shh. shh. i know. i know.
i know i haven't updated since like the 1900s. i just. i don't know what happened okay.

He’s an angel; everyone thinks so. He’s a sweetheart, the most well-behaved kid in the neighborhood. He’s the boy next door every mother down the street tells their boys to act like and he’s the pride of his parents. He’s in the top ten of his class, knows how to play piano, and takes dance at a children’s recreational center.

He’s perfect.

“Sehun!”

Popping his head out of the bathroom, Sehun mumbles out a ‘what’ around the foaming toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. His hair falls into his face and he jerks his head to the side to move it away at the expense of flinging his toothpaste filled saliva to the floor.

“Come take this bowl of rice cakes over to the new neighbors down the street,” his mother requests.

Wiping at the tiny puddles he dripped with his socked toes, Sehun calls back a muffled okay. He makes quick work of brushing his teeth and gargles a bit of mouthwash before washing his face. Rushing out of the bathroom and toward the stairs, he barely avoids crashing into his father coming out of the master bedroom with his face buried in the day’s newspaper, sliding around him thanks to the slipperiness of the floor against his socks. His father pays him no attention — this is an everyday occurrence in the Oh household — as he disappears into the open bathroom.

When he gets to the bottom of the stairs and turns into the kitchen just beyond, he immediately catches sight of the large covered bowl sitting on the counter and approaches it. He doesn’t know what possessed his mother to make enough rice cake to feed the entire country for their neighbors but he supposes she wants to seem friendly. Taking the bowl in his arms, he groans under its weight. This is taking friendly to a different level.

And since when did they have new neighbors?

Calling out to his parents that he’ll be back soon, he slips on his sneakers without untying the laces and struggles to open the door with one hand while balancing the rice cakes on his hip with the other.

The late autumn air is warm on his arms. Sehun stands out on their front porch for a second, wondering which house he’s supposed to be going to. His friends always make fun of him that he’s way too oblivious of the world around him and he knows they exaggerate but really, how could he not notice someone moving in down the street. Thankfully, there is a moving van sitting parked out in front of a house that looks exactly like his own four houses down on the opposite side of the street. Guessing that’s the place, he takes off toward it.

He peeks into the window of the moving van to see if there is anyone in it (and to fix his just about overgrown hair again). Blowing a childish kiss to his reflection, he turns to walk up the steps to what he hopes is the correct door. Once again balancing the bowl on his hip for a second, he knocks lightly on the door and then takes a step back. Someone answers the door faster than he expects but a pleasant smile is already on his face by the time it swings open.

“Hello, I’m—”

Oh, it’s not an adult but a boy. A handsome boy. A really handsome boy. A really handsome boy who is not helping a fourteen year old Sehun currently going through a uality crisis by looking so so so cute with his face twisted in confusion.

“I-I’m Oh Sehun. I live down the street in 352.” He glances and jerks his head in the direction of his house. “M-My mom made rice cake to welcome you to the neighborhood.”

The handsome boy blinks before glancing down at the bowl in Sehun’s hands. When he looks back up he has the sweetest smile on his face and Sehun’s never been happier to get stuck giving gifts to the neighbors on behalf of his mom.

“Cool, thanks! I’m Kim Jongin,” the boy says.

Sehun hands over the rice cake, flinching when Jongin’s fingers brush over the back of his hands. He thinks he’s blushing.

Stop it, Oh. Stop it right now. You don’t even know if you like boys. He probably doesn’t even like boys. Stop blushing.

“What school do you go to?”

It takes Sehun a second to realize Jongin’s talking to him and he snaps out of his mental scolding to stare at the slightly taller boy with wide eyes. “What? I mean, I go to the middle school like twenty minutes from here.” He laughs, uncomfortable and awkward.

Jongin gives a small chuckle of his own. “I think I was enrolled there. I guess I’ll be seeing you around then?”

Sehun flicks his hair out of his face (because it’s bothersome and not because he’s trying to seem cool in front of super handsome Jongin nope). “Y-Yeah. Of course.”

