“I am not taking you to the hospital if you overwork yourself” Mark said bluntly, knowing very well that he would absolutely take his friend to the hospital if needed be.

The trio was in one of the practice rooms. Their college had tons of rooms of this sort for all the different clubs. Most of the clubs had auditions for them, so the university lent the students those after club hours so they could get ready.

“Just a little bit more” Leon huffed out, almost no breath left in his lungs.

“You said that two hours ago” Mark growled.

The photography club Mark applied to asked only for a portfolio, so he was free for the time being. As if it was his nature, Mark just popped into Leon’s and John’s practice. He sat down in a corner, lulling himself to a nap. He was used to loud music, Leon’s being dancing for what seemed like forever in their lives, and the over the top volume sound became ambient music after some very annoying fights over it. So Mark napped.

But that was four hours ago.

Three hours ago the other students who were practicing called it a day.

Two hours ago John sat down, his legs trembling with the effort to move.

And yet, Leon kept going. It was like this for the last five days already, and today was no exception.

“Do you really think Nick-senpai is gonna fail you on purpose?” John managed to say after a long rest.

“Yes” Leon and Mark said at the same time.

John blinked. He was expecting that answer from Leon, but not from Mark. He looked away from his dancing friend to be able to look at his frowning friend.

“The first two days that your back was still hurt, you weren’t here” Mark leaned on the wall behind him, crossing his arms and looking bored. “Nick-senpai made sure to turn off the electricity in whatever room Leon was in when it was just the two of us. He laughed and ran away like a kid” Mark rolled his eyes.

“He’s.. He’s also… Been getting in the way of my practice…” Leon huffed “He made sure… every teacher knew how much of a… kind student I am… willing to help out with any chore so I could be exhausted” Leon then threw himself on the floor, utterly out of breath.

“You are kidding” John was amused despite himself. He pitied his friend, but the situation was funny to him.

“I won’t say I told you so” Mark looked over at Leon “But I did tell you so. You shouldn’t have messed with a second year in the first place.” And Mark really did, right at the beginning of it all. He tired himself of telling his friend to stop messing around. “How did it all start anyways? You refused to tell me and I just let it be, but now I wanna know” he raised his eyebrows.

“It’s… really silly” Leon cringed on the floor where he laid down “Like really, really idiotic. Do I actually have to say it?”

“Oh, I’m sure it is, but please do tell” Mark motioned his hands as if to shoo away a fly.

“Fine” Leon puffed out.

—

It was the first week of university. The freshmen were arriving still and all the pranks every faculty had were taking place. For the whole week the newcomers had to walk around with a little paper hanging around their necks with their name written on it.

The sophomores who were responsible for them instructed that they should introduce themselves to others first years and to every senior they could as well. At the end of the week they would pick random people to ask who they made acquaintances with: the ones with more would get a prize, the ones with less would get a punishment. 

As things simply could not be simple, most of the second, third and even fourth years were scattered around university in makeshift booths and would only give out their names under their conditions. The first years were free to choose what kind of humiliation they were willing to perform. They could of course get names on social media, but if, as they were picked, they said a name and the owner of it decided to snitch they never saw them in their life, it would be an automatic punishment.

Then again, if seniors wanted, they could just lie about having actually met them, but hey, they wouldn’t do that, right?

For Introverted Leon that kind of stuff was right out of a nightmare. From the start he was trying to make himself as unnoticeable as possible for someone over 1.80m. He was also trying to make a good impression so people would leave him alone: he was wearing his uniform neatly and did his best to tame his hair into a low bun behind his head.

Meeting others first years was easy, Mark could lead the conversations, as that was always the way he got to introduce himself anyways. That, by the way, was also how Mark and him got to know John. But when it came down to getting acquaintanced with the seniors, sadly, he had to be on his own.

He risked going to some middlier booths where they drew on his face with paint, made him wear some cat ears and made him do some childish dances, amongst other ridiculous stuff.

Leon could feel his social battery on the red, so he took off his name paper and shoved it inside his pocket as he decided that: if he did not have enough names by now he would be gladly accepting the punishment.

Just as he was turning around to hide himself, someone spoke up to him.

