The first thing you do when you enter your room after entering your apartment complex is drop your backpack and pull out your green sketchbook that you had just started drawing in yesterday night. You seat yourself at your desk, throwing the book open to the next empty page and attack the empty canvas, images of Lay’s small smile still burning in your mind. You scribble, scrawl, and erase without stopping until your mother finally gets tired of calling you down for dinner.

She knocks on your door and asks if you’re done. You pull your head back from your sketch of Lay’s face about the size of a baby’s fist, figuring that you can finish the rest of his body and the background later. “Yeah, I’m done. Sorry for keeping you guys waiting.” You apologize as you close your sketchbook and get up from your seat to follow your mother to the dinner table.

Whilst eating, your parents ask you general questions about your day, and you respond with good answers, mentioning how you think you’ve gotten lucky with how many friends you’ve already made.

“Of course, why would anyone not want to befriend someone so pretty?” Your dad jokes as he grabs for the vegetables on one of the plates in the middle of the table.

“No…” You chuckle back, “I think it’s because I like basketball.”

“That makes even more sense. A pretty girl who likes sports and a little competition. What’s not to like?” Your dad says between chewing, “How do you think I got to like your mom?” he smiles.

That’s when your mother rolls her eyes before turning to you, “He only liked me because sometimes I would give him free buns or sweets at the bakery.” She says. You remember your mother saying that when she was young, she would work at her parents’ bakery and that’s why she knew how to cook so many things. But it was clear that she preferred being an athlete some of the time when she was a teenager.

The three of you continue to joke about several things throughout the rest of the meal, and you mention that you may be getting a Korean tutor at the school. They ask if you’ll be at home later than you are already, and you answer that you don’t know. But eventually they allow you to leave the table to start on your homework.

When you’re up in your room, you realize that you have yet to have finished half of your homework, so you reluctantly set your sketchbook aside and pull out all of your books. You breeze through your homework, getting your brain cells moving and thoughts working, and you finish whatever is due tomorrow or the day after by 9:45pm.

You decide to give yourself a break to take a shower before getting back to work to read ahead like you had yesterday. You’re out of the shower by 10 ‘o clock and in your seat, taking notes and drawing graphs in your notebooks for the next hour. You figure that you’ve taught yourself all you need to for the next day, so you let yourself relax and finish off the thermos of tea that your mom had left in your room for your earlier.

Finally, you were free to grab the green sketchbook and head to your bed to relax. It takes you a little over half an hour to finish your sketch of Lay about to turn to walk down the street, with that wondrously amused smile playing on his lips. You made sure to pay extra attention to the small dimple on his cheek and shade it properly. By the time you sign and date the corner of the page, you sit back and take a good look at the drawing. You turn the page back to yesterday’s drawing of Tao and Kris talking to each other exclusively at their tables in art class and smile at it as well.

You think back to art class and wonder how your picture of Vicky will turn out. She’s extremely pretty, so you wonder if you’ll be able to pull off everything that dazzles you in the original photo. And suddenly, you remember the question she sort of interrogated you with today in the locker room. ‘Which one is it?’

At that moment, you were sure it was just a friendly connection that you were being a little cautious over, considering you were still a newbie. You didn’t want to start getting into claimed territory if there was any. You wanted to learn the ropes of the different cliques around the school before you solidified your position in the place. But it seems as though that you’re being pulled into different friendships that you never imagined you could have built.

Now that you already found yourself drawing these guys’ faces on your own time, you knew that you were in a little deep already. Was that bad? After all, several of these guys you played with at the basketball courts would be graduating in a couple of months. And you had no idea when you would see them again. Or if you would have built a strong enough friendship with them to hang out with them on your own time by then.

It was clear at this point who you personally wanted to get closer to, considering your increasing heartbeat that didn’t need the adrenaline of the basketball game to raise. But at the same time, you were kind of drawn to all of them, in the way that you just wanted to get to know them a little better. It was the same with the girls, so what did you have to worry about? All you have to focus on for now is school. Everything else will play out on its own, you decide.

Why were you thinking so hard about all of this anyway? You wonder as you close the sketchbook and turn off the lamp by your bed. You remind yourself you’ve only been in the school for two days. All you had to do was look forward to having Lay walk you to school tomorrow and whatever happened outside of school would happen.

