Monday

Welcome to Exo High. A single concrete building situated on an 8-acre property, it's your typical nondescript public school. On Monday 8:20 AM, 10 minutes before the homeroom bell, the front lot is a swarm of students catching up on weekend gossip, comparing (more likely, copying) homework, and greeting one another with high-fives and fist-bumps.  Amidst the teenage activity, one might almost miss the frustrated screams coming from inside the dumpster.         

“s!” A small boy picks himself up from the foul-smelling heap. He looks down at his cream jacket and pants—now stained with yesterday’s spaghetti sauce—and sighs mournfully. “Damn, and I just bought these last weekend.”

"And how would the Bacon like some eggs this fine morning?" a deep booming voice mocks from outside the dumpster bin. A chorus of guffaws accompany his question.

"It's Baekhyun, you Neanderthals!" Baekhyun screams, as he tries futilely to dodge the incoming missile of Grade A brown eggs.

Chanyeol Park, or Blockhead #1 as Baekhyun calls him, waits for the yelps to die down before he scans the yard for his next target. His eyes zero in on another small boy with freakishly wide eyes and a black mop of hair, hugging a thick binder to his chest.

"Come on guys, let's get the Dodo."

---

“But I'm the current valedictorian, volunteer in my spare time, and president of sixteen clubs at Exo!”

“And how many of these clubs have more than 1, or 2, members?”

Suho Kim, senior and only regular visitor of Exo's guidance counselor Mr. Jung, sits primly in a worn chair with a legal pad and pencil in his lap. On the pad, neatly printed, is a list of his top choice colleges.  Well, “list” probably isn’t the correct term, seeing as it's composed of exactly one item.

“…but Mr. Jung, this school is full of underachievers who’d rather smoke weed in the bathroom than lift a pencil. I mean, try running a newspaper club when half the grade can’t tell the difference between except and accept!  I don't know how I'm supposed to make a difference when no one even cares...”

As Suho goes off on his rant, Yunho sighs, having heard this spiel multiple times in his career, mostly from his mother who nags at his devotion to “that thankless job of yours, Yunho. I don't know why you bother wasting your time with those terrors. And by the way, when are you going to find a nice girl to settle down with...”

“Look, Suho, I don’t deny that you’re a very bright young man," Yunho interrupts gently. "It’s just…well, I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Exo hasn’t sent a single student to a top-20 university in over ten years, let alone Sooman University. You certainly aren’t the only 4.0 applicant in their pool..."

"4.3," Suho mutters.

"...and Exo doesn't carry the prestige that other schools do.  Why don’t we look at some backups, just in case?” He pulls open his drawers and grabs some pamphlets. “There’s a great program over at the local university, I’m sure you’d get in without a problem--“

“No.” Suho shakes his head firmly, ignoring the proffered pamphlets. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jung, but please understand.  Haven’t you ever had a dream that you’ve been chasing after for your entire life, so close you can almost taste it? Feel it burning away at your mind and body, like a fever? Eating away at you, like a gigantic termite infection?”

“Er…”

“Then you have to understand. There’s nowhere else for me other than SMU.  I’ll do anything it takes to get there.  Anything.”

His wide, slightly-maniacal eyes bore into Yunho’s, and Yunho looks away with a nervous cough.

“Well…er…alright...do you have any skills? Outside of academics? Sports?”

Suho wrinkles his nose. Yunho takes in his appearance—baby face, vampire-pale skin, starched checkered polo, gingham shorts, not single neatly-combed hair out of place. Yeah, he doesn’t look like he’s touched a ball or racket in his life.

“Or any special talents? Draw, play an instrument…?”

“...I played the triangle in the fifth grade?”

"Er...Well, I’ll tell you this.  Have you heard of Leeteuk Park?"

"Of course." Exo High's sole claim to fame lies behind the glass case by the school entrance.  The National High School Show Choir Competition 1st Place, 1999 trophy sits proudly on a velvet red pillow, next to a portrait of the famed Leeteuk. “Didn't he lead some choir group to championships fifteen years ago...?"

