“Is he looking?”

Hyerin resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her classmate. It was a question that Jang Areum, who sat to Hyerin’s left, asked every twenty minutes or so. She didn’t know what rendered the girl incapable of turning her head a mere ninety degrees and taking a look at her crush in all his poker-faced glory.

With a sigh, Hyerin turned to her right very slowly and casually, making sure no one saw. She doubted anyone would though; they were too caught up in their own conversations to care. One particularly boisterous and loud group of boys made Hyerin shake her head in disapproval.

When her eyes finally landed on the brown-haired boy who sat at the far end of the classroom, a small frown appeared on her face. The rest of the class was apparently too unimportant in comparison to his phone. She unconsciously eyed his side profile, grudgingly admitting that Oh Sehun was quite good-looking.

Catching Hyerin off-guard, Sehun suddenly turned to face her.

Hyerin’s mouth was slightly open and the mortification of being caught in the act of staring at someone rendered her unable to react. Sehun, on the other hand, seemed completely unfazed and didn’t divert his gaze from Hyerin who just kept blinking.

Swallowing hard, Hyerin finally recovered from the embarrassment. She turned away and started rummaging in her bag for a textbook she was supposed to have taken out a while ago.

Sehun found himself smirking at the girl’s actions. It was kind of entertaining when Baek Hyerin was embarrassed.
Actually, he had decided that Hyerin was interesting since the day she’d picked a fight with Byun Baekhyun mid-lecture for saying that her answer was wrong, back in their first year of high school.
Resting his chin on his hand, Sehun looked at her as she turned to her friend and whispered something to her. Then she turned her attention to their teacher who had just entered the class.

Sehun found himself stealing glances at Hyerin when he wasn’t copying sums off the board, pulling at his hair when the answers he got didn’t match with the ones on his book.

Hyerin felt his eyes on her and forced herself to pretend like she didn’t notice as cheered to herself when she got another sum right. She bit her lip when she felt a warm feeling travel down her body which she wasn’t willing to admit was caused by the boy her friend had a crush on.

Why did she feel butterflies in her stomach?

*

Baek Hyerin came thundering down the stairs, almost losing her footing on the last step but saving herself by grabbing onto the banister. Thanking her reflexes, she rushed towards the front door. “I’ll have something at school! I’m late!” she called, wondering if her mother even heard. In the mornings, her mother was too busy arguing with her younger sister.

Once outside, Hyerin resumed speed-walking down the road. She was beginning to regret letting her hair down as it became hotter by the second. Still not slowing down, she began to look inside her school bag for a hair tie she hoped she had left in it.

Some mornings were just not meant to be good. The point was further proven when her phone began ringing. The ringtone startled the already flustered Hyerin (Super Junior’s fervent apologies weren’t helping her horrible morning).

“Yeah, Dasom? I’m late, you can go.”

A string of complaints followed from the other side and Hyerin patiently listened to them, slinging her bag over her shoulder again, the hunt for the hair tie forgotten. She quite hadn’t taken her surroundings into account and just kept on walking while her friend complained to her about how she was supposed to help her with the previous day’s homework. Hyerin’s responses were short and neutral.

She had come to a small crossing when her attention was taken away from her phone and on to the source of very loud yelp. She disconnected the call and turned left and was almost pleasantly surprised to see a very embarrassed Oh Sehun sitting on the ground. Hyerin tried very hard to not let the amused grin that was fighting to appear on her face to break through.

Sehun’s usually pale cheeks were pink as he tried to regain his mask of nonchalance. He cursed himself internally for being stupid enough run downhill at a high speed. He looked up at Hyerin who was now approaching him and quickly got up, dusting himself off. He didn’t need her help to stand up.

Standing a few feet away from him, Hyerin tilted her head.  Sehun did not miss the sight of her lips curving up awkwardly in an attempt to hold back laughter. He really had the urge to pass a rude remark but told himself that it wasn’t wise. Instead, he let her talk.

“We’re not that late, you know?” she said, after a fleeting glance at her wristwatch. She started walking off.

Sehun let out a small ‘hmm’ in response and followed her. He fell in step beside her and tried to act like she hadn’t heard him scream like a fourteen-year-old girl. The walk was spent in awkward silence. And it was only broken when they were a two blocks away from their high school.

