With a cough and then a groan, Kyungsoo laid his head back down on his desk. He had been trying to finish his math assignment for the past three hours now and he had only finished four out of twenty questions. He knew how to answer them, but he couldn't think about much of anything through his headache and cough. It was a miracle that he even had the strength to write something down on the paper.

He shuddered and pulled his blanket over his shoulders closer. He had managed to take a warm shower when he had gotten home after being blasted by the hose, but the wind had been ruthless, and running all the way back home hadn't helped. Now the front of his head stung with injury, the sides pounded with sickness, and the back of his head throbbed in pain. He didn't have fever, but he felt incredibly close to one, and every cough or hard sniffle kicked off a fresh wave of head pains. Everything he heard out of his left ear also sounded muffled still, but Kyungsoo couldn't tell if that was from his headache or if there was still water stuck inside.

Picking up his pencil again, he put it back down when the doorbell rang. Kyungsoo heaved himself up and shuffled to the door, peeping through the hole before straightening his back a little. He opened it to Yuwon and Jongdae, concern across their faces.

"Hey." He made a small noise of self-revulsion at how congested he sounded. "Why're you guys here?"

"To make sure you're okay. You didn't text back in the group chat so... we thought we'd stop by in person."

Yuwon held up a lunchbox. "I brought soup too. Dad made it for you."

"Guys, I'm fine."

"Kyungsoo."

He sighed. "But if you want to come in, then come in."

He stepped aside for them and closed the door, shuffling past them into the living room. He curled up on the corner of the couch and got in a good shiver as his friends joined him, Yuwon next to him on the couch, and Jongdae on the seating cushion under the coffee table. They exchanged glances with each other before Yuwon patted his shoulder.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"What's there to say? I was humiliated, and it's probably going to spread throughout the school."

"Not necessarily. Ms. Rae confiscated all the phones and deleted the videos."

"Doesn't mean the students won't talk about it."

"Me and Jongdae will make sure that anyone who talks about it will be buried six feet in the ground. Right, Jongdae?"

He nodded. Kyungsoo wasn't used to seeing his expression so serious. An edge glinted in his eyes, unfamiliar to Kyungsoo.

"Yuwon, Jongdae, I'm okay. Just... don't tell Mom if you see her please. And don't let your parents tell her either."

"But she's your mom. She'll want to know."

"No, it'll just worry her. And she has enough to deal with."

"Don't you think Auntie Do would want an explanation? Ms. Rae said that she would email the parents of those involved and report it to the education board."

"Mom won't see it. I handle the school emails."

Yuwon frowned and sat back in her seat. Kyungsoo actually already saw it, and he replied back that he just wanted for the report to go through, and the perpetrator punished accordingly. Kyungsoo learned that the boy's name was Park Jinhyuk, and he was apprehended by Ms. Rae that day. The options were to schedule a parent-principal meeting or for Kyungsoo to go to school counseling. He chose the latter under the excuse that he didn't want anymore trauma—though that was also true—and already made an appointment. He just had to wait for that day, say that he was fine for the official records, and then he could be done with the teacher side of things. When his mom texted her daily 'how was school today?,' Kyungsoo said that it had been okay. It was just the student body that was left.

"Kyungsoo, who did that to you?"

He looked at Jongdae, who had his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed into the couch seat. Kyungsoo recognized that tone, hard and shaded in rage, at the brim of boiling over.

"Someone named Park Jinhyuk, but he's not going to be in school for a while, so we don't have to worry about him again." 

Kyungsoo clutched at the blanket, waiting for Jongdae's reply. His anger hadn't receded, and for a moment, he worried that Jongdae would storm out of his house and go hunting for this Park Jinhyuk. Yuwon seemed to sense it too, because she moved down to the floor to him and wrapped an arm over his shoulders, patting him gently. Kyungsoo relaxed as he saw Jongdae untense too.

"Don't go ape on someone we won't be able to find anyway. It'll be a waste."

She sighed and rested her head on her arm. The top of her head lay an eraser's length away from Jongdae's cheek, and Kyungsoo knew that he knew because he stiffened, this time with a hint of red creeping onto his face.

"But Kyungsoo, if I even hear that he has stepped foot in the school again and you feel uncomfortable by him, he will be hearing from me, got that? I expect you to enjoy the show and not stop me."

He chuckled at her response and at how Jongdae seemed to be running out of air.

