The first week of the new semester was about to end and Heedo felt like entering the academy had been the worst mistake he'd ever made in his entire life. Sometimes he was asking himself what he must have done wrong in a former life to be punished this way. It was Friday morning and Heedo was punctually entering the lecture room, looking for the bunch of people he had dedicated to be his friends. To he honest he had made friends with them after he had desperately looked for a way out always ending up next to Youngji. For some reason she always appeared nearby, it was as if she was a shadow hanging over him.

"Heedo! Come over!“ Jimin was the first who called out for him, when she saw him entering the room. The petite girl with her short, black hair was sitting next to the tall grown Joy, her evaluation team mates Hyejeong and Choa, and two guys who always stuck around the girls. Heedo wasn't even sure about their names yet, he had just made sure to not end up alone again and being haunted by his favorite ghost friend Youngji. "Morning...", Heedo greeted the group and sat down next to Jimin who had constantly patted the free seat next to her. The place next to Jimin was in the middle of the long bench, so everyone had to make some space for the tall guy to reach it.

The first thing Heedo automatically did after taking seat was looking for Youngji. She was sitting in one of the back rows as usual and once their eyes met, she waved at him with her usual gentle smile. Heedo immediately turned his head back towards the black board and pretended to not have seen the girl in the back rows. "Heedo, your evaluation team's name is BIG, right? I heard they are always passing their evaluation tests with good grades. You must sing and dance quite well when you made it into that group.", Joy suddenly assumed and smiled towards him. Heedo faced her with a perplexed expression. He didn't expect such a question of Joy, they hadn’t talked that much until now. "...my dancing skills are alright, I guess. But I'm not that great at dancing. I prefer rapping.", he answered and started unpacking his note book and pencil case. "Really? What a coincidence! I do rap, too!", Jimin exclaimed. "We should do a collaboration some time!", she even suggested clapping her hands and smiling brightly. She looked like a little girl at the moment, her hair all fluffy and puffy, jumping up and down her shoulders as she moved in excitement.

"Yah...why aren't you majoring in vocals then? They have a rap faculty, too.", her friend Choa suddenly chimed in. "I like acting better-", Heedo answered but was immediately cut off by the girls. "Jimin wanted to major in rap, too, but she got mocked out by Cheetah right away!", Hyejeong mentioned and looked at Jimin who angrily hissed back at her. "Yah! I'm sitting right next to you!", she warned her. "I'm not saying that because I want to tease you. I'm saying it because I think it was wrong to give up on your rapping dream just because there is another person trying to stop you persuading true happiness. You should have fought her. As long as there is hope to win, no matter how small it is, nobody should give up."

Hyejeong's words made Jimin shut and scowl in silent anger and depression. Heedo also thought about her words and somehow they were encouraging the young guy to keep on following his feelings for the person he had ignored starting the whole lecture today. Heedo was captured in his thoughts for a long time until the professor brought up something at the end of the lecture that caught everyone's attention in an instant. "About the weekly evaluation...", he had started the topic and left the students all in silence."Weekly evaluation?!", Heedo whispered perplexed. His mouth had dropped open and his eyes were fluttering. What did the teach just say? "As you know, every faculty has an individual way of handling the weekly evaluation for each student. For all of you majoring in acting, you have to play a scene with a partner -no matter which major or semester that student is, as long as it's a student of this academy. The topic of the scene will be given after each evaluation. Since today is Friday, better said the evaluation date from now on, your first topic will be given by me now. It's 'The Lion King'. We'll end today's lecture ten minutes early, so you can pick your first partner now and here."

Right… at the Academy there wasn't just the evaluation of groups at the end of the month, there were also individual evaluations on each student every 7 to 14 days depending on the major and teacher in charge. The professor made a hand gesture, causing the students to get up from their seats and looking for a matching partner. Heedo was still sitting on his place, looking at the black board. A partner no matter if major and semester were different?

“Heedo...hey!" Jimin's high pitched voice was tearing Heedo out of his thoughts. As much as her pulling at his shirt. "How about us being partners?“ She was hoping for her classmate to react and looked up at him with big, expecting eyes. "Yaaah! What about me then?!", Choa contained and bend forwards to look at Heedo and Jimin over the long table in front of them. "We can be partners another time!", Jimin told her harshly.

