kris sighed, shaking his head at the annoying pair.

“How on earth are you going to put up with them tonight?” he asked Tao, walking over and sitting next to the raven-haired male.

Tao shrugged, “No idea.”

“You know, if they’re really pissing you off, you can always come into our dorm. I’m sure Sehun and Luhan wouldn’t mind sharing a bed and you can have the spare one,” Kris smiled and placed a hand on Tao’s knee.

Nodding, Tao thanked Kris and assured him that, if the worst came to the worst and he absolutely couldn’t stand the BaekYeol couple, he would come and knock on their door.

“Plus, it might sound like they’re just joking and playing around but, knowing them, they might actually try and, you know, get it on tonight,” Kris explained, a little embarrassed.

Tao nodded again.

“Yeah, especially as Chanyeol mentioned that they hadn’t,” he paused, finding the right words, “been intimate in a while.”

The two tall boys looked over to see Chanyeol kissing Baekhyun’s neck, the couple giggling like a pair of idiots, their previous squabble forgotten about. It was like they were lost in their own little world. Kris grimaced and Tao looked away, finding the ceiling particularly fascinating.

“Hey,” Sehun poked Luhan’s shoulder, “Are you asleep?”

Luhan hummed and shook his head lightly. He was lying with his head in Sehun’s lap, arms wrapped around one of the younger boy’s legs. Sehun started to play with the older male’s hair, feeling the soft locks between his fingers. Smiling, Luhan nuzzled against Sehun’s lap, enjoying the affection he was getting from the younger one. Usually, if he tried to get cuddly with the other boys, they’d push him away after just a short while or just reject him straight away. He was glad Sehun put up with him and his constant craving for attention.

The group stayed as they were, separated off into their couples, for about an hour. They chatted about what they thought of the trip so far and what they thought was in store for them the following morning. Luhan was still freaking out about the whole heights thing and Sehun had to comfort him, telling him that, if the worst came to the worst and they were put to do the high ropes, they could always switch group and that Sehun would go with the doe-eyed boy so that he wasn’t alone. However, something was telling Luhan that this wouldn’t be possible. The instructors were the type of people who, when they put you in front of your biggest fear or phobia, they wouldn’t be sympathetic and let you skip the task but, rather, they would encourage you and say things like ‘you can do it – I know you can’ and ‘it’s only a little jump – nothing to worry about’. Luhan shuddered, cuddling even closer to Sehun (if that were possible). Sehun rubbed his back soothingly while the BaekYeol couple repositioned themselves onto Luhan’s bed.

“Hey, um, Luhan said he doesn’t like people sitting on his bed,” Sehun spoke up nervously, not particularly wanting to sound bossy or rude to his new friends.

“We know,” replied Baekhyun, “But he’s asleep. He’s not gonna mind if he doesn’t even know.”

Sehun looked down and, just as Baekhyun had said, Luhan had finally succumbed to sleep, breathing evenly with a small pout on his lips. His cheek was pressed against Sehun’s knee, smushing his face and making him look like an adorable little kid. Sehun couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

“Okay,” Kris began, his voice low as to not wake the sleeping boy, “I think we should call it a day. If this afternoon’s activities are anything to go by, we’re gonna need our sleep to stay awake and active tomorrow. Who knows what we could be doing? We might have to run or something like that and I don’t think anyone could run on only a couple of hours of sleep.”

Chanyeol raised his hand, “I could.”

Kris shook his head, “You don’t count. You could run around in circles for days on end without needing any sleep. The rest of us are normal human beings and, unfortunately, that isn’t the case for us. So, if you’d be so kind as to go back to your own dorm room, I’d be very grateful. Thank you.”

The couple groaned but stood up nevertheless, making their way over to the door. They opened it, dragging their feet as they stepped outside, and closed it again behind them, forgetting about Tao.

Kris turned to the raven-haired male and smiled.

“Remember what I said. If they annoy you, just come and sleep here, okay?”

Tao nodded and waved goodbye to the two that were still awake, smirking at Luhan who was making little whining noises in his sleep. He, too, exited the room and made his way down the hall to his own dorm.

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A/N:

I did say that this chapter would be longer than the others have been...
Is 6000+ words good enough? :P
I hope you're all enjoying the story so far, even though it seems like it's taking many chapters to just cover one day... I'll try and make the story a little more fast-paced from now on but, as I wrote this over 2 years ago, there's still a little while until I can do that.
When the boys get on to doing regular lessons, I'll speed things up :')
Thanks for reading~