The clock struck half past six just as a loud whining interrupted the peaceful morning. Minseok, who was already fully dressed in her school uniform, came staggering out of her shared bedroom with Luhan. She looked mildly dazed as she clutched onto her hips as if her life depended upon it. With a quick groan, she slowly made her way to the kitchen, where three pair of eyes quickly landed upon her the moment she stepped in.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Kyungsoo first, raising a quizzical brow.

“Luhan – beauty sleep – don’t ask.” She grumbled lowly as she took her seat next to Baekhyun, earning a good laugh from the latter.

“Again?” prompted Suho, looking as if she had suddenly aged a few years older when Minseok nodded in response. She stood up with a sigh, and half-heartedly began making her way to Minseok-Luhan’s room. Don’t get her wrong. She loved her friends dearly, but Luhan could be quite a pain in the when morning comes. The girl was so not a morning person. I repeat, not a morning person, which would explained why she would literally kick you off into next week whenever you tried to wake her up. Then, there’s still the matter with their youngest who’s yet to be awake up till now. (Technically, they were all at the same age, but Tao was considered as the youngest since she was born way later than the rest of them.) They tried, and failed miserably to wake her up an hour ago, but since it was already nearing seven now, Suho had no choice but to try waking Tao up as well afterwards. (You think waking Luhan up was bad enough? Try waking Tao up, the girl was a freaking accomplished wushu master!.. or mistress whichever you want.)

The rest in the kitchen blatantly ignored their surrounding once the screams and yelling began. Kyungsoo was obnoxiously enjoying her breakfast while Minseok and Baekhyun were spotted exchanging a couple of notes under the table. Judging from the smug smile on Minseok’s face, I guess Baekhyun lost the bet.. yet again. A few minutes later, Suho appeared in the doorway looking like she had just bumped into a bunch of hooligans. Luhan, who was still yawning sleepily, trailed after her followed by Tao, who was dragging her panda plushie while rubbing her eyes.

“I’m so not going to wake you two up ever again!” Suho huffed loudly while crossing her arms. (She is sulking, yes, but nobody really cares.)

“I’m sorry.” Tao muttered apologetically, drops of tears beginning to gather at the corner of her eyes. “I had a real bad nightmare last night, and you were just.. there and I—“ She began hiccupping, which was a clear sign that she was about to cry. That certainly got the girls’ minds went running at an alarming speed, sending up flare of urgency as they exchanged panicked looks with each other.

“No, no! Don’t cry. No crying pretty please.”

“Shhh, you’re a good girl, Tao.” Baekhyun assured while flapping around like a fish. “Good girl don’t cry."

“I will buy you some cake!”

Apparently, when it comes to Tao, cakes work better than anything else. Her face immediately lightened up like a Christmas tree the moment she heard the magic word. She smiled and promptly skipped to the table before she began wolfing down a huge portion of breakfast as if nothing ever happened. Though stunned for a moment, the remaining girls immediately sighed in relief. Dealing with a crying Tao is obviously nobody’s favorite activity. Breakfast went on like usual afterwards, filled with the occasional chatter though they were quickly reprimanded by Suho insisting it was bad manner to talk while eating. Shortly after that, they began disappearing one by one with the excuses to get ready for school, leaving only Suho and Kyungsoo to clean up the mess.

“Those insolent brats! Always with the excuses just for the sake of their precious hands.” Suho mumbled under her breath. Kyungsoo, who heard that, only chuckled silently on her way to the sink.

~~X~~

“Should I wear this or this?”

Baekhyun twirled around with two attires in her hands, looking expectantly at Luhan. Meanwhile, the other gawked at her incredulously.

“Are you kidding me? Those are the same school uniforms!” Luhan finally answered while rolling her eyes.

Baekhyun immediately pouted, resembling a kicked puppy.

“Alright, alright. Just wear the.. right one.” Luhan relented while massaging her temples. “Am I done yet here?” Baekhyun nodded happily and went straight to change into her school uniform. Luhan sighed and slung her bag over her shoulder as she made her way to the living room, where Suho, Kyungsoo and Minseok were already waiting.

