~~ DOUBLE UPDATE, MAKE SURE TO READ THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER ~~

‘Ugh!’

‘What’s gotten his in a twist now?’ Luhan asked as Chen once again barged into the lockers, slamming the door loudly and cursing under his breath before kicking Baekhyun in the shins out of nowhere.

‘OWWWWW!’ Baekhyun’s loud voice echoed around the shower room and he pouted pathetically at Lay, the only guy who ever entertained his pouts. ‘Chen hit me!’

Lay patted his head soothingly, bringing him over to sit beside them and pulling his leg to rub at the sore shin.

‘I don’t blame him though.’ Xiumin leaned back, cracking his neck. ‘Seems like every girl he likes uses him or dumps him for one of his teammates. First Luhan, now you.’

‘What?’ Baekhyun pouted even more. ‘But he didn’t hit Luhan.’

‘He did.’ Lay corrected. ‘On the head.’

‘Poor Chennie…’ Chanyeol’s big eyes looked bigger as tears pooled in them. ‘That’s… so mean!’

None of them were expecting the explosion that followed, confetti bursting all around the room and Luhan spat out the confetti that had gotten into his mouth because he had been about to speak.

‘Yeol, what the hell?’ he asked instead. He was flattered, seriously, that he seemed to have such an impact, not only on girls but guys as well but after taking confetti blasts to the face all day, he was frankly tired of it. Why did it always happen to him?

Chanyeol didn’t answer, looking embarrassed, not about the confetti but the big fat tears in his eyes. He sniffed. ‘I don’t like people using other people, especially not my friends.’

Tears slipped down his face and Luhan softened despite himself. Chanyeol, for all his giant frame and deep voice, was nothing more than a soft-hearted puppy, who probably needed cuddles and belly-rubs before sleeping.

He resisted the urge to coo but Lay and Baekhyun had no such compunctions. Even Xiumin softened, patting the big baby’s shoulders. ‘That’s okay, big guy. Chen is a strong one, he won’t back out because of this.’

‘But he’s so nice,’ Chanyeol wailed, burying his head in Xiumin’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t they like him?’

That was a million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Truthfully, Luhan didn’t get it either. Chen really was a nice guy, very caring, even towards his teammates. So why would people blatantly step over his feelings? Just to get close to the infamous Luhan? Or his select group of friends?

His mood was quite off when he headed back to the school building to gather his things, upset for a number of things he couldn’t explain. All the confettisions and the high of being the most popular guy had worn off a long time ago but still, the superficiality of the people around him bothered him. A lot.

Maybe that’s why he’d never developed a crush before. Because just knowing a person, girl or guy, liked him, brought to him war flashbacks of the all the confettisions and his friends’ (Chen, primarily) heartbreak, awkwardness and what not. It was like the biggest turn off for him, knowing that a person had a crush on him. Bash him in the head instead, please.

Maybe that’s why Mei stood out so much. He’d run into her three times and he knew, from previous experience that even that was enough to induce a confettision, were it really to happen. She had behaved normally with him, which felt so good, he craved meeting her again.

Truthfully, he’d seen her coming today, hurrying through people, focused on nothing but getting to her locker. And when she’d walked into his way, he’d deliberately stayed in the lane, so that they would bump into each other and he’d have an excuse to talk with her again.

He’d dug around a little bit, asked his friends to look into her and had found out a lot about her. She’d acted as Rapunzel in the school drama; her singing had garnered a lot of praise; Luhan himself had quite enjoyed it. She was with Lay in the dramatics club and per Lay, she was the most adorable person ever.

Then again, Lay thought Baekhyun was adorable when Luhan invariably found him annoying so he wasn’t sure how much stock he put in that statement.

But the point remained that so far, Luhan liked what he’d seen of Mei. And he wanted to meet with her again, so they could talk again. She had this cute habit of flipping her head to get her hair out of her face and her laugh was really cute, a sweet melodic sound.

‘If that’s what you really want.’

The words barely registered before a huge body crashed into him, knocking him down. Luhan, lost in his own thoughts, barely had time to reorient and caught a glimpse of a hurriedly retreating back of, if he wasn’t mistaken, Oh Sehun, the delinquent everyone steered clear of.

He got up gingerly, dusting himself off and turned around. A girl was standing in the middle of the corridor, looking visibly upset and pale, her legs trembling. As he watched, she wobbled.

‘Hey!’ Luhan hurried forward to help her and lead her to the closest seat, patting her back as she started hyperventilating. ‘Oh god, oh god…’ she muttered, clearly distressed.

‘Hey, hey, calm down.’ Luhan patted her hands and when that didn’t work, clapped his hands right in front of her face, shocking her out of her panic attack. She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

‘Breath with me, okay? Inhale…’ He demonstrated. ‘… and exhale.’

After a few times, she started following him and he’d just succeeded in calming her down when there were running footsteps and Mei’s voice echoed in the hallway. ‘Minyoung, I just got your message, are you okay?’

‘She’s better now.’ Luhan responded when Minyoung didn’t.

Mei halted right beside them, looking at him in confusion. ‘Uh.’

‘She was having a panic attack.’ Luhan explained.

‘Oh dear.’ Mei bit her lip. ‘It must be bad, she hasn’t had those in months.’

‘Do you need me to call someone?’ he asked, taking out his phone. Mei stilled for a moment before smiling sweetly at him. ‘That’s very nice of you but it’s okay. I’m sure she’ll be fine in a couple of minutes. It looks like you took good care of it.’

The compliment made him blush, mainly because it was delivered so matter-of-factly. ‘It was nothing.’ He rubbed his neck, feeling his ears burn.