“I’m so sorry to waste your time like this, I mean you’re still stuck up with me even in uni.” Yuta puts two cups on the tiny study table.

“Come on, I thought we got over this, besides the hot chocolate your mom makes it’s brilliant.”

“Oh come on, I know you could enjoy hot chocolate with someone, you know” Yuta winks at Taeil, and they both chuckle.

“I’m really glad you chose to keep me as tutor Yuta, I want to be by your side. I can’t presume to understand what you’re going through, but before tutor, I’m your friend and I want to be next to you.”

Yuta smiles weakly, he couldn’t be more grateful for having people who support him and try to understand what he is going through.

“Look at me, bringing the subject when it was me who kept pestering you to stop thinking about him, come on let’s keep your mind busy”

And this is how he bears on most of the times, they take shifts to assist Yuta, they try to let him alone as less as possible, sometimes even taking turns to sleep at his place, or call him at their places, when he’s not at Taeyong’s he’s at Johnny’s and so on.

Time flies and he realizes once again that Taeil is really good at keeping his mind busy, he can count the times his thought went back to Hansol, in the 5 minute call for breaks Taeil would give him for an efficient studying.

Downstairs he hears voices, and the voices are louder as they approach Yuta’s room, there’s no need for him to try to focus, even in a whisper tone he can distinguish Taeyong’s whining and Johnny’s obnoxious laugh.

 “We came to save the day!” Johnny blasts as soon as he opens the door.

“Coke, chips, gummy bears.” Taeyong starts pulling up bags of groceries and Taeil interferes in the right next second.

“Junk food, not healthy for brain.”

“I knew you would say that, fruits for Taeil and board games, yuhuu” Taeyong points to the very bottom of a bag, then he turns his head towards Johnny “you owe me 10 bucks.”

“Yeey, let’s relax,” Yuta says extending his grabby hands like a toddler and Taeyong leans to kiss his forehead.

“Your face looks awful, I’ll kick your if you don’t sleep tonight,” he says it more for Yuta to hear.

“You made a bet I would freaking say junk food is not healthy for the brain?” Taeil complaints and Johnny laughs amused “You’re my best friends for years you jerk why did Taeyong win?” he continues, but Johnny doesn’t answer he just wiggles his eyebrows.

“Yuta, we’re making a team tonight, let’s rule the world,” he says instead to Yuta.

“Johnny, we always lose because these two have higher IQ’s than ours.”

“Come on, don’t wince, tonight the victory is ours, the loser team gets tickled and the winning team massage.”

Yuta makes a square face, Taeyong checks with Taeil and it’s a deal, as if they already won.

It’s times like this that proves the true bonds between people, Yuta knows they really care when instead of minding other things they are there to distract his mind, try so hard to make him laugh, to encourage him, and he couldn’t be more grateful for being surrounded by quality people, that would put their hearts in line for him.

It’s this that makes it a bit more bearable, it’s this that makes the darkness lit a bit, and he knows that as long as they are next to him, he’ll have the power to go on.

“Come on guys, proceed with the massage, Taeil we’ll sleep so well after the massage” Taeyong laughs like a maleficent witch and Yuta pouts arms crossed.

“I told you we should stop using the same strategy in every game, look what you’ve done!”

“I’ll do the massage for both of them, Taeyong first because I know he dies to toady you until you fall asleep” and like this Yuta’s pout turns into a grin.

“Got’cha!”

“That was dirty Yuta, that was dirty!” Taeil claps in approval towards a dumbfounded Johnny, but then all three of them tickle attack Yuta.

They all sleep there, and this night Taeyong does manage to make Yuta fall asleep, but also keeps close to another person in the room.

**

It’s not of a big surprise to Yuta that Hansol pretends nothing happened, what surprises him is that the latter is not applying the cold treatment to him, and this eases a bit the sting inside his heart.

“Look about that night, it was a mistake, I didn’t meant to” Hansol scratches the back of his head.

“Of course, totally mistake” Yuta lowes his gaze at his own shoes, kicking rithmically his left shoe with his right foot.

“You have to forget that if you want us to be friends” Hansol sounds more stern now and Yuta’s heart races like in F1, the blood crawling up, but he fights to compose himself.

“Totally get it, yeah I mean it was weird” he lies, and the lie hurts deep inside him.

“Right” Hansol scratches his forehead with the tip of his fingers “I’m glad we’re cool.”

“Yeah we’re totally cool”

Yuta is the first to leave the locker room and joins the rest of their team mates on the field for practice. Minho is holding a motivational speech over the last weekend and discusses about many other things Yuta is not able to focus on.

He only thinks over how to get away from there faster ad pour all his heart at Taeyon, even though Taeyong might not be able to understand him, he needs to tell someone about it.    

After the practice he bits goodbye to Hansol, tosses a lie like ‘Taeyong wants to see me, I’ll go ahead” and runs to where Taeyong is.

“Totally not cool, Taeyong, I can’t forget, I can’t pretend it didn’t happen, I practically dream of it every night I-I…huuh” he exhales deeply after the long rumble on how frustrated he is over the whole situation.

He basically snatched Taeyong as soon as the first strands of Taeyong’s hair could be seen exiting the literature club room. Yuta didn’t even paid attention over the dumbfounded Johnny that was left behind alone with no other explanation. But he plans to apologize over it later.

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