This is a bad idea. A very bad idea. Why was I in school again?

Oh, right. I had to return Eunji’s worksheet to her. The same worksheet she had given me to borrow two weeks ago. After photocopying the papers (like I was supposed to a long time ago), I was on the search for Luhan—

No, not him. I was looking for Eunji. Why did I even think of his name? Coming to school had nothing to do with him, I swear. Not this time. Not anymore.

When I caught sight of Eunji by one of our usual classrooms, I jogged to her and apologetically returned the worksheet.

“That’s okay. I didn’t really need to look at this. I wasn’t expecting it back, to be honest. But thank you. Are you coming to class?” she asked, tucking away the paper in her binder. Eunji then turned to me with a narrow gaze as she watched me crane my neck around the crowd. “Or are you here for someone?”

“No, I just haven’t gotten time to look over the book on my own time lately. Might as well come to class.” I shrugged. “But thank you again!”

She giggled behind a hand. “No problem.”

Deciding my next stop was my locker, I made my way through many halls and switched over to the next building to get to it and ignored the fact that Luhan was having his class around that area of the school where my locker was. I wasn’t there for him. How could I face him after the night before anyway?

I sorted through my locker for a few minutes, even almost forgetting I had one. After having to ask the school for help about my combination, I pried it open and decided that it was a good idea to tidy up the loose pieces of paper and unneeded notebooks stashed away inside… again ignoring the fact that Luhan’s class was three doors away.

“Jinah?”

I immediately shot up at the sound of my name.

Or rather the sound of his voice.

I held my breath, slowly turning myself to see Luhan. It looked like he was suppressing a huge smile. His classmates were filing down the hallway behind him, but I barely noticed at the sight of him. He felt like a whiff of fresh air.

“Your locker was here? I didn’t know.” He peeked over my head at the disarray of folders and paper.

“Yeah, I thought that I should clean it up a little before we go on our Christmas break next month,” I said, lamely gesturing behind my shoulder at the inside of my locker.

“Before I forget,” Luhan removed one strap of his backpack off his shoulder and he dug through its insides, “I got you a drink.”

“Thanks.” I gingerly took the bottle of iced tea he was giving to me, my hands practically feeling numb. “How’d you know I was in school?”

“Yixing mentioned.”

“What? Yixing is my professor spy. You can’t turn him against me and make him your spy too!”

Luhan laughed. “He’s not my spy!” He leaned his hand against the locker beside mine, trapping me between him and my own locker. I wondered if he did that on purpose or if he did it absentmindedly. At the close distance, I automatically leaned away. “Aren’t you here to see me anyway?” Luhan asked smugly, stepping forward even closer.

I scoffed at him. “Don’t be so full of yourself. I was cleaning out my locker. Plus, I needed to return—”

He lifted my chin higher with a gentle hand in the middle of my sentence.

As soon as I realized he was making the motion to kiss me, I stepped away until my back hit something metal. “No, no, no! Wait!” Holding the bottle of iced tea up, I used it as a shield between his face and mine. I felt the stares of people passing through the hall and sensed my face warm to a billion degrees.

Luhan blinked, simply confused. “What? What’s wrong?”

“What are you doing?”

“I was going to—”

“No! You can’t do that.”

He raised a brow at me. “Why not?”

“I don’t like you, remember? I told you,” I said, reminding him about my strict words from the night before.

“You don’t?”

“Yes! I said I felt nothing.”

“Well, you were kissing me lots last night for someone who doesn’t like me.”

My eyes bugged out and I wanted to wipe the devilish smile off his face. “I wasn’t!” I was embarrassed at how he could even bluntly bring something up like that so casually and joke about it. “I don’t even like you.”

“Oh yeah?” Luhan questioned with this stupid arrogant smile on his face.

“Yes!” My voice slightly wavered and I hoped he didn’t notice. I pushed him back until he could finally give me air to breathe. “You can’t visit me by my locker, or randomly buy me drinks after your class.” Asserting my point, I held out the bottle of iced tea for him to take back.

Because I was practically shoving the drink against his chest, he had no choice but to take it.  “Why can’t I?”

“Because it’s such a boyfriend thing to do,” I whispered hastily, glancing around the hall for any potential eavesdroppers. “And you’re not my boyfriend. I don’t even like you.”

“I always buy you stuff though,” he said, frowning and looking disheartened that I rejected his little gift.

“Well, now you can’t because… because of reasons,” I weakly defended my point. “And why is your hair up?”

“I had a mock interview this morning in class.” Luhan self consciously touched his hair. “Why? Does it look bad?”

“Just don’t do it up.” It was the completely opposite of bad. It was gorgeous and he looked gorgeous. Everything about his hair up and gelled away with more of his face showing was wonderful, but I couldn’t exactly admit this to him.

“I can do whatever I want to my hair, for your information.”

I crossed my arms in an attempt to look tougher. “I can’t like you, so you can’t just go around looking like that.”

“Looking like what? Wait… why do you keep saying that?” His brows furrowed at my words. “Jinah, why can’t you like me? What’s stopping you?”

Before I could humiliate myself even more, his friends were suddenly flocking us and greeting him. Chanyeol was the first one to single me out.

“Aww, look who came to visit Luhan,” he cooed.

“I was cleaning out my locker,” I re-explained myself.

“That’s a wonderful reason to be at school.”

I eyed him, not sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

Kris leaned against my shoulder with his arm like I was some short table. “So how are you?”

I shrank away by instinct. “Good?”

“What do you think about Luhan?”

I exchanged glance with Luhan, not sure how to go about with his friends pestering us. “He’s, umm…”

“Because he told us that he said he liked you,” Tao wriggled his eyebrows at me, speaking behind a ham sandwich near his face.

The rest of them went, “Oooo.”

“Shut up!” Luhan buried his face in his hands.

“How did he tell you?” Kris asked, looking genuinely curious. “Because he won’t tell us.”

“Jinah you don’t have to answer that,” Luhan told me, tossing a glare at Kris’ way.

Chanyeol gasped dramatically at a thought. “So are you two dating? Did you kiss yet?”

I choked on nothing.

“Look at her face! They obviously did.”

“Did you name your kids yet?” Tao asked with half-chewed food in his mouth.

“Tao!” Luhan pounded on his friend’s shoulder with a fist. “You know what? We’re leaving. Jinah, let’s go.”

“What? O-Okay.” Quickly shutting my locker and collecting my thing