People said it’s better late than never. Sehun almost agreed with that. Well, almost.

At some points, he thought it’s better never than being late.

Like when you bought a ticket to a movie, you should be at the cinema on time, before they turned off all the lights. If you couldn’t make it then take a rain check, just don’t come in the middle and interrupt the other’s enjoyable moment.

Sehun found it really irritated when a staff shone the torch throughout the room and beamed at the spot beside him. Winkles formed on his forehead as a voice kept saying “sorry” from the head of the line to his seat. Then that person easily plopped down on the empty chair, let out a small giggle while adjusted his position with a popcorn and cup of coke in hand.

Sehun kept on staring at that boy until their eyes met and that boy flashed him the brightest grin he has ever seen.

“Sorry.”

He said again and turned back to the screen, totally ignored (or didn’t see) the frown of annoyance on Sehun’s face.

Sehun ended up losing track of his mind and had to buy a DVD of that movie later.

Or when you woke up in the morning, decided to roll on your side about five more minutes but it turned out you overslept for half of hour and being late for your class. In that case, you had two choices.

One:  stay put in bed and call it a day.

Two:  get up, change, go to class and sneak in as quiet as possible because there were many brain cells working at that time and concentration was all they asked for.

Sehun pencil slipped out of its way and scratched a line on his sketch as the door of the theology class spun open, revealed a curly brown head bowing repeatedly.

“Sorry I’m late. My alarm clock didn’t work this morning.”

“Who cares!”

 A guy from the back of the class growled, making that person startled, tightened his backpack’s handle and quickly walked to the only unoccupied seat, which was in front of Sehun’s.

The class fell back to its silence and Sehun crumpled up his previous drawing, tossed it aside. He stole glance at the back of that boy’s head, wondering why he looked so familiar. But he couldn’t care more.

Or when you had time to let your mind wander in nine clouds and strolled over the sidewalk, you should have seen the bus was coming and sped up your paces. Or else, wait for the next one.

You shouldn’t chase after a running bus, slamming your fist on its body and shouting until the driver gave up and pulled over.

And again, like a tricky game of God, the only seat left was beside Sehun’s.

That person panted hard, his hair stuck out from all the direction as if he had just come back from a marathon.

“Is it your thing?”

Sehun couldn’t help but asking, not because he cared about the stranger, but like people said, third time was always a charm and he just wanted to make sure if it was true.

That boy was dumbfounded at the sudden question. Well, who wasn’t if you were asked by a handsome boy with white milky skin, pink lips and attractively sad eyes.

“Ex…excuse me?”

“Being late” Sehun emphasized his words “Is it your thing?”

That boy continued his looking dazed, now it seemed like he was staring at Sehun with mouth formed ‘O’ shape.

“Okay, take your time.” Sehun shrugged, averted his eyes to the front.

“What?” that boy choked out, shook his head in disbelief and exclaimed “I mean, no, that’s not my thing.”

Unconsciously shifted to his side, Sehun held up his hand (to defend??), didn’t expect the latter would react in that way. Not just him, the whole bus was dropping their looks on them suspiciously (plus exasperatingly).

“Alright, alright.” Sehun shushed him, he actually had to lower his head to avoid inquisitive eyes from around “I’m just curious because whenever I see you, you’re always late for something.”

That boy opened wide his doe-like eyes, jerked his head back a little bit to get a full view of Sehun, tapping his chin mumbling.

“We met before? Why I don’t remember someone gorgeo….ehem… remember you?” he coughed awkwardly.

“I don’t know.” Sehun blinked. He started to count with his fingers “We met at the cinema, you came in the middle of “Rise of the Guardians”. You were sitting in front of me in the theology class which is weird because I never saw you in class before. And this is the third time. You should see your face when you’re running after the bus. I thought you were crazy.”

The latter must be embarrassed for all those things Sehun had just pointed out because his cheeks was now covered with a tint of pink color. He scratched his neck, trying to explain his situation.

 “I’m new here and this map isn’t helping. It keeps giving me incorrect directions.”

He fished out from his backpack a small map of Seoul, stretched it out to show Sehun. There were many circle marked in red and also countless lines drawn everywhere. Sehun squinted, completely be dazzled by just scanning it.

“Maybe it’s because you read it wrong.”

After few minutes figuring out the main problem, Sehun came up with that conclusion. Then he spent the rest of his travelling time to teach the helpless boy how to read all the signals and to use the underground. In the other hand, he learnt (in a surprised way) that the boy was a Chinese, named Luhan and actually two years older than him. He just came to theology class by mistake as he was looking for his psychology one.

