“You can talk to me however long you want to talk to me. All of my time is yours.”

Soyeon’s in her own world of bubbles and books and fairytales when there’s a knock on her room. Since she’s living with no one other than Suho, she knows it’s him and so mutters a small ‘come in’, thankfully he hears her and struts his way inside her room with a frown.

“What are you doing?” He asks her in a high suspicious tone as if she’s doing something when she’s supposed to be doing something else. Soyeon, who’s lying on her bed reading a book, doesn’t bother to pin him with a stare, and merely mumbles.

“I’m reading a book, Suho,” she let out a snort. “Obviously. Can’t you see?”

“Why aren’t you getting ready for my party?” Suho instantly shoots, placing his hands on his hips like a dissatisfied housewife. She merely treats him with a stare, then goes back to her book. “You can’t be serious.”

He gives her a blank look, saying nothing, and she looks up at him with wide eyes, her hair ruffled under her like a magical halo. “Oh my God, you’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious, Soyeon,” he throws his arms around with a huff. “Why do you think I’m not?”

“Because it’s ten PM Suho,” she continues to give him a wide-eyed look. “You’re supposed to get ready for bed because you have early classes tomorrow.”

He waves her words away as if he’s tired of hearing the exact same words over and over again. He’s such a party hoe. “Education is overrated! University is overrated! We’re going to host a party and it’s going to be a-m-a-z-i-n-g!”

“You’re crazy.” She returns her attention to her book after saying that, completely failing in giving him the attention that he wants (and needs). 

He walks further inside the room to where she lies and brutally snatches the book from her before she can begin to fathom what the heck is happening. She sits on her bed with speed and goes to retreat her book from his swindling arms, but she fails in accessing his same height and flops back on her bed with a frown.

“Soyeon!” He exclaims loudly as if she’s not just five steps close to him. “Get ready! Now! Party! Now!”

“You think I’m a two years old child?” She scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t speak to me like this.”

“Soyeon,” he changes his strategy from being a drill sergeant to a bumbling child, and whines. “C’mon! Party! We’re going to have a nice party and make-out with nice people and have a nice time!”

“I don’t want to meet nice people and make out with them, Suho.” She deadpans. 

“Fine, make out with Baekhyun,” he says that as if he’s not just said what he said, flickering his hands around his body with a scowl. “We’re all aware of your stupid googly eyes towards each other anyway!”

She blushes like liquid steel but stays firm in her choice, and when she speaks her voice softens just a little bit. Still, she pretends that she didn’t hear anything Baekhyun-related. “Suho, you know I don’t like parties.”

“I know that,” Suho rolls his eyes so hard his pupils might as well be stuck backward. “But Baekhyun’s going to be there and Saera is going to be there, too.”

She pauses. Who the heck is Saera? And why does Suho say her name in a tone as if she needs to know who she is? She tries to look like she doesn’t care, she really does; but even she can see the twitch in her eyes as she tried to make herself look normal. She clears , looking away from him. “Who’s Saera?”

He growls. “Don’t give me that bull! I know you know who Saera is. Almost everyone knows she has a huge crush on him. And I heard they made out once, too. In a party I hosted, may I add.”

Her blood freezes. Oh, so she’s the one that she caught him kissing once in Suho’s supposed to be gatherings. Honesty, she doesn’t know who the girl is, and she doesn’t remember how her facial features are aligned. She just remembers a tall girl kissing Baekhyun, and now Suho tells she actually has a crush on him? Soyeon doesn’t want to be one of those people who get jealous so easily by people who are close to their person of interest, but she has seen the two make out; she has seen Baekhyun kisses her roughly and holding her in his arms. She can’t help the burning flames that awoke in her blood vessels and traveled all the way to her heart. She fiddles harshly with her fingers, cutting their blood circulation. She clears and looks at them. “Right. I don’t care what your hosted parties give to people. I’m not going to be a part of it.”