"The Glee Club, yes," Yunho nods. "And he had schools left and right ready to snap him up, including SMU. Leading a group to victory--that’s the kind of x-factor they love. But of course, Exo isn’t what it used to be, what with the budget cuts and overhauls; we don't even have a music department any longer…“

Wistfully, he loses himself in the memory of Exo’s glory days. Meanwhile, Suho picks himself slowly off the seat, gears turning in his tiny head.

---

“Another club? Pass the papers.”

“This one is different,” Suho insists as he hands over the stack of ungraded tests. “This is the key to my future.”

His best friend and (only) fellow Math Club member, D.O., hmm’s doubtfully as he viciously attacks the page with a red pen.  As their two-man club is too tiny to qualify for tournaments, their weekly club meetings compose of grading students' work for the math teachers. Suho doesn’t mind, if it means scoring brownie points with his teachers. And D.O., aside from being Suho’s loyal sidekick, seems to find it therapeutic.

“So you’ll join?”

“Hm? Oh, sure, why not? Ah...!” D.O.'s eyes narrow as his gaze falls on the name on the newest test: Chanyeol Park. Without bothering to look at the rest of the paper, he gleefully scrawls a fat red “0” over the entire front page. He studies his work for a moment, before adding a pair of horns and a spiky tail to the number. “But how exactly are you going to get others to join? I mean, look at all the clubs you’ve started; no one even knows they exist.”

“Ah but D.O., you forget-- high schoolers are like sheep.  If I can get the king in my fold, the rest will follow.”

---

“No.”

“But think of-“

“No.”

“What about-“

“No.”

“You didn’t even hear what I was going to say!”

Kris sighs, toweling off his sweaty neck and chucking the limp cloth at the dirty bin. It sails in with a satisfying swish and Suho resists the urge to clap. “I don’t need to listen, because I already know you’re going to ask me to join one of those stupid clubs of yours. No.”

“I’ll do your math homework for the whole year.”

For a moment Kris hesitates, before he shakes his head. “Look, Suho, you know I can’t.”

“Right," Suho mutters. "Your reputation.”

“I’m the basketball captain,” Kris defends. “People will talk if I start joining geek clubs. I mean, it’s already kind of weird that I’m talking to you…” his gaze flicks to the side, where the rest of the basketball team awaits. Some of them throw Suho disdainful sneers; others don't even deign to make eye contact.

“You didn’t have a problem telling me all your thoughts last night. Or is that only ok when I have my mouth around your—“

“Quiet!” Kris hisses, his hand shooting out to block Suho’s words. Then, realizing what he’s doing, he retracts his hand as though burnt. "Look, can we talk about this later or something? People are watching.”

“Fine,” Suho huffs. “I have student council today. Don’t forget to pick me up this time.”

“Yeah, ok. Don’t forget to—“

“To wait by the back entrance so that no one sees. Yeah, I got it, Kris.”

---

Once upon a time, Kris and Suho used to be inseparable. Their mothers attended the same prenatal zumba class, and fetus-Kris and fetus-Suho spent every Wednesday afternoon three feet from each other in the same dance studio, floating in embryonic fluid to the beat of Ricky Martin's Greatest Hits. They were born in the town's only hospital, two months apart.  Two months after Suho's birth, the Wus moved in to the house next to the Kims, and baby Kris and baby Suho spent countless playdates together. Kris was running around while Suho tripped and cried over every surface, but Suho was babbling semi-sentences before Kris said his first word. They entered kindergarten with matching outfits and the title of Best Friend Forever reserved for each another.

Then, the summer before high school, Suho's parents sent him off to an accelerated summer camp, where he learned things like Algebra and Civics and "leadership." Or something. Not that Kris would know, because Suho was apparently too busy to answer any of Kris's letters or emails.

It was the first summer they had been apart.  

When Suho returned, he could barely recognize his best friend.  The other boy had suddenly shot up in height, dyed his hair blonde, and became part of a "crew" that did nothing all day but play and breathe basketball.  All Kris would talk about were the latest playoffs between Some Team and Another Team; Suho would zone out.  Every time Suho talked about the latest chapter in the self-improvement book he was reading, Kris would reward him with a blank stare.

In the first week of freshman year, Kris made the basketball team and earned a spot at the exclusive table at the center of the cafeteria. Suho joined the student council.  Their schedules were completely different--Suho was placed in all the accelerated classes--and their only interactions consisted of hesitant waves and sidelong glances in the hallways or cafeteria.  