**

Your third day of school had passed by just as quickly as the second, and you basically did the same things. Lay took you on the farther by shorter subway route to school, and the guys were over by the basketball courts again when you two had arrived. Once again, you were invited by him and this time, also some of the other guys hanging around the court before class that morning, but you declined again. But before you went up to your classroom, Luhan made you promise to come out during lunch for another game, which made you ask him jokingly if that was all that they ever did in school. He joked back in saying, “Pretty much.”

You sat in class, reviewing all the notes that you took last night that would probably be taught today. And the girls also make it into the classroom about ten minutes before class starts. They talk to you about random topics, of course Vicky mentions the boys once or twice, and then Tao and his two other friends enter the classroom just before the teacher does. Class breezes by and you’re left as bored as ever, but you continue to pay attention anyway.

After eating lunch with the girls, you bring them out to the basketball courts to hang out with the guys again. You find out after lunch on your way back to your classroom that they’re quite grateful to you for befriending some of the guys because now they get a chance to hang around the more popular group of guys in the school. Vicky always manages to entertain herself with Amber, and a couple other guys that usually sit out from the game while you play. Fei tries to talk to some of the other guys in Korean, and they’re actually kind of teaching her well, since two of them are actually learning Chinese. Jia tends to join in on the game, so she just plays along, even though she’s not really the star on the court. She likes it just like you do.

Science and gym class pass by regularly for you, but this time, you played against more of the Korean guys in their group, and they proved to be a little goofier than your Chinese friends. But you enjoyed seeing Chanyeol, the one you had labeled as the Deep-Voiced-Giant, laugh like crazy over nothing. He and the shorter guy, Baekhyun, seemed to be quite close. You felt yourself drawn to Kai’s extremely handsome face, but he was almost as reserved as Sehun. Kai’s Luhan seemed to be the boy with wide eyes, named Kyungsoo. This time, you were a team with Kris, Lay, and Tao, playing against the Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Kai, and Kyungsoo. You don’t know how you got separated from the girls this time, but Jia ended up playing on a team with Fei, Luhan, and Sehun.

You stayed back with Kris and Tao again for some more playful competition before class. And this time, you didn’t bothering going back to the locker room for your backpack. Kris and Tao convinced you that all the materials you needed for art class where in the classroom anyway. But you were quite happy to get to art class. Tao notices the small glint in your eyes as the three of you head to the second floor together. “Do you really like art class that much?” he laughs.

“I like to draw… So yeah, I kind of like it a lot.” You shrug.

“That’s weird, because we so bad.” Tao laughs, “The only people who can draw a little between all of us is probably Lay, Kai, and Kyung. And they’re all in dance class.”

“Kyungsoo is in choir.” Kris corrects.

“Whatever.” Tao waves him off.

“They can draw?” You ask curiously, “Have you seen their work before?”

“Oh yeah, they doodle a lot in class when they’re not paying attention.” Tao answers.

“Cool. What do they usually draw?”

“Random stuff. All doodles are random, aren’t they?” Tao shrugs.

You just nod as the three of you enter the classroom and head to get your supplies from the cubbies. The guys let you go first and you thank them as you pull out all your papers and pencil box. Setting down your materials on your table, you sit down and start immediately. You’ve just been itching to scrawl with a 2B pencil all day. And since you keep your sketchbook at home to prevent you from distracting yourself at school, this was the only time you’d be able to draw in school. You can feel the guys’ eyes on you as they make their way around you to their own tables with their materials, not that it makes you work any slower. You just continue to furiously glance between the photo of Vicky and the form of her that’s appearing on your brown tracing paper.

They leave you alone to let you get lost in your work for the next hour and just talk amongst themselves as usual. But when class ends, the guys have to tap you on the shoulder to tell announce it to you. Apparently, you hadn’t heard the teacher dismiss you. “Oh sorry, thanks for telling me.” You say.

“Whoa! Kris, check it out!” Tao widens his eyes as he picks up moves your paper over on the table towards him to get a better look at Vicky’s completed face and hair. You hadn’t shaded it because you were saving that for the white paper, so you had time to perfect the face and shoulders.

“Wow… That’s amazing.” Kris’s eyes widen a bit as well as he gazes down at your drawing.

“Thanks guys,” You chuckle, pulling the drawing away from them before they can start drooling over it, “But it’s not done yet. Try not to look at it until I’ve finished it, okay?”

“It’s not done…” Tao repeats, “Oh my god, all I know is that I’m going to probably get an F on this assignment if I turn it in after Baiyun does.”

