As soon as SangHyuk stepped onto the pavement of his neighborhood, his legs almost collapsed from exhaustion.

"Why does my school have to be three miles away?" He grumbled, forcing his jelly legs to keep walking. "I need to get a job so I can pay for a bus."

As much as he whined and complained about his exhaustion however, he couldn't seem to get his thoughts together - the ones about JaeHwan, Leo, and Lucca. It had been three weeks since that incident, and yet his spying in the corner of the room and snooping through people's personal lives had led him nowhere. He had even began skipping Study Hall to come home and eavesdrop on any conversation. However, since nobody seemed to be home anymore, it was only that much harder to dig up the dirt.

He let out a sigh as he looked up at the evening sky. "What an uneventful month this has been."

"You think so?" Hyuk jumped aside as HongBin suddenly popped up beside him. The younger male smiled at him. "I think this month has been wonderful."

Hyuk knitted his eyebrows, forcing his nerves to calm down. "What are you doing home so early? Don't you have Study Hall?"

"Don't you have Study Hall?"

"...Touche."

As they came up on their apartment complex, HongBin let out a loud, free-hearted sigh that made Hyuk an eyebrow at him.

"Are you alright, HongBin?"

HongBin was taken off guard. He looked over at Hyuk with a confused look on his face. "Huh...?"

"Don't 'huh' me." Hyuk said, a smile growing on his face. "I think you know what I'm talking about."

HongBin stared at him for a moment before a light pink blush fell over his cheeks. He smiled and look away from the older. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do you think you're in love?"

This made HongBin's heart flip and deepen the blush until it was a shade of scarlet. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could, Hyuk let out a laugh.

"Just don't get your heart broken. Older women are notorious for that."

HongBin's nerves calmed down, but his blush didn't remove itself from his face. "I really don't think she's like that, Hyukkie...."

Hyuk laughed as they made their way up the stairs. "We'll see.”

When they opened the door to the apartment, the first thing they were met with was a HakYeon racing in from the kitchen.

“Anneyong~” He sang. When he noticed that it was only HongBin and Hyuk, his large grin faded.

Neither of them could notice this change in attitude, however, as they were too focused on the new... look that sat upon the eldest’s head.

“Uh.... h-hyung....” HongBin began, his eyes wide. “Um....”

HakYeon stared at them in confusion for a moment before his face turned a deep shade that blended in with his hair. “I forgot that you hadn’t seen it yet.”

“I saw it when you came home yesterday, and I’m still not used to it yet.” Hyuk said as he kicked off his shoes and moved into living room.

“Yah, Han SangHyuk!” HakYeon shrieked. “Do you want me to neck-chop you? Don’t make fun of it... I’m still getting used to it myself.”

“What possessed you to dye it red anyways?” SangHyuk asked as he plopped down onto the couch.

HakYeon stared at him for a moment, but then sunk to his knees. “It looks awful... I shouldn’t have done it....”

As HongBin tried to calm the eldest down by telling him how good it looks, Hyuk slowly began to settle into the new, Ravi-free couch. He wasn’t going to lie and say that the front of this every-day-boring lifestyle wasn’t irritating him when he knew that there was a scandalous situation going on right underneath everybody’s noses, because it pissed him off to no end. However, even after hanging out with Lucca for multiple days at a time, nobody was throwing anything out for him to catch, and he was running out of options.

Suddenly, one of the doors in the hallway opened up, and down to the living room ventured a tall, shadowy figure. It wasn’t until it had stepped into the light that anybody knew who it was.

“Leo-Hyung!” HongBin announced, surprised at his sudden appearance. Hyuk looked up to see that it was, indeed, Leo standing before them.

The man only blinked at them a couple times before he continued on his journey into the kitchen. However, before he could disappear into the doorway, his venture was intercepted by a HongBin pulling him into a large hug.

“You haven’t been home in three weeks, Hyung.” He said, holding the older tightly. It didn’t take a mere second before Leo had his arms wrapped around the younger, as he had missed him as well.

“I was only at the dojang.” He replied in his soft voice. “You know I give lessons in the Spring and Summer.”

“It’s just that you’re never gone for this long of a time.” HakYeon stated. “Has something come up? Are you stressed out about something?”

Hyuk was planted against the couch, his leg crossed over his other with his fingers to his head as he studied Leo from a distance. He could tell in the older’s eyes that he was searching for something to say, and after a moment, he opened his mouth and answered “no”.

It was at this moment that another door down the hallway opened up, and down the hall came two figures.

