Sehun was the only person who stood inside the elevator that brought him to the basement of the faculty. It was not too late, objectively speaking, but 6 PM is equivalent to 9 PM when he was on his campus. Maybe it was because of the university’s policy to limit the mandatory class to be held only from 8 AM until 4 PM, and after that hour, only a tiny percentage of students will stay for extended business. Sehun’s business happened to be a replacement class for Transnationalism in Global Politics because his prof couldn’t attend the class this Monday, though it was only the first week of the new semester. He had a hard time keeping his eyes open widely during the lecture, and when it finally ended, he knew where he should be heading. 

The elevator chimed. 

Everyone in the Faculty of Social Science had talked about this small smoking place at least once during their time as students or workers, but no one really bats an eye. It was a damp, dark tiny alley filled with unused stuff like chairs, desks, and cupboards. No further inspection had been conducted by the faculty—since some of the faculty staff and even the higher-ups were also regular users of that space. 

The space was a bit packed with students and smokes at that time. It left Sehun with one poor wooden chair near the wall, which legs had been unsteady for an adult human to sit. He was convinced the chair had existed even before he was born. So, he grabbed it for his seat. From the deepest compartment in his sling bag, Sehun fished a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He took one and slid it between his lips, curving his hand over the end as he lit it. Sehun took a slow puff.

Sehun was irked by how smooth he handled the nicotine addiction six months ago, only the progress to be shattered into ashes these past three months. He had reached the point where he was even struggling to finish one pack in one month. And look at him now. One stick when nothing happened, or four when he was in a ty mood.

Guess that heartbreak can really reverse one’s state backward.

He was peacefully smoking until he heard a loud thump not far from where he was seated. Almost everyone at the smoking space turned their heads around. It was a person. He fell down to the ground near the elevator and struggled to lift himself up. Sehun immediately darted to that unknown helpless man when everyone else was just watching.

“Hey, you okay?”, Sehun grabbed both of his arms until his torso straightened up. He grabbed Sehun’s hand for assistance so he could stand on his feet again. Sehun put his arm around that man’s shoulder carefully to avoid his cigarette to burn any part of this man’s body and get him to the chair he previously seated on.

Sehun took his water bottle from his bag. He handed it to that guy. He gulped almost everything down to his throat.

“Feel better?”, Sehun asked.

The guy nodded and gave back the bottle to Sehun. 

“Mind if I smoke here?”.

“Yeah”, his reply sounds like an automated response, and that was because he truly didn’t have enough energy to form a decent sentence. 

Sehun stood next to him and continued to smoke while that guy took his pack and lighter from his bag. His hands were shaking, but he managed to lit one stick in between his lips. The smoke then blew upward.

Rummaging through the front part of his sling bag with his left hand, Sehun felt several plastic packaging in rectangular form and took three of them. He then offered the strawberry-flavored candy to the guy next to him.

“Take this. You look so pale, have you eaten?”, Sehun asked.

He stared back into Sehun, and that time, Sehun was struck. He liked this guy’s eyes. The deep line of his crease fitted so well with his puffy dark circle and hazel orbs. Those were sultry, soft, and provocative at the same time when they were complemented with his tanned skin, plump lips, and dark hair. 

“Nope. Thanks”, he took the candies from Sehun’s hand, and their skin accidentally made contact. Sehun’s hand was warm. His hand was cold. He devoured one candy after that.

“I’m Oh Sehun, from IR batch 2018”, Sehun said, then took a blow.

“Jongin. Comm science. 2018 too”.

He smiled and decided to give a bit of twist to Jongin with what he said next.

“It’s rare to see a comm science student without dyed hair, tote bag, and flannel shirt. Are you really from comm science?”.

Jongin turned his head to Sehun and squinted both of his eyes. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”.

“Well—“, Sehun shrugged his shoulders. “Thought it was funny”.

Jongin smirked and uttered, “How about you? Had fun driving Lambo to campus, bourgeoisie?”. He wrapped his lips around the end of his cigarette, making his cheeks hollowed before he exhaled the smoke through his mouth and nose.

