"Care to tell me why you decided to announce to the entire shop that you're single?" Minseok asks around the straw in his smoothie. He tries not to laugh at the red that colors the tips of Lu Han's ears.

They're seated at one of the booths, just the two of them. The two boys Lu Han was with left after receiving their drinks, claiming they were late for something important. Minseok has no problem with keeping Lu Han company but the latter looks like he wants to be anywhere else but with Minseok. He'll never admit it, but it's sort of upsetting.

He knows the history of the relationship between their schools. No one really knows why they have so much animosity between them but it's almost unwritten law that students from either insitution do not associate with each other. He gets it. The Seoul Institute for the Performing Arts is known for having rowdy students from the shady parts of town who like to wreak havoc. Why would anyone want to have any kind of relationship with people like that?

But regardless of how some of his peers may act, education in the arts is about individualistic creative expression, not which school has more talented (or law abiding) students. In his opinion, if he wants to be friends with Lu Han, the universities they attend shouldn't matter. Lu Han doesn't seem to think the same, but that's alright. Minseok predicted that when he approached Lu Han the first time last week. To be honest, Minseok's not even sure why he's doing this. Lu Han obviously doesn't want to talk to him.

Sliding out of the booth, Minseok is surprised when Lu Han catches his wrist.

"Where are you going?" Lu Han frowns and awkwardly tries to pull Minseok back into the booth from across the table. "It's rude to leave without saying anything in the middle of a conversation."

When Minseok sits back down he stares at Lu Han, confused. “I thought you didn't want to talk to me. You sort of ran away after I told you I go to SIPA.”

Lu Han doesn’t speak but his lips curl up into a smile.

“Unless I was wrong and you weren’t trying to run away,” Minseok continues.

“No, you’re right. I was trying to run away,” Lu Han says. Minseok opens his mouth to say something but Lu Han raises his hand. “But that was very rude of me and I apologize.”

Eyes wide, Minseok shakes his head. He wasn’t expecting that. “Oh! No need to apologize. It makes sense you would react that way.”

“That doesn’t mean I should have.”

Minseok tilts his head to the side in a slight nod of agreement. As he takes in another sip of his smoothie and Lu Han digs in his pocket for something, he feels a slight vibration in his own jeans’ pocket.

Seeing the single ‘K’ on the screen, Minseok almost scowls but he hides it. Touching the screen to get to the new message, he sighs at the two words that read 'Home. Now.' He glances up at Lu Han who is looking at him with a soft, somewhat curious gaze. His gaze reminds Minseok of those times he watched the other practice for the concert. They never had any rehearsals together; Minseok was in all of the theatrical acts and Lu Han was in the strictly singing acts. Despite that small fact, Minseok would often catch Lu Han going over the notes or working on his lines with such admirable devotion on the stage, in the hallway, in the bathroom. It was amazing to watch him. His attractiveness was just a little added bonus. But as much as Minseok enjoyed watching the hard-working side of Lu Han, there is something endearing about his awkward, silly side as well.

“I’m sorry. I have to leave,” Minseok apologizes, his fingers curling around the long sleeves of his sweater. “But I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.”

Lu Han straightens up in his seat and nods a bit too enthusiastically. “Yeah, of course,” he pauses and then slides his phone over to Minseok’s side of the table. He chuckles, running a hand through soft looking brown strands that are honey in color. “I was thinking we could exchange numbers, you know, in case we wanted to hang out or get to know each other better or something.”

Minseok looks at the phone and then at Lu Han who is staring at his hands with his bottom lip crushed by his teeth. He takes it in his hands and types in his number, saving it under ‘Minseokie ><’. Clearing his throat to get the other’s attention, he slides the phone back over to him.

“I really have to go but you can just text me and I’ll save your number then, okay?” He offers Lu Han a smile. From the frown that crosses the Chinese male’s face, he can tell it appears strained. He slides out of the booth and waves good-bye to Lu Han as he walks to the exit.

As soon as the door closes behind him, he breaks out into a sprint.

When Lu Han gets home that night, he flings himself onto the couch. His back arches painfully over the arm rest but he takes no note of it. There is a cheesy grin on his face as he looks at the new name in his contacts list. It isn’t until Sehun calls to whine about how he has nothing in his dorm to eat but potato chips that Lu Han realizes it’s wrong (very very wrong) to be so happy about having Minseok’s phone number.

“So what did you and the scumbag do after Bacon and I hightailed it out of there?” Sehun asks, pink lips moving around disposable wooden chopsticks.

Lu Han makes to reprimand him but Baekhyun beats him to it, slapping the youngest male on the back of the head.

“My name is Baekhyun, not Bacon.”

“And Minseok isn’t a scumbag.”

Holding up a hand to Lu Han, Sehun turns to face Baekhyun sitting next to him and blows him a kiss. Lay leaps over the table from his space next to Lu Han in time to prevent Baekhyun from ripping Sehun’s face off. The others in the eatery glance towards them for a second, but otherwise pay them no attention.

