"Can you hear them? Damn it, I can't hear a single thing—, move over!"

"Stop pushing me!"

"Shut up, you giant . They might hear us!" 

There was a loud, obvious noise as Jongdae tried to push Sehun's much bigger stature away, but the latter just won't budge. He stubbornly remained attached to the door as he tried to peer inside, ignoring Jongdae's loud whining in his ear. Thankfully, nobody inside seemed to notice due to a certain someone's endless screaming.

"What exactly happened?" Jongdae pondered as he finally gave up on trying to wrestle with Sehun, and sat on the floor. "He had been screaming non-stop for the past fifteen minutes, I'm surprised he's yet to run out of breath."

"I don't know." Sehun muttered in response while squinting real hard through the slight gap in the door. "But as of right now, I can see that Barbie is trying his best to calm him down while the rest stayed as far as they can."

"Why?"

"Why what?" Sehun asked as he momentarily forgot about his attempt to sneak a peek, and turned to stare at Jongdae in confusion instead.

Jongdae rolled his eyes. "Why are the rest of them staying as far as they can? Shouldn't they be helping too instead?"

Sehun shrugged, and promptly resumed his previous position.

"It must be nice to be Luhan." Jongdae mumbled to himself. "Why does it always have to be him anyway? Else than his pretty face, I don't see what's so special about him so why does Minseok even let him to be by his side all the time? Luhan that, Luhan this."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure they're together." Sehun interrupted without looking. "Like together together."

Jongdae's jaw nearly dropped to the floor. 

"I'm sure you've noticed that the two are like attached at the hip, but they are also quite intimate with each other, you know. I've caught them getting cozy at the back of the school once." Sehun explained further while still trying his best to see what was happening in the infirmary better. After a short moment, he finally became aware of Jongdae's lack of response. He whipped his head around to locate the sitting male, coming face to face with Jongdae's retreating back instead. "Where are you going?"

"Out of here." Even with his back turned, Sehun could immediately tell that he was speaking through his gritted teeth. Sehun instantly furrowed his brows, weirded out by the other's behavior.

~~X~~

Luhan chewed his bottom lip as he held on onto a half-unconscious Minseok while the nurse admistered a small dose of sedative. The rest of his friends were still bracing themselves against the wall, and only their concerned eyes shifted all around as they trailed after the nurse's every single move.

"There. That's the best I can do for now." The nurse, who was a tall woman in her late 30s, declared as she put away the syringe. "If he wakes up and his condition persists, we'll have to take him to the hospital."

Luhan nodded grimly. "I know. Thank you, Mrs. Kim."

"You're welcome." said Mrs. Kim before she retreated to her office. Sensing that Minseok was already deep in slumber, the rest slowly inched closer to the small bed without making any noise.

"What in the hell happened?" Tao whispered harshly with his eyes trained on Minseok.

"He was perfectly fine this morning." Baekhyun muttered, furrowing his brows. "It's been quite a while too."

"I don't know." Luhan whispered back helplessly. He looked down towards Minseok's sleeping face before carefully his hair away from his sweat-beaded forehead. "Something or someone must had triggered the memory."

"This is why I told you to never leave him alone." Kyungsoo frowned unhappily. 

"He was supposed to be with Joonmyeon.." Luhan mumbled under his breath, though he knew it was partly his fault too. He shouldn't had been so stupid to trust other with his responsibility.

"Well, you chose the wrong person." Tao said disapprovingly. "You know Joonmyeon would say yes in a heartbeat if any of the teachers ask him for a favor, which is probably how exactly Minseok ended up of being alone before this happened."

Luhan sighed while Baekhyun snorted loudly.

"Remind me to knock his head with any available hammer when we get back home."

"What's with you and your obsession with hammer?" Tao stared at Baekhyun weirdly. "What, are you Thor or something?"

"If I were Thor, I would've asked for a favor from Hel and locked you up in her helm." 

Tao gasped, clearly offended. ", you did not—"

"As a matter of fact, I did so shut up."

"On second thought, I did too." 

"Did what?"

"Did check Siwon out while he was showering this morning."

", YOU DID NOT—"

"Alright, out." Kyungsoo cut off while pulling them by the ears. "Out you go before you bring disaster upon all of us."

"Hey!" Baekhyun protested as he was being dragged by Kyungsoo out of the door. It was clearly a half-hearted attempt though since he wasn't so heartless as to wake Minseok up.

"Go make yourself useful by finding Joonmyeon or something instead." Kyungsoo instructed while shooing them away.

