Today was the athletics carnival, an event that that was surprisingly popular among the students at the school. They had rented out a large, expensive sports stadium—because being rich meant you were able to spend money — to hold the annual occasion. The school was split in the usual four coloured houses; Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow, and were seating in sections of the stadium corresponding to their colour. Lu Han and Kyungmi were hidden among the crowd of Blue on the far left. 

The male squinted against the warm sunlight to try to find Nayoung in the sea of Red a few metres away. He turned away with a content smile when he spotted a head of familiar long black hair. The Queenka was being her usual, loud, obnoxious self, laughing shameless at her friend's joke and disturbing the people around her. He suppressed a smile, it was just so typical of her that it was comical. 

"Oppa, what are you competing in?" He was dragging back to reality by Kyungmi's question. 

"Hm? Oh. I'm running the 100 m sprint, and the high jump. What about you?" 

"I'm just going to run in the 800 m race. I don't think I can do anything more than that." 

Lu Han laughed, "Lazy much? You're so thin and lanky, you should exercise more and build some muscle." He held wrapped his thumb and index finger around her wrist, lifting it up to eye level to prove how tiny her arm was. 

The girl turned a light shade of pink, stuttering something along the lines of 'I'm not that unfit'. The male zoned out, finding himself thinking about what Nayoung would say in a situation like that. If he called her thin and lanky, she'd probably retort with something ten times more insulting. He could already picture her saying something like 'I'm normal sized, you're just fat'. He felt himself smile slightly at the thought, maybe he had just gotten so used to her spiteful personality that not hearing an insult felt strange. He wasn't sure which he preferred to be completely honest, the two girls' personalities were polar opposites, it was hard to judge. 

~~~~

Lu Han made his way toward the side benches, flopping down on a chair tiredly. His hand grabbed the water bottle from Sehun and downed half of the water before chucking it back. The maknae sent him a look, which was completely ignored, before turning back to watch the next event. Lu Han had just finished competing in his events, and was completely exhausted. 

"Was that the last one?" Chen asked him, referring to the activities during the day. 

"Yeah, high jump was the last one. What about you?" 

"I think there's still that 4 kilometre run I have to do." 

Lu Han made a face, "4 k? You're kidding." 

"It seemed like fun at the time, I'm starting to regret it now." Chen turned to a despairing Sehun, "Sorry about forcing you to sign up with me." 

Sehun punched him really hard in the arm, as payback, and then patted his hyung on the back a little too hard, "It's alright." 

Chen didn't miss the heavy sarcasm in the maknae's voice. "Still hate me yeah?" 

"Yeah." 

The three highschool students on the bench began to bicker amongst each other, joking around and insulting each other like usual. The were so caught up in the conversation that they hadn't even noticed the boisterous presence of Chanyeol standing in front of them. Chanyeol had brought along Taemin and his friends, as well as all the EXO boys. Lu Han, Sehun and Chen scooted over on the bench to make more space for everyone to sit, and the others made themselves comfortable on the ground. 

"Yah Lu Han hyung, pay attention. Your girlfriend's running in the race," Kyungsoo jabbed a thumb in the direction of the field, where the female 800 metre run was now taking place. The deer blinked a few times to comprehend what D.O had said, hearing the word girlfriend gave him a strange foreign feeling in his chest. But it wasn't the usual light-heartedness one would normally get when paired with the word girlfriend. Strange.

Lu Han squinted into the distance, his eyes catching a glimpse of the skinny silhouette of his girlfriend. But his eyes immediately darted toward another familiar figure; he could recognise her anywhere. It was Nayoung. 

The girl had tied her hair up in a messy high ponytail, although it was so untidy, it still complimented her facial features in good way. She still looked absolutely stunning, but of course, he'd never admit that out loud. Even from the distance he was away from her, he could already see the competitive fire burning in her eyes. Her face was set in a determined line, brow furrowed in concentration. Lu Han's heart stirred, and a warm light hearted warmness filled his heart. Even though the queenka had a horrible personality, these were one of the very few and rare traits she possessed that he had learnt to respect. He would even go as far as to say he liked it about her. Her stubbornness was, in ways, also determination. 

Chen watched Lu Han with a confusion etched on his features. Why was Lu Han smiling so weirdly? And why was he looking on the left side of the track? Kyungmi was on the right edge. It took a moment for Chen to piece it all together. 

Oh. 

Nayoung was running in it too. Chen raised a curious eyebrow at Lu Han, starting to fall into his own thoughts. Lu Han looked... Different. There was something else in his eyes, something he'd never seen before. It was hard to describe. Tenderness? There was this weird sparkle in his eyes, and a softness on his features. He suppressed a smirk.  

