Lay stared dumbly at the body on the floor. He had managed to avoid Suho for nearly a month now, and he was very good at avoiding him so why was the same man also sleeping on the floor of the dance studio?

It occurs to Lay at some point that this was exactly how he had met Suho when he had first fallen asleep due to exhaustion from med school. But that wasn’t something he wanted to think about. In fact, this was exactly why he didn’t want to attend the studio for a while.

But of course after moping around and only going to class for three weeks, Tao and Kris had convinced him to go back. It felt good, allowing himself to just overwork himself with the dances he had fallen behind on. Plus, he was paying for the classes after all.

Which was why he was here, returning to his regular routine of using E-12 as his mini office. But when he unlocked the door, there was already someone in the room, sound asleep. Lay was frozen in the doorway. This was exactly the opposite of what he had wanted.

The other man moved on the floor, and Lay was ready to bolt. But Suho opened his eyes and widened at the sight of the Chinese man. In a flash, Lay was running down the hallway as Suho ran right behind him.

“LAY!” Suho called out. Lay didn’t slow down. “LAY HYUNG!!”

Chen walked out of studio A-5 only to be shoved aside by Lay. “Xing seriously what the fu- oh Suho good lu- okay bye.”

Lay ran as fast as he could, until he could hear the other boy’s feet behind him. He panicked. The bus stop was too far away.

“Lay.” All of a sudden he felt a hand on his wrist, and he yelped as he tried to wrench free. “Lay, please.”

“You sent me flowers for weeks.” Lay muttered. “You sent them to me when you were already taken, and I don’t mess with relationships and god, Suho, you probably knew I was gay from Xiu but seriously-”

“What?” Suho grabbed Lay’s other wrist and forced him to look up. “Lay, you thought I was already in a relationship?”

Lay’s cheeks warmed. “T-that girl, at school, she-”

Even though they were both upset, Suho couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, a girl at school? Smaller, in a school uniform?”

“So you do know her.” Lay frowned. He didn’t understand why Suho was smiling, he was supposed to mad at him.

“Yeah, I do.” Suho’s grip on Lay’s wrists loosened. “She’s a sweet, energetic girl. And she’s my sister.”

Lay blinked at him. “Sister?”

Suho nodded. “Yeah, she is. Yeri’s my younger sister. She likes to visit the college sometimes since she goes to high school across the street.”

Lay felt his cheeks becoming bright red. He tried to cover his face with one hand. “B-but she was glaring at me.”

“She was, hm?” Suho mused. A thought occurred to him. “You were in the music building?”

“Yeah, I got really lost and I heard singing and… yeah.” Lay mumbled. “You have a really pretty voice, but that’s not the point. Why was your sister glaring at me?”

Suho smiled again, and Lay whined at his amusement. “I don’t actually know, but I can ask her.”

“Stop smiling, it’s not helping.” Lay covered his face again. Suho gently pried his hands away and smiled. “Stooooooop.”

“I won’t. I’m very happy.” Suho told him. “Because, I thought you hated me and that I did something terribly wrong, I thought maybe Xiumin was wrong when he said you were interested in boys. I thought you were homophobic, I thought you were maybe already taken, I thought a lot of things because I didn’t know what was going on and it worried me to no end, Lay. But I finally got to talk to you, and it wasn’t any of that. You just thought I was already taken, and now you know I’m not.”

Lay blinked. Right. Suho was still his not-so-secret-anymore admirer. He hummed. “Did Min also tell you that I take a botany class?”

Suho held his hands and pulled him closer. “No he didn’t. But I know now.”

Lay smiled. Maybe a new beginning wasn’t so bad.