Merry Christmas (Eve), everybody! I've been envisioning this chapter since I started the story, and it was super fun to write! I hope you guys enjoy it!

Chapter Seven: Lunch of Doom

“Who’s your best friend?” Taemin asked happily at break, enveloping Boyeon in a bone-crushing hug.

“Not you, if you don’t let go.”

Taemin smirked. “Nope. I’d still be your best friend. You’ll never believe what I’m about to tell you.” Boyeon raised an eyebrow, but let him continue. “You know how Jongin likes rapping, right? Well, he wound up talking to one of your classmates about it, and they really hit it off. We’re eating lunch with them today. And who is that friend, you might ask?” Taemin didn’t wait for her to ask. “Park Chanyeol!”

Boyeon’s mouth dropped open, but Luhan, who was sitting next to her, looked entirely unimpressed. “Who’s Park Chanyeol?”

“One of Byun Baekhyun’s best friends; you’d probably recognize him. He’s pretty tall.”

“Ah,” Luhan thought. “The tall one.” So, that’s what his name was. “We’re eating with them, huh?”

“This is great!” Boyeon practically squealed. “Luhan, you’ll get to meet Baekhyun! Oh, my gosh. I’ll get to talk to him. I don’t think my heart can handle this. Taemin, I might not be ready by lunch!”

Taemin rolled his eyes. “Idiot. You’ll be fine.”

-

Boyeon paced outside of Taemin and Jongin’s classroom, rubbing her hands together furiously. “This is it,” she mumbled. “This is it.” Mr. Cho had let the class out for lunch early, so Boyeon and Luhan were waiting for their friends – well, Boyeon’s friends. Luhan was still debating whether to extend friendship to them or not, even though Jongin was a pretty cool guy.

For some reason, even though Luhan’s entire mission revolved around getting Boyeon and Baekhyun together, he still had this odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want Boyeon to talk to Baekhyun, but he wasn’t sure why. It was an extremely counterproductive thought, but he couldn’t make it go away. He guessed this was why Boyeon had so many people around her who wanted to protect her. Luhan shook his head. The earth air must have been getting to him.

The best thing, he supposed, would be to get Boyeon and Baekhyun together as quickly as possible so he could go back to heaven and forget about the weird feeling in his stomach.

Boyeon tapped Luhan on the shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Do I look okay, Luhan? I wasn’t prepared for this. I would have worn more make-up or something if I had known.”

Luhan snorted. “Don’t you dare cake your face in make-up. What would Baekhyun do if you started dating him and he found out you don’t really look like that? He might dump you.”

Boyeon gasped. “You’re right!” Luhan, surprised she took him seriously, rolled his eyes.

“Let’s just get this over with.” Just as he said it, the kids in the classroom stood up and began to head off for lunch. Once most of them had rushed out of the classroom, Luhan pushed his way in, and nodded to Taemin and Jongin. The two followed him out of the classroom. Taemin rushed to Boyeon and pinched her cheeks.

“Aigoo, our Boyeonnie is nervous,” Taemin said pulling on her cheeks.

“Nervous for what?” Jongin asked.

“She gets shy when meeting new people,” Taemin said smoothly. It wasn’t even a lie. Boyeon was nervous about seeing Baekhyun, but half her anxiety came from the fact that she’d be meeting his friends, too.

“Don’t worry,” Jongin said dismissively. “Chanyeol and his friends are all nice. And Chanyeol really wants to meet you, Taemin.”

“Everyone wants to meet me,” Taemin said proudly. Boyeon whacked him on the back of the head, prompting Luhan to give her a thumbs up.

Boyeon, Taemin, and Jongin proceeded to chat about their grades and teachers while Luhan walked behind them. He didn’t know the teachers well yet, and he hardly had any grades, since he had just come to the school. He had, however, made his fake transcript from his fake last school very impressive. Even if it weren’t real, he didn’t want to feel unqualified for this mission.

Soon, they were standing outside the cafeteria doors, but Boyeon refused to move. Taemin and Jongin had gone on without noticing she had stopped.

“What is it now?” Luhan asked.

“I’m scared!” she squeaked.

He put an arm around her shoulders, and she seemed to relax a little bit. “It’ll be fine. Now, let’s go. You wouldn’t want to miss this, right?” She shook her head furiously. “Good.” With that, Luhan pushed open the doors of the cafeteria. Boyeon walked behind him with her head down, but Luhan had no such apprehension. What could these earth people do to him? He had powers!

Not that he planned to use them or anything.

But he still walked over to Baekhyun’s table with that confidence. “Hey!” Jongin said upon their arrival. “I thought we lost you guys for a second.” He turned to the others seated at the table. “This is Xi Luhan and Han Boyeon. They’re my friends.”

Boyeon waved nervously while Luhan did a quick once-over of the table. Besides Jongin and Taemin, there were three people already seated, one he knew as Park Chanyeol, another he knew as Byun Baekhyun, and another he didn’t recognize. He turned his head and jerked back to see a hand enthusiastically stretched out toward him. “Hi! I’m Park Chanyeol! Nice to properly meet you, transfer student!” Chanyeol held out his hand for Luhan to shake, but Luhan ignored it and nodded at the boy instead. “Whoa, grumpy much,” Chanyeol whispered nervously to the boy Luhan didn’t know.

