“Soobinnie, my love, come inside!”, greeted Yeonjun with a joyous smile as he opened the door and stepped to the side, letting the other enter the room. He embraced the younger in a warm hug, burying his face into the crook of the other’s neck. “I missed you, really.”

“Well, we were both somewhat busy, weren’t we?” Soobin stood still in his place, his eyes following the group of students and trainees in the room, dancing with strong and sharp movements. He then slowly stepped back, raising his hand to show the polythene bag he brought along with him. “I got some snacks. For the kids too.”

Yeonjun nodded eagerly, relieved to at least be getting a break from his rather tiresome routine of work. He made his way to the front of the room, clapping loudly to gather everyone’s attention. Turning off the music, he pointed towards Soobin and explained, “Take a quick break, guys! Grab a bottle of juice, do a bit of stretching and we’ll conclude today’s class with some individual assessing before I dismiss you all. Is that okay?”

He waited for the students to settle down on the ground, whispers and low grunts filling the air, signs of fatigue that he was used to by now. He then gestured Soobin to leave the extra bottles on the table by the door.

“Here you go.”, said Soobin as he handed over a cold bottle of juice to the other, taking one for himself as he slid down the wall to sit down, crossing his legs and unscrewing the cap of the plastic bottle. “Don’t overwork the students, Yeonjun.”

“Hmm, they have much to learn and not enough time. How are your classes going?”

“Pretty good, actually. The students are cooperative, so that’s nice. It’s just that I have a lot on my shoulders, and some students are submitting applications to be my assistant, so I have to go through those as well. I’m lucky I managed to take today off.”

Yeonjun let out a soft chuckle, rubbing his hand on his knee. With his head against the wall, he sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging. “Funny, isn’t it? When we were still studying, we always wanted to get over with it and start working. Things would be easier, or so we thought, and now look at us.”

At that, Soobin stirred from his place, sitting up straight. He turned around to face the other properly. Pulling out his phone from his pocket, he looked at the time. “Say, when was the last time you checked on the kids?”

“Our kids?”

Soobin didn’t need to answer that. “I honestly feel like Beomgyu’s going to kill me. You know how we both used to hold parties back then? And now he’s in charge of holding parties every two months, yeah? Well, believe it or not, but I missed his last three parties, so it’s been nearly half a year. I message him an apology each time – because he doesn’t answer my calls – and he just ignores me. I do message Kai every now and then, and he naturally informs me about Gyu and Tae, but…”

“You wanna pay them a visit today? You said you’re free.” Yeonjun didn’t seem too bothered about the awful way that the group was falling apart, friendships being held by severed strands that would break any moment. Instead, he continued savouring his juice, chugging it all down at once.

“And what about you?”

“I’ll be off in about twenty minutes. Yeji will take over with the next batch of dancers.” He jumped back on his feet, before throwing his empty bottle into the trashcan at the other end of the room. Grinning to himself at his successful shot, he tucked his hands under his shirt to pull up his trousers.

Soobin watched it all happen; he carefully watched as Yeonjun gathered the students’ attention, assembling them in their positions and putting on some music; he watched as the other paid close attention to every movement; he took note of the sheer concentration on the other’s face, something he admired and respected among all the other qualities that he loved about Yeonjun. He thought for a moment, he wondered where it all went wrong. He was so sure that he had a group of friends that would stay connected for as long as time let them live, he was so sure that they would all be there for each other – but now he had little to no clue about what the other three were up to.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Soobin broke out of his trance, slowly getting up as he held on to Yeonjun’s warm hand. He followed the other out of the room, the frown on his face not wavering as he continued to recall all the precious memories from when the five of them were still studying together, all those unnecessary arguments about the right way to pronounce words, all those spontaneous nights at the mansion where they spent hours playing games they forgot the exact rules of, all those late night messages and pointless laughter, and now he hoped that he could at least correctly guess their birthdays.

“When did everything change so drastically?”

“What?”, asked Yeonjun as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel of his car, navigating through the streets under the afternoon sun. “What are you talking about?”

“About us. About all five of us. We were close. We were extremely close, family even. How did everything crumble down so easily?”

“People grow up, people change. Besides, we’re going there now, aren’t we?”

“I just feel like I’m responsible for this. I feel like we both are. I mean, we’re the eldest of the group. We should’ve stuck to them, especially after…” Soobin wondered if he would ever be able to talk about it without having to stiffen his shoulders and have his mouth go dry.

Yeonjun the radio, switching to a channel that they both lov