Three

ღ Chapter Three ღ 

He brought it up again. And this time, he was completely sober.

“Just come meet her,” he begged me, showing me his aegyo face. “I’m begging you, Jaejae.”

“I can’t, I have a big math exam this week,” I lied.

“But-but….” he sighed, giving up. “What a great friend you are.”

Ouch. That hurt my feelings, but I let it slide.

I had gotten out of it again, but I didn’t know how long I would be able to continue avoiding the subject.

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Normally, on Wednesday afternoons, I gave Lu Han and Yixing, and sometimes Tao, Korean lessons. Oh this particular Wednesday, I had stayed up late the night before finishing a paper that was due in the morning, and I dead tired while trying to teach the two guys ways to describe food. By the end of the lesson, I had my head down on the table, and my eyes were fluttering closed.

“Jae-in, you should go rest. You don’t have class this afternoon, right?” Lu Han asked.

I shook my head silently as Yixing headed for his room to change for dance practice.

“Go take a nap in my room, okay? Lay and I have to go to practice.”

I nodded this time, but still was too tired to get up. It was until long after the door closed and everyone left the dorm that I dragged myself out of the chair and staggered into the room that Lu Han and Kris shared. I kicked off my shoes and dropped into Lu Han’s bed, fully clothed. Everything smelled like Lu Han and I reached for the stuffed fox that sat by his pillow. Snuggling under the covers, I was out like a light.

The sound of the bedroom door opening pulled me out of my slumber and I shifted, not opening my eye.

“What-oh, it’s you.” It was Kris’s voice, and I cracked open an eye as a light was turned on. Kris was in the middle of taking off his jacket, and was glaring at me again.

“What do you mean ‘it’s you’? What kind of tone is that?” I asked, voice rough from sleep.

“You scared me, that’s all. Everyone is at practice or schedule and I thought we had a burglar. Why are you here again, anyway?” He sat down on his own bed across from me, reaching into one of the bedside drawers.

“Yah, you should be nicer to me, Kris. You know you like me,” I teased, rolling over.

He made a face, but was silent for a moment.

“It’s weird,” he commented. “You’re probably the only person Lu Han lets lie on his bed. Heck, he even kicked me in the thigh once to get me off, and poor Yixing got booted in the butt.”

“Hum…” I let out a noncommittal noise and shrugged, rubbing my eyes.

“Anyways, I finished schedule early and I think I’m going to cook something. You want some dinner Jae?”

I yawned, groaning. “Let me sleep for 20 more minutes?” I begged.

“Geez, you’re such a kid.” Kris turned his back to me and pulled off his shirt, exposing to me his muscular back for just a split second before pulling another tshirt over his head. “Anyways, go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up later.”

I needed no further convincing.

The next time that I cracked my eyes open, Lu Han was sitting at the edge of the bed, flipping through a stack of papers. He turned when he felt me sit up and reach over to ruffle my hair.

“Your bed hair is kind of sexy, Jae-in ah,” he teased, running a hand through it.

I batted him away, blushing like crazy. This was one of the things I hated about Lu Han. His constant skinship didn’t make my little crush any easier.

“Wait, what time is it?” I asked, tossing his stuffed fox at his face. “Kris said he was going to wake me up.”

“Leader’s making noodles…he should be done about now. You should get up, sleepyhead.” Giving me yet another pet on the head, Lu Han got up and sauntered out of the room.

I took a deep breath, running a hand through my own hair. I REALLY needed to stop crashing at the dorm. Sleeping in Lu Han’s bed wasn’t going to make my crush go away.

When I trudged into the kitchen, Lu Han and Xiumin were already sitting at the table. Kris was in the kitchen, and the other members were nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Yixing and the others?” I asked, taking a seat next to Lu Han.

“The younger kids have an extra two hours of dance practice tonight,” Xiumin informed me. “We had the extra hours yesterday.”

I studied him through half lidded eyes. “Did you have filming this afternoon, Baozi?”

He blushed a little at the familiar nickname, and moved his chair aside as Kris finally joined us, bringing with him several cans of coca cola.

“Neh, why?”

“Something is wrong with this picture,” I told him, trying to keep a straight face. “You’re wearing more eyeliner than me.”

“Yah, Lee Jae-in,” Xiumin started in mock anger, but was interrupted by laughter from the other two.

“You’re the best, JaeJae,” Lu Han chortled, wrapping his arm around me again. I laughed too, but I knew that I had stiffened from his touch. He didn’t seem to notice, and only squeezed me harder.

Holding a frozen smile on my face, I looked up to see Kris glaring at me, yet again. I felt the smile slide off almost immediately. He couldn’t know….could he?

[A/N]: I've stalked all of EXO-M's interviews, and I remember Lay saying that Luhan kicks people off of his bed a lot. Well, not his best friend ;) Uh-oh, does Leader know Jae-in's secret feelings?

And also, Jae-in calls all of them by their stage names because she met them after it was decided that they were going to be in a group with Lu Han about 2 years ago. However, she calls Lay by his real name because she met Kris and Lay (they trained the longest) before the groupings were announced and Lay got his stage name. She's known them almost as long as Luhan so she calls him Yixing, and Kris always went by that, even back then.