"The trick," Tao offered knowledgeably as he sat down to join his friend at a table in the back of their school library, "is to make him jealous."

Luhan, who'd been wallowing pitifully with his head in a book since he'd arrived there for Study Block an hour earlier, looked up through harried eyes and frowned at Tao dubiously. "But Sehunnie's already my boyfriend, Taozi. I don't need him to be interested in dating me; what I need is him interested in, you know, ing me up!"

"Wow, Tao baby," a voice came from behind one of the stacks as Junmyeon emerged to join his boyfriend at Luhan's table. "I had no idea you kept such vulgar company."

"Jun-jun," Tao scolded lightly, "he's your friend too." Junmyeon just smiled and shrugged on shoulder innocently.

"Tao," Luhan glared at both of them, "your boyfriends, I swear."

The accused held his hands up helplessly, but grinned before pecking Junmyeon cutely in greeting. "It's not my fault they think I'm y."

"Actually," Junmyeon pointed out, looking over the rim of his glasses at his boyfriend and a frowning Luhan, "I'm pretty sure you seduced us. Or me, at the very least."

Instead of being offended, Tao's expression turned smug. "See?" He challenged a disbelieving Luhan, "I've got plenty of experience in the area. You're lucky you've got such a well-versed best friend."

"Or a worldly one," Luhan muttered under his breath.

Junmyeon heard him and frowned, but Tao carried on obliviously. "Anyway, like I said, make him jealous. The manly types like Sehun tend to want to exert their ownership or whatever when they're feeling threatened. Kris does it all the time."

Luhan looked scandalized and Tao wondered why until he realized he'd basically implied he and Luhan were they're respective boyfriends' possessions. "Not like that!" He clarified frantically. "And Kris isn't jealous of Jun-jun for obvious reasons, so that's not what I meant either." He paused, clearly deep in thought as his brain worked to better express his argument. "Just, like, you know, if you make him jealous, he'll probably want to remind you that you're dating him, and him alone. Exclusively."

"Oh," Luhan understood, finally, and smiled because Tao's idea wasn't actually a bad one. For a few seconds, Luhan thought that it could really work, until he remembered something important and his face fell. "But who would make him jealous?"

"A girl?" Tao thought aloud.

"Too harsh," Junmyeon contributed helpfully from his calculus notes.

"Another guy then?" Tao tried again.

Luhan shook his head. "You three and Sehun are the only gay guys I know in this entire school. And it's not like there's anywhere else to go look for one. Boarding school, remember?"

"High school ," Tao agreed feelingly, suddenly feeling stifled and itchy in the gray striped tie and navy wool of their academy's winter uniform blazers. "Guess that leaves one of us, then," he decided on his boyfriend's behalf.

Luhan frowned like the idea of making Sehun jealous with any of those three options kind of gave him nausea. "I choose you," he agreed, still pretty grossed out. "No need to get the others involved."

Junmyeon laughed then, sliding his hand across the table to catch Tao's long fingers with his own and yank his boyfriend closer. They were seated next to each other so this was an accomplishable feat, but Junmyeon's acts of aggression were so rare that Tao was a little too overcome with attraction to respond to Luhan right away.

"You're so y," he complimented his boyfriend breathily, kissing him quickly and then pulling away before the teacher on duty could see them and hand out detention slips. To Luhan, he turned and said, "I'll do it."

Junmyeon chuckled again and his grip on Tao's hand tightened. "Yeah," he agreed sarcastically. "Remember that jealously possessive boyfriend we share, Tao baby? Pretty sure he's not going to let that happen."

Tao jutted out his bottom lip in an adorable pout that contrasted nicely with the piercings in his ear and the contraband tongue stud that Junmyeon couldn't see but knew from delicious sinful experience was there. "He's not the boss of me."

"Yeah," Junmyeon said again, pecking his boyfriend's pour before returning to his homework, "try telling Kris that."