“...She fell asleep on me...”

“...It’s not like she’s soooo heavy for you or something...”

“...Nah, I’ll pass. I don’t wanna carry Mina...”

“...She’s not a disease, chill boy..”

Mina heard some deep mumbles over her head. She didn’t know where she was exactly or what the heck happened. Was she asleep? Probably. The road back home was a lengthy one and she remembered resting her head on the mirror while Kyungsoo drove away. She was a sleep girl anyway. The easiest of things made her fall asleep. Boredom was one of them, which was a default mode when you’re with Kyungsoo who refused to turn on some songs in his car. 

She opened her eyes slowly and replied back to the blurry figure beside Kyungsoo — with the new figure, the others were behind — without even figuring out who exactly he was. 

“I’m not a disease, chill boy.” She repeated, in drunken sleepiness, whatever the second boy said; Suho, her head said, now that she opened her eyes and gauged the situation and his pretty face. So she definitely fell asleep, and now she woke up to their voices talking over her head as they dared to open her door and hover around her like lunatics. Yeah, Suho wasn’t the only one present. There were the rest too. She tried opening more of her hazy eyes and she could spot them all snapping their heads towards her at hearing her voice. Every one of her friends was around the car, parked right across her apartment.

“It’s not about that,” Kyungsoo, from her peripheral sight, could be seen rolling his eyes. “It’s just, my arms are too precious. Let one of your boyfriends do it. Or, let the sugar daddy handle it!”

Mina smiled, despite her grogginess, and she sat straight up in the passenger seat. She blinked her eyes once, twice, and the blurry images of her boys gathered together into one. She could see Suho and Kyungsoo upfront, while the rest were behind them, worriedly eyeing her.

Ahhh. So they were here because of what happened in the hospital. She remembered Kyungsoo telling them about it too. It made sense that they’d wait for her return and gather around her apartment so they could receive her together.

“When did I deem myself as a sugar daddy?” Suho asked in puzzlement, eyes wide and blinking. Everyone behind him rolled their eyes with a snort, in simultaneous gestures, and Kyungsoo couldn’t help but to smirk. 

“I’ll do it!” Baekhyun enthusiastically bellowed, raising one of his arm in volunteering. He was deadly set about being the one carrying her to her room. 

“Chill, Baek, she’s awake,” Chanyeol, who was beside him and Yixing, huffed. “She can carry her own .”

“I have a cute though.” She murmured in exhaustion, dropping her head back on the doorframe of the car and waiting for them to make a decision about who’ll carry her. She treated herself like a spoiled princess sometimes—  sue her. She was dead tired, too. She deserved that, in the least.

“Mina, do you want one of us to carry you in the house?” Yixing sweetly asked, ignoring Baekhyun and Chanyeol and generally everyone else. Mina turned to him and gave him a sweet smile, but her attention was swiped by soft and tender Kai, who agreed with Yixing. 

“Yeah, Mina. Let one of us take you. You look nearly devastated.”

“More like, she looked like she was run over by a tornado.” Sehun smirked almost instantly, proud of his own words, and Jongdae quickly retaliated.

“How does someone gets run over by a tornado?” Jongdae had his eyebrows high strung on his forehead in disbelieve.

“You should have stuck with the car.” Baekhyun joined the teasing, giving Sehun a look, lips pursed to hide a laugh. 

Mina, having noticed the teasing boys and the angry-looking Sehun, decided to be more of a tease and raised both of her arms towards Sehun. 

“I want Sehun to carry me.”

Sehun gave her a look as if she was crazy. She wasn’t exactly very keen on having Sehun taking her, either, but if it made him a victim of bullying, then she’d suffer with him just to see him fall. She was that evil.

“Hell no!” Sehun exclaimed. “I’d rather carry a huge husky house dog!”

“Sehuuuuuun. I want Sehunnn.” She whined like the definite brat she was; she was even doing grabby hands at him like a baby. The boy huffed like a mule, wondering what it’d take from him if he yanked his hair out of his head. His scalp would probably hate him for the rest of his pathetic existence but whatever, there was no way he could show his frustration to that known as Mina. 

“Sehun, just do it,” Suho sighed like he had the weight of the world over his shoulders, and Sehun shifted his glare to him. “She looks exhausted as it is. We don’t want her to stay in the car while she’s tired.”

“She needs to lay on a bed.” Yixing agreed, nodding his head like an obedient nursery student. 

“I honestly think she’s just acting like a child, but who cares, right?” Minseok sighed through his nose while shrugging his shoulders, the tiny space between the car and the front door of the apartment squishing them all due to their large number together, and Minseok wasn’t even able to do his shrug normally, his shoulders brushing against Chanyeol. 

“I’ll carry you, baby,” Baekhyun cooed gently, taking a few steps forward and lifting his hands up as if readying himself to grab her. “Sehun’s a jerk. He’d probably drop you on the floor and pretend it’s an accident. Do you really want that?”

Mina didn’t think he was telling anything wrong, but she wasn’t about to fall for that either.

“Not on Suho’s watch.” Mina poked her tongue out at Baekhyun, who was quickly pouting pathetically at the decline and stomping his feet on the ground. Suho, upon hearing his name, turned to them. 

“Yes, she’s right, not my watch. Sehun, take her.” Suho ordered, crossing his arms on his chest.

It was kinda funny how they were circling around the car like sore and ugly thumbs and discussing who was going to carry Mina like a serious subject. Mina too, was fighting off a smile. 

“Fine!” Sehun yelled, glaring ten times harder at Mina. “You’re the incarnate of Satan, do you know that?” Sehun growled as he came closer.