“Playing a lunatic consultant again today?” asked Minseok with a malicious glint in her eyes.

“I hope you choke on a burrito, Kim Minseok.”

“Hey! Don’t involve my poor, innocent burrito into this, you heartless human being.”

“Guys.” Suho warned. Tao and Baekhyun joined them shortly afterwards, allowing them to walk to the nearest subway station. They were directed to the office the moment they arrived at the school, where they were given their class schedule for the year.

“Oh, hell yes! We are all in the same class!” Baekhyun shouted in glee.

“Byun Baek—“

“And, it’s Math for the first period.” Minseok supplied helpfully.

“Wow! Best news of the year yet.” added Luhan sarcastically.

“Auww, I hate Math.” Tao whined.

“Don’t be like that, guys.” interrupted Suho with mock cheerfulness. She gathered all of them in her arms, and began dragging them in the direction of their new class. “Let’s go! Let’s learn some algebras today.”

“Actually, we finished learning that two years ago.” muttered Kyungsoo under her breath as she trailed after them. The class had just began when they entered, and they immediately felt self-conscious as all eyes were on them. (Except for Baekhyun of course. The girl has a face as thick as the Great Wall of China and close to non-existence shame.) The teacher instantly asked for a short introduction from each one of them before assigning their respective seats. Not wanting to further delay the class, they quickly did as instructed and took their seats without much thought. All but Luhan.

She had noticeably became frozen in her spot, eyes fixed on one particular student at the back. It was him. There was absolutely no doubt about it. She could recognized those black, and shiny eyes anywhere. Unfortunately, those very same eyes belonged to the very same person sitting next to her assigned seat. Oblivious to her internal conflict, the teacher nudged her, and urged her to take her seat so she would be able to resume her lesson. Luhan gulped loudly as she hesitantly walked in his direction. The walk felt like a thousand years to complete as she unconsciously realized there was more than just one pair of eyes staring at her fiercely.

Surprisingly, the male student said nothing when she took her seat despite his intense gaze earlier. He quickly shifted his gaze away, and fixed it on the teacher. Luhan wasn’t that stupid to miss the way he occasionally glanced at her through the corner of his eyes though, and that certainly got the poor girl shrinking further and further into her seat. The whole period went on painfully slow for Luhan as she grew more uncomfortable in her seat, almost as if she was sitting on a flaming fire. All she could ever think about at the moment was to get the hell out of there, and hopefully find somewhere secluded to bang her head to the wall to get rid of the scene of her first meeting with the latter out of her mind. Half an hour later, she was never more relieved to hear the bell sound signaling the recess time. Without a second thought, she rushed out of the class in a blink of an eye, leaving her clueless friends in a complete daze because of her strange behavior.

~~X~~

On the other hand, a certain male immediately knew he was deep in trouble the moment he saw the way his friends were just dying to approach him. But, he was Oh Sehun, and there was no way in hell he would ever gave away his emotion that easily. He remained expressionless, and just rolled his eyes when he saw them inching closer. The look on their faces were as clear as the day. They came for an explanation, and they won’t take no for an answer.

“What?” He demanded first, fully aware that they would literally start bombarding him with endless questions if he ever let them.

“What? You have the guts to say that? Why don’t you ask yourself what you’ve done?” The tallest one, Kris snapped first, which is not all that surprising to him. If there was one main annoying point of the seemingly perfect guy, it would be the fact that nobody would ever be able to hide anything from him. (Yeah, even something trivial like that sweet stash you have lying under your bed? Forget about keeping it a secret around him because he knows.)

“I don’t know what are you talking about.” 

“Stop denying it, Sehun.” Kris interrupted with a barely audible sigh. “You and I both know I can see it as soon as she even think to think of it.”

Sehun shrugged, and opted to ignore them. He began packing his things instead, intending to get away from them.

