“Oh, my little baby trio! How much I’ve missed you so!” Luhan engulfed Jongdae and Kyungsoo in a big bear hug. Even with the frame of a twig, the theater major put a lot of muscle into his embrace that it was almost suffocating. Releasing them out of his arms, Luhan looked around the busy auditorium, then narrowed his eyes. “Wait, where’s Baekhyun?”

 

“He’ll be on campus right at 5pm, the cutoff time to move in.” Jongdae supplied helpfully. “He says that this way he can soak up as much of the summer break as he can.”

 

“That weirdo.” Luhan sighed, blowing his fluffy blonde hair away from his forehead. His eyes lighted up excitedly as he pushed them to sit in the seats right in front of the stage. Xiumin was tuning his violin in the orchestra pit beside them and chatting with a sullen cellist. He gave a small nod to Jongdae.

 

“So tell me, what did I miss last semester?”

 

Jongdae noticeably stiffened. Kyungsoo patted his thigh lightly in response, “Besides what we told you on that annoying group chat? Nothing has changed.”

 

Luhan pouted, pulling back the sleeves of his white blazer in annoyance, “Hmp, you’re no fun. After all I’ve gifted you as your beloved vocal TA? At least I cared to update you on Yifan and Tao’s honeymoon. When I met up with them at my campus, I was more like a third wheel than anything. It was so gross and mushy.” He shuddered at the memory, “I mean, at least give me the chance to voluntarily leave the room before you start feeding each other dessert.”

 

“That’s rough,” Jongdae said sympathetically. He remembered how lovey dovey the pair was ever since Tao chased after Yifan those two years ago. Like Luhan, Yifan was a year above them when they met and Tao fell head over heels in love with the composition major. Good thing there was at least some attraction or else Tao would have probably gotten a restraining order for how he constantly and aggressively pursued him. After Yifan mentioned studying abroad in Xi’an Conservatory of Music for a year, Tao immediately decided to follow him. Who knows what Tao would have done had he not been accepted to study abroad with a local dance company. After all of the drama he’d seen with the two, Jongdae still had doubts about it being an equal relationship, but he wasn’t going to be the guy to burst Tao’s bubble.

 

“I know. If I wasn’t in a different program in a different university, can you imagine what I would have seen?” The floor lights started to dim and the audience was quieting down, settling into their seats. Luhan smoothed down his suit and stood up. “Oh, looks like they’re starting. I better head backstage. I’m performing a piece with Lay. Talk to you guys later.”

 

“Thank god,” Kyungsoo whispered to Jongdae as soon as Luhan sneaked away. Jongdae nodded amiably.

 

The president of their school, BoA, gave a long well-intentioned speech to welcome the incoming students. It was nice and encouraging, but Jongdae was yawning for most of it. Maybe he should have skipped like Baekhyun and waited until the last minute to show up on campus. After a pretty cool dance routine by Taemin, a rousing self-composed song by Jonghyun, and a beautiful mashup of classical music by the orchestra department that included an equally amazing violin solo by Xiumin, BoA came back on stage to introduce the final act.

 

“Now, for our last performance, we’d like to present to you a piece performed by two of our senior theater majors. They both studied abroad in the esteemed Shanghai Theater Academy and earned high honors for their participation in Shanghai’s International Theatre Festival for their winter showcase. Please give a warm welcome to Lu Han and Zhang Yixing.”

 

The orchestra opened with a slow humming of strings, followed by a colorful ornamentation of piccolo flutes. Spotlights homed in on the two dancers, each kneeling at opposite sides of the stage with heads bowed. “It’s The Dream of Kitamora,” Jongdae whispered to Kyungsoo, happy that his Modern Asian Screenwriters class was paying off. The play was relatively new. It was a mystical, ghostly tale that revolved around Lord Rosanjin’s feverish dreams that a demon, Kitamura, is coming to kill him. Rosanjin hires two bodyguards to defend him, but accompanied by his hallucinations, they end up killing him instead.

 

At the sound of a booming taiko drum, the performers sprung up onto their feet and traversed the stage with powerful steps. Luhan was impressive, his movements were smooth as he flipped from one stance to another, his eyes never leaving the floor. His partner mirrored his stances and did an artful representation of Kitamura coming to life, the white of his garments almost transparent in the lighting. Jongdae wasn’t much of a dancer, but he could appreciate how much talent was in front of him.