“Now are you ready?”

“I was ready five minutes ago!”

“Five minutes ago you were putting on your socks.”

“Aish, otteokaji~”

Lucca laughed as she appeared from the hallway, stopping when she noticed Leo and HongBin. “Um... am I interrupting some sort of bromance fest going on out here?”

“Noona?” Hyuk asked, causing her to look over at him. Her face lit up, but before she could greet him back, JaeHwan appeared from the hallway.

“Alright, now I am ready to go.” As he said this, his eyes caught sight of Leo, whose expression (Hyuk noticed) had dropped into one of stone. “Oh, Leo-Hyung. When did you get home?”

Before JaeHwan had even finished his question, however, Leo had already exited the scene and slipped into the kitchen, sending a wave of confusion over everybody in the room aside from JaeHwan and Hyuk, which, upon seeing the sad expression on JaeHwan’s face, sent radars and alarms off in Hyukkie’s head.

“I wonder what has gotten into him.” HakYeon said, pursing his lips.

The eldest’s words dragged everybody’s attention back to him, and JaeHwan’s eyes widened. “Woah, Hyung! What happened to your hair?”

This statement send HakYeon collapsing to the ground again, causing HongBin to have to comfort him once again as Lucca turned around and scolded JaeHwan.

“Be nice! I think it looks good, Yeonnie.” She said, encouragingly.

“Yeonnie?” JaeHwan repeated, a grimace on his face. After everything was said and done, JaeHwan and Lucca left the apartment (for another date, Hyuk assumed), HakYeon went to go take a shower in hopes of washing some of the vibrant color out of his hair, and HongBin moved into the bedroom to either study or take an after school nap, leaving Hyuk alone in the living room.

Aside from the scream of the faucet from the bathroom, the only sound that could be heard in the house was the shuffling of TaekWoon moving around in the kitchen as he (hopefully) started dinner.

Kyuk sat on the couch for a good few minutes, not wanting to move out of pure exhaustion. However, he knew that Leo could be leaving back to the dojang any day without any warning, so he knew that this could be his only chance to talk to him, and out of pure curiosity he managed to drag himself off the couch.

Moving into the kitchen, he found that the older was in fact gathering ingredients to begin the makings of dinner.

“Leo-hyung?” He said, his intentions straightforward and voice mature.

TaekWoon turned around to look at the younger for a moment, and suddenly out of nowhere, the older moved over and pulled the beloved dongsaeng into an embrace, and for a moment, Hyuk’s emotions turned to mush. In the midst of trying to uncover everything, he hadn’t realized how much he had missed his hyung.

It was a minute or two before Leo pulled away, but when he did, Hyuk found that he could hardly find the strength to go on with the interrogation. Leo never was one for many words - he instead spoke through his actions - and he absolutely hated being questioned. If you reached a sensitive spot, he would completely tune you out. However, from years of observation, SangHyuk knew that, if you pushed hard enough in the right places, you just might squeeze a drop of information out of the cold pokerface.

“Um... hyung?” He started. Leo looked over at him, his eyes warm and curious, as they always were for the younger male. Hyuk gulped, doing his best to gather up the courage needed to continue on with this. He hated upsetting TaekWoon, but he hated being left in the dark even more.

“The night that Ken-Hyung got drunk,” That alone was enough to shut Leo down faster than a monk in a house. “You said something to him. What did you mean?”

Leo did his best to get around the younger, but Hyuk knew that the only way to get through to him was to corner him, both literally as well in his own thoughts.

“I know that JaeHwan is hiding something from Lucca, and I know that you are keeping his secret for him.” He continued. Leo stared at the younger boy’s chest for a moment before turning away and moving to the far end of the kitchen.

“I understand that you want to keep it between you two - that it’s a secret, and there is a reason as to why it is kept.” Hyuk had always been able to read his hyung like a book, and in his eyes he could see the pain and anger flaring up. However, he had already made it this far - there was no point in going back now. He advanced on the older. “But when it is a secret that has the potential to hurt Lucca - my best friend and noona - it is something that I need to know, and needs to be told. You can understand that can’t you?”

It was then that Leo turned back to the younger, his expression having turned to pure stone. For a moment, Hyuk was worried that there would be no way to get anything out of the older, when suddenly Leo opened his mouth to let his soft words spill from his lips.

“It isn’t a choice of whether I want to tell or not.” He stated. “Sometimes people are forced to keep a secret in order to protect those they care about.”