Chapter Text
The HYBE cafeteria at lunch had the sound profile of a minor airport after everyone involved had lost faith in boarding groups.
Trays clattered. Ice rattled inside plastic cups. Managers said things like “please sit properly” to people who had sold out arenas and still could not be trusted near soup. Stylists moved through the crowd with iced lattes raised like ritual objects, because caffeine was the true entertainment company founder and everyone else was merely on payroll.
CORTIS had taken a table near the middle, which James claimed was tactical. Good sightlines, easy exits, no blind spots. He said this with the calm authority of someone who had spent too many years in rooms where “casual lunch” could turn into emotional warfare, a TikTok challenge, or someone asking about Trainee A with the energy of a documentary crew that had escaped containment.
Juhoon privately thought James had picked the table because Taehyun liked that side of the cafeteria.
Juhoon did not say this out loud because he respected privacy, and also because James had cheekbones sharp enough to make retaliation feel architectural.
Martin sat beside Juhoon with his tray arranged neatly in front of him, because Martin approached meals like a responsible young leader and feelings like a man trying to carry soup through an earthquake. He had tucked one foot behind the chair leg. He did that when he was trying to seem calm, and Juhoon had learned the entire language of Martin’s small movements the way people learned traffic signs in self-defense.
Across from them, Keonho sat beside Seonghyeon.
This was no longer new.
It was also not simple, because nothing involving two attractive teenage idols with too much privacy and too little wisdom ever stayed simple. Keonho and Seonghyeon being together had not changed their public dynamic as much as staff had feared. Keonho still smiled too much, reacted too fast, and began sentences like his brain had thrown the rest of the grammar into a river. Seonghyeon still watched rooms like he was collecting evidence for a trial no one else knew they were attending, dimples appearing whenever someone else’s dignity became edible.
The difference was that now, when their knees touched under the table, both of them noticed.
Keonho noticed first, because his body had developed the survival instincts of a fire alarm in a candle shop. Seonghyeon noticed second and pretended he had not, because Seonghyeon believed denial became strategy if you sat straight enough.
Their relationship had matured them exactly zero percent in public.
In private, according to the haunted expressions on both their faces some mornings, teenage bodies were treasonous terrain and the company had provided no maps.
“Stop looking like that,” James said without looking up from his tray.
Keonho froze. “Like what?”
“Like your entire nervous system is writing a complaint.”
Seonghyeon lowered his spoon. “That is specific.”
“You both have the faces of people who think hand-holding in a hallway is a political event.”
Martin blinked, deeply sincere and therefore dangerous. “Is it?”
Juhoon put a piece of chicken on Martin’s rice. “Eat.”
Martin looked down at the chicken. Then at Juhoon. His ears turned faintly pink, because being cared for in public still caught him off guard even when he had chosen it with both hands.
Keonho saw the tiny domestic exchange and made a low sound of despair. “See? This is what I mean.”
“What do you mean,” Martin asked.
“I don’t know,” Keonho said, which was both answer and brand statement. “It’s like you two do one small thing and suddenly the air has curtains.”
Seonghyeon’s dimple appeared. “Curtains?”
“You know. Home things.”
Juhoon looked at him. “You mean domestic.”
Keonho pointed at him, relieved. “Yes. That. Domestic. It makes me feel like I walked into a furniture catalog and the sofa is judging me.”
Seonghyeon leaned toward him slightly. “You would buy the sofa.”
Keonho looked offended for half a second, then thoughtful. “If it looked comfortable.”
James set his chopsticks down. “I am surrounded by children with commercial viability.”
Martin, still chewing obediently, said, “That sounds like a compliment.”
“It is not.”
“It could be.”
“It is a diagnosis.”
Across the cafeteria, LE SSERAFIM had claimed the table by the window with the natural authority of women who had survived enough concept meetings to know chairs were not requested. They were taken.
Eunchae sat tucked sideways in her chair, one knee folded under her, phone face-up beside her tteokbokki. Her screen buzzed every few seconds. Every buzz made her snort into her food, which made Yunjin lean closer with the bright-eyed hunger of a person who considered gossip a food group.
“Who are you laughing at this time?” Yunjin asked.
“Her children,” Chaewon said, without looking up from her soup.
“I am younger than some of them,” Eunchae protested.
Sakura patted the top of Eunchae’s head with devastating calm. “Eat your rice, baby.”
Kazuha tilted her head, chopsticks poised. “It is cute. Like youth administration.”
Eunchae stared at her. “That sounds worse than babysitting.”
“It is,” Chaewon said.
Eunchae checked her phone again and immediately lost the fight with her own face.
Woonhak: why am i not THERE my god, this is discrimination against puppies
Maki: you’re in LA, stop crying into capitalism
Harua: 🥟🍵🫧
Taki: he is eating and refusing to comment, respect his lifestyle
Megan: lol hi losers. this building sounds worse every day
Keonho squinted toward Eunchae’s table. “Do you think she’s talking about us?”
“Yes,” Seonghyeon said.
“You don’t know that.”
“She’s smiling like she has evidence.”