"What am I, a goddamn chicken?" Tao mumbled unhappily, but obeyed nevertheless as he trudged away while dragging Baekhyun along like a lifeless doll.

"Why did I always have to end up with you?" Baekhyun whined as he struggled to escape Tao's death grip on his wrist.

Tao rolled his eyes. "Probably because I'm the only one who could actually handle your diva . Kyungsoo's too impatient for it, Joonmyeon's too soft, Luhan's too preoccupied with Minseok and vice versa."

Baekhyun's whole feature softened a little bit at the mention of Minseok. 

"Do you think he'll ever get through it though?" Baekhyun said quietly. "I know the doctor said there's a 50/50 chance of it being possible, but from the way it is right now.." Baekhyun trailed off without finishing.

"I don't know." Tao answered honestly while glancing once over his shoulder. "But, you know that he will always has Luhan and all of us by his side so that should be a good start."

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. "That is the stupidest thing I've heard all day, and I've heard quite a few today."

"Wait until you hear what Kris proposed to me yesterday." Tao replied without thinking. Baekhyun immediately stopped dead in his track. His eyes widened comically as he let his jaw literally dropped to the floor.

"HE PROPOSED TO YOU?" Baekhyun screeched while yanking Tao into an abrupt stop, causing the tall male to yelp in pain.

"Why did you do that?"

"What do you mean why? Explain everything to me right - this - instant, young man!"

"What the—you're not even that older from me!" Tao protested while rubbing his hand. "And what is there to explain?"

Baekhyun stared at him as if he had grown a second nose. "Are you messing with me right now, Huang Zitao? What do you mean there's nothing there? There is something! Tell me more about that proposal!"

Realisation dawned upon Tao as he blinked his eyes profusely.

"Oh."

"Don't you oh oh me now, Huang Zitao." Baekhyun tapped his feet impatiently. "I want all the details now. Every single detail of it. You hear me? Every - single - one - of - it."

"God, Byun Baek, you could be quite thick at times." Tao finally said while shaking his head with disbelief. "It's not that kind of proposal, you uneducated walnut. He proposed to me as in a suggestion or an offer or whatever you call it."

Baekhyun blinked once, twice. 

"Not that kind of proposal?" He began repeating it very slowly as if trying to make sure of something. "A suggestion." He added while carefully judging Tao's face.

"Yes, that's it."

"What kind of suggestion?" Baekhyun abruptly questioned after a moment of silence. He was narrowing his eyes suspiciously in Tao's direction, purposely trying to unnerve the taller male. Alas, Tao was not so easily shaken.

"Well, lo and behold, he asked me to be his.." Tao patted his stomach a few times in his poor attempt of mimicking the sound of drum roll. "—ing pretend boyfriend, that good-for-nothing galactically stupid little dip." 

"His.. what now?"

"His ing pretend boyfriend." Tao made a tsking sound as he shook his head disapprovingly. "Can you believe it? He asked me to be his ing pretend boyfriend as if he was asking me to accompany him to the supermarket, that cold-hearted . He could've at least bring me some flowers or something. A bouquet of real cash money would be nice too. Or even Gucci, God knows I'll take that over anything anytime." Tao babbled on while occasionally letting out a dramatic sigh.

"So," Baekhyun began with a horrified look. "Did you.. agreed to it? Is that why those bimbos were attacking you just now?"

Tao smiled sheepishly. "Well, I wasn't even considering it at first, but then, I saw him getting physically harrased by all of those crazy girls, and I just sort of snapped I supposed. Can you believe it though, getting harrassed even with that ridiculously huge body? Girls are real scary."

Baekhyun snorted loudly. "Now, I see why you're gay."

", don't pretend like you're not mentally undressing Siwon whenever he's around." Tao deadpanned. "You're so gay that I bet you can tell the flavor of a popsicle by sitting on it."

"That's gross!" Baekhyun wrinkled his nose. "How do you even sit on a popsicle anyway? It would've gone straight up your !"

Tao mentally facepalmed himself. "Never mind."

"I never thought he's a gay though." Baekhyun suddenly mused while tapping a finger against his chin thoughtfully.

"Who?"

"That new boyfriend of yours of course." 

Tao abruptly smacked the other on the head. "He - is - not - my - boyfriend! What part of pretend boyfriend did you not understand?"

"Ow!" Baekhyun's head snapped up as he glared at Tao with annoyance. "I understood every single part of it, mind you. That's why I adressed him as your boyfriend, you dumb waffle. If you're going to start acting like his goddamn boyfriend, you might as well start getting used to being called as one."