Hmm.. Interesting. 

They were all brought back to attention at the fire of the start gun. The loud bang made the majority of the males sprawled on the benches and ground jump in surprise. 

Nayoung, proving her title as the 'perfect' queenka, had already pulled ahead. There was a significant gap between her and the next runner, Gayeon, whom Kai pointed out was in his physics class. Kyungmi was somewhere in the mainstream crowd of runners, somewhere around fourth or fifth place, Lu Han wasn't exactly paying attention, he had to admit a bit guiltily. His eyes were focused on the first and second place runners, Gayeon was slowly beginning to narrow the gap, but the deer knew she'd never catch up in time, there were nearly at the finish line. He nodded to himself proudly, of course Nayoung would win, she was Nayoung after all. 

He heard a few surprised shouts from his friends, and Lu Han's attention snapped back to the the race. His mouth made a small 'o' shape in surprise. Gayeon had tripped, fallen over, and scrape her knee. But before they could get over the surprise from her fall, something else happened that was so unexpected the sports stadium fell silent. 

Nayoung had stopped running. Only metres away from the finish line, and the girl had slowed to a hesitant stop. He could hear the murmurs from the people around him, but the male didn't mind the speculating stares, he was equally confused himself. 

Lu Han's jaw dropped when he saw Nayoung turning around and walking back. What was the crazy girl doing? The queenka stopped in front of Gayeon, and to everyone's surprise, offered a hand. It took a while for Lu Han's mind to wrap around the situation. Nayoung was helping someone up. Helping. Not bullying, but helping. What was wrong with the world? 

________

Nayoung wiped her clammy hands on her shorts before offering it out to Gayeon. She tried her best to be polite, forcing her lips to form a smile. Foreign muscles tugged and Nayoung resisted the urge to scowl. This being 'nice' thing was not for her. She didn't even know why she was even trying to be kind in the first place.

The queenka felt a small stab at her pride when Gayeon didn't make a move to take her outstretched hand. The girl was about to take it back when Gayeon reached out. Gayeon's eyes glinted dangerously, but before Nayoung could take her hand back, she had already grabbed it. The queenka felt a violent tug at her arm, and before she knew it, she had lost her balance. Nayoung felt her ankle twist unnaturally before she fell on her knees, palms scraping against the asphalt. She bit back a cry of pain, but her anger quickly masked the torturous throbbing now shooting up her leg. 
__________

Lu Han felt his shock surge and transform into anger, and he had to clench his fists to contain his rage. However, the feeling was quickly quenched with a wave of worry when he noticed Nayoung grabbing her ankle. Before he had even noticed what he had done, the male was already on his feet, already beginning to move toward the girl. 

"Wait. She'll get up." Lu Han stopped, feeling the pressure of someone's arm against his chest. Taemin smiled knowingly at his Chinese hyung, "If you help her now, she'll hold it against you for the rest of your life." Lu Han made a face at the younger dance machine, clearly quizzical of what he said. Taemin gave him that 'all knowing' smile again—which he kind of hated— and pointed toward the field, "Watch." 

___________

That little wench.

Nayoung's blood was boiling. She glared daggers at Gayeon's retreating figure with such intensity that one would actually think she was burning holes into her skull. After the effort she made to be nice, that girl just slaps her back in the face. Nayoung had never hated anyone as much as she hated Gayeon at that moment. The queenka pulled herself to her feet, and regretted it as soon as she tried to distribute her weight to her right foot. The pain shot up her leg like a lightning bolt, leaving behind an equally painful throb. She cursed under her breath, shifting her position so that she was standing on her left foot. 

Watching Gayeon running away made rage burn within her, and soon, she was so angry that Nayoung temporarily forgot about the pain in her leg. There was no freaking way she would lose to that cheat. She'd rather die. No way in hell. And a moment later the girl had taken off in a run. 

There was a slight limp in her step, and her ankle felt like it was going to break, but at that moment she didn't care. All she could see was that finish line. The queenka already knew that even though Gayeon was playing dirty, nothing would be held against her. This was a student run event, which meant that they'd look past the incident like nothing happened. Because pretty much everyone held a grudge against her somehow, and Gayeon would obviously be favoured. So Nayoung couldn't let herself lose. 

She had to win. 
________

Lu Han's heart fell, Nayoung had come second. It was a valiant effort though, and Gayeon had barely scraped first. Honestly, it was too close to tell, and Lu Han suspected that they'd just let Gayeon win because they favoured her. Tch. What cheaters. The male immediately got to his feet as soon as the race was over, hurrying over with a jog in his step to make sure Nayoung was okay. Lu Han's eyebrows pinched together and bit his lip in concern. She seemed to be limping pretty badly. 