James picked up his water. “Everyone in this building has evidence. The tragedy is that most of them also have Wi-Fi.”
Martin leaned closer to Juhoon. “Do we have evidence?”
Juhoon looked at him.
Martin’s ears flushed. “Never mind.”
The cafeteria doors opened.
The room changed before anyone said a word. Conversation thinned near the entrance first, then near the coffee machine, then through the center tables, as if someone had pulled a thread through the cafeteria and tightened it. A spoon hit a tray. Someone coughed. A manager stopped mid-scolding with a napkin still in his hand.
TXT walked in.
All five of them wore cream.
For a moment, the cafeteria seemed to collectively consider whether beige could be a weapon.
It could.
Soobin entered first in pearly blond, glasses catching the light in a way that made three stylists look briefly betrayed by their own careers. Yeonjun came beside him, ash-grey hair flashing silver under the fluorescent lights, moving like the floor had signed a contract to support his personal mythology. Beomgyu’s black hair cut sharp against a pale sweater, his grin already too dangerous for a public dining area. Hueningkai’s silver hair made him look soft and impossible, like moonlight had become a very tall person with lunch privileges. Taehyun’s blue hair broke through all that cream like weather over snow, calm and bright and profoundly unfair.
Keonho stopped breathing.
Juhoon noticed because Keonho stopped making noise, and Keonho’s silence was never neutral. It had weight, like a dropped object waiting to reveal what broke.
“No,” Keonho whispered.
Seonghyeon looked delighted. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Keonho said, eyes fixed on Yeonjun. “I just feel like my nervous system got upgraded without consent.”
James followed Keonho’s line of sight and made a small sound of recognition. “Ah. Yeonjun-hyung.”
“Don’t say his name like that,” Keonho said.
“Like what?”
“Like he’s a person and not a visual event.”
Seonghyeon’s mouth twitched. “You’re doing so well.”
Keonho turned on him. “Don’t encourage my crisis.”
“I’m your boyfriend. Encouraging your crisis is part of the package.”
“That is not romantic.”
“It is accurate.”
Martin, who had been staring at Taehyun with the pure relief of someone seeing a safe adult, lifted one hand before remembering he was in public. Taehyun saw him anyway. Taehyun’s mouth curved, small and private, before his gaze shifted to James.
James’s phone buzzed.
Juhoon watched James not look at it.
That was worse than looking.
Martin noticed too, because Martin had a complicated internal alarm system for James. He glanced down at the phone, then at James’s face, then at Taehyun across the cafeteria. Cartoon Martin was probably somewhere inside his head wearing a hard hat and whispering, THIS RELATIONSHIP HAS WALLS WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
Real Martin only said, “Hyung, your phone.”
“I know,” James said.
“You’re not checking?”
“I have self-control.”
Seonghyeon coughed.
James looked at him. “Is there a medical issue.”
“No,” Seonghyeon said. “Just irony in my throat.”
TXT moved through the cafeteria without trying to command it, which was how they commanded it. Yeonjun laughed at something Beomgyu said, head tipped back, earrings glinting, and two trainees dropped chopsticks like cutlery had failed them personally. Soobin pushed his glasses up with one finger, and a row of stylists inhaled in troubling harmony. Beomgyu winked at one of the cafeteria aunties and caused a ladle-related incident. Hueningkai drifted against Yeonjun’s side, unbothered by his own height, as if being enormous and angelic was a private matter and everyone else was rude for noticing.
Taehyun carried his tray like a normal man.
This was impossible, because Taehyun had never looked less normal. Blue hair. Soft cardigan. Shoulders that did not need to be part of any lunch narrative and had arrived anyway. Big eyes, calm mouth, the quiet confidence of someone who could send the most devastating text imaginable and then ask if you had eaten enough protein.
James’s phone buzzed again.
Seonghyeon saw it. Keonho saw Seonghyeon see it. Keonho leaned slightly because privacy was a value he respected in theory and violated under emotional pressure.
James covered the phone with one hand.
“Do not,” James said.
Keonho smiled too brightly. “I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“No, I don’t know, I was just…”
“Existing near my phone with criminal intent.”
Keonho nodded. “Yeah. That.”
Martin reached across the table and pushed Keonho’s water toward him. “Drink. You’re in visual distress.”
Keonho accepted the water without looking away from Yeonjun. “Thank you, hyung.”
Juhoon glanced at Martin.
Martin had not realized that he had used the same tone Juhoon had used on him ten minutes earlier. He probably would later and then get flustered. Juhoon filed the moment away for private fondness, because public fondness was what led to workplace gossip and Eunchae already had enough infrastructure.
TXT passed the TWS table.
Shinyu was sitting with his members like a normal person. His posture was calm. His expression was polite. His tray was arranged with suspicious neatness, as if order could be summoned through side dishes. Jihoon sat at his left, Hanjin at his right, Dohoon and Youngjae across from them. It almost looked peaceful.
Then five men in cream moved by like a religious painting with company ID cards.