You just chuckle at him before returning your materials to your cubby. The guys follow after you and the three of you make your way back towards the locker rooms to change and retrieve your stuff. Since you have a bit of time before class, Tao brings you over to the vending machine and buys you a candy bar. You offer to pay him back, but he turns you down, saying that you had already bought him ice cream yesterday.

In the midst of you thanking him, Vicky appears by your side with Jia, “What?! You bought him ice cream yesterday?!” But quickly to cover for her shock, she adds, “And you didn’t me any?! I’m upset.”

“More like she forced Luhan to let her pay for us.” Tao laughs as he opens up his own chocolate bar. He breaks off a layer of two squares of chocolate and offers it to Vicky.

“Thank you.” She smiles giddily at the chocolate as she takes it from him. She breaks off one of the squares to hand to Jia. “Wait, what? You paid for Luhan’s ice cream? I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to.” You shake your head, pulling open the plastic of your chocolate bar.

“You should’ve seen her yesterday!” Tao laughs, “We all chose ice cream, and Luhan was about to pay like usual. But all of a sudden you whipped out her T-card like a ninja and paid for it before Luhan could pull out his money.” He evens adds some swift hand motions to emphasize your quickness. Personally, you saw it as a bit of an exaggeration.

“Well that’s not right. Are you trying to be a man?” Vicky says to you, “Obviously you’re supposed to let the dude pay. You could’ve hurt his pride doing that.” She jokes.

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. He got Lay to sneak the money back into my pocket when we went home.” You shake your head, walking past them to start towards the classroom.

They follow you and Vicky bounces at your side while Jia and Tao stay behind you two, “He did? That’s pretty sly.” She laughs, “Just goes to show you shouldn’t always trust a pretty face. Oh my god! He is so pretty, isn’t he? Sometimes I feel like he’s a lot prettier than me on a good day.” She says, changing the subject out of the blue. You’ve come to see it as her natural charm of being so eccentric.

“It’s okay, Vicky. No one is prettier than you.” You offer.

“Why thank you.” she jokes back, flipping her hair over her shoulder as you break off another layer of your chocolate to offer her. She takes it as the two of you enter the room, and she breaks off the second square to hand to Fei, who looks at it suspiciously but ends up taking it anyway.

Korean class goes accordingly, and you say goodbye to the girls who have afterschool programs and activities to attend to. Tao offers to walk down to the courts with you, assuming that you’ll be going home with Lay again, but the teacher suddenly calls you over. “I’ll wait for you outside then.” he says.

Before you can protest, he walks outside so all you can say is “Thanks!” before he’s out of the room. As you make your way up to the teacher, he tells you that the student he wanted to ask has agreed to help you. You want to ask if one of the guys you know, but you don’t know how to bring it up.

“Is he here?” You ask.

“No, but I have his contact information written down here for you. He’s a wonderful student, extremely helpful. You’ve been to Hong Kong before, right? So you know Cantonese? And a bit of English?” When you nod to answer each of his questions, he continues, “That’s perfect. Because this student is extremely multilingual too. He knows all of those languages as well, so if you’re having trouble, you’ll be able to communicate in different languages, if you need.” He laughs.

“Oh… Is it Wufan?” You ask before you can stop yourself. You’re amazed that you didn’t say Kris.

“No, it isn’t. But oh! He would’ve been a good choice to help you too!” the teacher snaps his fingers as if just realizing Kris was the perfect candidate for everything he just said. “Do you know Wufan?”

“Yeah, a little. We have a couple of classes together, so he helps me if I need it.” You shrug. “He’s pretty helpful. I just thought it was him when you said he could speak all those languages. But that doesn’t matter.” You shake your head, trying to get back to the subject, “I’m sure this guy is just as good, if not better. Since you picked him.”

“Don’t worry, he’s fantastic. His name is Alexander. He’s a very nice boy. He’s more than willing to help you with anything you need. He’d probably help you cook a meal, if you needed. He’s in the year just above yours, so he’ll be able to help you before the year ends. But if he isn’t sufficient enough in any way, I suppose you could always go to Wufan for help as well.”

“Alright. I’ll contact him tonight.” You say, taking the paper from your teacher, “Thank you very much for asking him for me. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem at all. You’re a good student, and you’ve shown it in the few days that you’ve been here. You’ll be up to speed in no time at all.” He says faithfully, patting your shoulder before he lets you leave.

