Kyungsoo wasn’t a sadist. Well, not usually anyway.

            But that fateful day he let his best friend squirm uncomfortably in his seat for at least a minute before merely raising an eyebrow and leaning toward Junmyeon with a “Hmm?”

            “I know you heard me, Soo,” Junmyeon managed to say as his cheeks turned an even deeper shade of pink.

            The younger boy reached out and pinched his friend’s cheek, exclaiming “Aw, cute! Our Jun-nie has a crush!” before he quickly pulled his hand away in response to a “Yah!” from his friend and a suddenly reemerged sense of self-preservation.

            Junmyeon huffed at his friend in an obvious display of irritation, but didn’t deny that what Kyungsoo said was true. He merely reiterated his earlier point—that they should spend their study time on Thursdays in that café—and accompanied his statement with a pronounced eye-roll that he’d begun perfecting ever since he’d first met Kyungsoo and the younger had quite unabashedly said that Junmyeon should stick to Mandarin if the Kim boy wanted people to think him at least marginally intelligent.

            (Junmyeon used to hate when people rolled their eyes because he thought it was disrespectful and downright rude. The day he met Kyungsoo marked the first time he’d ever performed said action and he was more than a little dismayed when Kyungsoo—and the eye-rolling—became an unbreakable habit. Besides, it wasn’t Junmyeon’s fault that he’d been born in Korea but moved to China before he could speak, and had then been raised by Chinese nannies who conversed with each other in wonderfully complex Mandarin but refused to instruct him in any anything other than strongly-accented Korean that was only comprehendible by the third time at best.)

            “So,” Kyungsoo prompted, eyebrow still raised at the blush that had yet to leave Junmyeon’s face, “what’s her name?”

            At this, Junmyeon sighed loudly and then contracted the attention of the library assistant with an even louder follow-up groan. (They’d had run-ins with this particular person before: “She can barely speak Korean, Junmyeon, so ignore her because she’s not worth it. Oh, stop looking so sorry for yourself; at least your Mandarin’s no longer completely atrocious.”) Kyungsoo graciously allowed the power-drunk assistant to shush them with a glare before fixing his gaze back on his friend.

            “I see,” he said knowingly. “Let me rephrase, then. What’s his name, hyung?”

            Junmyeon’s hands, which had been covering his face to hide the outward expression of his internal angst, slowly removed themselves to his lap as the blush returned to his cheeks in full bloom and his eyes widened at Kyungsoo’s words.

            “Alright, yes, this time it’s a boy, okay? Jeez!” Junmyeon managed to express before bring his hands back up to his face. “But how did you even know? All I did was suggest we maybe use the café!”

            “Oh for goodness sake, hyung, give me some credit!” the younger boy said petulantly. “You’re my best friend; I’ve known you for years. And if it’s the boy thing you’re worried about, it would be a little hypocritical of me to judge, don’t you think?”

            The older boy spread his fingers a little so that his best friend was visible despite the self-applied hand mask that Junmyeon was currently still wearing. He nodded imperceptibly at Kyungsoo’s words and remembered a time, not long after Kyungil’s fateful graduation, that Kyungsoo had told him he liked a boy and Junmyeon had promptly burst into tears. Junmyeon had always been the more emotional of the two—there was a reason some people called Do Kyungsoo the “cold devil”—and had barely been able to express—between hiccups—that he was so glad Kyungsoo had shared this because Junmyeon also thought he maybe liked a boy but he wasn’t really sure because he still definitely found girls attractive too and he hadn’t known how to tell his best friend in the whole world but now he wasn’t worr—.

            Before Junmyeon could pass out from not taking time to breathe, Kyungsoo had interrupted his friend’s rambling by hitting him over the head for being a complete idiot and then said that he didn’t care if Junmyeon was ually attracted to a chicken, as long as the two of them didn’t end up fighting over a boy. Which they did—once—but that situation didn’t end too badly because Park Jeongsu liked girls actually.

