The boys woke up to the loud blaring of 'something' coming from Bambams alarm clock. The annoyingly catchy song filled the room, forcing the boys to wake up. Bambam being the overly energetic he is decided to bother a half asleep yugyeom on the floor. It took about ten minutes of him messing with yugyeom for him to acknowledge his presence (and tell him to off, of course). Next he had to bother wake up youngjae, which was gonna be a difficult task. Last time he attempted to wake up 'sleeping beauty' he had gotten punched in the , and he wouldn't risk that again. Instead, he sent yugyeom to wake him up (somebody had to take one for the team and convincing a half asleep yugyeom to do it was pretty easy).

  "Youngjae" Yugyeom hit him with a pillow (seemingly the only effective way to get him up) "Wake.Up" he said in between hits. After the fifth hit youngjae stirred, bits of his messy bed head visible under the blanket he was attempting to roll himself out of. He struggled for a bit before deciding to just take the blanket with him .

  "Jacksons picking us up in thirty minutes, be ready" Bambam called out as the other two boys left to go to their respective rooms. Twenty minutes passed before they were all ready and waiting in the living room. All the tension from yesterday long forgotten, the boys joked around for a bit while waiting for jackson, Youngjae was still quiet but he wasn't as distant as he was yesterday. That was until bambam mentioned him.

"Oh " Bam groaned "I forgot Mr.Oh assigned Jaebum as our new 'student teacher', Wonwoo was so fun to mess with though'. The atmosphere seemed to get colder. Yugyeom smacked him, Bambam opened his mouth to protest but stopped when he saw Youngjae stiffen up, visibly becoming distant again. Bambam mentally punched himself, how could he forget the situation. The dorm was quiet again, nobody brave enough to break the silence.

  "Yo! Ready to go?" Jackson yelled a little too loudly as he entered their dorm. "How is my favorite sunshine-" youngjae took this as his chance to escape and bolted out the door to jacksons car, not even acknowledging jacksons flirting. "Who the is that and where is my angel?" He turned to yugyeom and bambam questioningly. Jackson furrowed his brows, the love sick puppy was expecting his usual bright, adorable sunshine to greet him but he didn't even get a simple 'hi'. The last time youngjae had ignored him like this was when he had accidently stepped on his beloved dog coco, and as far as Jackson knew, he hadn't stepped on any puppies recently. So why is he ignoring me?

  Yugyeom must've heard Jackson mentally whining because he quickly answered his question "Don't worry hyung he's been like this recently, you know, the party thing" yugyeom whispered, in case youngjae heard. Actually, Jackson didn't know. That's what frustrated him the most, he had seen Marks post and he talked to Jaebum but he never got any answers. All he wanted to know is what happened to youngjae but no one seemed to know. Just the thought of youngjae being slightly uncomfortable upset him, especially since he wasn't around to comfort him. "Lets just go to school" Jackson muttered.

  This was the longest five minute car ride yugyeom has ever experienced. He had tried to sit next to youngjae so they could talk and he could see if he was okay but he set his book bag in the seat next to him, putting up a border between him and yugyeom. Jackson and Bambam didn't even attempt to hold a conversation, Jackson focusing on driving and Bambam staring intensely at his incomplete math homework, both trying to avoid an awkward conversation. Yugyeom could do nothing but steal glances at the elder occasionally. Jackson coughed.

  "We're here". Yugyeom didn't even notice the car had stopped. Bambam wasted no time escaping the car, with a rushed goodbye and a promise to meet at lunch he was gone. Jackson had lingered for a bit, hoping he'd get to walk youngjae to class but the younger barely noticed him, slowly exiting the car and walking to his locker. Jackson still followed after him like a lost puppy, which meant yugyeom would be walking to class alone and he knew Bam would come up with some excuse to miss their awkward lunch arrangement so he figured he'd be spending a lot of time alone today. Great.

*********

  Youngjae had finally ditched Jackson but now he was starting to regret it as he walked down the hallway alone, noticing all the stares and dirty looks he was getting. He looked around to see if he was mistaken but there was no one near him, he was sure those looks were directed at him. The only question was why? it's not like he wasn't used to attention, he did upload videos and posts on the internet for thousands of people to see, attention was normal for him, but this just felt different. He lowered his head and walked to class, choosing to focus on his feet instead of everyone around him. There was a large crowd of people gathered around someone, he sighed, the only way to get to class was to go by them. He tried to walk quickly but he froze when he heard his name.

"Woah! You really saw the Choi Youngae hook up with Jaebum?" 

"Makes sense, Why else would he be so popular? I heard the jjproject guy wasn't even the first person he hooked up with that night"

  The voices started overlapping he couldn't even make out what they were saying anymore but he knew it was about him and what happened that night. What shocked him the most though was the familiar voice he heard coming from the center of the circle. Mark Tuan. The boy he had confided in that night was telling everyone what happened. Youngjae knew it was stupid of him to tell a stranger everything but he wasn't exactly thinking straight that night, after what happened with jaebum he just wanted to go home he wasn't expecting to collapse in the middle of the hallway and cry infront of a complete stranger. But Mark hadn't seemed so bad then, he had listened to youngjaes sob story and took him home afterwards but youngjae realized now that first impressions aren't always accurate because now here that boy was, telling his story to everyone.

