I entered the cafeteria and scanned the crowd, and suddenly realized I had no idea where Kai normally sat. The usual table where Baekhyun and I sat was devoid of the former, but our normal crowd of friends was there.

I saw an excited Jongdae, one of the choir nerds, wave me over. I was about to decline when I saw that his action caught the attention of Kyungsoo, another choir nerd, and Yixing, a nappy headed boy who excelled in calculus and biology, and for some reason that was beyond me, was the person who was beating me out of the title of first in the Top 10. The other two looked up and acknowledged me, and now I knew I had to go over there. And, besides, maybe they knew where Kai sat.

“Hey,” I said, slumping down into the seat next to Jongdae.

“Yo,” Yixing said between mouthfuls of whatever the cafeteria was serving, “Where’s Baek?” he asked.

I ducked my head a bit, trying to keep a firm poker face. “I don’t know, I was going to ask you the same thing,” I replied. In all fairness, it wasn’t a lie. I really didn’t know where he was.

“Oh, weird,” Yixing said right as Jongdae swooped overhead, and before I knew it, he had confiscated Kai’s notebook from me.

“What’s this?” he mused, flipping through the pages absently.

I made grabby hands to snatch it back, but he stuck the palm of his free hand to my forehead and effectively kept me from reaching around him to get it. Curse his strong upper body strength. He shouldn’t even need upper body strength! He’s a singer!

Unfortunately, though, I watched with fear as his eyes widened and came to the realization as to what he was looking at.

“Eunji, have you seen this? What the hell?” Jongdae demanded, releasing me from his grip, and I stumbled forward.

“It’s Kai’s,” I said, grabbing the notebook out of his hands because he seemed too shocked to care about fighting me off, “And it’s none of your business. He ran into me this morning and dropped it, and I need to give it back because it looks important,” I hissed. At my last word he gave me one of his signature “No !” looks and I rolled my eyes.

“I’m sorry, whose did you say it was?” Kyungsoo asked me, and I turned to him, somewhat exasperated.

“Kai’s,” I huffed, and I was met with three expectant stares, “You know, Kim Jongin? I guess he wasn’t kidding about Kai not catching on.”

“Oh,” Jongdae said as he realized who I was talking about, “Wait. Why would he have something like that? It’s all-”

“It’s none of our business,” I firmly stated, meeting his eyes. When he wouldn’t back down, I sighed and looked to the other boys for help. They looked absolutely confused, but neither one seemed interested enough to get up and look at the contents of the notebook themselves. God bless them for not always wanting to know every single detail of everyone’s lives, like some people. I eyed Jongdae.

“Do any of you know where Ka-- er, Jongin eats lunch?” I asked as Jongdae continued to have a one-sided glaring match with me.

Yixing shrugged and Kyungsoo, by now, looked vastly disinterested.

“I think he eats outside by the lake, maybe? We have the class right after lunch together and I see him come in from the back door sometimes,” Yixing offered.

I thanked him and ruffled Jongdae’s hair for good measure (I hoped he wasn’t too suspicious) before I made my way to the lake.

It was unseasonably cold for summer. It felt like early autumn outside, and I shivered in my two-piece uniform and cursed myself for not bringing a sweater.

Maybe it was the weather that gave me cold feet, but honestly, it’s more likely it was Kai’s friends.

“Dude! Have you never taken anatomy? Or googled it? I’m telling you-- girls don’t pee out of their-”

“Hello,” I sharply cut in, interrupting their rowdy discussion of female anatomy. I was met with the surprised faces of three boys who looked awfully embarrassed to be caught mid-argument.

I immediately recognized Kai, but the other three I couldn’t place at first and had to think about for a second. I vaguely recognized the one sitting across from Kai. I think his name was Oh Sehun, and he, by far, had the most violent shade of red splattered across his face. The one I had cut off had been in my advanced level Chinese class last year. After another few moments of contemplation, I remembered his name was Huang Zitao. We had called him Tao for short, because Tao meant peach in Chinese, and he’d get so utterly f