“Okay good, but your pronunciation is wrong. It’s fourth tone not second.”

“I’m saying it in fourth!”

“No you aren’t. You have to say it like you’re angry. You just sound…slightly displeased. Say ‘to buy’.”

“Mǎi.”

“Now say ‘to sell’.”

“Mai.”

“No, see that’s where you’re ing up. Your third tone is fine, it’s just…your fourth. Say it like you’re pissed. Mài!”

“Mai!”

“Wow you really are terrible at tones.” Sehun lets his head bump against the top of the table he and Tao are camped out at in their University’s study hall. Sehun was in desperate search of a tutor for Chinese, and happened to remember that his roommate’s friend’s friend happened to be from the exact place where this difficult language is spoken. He has an oral exam in a week, and unable to practice with any of his friends (who were completely lame and didn’t want to take Chinese with him) he reached out to Tao.

Through his roommate’s friend of course.

As good as his Chinese is, Tao as a teacher. And to top it off he was expecting lessons from Sehun in return. Sehun expected him to ask for something in exchange for helping, but never in his life did he think Tao wanted to learn slang.

His foot nudges Sehun under the table. “Hey, now tell me what this word is. What does this mean? Arthur Mee Mee.” Sehun holds his head up to give him a bored stare. He holds his phone out and Sehun sees an Arthur meme on his screen.

“It’s meme. Not mee mee. Like…me-muh. You don’t say the second m-e the way you say the first,” Sehun explains monotonously. Tao pulls his phone back and looks at it like Sehun's just explained quantum physics or the meaning of life or some . Sehun watches him mouth the word to himself a few times and nod approvingly to himself.  

“I hate Chinese,” Sehun grunts in dissatisfaction.

“Say that in Chinese.”

“Wǒ zhēn bù xǐhuān zhongwén.”

“You said zhōng weird.”

“Your face is weird,” Sehun retorts bitterly. Tao scoffs and doesn’t bother to reply. “Tao you’re supposed to be helping me, and I’m not getting any better at this.” His plea falls on deaf ears as the guy across from him distractedly plays with his phone. Fingers flying across the screen and soft smile creeping across his face.

Sehun is going to have to kick his to get him to actively pay any attention to him.

“Let’s just call it a day. I haven’t gotten anything done, and yet…” he waits to see if Tao is going to even attempt to acknowledge the fact that he started talking. He doesn’t. Sehun huffs. “And yet I have a headache.”

Still no response. Sehun stands up agitated and starts to violently shove all of his in his bag. He feels disregarded and even a bit embarrassed. Sehun nearly had to beg him for this tutoring session, and he even got…somewhat dressed up for it. He could have worn sweats and not done to his hair, but he did because he wanted to give a good impression…and he heard he was kind of cute so like…

But that.

He’ll find a new tutor and he’ll dress comfortably and actually get some studying done.

He just needs to find someone who can actually help him in Chinese…

He glances outside of the glass that separates the small study room from the larger area and tries to get a gauge on what time it might be. They started studying at like 6pm…there’s no way it can be any later than 7. Whipping his phone out of his pocket to check the time and he sees that yes, he was right. It’s only 6:42. 2 hours earlier than he intended on leaving today.

“Where are you going?”

“Home. Did you not hear me 5 seconds ago?”

“You said something?” Tao asks genuinely. Sehun grunts and chucks his bag over his shoulder offering a bitter but polite smile.

“Thanks for your time, but I don’t think we should continue these sessions,” he tells him evenly. A brief nod is all Sehun can give as he scatters from the room before Tao can retort or even think of composing a response.

Sehun stabs at the elevator buttons trying to get it to close quickly so that he can hide in his room and study for his copious other midterms that he has to prepare for. On the bus ride to his home he sends a quick frustrated message to Jongin expressing the failure of a tutor he had, and the hopelessness he feels towards ever graduating and getting a stable job.

“Oh you’re home? We’re going to a dining hall do you want to come?” one of his roommates, a guy he's known since high school, asks as soon as he walks through the door.

Sehun grimaces and shakes his head apologetically. “Sorry Junmyeon, I’ve got a ton of homework to do before this weekend. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Don’t over stress yourself. You’ve been locked up in your room for the past 2 weeks. It’s like we haven’t seen you at all,” his other roommate, Baekhyun, adds.

Sehun shrugs noncommittally. “Sorry guys. I’ll join you next time for sure.” With mumbled goodbyes, they leave and he returns to his bedroom.

