Sehun followed Kai into the kitchen with a thousand questions on his mind, all of them revolving around Luhan.
Then more questions emerged as he entered the kitchen.
Luhan ran past him back into the corridor with a small plate of spaghetti in his hands.
Sehun was about to go after him, when Tao dragged him over to D.O behind the kitchen counter, where there were a few more plates of spaghetti.

"D.O wants to know how much you eat. We each have our own plates." Tao motioned at the plates, so Sehun looked closely and saw there were names on the very edges of each plate.

"I could finish a plate like that easily." Sehun pointed towards a certain plate that was piled high with spaghetti, and D.O immediately pulled out an unnamed plate and placed a huge dollop of spaghetti on it before taking out a permanent marker and writing Sehun's name neatly on it.
Sehun took it and muttered a thanks, then Tao grabbed his own plate and made his way to the living room.
There was a low wooden table in the middle of it, surrounded by sofas and armchairs.
Half the people from the dorm were on the floor huddled around the table, noisily chatting and eating their lunch.
Eating with anyone other than himself was new to Sehun, and he stood frozen in front of the table, unable to comprehend the situation.

"Ge Ge, you're taking up too much space! Move over." Tao probably sensed how hopelessly confused Sehun was, so he went ahead and sat down in the little space between Kris and Suho, then gave Kris a big shove so he would move over.
The blonde with furrowed eyebrows scowled at Sehun, then reluctantly shuffled over, and Sehun quickly slipped into the gap.
Chanyeol and Baekhyun joined soon after, with Chanyeol holding both of their plates and they sat on the sofas behind everyone.
Finally D.O came in and sat on an armchair, contently munching away at his signature dish.
Sehun always cooked his own meals, so he figured even if D.O made bean paste soup with chocolate ice cream, he'd still think it was delicious.
But whatever he was eating right now tasted phenomenal, and he just had to let D.O know.

"Hyung, your spaghetti makes me want to run in a field towards the sunset and sing happy songs." Sehun grinned, and the others laughed out loud while D.O chuckled in silence.

"That is D.O's kimchi spaghetti. You only get it once a week at most!" Xiumin swallowed a large mouthful of spaghetti and pointed at the rota sheet on the wall.
Sehun momentarily forgot about his lunch and looked up at the sheet that probably was neat at one point, but with so many doodles on it it didn't look so neat anymore.

Cooking duties

Monday: D.O & Kai  KIMKAI  Kkamjong your is on fireeeeeee  Kimkai <3 Do D.O 
Tuesday: Suho & Lay   <:0=Q:  兴兴哥这不是独角兽吧?! (Trans: XingXing Ge this isn't a unicorn is it?!)  Joonmoney hyung <3 Lay hyung   
Wednesday: Baekhyun & Chanyeol  I ship Chanbaek Baekyeol Chanbaek 4evs  Chanyeol <3 Baekhyunie   
Thursday: Xiumin & Chen  CHENCHENCHEN!  Chunky but funky  包子哥哥真可爱~~ (Trans: Baozi Gege is really cute~~) Woomin hyung <3 ChenChen  
Friday: Tao & Kris  哥真帅  不要冒充我!我不说谎的  认了吧子韬你觉得我超帅的  噁...  (Trans: Ge is really handsome   Don't pretend to be me! I don't lie   Admit it Zitao you think I'm super handsome   Ew...) Kris hyung <3 Zitao 
Saturday: Luhan
Sunday: Clean up after yourself! 

Chanyeolie stop writing everyone loves their own roommate just because you do!  - Xiumin
Baekhyunie is my best friend! And someone teach Zitao Korean, I can't understand anything he wrote  - Chanyeol
.
We knew that was you Chen. Grow up.  - Kris
Guys, please stop doodling on D.O hyung's sheet. He's getting a meltdown every time he sees it.  - Kai

"There's a cleaning duty sheet by the sink, a trash duty sheet above the trash can and a laundry duty on the washing machine in the kitchen." Suho calmly pointed out, and Sehun left the table.
He went around the kitchen, reading the different vandalized rota sheets.
All of them involved Luhan working alone, and no one doodled anywhere near his name on the sheet, be it they didn't dare or they boycotted him.
Sehun had mental images of the thin pale boy hauling heavy laundry baskets and bin bags, scrubbing dishes clean by the sink and watching over his cooking.
All by himself.

"Does anyone have a pen?" Sehun asked quietly, and D.O pointed at the corner of the counter, where he had pens and scrap paper stacked in a small box.
Sehun took a pen and walked over to the nearest rota sheet next to him.