“Hey freshman!, You’re not allowed to take that off yet”

That was Nick.

And for a moment Leon was stunned. He barely heard what Nick had said because… boy, was he handsome.

Nick had black hair that he parted quarter split style, just like a male lead in a k-drama. He was tall and his tan skin seemed to shine under the sunlight. He was clearly fit, his sleeves were rolled up a bit, showing his arms and the four unbuttoned spaces from his uniform presented his chest as if just to show off he could. His ears were pierced on both sides, three on the right and two on the left. His eyes were round and sparkly as they got squished from the dimpled smile he wore on his face.

“Are you listening to me?” Nick approached him, his expression turning sour.

“Ah, yes” Leon shook his head to clear it from the pink bubble that was surrounding the second year “I’m done for today, so I took it off”

Nick raised one single brow, looking back at his friends from the table. Some of them snickered and some of them were shaking their heads in disapproval, making Leon very nervous. “Oh dear freshman, were you not listening to the instructions?” Nick smirked. “Taking that off before the end of the day is a clean pass to a penalty”.

“What??” Leon was baffled. “A lot of people took it off! I saw it!”

“Well, you can’t get caught, can you?” The older boy snickered and only then did Leon realize they were eye to eye, less than half a meter between them.

Leon was frozen in place as he saw Nick’s hand coming up to his face. His mind spiralized with the most stupid possibilities: was he going to slap him? Was he going to hold his face? Why is his face coming closer? How do I react to this?

The younger boy closed his eyes shut before he could stop himself. Nick’s hand passed his face and reached for Leon’s hair bun. He pulled the hair tie in a single pull, magically not catching a single knot in the way. Leon was startled and stepped back, his cat eyes going wide as his hair flopped down all around his face and shoulders.

Nick, whose intention was to make the freshman wear twin tails as the penalty, stilled, hair tie in hand, as he analyzed the person in front of him, a hidden smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Freshman? What was your name again?” The second-year had seen a flash of the name, but he had to be sure.

“Eh? Ah… Leon.” He blinked.

“Leon.” Nick repeated flatly.

“Yeah, my name is Leon.” He repeated feeling restless. Suddenly it was if he was seen naked or something.

The thing about Leon’s hair was that it was untamed. It was not ugly in the slightest, but the hair had a life of itself. It was voluminous, a reddish tint to it, and strands stood out of everywhere. Our boy had tried to go for shorter hair, but it just made him look like a porcupine, so he let it grow and cut it in a shaggy style that at the very least fitted the vibe of it. All and all, Leon’s hair resembled a mane a lot.

A lion’s mane, if you will. And that clicked on Nick’s head.

The older boy barked a laugh at the younger’s face. He could not control himself, he kept laughing and babbling Leon’s name as he looked and pointed at the hair.

Leon felt the burn of embarrassment bubbling up. Embarrassment and anger. He knew his ears were red at that point, but at the very least the damn hair covered them. His hands trembled from rage at his side, and all he could think of was retrieving the hair tie as if that could solve anything. He snapped his hand up to try and reach for it.

Much to Leon’s disgrace he calculated his movement all wrong in his nervousness. Well, you see, the hand Nick was using to point at him was the same hand he was holding the hair tie in. As we already know, both boys were the same height, so to be pointing towards Leon’s hair, Nick’s hand had to be pretty much in front of his face. Long story short, Leon ended up slapping the side of Nick's head.

The first-year was as shocked as the second-year at that moment. An apology was at the tip of his tongue, but Nick's temperament rose faster. He pulled at Leon’s hair, not enough to hurt him, but sufficient to pop the last bit of rationality the younger boy seemed to have left.

“LET GO, YOU ASSHOLE!” He screamed at him.

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME, RED LOCKS??” Nick raged.

And then they fought. Insults and curses were yelled out. Punches were thrown at some point. Somebody's sandwich flew as they started throwing stuff at each other after the other seniors separated them. It was a mess.

Nick got suspended for some days and Leon got all the first year’s punishments for himself. They made both of them repaint the whole project’s classroom together.

“Paint? Ha!” Leon’s voice was full of disdain “I bet he can’t even hold a brush properly”

“Well, I bet I can make a fine brush out of your goddamn hair!” Nick answered, hierarchy long forgotten when fighting with the freshman.