Dohoon choked on soda. Youngjae saved his chopsticks by reflex. Jihoon froze mid-text, eyes snapping up. Hanjin’s face did not change, but his thumbs moved under the table at a speed that suggested journalism.
Shinyu inclined his head.
It was a perfect nod. Small. Elegant. Leader-to-sunbae respect, wrapped in plausible emotional neutrality. If he felt anything else, he contained it behind posture.
Seonghyeon watched him from the CORTIS table. “He’s good.”
Martin blinked. “Who?”
“Shinyu-hyung. That nod was a whole locked diary.”
James nodded faintly. “He practices restraint.”
Keonho frowned. “Can you practice that?”
“You should start,” Juhoon said.
Keonho turned to him, wounded. “Hyung.”
“You asked.”
Across the room, Eunchae grabbed Chaewon’s sleeve. “Unnie. Look at Soobin-oppa’s hair.”
“I am eating,” Chaewon said, with the desperate firmness of someone clinging to one remaining boundary.
“You can eat and recognize danger.”
Sakura looked over. Her expression softened. “He is very tall.”
Yunjin made a noise into her kimchi. “We are doomed.”
Kazuha studied TXT with the calm focus of an athlete analyzing movement. “The composition is strong.”
Eunchae typed that immediately.
At the CORTIS table, James finally picked up his phone.
Martin straightened.
Juhoon looked down at his rice because he was mature, composed, and absolutely not interested in being caught watching James read a message from his boyfriend. Unfortunately, his spoon reflected James’s expression, because cafeteria utensils had chosen betrayal.
James’s mouth curved.
It was not his public smile. It was smaller, sharper, and worse. The kind of smile that said Taehyun had sent him something deliberately calm and probably devastating. The kind of smile that made Martin relax because James was happy and made Keonho lean in because his personal growth remained on back order.
“Keonho,” James said without looking up.
Keonho leaned back instantly. “I’m drinking water.”
“You are breathing like a thief.”
Seonghyeon put one hand over his mouth.
Martin whispered to Juhoon, “Do you think Taehyun-hyung is being romantic?”
Juhoon glanced across the cafeteria. Taehyun sat at the TXT table, face calm, thumbs moving across his phone while Yeonjun watched him with growing horror.
“Yes,” Juhoon said.
Martin’s face brightened. “That’s nice.”
Juhoon watched Yeonjun clutch his napkin like a man witnessing a crime. “Possibly.”
Yunjin lasted seven minutes before she snapped.
It began with Yeonjun laughing. Beomgyu leaned close, said something into his ear, and Yeonjun threw his head back with such careless brightness that the cafeteria lighting briefly looked more expensive. Yunjin made a wounded little sound. Eunchae slapped a hand over her own mouth. Chaewon looked up slowly, already tired. Sakura looked amused, which meant she had decided not to stop anything.
Yunjin stood.
“Unnie,” Eunchae whispered. “Where are you going?”
“To prevent casualties,” Yunjin said.
Chaewon’s eyes narrowed. “Do not.”
Yunjin crossed the cafeteria.
At TXT’s table, Beomgyu had enough time to blink before Yunjin grabbed his sleeve.
“You,” she said. “Come here.”
“What,” Beomgyu said, tray halfway lifted. “Why?”
“Formation break.”
“That explains nothing.”
“It explains enough.”
She tugged.
Beomgyu let out an indignant squawk and nearly lost his tray. TXT froze. The cafeteria watched. Yeonjun mouthed traitor before the betrayal had even finished happening, which was impressive and emotionally efficient.
At the CORTIS table, Keonho whispered, “Can she do that?”
James watched Yunjin drag Beomgyu across the cafeteria. “Apparently.”
Martin looked worried. “Should someone help him?”
Juhoon shook his head. “He is smiling.”
Martin looked again.
Beomgyu was, in fact, starting to smile.
Seonghyeon nodded. “Consent achieved through chaos.”
Beomgyu landed at LE SSERAFIM’s table with the wide eyes of a man who had been kidnapped and had already decided to enjoy the ransom process.
“Hi,” he said.
Yunjin pointed to the seat beside her. “Sit. You’re mine now. Fellow 2001-born. Gossip bestie. Congratulations.”
Sakura pushed a napkin toward him. “Good idea. Their visual concentration was becoming unsafe.”
Chaewon said, “You five in cream together could cause at least three breakups.”
Kazuha added, “Or a proposal.”
Beomgyu sat slowly. “So I’m the sacrifice.”
“The stabilizer,” Chaewon corrected.
“The sacrifice,” Sakura said.
Eunchae’s phone buzzed, then buzzed again, then nearly rattled off the table.
Hanjin: yunjin-noona kidnapped beomgyu-hyung
Woonhak: WHAT. WHY IS EVERYONE HAVING FUN WITHOUT ME
Maki: legal? no. iconic? yes
Harua: …he appears willing
Megan: girlboss governance. terrifying and efficient
TXT’s table became visibly unbalanced.
Yeonjun glared across the cafeteria. Soobin raised one elegant brow, not at all surprised, which somehow made it worse. Kai pouted openly, silver hair falling into his face. Taehyun looked at his phone again and typed with the calm of a man choosing scandal in paragraph form.