            But anyway, “bros before…bros,” or something like that. Regardless, Junmyeon got tht point. (It’s strange, but the conversation between the best friends went very much like that of the Do parents on a very similar subject at a very similar time. Kyungsoo, as it turns out, was more like his parents than their absence in his life would suggest.)

            Oblivious to his friend’s trip down memory lane, Kyungsoo continued. “Anyway, I knew because you were—excuse me, are—blushing even more than the time that ert dropped his pants in front of you when I was still in middle school and you came to pick me up from my Thai lesson so we could go see that new Harry Potter movie.”

            Kyungsoo hadn’t thought it possible, but at his words, Junmyeon’s blush deepened even further.

            “That was so traumatizing,” the older boy said with a shudder.

            “Yes, well, at least your parents didn’t kick you out of the house when you were seven!” Kyungsoo began, recalling that incident with irritation.

            But before Kyungsoo could launch into the story that Junmyeon had heard at least a thousand times and could probably recite word-for word back to him, the Kim boy interrupted and said, “Oh, shut up, would you? We all know—”

            “What is it we all know?” Junmyeon was interrupted by the voice of the two’s mutual friend, Kim Jongdae.

            “Hi, Jongdae-hyung!” Kyungsoo said excitedly, waving the new arrival into an empty seat across from him. “Jun-hyung has a crush!”

            Jongdae rolled his eyes at the Do boy in annoyance—apparently that reaction to Kyungsoo did not only apply for Junmyeon.

            “I told you to call me Chen,” he said, rolling his eyes a second time. “You know Min-nie says he thinks one word names are y.”

            “Well I think it’s dumb,” Kyungsoo replied unapologetically, causing both of his friends to roll their eyes again. “Especially since you two aren’t even really dating.”

            “Yes, well, no one asked you,” a new voice countered.

            “Oh look, Min’s here too,” said Junmyeon, his voice lacking its usual vigor. “Hi, hyung. So glad you could make it. It’s really great that there’s yet another person to witness my utter humiliation at the hands of my so-called best friend,” he added.

            Kim Minseok had been one of the first people to welcome new student Junmyeon when the latter had arrived on SKSU’s campus, suitcases—and Kyungsoo—in tow. The two best friends had easily gotten along with the eldest boy and both had effortlessly joined Minseok’s small friend group, even though Kyungsoo was still in high school at the time. It was through Minseok that they’d also met Jongdae—or Chen, as he seemed to currently prefer. Much like Junmyeon and Kyungsoo, the two were childhood friends with a two year . What was very much unlike the Kim-Do pair, however, was the ever-present press of unresolved tension between the Kim best friends.

            Wu Yifan, another of their friends, had actually once joked that if the two Kims ever got over their issues and got together—not just for the more-than-occasional make-out session, but for real—at least they wouldn’t have to change their names on the marriage certificate. That earned him identical slaps on the back of the head; he was taller than both and older at least than Jongdae, but Yifan had made the mistake of staying seated while he’d said it and that was enough of an opening for the two Kims to take advantage of the rare equality in height.

            With Yifan came Xiao Luhan, and wherever Luhan was, Oh Sehun was not far behind. Yifan and Luhan were both Chinese and had come from the same high school to attend university in Korea. They hadn’t really known each other before both enrolled at SKSU, but both were the same age and year as Minseok and all three had become friends while dorming together during their first year.

            Kyungsoo, never much one for formalities—at least when it came to languages—had called both Chinese students “Ge” from their first meeting, and had then launched into a series of introductory questions in rapid-fire Mandarin. The two foreign boys were stunned at first, but quickly found the younger’s excitement endearing and answered all of Kyungsoo’s inquiries with patience. The Do boy was beyond pleased to have actual native speakers to converse with, and Junmyeon, by now used to his best friend’s love of languages—above all else—and the brash way with which he usually expressed himself, took no offense at what he assumed was an unintentional barb toward Junmyeon’s own Mandarin skills.

