‘What’re you doing?’ Mei asked to a crouching Minyoung, who’d been peering around the aisle.

Her friend jumped, head bumping into the shelf and knocking her glasses askew. Mei helped her sit up. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle…’ She noticed the distinct red patches on Minyoung’s cheeks, immediately making her suspicious. ‘Who were you looking at?’

‘Nobody!’ Minyoung exclaimed, a little too loudly.

Knowing her friend as well as she did, Mei pushed past her and peeked around… and there it was, the obvious object of Minyoung’s ogling. ‘Ogling Oh Sehun, are we?’

Minyoung’s cheeks turned redder. ‘I wasn’t ogling.’

‘Right…’

‘I really wasn’t!’ she protested, standing up and straightening her glasses. ‘I just saw his back and ducked behind this shelf out of habit.’ When Mei’s expression remained skeptical, she gestured wildly. ‘Swear!’

‘Ugh, fine…’ Mei muttered, ‘spoilsport.’

‘What was that?’

‘Nothing.’

Minyoung sniffed, disbelieving but Mei turned to the aisle to browse through the books. Her friend joined her but Mei smirked to herself when instead of looking at the book covers, Minyoung made space between the books to ogle Sehun’s back once again.

Briefly she wondered if she should friend again but it appeared that Minyoung would turn defensive and well, Mei was a bit of a matchmaker at heart, so she kept her silence.

There was some commotion and when Mei looked up, she found Sehun hurrying away, Suho fast on his heels, talking a mile a minute.

‘Looks like Suho’s found his new project,’ Mei joked. Their Student Council president was notorious for taking on ‘projects’ – usually troublemakers and delinquents, to help them become better students and community members. Looked like he’d targeted Sehun this time.

Minyoung didn’t say anything, quietly going back to browsing for books the moment Sehun left the library. 

That did not stop Mei from teasing her friend all the way back to class, bugging her about her secret affections for the delinquent. Minyoung was pouting intensely by then, done with Mei and pretending not to hear a word Mei was saying – whispering under her breath, writing teasing notes and passing them to Minyoung and the like. But she was beet-red and if one looked past her frown, one could detect hints of reluctant pleasure.

Minyoung was still so head over heels for Sehun, it would be funny if Mei didn’t feel sorry for them. Sehun’s unfortunate habit of bullying Minyoung had led them to stop interacting completely but he’d abided by his promise to leave her alone. And maybe the distance was good; maybe, it was giving Minyoung the room she needed to process exactly what she felt for him.

Ugh, Mei was such a good friend.

…………………………………………………

Just because she’d decided distance was good for Minyoung did not mean she was going to stop teasing her. That was her duty as the best friend to about her crush at every chance she got to keep fanning the flames of lurve (Ew, gross, Minyoung had exclaimed, pushing her away).

More importantly, it stopped Minyoung bugging her about her used-to-be crush on Luhan (used-to-be, Mei reasserted, ignoring Minyoung’s eye-roll).

Anyway, call it a defense or a service – either way, she’d taken it on herself to bug Minyoung about Sehun every chance she got, especially when the boy was around… as in the locker room, the library, the cafeteria and of course, their class.

Sadly, their teacher had little tolerance for noise. And Mei had been not-so-quietly giggling at Minyoung’s red face for the past few minutes, not in the least because Oh Sehun had dropped into his regular chair behind them and caused Minyoung to jump nervously, spilling all her pens to the ground. As she blushed harder and bent to pick them up, Mei couldn’t control her giggles at all and perhaps it was contagious because Sehun let out a strange, goat-like noise that Mei later found out was laughter.

It was loud enough to attract Ms. Kim’s attention, whose chalk-throwing capabilities only improved with anger and Mei pouted, rubbing her head. ‘Detention,’ Ms. Kim announced. ‘You too, Oh.’

Sehun looked up with the same expressionless face as always but maybe because Mei was actually looking at him, she detected a hint of protest in his eyes. Which was understandable because Mei had been the one making all the noise. He didn’t say anything, just shook his head in a resigned manner and started doodling on his notebook moodily.

And now, Mei felt bad.

‘It’s unfair,’ she reiterated to Minyoung after class. Minyoung nodded, glancing over her shoulder at Sehun’s hunched figure, concern evident on her face. ‘Teach only picks on him just because he looks like…’

‘A delinquent.’ Minyoung completed for her, mouth twisting. ‘It really is unfair.’

Mei sighed. ‘I should apologize, it’s my fault.’

Minyoung nodded, a little nervous. ‘Should I come with you? You were laughing because of me…’

Mei considered taking pity on her friend but decided against it. If Sehun could be nice enough to stay away on her request, she could man up and say sorry.

‘Yeah, come on.’

As one, they followed Sehun’s distinctive figure. He looked moodier than usual, not even stopping when he bumped into the Student Council President. Suho all but rolled over because he was positively tiny next to Sehun but even he picked up on the boy’s moodiness.

He opened his mouth to say something but Mei had reached him by then, so she tapped his shoulder. Suho glanced at her, a smile forming in greeting. Really, he was very nice.

‘Mei,’ he greeted, ‘how can I help you?’

‘Er… actually, I was just going to say that you should probably leave Sehun alone for now. He’s… upset.’

Suho eyed her with renewed interest. ‘You’re friends with Oh?’

Mei shrugged. ‘Sorta.’

‘That’s great. I was worried since he’s alone most of the time but it’s good that he’s friends with good students like you.’ He smiled beatifically. ‘Well, don’t let me keep you. See you around, Mei.’ With a nod, he was off.

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