•|Day 3

"Good morning!" greeted Siwon cheerfully as he joined the rest at the table for breakfast. There was a chorus of quiet murmur in reply, and it wasn't hard to see why. Most of them looked like they'd rather die before they opened their eyes while Chanyeol was totally dozing off right then and there, and nearly had his face drowned in the bowl of cereal before him.

"I feel like I'm bearing a ton of bricks on my eyes." muttered Tao sleepily. He heaved a dramatic sigh as he propped on one elbow, and shoved a mouthful of sausages into his mouth.

"Do you guys even slept at all last night?" mused Siwon.

Luhan and Baekhyun in particular, exchanged a brief look with each other, but opted to keep quiet. 

"No." said Kyungsoo flatly. "And that apparently applies to all of us because you guys and your stupid  making loud noises in the middle of the night last night!"

"What?" replied the remaining boys in unison. All except Jongin. They looked rather confused as they stared at Kyungsoo, unable to comprehend the other's words. Siwon, who had sensed the incoming storm, immediately decided against having breakfast and quietly slipped away unnoticed.

"Don't you what what me, you bunch of lunatics! What the are you doing anyway, running around the hallway like some children on a sugar rush in the middle of the night last night? I can't sleep at all, no thanks to you!" ranted Kyungsoo with Jongin occassionally nodding in agreement across him. "Which one of you was it anyway? Because I swear I'll strangle the living  out of you myself!"

If anything, his ranting only brought another wave of confused looks all around the dining table. They stared at him as if he had grown another head, and remained genuinely clueless. 

"I don't know what are you talking about." Joonmyeon broke the silence. "I slept just fine last night, and my room is right next to yours. I'm an even lighter sleeper than all of you combined, but I swear I heard no such thing last night."

It was Kyungsoo's turn to look confused. His first reaction was to turn to Jongin, the two of them having had a momentary moment of truce last night because of their mutual annoyance over the constant noise outside of their shared bedroom.

"You heard it too, right?" He demanded, refusing to be the only one under the other's scrunitizing gaze.

Jongin hesitated. "Yes.."

"See?"

"I sensed a but there." Minseok noted with a raised brow, blatantly ignoring Kyungsoo.

Jongin wisely kept quiet, but only because Kyungsoo was glaring daggers in his direction. 

"Either you have been imagining things or you were sleepwalking last night, and the noise was actually the sound of your own footsteps." suggested Sehun without looking. He was the only one who seemed rather unbothered by the issue, else than a snoring Chanyeol that is.

Much to everyone's surprise, Luhan was quick to nod in agreement. "That must be it. It's that simple. You guys are simply overreacting." He said dismissively before standing up. "We're going to be late to school. You won't want the teacher to have a reason to extend our detention."

"Ooh, detention!" Yixing positively perked up at the word, earning an immediate judging look from everyone.

"I'm out of here." Tao decided, having seen enough of this weirdness to last him for a lifetime. He rose from his chair, mirrored quickly by Kris before the rest followed suit. Except for Chanyeol, who had practically became one with the table, and Baekhyun just couldn't resist the urge to mess with the oblivious male so he backtracked and positioned himself next to the latter's left ear.

"Oi!" Baekhyun shouted loudly in his ear before slapping the back of his head. Needless to day, Chanyeol nearly jumped out of his skin as he instinctively backed away from the loud sound, inadvertently falling out of his chair and sending himself sprawling across the tiled floor.

"What the—" He didn't even bother finishing his sentence because Baekhyun had burst out laughing at that exact moment, and he immediately knew it was the shorter male's doing. "That's not funny, princess."

Baekhyun stopped laughing at once, and rolled his eyes. "Stop calling me princess or I swear you're sleeping outside tonight." 

"As long as you're with me, fine with me, princess." Chanyeol leered. "I'll even sleep in the attic if that's your kink." Then, he winked playfully before sprinting out of there in record time for Baekhyun had started picking up the chair with a murderous glint in his eyes.

~~X~~

"I need to get a life."

