During the simulations the code names are D.O. (Kyungsoo), Buo Xian (Baekhyun), Shixun (Sehun), and Suho (Junmyeon). Any dialogue in italics (except for the occasionally emphasized word) indicates conversation over the communication devices. Also, in case anyone is curious, SKIA stands for South Korea Intelligence Agency. Enjoy!

“Ah, the smell of coffee just gets my heart pumping,” Baekhyun sniffed the air of the café with far too much exaggeration for Kyungsoo’s comfort and grinned. He maintained the expression as he took a nonchalant sip of his iced mocha and whispered calmly, “Corner, platinum blonde hair, black jacket.”

Sehun’s cheer came through both of their comms and Kyungsoo knew that Baekhyun had successfully identified one of the potential threats to their mission. The students at the Academy could usually pre-set the number of bad guys they wanted to have in any particular simulation, but this was a mid-term mission and neither Kyungsoo nor Baekhyun would know how many threats there were until they’d identified all of them. Since they were graded on time there was a part of Kyungsoo that thought Baekhyun’s idle chatter was a waste, but the other part of him, the part that had been trained since he was young to be innocuous and forgettable, forced himself to respond.

“I’m more of a tea guy, myself,” he murmured over the lip of his own mug. “But the—” Something caught Kyungsoo’s eye and he stretched his neck lazily. “Second floor by the railing, the one reading Vonnegut.”

“Show off,” Baekhyun huffed.

Kyungsoo ignored him and resumed their other conversation once he’d received verbal communication from Junmyeon that he’d made a correct ID. “The variety of green tea options is passable. I like this ginger peach concoction, at least.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “You’re such an old man, D.O.”

Kyungsoo resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at his friend. They were still on a mission, after all. Instead, he changed the subject.

“Your one year anniversary with Shixun is coming up this week, isn’t it?” He asked this knowing Baekhyun was planning a big surprise for his boyfriend, and that said boyfriend was listening intently to their conversation over their comms.

“,” Baekhyun mouthed. Kyungsoo was sure he’d have flipped him the bird if this were just a training simulation. “Barista. The one in the black,” Baekhyun squinted and Kyungsoo corrected him, effectively stealing Baekhyun’s chance for the bonus points they got if one student identified more bad guys than the other.

“Blue apron, leaning against the supply closet door,” Kyungsoo finished smugly.

Baekhyun outright called him a this time, but his voice was muffled around the straw of his drink and Kyungsoo was pretty sure neither Junmyeon nor Sehun, listening back at HQ, heard the insult.

“If that’s how you want to be, D.O.” Baekhyun emphasized Kyungsoo’s code name with a suddenly vicious smirk. “Why don’t we discuss your current romantic prospects?”

Kyungsoo’s panic was instant and was only further exacerbated by Junmyeon’s voice crackling over the comm as he asked “You’ve got a crush, D.O.?”

“Wait, no!” That was Sehun. He wanted to return the discussion to his and Baekhyun’s anniversary plans; frankly, Kyungsoo was willing to talk about absolutely anything if it meant he didn’t have to talk about his feelings for a particular star student who was currently sitting right next to Baekhyun’s boyfriend at HQ.

“Let’s have a party!” Baekhyun cheered in excitement. Kyungsoo would think he’d successfully avoided the uncomfortable subject if it weren’t for Baekhyun’s knowing smirk still frustratingly in place on his face. “A first year anniversary is something to celebrate, after all. Woman with stroller, just walked in.” Over the comm, Sehun seemed pleased with the suggestion—and Baekhyun’s ID—but Kyungsoo was anything but when Baekhyun added “What a great opportunity to ask your crush on a date!”

There was no one in the world that Kyungsoo hated more in that moment than Byun Baekhyun. “You’re dead when we get home, Buo Xian.” He glared with as much potency as he could muster but Baekhyun just continued to grin.

“You realize he got an A in Intimidation and Avoidance last semester, D.O.?” Sehun laughed. “I can hear your glare from here, hyung.”

Junmyeon chose that moment to pipe up. “I’m confused though. Why are you so mad at Buo Xian?”

Kyungsoo knew he wasn’t supposed to talk directly to his partner back at HQ unless he had an ID to make, so he had to get clever in order to respond to Junmyeon’s question. They’d already wasted too much time talking about this already, and Kyungsoo used that as his excuse when he directed his response to Baekhyun, “Let’s finish our drinks and head home. We’ve taken too long of a study break as it is.”

To cement his point, Kyungsoo stood up to buy a pastry for the road and noticed a couple of students by the window glance quickly away. “The pair with their textbooks open by the window. The girl more than her boyfriend.” Junmyeon told him he was right on both accounts and Kyungsoo ordered his croissant with a heart-shaped smile when Junmyeon also told him that they’d successfully finished the simulation. The figures disappeared around them but the food was real and, taking a leisurely bite of his treat, Kyungsoo noted aloud to Baekhyun that victory tasted delicious.

“It’s supposed to taste sweet,” Baekhyun deadpanned. “But you’re right, we did good this round.”