One morning, as Suho was skipping toward the school entrance, mentally quizzing himself for his upcoming physics test, he felt himself lifted by pairs of strong hands. He had heard enough about the infamous "dumpster dives" that the jocks subjected the "losers" to know what was about to happen. He shrieked, kicked, flailed. It was to no avail.  He sailed across the dumpster wall and landed in a stinking pile of garbage.  Bits of mystery meat clung to his shirt, and he could feel soda seeping into his hair. But that wasn't the worst part.

As the letterman-clad group snickered and jeered, Suho stared, betrayed, at his former best friend.  Kris looked away.

---

Suho slides off of Kris's lap and Kris flops backwards onto the bed, groaning.

"...I didn't tire you out that badly, did I?"

"As if," Kris retorts, rubbing his head.  He sighs. "Long practice today."

"What, drabbling took up too many brain cells?" 

"Dribbling," Kris corrects. "Hey, wait where are you going?" he whines as Suho moves off the bed.  

"Calm down. Here, this might help. From my dad's cabinet." Suho pulls out a bottle from his backpack and hands it over to Kris, whose eyes widen.

"I didn't know you drink."

"You don't know a lot of things about me," Suho replies mildly. He hops onto the bed, next to Kris's reclining form. Kris takes a sip and hands it over to Suho. 

They sit in a rare companionable silence, trading the bottle back and forth, before Kris' voice breaks it.

"Hey, you remember that time we collected all those free 7-11 Jumbo Slurpee coupons?" 

Suho laughs lightly. "Gosh, how old were we then? Yeah, the store manager looked ready to kill us after the 10th cup, because you insisted on trying all the flavors."

"Except you threw them all up when we got home."

"Hey, so did you!"

"That was pretty cool, though. I didn't know it was possible to actually puke rainbow."

"Of course you'd still remember that."

"My mom got so mad," Kris continues, still snickering at the memory. "Man I wish I had your parents. They never ground you for anything."

"They don't care enough to ground me," Suho corrects absently. "If they even notice I exist."

"Huh?"

"Nothing." Suho quickly grabs the bottle from Kris's hands before taking a tiny experimental sip, hiding his disgusted grimace. Ugh, why do people drink these?

Kris looks at the fancy French writing on the label. "Hey, how strong is this stuff, anyway?"

10 minutes later...

"I can shoow you the woooorld!!!" Kris half-yells, half-sings, waving his arms like a maniac.

Suho winces at the horrendous pitch and grabs Kris's arms before he can spill the bottle's contents.

"Shining shimmering splendiiii--" Crash! "Ow."

20 minutes later...

"You know, you're not so annoying when you aren't talking about grades and ." Having sung himself hoarse and acquired a new bruise on his forehead, Kris has resumed his reclined position on the pillows. Suho holds an ice pack to his bruise.

"Well, excuse me for looking out for my future," Suho sniffs.  "While the rest of you are stuck here pumping gas or cleaning pools, I'll be out of this place, getting a degree."

"Hey, trust me, I want to get out of this hellhole as much as you do." Kris defends.

"How, by ditching and flunking out of every other class?"

"No..." Kris falls silent.  "...Suho, can I show you something?"

"Sure...?"

Kris reaches over to the box on his dresser and, with some difficulty, undoes the clasp to pull out an envelope.  

The letter is worn, obviously well-read. Suho scans its contents, eyebrows climbing higher and higher as he reaches the end.

"Wow, Kris..."

"I got it last week," Kris confesses quietly. "They're recruiters...they're interested in having me play for their team."

"Wow..."

"Lay got one too.  From another school.  But...yeah. Coach says that colleges are going to be sending scouts over this season to watch the games, following the seniors.  If they like one of us enough, I mean, maybe...I could...this could be my ticket out..."

"You'll be amazing." Suho pats Kris's arm as Kris stutters out his deepest wishes. He may not care much about the sport, but he knows that Kris's dream of being a professional basketball player hasn't wavered in the past three years.

"You really think so?" Kris peers hopefully down at him, a flush in his cheeks. Probably from the alcohol.

"Well, I mean, you are pretty good at that dumb game," Suho mutters, looking away. "Even if it's the only thing you ever do."

