Until now, Joon never knew how hard Jonghyun has it. Joon has always gotten straight A’s up until this point during this school year, and until Yang Seungho came into the school, Joon has never known how hard Jonghyun really has it with his classes because what Joon’s found out with his experience in getting Seungho to tutor him—and remain his tutor—is that failing tests is a lot harder than expected.

          It’s far harder than passing tests because you see the right answer right there and you can’t choose it because if you do, you won’t be able to spend one hour every day after school with the hottest person in existence and beyond. You can’t answer the essay questions with what you know happens exactly in the novel to display that exact theme because then you won’t ever be able to capture Yang Seungho’s heart with your ridiculous attractiveness and unbelievable intellect and that’s just depressing.

          Failing tests is hard and Joon has to give Jonghyun credit for that because lately, Joon hasn’t been failing tests up to par.

          And Seungho’s noticing.

          “You’re really fast,” the teacher says, his shadowed eyes wide as he turns back to Joon after looking up his grades in the computer. He spins around on the chair and steadies himself with a grip to the desk. “It’s not even the end of second quarter and you’re average is already up to a B.”

          Clearly there is something Joon is doing wrong if his average was a D- a week ago and now it’s already a B again.

          “I cheated,” he blurts out.

          Seungho’s eyebrows knit together, confused. “You got the highest grade in the class on the last test,” he says. “I was going to cut out two of the short answer because no one got them right, but then I got to your test and you were the only one who did.”

          Clearly Joon needs to be tutored by Jonghyun too.

          On how to fail tests so you can stay with your hot Literature teacher.

          Joon’s mouth falls open. “I—I—I—I—you’re—you—just—you’re an amazing teacher,” he tries again. “And if you stop, it’ll be an F again.”

          Seungho stares. And then bursts out into incredulous laughter.

          Joon grins sheepishly. “It’s true.”

          “Yah,” Seungho says, looking like he’s trying to hide his smile by staring at a paper he said he would grade while Joon finishes the passage he’s supposed to breading even though in the past half an hour the teacher has gone through all of the first two questions and Joon has read about half a page, “saying stuff like that isn’t going to make the B into an A.”

          “Good,” Joon says triumphantly, smacking his novel against the desk a few times. “I don’t want it to be an A.”

          Seungho stares at him again. Joon’s noticed that he does that a lot.

          “Why not?” asks the teacher, blinking.

          “Because then the tutoring would stop, right?” Joon counters, frowning.

          Seungho puts the tip of his red grading pen between his lips, round eyes looking at the ceiling in thought, and Joon has to whip out his calculator again. “Mm,” Seungho deliberates, “I guess it would.”

          Joon’s mouth drops open because what does Seungho mean he guesses it would? “You—why—don’t—care—I—but—this—no—you—worst—why—how could—tutor—end—can’t—just, hyung,” Joon says, deflated.  

          “Oh, did you finish already?” Seungho asks, blinking pleasantly.

          “No—this—no—you can’t—what—just—what?” Joon says.

          “The book,” Seungho clarifies. “Did you finish the part I told you to read?”

          It’s Joon’s turn to stare.

          “If you can, hurry it up a little, Changsun-ah,” the teacher goes on. “I have to take Junhyungie home today because he doesn’t have practice.”

          Joon’s eyes narrow, confused. “Junhyung? What Junhyung?”

          Seungho raises his eyebrows. “Yong Junhyung.”

          Joon feels his eyes narrow even further. “Yong Junhyung?”

          “Yong Junhyung.”

          “Yong Junhyung the soccer player?”

          “Yong Junhyung the soccer player.”

          “Yong Junhyung who always looks emo and throws soccer balls at me whenever I get too close to the field?”

          Seungho goes into another round of hysterics at that, his chair colliding off of the walls and his desk because he’s laughing all over the place and while Joon would otherwise be watching this scene with great jubilee over having made those shadowed eyes disappear and the rainclouds just a little less gray, right now all he can do is wonder if he can steal some hurdles from the shed and chuck them at Junhyung’s emo face.

          When Seungho finally stops laughing and Joon has convinced himself that chucking hurdles at Junhyung wouldn’t achieve much other than a broken nose, Joon’s head getting dented by a soccer ball kicked at him by Hyunseung, and possibly very long suspensions, he asks, “Why?”

          Seungho tilts his head, elbows resting on the desk. “Why what?”

          “Why do you have to take him home?” Joon says, leaning forward.

