~*~

Seyoon bumped into Kai’s back when he suddenly stopped walking. “Until when are you going to follow me?” Kai said to her with a cold-hearted face.

“Me? Following you? No. I am not following you,” denied Seyoon.

Kai suddenly smirked. “Oh really? Just to let you know, we already walk past your house.”

“Really?” Seyoon turned around. “Oh…ah…AH! I am returning this lunchbox to Aunt Kim. I will also thank her,” Seyoon smiled at Kai.

“Tsk. Alright, come with me,” he said as he led Seyoon inside their house.

After returning the lunchbox and thanking Mrs. Kim, Kai led Seyoon outside.

“I’ll just see you tomorrow,” Kai said as he was closing the door.

“Wait!” Seyoon said trying to stop him.

“What do you want?”

“About what happened earlier…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kai said, again trying to close the door. But Seyoon was able to step her foot forward, stopping the door to close.

“Wait! Fine, if you don’t want to talk about it, I just want to let you know that you shouldn’t treat Sehun that way. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“What? So you’re saying that I am the one who’s wrong here?”

“No! What I mean is that…ah…”

“Nevermind. Just don’t in. It’s our problem not yours.” After Kai said that, he noticed that Seyoon’s face looked crestfallen.

“I understand. I’ll just see you tomorrow.” Seyoon said as she started walking towards the street.

“Wait!” Kai grabbed her hand. “I didn’t mean to…Tsk. It’s just that, it is best that you stay out of our fight.” Seyoon nodded without looking at him. She pulled her hand from Kai’s grip and walked away.

Kai let out a deep sigh before going back inside their house.

---

Seyoon was walking on her way to the school. She didn’t wait for Kai or went to Kai’s house this morning. She just thought that maybe Kai needed space after what happened yesterday.

At the entrance of the school, she saw a lot of girls. Some of them are students of their school while the others have different school uniform. She wondered what the commotion was all about. When she got near them, she heard some of the girls fighting with some of the boys.

 

“What is that? Do you think they would care about you? They don’t even know you.”

“What? We don’t care. Even if they don’t know us, we’ll continue supporting them all the way. That’s what fans are for.”

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Fan? I don’t care. Just stop loitering in front of our school. And stop giving away those leaflets. You’re just littering. You are as ugly as your idol!”

“WHAT?!? How dare you say that? Do you even know how scary the fangirls would be if they heard that? Repeat it again and I will ripped you in half.” The guy stopped talking when he saw the girls glaring at him. One of his friends dragged him inside the school.

 

The girls continue to crowd the entrance of the school. One of the girls handed Seyoon a leaflet.

“Please support them in the upcoming school festival dance competition.”

“Hmm?” Seyoon looked at the leaflet. She couldn’t recognize any of the faces in the leaflet. But one thing caught her attention, the dance competition. She was thinking about this all night. And she made her decision that she would convince Kai to enter the competition no matter what.

“Seyoon-ah~!” Chanyeol came running towards her direction and poked her cheek.

“Where’s Kai?” asked Baekhyun who came together with Chanyeol and Kyungsoo.

“I left earlier. I didn’t see him.”

“Oh. Why is the entrance crowded?” asked Baekhyun.

“I don’t know. They were talking about the dance competition. They even gave me this,” Seyoon handed them the leaflet she received.

“Oh, so these are the exchange students. There are still a lot of weeks before the competition and they are already promoting themselves,” said Kyungsoo.

“Can I see that?” said Chanyeol. “I wonder who among them was the one that Sehun mentioned yesterday.”

“Sehun mentioned?” asked the curious Seyoon.

“Ahh…” Chanyeol gave Kyungsoo and Baekhyun a look saying should-I-tell-her-or-not.

“Remember their fight yesterday?” said Baekhyun. Seyoon nodded at him. “Well we found out that one of the new students was Kai’s classmate in his dance class when he was younger.”

“Oh…really? What about that classmate of him?” asked Seyoon.

“Sehun said that that classmate of Kai humiliated him while he was performing when he was younger. Ever since then, he dropped out of the dance school. He just returned dancing when he met Sehun and both of them formed their own dance club.”

“That’s cruel,” Seyoon said thinking about Kai.

“We know.”

If only she knew he had this problem, she would have talked to him sincerely yesterday.

---

When the class started, Seyoon noticed that Kai wasn’t talking to anyone. She even greeted him when he entered the room but he didn’t response. It was already lunchtime when she tried to approach him again.

“What would be our lunch today?” asked Chanyeol.

“Kai, what do you wa…” even before Seyoon was able to finish what she was saying Kai already stood up and left the room.

Chanyeol looked at Seyoon. The boys are not saying anything, even Sehun who was silent the whole time.

“Give him some time,” said Sehun.

“No. I’ll talk to him. I’m sure he just needs someone to talk to.” Seyoon grabbed her lunchbox and ran to find Kai.

Seyoon looked anywhere but Kai was nowhere to be found. She kept entering empty rooms, going to empty hallways but Kai was not there. ‘I wonder where he is.’

“Seyoon!” someone shouted from behind.

“Sehun…”

“If you’re looking for Kai, he might be in the dance rehearsal room. It’s on the left wing of the 2^nd building.”

“Thank you.” Seyoon dashed to the adjacent building and went to where the dance rehearsal room. When she opened the door, Sehun was right. Kai was there with his eyes closed lying on the floor with his head resting on his arm.

