"You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself."
— Margaret Atwood

With those sweet words of his, Kai easily captured the hearts of every girl and woman in the crowd…

And possibly even my own? Su Min subconsciously wondered. No, no, no. What the hell am I thinking? That's not possible. That's not—

But no matter how much she denied it, it was evident that her cheeks were flushed red, and her heart was racing just as fast as any fan girl's.

|| …………… ||

"One, two, three," Suho counted quietly, leading s in their closing remarks.

"We are one! We are EXO! Kamsahamnida!" the nine of them bowed in unison with arms slung around each other's shoulders. They gave their fans a cheerful wave goodbye and disappeared to their dressing room, completely beat and starving.

After overseeing the clean-up crew and giving final orders to the EXO team, Su Min headed to the same dressing room, assuming the members had already left. Surprisingly, she found them all either lying on the couch or slumped on a chair with their eyes shut tight, desperately squishing in even just a few minutes of sleep, before they head to their respective filming sites in a couple of hours.

She spotted Chanyeol hunched over in a corner, passed out on a chair with his head leaned against the wall, strands of hair covering his face. Instinctively, she quietly made her way over to him and lightly shook him awake. "Chanyeol," she whispered.

Hearing her faint voice, Chanyeol opened his eyes halfway. But instead of replying to her call, he rested his head against her upper stomach and embraced her, closing his dark pair of lenses once more.

Su Min stood still and gazed down at him, seeing, for the first time, an energy deprived Chanyeol. Just thinking about all the other times he had been this exhausted pained her heart, but at the same time, she knew he gave it his all because he enjoys what he does.

As she reached to move the hair away from his face, she was interrupted by a rhythmic, coded knock on the door.

In a flash, all members were wide-awake and on their feet, wearing their energetic façade once again.

After second warning knock, the door opened, revealing Woojin, the dean of the school, and his twenty-one year old niece.

Despite their exhaustion, EXO greeted the two guests with ninety-degree bows and an energized, "Annyeonghaseyo."

"Oh yes, yes, yes, hello," the plump dean replied happily. "Thank you for a wonderful concert! The students and my niece really enjoyed themselves," he added, pulling the girl behind him into view and urging her to introduce herself.

"H—hi, I'm Lee Chae Ri," she stated rather shyly.

"So…which of you nine will be the lucky man to accompany my lovely niece tonight?" the dean boomed, jolly as ever.

Oblivious of what the old man was talking about, the guys looked at one another, then at Su Min, who answered them with the same unknowing expression. Altogether, they turned to EXO's manager, throwing question marks in the air.

Fully aware that his boys were dying to get some rest, Woojin quickly got to explaining and requested the two outsiders to kindly wait outside while he talked to the members.

Once the eleven of them were finally alone, EXO's manager disclosed the undeniable request made by the dean for his favorite niece. "Lee Chae Ri-ssi would like to go to dinner with one of you tonight," he told them unenthusiastically, knowing that this revelation would initiate a train of complaints.

Sure enough, the first to voice out his thought was Lay.

"Hyung, have you gone out of your mind? What are we? Robots? How do you expect us to function properly when we've barely rested?" he whined angrily and fell back on the couch like a limped vegetable.

"I know and I'm sorry, but Dr. Park is a close personal friend of SM's Board of Directors," Woojin explained, "Our own company president even called in and asked for this favor himself. Believe me, I tried everything, but there's really nothing more I can do."

"If they were going to request this, they shouldn't have extended the concert at all," Sehun and Chanyeol commented at the same time, both steaming with annoyance, "besides, it's already way past 'dinner' time."

"Hyung, you know I'd love to go," Baekhyun calmly interrupted, "but we all have filming in like five hours."

"Except for Jongin," D.O. announced, causing everyone to turn their attention to Kai, "he doesn't have filming until later on in the afternoon."

Kai sta