"No ." came Kyungsoo's immediate reply. "Get a plastic surgery on your entire face as well while you're at it."

Luhan frowned. "What the —I'm ing beautiful, you blind hoe! Why the would I even need one in the first place?"

Kyungsoo abruptly began poking around his things in search of God knows what.

"What are you looking for now?" asked Luhan irritably. "Your sanity?" He added sarcastically.

"No, yours actually." Kyungsoo deadpanned.

"Good one." commented Tao as he walked past them.

Luhan alternated a glare between the two of them. "You guys ."

"You meant, you ." Kyungsoo corrected. "I don't know why am I even friends with the lot of you."

"Because I'm fabulous." said Luhan almost instantly while flipping his non-existent long hair. 

"Fabulous my ." Baekhyun interjected from where he was seated at the table next to them. "Kyungsoo, do yo mind taking out the trash to the dumpster?"

"Sure, where is it?"

"There, next to you."

"Haha, real funny, Byun."

"I tried." Baekhyun shrugged before switching into a more serious mode. "But honestly speaking, is it true, Kyungsoo? Did you really heard all of those noise last night? Someone had been running around the hallway all night long?"

"Give me ten reasons why I would lie about something like that." Kyungsoo snapped moodily.

"Well, for a start, you hate that piece of an named Kim Jongin." stated Baekhyun as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. (It is that obvious, though.)

Kyungsoo furrowed his brows. "Yes, but what does that has to do with anything?"

"Who is to say that you're not messing around with him, thus messing with us as well to make it seems more believable?" Baekhyun said accusingly. "I won't put it above you to do such thing. You're quite resourceful when you wanted to be with plenty of really, really bad ideas."

Kyungsoo blinked, completely at a lost of words for a brief second. 

"You're an idiot." Kyungsoo decided at last. "You do know that, don't you?"

Baekhyun gasped, clearly offended. "Excuse me, but who are you calling—Wait a minute, why are those stuck-up bimbos closing in on Tao like some cornered animal?" 

Luhan and Kyungsoo instantly trailed after his gaze. It wasn't hard to spot the tall male even as he was currently being surrounded by a group of girls. He easily towered over the much shorter girls, and he looked rather pissed than terrified.

", nobody mess with any of my friends!" Baekhyun cried out before launching himself towards the mob of girls around Tao. Luhan gasped while placing a hand over his heart, genuinely touched by the declaration. Kyungsoo, on the other hand, not so much.

"Wow, I never realised that I am that important to him." mumbled Kyungsoo under his breath. He dutifully mirrored Baekhyun's action though, even if his action was solely out of curiosity.

"— must had forgotten to take her medicine!" was the first thing that he heard when he was close enough to the scene. Unsurprisingly, it was Baekhyun yelling on top of his voice as he held back two girls from scratching his face with their long, talonlike nails.

"God, this is embarassing." Kyungsoo mentally groaned before he jumped in to help with Luhan following suit not long after. With much difficulties, they managed to pull the two girls away from Baekhyun first before scaring away the rest with Kyungsoo's menacing glare.

"What was that all about?" demanded Baekhyun while panting slightly. The girls fought like demons, he was surprised he even managed to hold them back from mauling his precious face. 

Tao frowned, but didn't answer right away. He did a quick glance around the classroom first before focusing back on them. "It's all that stupid Wu's fault."

"Wu?" Luhan raised a brow. "As in Kris Wu? Why? What has he done now?"

"The question is what has he not done yet to ruin my life." Tao said through his gritted teeth.

"Oh, don't be so hard on your new boyfriend, Tao." Luhan teased with a wink. Tao instinctively glared daggers at him before mouthing some really, really unpretty words.

Baekhyun's hand suddenly shot upward before he waved it around in Tao's face. ", look at me." He growled when Tao paid no attention to him before abruptly smiling when Tao finally did looked at him. "I have a question here."

"Make it quick." said Tao impatiently. "I've got someone to skin alive in the next five minutes."

Baekhyun rolled his eyes, but didn't argue. "Alright, I just want to know ever since when you're a thing with this Kris Wu guy, and why in the hell I know nothing of it? I thought you're my friend, Tao!"

