Jongin jumped on Sehun’s back, lifted his index finger to order one beer.  He took a seat next to his friend and hit his shoulder.

“We are sooo gonna win tonight man.”

The tan skin boy happily grabbed the beer and cheered. From what he heard, Yixing, a sunbae also his current rival, had came alone. Although their relationship was much better than just a sunbae-hoobae one, when it came to competition, Jongin would turn into an aggressive one.  Reviewing all the members attended tonight, with Sehun and his iness, the coupons were totally within the arm’s reach.

Sehun cut off his mental celebration by pointing backward to a particular table, his tone couldn’t be more plain.

“I think you underestimated your competitor.”

Jongin averted his eyes to that direction, immediately understood what his friend meant.

“Someone wants to play huh.”

He mumbled, rubbing his chin thinking. As a key member of the club, Jongin well knew that his sunbaes were extremely serious and fair if it was a real contest (like the one held up last month). But this was just an entertaining competition and he would be not surprised if the judges let their emotion break into their job. So it no longer depended on his skill any more. Now this was Sehun’s battle.

He turned aside to his friend. Sehun was simply enjoying his second beer, carelessly tapping his foot on the ground along with the rhythm. No, he couldn’t count on this boy, he had to do something to consolidate his chance to win.

Jongin checked on the list of order performance, a smirk suddenly curved on his lips.

“Okay, let’s do plan B!”

He grabbed the younger boy’s arm, pulled him out of his seat to walk across the room. Sehun was startled at his friend’s move, he tried to shake his hand off but no use.

“What plan B? Do we even have a plan?”

“We do now. Just follow my lead.”

The tan skin boy sped up, still kept his face straight, locked his view at three boys who were talking and laughing with each other. When they reached the final destination, Sehun knew it’s too late for him to turn back as he saw Luhan was a little surprised at first but quickly flashed his warm smile to greet them. He stepped aside and looked away to avoid the eye contact with the Chinese boy.

Jongin on the other hand excitedly high five with his sunbaes, grinned widely while exchanging a look with Yixing.

“You came alone hyung?”

“Yeah” Yixing said dramatically “My partner dumped me.”

“You know what Jongdae said as he rejected Yixing?” Minseok butted in, he even made a serious facial expression, cleared his throat to prepare for the imitation “Did you not see me last I danced? I was embarrassed enough hyung.”

 The whole table was shaking cuz everyone burst into laugh and Luhan had to hold on Yixing to support himself for standing still.

Well, everyone but one particular boy who chose to stay out of the story. Sehun was about to excuse himself to go back his seat when out of nowhere Jongin pulled him from behind to join the circle.

The tan skin boy shifted his look to Luhan, noticed that the latter was gluing his eyes on the youngest one, threw his arm around his friend’s shoulder, chuckling.

“Luhan hyung, who do you think is better, you or my Sehun?”

“Your Sehun?” Luhan winkled his forehead at the new information. Now that he noticed, Sehun was quite clingy to the other boy. And as he recalled, Sehun was not that type of letting people do all the skinship like that. He was supposed to be cold and unapproachable.

Maybe they’re close friends.

“Uh huh, my Sehun.”

Jongin purposely emphasized the possessive adjective while gripping Sehun’s shoulder and sending just-play-along-with-this eye message.

“I…I don’t know.” the older one scratched his neck, his mind was full of questions about what kind of relationship between the two boys.

“Oh, we’ll see it soon”

Jongin winked and bid a goodbye to the others before elbowed Sehun to leave. All the way back to the bar counter, he tried to touch his friend as much as possible, knowing that someone was watching them from afar.

When they finally settled in their seat, Sehun shook his hands off and growled

“What the hell was that?” he narrowed his eyes “Are you telling me that you’re gay?”

The tan skin boy chuckled, flapping his hand in the air. To be honest, he was afraid Sehun would slap him back there but luckily, the latter was calm enough to do nothing.

There one thing Jongin learned all those years being friend with this boy was that if somebody had touched him like that, he was pretty sure that person would have been beaten up unmercifully. Though they have known each other from junior high, had shared many good and bad moments together, Jongin couldn’t deny that sometimes he was scared of the younger boy’s coldness. They had put it in a fight against each other, once, and that memory was still not easy even just for a recall.