And they had. Their time was the best so far, and with only Junmyeon and Sehun left to take their mid-term, Kyungsoo was confident that his and Baekhyun’s grade would be good.

“You did well,” their professor corrected when the two made their way out of the Sim Room and into HQ where he was waiting with his comments on their execution of the mission. “But you’re still too easily distracted, Student Byun.” The professor turned to Kyungsoo. “And you, Student Do; your time is excellent but I know for a fact that you’ve done better in practice simulations. What happened in there?”

Kyungsoo blushed hard. Junmyeon, standing and waiting behind Professor Park with his arms crossed over his chest, raised an eyebrow as if to ask the same question and Kyungsoo could only shrug in response.

“It won’t happen again,” he told them both, and he meant it. This crush business of his was silly at best, and at worst it could have gotten him and Baekhyun killed if the mission they’d been on had been a real one.

Baekhyun evidently felt similarly because he rolled his chair up close to Kyungsoo’s as they worked together to restart an altered version of the simulation for Junmyeon and Sehun’s turn. “Does that mean you’re finally going to confess? Since,” he paused to adjust the mike resting against his cheek, “he’s so distracting to you and all.”

“You,” Kyungsoo growled, poking Baekhyun hard in the stomach and smiling in satisfaction when the other boy let out a pained “Oof!”, “distract me.”

In the Sim Room, Sehun stopped fussing with the comm in his ear and turned with an eyebrow raised in confusion to Junmyeon. “You have a crush on Buo Xian? Really?!”

“Shut up, Shixun,” Kyungsoo pouted over the connection. The simulation hadn’t technically started yet but he followed the other’s lead and stuck to their mission code names. “And no, someone else’s boyfriend isn’t exactly my type.”

The computer pinged to signal the start of the mission, but Sehun seemed unperturbed and continued his investigation even though they all knew that comms, at least on the active agent’s end, were for IDs only.

“Who is then?” Sehun wanted to know.

“Your idiot boyfriend is going to get the sim shut down before they make a single ID,” Kyungsoo complained to Baekhyun in an attempt to get Baekhyun to shut Sehun up.

“Well then your boyfriend will fail something for the first time in his life,” Baekhyun shot back. He was only half concentrating on Kyungsoo, the other half of his attention focused on the screen before them that had each of the threats in the café highlighted in a yellow glow, and when he realized what he’d said he at least looked instantly apologetic.

Kyungsoo hoped the slip up would go unnoticed, but no such luck.

“I knew it!” Sehun crowed far too loudly for someone who was supposed to be incognito. “I knew you liked Jun—I mean, Suho-hyung!”

Kyungsoo could neither confirm nor deny Sehun’s words, and he said as much over the comm before emphasizing that Junmyeon and Sehun were going to get a really bad time if Sehun didn’t stop being so annoyingly curious about something that was none of his business.

Baekhyun’s boyfriend and Kyungsoo’s crush did make a really good team, though, and despite Sehun’s initial lack of dedication to the mission at hand, they emerged from the Sim Room some thirty minutes later with a time just barely better than Kyungsoo and Baekhyun’s. Sehun’s expression was smug, even when Professor Park frowned and reminded him for the billionth time that the comms were not meant for his personal enjoyment.

“We did better than you and I finally figured out who you like, Kyungsoo-hyung!” Sehun turned to sweep his boyfriend off his feet with a grin and a celebratory peck once their professor had spoken with Junmyeon and left the room. “Such a good day, don’t you think, Baek?”

Baekhyun, who didn’t really care about the time difference all that much and was happy enough with the A he and Kyungsoo had gotten, rolled his eyes but smiled against Sehun’s mouth and agreed all the same. “You were great in there, Sehunnie,” he indulged with an easy compliment.

“Whatever,” Kyungsoo grumbled when he realized that Baekhyun was strictly on Sehun’s side in all this and that he’d have to deal with the fall out of the unintentional confession on his own. He caught Junmyeon’s gaze across the room and bit his lip nervously. “Hyung,” he called out, tone cautious.

To his surprise—and Baekhyun and Sehun’s too, if their twin gasps of shock were anything to go by—Junmyeon shook his head vehemently and rushed out of HQ.

“I told him you really meant it,” Baekhyun informed Kyungsoo at lunch later when the latter arrived last to their table and Junmyeon quickly made an excuse to leave. “But all he said was ‘I can’t do this.’”

“Well that’s heartening,” Sehun commented drily. He picked up the half-eaten sandwich Junmyeon left behind in his apparent hurry to escape from Kyungsoo’s presence, and took an obnoxiously large bite.

Kyungsoo glared and Sehun, who hadn’t done nearly as well as his boyfriend in Intimidation and Avoidance, almost choked. “This is all your doing,” Kyungsoo accused. “You realize that, right?”

Frustratingly, Sehun and Baekhyun both just shrugged. “We’re seniors,” Baekhyun reminded his friend. “If not now, then when?”

