“Can you believe him Sehun, seriously!” Luhan complains, glaring across the kitchen bench at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo sits, the epitome of mischievousness, in front of the screen of his iPad, tapping away at Candy Crush.


“What?” Kyungsoo asks innocently.


He picks up a chocolate croissant and bites into it, eyes betraying his deviousness.


“You can’t play around with someone’s heart like that, Kyungsoo! Tell him, Sehun!” Luhan exclaims, iness radiating as he throws his arms up in the air exasperatedly.


Luhan snatches the croissant from Kyungsoo's fingers, bringing it to his own lips for a bite. Kyungsoo lets out a whine in protest, causing Luhan to smirk evilly, taking yet another bite. Kyungsoo tries to grab his arm and bite at that instead, but Luhan is faster than he cares to admit. Luhan arches an eyebrow at Kyungsoo as the latter attempts to gnaw at the edge of his coffee cup.


“Kyungsoo, you can’t just dump someone and be hitting the clubs minutes later, that’s just not good practice,” Sehun puts forward. Kyungsoo is thoughtful.


“But it’s an experiment!” Kyungsoo exclaims.


“That only makes it worse!” Luhan growls, giving Kyungsoo a venomous glare.

“I mean I’m just testing to see how much of our relationship is just him enjoying the sight of my flawless face. I mean I haven’t even had gay with him yet. Sometimes we kiss and stuff, and sometimes he’s shirtless and I guess that’s an added bonus, but in all honesty, I just want my gay !” Kyungsoo complains, eyes trailing to the floor.


“You’d kind of expect it by now. I mean we’ve been going out for like three weeks or something. And he only ever says ‘oh, I like you’ and then that’s it. This is all a big fat test to see how much he actually wants me. The real me.”


“Are you crazy?” Luhan yells, throwing his hands up in the air.


“No,” Kyungsoo says matter-of-factly.


“My parents had me tested.”


---



Kyungsoo sits cross-legged in the living room, glancing down at his phone every few seconds.





iMessage from Kai, 10:30am
I’m just a bit hurt you had to break that to me in such a way, Kyungsoo. I’m sorry I stormed off. Can you call me when you get the chance to talk it through? xoxo





Kyungsoo giggles before shaking his head. Was the xoxo at the end entirely necessary? What does it even mean? Kyungsoo mulls it over in his head for a full twenty minutes, giving up finally before grabbing his car keys and walking out the door. Was the xoxo casual? Like a casual thing typed out at the last minute between two manly friends that sometimes liked to kiss and stuff?


Or was it something more serious? An xoxo that lovers sent to each other. Was Kai ‘ting’ him?


‘ting’ is indeed a very stupid word, Kyungsoo notes, as he pulls out of the driveway. He will probably write it on one of his long lists of entirely stupid or embarrassing words to complain about to the writers of those fat dictionaries.


Kyungsoo jumps as his ring tone sounds, snapping him out of his reverie. He pulls over, reaching across to the passenger seat to pick up the phone he’d carelessly tossed there minutes before.



iMessage from Kai, 11:18am
You couldn’t even bring yourself to reply?




Cold and simple, Kyungsoo notes. But what was the best course of action to take to really get Kai’s gears turning?


Aloof.


Aloof is y, right? If Kyungsoo plays hard to get he will become ten times more desirable, because honestly if you were gay and not in a relationship, would you really not date him?


OK, so lots of people probably wouldn’t date him because he tends to come across as mentally retarded.


Here we go, Kyungsoo thinks. Aloof. Yes.





You said you didn’t want to talk to me?




Kyungsoo types a question mark at the end, just in case. Rhetorical questioning may be the correct course of action, assuming Kai has a firm grasp of the Korean language. Kyungsoo hits send. Seconds later his ring tone blares once again.





iMessage from Kai, 11:19am
I didn’t realise you were such a jerky what a waste of time


And immediately following this:


iMessage from Kai, 11:19am
* jerk



Finally:


iMessage from Kai, 11:19am
Why the am I wasting my credit on you




Admittedly, Kyungsoo wasn’t quite expecting such a response. Kai’s grammar and use of punctuation was kind of appalling, and he was obviously not great at typing because the autocorrect seemed to pose a threat to the main of his message. And swearing so early in the conversation, too. What does all this mean?


“I need to grab Luhan. He can decipher this language,” Kyungsoo tells himself aloud.


---


“You ed up, man,” Sehun says as he tosses the phone back to Kyungsoo.


“I did?”


The three are sitting on the couch, watching the evening news. Sehun isn’t so taken by the news, however, and he’s tinkering away on Photoshop instead. Luhan stands behind him and giggles every now and then, glancing at Kyungsoo stupidly. It both infuriates and annoys the hell out of the teen, who resorts to making snarky remarks about Luhan’s hair at regular intervals.


“I finished your break up gift!” Sehun breaks the silence. He throws the laptop across to Kyungsoo, a look of satisfaction gracing his features. He raises his eyebrows suggestively at Kyungsoo as Kyungsoo takes the laptop and stares at it, a mixture of fascination and mortification on his face.


“Ok,” Kyungsoo begins, eyebrow raised.


“So what’s happening is that’s you there, right?” he points to the upper half of the screen, a picture of a Sehun covering the screen.


“And then I’m there,” he continues, pointing to the lower half of the screen.


“So what’s happening is that I’m your ?” Kyungsoo concludes.


“Yep,” Sehun says, sipping some soju. Luhan snorts at Kyungsoo’s disconcertion, draping himself over Sehun’s lap as he snatches Kyungsoo’s phone away and fumbles with it in amusement.


“I don’t understand. Is this supposed to be insulting?” Kyungsoo continues in amusement.


“Let me get this straight. You spent twenty minutes photoshopping a picture of me your , and it’s supposed to make me look weird? Sehun, I’m gay. You are too. You know I quite like . I mean I never have before but I have fantasized about it in the past. Remember when we watched together?”


Sehun nods.


“Are you hitting on me?” Kyungsoo asks in all seriousness.


Luhan snorts.


“Who the hell would hit on you? Oh right, Kai. And by the way, he’ll be here in five.”


“What?” Sehun groans.


“What?” Kyungsoo repeats.


“Seeing as you’re too dumb to sort out your own problems Kyungsoo, I figured I’d help you out,” Luhan explains.


“You have five minutes to get your apology straight before Kai comes, so you better make it snappy Kyungsoo,” Luhan says playfully, shoving Kyungsoo down the hallway. Kyungsoo lets out a snort of rebuttal, giggling as a thought crosses his mind.


“But apparently your boyfriend wants me to his .”