“Can I come in?” Seyoon asked.

Kai opened his eyes. He knew that voice. He sat up and looked towards the direction of the voice. “What are you doing here? This place is for the dance club members only.”

“Well, I just thought that I might find you here…Here, I brought two lunchboxes. My mother and I prepared these.” She went near Kai and sat beside him. She opened the lunchbox full of food that she knew he liked. She handed him the chopstick and spoon. She smiled at him. “Eat as much as you liked.”

He knew he couldn’t resist that smile. He would always ask himself why she was always smiling even in a tense situation like this, even if he tried to avoid her. “How do you know the location of this room? Sehun said it to you, right?” Seyoon nodded at him. “I knew it.”

“Kai…” Seyoon looked at him, hesitating whether she should ask the question or not. “About the dance competition, may I know the reason why you wouldn’t want to join?”

Kai didn’t look at her and continued eating from the lunchbox. “I already told Sehun, I just don’t feel like competing.”

“But he said that you’re not the type of person who would turn down a dance challenge especially as huge as the upcoming school festival competition.”

“That’s my only reason, nothing else.”

“So it has nothing to do with the new student?”

Kai looked at her. “How do you know about the new student?”

“Uh…about that…”

“Sehun said it to you, right? Why would I even ask? I knew he was the one who said it. He’s the only one who knew about it anyway.”

“No! Don’t blame Sehun. He was just concerned to you, that’s all.”

“Concerned? Maybe you were all laughing to me when he said that story.”

“No! He didn’t say anything. I promised.” Kai put down his chopsticks. Seyoon looked at him.

“I’m finished. You can get this now and go back to our classroom. I want to be alone.”

“Kai…”

“I said I wanted to be alone.”

“But…”

“Tsk. Will you stop bothering me? No. Will you stop talking to me? Don’t you know that you’re getting annoying?”

Seyoon looked at him wide-eyed. “Annoying? I am sorry…I didn’t mean to…”

“Just leave.” Kai lay down sideways with his back facing Seyoon. Seyoon didn’t say a word anymore as she stood up, going towards the door.

“Fine. Just to let you know, we never laughed at you or whatever stories that you have. You don’t know how concerned we are of you.” Kai didn’t move a bit. Seyoon just looked at him before she left. When Kai heard the door closed, he sat up.

“What have I done? AHH!” He punched the hard wooden floor taking all the pain inside. How he wished he could say something to Seyoon or to his friends, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to remember the humiliation he had, not that one.

---

When Seyoon returned after lunch, all the boys noticed the change in her face. She seemed dismal. Even Kai who returned afterwards never talked for the rest of the class hours. They didn’t even look at each other once. When the class ended, Kai immediately left without even saying goodbye to them. Seyoon just kept on arranging the things inside her bag and her desk.

The boys looked at each other and at Seyoon. “Seyoon, do you want to eat ddeokbokki? I will treat you,” said Baekhyun.

“No thanks. I am not hungry. I’ll get going. I’ll just see you tomorrow.”

Just when Seyoon was about to reach the door, Chanyeol ran towards her and put his arm on her shoulder, “Seyoon, can you help us?”

“Help? What help?” She turned around to face the boys.

“Ahh…Well…” Chanyeol kept on thinking what kind of help he would need.

“We want to know how to bake chocolate cake!” said Kyungsoo. Baekhyun and Sehun looked at him.

“Yes! You see, I am failing in my home economics class and…”

“Really? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Of course I would help you,” Seyoon smiled at him.

“Really? That would be great. So, we’ll just go to your house tomorrow?” Chanyeol asked her.

“Huh? My house?”

“Yes. We will go there. I am afraid we might cancel our Noraebang Fridays but it’s okay because we’re going to your house.” Chanyeol smiled at her happily.

“Okay. Just bring the necessary ingredients. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.” After that, Seyoon left to go home.

“Hey! What’s with the cake? And we’re really going to Seyoon’s house tomorrow?” asked Baekhyun.

“I don’t know. She seemed down. Maybe something happened between her and Kai. I can’t think of anything that would make her happy except for cooking or baking. That’s what every girls like, right? Right Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol said to them. Kyungsoo nodded at him.

“What about Kai?” asked Baekhyun.

“Maybe we should just let him think and have a time for himself. He needs to cool off a little,” said Sehun.

When the boys went out, the entrance was still crowded with girls, now even doubled the number from this morning. They saw their principal and other teachers waiting at the entrance. 

"What are they, celebrities?" said Baekhyun.

"They are just well-known because they've been competing in the national dance competitions," said Sehun.

"I wonder if there are new girl students," asked the smiling Chanyeol.

"No. I heard that our sister school is an all-boys school," said Kyungsoo.

The noise from the crowd doubled as the bus entered the school ground. The girls were taking pictures here and there. When the bus door opened, guys wearing similar uniforms as theirs, only with different color, went down one by one. 

"Oh!" Chanyeol exclaimed in suprised. "That last three students who went down, they were the ones on the leaflet."

The boys looked at the direction of the three boys. They looked so different from the other students who were with them. Their aura were so different. They were wearing the same uniform, but the way those three looked, they were more elegant, stylish, and funky. Boastfulness filled the air and the boys could feel that those three weren't going to be just normal exchange students. 

Sehun looked at the last guy who left the bus. He was wearing a purple Beats headphone, carrying his bag in style, his hair in unnatural color, and his eyes filled with pride. 

"That guy is..."

~*~