The next morning when Minho woke up, he was aware of two things immediately. 

The first was that they really should have taken the time to clean up before falling asleep because he was still sticky and hugely uncomfortable because of the flaking off on his skin. 

The second was that they really needed to make sure they locked the door before going to bed, especially if they were planning on participating in some adult level activities. 

That was because Minho wasn’t woken up by his natural body rhythm or the sound of his alarm clock. He was woken by the ungodly loud laughter coming from Jonghyun’s mouth and the shrill shrieking from Key. Or maybe it was the shocked and ultimately disgusted sound of Amber pretending to puke right in his ear. 

“Make them go away.” Taemin muttered sleepily, voice muffled by the pillow his face was currently smushed into. There was no shame in his voice and Minho was impressed. 

“Nope.” Jonghyun chuckled, popping the second syllable annoyingly, “Breakfast ended ten minutes ago, which means we are all about to be very, very late for class.”

“What!” That had Taemin sitting bolt upright, flailing around from his forward prone position. 

“Cover!” Sulli shrieked, shielding her eyes as Taemin’s bare chest was uncovered and he frantically grabbed the covers to keep the rest of his modestly intact. 

“Stop looking.” Minho grunted, trying to untangle himself but finding it nearly impossible with Taemin’s hold on the blanket. 

“It’s like a train wreck.” Amber said in faked awe, having given up on her attempts to pretend to be grossed out by the sight of two of her friends still covered in the evidence of their evening’s activities. “Just can’t look away, no matter how horrifying. Also Minho, is that on your chin?”

Reaching up to flake it off of his chin, Minho pretended to flick it at the girls, enjoying their twin shrieks and Jonghyun’s hyena laughter. “You’re just jealous.”

“Of what? Honestly dude, your body, not my top 10.” Amber smirked before grabbing Sulli’s arm. “Come on, we’ll wait in the hall.” 

Sulli allowed herself to get dragged out of the room, eyes averted from the bed and nearly crashing into the wall in her bid to ignore the sights she wished had remained unseen. 

“Your turn.” Minho’s words were directed at Key and Jonghyun, having finally given up on getting the blanket and simply sitting up in his glory. 

Key made a noise that announced his displeasure at Minho’s dismissal attempt, “Jinki’s mom showed up in the cafeteria this morning.”

That caught their attention and Taemin choked. “What?”

“Seems that Jinki is not planning on taking it slow.” Jonghyun continued, making his way over to  the closet and digging out uniforms. “Apparently he is insisting on returning to school possibly as soon as two weeks from Monday.”

“What?” Minho’s voice was shocked. “But he just woke up? I know auntie said he was going home to finish his recovery but I didn’t think he would be coming back to school.”

“He shouldn’t be.” Key said, “but he’s insisting. Auntie thinks he’s going to commute from home though so he’ll still be able to get his therapy. She figures that he’ll change his mind so she’s not pressing the issue, just going along with it. She was here to start the paperwork and pick up school work that Jinki is insisting on getting. Honestly guy was in a coma and he’s worried about math.” Key shook his head. It was typical of their studious friend, but never in Key’s wildest dreams would he have imagined Jinki would be that determined to come back. 

There was really only one reason why Jinki would risk his recovery like that, and that reason spoke up.

“But what about the doctors?” Taemin asked, his blanket now half a toga as he stood up.

‘Doesn’t care what they’re saying, although apparently the doctors can’t figure out why he didn’t wake up and yet why he’s recovering so quickly.” Jonghyun said, moving to push Toga Taemin towards the bathroom. “Go shower quickly so we can gossip more.”

Wrinkling his nose, Taemin shuffled off, ignoring Minho’s only half joked attempt at joining him. 

He showered without thinking about his actions, grimacing he when came to his tender backside. Sitting was going to be tricky and while it hit him that if he and Minho had been at breakfast, he would have actually met his mother, he was grateful that they missed it and he didn’t have to awkwardly meet her with a literal sore . 

It wasn’t long before Key was opening the bathroom and uncaring about Taemin’s ness, was hustling him out and Minho in. “You guys are way too comfortable with each other.” the youngest complained as he got dressed, “no personal space.”

“Stop complaining and get dressed.” Jongyun said, tying Taemin’s tie around his own neck before slipping it off and over Taemin’s own head. “For someone who just got some, you are surprisingly grumpy.”

“Stuff it.” Taemin glared darkly. 

Jonghyun cackled and Key rolled his eyes. 

“I’m going with the girls.” Taemin shouldered his backpack that Key had so helpfully packed for him. “Since they’re waiting and all.”

“Be careful.” Key warned, “straight to class and straight to lunch, don’t go trying anything today.”

“It will be the only straight thing I do today.” Taemin said, mock saluting his friends before hurrying out of the dorm when he heard the water shut off. A and wet boyfriend would be the worst thing to encounter in front of their friends. 

“Bout time lover boy.” Amber teased when the door shut behind Taemin.

“Amber!” He hissed, frantically looking around to see if anyone was listening. He was in luck, considering the hall was empty. 