  The crowd around mark grew larger as he told stories about 'that night' and all the wild things youngjae has done. Youngjae knew he shouldn't listen to what he was saying, It'd only hurt him more but he couldn't help but stare in disbelief at the boy who had once helped him tell all these lies about him. He watched Mark go on and on about how much of a he was, laughing along with everyone else about how pathetic he was, like what happened to him was funny. The bell rung and the crowd dispersed as they all ran to class, the bell sounded more like a background sound compared to the pounding in youngjaes head. People pushed past him but youngjae didn't budge, feet locked in place not ready to go. He wasn't sure how it happened but he found himself staring at Mark, the boy looked back at him with wide eyes. Youngae wanted to say something, anything really but he didn't. Instead he ran, he ran right out of the front door and didn't stop running until he was back home in his dorm room.

********

 Youngjae took a deep breath. He tried to calm himself down in attempt to keep the memories at bay. Youngjae had spent hours thinking about the party, about Mark (he wouldn't admit it but he thought about jaebum too, about how the boy must be feeling now, if he regretted what he'd done). He didn't want to remember it again, if he did he thought he'd go insane.What good would it do anyways? It's not like anything would change, like it'll make it any less true. Honestly it hurt, the entire incident hurt so badly he couldn't even describe it. It wasn't like the pain he was used to, if Youngae ever fell or scraped his knee or anything like that he could easily get back up and bandage it up and eventually it'd heal. But he couldn't just bandage this wound. He could feel the tears start to fall again but he didn't bother wiping them away. Youngjae didn't know how long he sat there just crying but eventually he feels someones arms wrap around him. It's warm, he thinks. Almost comforting.

~~~

  Yugyeom couldn't find Youngjae anywhere. Not in homeroom, not at lunch and now here he was in last class looking for the boy, still somewhat hopeful that he'd show up. But the bell rung, signaling the start of class and Youngjae was still not here. He sighed as he slid into his seat, preparing for another boring, lonely class.

"Choi Youngjae?"

"Absent" Yugyeom muttered. He was seriously gonna kill youngjae when he found him. Yugyeom had planned to just listen to music or something and count down the seconds until he got to go home until he overheard an 'interesting' conversation. 

"Hey did you hear about that choi skipping class?"

"Yeah i saw him running down the hall this morning, probably left to go hook up with another guy"

  He didn't even have time to get mad at the way those girls were talking about his best friend. He was more focused on the fact that Youngjae had ran home earlier. Yugyeom didn't even think twice before he slung his backpack over his shoulder and ran out of class. It was stupid of him and he'd probably be in huge trouble tomorrow but right now all he really cared about is youngjae. 

  By the time he arrived at the dorm he was sweaty and tired but that didn't stop him from rushing to youngjaes room and hugging him as tightly as possible. Yugyeom couldn't see his face but he heard his quiet whimpers and felt his body shake. Yugyeom wasn't really good at things like this, he wasn't like bambam he didn't know what to say to him when he was like this or how to make him laugh instead of cry so he did what he knew how to do. He hugged him. He hugged him like he did when they were five and youngjaes fish died, like he did when they were 14 and Youngjae told him he was gay (and Yugyeom told him he was too) and like he did last year when they had to part for the first time in years when yugyeoms parents took him to Saudi Arabia for the summer. He also tried to think of happy moments with youngae, when they were nine and they befriended a weird kid named bambam with a cute Korean accent, when they were 15 and Youngjae had received a love letter for the first time and last year when youngjae came to meet yugyeom at the airport when he got back to Korea. He thought of all these memories he'd had with Youngjae hoping those warm thoughts would go to him too, like the old Youngjae would come back to him.

  "Are you okay?" It was a dumb question and Yugyeom regretted asking it the moment he heard youngjaes bitter laugh. This wasn't the Youngjae he knew, he wasn't sure what happened to his best friend but he knew Mark and Jaebum had some questions to answer.

Authors note:....Hello another late upload bc im trash and editing is hard. OH MY GOSH I RLLY LOVE THE COMMENTS YOU GUYS LEAVE (especially since some of them come from my favorite author ever and it makes me super happy) it lets me know people are still reading and enjoying this story even if it OH AND IM NOT SURE IF YOU GUSY NOTICED THE THING YOUNGJAES DOING WHERE HES BLAMING MARK INSTEAD OF,,YOU KNOW THE MORE OBVIOUS TERRIBLE PERSON (i kinda explained why in the party chapters so uh yeah) also if you noticed this chapter led back to the scene from the very first chapter oh god im rambling now OKAY UM I LOVE YOU ALL AND THE GREAT COMMENTS YOU LEAVE PLEASE CONTINUE SUPPORTING THIS MESS OKAY IM OUT~ (ps, jinyoung will be in the next chapter)