Nodding, Jongin looks at the bowl. “Well…thanks again.”

“Oh, right.” Sehun bows, unsure of what he should do. “When you’re done, remember the house is number 352. I’m sure my mom wants her bowl back.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that.” Jongin smirks. “It was nice to meet you Oh Sehun.”

“Ditto,” Sehun mumbles as he turns his back to Jongin and makes his very awkward escape.

Once he hears the door close behind him, he runs back across the street to his house. Standing out in front, he buries his face in his hands and makes distressed screeching noises.

“Ditto? Ditto? Oh Sehun, you are a mega loser.”

 

 

Right leg bent with the sole of his foot pressed to his inner thigh, Sehun stretches out over his extended left leg. He inhales slowly as the strain of the stretch spreads through his hamstrings and leans further over his leg. The chatter of the rest of the room’s occupants fall on his deaf ears as he focuses on loosening his muscles. The after-cardio stretches are his most favorite part of warming-up. The thirty minutes they spend on a half-hearted jog around the studio, jumping jacks, and all the other random crap his instructor makes them do as a form of torture is enjoyable but the fifteen minutes of stretching they do afterward is really what gets him into the mood for dancing.

Switching legs, he inhales again. His serenity doesn’t last long as a hand presses down on his back and he shrieks as he’s pushed farther into the stretch than his flexibility allows and the dull ache turns into a sharp pain. The sound of Yixing’s dopey laughter fills his ears and he glares over his shoulder. Yixing lifts his hand in a wave with a stupid smirk on his face.

“Do you get some kind of sick satisfaction from trying to break me in half?”

Yixing laughs like he didn’t almost snap Sehun’s leg out of its socket with his little joke. “Nah, I just wanted to hear to scream.”

Sehun snarls in response and turns away in favor of continuing his stretching. He ignores Yixing as the older boy plops down beside him. They may have known each other for a year and consider each other friends but frankly speaking, their only relation is their mutual friendship with Lu Han and Sehun never actually feels compelled to associate with Yixing if he doesn’t have to. It’s a mutual understanding between the two of them — or at least Sehun thinks it is because Yixing usually doesn’t go out of his way to talk to him aside from saying hello when they’re alone either but then again, Yixing is never one hundred percent focused on his surroundings.

They finish out the rest of their stretching time silently and when they line up to watch their instructor go over a quick run of today’s choreography, Yixing nudges him in the arm with his elbow.

“Do you know what’s up with Han lately?”

Sehun shrugs, uninterested in the conversation. Yes, Lu Han has been walking around looking like the entire universe is against him these past few days but the both of them know Lu Han is emotional and prone to overdramatic mood swings. Sehun wouldn’t be surprised if there was nothing actually wrong with him.

“You think something happened?” Yixing asks.

Heaving a sigh, Sehun tears his eyes away from the instructor to look at Yixing, annoyance clear in his gaze. “Why don’t you ask him? I’m sure he’d be more than happy to talk your ear off about it.”

The unamused expression that befalls Yixing’s face is only emphasized by the twitch of his nose and the halfhearted roll of his eyes. “You’re a terrible friend.”

Sehun snorts just as the instructor finishes and tells them to copy the choreography. “So I’ve been told.”

And that is where the conversation is supposed to end but Yixing, being himself, doesn’t pick up on Sehun’s disinterest. He catches Sehun’s attention again once they have run through the dance six times and are dismissed for a five minute break.

“You think it might be that boy from the Institute?” He leans up against the water fountain Sehun has his face shoved into.

Standing up, Sehun stares blankly through his wet bangs at the wall in front of him. “I think,” he clicks his tongue, “that’s it’s not any of our business if he hasn’t told us about it.” He looks at Yixing.

“But he—”

“A good friend knows when to stay out of something.” With a quirk of his brow and a condescending pat to Yixing’s shoulder, Sehun turns away to walk back into the dance studio.

 

 

“Sehun!”

Flattening the tip of his tongue over the hole of his straw and swallowing a mouthful of boba, Sehun turns over his shoulder. He looks around confusedly before his eyes lock onto the face of his best friend and crinkle with the width of his smile. Waving with his free hand, he also motions for the other to catch up faster.

