Seven

"Hyung, what are you doing here?" Sehun sat beside Kris. He offered his extra bubble tea to him. After he and Chen got back from buying bubble tea for Luhan, Xiumin and themselves, they saw Kris was sitting alone at the field watching their soccer team practice. Though Kris never missed to watch the match, but he rarely watch the practice. Unlike most of them that like to spend their time here almost every evening.

"Do you know what it feels like to be a ball?" His gaze was fixed towards the field.

Sehun and Chen looked at each other. Why on earth he's asking that? Sehun put the bubble tea that Kris didn't take beside him. "Kris hyung, are you sick or something? Or did something happen that we don't know about?" Sehun looked concern.

"Kris hyung, do you have any problem?" Chen offered his biscuit, but Kris just shook his head. He noticed that Kris has been very quiet since yesterday. After he got back to class with Jessica, Kris didn't talk to any of them. But during the recess time, he told them about the incident that happened to Jessica. Then they combined all the story that they heard from Tao in the morning with what Kris just told them. They didn't realize things have gotten that severe.

"You know, all the while I thought we were the one that saving her. Indirectly, it feels like we are the one that leading. But the truth is we are the one that hurt her the most and yet she told me that it was fine and she's fine. Where did we go wrong?" Kris blurted out his disappointment.

He still couldn't get over himself over yesterday's incident. That was the one that he saw with his own eyes. How about the one that he's never aware of?

"Kris hyung, can you be honest this one time? The whole Jessica issue was it still about ranking or it's about reaching her?" Chen tried to understand him for once. He couldn't help if he didn't understand his true feeling and Kris always hide his feelings from others. No matter how sad he is about something, he will never voice it out to their group members. The most, Kris will spend his time by being alone.

Kris took a deep breath. "Do you remember when we were five?"

Sehun and Chen nodded.

Those times were their beginning. Their whole life they have been in Venus Institution. Since kindergarten to now, they have always been here. Xiumin, Suho, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Kai and Sehun were from the same neighborhood. They have been together since forever. Then comes Lay and Luhan joining the group. Lay has always been friendly to everyone while Luhan was first closed with Sehun and Sehun was the one that brought him into the group. Tao was joining them a year after when he moved to their neighborhood. Suho was the one that always look after Tao when he first moved there.

Before Kris joined the group, he has always been a loner. He never feels like joining or befriends with any of the kids around him. He spent most of his time with books. While the other kids of his age were enjoying their time playing around with friends at playground, he was more comfortable sitting alone at his seat reading his story book.

But things started to get rough when a group of kids started to bully others. Their target was always the loner, the wallflower, the left out. Kris was never the type that easy to be bullied, but he also couldn't escape from being the target.

He was happily reading his book, when a group of naughty kids group on him snatched and tore his book. The book was his favorite, the one he treasured the most, the one that his late grandfather gave to him as his fourth birthday present. The book was illustrated by his own grandfather and it was the one and only copy in this world.

Kris couldn't help but feeling sad and angry at the same time. He wasn't able to content himself and he took the action by himself. He fought hard with the three of them by himself. Unconsciously, he beat them, hard. One thing that the kids in their kindergarten never know, Kris was a five gup blue-belt holder in taekwondo at that time. The bully kids were beaten so hard that when the boys saw it, all eleven of them went to his side to stop him.

When their teacher arrived at the scene, they were asked about the whole incident. Kris was about to admit his wrongdoing, but to his surprised the eleven boys said they were involved together with him. All of them including the three bully kids were punished by the teacher. For the whole week they need to clean up the class and they need to write their wrongdoing and submit it to their classroom teacher every day.

For the whole week they received a good thirty minutes lectures every day on why it is important for them to be someone knowledgeable, about how to survive in this world. Strength is not the only option, but being intelligence might help them a lot in future. The bullies used strength and force, but the intelligence will find a diplomatic way to solve the problem. Of course, they wouldn't understand what their teacher was telling at that time. They were only five after all. But all those make sense while they're growing up.

That was their beginning. The beginning of their friendship and the beginning of their obsession on topping all the rankings and the rest is history.

"At that time, we thought they were invincible. But the truth is we were just like any others, fragile and can be easily get hurt. Jung Soo Yeon, she reminds me of my five year old self. That's why I always have a soft spot for her. But the reality is she isn't a damsel in distress as what we always thought she is."

He remembered how she stood up for herself when the girls confronted her yesterday. She doesn't need him to help her. She was brave, but she looked lonely doing all those alone. His heart ached for her.

Chen and Sehun kept their silence. Kris was never this serious when talking about someone outside from their circle. They can feel his sincerity when he talked about her.

"Oo, did I hear wrongly? Our wolf prince is actually falling for the ice princess?" Baekhyun who silently listening from the back appeared in front of them and he cheekily grinned at Kris. He tried to cheer up the atmosphere as he doesn't like it when any of his group members feeling gloomy.

"No, I'm not! Hyung like her just like how I like you, Baekhyun-ah. In fact, hyung like you more." Kris completely denied what Baekhyun just said. He never thinks about dating girl seriously. Though he said that he had soft spot for Jessica, doesn't mean that he has feeling for her.

Baekhyun made a face. "Hyung, that sounds so wrong! You could ruin my reputation if other students heard that."