Kris pulls him tighter to his chest, and Suho snuggles closer, closing his eyes.  He can almost imagine that they're eight again, and he's crawling into Kris's bed during a particularly scary thunderstorm.

Well, minus the ness.

Ten minutes later, Kris is passed out on the bed, lightly snoring and empty bottle in hand.  Suho watches his face intently for a few seconds, before sighing and carefully disentangling himself from his sticky embrace.

---

Tuesday

"KIM. SUHO." The door bangs open, revealing a seething basketball captain.

"I'm sorry," Suho smiles sweetly, looking up from his clipboard. "We're in the middle of a Debate Club meeting, unless you'd like to join-"

"Hell no." Kris points at D.O. "Get out."

D.O.'s eyes widen, and he scrambles out the back door faster than one can say 'declamation.'

Sighing, Suho puts down is clipboard and turns to face Kris.  "Why, hello, Kris, what a pleasant surprise. How may I help you?"

With shaking fingers, Kris shoves a Polaroid into Suho's face. "The is this?"

"Hmm?" Suho studies the photo with mock concentration, and lets out a scandalized gasp.  "Why, Kris, I cannot believe my eyes!  Could it be...Exo High's basketball captain engaged in underage drinking?"

"Don't play dumb!"

"...My my, I wonder what Principal Lee would have to say if this photo turns up on his desk?  You look pretty cozy with that bottle there.  Where did you even acquire such an item?"

"You little--"

"Such a shame; I know Exo's athletics department highly frowns on this type of behavior. You'd be banned for the season. At least." Suho shakes his head sadly. "Bye-bye, recruiters. Bye-bye, basketball."

"Suho--you cannot do this to me!"

Suho studies his fingernails.

"You just can't!"

Suho wipes an invisible speck of dust off of his sleeve.

Kris lets out what sounds like a mix between a growl and a scream.  "...Alright, fine! What do you want!"

Hardly have the words left his mouth than a pamphlet is placed in his hands. "Congratulations! Thank you for volunteering to be the co-captain of our newest Glee Club!"

Kris stares down at the paper.  He sees a (badly) photoshopped microphone, a group of stick-figures dressed in sparkly outfits, and the words UNLEASH YOUR POTENTIAL!!! 

"What."

"Pretty, right? D.O. made it last night in MS Paint."

"..."

"Don't worry, I'll handle the actual leading. You'll be captain in name only."

"...I can't sing," Kris finally manages, in a strangled voice.

Suho scoffs. "Yeah, I know, Aladdin." Kris flushes.  "Doesn't matter. You are at the top of the school food chain...god knows why. Once people hear about this, the floodgates will open and the whole school will be begging to join."

"What--! No! No way, I refuse to be publicly associated with this..this..thing!" Kris slams the pamphlet face-down against the desk, unwilling to look at its rainbow glory any longer.

"Fine." Suho singsongs, waving a flashdrive in front of him. "Then I guess Dear Principal Lee is going to see what Exo's basketball star does in his free time..."

With a growl and interception skills honed on the court, Kris immeditely snatches it out of Suho's hands. "Not anymore."

Suho rolls his eyes. "I have more saved on my harddrive," he says flatly. "And on D.O.'s. And in two other disks that I've hidden in my house.  That's 100 photos, by the way.  There's no way out of this, Kris."

Kris flings the flashdrive into the trash can (perfect shot!), growl-screams again, and stomps out of the room.

"Hey, remember you still have to drive me home!"

---

Wednesday

Glee Club Roster

Suho Kim., co-captain

D.O., secretary/treasurer/everything else

Kris Wu., "co-captain" a.k.a. puppet leader & ultimate bait

Chanyeol Park., a.k.a. bait #1

Kai Kim., a.k.a. bait #2

Lay Zhang., a.k.a. bait #3

"You actually did it." D.O. gazes at the list in awe. "You actually got Exo royalty."

Suho smiles proudly. He had found a half-threatening, half-pleading note in his locker earlier that morning, scrawled in Kris's awful handwriting. Apparently Kris had managed to convince three of his loyal peons to join "your stupid- clown club." Not bad for a day's work.

"But...uh...do any of them actually sing?"

"That, D.O., is our next step."