Stupid Tao. Stupid Chinese Oral. Stupid ing college.

Right before he can shed his clothes and shower, Sehun's phone chimes a bunch of times in succession. It's probably Jongin. When he opens the messages, he's greeted by straight Mandarin on his screen. Confused, he double checks the sender.

It’s Tao.

Why the hell is he texting him, and in ing Mandarin no less? Did he feel the need to add insult to injury by making him work to read whatever it is Tao has to say after he ran out of the study hall?

Huang Zi Tao:

>昨天你对了

>他真帅

>我太紧张了，不能看他

>他应该讨厌我，我知道了

> 鹿哥, 帮我!

The words glare at him and Sehun wonders if maybe it’s because he just got back from staring at his textbook that the words refuse to register in his mind. These words…he knows all these characters.

His bag falls from his shoulder as he glares back at the messages as if it’ll intimidate them into transforming into Korean.

There’s no way he could misinterpret something in Korean.

And there’s definitely no way that Tao miss sent 5 messages (five whole god damned texts) to his phone and…said he was handsome. Sehun might at speaking Mandarin, but fortunately his writing and reading ability is the best in his class.

Tao thinks he's handsome. He thinks he's handsome and was too nervous to look at him and he…thinks Sehun should hate him. Sehun pulls the phone to his chest and blinks owlishly at his bathroom door. What should he do? Does he message him back? Reveal himself?

>怎么了?

The message sends and Sehun doesn't have the time to panic before he's sent another message from Tao.

Huang Zi Tao

>每次他和我说话的时候，我看着我的手机

>我是最坏的人

His fingers move across the screen as heat rises to his face.

>不对。You arent the worst

>lets meet again tomorrow. Same place at 3.

>leave your phone at home this time

What is he doing? What is he even doing?

Sehun types out the short response and deletes the smiley face that he wanted to add. He wants to seem indifferent. Embarrassed, but not nearly as much as Tao probably is, Sehun locks his phone and escapes to the bathroom hoping a shower will work some magic on his…

What is it that he's feeling?

Excitement?

Giddiness?

Nervousness?

Apprehension?

Whatever it is, he hopes the shower will get rid of it so that he can rest up before another study day (hopefully more successful than today’s) with Tao.

---

Sehun's bag feels heavier on his shoulder today as he rides the elevator up to the 3^rd floor of the study hall. After last night, Tao never messaged him back, but Sehun figured he was either too mortified to initiate any further conversation, or he’d just fallen asleep.

Either way, Sehun is here and he plans on studying no matter whether Tao shows up or not.

Clear as day he finds Tao rigidly sitting in the exact same room, in the exact same chair that Sehun left him in yesterday.

No phone in sight.

Calmly, Sehun opens the door and steps in, keeping his eyes glued to the ground as he settles in the seat he occupied yesterday and pulls out his study materials. He makes slow work of it. Taking each book out one at a time. Picking up 2 pencils and a pen and setting them down on the table softly before rearranging the order.

Finally, Sehun decides to look up and when he does Tao is watching him closely.

Tao's eyes widen at the abruptness of the action compared to how slow Sehun was setting up, and if Sehun wasn’t aware of what Tao thinks about him, he might have mistaken the way he looked off to the side as agitation.

But Sehun does know what Tao thinks. And Sehun knows that he’s embarrassed. A weird satisfaction fills him.

“So I think we should start where we left off yesterday,” Sehun says evenly. Tao cringes to himself and nods shortly before looking at Sehun's face once more.

“I’m so sor-”

“Chapter 9 right?” Sehun looks down at his book and pulls it open to the page they'd left off on. Tao's words die off as Sehun shifts his stuff around once more. Silence engulfs them both as Sehun stares down at his book and Tao stares worriedly at him. This is suffocating Sehun and he can’t even be mad. Because he did this to himself???? He's the one drawing this out.

With a sigh, Sehun finally looks up at Tao's…wounded (wow he feels like ) expression.

“I’m sorry!” Tao blurts suddenly. Sehun jumps in his seat at the volume. Tao clamps a hand over his mouth and breathes out heavily. “I…I thought I was messaging Luhan.”

“It’s fine.” The words come out easily, and really, it is. Sehun isn’t mad at him. Not one bit. In fact, reading his confession made Sehun like him more than he thought he would. He was ready to hate him, honestly, since Tao spent the entire day on his phone yesterday. But, Sehun got his explanation, and some flattery. “What’s there to apologize over?”