That was how everything started.

—

“Ok” Mark exhaled a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose “You did not just made that whole speech just to tell us that Nick-senpai laughed at you and you slapped him in return”

Leon did not answer.

“You slapped him!” Mark exasperated.

“He laughed at me! He pulled my hair!” Leon was indignant.

“You tripped him onto paint”

“He painted my uniform!”

“You put a waterbomb inside his backpack!”

“He put a glitter bomb inside of mine!”

“You stole his pudding!”

“He raced me to ice cream!”

“You raced him back!!” Mark threw his hands up “I know of six-year-olds who are more mature than the two of you combined! Look!” Mark pointed to his side “Your stupid story made John go to sleep!”

And then they stopped to breathe, both them huffing for air and coming to the conclusion that this was an useless discussion right now. John was indeed asleep, rolled over himself, exhausted, and they had to get to the dorm before midnight.

In silence, they tidied the room, locked it up, walked out of the corridor, ran back because they forgot John, walked out again and handed the keys to the guard in charge. Leon was piggybacking John as they strode back to their dorm.

“Aren't there like five judges?” Mark whispered out of nowhere, feeling like it was inappropriate to talk normally that late at night.

“No, that's the music club” Leon whispered back “Dance club has three”

“Well, Nick-senpai was only one person last time I checked” Mark deadpanned “You just have to be approved by the other two”.

Leon gave him a sad smile “Yeah, that would be the case if Nick gave me a low rating”.

“See, it's fin–”

“But if he fails me completely I'm out. I can't get a zero”.

“Why?!” Mark gestured to the sky as if it would answer.

“The dance club is quite disputed, so they made clear that they “have no time for someone who manages to get a zero from one of them””.

“That is utterly bullshit!” Mark complained, even as he thought it kinda made sense.

Leon sighed and looked forward. He wiggled John on his back to balance him better and kept talking. “So I figured that I should just do good enough for it to be absurd to fail me completely” He said simply as if it was a matter of fact.

Mark gaped at his best friend. It was rare to see him being as confident as that, but it was always a welcome surprise. He nodded, agreeing silently with Leon’s conclusion, the tiniest grin on his lips.

Mark did not complain about Leon's practice for the remaining days.

—

The audition day was up and Leon’s confidence was nowhere to be seen.

Not because he thought he was bad, but Leon was just a very anxious pit of a person. He was trying to work on it, but habits were hard to overcome.

He barely slept at night, rehearsing the choreography inside his head every five minutes. He felt nauseous so he skipped breakfast. The first-year managed to pay attention to his morning classes because he always did, but he found his body moving by itself in the classroom. His nausea did not get any better at lunch so he also skipped that.

Nevertheless to say that he was in a sorry state in the afternoon when striding along with John towards the dance club room, his panic not subduing as his body was preparing a beautiful headache for him.

They got there early. The freshmen and seniors were hanging around inside and outside the club’s veranda, waiting for the audition time to tick. Leon was positive that it was unbearably stuffed inside the room, even with the aircon on, so he stayed outside, John keeping him company.

“Are you okay?” The shorter one asked after seeing little sweat drops on his friend’s temple. It was really not that hot.

The long haired boy couldn’t muster up a response, so he just nodded. John worried more his expression, but before he could say anything else a voice came from someone climbing the three steps to the veranda.

“Oh shit” A mocking laugh followed “You’re looking white like a piece of paper” Nick appeared in sweatpants and a tank top. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous, Little Gasper” He mocked, hands on his hips.

At his side was the girl called Moonie they saw before. She breathed out, as if she was completely done with her friend’s bullshit, before looking Leon up and down, her expression turning more serious.

“Nick” She warned, but Nick did not pay attention.

“Not gonna answer me?” Nick complained, mistaking Leon’s sour expression for disdain for himself. “Well, I hope you’re ready to fail then.”

“NICK!” Moonie exasperated, but it was too late.

Leon felt his head twirl, his hand coming up his mouth as he ran to the nearest bush he could find where people wouldn’t see him and he vomited pure bile from his empty stomach.