 

As the auditorium was filling out, the performers and musicians stuck around to mingle with each other. Jongdae and Kyungsoo made friendly conversation with the cellist, Sehun, as they waited for Luhan in the orchestra pit. The theater major was currently being bombarded with multiple questions and praises from both inquisitive audience members and star struck students. It wasn’t anything unusual. With his good looks and talent, Luhan had always been popular. Xiumin, to Jongdae’s relief, booked it out of there as soon as the showcase ended, running off to have dinner with Suho.

 

“I thought only upperclassmen were allowed to perform in the Chamber Orchestra.” Kyungsoo said, helping Sehun put away the scattered music sheets around his station.

 

Sehun shrugged. “Sulli had pneumonia and they needed a quick replacement. I was already on campus and knew most of the songs from my symphony course, so they let me play as a substitute. It’s no big deal, I got some free lunches out of it.”

 

“Wait. Actually, why are you even here?” Jongdae inquired, recalling something about a sophomore trip to visit different music conservatories and theaters around the country. “Aren’t you supposed to be on some retreat this week?”

 

“Nah,” Sehun replied, showing them an email that he received from the school’s weekly newsletter, “They cancelled it last minute. Something about unforeseen travel delays and weather conditions.” He didn’t seem at all upset by this. “We’re pretty much chilling on campus now.”

 

Kyungsoo shook his head and frowned. “Lucky you. We were forced to go to a summer camp, and mandatorily required to come up with corny plays and dance routines. It was a mess.”

 

Sehun laughed. “Yeah, we were going to be shipped to that same summer camp, but our class worked out something with the school so that we could do those ‘self-reflecting, friendly, fostering a student community’ activities here.”

 

“Wow, things have definitely changed since BoA became president.” Jongdae said. BoA used to be the VP and the department head of student affairs before her promotion. He always liked her and sometimes stopped by her office hours for a cup of coffee and a small chat.

 

Sehun pulled out a flyer from his pants pocket and handed it over to Jongdae. It was a list of student-led classes scheduled for the next few days, ranging from singing and dancing to theater design and photography. “A few of our sophomore reps are holding classes on subjects that wouldn’t normally be taught in our courses on the condition that they have a formal lesson plan pre-approved by a professor. If they’re well received, we could potentially have them integrated into next year’s orientation.”

 

Kyungsoo skimmed the flyer from over Jongdae’s shoulder, “How to Beatbox like TOP, Freestyle Rapping for Newbies, Aerial Arts, Circus Acts for the Adventurous, Olympic Ribbon Works, Crafting Theater Props Out of Garbage, Blind Photography in the Dark, this is a pretty... interesting list. How is all of this panning out?”

 

“No complaints so far.” Sehun said. “Well except for the circus one, no one wanted to sign up for it at first, but hey, you get a few daring sophomores.”

 

“I’ll say,” Jongdae made a face after reading the description. “Recommended for students who have passed Ballet I & II or have a background in gymnastics. Do not attend if you suffer from any serious heart conditions or lack control of your bladder.”

 

“It’s a joke.” Sehun supplied after seeing twin grimaces. “I’m serious. Kai’s teaching it. Professor Heechul made him rewrite the title and description to give it more flair before giving his permission. It’s more of a modern dance class if anything else.”

 

“Right.” Jongdae replied, handing back the flyer. “Well, I certainly hope so for the sake of anyone taking that class.”

 

“You know Kai. He’s too passionate about dance to do anything dangerous or potentially questionable to jeopardize his reputation. It’s pretty much all he cares about.” Sehun reasoned. Then plastering on a cheeky grin, he continued, “Well, besides the amazing, cute third year who has rejected him without fail for the past year.”

 

Kyungsoo gave him a withering stare. Jongdae hid a snigger. It was one of the best worst kept secrets on campus that Kai has an enormous crush on Kyungsoo. He would carry things for him, walk with him to the dorms after class, and even leave sweets beside his door, which were absolutely delicious by the way. Jongdae would know since he ended up eating most of them.

 

It all started when Kyungsoo decided to take an introductory modern dance lesson to fulfill his general ed requirement. He was going to take it with Jongdae and Baekhyun, but the two classically focused singers were bent on taking a ballet course, which was apparently supposed to give them an edge in nailing roles for traditional stages. Kyungsoo, a modern and jazzy singer, was more interested in using unique and dynamic movements to enhance his vocals. And he most certainly was not the type to care if he had friends in class or not. To everyone’s surprise, Kai bonded closely with the vocalist in that course.

