It was another evening after a brain-hurting session of Mandarin lesson with Luhan. It was somewhere in her third month of lessons and she still couldn’t get over the painful headache she got after the lessons. She felt as if her head almost exploded with the overloaded input of Chinese characters during the tutorial.

“I think I will puke the next time I saw a Chinese character.” She whined as she slumped herself on her bed. They were always studying at her room, a modern themed bed room with futuristic designed furniture. The room was quite big for one person and it was decorated with black and white ornaments to complement the theme. A single bed was placed on the side of the room, next to a white study desk accompanied with a black office chair—the one that can rotate and move around.  In the middle of the room, a thick mat was spread out on the floor; a tatami-styled table was placed on it. Luhan loved the table because it was big enough for him to spread all his snacks while still being able to directly look at Jinri’s poor attempt on writing the Chinese characters on her book. On the corner of the room, a couple of bookshelves were standing next to each other, proudly displaying the many books that Jinri had or going to read. A small closet stood next to them. Jinri was never the kind of girl who care too much about her appearance that such small place could contain all of her clothing. A vanity mirror that she rarely used was placed next to the closet, being the only sign to remind people that the modernistic room belonged to a girl.

Luhan laughed melodiously, making her heart skipped a beat.

“You will get used to it.” He affirmed her.

“Oh, by the way, I can’t teach you this Saturday. Let’s add the hours to the Monday session. Or would you perhaps want to have a Sunday session instead?” He spoke as he stuffed his bag with his tablet.

“Why?” She asked him, following the thin man’s every move with her eyes. She wondered how he could move oh so gracefully every single time.

“Hadn’t Sehun told you yet?” He asked her in disbelief, turning his head to her.

She shook her head.

“Well, our dance school has a festival this Saturday. You can come to check it out, if you want to.” He fished out an invitation letter from his bag.

“Here. You can bring a friend with you too. I believe Sehun will invite you later, though.” He said as he handed the letter to her.

She received it and read it carefully.

“Are going to perform too?”

He nodded excitedly. “Yup.”

“I’m looking forward to Saturday, then. And please just add the session to Monday, Oppa. I don’t want to spoil my Sunday.”

Luhan chuckled as he ruffled her hair affectionately.

Jinri waited for Sehun to tell her about the upcoming performance but he never said anything about it.  However, since Luhan had gave her the invitation—and she just really wanted to see his performance—she showed up at the venue on Saturday morning with her good friend, Soojung.

Jinri didn’t have many girlfriends for three good reasons: one, being a not-so-attractive bookworm and math-geek she was; two, being good friend of the school heartthrob, the famous Oh Sehun; and three, her lack of social skill—mostly because of her bluntness. Fortunately, the obnoxious and loud Jung Soojung was kind enough to befriend her since Soojung didn’t have much friends as well, due to other girls’ jealousy of her unmatched beauty—or at least that was what she told Jinri.

Jinri, however, did think that Soojung was beautiful. The said girl had beautiful wavy long black hair, healthy milky white complexion, nice big round eyes, beautiful nose, and thin pink lips. She also had a good figure that girls would kill for. But Jinri would never admit it out loud—of course—since it would only boost the girl’s ego.

Jinri looked right and left, searching for both Luhan’s and Sehun’s skinny figures in the crowd. In her hand was two lunch—or probably breakfast—boxes that she planned to give to Luhan and Sehun. She originally prepared only one—for Luhan, since he was the one who actually invited her to the event—but Sehun was close with her and Luhan and it would be awkward if she didn’t give him as well, so she made another box for Sehun.

She was looking around for Luhan and Sehun when she met a familiar face.

“Jinri-ssi! Soojung-ssi!”

“Jongin-ssi! Are you performing too?” Soojung asked the tanned classmate of Sehun, Kim Jongin, as he walked toward them.

“Yes!” He answered proudly, a smirk decorated his handsome features.

 “I bet you’re looking for Sehun.” He added accusingly to Jinri.

“Yes. Have you seen him?” Soojung answered for Jinri. The annoying thing about Soojung was, she loved to answer questions that weren’t meant for her. She especially loves to answer the ones directed to Jinri.

“Luhan-oppa, too, actually.” Jinri added quickly before Jongin could answer Soojung’s question.

“You know Luhan-hyung?” He asked, surprised.

“Yes, he is her Mandarin tutor.” Soojung, again, answered in the speed of light.

Jongin seemed baffled by the other girl quick response but he ignored her and asked Jinri again; his eyes twinkling in curiosity. “You’re taking a Mandarin class? Why?”

“She is going to move to Beijing in three months from now. Her parents are going to be transferred there.” Soojung spoke before Jinri could open .

Jongin eyed Soojung incredulously—clearly taken aback by the way she answered all the questions he didn’t mean for her—before looking at Jinri who nodded in agreement.

“Well, what a surprise we have here. Anyway, let’s go to find Sehun.” He said as he led the way for the two girls.

“I wonder why Sehun hadn’t told me about your leave yet.” Jongin spoke to no one in particular as they walked side by side to the backstage.

