“Wait, okay, so.” I massage my temples. “Were you being, like, serious? Or was that a spur-of-the-moment, let’s-help-Mihi-out-for-once-because-I’ve-been-miserable-to-her-for-months kind of thing?”

    “What do you think it was?” Sehun asks tonelessly, flipping through A Brief History of Time. The two of us are sitting in the Fluck Observatory. I dragged him here after Hanbin had hurried away, stammering apologies about how “he didn’t know he was asking Sehun’s girl” and how “this would never happen again, Sehun, promise!”

    “I don’t know what it was!” I exclaim. “Please, O mighty Sehun, enlighten me.”

    “What do you want it to be?”

    I redden. The rational side of my brain tells me to say that I want it to be a joke. Sehun is my worst enemy. The person who’s singlehandedly made my life at this stupid school hell. He’s a snobbish, condescending, rude, annoying bastard whom I hate the most in the world. Of course I don’t want to go to the Winter Formal with him! Why subject him to an unpleasant ordeal that both of us don’t want to be a part of?

    But at the same time...

    I imagine Sehun and I dancing in the middle of the ritzy ballroom, his hand on my waist, mine on his shoulder. I imagine him twirling me around, the elegance of my gown, his trademark smirk- only this time colored by appreciation and enjoyment. I imagine him holding my hand as we walk to dinner-

    Mihi! Snap out of it! Seriously, what is wrong with you?

    “Well, you can’t dance, right?” I suddenly say. “Because of your knee.”

    Sehun does not look up from his book, but noticeably stiffens.

    “My knee won’t be a problem,” he tells me in a monotone.

    “Are you sure?” I place a hand on his leg. “Do you want me to check if it’s still swollen or something? Because I bet it’s still super swollen- here, let me just pull up your pants-,”

    “Mihi!” Sehun exclaims, yanking my hand away from his sweats. Unfortunately, the sudden motion causes me to lose my balance, and I end up falling directly on top of Oh Sehun.

    “Sorry!” I wince, literally flinging myself off of him and hiding my bright face. “Are you okay? Did I fall on your knee? Oh, no, did I make it worse, Sehun? I’m so sorry- do you want me to get some ice-,”

    “I didn’t tear my meniscus, okay?”

    I freeze. Slowly, I turn to look at Sehun, who is scowling at me.

    “At that soccer match, I just hurt my knee a little. That was it. I’m fine. I’ve been fine for ages.”

    “Wait... whoa. Whoa.” I inch towards him. “That means that... you could’ve still been playing soccer for all this time.”

    Sehun sighs. “Yeah, but I didn’t want to.”

    I blink. “What? But why? Aren’t you really good at soccer? And- wait- aren’t you the team captain?”

    “I am, okay? But I just...” He rubs his temples. “I don’t like soccer. I haven’t liked it since the age of 13.”

    “Why didn’t you quit, then?”

    “It’s... it’s an obligation. I’m a good player. If I quit, then I’ll be letting down my teammates. So... you know... when the chance came to have an accident, I took it.”

    I look at Sehun in silence for a few moments. He pretends to not notice me staring.

    “No offense, Sehun, but that wasn’t the smartest idea,” I say in a quiet voice. “It shouldn’t have even come to faking an injury for you to stop doing something you didn’t like. You should’ve been upfront about it. What you did is kind of an move.”

    “I know. And I feel bad about it. But then another part of me is really... I don’t know. I feel like a burden’s been lifted from my shoulders. It’s just- Mihi, I’m so tired.”

I peer at Sehun’s face. Throughout the course of our conversation, his veneer of cool, polished perfection has seemed to crack. A weary, exhausted boy emerges from beneath, and it is at that moment when I realize how many sides of Oh Sehun I do not know about. There is the popular rich kid at school, yes, and there is also the reserved, intelligent astronomer who loves the stars, but now I have discovered a different person: a jaded, rather lonely boy, who seems to keep all his frustrations bottled up inside of himself.

Without a word, I stand up and head to the small niche in the corner of the room, which contains a miniature stove and refrigerator. After locating packets of hot chocolate mix and milk, I brew two mugs of hot chocolate and set one down in front of Sehun.

“Tell me,” I say softly.

Sehun gives me a strange, unreadable look. His lips curl up into a sardonic smirk.

“Midnight talks, huh?”

