Baekhyuns eyelids gradually raised, his vision still blurry from morning dreariness as he stretched out his arm in attempt to find his phone for the time. But he couldn’t find it. Not just his phone, but his bedside table seemed to have magically disappeared somehow. Noticing something was a little off, Baekhyun blinked several times to adjust his vision to the oddly bright room before jerking from surprise when he spotted someone beside him. Zora.

Baekhyun carried on blinking at her repetitively, not even backing away from the close proximity between their faces when their noses were practically touching. He didn’t know why, but he forgot to breathe for a minute. That good 60 seconds of staring at her sleeping face, his breathing hitched and his heart suddenly beat out of rhythm. He could count the eyelashes on her eyes, notice the pattern of the folds on her lips- he was so close. When he realized that his heart was starting to race, Baekhyun flung himself off of her bed and quickly but silently dashed out of her room, entering back into his room with a frozen expression.

He was questioning how he ended up staying in Zora’s room all night, but after realizing that he was still in his white school shirt and school pants, it made sense to him. He carried her home all the way from the police station and by the time they got home, it was way pass midnight. He must have accidently dozed off on her bed.

Her bed.

For some reason, he could feel his cheeks going pink. His hand held his heart, which even then, was still pounding in his chest. What was wrong with him?

Baekhyun cupped his warm cheeks with his cold hands in attempt to wake himself up (and calm himself down) You were just startled Baekhyun, just surprised, that’s all He told himself, grabbing his blazer from his bed and digging into his pockets for his phone to check for the time because his stupid clock stopped working. 5:12am.

He groaned at himself before touching the tip of his school shirt. It was more or less dry now. Although he could make do with a warm shower before he could get a cold or a fever right before mid-terms.

“Why didn’t you tell us you had a sister, you little bastard!” Jongdae scolded upon seeing Baekhyun enter the classroom; running up and smacking him over the head somehow in a friendly manner. Baekhyun stood there, blinking yet again, a little dumbfounded by his friends’ sudden attack but wasn’t showing it.

“Good morning to you too” He stated, his voice as blunt as paper before casually making his way to his seat.

News travelled fast in Shota, not just because the school was quite small, but also because students had nothing better to do but to gossip about things that had nothing to do with them in the first place. Baekhyun could put money in betting that everyone was already aware about his relation with Zora after his outburst in front of his friends yesterday. And although he had friends like Lay and Jongdae who would be decent enough to respect that he might have not wanted everyone in school knowing, his other friends weren't as bright. 

He paused when something caught his eye on his way to the back of the class. A desk at the front of the classroom had turned into a graffiti piece; nasty words and disturbing pictures drawn all over the wood with pen and felt tips. Zora’s desk.

That was quick. Only her second day and she’s already getting bullied to this extent. Takes some skill; he thought.

Baekhyun sighed to himself before continuing to make his way to his seat near the back of the classroom, Jongdae and Lay followed, still not dropping the subject as easily as Baekhyun wanted.

“Don’t you ‘good-morning’ us dude, you’re not getting away with this so easily!” He pestered before slumping onto his desk and leaning in, Lay nodded in agreement.

“Yeah man, when I wondered if you were hiding a chick at your place, I didn’t actually mean it” Lay scoffed, a little smile on to show that he was amused. Baekhyun rolled his eyes. 

“She’s not a ‘chick’, she’s just my step-sister” He seemed to have corrected bluntly, avoiding their sneaky eye contact and staring out the window as he usually did whenever he didn’t want to engage in a conversation. 

“Still a chick though dude” Jongdae shoved him by the arm playfully, wanting to get his attention. When he didn’t get it, he faced the hectic classroom, searching for something at the front. “Speaking of which, I don’t see her…”  

Of course he didn’t. Because she wasn’t in school. She was so out of it that Baekhyun didn’t even want to wake her up and decided to leave her at home without her consent. She probably won’t be happy when she wakes up, but that’s not his problem. That's what she gets for making him run around the neighbour hood in the rain. (And giving him a heart attack in the morning) 

“Oh yeah…Where is she? At home?” Lay further questioned with a sheepish smile on his face which Baekhyun didn’t notice. He took a quick glance towards his friends and sighed, not feeling the need to feed their curiosity and pretending as though he hadn’t heard the question when suddenly…

“She should be coming in soon” A voice from behind made them jump almost a feet in the air. “She’s entering the building now” Kai added, casually burying his hands in his pockets. He smiled at Baekhyun whilst arching his eyebrows, his friends glared at the boy with curious gazes they turned to Baekhyun for answers.