A few seconds of silence that Sehun made was broken because he cracked a laugh. He liked this guy already.

They kept silent as their cigarettes become shorter and shorter. Sehun’s finally ran out, and he took another one from the pack and lit it up. That was his second stick of the day. He wasn’t really proud about that.

His act, however, was interrupted by a long continuous vibrate from his jeans pocket. Seeing the caller’s name then made him tapped on the answer button as fast as he could. 

“Hello, Seulgi?”.

“Sehun-ah, where are you?”.

“I just finished my class. Why?”.

“Sehun, please help me. Please...please, I—“. Her voice was cut by her choked sob, which successfully twisted Sehun’s guts into a knot. “Baekhyun...B-Baekhyun, he—“.

“What? What did he do to you?!”.

“He cheated on me”.

The blood was drained from Sehun’s vessel, and it left him pale in an instant.

Eventually, Sehun’s sudden silence gathered attention from Jongin, who was looking at him curiously. He wanted to ask, but it would come off as being nosy rather than being genuine. They were strangers. They knew nothing about each other and should not know anything about each other. 

Sehun shook his head to seize his consciousness back. “Seulgi, text me your location right now. I’ll be there soon, okay?”.

The phone conversation ended. Sehun’s hand was still shaking while he put his phone back in his pocket. He threw his cigarette to the ground and step on it, wiggling the tip of his sneakers until the flame died down. 

“I...I have to go. My friend needs me”, Sehun told Jongin, not sure why.

Jongin nodded, but it might not be seen by Sehun as he already ran away to the other side of the basement parking lot. 

He then left with two pieces of candy from Sehun on his lap and a cigarette between his index and middle finger. He took one candy and rotated it aimlessly with his fingers.

Sehun, that kind stranger. He will remember that name and that face properly.

~***~

Sehun darted from the parking lot to the main floor of the apartment building. He turned to the right, as Seulgi told him in her last text. When he arrived in front of the bathroom, he called Seulgi right away. Seulgi didn’t pick up, but a moment later, she came out of the bathroom, not as the girl Sehun usually saw. She was clearly messed up.

“Seulgi? Oh my—“. Sehun hugged her right away when he saw how puffed and swollen her eyes were. Irregular trace of black ink from her melting eyeliner and mascara were seen around her eyes down to the bridge of her nose and cheekbones. Seulgi returned the hug, quietly sobbing on his chest while tightening her arms around Sehun’s torso.

He patted her back a couple times before breaking their hug.

“Come on. Let’s go to your place”, Sehun said, rubbing the tears on Seulgi’s cheeks with his thumb. 

“No, I don’t want to see his face. Your place. Please, Sehun”.

Sehun nodded his head. “Okay, okay”.

And it was the most soundless car ride they both ever had since the beginning of their friendship.

~***~

One week has passed. 

It was two past nine on Wednesday morning when Jongin opened the door with a white, small plastic sign of D-306—Faculty of Social Science Lab hanged on the front. The cold waft from the air conditioner wasn’t the only one that greeted him. 

Rows of desks and respective chairs occupied the center space of this room, and a guy with dark brown, middle-parted curtain hair sat on the middle row with an opened laptop in front of him. He raised his head when the creaking sound resonated, and his eyes met Jongin’s for the first time that day.

“Oh Sehun?”.

Sehun couldn’t contain his surprise when he recognized who just spoke his name.

“Jongin...?”.

~***~

Eventually, Sehun seized the empty space that one senior left as a part-time assistant from the International Relations department. When he saw the announcement poster on the wall magazine on the first floor of his campus building, he thought that it wouldn’t hurt to fill his time with something more useful than staring at his ceiling or binge-watching Netflix from morning to morning.

Actually, he took a big distraction as a way of giving his mind something to chew other than the face he was very keen on.

Working together with Jongin this week still didn’t leave any disappointing imprint on him. Now that Sehun and Jongin were the youngest part-time assistant researchers on the Faculty of Social Science Lab, they frequently got the same task that required them to collaborate. Jongin’s perfectionist and meticulous side irked Sehun at first, but he grew used to it, to the point that he hoped Jongin never change those traits. 

