the monday after what sehun has begun to think of as the 'ing muddy hell' incident, he enters his early morning biology class with professor klein.  he keeps his head down, eyes skimming the empty seats until he spots his favorite at the back of the lecture hall.  he pulls his notebook for the class out along with the lab due from the week before as everyone slowly streams in with coffee and sleep heavy eyelids.

the ring leader of the upperclassmen tormentors enters and sehun barely has time to glance away before they make eye contact.  he bows his head down, absentmindedly doodling in the margin of his notes and prays that the guy won't come up to him with taunts this morning.

sehun inhales and holds it shakely as someone steps up to him close enough to have thier toes touching.  he grimaces when the toe of the pair of plain black converse in his line of sight begins to tap with impatience when the sound of a throat clearing reaches his ears, sehun drags his eyes up with their deliberately drooping lids.

'is that seat taken,' comes a lilting voice that doesn't match who he expected to be standing by him.

his eyes fly up to the pouting face of the chinese guy from the 'ing muddle hell' incident.  the guy's name alludes him but after a few seconds of mutual staring the pout fades into mild recognition with a flare of already wide eyes.

'oh!  it's you. hi!'

sehun nods his head and hopes that his blush isn't as bright on his cheeks as it is hot under his skin.  he thinks this might be worse than the bullies because as the guy shuffles around him and his bookbag to take the empty adjacent seat is obvious from the pity on his face that he is remembering the self inflicted humiliation from before.

in the months that sehun has been in college, he has come to expect certain things.  he expects sneers and looks of disgust.  he expects to only be spoken to when imminently necessary by his fellow students and to be called on by all of his professors because part of his scholarship is reports on his class attendance and participation.  he expects to be bored out of his mind 75% of the time because he always finishes his work early and has read ahead several chapters in all of his textbooks.

sehun doesn't expect for a hand to reach out and fondly ruffle his hair or to be smiled at with a warmth so genuine it makes him shiver.

'xing was right about you being practically adorable,' comes out with a chuckle when he sees the flare of red the races to the tip of sehun's ear that he flicks as he withdraws his hand.  'what was your name again?'

'sehun,' he coughs as he shuffles his papers on the little half desk attached to the chair over his lap.

'oh, that's right.  korean, right?  i'm luhan, chinese soccer player extraordinaire and reluctant best friend of the special dancing unicorn yixing.'

this whole situation was making sehun itch to pinch himself and see if he was still asleep.  this luhan dude was kind of freaking him out a bit, with the weird smile pulling his angelic face ugly as he ruffles sehun's hair again.  sehun flinched away instinctively, which wasn't missed by luhan if the brief look of curiosity that he quickly blinked away was anything to judge by.  he just had grown unaccustomed to people touching him with something other than contempt.  thinking back though, sehun did remember how luhan had acted all touchy feely the week before when he had helped them up from the soggy ground.

'sorry for interrupting your game las-'

sehun is cut off from properly apologizing when a wadded spitball of paper suddenly pegs him in the cheek.  in rapid fire two more hit his face and neck before he cowers slightly while scanning the rows below him. sure enough the ringleader is turned around in his seat directly two rows below and cackles at the gobsmacked look shuttering sehun's face.

the douche mouths 'ing fat cow' and sehun begins to completely shut down to stave off any chance of a panic attack.  this is something he expects as well.

luhan once again catches him off guard.  he softly flicks away the pellets from sehun's skin with a soft hum in the back of his throat.  when he chances a glance at the unexpectedly gentleness, sehun fight not to flinch away again when he sees the contained rage that pulls the pouting mouth in a hard line beneath the lilted doe eyes.  he can feel the quiver beneath the skin as luhan's hand brushes away the last remnants along his neck.

'i'm sorry,' sehun apologizes because that is all he knows to do.  it is as he whispers the words a second time that he finally realizes how often he really does apologize.  twice already since luhan had sat down.  he thinks that means something bout him but he is too busy automatically trying for a repetition to psychoanalyze himself at the moment.  

