Kris

"Order 89, please go to the reception area." I exhaled in relief. It was finally my turn. The service was incredulously slow, and the fact that the place was crowded with sloppy, carefree customers only made my mood worse. My features, though, as always, showed no sign of annoyance as I dragged my feet to said place. A female receptionist in a white blouse, ornated with red on every edge - which was the same as the other employees' donned the same fabric - announced the price of the food instead of greeting me. At least she's not wasting my time, I looked at the bright side.

I fished my hand into my pocket for the fare and pulled three bills and slid them on the counter.

"Thanks. Keep the change." Without wasting any more time, took the paper sack and slid through the myriad of people.

I dialed Cha Hye, the phone rang up to four times but she didn't answer. I tried again, the phone was off. What the heck?!

Maybe she went home first.

She can't possibly remember the long way we've walked when this was her first time, I realized. ! What if something happened to her? I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, frustration blazing the last crumbs of calm my soul still had.

I ran down the street at a constant, slow rythm, scrunitizing every parcel of the road, my head ceaselessly shifting left and right, for me not to miss the parallel pavement.  

My breath shortened and my pace had slacked off a lot by the time I entered the park, dispair and guilt washing all over me. I should have never let her go, I should've suggested a less crowded shop to get the food at. Street stalls would have done it, heck, even ramyun and water would have done it.

"Cha Hye," I yelled -rather pleaded-, no response. After taking a deep breath, I jogged around the park, miserably calling her name, until I ran out of breath beside a waist high bush. I bended my upper body forward, my palms clogged to my knees for support, and just panted for a while until I heard a voice and I could swear it was Yixing's. I looked up, sweat beads scattered all over my large forehead, and tried to focus on the voice.

"Yah! I said let's go home. It's not safe for a girl to wander off at night!" It was definitely him. I rose up, walked past the leafy heap, and froze when I saw who was sitting on the wooden swing.

"Why do you even care-" 

"Cha Hye!" Utter disbelief was all over my face and relief gushed into my heart.

"K-Kris..."

Next thing I realized, Cha Hye's slender figure was glued against my body, a few baby hairs of hers almost tickling my neck, and my arms holding her in a securing, tight, iron firm hold. 

I released her when I had calmed down and gently placed my hands on her shoulder, lowering my head to her eye level "Are you okay? You weren't answering your phone." Then, as I examined her face, my forehead creased. There was a reddish bruise on her forehead.

"How did you get this?" I looked at the mark, she looked down hesitantly.

"She hit the pole while swinging. Talk about clumsiness..." Only then did I remember Yixing's presence, I eyed him and raised a suspicious eyebrow; his skin was flaring in at least one centimeter radius from his left eyebrow.

"And how did you get yours?" I tested him. He didn't seem to be shaken by my inquiry, his face was the usually calm, dull, careless facials I'd been seeing for the past year.

"Street fight." He easily muttered. I let it pass, all that mattered right now was that I found Cha Hye. I turned to her and ruffled her hair.

"Let's go back home." She smiles and nods, I let her walk first and beckon Lay to join us. Cha Hye and I walk side by side while Lay trails behind, probably playing with his phone or listening to music.

"How did you guys meet?" I looked at Cha Hye, she seemed to fluster for a fraction of second before she finally calmed down.

"I think he heard me yell or something." She chuckled blandly then looked down at her hands.

"Is that supposed to be dinner?" she glanced at the screwed up paper sachet in my hand, I stiffened when I realized all I'd put the wretched object through because of her -which was apparently hilarious to her since she was clutching her tummy, laughing out loud within the next few seconds.

"It was," I muttered, upset that the multitude of food I had lined up for almost half an hour to get had turned into scruffy mush.

Cha Hye pursed her lips, a twinge of guilt instantly fluttering into her eyes made me sick to the stomach. 

"but those guys will swallow anything when they're hungry." I mended, and it relieved me that she showed a small smile.

"Oie! Love birds, less talking and more walking? I'm starving!" I got unpredictibly flustered at Lay's words, but still glared at him and told him to shut up. Cha Hye, on the other hand, kept quiet and quickened her pace as told, seemingly intimidated by the nagging unicorn.

As we reached the door, it opened even before I could press my finger on the doorbell, unveiling Kai and Sehun, both their hands on the doorknob.

"Hyung, where have you been? Kyungsoo umma refused to cook us food, he said that it was on you today." Sehun clung onto my arm, pulling me inside. I lumbered to the living room, Sehun still hugging my arm and Kai trailing behind me -or the chicken wings- to have seven hopeful pairs of eyes looking up at me. It was now Xiumin's turn to be lulled to sleep by Chen. Chanyeol was first to speak.

