"niisan, I'm back." As Lan Yu pushed open the dorm room door, he called out the way he always did, but after waiting a good while with no reply, he realized Kaede still wasn't back. He glanced at his phone and saw it was already past midnight. That surprised him—Kaede almost never went out alone, let alone stayed out overnight. It wasn't like him. Lan Yu almost called to ask what was going on but worried he'd be interrupting, so after a moment he opened their chat and sent a message instead:

"niisan, did you go out?"

By the time he finished showering and checked his phone again, the message was still unread. Worry crept in—and it spiked when his calls wouldn't connect at all.

His gut told him something must have happened. He should find someone to help him look. But racking his brain, he couldn't think who to call at this hour. Maybe only him. Lan Yu sighed and tapped a familiar number.

"Yu, what's wrong? You should've been back at the dorm for a bit now, yeah?" Luke picked up almost immediately.

"Mm..." Lan Yu hesitated, thinking how to explain. "I've been back a while, but niisan still hasn't come home."

"You mean Kaede?"

"Mm..."

"Maybe he went out to handle something? You can't reach him?"

"His phone won't go through. niisan almost never stays out overnight. I can't get hold of him—I'm really worried." Saying it out loud, Lan Yu wondered if he was making a fuss over nothing.

"Then I'll come out and help you look for Kaede. How about we meet in front of the company?" There wasn't a shred of hesitation in Luke's voice.

"Thanks, Leader-nim." In that moment, it was the only answer Lan Yu could give.

When Lan Yu reached the company gate, he spotted Luke waiting from a distance, hat and face mask on. "Leader-nim—" Lan Yu jogged up, a little out of breath.

"Yu, do you know where Kaede usually goes?" Luke patted his back lightly and, once Lan Yu caught his breath, asked.

Lan Yu shook his head. "Since I've known niisan, I've never known him to come back this late—and he hasn't left me a single message."

"Don't worry too much, Yu," Luke soothed. "He might just have something he needed to take care of and didn't have time to tell you. Kaede's steady—he wouldn't vanish without a reason. Let's look around nearby first. Maybe he'll just come home on his own in a bit, yeah?"

Lan Yu nodded. He knew Luke was right—Kaede wasn't someone who needed hand-holding. If anything, this felt more like something Kaede didn't want Lan Yu to know about and was handling by himself, something Lan Yu had no right to meddle in. And yet Lan Yu couldn't shake the sense that this wasn't a problem Kaede could solve alone. If he didn't find out what Kaede was going through soon, it might snowball into something no one could pull back from. He refused to let it get that far.

He looked at Luke in silence, unsure whether voicing that would make him sound neurotic.

"Let's check the places that are still open," Luke said, taking Lan Yu's hand and leading the way. Lan Yu followed without a word.

They didn't bother with clubs or bars—Lan Yu didn't think Kaede would show up in places like that, and their identities didn't suit them anyway. They combed the 24-hour fast-food joints and convenience stores instead.

"Good thing Kaede isn't here," Luke joked as they stepped out of what felt like the nth late-night fried-chicken shop. "Imagine finding him sneaking out just to eat fried chicken—everyone would be a little embarrassed, huh."

"Pfft—" Even with his head full of worry, Lan Yu couldn't help laughing at the image.

"Yu finally laughed," Luke said. "You've been frowning since the second you called me out." He reached up to rub the crease between Lan Yu's brows, then shifted the topic. "Yu, you're really worried about Kaede, aren't you?"

"Mm." Caught out, Lan Yu scratched the back of his head, embarrassed.

"Would you tell me about you two?"

"Uh—" Luke had asked this before. Lan Yu didn't know why he wanted to know, but since he'd dragged Luke out in the middle of the night to look for someone, he owed him an answer. "What would you like to hear, Leadernim?"

"Anything. For example, how you two got together."

We aren't actually together, Lan Yu thought. "I told Leader-nim before, didn't I? We said if we debuted together, we'd be together." At least, Lan Yu couldn't exactly tell Luke that what they'd agreed on was being friends-with-benefits if they debuted.

"Was it you who brought that up first, Yu?"

