The brisk feeling of air much colder than what he was used to passed over Luhan’s upper body, waking him suddenly and making him shiver. In a moment, he had yanked the sheets up and over his shoulders, covering everything that had been bared just moments before. But…

Why was it bared in the first place? He always slept with a shirt on, sometimes even long sleeves, because he got cold easily. As he took stock of the situation, he realized he was wearing much less than what he normally would be; he didn’t even have boxers on under the sheets. And that was probably the least of his problems right now. What he should have been considering was the fact that he wasn’t even in his own bedroom, let alone his own bed.

That, and the fact that there was a presence next to him in this bed that he was hardly used to sleeping next to.

Luhan managed to turn just his head rather than rolling completely over and was met with a sight that he had been hoping to see for so long but had never expected to actually meet his eyes.

Minseok slept soundly next to him, his normally tense and focused features completely relaxed as he slumbered peacefully.

Luhan stared for several moments, jaw gaping, before he turned his face away from his sleeping partner to stare at the ceiling again. And that was when the events of the night came flooding back to him all at once.

The two men had an agreement for getting to the fraternity’s parties, since they both lived in their own respective apartments rather than the house. They always took turns driving so that one person would have to be the designated driver so that they would both have a definite way of getting home; this was to prevent them from having to crash at the house like all the freshmen who didn’t want to – or simply couldn’t – make it back to their dorms.

And it constantly irritated Luhan when it was his turn to drive because, without fail, Minseok would get absolutely plastered and find some stranger to bring back to his apartment with him. And Luhan would have to drive them, every time, and listen to them whisper and giggle and usually start making out in his backseat. And it wasn’t so much that the act itself was annoying; seeing Minseok with so many other people was physically painful for Luhan.

He’d had some sort of crush on Minseok for three years, ever since they had joined the fraternity at the same time and become pledge brothers. But for whatever reason, Luhan had never been able to admit his feelings to the dark-haired boy he had fallen for so long ago, and the latter had also never noticed Luhan’s seemingly well-hidden glances and longing looks.

But last night had played out so, so differently than Luhan ever could have imagined.

It had been Luhan’s turn to drive, and as usual, he had been dreading his sober night the entire day, especially as he had driven from his own apartment to pick up Minseok. And nothing had seemed particularly out of the ordinary when he had spoken to Minseok earlier in the day about the plans and when they would drive over, so Luhan expected to simply play chauffeur for Minseok and whomever he decided to drag home with him.

But as Luhan stood in front of the apartment door, staring down at his phone to check his messages, the door opened, and he didn’t even have the opportunity to glance up before a hand reached out and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him inside and slamming the door shut behind him.

Minseok was on him in moments, pressing their lips together roughly. Obviously, Luhan was frozen in shock for several long moments, but after some physical urging from Minseok, he fell into stride with him. It took only a few more moments before they were in the apartment’s only bedroom, and then Luhan felt himself being shoved onto the bed with no warning.

Clothes came off easily enough, and the rest of it had been a whirlwind for Luhan; he was honestly surprised he could remember everything. If he wasn’t lying in bed next to Minseok, completely , he might have thought it was all a dream.

But, as amazing as it was to finally get some attention from the man he’d been crushing on for so long, there was something about the way it had happened that didn’t sit well with him. He tried to push this strange feeling away and roll over to go back to sleep, but it never left him even as he drifted back off, always there at the back of his mind.

~

The freshman glanced around the open entryway, wondering if there was anyone in particular he should be talking to. Jungkook hadn’t been inside the fraternity house since his visit during orientation, and that hadn’t really been much more than a house tour. But now it was rush week, and everything was starting to feel a little surreal since he had only moved into his dorm room earlier that morning. His roommate hadn’t been there, so he assumed the guy he would be living with for almost a year wasn’t planning to move in until later in the week, considering it was only Wednesday.

He knew he probably looked awkward, just standing around, drink in his hand but not talking to anyone. But then, this was a rush party, and the current brothers of the fraternity were quick to remedy a situation like that once they took notice of it.

“Hey, it’s Jungkook, right?”

An older boy, maybe a junior or so, had made his way over to stand next to Jungkook, both of their backs to the wall next to the staircase. Another boy with bright orange hair who seemed to be more Jungkook’s age had trailed after the older boy, probably having been having a conversation with him previously.

