“Sit in a circle as usual,” Suho said to the participants when they were all done washing up the next morning. “We’ll have a debriefing session.”

 

“Finally,” Sehun muttered.

 

The participants arranged their chairs in a circle and settled into their seats.

 

“Firstly-“

 

“Are we getting paid?” Jongin asked.

 

Suho frowned. “We’ll get to that later.”

 

“Did somebody rat out on anybody?” Luhan asked.

 

Suho sighed, irked by the constant interruptions. “You can say that.”

 

“What?” Jongin gaped at Suho.

 

“You’re one of the ones that we’re certain are pretending.”

 

Jongin looked at Luhan, who shook his head.

 

“You mean there’s more than one?” Jongdae asked.

 

“Sehun’s another.”

 

“Even after I warned you,” Sehun said to Luhan, standing up before being pulled back into his seat by Kris.

 

“It wasn’t me,” Luhan insisted.

 

“And Luhan,” Suho said.

 

“You were faking?” Jongdae asked Luhan.

 

Luhan looked at Suho blankly before putting the pieces together and turning to glare at Minseok. “Are you serious?”

 

“Hang on-” Minseok started.

 

“You conniving little .”

 

“Calm down-”

 

“He’s faking too,” Luhan announced haughtily, pointing at Minseok.

 

“I know,” Suho said.

 

Everybody turned to look at him, bewildered.

 

“The point of the research is not whether you’re pretending or not. You’re all getting paid.”

 

“Thank god,” Jongin sighed.

 

“Now if all of you can stop interrupting, I’ll start by telling you a bit about Kris and myself. We’re both final year Psychology students, and this research is for my individual thesis, which Kris is helping me with.”

 

“Shouldn’t you be writing your own thesis?” Jongdae asked Kris.

 

“Irrelevant,” Kris said curtly.

 

“Anyway,” Suho continued, “I have a particular interest in Zimbardo’s prison experiment, if anybody’s heard of it?”

 

“We learnt about that,” Luhan said, turning to Sehun. “Isn’t that the one where they had people pretending to be guards and prisoners?”

 

“How does that relate to what we’re doing?” Sehun asked.

 

“I’m more interested in how the research participants were so easily immersed in their roles. So for my research, what I was trying to see was how well you can convince yourselves that you actually have mental disorders, using money as a reward.”

 

“Isn’t that unethical?” Jongdae asked.

 

Suho paid him no heed. “From your emails, I speculated that maybe about half of you were actually experiencing symptoms or mild forms of a disorder, and I thought that would act as some kind of prompt or a form of encouragement to the other half who were completely pretending.”

 

“You mean none of us are actually diagnosed with anything?” Luhan asked.

 

“Yes. One person did email me with a letter from his doctor, but I had to tell him no.”

 

“Isn’t that ad you put up extremely misleading?” Jongdae asked.

 

“It doesn’t work if you know what the research is about beforehand.”

 

“I’m curious,” Jongin said. “Who did you think were for real?”

 

“Based on the emails I received, Kyungsoo and Yixing sounded reasonably convincing, and Baekhyun sent me pictures of his house.”

 

“While we’re talking about this, who did you think were faking?” Jongdae asked.

 

“Jongin told me he had ‘issues’ but didn’t elaborate in his email.”

 

“I thought all you needed was my name and contact details,” Jongin protested.

 

“Luhan essentially listed all the textbook symptoms.”

 

Luhan looked away. “I’m more convincing in person.”

 

“And Chanyeol wrote a whole novella.”

 

Chanyeol grinned sheepishly. “Was it good?”

 

“Where does Minseok come into all this?” Luhan cut in.

 

“He’s a friend of mine,” Suho said.

 

“What?”

 

“I needed one person to look completely credible just in case the recruited participants weren’t.”

 

“And I volunteered to help,” Minseok said.

 

“Why did you need somebody to look credible again?” Luhan asked.