            As for the final member of their little friend group, ironically, Sehun had been Luhan’s Korean tutor before the two had started dating. Kyungsoo and Junmyeon had nearly died when they heard this, and had been laughing so hard that Sehun had gotten offended and almost refused to share the story of how the two had first met and eventually gotten together. Needless to say, Kyungsoo was right and it was weird, especially because Sehun hadn’t even started studying for his college entrance exams when Luhan had first arrived in Seoul. But now Luhan was in his final year at SKSU, and Sehun had just started his first term at the same university as his boyfriend. And anyway, in Luhan’s defense, Sehun had lied about his age to get hired by the tutoring company in the first place, so it wasn’t Luhan’s fault that he’d started liking the younger boy when Sehun was still very much underage.

            Unfortunately for Luhan and Sehun, both had class on Tuesday afternoon, and Yifan, usually had to work at that time too, which is why only Minseok and Jongdae were available as witnesses to Kyungsoo’s perpetuation of Junmyeon’s “utter humiliation.”

            “Stop being so dramatic, Jun-ie,” Minseok had said, ruffling the younger boy’s hair as he too sat down at their study table. “A crush is nothing to be embarrassed about,” he added, now pointedly looking anywhere except at the attractive junior sitting next to him.

            “That’s rich,” Kyungsoo teased, “coming from you, hyung.”

            Minseok responded by rolling his eyes at Kyungsoo and sticking out his tongue; he might be the oldest, but definitely not the most mature—just ask his troll of a best friend, Jongdae.

            “The point,” Junmyeon interrupted, before the two could begin bickering, “is that the Chemistry Club now meets on Thursdays in this wing, and so we have to take our study sessions elsewhere.”

            Kyungsoo scoffed. “That, my dear dear best friend, is hardly the point.” He turned to their other two friends and said, “You see, gentlemen, the true point here is that Jun-hyung and I could just go to another place in the library—the Linguistics Center, perhaps? Just a thought. And yet, Junmyeon here thoughtfully suggested we relocate to that little café across the street.”

            He paused for dramatic effect and all three rolled their eyes at him—again. He rolled his in retaliation and it soon became an all out battle of eye-rolling before a throat cleared and the eldest of the four stopped his participation long enough to turn and face the newcomer. (Kyungsoo, Jongdae, and Junmyeon, of course, remained fiercely engaged in combat and did not see who had stolen Jongdae’s fellow soldier from battle.)

            Minseok had to actively keep himself from rolling his eyes at his friends’ childishness, and quickly apologized to the boy now standing in front of the table.

            “Sorry,” Minseok said with mirth in his voice, “these youngsters get a little carried away sometimes.”

            Kyungsoo was sure he heard an accented voice say “That’s alright.” Unfortunately, he couldn’t be positive because he was quickly distracted by a suddenly bright red Junmyeon who squeaked at the stranger’s voice and slid out of his chair to hide under the glass table. The three friends looked at Junmyeon in surprise, but Kyungsoo is also sure he heard a low chuckle, which in turn prompted a glance at the person whose voice had so startled his best friend.

            The boy in question was average in height, with black hair, and simply adorable dimples. What struck Kyungsoo, though, was the pile of coupons the boy was carrying, all of which had “Cacoepy Café” written in large letters across the top. (Kyungsoo had to pause in his processing at this point, because it amused him that the name of the café referred to “poor or wrong pronunciation” and this was Junmyeon’s love life they were talking about here. That irony was too rich to go to waste.)

            Well, the coupons and the unmistakable scent of coffee which clung so tightly to the boy that it seemed like a part of his essence. But Kyungsoo was confused. Junmyeon didn’t drink coffee—he never had—so then why…?

            Oh. Oh.

            Study on Thursdays in the coffee shop, Kyungsoo’s foot. Ha.