"You were there with me last night when we caught him hopping around the house like a ninja because he didn't want to get caught, remember?" Luhan interjected, tsking at the other. "He even confessed that he was just coming back from a date at the time, Byun Baek!"

Baekhyun blinked, staring at Luhan with a blank look.

"What the —" Tao stared at the two of them incredulously. "First of all, I certainly did not confessed about anything. And two, no, I'm not a thing with anybody at the moment so cut the crap."

"He's just being ridiculously shy." Luhan whispered conspiratorially while slinging his arm around Baekhyun's shoulder. "It's quite the drama after all, falling for your own roommate."

"Wait, roommate?" Baekhyun's eyes widened comically. "Holy crap, Kris Wu is that Kris?"

", who do you think it is then?" Kyungsoo finally spoke, having kept quiet all this time. He was perfectly content with just listening from the side, but apparently, Byun Baekhyun brought the worse out of him, and he just couldn't resist speaking up against the other's stupidity.

"In my defense, I never actually cared enough to find out about his last name." Baekhyun shot back defensively. "It's a miracle I even know half of their names really."

"How many Kris do you think there is in this school?" Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. "It's not like we're talking about some common names like Minhyuk or Hyunwoo or Jinyoung here."

"He could've met him somewhere else than school.." muttered Baekhyun, though he kept it low because it sounded ridiculous even to him.

"Idiot."

"As much amusing as it is to watch you bickering back and forth about Baekhyun's apparent stupidity, I'm going to say it out here again for all of you so you know that I have absolutely nothing to do with that giant . Let that sink in or I swear I'll help you with it by dumping a bucket of ice water on your head."

Kyungsoo snorted. "You might as well do the ALS challenge as well while you're at it." 

"Maybe—" Tao never got to finish his words because one of their fellow classmates suddenly burst into the classroom, and rushed towards them with a deadly serious look. They automatically straightened up, and waited with bated breath as the other closed the few last distance between them.

"You guys need to come with me right now." He announced when he was in their hearing range.

"What is it?" Kyungsoo asked, looking alarmed.

"Your friend fainted just now." He explained in a rush. "He's currently being treated in the infirmary, but he keeps on rambling nonsense, and he won't let anybody get near him so the nurse is having a hard time to figure out what's wrong with him."

"Which friend?" Luhan questioned tensely.

"Minseok."

That one word was all it took before Luhan was already running on full speed out of the door. He narrowly missed bumping into Jongdae and Sehun, who was making their way into the classroom. 

"What the—"

"Piss off." Luhan snapped before breaking into a full sprint all over again. 

Jongdae gasped, and dramatically placed a hand over his heart while Sehun frowned as his eyes trailed after Luhan's disappearing back. He wasn't exactly surprised by the other's hostility since he was used to it anyway, but it was the unmistakeable glint of distress and fear in his eyes that caught him off-guard. It felt like the first day they met all over again.

Sehun had just finished his Chemistry class on that day, and he was on his way back to his classroom from the science lab. He wasn't looking while he was walking since he was too immersed in reading the notes about an interesting theory about the lost Atlantic city that the teacher had lent to him earlier. There weren't many people out in the hallway at this time anyway so he could afford to be a little bit careless. It wasn't until he suddenly bumped into a shorter male with light-brown hair that he finally looked up. 

"I'm sorry! Oh my God, I'm so, so sorry. It's all my fault, I wasn't looking while walking—Oh God, what was I thinking?" The shorter male had rambled on, and on while Sehun only watched with amusement. He could tell right away that the other was new here, partly because their school wasn't exactly situated in a huge neighborhood so it was pretty easy to recognize a new face and partly because of the other's noticeable accent.

"It's fine—" Sehun had attempted to intercept, only to no avail. The guy just won't shut up, and kept on blaming himself. Sehun narrowed his eyes with annoyance, and eyed the shorter male up and down.