"Awww, my Baekhyun is pouting. Come here to hyung." Kris even more. He even opened his both arms, ready to hug Baekhyun and his action made both Chen and Sehun laughed heartily.

Baekhyun couldn't help but laughed together with them. When they done laughing, then he remembered why he was here. "Hyung, why do you skipped our group discussion for today? Jessica was looking for you."

"Why?" He didn't have any mood today and he thought maybe for one day, he could skipped their group discussion.

"What do you mean by why? I thought you promised her that you want to combine your finding with hers? Furthermore, who's the one that promised her a lunch set today?" Baekhyun smirked at him.

"Kris hyung promised Jessica noona a lunch set?" Sehun raised his eyebrow. Interesting. Is there something happened that he doesn't know about?

Baekhyun laughed. "Jessica was so sure that Kris hyung won't be able to find the book that he mentioned before, but Kris hyung was so sure that that book exists and he even told her that he would buy her a lunch if he couldn't find the book."

Apparently, Jessica was correct about it. Kris mistook the book with the manga that he read before and when Jessica found out about it she was laughing hard to the point that both Kris and Baekhyun just frozen in their seats. They never see her laugh like that.

Kris looked at his watch and he quickly packed his bag. If he is fast enough, he could still catch her halfway. He totally forgets about it since he was too absorbed with his thinking. "I should go now. Tell Luhan that I need to go first and I'll see him tomorrow morning."

"He looked so gloomy before and now he looks so happy, isn't it?"

"Kris hyung said he doesn't like her."

"This hyung doesn't even understand his own feelings."

All three of them grinned while looking at each other. Just a moment ago Kris looked so down while talking about Jessica and yet now he looked so happy when Jessica mentioned his name. There's only one thing that they can think of, their wolf prince could no longer hides his feeling.

~~~

"There you are." Kris stopped right in front of Jessica and he was trying hard to catch up with his breath. He looked for her at their usual seat in the library, but the librarian told him that she has left like five minutes ago. So, he quickly walked out of the school to find her. Luckily she was still not far from the front gate when he saw her from back.

"Kris? I thought you left school early today? Why are you still here?" She looked at him weirdly. When she asked Baekhyun about his whereabouts just now, Baekhyun told her that Kris is not feeling well and he needs to excuse himself from today's discussion. But in front of her now, Kris was breathing heavily as if he just came back from a marathon.

"I was looking for you." He answered her when his breath stabilized. When Jessica looked at him, he continued. "I owed you lunch. Shall we?"

"You do realize that it's 4.30PM now, right? Of course I already had my lunch."

"Then I'll buy you tea and desserts." He proposed for something else right away.

Jessica smiled. "No. You still owe me lunch." Then she walked again and Kris followed by her side.

They walked side by side and when Kris saw her bag, he took it from her. "I really can't believe that you carry this heavy bag every day." He muttered under his breath. Sometimes, he noticed that she didn't only carry a heavy bag, but she also hand carry a few other text books with her.

Jessica asked for her bag back. "I don't need you to carry it."

"Yes, you don't. But you can buy me a tea and sandwich for this. My empty stomach will be very happy if you do that." When he saw that Jessica was about to argue, he quickly cut her. "I know, I will buy you lunch tomorrow."

"I'm fine with that. There's a shop that sells delicious sandwiches in front there if you want to stop by."

Kris was surprised with her answer. He thought she would decline it right away.

Jessica turned around when Kris didn't walk by her side. "What are you doing? I thought you're hungry."

"I thought you will avoid us more, especially me." Softly, he murmured.

Though his voice was very soft, Jessica could still hear it. She's done avoiding people. Three months she's here, all the while she tried to be invisible to everyone. But her life becomes upside down after the boys came into her life. Everything started to mess up and things getting even worse with all those stupid rumors going around.

At first, she thought it would be the right decision if she stays away from the boys. Since they're the school idol, it was better for her to not having any contact at all with them. But the more she gets to know them, her perspective towards them changed one by one. They're not really as bad as what she always thought they were.

"What's your favorite sandwich?" Jessica changed the subject and pretended like she didn't hear what he just said.

"BLT Sandwich."

Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich? Jessica smirked. "That's so like you."

Kris raised his eyebrow. "What?" Why is she looking at him like that?

"Do you know that there's a study about personality types with their sandwich choices?"

Kris chuckled. She didn't only excel in her studies, but she also study about sandwich? "So, what did my choice of sandwich tells about me?"

"Conscientious perfectionist. They said BLT lovers know how to spot a good thing when they see it, like to keep their life simple and fill it with good times and they are the easy going person." She still remembered the content of the article. She still wondered how a sandwich can tell what kind of person are you. Furthermore, why people study about sandwich and personality that related to it?

Kris laughed. Though he doesn't know how legit this study is, but the result was quite accurate for him and now he wondered about her sandwich. "What's your favorite then?"

"I don't have any favorite."

She likes seafood salad sandwich the most. The article said the best word to describe seafood salad sandwich lovers is loyalty.

"No way! I've said mine, you should say yours." Kris voiced out his dissatisfaction.

Jessica shook her head and walked straight to the shop. There's no way she will tell him since he can look for the article later.

The article also said that they are most romantically compatible with those who prefer the BLT sandwich.