“Hey, Yermmie. You are early and at the field, what’s up?” Seungwan asks when he spots the unexpected visitor.

“Well, I came to tell you Chaeng was puking his guts out and went home earlier. Since I can find you wherever Joonie is, I just decided to wait for Seul here already.”

“Oh, what happened? Why didn’t you call me?” 

“Calm down, maybe? Soongie got it covered, then Mina and Nayeon took him home. It’s all fine.”

“Didn’t those two go home?”

“Looks like Soongie texted Mina and they were still waiting for the bus. Sacchan was beaten up again.”

“Now it makes sense. Sacchan is fine though, right?!”

“Don’t really know, I heard it from Nayeonnie when they came by the clubroom for Chae’s bag.”

“I’ll just call Soongie later. Thanks, Yerm.”

“No problem.”

The boys just fall into silence, watching the final minutes of practice and waiting for their partners to be done for the day. Yerim would usually meet the football group by the gates, the crafts club was always too entertaining and he hated the smell of sweaty teenage boys, the visuals were appealing, don’t get him wrong, but the smell was just a hard pass from Kim Yerim. Normally he would be met with Dahyun, Jihyo and Seungwan, as they waited for Seulgi, Joohyun and Sooyoung to be showered and properly deodorantized (I’m making it a word now, sue me) before heading home together, all lived in the same area and close enough to each other.

While Joohyun and Seungwan were a match made in heaven, despite nobody believing Seungwan wasn’t dating Jihyo, some conceding they might be in a three-way relationship or that Seungwan was dating both at the same time, Seulgi and Yerim were an unlikely couple. They were opposite sides of the same coin, despite being the same sappy, romantic and sickly sweet goofballs on the inside, both were too different in the way they carried themselves. So much so, it took awhile for the ones closer to them to understand they worked perfectly.

It was just the “meeting my friends’ friend” kind of thing, back then, Yeri was dating Chaeyoung, one of the cub’s longer relationships, and it was only about three months. Which was the reason he was invited to the Sons’ home, and was met with Seungwan and Joohyun, who took him under their wings half an hour into their conversation. When the inevitable breakup happened, Chaeyoung and Yerim were really just friends and didn’t see why they would continue to try for a relationship that wasn’t for them, everything was very peaceful and they remained very close friends…. Who knew each other intimately (two pre-teens making out while pressing their bodies together could tell a lot if one was paying attention), but that wasn’t something that would come between them, they decided.

Seulgi came into the scene when Joohyun got into highschool and entered football team, Sooyoung too, but we’ll get to him another time. It was an instant chemistry between the two new additions and their group, even Jihyo liked them immediately and that guy took long to like anyone, while Seulgi got along with everyone, being really nice and level headed, Sooyoung was playful and his mischievous side fit perfectly with Chaeyoung and Yerim. It was nice, and their relationship took a while to begin. It was six months after meeting that Seulgi asked Yeri out on their first date, and the younger only understood it was a date because both Chaeyoung and Joohyun hit him up the head before launching on an hour long tirade about how oblivious he was.

The shy bear was thoroughly pleased when his mom dropped him at Yerim’s house and he found his date waiting for him in his nice clothes with flowers in hand. Seulgi had seen how Yeri was hard to get hints, and feared the younger one was thinking it was a friendly outing, he would find out much later to thank Joohyun and Chaeyoung for having drilled into the boy it was a date date. They went to the movies and then to have some ice cream, then mrs Kang picked them up and brought them home, it was great and they decided they were dating in the time it took to get to the Kims. It was really just having study sessions during the week and going out for whatever they were feeling like on the weekends. 

With both boys in highschool now, things were getting increasingly more intimate and the weekend outings were slowly becoming weekend stay ins. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Yerim was crazy about Seulgi, it was the same the other way around, but we’ll get there, he paid close attention to his boyfriend and knew all the subtleties of Kang Seulgi by heart already. The older one, however, might be a bit slow to catch up, he was just distracted easily and that made him miss something or another from time to time, but he sure as hell did his best to be a better boyfriend everyday and Yerim loved him for that.

Park Sooyoung, the captain of the football team, star athlete and completely unavailable for whomever wanted to take the chance to try a date with him. Great stand up guy, very polite, could be a little devil when paired with the troublemaker duo (read Yerim and Chaeyoung), but always played by the rules and could be called a goody-two-shoes by anyone not close enough to know his playful personality. He was the heir to a fairly big company, and his father had signed him up to an arranged marriage when he was three.

Sooyoung hated his parents for deciding his future for him, but as the filial son he would never just walk out on them for that. His fiance was five years older than him and was rebelling against the wedding for both of them, she was nice and both got along really well, but Taeyeon just couldn’t accept that her future had been decided like that and lashed out whenever she could. The two talked a lot and were good friends, Sooyoung even told her that she should go out and date whomever she pleased and live her life, he would be there whenever she needed, that she had a friend in him and that would never fail. He had managed to stay true to his words since he uttered them.

Sure, his fiance was out living her life, but he took his compromise seriously, never entertaining the idea of giving himself to anyone other than the woman his parents had tied him to. It hurt whenever Taeyeon called him on late nights, crying about how she got her heart broken again, or how wild her one night stand was, he was her fiance, yet there was not a single ounce of respect for their engagement from the young woman. Mr Park was adamant in the beginning, but after watching his son getting farther and farther away from the energetic and lively boy he raised with his wife. 

When Sooyoung came to them and asked to be put in therapy, he knew things had gone really wrong, the boy was twelve then, and it had only been two years since the young man opened up to his parents about what was wrong, and mr Park was working tirelessly to annul the marriage behind the scenes. The fact that Sooyoung showed absolutely no signs of the teen energy and disposition he was expecting sent the old man in a relentless journey to make things right. Sooyoung didn’t know about this pending annulment, and Taeyeon obviously didn’t either, so he still took care of the woman diligently, like the good fiance he was trying to be. 

Mr Kim, upon receiving the news about the annulment, started doing his own investigation, he sent one of his men to shadow his daughter and what he found left him doubting his own and his wife’s parenting. The request for dissolving the engagement was promptly accepted and mr Kim started working with mr Park to settle their business and set the boy free. It would take some time, and they were trying to make it happen before the contract was due, both men just hoped the boy would hold on until then.

Sooyoung spent his afternoons in football practice, when he got home he would do his homework, study for a while and then work out on their private gym at the back. All that before dinner, where he would talk to his parents and share whatever little he felt like revealing, and the couple would be happy with whatever their son chose to trust them with. It was slow, but it was progress from the breakdown the boy had a few years back, after which he got completely closed off and it took long years of therapy to get him at least talking to them again.