Tao's mouth parts slightly in shock at the words, before he tries to compose himself. “Oh…well nothing,” he pouts and Sehun bites back a smirk at the confusion on his face. Tao must think he didn’t understand what he sent. “How much,” Tao clears his throat as some of his confidence begins to come back. “How much did you…understand?”

Sehun purses his lips as he pulls out his phone. When he sets it on the table Tao blanches once more. Sehun points to the first message. “You were right yesterday,” he translates easily. He points to the next, “He’s really handsome.” Sehun smirks when he points to the third and catches Tao's eyes. “I was too nervous, I couldn’t look at him…”

Tao swipes the phone off the table and hides it in his pocket out of Sehun's reach. Sehun gapes at him as Tao looks at him as if he can’t believe he did it either.

“Hey!”

“I get it! You understood what I wrote. Jeez you’re too brutal,” he grumbles. Smiling, Sehun leans back in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest. “I thought you needed a tutor because you can’t speak Chinese,” Tao lifts his eyes to look at Sehun. Embarrassment fading bit by bit.

Sehun nods. “I can’t speak it. You heard my tones. Reading and writing though? I’m perfectly fine.” Sehun's smile is proud as he looks back at Tao. Tao closes his eyes and groans loudly.

“I’ve never been more embarrassed in my entire life,” he mumbles to himself.

Stretching a leg out, Sehun kicks him lightly. “Don’t be. I…Your messages were really…cute. They were cute and you shouldn’t feel too embarrassed about it,” he admits shyly.

Tao brightens and smiles widely, so Sehun coughs loudly to avoid having to say more. Sehun looks at Tao with a smile. “So, Chapter 9?”

---

“Sehun?”

His hand hovers in front of the door to the coffee shop he should have been leaving 20 minutes ago (but he and Minseok got distracted talking while he made his drink) when Sehun hears his former professor’s voice at a table near the door. Yixing looks pleasantly surprised to see Sehun, and Sehun is just plain surprised to see him. Classes are over for the year and he expected all of the professors to be off campus at this point. Sehun smiles politely and walks in his teacher's direction.

“Zhang老师, hi!”

“Sorry to be bothering you, I know you’ve got somewhere to be,” he starts. Sehun shakes his head even though he does have to be somewhere… “I just wanted to tell you how well you did in my class, and how much I enjoyed having you.”

“Oh no, thank you for having me. I loved your class.”

Yixing smiles genuinely and Sehun glances nervously towards the door. “That’s good. Did you have any plans on joining the Chinese program to Taiwan next spring? It counts as class credit and an internship.”

“I plan on going. I just have to work out the details with my counselor before I apply. It sounds like a lot of fun and I need the credits-” he's interrupted when he hears his name being called once again. When did he get so popular? Tao walks up to him and winds his arm around Sehun's shoulder.

Sehun's teacher’s eyes widen ever so slightly and Sehun subtly tries to nudge Tao off of himself.

“Hello I’m Tao,” he introduces himself and Sehun wants to die on the spot.

Sehun sighs and smiles apologetically to his professor. “Zhang老师 this is Tao. Tao…this is my Chinese professor.” Tao straightens and reaches out to shake Yixing's hand, but Sehun shoves the two coffees that were in his hand into Tao's chest. “Take these. I’ll be out in a minute.”

He nods and gives Yixing one last smile. “It was nice meeting you!”

Yixing grins back and raises an eyebrow at Sehun. “Sorry I need to go, it was nice seeing you again. I’ll see you next year,” Sehun says hurriedly.

He scurries to the door and is halfway out when Yixing calls after him once more. “Keep studying your Chinese this summer. The best way is to get a Chinese boyfriend you know.”

His face heats up as he looks out at the bench where Tao is sipping from both his own drink and then Sehun's as he tries to figure whose he likes more. “I know,” Sehun murmurs. With a final wave he trots over and steals his half drunken cup from his boyfriend’s hands.

---

>昨天你对了 = You were right yesterday
>他真帅  = he’s really handsome
>我太紧张了，不能看他  =  i was too nervous i couldn’t look at him
>怎么了 = What’s wrong
>他应该讨厌我，我知道了 =  he should hate me, i know it
> 鹿哥, 帮我!  =  Lu-ge help me!
>每次他和我说话的时候，我看着我的手机  = every time we talked i was looking at my phone
>我是最坏的人  = i’m the worst
>不对 = Wrong/Not right

>zhang老师 = teacher Zhang