“Turn it off, Luhan,” Minseok mumbles into the pillow. “Too loud.” 

Luhan’s alarm cuts through the lazy morning air and leaves his head pounding when he heaves himself upright on the bed. He swipes his hand across the bedside table, looking for his phone. Silencing it and disregarding the notifications flooding the screen, he sinks back into the mattress with an arm slung over Minseok. He feels another arm snaking around him as Minseok stirs.

“Don’t you have class?” Craving warmth, he inches closer and closer, resting his head in the crook of Luhan’s neck. 

“No,” Luhan lies easily. 

Unimpressed, Minseok cracks open his eyes and raises an eyebrow. Luhan ignores him, using his legs hooked around Minseok’s waist to prevent further movement.

“Luhan…” 

“Not today,” he mumbles into Minseok’s hair. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”

Minseok doesn’t answer him after that and Luhan is too tired to open his eyes again.

“Tomorrow,” he promises as he slips under.

Luhan wakes up to his roommate lightly slapping his face. 

“Wake up, wake up! You weren’t in class today. You overslept again, didn’t you?” 

Luhan groans, rolling over onto the other side of his bed, his comforter all tangled in between his legs. Yixing mercilessly opens the blinds and he shoves his head into the pillow, determined to not let a ray of light shine down on him. 

“Don’t make me do it, Luhan!” Yixing warns. 

Before he has a chance to respond, Yixing robs him of his blankets and uses his own pillow to smack his . Cold and most definitely awake now, Luhan swings his legs over the edge of his bed to snatch back his things with a huff. 

“I swear you’re evil. Why am I the only one burdened with this knowledge?”

Yixing ignores him to grab something from his backpack. It’s a notebook covered with stickers that he s unceremoniously into Luhan’s arms. 

“You have one more excused absence before you start getting points off,” he reminds him. “These are the notes from today’s lecture, and there’s an exam next week. You can keep that, by the way. I have another copy.”

Luhan tosses the notebook onto his desk and moves to his dresser mirror to check his hair. As always, his bedhead is out of control and he messes around with it, trying to smooth sections down. Yixing picks up the notes and hands them to Luhan again, this time with more force. 

“You’re failing your classes, Luhan,” he stresses. 

If there’s one person Yixing has a fierce amount of affection for, its Luhan, which is why he clenches his jaw upon hearing his friend’s noncommittal hum. His nails dig into his hands, leaving angry red crescents behind as Luhan just stares at his reflection. 

“Fine. If you don’t want my help, fine!” 

Luhan watches wordlessly through his mirror as Yixing storms out of the room. Once he’s gone, he pads softly back to his bed and pulls the covers over his head, unmoving until the air grows suffocating. 

“You upset Yixing.” Minseok stares at him thoughtfully, sipping on an americano. Luhan does his best to not make eye contact and busies himself with adjusting the cardboard sleeve on his drink.

“He upset himself,” he reasons, and Minseok shakes his head. 

“Why did you do it? He’s only trying to help.” 

“He cares too much. Don’t you have anyone like that in your life?” 

Minseok sets his cup down and pretends to think. 

“Hmm…nope,” he concludes with a grin. “I’ve only got you.” 

Luhan smiles back, thankful that Minseok always knows what to say. 

“Can I sit here?” Yixing hovers by the table, balancing three plates and a drink precariously in his arms. Luhan nods and he sets everything down, sighing in relief. “I’m sorry for snapping at you, Luhan.” 

“It’s okay.” His cereal is getting soggy. 

“I’m just worried. You’ve been like this for…a while. You understand, right?”

Luhan nods even though he doesn’t understand and watches the milk eat at his fruit loops. Yixing gets through a plate and a half before speaking up again. 

“Hey, listen…me and the guys were planning on maybe seeing that new movie this weekend. I think it has one of the guys from Fast and Furious…I don’t really know the details. But do you wanna come?” 

Luhan thinks about fast cars and explosions and theaters stuffed to the brim with noisy people chewing popcorn obscenely, feeling his chest clench. Still, he pretends to be interested even though there’s no way he’s going, just to make Yixing happy. 

“Who’s going?” 

“Baekhyun, Kris, Chanyeol…maybe some others?”

“I’ll think about it.” 

