“Why are you never in class?” Baekhyun questions, scrubbing one of the wooden work tables in the back of the art studio of the residue left from his clay. He catches the nonchalant shrug of Sehun’s shoulders as he spins around childishly on the rotating stool. “Stop fooling around and go to class.”

“My last class of the day is already over. Should have started nagging half an hour ago, Muffin.”

Shaking his head, Baekhyun tosses the wet sponge into the center of the worktable where it squelches and the excess water seeps from its pores. He turns to lean back against the edge of the table, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I figure that if I fail out of college I’ll go into or sell my body on the street," Sehun continues.

Baekhyun wonders why he spends so much time with this idiot. He decides not to respond. It would be a waste of breath. To his (very slight) surprise, the dancer doesn’t seem to want a response and he keeps speaking, sliding off the rotating stool and moving in front of the (more than slightly) annoyed artist. He has that stupid half smile-half smirk on his face. Baekhyun wants to punch him but he plays nice. Baekhyun always plays nice.

“But let’s be real, Bagel,” Sehun starts, bringing Baekhyun into his embrace, “you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if I wasn’t around to harass you.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes and lazily drapes his arms over the younger boy’s shoulders. “I got on fine before I met you. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be all that hard. You aren’t anything special.”

“Really? Are you sure you wouldn’t miss me at all?” Chuckling, Sehun skims his lips against Baekhyun’s own. “I’d miss you."

“Are you really trying to sweet-talk me right now? How out of your character.”

Sehun shrugs. “I have my moments. The ulterior motive is the same. I’m still trying to get in your pants.”

Baekhyun hums, absentmindedly scraping his nail down the back of the dancer’s neck without noticing his small twitch. “Now that you mention it, get your hands off my .”

As expected, he’s ignored and Sehun squeezes his backside like the erted little he is. The sculptor coughs to cover his laugh at the ticklish feeling of Sehun’s hair brushing against his skin when the dancer buries his face in the crook of his neck. He plays with the curls of growth at the other’s nape when lips attach to his neck. He tries his best to not shudder at the sensuous torment of his mouth hot on his skin, nipping and tugging and...wait a minute.

“If I look in the mirror later on and see that you’ve marked me, I will kill you mercilessly with a staple and a toothpick.”

Sehun makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, ignoring him (still as expected). Fighting against the steady heating of his cheeks, Baekhyun wants to say something along the lines of 'they'll never recognize your body when I'm done with you', only for a whimper to spring from his throat when Sehun's crotch brushes heady against the front of his jeans.

"Only you would try to ruin a moment like this," Sehun mumbles, finally separating from his neck (he's starting to think the young dancer has a neck ), and Baekhyun tries not to think about how delightful his voice sounds in a deeper tenor.

"Se—"

“My eyes!”

Baekhyun’s immediate reaction is to scroll his eyes to the ceiling at the outburst. Well, that moment is ruined and he really didn't do anything.

Sehun’s immediate reaction is to sigh and whine about how he’s going to start locking the studio doors.

"Can you back up? It's sort of awkward being this close when Lu Han is two seconds away from declaring a national emergency."

Humming, Sehun pecks his lips before stepping away from him. The dance student goes to console the broken vocal student. He tells Lu Han to grow a pair of balls.

("I'll have you know I have a very healthy pair of balls," Lu Han yells. The sound of Sehun's hand hitting his forehead seems to echo.

"This is exactly why no one has confessed to you."        

"I don't want anyone to confess to me."                    

"You know what I think will help you fix your tiny balls problem—

"I do not have tiny balls."

—Bubble tea.")

He wishes they would shut up because he can't hear himself think over their stupid conversation and the rapid beating of his heart. This is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. He shouldn't be feeling this warm, the butterfly wings shouldn't be flapping, and dear god he should not feel even the slightest bit aroused (because seriously, Sehun is about as ually attractive as a chihuahua).

