You know how some people can sit there for hours at a time, completely immersed in what they are doing that they don’t even realize how long they were doing something? I’m that kind of person. Sit me in front of my computer with a task at hand, and I will honestly forget what the word sleep means.

Pulling out my computer while I waited for Sehun to show up probably wasn’t the best of ideas, seeing as I never realized that he actually showed up. I had discovered a folder within a folder that I had long forgotten about, and pictures in a category I hadn’t even touched with editing yet.

Usually I leave pictures on my desktop that haven’t been edited, change them to how I like, and then categorize them into folders. It was probably the fact that my lack of organization led me to putting those photos where they were. They were around a year old, some I was pretty ashamed of. Sometimes deleting pictures is a joy to me, because I am able to get rid of at least one thing in my life that I don’t like.

It makes me feel empowered, when in reality I most certainly am not. Ironically, there were parts of the forest that I had captured a year ago, that I had been spending the last few weeks in. I found myself staying in more shallow areas lately, all for one reason. Sehun isn’t exactly ready to venture deep into the forest yet, and ever since he sort of bonded with my wolf self he said that he wanted to come back every day.

It was strange at first, because he kept trying to talk to me, as if he thought a wolf could understand him. At first, I had to get used to him calling me like a dog, but as the days would go by, something in me got excited to know that Sehun was coming for me, even though he didn’t know it was me.

About a week after he “named me” he came back again, this time phone in hand. He stared me down, quietly mumbled to himself that I needed to stay put. Basically, he wanted to take a picture of me and I wouldn’t have it. I am in fact, not a dog, nor am I some show in a zoo.

I heard the click of the fake shutter on his phone, right as I started running away. He shouted after me, but I only moved a few feet, wagging my tail with a bit of sass. I stayed still long enough for him to refocus his phone, to move again and make him irritated. A loud, over exaggerated grunt came from him.

“Stand still!”

A few other encounters were similar to this, in the way that Sehun wanted a picture of me. Too bad he wasn’t going to get one any time soon. I think it might have put him in a bad mood because every time I saw him in class he had this pouty look on his face.

Yet there was as always the impending progression in both of our projects, the easier of the two going better than the other. As far as Interpersonal Communications was developing…well, it wasn’t. In my opinion, it was getting much worse.

We were actually going to start the paper today, after many hours of researching, compiling, and organizing. What is tough about free-range papers like this is we have a minimum number of pages set, but no maximum. Professors would expect us to write our little hearts out until we were satisfied. That being said, 8 page minimum was literally the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

I guess I would call it lucky. Sehun didn’t exactly feel like working on this project today. Lucky in a way, I suppose. A change of scenery was desperately needed, and Sehun finally called for us to meet at a bubble tea shop instead of the smelly coffee house.

Because I was so early, I ended up ordering myself a drink and submerging into photo editing.

Like I said, I didn’t even know he showed up, because apparently while I was so focused on my computer, he ordered himself a drink and just sat there for 5 minutes. I jumped back when he cleared his throat, my spastic hand distorting the photo I was working on.

“God, you’re like Ruth Gordon standing there with a tannis root. Make a noise.”

A stack of papers was rudely dumped in front of me, over my laptop screen. I held the paper up high, slightly waving it so he’d look up, stoic at my pop culture reference. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s for Interpersonal Communications.” I just recently decided that I hated his simple words. His vagueness about everything that he could possibly say might have made him a worse communicator than my brother, and I didn’t think that was possible.

“Yes, I realized.” I quickly glanced over the questions to see that none of them related to werewolves whatsoever, and basic assumption would be that they were for our other project. What I wanted to know was why they were in my hand.

He rolled his eyes. My advantage over him was I was starting to learn how much he actually disliked my sarcasm, evident in the way he always rolled his eyes. If he didn’t want me to be sarcastic he shouldn’t say stupid things, that’s all I would say about it.

“It’s a mock questionnaire so that we don’t actually have to get to know each other. It’s conventional to our situation.”

I felt a tiny clench in my heart. He’d rather go back and forth, ask meaningless questions to write down halfhearted answers, than actually get to know each other like the project had required. Did he really hate me that much?

“Fine.” I grumbled to my teeth, going back to the first page of questions.

Sehun was the one who led the entire time, without a doubt speeding through to get it over with. “Name.” He muttered his name as he wrote it down. He looked up at my paper to make sure I did the same.

He read through the next question, “Any nicknames? Ohdult…senshine…vegetable…” It sounded like he was grumbling through all of the nicknames that he definitely didn’t like. Good thing I didn’t like mine either, I didn’t want to write it down.