          The student teacher’s mouth opens as if he’s about to speak. Joon raises his eyebrows expectantly, but the words never come. He frowns to himself at the change of expression on Seungho—the teacher’s eyes are darker suddenly, an odd set to his mouth. “I just know his family,” Seungho finally says and doesn’t smile.

          Joon wants to keep asking, but he knows that this is where Doojoon and Junhyung and Yoseob and all the others would probably put their hands over his mouth and tell him to shut up before his retardation screws someone else’s opinion of him up. He bites his lip for a second to keep himself silent and then shrugs as casually as he can and smiles enough to make up for the rainclouds that are now starting to blacken so intensely that he wonders if there’s going to be a full on storm on the horizon. “Okay,” Joon says simply. “Do just want to do an extra hour tomorrow, then?” He stands up, putting the novel into his backpack.

          Seungho’s eyes are suddenly wide with something indistinguishable.

          Joon feels his own eyes widen in reaction. “What?” he says, because he senses something wrong.

          The teacher smiles right then—one that doesn’t make his eyes disappear, and the rainclouds don’t puff up like they should, and it’s raining and it’s gray and gloomy and thundering and it’s all very, very, very wrong but Joon doesn’t know how to fix it. “Nothing,” Seungho says, with the smile that makes Joon’s chest hurt. “I’ll see you tomorrow then—with the extra hour, right?”

          “Yeah,” Joon says slowly, standing up. He puts on his backpack and walks out the door.

          He walks out the door and walks down the hall.

          Once he gets far enough from the door and far enough down the hall, Joon starts sprinting at full track-athlete-speed.

          He has to find Junhyung.

          Junhyung thinks that maybe the first step to avoid-being-a-complete- like Jonghyun is to actually have balls enough to apologize for being the you currently are and prevent that from growing into the next stage, which would then be . He knows that that’s the precautionary measure that should be taken except it’s not so easy as just having balls enough to do it, because when you’re actually up against it, you feel like you would rather just admit you don’t have any sort of reproductive organ at all and run the opposite direction.

          Or maybe it’s just that the sight of Jang Hyunseung simply opening his locker makes Junhyung’s chest hurt so much, makes him so nervous, that he probably doesn’t have the balls to apologize ever—and Hyunseung would be much better off not seeing his face anyhow. Because then after apologizing for being an , Junhyung will probably have to apologize for Hyunseung having to look at his face while apologizing for being an .

          Except that Yoseob said he refused to speak to Junhyung until Junhyung said whatever needed to be said to Hyunseung, and Seungho threatened to leave him stranded on the side of the highway the next time he gives Junhyung a ride home.

          And since Yang Yoseob’s silent treatment includes the silent treatments of the rest of the soccer team excluding Hyunseung (who is already giving him the silent treatment anyhow, with the exception of the random outburst a few days ago), the entire track team, Jonghyun, and half of the music department, Junhyung supposes that he really should just go and be done with it—the whole apologizing thing, he means.

          He also doesn’t want to be stranded on the side of the highway.

          Hyunseung is in the same homeroom as Yonghwa, meaning that their lockers are about three apart and Junhyung should probably do this before Yonghwa comes to get his books before he leaves because then Hongki will probably be with him and if Hongki gets involved, then Junhyung won’t see the end of it and Hyunseung will probably leave because of the noise Hongki inevitably makes and everything will just go back to square negative fourteen.

          It takes a lot just to get to square zero, much less square one.

          So he takes a few bracing breaths and walks forward down the hall to where Hyunseung is standing at his open locker. He gets about three-quarters of the way there when Hyunseung looks up and at him after obviously hearing his footsteps approaching.

          The other boy’s eyes and expression are blank and expectant as always—Junhyung rarely ever sees rainbows of emotion on Hyunseung’s face with the exception of extremely happy, extremely amused, or extremely upset (which is usually the case these days when it involves Junhyung).

          Junhyung is now standing directly in front of Hyunseung, hands in his pockets, staring at the other boy and wondering why his eyes have to be so stupidly beautiful, with nothing coming out of his mouth but air.

          He rocks on the balls of his feet for three more seconds before considering just turning around and leaving Hyunseung thinking that his ex is literally not right in the mind, when he hears a quiet, simple, “Hi.”

          Junhyung blinks up at Hyunseung, who’s neither smiling nor upset—still the same blank, Jang Hyunseung, expression.

          There is a long, stunned moment during which Junhyung has no idea how long passes. He’s just standing there, slightly dumbfounded, with his mouth open and looking like an idiot with so much dumbness that it exceeds Joon and Jonghyun combined. He continues to stand there until Hyunseung lets out a little, almost unheard, sigh and puts another book from his backpack into his locker. “Never mind,” he says, now some color in his voice. “Sorry.”

