“So, how is your tutorial with Luhan-hyung going?” Sehun asked her while they walked together to school. No, the two of them weren’t dating. The pale boy, Sehun, and her were childhood friends as well as neighbors who had been going to the same schools for as long as they could remember. Their parents were close acquaintances who had known each other for decades, resulting in their children inheriting their long-time friendship.

“He is a good teacher, but damn, Mandarin . There are just too many characters and pronunciations. I don’t know how I will survive school there.” She whined. Sehun raised his eyebrow; the taller and skinnier of the two then commented heartlessly while keeping his forever-poker-face, “Well, you better have some improvement soon. It’s not like you can avoid being sent there four months from now.”

She sighed. “Aish. Can’t they just leave me at your place or Soojung’s? Why should they drag me with them?” She grumbled.

It wasn’t a real question; it was just a rhetorical one. Her father would be transferred to the Beijing branch office and he was going to bring all of his family—that meant her mother and her—to the capital city of China. The company had informed him 6 months prior to the transfer and that was the reason why she had been getting intensive Mandarin tutorial for the past two months.

Sehun patted the long straight black haired girl on the head. “It will be fine.” He muttered. She nodded hopefully.

It will be fine, she chanted in her mind.

“Speaking of Luhan-oppa, how is your class with him going?” She asked him offhandedly.

Luhan had three jobs to keep him busy everyday in Seoul. At the mornings, he was a programmer; at evenings, he taught Mandarin; and on weekends he taught dance classes with his fellow Chinese dancers. However, he supposed to only have two jobs before he met her. Sehun had been taking Luhan’s dance class for almost 2 years and he was the one who recommended Luhan to be her Mandarin tutor. She still remembered how Sehun had promoted Luhan to her with his odd logic. “He is a really good teacher,” Sehun had told her, “I bet he could teach Mandarin well too.” She still remembered herself rolling her eyes at his statement. Yes, because excellent dancing skill equal with good language skill.

She had been surprised when Sehun had brought Luhan to her house the day after it. Apparently, Sehun had taken the initiative to tell her parents about Luhan and promoted him to them as well. They had been interested in his proposition and asked Sehun to bring Luhan to a dinner-interview. And that was how she met Luhan.

Her meeting with him was the definition of love at the first sight. Sehun had told her that Luhan was good looking but she hadn’t expected man to be that good looking. She had been with Sehun for all her life and he was really handsome in her opinion, but Luhan took the word handsome to another whole new level.

Luhan was perfect: he had the perfect dyed blonde hair, the perfect dazzling eyes, the perfect fair complexion with shades of red on his cheeks, the perfect bone structure, and the perfect rosy lips. He was the definition of perfection. His angelic eye-smile, though, was the one that caught her heart. It had been difficult for her to keep her eyes off the new man during the dinner; she hadn’t wanted to be caught openly gawking at him during their first meeting.

“Great. Luhan-hyung is always cool.” Sehun answered automatically. Saying that Sehun liked Luhan is an understatement. Sehun adored the older man to the point that he thought of Luhan as his own brother. Sehun is the youngest of three sibling and all his siblings were females. Therefore, the ever cheerful but wise Luhan had easily filled the spot of an older brother who Sehun had always longed for. It was really cute to see them together: the poker-faced-and-older-looking-but-childish in reality Sehun and the cute-baby-faced- but-matured Luhan.

“Do you still hang out with him often?” She asked him curiously.

“No. You’re taking all his time, thank you very much.” Sehun reminded the pale girl, Jinri, sarcastically.

“Well, you’re the one who recommended him to be my teacher.”

“It isn’t his fault that you‘re so bad in Mandarin that he has to give you a lesson every single day.”

“Ya! Why don’t you try learning Mandarin! Besides, I’m still free on weekends!”

“That’s only because he has other classes to teach on weekends. Besides, didn't you tell me that Luhan is going to give you lessons in Saturdays as well? What was the reason, again?” He asked mockingly.

He knew. That bastard knew why Luhan had to give her Saturday lessons as well.

Jinri glared at Sehun; ignoring the red flush that gracing her pale cheeks.

Sehun snorted—which he didn’t bother to cover at all—and smirked.

“It’s not my fault that I’m not good in Mandarin.”

“It’s definitely not Luhan-hyung’s either.”

She glared again at him but he simply shrugged.

“The language .” Jinri muttered.

“Yeah, sure.” Sehun replied in a mocking tone.

She shot him a dirty glare which he replied with his always stoic expression. She hit his arm, earning a not-so-surprised yelp from him. Jinri had always been known to be somewhat violent, especially to her best friend-slash-punching bag Sehun.

As they walked in silent, she stole a glance at Sehun, who was still rubbing the spot where she hit him. Sometimes she wondered if Sehun knew Luhan like she did. Luhan was friendly—another way to say that he was really chatty—and he talked a lot when they were taking a break during his private session. After a week or two, she realized that most of their talk was about Sehun. At first, she felt that it was given since both of them knew Sehun and he was the one who brought them together. However, as time goes by, she started to notice some peculiarity. Jinri was a perceptive girl and being in love with Luhan only increased her awareness on him. She noted the small details in Luhan when he talked about Sehun: the affection, the masked longing, and the one she was most horrified of, the desire.

It took her no time to realize that Luhan thought of Sehun as more than just a little brother.

Jinri was known to be outspoken and—painfully—honest to the point that she annoyed people with her bluntness. Luhan, however, had successfully made her became tongue tied. It took her roughly two weeks to summon the courage to ask Luhan about Sehun.

“Luhan-oppa,” she had asked him that fateful day, “do you like Sehun?”

 “Sure. He is a cute kid.” He had mumbled his answer unthinkingly. He hadn’t looked up from her workbook that he had been scrutinizing for the past 5 minutes.

“I mean, like, liking-like, you know, the romantic kind?”

She remembered Luhan had put down the book on her desk, refusing to look at her for a few minutes in a choking kind of silence.

In the end, he had raised his head and she remembered the wistful smile Luhan had shown her that day.

After all, The man who owned her heart was in love with her best friend, Sehun.

TBC