“Stupid assignment, stupid World History. Where is that freaking book anyw- There you are!” She took out the book she had been searching for the last few minutes, flipping through the pages. “It’s going to be just you and me for the next few days.”

“Do you always talk to yourself?”

A yelp left her lips and she turned to glare at the smiling boy behind her. “Screw you Lu Han. Stop scaring me!”

“It’s not my fault that you get spooked easily.” He said with a shrugged though the smile was still on his face, much to her annoyance. His eyes then trailed down to the book she holding. His mouth formed to a shape of an ‘o’ and he pointed at the book, “You were looking for that too? Is that the last one?”

Li Xue blinked and looked down at the book before looking at the shelf she took it from. She shrugged and raised an eyebrow, “I think so. Why, you need it too?”

Lu Han shook his head, “No, I finished that assingment months ago. It’s pretty easy actually.” She rolled her eyes and she had an urge to throw the book at him, “I’m sorry that not everyone is as smart as you.”

“Apology accepted.” He grinned and she glared at him before kicking his shin. A painful gasp escaped his lips and he cursed under his breath before rubbing the spot she kicked. “That’s very lady-like of you Li Xue.”

“Thank you.” She smiled sweetly and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Anyways, I was helping Yi-“

“Oi Lu Han, did you find it yet?”

Her eyes widen when she recognized the voice and Lu Han raised his eyebrow in amusement when he saw the quick change of her features from a sarcastic sweet smile to a terrified kind of look. “What’s wrong Li Xue?”

“N-Nothing. Ah, I have to go-”her breath hitched in when she took a step back only to bump into someone’s chest. “S-Sorry.”

“It’s fi-” she didn’t let him finish as she quickly walked past him and towards the counter so she could quickly check out the book and leave the library as soon as possible. Yifan had this look of confusion on his face and raised an eyebrow at Lu Han, “What was that about?”

“That was Li Xue, Yifan.”

“Oh.”

Yifan cursed at himself when he felt his heartbeat quicken even at the mere sound of her name and he had an urge to punch Lu Han in the face because that doe-eyed boy is smugly smirking at him as if he knows what she does to him and he probably does and-

“Goddammit Lu Han, wipe that smirk of your face before I punch you.” The shorter male rolled his eyes but he didn’t drop the smirk instead, he started grinning now. “You two and violence, really a match made in heaven.”

“Lu Han-” he held up his hands in surrender, “Okay okay, I’ll stop but really, it’s so obvious you guys like each other and yet, both of you are just so oblivious. Didn’t you say you guys were best friends in your old school? What happened?”

A sigh left his lips as he ran his fingers through his hair. The two of them were best of friends since middle school, meeting through his brother and her other best friend as they dragged both of them out to go on a group outing together. Things stared to change on their first year of high school and Kris really didn’t know what was going on when she started avoiding him and wouldn’t look at him whenever the two of them were alone.

He thought it was because she upset that she was going to move soon but it didn’t make sense. He was sad that she was going to move too, other than the fact that he was going to miss his best friend; his little crush on her wasn’t helping. He was afraid that she knew about his crush and therefore, avoided him because of it and he took this as a form of rejection.

Yifan can’t believe how utterly stupid he was after he came to that conclusion because he started avoiding Li Xue too. The two of them broke off all ties of their best friend relationship with each other and the awkward silence whenever the two were alone was suffocating.

After an awkward farewell and hug, she was gone. Yifan started to regret what he did a few days after and the thought that he should have confessed despite the fact that she was going to reject him was constantly on his mind.

He moved to Beijing with his brother a few months later because his brother got accepted into a college there and his parents thought it would be better if Yifan went with him because his brother was irresponsible and who knows what he would do when he’s alone in a different place. Yifan remembers how pissed he was when his brother went to parties and got drunk, waking up with a major hangover three times on the first week of college.

He didn’t know that he had transferred into the same school as Li Xue until a week later when he had tapped her on the shoulder because he was lost and he needed to go to the library. The both of them have been awkward ever since.

“It’s complicated.”

-x-x-x-

“I have good news for you!” Yifan looked up from his phone and raised an eyebrow, “You’re going to help me with my World History assignment?”

Lu Han sighed, “For the last time, no.”

“Then go away.”

“It’s not my fault that Li Xue took the last reference book.” He glared before taking a seat across from the giant, “Anyways, I talked to Li Xue and I managed to convince her to share the book with you since-” Yifan slapped his hand over Lu Han’s mouth with a look of horror on his face, “You did what?”

Lu Han gave him a look before slapping his friend’s hand away, “I convinced her to share the book with you. Both of you need it, both of you need to hand up that assignment by next Friday so I don’t see why both of you can’t share it.”

“Because-”

“She does not hate you.” He sighed, leaning back into his seat and crossing his arms over his chest, “It’s just sharing a book Yifan, I didn’t tell you to kill her not like you would anyways.”

“But-”

“I didn’t think you would show up Li Xue.” Lu Han smiled while Yifan froze in his seat. He slowly turned to look over his shoulder and his breath got caught in his throat when he saw her slowly making her way towards them. Lu Han got up as soon as she reached the table and pulled the chair out for her, “Since you’re here, I’m going to go meet up with Yixing. You both don’t hurt yourselves now.” After giving Yifan one last look, he smiled and waved before walking away.

