.

Baekhyun stared down at the blank paper in front of him. . He totally didn't remember any of content of the topics that they had been covering in class for the past two weeks. Or more accurately, that HIS CLASS had been covering because Baekhyun hasn't been present during the lectures.

Well, physically he had, but mentally he had been floating on cloud nine.

Baekhyun stared hard and long at the paper as if miraculously the answers would   appear if he just emitted enough cerebral energy. It's the effort that counts, right?

Baekhyun looked around. Everyone was writing furiously, in a speed of 5 words/s, as if their life depended on it. Not that it was far from the truth: it was the midterm exam and worth 50% of the grade.

It's not that Baekhyun isn't a good student. He is and he always has been, and literature class is actually the class he excelled in. He has a 120% average and has never scored less than a 100% on any literature test; it's just that for the past few weeks his mind had already been occupied by a certain person, making no room for Othello to enter.

The silky blond hair, those sparkly eyes, the shy smile ... Baekhyun's world had taken a 180 degree turn ever since the day he unintentionally shifted his attention on a particular student three weeks ago.

His name was Luhan.

Initialy, when Luhan first transferred into the school during Baekhyun's third quarter of freshman year, he caught everyone but Baekhyun's attention. Hwang High School is known for two things: for containing students from extremely wealthy families and for having a 4% entrance rate. In order to enroll at the school, you either had to have incredible achievements that would grant you a scholarship and a spot, or be able to afford the mind-blowing tuition of $88,000 a year. Baekhyun was one of the few among the thousands of applicants that was granted a full tuition scholarship. Those that didn't get the scholarship and couldn't afford the school, could kiss the entrance good-bye. Because of the absurd admission criteria as well as the high tuition, a transfer into the school was unheard of. However, Luhan did, and the fact that the transfer happened so late in the school year was even more mysterious.  The news spread like a wildfire, and so before he had even arrived, he was already well-known through the school.

The moment Luhan stepped into the classroom was a legendary moment.

He was around 178 cm tall, with a lean, muscular body that bordered between feminine and masculine. He had straight, silky golden blonde hair that lightly fell across his forehead like a waterfall. His large, light brown eyes, framed by long eyelashes, reflected ligh whenever he smiled, giving the illusion that they sparkled.

If Baekhyun was to describe Luhan with one word, it would be water. There was a sense of liquidity surrounding him. There was something graceful about the way he moves, like water dancing among trees. The gentle way he spoke in his clear, melodious voice reminded of the sound of sparkly water when it sprinkles down the river. The way he easily avoided conflicts and effortlessly approached solutions mirrored the way water smoothly manouvers itself from one destination to the next.

But water can also be cold.

Apparenty he transferred into the school because of his parents' sudden transfer in business, but surprisingly he could speak fluently Korean—albeit he spoke it in a very formal way—and thanks to the convenience of modern technology, his existence was soon spread throughout the school, giving birth to his unprecedented and unrivalled popularity before he had even finished his introduction. Ever since then, he always had a hoard of girls following him wherever he went like mindless zombies. Despite his infamy for attracting girls, Luhan was known among the girls as the "Cold Prince" because he never paid any girl special attention. He dismissed all compliments toward his looks, and avoided girls-although in this he seldom succeeded.

Luhan was perfect. And because of this, he was also the perfect example of everything Baekhyun avoided. Baekhyun never liked the popular type of people. Too much stress and too much hype, Baekhyun had always thought. So when Luhan first transferred to his school freshman year, Baekhyun avoided him at all cost, which was an easy task as the noise level would increase tenfold whenever Luhan came close. For two years, Baekhyun had succeeded in his task. Two years of not paying attention to any rumors about Luhan, not acknowledging his presence, and not looking at his face.

And two years of effort had gone to waste the moment he nonchalantly glanced at Luhan and the latter caught his eyes. Two seconds of eye contact. 738 days of abstinence thrown out the window.

Baekhyun never thought he would find himself falling in love with a person of the type he had condemned repeatedly throughout his life and complained about to Sehun, his childhood friend.
 

"I would never date a popular guy. Popular means liked by majority, right? Well, I'm just an individual. I guess that makes me minority. And we all know minority and majority don't get along. "

"What's the point of dating a popular guy? That's like having an open relationship with the public."

"The day I fall in love with a popular person is the day I'm failing a literature test."

He may as well tattoo a giant "HYPOCRITE" on his forehead.

Thanks to Luhan, Baekhyun finally fell in love for the first time in his 16 miserable years of life. Thanks to Luhan, Baekhyun had to eat 16 years worth of hypocrisy. And thanks to Luhan, Baekhyun was also about to fail his midterm exam in literature.

Ok, let's calm down. Baekhyun thought to himself. Read the question.
 

What was the purpose of Iago to lie to Othello about Desdemona's handkerchief?

I can do this.

To Luha

Baekhyun threw his pencil down in exasperation. He was obviously not in his right mind to do this. He quickly grabbed his eraser and started erasing vigorously as if hoping that by dispatching the written evidence he could dispatch his pitiful mental state as well.  

"Time's up! All pencils down." A deep voice boomed throughout the room. Baekhyun looked up and saw the teacher assistant starting to collect papers from each row. The teacher assistant was new, he had only been in the class a couple of weeks and Baekhyun was not yet sure about how he felt about him. Baekhyun had easily warmed up to his previous literature teachers and charmed them with his flirting and impressive literature skills. They would always compliment him, smile at him and stare at him adoringly, but for some reason he wasn't able to earn that sort of response from this new teacher. All he got was a face. Maybe it had to do with the fact that his previous literature teachers were all old,ho nice ladies, and this teacher assistant was a young in his early twenties. Tall and handsome, Baekhyun would add. The guy was definitely a looker, there's no denying about that, but what does it matter to him how good looking the teacher assistant is if he doesn't help Baekhyun pass his class?

Baekhyun stared down again at his own paper, which was perfectly new and blank except for that one spot where a bit of the paper had been scrunched away thanks to someone erasing it like mad. He had not answered one question.

.

"Baekhyun?" the teacher assistant was now in front of him, staring at him still with the scrunched up  look on his face. "Can I have your paper?"

Reluctantly, Baekhyun slowly handed the assistant teacher his empty paper without looking at him. Please don't notice, please don't notice, please don't notice. Baekhyun felt his heart beating fast and blood stream to his face when he realized that the teacher had not moved away even after taking his paper.

"Baekhyun?" the deep voice spoke again.

Baekhyun cringed at the sound of his own name and slowly he raised his head to find the teacher assistant staring at him directly. The expression on his face was unreadable. Or unreadable as in Baekhyun wasn’t sure if the teacher was just bearing his normal expression or if he was actually straight out pissed this time. 

"Talk to me after class."

He then walked away to collect the other papers, leaving Baekhyun to internally cursing himself. The perfect straight A student was getting into trouble for the first time in his life.

! Luhan, why did you just have to come into my life three weeks before midterm exam in literature?