A few hours later, having dried himself off and changed his clothes, Seungcheol made his way to the practice studio. He was still at a loss for words since what happened, but he wasn't upset. He certainly didn't want Jeonghan to be either.

They've always been very good at getting to work immediately, so the first practice round of the day began as soon as all the members were present. Afterwards, he was about to approach the longhaired boy, but the other boy actually began to walk towards him first.

"Okay, I’ll admit the water thing might've been a bit much," Jeonghan said, giggling slightly as he drew nearer, still visibly out of breath.

"But I guess I deserved it, right?" said the leader with a teasing smile.

"Oh, definitely, I'm not apologising or anything."

Both of them let out a small laugh.

"I did say I wouldn't laugh, so I'm sorry. I was just in a goofy mood."

"When are you not in a goofy mood?”

“Point made.”

“It's fine anyway, I really wasn't that mad. I was just getting even with you. And I think we're pretty much even now."

Seungcheol thought for a second, as he saw the other members begin to gather together for the second run-through.

"Well, I'll still make it up to you. Next time we go out for lunch, I'll pay for yours, how's that sound?"

"Ah, Cheol, you really don't have to do that."

"Really? Well, in that case I–"

"Thank you so much, man. You’re the best! Practice time, talk later, bye!"

Seungcheol gave a breathy laugh as Jeonghan ran to take up his starting position, whipping his hair into the older boy’s face as he turned around. At least they were still on good terms. He wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully if they weren’t.

They finished practice earlier than usual in favour of getting a long night’s sleep; they’d have a long day ahead of them tomorrow, with various bits of filming and last minute photo shoots to be completed, all leading up to a comeback stage the following week.

Before he slept, Coups thought about how far he’d come; the whole group had made a long journey to get to where they are. While there were difficult times, he didn’t think he could be much happier than he is right now. As everyone else in the dorm snored away, he looked around thought to himself how much of a home this place had become for him. With that thought, he drifted off to sleep.

It was 3am, but Seungcheol didn’t know that. All he knew was that it was early as hell, and for some reason his body had decided that he should be awake.
‘Great,’ he thought.

Now that his eyes were open, he took a glance around the small dorm, and what caught his eye was the silhouette of the boy in the bed to his right. He couldn’t make out much other than that he had his head down, and he was sitting completely upright. The boy looked up slightly, and Seungcheol instinctively closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. From how it looked, it wasn’t some sort of strange deep sleep habit. Jeonghan was clearly wide-awake. In fact, it didn’t seem like he had slept at all.

He briefly considered saying something (or whispering, rather) to the boy, but he didn’t know if he was awake because something was wrong, or if he just couldn’t sleep. If he were to ask why he’s awake, knowing Jeonghan, he’d just ask him the same question in return. It was too early in the morning for that.

He decided to mind his own business and try to go back to sleep, but with the worry that there was something wrong, it wasn’t peaceful. 

It took him over an hour to finally fall asleep, and every time he opened his eyes, the silhouette of the boy remained unchanged, in that same sitting position.