“I don’t really see any necessity in telling you about it.” Jinri told him honestly. Although Jongin was always with Sehun, she wasn’t exactly close to the thick-lipped guy.

“Well, I’m his good friend and you are…” He paused for a while, searching for a proper term, “his good friend so I suppose he would be telling me important stuffs like that.”

She nodded—not agreeing to anything, simply a gesture to indicate that that she was listening.

“There they are.” Jongin told them, pointing at the Luhan and Sehun who were talking with each other. When they were standing side-by-side like that, Jinri couldn’t help but to notice the uncanny resemblance between the two. Luhan had slightly bigger eyes and Sehun was a bit taller but everything else about them was quite similar.

Luhan had his hand loosely hanging around Sehun’s shoulders, showing off their closeness. He often whispered to the younger guy and Sehun sometimes laughed after it. The look on Luhan eyes, however, broke her heart.

It was longing.

“Speaking of Luhan-hyung,” Jongin started in a gossipy-tone, “people are saying that he have a thing for Sehun. Sometimes I wonder if it is true. I bet Sehun will freak out if it is.”

Before she could responded, Soojung had already called Sehun out, making the boy puzzled as he didn’t expect either Soojung or Jinri. Luhan spotted Jinri and quickly took down his hand; a troubled look graced his face for a split second before he smiled gently while following Sehun, who marched toward her.

“What are you doing here?” Sehun asked Jinri, puzzled. He wasn’t annoyed that she was coming—he was actually glad—but he was really surprised as he remembered he hadn’t told her about the performance.

She pointed out to the dirty-blonde-haired man next to him, “Luhan-oppa told me, actually.”

“Oh.” Sehun responded monosyllabically while looking at the older man.

“You didn’t tell her?”

Uneasiness was clear in Luhan’s tone.

“I’m kind of forgetting it.” Sehun mumbled sheepishly, scratching his-not-itching back of his neck.

 “Actually, it’s alright with me,” Jinri told them as she sense the sudden awkwardness between Luhan and Sehun, “Oppa, can’t I just be your guest, instead? Sehun didn’t really want me here, anyway.” She added half-jokingly.

Luhan smiled as he patted her back. “Sure thing. Thank you for coming, Jinri-ah.” It was the smile that she always loved; dazzling and pure. His smile slightly wavered though when Sehun blushed at Jinri’s former teasing and muttered shyly, “It wasn’t like that.”

“This is Soojung, my classmate and good friend.” She hurriedly introduced Soojung to Luhan—ignoring the uncomfortable air that suddenly enveloped her. Soojung and Luhan exchanged polite greeting and shook hands.

“Your boxes, Jinri?” Soojung smartly reminded Jinri when Soojung caught her friend staring at Luhan without saying anything.

“Ah, yes.” She gave them—Luhan and Sehun—her prepared lunch boxes and the older one between the two couldn’t hide his excitement.

“You’re preparing one for me too? That’s really nice of you.” He told her as he accepted her gift.

“Well, you’re the one who actually invited me here, it’s the least that I can do for you. Good luck, Oppa.” She beamed at Luhan who smiled back at her.

“Thank you.” He replied cheerfully.

“You should’ve made one for me too.” Jongin pouted at the exchange between Jinri and Luhan. Jinri raised her eyebrows at the tanned guy.

“And you are?”

“I’m your schoolmate! Aish, Jinri-ssi!” he sulked.

“Well, Jinri has her reasons for making lunch boxes and apparently you are not important enough for her.” Soojung wittily commented, earning her a high five from Jinri.

Jongin threw the pair a dirty look. But before he could give any clever retort, Sehun put his hand around Jongin’s shoulder. “Shut up, I’ll share with you.” He told him and dragged him away from the girls.

“Thanks, by the way,.” He remarked while grinning and waving the box at her.

The dance festival consisted of several performances. They were all good but Jinri was particularly impressed by Sehun’s and Jongin’s routine. The two of them danced together with four other guys to a hip hop song and wowed the crowd with their perfectly in-sync popping and locking. She noticed, though, that Jongin’s moves were rather more fluid then others’ while Sehun’s were sharper. Both of them were definitely the best dancers in the set, bringing power and passion to the stage. Jinri and Soojung gave them a standing applause after the group finished their routine.

However, Luhan’s solo performance was another story. Jinri thought that Luhan brought everything to a whole different level; the first one was his handsomeness and the second one was his current dance. It was—for a lack of better word—jaw dropping. Luhan’s dance was full of contradiction: he was graceful yet powerful; he moved beautifully yet oozed masculinity at the same time. His passion was evidently setting the stage ablaze as she could almost feel the heat hitting her. Her eyes was fixated to follow his every steps; she—as well as the rest of the audience—was fully enraptured by his charm.

When he ended his routine, the hall was roaring with standing applause. He sent his heart melting smile to the audience, turning her into jelly. When Luhan actually made an eye contact with her and waved at her, she immediately suffered a mini heart attack.

It was indeed difficult to not fall in love with Luhan.

However, her heart was shattered again when she saw Luhan put his arms around Sehun’s waist at the final bow from all the performers. It was crystal clear that she would never win Luhan if Sehun was still in the picture.