“Mornin’ loser,” the other greets as he approaches.

Sehun rolls his eyes. “Good morning, Jongin.” He scoffs as Jongin loops an arm around his shoulder and snatches his drink from his hands.

Jongin wraps his lips around the straw. “Taro again?”

“Nobody asked you to drink it, .” Sehun reaches for his beloved bubble tea only to have Jongin hold it out of his reach.

“Nobody asked you to get the same flavor.”

Sehun tries to grab for the bubble tea and Jongin takes off down the street with it. “Kim Jongin, I will skin you alive!” he yells after the older boy.

But by the time Sehun catches up to Jongin at the bus stop his annoyance has dissolved into exhaustion and he can’t breathe.

Jongin’s laugh rings loud in the air — Sehun swears he hates the sound — and his arm is heavy around Sehun’s shoulders. “I thought you were gonna skin me alive, babe.”

Sehun tries to elbow Jongin in the gut but it doesn’t even seem to affect him. Of course it doesn’t. Because nothing ever bothers Jongin. In the three years he’s known Jongin, Sehun’s come to learn that he’s a sadistic little who has no weaknesses and a million and one strengths. But even though Jongin’s the bad boy in the movies that adults always warn against hanging out with, Sehun still cherishes him as his best friend and his secret crush. All of his efforts to ignore how painfully attractive his friend were crushed mercilessly after hanging out with Jongin for a month and a half. After being exposed to his smile and his laugh and his everything, Sehun learned there was no way to resist Jongin. And now that they’re seventeen, after watching him grow up into broad shoulders and a deepened voice, Sehun has come to terms with the fact that he’s going to be stuck fantasizing over his best friend for the rest of his life.

“Why do you keep calling me ‘babe’?”

“Because,” Jongin leans in much too close — so close his breath is warm on Sehun’s cheek, “you’re the girl in this relationship, Hun.”

The bus pulls up in the minute it takes Sehun to process the nonsense that just came out of his best friend’s mouth — the nonsense that somehow, in all its stupidity, still makes Sehun blush.

“There is no relationship, Jongin,” he says, brows furrowed as he watches a couple people disembark from the bus.

“But if there was one, you’d be the one to take it up the .”

“That’s not true,” Sehun grumbles, affronted.

“Except it is.” Jongin’s arm drops from his shoulders and his hand finds the small of Sehun’s back, pushing him toward the bus. “Ladies first.”

“I will skin you alive.”

Jongin snorts. “You say that and yet I still have my skin, I still have your bubble tea, and you’re still getting on the bus before me.” He pats Sehun’s for emphasis.

“You’re lucky we’re in public,” Sehun grumbles as he taps his bus card.

“Why?” Jongin asks as he does the same. “Did that turn you on? Got a kink for slapping I don’t know about?” He raises his brows suggestively, barking out a laugh when Sehun drags him into a seat beside him.

Rolling his eyes, Sehun leans his head against the window. He doesn’t expect for the straw of his bubble tea to be pressed up against his lips and takes his drink back with a halfhearted thanks.

“You’re cute when you’re mad,” Jongin laughs. He lays his head on Sehun’s shoulder. “Wake me up when we get to school.”

Sehun hums.

Sometimes he literally hates Jongin.

 

 

“Move your fat .”

“Shut your mouth. I’m trying to sleep.”

“That’s ironic coming from someone who wants to be a star.”

Sehun ignores the way Baekhyun snorts. He spent the entire night writing up a fifteen page paper and the buzz of four energy drinks has officially burned out. He’s really tired and even though he probably should have gone back to his dorm, he’s curled up on the square wooden table Baekhyun uses for his clay work. It’s become a habit to disturb Baekhyun in any way possible during his studio time and, at this point, Sehun feels like if he doesn’t make Baekhyun consider murdering him at least once a day, in the words of Lu Han, the universe is going to explode. But today, right now, he only wants to sleep. Baekhyun’s projects be damned.