 

“I didn’t think the $300 by itself would be enough to actually affect your behaviours. If there were others who appeared to be more convincing than yourselves, you might think of them as competition.”

 

“I don’t get it. Why is it good if we see each other as competition?” Jongin asked.

 

“Because then you’d try to outdo each other.”

 

“What was the whole $300 as leverage for ratting people out thing for?” Jongdae asked.

 

“That was my idea,” Luhan pointed out.

 

“I agreed with it because it would not only increase that sense of competition that I wanted, but also make you more reluctant to go out of character.”

 

“So basically this was a really long drama class,” Jongin said, stretching languidly. “Can we leave now?”

 

Suho sighed. “I’ll hand out your payments.” He took out a stack of envelopes from his bag and gave one to each of the participants.

 

“You carried $3000 in cash in your bag?” Jongdae asked.

 

Suho ignored him. “Thank you for participating,” he called out to everybody. “If you want to get updates on this research, write down your email addresses on this.” He held out a blank piece of paper. “Otherwise, you can leave.”

 

The participants stood up, gathering their belongings.

 

“Put your chairs away first,” Kris reminded them.

 

The participants moved to stack their chairs amidst muted grumblings.

 

“By the way, I stole your notepad,” Jongdae said to Kris.

 

Kris frowned, trying to remember if he even had a notepad, before realizing what he was missing. “You mean my artbook?”

 

“That’s what that was? It’s in Baekhyun’s bag now.”

 

Kris grimaced. “He can keep it.”

 

Jongdae paused, a smirk forming on his face. “You just gave me an idea.”

 

 

 

 

“Are we still supposed to give half of our pay to Luhan?” Jongin asked Kyungsoo.

 

“He was faking, wasn’t he? Maybe he’s not actually that mean.”

 

“He can’t be that good at pretending.”

 

“Let me keep my hopes up,” Kyungsoo said, fretting. “I need that money.”

 

“I think you both owe me $150 each,” Luhan said, walking over to them.

 

Kyungsoo stared at him, baffled.

 

Luhan laughed. “I’m joking.”

 

“This version of him creeps me out,” Jongin said, astounded.

 

Kyungsoo turned to shoot him a sharp glare.

 

“Gee, thanks,” Luhan said.

 

“You’re not going to start sneering about how us inferior trash fell for your- Ow!” Jongin turned to look at Kyungsoo, who had elbowed him in the ribs. “What was that for?”

 

Luhan looked at them oddly. “I’ll leave you two to it.” He walked off.

 

Kyungsoo sighed, letting out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

 

“What was that for?” Jongin asked again.

 

“You almost gave me a heart attack. Can you please think before speaking?”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

Kyungsoo groaned inwardly, knowing how futile it was to explain anything. “Never mind.”

 

 

 

 

Luhan walked over to Minseok. “I never thought you’d one-up me,” he said, impressed.

 

Minseok blinked. “You’re not angry with me anymore?”

 

“No, why would I? I still got paid.”

 

“I thought you were going to go all Sehun on me."

 

Luhan chuckled. “I think this research messed me up.”

 

“I told Suho it didn’t sound like a good idea, but it’s his thesis so.” Minseok shrugged.

 

“Was everything planned?”

 

“Not the part where you walked in on me. The only times I could eat was when everybody was asleep, before everybody woke up, and that time I made coffee. I guess I got a bit careless last night after a whole day of not eating.”

 

Luhan frowned. “Did you say you volunteered to do this?”

 

“I didn’t realize I literally had to starve myself.”

 

“The things you have to do for friendship,” Luhan said, shaking his head.

 

“Oh!” Minseok scribbled on a piece of paper before handing it over to Luhan. “If you ever need help with that psych class you’re taking, feel free to email me.”

 

Luhan took the offered paper. “Will do.”