James’s phone buzzed.
James read it.
He closed his eyes for one second.
Then he typed back.
Keonho made a sound. “Hyung.”
James did not look up. “No.”
“I didn’t ask anything.”
“You were about to ask something that would make everyone at this table less comfortable.”
Seonghyeon leaned back. “Now I want to know.”
“You don’t,” James said.
Martin’s brows drew together. “Is it private?”
James looked at him, and his expression softened because Martin asking “is it private” sounded like a child asking whether a room was occupied before entering. “Yes.”
Martin nodded immediately. “Okay.”
Juhoon felt warm in the chest, which was annoying. Martin’s respect for privacy was one of his sweetest qualities, mostly because Martin had none of it for his own face. Every thought he had wandered through his expression carrying a little flag.
At LE SSERAFIM’s table, Beomgyu had already eaten half of Eunchae’s rice. Yunjin had him trapped in a gossip headlock without touching him. Sakura looked serene. Kazuha looked quietly entertained. Chaewon ate soup like a woman watching children play with matches near company property.
“So,” Beomgyu said, pointing his chopsticks at Eunchae, “if I’m here, I get dirt. Who is breaking up, who is making up, and who is pretending choreography practice is a meeting?”
Eunchae leaned forward. “Forget that. Tell me about the BigHit floor. TXT. CORTIS. Who’s crying? Who’s fighting? Who borrowed Soobin-oppa’s hoodie?”
Martin sat up.
Juhoon put a hand gently on his knee under the table.
Martin sat down.
The contact was small. Barely there. It worked anyway.
Keonho saw it and immediately looked away with a pained expression. “Furniture catalog,” he muttered.
Seonghyeon whispered, “The sofa has dimming options.”
Keonho pointed at him. “I hate that you remembered.”
Eunchae lowered her voice across the room with scandalous precision. “And who is on Soobin-oppa’s list right now?”
Chaewon choked on soup.
Kazuha blinked. “He has a list?”
Beomgyu’s grin spread slowly, like bad news acquiring confidence. “You mean the spreadsheet?”
The cafeteria reacted despite itself.
Soobin, from across the room, put down his water.
Yeonjun whipped around. “Spreadsheet?”
Taehyun murmured, “Hyung, don’t engage.”
Soobin adjusted his glasses.
James, at the CORTIS table, made the smallest possible sound of amusement.
Martin turned to him. “There is a spreadsheet?”
James picked up his rice. “There are always spreadsheets.”
“About people?”
“Especially about people.”
Juhoon watched Martin process this with genuine distress. “Hyung, that sounds unkind.”
James’s expression shifted. Soft again. “It can be. It can also be staff survival. Don’t worry about Soobin-hyung’s private weather systems.”
Martin blinked. “Weather systems?”
Seonghyeon looked delighted. “That works.”
Keonho frowned. “Why does it work?”
“Because people get pulled into his climate and call it a personal choice.”
Juhoon looked at Seonghyeon. “You’ve been waiting to say that.”
“Yes,” Seonghyeon said.
Across the cafeteria, Beomgyu was explaining Soobin’s emotional infrastructure with hand gestures.
“He doesn’t collect people,” Beomgyu said. “That sounds creepy.”
Yunjin nodded. “Agreed. Bad phrasing.”
“He maintains a network.”
Chaewon stared at him. “That is worse.”
Beomgyu shrugged. “I didn’t create the system.”
Eunchae typed so fast her thumbs blurred.
Eunchae: confirmed. soobin has romantic infrastructure
Woonhak: DROP THE FLOOR PLAN
Maki: is this romance or urban planning
Harua: …both are dangerous if poorly managed
Megan: operational excellence king
Hanjin: this cafeteria is cursed
Jihoon: this cafeteria is producing evidence
At TWS’s table, Shinyu put his chopsticks down with delicate finality. “Eat,” he told his members softly. “Do not get involved.”
Jihoon looked at him.
Hanjin looked at him.
Dohoon looked at him.
Youngjae looked at him.
Shinyu resumed eating. “I did not say stop listening.”
Jihoon smiled like a door had opened.
“Hyung,” Hanjin said quietly. “That is involvement.”
“No,” Shinyu said. “That is literacy.”
The next escalation came from Hueningkai.
Kai rose from the lopsided TXT table with the expression of someone who had watched Beomgyu defect and decided national borders were a social construct. He crossed to LE SSERAFIM’s table and sat beside Chaewon, all long limbs, silver hair, and gentle audacity.
“Noona,” he said, looking at her bowl. “Your kimchi looks better than ours.”
Chaewon stared at him. “You have kimchi.”
Kai nodded. “But not your kimchi.”
Eunchae groaned. “Why does he never cling to me? I am closer to his age.”
“Exactly,” Chaewon said, and pushed her bowl toward Kai with the resignation of someone adopting a large, polite forest animal.
At the TXT table, Yeonjun looked devastated. “They took our maknae too.”
Soobin sipped water. “Chaewon will return him hydrated.”
