Joon has always been good at Literature.

          He knows why he’s always been good at Literature and that’s mainly because he really likes Literature. He likes analyzing and summarizing and reading and writing, but he wouldn’t like all of those things if the novels they are given to read aren’t so magical. They’re all about true love or discovering yourself or fighting back against what’s wrong or other profound things that Joon likes to stick his head up in and never come down.

          But even as much as Joon likes Literature and has always looked forward to taking AP Literature, an AP class still takes some concentration. And despite the fact that Joon has maintained an A+ in every Literature class he’s taken since his first year, he still needs to focus to keep that up in an AP class.

          Unfortunately, the year he goes into the AP class, the literature teacher Joon’s had for his entire high school career decides to get a student teacher for an assistant.

          The student teacher turns out to be hot, turns out to love literature as much as Joon, walks around the classroom a lot, passes by Joon’s desk a lot, Joon gets distracted, Joon can’t concentrate, Joon fails, Joon gets an F in the class for the first quarter and Jung Jihoon-seonsangnim is concerned.

          The conclusion is that Joon is assigned for after school tutoring for the remainder of the first semester every day to get his F back to the magnificent A+ it once was before Yang Seungho walked through the doorway of Joon’s AP Lit classroom and ruined it all.

          To be honest, Joon really isn’t all that upset about it.

          “I’m really not that upset about it,” he tells Yonghwa after school—the tutoring sessions are scheduled to start next week. Doojoon sits next to Joon on the stone bench while Junhyung is doing his homework on the ground. Jonghyun is nowhere to be found, but they all know where they can find him if the need arises.

          Doojoon snorts. “Why should you be? You get to be alone for two hours with someone hot and older than you.”

          “I meant my grade,” Joon says. “I’m a genius, you know.”

          Junhyung suddenly bursts into a fit of laughter over his calculator.

          Joon, frankly, doesn’t see what is so funny about AP Calculus. But he supposes that Junhyung is just a nerd like that.

          It’s right about then that Jonghyun comes strutting towards them, a bounce in his step, wrinkles in his uniform shirt and pants, and Kim Kibum on his arm. Yonghwa buries his head in the novel he has to analyze, Doojoon begins to text, and Junhyung starts to scribble frantically on graph paper. “Hi,” Joon says, as the rest of them fall silent.

          Jonghyun is grinning, swaggering, and Kibum just looks mildly amused. “So you’re getting tutored?” Jonghyun asks, wrinkling his nose and there is no way for it to be more obvious that he is showing off in front of Kibum—showing off that he is friends with the top third years at the school.

          “Yup,” Joon says, grinning. “Hi, Kibum-ah,” he says.

          Yonghwa, Doojoon, and Junhyung continue in their immersed activities.

          “Hey,” Kibum says, grinning back. “Sunbae, you’re getting tutored?”

          Joon sticks his tongue out playfully. “Yeah—for AP Lit. Guess I’m failing.”

          “Aren’t you supposed to be ing amazing in that class?” Kibum raises an eyebrow as Jonghyun wraps both arms around the first year’s waist and starts to rock them back and forth.

          “Hot teacher,” Jonghyun murmurs in Kibum’s ear.

          “Got it,” Kibum laughs and yanks himself away from Jonghyun. He looks at the other three third years and bows. “I’ll be going now,” he says, claps his hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder and leaves in the direction of the school gates.

          As soon as he is out of sight, Yonghwa, Doojoon, and Junhyung look up from their faked-activities and give Jonghyun a variety of disapproving glares. “I thought we told you to stop this,” Yonghwa says and the we-are-your-hyungs atmosphere is so thick, it’s tangible.

          Jonghyun rolls his eyes as he plops down next to Joon—and noticeably on the far side from the other three. Joon only has to turn slightly to see the darkened, bruise-like spots on his dongsaeng’s throat. “And I thought you just saw him with me—he’s totally fine with it. We’re friends so I still don’t get why you want me to stop.”

          “Just stop it, Jonghyun-ah,” Junhyung says. “He’s still a first year—stop messing with him.”

          Jonghyun looks outraged and turns to Joon with his mouth open. “Hyung,” he says, clearly trying to ask for back-up. “Hyung.”

          Even though Joon and Jonghyun are one year apart and are not in any way related, they might as well have been twins with how closely they were raised and how close that left them now. Jonghyun is Joon’s favorite dongsaeng and Joon is Jonghyun’s favorite hyung and that’s probably not going to change any time soon—or ever. But in the case of Kim Kibum, Joon isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do—both as a person and as a hyung because this entire situation just feels really wrong on Jonghyun’s part.