“I’m Kyungsoo,” the older introduced, holding out a hand to shake. “I’m not sure if we met when you were here during the summer. There have been a lot of guys in and out of here the past month or two.”

Jungkook shook his head slightly. “No, I don’t think we did. But yeah, I’m Jungkook.”

Kyungsoo nodded and explained, “Namjoon, the second rush chair, mentioned you, so I thought it would be good to introduce myself. He said that you’re thinking about accepting a bid.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jungkook replied, suddenly enthusiastic. He had been pretty surprised when the two rush chairs, Jongin and Namjoon, had approached him as soon as he had shown up that night, telling him that they wanted him to officially accept a bid and sign with the fraternity. He really wasn’t sure why he was mulling it over so much since he had all but decided to join before he had packed even one box during the week.

“Well, I may be considered biased,” the older continued, “but I personally think this is one of the best fraternities on campus, considering we’re not too massive. Big enough to meet a lot of people but small enough to know everyone, you know?”

Jungkook did know. It was one of the reasons he had been considering it so seriously. Being from a town that wasn’t particularly big, it was overwhelming enough joining a university with more than 40,000 students, so it would be good to already have some sort of niche to be a part of. Not to mention, everyone he had met so far from the fraternity had seemed cool enough.

“Oh, look at me. I’m a horrible host, seriously,” Kyungsoo cut in, laughing a little. “This is Taehyung,” he said, gesturing to the boy with bright orange hair. “He accepted a bid while he was here during the summer.” Pausing, his face lit up after a moment and he added, “Maybe he can convince you to do the same.”

The two freshmen boys shook hands and exchanged courtesies before Taehyung immediately jumped into the questions that all first-years seemed to throw around when they met other first-years.

“So, which dorm did you end up in?”

“Oh, I’m in Stoppard,” Jungkook replied before taking a sip of his punch. He fought back a cringe at how strong the drink was, but he could feel its warmth all the way down until it hit his stomach.

“Oh, wow! I’m in Stoppard too, fourth floor east,” Taehyung said, his voice pitching up just a little bit as he clearly tried to contain his excitement at finding someone who lived in the same building as him. “Where are you?”

Jungkook couldn’t hold back his laugh then, though it could have been because the alcohol was already starting to have an effect. “Fourth floor west, just across the elevator lobby. If I do take this bid, we can always walk up here to the house together.”

Taehyung grinned and nodded excitedly at that. And maybe it was the alcohol floating around inside him, but Jungkook really liked the way the orange-haired boy smiled. Maybe I should take that bid after all, he thought to himself.

~

“Jongin, don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?”

Yifan glanced away from his conversation partner to see a worried Kyungsoo trailing after Jongin as the latter stumbled across the main room toward the back hallway, likely to his room since it was back there. If Yifan hadn’t been a part of the fraternity for so long, he would assume that the younger boy was going to lay down and maybe pass out in his loft, but he knew otherwise. Jongin kept all of his personal alcohol in the mini fridge in his room and was about to take shots, which was even more likely since it wasn’t even midnight yet.

“You think he’s okay?”

The fraternity’s oldest member turned back to the person he had been speaking to before. Yixing was his roommate, so he was one of the few people Yifan felt consistently comfortable talking to.

“You know how he gets,” he answered, bringing the red plastic cup to his lips to take a sip of the punch. “He’ll get really ty, maybe throw up, then pass out and have a horrible hangover tomorrow. It’s pretty much a routine for him now.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Yixing trailed off, clearly more concerned than he normally would have been, though he wasn’t offering any reason as to why.

Yifan watched him for another couple of seconds before prodding verbally. “What? What is it? You don’t usually pay this much attention to his drinking habits.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, well… He’s the rush chair now, you know?” The younger boy rubbed the back of his neck a little before adding, “You’d think he would keep his together more or something.”

The older shrugged his shoulders a bit, taking another drink from his cup, still waiting for the alcohol to take some sort of affect, thanks to his irritatingly-high tolerance. “Maybe. But what he’s doing doesn’t seem to be affecting much. That Jungkook kid did just accept a bid about ten minutes ago.”

“Good point,” Yixing mumbled around the rim of his own cup.

After that, Yifan scanned the main room as he took a long pull from his cup: Hoseok had some horrible rap music blaring from the speakers, and Jongdae and Yoongi were playing Minseok and Jungmyeon at beer pong while several people stood around watching. Honestly, this wasn’t usually Yifan’s kind of scene, but he knew he had to be here to talk to the rushees and signees, but it was mostly so that he didn’t get fined.