Sometimes he thinks about why he treats Baekhyun the way he does. Why he can’t help but get underneath the artist’s skin and pick at his nerve endings until he’s red in the face with anger. Sure over the years Sehun has turned into an annoying (as everyone likes to call him), but there is a part of him that still likes to avoid confrontation if he has to. That’s the exact reason why he toyed the line between crude friendly banter and actual with the older boy for so long, because he wasn’t — and still kind of isn’t — comfortable with taking that one extra step to change their relationship into something else.

Relationships aren’t his thing. Especially not ones that require heartfelt feelings because even though it’s been a year and half, he still isn’t over Jongin and the thought of handing his heart over to another to do with it whatever they wish is frightening. Baekhyun is a nice guy — if you can call a guy who threatens to castrate people on a daily basis ‘nice’ — and Sehun knows that but who is to say that Baekhyun won’t hurt Sehun like Jongin?

(Damn. He really needs to get over Jongin).

Baekhyun huffs. “I have work to do.” He slaps Sehun’s and the dancer whines. Baekhyun is heavyhanded.

“Do it somewhere else,” Sehun moans into his arms, wishing Baekhyun wouldn’t fight with him for once.

“Go to sleep somewhere else.”

There’s another slap to his precious bottom and Sehun rolls onto his back, both protecting himself from another stinging hit and giving up on getting rest. “Touch me somewhere else.”

“For God’s sake, Sehun, please just get off the table. If I don’t turn something in by the end of this week, my professor is going to have my .”

“That’s sounds like a personal problem.” Opening his eyes, Sehun squints at his annoyed boyfriend. “And tell him he can’t have your because it belongs to me.”

“Oh Sehun, I will shove my foot so far up your—”

“Can you shut up, Bean Paste? All I need is to nap for like twenty minutes.”

“Are you really not going to call me by my name even though we’re dating?”

Leave it to Baekhyun to focus on a completely irrelevant point in their conversation. “You mean to tell me your name isn’t Sesame Oil?”

Rolling his eyes, Baekhyun pushes Sehun over on his side so his back is toward him. “Go to sleep.”

Success.

 

 

The beat that thumps out of the speakers sitting in the corners of the room is from a song that he recognizes but not the song they spent hours painstakingly choreographing to. Sehun sends a panicked glance to Jongin, wondering if somehow their music was accidentally switched with another auditioning hopeful, but Jongin has that smirk on his face — the one that screams cockiness and self-confidence bordering on narcissism; the one Sehun hates to love — and Sehun suddenly has even less of an idea of what is going on. Jongin starts moving like this has been their choreo and their song for the past two and a half months, like Sehun isn’t obviously five seconds from throwing up all over his shoes because this isn’t right.

Six and a half counts after Jongin starts dancing, Sehun joins in. His skill in freestyle dancing isn’t as good as Jongin’s, he’s much better at choreography, and he feels like a fish out of water next to his unfazed best friend. His movements aren’t as sharp as they could be, he trips over his feet without the grace to play it off as purposeful, he certainly isn’t matching Jongin in cohesiveness. He can only imagine what he looks like to the row of company employees watching his disastrous moves; he probably looks like the friend who has no intention of actually getting into the company, who only comes to make the other look better. In the middle of a turn he catches eyes with Jongin but the contact passes by too quickly for Sehun to interpret the emotions his friend might be feeling.

And then the music stops.

He stops reflexively mid-turn with his back to the judges and turns over his shoulder to pretend it was purposeful. Even though there’s no need to pretend to know what he’s doing anymore. His heart is pounding in his ears, his legs tremble, threatening to buckle, and his breathing is heavy and much too loud in comparison to the silent room. He’s done for.

There’s no way he’ll get in like this.

It’s over.

Sehun’s the kind of performer who thrives off his nervous energy. He takes his nerves and turns it into power and poise but there’s nothing he can do with fear. He crumbles under the pressure of fear until he’s nothing but crushed dreams.