“Sehun, you know we care about you. A little bit of fun is perfectly fine once in a while, but there’s a limit to it. You’ve got to be a little bit more careful with your action.” Sehun bit his bottom lips, trying to stop himself from saying things he would regret later. But, he simply couldn’t believe it that the most reckless one among them was the one trying to advise him currently.

“I didn’t do anything, and that’s final.” said Sehun while looking at the dark-haired male namely Chen dead in the eye. He snapped shut his bag harshly, and slung it across his shoulder. “Now, if you may excuse me. I’m sick of hearing of your dying grandma’s whining.”

He made a move to walk away, but someone suddenly grabbed his shoulder from behind. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that it was Kai. He was the closest to the guy since they usually shared the same sense of humor, but right now the male was staring hard at him with the most serious look he could muster.

“Just promise that you’ll be more careful from now on.” Sehun turned completely to face the shorter one, and shot him an annoyed look. He located Kai’s hand on his shoulder, and promptly grabbed it before throwing it away.

“I’ll try.” said Sehun curtly before dashing out of the class. He made extra sure to bump his shoulders into Kris despite knowing there was no harm done.

“The girl is a smart one so we should really keep an eye on Sehun.” Kris commented as he massaged his temple, already foreseeing an incoming headache. “She instantly knows something’s off when she saw his eyes, but he’s lucky she didn’t suspect a thing.”

“He said he’ll try.” A voice interjected from behind him. He turned to look at the male leaning against a table with his arms folded against his chest.

“But, Yeol—”

“That will have to do for now.” The former, better known as Chanyeol, assured him. Sensing that Kris remained unconvinced, he pushed himself up into a standing position, and pat Kris on the shoulders. “Come, let’s get that angry brows away with some food.”

The group ended up of heading towards the cafeteria with Chen laughing hysterically all the way because of the brow jokes.

~~X~~

“Lu freaking Han!”

Luhan's first reaction once she heard that was either to flee on the spot or hide under the table. Or maybe even both. Sadly, she was far too late by that time.

“What is that all about, young woman?” Suho had both of her hands placed firmly on her hips, and that was so not Luhan's favorite pose.  I repeat, not her favorite pose because that pose meant trouble and Suho could be rather scary when she wanted to. Meanwhile, the rest of her friends feigned ignorance, and simply took their seat at the table without a word. (“What great friends I have.” thought Luhan bitterly.)

But, their behavior immediately gave her a brilliant idea. In this kind of situation, feigning ignorance was definitely the wisest thing to do so she stared at Suho dead in the eyes, and raised a brow. “What?”

“Are you being serious right now?” Suho stared at her incredulously. “Stop pretending as if you have no idea what I'm talking about, and stop giving me that look.”

“What look?”

“That!” Suho nearly shrieked out loud as she shot a pointed look towards Luhan, who was doing her best to mimick a kicked puppy expression. “You were sprinting out of the class as if your was on fire just now, I'm surprised no one had called for help yet. Care to explain?”

“Nope.” said Luhan flatly before shoving a spoonful of food into .

“What do you mean by that? Luhan, stop ignoring me for goodness sake! I'm talking to you right here—"

“Hi!” Suho never got to finish her words as she was suddenly interrupted by a loud, harmonized greeting from a pair of students that had approached their table out of nowhere. The duo were two girls with average height, one of them with round, shining eyes while the other looked like she might be planning to wrap you in toilet paper while you are sleeping.

“Hi..?” It came out more like a question than Xiumin had originally intended as she hesitantly raised her hand to wave at them as a form of greeting.

“Do you mind if we sit here with you guys?” asked the one with shining eyes.

“Sure, why not.” Baekhyun shrugged.

“Thanks.” She smiled gratefully as they quickly took their seats. “I'm Yoona by the way and this is—"

“I'm Yuri.” The other girl exclaimed eagerly. “You guys must be new here."

“Bingo.”

