Chanyeol sat in his seat and pondered. What had he said so far? Should he make his story more elaborate? Give ‘Kai’ and himself superpowers maybe? Being a Writing major had finally come in handy.  Granted, he didn’t need the money all that much, but it could lessen his parents’ financial burden of paying for his tuition.

 

Well, not by much since the fees are about six and a half grand per year, for three years.

 

For a useless piece of paper that he didn’t really need.

 

But hey, at least he was using what he had learned. Kind of.

 

He noticed Jongin looking at him, and turned to the other, pasting on what he imagined was the craziest looking grin he could muster on his face. Jongin looked away shuddering, and he silently commended his flexible facial muscles.

 

Jongin had been unceremoniously dragged into his story, and Chanyeol did feel slightly apologetic. He didn’t know Jongin, but felt that he looked familiar. They might have run into each other in the Arts faculty building.

 

On that note, hadn’t he seen Luhan, Baekhyun and Sehun in the faculty building too? How desperately poor were Bachelor of Arts students?

 

“We’re clearing out the plates if you’re all done eating,” Suho said, handing half of the dirty dishes to Kris and carrying the other half himself. “Get back in a circle, we’ll have a brief discussion session when Kris and I come back.”

 

The participants rearranged their chairs to their original positions.

 

“Don’t do anything stupid while we’re gone,” Suho warned the participants before leaving.

 

Subtle sighs of relief could be heard from several corners of the room as soon as the researchers stepped out.

 

Jongin stood up and stretched, trying to get rid of the crick in his neck. “That was tiring.”

 

“It’s not like you did a good job of pretending,” Kyungsoo muttered.

 

“I was better than you.”

 

Kyungsoo frowned. “But I’m not-“

 

“Wait,” Minseok interrupted. “You’re both acting?”

 

Kyungsoo opened his mouth to respond but Jongin was faster. “Aren’t we all?”

 

Nobody said anything.

 

“Come on, anybody can pretend to be spaced out,” Jongin said, pointing to Yixing.

 

“Mm?” Yixing said, noticing the others’ eyes on him.

 

“And you,” Jongin looked at Luhan. “You’re way too over the top to not be acting.”

 

“Well excuse you-“ Luhan started haughtily, but Jongin cut him off.

 

“I have no idea what you two are even doing here,” he said, gesturing at Baekhyun and Jongdae. “You both look completely fine to me.”

 

“Thank you for your brilliant observation,” Jongdae said evenly.

 

Jongin ignored him. “You’re not really going to say that you have anger management issues, are you?” he said to Sehun, words laced with irony. “I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a mental disorder.”

 

Sehun stood up scowling, fists clenched, but Tao tugged on the back of his shirt. Sehun slapped Tao’s hand away roughly but sat back down.

 

“You can’t be for real either,” Jongin continued, turning to Chanyeol.

 

Chanyeol blinked. Aren’t they supposed to be under constant observation? What if there were cameras around, and this was exactly the kind of conversation the researchers were expecting to hear, hoping to save some extra cash for themselves?

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kai,” he said carefully. “But I’m upset that you can’t remember what we had.”

 

Jongin looked stunned, before chuckling mirthlessly. “Okay, all of us can play that game.”

 

He plopped back down onto his seat, casually throwing his arm around Kyungsoo. “At least I know you’re on the same side.”

 

Kyungsoo frowned. “But I’m-“

 

“You’re all still here?”

 

Everybody turned to face the door as Suho and Kris walked back in.

 

“Let’s start,” Suho said as soon as he was seated. “The evening discussion session will be led by you, the participants. You’ll discuss the stories that you’ve heard during the day and ask each other questions if you need anything clarified. Kris and I won’t be involved unless something major happens.” He waved his hands dismissively. “Go ahead and discuss.”

 

“Before we start, I have a question for you,” Luhan said to Suho.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I assume you’ve set aside enough money to pay all of us.”

 

Suho nodded.

 

“So if one person doesn’t get paid for whatever reason, what happens to that extra $300?”

 

“Nothing,” Suho said simply.

 

“What if you use that possible extra $300 as leverage for us to tell you if we know anybody who shouldn’t get paid?”

 

Jongin turned to look at him sharply. Luhan smirked in response.

 

Suho nodded thoughtfully before turning to Kris. “That would actually help with the research, wouldn’t it?” he whispered.

 

Kris nodded. “I think so.”

 

Suho turned back to face Luhan. “Okay, that sounds fair.”

 

“So if we rat on somebody, we’ll get paid double?” Jongdae asked.

 

“Yes, if there’s a valid reason,” Suho said.

 

Jongdae whistled, thoroughly impressed.

 

“Now start discussing.”

