The most infuriating thing in the world was having a bunch of school friends sip loudly on their refreshing bubble teas as I was forced to shake my in front of my dearest Canadian neighbour. Fortunately though, he wasn’t doing much better as the sheer length of his limbs prevented him from looking even remotely graceful. If Kris was the ugly duckling of dance, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t blossom into a beautiful white swan. Chen wasn’t making our experience any more enjoyable but I wasn’t surprised whatsoever. The guy had way too much brain energy to be in our year but refused accelerated courses (simply because he was lazy) and spent all his energy on either causing pain to innocent people (like us) or learning new crafts (like dance and photography).

“Kris don’t be shy, just put your hand on her ,” Chen called out much to the amusement of Eunji who snorted so hard a tapioca pearl shot up her straw and into , causing her to go into a coughing fit. Kris grimaced and sighed.

“She’s too short, I don’t think I can reach,” he teased.

“Hey!” I protested, shooting him a sharp look. “And keep your hands away from my rear end.”

“It’s part of the choreography,” Xiumin reasoned from the other side of the room.

“Do you think I care?” I replied with an eye roll. “How would you feel if your neighbour was feeling you up?”

“She’s very pretty,” the boy replied with a completely emotionless face. “I don’t think I would mind.”

I reminded myself that there was no point even attempting argument with any one of them.

“I’ll just put a restraining order on your hand,” I sighed, making a compromise. “Within five centimetres.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport,” Eunji called out, obviously having recovered from her giant coughing fit. “You’re ruining the feel of the song, am I right Chen?”

I didn’t miss the super obvious conspiratorial wink she sent him.

Eunji was never very good at being subtle.

Unless her being subtle involved her lying to get out of trouble.

“Just do it then,” I growled through fiercely gritted teeth. Kris’s hand came down at lightning speed. “FOR GOD’S SAKE NOT THAT HARD AM I A BUN OF A HAMBURGER TO YOU? GOD WHY AM I EVEN DOING THIS. WHAT HAVE I DONE IN A PAST LIFE TO DESERVE THIS KIND OF INJUSTICE. NO KRIS I AM NOT A BIG MAC BURGER.”

“Well,” Luhan replied in complete innocence. “We looked up this website that tells you what you were in your past life and got Eunji to fill in your details. Apparently you attempted to assassinate someone so it could be karma.”

“Well the second result came out that you made horse’s hooves for the cavalry in medieval England but on that profile it says you’re a man so we though y female assassin was much better,” Xiumin informed me with a super loud slurp to his ice cold drink.

“Great,” I muttered, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

“Okay Kris you need to put more feel into this,” Chen chastised, analysing our compromising position with sharp eyes. “Feel the iness. You are the best. You get all the girls in the club. You have the best six pack. Your words make girls swoon. Not that you actually do that but think it for the moment. Right now you look a dying goldfish.”

“Thanks so much Chen,” Kris replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“And Minhee, you need to look more alluring which is pretty hard for you considering you have no appeal but I’m sure we can fix that up with Tao’s help. But for the moment, try to look a little more seductive,” Chen told me with a sympathetic pat to the top of my head. If I was a dog, I swear I would’ve bitten half his head off by now. “More like Hyuna less like Barack O Bama giving an address to the United Nations.”

The only reason I wasn’t getting angry was because I knew that this problem had arisen from my own stupidity. But the awkward Canadian groping my accounted for about fifty percent of that fault as well.

And Chen…

There was no way I could ever deal with Chen.

He was just a recipe for disaster.

“Just think,” Lay said soothingly. “This is really promoting your fake relationship which will in turn stop weird girls from harassing you.”

Thank the lord that there was one sane person here.

“Thanks, that really comforts me,” I said sincerely, finding a stupid grin spreading across my face.

“Okay stop daydreaming,” Chen barked, smacking me over the head and strutting over to the music player. “You guys know the first part, perform it now.”

Before we could even open our mouths to protest, he had pressed the button on the music player and we were left trapped in the middle of the dance practice room with the familiar whistling tune of the song filtering out of the speakers.

“Let’s just do this,” Kris suggested with a shrug. “Chen is certainly not going to let us off the hook.”

“Yeah I guess,” I sighed, surprised with his sudden rise in maturity.

“And besides, it’s super fun to see your reaction when someone of the opposite gender even comes within a one metre radius of you. Look at your cheeks. They’re tomato red,” he commented nonchalantly.

I gasped and took a glimpse of my face in the giant mirrors lining the left wall. My face was about as bright red as hot pepper flakes. Kicking him in the shin, I hissed in his ear. “Shut up!”

"Are you that excited about this?"

His question brought attention to the erratic beat of my heart.

"Are you freaking serious?" I snorted, trying to compensate for my mortifying red cheeks. Chen clapped his hands, signalling impatience as the routine had alreay started and we weren't even in our positions. We shot each other a final glare and gripped each other's bodies tightly, trying to inflict as much pain on the other party as we could.

"Nice expression you have there," Kris hissed through gritted teeth and I stepped on his thigh not too tightly.

"Same goes for you my dear friend," I said through thin lips as he gripped my waist even tighter. I was pretty sure one of my ribs was going to break soon.

"THAT IS THE KIND OF I AM TALKING ABOUT GREAT JOB YOU TOO." Chen commended us with a great cheer and clap. The others didn't look so convinced as they continued slurping on their ice cold drinks.

So in the end all we had to do to meet up with Chen's standards was to hold each other more tightly.

I was going to bury the guy in my backyard alive one day.

And today felt like a really good day.

A/N:

Hey guys :D I guess I should end this soon so maybe like one more filler chapter and then I'll be launching into the final series of events which include the talent show and something else which i am not going to reveal because that would be stupid... Thanks to all the sweet people who pressed the upvote button I appreciate it a lot :3