Kyungsoo had pulled out his phone to check if his mom had responded to his text, asking if she had paid the bills online yet, but she hadn't responded, and he ended up staring down at his next message from Jongdae. Again.

He would have focused on doing his homework alongside his two tutees if Jongdae hadn't been acting weird since their walk home the day he apologized and thanked Jongin. His best friend kept following him everywhere he went, which he guessed wasn't too different from usual, but now he would randomly hug him or show him funny cat videos or keep asking how Kyungsoo's day had been, if he wanted to eat anything in particular, if he wanted to go somewhere for fun. Not that Kyungsoo didn't appreciate his friend asking how he was, but the amount of attention was more than Kyungsoo normally got, and he was growing suspicious. Even Yuwon thought something was odd.

He also texted him more often (most of them being cat videos or memes), and Kyungsoo didn't understand the sudden wave of attention for him or cat videos. Yuwon said that she didn't know of anything special happening with him and that she hadn't received the same level of attention from Jongdae. In between classes, Kyungsoo made a point of telling his best friend that he might have wanted to siphon some of the attention off for Yuwon, but Jongdae only patted Kyungsoo's head and told him that he wanted to look after his best friend too.

Even now, Jongdae had sent him yet another meme compilation to watch. He did watch them when he had time because Jongdae had sent them, but he still wondered about his best friend's sudden change in behavior.

"Kyungsoo?"

He looked up, and Seulgi pointed at one of her questions.

"Can you help me with this one?"

"Yeah, of course."

He read it over and caught her mistake of treating the equation as a conditional one, and she easily solved the rest.

"Then that's all for me today. Thanks a bunch, Kyungsoo."

She gathered her things, waved, and bid him and Jongin bye. As she left, he silently was trying to get her to stay with his eyes, because now he was left alone with Jongin. They hadn't spoken about anything besides math for the past couple of weeks and tutoring sessions. Actually, Jongin hadn't spoken at all, back to only nodding and shaking his head for the math questions. He hadn't asked for any help, but he was also steadily filling out his paper, Kyungsoo's note sheets at his side. Kyungsoo felt his pride as a tutor jumble in conflict since Jongin wouldn't directly ask him questions but the note sheets seemed to help him greatly.

He sighed and checked his phone again. His mom hadn't responded still, but he saw the time and jumped out of his seat. He moved to the computer in the study room and shut off the projector. He logged in and brought up a browser, stabbing the keys for the utilities provider's website. The screen sat blank for maybe only three seconds, but Kyungsoo rapped his finger against the edge of the table, cursing at the school's slow internet. When the screen loaded, he stabbed out the login, pulled out his phone, cursing again at the time, and scrolled to his phone memos.

With a couple of clicks, he got to the latest bill, typed in his mom's name, her debit card number, and its security code. He practically broke the left mouse button clicking 'confirm'—only once, he confirmed—and breathed a sigh as the green check mark, confirmation number, and the timestamp reading '5:59 pm' popped onto the screen. He took a picture of the screen for the confirmation number before logging into the email and checking the confirmation email. He blew out every particle of breath in him with a little victory 'uuugh' and logged out of the utilities' site and computer. He also went back out of his phone memos. He had memorized the debit card number a long time ago, but he guessed that he still had the habit of pulling out the note he made for it in his phone.

Sending a quick text to his mom saying that he got it done, he turned to sit back at the table when he saw Jongin watching him. Interest and a question flashed in his dark eyes as he glanced from Kyungsoo to the computer to Kyungsoo again. An ember of indignation heated in him that Jongin had been watching, but he told himself that he should just be satisfied that he paid the bill on time and sat back down at the tutoring table.

"Just some personal stuff."

Jongin nodded. He stared down at his assignment, rubbing at the inside of his elbow for a moment before inching the paper towards Kyungsoo.

"Can you check this please?"

He hadn't expected him to speak. Since Kyungsoo wasn't in a state of embarrassment or shock or bitterness now, he could hear how sharp his consonants cut the air but also how soft his vowels drifted in between. His tone still fell flat, but he had asked Kyungsoo verbally. That had to count as some improvement of their relationship. 

Reading through his math answers, Kyungsoo made a small pencil mark at his mistakes and where he used the wrong method to solve the question. He didn't have to mark too many places, and only a handful of questions were wholly incorrect. 

"You did pretty well. Just a few easy mistakes and then some trouble with the multiple answers of conditional statements, especially if the answer asks for radians. That's not unusual, and with a little more memorization of when to use which method to solve, you'll do fine."

"Can you grade it?"

"Like, put a score on it?"

He nodded. Kyungsoo thought that that was a bit extreme since he was one, only his tutor, and two, his assignment was only a review, but if Jongin wanted it, he could calculate the number grade for him. He told him to hold on a bit and pulled out a blue pen. He tallied things together, subtracted out the points, and wrote the grade at the top, turning the paper back to him.

"Eighty-two. That's pretty good, you know."

He blinked down at the grade. Kyungsoo couldn't read his reaction. His eyes betrayed no interest or disinterest, and his expression hadn't changed from neutral. He traced the circle around the grade Kyungsoo had made and looked up at him.

"Can I ask you a favor?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"If I score within five points of this score on the next class assignment, can I ask you a question that shouldn't concern me and isn't about math?"

"Like what?"

"I can't say it. It's not the next assignment yet."

He eyed Jongin for a moment. He wasn't barred from asking Kyungsoo questions NOT about math. He had asked him about Park Jinhyuk last time too, but maybe Jongin considered tutoring time as strictly for tutoring questions only. The other descriptor confused Kyungsoo though. What counted as something that shouldn't concern him? Curiosity nudged at Kyungsoo, shoving aside the idea of risks no matter how much he logically knew that he should be careful of such an open-ended request. In the end, curiosity bade him in.

"Okay. If you get a score anything five points within eighty-two, I'll answer your question."

His eyes lighted in a little surprise, and Kyungsoo was surprised too—at how Jongin had shown something other than neutrality. He thought that he would have just nodded, like Jongin had expected his favor to be granted. Then he remembered that he had shown his surprise before, when Kyungsoo had talked back to Park Jinhyuk. His eyes had been even wider then.

"Thank you," he said, even softer.

Kyungsoo nodded, and as their tutoring time finished and they left the library, he wondered why Jongin had asked him for this favor. He wondered about it even on the day they took their unit test, and he wondered about it on the day they got their unit tests back.

When he saw the circle around his grade, he paused. He remembered that Jongin had said 'the next class assignment.' That meant this unit test. He facepalmed himself. If Kyungsoo had connected that their unit test was the next assignment, he would have given Jongin a bit more specific help, a little more explanation for what and why his mistakes happened, drilled the cues once more. He sighed, and, staring down at his paper, he realized something else too. Jongin had bet his unit test to ask Kyungsoo a question.

A different test slowly slid into his line of vision, bringing him out of his thoughts, and