Chen twirls the spoon in his hand. He’s the first one to arrive at the class because his teacher actually let them leave early. He’s not entirely sure why, maybe because they had all finished the test before class ended and he was fed up with them all. That’s what he’d do if he had the choice. He had spoken to Tao right after lunch and he was the happiest he had ever seen him since he broke it off with Jina. It was nice to see him like that again but there was something nagging him in the back of his mind. That something was a someone, black hair, brown eyes, porcelain skin, bangs swept to the side of her face, and lips parted in a smile with her eyes twinkling. Victoria is always in his head and how she was so easygoing. He had had a few girlfriends before her but then when she finally broke up with one of her boyfriends Mike he asked her out. She said yes and they started dating. He had felt as if he was flying and she told him of Alex briefly. Because of the short story he took the relationship slowly knowing that if he would go to fast she might break it off. That happened once or twice when the boy tried to force things on her or became too possessive of her. She’d told him many times how much she valued that he knew so much about her likes and dislikes. When she kissed him flying turned to floating and he had been so happy. Then things calmed down and a few weeks later she told him about her concerns for their relationship and how it wasn’t working out extremely well. He had been confused, of course he had been but after seeing her eyes start cracking like glass he realized how hard it was for her too. He got his emotions under control and told her to think it over one more day and the next she broke up with him. He asked to be friends because he wouldn’t be able to stand not being able to talk to her even if he was in the friend zone. She agreed and here they are. When Tao had told him about their conversations with each other he had felt jealous, very. Though Tao is a lot more fitting for Victoria in his mind. He’s gone through the same sort of bad breakup Victoria went through so they can connect on an even deeper level. All he wishes is that Victoria wouldn’t be so goddamn oblivious to her “friend’s” smile. The smile she returns with doesn’t help either; it makes his heart involuntarily do a backflip. Unknowingly she’s playing with his heartstrings and in no way can he resent her for it.

“Hello? Anyone home? You’re staring off into space with quite a forlorn gaze.” Someone snaps their fingers in front of his eyes jerking him from his thoughts. It’s Krystal with a polite smile on her face, “What’s bothering you?”

“You’re quite straightforward.” He remarks.

“Well I am my friend group’s informant so I need to know a lot about what’s going on in this school.” She replies.

“I'm guessing you know many things.”

“Oh I do, a few things about you. Nothing embarrassing, you’re pretty good there.” He raises an eyebrow for her to continue, “Well, I know that you leave the lunch table frequently to go to the music room to sing, from my interpretation you seem to think no one will notice. Strange. You also post covers on the Internet and one of your big fans is Sun-Hee. That girl very much likes your voice and I hear her talk about you often.” She smiles slightly.

“Nicely informed, since you’re so good at interpreting, what do you think is bothering me?” He asks. Krystal pauses and studies his face for about five seconds. He can feels his face heat up for some reason under her intense gaze.

“My guess is that you’re thinking about Victoria and your relationship. You might have conflicting emotions because of your feelings for her and then your friendship with Tao.” He bites his lip and looks down, damn she’s good.

“You got it.” He sighs, “But Tao has suffered more and I think I’ve moved on from Victoria. He needs her to fill that gap in his life, something she can do so much better than Jina.”

Krystal nods before turning to see Victoria come in looking a bit distracted.

“Unnie, what’s with you?” She asks going over to where she sits.

“Just boy problems.” She replies.

“Ah, so you’re not the only one suffering from love.” Krystal mutters.

“What was that?” Victoria frowns.

“Are you trying to figure out your feelings for Tao?” Victoria reluctantly nods, “Well good luck with that one because I sadly have no idea how you’ll get your brain into gear. Boys are difficult aren’t they?” She winks.

“You sound like you really know what you’re talking about, want to tell me what’s going on there?” Victoria starts to smirk.

“There’s nothing at all, I just keep either hearing or figuring out the struggles of others in their love life. This place is certainly eventful.” Krystal returns to her seat and glances at Chen who has a tiny smile on his face. Why’s he smiling now? Never mind, the lesson’s going to start, she shakes her head.

“There you are! I thought you were going to skip today like you did last time.” Victoria says as Tao sits down.

“Yeah, sorry about that. By the way, the muffins were excellent.” He says.

“You know, that whole Robot Panda façade you had on before. You could really have passed for the school’s bad boy, now…” She trails off looking him up and down before getting to work on the cookie mix.

“Victoria, you forgot something.” Tao says.

“What, don’t tell me I forgot the sugar?” She looks around the bowl, “No, I put sugar in, flour? Oh!” She lets out a small yelp when he ties the apron around her.

“You’re wearing nice clothes so I doubt you want to get them dirty.” He mutters trying to ignore how close they are.

“Thank you Panda.” She says before starting again on the mix. He looks at her with a small sigh.

“Hey Victoria, do you by any chance have some leftover chocolate?” Chen asks.

“Yeah, let me just break off some and then you can have some.” She gives him a light smile. Tao feels a pang of something. No, it can't be jealousy, can it?

“Thanks.” He smiles back. She gives him the chocolate before turning back to the mix but Tao is mixing it now.

“We should be taking turns. You know I think I should give you a nickname as well, because you did give me the name of Robot Panda.” He says.

“Sure, do what you want, just as long as you don’t use Tori, I'm good.” She replies before setting the temperatures on the oven.

“How about something with your real name, Qian?” He asks.

“How did you know my real name?”

“Krystal told me.” He replies.

“No doubt many more things.” She grumbles, “But I bet you can't get much better than Robot Panda.” She smiles slightly.

“You never know, I think Qiennie is cute.” Wait, did he just say that? He groans inwardly.

“Not bad.” She shrugs but he spots some color in her cheeks. He smirks to himself before putting the dough in the little molds. Victoria also does so and complains he’s going too slow.

“We’re already farther than the others, I can relax a bit.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly how you lose your place farther than the others.” She mutters.

“So you’re the competitive type are you?” He raises an eyebrow but she’s too focused on the dough to look up at him.

“I guess so.” She replies. He puts the tray into the oven and they can finally relax. He hears her stomach growl and smiles slightly.

“I'm guessing you can't wait to eat something, eh?”

“No I can't, I'm starving.” She groans rubbing her stomach, “And the cookie dough smelt really good.”

“It did. You know what Amber told me the other day?”
“What?” He can see a bit of dread in her eyes and it makes him smile even more.

“Your stress reliever is eating. Why is that?”

“It just calms me down, I don’t know how.” She shrugs, “My friends tell you an awful lot of things, you must be asking many questions. Are you that interested in me?” She smirks slightly.

“Well you are an interesting person.”

“You could be as well.” She replies.

“Could be?” His mouth makes small ‘o’ in shock. She closes his mouth with her finger.

“Careful now. That could become a bad habit.” She raises an eyebrow at him.

Their banter does not go unnoticed. Krystal smiles at the scene, it’s so nice seeing Victoria smiling like that. She doesn’t do that with many, only her friend group and…She looks at Chen who has a slightly pained smile on.

“Yah, we need to get these cookies done. I'm starving.” She says gently. He jumps slightly and turns his gaze to her.

“Well in that case we should hurry.” He smiles slightly. He looks at Victoria once more before helping Krystal with the dough.

Yay, the new chapter is up! Tell me what you think of it and what might be developing here :D