“And you’re the son of Lucifer, do you know that?” She retaliated, smiling deviously.

Sehun moved closer and then bent down as if giving her the chance to clutch onto him. She did so easily, wrapping her arms around his neck and crawling closer to the end of the seat so he could circle her legs with his strong and muscular arms. He pulled up and straightened with a deep and sorrowful huff, as if she weighed a dozen, and she merely sighed loudly in joy. She even went to the limit to nuzzle his neck with her nose and bathe herself in his silky warmth, the scent of his perfume and aftershave. Wow, Sehun actually smelled nice!

“Woah!” She exclaimed dreamily, wiggling her legs monstrously in his grip and causing him to yelp at the sudden misbalance these moves caused him, as he tweaked to the side. She paid him no heed. “You’re so warm, Sehunnie!”

“Stop. Moving!” He crushed her legs to his chest to stop them from wiggling. “Or I swear on this rotten, biased piece of land, that I’m going to drop you!”

She wiggled even more, purposefully of course, and despite his iron hold around her legs, the force of her wiggle made him take an unconscious step forward, his legs intertwining and threatening to collapse. The other boys’ faces were becoming red with how hard they were suppressing their laughter at the two, and none of them had a twinge of remorse or apology at how much suffer Sehun looked to be in. 

“Do it, I dare you,” She smirked, wiggling more in his arms. “I’ll make sure to stick a pole up your while you sleep!”

He gasped. “How inauthentic! !”

“!”

“I’m dropping you, that’s it—“ 

“Sehun—“ she whined, wiggling more and tightening her grip around his neck to the point where his poor neck felt like it was wrapped by iron rods. She was that awful when she wanted to be. Sehun was this close to falling dramatically on the ground on his knees and weeping out loud. But no, he was a man, he reminded himself with a pat on the back. She was doing this on purpose as if she was testing him or something, seeing if he’d break, and knowing her, she was really just waiting for the fall.

He was not going to fall for it. 

“Urgh, you’re freaking impossible.” He murmured indigenously. 

Sehun took her to the house while she finally stopped moving, opting to bury herself on him like a leech and taking a whiff of his nice and manly scent, him huffing like he was being tortured. The boys all followed after them and someone was heard muffling his snickers, or at least trying to muffle his snickers as he wasn’t very successful. Kai was the last one in and he shut the door behind him. 

Sehun went up the stairs while the rest trickled towards the living room like ants. She ignored his (fake) struggles and brushed the ends of his hair on his neck with a soothing hum. Sehun, upon hearing her humming while touching his hair (a gesture he didn’t want to admit of being soothing) looked down curiously at her. 

“What song are you singing?”

“Party in the USA, Miley Cyrus.” She casually answered, looking at the ends of his silver hair and noticing the dark roots hidden beneath. 

“Ew,” Sehun grimaced, looking ahead at the stairs he was ascending, his legs long and heavy-moving so his steps were more of stomps than real steps. Clearly he wasn’t enjoying himself. “What a ty taste of songs.”

“Ew,” she replied back flatly, her eyes on his sharp jaw. “What a ty taste of people to carry me.”

“You take that back right away!” He grimaced, shaking her in his arms and making her gasp, thinking he’d drop her so she clutched to him even more tightly, her arms around his neck choking him. “I’m most definitely the prettiest er in this entire town.”

“Who threw up on your face and lied to you? ChungJi’s sooo much better looking than you.”

“Who the is Chung— no!” He gasped, offended and irritated at the name she uttered. He knew she was messing with him by that name, but he couldn’t help himself and fell straight for that pit of poker face. “You did not just mention my bully from eighth grade, you er.”

“I did,” She smiled smugly, curling the baby hairs of his neck around her fingers. Fortunately, she didn’t tug them. “And you can’t do anything about it.”

“Suho might not let me drop you on the floor, but I’ll definitely drop you on the bed!”

“That’s what we’re taking ages to achieve, Se-bubble-head, but someone just has to take an entire decade to do a simple task as that.”

“Just know something,” Sehun huffed tiredly, smacking the door of her room with his leg and then marching inside like it was a military base.  “It’s a secret so don’t tell anyone, but I hate you so freaking much.”

“Aw, but I love you, you .”

He gasped, yet again, and when he saw her bed, he dropped her violently on it which made her pounce twice before finally settling down. She merely poked her tongue out at his back as he twirled around to leave hurriedly, not an ounce of guilt building up in him to make him watch if she was okay first before leaving. Thankfully— he didn’t catch her tongue and how she was poking it at him, and she sighed, the thoughts of her dad quickly attacking her again now when she was trapped in nothing but silence.

Seriously though, she wasn’t being an exclusive brat because she wanted to be one, or that she wanted to torture her poor boys — especially Sehun — but she knew that if she showed her true, real feelings, they’d be more worried than they already are, and truthfully, she didn’t want to watch Suho’s anxious eyes or Yixing’s worried, screwed lips, or Kai’s vulnerability. She was a , but she didn’t want any harmful emotions to come over her friends, especially not because of her.

Being loud also helped douse her feelings, her thoughts, and her traitorous heartbeats. Her father’s face was the only thing on her mind and indulging her friends in their playful atmosphere wiped his images away immensely. Now while she was alone, preferably to sleep, all of her anxiety came back to her, and she felt her heart raise up to lay on , choking her.

She cried herself to sleep, that day. 

-

She woke up precisely two hours later.

She went downstairs almost immediately, still in her day clothes and still in her hair which she was sure resembled a bird’s nest by now. She hoped silently that her eyes weren’t resembling gorged apple pies or something equally disgusting and she hoped they didn’t leak any tears either. She co