          Unfortunately, Jonghyun doesn’t seem to want to wait for Joon to sort out his words so they won’t come out as inarticulate and incomprehensible stutters so he just shoves Joon hard into the pole separating them and Yonghwa on the stone border. “Thanks, hyung,” he says sardonically.

          “It’s going to end badly,” Doojoon says, looking up from his phone after checking a text. “If you were really his friend, you wouldn’t do this, Jonghyun-ah.”

          “Oh my God,” Jonghyun says. He looks to Joon with a typical can-you-believe-this-hyung expression with which Joon knows he is supposed to then respond with a I-know-Jonghyun-ah-they-are-idiots glance, except Joon doesn’t think that Yonghwa, Doojoon and Junhyung are being idiots on this. So instead, his mouth sort of opens and closes a little before he decides to inspect the lint that has gathered on his pants.

          There’s a long silence during which the only sound is Junhyung’s calculator and Doojoon texting.

          “Whatever,” Jonghyun says finally, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and standing up. “So Joonie-hyung can like a ing teacher, but I can’t have fun with a friend who’s totally fine with it? Fine.” He says this completely nonchalant, shrugging a few times in between and looking straight past all four of his hyungs’ heads.

          “Jonghyunnie,” Joon says apologetically.

          But Jonghyun is already walking past them and towards his locker in the math hallway. Joon watches him disappear around the corner and looks at Yonghwa. “I think he hates me,” Joon says. “He hates me now, doesn’t he—oh my God, what do I tell Mom? I have to tell my mom that Jonghyun hates me now.”

          Doojoon chokes on his spit a little and Junhyung looks like he is trying not to laugh. “Jonghyun’s just having his obligatory hissy fit for the week,” he says dismissively, sliding on the cover of his calculator. He shuts his notebook and puts both into his backpack. “He’ll get over it.”

          “Yeah,” Doojoon says, glancing up from his current text, fingers mid-air over the screen, “but he’s still going to Kim Kibum.”

          “It’s awful,” Yonghwa shrugs. “But it’s Jonghyun, so I guess nothing’s going to change until someone gets hurt.” He sighs. “Like always.”

          “Yeah, but up until now, it was only the girls who were stupid enough to sleep with him,” Junhyung says. “If Kibum gets hurt, there’s going to be war.”

          “Jinwoon and Dongwoon could probably stomp on Jonghyunnie by accident,” Joon says sadly, “you know—if he didn’t watch where he was going or something. And Mir will never speak to me again—ever.”

          “Yeah, Jaejin will probably never talk to me either,” Yonghwa says, “which will be a problem because we’re in charge of the duet solo in the spring concert.”

          Doojoon and Junhyung trade glances, most probably about Dongwoon doing the same thing with the wall of silence if Kibum ever gets hurt when a mass of small and adorable comes barreling towards them at full speed and collides into Doojoon. The captain of the soccer team somehow manages to keep his balance on the ledge and keep one arm around Yang Yoseob.

          “Hi,” Doojoon says breathlessly, grinning up at his co-captain.

          Yoseob raises his eyebrows and grins back. He looks to the others. “So, what’s with the serious faces?”

          “Just telling you,” Junhyung says, “that Dongwoon might never come to our practice ever again in the foreseeable future.”

          Yoseob looks confused. “Wait—why?” He glances at Doojoon.

          “Because Jonghyun is probably going to break Kim Kibum’s heart and the entire ’91 line will never speak to us again because it’s our fault that we couldn’t stop his stupidity,” Yonghwa explains.

          “Don’t let him stomp on Jonghyun too hard, okay?” Joon asks glumly. “He’s already short enough.”

          “Of course not, Joonie-hyung,” Yoseob says, puffing out his cheeks and Joon feels himself swooning because it just doesn’t make sense that someone as retarded and horrible as Doojoon gets to have Yoseob. Doojoon doesn’t even appreciate the fact that Yoseob is adorable and angelic.

          So expectedly enough, Doojoon looks up at Yoseob in disgust, “Stop that,” he says, slapping his palms on the younger boy’s cheeks to deflate them. But anyone with eyes can see that there’s no real force in Doojoon’s hands and once they’re done deflating Yoseob’s cheeks, they fall to rest around the co-captain’s waist, anyway.

          “Get a room,” Junhyung says and throws his eraser at Doojoon’s face.

          Doojoon dodges it and it falls onto the ledge. He picks it up and throws it back, saying, “Maybe if you stop being stupid, Hyunseung will talk to you again.”