“That is not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is loyalty.”
Taehyun glanced up from his phone. “You say this while Beomgyu is telling LE SSERAFIM about your emotional economy.”
Yeonjun pointed at him. “And you are texting James things that made Soobin remove his glasses.”
James’s phone buzzed.
Everyone at the CORTIS table looked at it.
James looked at all of them.
“No,” he said.
Martin immediately looked away. Juhoon looked away because he had dignity. Seonghyeon looked away because he had enough self-preservation to fake dignity. Keonho looked away last and least convincingly.
James read the message.
His mouth curved again.
Keonho put his head in his hands. “I’m too young for this.”
“You are seventeen,” Seonghyeon said.
“That is young in cafeteria years.”
Martin nodded sympathetically. “Cafeteria years are different.”
Juhoon squeezed his knee once under the table. “Eat.”
Martin ate.
Keonho saw that too and made a distressed noise into his rice.
Then Taehyun stood to refill his water.
Sakura stood from the LE SSERAFIM table at the same time.
They crossed paths near the soup station.
The cafeteria saw it.
Blue hair. Red hair. Same composed tilt of the chin. Same exhausted elegance. Same energy of people who had survived too much and had no intention of explaining themselves to children. For one strange second, the two of them looked like parallel characters from different dramas meeting at a catering table.
Yeonjun froze.
His chopsticks hovered in midair.
“No,” he said.
Soobin followed his gaze. “They are walking.”
“They’re twins.”
Taehyun filled his water.
Sakura picked up soup.
Neither looked at the other.
“That’s worse,” Yeonjun said. “They know. They know and they refuse to acknowledge it.”
Beomgyu called from the other table, “Maybe they have a shared custody agreement over aura.”
Yunjin nearly fell into him laughing.
Kai, still beside Chaewon, said, “They do look alike.”
Yeonjun slapped a hand on the table. “Do not validate this.”
At the CORTIS table, Keonho stared at Sakura.
Seonghyeon saw him.
“Oh,” Seonghyeon said softly, delighted and cruel.
Keonho snapped his gaze back. “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said ‘oh’ like a villain.”
Martin looked between them. “What happened?”
Keonho drank water aggressively. “Nothing.”
James glanced at Sakura, then at Keonho. “Ah.”
“Hyung,” Keonho said. “Please don’t also become a villain.”
James smiled. “Too late.”
Juhoon leaned back, studying Keonho with mild sympathy. “You’re discovering elegance.”
“I’ve known elegance.”
“You’ve seen it,” Seonghyeon said. “Different issue.”
Keonho looked personally wronged by the accuracy of that statement.
The cafeteria doors opened again.
This time, the silence arrived dressed in black.
ENHYPEN walked in fresh from a photoshoot, still wearing pale shirts, tailored coats, and jewelry that glinted under cafeteria lights. Six of them technically walked in as ENHYPEN.
And then there was Evan.
Lee Heeseung had left the group months ago and returned to the industry under a new artist name, because entertainment companies adored reinvention so much they kept trying to turn heartbreak into branding. He was Evan on schedules now. Evan on solo teasers. Evan on staff documents. Evan in rooms where people wanted clean categories and neat artist profiles and a reintroduction stage that made everything sound chosen and tidy.
At the dorm, he was still Heeseung-hyung.
At the cafeteria, when ENHYPEN schedules aligned with his, he still sat with them.
This was not healthy, according to everyone with eyes, two managers, and probably one chair.
Evan said it was convenient. Same building. Same dorm. Same food timing. The kind of practical explanation that fell apart if Sunoo entered the room and Evan’s entire face forgot the last five years of emotional development.
Dependency problem, James had called it once, very dryly.
Pining problem, Juhoon had thought.
Never-over-your-ex problem, Seonghyeon had said out loud, because Seonghyeon believed in accuracy even when it entered a room carrying knives.
Now Evan came in beside Jungwon, no longer officially part of the formation and still somehow held inside it by habit. He looked beautiful in that tired, careful way that made staff soften around him. His hair was styled back from his face. His eyes were calm until they found Sunoo.
Then they were not calm.
Martin saw it and went very still.
Juhoon saw Martin see it, because Martin’s empathy had a visible posture. His shoulders softened. His mouth parted slightly, as if he wanted to say something kind but did not know where kindness could land without making a bruise.
James saw all of it and sighed. “Ah. Evan.”
Keonho blinked. “We call him Evan now?”
“In public,” James said.
“What do they call him?”
James looked at the ENHYPEN table, where Sunghoon was already pulling out a chair and Jake was placing water near Evan without asking. “Depends who is speaking and how much denial they are in.”
ENHYPEN took the table opposite TXT, because apparently the cafeteria had decided to stage a supernatural summit. TXT glowed in cream. ENHYPEN darkened the air in black. Evan sat with them like a ghost who still had house keys. LE SSERAFIM’s table had become a diplomatic crisis with soup. TWS watched from the side like witnesses trying to avoid subpoenas.
Then the strawberries appeared.
