The break passed quickly with the students taking the time to eat something quick and get to know one another a little better. It wasn’t long before Lee Soo Man was up at the front again, enjoying being centre of attention. Usually, he was just hidden in his office or occupied with meetings amongst the school governors.

“Settle down, students,” he started, flapping his hands to emphasise his instruction, “We’re going to begin the second activity.”

The pupils turned their voices off and directed their eyes to the front of the sports hall, waiting for the headmaster to explain the next task.

“This challenge is called the ‘bridge building challenge’. What you have to do is, in the same groups as the previous activity, get from one side of the hall to the other. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. You have three sheets of A3 paper and you’re only allowed to step on those. Ripping the paper is not permitted. The sheets must stay intact throughout the entirety of this task. Also, if any member of your team steps off the paper, you all have to go back to the start and begin again. Now, space your groups out along the side wall and make sure we can see which group is which. To make things more interesting, the fastest group will win a prize. You may start as soon as your group is given the three sheets of A3 paper.”

Luhan’s group all moved so that their backs were against the wall. Well, all of them apart from Baekhyun. He was in front of Chanyeol, the taller boy’s arms circling his slim waist. One of the teachers gave them their sheets of paper and they began to discuss how they were going to move.

Deciding on a strategy, they placed the first sheet down. Luhan stepped onto the sheet and put the next one down, a fair space apart from the first. Stepping onto that one, he placed the last sheet on the floor, again, a good distance away. He stood on the final piece of paper and called for Sehun to join him, on that same sheet. Next, they tried to get Baekhyun on as well but it didn’t seem to be working. Suddenly, Luhan turned Sehun around so that he could see the younger boy’s back.

“Don’t drop me,” he whispered as he jumped onto Sehun’s back.

Sehun got over the shock quickly and hooked his arms under the older male’s legs, Luhan’s arms circling his neck. Baekhyun was now able to step onto the sheet with them. Chanyeol stepped onto the second sheet, followed by Kris. Tao looked confused as to how he was going to fit on as well. Kris turned to face the raven-haired male and picked him up with ease. Tao hit Kris’s chest, embarrassed about being held, bridal-style, in front of the rest of the year.

“Hey!” he yelled, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, “Put me down!”

Kris shook his head and laughed, “Not gonna happen, sunshine. Besides, I’m not giving you a piggy back. I’d drop you. This way is much easier.”

Chanyeol reached down for their first sheet, passing it to Baekhyun who laid it out at the front. They made their way across the hall, passing the last sheets along and moving slowly, being careful not to fall over.

Eventually, they reached the other side but, unfortunately, they were too slow to win. A group of girls, all quite small in stature and therefore able to fit on the sheets with ease, had made it to the end first, earning a box of chocolates as their prize. The boys stepped off their sheets and Baekhyun bent down to pick them up from off the floor.

“You can put me down now,” Tao complained, still unhappy about Kris carrying him the entire time.

The taller boy chuckled, “Fine, if you insist.”

Tao was placed down gently, his feet reaching the floor again. He muttered a quick “thank you” and turned his attention to the other groups, still trying to complete the task.

“Do you want to get down?” Sehun asked the boy on his back who was still clinging onto his neck tightly.

“No, I’m fine,” the older male smiled, “It’s quite comfortable. Um, you know, if you don’t mind. If I’m too heavy, you can put me down.”

Sehun shook his head lightly, “It’s alright. You’re not heavy.”

Luhan hummed an acknowledgement, nuzzling Sehun’s neck a little as the final few groups were finishing off.

A few minutes passed before every group of students was successfully on the other side of the sports hall. The headmaster congratulated them for completing the challenge and gave them all a round of applause. He took a moment to check a small black notebook that he kept in his top jacket pocket, reminding himself of which task was next. Sehun placed Luhan back on the floor as the headmaster checked over his notes, not really wanting such a figure of authority seeing him with his koala-like classmate clinging to his back.

“I think we’ll have a nice change of location now,” Lee Soo Man looked up from his book, at the collection of seated pupils before him, “We’re going to have ourselves a bit of a quiz which should be quite fun. You’ll be tested on your familiarity with popular music, celebrities, academic studies and general knowledge. So, I’d like to ask all of you to make your way back to the main hall and grab yourselves a chair so that we can begin the quiz as soon as possible and try not to overrun.”

The students rose to their feet and walked over to the main hall, taking seats with the people they knew. The twelve boys were seated on a row of their own, split into three groups this time. Luhan, Sehun, Baekhyun and Chanyeol were in one group. Kris, Tao, Suho and Lay were in another. Chen, Xiumin, Kai and D.O were the final group. The three teams were each given an answer sheet and a pen to write down their answers. A projector screen was pulled down over that stage and a slideshow of the questions was played, Mr. Park taking on the role of question master. There were five rounds – music, celebrities, biology, history and general knowledge. The questions were fairly simple to answer with the exception of general knowledge. An example of one of the questions was “Which film has sold the most tickets at the cinema in the past year?” It was just a case of guessing the correct one. Answer sheets were collected and the staff left some music playing as they were being marked. Again, there were prizes for the winning groups. It seemed like a theme for the school – bribing the students to work hard with promise of grand prizes and such.

