Changgu had his hands in his pockets and was lightly kicking the ground as he loitered around the front of the staff office. The after school rush in the corridors had calmed down and there were only a few students left wandering around. With every minute that passed by, Changgu’s hope of seeing Yan An diminished. He hadn’t heard that Yan An wasn’t going to come but neither was there confirmation that Yan An would definitely come to assist him with the teacher’s errand. Ah, I’m being stupid, there’s no way he’d ditch Shinwon…

“Hey! Sorry I’m late!” The cute accent perked Changgu right up. He looked up from the ground and right into the eyes of Yan An who was a bit out of breath from running. Ah.. It’s Yan An…IT’S YAN AN!? The tall boy got shy from Changgu’s intense staring and averted his own eyes. The thought that it seemed like such a surprise to Changgu that he had shown up made him a bit upset but he tried his best to brush it off. After all, they weren’t exactly friends. The two awkwardly smiled at each other without saying a word and waited for the other to make a move. In the end, it was Yan An who took the initiative to walk into the office to greet their teacher with Changgu trailing behind, still in silent awe.

After all the test papers were printed off, the two had carried them back to a spare empty classroom on the same floor and started sorting them out and stapling them. Despite being just as nervous, Changgu was doing a lot better at controlling himself than Yan An who kept getting distracted by the beautiful boy sitting in front of him. He was particularly mesmerised by how Changgu’s fringe delicately fell to the side every time he leaned over to align the papers. The fragile looking boy had had the same neat bowl cut since first year. It’s getting a bit warm… Yan An tugged at his necktie to loosen it up and not surprisingly, Changgu just had to sneak a peek despite resisting to do so the entire time. He couldn’t help but admire how long and slender Yan An’s fingers were, how well defined his jawline was... Changgu, you nugget, stop it...
“Is something wrong?” Changgu gently pushed his glass frames up with his fingers. Yan An became flustered, thinking he had been caught, and shook his head, “No, sorry. Nothing’s wrong.”
He cleared his throat to break the suffocating silence, “Isn’t it weird how the teacher trusts us to sort the test papers out?”
Changgu was confused for a second and then let out an amused chuckled, “This isn’t the test for our class.”
“It isn’t?”
Changgu shook his head with a big smile on his face, “It’s for a different subject. There’s probably another pair of students sorting out the test papers for our class right now.”
“Oh…” Yan An let out a sheepish laugh, feeling a bit dumb. It wasn’t strange that Changgu was familiar with this sort of stuff. He was the class president after all, top of the class when it came to academics and was always volunteering to help out his teachers and peers.

BZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZZ.

Following the vibrations against the table was the  blaring of Yan An’s embarrassing EXO song ringtone to pierce through whatever awkwardness there was in the air.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Changgu asked, his quick eyes catching Shinwon’s contact photo popping up on the screen. Yan An put on a fake smile and picked up his phone despite knowing he was about to cop sh*t from his aggressive friend.
         “Hey, where are you?” Shinwon’s voice was so loud from the other end that even Changgu could hear him clearly.
“Hey Shinwon, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it...” Yan An responded quietly.
         “What the hell does that mean? Yan An, if we’re late she’s going to kill us!”
“Uuuummm…” Yan An glanced at Changgu and then looked away.
         “For ’s sake...are you with that nerd right now? You are, aren’t you?”
Yan An turned his body around on the seat and simultaneously tried to lower the volume of his phone. Why is the button jammed right now!?  
         “Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said you thought he was cute, were y- “
Yan An immediately lowered his phone and desperately tapped on the screen to hang up on the devil. AHHH AH HA H HA HAHA. Yan An awkwardly spun back around on his chair, wishing the chair would fall right through the ground so he would be able to hide from the embarrassment. His eyes flickered up at Changgu who continued to staple the test papers together, his sweet expression unchanged and his skin as pale as ever. Maybe he didn’t hear...lucky… Yan An let out a discreet sigh of relief and resumed to sorting out the papers, totally missing how bright red Changgu’s ears were.

~

“Yan An, you better get down here or else I will find you and...yah...YAH!” Shinwon yelled into his phone. He brought it down and stared at it with his pupils shaking with anger. Did Yan An really just hang up on me!?
“See you tomorrow Shinwon!” Some female classmates called out as they passed him at the school gates. Despite being angry, he naturally put on his fake charming smile and waved at them, enjoying the mini squeals and giggles from the girls that followed amongst themselves.  It was a guilty pleasure of sorts for Shinwon who was a natural narcissist but not even that was enough to alleviate his bad mood. Looking at his watch heightened his anxiety as he saw the precious time ticking away. We have to be there in 30 minutes…! He considered his (very few) options: 1. Fra