I lightly clamped down on the inside of my cheek, skipping over that question. But my evasion didn’t go unnoticed. With this question, Sehun let it go.

“Best friend’s name,” He continued, probably not planning on pausing until all of the questions were answered, “Kim Jongin.”

Another question I chose to skip. Instead of waiting to hear Sehun announce the question, I read them by myself, finding multiple I either couldn’t answer, or didn’t want to answer.

“You know this would go by faster if you just wrote something down.” Sehun snapped harshly.

My back teeth rubbed on the flesh of my cheek, creating this comforting pain. “This questionnaire has questions I can’t answer. What do you expect me to do?”

He raised his eyebrow, slowly processing what I had just revealed to him. I didn’t want to answer the one about nicknames, he should know why for sure. If he were a good guess, he should be able to figure out that the second one about having a best friend doesn’t apply to me. To have a best friend would mean you need friends to choose from.

It was a rocky start that led to many moments of complete silence between us. Occasionally I would be asked what question I was on, and then told to wait so he could ‘catch up.’

“What question are you on right now?” Sehun asked, focusing on the paper in front of him. There were very few times that Sehun actually looked up at me and made eye contact.

“32.”

“Bad habits. I have none.” He smirked, skipped the next question.

“Put arrogance.” I said with immense confidence. He looked up and frowned. I’d assume that look was a mixture of confusion and denial.

“Put biting your cheek.” He mocked, readying the next question.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You bite your cheek when people say something you don’t like.”

Him noticing something like that about me genuinely surprised me. I don’t even think my own brother could recognize a habit like that, yet I know Sehun for a couple months and he was able to pick it up. I resisted the urge to do exactly that, biting my cheek. How can he think that he doesn’t have any bad habits? Making a person’s life miserable is something I would put in the bad habits pile. Though that’s not really a bad habit, rather just being a bad person.

“I’m done, let’s do one more. 33.” He cleared his throat awkwardly and moved down the list. “Biggest fear. At the moment, bears.”

I snorted, remembering the shrilly scream he had let out from the sight of a mother bear. Yeah, it would make sense that he would be scared of bears. I tapped my pen on the table a few times to think, and answered incredibly truthfully. I remained silent though, as I did for all of them. I mean, I was going to look at Sehun’s answers eventually, and he would look at mine. No use in admitting them out loud, especially if I wasn’t ready to do so.

I guess Sehun was irritated with the silence I had given him, and snatched my paper to read my answer. With all of the jokes he made, he should have already known the answer. I don’t know how many of my answers he actually read; he changed the topic nonetheless.

“I would appreciate it if you actually stay through the allotted time next time.”

I sighed. He was starting to notice me leaving early practically every time.

“I would if I could. Not my fault if my brother thinks I need a babysitter.” It was strange to me how easy that came out because of all the people I would be grumbling to, Sehun was probably in last place on my list. Not that the list was very long to begin with.

“Doesn’t that just mean he cares about you?”

I scoffed. As if anyone in my situation would think Woohyun actually thought of me as his little sister. Still, it was strange that Sehun was actually holding the conversation. “Yeah, sure. You just think that.”

“Well, at least your older brother cares that much. Mine doesn’t.” He mumbled. Did he just complain to me? Because it sounded like that was a pretty deep statement. Just like me, there was something behind him complaining about his brother.

I raised an eyebrow, and when he noticed that I wasn’t working he looked up, eyes more blank than usual. “What?”

I shrugged. “Didn’t know you had an older brother.”

I swear his eye twitched, or something. His whole body was so tense I could practically feel it. He hastily packed up all of his things and shortly left. “Tomorrow same time.”

I didn’t see Sehun in class the next day, which I found incredibly odd because I saw him on campus. It was only the classes he was in with me that he was missing. Which made me think what I could have possibly done to get him to avoid me. My mind was absolutely blank.

I felt like being lazy and slowly walked to my next class across campus. It was a bit of a maze between two of my classes, and it was worse when I didn’t feel like going all that way.

“Hey In Hye!”

I immediately stopped in my tracks. Did someone just call me out? There was no way. Except there was, because the golden brown piece of meat known as Kim Jongin had been running behind me, caught up to me to stop me in my tracks, and smiled. Did Kim Jongin really just call me?

“Uhh…” My mouth was agape, and I’m sure my face was a sight to see.

“I was wondering if you could do something for me.” He smiled again.

I looked around to make sure he was actually looking at me, because the Kim Jongin was asking me for a favor. Jongin, as in the one who has pretty much been popular since birth, and at that a pretty boy. Sehun’s best friend, who I could only assume shared his best friend’s distaste for me. And at this I could simply raise a questionable eyebrow.