As the music played, the three groups of boys turned to face each other, talking amongst themselves and getting to know one another some more.

“Xiumin?” Chen poked the older boy’s cheek lightly, “You said you spent some time studying in China, right? How was it?”

Xiumin smiled, “It was amazing. The language barrier was a little scary but, overall, it was really meaningful. It feels good to be back though. You know, back home.”

Chen nodded, glad that the male on his right was opening up to him and talking of his experiences with ease. He knew how difficult it could be for new pupils and he was quite surprised that the shorter boy wasn’t as shy as he’d been expecting. He liked that though; the confidence Xiumin was showing, even in the situation where his surroundings were unfamiliar and the sheer amount of people was quite overwhelming.

Sehun was a bit startled when he felt Luhan wrap his arms around his waist, cuddling up to his side. Luhan even slipped one of his hands between Sehun’s jacket and his shirt, smiling brightly.

“You’re warm,” he whispered into Sehun’s ear.

The younger boy turned to his left and tapped Baekhyun’s shoulder after Luhan had settled down again.

“Is he always like this?” he mumbled to the shorter boy.

Baekhyun nodded, “Yeah, he’s rather clingy. Sorry about that. It’s just the way he is. If he’s making you feel uncomfortable, just push his head away and he’ll move. There have been a few cases where he’s gone in for a hug and been pushed away so he’s used to it.”

Shaking his head, Sehun replied with, “No, it’s okay. I don’t mind. I was just wondering whether he’s like this with everyone.”

“Hmm, yup, pretty much everyone. He must like you though. It took over a week before he started clinging to me,” Baekhyun laughed, his voice low.

Sehun lips twitched a little, a shy smile forming upon his features.

The winners of the quiz were announced, the group of three girls and two boys cheering at their victory. Kai sighed.

“We’ll never win any of these stupid challenges,” he whined, arms folded against his chest as he leaned back in his chair.

D.O turned to him and patted his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

“Don’t worry,” he encouraged, “The day’s not over yet. We still have a chance to win something.”

Kai shrugged, “I guess so.”

The students were being given an hour’s break to buy food or just relax before the final exercise of the day, currently being set up back in the sports hall. The twelve boys left the main hall together, in search of food and somewhere to sit down. The food court was packed so they decided to go out for food. They were allowed out of the school grounds at lunchtime but not during free periods or lesson time. Kris suggested that they all just go for fast food because it was cheap and easy. Most of the others agreed apart from Tao and Xiumin because they hadn’t brought any money with them. Chen agreed to pay for Xiumin’s food and Tao used his aegyo to convince Kris to do the same for him.

The group walked around for a while, past a small park, looking for a takeaway or anything similar. They stumbled upon a fast food joint which was pretty empty as it wasn’t a peak time for customers. Entering the restaurant, they all took a seat at the largest table, made for ten people. Chanyeol and Baekhyun dragged chairs from other tables and placed them at the two ends so that they could all sit together. They took turns in looking at the small menu and each decided on what they wanted. D.O wrote a list of each person’s orders and Kris collected everyone’s money, going up with the list in his hand to order all of the food.

After Kris had returned and whilst they were waiting for their order to be completed, Luhan suddenly spoke up, making a few of the boys jump.

“Oh, I know what we should do,” he exclaimed, “We should all swap numbers so we can text each other.”

He was smiling widely, evidently happy with his idea. The honey-haired male reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, selecting the “contacts” icon and preparing to add the numbers of the newest additions to their group.

It took a good few minutes for all of the boys to exchange phone numbers but, when they were finished, their food was ready and the young girl behind the counter called for Kris to come and collect the trays. Tao stood up too, going to help the older boy carry the items back to the table.

They ate in near silence, the occasional comment or question being the only thing to break the stillness. Music was being played through the restaurant’s speakers but it wasn’t that loud.

D.O suggested that they stay inside for a while after they’d finishing eating. He reasoned, saying that it was too cold to go outside for very long and it was going to be insanely packed back at the college. Not liking the additional available options, the other boys agreed and decided to stay put where they were for another half hour.

They chose to converse about college. It was an easy subject to talk about. Settling on discussing which subjects they were all taking, they took turns in saying their answers, going around the table, one by one. They eventually reached Sehun as the final person, announcing that he was taking social studies, communication and culture (or “comms” for short), dance and psychology as his four subjects.

Each boy’s choices were as follows…

Thirty minutes flew by all too quickly and the group decided that it was time to return back to the college in preparation for the final, unknown task. They threw their empty fast food containers into the bins and stacked the red plastic trays up on the side, leaving the warmth of the brightly-lit restaurant and walking back into the cold, grey world outside.