Sunoo had them. Of course he did. Glossy, red, too theatrical under cafeteria lights. He picked one up by the stem, bit into it, and smiled at nothing. Sunghoon leaned in and offered him another with a look that was too calm to be innocent. Evan sat on Sunoo’s other side, chopsticks suddenly useless in his hand.
The air changed.
Martin sensed it because he was a sincere disaster with excellent emotional radar. Juhoon sensed it because he had eyes. James sensed it because James had lived long enough inside idol social systems to detect romantic tension by oxygen density.
Keonho sensed it five seconds late and whispered, “Why did the fruit become dramatic?”
Seonghyeon looked grimly pleased. “Because feelings are garnish now.”
At the TXT table, Yeonjun leaned toward Soobin. “This is actual fanfiction.”
Soobin sighed. “It is also an HR hazard.”
Beomgyu heard that from across the cafeteria.
Naturally, he stood.
Yunjin’s eyes lit up. “Where are you going?”
“To redistribute angst,” Beomgyu said.
James watched him cross the cafeteria. “This will either help or become folklore.”
Martin looked worried. “Should someone stop him?”
Juhoon put another piece of chicken on Martin’s rice. “No.”
“Why?”
“He is smiling.”
Beomgyu stopped behind Evan and placed both hands on his shoulders.
“Heeseungie,” he said brightly, loud enough for every table with ears and emotional damage. “Come with me before you expire from sitting beside your ex while his situationship feeds him luxury fruit like a vampire engagement ceremony.”
The cafeteria detonated.
Evan sputtered. Sunoo blinked with a strawberry near his mouth. Sunghoon’s face went still in a way that suggested a luxury brand mannequin had discovered murder. Jake covered his mouth. Jay muttered something that sounded like admiration. Jungwon stared at the ceiling like resignation had become a leadership style.
Beomgyu pulled Evan up anyway and tucked him under one arm.
“You’re mine now,” Beomgyu said. “The 2001 table requires a broody representative.”
“I’m not broody,” Evan said, ears red.
Ni-ki, from the ENHYPEN table, said, “Hyung, you still live in our dorm after leaving the group.”
Evan looked betrayed. “That is logistics.”
Sunoo smiled into his strawberry.
Sunghoon’s jaw tightened.
Jake whispered, “Riki.”
Ni-ki shrugged. “What. It is logistics with a playlist.”
Evan had no answer to that.
Beomgyu deposited him beside Yunjin.
Yunjin clapped once. “The 2001 Alliance is complete.”
Evan blinked. “The what?”
“The 2001 Alliance,” Yunjin announced. “Me, chaos. Beomgyu, chaos wearing knitwear. You, beautiful soloist with unresolved dorm attachments and a hidden silly side. Together, we ruin everything with range.”
Evan covered his face with one hand. “I regret sitting down.”
“You were forced,” Beomgyu said.
“That’s worse.”
Sakura handed Evan a napkin. “You have strawberry juice on your lip.”
Evan accepted it with the quiet gratitude of someone receiving shelter from an elegant queen.
At CORTIS table, Martin’s face softened.
Juhoon saw that too.
“He looks lighter,” Martin said quietly.
James nodded. “Beomgyu is ridiculous. Sometimes ridiculous helps.”
Keonho tilted his head. “Can ridiculous be a support system?”
Seonghyeon glanced at him. “You exist.”
Keonho considered that. “Fair.”
Across the cafeteria, Sunghoon stabbed his rice.
The chopsticks cracked.
Jake immediately put a hand over the replacement pair. “No more casualties.”
Sunoo smiled into his water.
Ni-ki watched Evan laugh at something Yunjin said. His expression shifted, sharp with calculation. He looked at Eunchae. He looked at Beomgyu. He looked at the phones. His eyes narrowed like a boy discovering a locked door and feeling personally invited.
James noticed.
“Uh-oh,” James said.
Martin turned. “What?”
“Ni-ki is about to make a career choice.”
Ni-ki stood.
He picked up his tray, crossed the cafeteria, and sat down beside Eunchae without permission.
Eunchae stared at him. “What are you doing?”
“Ghost business,” Ni-ki said.
Chaewon looked exhausted. “At lunch?”
“Ghosts do not respect lunch.”
Eunchae narrowed her eyes. “Why are you here?”
Ni-ki leaned in. “Add me to the Gossip Crew.”
“No.”
“I have evidence.”
“No.”
“I know which elevator opens by itself at 3 a.m.”
Eunchae’s eyes flicked despite herself.
Ni-ki smiled. “I know why the heart stickers keep disappearing from the elevator notices. It is not management.”
The table leaned in.
Even Chaewon paused mid-bite.
At CORTIS table, Martin whispered, “Heart stickers?”
James gave him a look. “Do not investigate.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Juhoon looked at him.
Martin’s ears went pink. “I was considering it academically.”
Seonghyeon already had his phone out.
James pointed one chopstick at him. “You too.”
Seonghyeon put the phone down slowly. “This is censorship.”
“This is parenting.”
“You are not my parent.”
“No,” James said. “Unfortunately for both of us, I am your hyung.”