"Hey Cheerios, we're getting bubble tea. As a loyal member of the Bubble Tea club, you are required to come on this excursion."

Baekhyun makes a face and turns to the other two in the room. Sehun has Lu Han in a headlock to keep him from escaping. From looking at them he really wishes Lu Han never attacked befriended him that one day. It's all Lu Han's fault he's even remotely attracted to Sehun's stupid face.

"So you're calling me by brand names now? How creative. And what the hell is the Bubble Tea club?" He slips his hands into his pockets and walks over to the stupid two in what he hopes is a cool manner.

Sehun releases Lu Han in favor of looping his arm around Baekhyun's waist. Lu Han says something about how he doesn't approve of his children being so close and ual. Neither of them bothers to respond.

"Well, let's go. The faster we get the bubble tea, the faster your balls will grow and the faster Baekhyun and I can get back to what we were doing," Sehun urges, dragging Baekhyun, who latches onto Lu Han to make sure he doesn't run away, out of the studio.

“Baek!”

The called one turns over his shoulder. There is a trio of boys sitting atop a brick half-wall in the middle of the quad, all dressed head-to-toe in black. Baekhyun recognizes two out of the three but he has no idea why he’s being called. He has even less of an idea why they are just sitting there and none of the students walking in the area are saying anything.

Sehun grumbles about how he doesn’t appreciate having to wait when his precious bubble tea is calling for him. Lu Han suggests going on ahead and having Baekhyun catch up, but the dancer thins his lips and slumps over. Lu Han tries to make an under-the-breath joke about how Sehun is whipped, but Lu Han’s parents never taught him how to whisper properly and Sehun slaps the back of his head. (He also claims that he isn’t whipped but Baekhyun isn’t paying either of them any attention and Lu Han is singing a made-up song about Sehun and his desperation for a certain sculptor).

Prying Sehun’s fingers from his hip, Baekhyun tells the two idiots to stay where they are and that he’ll be back in a second. He walks over to the three perched on the wall. The one in the middle who is curling his fingers in a lazy wave, with the tasteless metallic skinnies, smiles when Baekhyun gets within a meter’s distance. The guy on the right, in the over-sized hoodie with a penguin face in the middle of the front, raises his eyebrows at him but otherwise doesn’t greet him; the one on the left is looking at something in the distance.

“How nice to see you again, Baek. You haven’t changed at all,” the middle guy says.

“What are you doing here, Jongin?” His tone compliments his instant annoyance.

His eyes don’t leave the grinning face of one Kim Jongin, but Baekhyun can hear the whispers of some of the passing students — the ones who know where these three students come from. He knows they’re wondering why he’s talking to them, what their business is. They are all questions Baekhyun wishes he knew the answer to. This is the last thing he wanted, to be put in this situation. And he wants to walk away but Jongin isn’t here for no reason. Jongin doesn’t do things without thinking.

“I can’t come surprise an old friend?”

“I would hardly call us old friends,” Baekhyun deadpans. “I’d rather be forced to have with my mom than even think about being friendly with you.”

Jongin chuckles. “You really haven’t changed at all. Still the same we used to know and love.”

Shrugging, Baekhyun stares at Jongin, unamused. “You have two seconds to tell me what the you want before I kill you.”

Jongin lifts his hands in mock surrender. “I promise I —” His eyes light up just as Baekhyun feels heat transferred to his back. “Sehun~ Long time no see.”

“I thought I told you to stay with Lu Han,” the sculptor whispers under his breath, head inclined in Sehun’s direction.

Sehun’s hand finds its place on his hip as the younger leans in to say, “Lu Han just got a phone call from Lay about a last-minute rehearsal. I’m very upset I’m missing out on my bubble tea.” The dancer straightens his back and sets Jongin with a cold glare. “And I see you have the audacity to show your face in my territory.”

