"Hyunnie... wake up."

Soobin strokes his hair, a concerned look on his face. His eyebrows furrow and downcast when he notices the tear streaks going all the way down Taehyun's neck. "Did you cry?" he asks when he sees Taehyun slowly open his eyes, fists the blanket in his hands and pulls it above his head, kicking Soobin away.

"No.." he mumbles from beneath the blanket. Hoping Soobin will leave soon so he can wash his face.

Soobin sits on his bed instead. "I know you since you were about the height of three peanuts, I can tell when you're crying." he nudges the pile on the bed that is Taehyun. "Come on, what happened? You can tell me anything, you know."

Taehyun sighs. "Just a bad dream, probably." he peeks his head out the blanket, looking in Soobin's eyes to see if he bought the lie. "Really, I'm fine." He gets up and stretches, trying to seem... well, fine.

He leaves for the bathroom before Soobin has the chance to interview him further, he locks the door and breathes out in relief.

"What classes do you have today?" Soobin wonders from behind the bathroom door, his voice is only slightly muffled.

Taehyun cleans his throat, splashing his face with cold, sink water. "Chemistry in an hour until 12, then I have a 2-hour window and an evening lecture about sociology, I think. Why?"

"Good." Soobin hums. "You are having lunch with my friends and I."

Taehyun pauses with his toothbrush stuck in the side of his mouth. "What?"

"Lunch... "Soobin repeats slowly. "You, My friends, Me. It'll be good for you, plus they're really friendly and I'm sure you'll like them."

"But-"

"You were the one that complained about not having any friends." Soobin argues.

Taehyun face palms. "You make it sound so bad."

Soobin walks back and forth in the dorm room. "It is my duty to make sure your college life does not suck ass, therefore, lunch at 12;30, I'll wait by your class at 12."

Taehyun spits the foam from his mouth and rests his hands on the sink. "Fine... "he says. Technically, Soobin is right. Taehyun just hates to admit that.

Soobin claps his hands together in glee. "Fan-tastic! I'll fetch you then." He grabs his bag from his bed. "Don't be late to class again."

Miraculously, he arrives just in time.

................

His morning course flies by and before he knows it, Soobin waves to him from the clear windows, Taehyun ignores him for the rest of the 5 minutes left to his class. He packs his things as slow as he can, leaving him the last one in the room. Soobin rolls his eyes at the blatant attempt to delay the undelayable.

"I'll drag you by the ankles." he warns.

Taehyun closes his eyes. "Fine... fine, I'm coming." he slings his bag on his shoulder and drags his feet across the classroom, giving Soobin a pathetic "I don't want to." look to maybe try and slip from the arranged lunch.

"Oh... "Soobin huffs, putting an arm around Taehyun and rushing them down the hall. "Would you stop whining?" he says. "10 minutes, if it's so bad you can leave in 10 minutes, but you have to sit with us that much at least."

Taehyun has no choice but to silently nod. Maybe Soobin is right, maybe it won't be that bad.

.............

And to his surprise, it's quite the opposite of bad. When they first enter the cafe, the first person he sees sitting at the table Soobin's leading him to is the same guy who helped him find his way around during his very first day. Beomgyu... was his name if Taehyun remembers correctly.

In the cafe lighting, Taehyun has a better look at Beomgyu, a bright-eyed fella, with chestnut-esque hair. He waves with a big, wide smile to which Taehyun returns with a tamer one of his. Besides Beomgyu sits someone with sharper features, what Taehyun assumes is dyed blond hair and more than few piercings on his ears and one in his lips as well. What Taehyun noticed was odd were the bruises on the guy's face, a set of crouches leaned on the side of the table, making Taehyun wonder.

The guy's strong appearance disappears as soon as he smiles softly at Soobin and Taehyun. Taehyun feels his nervousness dissipate.

The tension is barely there as they navigate through talking about their studies, their favorite movies and TV shows. They briefly talked about video games as well although Taehyun sat this one subject out. He learns Beomgyu majors in music due to being in a rock band all throughout his school years and in the future, he aspires to become a producer.

The other guy, who introduces himself as Choi Yeonjun majors in dance and ballet and works towards getting scouted. The two have been together for 2 years and are very much in love from the small interactions Taehyun overviewed.

Beomgyu leans his head on Yeonjun's shoulder as he sips on his americano, he yawns and Yeonjun plays with his fingers. Taehyun quickly realizes Yeonjun's appearance is highly deceiving when he turns out to be even brighter and softer than Beomgyu.

"They forgot our cake... " Yeonjun pouts his duck-like lips. He scoots back his chair when Beomgyu stops him.

"I'll get it." he insists. "Just stay seated, god."

"My name is Yeonjun." he grins confidently and Beomgyu sighs.

Taehyun plays with his straw; one question burns in him, but he doesn't think his curiosity is visible. He's wrong.

Yeonjun raises an eyebrow, sipping his coffee slowly, his lips leave the straw. "It happened two weeks ago." he says.