'you're not the one who should be sorry, sehun.  jesus christ.  xing told me about before, does this happen all the time?'

sehun pauses from a apologizing long enough to nod his head shyly, like he is the one who deserves to be in trouble for being the brunt of everyone's jokes.  he did sort of bring it upon himself, and he knows that definitely does mean something about himself but he can't really help it.

it is hard to blame others for hurting him when he hated himself.

luhan's head snapped around and after a long moment he suddenly stood.  sehun fumbled to grasp at him as he passed back into the aisle.  the pop of his knuckles was audible, even over the din of everyone finally waking enough to chatter aimlessly, as he locked in on the culprit.

he could only watch in shock as luhan skipped down the steps until he was a level below his target.  luhan walked along the rows of seats until he could anchor his hands on the empty chair back and lean forward into the bully's personal space.  the rage was masked with a coy smile and innocent eyelash fluttering as he grabbed the collar of the guy and tugged him forward until he tumbled unbalances with a flailing arm awkwardly trying to stabilize him.

most of the room's attention had been shifted to the possibility of an altercation and luhan twisted his fingers until the fabric strained at the guy's neck while he frantically looked around as if someone would help him.  no one moved to help him and sehun could just make out the soft laugh luhan bit back at twhat was sure to be sheer panic staring back at him.

'why do you look so scared,' luhan practically growls.  'didn't your daddy teach you not to start unless you can take in equal measures?'

sehun wants to stand up and drag luhan back or at least say something, but luhan catches him staring.  he smiles that warm grin again with a casual wink before he refocuses on the person in his grasp.

'this is your one and only warning.  start acting your age instead of like an eight year old with a crush or there will be consequences.  understand?'

sehun thinks they might start dueling it out right there because they are still staring each other down even after luhan withdraws with a step backwards.  luckily the professor steps through the door just then and sehun lets out a bent up breath he wasn't even aware he was holding.

professor klein barks out something in mandarin that has luhan bowing at a perfect 90 degree angle before he climbs back to his seat beside sehun.  as class starts, those gentle fingers ruffle his hair again until sehun looks over at him.  his attention is focused on the messy scrawl rapidly filling the dry erase board already.  sehun stays distracted the entire lecture.  he robotically passes up his lab with the one luhan handed him and auto pilots through copying notes down.

his mind is otherwise occupied.

he has become so accustomed to being a loner, no one willing to approach an overweight teenager who tops all his subjects while beating upperclassmen scores.  it is easier for everyone to ignore him or make an offhanded comment behind back than to put forth effort in getting to know him.  he has just made it easier for everyone by ignoring them as well, fading in the background and never lingering.

there was a time when he was different, the complete opposite.  used to be smiled and twirled for attention and knew everyone around him by first name.  then his life literally went to , and truth be told he preferred the indifference to the pity that people had flooded him with at the beginning.  now all he had to worry about was following the pathway already laid out before him and resist temptation to stray from his course.  he wouldn't think about that though.  he had locked away everything in his chest long ago.

'instead of making unnecessary apologies, why don't you come to lunch with me,' luhan says and sehun only then realizes that class has ended a while ago from the looks of it.  they are the only two left in the room save for a handful of stragglers chatting softly in the corner.

'what?' sehun shoves his notebook into his tattered satchel before pausing at the final full processing of the request aimed at him.

'well it won't be just us two, all my friends have this annoying habit of insisting on sitting with me at a table in the quad.  you should come took' luhan smiles while sliding his own jansport over one shoulder.

'uh, i don't know.  i usually just study in the library during lunch,' sehun is nervous and anxious because what even.  he knows this guy one class period after apparently being the same lecture since the beginning of the semester and now he is asking him to come to lunch with his friends.

'ah, come on!  pretty please.  i won't be the only one you know, xing should be there with his extra special self too.  don't make me pull out the cute faces,' luhan whines and bounces annoyingly as they walk down the aisle stairs to the door.

'well,' what would it hurt?  he will just say hello to yixing then politely excuse himself with some excuse or another.

he makes the mistake of looking at luhan and he learns the power of the cute face the hard way because ten minutes later he is being dragged, out of breath but willingly, toward a congregated mass of people already overflowing the table's seating limit.