“Who is this guy again?” Jongdae questioned, eyeing the boy from head to toe, unable to recall his name although recognising him from yesterday.

“Just a friend” Baekhyun and Kai answered in unison. The two were surprised. They hadn’t expected the other party to have the same response. Baekhyun would have thought the boy would sprout something ridiculous and Kai would have thought Baekhyun would pass him off as no one special.

Girls in the class were gawking at the boy, squealing and giggling in excitement to one another whilst they observed his appearence. “Omo! Is that the new student? He’s hot!”

“He’s in our class? Eek!”

Baekhyuns eyes rounded without realizing. “New student?” He scoffed in disbelief. Kai blinked at him and peered down towards his clothes. Shotas’ uniform.

“Is it not obvious?” He retorted as if it was the most ridiculous question he’d ever heard. But it wasn’t something to easily believe in. The guy, in Baekhyuns term, basically wasn’t real. He’d have no past school records, no GPA or anything, how could he have gotten into Shota so easily?

Oh yeah. He was handsome.

“Not just me, Chanyeols here too” Kai added casually. “Just not in this class”

Baekhyun eyebrows furrowed. Chan-who?

Lay looked at him quizzically, “When did you come in? I didn’t even-“ Before he could finish, the door opened and Zora hopped into the classroom. The class watched as she quickly took her seat and sat there, still as a rock. Then Baekhyun could feel some of their gazes fall to him, wanting to see the reaction he had on his face after seeing his step-sister enter the class room.

But he pulled a poker face. His usual straight, expressionless face although for a moment, he was a little curious about her reaction to the new decorations to her desk, but he couldn’t tell, not from where he was sat anyway. But the fact that she even came into school despite passing out in the streets other day, Baekhyun felt like smacking her over the head. Idiot. You should be resting at home. Baekhyun cursed at her inwardly, letting his gaze drift back to the window before anyone could notice him looking at her.

But Kai noticed. He noticed his curious glare towards her and even smirked. How blatantly obvious. He cared about her really. It was ridiculous for him to even deny it. Even if he did put up quite a show about it- it didn’t fool him. 

Baekhyun and the others watched as the new student strolled to the front of the class and crouched down in front of Zora desk, his eyes twinkling  as he showed off his pearly white teeth with a goofy grin. His arms crossed at her desk as though purposely covering up the nasty graffiti on her desk. 

Jongdae scoffed as he watched Kai engage in a ‘conversation’ with her, intrigued in the fact that he was even able to understand her. “Ya, is that her boyfriend?”

Baekhyuns focus darted towards Jongdae with wide eyes. But before he could argue, the homeroom teacher entered the class- late as usual, introducing the new 'transfer' student rather quickly and in a rush. Apparently, Kai really was a new student.

Joy. Another weirdo in the class.

And out of all the empty seats to pick, he picked the seat beside Zora. Not surprising to Baekhyun, but an absolute shock to the other students. They weren’t even looking at him, but Baekhyun could feel their stares boring holes through her head whenever Kai leaned closer to her every now and again during class. Students were starting to assume that the two probably knew each other before-had since they seemed to close to each other already. 

The girls who threw their books at her the other day were sending deathly glares as if she’d murdered somebody. They were purely teasing her the other day just for the fun of it, just to see if she'd urge a cry, but now, they had a reason for hating her insides; only because the new hottie was giving her all the attention and they were going green from envy.

Little did they know that Zora was the one who created the hottie in the first place.

Class ended and lunch break began. Students stampeded out of their classes, racing to the canteen in hopes of being the first served just in case the food ran out, but Baekhyun caught the new student before the boy could aimlessly follow the crowd.

“Oy” He hollered vaguely, yet Kai still knew it was him he was addressing. He turned towards the male who was practically scowling at him and smiled back purposely. 

“What’s up dude?” He replied casually, as if they were already in close terms with each other.

“What are you doing here?” Baekhyun questioned with a straight face, his voice lowered in fear of someone over hearing.

“Why? Not fond of me?” Kai wondered playfully, still grinning mischievously. Baekhyun sighed at the male, somewhat frustrated.