He’s not sure how he stumbled out of the audition room once they were dismissed but somehow he finds himself leaning with his back against the wall in the hallway, staring up at the glaring white overhead lights.

“Good job in there.”

Heaving in a deep breath at the first sound to rush into his ears since the cut of the music, he takes his eyes off the lights and casts his gaze down the wall, past the mess of Jongin’s hair to his eyes. Looking into his friend’s eyes, he realizes there was enough time to register the emotion in Jongin’s eyes during the turn earlier. It’s the same emotion he’s expressing now.

Amusement.

Jongin’s laughing at him, just without the actual act of laughter or the upturn of his lips.

“Why?” His throat aches when he speaks.

“Because I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep up.”

But why?

“This is a competition, Hun. And there are people who strategize to make sure they win like me and there are people who foolishly think if they try hard enough, everything will be okay like you. I know you were all excited about us getting into SIPA together but, babe, I really don’t want to spend another four years with you. But don’t take it to heart, okay? I still love you.”

Don’t take it to heart.

Don’t take it to heart.

Don’t take it to heart.

The way Jongin pats his shoulder is condescending at best and Sehun sees nothing but red as Jongin turns around and tosses his arm up in a careless wave.

How does he not expect Sehun to take it heart? The only reason Sehun is here right now is because of his heart, is because of Jongin and his stupid Jongin brand of confidence that drew Sehun in because Sehun was nothing but the quiet kid who liked to dance in his spare time but never thought he wanted to do it for the rest of his life before. And now he feels completely stupid because now he’s the idiot who thought he and Jongin were perfect together, who thought he and Jongin completed each other, when Jongin obviously didn’t think the same.

“Hey, kid, you okay?”

Sehun takes his eyes off the ground and glances up. He’s on the bus but he doesn’t know when he left the company building; he’s crying but he doesn’t know when the tears started. The bus driver looks at him worriedly and Sehun can’t find the fake smile he’s keeps stored away for times like this.

He taps his bus card and doesn’t bother to answer. He stumbles to the back of the bus as the driver pulls off and falls into an empty seat next to the window.

He feels like those stupid girls in those dramatic romantic movies who cry their life out over some douchebag who doesn’t deserve them and he has to stifle a sob in his arms.

Everything he did was centered around Jongin. His life was Jongin. He was his first kiss, along with his first love, his first time, and now he’s his first heartbreak.

Sehun’s bitter laugh cracks around the edges.

It’s only fitting that Jongin takes all of his important firsts.

 

 

“Oh Sehun.”

Looking up from his phone, Sehun slides out of his seat and strides up to the front of the small classroom where the teaching assistant is passing back their tests from last week. She smiles at him for a second when he holds out his hand to take the answer sheet before calling out the next name.

He folds up the paper as he strolls back to his seat and tosses it carelessly onto the desk as he sits.

“You fail again?”

Sehun lifts his eyebrows at the guy who ended up next to him today. “Shut up, Byungjoo.”

Byungjoo raises his arms, palms flat toward Sehun, in defense. “Ey man, I’m just saying. You never look at the we get handed back so your grades must be worse than mine.”

“I don’t need to look at it.” Sehun hunches over the desk and props his arm up to rest his chin in his palm. He’s really not in the mood for this conversation, or any conversation with Byungjoo. (He may or may not hate Byungjoo with his entire being which because Byungjoo may or may not be his roommate).

“Can I look at it?”

“Can you off?”

Byungjoo flips him off and that almost makes Sehun snort.

He doesn’t do anything when Byungjoo snatches his folded test off the table and flips it open, just continues to stare at the TA connecting her laptop to the projector and explaining what they’re going to review for the day. He doesn’t actually care.

“How the hell did you get full marks?” Byungjoo hisses, an accusatory tone to his voice like he’s suspecting Sehun of cheating. Because apparently he’s nothing but a -obsessed dancer with a pretty face and isn’t capable of being smart.

“How the hell are you so stupid?” Sehun deadpans. “Many of life’s questions simply do not have answers.”

“ you.”

This time Sehun snorts. “I’ll pass.”