Heedo slowly turned around to Jimin but instead of answering to her, he was just shaking his head and then got up. He climbed straight over the bench behind him to free himself from the circle of people talking to him. Somehow he felt like Romeo, trying to reach Juliet's balcony. And as he reached the bench in front of Youngji's table, he brought up all his courage to finally talk to her.

"I don't have a partner, the others are in pairs of two...so will you be my partner?"

♤♡♢♧

Benji could tell just by looking at Eunjung how her brain was working on hardcore mode. She was sitting at the side of the training room, watching Hakyeon as if he was an antelope and she some starving lion. "How can I impress him? How can I get his attention?", she was constantly mumbling while stretching. It was awful to watch her being like this, but Benji couldn't help but sigh and get next to her to distract her from her desperate desire to become that guy's new girlfriend. "Yah, Eunjung... let's not be like this. I don't want to bother you...but you look kinda creepy right now."

Eunjung looked up at Benji with no hint of understanding in her eyes until she started smirking and giving him that beautiful eye smile he had started to admire the last 12 months. "Oppaaaaa....!", she said melodically and got up, being the worst aegyo creep ever. Whatever was wrong with Benji, he loved her being like this to death. Eunjung got on her toes and patted Benji's cheeks before she pinched into them and let Benji wince in pain. "If you don't want to bother me, then mind your own business! Alrighty~?!"

"Everybody, please come together, we'll start with the first round of individual evaluations now.“ Once the teacher had brought up the evaluation Eunjung let go of Benji. "W-what?!", she muttered. “Ah, right... you're new in this faculty. We have individual evaluations every 14 days. All students in a course are divided into two groups, so the first group's turn will be today and the second group's up next week.", Benji explained to her. "So we're dancing in a group?“, Eunjung wanted to make sure. "No, everyone has to dance solo to show improvement.“, her friend answered and Eunjung's face turned all shocked and then froze. "Don't worry, I checked the groups, you and me, we're in group 2." Of course Benji was able to read Eunjung's mind fully and he knew that this was the first thing that was bothering her. She wasn't prepared and the worst for Eunjung was to feel helpless because of lacking preparation.

The students of the course took place in a circle, the teacher sitting in the middle of it. "Okay, we'll start now. Do your best.“ Once Eunjung wasn't scared anymore, she played up like always. Her eyes were fixed at Hakyeon the entire time while she was smiling and giggling, watching him. If there was just a slight chance to make her fall and be like this for Benji, he would have paid anything for it.

Hakyeon was in the first group, which caused pure excitement to Eunjung. The VIXX leader was very confident in what he did, he even brought a blind fold to dance with. Unfortunately he totally killed it and gained a big round of applause. What a totally show off… "Omo, he's such a great dancer, isn't he?!", Eunjung squealed like a little fangirl. "Yeah...great.", Benji murmured but Eunjung didn't even register the irony. His crush sat next to him, moving up and down like a yoyo until she kept her position and exclaimed in pure excitement. "I've got THE idea!", she said. "Which idea?", Benji wondered and exhaled slowly. "I'll impress Hakyeon next week and make him fall for me! He'll be head over heels if I'm just as good as him! I just need to get as good in one week!"

Benji could only roll his eyes over her plan and sigh. Indeed her plan was crazy and naive. But an upper might wanted to help Eunjung...or wanted to punish Benji for some bad things he must have done in a former live. There was no other way he could explain why destiny tried to kick his all the time. "The next student, Kim Jeonguk.“ Benji didn't know until the guy entered the center of the circle to be evaluated. He was handsome, he had swag and he was a freaking awesome dancer. If Hakyeon was called the king of dance, the course had found its dancing god in Jeonguk. The guy was showing off all of his locking and tutting skills, being far above any dancer in the room. Benji would have wanted to see how Hakyeon was watching the performance if he hadn't been just as mesmerized as Eunjung by Jeonguk.

Two minutes of pure awesomeness had passed, making Eunjung forget about Hakyeon's performance before. "OH MY GOOOOOOSH!", she squeaked and pinched Benji's arm. "AISH! THAT HURTS!", he shouted but was unable to free himself of the crazy girl's fingers. "I want to be just as good as HIM!" Eunjung moved agitatedly on her place. "I need to talk to him! Omo, but I can't! How can I talk to someone awesome like this?!“ Her words worked Benji up even more than her fangirling. Destiny really made fun of him. How was it possible that a random guy made Eunjung stop squealing over her crush and instead squeal over him that easily? Why him and not Benji? Whatever it was... Benji had found a natural enemy in Kim Jeonguk just as much as in Cha Hakyeon.

