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Finals week was fast approaching and the teachers were trying to cram in last minute material. Students were studying during practically every waking hour of the day. Much to Sehun’s horror and Jongin’s delight, the two boys were spending two hours a night together reviewing everything they had learned that semester. On top of the two hours of chemistry, Sehun also had to study the three millennia of world history and memorise quotes from the three pieces of literature they had read and analysed in literature class.

Sehun spent an hour before classes with Chanyeol studying quotes from seemingly endless passages. They even studied as they ate breakfast, occasionally sending bits of partially chewed egg, sausage, or some other sort of breakfast food flying as they drilled one another. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo sat beside them as Baekhyun drilled the owl-eyed boy on algebra. The red haired boy didn’t need the practice and could have quite easily spent the time reviewing history but the grateful looks thrown from those big, brown eyes were enough to rearrange his priorities. Lunch was spent similarly.

At dinner, Jongdae, Baekhyun, and Sehun got together to memorise those three thousand years of history. It was mostly Jongdae asking questions and getting two blank stares in response. Strangely enough, he was being patient enough to explain each event and its historical significance.

Once the dining hall closed, they moved back out to the place by the fountain where they met up before dinner. They weren’t the only students working so rigorously, however. There were patches of students scattered across the lawns of the school with books and piles of notes between them. Yixing and Joonmyun were off studying with their classmates, as they were a year ahead of the other boys in their friend group and taking a different set of classes. As much as they wanted to assist their underclassmen, they had their own studies they needed to attend to. Because of this, Jongdae and Sehun saw very little of the two. Sehun only saw Yixing right before the two of them went to sleep. The younger boy spent most of his time after eating dinner with Jongin.

“What is an ionic compound?” Jongin was staring much more intently than he meant to and Sehun squirmed under the piercing gaze.

“It’s where one atom steals electrons from another and they kind of stick together, right?”

Jongin paused and Sehun turned bright red, expecting the reprimand that he had never formally received in all of his chemistry-related stupidity and mistakes.

“Yes. It’s close enough for the teacher at least, anyways. Can you give me an example of an ionic compound?” Sehun stared blankly back; surprised that he had actually gotten something correct and it was Jongin’s turn to squirm as Sehun processed the comment.

“What?” Sehun asked dumbly.

“Can you give me an example of an ionic compound?” Jongin repeated gently.

“Uhm.... Salt?”

“Very good. Do you know specifically what kind of salt?”

“Table salt...?” Sehun responded, unsure.

“That’s one of them. Table salt is sodium chloride but salts don’t necessarily need to have that chemical makeup. They can be any combination of an alkali metal and a halogen; that's the first column on the left and the second to last on the right. You can basically combine any two and get an ionic compound, specifically a salt,” Jongin explained. “You just take an atom from the alkali metals and an atom from the halogens and then you can get a salt. Are you following?”

“I think so...” Jongin hid a chuckle behind his hand but couldn’t stop the little bob of his shoulders. “What?” Sehun looked like a sulking kitten more than an angry cat.

You’re too cute to believe. Jongin thought silently. Sehun would not appreciate that comment so he would have to come up with something better. “I guess I’m just glad that you’re getting the hang of this.”

“You’re a decent teacher, so I have you to thank for at least some of my success,” Sehun pointed out sincerely and it took all of the self-control Jongin possessed in order to stop the heat that rose to his face. He was just lucky that Taemin was out of the room or the boy would be laughing up a fit.

“Th-thanks,” he stuttered rather uncoolly. Sehun, of course, missed the embarrassment in Jongin’s voice. Jongin cleared his throat. “So how good of a grasp do you think you have on the basics of chemical compounds?”

“Enough to pass the exam probably.” Sehun shrugged.

Jongin resisted the urge to puff his cheeks out in frustration. He really wanted Sehun to succeed. Sehun didn’t sense Jongin’s frustration but out of courteously, felt compelled to add, “It’s not your fault, I’m just rubbish at chemistry. If it weren’t for you, I’d literally be failing the class.”

A slightly awkward silence fell as Jongin tried to comprehend what Sehun had just said. “Uhm... Do you want to stop here tonight? It’s late and we reviewed a lot,” the younger boy suggested, breaking the silence and snapping Jongin out of his trance.

“Oh, yeah, sure, fine, that’s cool,” Jongin babbled. Sehun nodded before gathering all of his notes, oblivious to Jongin’s stare. The clock of the closing door pulled Jongin out of his stupor and he decided to put his own chemistry things away.

He clambered into bed and cuddled one of his pillows tightly, as if it were Sehun. He just couldn’t get over the fact that Sehun had complimented him. Jongin fell asleep thinking about how cute Sehun was. Taemin rolled his eyes when he came in and found Jongin sleeping peacefully and cuddling his pillow, knowing exactly what the boy was dreaming about. It was cute when his roommate was quiet but also happy. It was annoying when he wouldn’t shut up about all of the cute things Sehun did throughout the day.