Tao halted on his second attempt to smack the living daylight out of the smaller male. The other just presented him with a totally valid point after all, and he could hardly tried to counter that argument. Sighing, he lowered his hand and just suddenly dropped himself on the floor.

"I'm an idiot." Tao stared at his toes blankly. 

"No , Sherlock."

He raised his head to stare at Baekhyun, and the latter immediately noticed that his eyes were actually b with tears.

"Tao, what—"

"I'm so ing stupid." Tao suddenly began wailing on top of his lungs while flailing his limbs all around on the floor. "I never thought of that. Now, what do I do? That giant is ruining my love life!"

"Do you even have a love life?" Baekhyun questioned with amusement. "I'm under the impression that you've been forever alone since birth."

"Well, not yet." Tao huffed loudly. "But, I'm about to have one in the future and that stupid giant had cruelly took that opportunity away from me. He's not even my real boyfriend, and yet everybody is going to think so and nobody is going to approach me anymore after this and I'm so going to end up of adopting cats before dying a very lonely, and painful death."

Baekhyun only scoffed in response. "You should get a panda instead. It suits you well."

"Byun Baekhyun, I'm serious!"

"No, you are Huang Zitao, and you better get your moving right this instant because I just saw Joonmyeon taking off in the opposite direction of us. must had sensed he is in deep . Well, he's not wrong because I'm going to give him hell for his nerdy ."

Tao misheard the last word, and instantly raised his head to stare at Baekhyun weirdly. However, the other was already walking away, leaving him all alone there.

"Needy.. ?" Tao whispered to himself. His brows were all scrunched up together as he pondered hard on the matter. Lastly, he came to a simple conclusion, and quickly pat himself on the shoulder.

"Yeah, that's got to be it." He muttered proudly to himself. "Joonmyeon is definitely in need of some.." He stopped short for a second to allow himself a small sigh as he heaved himself up. ".. !"

~~X~~

"Joonmyeon, get the out here, you annoying little piece of ." Baekhyun yelled while banging on the door repeatedly. He was looking rather pissed at the moment as he threatened to destroy the poor door. 

"Maybe we should just kick it open instead?" Tao suggested lightly as he leaned against the wall with crossed arms.

Baekhyun glared at him. "Well, why don't you do it? I'm not hurting my precious little feet for this."

Tao rolled his eyes as he straightened up. "Well, step aside, amateur."

"What the —Did you just seriously called me an amateur? , I would've you know that I have a black belt in hapkido, and the only reason I won't do this is because—" Baekhyun's words were cut short by the loud bang as the toilet's door flew open. A rather frightened-looking Joonmyeon was sported crouching at the fathest corner of the small cubicle, looking up at them anxiouly with an awkward smile.

"Hello." Joonmyeon croaked out while waving slightly. "Well, isn't this awkward? Do you guys need something? I was just about to meet you guys after this."

"Is that so?" Baekhyun asked sarcastically. "Why are you running then?"

"Because.. because err.." Joonmyeon was looking at everywhere, but at the two of them. " I need to umm.. poop! Yeah, I really needed to go to the toilet so could you please like, leave now? It's quite uncomfortable, you see, with you just staring at me like that." Joonmyeon not-so-discretely gestured towards the door with his eyes a few times. 

"Oh, hell no! You're so not going away with this." Baekhyun said as he proceed to pull Joonmyeon out of there. "You better prepare yourself because I'm taking you to Luhan and Kyungsoo right this instant."

Joonmyeon's eyes widened tenfold, and he instinctively resisted from being pulled by the other. 

"No, no, no, let's just talk this out rationally between us. There's no need to go to them. I'm sure they're quite busy right now, I won't want to interrupt." Joonmyeon began blabbering away in panic.

"Nonsense." Tao interrupted while gripping hard on Joonmyeon's other arm. "They would be rather happy in fact to see you."

Joonmyeon's naturally pale skin paled even more at the implication of his words. There was nothing he could do though since they were already dragging him out of the door with both keeping a firm grip on his arms. He had to think of something. And fast. Real fast. He really needed to come up with something real fast that would require him to use both of his hands that they would have no choice, but to let him loose for a while. A split second of freedom was all he needed to escape so he needed to create that window of opportunity. And then, it clicked in the back of his mind. 

"Oh, look!" He proclaimed all of a sudden, exaggerating his action a little bit as he made an effort to attract the other two. "My shoelaces are undone. Unless you're willing to tie it up back for me, could you please let go of my arms for a moment?"