He finally reached her as she sat herself down on the bench. There was a pissed off frown on the petite girl's features, and she was mumbling curse words and other unpleasant names under her breath. 

"Aish that cheat. What a cheap trick. When I get my hands on her I swear I'm going to kill her."  Lu Han suppressed a smile, she was still spitting out nonsense at a time like this. The male rushed over immediately when he noticed Nayoung tending to her ankle. He kneeled down in front of her, carefully holding her ankle in his hands. 

"Tell me if it hurts." He met her surprised eyes for a quick moment before diverting his attention back to the problem at hand. 

"Oppa, what are you doing here?" 

"Helping you. Isn't it obvious?" Lu Han wasn't quite paying attention, instead focusing his attention on her ankle. It was obviously swollen, and from the looks of it, it was pretty bad. He couldn't tell how bad it was until he could see her whole foot. "I'm going to have to take off your shoe. It might hurt a bit." 

"Okay, but oppa I can take care of myself you don't have to coddle me like I'm some- OW OW OW OW YOU SAID IT WAS GOING TO HURT A BIT!" She yelled frantically, and Lu Han sighed loudly. 

"Be quiet will you, how else do you expect me to get your shoe off?" He glared at her angrily, but loosened his grip on her ankle nonetheless. 

"Well I don't know, maybe a warning next time." 

"I did. You were too busy talking to hear me. I'm going to take your shoe off now, it's going to hurt." Lu Han didn't add in the 'a bit' this time. 

He slowly attempted to slide her shoe off, feeling worry shoot through his heart when Nayoung hissed in attempt to mask her pained expression. Lu Han inspected the injury, his heart dropping even more when he finally saw how bad it was. Her ankle had swelled to almost twice it's original size, it was red and he could feel the throbbing under his hand. Lu Han grimaced, was the bone on her ankle supposed to stick out that much? This needed at least three weeks to heal, minimum. 

"Why are you so stupid? Why the hell did you run the rest of the way when your ankle was so stuffed up?" Lu Han wasn't sure why he was so pissed off, "You're such a thoughtless, careless, clumsy idiot!" Was she so damn stubborn that she even risked an injury to win a measly race? Why was she so stupid? 

"It's your fault anyway." She glared at him accusingly, jabbing a finger in front of his face. 

"My fault? What did I do?" 

Nayoung puffed her cheeks out like a chipmunk, "You said to help people up or something." Her cheeks grew a light pink, realising she couldn't quite remember what he had told her, "and I followed your advice and look what happened to me. It's your fault." 

It took Lu Han a few moments to figure out what she was talking about. And then remembered that he had said something along those lines a few weeks ago when they had been making the cake. 

"Next time, maybe try to control your anger yeah? You know, just keep it in. You can complain to me when you get home. People wouldn't look at you that way if you were nicer to them, instead of pushing someone down, help them back up."

His anger dissipated and a goofy grin pulled at his lips, Lu Han suppressed a laugh. He had meant that in a metaphorical sense, he never imagined she'd take his advice so literally. But then again, if anyone was dense enough to do it, it would be Nayoung. 

"S-stop laughing," the girl stuttered in a flustered way, "I'm never listening to you again." She pouted like a child, turned her head down so that he wouldn't see her face. Nayoung casted her eyes down toward her feet. Why was he heart beating so fast? She willed her thoughts to stay calm, to ignore the fact that Lu Han's face was right next to hers. 

Lu Han's eyes softened, and the male smiled gently at her. It was at these times that he couldn't help but find he so incredibly endearing, and he'd forget that Nayoung wasn't his girlfriend. He reached up to the top of her head, placing his hand getting on top and ruffling her hair. 

"I'm proud of you." Nayoung's heart sky rocketed when he gave her his famous eye smile, and she forced herself to look away just in case she started to drool. Yeah, she loved the guy, but when did her heart start to act up so much? 

What's wrong with me?

Lu Han smiled, his expression carefree and calm, which was completely the opposite to the hammering in his chest right now. He could his heartbeat in his ears, it was almost deafening. 

"Lu Han!" The said man turned around at the sound of his name, and couldn't help the twinge of annoyance, and disappointment, when he saw Taemin coming towards them, "I'll take care of things here, you can go back to your Kyungmi and your friends now. They've been looking for you." 

No thanks. I'm fine here. 

"Oh yeah, thanks." He stood up a bit reluctantly, the gesture not going unnoticed by the SHINee member. 

Lu Han waved with a smile, but couldn't help the immature thoughts from popping into his head. 

blocker.

__________

"Come on, get on." Taemin kneeled down in front of her, gesturing for a piggy back. 

Nayoung sighed disappointedly, "Arrasseo." 

Taemin laughed at her sullen expression, "You're that disappointed?" 

"Honestly, yes." 

Taemin scoffed, "your face is all red and everything, geez. You're acting like a love struck puppy." 

"Shut up." 

___________

I updated on time! yeayy. 

Here's chapter 24 for you all, Thanks for reading, subscribing, upvoting, commenting etc. I appreciate all the love <3 

Hopefully I'll be back on time next week as well.