Zhang Yixing, nicknamed as ‘Lay’, is just a normal university student who has a huge crush on the honor student in the business department, Kris Wu. Sounds like another cliché story, right? Well, as if his life isn’t cliché enough, the honor student just happens to be his childhood friend and is well-known for his multiple relationships with girls from different universities.

In this cliché situation, he could only keep quiet and ignore the feelings, acting like the feelings never exist in the first place. It’s not actually intentional though, Lay has always been a man with a few words. Unlike his childhood friend, he always finds it unnecessary to speak to people unless there is a good reason to do so. He also likes to avoid crowds and tend to skip parties or trips when he can. That’s another difference between them. Another popular nickname given to him is ‘Mister JPG’, because he tends to space out a lot, even in class.

Somehow, he managed to be friends with a small circle at their university thanks to a pair of glasses and a trash can. His mother actually burst into tears when Kris told her that Lay has made friends with a bunch of other kids in their university. If they didn’t have final exams in the upcoming week, Lay was so sure that his mother would make them go to their hometown and celebrate for three days and three nights, overreacting much?

It is not his mother’s fault though that her only son is a tight-lipped snowman who could make the atmosphere in the room dropped below zero with one stare. It doesn’t help with the fact that Lay has been homeschooled till secondary school and has an issue interacting with people his age. Well apart from the oh-so-handsome, Kris Wu, that is.

According to his mother, his first encounter with Kris was like a miracle in December. On the chilly night of Christmas Eve when he was twelve years old, his parents had brought him to go shopping. He remember it all too well, the conversation between his parents stressing about where to send him for his secondary education, the ugly red sweater his mom made him wear, and the obnoxious red and green headband.

They were walking around the crowded street, with his mom and dad being overly sweet and sickly at each other, holding hands and stuffs, and he was walking alongside them with the words ‘I am so sick of you lovey dovey couple’ planted on his entire face. It was in front of the big Christmas tree on the main street that they literally bumped into his mother’s best friend in high school a.k.a Kris’ pretty mom and Kris’ adorable thirteen years old self.

It was not love at first sight; of course that kind of stuffs only exist in the fictions and novels his mom loves to read. His first impression of Kris was a lanky tall boy with a bright smile on his face that makes him look silly. While their parents were talking, the older boy tried to strike a conversation with the straight-face Lay.

‘Hi! I go by a lot of names, but I guess now you can call me Kris, Kris Wu. What’s your name?’

‘Zhang Yixing’

He remembers talking back in a very soft voice and the memories of the conversation became muddle. The next time he saw Kris was in their secondary school; it seemed like his mother had decided to put him into the same school and class as Kris so he can start interacting with kids his age.

Slowly, he started to become good friends with Kris, the ever-so-popular guy of the grade. He was everything a male student at that age wanted to be, rich, popular with girls, handsome, good at sports, and an honor student. Basically, he was the typical stereotype of the main character in those manga collections his mother likes to read. Meanwhile Lay, who was also (secretly) worshipped by the girls in their grade, was a studious student who like to blend in the background. In his secondary years, Lay had to decline every time the school asked him to take a photo of him receiving the awards for his classes while Kris, who also got those kinds of reward, basked in all the glory that came with it.

It was in the second year of high school that Lay realized his feelings for his best friend with the help of a basketball and a dark chocolate cake. Realizing his feelings and accepting them is certainly different, it took Lay a year to even start to acknowledge the feelings he had for his best friend, but then it took him only a month to start ignoring them again. A month after accepting those feelings, Kris came up to him with this short and cute girl with big eyes and introduces her as his girlfriend.

It was the first time Lay felt like he was punch in this face by Kris’ bright smile. It was also the first time Kris had ever introduced someone as his girlfriend, not that he had never had any flings before the chibi-looking girl. He can literally sense the happiness oozing out of the couple and that made him sick to the point he wanted to puke.

Nevertheless, Lay started to give up on the idea of dating Kris, and he started to date other people as well. LuHan, who was friends with them since the third year of secondary school, thinks that Lay only did that to forget about Kris. How in the world did he know of Lay’s feelings was a complete mystery, but Lay never agree or disagree to anything the guy said, which makes Kris think that LuHan was only teasing Lay.

Atlas, the overly pink atmosphere in autumn passed and Kris broke up with his first girlfriend. Winter came and Lay also came out of the closet, telling his parents about his ual orientation. It was one of the most awkward moments in his life even though he tried to make it as normal as possible. His parents’ reaction was beyond belief; any normal parents would have cried or even kicked him out of their house. However, his mom was crying (in joy) as she had always been a fan of those manga collections while his father had awkwardly gave him a pat on the back and failed miserably to mumble the word ‘cool’ with a smiling face.

Kris’ initial reaction to his ual preference was also something he didn’t expect. He had expected that the guy would turn away in disgust or even tried to distant himself from him, but Kris reacted with a normal ‘Oh~’ and treated him normally.

Years passed by and they both got into the same university at South Korea with Kris majoring in Business and Lay majoring in Literature. For convenience, they both share a medium size apartment near their university. Kris instantly becomes popular with his friendly nature while Lay just watches everything from the sidelines. He became friends with Oh SeHun, Park ChanYeol, Byun BaekHyun, and Kim JongDae on the orientation day when Byun BaekHyun, who had accidentally break his own glasses, tripped and crash into the trash can while trying to find his way to his friends. Lay, who had woken up earlier than Kris, saw the incident and decided to help the poor boy as BaekHyun mistook Lay to be JongDae.

Long story short, their little group started to become closer and Kris joined in. Life goes along and Lay’s feelings for Kris resurfaced in one fateful evening before their Christmas Holiday when a drunken Kris pulled a-not-so-sober Lay into a short brief kiss.