Baekhyun and Tao spontaneously directed their gaze toward Joonmyeon's shoes. Sure enough, the shoelaces were conveniently undone at the moment. (Let's pretend not to see Joonmyeon wiggling the out of his shoes just seconds ago in his desperate attempt to pull this stunt.) The two shared a brief look with each other, communicating through their eyes. Tao was the first one to let go while Baekhyun whined in response.

"Why did you let go, idiot?" 

"Well, I sure as hell not going to do that for him." Tao replied defensively while gesturing frantically towards Joonmyeon's feet.

"Why in the hell not?" Baekhyun challenged. "Since you were so nice to help your roommate, I was half-expecting that you'll start going around offering your service now."

"That's different!" Tao argued. "What does it has to do with this anyway?"

"Oh, you have no idea." Baekhyun replied while throwing his hands in the air dramatically, unconsciously letting go of his hold on Joonmyeon. "It has every bit to do with everything."

"Byun Baekhyun, you're not making any sense."

"I so do make sense right now. You're the one who's too dumb to get it."

"Oh, hell no! You did not just insulted my intelligence, you eyeliner freak!"

Baekhyun gasped. "Did you just called me an eyeliner freak? Oh, the nerve! You better take that back, you.. you soggy lamp!"

"Not even in your wildest dream."

Meanwhile, Joonmyeon casually bent down to tie up his shoelaces. On closer inspection though, you would've noticed that he was actually evaluating the situation and weighing his option. You could almost hear the gears turning in his head as he tried to decide when was the best time to make a run for it. It didn't take that long though. The moment Baekhyun started grabbing Tao's hair in a clear attempt to initiate a catfight, Joonmyeon immediately decided this was it. This was his golden chance to escape from having forced to face the frightening duo consisted of Kyungsoo and Luhan unprepared like this. He knew it was inevitable for him to meet them eventually since they lived together after all, but at least by that time, he would had hopefully came up with a rather brilliant excuse for his mistake.

With that determination in mind, Joonmyeon slowly stood up without a word while keeping a close eye on his fighting friends. They didn't seem to notice anything out of usual yet or maybe they had even completely forgotten all about him there. It was highly possible because it had happened rather more often than you think. Baekhyun and Tao were like the real life version of Tom and Jerry. Whenever they began fighting with each other, there was just no stopping them. 

In split seconds, Joonmyeon hurriedly made a quick turn and began taking off in the opposite direction. Maybe it was the accidental squeaking sound he made while turning around or maybe it was just their animal instinct taking over, but Baekhyun and Tao immediately realised at once that he had escaped. 

"KIM JOONMYEON, YOU STOP RIGHT THERE THIS INSTANT, YOU BLUFFING MAD—" For everyone's sake, Joonmyeon truly wished nobody else heard the rest of the sentence because it would've given you nightmares for a lifetime. It certainly fueled Joonmyeon's desperate urge to get away from them as far as possible though.

Trying to ignore the growing fatigue that was threatening to take over his body, Joonmyeon instantly pushed himself even further to run as fast as his short legs could take him. Running blindly in one sole direction does have its own disadvantages though. Much to Joonmyeon's displeasure, he was running straight into a dead end. His eyes automatically began moving all around frantically, hoping for anything that could serve as a miraculous getaway for him. Surprisingly, he found one. He was unable to remember what room was it supposed to be since he didn't know where his legs had led him anyway, but there was only one thing that mattered the most to him at the moment. That better be not locked, he thought desperately.

Well thankfully, heaven must be on his side today. The door cracked open at once, and he quickly invited himself in. Not wanting his pursuers to burst in unexpectedly, he instantly scrambled to lock the door as well. Then, he rested his forehead against the door, and sighed while trying to catch his breath. He figured that he will just have to wait here for an hour or two, and then, he will try to step outside for a moment to see if he had lost them.

"Joonmyeon? Is that you?" His vision was shattered the moment a voice suddenly spoke from behind him. "What are you doing here?"

There was something about the voice that sent a chill down Joonmyeon's spine. It was somehow rather familiar, but Joonmyeon just couldn't put a finger on it. He furrowed his brows as he tried hard to make sense of the voice. When he finally did though, his eyes instantly widened to the size of a saucepan.

"Oh, hell no.." Joonmyeon whispered to himself in panic. "It can't be him.."

Joonmyeon gulped noisily as he gathered his courage, and started turning around in a slow motion. He dreaded having to confront his suspicions being confirmed, but he just had to face the owner of the voice to be sure so here goes nothing.