Did that make this evening a date?

The answer was no, it certainly did not. It was just his imagination. So even though he was happy that they were spending time alone together, Sehun almost certainly thought this was just a normal outing with a friend.

Instead of going on their normal bus home, they'd agreed to meet up by the main gate and walk into the city centre. Tao had to wait for Sehun for a few minutes before he showed up, which put him in a slightly anxious state, but it dissipated when Sehun actually arrived.

It was a good thing it wasn't too far to get to the nearest shops, because Tao didn’t think he would’ve been able to handle the silence for longer than the eight minutes they were walking. When they arrived at the shopping centre Tao suddenly realised he had no plans. Not a single thing on his itinerary.

He opened his mouth to ask Sehun what he wanted to do, and he rolled his eyes exasperatedly, then grabbed his arm, dragging him to a computer game shop. They spent ages in this shop pointing out games that they wished they had enough money to buy. And Tao noticed where their tastes differed; they both like the usual first person shooter games like Mass Effect, but Tao liked puzzle games like Portal as well, whereas Sehun prefered the sims. There was a demo version of a racing game playing on a console near the front, so they battled it out on that for a while too, elbowing each other to get the upper hand.

It was when they reached the high class restaurant-  McDonalds, in actual fact- that Tao realised he'd totally forgotten about his reconnaissance plan. He needed to brainstorm how to get into his house to investigate. He was focusing on this so hard that Sehun ordered his food for him, then had to shove him to get his attention.

“Hellooo? Anyone home?” he waved his hand in front of Tao's face, and made him jump back into reality with Sehun’s face dangerously close.

“Nope," 

“Don’t try to be funny, it doesn’t suit you” He patted him on the head with a condescending look on his face. Excuse me? “You’re better at being adorable,” he amended seeing the look on Tao's face. 

“If that was meant to be a joke-“

“It wasn’t,” Sehun interrupted Tao's threat, and smoothed his hair back down, then pinched his cheek. Tao smacked his hand away, trying to control the blush rising on his cheeks.

“Hey, hey, watch it. I’m older than you,” Sehun raised an eyebrow,

“It doesn’t show,” He swiveled to grab the food that had just been put on the counter, and handed Tao his meal, which turned out to be a burger with bacon. How did he know? Tao peeked over Sehun's arm and found that he had chosen some chicken nuggets. They then selected a table and sat at it, across from each other.

“Want some chicken?” Sehun asked. Tao narrowed his eyes at him.

“If you didn’t want it, why did you buy it?” He responded, still a bit miffed by the earlier jibes about his age.

“So I could share it with you?” He held a piece that had been dipped in sweet chilli sauce out to him and Tao tried to take it from him with his fingers, but Sehun jerked away, laughing. Tao rolled his eyes. He knew where this was going. He was going to try and feed him. Treating him like a baby has probably become his goal for the day.

But Tao caved anyway and opened his mouth to receive the food.

He held out the chicken again, and Tao leaned forward saying ‘ahh’. He smile and gave him the chicken, but somehow aimed wrong and got sauce from the corner of his mouth all the way over his cheek. Tao was not amused, but Sehun snorted, covering his face with his sleeve.

“I’m sorry,” he giggled. Tao thought he did not sound sorry in the least. He glared at him, until Sehun snatched some tissues and tried to wipe his face, still laughing uncontrollably, but Tao slapped his hand away,

“I am not a child: I am perfectly capable of wiping my own face," He reprimand. Sehun put his hands up in surrender, lower lip caught between his teeth to stop himself from smiling too much.

“Ok, ok. I’m sorry,” he offered the chicken he shoved in his face earlier as compensation, but Tao refused out of spite, ripping into his burger savagely. But he thought he recognised the growing warmth in his chest, brought on by Sehun's happy expression. He wasn't sure if it was a good thing.

In Tao's room, he quickly logged in to facebook, and found that Jongin was online. Not that that was unusual, he practically lived on the internet.

Tao: jongin

Tao: jongin

Tao: jognin

Jongin: WHAAAT?

Tao: I think im gay

Jongin: well thanks for finally telling me

Uhm, what?

Tao: wth?

     I only just found out myself how can u know already??????

Jongin: well its rly obvious, u never look at girls, and then that sehun kid comes along and ur ALL OVER each other

Tao was torn between being offended, and mind-blown. How had he known this before him? He supposed he was right about his lack of love life so far though. He thought he'd just never really cared for romance before now. And he'd had a brief crush on Kyunghee, but that had felt different to how he felt about Sehun.

Jongin sent a link to the photo that Kyunghee uploaded earlier today, and was surprised by the positive responses in the comments. Aside from Kyunghee's description 'aren't they adorable? Believe it or not they arent a couple (yet).' there’s lots of comments from the girls, like ‘u guys r so cute together’, and 'you guys should get together.'

Tao found himself blushing and smiling at all the compliments and pseudo support from people he barely knew, or only knew through Kyunghee, and stared at the picture of them together. There were only a few opinions he really cared about, and they belong to Jongin, Luhan, and of course Sehun. But Sehun hadn't seen it, since he probably wasn't home yet. But Jongin had: 'get a room'.

Tao: idiot ‘get a room’ wth

Jongin: hey it was a compliment

Luhan: how exactly??

Jongin: like ur a real couple

Luhan: that still makes zero sense?

Jongin: it just is trust me

        ur gonna ask him out soon, yh?

Tao: uhhhhh

Jongin: I’ll set it up for u an everything :DD

Tao: but hes straight

Jongin: hahhaaha

Tao: what

Jongin: your serious? thats the most ridiculous thing iv heard all day

        he blatantly likes you

Tao: he does?

Jongin: YES

Tao sat gaping at his laptop screen.  Jongin thought Sehun liked him. That couldn't be true. For the sake of his sanity, Tao was going to pretend this conversation had never happened and hope to god that his sister would never see this photo.

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