"I don't think I could stop you even if I tried."

"Good."

They laughed, and she raised her head, Jongdae in a mini gasp of air as she did. 

"Next time we have to share the garden with the disciplinary kids, we should just leave early. Considering what they did, not one of them's worth seeing." She paused. "Well, except for maybe Kim Jongin."

"Kim Jongin? He was there?" Jongdae asked.

"Yeah. He was the one who punched that Jinhyuk guy and turned the water off."

Kyungsoo vaguely remembered seeing him with the shut-off hose and red knuckles.

"Aside from him, the rest are for sure dirt bunnies that I will punch someday."

"Okay, Popeye, tone down the violence."

As the two started talking about how she would be Kyungsoo's shining knight in armor (much to Jongdae's dismay), Kyungsoo thought about how he kept bumping into Jongin. He hadn't had much interaction with him before. He still hadn't. But Jongin had stayed quiet when Kyungsoo got blasted by Jinhyuk. He didn't whisper or start to laugh at him like the other disciplinary kids. His voice was the only one he didn't hear through the muffles, and that idea nestled against Kyungsoo. It didn't feel bad, but he didn't know what to do either. Jongin didn't seem the gossip type, although, Kyungsoo also hadn't expected his wide-eyed stare. He couldn't determine even a bit of Jongin's personality yet.

He shook his head and told himself that he shouldn't try judging his personality at all since he didn't know him well. He could only decide that he seemed a decent person for stopping the hose water, and Kyungsoo appreciated that. The next time he saw him, he would thank him.

~~~~~

The next time he saw him turned out to be sooner than Kyungsoo was ready for.

Ms. Rae herself had emailed to say that he was granted a few days leave if necessary, so he stayed home on Monday and Tuesday to recover from his headache. It was Wednesday now, and he had managed to get through classes without hearing too much gossip about the hose incident. He could see the scrutiny in the students' dissecting glances, but they didn't whisper around him. Jongdae and Yuwon wouldn't leave him by himself (Jongdae even following him into the bathroom stall before Kyungsoo pushed him out), so the students weren't as brash as they could have been. Lessening the rumors even a little bit gave Kyungsoo a sigh of relief, and he welled up in warmth at his friends' efforts.

They couldn't save him from everything though. Jongdae had a basketball practice that coincided with Rho Eta Omicron's meeting, so Kyungsoo sat by himself in the scheduled classroom. He timed walking into the meeting right as it would start to minimize the chances of hearing people talk about him, and for the most part his plan had worked. He couldn't stop people's looks for the first eight minutes as Club President Wei talked, but Kyungsoo would take what he could.

What surprised him was that Jongin had come to the meeting again. He walked in during the middle of it, nodded his greetings at the president, sat in an empty seat, and stared blankly at the board ahead like before. People glanced at him upon arrival but did nothing else. Kyungsoo didn't think that he forgot when the tutee tutoring times were, but Jongin wouldn't have any other reason to attend the meetings.

"What if we let Do Kyungsoo do it?"

He snapped out of his thoughts at his name and back to the meeting. Everyone was looking at him, and he froze a bit, anticipating a flood of insults, but they just looked at him, waiting.

"Can you repeat the question?"

A few of the tutors rolled their eyes or scoffed, but Secretary Oh only glanced back down at her clipboard.

"The school's Regional Math Decathlon has opened its application, and we were asked to recommend someone from our club. However, Club President Wei and I will not force anyone to take the position."

Secretary Oh narrowed her eyes a little at the person who had suggested Kyungsoo. He recognized the person as Lin Inhae. She leaned back in her chair with a shrug to her friends, casting a side-ways glance at him.

"I just thought that he could represent the school and its capabilities in math since Jongdae oppa is unavailable with his basketball stuff. Do Kyungsoo, after all, is the second best."

Her friend turned in his seat and looked directly at him, the sneering smile rampant over his face.

"If he can keep himself dry enough that is."

Their table erupted in snickers, and Inhae playfully hit the second's shoulder, as if he had just told a good joke. Most of the other tutors had also started giggling to themselves. The few others just glanced over at him and turned back ahead, including Lee Taeyong. Kyungsoo shrunk in his seat. He had expected this, didn't he? That event showcased just how perfectly pathetic Kyungsoo was. Someone was going to talk about it, when his friends left his side and he became alone. Its potential was t