Confused, Baekhyun looks back and forth between Jongin and Sehun. This doesn’t make sense. How do they know each other? Sehun had never mentioned Jongin before… Well, it’s not like he mentioned Jongin either but that is because he wanted to keep those two lives separate. But now Jongin has randomly appeared on his campus and he seems to know Sehun (and from the way Jongin is smirking at his object of very very very minor affection with that malicious glint in his eyes, it looks like they have some kind old baggage). He was not prepared for this collision.

When Jongin rises from the half-wall, Sehun stiffens behind him. He swears he isn’t worried but he looks over his shoulder at Sehun’s face. He frowns at the younger boy’s clenched teeth and heated glare.

“Sehun,” he calls, covering the hand on his waist with his own.

Flinching at the sudden touch, Sehun shifts his gaze to Baekhyun and his eyes soften. “Bae—”

“How cute is that? The and the puss are sweet for each other,” Jongin coos, nudging the guy to his right who stares blankly for a second and fishes a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket. “You continue to be no fun, Chanyeol.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry I have no interest in your personal vendetta,” Chanyeol yawns and sits the stick between his lips, lighting up. “I’m only here to pass time before I have to be to work.”

Jongin shrugs, striding up to the two and circling them. “It’s funny you two are dating though. The golden-voiced SIPA transfer and the guy who hates the Institute and anyone associated with it with overflowing passion.”

“What?” Sehun asks, sending Baekhyun a short glance and distancing himself so quickly you’d think he was burned.

He doesn’t let it show on his face, but the action shoots a dull pain in Baekhyun’s chest. He curses his unwanted feelings for about the zillionth time that day. The amused smirk on Jongin’s face doesn’t make him feel any better.

“Oh, so he didn’t tell you.” Jongin stops walking beside Baekhyun and slings his arm around his shoulder. “Baekhyun here used to be a proud student at the Seoul Institute of the Performing Arts. He was the pretty boy every girl wanted to have a duet with. We were in the same dance workshop one year. I’m actually surprised he doesn’t remember Kyungsoo, here,” Jongin points out the other guy Baekhyun recognized with the penguin hoodie.

Kyungsoo looks up from his phone at the call of his name and smiles.

“It’s a shame we lost such a wonderful vocalist to such a ty place as this,” Jongin continues. “Even more a shame, he’s in a relationship with an idiot like you.”

Feeling the effects of mental exhaustion, Baekhyun shrugs Jongin’s arm off. “Can you please stop instigating? Singing just wasn’t my real passion. Sehun and I aren’t dating either.”

Jongin coughs mockingly. “Excuse me then, I’m sorry you’re obviously ing such a worthless piece of who wasn’t good enough to get into the Institute,” he laughs.

Baekhyun gasps when he’s pulled to the left all of a sudden and Jongin is tackled to the ground. Once the blur passes, his eyes round at Sehun straddling Jongin and throwing his fist into the latter’s face. As much as he would love to see Jongin beaten to a bloody pulp, it’s a terrible idea for the rival dancers to fight on campus with the known animosity between the two schools. Even if Jongin, Kyungsoo, and Chanyeol came onto their campus, Sehun still threw the first punch. It’ll either spark more tension between the universities or it’ll make Sehun popular for a week before something else happens. Either way, they do not need to add another fight to the current long list of many.

He takes a step in their direction, bent on stopping the two of them, but Kyungsoo easily tugs him back.

“Leave them alone. They’re not going to seriously hurt each other.” Baekhyun thinks otherwise when Sehun lifts Jongin by the collar of his shirt and slams his head back down into the pavement. “Okay…ignore what I just said. Anyway, Kai deserves it. Sehun is pissed because Kai compromised his acceptance to SIPA. They were auditioning as a pair but Kai changed the song and the choreography. Sehun tried to improvise but the audition committee saw it as unprofessionalism and he was rejected. Kai came here just to mess with Sehun and now he’s paying for it. Plus, Kai owes me a couple ten thousand won and this saves me from ing up his face myself.”

