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SIX YEARS AGO,

It’s a hot day out which makes the sweat stick to his body even more as Kai sits flat on the dirty ground, leaning against the sidewall of the Economics Building in the back of the school campus.

There is still fresh blood dripping from the headwound some had hit him with a bat earlier, and some of it got into his eyes, making his vision all squinty and blurred.

“ing annoying,” he mumbles, wiping a hand over his face and smudging crimson all over more. In a bit, he’ll get up, find his motorcycle, and head home. Take a nice, long shower then leave before his parents can come home and they start arguing again.

In a bit.

For now, Kai is content with closing his eyes and just resting for awhile. The quietness of the deserted school hours after session is a welcoming change. No one to bother him, just peace and freedom―

“Oh my god!”

Kai’s eyes twitch, opening one lazily to see. There’s some kid who just dropped his schoolbag and is hurrying towards him.

“Are you okay? Are you dead? Oh my god, what do I do? Please don’t die, especially not at school―”

“So it’s okay if I die not at school?” Kai grumbles, squatting the offending hand away when the kid starts fussing over him. He can’t see clearly when his vision is caked with dry blood on his eyelids and eyelashes, but the kid looks young. Probably a freshman.

“N―No, I just meant―” The kid pauses, then reaches for his phone. “Wait, let me call for emergency first―”

“Don’t!” Kai growls, grabbing the other by his wrist, startling him. If he calls and Kai is taken to the hospital they’ll let his parents know and they’ll bother him again. “Leave me the alone!”

“B―But you’re hurt―”

“Which is a good thing for you, because if I wasn’t, I’d kick your right now!”

The kid stills, dropping his hands to his sides. Good. This means he’s afraid and will leave Kai alone now. Go on, little boy. Let him enjoy a few moments of quiet before finding the next person to start a fight with.

The kid, however, just mutters, “Wait, I recognize you. I see your ID picture all the time in the reports I have to look through. You’re Kim Kai.”

Reports he has to look through? Who the hell is this freshman kid? “Yup, that’s me. And if you don’t want to get your beaten you’d better scram.”

A pause. Then, “No.”

“What?”

“You’ve been skipping school this entire week according to the reports. It is my duty to make sure you attend classes again.”

“Duty? Who the hell are you?” Kai hisses, rubbing his eyes trying to clear his vision, to no avail. The other gives a sigh before he rummages through his bag and takes out a handkerchief, dabbing it with water from his water bottle, then slowly, hesitantly, reaches up and places it on Kai’s forehead.

At the lack of reaction from the older boy, the kid starts to wipe away all the dry blood, careful when he sees Kai wincing, the wound throbbing nearby.

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs, and for some inexplicable reason, Kai listens.

He can feel the softest of touch against his eyelids, then his cheeks, cleaning away all the dirt and blood previously smeared on there. When the hand retracts, Kai finally opens his eyes and blinks to focus his vision.

The first thing he can take in is a pair of the softest grey eyes he’s ever seen, eyebrows scrunched up in concern, and small, pink lips being bitten on as its owner looks on timidly.

And now that Kai can clearly see the face in front of him, he finds the other boy oddly… familiar-looking. Like Kai’s seen him before, distractedly, from far away, but where…?

“I’m Oh Sehun,” the boy answers his unspoken question for him. “I’m the Student Council President.”

And that’s when it clicks―Oh Sehun. Kai’s never been much for gossip, but it’s hard to miss the squealish whispers of the girls passing by while walking across campus, raving about how the new Student Council President this year is a freshman, apparently incredibly smart as he got into this rich, elite school by a scholarship. He seems super shy, they’d whisper, but he takes his job seriously, and doesn’t that just make him all the more cute and appealing?

Cute and appealing, the words now ring inside Kai’s ears as he stares at the boy―Sehun―and the soft, black locks framing his face, looking like they’d be nice to card your fingers through―

“Nerd,” Kai spits out unwittingly in an attempt to stop his thoughts, and cringes at himself.

As expected, Sehun purses his lips at the name-calling. “You can call me whatever you want, but I can’t leave you injured like this.”

“Yes you can. Move it before I punch in that pretty face of yours.”

Sehun’s lips purse even more, frowning, but there’s a hint of pink dusting his cheeks, and Kai only then realizes he had just indirectly called the other ‘pretty’. .

Sehun inspects him silently, making Kai uncomfortable because―what the hell is the kid doing?―before finally speaking. “I don’t think you’re as bad as you make yourself out to be.”

“What?”

“If you really are as vicious and cruel as the reports and rumors said, you wouldn’t keep threatening to beat me up, but not actually do it. You just want to scare me away so I’ll leave you alone, right?”

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