That day, Sehun missed his stop and for the first time in his life, he was late for his class.

***********

It turned out being excelled in exploiting cuteness was actually Luhan’s thing.

The boy could be ridiculously adorable in any situation. He would puff his cheeks, pouted whenever he failed to break his own record on resolving Rubik’s cube. His eyes would sparkle in joy when Sehun finally couldn’t resist his aegyo and shared with him his bubble tea as he already finished his.

His brows always met in confusion and his pursing lips were so kissable as he peered at the sketches on Sehun’s lap when they had a studying date at the library.

“What’s this drawing about Sehun?” he would ask even though the answer was the same as usual.

“It’s surrealist painting hyung. Don’t read, just feel it.”

He didn’t understand why the younger one was obsessed with this kind of art because as far as he concern, people didn’t buy what they couldn’t see. But that was not the main point. The weirdest part was that why an interior designer would put all his soul into something didn’t involve in his future career.

Luhan took a mental note to ask Sehun later when the latter finished his little piece of work.

“And you call yourself a designer??”

Luhan’s impression could be described in one word: shocking.

It was the first time Sehun took him to his apartment. His parents had just bought it for him as a marriage portion (Sehun said it made him sound like a girl but didn’t complain much after he gave it a visit last week).

The Korean boy closed the door behind him, protested.

“I didn’t say I’m a good one though.”

“But…” he suddenly sputtered, pointed his finger into the space in front “It’s…it’s plainly empty, Sehun.”

Sehun walked pass him, opened the huge window then turned around.

“I’m working on my own style hyung.” the younger reasoned, earning a chuckle from the other.

“Is it ‘I’m doing nothing’ style?”

Ignoring the teasing tone in the Chinese boy’s voice, Sehun slowly walk across the room, his hand tenderly trailing on the white wall.

“I want to paint it with my art work, but I haven’t decided the concept yet. It has to be something special, because it will be my cosy nest of love.”

He spun around, pointed the right corner of the room, near the window.

“I will place a piano there, when I save enough money to buy one and also learn how to play.”

He stepped back a bit, tapped his foot on the floor

“I also want a LCD TV here, a big one. I’m fine with my laptop now but in the future, I prefer a TV.”

Sehun continued painting his room for Luhan’s imagination, added many small details like size, color until Luhan held up his hands to motion him stop.

“Okay, too much for my brain. Bring me back when your nest is actually done. From now on, we will hang out at my place.”

Luhan had suggested them go to the Han River more than once but the younger one kept refusing to give him the direction or agree to go with him.

“Why?” he frowned, stamping his feet on the ground like a baby.

Sehun casually flipped over few pages of the magazine, didn’t pay much attention on the content.

“There are two types who like going there hyung. One is people who are in love so they always wander in couples. Two is people who want to kill themselves. Which one are you now?”

Luhan blinked several times, reading the facial expression of the latter to find any joke under it but got none. To answer that question, he had to pour himself a cup of cold water and settle down on the couch for a moment.

Of course he wanted to be the first type, but the person that he loved totally against this idea so maybe he would ask somebody else how to go there alone later.

He put down his cup, cleared his throat and asked innocently.

“Could I be this type who just strolls and makes the most of the romantic scene?”

 Sehun lifted his eyes from the magazine to give him a are-you-serious look and got a nod in response. Then the younger boy dropped back to his reading after let out the most useful comment on this situation.

“Then make sure those lovey-dovey moments from the type number one won’t drive you crazy and turn you into type number two.”

Luhan let out a small sigh and gave up, mentally cursed at the Korean boy who was too oblivious to see the hint of his message.

********

Jongin stomped into Sehun’s room and plopped onto the other’s bed without any warning.

“Yah, get your stinky feet off.”

Sehun turned around on his rolling wheeled chair, gruntingly yelling, even though he knew that big grin was all he got in reply and at the end of the day he had to change his sheet.

“You will come to the party on Friday won’t you?”

The tan boy hugged the pillow tight against his chest, darted his eyes to his best friend in front. Sehun bit his lower lip, wavering. Friday night would always be his and Luhan’s movie date because he didn’t have class the next day while the other normally didn’t have many classes in his senior year.

 They would choose a random DVD from Luhan’s collection and wrapped up into blanket on the sofa with homemade popcorn. The older was usually the one who picked and complained continuously about the Sehun’s bad taste in movie when the younger against the idea of watching “Love actually”, his favorite one.