Luhan & Sehun

Sehun moved on to add his name next to Luhan's on all the sheets.
He tried to write as neatly as possible but his handwriting was never good anyway, so he told himself it was better than Chanyeol's tiny wonky writing and returned to his seat.

"You want to work with Luhan? I thought we could use you for Sundays." Suho glanced at the sheets, then showed Sehun a nervous little smile.
Before Sehun could answer, Baekhyun stepped in.

"No, Sehun's unfamiliar with things and well, he's the maknae. It's wouldn't be fair on Sehun."
And Luhan.
Sehun bit his lip, feeling the millions of questions he had about Luhan about to erupt from him.
He bit down so hard he knew he was going to draw blood, so he let one question wheeze past.

"Why doesn't Luhan eat with us?"
Silence.
Everyone around the table froze.
Sehun looked from person to person, and they all stared ahead of themselves and avoided his questioning gaze, their eyes flickering nervously.
Sehun couldn't hold his curiosity and concern for the boy, and he leaned in closer towards the middle of the table eagerly, looking at every single person around it.
His eyes paused at Lay, who acted as if he hadn't heard him and was quietly chewing away.

"Lay... hyung?"
Lay immediately snapped out of his trance and looked at Sehun, smiling with a slightly goofy feeling at him due to his half open eyelids.

"Why doesn't Luhan eat with us?"
Lay put his fork down and breathed in deeply, looking away from Sehun slowly. 
He stared down at the space in front of him as if he was replaying his memories before his eyes.

"Luhan came two years ago, before Tao and Chen. He never spoke to or stayed with us longer than he needed to. He took every opportunity he could to stay in his room. We didn't think much of it, because D.O was like that when he first came. In fact, much worse. He wouldn't stop crying and he didn't look at anyone. He lashed out at everyone who got too close and tried to talk to him. We thought Luhan might open up to us like D.O slowly did, but he stayed just the same."

"We tried. We tried to ask him to join our games but he never did." Chanyeol chipped in.
"He doesn't speak to us either, other than 'We've run out of detergent' and similar things."

"But he sometimes says 'There are no more lemons for Chen' or 'Please buy more milk or D.O won't have any for tomorrow morning'. He's not with us most of the time so I don't know how he knows all these things." Kai shrugged and looked at D.O, who nodded frantically like he couldn't agree more.

"We let him be and we thought maybe he hasn't found that person who might break that wall he's built around him, like D.O found Kai." Lay concluded.
Sehun then saw ten pairs of expectant eyes fall onto him.
They want me to bring Luhan to them.
Sehun wasn't stupid, but he didn't see that coming.
Truthfully, he was upset and a little angry when he thought the others had purposefully left Luhan out of everything and made no effort to reach out to the poor boy.
He now understood it was because they respect his comfort in solitary.

"I know this is probably too much to ask of you, you're new and you don't-"

"I'll do what I can." Sehun cut Suho off and gave him a reassuring smile.
He was uncertain about whether he'd be able to bring Luhan into the group, but he remembered how Luhan initiated their interactions, and suddenly he felt confident that he'd get through to him.

Sehun slowly nudged open the door to his room with Luhan, looking inside curiously before moving.
Luhan was at his desk reading, and he looked back with wide eyes, before turning back around without sparing a second glance at Sehun.
Sehun thought he might be unused to the fact that he was sharing his room with Sehun now.
He felt a little apologetic, and that he shouldn't push the boundaries by speaking to him just yet, so he sat down at his own desk and looked at Luhan's book collection.
There were some books he'd never heard of, some books in Chinese and a couple of textbooks.
But one book caught Sehun's eye.
It was a very worn out copy of The Little Prince, to the extent that Sehun could barely make out the name on the spine.
He must have read it so many times. He must have really liked it.
Sehun gazed at Luhan for a while, before quoting the book from his excellent memory.

"'That man would be scorned by all the others: by the king, by the conceited man, by the tippler, by the businessman. Nevertheless he is the only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking of something else besides himself.'”
Luhan's head snapped up from the book he was reading, and he looked at Sehun with the same wide-eyed expression of fear, confusion and this time, surprise.
Sehun knew Luhan recognized it, and he waited, hoped, for some response.
Luhan took his eyes off Sehun after a long silence, then quietly replied.

"'That man is the only one of them all whom I could have made my friend. But his planet is indeed too small. There is no room on it for two people.'"