The sound of my heart thundering in my chest filled the silence of the hallway as I walked towards the small practice room. I was always nervous for everything: from my group vocal class, to my dance class, but especially to this private tutor session... with Chen. Even though we had already gotten to know each other better through our classes together, and he had already taught me before, I was still nervous nonetheless. 

"Annyeonghaseyo," I greeted out of habit, bowing slightly.

"Annyeong," he said back with his usual bright smile, then immediately switched to Chinese. "There's no need to be so formal." 

He was sitting on the piano bench, but scooted over to the chair beside it, making room for me. I saw him pulling out some paper, stationery, and some music theory notes, and putting them on the top of the digital piano. I suddenly felt really conscious of the close proximity between us as I sat down beside him, but I tried to find the perfect distance so that we wouldn't be too close, but wouldn't be so far that it looked like I was purposely sitting away from him. I took out my music theory book, opening it up to the current page.

"So how have you been?" Chen asked.

"Pretty good. I'm just starting to get used to this training." I replied. "You?" 

"Good, our comeback seems to be quite successful, so we're all pretty excited about that."

"Oh, that's great, but I guess you'd have a lot of busy schedules. I feel bad for taking up so much of your time..." I bit my lip uncertainly, feeling like a burden.

"Hey, don't worry about that, I enjoy doing this." He smiled genuinely, his eyes curving into two slight crescents.

"If you're sure..." I shrugged. "Anyway, this is what I didn't quite understand." I quickly gestured towards the page, directing the conversation away from any more small talk.

"Ah, the different seventh chords." 

"Yeah, I'm not quite sure of the difference between some of them, like when would you have a half diminished seventh chord, and when would you use a minor seventh chord?"

"Whoa, slow down. Okay, so you know that for a normal diminished chord, you have minor thirds stacked together," he grabbed a piece of staff paper and drew the chord. "But for a half diminished chord, you have one, flat three, flat five, and a double flatted seven." 

I nodded, taking in all this information. "So the only difference is that the five is flatted instead of double flatted?" 

"Yes, exactly, and for a minor seventh chord, you have one, flat three, a natural five, and a flatted seven. Like this," he drew two more chords, placing the respective flats on each chord. "Here, there's an exercise for that in your book." 

He offered me the pencil, looking at me sideways. I took it shakily from his hand, smiling slightly, then turning to the book. I looked at the first question: a half diminished chord in G flat major. Why did it have to be in such a hard key? I drew the notes then tried to recall the number of flats this key had. 
Chen leaned over, looking at what I had drawn. We were practically touching, our shoulders brushing and our heads nearly pressed together. My heart was pounding loudly again, and I was afraid it'd cut through the silence of the room.

"Don't forget the double flatted seven." He said softly, drawing another flat beside one that I had drawn. 

"Tada!" A voice said as the door suddenly opened, filling the silence of the small room, startling me. I jumped a bit in my seat, springing away from Chen. I hoped that whoever it was wouldn't jump to any conclusions.

"Yo yo yo waddup Chen-Chen," another voice said. Two guys walked into the room, one of them holding a video camera. I recognized them as EXO members from our lessons together. The guy holding the camera  seemed to be one of the rappers of EXO, I recognized the other guy because of his cute doe eyes. It was Luhan.

"Oh..." Luhan said something in Korean which I didn't even try to understand, "Jongdae-ya, mianhae." Luhan looked at us, apologizing to Chen, probably not expecting me to be there with him. 

Chen replied in his smooth Korean, and I froze there, looking at the three of them questioningly. The camera then swung over and focused on me. I waved at it and smiled nervously.

"Oh, this is Choi Yoonmi, our famous actress sunbaenim from JYPE." Chen introduced in Chinese.

"Annyeonghaseyo," Luhan and the rapper immediately bowed ninety degrees, though Luhan was probably playing along too. I felt sort of bad since I was clearly not worthy of that bow, but the smug look on Chen's face definitely made up for that. I guess they didn't even notice that Chen had switched to Chinese.

"Annyeonghaseyo~" I greeted back. "There's no need to be so formal. I'm Choi Yoonmi," I dipped my head respectfully in return. "and I'm actually..." I glanced at Chen and we exchanged a knowing look. "...an SM trainee in the group, Love Lite." 

"Oh..." The two guys said, probably recognizing me from some of our lessons. Luhan smirked back at me before glancing at the guy beside him for a reaction.

"Yah, Jongdae hyung you're such a troll!" The rapper pouted, looking like a upset little kid. Luhan hit his arm lightly, laughing at him. "Yoonmi-shi you speak Chinese too?"

"Oh my name's actually Rachel, and yeah I'm Chinese. I'm actually from America though." I smiled. 

"EXO-M's Luhan." He came over and smoothly shook my hand. “Though I believe we've already met.” He winked.

"I'm EXO-M's AB style rapper Tao!" Tao waved at me from behind the video camera. 

"It's good to know that someone else speaks Chinese here." I said, turning back to Luhan, relieved. 

"Ah, so that's why you found Chen first. That's too bad..."

"Yah, hyung," Chen shot him a scowl. "What, you jealous that you don't have such a pretty girl?" 

"She's like a fairy." Tao smiled at me from behind the camera, still filming.

"Hmm," Luhan looked me up and down, walking around me. "Nah she's more like a goddess." 

"Guys, why are you all so good at lying?" I covered my cheeks with my hands in embarrassment, laughing.

"Yah, guys back off, she's mine." Chen said, moving onto the bench beside me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. 
I could feel my cheeks heating more at his words but forced myself to stay relaxed despite noticing all too much how close he was.

"Hey Yoonmi, what's your ideal type?" Luhan leaned against the wall of the practice room, almost as if posing for the camera.

"Umm, I actually haven't really thought about that..." I trailed off, feeling a little bit overwhelmed at all this attention.

"Oh come on, you can trust us with your secrets." Luhan raised his eyebrows twice, giving me a very suggestive look.

"Um, maybe a guy who's very caring, can play the piano, and has a nice smile." I quickly listed off the first things that came to my mind, trying not to sound so boring and generic.

"Hmm that sounds just like Chen." Luhan smirked. I looked up at him, surprised. Did he suspect something? "But what about a guy that has all that AND can sing and dance?"

"What about a guy that can do all that and can rap?" Tao said. 

"Oh my gosh, guys why are you like this?" I laughed, hiding my cheeks with my hands.

"Sorry, but she's kind of taken," Chen pulled me closer, resting my head against his shoulder.

"Well, that concludes this very interesting episode of EXO TV!" Luhan said, turning back towards the camera.

EXO TV? Was all this going to be broadcasted? I rapidly looked to Chen.

"Don't worry, it's not going to be broadcasted. It's only for fun." He must have seen the expression on my face. 

"Okay, well we better leave them to whatever they're doing," Luhan said to Tao, making a funny face. He winked at me as they left the small practice room. 

We continued doing theory after that, but it wasn't until the end of our lesson that I realized Chen had remained right beside me on the piano bench, even after the guys had left. 

Guys, don't leave your fics for two years and then continue writing them LOL because you'll cringe so hard at your own writing 
Oh yeah, I recently got a Twitter so you can follow me if you like EXO/BTS stuff and random fic rants 8D @matchadeer