Unfortunately, Luhan wasn’t the only one who was hyper aware of Sehun’s absence. But really, that was kind of the downside to having a fan club. While they could distinctly pick you out from an entire crowd of people, they also noticed when you were gone.

That much was obvious.

Sun Hee was basically the typical envy of the female student body due to her higher status and allure. She had the looks, her family had the money, and everyone wanted to be her “best friend.”

Coincidentally, she was also the president of Sehun’s fan club. Therefore, she, and the rest of her hopeless bunch, basically charted Sehun’s every move.  

Which was borderline stalker-ish.

But evidently, the girl was pretty relentless when it came to Sehun. Even though the teen pretty much refused to give her the time of day, there was no way that he was going to escape from her sights any time soon.

Regardless of the fact that Sun Hee was in a class other than Sehun’s, she still had a pretty set schedule of “casually” lingering around his classroom at every free hour that she had. Even a mere glance was enough to satisfy her.

So obviously, she noticed when Sehun was around, and when Sehun was gone.

And she most definitely noticed his lack of appearances lately.

She had more than once tried to go after Sehun, even bringing her trail of Sehun-obsessed lackeys along to aid in the search, but she still always lost him in the process.

It was infuriating.

Which is why she nearly lost it when she finally somehow did find out where her beloved Sehun was.

And just who it was that was taking him away from her.

She swore after that moment that any girl that dared try and get in her way would have to suffer the consequences.

And Mari, the innocently harmless, quiet girl in her own class was no exception.

Mari had never been the most popular among girls for some reason. She knew that pretty well.

Yet she didn’t know why the female student body seemed to be against her now all of a sudden.

Now, she tried to make herself believe otherwise. She really did.

But the jarring sneers and brutal bullying tactics she had to put up with made it pretty obvious that she was being hated even more now for some reason.

Things started off small. She was able to deal with her slippers ending up in the trash, and the profanities that covered her notebooks. But things seemed to take a turn for the worse when they started getting personal. Really personal.

When she walked into art class one day unable to find her sketchbook anywhere, she knew by the snickers circulating amongst a small group of girls that she was going to have a hard time finding it.

She was without it for practically the whole day.

And it was only when she finally found it that she knew, things were probably going to get a lot worse. And fast.

She didn’t expect it would happen as soon as lunch time.

She was busying herself in the task of reorganizing her messy pile sketches when she looked up at the sound of the art club room door being opened, fully expecting Sehun to strut through the door like he did every other day.

Too bad things didn’t always happen the way she wanted.

“You’re…Mari, right?” Sun Hee asked.

It was a seemingly innocent question.

Yet Mari had a strange feeling that the girl already knew who she was.

And it wasn't a very good feeling.

Sehun’s head had become a jumbled mess due to fairly recent revelations.

He was confused.

He couldn’t make sense of however he was feeling. He had never had such a confliction of emotions before in his life.

But then again, he had been going through a lot of “firsts” recently.

Mari was the first girl he’d probably ever talked to so much before besides his mom.

He had never show interest in a girl before Mari, so that was another first.

And finally, the biggest first of all was that he had never felt so many mixed feelings toward someone before.

But like the typical Sehun that he was, he could never deal well with confrontation.

Especially not now.

So like many times in the past, he was avoiding the personal contact.

He needed to clear his head. And fast.

Luhan had been on his way to the clubroom on behalf of Sehun, prepared to tell Mari that the younger teen was going to be a little late when he heard a commotion going on outside of the room.

“I don’t how a little stalker like you ever got Sehun’s attention,” one girl sneered, followed by the sound of something tearing.

“You’re disgusting,” the voice jeered again.

Luhan’s eyes widened in horror at the harshness in the girl’s voice, knowing that whatever was going on, it wasn’t good. He threw the door open and was met with the surprised eyes of multiple girls.

“What are you doing?” Luhan asked in disbelief.

“L-luhan sunbae!” one of the girls stuttered in astonishment.

Luhan seemed to lose all rationale when he saw Mari on her knees in front of her draft sketches that now littered the floor with multiple dirty footprints dirtying their surfaces. He made his way over to her when he called her name and she didn’t respond.