 

“Jongin,” Luhan called, smirk still in place.

 

Jongin felt dread creeping up in him. He really should’ve thought things through before opening his mouth.

 

“I think you were saying something?” Luhan asked sweetly.

 

“Oh,” Jongin said, a bit too loudly. He laughed nervously as he tried to think of something. Godammit Jongin, what were all those ad lib classes for? “I was saying how we didn’t get to hear enough from you.” He heard a disgruntled groan coming from Sehun’s direction, but Luhan looked pleased.

 

“I think so too,” Luhan said. “I never got to tell everyone about how my tutors are so obviously jealous of my exceptional intelligence and talent that they keep giving me mediocre marks.”

 

“Isn’t that just because you’re dumb?” Jongdae asked.

 

Luhan rolled his eyes. “Of course you won’t understand.”

 

“I have a question,” Minseok said. “Kyungsoo, you said you had trouble with strangers, but you seem completely fine with Jongin.”

 

Kyungsoo stared at his lap intently while picking at his nails, taking a deep breath and hoping his voice wouldn’t waver when he spoke. “I can deal with one person, but not a group,” he managed, letting out a breath of relief when he was done.

 

“You were scared when I wiped that mayonnaise off for you,” Jongin said.

 

“Who wouldn’t be scared of that?” Jongdae pointed out.

 

“Eating in public makes me uncomfortable,” Kyungsoo said softly.

 

“I have a question for Yixing,” Tao spoke up.

 

Luhan poked Yixing in the shoulder, getting used to the routine.

 

“Why do you find lights distracting?” Tao asked with genuine curiosity.

 

Sehun scoffed. “What a stupid question.”

 

Minseok frowned. “That’s not a nice thing to say. It was a valid question.”

 

“Why are you acting like Suho?” Jongdae asked.

 

Tao shook his head. “No, Sehun’s right. It was a stupid question.”

 

“I have a question,” Luhan said. “Why the hell is that thing always butting in when everybody’s speaking?” He pointed at Jongdae.

 

“This thing is settling in and voicing its opinions,” Jongdae retorted.

 

“This is going nowhere,” Suho interjected, shaking his head. “Let’s end the discussion here.  We’ll continue tomorrow with Minseok’s story.”

 

The participants moved to stack their chairs against the wall to clear up enough space to lay the sleeping bags.

 

Jongin cornered Kyungsoo as he was moving to add his chair to the stack.

 

“Help me,” Jongin whispered.

 

“What?”

 

“Luhan,” Jongin whined.

 

Kyungsoo frowned. “You brought that on yourself.”

 

“I wasn’t thinking.”

 

“Exactly,” Kyungsoo said sensibly, trying to move around Jongin. Jongin held onto the chair he was carrying, blocking him.

 

“You have to help me.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because everybody knows you’re faking too.”

 

Kyungsoo frowned again. “But I’m not.”

 

Jongin pulled Yixing who happened to be walking past. “Kyungsoo’s faking.”

 

Yixing blinked. “Okay.” He walked off.

 

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Kyungsoo exclaimed, astounded by the absurdity.

 

“If I’m not getting paid, neither are you,” Jongin stated.

 

“Go bother somebody else,” Kyungsoo said in frustration.

 

“But there’s nobody else.”

 

Kyungsoo gestured to the other participants.

 

“Chanyeol, Yixing and Sehun are weird, Jongdae’s somewhat annoying, Minseok, Tao and Baekhyun don’t say much and Luhan’s obviously out of the question.”

 

Kyungsoo groaned. “Why did I have to sit next to you?”

 

Jongin shrugged. “But you did, now you have to help me.”

 

Kyungsoo huffed out in annoyance. “There’s no way out of this. You dug your own grave, now you just have to deal with it.”

 

“Let’s make a deal with Luhan,” Jongin suggested. “After the research ends, we’ll give him half of our pay. He’ll get the $300 that he wants, and we still get to keep $150 each.”

 

“But I have nothing to do with this!”

 

“You’re obviously faking too, and I’m pretty sure Luhan knows that.”

 

“But-“ Kyungsoo sputtered, indignation rendering him speechless.

 

“Kyungsoo, put your chair away so we can set the sleeping bags,” Suho called out.

 

“Get out of the way,” he grumbled to Jongin.

 

Jongin took the chair from him and added it to the stack at the side of the room. Jongin skipped back over to Kyungsoo when he was done, an obnoxious smirk on his face.

 

“Now you owe me a favour.”

 

Kyungsoo gaped at him. What did he ever do to deserve this?

 

 

 

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a/n: Thank you for reading/subscribing/commenting/upvoting! I hope you enjoyed this chapter <3