“Your friend asked me out.”

Sehun wanted to slap himself the second he let those words slip. They hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences to each other in the three years they had been classmates and here he was initiating a conversation about his love life. He held his breath as he glanced at her, waiting for a response.
He watched as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear whilst biting her lower lip. He felt his heartbeat accelerate.

“That’s nice,” Hyerin said, looking up at him with a small smile. “I need to meet my friend...my other friend,” she clarified for no reason at all.

Then she walked off, leaving Sehun staring after her.  If the all knowing Baek Hyerin said it was nice, he supposed, it would be nice.

Did she not care at all?

*

Sehun leaned against his locker, his eyes casually wandering the hallways as the number of people in them was becoming smaller and smaller. He was incredibly bored, so bored that he didn’t even want to go home. He just wanted to stand there.

“You look...happy.”

With a lazy grin, Sehun turned to look at his friend Jongin. “Today was okay.”

“That’s what having a girlfriend does to you, huh?” Jongin smirked, punching his friend playfully.

Sehun made a small sound at the back of his throat. He thought about his girlfriend of three weeks. She was great...really. She wasn’t a clingy, nagging and whiny girlfriend that he’d expected her to be. Jang Areum was nice to have around. She’d apparently liked him for a long time and he liked her now.

“Yo, man. Yo yo!” the voice that was undeniably Park Chanyeol’s hollered and broke Sehun’s train of thought.
No one was startled or confused; everyone was used to Park Chanyeol’s sudden outbursts.

Both Sehun and Jongin turned to the source of the noise; Jongin’s lips were curved up in an amused smile. The said source was striding towards the person who the fierce greeting had been subjected to.

They saw Baek Hyerin high-five Chanyeol with a lot of enthusiasm for a teenage girl who has just been called a man.

Sehun felt his lips tugging up and he found it hard not to smile at the sight of Hyerin speaking so animatedly. She never spoke to him that way.  Sehun straightened up and tightened his grip on his backpack. He turned to Jongin, who was quite busy texting someone. Stealing a quick glance at Hyerin, he nudged Jongin and bid him a quick farewell.

Sehun found himself hurrying after Hyerin, like he did on most mornings. It would be very embarrassing if someone found out that he had started to come to school early because he saw her in the mornings. This time though, he was hurrying after her because he needed to.

“Hyerin!” he called, remembering that the girl actually walked very fast but his legs were long enough for him to catch up just as she exited the school gates.

Hyerin stopped in her tracks and turned around, one of her eyebrows arched in interrogation. She continued walking once he was beside her.

“I was wondering if you’d lend me your history notes,” Sehun spoke faster than usual, his eyes on the ground.

Hyerin looked at him from the corner of her eye, she shrugged. “Okay.”

“Actually, Mr. Kang told me to—”

“He hates me,” Hyerin stated flatly.

Sehun just shrugged, not having a response for that. He knew she suspected that he was lying but he wasn’t.

The rest of the walk was silent. Sehun kept resisting the urges to steal glances at Hyerin, while she had her eyes trained on the ground.
She could feel her ears heating up and questioned why Sehun was even walking with her. Didn’t he have a date with Areum or something? What if someone saw them? Wouldn’t they assume things?

Hyerin didn’t even notice it was time for them to part. It was only when Sehun suddenly stopped walking that Hyerin paused, looking up at him, eyeing his tongue that darted out to his lips.

“Your notes?” Sehun smirked.

Hyerin looked flustered for few seconds, eyes meeting his and then again landing on his lips. She cleared and started fumbling with her backpack, trying her best to be quick but knowing Sehun was watching her made her nervous for whatever reason.

Retrieving the binder with a triumphant smile, she handed it to him.

“Thanks,” Sehun said and intentionally bit his lip, “I’ll give it back to you as soon as possible.”

Hyerin nodded vigorously before whispering a quick goodbye and hurried away.

Sehun couldn’t help the smile that came on his face. He liked it when she was flustered.

Hyerin, on the other hand, didn’t quite appreciate it when Sehun caused her to be so nervous and jittery.

Wasn’t he supposed to be attempting to seduce his