Chapter 6

Leo found his lifelong friend always dropping by after school to walk him home. The first few days, he had let N do as he pleased, but once it happened too often, it was not only Leo who was bothered by him; Hongbin, too, would display a look of dismay whenever he would see N causing too much of a scene in front of their school. "Why don't you ever learn?" The handsome boy hissed when he caught N clinging on to Leo's arm.

"Hello Hongbinnie~" N chirped, entwining his fingers with his lifelong friend's. Of course, give it to N to ignore what Hongbin said. It was nothing new for the younger. "Leo and I actually have no time to chit chat with you right now. We're going somewhere!" Leo raised an eyebrow at his words since N had not talked about going anywhere with him at all. Leo had actually already planned to write some song lyrics today and hopefully manage to compose a song successfully in the proceeding days.

"You look confused, hyung," Hongbin muttered, watching Leo's face change from neutral to that of a baffled one. "Is N-hyung making things up again just to drag you to random places?"

"I'm not dragging him to random places!" N rebutted childishly, preventing his lifelong friend from speaking (not that Leo was going to respond that quick anyway). "Is that what you always think whenever I come here after school? Because you're wrong, Lee Hongbin. You're wrong!" He tugged at Leo's sleeve and announced, "We're going to audition!"

And with that, he earned a smack on the head. N groaned, patting his head and shielding it from another hit that may or may not come. "I never agreed on going anywhere with you," Leo said, finally joining in the conversation.

N let go of his arm, pouting. "But why not? I thought you loved singing? It would be a good opportunity for you to –"

"I'm going home," Leo told the two of them as he already started to walk down the direction of his house. Strangely, N did not follow behind him like he usually would. It had Leo confused for a moment, but he did not check whether N was just being difficult or simply distracted with something else. When Leo ultimately looked back, he found out that it was the latter; N did get preoccupied with something else. He heard that the school's council president had called Hongbin in whilst N chatted with some girls. Right there and then, he saw his lifelong friend smiling wide – wider than any other smiles that Leo had ever been given. N was jumping up and down as both of his hands held on to a girl.

'What did she tell him?'

'Why is he so... excited?'

'What's even more interesting than bothering me?'

Such thoughts occupied Leo's mind.

Leo did not really get any answers to his questions besides a lot of goodbye from his lifelong friend as he walked towards the opposite direction along with some female students. Despite the fact that they wore the same uniform, Leo concluded that he had not seen them before. He thought that it might have been because he does not really pay attention to his surroundings that he failed to notice them. N looked cheery and it made Leo's stomach twist. Just a few minutes ago, N was overly keen on taking his lifelong friend to audition that Leo did not want to go to and with a sudden turn of events, Leo was left to walk by himself. 'He'll just be annoying anyway,' Leo appeased himself. 'I need to finish a song and he'll just be bother...'

"I'm glad that he hasn't been pestering you nowadays, Leo-hyung," Hongbin commented as he snapped a photograph of daffodils. It became his habit to stay in their school's greenhouse whenever it was their recess or lunch break since it was peaceful and no one would really go there besides the gardener and some of the members of the gardening club. "I think I know the reason why..."

Leo looked up from the book that he was reading upon hearing Hongbin's second statement. It was true that he had not seen his lifelong friend for about a week now. It was also true that he was curious as to why that was. He should be worried about N, he knew. But considering how tough his lifelong friend was, he could fend off anyone who would even dare to attack him. Then again, N was with some girls the last time that Leo saw him. It was not that the girls looked seemingly harmless, but they could potentially be dangerous. But perhaps, Leo was just reading too much into it –

Hongbin snapped Leo back to reality by stealing a photograph of him. This caused Leo's eyebrows to furrow. He accidentally dropped the book on the soil when he tried to snatch the camera off of Hongbin's hands. "I'll delete it. I'll delete it!" Hongbin shrieked when he felt Leo's hand on his wrist constricting. He did what he said he would do while Leo went back to the bench, picking up the discarded book in the process. "And I think that the reason why N-hyung has not bothered you for a while is not because of you or whatever you said, so don't get –"

"I know," Leo immediately said, interrupting Hongbin in the middle of his sentence. "I haven't told him anything that could possibly make him decide not to cling to me," He added. It was somewhat ironic since their typical exchange of words mostly consisted of 'Go away' and 'No! I want to hang out with you!' and the same lines would just reoccur every now and then that it would tire Leo more than soccer had ever had. N was a handful, but he did not mind. Leo just wanted to know about the missing red string on N's small finger and he thought that he would not be able to rest until he finds his answers.

"Well, have you heard of a girl named Seohyun? She studies in this school too, but she is a special case." Hongbin began to explain and Leo only raised an eyebrow. "Given by your reaction, you don't seem to know who she is... Seohyun-su