“Why are you at my school?” He repeated in more specifically. Kai smirked before he cocked his head towards something. Baekhyun turned his attention to where he was directing, not surprised when he saw Zora by her locker, putting her books away carefully as other students passed her, some sending her glares for a nanosecond without her noticing. Baekhyun scoffed and shook his head. “You’re just following her around?” He presumed, expecting a snarky response. 

But Kai just glared at him, his smile fading after each second of silence passed. “…If you won’t protect her…then I will”

The sincerity in his voice was no joke. He was serious about it. Baekhyun stood there, a little dumbfounded by his declaration.

Protect her? That’s why he’s here? …Oh yeah, then again, he probably had nothing better to do with his life anyway, no friends, no social life, nothing much apart from Zora and the white dog and possibly that Chan person he was on about this morning. It would make sense if he found it entertaining to stalk her all day, all night. But protect her? Please.

“Yo! Kai!” An oddly familiar deep voice suddenly greeted. Baekhyun turned to the taller male (much, much taller male) and jeered at him in recognition. Kai smiled and greeted back, “Hey, Chanyeol”

Chanyeol directed his amber eyes towards Baekhyun and blinked innocently before a cheesy smile could appear on his face. “Oh, hey Baekhyun, how’s it hanging?” He beamed happily. The boy being greeted not feeling the need to respond.

So he was one of them. The handsome boy with orange hair, amber eyes and long legs whom he met even before Kai was one of Zora's drawings. He should have known. What Korean had such light coloured eyes? Baekhyun started to wonder how many of them there were now that a few of them suddenly started popping up and how on earth they were able to even enrol. It wasn’t a matter of wearing the uniform and prancing in uninvited. There had to be forms filled in and such; Baekhyun knew as much.

“Baekhyun! What are you doing, man? Come on! The line's gonna be huge!” Baekhyun heard Minseok call from afar and noticed his group of friends waiting for him by the door. Well, the ones who bothered to wait anyway. Baekhyun strode towards his them, his shoulder brushing against Kai’s as he did so.

“See you later!~” He could hear Chanyeol bidding him an energetic farewell but just ignored him like the stranger he was.

Surprisingly, Baekhyuns’ friends weren’t acting all that different around him, nor were they bombarding him with questions about his mysterious sister or even worse, asking which one of his parents got married. He’d either have to guess or blatantly tell them that he didn’t know and didn’t care. They were still acting like the idiots they were like any other day, although some of the oblivious ones would mention the new kids without realizing that it had become almost a taboo to a certain someone.

“What with the new gang?” Oh Sehun, the kid who skived yesterday’s drama because of a test he hadn’t crammed for asked, eyeing the table of strangers a couple of feet away. Baekhyun flinched ever-so-slightly before his eyes directed towards where everyone else was looking.

Chanyeol was messing around with his food, stirring his rice with the spoon as if it was a miraculous invention. Kai said something, flicking the orange haired boy on the temples which broke out into a little play fight. The girl sitting between them was radiating, inaudibly laughing with the brightest smile on her face, showing her perfect row of teeth that were even whiter than her skin. 

A familiar feeling suddenly stirred inside Baekhyun. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn't pleasant. Almost like a wave of emotions that suddenly made him lose his appetite.

“How weird is that? Three new students transferring in two days- must be a record, not to mention they look really close to each other already” A guy commented.

“Did you hear about yesterday though? Our class were horrible to her during clean up. They soaked her with water and threw the chalk erasers to try and get her to talk” Lay mentioned in a saddened yet disgusted tone. Sehun gawked, letting his jaw drop whilst food was still in his mouth.

“You’re kidding! Dude, why would they do that?! She’s totally cute! Just those eyes and her skin-”

Jongdae violently kicked Sehun’s leg under the table and the boy let out a yelp. “OUCH! Hyung!” He urged, looking at Jongdae who just shrugged before him and Lay awkwardly shifted their eyes back to check for Baekhyuns reaction. The boy was tense. His jaw tightened without him even realizing. But he didn’t want to seem effected by it and went back to eating the cafeteria food. But his eyes kept on switching back and forth from his friends to the 'new table', more specially, to Zora.

Sehun was right. Her eyes…her eyes were beautiful unique…the way the golden shards in them sparkled, how her iris glistened like emeralds…has it only started doing that?  

--

A/N: I HAVE NO MORE EXAMS~~~~! WOOOOOO!!!! AND EXO'S FIRST WIN!!!! OMG!!!! *cries and drowns in pool of tears and feels*