Minghao was smart. That’s one way to put it without mentioning how he’s the youngest in their batch. Coming from China and being accelerated and all that made him an entire year younger than everybody else in his batch, which was a big thing for a few days about 3 years ago, but the hype died down quickly. He remembered his first day after moving from China for his first year at Hong University; the stares of the people as they had somehow all heard about whiz kid genius Xu Minghao, the hushed whispering in a language he had yet to master, and his drastic attempt to blend in. Thankfully, it didn’t last very long.

It didn’t last long because another transfer from China stole the spotlight soon enough.

Wen Junhui didn’t mind the spotlight at all, and Minghao was more than happy to give it to him. Soon after the people realized they were getting nowhere with their feeble attempts at getting to know Minghao (in other words: trying to speak Mandarin. Seriously, why did people do that?), they shifted sights to Junhui, who accepted them gladly. His Korean was fairly better than the other Chinese boy, and he certainly had a lot more to say. People eventually gravitated towards him.

Minghao has yet to say thank you to Junhui for being such a great distraction, since for some odd reason they didn’t talk either. After the first few days, Junhui was whisked into the crowd of the rich, cool, and popular and Minghao just didn’t like crowds. Instead, he was stuck with a few people who didn’t really try to get to know him as much as others, but again, weirdly enough ended up becoming his friends. He definitely liked it better that way.

Take Wonwoo, for example, his seat mate for the past 3 years and for the upcoming last year of their university life. He was asleep the first few days of class back then, had absolutely no idea who sat beside him, and couldn’t bring himself to care. He asked Minghao for a piece of paper once, and the rest was a history of borrowing pens and books and money every now and then; in exchange, Minghao found himself in his silent company. He still doesn’t talk as much, but it’s not like Minghao minded.

They had Seungkwan for that. 

Seungkwan, in his own words, was Wonwoo’s absolute best friend from the very beginning of time. Minghao hasn’t heard otherwise coming from Wonwoo, but it felt like it was more of Wonwoo had stopped caring what Seungkwan had to say and just let the boy be. That, and he had words to last a lifetime. His first few sentences to Minghao involved a detailed (and accurate) description of Minghao’s student life in China which may have scared the brunette at first, comments about his intelligence, and the “I’m Wonwoo’s best friend” introduction. He was Minghao’s age and studied a year lower, but ate lunch with them due to the similar break schedule.

Minghao had smiled and didn’t say anything back—what was there to say to all that? 

Seungkwan also took the pleasure of introducing Jihoon, a boy Minghao can really, onl