          “No,” Junhyung blurts out suddenly.

          Hyunseung’s eyebrows go up.

          “No,” Junhyung says, “I mean—I’m—I’m sorry.”

          Hyunseung pauses, hand in mid-air with what looks like his AP Bio binder. “You’re sorry?” he asks confusedly.

          “Yeah.”

          The skin between Hyunseung’s eyebrows wrinkles a bit. “For what?”

          “For being an ,” Junhyung responds.

          Now Hyunseung is back to the blankness—tinged still with that confusion, and maybe, maybe, Junhyung might be seeing things, but he could’ve sworn there was just a shade of amusement at Junhyung’s bluntness. “When?”

          When Junhyung told Hyunseung that he needed something different because Hyunseung is as different, as amazing, as unique and unfounded and special and wonderful and great and weird as Junhyung will ever need. When Junhyung became so caught up with all of the friends he was making because the soccer team was getting popular that he forgot about one friend he’s had since the beginning. When Junhyung was actually angry at Hyunseung for leaving because he was convinced it couldn’t possibly be his own fault. When Junhyung didn’t chase after Hyunseung because he thought Hyunseung couldn’t possibly want him anymore anyway.

          “When I was out,” Junhyung says, “after practice in the rain.”

          Hyunseung’s face is still mostly blank, but his eyes are everything but. There’s sadness and hurt and pain and surprise and disappointment and regret and Junhyung has gone months without looking at those eyes and he has no idea how he went even one day without looking at them and he had no idea that they were filled with all of these emotions because if he knew he would have done everything to chase them all away.

          “Oh,” Hyunseung says quietly, a small humorless smile tugging on his mouth. “You’re not an —you were just practicing and I overreacted. Sorry. You got my note and your jacket, right?”

          Junhyung was hoping they wouldn’t get to the note because he still has it pinned near his bed and he doesn’t want to talk about it anywhere that’s not in his own room where no one can see him because just thinking about the note makes his entire body ache. “Yeah.”

          Hyunseung tilts his head. “Good,” he says softly. He closes his locker and zips up his backpack and the alarms are starting to go off in Junhyung’s head when Hyunseung throws his backpack over one shoulder because this means that the other boy is about to leave but Junhyung still has things to say but if Hyunseung leaves then there’s nothing he can do about it because it’s not like he can ask Hyunseung to do anything and—

          “You know,” Hyunseung says quietly. “You didn’t have to come all this way and find me and stuff just to apologize.”

          Junhyung holds back a sigh. “I know,” he says. “I should’ve just told Kikwang to tell you or something instead of bothering you. Sorry.” He glances at the other boy, prepared to have another ice shard added at watching Hyunseung leave.

          Except Hyunseung clearly doesn’t look like he’ll be leaving any second soon—the other boy is staring, utterly bewildered, at Junhyung’s face. “What?”

          Junhyung blinks. “What?”

          Hyunseung’s eyes narrow, looking more confused than Joon’s daily expression. “Why would you be bothering me?”

          Junhyung thinks that if this goes on any longer, his heart is going to give out because of pure, unadulterated shock—shock from the fact that the earth hasn’t opened up and swallowed him whole from daring to talk to Jang Hyunseung, shock from the fact that nothing disastrous is happening and he and Hyunseung are actually having civil conversation. Although, if they talk any longer, they’re going to start getting into subjects that Junhyung isn’t ready to talk about yet.

          He isn’t ready to talk about the permanent goodbye.

          Because he knows that they are still in the remnants of the fighting stage—he knows that, and he knows that once that stage is over and they start talking things out, Hyunseung will inevitably bring up the fact that they are over, their relationship is over, being together is over, and that they have to move on back as friends.

          And Junhyung doesn’t want to have to hear that.

          “I’m not bothering you?” he asks, mirroring the confused expression.

          Hyunseung’s cheeks fill up with air slightly, and he looks promptly blank as he shakes his head. “No.”

          Junhyung is glad that the other boy seems so calm and unaffected right now, because one of them has to stay sane at least—meanwhile, Junhyung feels as though if his heart gets any louder, one of the teachers in this hall will burst out of his or her classroom and tell him to stop the thumping while they are trying to grade papers after school. “Oh,” Junhyung breathes.

          “Yeah,” Hyunseung says, looking expectant, his eyebrows raised. He waits for a moment, and then, “Is that it?”