Keonho looked across the room as Eunchae clutched her phone to her chest and Ni-ki sat there with the calm arrogance of a haunted cat. “He’s going to get in.”
“Obviously,” Juhoon said.
Martin looked impressed. “How do you know?”
“Because he already sat down.”
The Gossip Crew chat began exploding visibly across three tables. Eunchae’s phone buzzed. Hanjin’s phone buzzed. Jihoon’s phone buzzed. Somewhere in Los Angeles, Woonhak was probably threatening international travel over Wi-Fi.
Eunchae: he is here. he wants in. i refuse
Woonhak: LET HIM IN. WE NEED GHOST DEPARTMENT
Maki: agreed. strong lore acquisition
Harua: …he knows too much already
Hanjin: if rejected, he may become external opposition
Jihoon: why is this a valid risk assessment
Megan: every cult needs a haunted maknae
Eunchae groaned. “This is how cults start.”
Beomgyu grinned. “Sweetheart, you are a cult with snacks.”
Ni-ki looked pleased. “What is my initiation?”
“You are not in.”
“What is my initiation?”
Eunchae looked at him, then at her phone, then at Chaewon, who clearly wanted to be excluded from the narrative but had unfortunately chosen the wrong table.
“Midnight tteokbokki,” Eunchae said finally. “Haunted rehearsal room. Alone. No flashlight.”
Ni-ki nodded. “Done.”
Yunjin whispered, “He is terrifying.”
Evan, still pink-eared but smiling now, said, “He has always been like this.”
At TXT’s table, Yeonjun leaned over to look at Taehyun’s phone again, apparently because pain had become a hobby.
He read one line.
His soul left his body through his eyebrows.
“Kang Taehyun,” he said. “This is a cafeteria.”
Taehyun locked his phone. “I’m aware.”
“There are minors.”
CORTIS all looked up.
Seonghyeon raised a hand halfway. “Define minors.”
James said, “Do not participate.”
Soobin, against his better judgment, glanced at the reflection of Taehyun’s phone in his spoon. His expression changed so slightly that only people trained in dorm warfare would notice.
Then he adjusted his glasses. “That is not physically impossible, but it is logistically optimistic.”
Yeonjun slapped his palm on the table. “Do not encourage him.”
Taehyun tucked his phone away. “James appreciates ambition.”
James, at the CORTIS table, looked delighted and entirely unashamed.
Martin stared at him, then at Taehyun, then back at him. “Hyung.”
James turned. “Yes?”
“Are you happy?”
The table went still.
James looked at Martin, and for once the elegant joke did not arrive first. His expression softened, slow and real. “Yes,” he said.
Martin smiled. “Okay.”
That was all he needed. Simple. Sincere. Terrible for everyone trying to maintain emotional distance around him.
Juhoon looked down at Martin’s hand under the table.
Martin’s fingers were resting near his knee, relaxed, open. Juhoon touched two fingers to the back of Martin’s hand. Martin turned his palm up immediately, without looking. The motion was small and thoughtless, the kind of chosen closeness that made confession feel overdecorated.
Seonghyeon saw anyway.
His dimple appeared.
Keonho saw Seonghyeon see.
“Don’t,” Keonho whispered.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You dimpled judgmentally.”
“I dimple how I dimple.”
Across the cafeteria, Eunchae tried to regain order as if order had not already resigned.
“Agenda,” she announced. “Ni-ki is on probation. Beomgyu is 2001 Alliance liaison. Evan is under lunch protection until emotional conditions improve. Hueningkai is Chaewon unnie’s responsibility for twenty minutes. Taehyun-hyung’s phone is none of our business unless it causes structural damage. TXT in cream should require public notice. ENHYPEN fruit privileges are suspended.”
Sunoo lifted one strawberry. “Excuse me?”
“Suspended,” Eunchae repeated.
Sunoo smiled sweetly and ate it anyway.
Sunghoon’s replacement chopsticks trembled in Jake’s protective custody.
At the CORTIS table, James looked at his group and said, “We are leaving in ten minutes.”
Keonho protested immediately. “But the council is still in session.”
“There is no council.”
“There is clearly a council.”
Martin glanced toward the LE SSERAFIM table, then toward TWS, then toward TXT, then toward ENHYPEN, then toward Evan looking caught between embarrassment and relief. “It does look like a council.”
James sighed. “That is the most upsetting part.”
Juhoon squeezed Martin’s hand once. “Eat first.”
Martin ate. He looked pleased with himself, as if remembering lunch in the middle of social collapse was personal growth.
Seonghyeon leaned back, eyes moving across the cafeteria. “This place is a case study.”
“In what,” Keonho asked.
“Attraction, hierarchy, hunger, attachment injuries, and poor corporate design.”
James nodded. “Good title.”
Keonho stared at Yeonjun again, then Sakura, then quickly down at his rice. “I need a safer workplace.”
“You chose idol life,” Seonghyeon said.
“I chose music.”
“You chose mirrors.”
Keonho groaned and dropped his forehead onto his folded arms.