“Hey, Yifan, right?”

A sort of familiar voice pulled Yifan out of his thoughts, and he jerked his attention to whoever had started speaking to him. Surprisingly, it was one of the rushees who had approached him, not a brother, but Yifan did remember this particular one because he’d sat next to Yifan during a house tour during the summer.

“Oh, hey, yeah. Zitao?” Yifan asked casually, extending a hand that Zitao took after hesitating for just a moment. He seemed like he was nervous and perhaps… intimidated? “You remember Yixing, right?”

The dark-haired boy nodded in response and shook Yixing’s hand as well. “Yeah, uh, during the house tour…”

When he trailed off, there was a sort of awkward silence between the three of them, essentially because Yifan assumed that the signee had approached them with something in particular he had wanted to talk about. But it was just silence, the two older boys looking at Zitao as he stared down at the ground.

Finally, Jongdae broke the painfully awkward scene by jumping into the small circle and grabbing Yixing and Yifan by a shoulder each.

“I thought you were playing pong?” Yixing asked, a little confused by their friend’s sudden appearance.

“Oh, yeah, I was,” Jongdae began to babble. “But me and Yoongi decided to take a fall because some of the guys are trying to get Junmyeon drunk since we’ve never seen him drunk on a Wednesday. So we, like, purposefully lost to him and Minseok.”

“In other words, you guys and you lost,” Yifan mocked, poked Jongdae in the forehead. “You don’t have to make up excuses; just tell us you lost.”

“But we didn’t lose! It was on purpose!” Jongdae almost whined. With a huff of exasperation, he changed the subject suddenly, though not unexpectedly. “Can we just go upstairs? Yoongi already went up and I’m afraid he’ll get into my stash since he’s had so much to drink.”

“Yeah, of course.” Suddenly remembering the signee was still standing there, Yifan turned to Zitao and added, “We’re going upstairs to smoke, if you want to come.”

Zitao seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding slightly in response.

~

“Jimin, how much have you had to drink?”

The voice that was hitting the sophomore’s ears wasn’t one he heard directed toward him very often, so he was surprised to hear it now, in the middle of a rush week party.

“I haven’t had hardly any, Baek. I think maybe two cups of punch and a half-shot because Jongin was being stingy with the Fireball. Why do you ask?”

Baekhyun, a junior and the fraternity’s recording secretary – not to mention Chanyeol’s boyfriend – had a habit of keeping tabs on the younger members when there was a lot of drinking going on. A lot of the guys found it annoying, but in Jimin’s eyes, it seemed like a parental thing, which was cool since a lot of them didn’t get to see their actual parents very often. So of course, having someone there to look out for them was something he wouldn’t take for granted, even if the others did.

"Well, this whole place looks like it's going to ," Baekyun said, glancing around. "I just wanted to make sure at least one person from your pledge class wasn't completely out of their minds on substances."

Jimin nodded, saying, "I hear you. I think Namjoon is probably nearly sober, especially considering the state Jongin is in."

"Yeah, but Namjoon's a little .”

Jimin turned to look over his shoulder and found that Yoongi had appeared at his side, immediately having a snide comment as per usual.

"Oh, shut up, Yoongi," came Baekhyun's response. "Just because you can't handle any kind of real responsibility doesn't give you the right to talk about everyone else."

Pointing straight at Baekhyun, Yoongi spat back, "Well you're a little too, so you don't get to talk to me like that."

Jimin could tell that the situation had the potential to escalate pretty quickly - to no fault of Baekhyun's - so he grabbed Yoongi's arm with both of his hands and immediately began to pull him away. As they headed toward a corner, he shot Baekhyun an apologetic look, hoping the older boy would understand.

Once he had the senior leaning against a wall in a side room, Jimin began to speak. "Yoongi, you are a fourth year. You're supposed to graduate in May, and you still let yourself get this plastered. Even if it is a rush party, this seems like a bit much."

Yoongi waved his hand back and forth, trying to make some sort of gesture, though Jimin had no idea what it was supposed to mean. “I just smoked, so I’m fine. I can keep drinking. Totally fine.” He paused for a moment, his head slumping so that his chin rested on his chest momentarily, before he snapped back to attention and added, “And if you aren’t plastered at a rush party, you’re wrong.”