“Okay! Let me know what you decide.” Yixing looks pleased with himself and Luhan thinks about how upset he’ll look when he finds out he won’t be going. 

He’s not hungry anymore.

It’s early in the morning and Luhan can’t sleep. He’s gone to the bathroom twice already and spent the rest of the time staring up at the ceiling, staring holes into it. His pillow is cool and there’s no background noise to distract his mind, but sleep still alludes him, just barely reaching his feet like the tide before pulling away again. 

Luhan listens to Yixing’s soft snores from across the room, a hollow feeling settling itself deep in his stomach. 

He misses Minseok. 

“Hey.” Minseok slides onto the couch next to Luhan, pressing up against his side. “Didn’t see you the other day. Where’d you go?”

Luhan shrugs, aimlessly channel surfing. He doesn’t want to watch anything, but eventually he stops on a rerun of old cartoons. 

“I couldn’t fall asleep,” he admits. Minseok raises an eyebrow. 

“That’s no good. How about now?” 

“Took a sleeping pill.” 

“You sure that’s okay?” 

Luhan watches mindlessly as Wile E. Coyote runs straight into a mountain painted to look like a stretch of road and Roadrunner pops up in the corner of the screen with a cheeky grin on its face. Minseok laces their fingers together.

“What do you mean?” 

“I feel like Yixing wouldn’t like this.” 

An anvil lands right on Wile E. Coyote’s head.

“I’m an adult,” Luhan says, for lack of a better response. 

“Are you?” 

Luhan checks his phone when he wakes up, and the first thing he sees is three missed calls from Yixing and series of texts. 

[xing]: where've you been

[xing]: i hope you got lunch I'm at a seminar for extra credit

[xing]: it’s boring

[xing]: text me back so i know you're not dead

[luhan]: was with minseok

[luhan]: not dead

[yxing]: finally

[xing]: wait whos minseok

[xing]: did you make a new friend omg

[xing]: without telling us

[luhan]: haha

[luhan]: have i not mentioned him before

[xing]: ummm idk have you???

“Yixing wants to meet you.” Luhan digs his toes into the warm sand and wiggles them around. 

“What’d you say to him?” 

“Nothing.” 

“You gonna keep me a secret forever?” 

Luhan leans into Minseok’s side, the sun filtering through his wide brimmed hat to create a crisscross pattern on his face. 

“Maybe,” he jokes. 

“Interesting,” comes the teasing reply. 

“Whatever.” Luhan peers up at Minseok. “Can I kiss you now?”

Minseok startles, a blush dusting his cheeks. 

“Only if you can catch me!” Quick as anything, he slips out of Luhan’s grasp and starts running towards the water, one hand holding his hat in place. When he looks back, Luhan is following close behind and they both crash into the cold waves at the same time. 

“Luhan!” 

“Minseok?”

“Luhan, wake up! Dammit, Luhan.” 

His eyes snap open to a very unhappy roommate standing over his bed with his arms crossed and he rubs his eyes blearily, sitting up.

“Yixing?”

“Why didn’t you answer my calls? I got locked out of the building and had to wait a million years before someone let me in.” 

“Uh, sorry…I was with Minseok at the…” Luhan looks around at his room. The covers are bunched up around his waist and it’s dark outside. “…the beach.”

Yixing is always staring at him nowadays, boring holes into his skull from across the room with words on the tip of his tongue he can never quite manage to choke out or swallow back down. Luhan wishes he would just spit it out, but when he does he regrets ever trying to make Yixing talk. 

“Are you still seeing…him?” 

Luhan doesn’t like the way Yixing talks about Minseok, skirting around and throwing casual remarks that are anything but. Avoiding his name and avoiding his gaze like Minseok is something to be ashamed about, something to keep contained. It’s insulting and demeaning and every other horrible word because Minseok is the best thing that’s ever happened to Luhan and he doesn’t deserve this. Minseok is the best thing to ever happen to Luhan and Yixing doesn’t know anything. 

Baekhyun stops chewing for a split second to shoot Yixing a confused look. 

“What?” 

“Stop talking with your mouth full,” Yixing chides. Baekhyun waves it off. 

“Wait, so you think this guy is what?” 

Yixing leans forward, elbows on the table, and drops his voice to a whisper. 

“I don’t think Minseok is real.”