 

 

The sun is setting and he still hasn’t done his homework yet but he needed to get out of the house.

For the past week and a half, his mother has been apologizing every time they’re in the same room, begging Sehun to not be angry with her or his father over their divorce. But he’s already jilted and already a staunch opposer of the concept of love so he doesn’t feel bothered in the slightest about their separation. He’s more stressed over having to make new friends halfway into his last year in high school but no matter how many times he tells his mom he doesn’t care, she always thinks he’s lying. It almost makes Sehun wish he stayed in his childhood home with his dad instead of moving a couple blocks away to an apartment building closer to his new high school with her but at least this way there is no Kim Jongin who lives right across the street.

It’s been a while since he’s taken out his skateboard — after the whole audition disaster he decided to spend the least amount of time possible outside to keep from running into Jongin — and his balance on it is a little shaky but-

“You alright there, kid?”

Uh, no, obviously not. He just fell off his skateboard and his face may or may not be bleeding and why did someone have to see him kiss the pavement like that? But instead of showing his reddened cheeks to the stranger with the faint foreign accent, Sehun picks himself up and laughs so loud he probably looks manic.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he assures even though his cheek is throbbing and so is his forehead and his elbow and his knee. Totally fine.

He’s so fine that he doesn’t even protest when the foreigner takes him by the arm and leads him into the direction of an apartment building fifteen minutes away because he doesn’t notice anything but the pain searing at his skin. As he blindly follows the strange brunet man who could possibly be kidnapping him — Sehun’s not going to lie, he’s grown up to be a good-looking son of a and total kidnapper bait — into the building and into the elevator, he listens as the man tells him his name (Lu Han) and that he just bought a new box of Hello Kitty bandaids.

Sehun considers screaming for help because any grown man who buys Hello Kitty bandaids must be after gorgeous eighteen year old boys named Oh Sehun. It turns out that Lu Han is a sophomore at Gongyeon University, the college Sehun unfortunately is attending the next year because of Jongin’s betrayal. When he tells Lu Han that he’ll be a freshman there next year, the man’s eyes sparkle — ‘that cannot be natural’, Sehun thinks to himself — and he asks if he can be like Sehun’s big brother and take him under his upperclassman wing. Already weirded out as it is, Sehun decides to play along and agrees.

Lu Han’s apartment is bigger than the one Sehun shares with his mother and Sehun wonders how he can afford an apartment like this on his own. Lu Han forces him down onto the couch and disappears down a hallway to god knows where but when he returns he has a box of bandaids in one hand and a bottle of peroxide and toilet paper in the other. Setting them down on the couch, he blinks up at Sehun innocently.

“So, I don’t actually know how to treat wounds,” he says.

Rolling his eyes, Sehun reaches for the peroxide and the toilet paper. Lu Han pushes his hands away.

“No. I want to take care of my little brother.”

“Look,” Sehun sighs, “I’m not actually your little brother so you don’t —”

Lu Han slaps him in the forehead and Sehun stares at him blankly, wondering if that actually just happened or if the pain made him hallucinate getting hit by some stranger.

“There! All better.” Lu Han grins, obviously proud of himself.

Touching his forehead, the pads of Sehun’s fingertips meet a bandaid that wasn’t there a second ago.

At that moment, Sehun declares Lu Han a harmless idiot.

(And a beautiful friendship is born).

 

 

While he’s okay with their divorce, remarriage is a problem.

He doesn’t bother looking up when his mother walks in his room — his room that’s a lot smaller than it was in their old house but he supposes he can’t complain — too focused on not falling asleep over his history of theater textbook.

“Sehun?”

His eyes snap open as his mother pats his shoulder lightly. Blinking drowsily at the small, sheepish woman hovering over him, he groans when she shakes his shoulder and urges him to wake up.

“Sehun, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

But why? Can’t she see he’s halfway to being dead to the world? Grunting, he nods as he pulls himself awake and rolls off the side of his bed. Motioning for his mother to lead the way, he rolls his tired eyes at the uneasy half-smile she sends him. (She’s always been a delicate woman — quiet and much too concerned with everyone’s impressions of her).

