All through his second and third classes Changkyun was a ball of nerves.

He was terrified of going to the cafeteria but he didn’t want to stick to his original plan of not going there at all today.  Jooheon already disliked him enough for some reason, he didn’t want to add to that by getting him in trouble with their teacher for not showing up at their table. Still, he was nervous.

So when the lunch bell rang Changkyun drew out getting his things from class together and even took extra time at his locker, even though all he had to grab was his lunchbox, before he finally ran out of excuses and made his way to the cafeteria.

Keeping his head bowed, he slowly walked over to Monsta X’s table and when he looked up there were four pairs of curious eyes staring at him.

Jooheon’s eyes widened and he quickly stood to introduce Changkyun, “This is the kid I was telling you about, hyungs. The one who my teacher asked me to bring to lunch.”

Changkyun bowed and introduced himself, “My name is Lim Changkyun. U-Um I’m sorry to have intruded on your lunch, I hope it’s not a bother.”

One of the dark-haired boys smiled at him, “It’s no problem, Changkyun-ah. Jooheon told us the situation with the teacher already. Take a seat.”

Changkyun bowed again, “Ah t-thank you uh...”

“Yoo Kihyun.”

Changkyun smiled weakly, “Thank you, Kihyun-ssi.”

He sat down in the only empty chair at the table which just so happened to be between Jooheon and a sleeping Hyungwon.

An awkward silence had fallen over the table but it was broken by the muscular boy sitting next to Kihyun, “My name’s Son Hyunwoo, but everyone calls me Shownu. It’s nice to meet you, Changkyun-ah.”

The younger bowed his head, “It’s nice to meet you too, Shownu-ssi.”

Shownu smiled warmly, “You can just call me ‘hyung’, I don’t mind. How old are you anyway?”

“I just turned sixteen a few months ago.”

Shownu nodded, “I’m nineteen and Kihyun is eighteen. I should introduce you to everyone.”

He jerked his chin towards Jooheon, “Obviously, I don’t need to introduce you to Jooheon since you two share a class.”

He then gestured to the black-haired boy on Jooheon’s right, “That’s Wonho, he and I are in the same grade. He’s a few months older than me.”

Changkyun smiled nervously, “It’s nice to meet you, Wonho-ssi.”

Wonho just nodded once silently and kept his eyes focussed on his plate.

Shownu moved onto the blonde boy next to Wonho who was frowning at Changkyun, “This is Minhyuk, he’s eighteen just like Kihyun.”

Changkyun was unnerved by the blatant dislike in Minhyuk’s gaze, “I-It’s nice to meet you, Minhyuk-ssi.”

Minhyuk scoffed and flicked his gaze away from Changkyun. Shownu shot him a warning look before moving on to the member whose name Changkyun already knew, “And the guy who’s fast asleep next to you is Hyungwon. Sorry about him, he’s always like this.”

The younger nodded quickly, “It’s no problem, hyung.”

Kihyun sighed and reached over to shake Hyungwon, “This kid, seriously... Yah, Chae Hyungwon! Wake up and greet Changkyun-ah!”

The sleepy boy whined, “Hyuuung! Leave me alone, I wanna sleep...”

Kihyun shook him again insistently, “You can just sleep in your next class, it’s not like you pay attention anyway. Now wake up and introduce yourself.”

Groaning, Hyungwon finally sat up and stretched, incidentally giving Changkyun (who had been staring at the table) a glimpse of his abs when his uniform pulled up a bit. He ruffled his hair and opened his sleepy brown eyes...

They widened instantly when they landed on Changkyun, “Ah it’s you!”

Changkyun felt his cheeks heat up as five pairs of eyes whipped to stare at him and Hyungwon.

Yeah he was definitely ready for this day to be over.

Hyungwon was woken (very rudely, in his opinion) from his mid-day nap by Kihyun insisting he introduce himself to someone.

Out of all the people he could’ve imagined sitting in the formerly empty seat next to him he never thought it’d be the cute brunette from across the cafeteria.

“Ah it’s you!”

His exclamation made the shorter teen turn bright red and had all of his friends turning to look at them.

Jooheon frowned, “Wait. You know him?”

The tall blonde blinked, suddenly noticing the tense atmosphere at the table, and sent a glance to the silent boy next to him. Big brown eyes gazed up at him, looking adorably lost, and Hyungwon realized that the brunette was the guy that Jooheon had been going on about during third period...

*FLASHBACK*

In their English class Friday’s were work periods, meaning that the students were allowed to talk quietly amongst themselves while they worked on the questions for the assigned pages on the whiteboard.

Hyungwon and Jooheon were already seatmates so they just stayed at their seats and talked, they wrote out some random notes from the book occasionally so that it looked like they did  something productive when the teacher came around to check that they everyone was working on something.

After the teacher passed their desks Jooheon sighed heavily and dropped his head into his arms.

Hyungwon leaned on one elbow and cocked an eyebrow at his friend, “What’s eating you?”

The younger groaned, “My first period teacher wants me to bring this new kid to our table for lunch today.”

“Why?”

“Hell if I know. The kid transferred in at the beginning of the week and apparently hasn’t made any friends yet. Doesn’t really surprise me, the guy hasn’t said more than two words to anyone but the teacher since he introduced himself on his first day. The teacher told me he sits alone at lunch too.”

Hyungwon frowned, something about that sounded oddly familiar to him, “But what does that have to do with you?”

“He said that since I’ve got friends from different age groups, it would help the kid get to know more people around the school.”

“You sound enthused. Why did you agree to this if you so obviously don’t want to?”

“He promised to give me some extra credit, calling it ‘a lesson that you can’t learn from a textbook’.”