I wince, starting to stand up. “Sorry. If I’m overstepping the line-,”

“No, stay.” Sehun gently tugs me towards him, pats the swathe of pillows and blankets that he is sitting on. I tentatively sit down next to him, clutching my cup of hot chocolate. The stars shimmer through the glass roof above us, the only ones witness to our unusually intimate position.

After a brief moment of silence, Sehun exhales.

“I’ve always had to be perfect,” he murmurs. “If it’s not for my family, it’s for the media. I’m the son of the prime minister. One screw up and I dishonor not only my family, but the nation.”

    “That’s a lot of pressure.”

    “It is. I’ve had my life planned out for me. I’m supposed to be a good student and a star soccer player and a well-liked, cultured socialite all at once. When I graduate, I’m going to go to Seoul National University for political science and go into politics.”

    “Politics? But don’t you want to go into astronomy?”

    He lets out a rueful bark of laughter. “What I want to do doesn’t matter. It’s my duty.”

    “That’s so unfair! This is your life. Your family can’t dictate what you- Sehun, in 20 years, after you’re living independently or whatever, you’ll regret not following what you want to do. Your parents are only going to be around for so long. You can’t lead the rest of your life totally miserable!”

    “It’s easy for you to say that. In practice, though, it’s a lot harder.”

    He’s right. I am able to say these things because I am in a considerably better position than he is in. I glumly peer up at him.

    “I’m so sorry, Sehun.”

    He shakes his head. “Don’t be. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

    For the first time in my life, I feel legitimately bad for Oh Sehun. His life looked totally perfect on the outside. But of course, that’s never the case. He does have problems of his own. And I feel like this is just the tip of the iceberg.

    “So you’ve gotten tired of putting on an act,” I say quietly.

    He laughs wryly. “That would be an understatement.”

    “Have you talked to your friends about this?”

    “No. They think I’m a completely different person.” He sighs. “They think I’m independent, and I don’t give a about what anyone else thinks, and I do what I want and excel at it. They don’t know that I participate in half the activities I do because my parents want me to. Or- hell- they don’t even know I’m into astronomy. It’s not really the coolest thing for a wealthy young playboy to be doing. Because that’s just what I am. A popular, rich, attractive teenager who gets whatever he wants. God, are they even my real friends? If they knew who I was, they wouldn't even talk to me.”

    There is an anguished look on Sehun’s face that causes my chest to become painfully tight. How can he be this... disillusioned?

    “Hey.” I grab his hands, surprising both myself and him. “You’re not just a rich playboy. Don’t put yourself down like that. There are so many different sides to you that it’s impossible to stereotype yourself as one kind of person. You’re way more complex- god, even I can’t freaking figure you out half the time. You have depth, and you have things you’re passionate about, and things you hate, and just- don’t think of yourself like that. Plus, I'm sure your friends would be supportive of you no matter who you were. You're... a good person, Sehun. Don't worry."

    Thank god the room is dark, because I’m pretty sure my face must be bright red by now. A part of me is totally surprised that I’m having a heart-to-heart with Oh Sehun right now- and complimenting him as well. We don’t even like each other.

    But again, there’s something about sharing the secret of the Astronomy Club with him that removes many of the reservations I have about him. It’s like being in here wipes away his ever-present mask of sneering arrogance and exposes a boy to me who is... real. A confidant of sorts, I suppose. Someone who has seen me at both my very worst and my very best... and treats me the same regardless of how I look or act.

And suddenly I become aware of how close we are. My mahogany locks are fanned out all over the thin blanket that covers half of both of our torsos. His long white fingers sit only a few inches away from my bare thigh, while his feet are resting on top of mine at the end of the comforter. A shudder runs through my body as his eyes lock onto mine. I know he is thinking the exact same thing as me.

“I was being serious,” Sehun finally murmurs, breaking the thick silence.

“What?”

“Go to the Winter Formal with me.”

A shaky breath escapes from my lips.

“Okay.”

A/N: fun fact i was writing this at like 2 am and i made sehun and mihi hook up lmaooo and then i woke up and was like the hell??? and i erased it all

lowkey tho ive always wanted to write a fic with ppl who dont like each other but still have weirdly emotional hookups but i cant write so :^( like im good at writing sensual scenes i guess???? but not.... like im a .... i found out that u dont pee from the like a week ago..... i cant write scenes

btw listen to this lmao this is SUCH A lit mashup whatever happened to dj masa lmfaooo????