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Exams week was finally beginning and most of the students were panicking and doing more last minute studying. Exams were held in the morning, leaving the afternoon free for more studying for later exams. The first day of torture had two hours of Korean, the second had two and a half hours of science, the third day had two hours of maths, and the fourth day was saved for the hideous three hours history exam. Sehun was the most prepared for Korean, followed by history and then maths. He was deathly afraid of chemistry and hoped the exam would never come because he was in no way prepared by any stretch of the imagination. Jongin would beg to differ but Sehun was worried he would just forget everything he had ever learned and fail the exam anyways.

The Korean exam went by rather uneventfully. The hours spent reviewing endless lists of quotes paid off ad Sehun was sure he got at least 90% of them correct. There were a few that confused him so he guessed based on a vague memory of things the teacher said in passing. The grammar portion was easy enough that he was pretty confident in his answers without having studied at all. He spoke Korean well enough and answered solely based on intuition and common sense.

The afternoon after the exam, Sehun and Chanyeol took a break to eat a meal like normal people for the first time in a while with the Korean exam done with. Jongin promised Sehun than he would review with him after lunch and meet up with him out by the fountain, as it was a lovely spring day.

“You think you’re ready for tomorrow’s exam?” Chanyeol asked casually.

“Probably not,” Sehun sighed. “But Jongin is going to help me review some more tonight. I hope I can at least pass but it’s a lot of information to remember.”

“Jongin has really helped you with your chemistry grades, though, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then have faith that you know what you’re doing and that you can pass,” Chanyeol stated simply.

Unfortunately, Jongin had to send Sehun away early so that he could get a good night’s sleep before the exam, but that meant that he had less time to spend with Sehun. It would all be worth it, however, if Sehun were to pass with flying colours and come back to thank Jongin profusely for his success. That thought is what helped Jongin to get to sleep easily and wake up early the next morning to face the exam excitedly.

The chemistry exam was easier than Sehun expected it to be and he inwardly thanked Jongin for all of his help over the past week. Sehun was actually growing to tolerate Jongin, perhaps even like the boy. He pushed these thoughts out of his head as he took the exam. It wasn’t helping him to be thinking about such trivialities at a time like this.

At the end of the two and a half hours, Sehun was actually fairly confident that he had gotten most of the material, either that or he was completely, totally, and utterly wrong and he just thought that he remembered things properly. He doubted that was the case, however. Once the exam was finished, Jongin lost any reasonable excuse to be with Sehun and spent the night sulking instead of studying. He was proficient at maths anyways so he didn’t need to study.

Sehun and Chanyeol giggled silently amongst themselves watching Baekhyun and Kyungsoo review the few concepts that continued to elude the owl-eyed boy.

Maths went by without a hitch although Sehun knew that he didn’t get all of the answers correct by a long shot. He knew that he passed with a decent margin and that was all that mattered. He probably should have spent more time actually studying with Baekhyun rather than giggling about his and Kyungsoo’s relationship. Considering how little he had studied, it was a miracle that he did so well.

The last evening, Sehun and Baekhyun knew that they needed to study history with Jongdae but really weren’t feeling like cramming any more information in. The Romans built stuff with marble and changed the names of everything in Greek mythology instead of coming up with their own myths. They had plumbing, chariot races, and gladiators. That was the extent of Sehun’s knowledge but with all of the rest of the things they studied in depth with Jongdae, it was probably enough.

Three hours of history was way too much but studying with Jongdae really paid off. Although Sehun was sure that his hand was going to fall off after the three essays he had to write, he was confident in a high 80 or low 90 but only time would tell as they would have to wait until midway through break to finally get grades. He stretched and felt every vertebra in his back pop.

“Wow, Sehun, keep things like that to yourself,” Jongdae joked.

“It’s just my way of saying I’m glad we’re done with this for now. Not studying for a few weeks.”

“Don’t forget the party tonight and hanging with your cute childhood friend,” Jongdae added.

“How much am I going to be regretting agreeing to go?”

“Probably not much depending on if you follow the rules,” Jongdae replied ambiguously.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Baekhyun said, sneaking up on the conversation and scaring Sehun and Jongdae half to death.

“All I meant is that it’s going to be interesting.” It was Jongdae’s turn to stretch and pop his shoulders. “How’d the exam go for you?”

“I think I should have studied more but I think I can pull out with a mid to high B,” Baekhyun groaned.

“That’s what you get for spending more time on stuff you already know,” Jongdae pointed out snidely.

“Then how did the exam go for our great and intelligent teacher?” Sehun inquired just as snidely.

“I’m either going to get a perfect score or a low C depending on whether the teacher considers my arguments valid. They are totally valid but against his own views.” He shrugged.

“You’re always asking for trouble in this class.” Baekhyun shook his head pityingly. “When will you ever learn that there are some people that you just can’t troll?”

“Half the time I get perfect marks even if I don’t see things his way,” Jongdae pointed out. “It all depends on the weather when he’s grading papers it seems or some other arbitrary environmental factor.”

“Well hope for lucky weather then,” Baekhyun sighed. “Let’s go get lunch, I’m starved.”

A/N: So I have basically the next couple of chapters already written but I'm going to release them oer a period of time so that you guys have consistent updates. Exams for the first trimester have come and gone and there will be festivities for our friends here. I hoe you lied the SeKai and BaekSoo. I might have had just a little bit of fun writing it. Sorry for the actual scholastic aspect of this chapter, I have a habit of putting in actual information even in fics... XD