Sehun had been sitting at the FSS-Lab since 1 PM this Tuesday with three other assistants, including Jongin. When he peeked at the time on the bottom corner of his laptop, it showed him that precisely one hour and twenty-two minutes had passed. He sighed. The workload was not too heavy for him, but he wished that he could have an easier route to do all of that.

But wish will stay as wish, sometimes. A few minutes later, the door was swung open with one firm action, and Taeyeon stepped in. She was a postgraduate student and a full-time research assistant at once, didn’t talk too much but was still likable. She put her bag on the corner table and took several files from it. Sehun gulped when she approached him.

“Sehun?”, she called; her voice was silvery and tuneful.

“Yes, senior?”.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to give you these files from Mrs. Yoo yesterday. Those are the best researches from the past ten years that studied public opinion regarding the power dynamics of the judicial branch. I want you to examine it as the base for our next project”, Taeyeon said.

Sehun forgot that not everything in his job will align with his interests, and when the file landed on his hands, he was reminded. He tried to be professional by lifting the corners of his lips that previously dragged down and let his forehead rested, not furrowed anymore. But of course, someone will notice.

“Okay, senior. When is the due? I’ll do it as soon as I can”.

“It should be done by the end of this week”.

Sehun nodded his head. Giving Sehun a short good luck, she came back to her seat. 

Right after Sehun put the files inside his bag and zip it back, he accidentally looked over the side across his seat and found Jongin had been looking at him. 

What? Sehun mouthed, though their distance was only as far as two tables.

Jongin shrugged his shoulder. Nothing. 

~***~

By the end of their session that day, Jongin quickly tidied up his desk. Sehun wasn’t done with his stuff yet, so he took that opportunity to dash to Sehun’s desk and sat on the edge of it.

“Hey”, Sehun greeted Jongin briefly. He took his bag into his lap and closed his laptop, then putting it inside. Only after he finished, then he looked up at Jongin.

“Study with me”, Jongin shot his offer right away.

“Study?”.

“Yeah. I thought you dislike the topic Taeyeon senior gave you earlier”.

Sehun scoffed. He stood up and slung his bag’s handle over his shoulder. “How did you know?”.

“Have someone told you that you’re bad at lying?”, Jongin followed to walk beside him. “Come on, it’ll be short”.

Sehun figured out that it wouldn’t do any harm to let Jongin taught him something. So, he followed to their faculty’s open space, on one of the benches beneath the lush maple tree. He explained from A to Z, from top to bottom, in the simplest way possible about what Sehun didn’t understand. It sounded so easy when it came from Jongin’s mouth, and it left him wondering how much more things Jongin had inside that brain.

“That was very clear”, Sehun said. He smiled at Jongin. “How did you know all of that?”.

“Well...”, Jongin lifted his legs to the bench and turned into a cross sitting position. “I’ve done people’s homework for money since I was in high school. I stumbled upon this topic a few times. Enough for me to get the scratch of it”.

Sehun furrowed his forehead. “You did...what?!”.

“Keep it as a secret, will you?”. 

“Okay, but why did you do that?”.

“Because I need money and I’m smart? What else can I do?”.

Sehun still looked at him in silence.

“Don’t give me that look. Let me explain”, Jongin rotated his body to face Sehun. “It’s not only financial gain that I got from those people. I steal the knowledge that they should have obtained if they are not slacking off. That’s why I never paid someone to do my homework because I’ll lose two things at once. Money is a powerful resource, and so is knowledge, why not take both?”.

Sehun hadn’t got a glimpse of Jongin as a person until he told him this secret. Yes, Jongin was smart, he knew how to work with data and words, but it was all the traits he put for the sake of work. 

“That was...not the best reason but still justifiable”, Sehun said. “How did you manage to juggle everything? Isn’t that tiring?”.

“I didn’t. I have almost zero social life”, Jongin told him. “So, what happened to your friend back then?”.