 

 

 

 

 

Jongdae casually plucked the envelope out of Baekhyun’s back pocket on his way out of the room, folding it small enough to tuck into his own pocket before deciding against it.

 

He tapped Baekhyun on the shoulder. “You might want to put this in your bag,” he said, handing the envelope over.

 

Baekhyun patted his back pocket, surprise evident on his face when he found it empty.  “Thank you.” He took the envelope from Jongdae and shoved it into his bag, before walking again.

 

Jongdae followed him. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “I think we make a great team.”

 

Baekhyun looked at him, confused. “What kind of team?”

 

Jongdae smoothly grabbed an umbrella hanging outside one of the rooms they walked past. “This kind of team,” he said, handing the umbrella to Baekhyun.

 

Baekhyun frowned. “I don’t want your stolen stuff.”

 

“I thought you liked free things?”

 

“Yeah, like that.” Baekhyun pointed at a basket filled with broken umbrellas, with a crumpled handwritten sign saying ‘please take’ beside it.

 

“Why would you want something broken?”

 

“It might come in handy someday.”

 

Jongdae shook his head. Why did he even bother asking? “Well, I’m throwing this out,” he said, indicating the umbrella he stole.

 

“No, put that back.”

 

“I don’t remember where I got it from,” Jongdae said nonchalantly, walking over to the bin.

 

Baekhyun stopped him. “Don’t throw that away, what if it’s raining outside?”

 

“So you want it?”

 

Baekhyun hesitated. “No.”

 

Jongdae shrugged. “Okay.”

 

Baekhyun grabbed the umbrella from him just as he was about to put it in the bin. “I’m turning this in to lost and found.”

 

Jongdae grinned. Stealing just got a lot more fun.

 

 

 

 

 

“I seriously thought I would kill you for a second there,” Sehun said to Luhan, both of them heading towards the university bus stop.

 

“I won’t rat out on a friend.”

 

“How did Suho find out then?”

 

“Minseok told him.”

 

“And how did Minseok know?”

 

Luhan paused. “Well, I told him, but that’s different.”

 

Sehun frowned before turning around. “Are you following us?”

 

Tao startled. “No, I’m going to the bus stop.”

 

“Didn’t you say you have a tute today?”

 

“I still have a few hours to spare. I’m going home first.”

 

“I never got around to apologizing,” Luhan said. “I was way out of line yesterday. I’m sorry.”

 

“No, it’s fine,” Tao said. “You were right.”

 

Luhan blinked. “You were lying?”

 

“I might have exaggerated a bit.”

 

“Why would you?”

 

Tao hesitated. “I don’t know, I think when I saw how serious everybody else’s problems seem to be, and after you suggested using somebody else’s payment as a reward for ratting them out, I might have gotten a bit flustered.”

 

“And I thought you came up with that idea so you could tell on me,” Sehun said to Luhan.

 

Luhan frowned. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

 

“We’ve only known each other for a few months,” Sehun pointed out.

 

“I think I know you pretty well,” Luhan said. “That disorder I picked out for you suited you to a T. How did you even come up with your story?”

 

Sehun looked at him. “What makes you think I made it up?”

 

 

 

 

 

Suho emailed the completed draft of his thesis to his supervisor.

 

“It feels so good to get this out of the way,” he said, turning to Kris. “When you and Minseok are busy with your theses, I’ll be laughing from the sidelines.”

 

“We’re not as hardcore as you,” Kris said, composed. “I think Minseok has thought of a research topic, he just needs to clear it with his supervisor.”

 

Suho frowned. “Clear it with his supervisor?”

 

His computer beeped, indicating he had received a new email. It was from his supervisor. ‘Research question too vague’ was all that was written.

 

“Kris,” Suho called, utterly stupefied.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I think I just spent $3000 for nothing.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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a/n: DONE! The side stories are coming next, but for those of you who aren't interested in the pairings, I guess this is goodbye T^T

Thank you for reading/subscribing/upvoting/commenting! <3