“I’m Do Kyungsoo,” the boy said. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m in Jongin’s class.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Luhan said, sliding into the seat next to Jongin and across from Kyungsoo. Boyeon moved to sit next to him, but then, she saw something that made her heart beat furiously. Baekhyun was waving at her.

“Hey! Han Boyeon-ssi! Sit here! Sit here!” The butterflies in Boyeon’s stomach were whipping up a hurricane. She walked towards Baekhyun for what felt like a lifetime, but was only a few seconds in reality. Finally, she sat down with across from him, about to thank him for inviting her to sit with him, when he said, “Wait, not there. Jongdae’s gonna sit there. I meant the seat next to that.” Boyeon blushed crimson and moved over to the next seat. She was about to ask why he asked her to move, but once again, the words didn’t get out of . Instead, Kim Taeyeon came and sat down next to Baekhyun and across from Boyeon.

“Hi!” Taeyeon said, looking a little confused. She turned to her side, where Baekhyun was beaming.

“Noona, this is Han Boyeon. She’s in my class.”

Boyeon gave a sheepish wave. “Hello.”

Baekhyun turned to Taeyeon and gave her a mage-watt smile. “See, noona? I told you that you wouldn’t have to be the only girl at the table!”

Boyeon’s heart sank. She was so, so excited that Baekhyun wanted her to sit near him. But he only wanted her there so his girlfriend wouldn’t get lonely. She couldn’t even really be surprised by the fact, but it still made her upset.

“Excuse me,” a voice said, making Boyeon jump. She looked up to see Kim Jongdae, the other one of Baekhyun’s partners in crime. He gave her an award-winning smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back. “Han Boyeon, right? We’ve been in class all year together, but I don’t think I’ve talked to you yet.”

“We were in class together last year, too,” Boyeon said quietly. She immediately regretted it, since that made her sound like some sort of stalker. To her surprise, however, Jongdae merely laughed.

“We were, weren’t we? We could have been friends. Anyway, I’m Kim Jongdae, but I’m going to assume you knew that, since I knew you, too.”  Boyeon nodded and tried not to look too embarrassed. She had just been into a situation that, prior to this morning, she had only written fanfics about, and she was terrified. But, fortunately, Jongin had been right – Baekhyun and his friends were nice and easy to talk to. Maybe Boyeon could befriend them and get to spend more time with her crush, so she tried her best to not be too shy and talk to them.

Luhan, on the other hand, spent most of the lunch trying to avoid talking to people. This was made easier by Chanyeol, who did enough talking for three people, and Jongdae, who did enough talking for two. For the most part, he only had to listen and nod to keep from seeming standoffish. But more than anything, he wanted to keep track of his mission’s progress. He snuck glances at Boyeon every once in a while, just to see how she was doing.

“And you’ll never believe what happened next!” Chanyeol said. He was in the middle of a story, which was enhanced by his exaggerated gestures. “The pot lid just flew off the stove! And Baekhyun started screaming like a little girl–”

“I did not!”

“Yes, you did,” Kyungsoo argued.

“–and dinner was completely ruined. We had to go out for kimbap,” Chanyeol finished, looking rather proud of himself. Baekhyun was glaring at Chanyeol, Kyungsoo was smirking, and Jongdae was shaking his head at all of them. Despite Baekhyun’s disapproving stare, Chanyeol seemed undeterred. “What about you, Luhan-ssi?” he suddenly asked. “Do you have any interesting stories?”

Luhan paled. He certainly had interesting stories. He touched a star once. It didn’t hurt him, but he couldn’t see anything due to the bright light. And then, there was that one time he and a few buddies explored trenches on different planets. He had met angels, war veterans, heroes, villain-turned-heroes, and more amazing people than Chanyeol ever could have dreamed of.

But it wasn’t like he could tell anyone else that.

“Not really,” Luhan said dismissively.

“But you’re from China, right?” Baekhyun asked. “You’ve gotta have a cool story about China. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“I’d rather not,” Luhan said in a low voice.

“Unpleasant memories?” Kyungsoo asked.

“Something like that.” Luhan did his best to smile. “But you guys have pretty funny stories. I bet yours are a lot better than mine.”

“Oh!” Chanyeol said. “That reminds me of the time we got chased by Mrs. Hwang’s demon dog for twenty straight minutes. Now, that’s a story! See, we were–” And with that, he had launched into another tale.

Boyeon listened attentively, saying “ooh” and laughing at all the right parts. But even though Chanyeol’s stories were certainly cheering her up, she couldn’t get rid of that nasty feeling in her stomach. She was just so disappointed.

At the end of lunch, Boyeon slowly gathered her trash and put it on her tray, trying not to think about how let down she was. As she walked to the trash can, someone stepped in front of her, cutting her off from her thoughts. She looked up to see Jongdae.

“Can I ask you a quick question?” Boyeon nodded, and his face immediately broke into a Cheshire Cat grin. “You like Baekhyun, don’t you?” She paled. Kim Jongdae was one of Baekhyun’s best friends, and now he knew her secret after only having known her for less than an hour. She barely suppressed an ear-splitting scream.

This was not happening.

Oh, no. Jongdae's in on the secret! (This story is pretty much the story of people getting into other's people's business and making everything really silly) The plot's only going to get crazier from here, trust me.

AND BAEKCHENSOO'S DECEMBER 2014 IS LOVELY~! I played it in front of my mom, and since we're African American, and the song is R&B style, she called them "brothers of another color" lol it was so great