He follows her down the narrow hallway from his bedroom to where their living room melds into the kitchen, the tiny alcove where the washing machine is, and the front entrance. Standing there in front of the door is some stranger danger man in an ugly beige suit with his hair slicked back off his forehead and a broad smile splitting his cheeks.

Sehun isn’t exactly sure what he’s looking at and he can’t help himself when he blurts out, “If you’re trying to sell me off to loan sharks, I will raise hell.”

With wide, scandalized eyes, his mother mumbles out an apology to the man in the doorway who shakes his head as if Sehun’s outburst is okay (which it obviously isn’t from the way his smile drops and his brows pull together).

“He’s not a loan shark, Sehunnie,” she explains. She wrings her fingers and Sehun almost scoffs at the way she draws out her words as if she’s talking to a child. “He’s my fiancé.”

 

“So your mom just brought this dude home. And she didn’t even tell you she was dating let alone that this guy was putting a ring on it?”

If his lips weren’t wrapped around a thick straw, up taro boba like it was water and he was stranded in the desert, Sehun would have snorted. “Stop quoting Beyonce. Your gay is showing,” he says once he’s guzzled down half the cup and kicks a dirty soccer ball back to Lu Han.

Lu Han pouts and traps the ball beneath this right food. “Whatever. Either way, your mom has been on some random man’s D for who knows how long and now she’s getting married.” He draws his foot back to kick the ball over but sets it down as he hums contemplatively. “What if she’s pregnant?”

“That’s disgusting. Don’t talk about my mom like that.” Sehun glares at the older man. “Apparently he’s running for some position in the National Assembly or something and expects us to be a picture perfect family or some like that. I mean, my mom is so spineless she would be the perfect trophy wife but my plan A in life is to become a star and there’s a fifty-three percent chance of that actually coming true. Mr. Politics is going to ruin my life and our family and my life.”

“Where did you get fifty-three percent from?” Lu Han snorts.

“It was better than saying eighty.” Sehun shrugs. “That’s not the point, Lu Han. Are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, your mom is getting remarried to some politician, you think the guy is the devil incarnate, and you aspire to be a .” Lu Han kicks up the ball to juggle it with his knees. “I think you should be happy for your mom. If she’s marrying the dude, he must be cool.”

“That’s proof you’ve never met my mom.”

“I haven’t. But I still think you’re overreacting. Or at least going through some weird bubble tea-induced frenzy.” Lu Han tosses his head in the direction of the bleachers and the five empty plastic cups once filled with bubble tea of various flavors. He lets the ball drop to the grass and crosses his arms over his chest.

“I don’t have an addiction,” Sehun defends.

“I didn’t say you did.”

Sehun literally hates Lu Han sometimes.

 

 

Sehun leans his head against the cold, irritatingly vibrating window and puffs out spreading shapes of fog onto the glass. He lazily writes his name with the pad of his index finger, wipes it off with the sleeve of his hoodie, and does it all over again. When the bus hits a sharp turn and his elbow goes slamming into the tiny ledge between the window and the side of the bus, he murmurs under his breath about how he hates public transportation and how he wishes his mother didn't talk his father out of buying him a car back when they were still married. His step-father wouldn't even think about giving him a gift as expensive as a motor vehicle and with no job and a ty allowance for a spoiled rich kid, it looks like he's stuck taking stupid, cramped public buses for the rest of his life. Rubbing at his elbow, he breathes against the window again. This time, he adds a heart next to his name and then a smiley face after the heart.

The bus stops after fifteen minutes of him drawing on the window. Sparing a glance to the destination marker at the front of the bus, Sehun quickly gazes out the window once more. He has at least another 10 stops, at least another twenty minutes on the bus. His only salvation is that the seat next to him is currently occupied by his backpack and no one has come by asking if the seat is available. He doesn't plan on giving the free seat up anyway.

