Xiumin was sensitive enough to feel the slight changes in the interaction between his best friend and him.  The black marker glided smoothly on the white board, the teacher wrote some pages from the textbooks and asked all the students to complete the tutorial questions. He grimaced on it. He could not concentrate to the sudden homework yet, he needed to solve his internal problem.  The teacher left as the schedule changed, it was time for self-study.

The classroom became a little bit noisy but most of them are working on the questions.  Chemistry was forever a troublesome subject for Xiumin.  Baekhyun was discussing with Jongdae, but his voice was way too much for a group discussion. He was noisy as always. Xiumin turned around to face Yixing who sat behind him.  Yixing was about to open his reference book but Xiumin closed it back.

Yixing lifted his chin and questioned the action with the simple uh. Meanwhile, Xiumin shoot him with his serious look. “Mind to talk?”

“Xiumin, I’m doing my-“

“Stop avoiding me. Just tell if I did wrong.” Xiumin said staunchly. His palm was still on the book cover, restricting Yixing to work on his tutorial question. “We’re best friend, aren’t we?” Xiumin sighed, he seemed disappointed.  He did nothing wrong, Yixing ah. Yixing tried to compromise with himself.

“Xiumin, don’t sprout nonsense.”

“But why you… kind of… avoiding me?” Xiumin argued.

“I’m not.” Yixing lied.

“Yixing.” Xiumin almost gave up. He knew something was wrong.

“Xiumin ah, you’re busy with your tournament. How come he can spend time with you?” Jongdae interjected. They did not know since when Jongdae was there, exactly right behind Xiumin.  

“What?” Xiumin was distracted for the sudden interruption. Jongdae came and brought his book. He put it on Yixing’s desk. “You know how to make the equation for this solution?” He elbowed Yixing.

“I said, do you still have time for us when you have practices almost every day?” Jongdae repeated. Xiumin gave it a thought and he stared at Jongdae blankly. “No.” he pouted.

“Then what?!” Jongdae urged him to use his brain a little bit. “What do you expect from him when you don’t even have time to play around?”

Xiumin lose in this argument.  Yixing busied himself by solving the problem. He took a glance at Xiumin, Xiumin was totally dumbfounded and kept scratching his temple. “So it’s just misunderstanding.” He mumbled. Jongdae really spared him this time. If Xiumin kept asking him like this, he had no idea what to say anymore.

That was the same words he uttered when he saw the MRI result. He remembered that he accidently left the MRI on his desk and Xiumin found it.

**

“What is this?” Xiumin widen his eyes. “X-ray?” he revealed the content by taking it out from the brown enveloped. He pinned it on the glass window and let it hanged for a while by holding the outline. He got the clear view through the sunlight.

“Brain scan?” he guessed.

“Xiumin!” Yixing came from nowhere and briskly took the X-ray from his hand. Xiumin was shocked as hell. His face was red and Xiumin was speechless. “Why did you touch my stuff?” Yixing angered.

“I’m sorry, I just-“

“This is my stu-study material!” He desperately created a lie.

“It’s your study material?”

“Y-Yes.” Yixing tried to calm down and hid his nervousness. He put it back into the enveloped.

“Ah! So it’s just misunderstanding! I thought you were ill or something.” Xiumin laughed at his false assumption. “But, Kyungsoo said you went to the hospital for a check-up yesterday. Am I right?” Yixing knew he had to create another lie.

“I-I did. I thought I got asthma, but it-it’s just flu.” He avoided eye contact. “Ah! I see.”

He begged that Xiumin would believe him for real. He looked back to the latter, Xiumin was just smiling.

“I forgot! I’m sorry for touching your stuff.” he smiled sheepishly. Yixing weakly smiled, “It’s okay.”

That was close enough… too close.

**

“What is this?! Your equation is different, Jongdae ya!” Baekhyun exclaimed.

“Is it wrong?” Jongdae asked, checking Baekhyun’s answer. “Yours is absolutely wrong!Haha!” Baekhyun poked Jongdae’s head.

“Ah! Yixing! You gave me wrong answer!”

“I’m sorry.” Yixing could only smile. He tried to help but he could not concentrate on it.

Yixing thought that everything went back to normal. Honestly, there was nothing remarkable for this time being. He tried to forget that he was sick and he played hard with Kyungsoo and Xiumin. Sometimes Baekhyun and Jongdae would ask them to play online game together, either StarCraft or Ragnarok Online.

**

Yixing hanged his towel on the wall, and quickly put on his pajamas. Luhan was doing something on his desk, he might be completing his work while waiting for dinner. He took a pen from Luhan's pen holder. "I'm using this," he said without looking at the latter. Luhan didn't respond. He might be too focus on his work.

March 28, 2010.

We went to the theme park after school. We’ve got our examination result and I already showed it to Mom. Guess what? I got new bag from Luhan hyung since I got straight As. Ah! Not really. My addmath is C+.

Hew.

“Luhan hyung,” Yixing closed his diary and put it into the drawer. “Luhan hyung.” He called again, this time he turned to look at Luhan since he didn't get any reply from the latter.

“Yixing.”