“Sunbae, what are you doing? She’s manipulating Sehun and your helping-“

“Get out,” Luhan said lowly.

“E-excuse me?”

“I said, get out,” he growled, “before I get really angry.”

That was all it took for the girls to hurry out of the room without a second thought. Angry Luhan was never a good thing. Ever.

But his anger seemed to dissipate when he turned back towards his dongsaeng and saw her still in the same position, staring blankly into space.

“Mari, are you hurt? Are you okay?”

The girl was still unresponsive; her eyes glassy and glued to something in front of her. Luhan followed her line of sight and finally knew the cause of the girl’s inability to reply.

Her painting.

On top of the fact that there was black paint smeared across the work that Mari had spent days putting effort into, the material was torn.

Slashed. Multiple times.

“Oh my god,” Luhan muttered to himself.

He knelt down in front of Mari to block her view from the painting.

“Mari…”

He didn’t know what to tell her.

Because realistically, there was really nothing he could say that could mend the current situation.

Nothing at all.

Sehun was leisurely walking down the hall with an empty juice box hanging out of his mouth by the straw. He had basically spent half of his lunch period doing nothing in order to avoid having to see Mari so soon.

Yeah, he obviously handled situations like these pretty well.

He turned the corner and saw Luhan coming from the opposite direction down the hall, his hands in his pockets and a hard look on his face.

“Hyung,” Sehun called to him over the straw in his mouth. Luhan’s eyes flicked over to him, but a look of disgust seemed to overcome his features as he looked away and started walking faster.

“Luhan,” Sehun said this time, gripping the older male’s forearm before he could pass him up completely.

“Let go,” Luhan said through gritted teeth.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Why don’t you ask your fan club?” Luhan growled, ripping his arm out of his friend’s hold.

Sehun could only stare at his hyung in surprise, since he was the type that never got angry. He usually seemed to have all the patience in the world. And if he ever did get angry, he was typically playing around. And maybe it was in a fit of misplaced anger, but Luhan was slightly peeved at the moment, thus resulting in him snapping at anything that provoked him. Including the girls of Sehun’s “fan club,” who he had previously believed to be harmless.

But it looks like he was wrong about that.

“What…what are you talking about? What happened?”

“You left Mari alone. That’s what happened,” he said, parting ways with Sehun hoping that he could somehow get his anger to simmer down before he had to go back to class.

Sehun had to let the words sink in a bit before he could make sense of what Luhan had just told him.

Something happened, and it was basically his fault.

He took off towards the art room in a light jog, multiple worst-case scenarios playing through his mind and not setting him anymore at ease.

He made it in record timing, but the door to the room slammed open before he could even reach for the handle, revealing a blank-faced Mari.

She looked at him with wide eyes, and for a moment, he could vaguely see the slight puffiness that reddened her features before she ducked her head to avoid his gaze.

There were so many things he wanted to ask her.

So many.

And yet, his overwhelming concern was causing him to draw a blank. That much alone was kind of scary.

“What happened?” was all he could manage.

She didn’t seem visibly hurt, which was relieving.

But at the same time, not completely reassuring.

She still refused to look at him.

Though this was a typical kind of exchange between the two of them, he didn’t know why it hurt to see her do it this time around.

“Nothing.”

Sehun groaned.

“Don’t play that card with me right now Mari. Please just tell me what happened. Please”

“Nothing happened,” she repeated, stepping around him.

But she paused for a moment, finally looking him in the eye.

“You don’t have to come here anymore. Sorry for wasting your time.”

And then she was gone, hurrying down the hall before he could ask her what she meant.

For the first time in a while, Sehun was stunned.

And undoubtedly, kind of…hurt.

Yet he still wasn’t entirely sure why.

...........................................................................

Seriously, I'm not gonna lie, I hate this chapter. Really, I just wanted to get it over with so that I could move on to the next chapter.

But anyway, If you guys haven't read the comment I posted a few days back, I was basically thinking about doing requests but I wasn't entirely sure if I should since I'm so slow to update. Idk, what do you guys think I should do? Because I might also have to do them through tumblr since I'm on there more... I DON'T KNOW :'D

Anyway, as always, thanks for reading even though I take forever!

Hopefully the next chapter will be better than this one.