At long last Jihoon is well enough to leave his bed, much to his unexpected delight and Soonyoung's reluctance, who has been far too happy playing nurse for his friend. Jihoon honest to god loves Soonyoung, but waking up to the other boy shrieking in his face every morning and remaining with him for the next twenty four hours is something he can no longer take. Besides that, he has a tonne of work to catch up to now and not being able to take his own lecture notes while on forced bedrest ("For the last time Seungkwan I'm not dying, restrict me to this bed one more time and it won't be me who'll end up being close to death" "...I thought you said he got less angry when he's tired" "This is less angry, Seungkwan.") has been eating him alive.

He's walking to his first class of the day with Junhui and Minghao when he sees them. His two friends are busy cussing each other out in Mandarin over a can of soda and remain oblivious to the fact that Jihoon has fully stopped in his tracks and is no longer beside them. He can't tear his eyes away.

Jihoon keeps watching the them from a distance, their laughs and cheerful voices ringing in his ears. His legs tremble, eyes unblinking, his arms tightening over the folders he's holding tightly against his chest.

He was wrong. He can't do this. He's not ready to face them, especially not him. Jihoon feels the familiar embarrassment and shame wash over him. His eyes close and he remembers what an idiot he was, still is. An idiot who can't move the on. He slowly opens his eyes, feet still glued to the floor. His folders fall to the ground.

Jihoon runs.

"Hey! You made it."

His mouth is still hanging open pathetically as he takes in Seungcheol's dazzling smile and messed up hair. Jihoon feels that he has quite possibly the worst timing of anyone on the planet, and he should do the world a grand favour by never being talked into leaving his dorm again. Or cease to exist altogether. Seungcheol, however, doesn't seem to notice his inner turmoil and is perfectly content to be grinning down at the shorter boy in a not at all endearing way. Still hovering over Jihoon as they stand opposite each other in the doorway, he speaks again.

"Did you just arrive?" He asks, without waiting for a response. "I got here a while ago, I wasn't sure if you were coming! Have you seen Mingyu? I was looking for-"

Seungcheol cuts off his own sentence when his eyes travel past Jihoon's head to the kitchen table. The song has changed and Mingyu has now resorted to downright humping the table to the pounding bass track and overjoyed screams of his audience. Wonwoo pulls out his phone and starts videoing the scene. Seungkwan and Seokmin are chanting, "Strip! Strip! Strip!".

"Oh." Seungcheol says intelligently. Jihoon can't do anything but agree. He sticks his hands in his pockets, unsure of what to do. Seungcheol seems to be at a complete loss as well. His mouth opening and closing silently. If he wasn't so pitifully nervous, Jihoon would laugh at how ridiculous he looks.

"Since he's a bit, erm, busy," Seungcheol continues, worriedly watching his teammate, "Do you want to come outside for a bit? It's much calmer than in here."

He looks at Jihoon expectantly, and the younger boy maintains that if it wasn't for those stupid, stupid puppy dog eyes he'd have walked right out the door by now. Make no mistake, Lee Jihoon has an iron will.

It's just a shame that it rusts and falls apart in the presence of one Choi Seungcheol.

So he lets the door be held open for him ("Thanks" he mutters, very much ignoring the delighted, "No problem!" he receives in return) and trudges into the garden with Seungcheol because he is far too warm, needs fresh air and maybe wants to stare at the basketball captain a little more. Just maybe.

What he doesn't expect, however, is the supposed garden to be nothing less than a mini rainforest, with endless flower bushes taking up the entire fence, a gigantic old tree with a swing attached to one branch and even a small pond with colourful fish visible from the surface. The grass is f