HEY GUYS! Thanks so much to all reviewers, subscribers, and how can I forget my silent readers? teehee. *grabs and huggles all*

I have to apologize for being such a slow writer T_____T but I've actually been quite busy with exams and uni apps and such these days, so it was difficult to squeeze out some time for an update. nehow, here it is the second part to the threeshot. yadong couple sorta progresses and myungsoo meets a choding. xDDD.

Disclaimer: I do not own INFINITE. ;____;

This chapter is rated K.

~~~

"Leave your slippers outside," Howon says before entering his room.

Dongwoo slips out of the slippers, nudging them neatly together before stepping into the room. He feels kind of giddy for some reason, even though it was nothing new for Dongwoo to enter his friends' bedrooms. Was Howon a friend, though?

Idiot. Why are you thinking about stuff like this?

Dongwoo giggles a little, muffling a chuckle with his hand before Howon clears his throat.

"Yah, what are you laughing at?"

The senior pouts, shaking his head as if to say 'nothing', then peers around the bedroom. He's surrounded by bare, pale blue walls. Dongwoo thinks about how different it looks from his own bedroom, where the walls are so cluttered with knick-knacks that he can barely make out the colour. A white comforter is wrapped neatly around a bed in the corner. Dongwoo scurries over to the bed, dropping to his knees and peering giddily under the bed frame.

"What the hell are you doing?" Howon snaps.

Dongwoo pouts, laughing slightly as he pulls himself up from the ground.

"Yah, where are you hiding it?" he grins, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"What are you talking about?" Howon groans with a flustered expression on his face.

Shooting him a 'I'm not falling for that' look, Dongwoo turns back and begins to search through the drawers, under the pillows. Howon flushes and attempts to pull the senior off.

"Yah, get your hands off my stuff! What are you searching for, anyways? Aish, let go!"

There's a moment of silence, and Dongwoo flops on the bed.

"You're no fun," the senior pouts, knocking his fists lightly into the mattress.

"I mean, how could you have no posters of hot chicks? Or, even..." Dongwoo trails on, a blush blooming on his cheeks as he giggles.

He manages to regain his composure, putting on a very serious face as he resumes his speech.

"Or... you know, yadong."

Howon's face flames and Dongwoo doubles up in laughter again, wiping at the corners of his eyes before sitting up with a smile. His eyes flit across the room, before he turns his head to the back, then frowns.

The curtains are drawn.

His first instinct is to walk towards the curtains, but Dongwoo's backpack accidentally knocks over a pile of mixtapes on the counter. Hearing the clatter, he immediately swivels around only for his backpack to knock some books off the bookshelf.

Howon seethes.

Dongwoo's face is red, and he mumbles apologies one after another, his lips curved into an embarrassed smile. Howon is silent and Dongwoo thinks ', he's angry', but then Howon chuckles. Dongwoo's eyes immediately flit to him, and Howon's smile is gone so fast that Dongwoo thinks he may have just been hallucinating.

"Never mind. Sit down and don't you dare move, idiot."

'It must have been a hallucination', Dongwoo sighs. He slips his backpack off his shoulders, dropping to the floor with a small huff. There's some shuffling before Howon settles down beside him, stretching his legs out under the table. He slaps his notebook onto the table surface, spinning a pen in his hand.

"Well?"

Dongwoo ignores him.

"Why don't you open the curtains?"

"It's not like you can't see. The lights are on."

"That's not the point. Why won't you open the curtains when it's sun─"

Howon's eyebrows furrow and Dongwoo quickly bites his tongue. He nods meekly, turning open the pages of the notebook. With a sigh, he scans over the notes to get an idea of where to start. Suddenly, Howon's voice interrupts his thoughts.

"I don't like the sun."

Dongwoo stares.

"I don't like the sun, because it's so bright that I can't see anything. It's so blinding, I hate it."

Dongwoo pauses, thinking this over. Finally, he speaks.

"Doesn't it make you feel happy?"

'No, it scares me', Howon thinks, but he doesn't say anything.

You're like the sun. Both of you make me feel strange.

~~~

Dongwoo scribbles a picture of a log in the corner, grinning when Howon's lips twitch into an almost smile.

"The log function, is not very difficult at all, actually," he begins.

"It's the inverse of an exponential function. Do you still remember the exponential function? Here, this is what it looks like. Log functions on the other hand, are very different. Let's start on the domain first. Since you can't take the log of negative numbers or zero, the domain of the log function is all real numbers, greater than zero. The range is..."

Howon listens attentively to Dongwoo's explanations, somehow awed that someone could be so hyper one moment and calm the next. Somehow, he keeps on getting distracted by the movement of Dongwoo's lips, and the way his tongue peeps out to wet them at times. Suddenly, Dongwoo's eyes catches his and Howon feels the hairs rise at the back of his neck.

"Hoya? You looked like you were spacing out just now..." Dongwoo says, tilting his head a bit.

Howon clears his throat and shakes his head, unable to meet the senior's eyes.

"I-I'm fine."