Taehyun's mouth gapes. "I don't-"

"It's okay, I know it looks bad." he points at his face. "I'm a lot more handsome than this usually." he laughs.

Taehyun bites his lips, not sure whether it's appropriate to laugh along with him.

"I was out late, and I got jumped." He explains. "It was off campus, and I happened to run into the wrong people, but I'm fine. Shit happens." He smiles, but Taehyun can tell it's mostly forced.

"Sorry about that."

Yeonjun waves it off. "Totally okay, at least you can learn from my mistakes."

Taehyun doesn't know what else to say so he nods, still a bit embarrassed by his apparent lack of tact but Soobin shakes his hand, reassuring him that it's fine.

Beomgyu returns with a plate of pistachio crack pie which Yeonjun swears by, saying it's the best one he'd ever eaten. Taehyun agrees.

Lunch ends in a flash and Taehyun must make it to his social studies lecture, so he thanks Beomgyu and Yeonjun for treating him and Soobin for lunch and bids them goodbye.

With a full stomach he rushes to the auditorium where the lecture takes place and since he arrives 5 minutes earlier, he picks carefully his place and settles on the very few front tables and waits.

The auditorium quickly fills up and is soon packed with students from all around majors. Taehyun stares at his notebook, bored. He raises his head to the board and his blood freezes.

The guy in long coat enters the auditorium, his hands in long black gloves and his hair is just as fluffy and dark as Taehyun remembers from last night. He looks around for a place to sit, doesn't seem to have noticed Taehyun's wide eyes, until he does.

They lock their eyes, and Taehyun can swear he hears the sound of two magnets knocking together when they find each other's gaze. He gasps, feeling his throat getting dry from the small yet sharp huff of air he took into his lungs.

The guy's eyes get impossibly sharper and after what feels like forever, he releases Taehyun from whatever spell his presence dawned on him. He passes by him, taking the stairs to the higher levels of seats. His passing is like a blow of wind around Taehyun, his long coat flying behind him.

Taehyun involuntarily shakes, popping his leg anxiously.

The professor walks in, but all Taehyun can focus on in the burn in his back, as if he can feel the guy's stare at him from behind.

"I'm sure... "The professor writes his name on the chalkboard. "Many of you heard of the obedience experiment by Milgram?"

The silence around the students showed that many of them did not.

The professor, that by the name written on the board Taehyun figures his name is "Mr. Harrison", turns around, frightening surprise. "None of you? Not a single-"

"It is a study done in the early 1600s to test whether an authority figure can pressure a person into hurting another person. To examine how far our obedience to authority takes us."

Taehyun doesn't need to turn around to know who answered the professor's question. On the face of Mr. Harrison there is now a genuine look of surprise. "May I ask for your thoughts on the experiment? seeing you're familiar with it. Let's say... I ask you to hurt your fellow classmates. Would you?"

"Depends which ones."

Laughter rolls in the halls of the auditorium, but Taehyun does not find the answer all that funny. Because he hardly thinks the guy was joking and by the professor's expression, neither does he.

"The obedience experiment... "he begins writing on the board, under his name. "Involves 3 people in total. The experimenter, the teacher and the student. The experimenter, being the authority figure, tells the teacher to shock their student whenever they fail to answer a question correctly. In reality, the shocks are fake, but the teacher does not know that. The point of the experiment is seeing how much the experimenter can influence the teacher to "hurt" the student." He turns around to see some confused faces in the crowd of students.

"let's say... "He points behind Taehyun. "You, who answered. What's your name?" he asks.

The guy clears his throat. "It's Kai, Sir."

"Manners, I like it." The professor appears content. "Let's say I give Kai an electric shocker. Kai, each time... "He searches in the crowd. "You." he points at Taehyun and the red-haired male curses in his heart. "Name?"

Taehyun's heart spasms. "T-Taehyun... Sir."

"Each time Taehyun fails to answer my questions, Kai can zap him with the shocker. Taehyun." he calls.

Taehyun wishes the ground will open and swallow him; his life is one sick joke. "Yes?"

"What is Shakespeare's shortest play?"

Oh, thank God. "The comedy of horrors." His mom used to read it to him every night as a little boy.

Loud exclamations of awe from other student's sooth his nerves.

The professor hums. "Very well, then. Where in the human body would you find the medulla oblongata?"

"Bottom part of the brains." Good thing he picked up those anatomy books from the library when he did.

"What is the longest river in the UK?"

classic trivia question. "Severn."

"What are black holes."

Taehyun opens his mouth reflexively only horror washes over him when he simply does not have anything to say. "... Sir." He finds the question extremely unfair.

The professor looks at Kai. And Taehyun sweats cold through his shirt, feeling as if he's expecting a real, hard shock.

"Zap."

Taehyun flinches.

"The more Taehyun fails to answer correctly, the stronger the shocks will be. The more the experimenter will lore Kai into hurting Taehyun. The interesting question is, when you're in Kai's situation how far would you physically punish someone just because your teacher tells you it's the right thing to do?"

The class grows quiet.

"That'll be today's lecture."