          Junhyung picks up his eraser, puts it into his pencil bag, puts the bag into his backpack, slings it over his shoulder and stands up. “I’m not being stupid,” he says under his breath.

          “Junhyung-hyung,” Yoseob says, sighing and throwing Doojoon an upset look. “Hyung, don’t be like that. Hyunseung’s—“

          “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Junhyung says, claps Joon and Yonghwa’s shoulders and heads towards the same direction that Jonghyun walked down.

          Yoseob looks upset now and it’s not often that Yoseob ever looks genuinely upset. They all know that next to Doojoon, Junhyung is closest to Yoseob and that the fact that they are so close is one of the main problems going on between Junhyung and Hyunseung and that makes Yoseob feel all the more responsible.

          Joon thinks that Yoseob shouldn’t think that way at all, but when he told Yoseob this, Doojoon tells Joon that he doesn’t understand anything, so Joon has decided to clamp his mouth shut about this matter. After all, it’s the soccer team’s business.

          “Why would you say that?” Yoseob says, getting off of Doojoon’s lap.

          Doojoon’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He reaches out a hand, wrapping his fingers around Yoseob’s wrist. “Yoseob-ah,” he says.

          Yoseob worms his arm out of Doojoon’s grasp. “I’ll call you later, hyung,” he says, sounding greatly disappointed in Doojoon as he runs after Junhyung.

          “People around here,” Doojoon begins dryly after a long silence, “need to fix their love lives so they don’t ruin mine.”

          Joon coughs.

          Yonghwa fiddles with a corner of his book.

          “So, Yonghwa-ah,” Doojoon asks briskly, “how’s Seohyun-shii doing?”

          Yonghwa throws the book at Doojoon’s shoulder.

          Dongwoon stares up at Kibum. “Why,” he says, confused, “did you throw your English book at me? Don’t you need that for homework? She gave us like three pages to translate.”

          Kibum kicks Dongwoon’s shoe and bends down to pick up his English book from the sidewalk. Kibum is waiting for his driver and Dongwoon is waiting for Kikwang so they can call Kikwang’s driver since it’s the older boy’s turn for carpooling today. Dongwoon can tell that Kibum has just met with Jonghyun and thinks that it’s probably best that Mir and Jinwoon have already left and that Jaejin has a rehearsal that’s running late.

          “You’re a retard,” Kibum says. “I hope you failed your math quiz today.”

          Dongwoon thinks that’s going over the line considering that he studied for that quiz this entire week. Anyone else in his place would ask why they are a retard but Dongwoon already knows why Kibum has deemed his intelligence level greatly impaired so he doesn’t need to. “He’s going to show up any second,” Dongwoon says with difficulty. “So shut up.”

          “No,” Kibum sniffs. “I won’t. You deserve it. At least this way, if he overhears, you will finally get somewhere after three years of nothingness.”

          “It’s not three years of nothingness,” Dongwoon defends.

          Kibum snorts. “You’re right—it’s three years of honorable ing friendship that gets you absolutely nowhere but miserable.”

          It’s Dongwoon’s turn to kick Kibum’s shoe.

          Kibum makes an exasperated sound and takes it up a notch by kicking Dongwoon’s shin—which causes infinitely more pain than kicking someone’s shoe. Dongwoon stumbles back and hops around on his not-kicked-foot and looks incredulously at his friend. “I have a game in two weeks.”

          “Kikwang-hyung asked you if he should go over to your house or Hyunseung-hyung’s to plan a game play and you sent him over to Hyunseung-hyung,” Kibum hisses. “Are you masochistic?”

          Dongwoon sighs. “He wanted to go to Hyunseung-hyung’s in the first place, so it’d be stupid if I said yes just to get him to come to mine. Hyunseung-hyung is usually in charge of planning the plays anyway.”

          “Oh my God,” Kibum says. “You are stupid. One of my best friends is actually stupid.”

          Dongwoon thinks that now this is just unnecessary insulting—the kind that Kim Kibum often likes to do for the pure fun of it all. But he wishes that Kibum wouldn’t do it with Dongwoon’s nonexistent love life because that’s just uncalled for. “I’m not stupid,” he says and that statement sounds infinitely stupid to his own ears.

          “Are you sure?” a voice with terrifying familiarity laughs behind him.

          Dongwoon turns his head and is met with Kikwang’s eyeless smile. “Hi-yeom,” he says brightly, and hugs him first before waving to Kibum. “Hi, Kibum-ah.” Dongwoon tries not to focus on the fact that one of Kikwang’s arms lingers a bit on Dongwoon’s waist after the hug.