After Baekhyun calms down and is no longer threatening to cut off Sehun’s and staple it to his nose, Sehun gives Lu Han his attention once more.

“Who the hell is Minseok?”

Lu Han blinks, deadpan. “The scumbag. I’ve told you his name already.”

Sehun nods with understanding and ignores Baekhyun’s mutterings of how he’s an idiot.

Flicking a piece of tofu at Lay (who, once again, doesn’t notice), Sehun yawns. “I’d rather just call him ‘the scumbag’, “ he says lazily, stealing a spoonful of rice from Baekhyun. Baekhyun growls.

Shaking his head, Lu Han tosses a roll of convenience store kimbap in his mouth. It tastes alright but he can tell it’s cheap.

“But he’s really nice, Sehun,” Lu Han says, using that whiny voice that usually aggravates the younger into submission. To his misfortune, Sehun’s started ignoring him again, focusing on harassing Baekhyun more. Lu Han almost regrets adopting Baekhyun into his clique. Almost. His presence makes everything interesting now.

“I’m sure he’s nice, Lu, but you can’t trust every nice face. Especially not from SIPA,” Lay chimes in, allowing a gentle smile that quickly twists into a grimace when Baekhyun starts to struggle again after Sehun eats more of his rice.

“Eat you own food, dammit!”

“But your food tastes better; it’s like how I would imagine you to taste.” Sehun winks, running his tongue over his bottom lip suggestively. He steals one roll of kimbap from Lu Han. “And besides Han, you should think with your brain and not your .”

Lu Han glances down at the front of his pants and then back at his friends. “I don’t think it's thinking anything right now, though.”

“I think you should take your own advice, Sehun,” Baekhyun grumbles.

Sehun smirks at his comment, shifting so his body better faces the sculpture student and spreading his legs wide. “But it’s calling out to you,” he teases, his fingers fiddling with the steel button of his jeans, slipping it in and out of its loop. “If you bring your head closer you can hear it better.”

Closing his eyes, Baekhyun wets his lips. “Oh Sehun, I will give you a two second head-start,” he warns. Sehun glances at Lu Han and chuckles nervously, his cockiness dissolving into thin air.

“One… One and a half…”

When Baekhyun opens his eyes again with the fiercest glare any of them have ever seen, Sehun jumps up from his seat. “I’ll see you later, guys.” He waves and in a flash he’s gone, running for his life like a gold medal Olympian.

Baekhyun elbows Lay in the ribcage, breaking out of his hold. “Get back here so I can chop off your and staple it to your nose, Oh Sehun!” He screams, chasing after the other male. This time no one else in the room turns to look at them with confused or curious glances.

Once his back disappears past the exit, Lu Han slumps over, dropping his head to the table.

“Yixing, what do I do?” Lu Han groans, hating his life.

“Get your face out of the kimbap?”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” Lay gets up and crosses over to Lu Han’s side of the table. He places a comforting hand on Lu Han’s shoulder. “Look, just don’t get your hopes up. Sehun and I don’t want you to befriend this guy and get hurt because you’re too trusting and gullible, but I don’t think you should blow the guy off either. Keep an open mind and be careful.”

“You’re not supposed to be insightful. It doesn’t make sense.”

Sighing, Lu Han sits up. He ignores the grains of rice stuck to his face. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and scrolls through the contact list until he reaches a certain highlighted name.

Lu Han stares at the screen as it dials. Lay glances over his shoulder to peek but Lu Han pushes him away.

“Do you not know what privacy is?” He hisses, standing to take the phone call. He almost misses the click of the line.

“Who is this Lu Han guy? And why does his name have a smiley face at the end? Why doesn’t my name have a smiley face at the end? Kris won’t like this–“

Stalking out of the dining hall, Lu Han looks at the screen to make sure he dialed the correct number and then places the phone back to his ear. “Hello?” He tries, but from the commotion on the other side of the line it seems like he isn’t heard.

“Chanyeol, give me back my phone! I’ll put a smiley face at the end of your name, okay?”

Lu Han clears his throat. “Hello?”

“Ah, sorry about that. Do you need something, Lu Han?”

“Is this a bad time?”

“No, not at all.” Lu Han hears a shift and a faint whine. He decides not to ask Minseok what’s happening.

“So, uh,” he pauses, his throat closing in on itself just a bit, “I have this thing on Tuesday. My classmates and I are doing an impromptu street performance and I was thinking…what better way to start our friendship than me inviting you?”

Minseok’s laugh chimes through the receiver. “I thought that incident at the bubble tea place was the start of our friendship.”

Lu Han smiles even though he knows Minseok can’t see. “Let’s not talk about that ever again.”

“Fine, party pooper. Are you busy later? Why wait five days when we can start our friendship now, right?”