You thank him once more before leaving the room, looking over the paper in your hands. Although you could read Korean, it was still written in Chinese, for which you were thankful. But suddenly, the paper is snatched out of your hands. You look up to see Tao reading over the paper as the two of you continue down the hall, “So this is your tutor?”

“I guess so.” You shrug.

“Wonder how great he is if he was the first choice before Kris.” Tao wonders, handing you back your paper. You wonder the same thing as you continue to study the e-mail address and phone numbers on the paper. Making your way down the hill towards the basketball courts, Tao asks, “So are you going to have to go to each other’s houses or something? Or just a library?”

“I don’t know. It depends on him, I guess.” You shrug.

“Hey guys.” You hear Luhan’s cheery voice greet you.

“Hey,” You and Tao greet back. All the guys from yesterday are here today.

“Do you guys remember an Alexander or something from your class?” Tao asks, “He’s going to be Baiyun’s Korean tutor.”

“Xander?” Luhan asks, “Oh! I remember him! Yeah, he’s like a top student. Kind of a teacher’s pet. But he’s pretty nice. He’s your new tutor?”

“Guess so.” You shrug.

“Doesn’t he know like… seven languages?” Lay asks, looking up at Luhan and Kris from his spot on the steps of the basketball courts.

“What?!” You and Tao shout.

“Yeah, he knows all the languages that Kris knows. And some others, like… Spanish, definitely. And… Japanese, I think. And something else. Portuguese, or something.” Lay says as he stands up.

“That’s… really impressive.” You blink.

“That’s freaking crazy!” Tao says.

“Does he have an accent?” You ask.

“Mm… not in Korean. He has a small one when he speaks Mandarin, but it’s not too noticeable. I don’t know about anything else.” Lay shrugs.

You nod thoughtfully as Luhan announces that all of you should get going. He throws his arm around Sehun’s shoulders and makes his way towards the gate as Kris leans his arm around Lay’s shoulders as he starts to walk forward as well. You slip the paper with Alexander’s contact information into your pocket before you feel Tao wrap his arm around your shoulders.

You blink before you look up at him, “What are you doing?”

“It’s what everyone else is doing. I don’t want to feel left out.”  Tao shrugs as he pulls you forward to catch up with Kris and Lay. “Sup guys.”

Kris and Lay give you questioning looks before you greet them as well, “Uhm… hey.” Eventually, they ignore you and continue to walk towards the subway station. Tao finally lets go of you when all of you have to scan your T-cards to get through the metal triangles. Your shoulders are definitely feel lighter, but admittedly, you kind of liked the weight on them when it was mixed with Tao’s warmth. It was kind of nice to walk around so casually like that with the guys. You almost wish you could have taken a picture of the scene. It would’ve been cute.

When the six of you make it down to your stations, you all stand together as you wait for the trains to come. Tao sighs out of nowhere and tugs on Luhan’s shirt, “Luhan, buy us ice cream later.” He requests cutely in Korean, making you laugh a little. Where did that come from?

“I would, but I don’t have that much money today.” Luhan says, reaching into his pockets to find his wallet. But he digs around in his pocket for something with a weird look on his face, “Where did this come from?” he pulls out a wad of bills folded and rolled up together. You purposely look away when Luhan looks up at you, “Baiyun, did you do this?”

“Oh look! The train’s here!” You shout, pulling Lay’s arm to drag him towards the opening train doors in attempt to avoid Luhan, who was probably following behind you to return the money to you.

You let go of Lay’s arm to let him enter the train on his own as not to fall over when stepping inside, and Kris follows quickly behind. You quickly take a seat and look out of the window to see Luhan staring at you incredulously with the bills in his hands as you wave to him with a timid smile. You can see Tao laughing from the background, and even Sehun seems to be letting a smile play on his face.

“I thought I saw you creeping around our stuff during lunch.” Kris chuckles as he takes a seat next to you. Lay takes the seat next to him quietly. “Are you guys going to keep going at this or something?”

“I hope not.” You shrug, “It doesn’t matter how hard he tries, I’m not going to take it.”

“You’re kind of a stubborn one.” He smiles amusedly at you. It’s not a smile that intimidates you anymore, but it’s not the eye smile that you like on him either. All you can do is shrug it off when you see it.

“Thank you.”

About twenty minutes later, you and Lay are in front of your house yet again and he says he’ll pick you up at the same time tomorrow. You secretly long to ask him to smile for you so you can see his adorable dimple again. You thank him once more before bidding him goodbye and watch him walk off down the street before you enter your apartment building.