Yuri laughed at the response, and before long, they quickly found themselves exchanging small conversations here and there with each other. However, Luhan became distracted soon enough when she accidentally caught the sight of a familiar, lonely boy sitting at a table strategically placed at the very corner of the cafeteria.

There was no other way to describe the male else than he looked plainly disinterested at the moment. His blank stare bore right through the tray of food before him as he crossed his legs, and propped on one elbow. He seemed almost normal at the moment, except for the fact that he had absolutely no intention of touching any of his food, and as if she couldn't help it, Luhan found herself staring. That was until Yoona suddenly elbowed her. 

“Don't think too much of it.” Yoona quietly said.

Luhan furrowed her brows with confusion. “Huh?”

“You're not the only one.” Yoona smirked while gesturing toward the guy with her eyes. “It's only natural for us to appreciate a beauty when being presented with one, but that one is totally off-limits I'm telling you.”

“No, no, you're quite mistaken here. It's not like that.” Luhan quickly spluttered while a shade of red began forming on her cheeks. “It's just that.. umm.. I've been assigned as his deskmate, and I'm not trying to be creepy or anything, but he kinds of intrigued me. I get this kind of a weird feeling whenever I look at him. I don't know what it is, but there's definitely something about him..” Luhan trailed off while looking down.

“Like I said, you're not the only one.” Yoona smiled conspiratorially.

Luhan blinked, uncomprehending. “Huh?”

Yoona instantly chuckled in response. Instead of replying right away, she deliberately took her time to shove a few spoonfuls of her food first, a knowing look decorating her expression. If Luhan was ever going to be honest, she nearly smacked the other on the head out of reflect. It was what she usually did to her friends anyway when they were purposely being annoying, but she was quick to remind herself that she barely knew this new girl and it would be highly impolite to kill her on their first meeting.

As if sensing Luhan's distress, Yoona smiled apologetically. “Oh no, I'm doing it again. I'm troubling you, aren't I? Or more precisely, annoying the crap out of people according to Yuri.”

Luhan shot a surprised look at her before it slowly faded into a bashful smile, but it was enough for Yoona. She sighed, and promptly put her cutleries down.

“I'm so sorry. I swear I didn't really mean it, but it's kind of..” Yoona looked thoughtful for a split second before she suddenly changed the topic. “Is that true though? You've been assigned to be Sehun's deskmate? Well, now that's new."

“What is?” Luhan tilted her head to the side. “Wait, who's Sehun?”

Yoona arched one perfect eyebrow. “His name is Sehun, don't you know?” She gestured again toward the lonely guy as she spoke. “Oh Sehun to be precise.”

“So, that's his name.” mumbled Luhan.

“How come you don't know his name?” demanded Yoona while staring at her incredulously.

“How come you know?” Luhan shot back, avoiding the question. She was not about to admit that she was too chicken to even stare at the guy, let alone asking for his name.

Yoona's first reaction was to do an immediate roll of her eyes.

“Those guys are much more popular than Big Bang and TVXQ combined. When they first transferred here, they were the talk of the school for months. I swear I even caught some of the teachers discussing about them in the teacher's lounge once.” explained Yoona, cringing slightly at the thought. Apparently, she didn't get what's the fuss no matter how inhumanly good-looking someone looked. “It wasn't until someone nearly made a one-way trip to the ICU while they were pushing each other to get a better look at the guys that the principal finally released an official warning to leave them alone. Good grief because all of those shrieking banshee impersonations are getting a little bit tiring.”

“Those.. guys?” Luhan questioned with confusion. 

Yoona blinked in response, looking equally confused before realisation slowly dawned upon her. “I take it as you haven't seen the rest of them then?” Luhan's immediate shake of her head confirmed her suspicion. “Weird. I would've expected for you to meet all of them already since you've seen Sehun. They are rarely ever apart, you see, and they are pretty hard to miss.”

“Who are you—”

But, Yoona was no longer paying attention to her. The other had whipped her head up, and began craning her neck all around instead in search of God knows what.