Truthfully, she’s lying. She cares very much about what his ‘hosted parties’ give to people, especially if those people were named Byun Baekhyun. However, she’s in no mood to show how affected what Suho said had made her. 

“Fine then!” Suho yells like a kid throwing tantrum. “You can stay in your room undressed and clear to all the people accidentally shoving their way towards your room to be frisky with each other, or join the party and lock your door!”

She smirks at his annoyance, momentarily forgetting about this Saera girl. “How about I stay clear to the people in your party AND lock my door at the same time?”

“You’re so tiresome sometimes.” He huffs, bending himself forward like an anime character tired of her colleagues. She snickers into her hand at how ridiculous he looks. 

“Good you realize it,” she titters. “After so many days I thought you’ll already be aware.”

“I’ll tell Baekhyun you’re in your room if he asks about you!” Suho threatens, pointing at her with his finger like a convicted felon. 

“Okay.” She casually shrugs her shoulders, lying back on her bed and closing her eyes, pretending to be shutting him out. 

“I’ll tell him even if he didn’t ask!”

“Hmm.”

“I’ll tell him to drag you down by your ears!”

“Sure.”

“Urgh!” Suho throws his arms and then smacks them on his thighs, causing a loud sound of a smack to resonate in the otherwise silent home. “Impossible to deal with, I swear!”

He stomps away from her room before she says anything, not like she’s going to say anything, and she snickers. It’s so fun to get on his nerves!

-

She stays in her room for two hours, in the least, until it’s twelve midnight, playing in her phone and reading articles and books using the Wifi Suho hadn’t turned off, knowing that she gets bored easily whenever she’s alone. He can be all gangly and annoying on her, but she knows that he’s the guy to count on when things got gloomy. He even let the WiFi open for her to use when so many people were present in his home. Thankfully, none too many of the guests knew the password of the internet.

She can hear the muffled sound of the loud music seep past her bedroom door and tickling her ears. A part of her was eager to get out and listen to the music from a close-by source like the giant installed speakers outside for instance, but another part of her likes the solitude she’s currently in. She’s an introverted girl by nature, and she likes to stay alone and read all by herself. However, knowing there’s a party happening right outside her door made her feel sort of edgy. Every time the shadows under her door moved she’s holding her breath, hoping whoever is outside won’t knock on her door. There has been an instance when the knob of her door moved violently, someone trying to enter. Fortunately whoever wanted to come in surrendered quickly and went away.!

She sways a little to the music she can hear and then sighs out loud. It’s fine, she tells herself, she can go outside a little bit and enjoys the party. There’s alcohol there but she swore after the catastrophe that happened the last time she drank some that she won’t drink anymore where it’s crowded. She has gotten herself an embarrassment that could last her an entire lifetime. Although she does feel a little too stuffed inside her room, all alone, when everyone is out there. 

She thinks about Baekhyun. He’s obviously going to be around, and seriously, she wants to see him and enjoy some of his cranky presence. Maybe he’ll drink and he’ll need her help getting his directions straight. A thought of Saera, however, made her anger thrum against her fingertips. She stands from her bed and walks to her walk-in wardrobe. She changes the sweatpants she’s in and puts on a short pencil skirt over the sweater she’d already wearing. She contemplates wearing heels but thinks they’re too much, and opts with wearing her dark blue flats.

Going downstairs proves to be as irritating as her first thought has told her. It’s too crowded. There are people hanging around the stairs, and others making out just outside her door. There’s a couple who are literally two seconds away from doing the dirty right at the end of the spiral staircase, and she passes past them quickly with a cleared throat. 

Around the kitchen she sees Chanyeol and Kyungsoo (plus a dozen others), Chanyeol waves his hand at her happily in recognition, while Kyungsoo smirks at her as if he knows something she does. She rolls her eyes at him and ignores him. She decides to head to the living room where couches were, fortunately, not completely taken. 

