With his entire friend group a grade above him, and he had been feeling a bit lonely since the year started. His close friends group was entirely a year above him and his last two companions had managed to move up a grade during summer vacation too, but he was an active guy and knew quite a few people, it’s not like he was alone, alone. But, seemingly, his last two friends taking a step forward he couldn’t follow was the push needed for our main troublemaker to get himself together and start taking things more seriously.

Seulgi, the ever loving and patient bear he was, had been trying to help out as much as possible, but he also had his own things to take care of, not to mention being one of the football team aces and despite having already received some invitations from scouts, he still was waiting for an official invitation and still studying for entrance exams, he couldn’t just sit back and wait for what ifs, and that got him really busy. The good thing about this new school year was that Yeri was decided to improve his academics and the couple was spending a lot of time in the library or at someone’s house studying for everything they could think of.

“Yermmie?” Seulgi asks during one of their study sessions.

“Hmm?”

“How are you?”

“Love, we’ve been together all day. What are you talking about?” The younger boy chuckles.

“I mean how are you, really. I know we are all busy and all, but you are the only one not on their last year, and your two companions have just moved up a grade and all. I want to know how you are handling things.”

“Well, I was a little bummed when Chae and Tzu said they got to skip a grade, but it got me thinking about a lot of things, and now I’m just trying to pick up the slack and do better. Mostly for myself, because I know I’m the only one to blame for this.” Yeri answers truthfully, pausing a little in his work. “It might sound all mature or whatever, but honestly, it’s just that I know I was just too lax about my future. I’m alright, still a little lonely, but I’ll be fine.”

“I’m glad you are feeling better.” Seulgi smiles and shuffles to hug his boyfriend. “When you first got to know Tzu and Chae were advancing you were pretty sad.”

“I was, but then they didn’t really change anything about us and hanging out, and it’s not like we would be in the same class anyway.”

“What do you mean? It’s decided by drawing lots, no?”

“Oh, Seulbear, you are the cutest.”

Seulgi was really not understanding, as far as he knew, and Sooyoung had told him the same thing. All students were distributed through the different classes by luck. Yeri must have sensed his boyfriend’s train of thought so he laughed and explained further.

“You remember the bluemen incident two years ago?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“The teachers know Chae and I are behind it. They can’t prove anything, and we can’t be punished because there is nothing tying it to us, but they know. Since then, our names aren’t drawn, we are immediately separated.”

“And how does Tzu come into play?”

“Where do you think we got the ink?”

“Oh.” 

It’s all Seulgi says before laughing himself. They go back to their school work and, surprisingly, manage to cover quite a lot. The rest of the evening is spent cuddling after they get to bed and reminiscing about the infamous bluemen incident. It was epic and even other schools talked about it for months after.

It was something Yerim and Chaeyoung formulated in their junior year, it all happened because the lacrosse team rejected them without even allowing them to try out. It was extremely unfair and it only happened because the coach had to step out for a while to take another kid to the nurse’s office. The reason seemed to be that the captain’s girlfriend at the time said the duo was cute and he had been angry at them from that comment on. 

At the occasion, Tzuyu had gone along for moral support, he had been sitting at the bleachers and reading through some leaflets about student internships around the area. The whole ‘conversation’ lasted a few minutes, then the two boys returned very sulky and very angry and plopped down beside their tall friend.

“What happened? Aren’t you supposed to be trying out?” The youngest asked.

“Well, the captain is a dickhead.” Yeri blurts.

“Language!” Chaeyoung scolds. “But yeah, he’s an idiot. He said something about a girlfriend that we don’t even know and said we couldn’t try out at all.”

“That’s just unfair.” Tzuyu pauses his reading. “That calls for something just as unfair back.”

“Oh?” Yeri says with an evil mirth in his eyes.

“I think I have something, but we’ll need a few things.” Chaeyoung perks up.

“Just do your thing.” Tzuyu assures. “I got you.”

And he really did. During the time the tryouts were happening, Tzuyu got a hold of which water vault connected to the lacrosse locker room and the ink and shaving cream they would need. Chaeyoung had sneaked into the locker room and made sure the entire team’s uniforms would be given a good serving of shaving cream, with a special portion to the captain and vice captain for their kindness. Yeri was the one climbing up to taint the water blue and Tzuyu remained by the bleachers as a lookout. 

Once they were done, Chaeyoung and Yeri ran to the other side of the school and asked if they could try for the cooking club, both were insanely fast and had also showed up at the auditorium to check out the theatre club during the time it took Tzuyu to arrange their items. The taller boy also had his alibis, he had gone to the student council to turn down their offer for him to join, then he had a small chat with the biology club president who had also invited him but he wasn’t interested. His supplier messaged him he had left the items at the requested locations and he sent one message to Chaeyoung about the shaving cream and another to Yeri about the ink.

Then Tzuyu made his way back to the field, this time waving at the cheerleaders who approached him to tell him he was cute on the first day of classes and decided he was indeed too cute not to befriend, then he sat down, pretending to read his leaflets and keeping an eye on the lacrosse team, not forgetting to smile and wave at the girls when they looked at him. Our tall mastermind had also gotten the information the entire team had the habit of showering at the same time, something about post-game considerations their coach liked to give them all together. Once he got the message that the two halflings were far enough from the locker room, Tzuyu headed out to check the chemistry club.

The tall boy only went there because he had just started dating Jeongyeon and wanted to see him, but that’s not what we are talking about. So, once tryouts were over and the team had showered, they found themselves blue, then their school uniforms had been stuffed with shaving cream, so everyone could only put their smelly training uniforms back on so they could go home. The captain and vice-captain training bags had also been stuffed, so the two would also have to clean their entire equipment. The entire team was walking around and smelling minty for three weeks after that, any kind of high hose they had imagined for themselves had crumbled completely and the new recruits almost gave up joining altogether.

Word did go around about how cruel the captain and the vice-captain had been to two boys who wanted to try out, but once it came to light those two boys were Chaeyoung and Yeri, there was no way anybody could really pin it on them, they had been seen many other places while tryouts were taking place and, to those who didn’t know how fast they really were and how in shape they also were, it would have been impossible to pull the prank and be where they were. Tzuyu was also considered as a culprit, but he had been seen during the time the prank was supposedly taking place and too many people said it couldn’t have been him.

The teachers were confused and the lacrosse coach was furious, but what could they really do when there was no suspect. After the incident, both Chaeyoung, Yeri and Tzuyu used fountain pens with blue ink for as long as the players were still blue and minty. Everyone understood that as a confession, but what can the teachers really do about three students using fountain pens to take notes, there was absolutely no rule saying they couldn’t. The lacrosse coach tried to pin the incident on them for the remainder of that year but the principal had his hands tied, the security cameras had recorded nothing, there were too many witnesses of the three boys elsewhere in school and there wasn’t even a single print to tie them to the locker room.

Since then, teachers believed that separating the three would calm them down, but the five pigs incident with the theatre club during selections the following year told everyone the opposite.