“Calm down, it's just us.” Amber said, linking their arms together and setting off down the hall. “Now tell us all about your disappearing act and why those three losers don’t want us to know that you are Jinki’s brother.”

Taemin stopped dead in his tracks. “Wh… What?” He stuttered, panic racing through him. 

Amber tugged his arm even as she rolled her eyes. “You and Jinki have the same eye wrinkling smile, even though your eyes don’t squish closed as tightly as his do. The same nose wrinkle when something displeases you and the same soft smile that you give Key when he’s trying to make you over and you don’t want it but can’t say no.” 

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not that obvious really.” Sulli said, patting his arm in sympathy. “Also Jonghyun sings in his sleep and he may have created a song about you and Jinki and sang it out loud by the pond two weeks ago when he was skipping history, the day I was late after gym.”

Taemin sighed, “Oh god I hope no one else heard him.”

“No one else would have figured out what he was muttering.” Amber soothed. “Jonghyun sings almost in code when he’s sleeping, you really have to know him to understand what he’s saying.”

“He’s an odd one.” Sulli nodded. “And come on, we may not be number one in the year but neither of us is an idiot.” She said, giving Taemin a look that told him she thought he was an idiot. “You show up after Jinki is nearly killed, then the four of you start acting oddly, then last night you run off and set those three in a complete panic. Didn’t take much to figure it out.”

“Oh.” Taemin didn’t know what to say to that. 

“Honestly it hurt at first that you guys kept such a thing from us, but we get it.” Amber said, her joking mood turning to a serious but caring one. 

“We still don’t know for certain that I am though.” Taemin said, “We’ll need a blood test to prove it.”

“But everything points to yes.” Sulli said, letting Amber lead them into the next building.

“How did Jinki react when you told him?” Amber dropped her voice to below a whisper as they entered the main area of the school, not wanting their conversation to be overheard even though most students were already in class behind closed doors.

“He was shocked, I think.” Taemin said, not really knowing what to say. “I mean I think he reacted better than most people when confronted by your supposed long lost brother after coming out of a coma. He didn’t scream and try to have me removed from the room at least.”

Amber pursed her lips and nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds like Jinki. Go with the flow and deal with it rather than freaking out and going around half undone.”

They reached their class and Amber pushed open the door, muttering for them to follow her as the door swung open. Their teacher glared from his spot at the front of the room, unhappy that the three of them were more than 15 minutes late, but before he could complain Amber bowed deeply, tugging Taemin’s arm to get him to do the same. Sulli on his other side followed and they looked like a human wave as they went down and then back up. 

“We are so sorry that we are late.” Amber began. “Our alarm must have stopped working sometime last night and Taemin has spent the last half hour trying to get us up. If only he could have gotten into our dorm side and could have knocked on the door, he wouldn’t have had to rely on calling us.”

A skeptical look, as though the teacher knew she was lying, was given to them. “So why didn’t Mr. Lee simply find another girl and have them knock?” He stared Taemin down waiting for an answer. 

“I didn’t think of that?” Taemin said lamely. 

“Well think of it next time and take your seats. We’ve had enough commotion this morning already.”

The tardy three hurried to their seats. The girl sitting behind Amber hissed at her when the teacher turned around to continue his lesson. “You were at breakfast!”

“Shut it!” Amber hissed back and gave her a dark look that said more than words ever could. 

Every student in the room knew that they were lying, but because they all knew the history with Jinki and their group, they would let it go. Jinki’s mother showing up at breakfast had to have been the most entertaining thing for them that morning. 

Of course the fact that they were also the highest up on the schools popularity circuit could have had something to do with it as well. 

Digging out his books, Taemin tried three times to find the right book. His head was stuck on Jinki and there wasn’t room for much else. So he looked around, trying to find the motivation to pay attention, shifting in his seat constantly until Sulli poked him with her pen. Giving up, Taemin accepted the blank paper that Amber at him and started taking notes from the board. 

Amber shook her head as she watched Taemin’s distraction. She shared a look with Sulli over his head and nodded towards the board. Sulli nodded back, jerking head at their teacher. Their silent exchange was missed by Taemin, but they knew that he would be grateful after when the girls gave him the detailed class notes that he missed, even though typically they barely bothered to jot anything down. 

It was the least they could do for their friend and it went unsaid that as the day went on, they followed the same pattern in each class, watching as Taemin pulled out the wrong books time after time, his blank stare not going unnoticed by their teachers, but sympathy was given considering the memo that had gone out before classes began. 

The faculty all knew that if Jinki was planning on returning to school, he was planning on living back in the dorms as well and there were no empty rooms. It was clear to them that the school would rather have a full roster of high paying students than have one singular charity case. No matter how smart or how high a donation by the government was given. 

Taemin was about to be removed from the school to make room for Jinki again and his teachers had been all warned not to say anything to him, least he cause an incident before his expulsion. 

-------

I'm back! Sorry for such a long wait but there was an unexpected death in my family and it really made it hard to write. But I'm back and things are slowly getting back to normal. 

Anyways, I'll keep this brief, comments, thoughts, concerns, questions, predictions? Any and all comments are welcome and enjoyed by yours truely!

Thank you all as always, loves to you 

Kat