She finds Baekhyun talking to a girl on one of the couches, probably Saera, and so she decides to sit on a place right across him, watching him like a creep. Really, she doesn’t want to be a creepy stalker girl, but Baekhyun’s laughing at the girl and she’s twirling her hair behind her ears with a bashful smile and looking too extraordinarily beautiful. There’s no way she’ll let the two out of her sight when they’re clearly enjoying themselves, creepy titles go to hell.

He notices her almost right away. He turns from Saera just a bit to look around, looking like he’s looking for someone, and when his eyes fall on her right across him, watching him, he gives her a glare. Apparently, glaring hasn’t been his first option because he looked surprised at first, but he glared at her because he realized that she has been watching him.

She merely shoots him a smile, a smile which hid the frustration and jealousy she’s feeling at seeing such a delightfully looking girl acting so shyly around him. Baekhyun rolls his eyes at that and continues to talk with Saera, every second he’ll give her a look, seeing if she’s still staring at him, and then looking away.

They play a little game of eye contact, then, her watching him without blinking and him watching her just as intensely. A sort of tension is quickly building up between them and she’s so aware of it she can almost reach her hand and grabs it. Baekhyun’s eyes are magnificent, littered with large emotions and little black kohl, making him look like a very dangerous person. Her, on the other hand, is trying to soften the roars of emotions she’s feeling at seeing a stranger hanging off of him and him actually entertaining her. She doesn’t know what exactly she’s feeling aside from the two feelings of anger and jealousy, but whatever it is, it’s strong and harsh, winding around her stomach like two swipes of the sunrays. 

“Hey, Soyeon!”

She flinches at the sudden cheery voice calling out to her, and turns to her right and Jongdae all but plops himself on the couch right next to her. She’d have said that he sat a little too close to her, but her mind’s a mess with all of these contacts with Baekhyun and no longer able to function and calculate distance properly. Perhaps Jongdae’s just the right amount of close. She doesn’t know. She’s so lightheaded by what happens between her and Baekhyun she’s a bit dizzy.

“Oh, Jongdae,” she greets, shaking her head to restore some of her previous grounded expressions. “Hi, I didn’t know you were invited.”

He gives her a cheeky smile, waiting for her to realize how rude her words were. She flushes, understanding her own words. 

“, sorry,” she apologizes softly. “That sounded a bit arrogant of me. I meant to say you guys were never present in Suho’s parties and I didn’t think you’d be here.” She means him, Minseok and Yixing. She hasn’t yet seen the other two boys but she suspects that they’re somewhere around Suho’s large apartment. 

“That’s fine,” Jongdae laughs openly, scooting even closer to her than before, the warmth of his thigh attacking her body like a scorch. “I know exactly what you mean. I’m not a party animal like Suho so I rarely come to these sorts of things. I have an off day in Uni tomorrow so I thought to get a bottle of beer or have a great time.”

There’s a bit of a silence. She doesn’t know what to say regarding his words and she doesn’t know what to say regarding his entire presence. She at being an extrovert and she , even more, when it comes to easy, short conversations. Thankfully for her, Jongdae seems like a person who’s too good at that sort of thing, and he looks at her with another cheeky, cat-like grin.

“I didn’t peg you for a skirt girl.” 

“Excuse me?” She splutters in surprise more than anything and looks at him as if he’s insane. If he’s trying to defuse her awkwardness, then that statement isn’t exactly the solution. 

“Oh , don’t take that offendedly,” his grin fades just a little bit. He looks panicky. “I just thought you’d be more comfortable in jeans and.. stuff.”

“You’re a geek,” she says, sounding amused. She narrows her eyes at him. “Aren’t you?”

“Are you teasing me?” He pouts, and she hasn’t seen anything as cute as Kim Jongdae’s little kitty pout. 

She just smirks at him, not knowing what to say in such a position. Thankfully yet again, Jongdae saves her the awkwardness of starting — or completing — a conversation by being his cheerful self. 

“You know,” he begins, “I’m actually kind of good at palm reading.”

“Oh, really?” She crosses her arms over her