Kibum shoots Dongwoon a knowing look and then smiles at Kikwang, “Hey, hyung.”

“My driver’s here,” Kikwang says, tugging at Dongwoon’s sweatshirt sleeve. “He’s just parked at the other entrance.” Dongwoon notices that Kikwang has taken off his contacts sometime after school and is wearing his glasses.

“Oh, okay,” Dongwoon responds, and makes to follow Kikwang.

“You’d better call me tonight, you retard,” Kibum yells after him. “I’m not doing that English translation by myself.”

Dongwoon turns and walks backwards, so he can look in his friend’s direction. “You’re the one who aced yesterday’s test,” he calls back.

“Doesn’t mean I like homework,” Kibum shouts and flips him off with a smile.

          Dongwoon laughs and spins back around, suddenly in a good enough mood to throw one arm around Kikwang’s shoulders. “How was your day, hyung?” he asks as Kikwang laughs at the sudden contact.

          “Not bad.” Kikwang leans his head into Dongwoon’s shoulder and once again Dongwoon has to count to twenty-five slowly in English so he doesn’t focus on the fact that the older boy’s head fits perfectly in the crook of Dongwoon’s shoulder, and how right it feels and how amazing it would be to be like this every day the way Doojoon and Yoseob are. “Kind of tired though—I only got four hours last night,” he says, sticking his tongue out and laughing again.

          “Really?” Dongwoon pulls away as they reach Kikwang’s car. “I got six,” he brags playfully.

          Kikwang narrows his eyes teasingly. “Cheater—that’s only because you copied off of someone, didn’t you?”

          “Hyung,” Dongwoon pretends to be offended. He slides into the car, and Kikwang gets in after him. The driver closes the door.

          “That’s true,” Kikwang says thoughtfully. “You don’t have any friends smart enough to copy off of except Kibummie and he’d never let you.”

          “Hyung,” Dongwoon says indignantly.

          Kikwang laughs. “Just be glad that you got Hyori-noona this year,” he says. “Once you have a real teacher for science, it’s terrible.” He makes a face that’s probably supposed to be upset or irritated but to Dongwoon it just comes off as awfully adorable and Dongwoon hates it. “I hate chemistry.”

          “Noona is a real teacher, hyung,” Dongwoon says.

          “You know what I mean,” Kikwang says, nudging Dongwoon, “A teacher that and makes you repeat answers like five times because they’re too old and deaf to hear you.” He takes out his iPod and starts unraveling the earphone cables.

          Dongwoon watches Kikwang check the time on his cell phone as their driver reaches a stop sign. “So, what time are you going over to Hyunseung-hyung’s house?”

          Kikwang looks up, surprised. “Oh—um,” he looks down at his phone again, and then at his iPod. “Um, Hyunseung-hyung has something to do tonight,” he says, not meeting Dongwoon’s eyes. “So he can’t do it.”

          Dongwoon blinks. “So?”

          “So—um,” Kikwang turns on his iPod and touches the screen here and there but Dongwoon can see that the older boy is just moving up and down through a playlist aimlessly. “I guess I need to go over to your house—I told my driver to just drop us off there together.”

          “Oh,” Dongwoon blinks again and the little man inside his chest has started to blow balloons in celebration. “That’s fine—I’ll just text my mom about it then. Does—does your mom know already?”

          “Yeah, I called her before I found you,” Kikwang says. Then he smiles. “I haven’t been to your house in a while—I should climb up more often like I used to.” He laughs. “But I probably wouldn’t be any fun—I’d just fall asleep in your bed and take up all the space.”

          The little man inside his chest is now making animal balloons and has started putting sparkly banners around the little house he lives in inside of Dongwoon’s chest. Dongwoon wants to tell Kikwang that even if all he does is throw tomatoes at the door of Dongwoon’s bedroom, it would still be amazing, but he feels as though saying something like that would be mildly creepy and a huge giveaway so he doesn’t. He just says, “Maybe I should just do the play myself. You look really tired, hyung.”

          Kikwang’s eyes suddenly widen and his fingers stop fiddling with this iPod and cell phone. “No,” he says abruptly, “no—Doojoon-hyung said that it can’t just be one person. It’s better if there’re two people so they can check each other’s ideas.”

          Dongwoon shrugs. “Okay. You don’t have a lot of homework or anything, right?”

          “Nope,” Kikwang says brightly. “We can take all night.”

          Dongwoon laughs. “You’re going to pass out if you keep staying up like this, hyung. And I have a load of homework, so we’re going to have to make it quick.”