So when his backpack suddenly lands in his lap, right as he's drawing an ice cream cone, he has to bite on his tongue to keep from cursing whoever has the gall to just move his belongings without permission to hell and back. But it doesn’t matter because all the foul words he could think of saying die in his throat as he glances up at the new occupant of the seat to his right. His lips thin into a frown that borders on a scowl but the usual anger just doesn't surface like it should. Maybe that means he's gotten over it, or maybe it means he's just not in the mood today, but whatever the reason, he only turns back to the window to continue his drawing.

"You're not even going to say 'hi' to me?" The other person says with an amused lilt to his voice.

Unable to help himself, Sehun snorts. "I don't see why I should."

"C'mon, Hun. Don't be like that." There's a nudge at Sehun's side and a twinkling of laughter. "When was the last time we've seen each other?"

"About two months ago when you decided you wanted to say hello and your hello met my fist?" Sighing, Sehun sits up and sends a sidelong glance. "What do you want, Jongin?"

Jongin quirks a brow and Sehun hates himself for thinking that Jongin is still handsome, if not even more so, after all these years, after all that he's done. Why is it that the villain is always more attractive than the hero? It's not fair.

"Can’t a guy just want to talk?" The older boy pouts (but Sehun doesn’t think it’s the cutest thing ever, nope).

"We’ve talked," Sehun deadpans. "Now, go away."

Jongin ignores him in favor of checking the time on his cell phone. "I’m hungry. You eat lunch yet? Wanna get something to eat?"

What? Blinking confusedly, Sehun runs his eyes over Jongin's face, looking for the punch-line to his obvious joke. But aside from the slight upturn to his lips that says he clearly enjoys making Sehun upset, there's nothing else in his face that hints that he's anything but sincere. And that doesn't make any sense. Jongin isn't supposed to casually ask Sehun out to eat; they're not on friendly terms anymore. Sehun hates Jongin as much as it is mentally and emotionally possible for someone to hate another and Jongin...well Sehun isn't sure how Jongin feels about him but it can't be positive.

"You..." he trails off, unsure of what is going on and if this isn't some strange dream built up by his subconscious that can't get over Jongin, "are aware that I don't like you, right?"

Jongin hums, attention still on his phone.

Sehun glances at it as well. They were always too similar. Or wait, no, they weren't. They weren't similar at all. They were almost polar opposites and it's only now as Sehun watches Jongin participate in their disjointed conversation while focusing intently on something on his phone that Sehun realizes that after the audition, after he vowed to ruin Jongin's dreams just like Jongin ruined his, he turned into the person he hates the most.

The obsession with their phones, the completely thoughtless and self-centered disregard for others, the ability to turn anything into a joke, the ego. Sehun was never like that before.

"I was thinking chicken.”

Reaching for his own phone, Sehun pretends he has something else to do today. "As much as eating chicken with the world's tiest person sounds absolutely wonderful, I think I'll have to pass. I have to..." He looks at the destination marker again and , he's missed his stop.

There's an empty silence between them that lasts half a minute -- no tension, no unspoken words, just distress on Sehun's part as he scolds himself for being so absentminded.

"Sounds like you're free for lunch." Jongin stands and reaches over to pull the line to request a stop. "Good. There’s a place that sells chicken that tastes like heaven only like a five minute walk from here. I was just gonna take it home but we’re really close to our old neighborhood," he says.

“Jongin, I’m not—” Sehun’s swept out of his seat when Jongin latches onto his arms and pulls him up. He barely grabs onto one of the straps of his bookbag before he’s led off the bus and into the familiar streets of his childhood suburb he never wanted to return to.

“We can reminisce and .”

Sehun wonders if Jongin will ever stop to listen to him. Probably not.

so, uh, this was sehun's backstory. actually there's a lot more to the sehun-baekhyun-(jongin)-(kyungsoo) relationship than i'm writing. maybe i'll make a side story like another 100 years from now since i always say i'll do things and then don't do them (cause i'm awesome).
anyway, i make no promises to when i'll update next because i can't keep them (cause i'm awesome)
and i hope you'll stick with me and my slow updates (cause i'm awesome)

(づ￣ ³￣)づ