 

Jongdae has asked his friend a thousand times how Kai ended up falling in love with him, but Kyungsoo has firmly kept his lips sealed. And when he had the chance to ask Kai, all the dance major did was blush and stammer out something about an extra water bottle, laughter, and falling. He still hadn’t gotten a good answer from either of them.

 

“Hey, if he heard you were here right now, he’d probably ditch his class to see you.” Sehun said, firing away a text on his phone. “Here, watch.”

 

Although Sehun might seem quiet and gloomy at first glance, he had quite an evil streak hiding behind his handsome face. In fact, he took immense pleasure in toying with and teasing his friends. His favorite victim was Kyungsoo because he was the hardest person to get a reaction out of and when that happened, it would terrorize the whole room and any bystanders stuck inside. It also helped that Kyungsoo was the object of his best friend’s affection and Sehun needed to test his worth. Although he would not admit it, Sehun took great care in helping Kai woo his long-term crush and that included a lot of annoying incidences with the third year. Like this one, for example.

 

“He’s not in love with me.” Kyungsoo breathed out slowly.

 

“You wanna bet?” Sehun smirked, a ping already firing back on his phone. “He’s my roommate too, so I know everything.”

 

“What did you think?” Luhan had impeccable timing. As soon as he untangled himself from his fans, he rushed over to greet them, wiping sweat away from his face with a towel. “Woah, Kyungsoo, chill out. The vein on your forehead is going to burst.”

 

“You did great,” Jongdae answered quickly, giving Kyungsoo time to cool down and compose himself. “Philip Gotanda’s works are not easy to reenact. And doing it while mirroring another performer? That was amazing.”

 

“Pretty cool, huh?” Luhan replied, “We actually met Gotanda at the International Festival before our first performance of the routine. He gave us some great pointers.” He turned to face Sehun and smiled sweetly. “Hey, you’re the cellist that substituted in for Sulli. Sehun, right?”

 

“Uh, yes?” Sehun replied, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

 

“Professor Changmin is looking for you.” Luhan gestured to the back of the theater stage. “He wanted to speak to you about uniforms.”

 

Sehun’s eyes widened in alarm. “Oh, right. Got to go. See you around Jongdae, Kyungsoo.” He gave the other third year a playful smile. Kyungsoo clenched his fists in response.

 

 Luhan whistled, blatantly watching Sehun leave. He bit his lip provocatively. “Wow, I’d definitely take a bite out of that.”

 

“Oh my god,” Jongdae cringed, making fake gagging noises, “I can’t even deal with you right now.”

 

“What?” Luhan asked, not remotely embarrassed at all. “I can’t appreciate a good-looking man when he’s presented right in front of me? Look at those calves, he’s definitely a dancer. And his biceps, mmmm, he could probably lift me up with only his arms. Missed out on some good eye candy when I was abroad.”

 

 Jongdae furrowed his eyebrows. “Do you not remember him? I mean granted, you’ve probably only seen him for like a semester, but he was Suho’s mentee and sat with us for lunch sometimes.”

 

“Did he now?” Luhan put a finger to his lips in thought.

 

“You transferred to the performing arts school around the same time he got here. First years tend to stick to their own department before taking classes at other schools.” Kyungsoo supplied, recovering from his near outburst. “He’s a musician, so you probably didn’t see him much.”

 

Jongdae nodded. That made since. Although students often took overlapping courses between the Chung-Ang’s School of Music and School of Performing Arts, they were still considered separate departments with different advisors, requirements, and expectations. Luhan used to be a vocal music major like them before transferring to the theater department after finding a strong passion for the stage. But since his focus was on music performance, he still had time to become Jongdae, Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo’s TA before fully transferring.

 

“Hmmm, well, looks like I’ve got some ground to cover.” Luhan murmured to himself with a mischievous smile. Glancing across the room, someone else caught his attention. “Hey, Lay! Come over here for a sec!”

 

         Luhan pulled his arm around his dance partner’s shoulders. “Jongdae, Kyungsoo, meet Zhang Yixing, also known as Lay. He’s a senior and theater major too.”

 

“Nice to meet you.” The dancer said, shaking each of the third years’ hands. Jongdae blushed when he realized this was the same guy as the one who was in front of Xiumin’s room.

 

“He studied abroad for two years in our sister campus in Shanghai, so you didn’t get a chance to meet him.” Luhan said. “But, he’s pretty close with all of us seniors, including Yifan, and you know how standoffish he can be.”

 

Yixing laughed lightly. “It’s definitely good to be back. Are you theater majors too?” He asked, wrapping an arm around Luhan companionably.