Martin, kind and dangerous, reached across and patted his head once. “You’re doing well.”
Keonho went very still.
Seonghyeon’s dimple vanished.
Juhoon closed his eyes briefly, because he knew exactly what had just happened and respected the inevitability of disaster.
Keonho lifted his head slowly. His ears were red. “Thank you, hyung.”
Martin smiled.
Keonho looked like someone had handed him a lit firework and a compliment.
Seonghyeon picked up his water and drank with exaggerated calm, which did not work because his jaw had gone tight. Keonho saw that, and his entire expression changed from flustered to delighted.
“Oh,” Keonho said softly.
Seonghyeon set the water down. “Don’t.”
“You got jealous.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“Your face is public property at this point. Anyone can pat it by accident.”
Keonho grinned, slow and catastrophic. “You think my face is public property?”
James rubbed his temples. “I miss five minutes ago when the problem was Soobin’s romantic infrastructure.”
Martin looked horrified. “Keonho’s face is not public property.”
Juhoon, because he was cruel in quiet ways, said, “That is true. Seonghyeon has a lease.”
Seonghyeon stared at him.
Keonho looked like Christmas had arrived wearing cologne.
Martin gasped. “Juhoon.”
“What,” Juhoon said mildly.
James pointed at all of them. “This is why we are leaving.”
Across the cafeteria, Evan laughed again at something Yunjin said. Sunoo looked over. The smile on his face shifted by one degree, too small for the room and too loud for anyone who knew him. Evan noticed. Of course he noticed. His whole body had been tuned to Sunoo for too long, like a song he kept saying he was done playing while leaving the sheet music open.
Sunghoon noticed Evan noticing.
Jake closed his eyes.
Jay leaned toward Jungwon. “We should have gone to the other cafeteria.”
“There is no other cafeteria,” Jungwon said.
“Metaphorically.”
“No.”
Ni-ki, now half-inducted into the Gossip Crew and spiritually impossible to remove, typed something into his phone without looking away from Evan.
Eunchae’s phone buzzed.
Ni-ki: evan-hyung says logistics but looks at sunoo-hyung like unfinished business
Woonhak: OH WE ARE USING ARTIST NAME IN CHAT NOW?? FORMAL SCANDAL
Maki: unfinished business is a great solo title
Harua: …that is sad
Hanjin: and accurate
Jihoon: someone delete this before evan-hyung sees
Megan: too late emotionally
Eunchae read it and slowly put her phone face-down.
For a few seconds, she did not joke.
That was how everyone knew the joke had landed too close to the bone.
At CORTIS table, Martin was watching Evan again.
Juhoon’s hand stayed over his.
“You cannot fix everyone,” Juhoon said quietly.
Martin looked down. “I know.”
“You want to.”
“I know.”
James heard them and did not interrupt. That, more than anything, proved he was getting sentimental in his old age of seventeen-plus-emotional-tax.
Keonho, still flushed from Seonghyeon’s jealousy and Martin’s head pat, looked toward Evan and Sunoo and frowned. “Is it bad,” he said slowly, “if leaving doesn’t make you leave?”
Seonghyeon’s expression softened.
James looked at Keonho properly then.
Martin stopped chewing.
Juhoon did not answer immediately, because some questions deserved the dignity of silence before someone ruined them with wisdom.
Finally James said, “No. It’s human.”
Keonho nodded, eyes still on Evan.
“But it can become bad if you build your whole life around staying near the place that hurts.”
Across the cafeteria, Evan looked away from Sunoo first.
It was small.
It counted.
Beomgyu clapped him on the back too hard, probably to cover the moment. Yunjin said something loud. Sakura passed him more napkins even though he did not need them. Chaewon sighed and pushed rice toward him like food could repair all the damage attractive people caused before dessert.
Martin smiled a little.
Not because it was fixed.
Because someone had noticed.
The cafeteria roared back to life around them.
TXT still glowed in cream like angels with scheduling conflicts. ENHYPEN still looked like vampires negotiating fruit-based territorial rights. Evan sat among them like a former member, current soloist, and unresolved chapter with chopsticks. LE SSERAFIM’s table had become a coalition government. TWS watched with careful eyes and full phones. CORTIS sat in the middle of it all, young and observant and doomed in at least five directions.
Martin finished his rice and leaned lightly into Juhoon’s shoulder for half a second, too brief for cameras and too natural for denial.
Juhoon did not move away.
Keonho saw it and made another wounded sound.
Seonghyeon reached under the table and hooked one finger around Keonho’s wrist. Very small. Very quiet. Absolutely not enough contact to start anything.
Keonho went silent anyway.
Seonghyeon stared at his soup like soup could save him from the consequences of his own hand.
James typed one last reply to Taehyun, face composed and eyes bright.
Somewhere in the HYBE building, an actual ghost probably checked the cafeteria feed, saw angels, vampires, group chats, former members with dorm keys, romantic spreadsheets, teenage hormonal treason, and fruit-based warfare happening under fluorescent lights, then chose the peace of the afterlife.
Lunch, somehow, continued.