Hyungwon shrugged, “So... what? You bring this guy to lunch and he sits with us for a while until the teacher’s happy. I fail to see the big deal.”

The younger huffed, “But I don’t want him to hang around with us! He seems so boring and...“

The taller boy rolled his eyes as Jooheon went off on a rant about all the reasons he didn’t want to hang out with this new kid and quickly wrote a few more notes onto his page as the teacher headed their way again.

Lunch was sure to eventful today...

He hoped he slept through it.

*END  FLASHBACK*

When Jooheon had been going on about the boy, Hyungwon definitely hadn’t thought that it would be his little admirer from yesterday!

Realizing that his friends were still waiting for his answer Hyungwon thought on his feet, “I bumped into him in the hall yesterday when I was going around a corner.”

He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as he turned his gaze to the smaller boy next to him, “I didn’t get your name though.”

The younger’s brown eyes were wide in shock (he’d probably been expecting him to mention yesterday to the group) and he stuttered when Jooheon elbowed him sharply, “M-My name’s Lim Changkyun! Nice to meet you!”

He bowed so deeply that he almost smacked his head on the table which made Hyungwon chuckle and caused Changkyun to blush again (Hyungwon found it entirely too adorable how easy it was to make him blush).

His smile softened when he noticed how utterly terrified the younger boy was, “It’s nice to meet you too Changkyunnie.”

Doe eyes were focussed back on the table, pink cheeks still on display from Hyungwon’s vantage point, and the blonde enjoyed the warm feeling in his chest the sight brought.

Lunch ended far too quickly after that (but not quickly enough for a couple people) and Hyungwon walked to his last class of the day, thoughts full of Changkyun with his big eyes and cute face, and he was sure he would have sweet dreams during his nap.

After the incredibly awkward lunch he’d suffered through Changkyun wanted nothing more than to go home. He’d never been so eager to hear the final bell in all his life.

He put his earphones in and gathered his things from class before heading to his locker.

As he walked his thoughts drifted back to lunch...

To his relief, meeting Hyungwon had gone better than he’d hope. He’d been terrified that the older boy would tell his friends about yesterday and had almost sighed out loud in relief when the blonde made up the story about bumping into him in the hallway instead. If he didn’t know any better he would’ve thought that Hyungwon was flirting with him after that but that couldn’t be. Such a good-looking, popular guy as Hyungwon had no reason to flirt with the average-looking (in his opinion) loner Changkyun. Nonetheless he’d still had a hard time keeping his cheeks under control when Hyungwon smiled at him and especially when he called him, “Changkyunnie”.

The rest of lunch however... that could’ve gone better.

Kihyun and Shownu were nice enough and had tried to make Changkyun feel more comfortable; it hadn’t worked but he appreciated the effort.

Jooheon and Wonho seemed indifferent to him; although he already knew Jooheon didn’t like him. Wonho he wasn’t so sure about, he’d seemed like a really nice and funny guy when Changkyun had looked at their table throughout the week.

Minhyuk though... Changkyun was 100% sure that Minhyuk hated him.

While Jooheon and Wonho had mostly avoided looking at Changkyun and had provided the bare minimum of responses when Shownu or Kihyun tried to involve them in the conversation, Minhyuk had just stayed silent and glared directly at Changkyun the whole time.

He’d tried not to let it bother him but the feeling of the older teen’s burning stare had had him speaking softly and stutteringly in response to Kihyun’s gentle questions about how he was adjusting to their school and if he was doing well in his classes.

He wished he knew what he’d done to anger Minhyuk but he had a feeling that if he asked him it would only make things worse.

It made Changkyun sad because in the past week he had seen that Minhyuk was the most playful one in the group, he was constantly the one making lots of noise and got the others laughing with his funny dances and behaviour. He’d seemed so nice then...

He knew that it had to be something he’d done to make the usually bright and happy Minhyuk look at him like that.

Changkyun reached the school gate and turned down the street on his usual path home. As he passed the park next to their school he noticed Monsta X hanging out under a large tree in the centre of the park. Curious, he took a detour through the park to watch them for just a bit longer.

He laughed softly when he saw Wonho tickling an obviously trying to sleep Hyungwon with a blade of grass with a mischievous grin on his face, ducking out of the way when one of Hyungwon’s long- hands came up to swat at him. The oldest boy wasn’t able to avoid Hyungwon when he lunged at him and pulled him to the ground. Kihyun who was sitting next to them, laughed loudly as he watched the tumble around in the grass.

Just then, Minhyuk darted by them holding a black and white snapback in his hand. A few feet behind him was a panicked looking Jooheon who was shouting for his hat back from the cackling blonde. Shownu walked up after them with a smile on his face and took a seat next to Kihyun, who immediately struck up a conversation with him.

Jooheon and Minhyuk came racing back and Jooheon tackled the older boy. They ended up tumbling onto Wonho and Hyungwon, who were now doing a wonderful impression of a pretzel as the aftermath of their wrestling.

For a second Changkyun worried that one of them was hurt when the pile of boys didn’t move but when Jooheon popped back up with a cheerful cry, snapback now in hand, he figured they were all okay.

Suddenly, and louder than Changkyun had ever heard it, Hyungwon’s voice sounded, “Get off of me!!!”

The brunette couldn’t help a laugh when he realized that Hyungwon had ended up at the bottom of the pile and was being squished by his friends.

A pang of sadness shot through him as he watched the three boys scramble up and help Hyungwon to his feet with wide grins, even Hyungwon was smiling.

Quickly he exited the park, suddenly feeling lonelier than ever.

That's chapter 2! I hope you all enjoyed it, I'd love to hear what you thought. Thanks to everyone who's subscribed and commented so far, I really appreciate it! The next chapter should be up within a week so look forward to it. :)