"Oh, you even brought Lay hyung with you? As expected, Galaxy hyung is the man." I nearly smiled at that.

I placed my hand on the small of Cha Hye's back and gently pushed her forward, inducing her to join the boys as I gave off the scrappy bag to Kai who had almost tugged it torn from my hand. She timidly sat herself down beside Tao and Chanyeol. She felt most comfortable with them, I concluded.

I my heels and headed for the mini fridge which only had rows of different aligned drinks from mineral water, to soda, to beer. Bingo! That's what I need, a fresh cold beer.

"You seriously need to slow down on the beer. What if someone wanted to desperately get drunk?" Lay taunted with a straight face as he reached for a small-sized cold water bottle.

"Why would anyone want to get drunk? The aftermath of a failure in love life?" He scoffed, rolled his eyes and slapped my back before heading for his new room.

"Hey! Aren't you gonna get dinner?" He raised his hand, wiggled his lone index as if saying 'No' and closed the door behind him.

Weirdo. I sighed and went to sit by Cha Hye for the rest of dinner.

Cha Hye

I rose up from my bed, in a sitting position to find myself in a bleak room. The darkness was not due to the room itself –pastel yellow just cannot be dark anyways- but to the absence of sunrays, which made me deduce that it was sometime between midnight and four in the morning. 
After supper, I had a little open up session with EXO –well, EXO minus one, hence Lay never stepped out of his new room, probably too annoyed at me- over some jasmine tea I had made together with Kyungsoo. I learnt that the latter got his “Kyungsoo Umma” nickname not only for his fiery culinary passion but because he truly acted motherly towards everyone, making sure everyone ate, except for him, Kyungsoo had brought him his share of the dinner on a tray but he wouldn’t even let him in. With an exasperated sigh and a disapproving shake of the head, Kyungsoo canned his food and left it inside the fridge with a cute stick-it note. I had to raise my hat at the indulgence he must have to deal with that obnoxious jerk. 
As the acquaintance term went on, I found myself already becoming close to a number of the eleven boys: Kris and Chanyeol, these guys just need a glance at my face to get a wind of my thoughts and my opinions over the many subjects we prattled about all over the evening; Luhan, his almost unfading bright face and his kindness make me feel comfortable and welcome; Chen makes me feel about the same, and I noticed myself growing fond of his smile, the sides of lips highlighting his simple, yet charming face. Xiumin’s casual advices about everyday’s life cast him as the caring oppa I’ve never had. Kai’s surprising shyness and innocence –when I searched EXO up, not wanting to be totally out of it, I remember that Kai’s persona had the iest concept- made it awkward at first since I wasn’t the most at ease then, the number of guys surrounding me being the cause, but as it went on, the situation got reversed and we could even look into each other’s eyes while talking. Sehun, the teasing one as I would call him, never failed to embarrass me which forced me on doing exactly the same thing to him, instead of acting like a girl and just avoiding him which caused some occasional speculation. Baekhyun kind of reminds me of Dongwoon, having to nag about almost everything. At some part of I and Kyungsoo’s discussion about lasagna –god knows how food was even brought up but it’s still my favorite plate so I couldn’t help but to continue talking about it-, Tao claimed that I let him take my phone and made me follow him in Instagram, befriended me on Facebook and acquainted all my SNS accounts to his and the rest of EXO’s.

Remembering the almost filial scene raised my awareness of place and time and I concluded I was in my new room. Lay and Chen’s ex-room. I shook my head lightly, not wanting his name crossing my mind to bring me any headache due to any underserved over consideration and decided to remedy to my dry throat instead.
Lightly kicked my legs to remove the sheets that had just my lower body covered, I fumbled with my feet into the Miss A sport slippers Suzy, Dongwoon’s girlfriend and my best girl friend, had gotten me along with the her brand new sport clothing and accessories summer collection, and quietly glided out, resourcing on my good graphic memory as I feel my way to the kitchen.
I touched the head support of the first couch then concluded I had to slide my pace by two steps to the right. A dim orange light that casted on a giddy face, eating like there was no tomorrow.
Leaning my head forward, I narrowed my eyes at the person to get a less mediocre view at the person and the overwhelming surprise caused a loud, out of control gasp to echo its way to the hungry guy, causing him to immediately choke on his food.
Widening my eyes, alerted, I rushed to fill a glass of water and held it out to him, only for him to slap it away as he coughed desperately. After turning the lights for a clearer vision, I tried