 

Kyungsoo shook his head, “Jongdae and I both study vocal music.”

 

“You should listen to them sometimes. As their former teacher’s assistant, I can say that they’ve bloomed splendidly under my wing.” Luhan praised, giving them a bright grin. “Especially Jongdae, who had the chance of being my student for two whole semesters.”

 

“Yes, such a blessing,” Jongdae said, rolling his eyes.

 

“Well, it’s nice meeting you both.” Lay’s eyes crinkled warmly.

 

“Likewise,” Jongdae replied. “Ow!” He exclaimed when Kyungsoo suddenly grabbed his arm in a vice grip. “What was that for?”

 

“Please tell me that is not who I think it is entering this building right now,” Kyungsoo whispered back, nodding towards the theater doors.

 

“What are you two whispering about?” Luhan asked, looking behind him. “Oh, OH.” Luhan laughed loudly. “Omg, is that the same kid who’s been mooning over you since last year? I can’t believe he’s still in love with you. Way to go--”

 

“Shut up.” Kyungsoo muttered, clamping a hand over Luhan’s mouth before he could finish his sentence. “Can’t you be quiet for once?”

 

Entering the auditorium with a hunched back and a sheepish look, Kai was not so subtly craning his neck around to find a certain third year amongst the crowd. His hair was damp, and he was wearing a pair of sweats and a loose t-shirt, clearly rushing over from his dance class as predicted.

 

“I’m going to kill Sehun,” Kyungsoo seethed, trying to make a quick getaway over the orchestra pit and backstage.

 

“Oh, come on,” Luhan said with an eye roll, grabbing Kyungsoo’s arm with lightning reflexes and barring his escape. “It won’t kill you to just talk to him. Here, I’ll go with you.”

 

“I’d rather chop my arm off.” Kyungsoo replied brusquely, glaring at his former TA with a deathly stare that would scare even Yifan.

 

Wanting to dissipate Kyungsoo’s rising demon energy, Jongdae placed a placating hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I mean Luhan sort of does have a point? Maybe?” Jongdae reasoned. “Just greet him and then you can make an excuse and leave. At least this way, you don’t have to sneak off and hide again.”

 

Luhan nodded. “See? Stop being a baby. Now, come on. Let’s do this.”

 

Although clearly unwilling, Kyungsoo did let himself get dragged along with Luhan. Jongdae counted that as both a success in his book and a gold star for Luhan. One amazing thing about Luhan is the fact that behind all that personality and bravado, he was a pretty intuitive and mature guy. Kyungsoo was running away from his problems and needed someone to tell it to him straight without freezing from his infamous glares.

 

“Huh. Well, that was interesting.” Lay said amusedly. Jongdae jumped from his thoughts, almost forgetting that Lay was still there.

 

“I’m so sorry. That must have been really awkward.”

 

“No worries,” Lay replied, nodding his head to an exuberant Luhan in the process of introducing himself to Kai. Kyungsoo beside him with a hand over his face. “I’ll just file this in as one of Luhan’s many eccentricities.”

 

“Good idea.” Jongdae laughed. He watched as a faint blush grace Kai’s face when Luhan subtly pushed Kyungsoo towards the dancer, making him tumble into Kai’s arms.

 

“Though his eccentricities are one of his strong points,” Lay said amiably, then turned his attention to Jongdae. “So, are you planning to join any productions this year?”

 

“I hope so. I’m thinking about auditioning for one of the spring showcases.” Every fall and spring semester, there were 3-4 major programs that juniors and seniors could try out for, each under different categories: traditional/opera, contemporary/jazz, or musical theatre/pop. Not only that, but all showcases are student-led and student-produced including script, music, and choreography. So practically everyone in Chung-Ang’s Music and Performing Arts Schools could participate on some sort of level. It was one of the best ways to get experience on your resume, provided you get to be a part of it. They are pretty selective, and students would spend hours agonizing over any kind of callback. From what he heard from Luhan, it took him around 5 callbacks and over a period of 3 months before he landed a role in last year’s theater production. Not to mention Kyungsoo, the overachiever, who got a part for this fall’s contemporary stage after auditioning over the spring semester and summer holidays.

 

“Yixing!” Someone called from across the room. Jongdae's eyes widened when he realized it was the president of their school.

 

“Looks like someone is looking for me.” Lay said with a nod to Jongdae. “I’m sorry. I hope we get a chance to talk longer.”

 

“Of course.” Jongdae said back with a smile. “See you around?”

 

“See you around, Jongdae.” Lay replied back with an answering grin.