An awkward silence fell and Yifan thinks it’s getting harder to breath and that he’ll never listen to the weather report again because it’s starting to get too hot, especially under the thick jacket he was wearing.

When he realized that the brunette was still standing, he coughed and cleared his throat, motioning to the chair Lu Han occupied before as heat crawled up his neck and settled on his cheeks. “Umm, p-please sit.” He resisted the urge to drop his head onto the table in embarrassment when he realized that he was stuttering.

Li Xue silently sat across from him and fidgeted in her seat, looking at anywhere but the tall blonde in front of her. She fished out her phone from your pocket when she felt it vibrate and saw that she got a message from Lu Han.

You guys are just painful to watch, is sharing a book really that hard?

Glaring at your phone, Li Xue stuffed it back into her pocket and let out an irritated sigh before taking out her notebook, pencils and the World History reference book, that caused this awkward situation, from her bag

Yifan blinked before reaching for his bag, taking out his notebook and pencils too. She pushed the reference book so it was right in the middle on the table, “S-Since I already started do you want to-“

“I’m fine at starting on where you left of.” Her eyes widen at his quick reply and his cheeks turned from a light pink to bright red, “I…I mean- You already started so- I don’t want to-“ he slapped his hand over his mouth before dropping his gaze to his lap, “L-Let’s just start…”

She stared at him for a moment before the corner of her lips curled up into a smile.

-x-x-x-

Lu Han didn’t know what happened and Yixing looked just as confuse as he was. One second he was busy spazzing about this Korean exchange student that looked like a steamed bun with adorable fluffy cheeks and in the next second, he found himself in a headlock with a big hand messing up his hair.

“Wu Yifan let me go!”

“You are the best, have I ever told you that?”

“Let go let go let go, oh my god Yixing help me, I’m going to die!”

Yifan released Lu Han and sat on the vacant seat next to Yixing, who was biting his lip to stop himself from laughing. Lu Han’s hands flew up to his hair and he glared at the giant, “What the hell was that for?”

“I was thanking you.”

“A simple thank you with ice cream would have been just fine; I don’t understand why you have to mess up my hair.” He snapped but Yifan just continued to grin. Lu Han sighed before crossing his arms over his chest, “What are you thanking me for anyway?”

“For yesterday with Li Xue.” Lu Han’s frown slowly turned into a smirk, “Ah if that’s the case then your thank you payment shall be Min Seok’s number.” Yifan blinked before raising an eyebrow at the older, “Who?”

“Min Seok is the Korean exchange student that came in yesterday. He and Lu Han met this morning when Lu here bumped into him.” Lay answered, leaning back into his seat, “He won’t stop talking about him ever since.”

“He’s the one, I can feel it!” Lu Han smiled, a dreamy sigh escaping his lips. Kris placed his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm, his eyebrows furrowed, “Look Lu, I’m glad you came out to us and everything but I don’t think-“

“Hey guys!” Zi Tao waved from the entrance of the café before making his way towards his friends with someone in tow. Once he reached them, he grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it to the table before grabbing Lu Han’s bag that was occupying the seat next to the older and tossing it to him. “Sit here ge.” He said, pointing at the now vacant seat next to Lu Han before looking at his friends with a smile, “Guys, this is the exchange student from Korea, Min Seok.”

Yixing couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped from his lips, Yifan smirked and Lu Han was stunned in his seat, eyes wide and jaw slacked.

-x-x-x-

“And we’re done, finally!” Li Xue cheered once she wrote the last few words of her assignment. She looked up at Yifan and smiled, “We finished it faster than expected huh?” Still not used to the fact that the two of them were slowly becoming friends again and that she was smiling more openly now, his breath hitched silently and he could only nod.

“Ahh, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I feel so free now!” She sighed, stretching her arms over her head.

Yifan felt his lips going dry and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her; his eyes trailing down from her slightly messy ponytail to her adorable eye smile down to the bright smile on her lips. The words slipped past his lips before he could stop them.

“I like you.”

Li Xue’s eyes widen, “W-What?” he seemed equally as shock when he realized what he said. He started spluttering excuses, heat rushing to his cheeks before he groaned and buried his face into his hands. He stayed like that for a few moments while she chewed on her bottom lip, neither of them making a single noise as the seconds tick by.

Just as she lifted her hand to tap him on the shoulder because she was starting to get worried, he dropped his hands to his sides and sighed, “Screw it, I like you Li Xue. I like you a lot.”

“Y-Yifan-“

“I know you’re going to reject me and I actually wasn’t going to confess in the first place-“

“Yifan-“

“It just sort of slipped you know?  I’m totally fine with just being friends with you-“

“Wu Yifan!” He clamped his mouth shut and dropped his gaze down to his notebook. When she didn’t say anything, he risked taking a look and the sight of her stifling her laughter wasn’t what he expected. Before he could open his mouth to ask, she smiled at him and Yifan felt like his heart skipped a beat.

“I…I like you too.”

And another beat, “R-Really?”

“Yeah.”

And another, “T-Then… Do you want to watch a movie tomorrow night w-with me?”

Li Xue’s cheeks slowly turned pink and her smile grew, “It’s a date.”