“Can you teach me how to use a camera?”

My face scrunched up with massive amounts of confusion. Have I entered the Twilight Zone or something? What the hell is going on? “Why is the great Kim Jongin coming to me when you can just take a class?”

“Ooh, I’m great now am I?” He smirked, and I had the tiniest inkling of why girls fawned over him the way they did. “I’d rather not waste units on a hobby.”

“You’re wasting my time.” I grumbled, abruptly turning around.

His shoes squeaked against the tile floor, “Aww wait, come on. Don’t leave. Ok, ok, I confess.”

What he said made me stop in my tracks. Confess? Confess what?

“I’m not the one who needs to be asking. Someone else I know wants to learn.”

Now I was intrigued. I didn’t know much about Jongin, but I knew he wasn’t the type to do favors for others. He was more along the lines of having girls grovel at his feet who were ready to do anything he asked. Not that he was that much of a jerk to take advantage of that.

“Well, if you don’t want to learn how to use a camera, then the person who does should just ask.”

“He’s shy about it.”

He? So it was a he. Which means it was one of Jongin’s friends. Which meant it was probably a person who either bullied me, currently bullies me, or completely gets on my nerves. With my luck, it was probably all three.

“Tell your friend to either take a class or get over himself and man up.”

“It’s Sehun!” He blurted.

“Nice try, but I don’t believe you. Sehun hates me and he most certainly wouldn’t be asking me for any favors.”

“B-but-“

“Sorry, Jongin. If Sehun really wants to learn then he needs to come see me himself. Also, you’re his friend, not his messenger.”

His hand raked through that luscious head of hair as he looked down the hallway. Geez, go be a model somewhere else. “Dually noted.”

By the way he looked, it was almost as if he was actually telling the truth. He looked like he was thinking, and disappointed. But come on, there was no way Sehun actually wanted to learn how to take pictures from me. Unless he was actually serious about wanting to take a picture of…’snow.’

The whole turn of events made my day a rather big blur, until I found myself at the bubble tea shop again, this time a lot more awkward then the last. Simply because we came at the same time and both wanted drinks.

We were standing in line saying absolutely nothing to each other and I was able to confirm my suspicions from earlier. Sehun was definitely avoiding me. Eye contact was already a problem, but he was oozing this nasty smelling tension and it was making me a bit uncomfortable.

I got to the front and asked for a lemon snow with strawberry popping boba, one of my favorite drinks. Right as I was about to pay I was rudely shoved by the person behind me.

“Add to that a choco bubble tea.” Sehun handed the cashier his card and told me to sit down.

That’s it. I’m in the twilight zone. There’s no question.

I did end up sitting down, inside instead of outside. I pulled out both my laptop and the questionnaire, not knowing which one we were going to work on. Sehun always ran the show, but I wouldn’t actually complain.

I watched Sehun as he grabbed both of our drinks, looking at mine with a strange look. He set it in front of me and stabbed the straw through his own drink. “You’re welcome.”

“What is it that you want?” I raised my eyebrow. The man sitting in front of me hates me and he just bought me a drink. He wanted something and I wanted to know what.

Instead of answering me, he pulled out the questionnaire and set it in front of him. He didn’t start with the questions on the paper, he asked something else entirely.

“What got you into photography?”

The lemon snow slide down the wrong pipe causing me to overreact and cough it up. Was Jongin actually being serious? “Excuse me?”

“I thought I told Jongin to tell you.” Ah, some explanation. He really did ask his best friend to do his dirty work. Well, I guess that shows they really are best friends since Jongin actually did it.

I might as well play along to the insanity that already happened today. “My cousin got me into it. Kim Myungsoo.”

“Didn’t you listen to Jongin?” He asked rather harshly. Ok, buying someone a drink is not a good enough incentive to get them to do something like this. How serious does he want to get a picture of snow? It must have been important.

“If you really wanted a favor, then you ask yourself. Now ask nicely.”

I could hear the subtle gnashing of his teeth. It was like he had never asked for a favor in his life. “Fine. Will you please teach me how to use a camera?”

It was beyond forced, but I actually got him to ask me to do something. That’s a pretty big step in our relationship at it’s current standpoint. Also, the fact that he was being interested in something that I do. Never in a million years did I think that Sehun would be genuinely intrigued by a part of my life. Never in a million years did would I have thought I’d agree to teach him. But I did. 

Hint: reference is from the first episode of my favorite show. If you get it you are my best friend ever