He was shorter than him, alright, but then again, so do many other simply because Sehun was a tall lad in the first place. He would say that the other's height was, in fact, pretty average for a guy. But, that was hardly the first thing people will ever notice about him when they saw him because his face will take your breath away first. (No, it doesn't apply to Sehun, but he knew a beauty when he saw one.)

The short male was, for lack of a better word, quite dazzling in his own way. He had this incredibly doll-like feminine features with ridiculously smooth porcelain skin to go along with it. His eyes literally sparkled like those characters you saw in a cartoon, but it was currently tainted with a hint of distress and fear. That was the first time Sehun finally took notice of his fidgeting hands, and the way his eyes kept on shifting all around as if in search of something.

"Alright, that's it." Sehun finally interrupted, but not before placing a hand over the other's mouth to stop him from talking. "God, you talk too much I'm surprised my ears are not bleeding yet. Are you alright though?"

"Mhhmm mhhhmm.."

Sehun raised a questioning brow. "What, cat got your tongue? You were blabbering away like there's no tomorrow just now."

The other rolled his eyes, and promptly slapped his hand that was still evidently placed across the other's mouth.

"Oh, right."

"Are you that stupid or just naturally blond?" The shorter male said while eyeing Sehun's hair the moment Sehun dropped his hand.

"Are you alright?" Sehun repeated, blatantly ignoring the other's question. "You seem pretty anxious. Is there anything of yours that had gone missing? Is that why you were raking your eyes everywhere like a mama kitten searching for its missing kitty?"

"No." The other leered. "I was worried about my cou—Hold on a second, why am I even telling you this?"

Sehun shrugged. "I might be able to help. That's the least I can do after almost sending a delicate Barbie doll like you tumbling into the next dimension."

That did it. That was it. Sehun immediately knew he had said the wrong thing when the other suddenly stopped fidgeting at once, and straightened up to glare at him right in the eyes.

"Never - ever - call - me - a - goddamn - Barbie - doll!" The other screeched after a moment of silence..

"Are you even listening, dickhead?" Jongdae's sudden slap on the back of his head immediately brought him back to reality. Sehun blinked, momentarily disoriented.

"Ouch!" He yelped out loud when his brain finally registered the pain. "What was that for?"

"You weren't listening." Jongdae deadpanned.

"And, that's supposed to be a reason to go all Incredible Hulk on me?" 

Jongdae rolled his eyes. "Drama queen."

Sehun glared at him while rubbing the sore spot. Jongdae obviously couldn't care less though as he focused his whole attention on the empty hallway instead.

"If you're finally listening now, I would've you know that the rest of our housemates just walked out of the classroom just now, and they looked like they were being chased by an army of walking dead." Jongdae told without looking.

"And your point is?" Sehun questioned, unable to catch the other's intention.

"God, this is why I don't bring you to any of my missions." Jongdae groaned loudly while hiding his face in his hands. "Where's that goddamn yoda when you need him the most anyway?" Jongdae took another look at Sehun, and nearly cried with despair.

"What exactly do you mean?" Sehun repeated with annoyance. "Or rather, what do you want from me?"

"I want you to be less stupid, and more sensible." Jongdae replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Nevermind." Jongdae relented when Sehun only blinked in response. "To make it simpler, you saw how Luhan was rushing out of the classroom like his was on fire just now, right?"

"Yes. So, what about it?"

"Aren't you even a tinsy bit curious of why exactly he was behaving that way?" Jongdae prodded very slowly as if he was explaining something to a toddler.

"No." replied Sehun flatly, and there goes Jongdae's hope of drilling some infos into Sehun's thick head by today out of the window. Jongdae huffed loudly while resisting the urge to do a major facepalm.

"Alright, that's it!" Jongdae announced, and before Sehun even realised what was happening, the former had already began dragging him by the ear heading to God knows where.

"What the —Let me go! This is embarassing!"

"Not not todayyyy~"

"Kim ing Jong—"

"Shut up, Sehun, or so help me, I'm going to use that picture of you in your Little Pony underwear as a banner, and strung it across the school's front door."

"You told me you've deleted it!"

"Yeah? Well, I lied."

".............."