          “How about I sleep over?” Kikwang suggests. “So I don’t have to go home and we can take more time on it. I have clothes and all my stuff in my soccer bag,” he gestures towards the back of the car.

          Dongwoon thinks that if the little man in his chest gets any more excited then he’s going to have a heart attack. “Sounds good,” he says easily.

          “Good,” Kikwang smiles, and puts in his earphones.

          They don’t even reach the next traffic light before Kikwang enters the Land of Nod. Dongwoon examines the older boy’s face as his head leans against the window. Kikwang’s eyelashes touch the tops of his cheeks and there are dark shadows cupping his eyes, barely concealed by the frames of the glasses. Dongwoon knows that Kikwang was lying—whenever Jonghyun comes for Kibum, the second year never fails to complain about the ridiculous increase in homework load the second years have been getting.

          And when Dongwoon passed the track field on his way from practice, rather than seeing Cheondoong running warm-up laps while he waited for Mir, he saw the older boy scribbling down frantically in a workbook. There is no way that Kikwang has a shortage of homework tonight and Dongwoon wishes that the older boy would just let Dongwoon do the play himself.

          He sighs and pulls out the earphones gently from Kikwang’s ears. Dongwoon wraps up the older boy’s iPod and tucks it into the left, front pocket of Kikwang’s book bag—the place that he’s come to notice where Kikwang likes to carry all of his electronics. He takes out his school shirt from his soccer bag and folds it up, slips it between Kikwang’s head and the cold window.

          Dongwoon thinks it’s terrible that the little man is this happy over Kikwang sleeping over when it means that Kikwang will probably only get four hours of sleep again. He thinks it’s terrible and another reason why he should work harder on getting the little man to move out.

          Hyunseung would probably take better care of Kikwang anyhow.

Yoseob throws his backpack at the ground and jumps onto his bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Doojoon hang his uniform tie and blazer over Yoseob’s desk chair. “I hope you’re happy,” he says to the older boy as the soccer captain starts taking out the books that he needs for homework from his own backpack.

“Yeah,” Doojoon says. “Having two of my best friends and team members fighting makes me just from joy.” He’s still kneeling on the ground, flipping through books and notebooks. “What page is the math homework on?”

“Three-ninety-three,” Yoseob says and stares at the ceiling. “Why did you have to mention it? Even Joonie-hyung has more tact than that.”

Doojoon gets up from the floor and takes a seat at Yoseob’s desk, flicking on the lamp and opening his statistics book to page three-hundred ninety-three. “Joonie-hyung also wouldn’t be acting this retarded this long. All he has to do is talk to him—I don’t get why all of this is so stupid.”

Yoseob sits up. “It’s not like Hyunseung-hyung is making it easy either.”

“Hyunseung,” Doojoon says with his back turned, hunched over his math homework, “is the one who got hurt. Junhyung is the one who’s supposed to say sorry. And both of them are supposed to kiss and make-up before the season actually starts because it’s our last year here and I’m not going to have our team just because they feel like being stupid for a little longer.”

“It’s not all about soccer, you know,” Yoseob says dryly, standing up to change out of his uniform. He walks to his closet, taking off his belt and pants along the way.

There’s a silence for a long moment, punctuated only by the scribbling of Doojoon’s pencil against paper and the occasional click-clacks of the calculator buttons. Yoseob just finishes changing and is about to throw his uniform into the laundry basket when he sees Doojoon spin around to face him on the chair. The older boy reaches a hand out wordlessly.

Yoseob takes it, their fingers threading together as he allows himself to be pulled between Doojoon’s legs. The captain’s hands come to rest on Yoseob’s waist and he says in a low voice, “It’s not all about soccer—but to Hyunseung a lot is.”

“You think Junhyung-hyung doesn’t know that?” Yoseob asks briskly, patting Doojoon’s cheek and pulling away. He grabs his math notebook from his backpack and climbs back onto his bed. “Anyway, they’ve still got three weeks until we have that recreational-get-together-whatsit that coach is putting us through with those two other schools.”

Doojoon twirls his pencil in his hand, still facing Yoseob, and looks clearly unhappy. “Yeah—and then I might as well give up all hope of putting them back together. I haven’t even told Hyunseung that his dream school is going to be one of the two that are going to be there.”

“Good luck trying to keep him away from Kwon Jiyoung during that weekend,” Yoseob says. He spreads himself out on his stomach, legs in the air and elbows propping himself up above his notebook. “So,” he begins, “what’d you get for number twenty-three?”