The first thing you do when you get to your room is turn on your laptop for the first time in several days. You sign into your email account and send a nice greeting to Alexander in Korean, thanking him for agreeing to tutor you and promising that you’ll be a good student and do your best. You also include your phone number, a link to your Weibo profile, and your MSN screen name for other contact references. After deleting a few spam messages and replying to your friends’ messages that you had forgotten about, updating them on your new life in Korea and how much you like it, you sign into your other online accounts to see several messages from other friends. You give them all quick updates and wish them well over in China before telling them that you’re off to eat dinner and do homework.

After finishing everything you said you would do and taking a shower, you study ahead another lesson for each of your subjects as usual for an hour or so until it’s almost 11pm. This time, the new page in your sketchbook will be of the six of you in pairs, smiling and laughing casually as one of the guys in each pair has his arm around the other. Since you’re drawing them from the front when you didn’t really see them, Luhan and Sehun are in the front while Kris and Lay stand a little farther back, and just behind them are Tao and you. After sketching the scene for an hour, you finish off with scribbling a quote of Tao’s words of not wanting to be left out near his head and signing and dating the corner of the paper. You go to bed feeling extremely content with your third day at school.

**

The next morning, after washing up and putting on your uniform, you check your email, Weibo, and MSN for new messages. And although each of them has messages from different people, you only check the email reply from Alexander that was sent an hour after you had sent your message to him. He sounds extremely friendly and approachable in his message, so you feel reassured in having him as a tutor. He agrees that both of you will probably be busy during the week with your own activities, so he offers to meet up during weekends to go over material in more depth. But he reassures you that it’s perfectly fine to text him during the breaks or at lunch at school, and if you wanted to some extra help before school or during lunch on days of tests, he could do that as well. If you have any other questions about the school or anything, you don’t have to hesitate to ask him.

You think over all of the options he gives you. It seems as though he’s most definitely willing to help you, and you appreciate that. He seems to show all the qualities that you could wish for in a tutor in just one message. You already had high expectations for him to be a good teacher, especially when you know that he’s extremely multilingual, thanks to Lay.

Speaking of Lay, you see that he’ll be picking you up in about 15 minutes. The 15 minutes that you need to eat breakfast. You grab your backpack and head out of your room, dropping it on the couch as you sit down at the table in front of the ham and egg sandwich and mug of tea that your mother had prepared for you. You eat comfortably as you scroll through your phone’s messages, tapping in replies to your friends with one hand as you hold the sandwich in the other.

This time, you’re finished a little more quickly, so you decide to send a morning greeting to Alexander as you wait for Lay to call.

[Hi Alexander sunbae! It’s Yun. I hope I didn’t wake you or anything. But anyways, I just wanted to say good morning since I learned how to a little while ago^^ Thank you again for being my tutor, I really appreciate it. And I’m sorry if my Korean is lacking in this message. I’m still learning ;~;]

Not two minutes later, you receive a reply in Chinese.

[Good morning Yun^^ It’s no problem, I’m happy to help (: And your Korean doesn’t seem to have anything wrong with it so far. You can just call me Xander, by the way. Or Alex. Whichever you’re comfortable with (: Are you doing well on your first couple days at school?]

[Haha thanks for replying to me in Chinese (: It makes me feel a little less afraid of embarrassing myself. My first days are going quite well, thank you for asking. I’m lucky to have made so many friends! There are more Chinese people here than I expected! I’m really grateful. And I’ve already made a couple of friends on the basketball team because I played with them in gym class]

[The basketball team? Wow! You make friends fast! Lucky you! Yeah, since this is Seoul International HS, there are more Chinese transfers here than there are at other schools (: I wasn’t one of them because I’m Korean, but I did live in Hong Kong for a while. I heard that you lived there for a while too? Maybe we can speak to each other in Cantonese and English if we have problems communicating! Haha!^^]

[Yup! I lived in Hong Kong when I was a kid, and thankfully, I didn’t forget too much of what I learned there. So yes, we can speak in Cantonese or English^^ I heard that you can speak several other languages too :O How do you manage to be so multitalented?]

[I’m not that talented^^ I know basic small talk in a couple other languages, but I’m still learning. Well, I have to start getting ready for school now, so if you need absolutely anything, feel free to ask!^^ I’m here to help! I’ll talk to you later?]

[Okay! I have to get going to school too. I’ll definitely ask you! Thank you! Have a great day! Bye~]

[Bye~!]