          No—no that’s not it at all. Junhyung still wants to ask him how he can look so indifferent like that. Junhyung wants Hyunseung to teach him how to stop caring. Junhyung wants to ask him why he would leave that note if he doesn’t love Junhyung anymore. Junhyung wants to tell him to stop leading Junhyung on, to stop confusing him, to stop making his mind and heart spin. He wants it all to stop, but at the same time he’s afraid for that to happen. Junhyung wants Hyunseung to give those four years back to him. Junhyung wants Hyunseung to give his heart back to him.

          “Yeah,” Junhyung says. “That’s it.”

          But Hyunseung still doesn’t leave. The other boy tilts his head, almost curiously, and stares above Junhyung’s forehead. “Your hair looks darker. Did you dye it again?”

          Junhyung’s eyebrows shoot up. “What—oh. Yeah, I did. A little bit.”

          It’s been a year. It’s been months. It’s been so long. It’s been too long. It feels like eternities have passed. It feels like millennia have passed since Junhyung has seen Hyunseung smile at him.

          But he’s smiling at him right now—right here.

          “It looks good,” Hyunseung says with that tiny, tiny smile that steals Junhyung’s breath, breaks his heart, mends his heart, and then breaks it all over again. He shrugs his backpack a little higher on his shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

          Junhyung nods wordlessly, unable to speak.

          “Bye,” Hyunseung says with a slight tip of his head and walks past Junhyung.

          Junhyung doesn’t turn around to watch him leave. He just stands there, staring straight ahead and waiting for the footsteps to fall silent.

          When he no longer hears them, he spins around, his back to the lockers, and collapses onto the ground.

          Lately, he seems to be doing a lot of this.

          When Joon finds Junhyung, he finds the other boy looking like he is contemplating the meaning of his existence and not coming up with very good results, slumped against the lockers near Yonghwa and Hyunseung’s homeroom. He’s just run across the entire school, and while he’s on the track team, that doesn’t mean that he likes going up and down stairs and bumping into Jung-seonsangnim who tells him that he can run faster than that, and then bumping into Hyori who laughs at him, and then accidentally passing by an abandoned corner where Kibum is blowing Jonghyun, and then passing by Hongki and Jonghun making-out over Jonghun’s guitar.

          But in the end, he’s just thankful that he made it in time before Junhyung left with Seungho.

          Junhyung barely looks up when Joon collapses next to him, out of breath and sweating through his uniform. “Junhyung-ah,” Joon pants. “Junhyung-ah,” he clamps a hand on the boy’s leg. “—oh my God.”

          Junhyung slowly turns his head, and Joon almost scrambles backward in reaction because he has seen a lot of scary things in his life—like Doojoon getting Yoseob flowers, like Jonghyun , like Seungho eating, like Yonghwa when one of his guitar strings pops out—but right now, Yong Junhyung’s face probably tops all of those. “What?” he asks, and Joon thinks he sounds like the grim reaper.

          Joon tries not to shrink and says in a small voice, “I—I—well—this—um—how—how—how do you know Seungho-hyung?”

          And suddenly, the grim reaper turns back into Junhyung. “Seungho-hyung?” Junhyung repeats, blinking.

          “Yeah—he just told me today that he has to pick you up. I didn’t know you knew him,” Joon says, accusingly. “If you knew him, you could’ve just hooked me up with him and I wouldn’t have to fail tests. Do you know how hard it is to fail tests? We should stop making fun of Jonghyunnie for that, by the way. It’s really hard.”

          Junhyung shrugs casually. “He’s a family friend. Like you and Jonghyunnie.”

          Joon frowns. “That’s all? I asked him, and he looked like he didn’t want to tell me. But why would being family friends be such a big deal?”

          The other boy suddenly bites his lip, looking hesitant. “Well,” Junhyung begins slowly, “I mean—there’s more to it. But I can’t really tell you because it’s not my business. If he doesn’t want to tell you, then there’s not much I can do.”

          “Wait—why?” Joon’s frown deepens. “Is it serious? Why? Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

          Junhyung blinks, and then snorts. “You’re his student, hyung. It’s not really your place to know all of his personal life. And no, it’s not serious. I can understand why he wouldn’t want to tell you, but it’s not serious.” He jabs a finger in Joon’s face. “So don’t snoop. I’m telling you now that it’s not serious, don’t worry about it, so don’t snoop.”

          Joon is outraged. “What—you—me—never—I—just want to know—why—you—just—but—I don’t snoop.”

          “You do,” Junhyung says. “And it always ends badly too.”