Sehun shook his head and exhaled. “It was terrible. Her boyfriend cheated on her. They’ve been together for almost a year, I suppose? Yeah, next June it should be their first anniversary. She didn’t even attend classes the next day. I’ve never seen her become that devastated since we become friends”.

“Oh...”, Jongin wasn’t really sure how to react. “Is she...okay now?”.

“She stayed at my flat for a few days. Now she’s back at her own place but I still check up on her every day. Just in case”, Sehun said. “But she is struggling with her piling up homework....”.

When he looked at Jongin once again, Sehun widened his eyes.

“What?”, Jongin stared at him back.

“Can you do Seulgi’s homework? I’ll be the one who pays. I promise. Please, I can’t see Seulgi suffering anymore. She...”, Sehun didn’t continue that sentence. “Please just do it. I’ll pay whatever price you set”.

Jongin squinted his eyes. Sehun sacrificed too much, indulged in too many emotions, and worried too much for this Seulgi friend of him. Or maybe that was just how friendship works between a girl and a boy? Contrary to popular belief, Jongin actually didn’t know much about that. He rarely had a platonic girl (space) friend around him. Heck, he barely even had any friends.

He wanted to ask Sehun, but it felt like he was crossing the privacy line between them.

“Okay”, he said. “As long as she is not in STEM”.

“No. She is in psychology”, Sehun turned his upper body around and pointed far from his left. “That. That building next to Law Faculty. She is in the same batch as us too”.

Jongin nodded. “Under one condition”.

“What is that?”.

“You don’t need to pay. I’ll do it for free”.

“Excuse me?”.

“Free. Don’t negotiate on that”.

“Jongin, you can’t do that. She is using your service and—“.

“And you are the one who pays for her?”. Jongin finally got a chance to imply his curiosity. He resisted his glance at Sehun, silently urging him to speak up.

“What? Do you think I do that because I like her?”. Sehun let out a short chuckle. “I don’t like her that way. We’ve been friends for almost four years now”.

Jongin was skeptical with his words. He lifted his left eyebrow this time.

“Dammit, Jongin, I don’t even like girls. Is it clear now?”.

It was Jongin’s turn to discern Sehun’s word into something more believable. But he couldn’t find any, and he felt terrible for doing what he just did. 

He realized that this just made both of them in a position of holding each other’s secret. 

Does that make them friends now?

~***~

Sweats keep rolling from Seulgi’s forehead down to her eyebrow and finally pushed her lashes. The tight sleeveless black top she wore was sticking even more to her back and her abdomen, as her long hair that tied into a ponytail sometimes slap the side of her face, but Seulgi decided not to be bothered about it. She could have missed the chance to hit the pads in her trainer's hands if she wobbled for even a split second. Seulgi continued to throw punch after punch through her fists that were wrapped in her boxing gloves. The priority of energy that Seulgi focused on was her arms first, then her legs because sometimes she had to step to the rhythm of the boxing game between herself and her coach.

Still clear to her mind how her surprise turned into a disaster a week ago. She thought that giving Baekhyun his favorite cake to celebrate him getting a new job was a sweet move. But that was when she found out Baekhyun had been hanging out with some other woman she didn’t bother to know her name was. She twisted Baekhyun’s arm, kick his ribs, and knocked him to the ground. The cake ended up smashed and deformed into Baekhyun’s face after that. And that woman ended up with a bloody lip after Seulgi slapped her two times. Not enough, but a lawsuit didn’t sound so nice for her middle-class .

Seulgi’s physical strength had escalated since she started training for boxing a year ago, and she initially wanted to use her skill to protect herself—a woman living in a man’s world—from erts and catcallers.

She never imagined using her ability against the person she loved.

But she already did. 

The flash of Baekhyun's face in Seulgi's mind made her anger flare up, and it was the perfect fuel for her movements. And so, she punched harder, faster, and more often; making her coach overwhelmed by her attacks.

“Seulgi, focus!”, shouted her coach. He raised his hands, signaling Seulgi to stop.