He had a point, for all that Kyungsoo refused to admit it. Junmyeon, though, unfortunately didn’t seem to share this sentiment. Two whole weeks passed without the two boys spending so much as five minutes together. Kyungsoo heard from Minseok that he’d seen Junmyeon in the library during lunch a couple of times, and when Junmyeon blew off his and Kyungsoo’s standing Tuesday/Thursday study session three times in a row, Kyungsoo realized he needed to do something.

It that Junmyeon couldn’t seem to accept Kyungsoo’s feelings for him, but Kyungsoo missed his friend much more than he wanted to date the other boy. At least, that’s what Kyungsoo told himself when he resolved to corner Junmyeon and take it all back. He’d never technically confessed anyway; that must mean something when it came down to apologizing for his feelings, right?

The first place he went once he’d made this decision was the library, but the librarian very helpfully shared that Junmyeon, as if he’d sensed Kyungsoo’s impending arrival, had just left.

Next, Kyungsoo tried the empty classroom where they usually met to study. Junmyeon hadn’t been there in weeks as far as Kyungsoo could tell, but it was as good a guess as any as to where the other boy might be.

Junmyeon wasn’t there, though, so Kyungsoo stopped by HQ and the Sim Room, visited the barely used kitchen on the second floor, bugged Junmyeon’s roommate Jongin for a peek into their room, and even dropped by the gym even though he knew for a face that there was nothing in the world Junmyeon hated more than working out. That was something Kyungsoo could definitely relate to, but Junmyeon was unfortunately nowhere to be found.

Finally Kyungsoo just decided to wait Junmyeon out. During his free period he would take his books and study in the dorm common room, and when classes let out for the day Kyungsoo would stop by the cafeteria to grab a snack before returning to the same common room and studying there all afternoon until dinner. Junmyeon was bound to come home sometime, Kyungsoo reasoned, and the only way for him to get to his room was through the common area that Kyungsoo was currently haunting.

It took a few days of agonizing impatience, but Kyungsoo’s reasoning was right. He caught Junmyeon trying to sneak up the stairs right as Kyungsoo was heading out the door to meet Baekhyun and Sehun for dinner.

“Hyung,” Kyungsoo pleaded quietly, hand caught tightly around Junmyeon’s wrist to keep him from fleeing. “I never meant to, I mean, I’m sorry. You’re uncomfortable and it’s my fault.” He released Junmyeon’s wrist to look down at his own hands with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, voice small.

Junmyeon groaned and sunk down to sit on the steps. He ran a hand tiredly through his hair and said, “It’s exhausting, hiding from you. Did you know that?” Kyungsoo opened his mouth, closed it again without saying anything, and shook his head. “You’re going to make a great spy after graduation,” Junmyeon continued. “And I know you want to work for the SKIA but honestly any agency would be lucky to have you.”

Kyungsoo wasn’t quite sure what was happening because this conversation was not at all going the direction he’d expected. Junmyeon wasn’t supposed to be sweet when Kyungsoo was trying to take back his confession, it just wasn’t fair to Kyungsoo’s poor heart.

“But that’s just it,” Junmyeon said after a pregnant pause, “You’re going to be a secret agent. I’m going to be a secret agent. This is the Academy and that’s just how life works for us.”

Again, Kyungsoo was confused. “I mean,” he started, trying to be understanding, “that is what we signed up for, isn’t it?”

Junmyeon hid his face in his hands. His shoulders were hunched in and his expression, before he’d hidden it from Kyungsoo’s view, looked close to tears. “It’s so dangerous.” His voice was barely a whisper but to Kyungsoo the sound of Junmyeon’s words was crystal clear, and suddenly he understood.

“You’re afraid,” he observed in amazement. Junmyeon said nothing but he did lower his hands and Kyungsoo took that as tacit agreement. “You’re scared of what could happen to me out in the field, aren’t you?” Junmyeon stayed mute. “I’m the best in our year except for you,” he reminded Junmyeon, confident now that he realized Junmyeon wasn’t avoiding him because he wasn’t interested but because he was worried about losing Kyungsoo if they did get together. “You said it yourself,” Kyungsoo added. “I’ll be just fine.”

“I never said I was worried about you specifically,” Junmyeon huffed. His annoyance was cute, especially when Kyungsoo sat down on the stair next to him and teased, “Didn’t you?”

Junmyeon rolled his eyes but allowed Kyungsoo to pull his hands even further away from his face and merely pouted in defeat when Kyungsoo kept his hold on one of the hands so he could interlock their fingers.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily, hyung,” Kyungsoo reassured Junmyeon. “I’ve liked you for years. You think I’m going to let some baddie take me out just when you’re finally starting to like me back?”

“You’re an idiot,” Junmyeon remarked. Still, by this time he was starting to smile so Kyungsoo didn’t take the insult personally.

“Am not,” he retorted, testing his luck by scooting a little closer and resting his head against Junmyeon’s shoulder. Junmyeon let him, and Kyungsoo was perfectly content to miss dinner if it meant he got to keep Junmyeon this close for even just a little while longer.