          Joon thinks this is ridiculously unfair, because how is he supposed to become more than Seungho’s student and find this out if Junhyung isn’t going to put them together the way he so helpfully put Junhyung and Hyunseung together in a closet. The only difference would be that while Junhyung did absolutely nothing, Joon would put the closet time into immensely, very, extremely effective use.

          He would also take into account the fact that there is a bed in that closet.

          “Fine,” Joon says, grabbing Junhyung’s hand and shaking it. “I won’t snoop, if you hook me up with him.”

          Junhyung stares.

          Narrows his eyes.

          “What do you mean hook you up with him?” Junhyung asks, sounding utterly disbelieving. “He’s your teacher. I can’t bring him to one of your parties so you can bring him to the front of the grind-with-Lee-Joon line, and I really can’t let you bang him.”

          “But I want to bang him so bad,” Joon says in a small voice, looking into his lap.

          “Oh my God,” Junhyung says.

          “Junhyung-ah,” Joon whines.

          “You don’t even know him,” Junhyung says. “You just want to have with him because you think he’s hot.”

          Joon blinks. “Well,” he considers, “yeah.” He pauses. “No—I do know him.”

          Junhyung shakes his head and stands up. “I’m not going to let you do to him what Jonghyun’s doing to Kim Kibum. It’d be one thing if you knew him.”

          “Junhyung-ah, I do know him,” Joon insists, standing up as well. “I do.”

          “No,” Junhyung says, swinging his backpack over his shoulders. “You don’t. If you did know him, you wouldn’t be doing this.”

          Joon’s mouth falls open at the level of unfairness this has reached. “I—what—what—I don’t even know what that means. What is that even supposed to mean?”

          “See,” Junhyung says with dry conviction. “If you knew him, you’d know what it means.”

          “Stop being so ing cryptic,” Joon says, because there is ridiculously unfair, and then there is ridiculously unfair, and this has surpassed all of that. It’s not like he just met Seungho yesterday—it’s not like he doesn’t care about Seungho.

          “Stop thinking that you can do anything you want just because you’re Lee Joon,” Junhyung snaps back. “You and Jonghyun are so alike it hurts.” His face is in full Yong Junhyung mode and he’s outright glaring at Joon. “Don’t you think there’s a reason I didn’t talk about knowing Seungho-hyung when he first came here? And that I still didn’t say anything when you said you liked him?”

          Joon merely looks at him. “You don’t want me to be with him?”

          Junhyung rubs his face with one hand and sighs. “Get to know him first. When you know him, get back to me on it, and I’ll put you guys together. You’ll see why. Just—it’s not hard. Just talk to him more.”

          “Okay,” Joon says quietly.

          They clasp hands, and pull towards each other, shoulders brushing. “I’ll see you later, hyung,” Junhyung says, and he sounds almost apologetic.

          Joon watches him leave.

          Kibum thinks that Jonghyun is beautiful when he sleeps.

          He sees Jonghyun during the day, sees him at school, but the only time he really gets to see the older boy up close—still and silent—is when he sleeps. And he sees Jonghyun a lot when he’s sleeping anyway. He watches Jonghyun fall asleep a lot, too, because Kibum can’t afford risking falling asleep even for a while—he has to be gone before the sun rises, has to be home, has to be out of Jonghyun’s sight.

          It makes it easier for himself, too.

          It makes it easier to remember what they are to each other.

          And what they aren’t.

          He likes the way Jonghyun sleeps.

          The second year always falls asleep on his side with his arms lying out in front of him—as though he’s reaching for something, as though he’s trying to hold someone but can’t quite get to them. Kibum thinks that thinking like this is pathetically romantic, and that wishing he’s the one Jonghyun is reaching out to is just plain pathetic.

          Kibum finishes dressing, finishes texting his driver to pick him up. He goes to where Jonghyun’s backpack is thrown against one side of the room. The first year picks it up, puts the scattered books on the desk into the bag, zipping it up and setting it on Jonghyun’s chair. He picks up the scattered pieces of the other boy’s uniform and throws them in the laundry basket. Kibum crosses over to Jonghyun’s closet and takes out a clean uniform set, and places it beside the backpack, on the desk. He knows that Jonghyun always wakes up late, knows that Jonghyun sometimes forgets his books, forgets parts of his uniform.

          He wants to be useful for something, at least, other than .

          Kibum wonders, as he tiptoes down the stairs and out of the house, how much longer it will be before Jonghyun finds a girl—whether it be Jessica or Yoona or some other pretty cheerleader, a pretty athlete, a pretty musician. He wonders how much longer this can last.

          He wonders how much it’ll hurt when it ends.