♤♡♢♧

Youngji and Heedo had already sat down with their lunch when Benji and Eunjung joined them during the break. "Guys, I found a great dancer! He's even better than Hakyeon-oppa!", Eunjung informed the others about Jeonguk and her fascination about him. Benji again roled his eyes and stabbed his rice with his spoon. "Better than Hakyeon? Woah, that person must be really awesome!", Youngji joined her, sounding honestly impressed. "Yeeeah! I need to find a way to make him teach me! I want to dance just as good as him!", Eunjung said and dug into her food. Heedo meanwhile looked at his roommate who didn't even say a single word but ate his lunch in silence. Benji must have been really upset. Heedo never witnessed Benji being all silent like this. The girls were chatting while eating, the youngest sometimes nodded when one of them directed her words towards the guys. But Benji ignored all of them.

"Oh, there is Victoria!", Youngji said and the girls' heads turned into the entry of the cafeteria. Their evaluation group co-member was followed by her boyfriend Cory and… "It's him!", Eunjung shouted. Heedo and Benji immediately turned their heads, too.  "He seems to be a close friend, why don't you join them and make friends with that dancer?", Youngji suggested causing Benji to turn his head again and look at Youngji with big eyes. "...I'm not sure...maybe he won't like me.", Eunjung worried. "You've got Victoria to back you up. She'll handle things when you run into the typical chaos mode.", Youngji assured her and finally her friend got up from her chair. "Alright! Go for it!", Eunjung cheered for herself and then marched towards the table Victoria, Cory and Jeonguk had sat down at.

The others watched how she talked to them, sat down and then immediately started laughing. Benji just saw Eunjung's back but seeing Jeonguk laugh in reaction made his blood begin to boil. "I can't take it!", he shouted and hit his fists at the table. Youngji and Heedo winced in shock. "Heedo! How can you take it that easily?! Aren't you angry, too?!", Benji barked. "I don't really get what you-", Heedo wanted to answer but Benji cut him off. "You like Eunjung, too! We should cooperate now! Even though we're rivals in love matters, we need to get rid of Kim Jeonguk! I won't allow him to compete with us!“ Heedo's mouth dropped open in blank shock when Benji shouted out his words without thinking about what he was doing right now. The youngster quickly looked at Youngji, who seemed just as shocked.

"You two like Eunjung?", she asked perplexed. Heedo wanted to shout 'No! This is a big misunderstanding!', but he was unable to say just a word. "Yeah! And we need to get rid of that Jeonguk! I can handle competing Cha Hakyeon...but I won't allow one more guy to try taking her away from me!", Benji was babbling all worked up. "I thought you're just close friends with Eunjung...", Youngji mumbled."Youngji, we need your help!"As he claimed that, Youngji looked back at Benji scandalized. “What?" ,“We need your help! Help us eliminating the others!" Benji's eyes looked so fierce, it was intimidating. "I... I'm not sure if I can do this...", Youngji hesitated and before Benji was given another chance to involve her into the weird love problem, her phone started ringing. Youngji grabbed it as if it was a rescue ring. "Oppa? Yeah, alright. I'm right on my way.“ The girl was obviously talking to her boyfriend. "Sorry guys, I need to go now... but we'll talk about this later!", she promised and got up. As she was leaving, Benji started to plan intrigues against Jeonguk. Heedo just buried his face in his hands. This was a nightmare.

♤♡♢♧

"Hyung...please stop it, this is very embarrassing...", Heedo tried to call Benji back, but the tall- grown guy went right towards the girls' training room, armed with ice- cream cake he had bought at Baskin Robbins. "A man has to fight for the love of his life!", Benji yelled overly motivated through the whole floor. Heedo secretly prayed that nobody was around to hear his friend. "But don't you think Eunjung might feel uncomfortable if we go to their training room without an invitation?", he tried his best to convince Benji not to go. "I've got food. It's the best reason to visit them. And if they get suspicious, I'll tell them Eunjung brought popsicles for us before, too! Even in worst case, Youngji will eventually help us!“ He sounded full of himself, as if he was a genius who couldn’t be wrong with anything. "Don't remind me of that...", Heedo mumbled in resignation, knowing that the guy wasn't even listening to him. He had tried to forget about Benji claiming that Heedo liked Eunjung in front of his actual crush. Sometimes Benji's idiocy was beyond imagination.

