Princeton, NJ

They get to Princeton, New Jersey a little after eight. A slight breeze has cooled down the summer heat, and the boys roll into town with all the windows down. Sehun is waiting with pizza and a big smile.

“The party won’t start for a few hours and I figured you’d be hungry,” he says, waving them into the temporary apartment that he is occupying for summer classes.

“Thanks, brat,” Kris replies, affectionately.

Sehun is a year younger than the others, but they had all gone to high school together in the City. He looks a lot different than when Lu Han had last seen him over spring break. His light brown hair is now a plethora of colors-blue, blond, red, green, brown, purposely styled to look unstyled.

“I think I kind of like this,” Lu Han says, reaching over to run a hand through Sehun’s new hair. The younger boy ducks under his arm, rolling his eyes.

“I can’t believe you guys are driving all the way to California.” Sehun’s tone is wistful as he gazes at them. “I wish I could go with you guys instead of - uh - classes.”

“You can go on your own soul searching trip after you graduation,” Kris laughs.

Lu Han, for one, does not plan on doing any ‘soul searching.’ As he as far is concerned, this summer is all about the traveling, the good food, the parties, and the hook-ups. His soul, as far as he is concerned, has already been found.

The Ivy League schools live by the motto “study hard, party hard.” Or rather, when bored boys with too much money, looking to kick summer off with a bang, get together to plan a party, they go all out. The house is covered with glitter and booze by the time they arrive, and people mingle in the yard, on the porch, in the backyard by the pool, and in the house.

Lu Han ducks past a frat boy doing a kegstand on the front steps and grabs onto Tao’s arm. “Are you going to be the sober one tonight?” he asks. “One of us needs to be coherent enough to take the rest of us back to Sehun’s in one piece.”

Tao lets out an exaggerated sigh and nods his head; he’s never been much of a drinker anyway.

It takes Lu Han less than an hour to zero in on a slim, brunette girl with big eyes and an even bigger rack. Tao rolls his eyes when he sees them disappear upstairs together and gives his head a shake. At least he can count on Lu Han with his consistency when it came to parties. Whether his companion for the night is male or female, Lu Han always has a thing for small brunettes.

“Why does he feel the need to hook up so much?” Tao asks mildly, turning to the person nearest to him.

Yixing shrugs. “Lonely? I don’t really know.”

“I think he has low self esteem and, I don’t know, he’s kind of dumb,” Sehun adds.

Tao eyes him with an approving nod. “All of my friends are dumb,” he finishes.

Lu Han returns less than an hour later with the buttons on his shirt done up incorrectly. Tao sighs, and quickly helps his friend get the right buttons in the right holes. They go on search of Kris and find him completely wasted and glued to Sehun, telling him all about his ex-girlfriend. Sehun is too drunk to understand anything and just nods and blinks. Yixing is snoozing next to them despite the loud party music, face planted on the armrest of the couch; someone has written ‘COLUMBIA SUX FYEAH PRINCETON’ on his arm in an orange sharpie.

Tao takes this to mean that the night is over.

[A/N]: funfact: the title of the fic is from the song Alive by Krewella!