Kyuhyun hated strangers. As a rule she hated most people, but strangers were the worst. And one had taken it upon himself to approach her. 

“You’re Kui Xian, right?” 

She was going to kick Zhou Mi for being late. 

“Kyuhyun, yes. Why?” 

She glared. Glaring usually led to people leaving her alone, however this boy it seemed was either stupid or completely unphased. 

“Zhou Mi mentioned he was meeting you for singing class, I’ve seen you walking together before.” 

Definitely kicking him. 

Kyuhyun opened to ask why that meant bothering her, but was distracted by Zhou Mi walking through the gates. It wasn’t him who distracted her, but the boy Zhou Mi was talking to. He was shorter, though most people were, but he was noticeably shorter. His brown hair was messily thrown into a ponytail and his eyes almost sparkled when he smiled at something Zhou Mi said to him. 
What the . Kyuhyun did not look at boys like she was interested, or use the word sparkle. Maybe she was getting sick. Glaring at Zhou Mi might help. 

“Kui Xian!” 

“Kyuhyun!” 

“Fine, Kyuhyun.” 

Zhou Mi struggled to pronounce her name correctly as always. 

“Sorry I’m late, I was trying to hunt Dong Hai down. He’s joining our class.” 

Zhou Mi grinned, nearly blinding everyone. Kyuhyun noticed Zhou Mi had ignored Dong Hai's attempt to correct him that it was 'Donghae'. She really was going to have to teach him to pronounce names at some point. 

“Heechul? Why are you here?” 

Kyuhyun glanced at the boy who had been bothering her. That was Heechul? The one Zhou Mi never stopped talking about? 

“What? Can’t I stand outside my own school? Want me to leave Seasoning?” 

Kyuhyun grinned, making a mental note of the nickname. 

“God Heechul, don’t be such a . He was just asking why you are still here.” 

Kyuhyun tried very hard to ignore the effect Donghae’s voice had just had on her. And failed. Crap. 

“Would you two just get together already anyway, the tension between you is driving everyone else mad.” 

Kyuhyun grinned again, at the blush creeping onto Zhou Mi’s face, not to mention the horrified squeak he had made at Donghae’s words. 

“Kui Xian?” 

Kyuhyun glared at Heechul for the stress he put onto that. 

“You should walk ahead, need to talk to your friend” 

Kyuhyun huffed impatiently and stormed off, it was almost a minute before she realised that Donghae was walking with her. 

“Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to make him more late, but the two of them are being pretty pathetic. Heechul was only out here because he thinks you are Zhou Mi’s girlfriend.” 

Kyuhyun looked at Donghae in disbelief. 

“I know, stupid right? Zhou Mi is the gayest person I have ever met, other than Heechul!” 

He laughed. Kyuhyun laughed too, whilst admiring how nice Donghae’s laugh was. As if to prove Donghae’s point, Zhou Mi literally skipped up next to Kyuhyun. 

“I have a date!” 

“About time.” 

“Are you still mad at me?” 

Kyuhyun kicked him. 

******* 

Kyuhyun collapsed on to her bed face down. 

It had been hard to concentrate in class again. As soon as Donghae opened his mouth to start singing, her brain stopped functioning. She was going to kill Zhou Mi. Two classes per week, for three weeks now, and her little crush (she refused to say infatuation), had not subsided one bit. 

She was sure too, that if Zhou Mi hadn’t been so wrapped up in Heechul, he would have spotted the way Kyuhyun looked at Donghae, like he was something edible, and would be making some botched attempt at matchmaking, more than likely aided by Heechul. 

The thing was, Kyuhyun wasn’t like the other girls she knew. She didn’t want a boyfriend, she had important things going on; schoolwork, college applications, and levelling up on her new game. It wasn’t like Kyuhyun was innocent. She had dated her fair share of boys, but since entering her last years of school, that had come first. Even so, before now a boy had never distracted her like this. She had never particularly wanted someone. Truth be told they had always wanted her before she noticed them. Besides, it didn’t mean she couldn’t look. 