On the other hand, Sehun didn’t understand why Luhan could laugh that hard at some scenes he had already seen several times. But Sehun didn’t say a word because Luhan’s laugh absolutely sounded more interesting than whatever was showing on the screen.

“You could bring your secret lover too.”

Jongin cut off his thought with an inappropriate comment as usual. He loved teasing Sehun and only stopped until the other shooed his out of the room and slammed the door in his face.

“For the nth times, his name is Luhan.” Sehun winced.

“So you admit he is your lover.”

And with that Jongin was kicked out without mercy by a grumpy Sehun, but not forgot to talk nonsense about he would tell on Luhan how mean his little boyfriend was to him.

Luhan was more than happy when the younger boy asked him to come with him to the party. This was the first time he met Sehun’s friend and there no need to say how nervous he was. He went shopping the day before, trying to make him look good in every angle and smiled out of satisfaction in front of mirror when he was ready to go.

It was no surprise to Sehun that half of his friends (boy and girl) tried to hit on Luhan from the moment the Chinese male stepped in the house. The younger one had a hard time to spot his friends from afar and dragged the other through a bunch of almost drunk college students.

“Hey, you make it!”

Chanyeol exclaimed and lifted a God-knows-what-is-in-it cup in his left hand while his right hand was busy grabbing his boyfriend’s .

Sehun gave each of them a hi-five before turned aside to Luhan, smiling.

“Huyng, these are my friends” he pointed from left to right “Suho hyung, D.O hyung, Jongin, Baekhyun hyung and Chanyeol hyung. Guys, this is Luhan hyung.”

“Yeah, we know.” they chirped in unison “You talk about him all the time.”

Although the room was filled with a yellow dim light in order to make a feeling of an old, dusty pub, Sehun could see the blushes on Luhan’s face and he swore in the name of any Saint in heaven, he just wanted to pull the other upstairs and attacked him without confessing.

He didn’t quite remember the rest of the night due to the amount of alcohol his beloved friends had poured down his throat.

Sehun woke up at the sunray hit straight in his face, with dizziness in his head and feeling of nausea in stomach. He was definitely suffering from the worst hang over ever. He recognized the room immediately and sprung up, looking around to find the owner but Luhan was nowhere to see.

He checked the whole apartment twice, anxiety boiling up as the time went by and there was no sign of the Chinese boy, even his phone was turned off.

Maybe he went out to buy breakfast.

Sehun calmed his own nerves before burst out panic again when he saw a piece of paper sticking on the dining table.

MAP TO MY HEART

He read the title in confusion and being more puzzled as shifting his eyes down. There was a crossword, drawn in red (the color Luhan loved the most), a list of hints below and a note

You have shown me how to read a map so many times before. Now let’s me show you the map to my heart.

Sehun tore out his hairs because two reasons:

One, this didn’t sound like a joke at all and when Luhan was serious then what coming next  was not good.

Two, he at this game.

The cold breeze of the early morning made Luhan shiver. He wiped the bang off his forehead and darted his eyes toward the vast expanse of water in front.

“Yah, do think this is funny?”

A familiar voice snapped him back. His lips curved into a happy smile before he turned aside to see Sehun was panting hard, his hair was all messy and a little piece of paper was tightly held in his hand

“Hey.”

“That is all you could say?” the younger one stepped toward him, squinting “after giving me a headache resolving this.”

Luhan just smiled back, waiting for the other to reach his place. The wind was still as strong as a minute before but he didn’t feel cold any more, instead, his body heat was going up along with ever pace Sehun made.

“And what is ‘the first thing you said to me’? How am I supposed to remember this?” Sehun continued to complain while walking, his voice couldn’t get any louder.

“And surrealist art is not weird. And I did not find you annoying in the first place.”

He stopped when there was only a small distance between them, pressing their forehead together whispering.

“And what if I couldn’t finish it? You would just stay here forever?”

“No, I would come back home and call it a day.” Luhan shook his head slightly, the loving smile never left his lips “But I made a bet with myself that you would come find me. And I win.”

Sehun chuckled at the baby-like sound the other had just made.

“Now…” he moved closer “Where is my reward?”

Then within a second he had Luhan standing on his tip toe, pressing their lips together.

-----------------------------

A/N. For those who are curious about what "Map to my heart" crossword looked like, pls visit my blog on tumblr

http://cuckungyeu.tumblr.com/