When you end your conversation with Xander, you check the time and realize that it’s almost ten minutes later than when Lay usually calls to pick you up. You check to see if you had received any missed calls or texts in the midst of your conversation with your new tutor, but none show up. He had said that he would be picking you up today, hadn’t he?

You decide to call him, and he answers after three rings. “Baiyun! I’m sorry I’m late! I woke up late and I’m almost to your place now. I forgot to call you earlier when I was leaving the house.”

“Oh no! It’s no problem! I’ll just head down there and wait for you now. Did you eat breakfast?” You ask.

“I uhm… No, I didn’t. I was in a rush to leave house. But I grabbed a banana, and I can always get breakfast on the way to school. We’re not late or anything.” He says.

“It’s okay, I have something for you. I’ll see you later.” You say, hanging up before he can protest to you bringing down the sandwich you had asked your mom to prepare for him. It was sitting in a clear plastic bag on the table, ready for grab and go. You pick up the sandwich, open up the fridge to grab a bottle of banana milk, and grab your backpack from the couch before leaving the apartment and heading down the hall towards the elevator.

By the time you’re down in front of your apartment building, Lay is already there, as usual. It seems that he’s panting just a little, but he’s trying to hide it. “Good morning.” You greet him, holding up the sandwich in the bag in one hand and the bottle of milk in the other to him.

“Oh, thank you very much.” He says as he gently takes the items from your hands, “I’m sorry, again, for making you wait.”

“No way, it’s okay. You shouldn’t be worrying about me. You wouldn’t have to worry about being late anyway if it wasn’t for me. So I’m sorry for making you rush.”

“It’s nothing like that. I’m happy to go to school with you.” he says as the two of you make your way down the street. “It’s nice to have company in the morning when I’m going to school.”

“Uhm, thanks. I’m happy to go to school with you too. You’re really nice.” You say shyly.

He opens the plastic bag and pushes the sandwich up halfway to bite into it. When he swallows it, he asks you, “So which route do you want to take today?”

“Let’s just take the longer way, since it’ll bring us there a little faster. I’m sure your friends won’t mind if you’re a little later than usual, but they still might wonder.”

“They’re your friends now too, you know. You don’t have to back away from us or anything.” He says with a small smile on his face. It’s not enough for you to see his dimple, but traces of it are appearing as he chews.

“I don’t want to make any claims yet.” You shrug, “This isn’t my territory, so I should probably earn my street cred before I do anything.”

“I respect that.” Lay nods as he takes a break from the sandwich to poke a hole into the top of the banana milk with the straw attached to it.

You wait for him to finish eating before you continue with conversing with him. But once the garbage is all tucked neatly into the plastic bag in in his hands, you decide to bring up a topic, “So I talked to my new tutor this morning. And he seems really nice.”

“Yeah? What did you talk about?” he asks, not bothering to turn his head.

“Not much. But I think he’ll be a good tutor. He keeps telling me that I can ask him for anything. And he seems like a good planner, a good leader. Kind of like Kris.” You shrug.

“Yeah, I heard he was like that. I wasn’t in his class or anything, but I know some of his friends, and they all think he’s a riot.” Lay says indifferently.

“That’s good. I wouldn’t want an introvert as a teacher or anything.”

“Are you saying that some of us are introverts?” Lay asks with a tone of humor in his voice, finally facing you.

“Only you.” You joke.

“That’s not true. I’m quite social.” He argues back in his calm voice.

“Well, I suppose you are compared to Sehun, or Kai. Those guys don’t seem to like anybody besides the guys in your group.”

“They just need a little time to open up to people, that’s all.” Lay shrugs, “They kind of like you though, I’m sure. You’re not pushing yourself onto them like a lot of other people would. Like you said before, you’re waiting to earn your street cred, so I’m pretty sure they respect you for that too.”

“Really? Thank you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” You smile to yourself happily, “So having you guys as friends makes me feel kind of blessed.”

“Well, who wouldn’t want to be your friend? A nice, pretty girl who likes to play basketball and has a level head. What’s not to like?” Lay shrugs.

Trying to avoid blushing from hearing Lay compliment you and call you pretty, you ignore his statement to say, “That sounds like something my parents said a little while ago.”

“Well, then they’re right.” Lay shrugs carelessly, “Am I wrong?” he looks down at you.

“Uhm… Thank you.” You say, looking down at the floor as the two of you near the subway station, “It means a lot.”

It sure does.

i hate tests. and postal service regulation prices. kill me.