Maybe it was because of the wind that Sehun had to keep on shivering in his jacket, protecting his flail body from the cold. Maybe it was the dry winter air that sent chills up his body, leaving him unable to concentrate for the entirety of the time period. Sehun tried to dig through his probable excuses one by one in this fashion, until he realized a crucial fact.

He was sitting inside a classroom, after all.

But this information, to no avail, could deter him from his nervous and trembling heart. All he had to do was just look at that face, that one face that stuck out from the other boring ones, and he felt as if he was locked in a freezer. Sehun bit his tongue purposefully to disillusion himself from his irritating clutter of thoughts, looking back up from his desk.

Normally, when someone describes a crush, they tend to use such ambient vocabulary and express all of their inner feelings with such warmth. ‘He makes my heart flutter’ was a common saying Sehun would hear from his friends, as well as ‘I don’t know, he just makes me feel all warm inside.’ And truthfully, when he heard these basic comments, Sehun could only shrug his shoulders and manage a fake smile for whoever was feeling so content. It was okay though, because Sehun held no malice for someone else having warm feelings; it was just such a foreign experience to him because he sincerely could not empathize.

If it wasn’t clear enough, Sehun was an outlier in his group. An outlier that lay so tremendously far from the center, that if the center was Earth, they would be gazing up at Sehun and commenting that he had to have been the North Star, existing so distantly that he couldn’t have been one of them. But sadly, he was a human – a human with things called feelings.

Being in high school just worsened Sehun’s case of sore feelings, as he had no control over himself. It was extremely easy to just look around, pick out an aesthetically pleasing male face, and develop an instantaneous feeling of attraction that could silently last maybe two, three days? He never kept track of these fleeting feelings.

Nevertheless, it was this specific winter day that Sehun truly paid attention to his so-called emotions. He was in his new English class of the semester, sitting down patiently and alone until the bell rang and everyone reported to their classes. Sehun did not really care for English or anyone that might end up in his class, for he was ahead of his peers in this subject by one year simply by the ability of learning faster than them. Any friends he made were most likely to be older than him and graduating sooner than him, so he didn’t place weight on making acquaintances.

That is, until the most gorgeous boy he’d ever seen slid through the door at the last minute.

For once in his life, Sehun was begging on the inside to become acquainted with this model-like boy, because he was truly smitten with looks alone. He daydreamed of the other boy’s firm cheekbones, soft skin, and cutely parted hair, secretly wishing that he could just come into contact with each feature. And like a fool, Sehun let the feeling of attraction dwell the entire hour, sure of himself that come next week, the attraction would disappear into the wind.

“Alright class, welcome to Advanced English with me as your teacher,” the woman standing in front of the class began, jutting into Sehun’s thoughts like a cold frost. “My name is Mrs. Park, and I will be doing my best to get you all fluent in English by the end of this year,” she declared with confidence. “First off, let’s take attendance.”

Sehun’s eyes quickly scanned the room for the target of affections upon hearing Mrs. Park, and his gaze immediately landed on the back of cute boy’s head. He trained his eyes upon him, anticipating the boy’s answer to his name, and when he responded with a shy, raised hand to ‘Kim Jongdae,’ Sehun was already internally swooning. What a cute name, he thought.

As Mrs. Park neared the end of her list, Sehun tapped his fingers on his desk in a dissonant beat. Soft anxiety overtook him momentarily, as he hoped that he hadn’t screwed up his schedule and was supposed to be in a different classroom, away from the cute boy. Nevertheless, when he was able to respond to the call for ‘Oh Sehun,’ he was silently grateful that he did not have be exiled from the class, and the anxiety washed away. In fact, maybe it was possible that he saw that cute boy – Kim Jongdae, he meant – turn back and smile in his direction when his name was called.

Stop it, Sehun, he internally told himself. The frost was settling back over him again. By nature of teenage boys, Kim Jongdae would probably do something foolish within the next week and make Sehun lose any sort of affection for him. It was just one of his visual attractions, Sehun recited to himself, and it would be over soon. Besides, Sehun wasn’t ever in a position to declare his feelings for his crushes. He had everything and nothing to risk.

When class ended, he packed up his belongings and followed the flowing crowd of students out, both happy and sad that Kim Jongdae got out before he did.

~~~

The next morning, Sehun and his two friends are gathered around their normal lunch table, discussing what happened on their first days.

“How are all of your new schedules?” Seulgi asks with a cheerful smile, the brightness reaching her eyes.

“Mine didn’t even change at all, so same old I guess,” Seungwan answers with a huff, pushing her bangs out of her eyesight.

“What about you, Sehun?” Seulgi questions, finding Seungwan to not have an interesting enough answer for her.

“Nothing interesting over here, either,” he answers with slight indifference.

Seulgi doesn’t seem to take pleasure to Sehun’s brief response as well, complaining, “Oh come on guys! There’s got to be something new and fresh about your classes! How about any eye candy?” Seulgi persistently asks, and again her eyes shift between both of her friends.

“I think I’ve made it clear that I’m not interested in any of the boys in our grade,” Seungwan fires back, and Seulgi shakes her head in annoyance.

“I totally agr