Hui poked his head around the corner and when he confirmed there wasn’t anyone in sight, he quickly power-walked through the corridor carrying Hyojong, who was still unconscious, on his back. Where’s that room they place dead humans in? Godammit. Another student turned into the corridor from the other end and Hui began to walk backwards, thinking of an escape plan, when the student spotted him.
“Hyojong!” The student exclaimed, already approaching Hui. Oh man, here we go. The guy seemed to know Hyojong and examined his condition with a concerned expression.
“Are you this guy’s friend?” Hui interrogated. His question was followed by a nod from the student and without a second thought, Hui lowered himself down to get Hyojong off his back and handed him over to the guy. “Good. You can take him then.”
“What happened?”
He heard something he shouldn’t have so I erased his memory and knocked him out. Hui’s eyes darted to the side, “He fainted. I just happened to be passing by. Now if you’ll excuse me…” He was quick to take his leave, not wanting anything more to do with the troublesome human boy.

It wasn’t long until Hyojong woke up on the hard squeaky bed of the sick bay with his hair looking like a bird’s nest. His sudden movement also woke up his friend who was awkwardly sitting on a stool, laying his head on the bed beside Hyojong’s shoulder.
“Hyojong, you’re up. That was quick.”
“Hongseok...” Hyojong winced at the sharp pain in his head before straightening himself up, “Why am I in the sick bay?”
Hongseok stretched his arms out and then carefully ran his fingers through Hyojong’s hair to untangle it, “Yeah. You fainted apparently but luckily, someone found you.”
Hyojong tried his best to recall what he was doing before he apparently fainted but nothing came to mind.
“Who was it?” Hyojong asked.
“It wasn’t a familiar face. It might be the new guy in the other class? I don’t know. Anyway, are you feeling alright?” Hongseok kindly gave his friend a glass of water who chugged it down in an instant.
“Mmm, I don’t know how to explain it. I just feel like a part of my brain is missing. Ya know?”
“No, I don’t know.” Hongseok chuckled. He would never be able to get used to Hyojong’s weird expressions despite having been friends with the guy for a while now. He probably admired Hyojong’s carefree and creative personality if anything. Just as Hongseok was getting ready to leave, Hyojong grabbed onto his arm and looked at him with a very serious expression and asked, “The person that found me… did they look like a magician?”

Huh?

~

The baseball team was spread out on the field that evening, practicing in different training groups. Yuto adjusted his cap and threw a straight ball at his partner who was thrown off by the speed and had to dodge it.
“Sorry!” Yuto yelled out with his hand in the air. Whilst waiting for his partner to go fetch the ball, Yuto unconsciously looked over to a particular spot near the fence. He’s not here today…
“YUTO, WATCH OUT!”
The Japanese boy turned around to his partner who watched on in horror as the ball fell from above and dropped onto Yuto’s head. He squatted down and winced at the temporary throbbing pain at the top of his head.
“Sorry.” Guanlin, his partner, ran over and squatted beside him with an extremely apologetic expression. Lai Guanlin was a first year who had only recently moved from Taiwan to South Korea to start high school. Yuto adored Guanlin and liked to act like a big brother figure because he saw a bit of himself in the young Taiwanese boy - they were both the soft-spoken type who had both moved away from their home country.

Yuto let out a gentle chuckle as he took off his cap to softly massage his head, a bit embarrassed, “It’s alright. I should have been paying attention.”
Guanlin grabbed onto Yuto’s hand and pulled him up. Yuto could tell his partner was feeling sorry so he cheered the boy up by patting his bottom, telling him to move along.
“Oh, it’s Wooseok-hyung.” Guanlin exclaimed, looking across the field. Yuto instinctively turned his head, his eyes searching for the person who had been on his mind without any luck.
“So you were looking for Wooseok.” Guanlin let out a cute snicker. He had actually noticed how distracted his partner had been the whole time. Yuto marvelled at the rare sight of Guanlin’s gum-filled smile and the younger proceeded to probe, “Are you interested in him?”
Yuto widened his eyes and immediately waved his hands in the air in disagreement, “No, nothing like that. I’ve just seen him hanging around here often so I thought he might be interested in joining the team.”
“I highly doubt he’s interested joining the baseball team.”
“How would you know that?” Yuto uttered.
There were two things which he found amusing. The first was how enthusiastic Guanlin seemed to be when talking about Wooseok despite not showing much interest in anything else. Guanlin knew Wooseok from the school’s Anime and Gaming Club and admired him for his deep knowledge of the area. That and the fact that he was super tall. The second was the fact that Guanlin kept describing Wooseok as being a cool person when Yuto, upon their first meeting at least, found him to be quite shy and cute?
“But I have noticed he has been hanging around here after school more often. Not that I mind though. I hope I can be friends with him one day...” Guanlin whispered.
“YUTO! GUANLIN! STOP CHATTING AND GET BACK TO PRACTICE!” Their coach yelled from the other side of the field.
“YESSIR!” The two boys shouted.

~

“You’re little Hyunggu’s friend.”
“And you’re Ko Shinwon.” The giant said rather defensively, something that Shinwon couldn’t blame him for. Kino was their mutual friend but the boy had never been too fond of Shinwon, always giving him the cold shoulder and warning Kino to stay away from him. Kino never could though.
“How’s the anime club, kid?” Shinwon teased, obviously enjoying irritating Wooseok. It was also somewhat refreshing to talk to someone who was the same height as him because he didn’t have to arch his neck down so much.
“What do you want?” Wooseok asked, clearly wanting to skip the smal