When the boys entered the room, Youngji and Bomi were the only ones being inside. "What are you doing here?", Bomi asked already very skeptically. "We brought ice- cream cake. It's a pay back because Eunjung served our group popsicles before!", Benji answered with a victorious smile on his lips. "Oooooooooooooooooh!", Bomi squealed and rushed towards Benji to get the cake in an instant. She sat down in the middle of the room and started unpacking the white box with the cake in it. The boys and Youngji joined her, watching how she started to eat after handing plastic forks to each of them. "Don't you want to wait for the others?", Benji asked with an insecure smile, worried about Eunjung not getting any of the cake. Bomi seemed just as voracious as her. "We should eat it now since it's ice - cream cake. It will melt. Victoria is coming soon anyway and Eunjung is busy with paper works because of her transfer to another faculty.", Bomi said while chewing.

"Try some of it, please.", Heedo talked to Youngji who was waiting for Bomi to finish of most of the cake first. Youngji simply smiled towards him and shook her head, signaling him that she would wait a bit. As Bomi had already told them, Victoria entered the room shortly after they had started eating the cake. 

"Ooookay people, I'm out of it!", she declared, first thing doing after entering. She had raised her hands to even stress her words. Then she figured out that they had obviously guests being around. „Oh...!" She eyed the two guests with wonder. "Do you remember them? This is Benji, a good friend of Eunjung, and this is Heedo, I'm his mentor.", Youngji explained to her. "They brought cake.“ Victoria seemed rather unimpressed. "However", she went on, "I'm out of Team Hakyeon."

The girls looked up to her with furrowed eyebrows. "What?", Bomi was talking with full of cake. "The thing is this.", Victoria went on explaining, taking a seat between Benji and Bomi. "I talked to Cory about this...and we ship her with Jeonguk."

"Who the heck is that?", Bomi asked. Victoria started to smile as she was about to answer. "He's a group mate of Cory and he's super cool! Jeonguk's better matching to Eunjung than Hakyeon, plus, he really seems to like her! He even asked Cory to hang out together and bring her along!“, she informed her friends, not sensing that she was giving out important information also to Benji. "Yah....!", Bomi contradicted, "Eunjung has a crush on Hakyeon ever since. I already begged Taekwoon - oppa to help us, there's no way I can ship her with someone else now!"

While the two were fighting over their favorite match for their friend, Benji had crashed the plastic fork in his hand. Youngji noticed his anger and then looked at Heedo who looked at the floor, not saying a word. Heedo was so pitiful... next to all the big boys, how would he be able to survive the competition? Youngji gently patted his shoulder, feeling the urge to encourage him as good as possible. He just looked back with an awful gaze.

♤♡♢♧

During the weekend Heedo tried to avoid spending more time with Benji than necessary. Somehow he was dragging him from one misery into another even worse one. Therefore he met up with his new friends he made at acting class and hung out with them. Nevertheless Monday was already waiting for him and facing Youngji again, knowing that she was thinking Heedo had a crush on her friend, was making him feel a mixture of guilt because he lied and anger over Benji and himself.

Youngji was sitting in the back rows as always. Heedo simply waved to greet her and then sat next to Jimin who had brought cookies she forced him to try. In the middle of the lecture, Heedo's phone started blinking. The name 'Noona♡' popped up on his display. Jimin tried to get a glimpse of the message, but Heedo immediately hid the phone so he managed to read what that certain noona had texted to him. 'Are you free after lecture? Let's talk about your individual evaluation at the end of the week.', she wrote. Heedo grinned a bit, cleared his throat and wrote a very cool seeming 'Okay.' back to her. The rest of the lecture Heedo was in a very bright mood, working diligently and happily. He would be able to talk to Youngji after lecture. Alone. For the very first time.

"I'm off.", Heedo told the others and hurried outside once the lecture had ended. "Yah...! YAH! HEEDO!", Jimin yelled after him, but he was gone too quickly. Youngji was waiting outside and Heedo's steps got slower when he saw her waiting for him. He tried his best to suppress a weird smile. "You wanted to talk to me?", Heedo asked her, trying hard to sound cool when he reached her. "Ah, yeah. Let's grab some coffee first.", Youngji suggested, getting an immediate answer of Heedo who had nodded instantly.