And she was perfectly ok to get a little bit jealous at the who girls fawned over him. 

********* 

Zhou Mi was going to be the death of her. 

To be more precise, Zhou Mi insisting she join him and Heechul at Donghae’s dance recital was going to be the death of her. She had never wanted to arms before, but god she could go to town on those things. She had to bite her lip as Donghae bent his knees, dropping right down to the floor before jumping back up and ing, yet again, into midair. Kyuhyun had decided somewhere near the start of this dance that she would quite like to be that bit of air. 

Donghae winked at one of the girls crowded around the front of the stage to watch his dance. Kyuhyun recognised a lot of them from her school. She tried not to growl and instead ground her teeth in annoyance. 

“Kui…hyun, are you ok?” 

“Headache” 

“Don’t worry, we're leaving as soon as Donghae’s performance is over. He wants to make a quick escape to avoid them” 

Zhou Mi gestured to the group of screaming girls and Kyuhyun couldn’t help feel a little smug that he wasn’t making a quick escape to avoid her. 

Donghae met them seconds after his performance, outside the venue, running with his bag off one shoulder. He hadn’t changed, much to Heechul's disgust seeing as they were walking to his house to eat. 

*** 

Kyuhyun was quite happy watching a bead of sweat roll slowly over Donghae’s collarbone. She was very grateful that Donghae had chosen to dance in the black tank top he was still wearing. Her food lay forgotten on the table in front of her. 

“Kyuhyun, are you ok? You look a bit flushed. That headache still bothering you?” 

No, the proximity of a sleeveless Donghae was bothering her. 

She nodded. Big mistake. Donghae leaned over, putting his hand on her forehead to check her temperature. Her cheeks flushed crimson, her skin superheating under his hand. Her heart was pounding. She risked a glance at Zhou Mi, the look on his face said he had finally paid enough attention to figure it out. 

“Woah! You’ve got a fever, maybe you should go lie down or something?” 

It wasn’t just the look on Heechul's face that made her shake her head. She had to leave, before she did something really stupid - like jump Donghae and rip off all his clothing. 

*** 

Kyuhyun said her goodbyes and left, the evening air cooling down her skin. She looked up at the black clouds overhead. Just her luck, it started to rain instantly. She had managed to walk past four houses when something black appeared over her head and made her scream loudly. Donghae was next to her holding an umbrella, almost crying with laughter. Kyuhyun snapped. 

“What are you doing?” 

Donghae laughed more, it took him a while to calm down enough to talk. 

“Walking you home, Zhou Mi was freaking out that you would get pneumonia” 

Stupid Zhou Mi. 

“Oh, thank you?” 

More laughing. 

“No problem Kui Xian.” 

Kyuhyun really wondered why she was friends with Zhou Mi. 

Under the umbrella Kyuhyun noticed just how close Donghae was, she could even see the goosebumps appearing on his still arms from the cold air. As she watched him absentmindedly his lips out of the corner of her eye, she couldn’t stop the rush of inappropriate images that flooded her brain. Her skin heated up again. She was definitely going to hell. 

Donghae, it turned out, was surprisingly easy to talk to when Heechul wasn’t there continually voicing his opinion. Mostly this seemed to be because if she got him started on a subject he would just keep talking about it, with minimal input from her. She was kind of disappointed as they reached her house. 

“Thank you for walking me home.” 

She had to hold onto the gate to stop from throwing herself onto his lips. 

“No problem, it was fun.” 

Donghae’s smile made Kyuhyun’s knees shake. She had to grip the gate harder. 

“Thanks for coming today by the way, really helped knowing you guys were there.” 

“No problem, it was fun.” 

She smiled using Donghae’s words back, ignoring the way that her heart sank a little at the fact it wasn’t just aimed at her and smiling as she waved bye and went into the house. She leaned against the closed door and turned to face her mother who had been peeping through the little curtained window next to the door, and scowled. 

“Well he’s cute, well done kiddo!” 

Kyuhyun groaned and went upstairs to do her homework and kill CGI things before bed. Her dreams were full of hip s and muscular arms.