There's the strange feeling again, in his chest.

~~~

The door to the school roof swings open, and Myungsoo immediately swivels around, a sort of urgency in his usually emotionless eyes.

"Howon-hy─" he shouts, only to meet the eyes of a stranger.

The stranger is tall, which kind of intimidates Myungsoo even if he won't ever admit it. He's panting heavily, his hair dishevelled and uniform rumpled, and Myungsoo wonders what a normal person would do at the moment.

'He looks kind of funny', Myungsoo thinks, and so he continues staring.

The stranger's catching his breath, and he almost opens his mouth to speak before there's a high-pitched scream and his eyes turn wild. Immediately, he lunges towards Myungsoo, grabs him by the arm and pulls him towards the back of the roof. Myungsoo is pushed into a corner of the roof, and the stranger crams himself in front of him, completely shielding him from the outside. He could feel the warm breath of the taller student tickling his neck, and he almost wants to laugh because the situation seems so hilarious.

"Quiet!" the taller boy hisses through gritted teeth, and fists Myungsoo's collar.

Myungsoo smiles at him, and the taller boy scowls.

Suddenly, they hear the burst of the rooftop door and the rapid thumping of footsteps.

"Sungyeollie-oppa?! Where are you?"

"I swear he went this way! He couldn't have gone far, you check on the second floor, he might've escaped down the stairs."

"Oppa! Don't you want to eat the delicious cheesecake I baked you? It's reallllllly yummy!"

"Sungyeol-oppa, come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Myungsoo bites back a laugh and Sungyeol inwardly rolls his eyes, an annoyed expression on his pink cheeks. There's footsteps approaching them, and Myungsoo feels Sungyeol stiffen, a bead of cold sweat threatening to drop from his curved chin. He seems to squish closer to Myungsoo, and the shorter boy smiles to himself.

Myungsoo thinks about how physically close they are at that moment, so close that they would be in quite a suggestive position if anyone were to see. Somehow, it didn't seem so awkward just because they were strangers. He liked the smell of the taller boy too, fresh like fabric softener.

After a few minutes of man-hunting, there's some inaudible chatters before he hears a girlish whine and some cute stomping.

"Oppa, if you're hiding here somewhere, shame on you!"

Myungsoo smirks. Sungyeol holds his breath, counting silently to ten, and one of the girls speaks up.

"Darn it, how could we have lost oppa again?!"

"Argh, we were so close, too! Sungyeollie-oppa sure is sneaky."

There's a few sighs before they hear the sound of footsteps shuffling out. Finally, the roof door closes with a click. Sungyeol lets go of the breath he's been holding in, and pushes off Myungsoo, falling to his knees as he leans against the roof walls. He pulls on the collar of his uniform, loosening the chokehold and Myungsoo can't help but stare at the evident mole on the pale stretch of his neck.

Sungyeol catches him staring, and Myungsoo expertly shifts his eyes away.

"Thanks for that," Sungyeol breaks the silence, and Myungsoo simply nods.

"I'm Sungyeol," he says, then laughs upon realizing the situation.

"─but you probably know that already, huh?"

Myungsoo smiles again, thinking back to the giddy fangirls.

"Don't misunderstand, though. I didn't do anything to them! I have to say, it's not easy being such a handsome guy. You don't know all the troubles I have to go through, all the hearts I have to break, all the food I have to eat─"

Myungsoo grins, shaking his head as he plops down next to the blabbering Sungyeol.

What a choding.

~~~

"I get the window seat!" Dongwoo hollers, racing onto the bus and pushing past Howon to plop himself down on a seat beside the window. These days, they've been leaving school a bit later to catch a bus that wasn't stuffed inch-by-inch. Somehow, he feels a lot more at ease around Dongwoo than with any of his other classmates, which sort of troubles Howon.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out to reveal a text message from Myungsoo.

Sender: L

12-10-25  17:35

hyung, you should've told me beforehand if you were going to disappear off the face of the world.

Howon smiles, texting back a quick reply. Dongwoo had made him promise to attend Advanced Functions, which meant that he didn't have time to burn on the rooftop with Myungsoo.

Sender: Howon

12-10-25  17:38

sorry. i'll be there tomorrow. in the meantime, you'd better not be smoking up a black lung.

Sender: L

12-10-25  17:45

i quit

Howon stares blankly at the reply, completely flabbergasted. He'd never thought that Myungsoo would have the willpower to quit smoking, but life is indeed, full of surprises. Howon lifts his phone to key in another message, only to be distracted by the thumping of something against the bus window.

An amused smile makes its way up his lips when he sees that Dongwoo's already fallen asleep in his seat, his head propped against the bus window. Every now and then when the bus ran over a bump in the road, it would cause Dongwoo's head to collide against the hard window. Nevertheless, the senior sleeps like a log.

Howon's unsure of what to do.

After quite some while of staring at Dongwo's uncomfortable position, he swallows once and straightens up. Leaning towards his senior, Howon stretches out his arm, curling it around Dongwoo and pushes his hand in between the small space that separated Dongwoo's head from the bus window. Howon holds his breath when he feels the soft strands of Dongwoo's hair on his palm. The senior seems to feel quite satisfied at the new, soft surface and a content sigh releases from his lips.

Howon tells himself that his hand is not hurting from acting as the pillow for Dongwoo's head. He tells himself that this is something that friends do for each other, nothing else. He tells himself that the rapid thumping of his heartbeat is because it's kind of stuffy inside the bus, not because he's seated beside his adorable, sleeping tutor.

A swift jerk of the bus snaps Howon from his trances, and suddenly, he feels the pressure of something on his shoulder. When he peers at his side, he nearly chokes on his breath. Dongwoo's head is now resting on his shoulder, the faint dusting of eyelashes caressing his cheek. The senior breathes snores slightly, every gentle vibration sending shivers down Howon's spine.

This is not fair! Argh, how could he...

Howon holds his breath and attempts to move away, only for Dongwoo to snuggle closer, fitting his head perfectly in the crook of the younger boy's neck. Cheeks tinged with pink, Howon peers slowly at his hyung, watching his steady breathing. The strange feeling wells up in his chest again, but this time, it feels soothing.

~~~