Baekhyun nods, surprised Sehun auditioned for SIPA. He never would have guessed from all of the rude remarks about the school. Kyungsoo is right, though. Sehun does need to let out his anger and they shouldn’t get involved. Chanyeol doesn’t interfere either, just takes out his cell phone to video record. Some of the students begin to gather at the scene, circling around and whipping out their own phones to copy Chanyeol.

Sighing, Baekhyun wishes he never walked up to Jongin in the first place. That was his rule when he transferred universities: to never have contact with anyone he used to know.

He worries his bottom lip when Jongin flips over and rolls to his feet. In his rage, Sehun takes no time in standing either. He’s slow on the movement to dodge a very clean right hook to the corner of his mouth and he staggers, falling into some girl who screams for no reason. She pushes him back up as she flails. In Sehun’s moment of unbalance, Jongin comes in again, but to his luck, Sehun trips over his feet and Jongin’s fist goes straight into the face of some guy Baekhyun vaguely recognizes as a traditional music major. Him-something. The crowd erupts into a chorus of noise. Kyungsoo laughs from behind him.

Prideful as almost every other student, Him-something’s amused bystander attitude morphs into anger and he grabs Jongin by the back of the shirt when he turns around to hunt down Sehun. Having found his balance, Sehun saunters over to a captive-held Jongin and sends his clenched fist straight into his throat.

“Damn, that was a move. Sort of like how you kicked me down the stairs,” Kyungsoo comments. Baekhyun tries to step on his foot but Kyungsoo side-steps easily.

“It’s your fault for breaking my project, obstructing the stairwell, and letting Jongin be a douchebag in my general vicinity.”

He turns to see Jongin bent over, coughing heavily. Hands resting over the curve of his back, Sehun draws back his leg to drive his knee into Jongin’s gut. When the latter collapses, Chanyeol and Baekhyun move simultaneously, one moving to pick Jongin up off the ground and the other catching Sehun by the hair.

“,” Sehun hisses. “, Yogurt, that hurts.”

Ignoring the complaints, Baekhyun meets Kyungsoo’s odd wide eyes. Kyungsoo waves him off, motioning to Chanyeol scolding Jongin for starting trouble and then getting beat up. Nodding, he breaks through the crowd, still Sehun’s hair.

“I understand your anger but I can’t believe you two are childish enough to fight like that,” Baekhyun says, letting go of the younger boy’s hair and dragging him by the wrist in the direction of the first year dorms.

“I can’t believe you’re a ing liar,” Sehun scoffs.

Pursing his lips, Baekhyun ponders over how best to handle the turn of this conversation. Normally, he would blow up and get angry — he technically hasn’t lied about anything. He just withheld information that no one even asked about in the first place. And as someone who never told his own past with auditioning, Sehun really has no room to get upset past his already heightened emotional state — but he isn’t in the mood to argue over this.

“I can’t believe you expect me to tend to that busted lip of yours after you just insulted me.” Baekhyun pushes Sehun playfully with his shoulder, hoping the younger goes along with the joke.

“I can’t believe you didn’t run up and kiss me after I beat Kai.”

“I can’t believe you were anticipating a kiss.”

“I can’t believe that you can’t believe I was anticipating a kiss.”

They laugh for a second, any possible tension between them dissipating.

“So when were you going to tell me you auditioned for SIPA, Mr. I-Want-To-Burn-SIPA-To-The-Ground?” Baekhyun asks when they reach the entrance to Sehun’s dorm building.

“When were you going to tell me you transferred out of SIPA, Mr. I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Butter?"

Baekhyun blinks when Sehun shakes his wrist out of his hand and links their fingers together instead. That’s a first.

“That’s not a breakfast food,” he says, stupidly. “I liked being called ‘Muffin’. Can you just call me ‘Muffin’?”

“Only if you wear a schoolgirl outfit and call me ‘Big Papa’.”

Baekhyun makes a face and tries to pull his hand away from the other but Sehun tightens his grip. "You're disgusting. Get away from me."