Seulgi dropped her arms. She was gasping for air—her breath was short and frequent.

“Have a break first”.

Seulgi nodded, then bowed slightly to her coach. She took off her boxing gloves and walked out of the ring. Grabbing the water bottle from her bag, she downed as much water as she could.

The most challenging part for Seulgi when she stepped into her own place was to be reminded of Baekhyun in every corner of her room, every dent of her bed, and every particle she breathed. It physically hurt her chest to see their photos plastered on the wall. Or to take out Baekhyun’s sweatshirts and jackets from her wardrobe. His toothbrush from the bathroom. His coffee mug. All the flowers he sent because he had a thought of her at 3 in the afternoon while he was working. Sehun and her had put everything that reminds her of Baekhyun in two boxes a day after that catastrophe happened. One box to be thrown away, one to be donated. Now her bed felt colder, her walls felt emptier, and her heart smashed to smithereens—knowing that the Baekhyun chapter in her book had been closed and ended for good.

Seulgi was checking her phone and found several unread messages. Some from Seungwan, her close friend in the same major, giving her the materials from the days she went absent. Then, from Sehun. And then, from an unknown person.

KJ

Hi, Sehun’s friend. 

Kindly send your task details to me, and I’ll do it right away.

She felt so wrong about this, paying someone else for doing her homework, but what was she supposed to do when the words on her textbook were nothing but messy tangles on her eyes? This ing breakup really shattered her sanity. 

Seulgi added Jongin back, and that was when she saw his complete profile. He put a photo of himself lying on the ground while playing electric guitar taken from his left side, his black hair was slicked back and flocked on the floor. The picture could be taken with a real analog camera or edited like one—she couldn’t really differentiate. But the sure thing was, Seulgi got an interesting first impression from him. Sehun already told her that Jongin was her co-worker at the FSS-Lab he just started working. And it made Jongin even look cooler to her. 

Okay, wait a minute.

Seulgi sent him the drive link to the materials and questions. She already downloaded the files a week ago to her laptop when her lecturer gave the task, but she thought she would do it before the weekend. Lessons learned, procrastination was never advised. Who knows that your boyfriend would break up with you before your task’s due date?

After explaining the best that she could to Jongin about her task, Seulgi then asked him,

Seulgi Kang

How much should I pay for this?

KJ.

Is it your first time paying someone for your homework?

Seulgi Kang

Yeah. What about it?

KJ.

What was the reason you decided to pass your task to others? Just tell the big picture, no need to be detailed.

Seulgi Kang

I just broke up with my boyfriend. He cheated on me. 

That sentence felt illusory to Seulgi’s eyes.

Her chat was left on read for about two minutes. But then, the reply Jongin sent got her startled.

KJ.

I’ll do it for free.

Not paying someone for the service they offer was a foreign concept for Seulgi, and she insisted Jongin be paid.

She left her phone inside her bag right after she hit the send button one more time. Time to practice again.

~***~

But maybe, Seulgi texted Jongin too much in the span of 8 hours, or Jongin was just easily irked by this matter. The last thing she received from Jongin was a link to her finished task along with a text from him,

KJ

Stop asking me to be paid. I don’t want to be paid for this. This will be my last message.

And then Jongin blocked her.

“Ew?!”, Seulgi stared at her screen dumbfoundedly. She clicked on the link Jongin just sent her, and holy molly—she didn’t expect his work to be perfect. Not only he did it neatly layout-wise, but he also delivered the passage seamlessly without rough patches. Jongin was really good at building his arguments. She knew this ability didn’t come from someone with mediocre mind.

Now she felt more guilty for not paying Jongin for such a great masterpiece like this.

~***~

Writer's note:

Hi, guess who's back with another story of Seulgi, Kai, and Sehun? Me. Yeay!

I've been writing this story for a while now. I had fun transforming my idea into words, though I still have to juggle it between my college tasks and work stuff. A friendly reminder that I also stated in my previous work (here), English is not my first language, so expect some errors here and there later.

I hope you have a great time, whenever and wherever you read this story <3