The two students went to one of the coffee shops on the campus, Youngji buying the coffee because she insisted on it due to her being the senior. "I thought about being your partner and I really liked the idea to work together with you.", she said with a shy smile. Heedo's heart started beating up fast. Hopefully he didn't blush. "But I can't, I'm sorry.“ Aaaaand again Heedo's hopes hit the floor like a raw egg. "I'm currently very busy myself and musicals aren't that much of my speciality. But don't worry, I found someone else to work with you who's far better than me with things of that kind.", she told him. Heedo raised his eyebrows. "Who?", he wanted to know. The answer stepped into his eyesight just as he had asked. Youngji's boyfriend opened the door of the coffee shop, walking straight towards them.

♤♡♢♧

Benji spent his weekend keeping Eunjung busy enough to prohibit her even getting the idea to call her friends and hang out with either Hakyeon or Jeonguk. He brought up several activity ideas and even went shopping with Eunjung, telling her he needed a birthday present for his mom. But he couldn't prevent her seeing the guys back in class again.

"Yah! Why are you rushing like this?!", Benji scolded her, when she was jumping hastily through the floors to get to the class room. "I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it~!", Eunjung sang happily. 

It was annoying to see her that happy about meeting other guys, but her weird behavior left an unavoidable smile on Benji's lips. Eunjung opened the door of the training room once she reached it. Some of their classmates had already arrived and were either checking their phones or had started stretching. One of them was Jeonguk. He was getting on his Nike Airs, sitting on the floor and somehow even then looked cool. Benji forced himself not to huff around now. But seriously… this guy acted way too cool...even without trying!

"Benjiiii! There he is! Omo, should I talk to him?", Eunjung asked him nervously and pulled at his pullover like usual when she didn't know what to do. Of course he wanted to tell her 'The hell, no!', but her big, desperate eyes melted his heart and his anger. "Sure...you've got 10 minutes before class starts. And it's not like there's something you could lose just by asking him to teach you dancing.“, he tried to encourage his friend. "I can lose my pride.", Eunjung nonetheless answered all the more nervous. "Which pride?", Benji asked her with a raised eyebrow. Eunjung then snorted and hit his arm over his mean words, shook her head and placed her hands on her hips.  "I'll get going!", she said and turned around snappily. 

Benji sighed and watched her go, still keeping the distance to her narrow enough to hear everything they would say. "Good morning!", Eunjung greeted Jeonguk and sat down next to him on the floor. She tried to act cool. "Ah, good morning, Eunjung!", Jeonguk greeted her back with a smile. Eunjung was smirking widely. Benji could tell, that she was going crazy because Jeonguk was able to remember her name. "How was your weekend?", Eunjung asked. "It was okay. Would have been better if you had come along with Cory and Victoria, though.", Jeonguk replied with a grin, causing Eunjung to giggle in embarrassment. Yuck! Benji was about to puke. "Hey Jeonguk....can I ask you something?“, Eunjung went on and Jeonguk’s grin disappeared to leave space for his now more surprised looking face. “Sure.“, he answered and waited for her demand. “You’re such a great dancer… I was wondering, if you could teach me dancing...", Eunjung asked him more quiet and with an unstable and shaking voice. Jeonguk's face changed from even more surprised to a very bright smile. "You want me to teach you dancing? Hmm...let me think about it... can I?", he said playfully and rubbed his chin. "I don't know, I'm a very busy person, you know? ...maybe I can make some time...but I've got a condition.“ Once Jeonguk was done speaking, Benji suddenly sensed something really bad coming. "Condition? Which condition?" Eunjung was speaking Benji's thoughts out loud...except for that he would have shouted angrily at that bold guy. 

"Well... let's go out with me first, then I'm willing to teach you dancing."

Author's Note:

The story slowly starts to develop and get interesting now on Benji's side, facing a very direct rival, hahaha. So starting chapter 3 there is even one ship more you can root for! While mr_johnnie is going for the BenjixEunjung and YoungjixJaewhan couples, I'm dieing for EunjungxHakyeon and HeedoxYoungji. I like UK for Eunjung too, though. He's a cool guy. Which ships do you want to sail your ocean? :D  Stay tuned for the next update in 7 days! We'll make sure to let our sweeties Heedo and Benji suffer a bit more then ;) (can't believe that we're already at chap 8 in our preparations and the story is still at its beginning! This is going to be a long run :P )

- Jey-chan