"Mm." Lan Yu still didn't get why Luke was asking but answered anyway.

"All the younger guys said you've been glued to Kaede since trainee days."

"Yeah. I think everybody in our trainee pool knew it."

"Did you like him from back then?"

"Maybe not. I'm not great at social stuff. Being a trainee in Korea by myself felt really lonely, so I probably tried to be friends with niisan because I thought we'd have things in common—both of us grinding it out overseas. Once we were friends, I didn't really think about expanding my circle. Looking back, that probably wasn't great." He remembered the half-joking, half-serious teasing during the group reality show. "It was like I was deliberately avoiding everyone else."

"No, you weren't," Luke said, ruffling his hair. "You didn't reject me, did you?"

"With Leader-nim being that forward, how could I?" Lan Yu said, amused.

"Hearing Yu say it like that makes it sound like I wore you down." Luke's lips pushed into an exaggerated pout, as if aggrieved.

Lan Yu couldn't help laughing at the face he made. "Why not say it was your initiative that gave us a chance to get close, Leader-nim?"

"I didn't want to sound full of myself..." Luke was still pouting, but Lan Yu could tell he wasn't actually upset.

"Come on, how could you be full of yourself, Leader-nim? If it weren't for Leader-nim, I still wouldn't know how to start hanging out with the others. I'd probably be just like during trainee days—people saying I only ever stuck with niisan." Lan Yu looked into Luke's blinking eyes as he spoke.

"Really?"

"Really, really." Lan Yu could never quite win against him.

"Do you think I'm prying too much, Yu?"

"It's fine. I'm just more curious why Leader-nim is curious about me and niisan."

"Sometimes I wonder—" Luke stopped walking so suddenly that Lan Yu also stopped and turned to him. "Why we didn't meet back then."

At this hour the streets of Seoul were nearly empty. Besides the occasional car passing by, there was no sound—and yet Lan Yu still couldn't hear what Luke's tone held when he said it.

"Leader-nim wasn't a trainee for long. If I remember right, you joined when our debut lineup was basically set. The practice room was tense, everyone terrified they'd miss the last step. Thinking back, that tension was written all over our faces." Lan Yu figured there hadn't really been any chance to cross paths with Luke more than they had.

"That's not what I meant."

"Hm?" Lan Yu couldn't follow, and Luke didn't explain. He started walking again, and Lan Yu had no choice but to fall in behind him, the two of them still searching for a trace of Kaede.

After they'd all but exhausted the nearby spots that stayed open late, they had to admit they should call off the search for now.

"Maybe Kaede already went back. Yu, go check the dorm first. We've got schedules tomorrow—Kaede wouldn't miss them for no reason. You should get some rest too, or how are you going to make it through tomorrow?" Luke tried to comfort him; worry was written all over Lan Yu's face.

"Mm..." Lan Yu couldn't hide the anxiety and fatigue in his voice. "It's really late already. Leader-nim, you should head home. I'll look a bit longer and then go back."

Luke took Lan Yu by both arms and firmly drew his gaze up to meet his own. "Be good and head back first, Yu. I'll walk you to the dorm before I go."

Lan Yu knew he wouldn't win this one. "Okay."

But when Lan Yu pushed open the dorm room door, Kaede was there, a book in his hands. At the sound, he lifted his head and met Lan Yu's eyes—and then Luke's over Lan Yu's shoulder.

"See? Told you," Luke said. "Kaede's already back like a good boy. You should turn in. Big day tomorrow. I'm heading out—we'll see each other then." He gave Lan Yu a gentle push into the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

"Where did you go, niisan? I've been looking for you."

Only a dim reading lamp was on—too weak for Lan Yu to make out Kaede's expression, and for Kaede to tell whether Lan Yu's tone held more reproach or worry.

"Weren't you at his place?" Kaede said. He shut the book, stood, and went back to his own bed. "I didn't wait up for you either."

Lan Yu realized something. He parted his lips to ask—then chose not to. He could already hear the answer he'd get, and he didn't want it, so he kept the question to himself.

Lan Yu didn't like setting himself up for a rebuff.