“No, of course not.” he smirked craftily “I just want to shake our competitor’s morale.”

“By feeling my biceps?” Sehun winkled his brows questioningly.

“Yep.”

The confidence in his friend’s voice made Sehun worried more. Jongin was an artful pure evil, but sometimes he was just an idiot who did whatever he thought was right. Like the time he stood up for Sehun for the first time in 7 grades or the time he put himself in danger and ended up in hospital. All of that reminded Sehun to take a mental note to always keep an eye on his friend.

The younger boy cleared his throat, stated the matter of fact

“I think I’m the only one who lost his mind with you all over me.”

Jongin reached out his hand to pat the other’s shoulder, reassured one more time.

“Just put up with it til the performance over. I’m sure it’s gonna work.”

Sehun was about to ask why having his friend clinging to him could do anything when suddenly all the lights went out and the main stage was brightened up a second after that. Hyoyeon, the President of the club, dressing in a skinny black leather pants, silver off-the-shoulder dress and wearing a D&G limited edition boots, made her way to the center of the stage. She totally stood out in front of people and earned some whistle from her friends. Hyoyeon winked at them before grabbed the mic and said cheerfully.

“Hello everyone, welcome to our special Friday. Are you guys having fun?”

The whole club shouted “yes” in unison, lightened up the mood and also the heat. Hyoyeon smiled pleasantly, scanned around and announced

“Okay, it just started. Now it’s time for the most expected part of this night, the duet performance. Please give our pretty MC a big hand, Ms. Yuri.”

The room was burst into cheering and applause. Yuri was mostly one of the best dancers in the club with y body and attractive appearance. She was told to go abroad working next year after her graduation.

Yuri smiled brightly as she received the mic from the President.

“Thank you Hyoyeon. As you know, we have fifteen couples registered to show their talent tonight and don’t forget the prize is very interesting. Okay, I don’t want to hold on you any longer. Everyone, please welcome the first couple, Junsu and his partner, Minji.”

The crowd clapped their hands loudly until the music was on and began to dance along the groove.

Jongin stretched out his arms, warmed up his body, preparing for his performance. According to the list, his turn was the seventh. Usually seven was not his favorite number but tonight, it would be his lucky charm. The young boy looked over his shoulder to find a familiar figure across the room but Luhan was nowhere to see.

After the traditional blind date, Jongin by coincidence knew that the Chinese boy was seeking for information about Sehun. It was a rare day he came to the library to return a book for D.O, his roommate and overheard two girls talking about how Luhan asking around about a hoobae, who was not even in his Department. The tan skin boy didn’t actually pay any attention to the chitchatting until the name of his friend was mentioned. Apparently, the older boy didn’t get what he wanted because according to those girls ‘he looked even cuter when he was disappointed’.

It was no surprise to Jongin that not many people here had strong connection to this cold boy. Sehun didn’t initiatively make new friend since they went to Seoul for college. The whole group was formed randomly by style of introducing a friend to another friend.

 D.O was a sunbae and also Jongin’s roommate, he was too nice to be ignored so the younger boy finally opened to him after a month, of course with Jongin's help.

Suho was Sehun’s roommate. He had no choice to make conversation with the other. Besides the older male was the only one who helped him to enhance the artistic sense so frankly, even though he didn’t speak it loudly, Sehun somehow had special respect to his hyung.

Baekhuyn and Chanyeol were the last ones who joined the circle. They were counterpart of another in making people laugh and incredible jokers. Suho had introduced them to the boys one day at lunch as his funniest dongsaengs.

However, none of them knew much about Sehun’s past. That was obviously not a bed time story.

What made Jongin wonder was why Luhan out of nowhere gave so much heed to his friend just after a date. Did he want something from Sehun or he was just simply falling for the younger boy? Anyway, whatever it was, he was pretty sure he would find out soon. For now, all he knew was that he could take advantage of Luhan’s attention on Sehun and distracted the older male a little bit.

To his dismay, the Chinese boy suddenly appeared at the back stage right before his turn and encouraged both of them with a warm smile. Before leaving back to his friend, Luhan suddenly leaned in to whisper against Jongin’s ear one thing that made the younger boy gawped at the latter for a long minute until Sehun nudged his side, mouthing ‘let’s go’.

“Sorry Jongin ah, I have to win this one.”