“Ah, here they come.” Yoona finally exclaimed before guiding Luhan to look at the right direction. Luhan saw just then the sight of five tall, inhumanly beautiful male students making their way toward the isolated table. She was quick to recognize them as her classmates because like Yoona said, they were indeed pretty hard to miss especially with all of the extra inches. “I told you they are rarely ever apart. They stick together like moths to a flame. The tallest one is Kris Wu, and the one next to him is Park Chanyeol. The one right behind them is Kim Jongin and another two next to him are Kim Jongdae and Zhang Yixing.” 

Luhan found herself staring as Yoona pointed them out one by one. She swore one of them - Kim Jongdae according to Yoona - even smirked when his name came up, almost as if he was able to hear them despite the distance. Or maybe that was just her imagining things because such things should be impossible, right? The guys immediately took their respective seat at the table while having a conversation with each other even as Sehun remained plainly indifferent. It seemed like Sehun was purposely tuning them out, reluctant to be included in whatever discussion that was going on between the others. 

“I know what you're thinking.” said Yoona speculatively as she judged the expression flickering across Luhan's face. 

“Huh?” 

“You're wondering if they're related to each other, aren't you?” said Yoona, her tone positively smug as if she was confident she would never be wrong.

“Not really?” Luhan's answer came out more like a question than she intended, but now that Yoona had mentioned it, she could see why that was a possibility. They indeed looked rather similar to each other in one way or another. It's not so much in the sense that their features were so entirely alike that they could pass off as siblings, but it was more in the way there was several distinctive features that was eerily present in each one of them. Their chalky pale complexion, for example. 

Yoona's smug look fell off her face as it was quickly replaced by a deep frown. “No?”

“Did you just said they were transfer students though?” Luhan countered, not wanting to offend her new friend. “Any idea on where are they originally from? Because..” Luhan didn't finish, and simply made a gesture hinting at their skins. No one with a sane mind, and two functional eyes could possibly miss the way their skins stood in stark contrast with everybody else. (“And here I thought Korean's beauty standard in term of the paleness of your skin is already as much absurd as it can get. These guys effortlessly turned it into the biggest joke of the year.” Luhan mentally snorted at the thought.)

Yoona caught on real fast, and promptly shrugged. “Probably somewhere around Alaska or something, where there's a whole bunch of polar bears and stuffs. They nearly looked like one to me.”

It took Luhan a few seconds to digest Yoona's words before she abruptly burst into a short laughter. Yoona grinned, a hint of mild sheepishness marring her expression.

“They moved here like two years ago, but nobody really know that much about their backgrounds. Like I said, they always stick together and keep to themselves most of the time.” Yoona tapped her finger against her chin with a thoughtful look. “There are a whole lot of rumors going around about them though, but it's rather.. sketchy mostly.”

“For example?”

Yoona sniggered. “The most recent one is they are a whole bunch of sparkling vampires who feed on human's blood to keep their eternally youthful appearance. How unoriginal.” Yoona rolled her eyes. “I'm pretty sure the idea sprung up from a combination of Twilight and Hocus Pocus.”

Apparently, the idea disgusted her so much that she suddenly felt the need to eat something to take her mind off the thought. Luhan quickly took the chance to glance at the group of mysterious male students once again, carefully trying to be discreet while observing them one by one.

Luhan instantly came to a conclusion that it should've been no surprise that Sehun's friends were just equally drop dead gorgeous as he is. He looked exactly like the kind to be picky about everything, including who he chose to serve his dinner so it was no brainer that he would've opted to surround himself with people who looked like they just stepped out of an anime manga. The one Yoona previously pointed out as Kris Wu, in particular, fit the description flawlessly. Despite his resting face, and cold eyes, it was hard to look away from him when his face looked like it was personally sculptured by God himself. Then, there was the matter with his impressive height, which most people could only dream of reaching. In fact, all of them had an average height that was so not normal. Kris and another one that Luhan recalled as Chanyeol, towered above the rest so they must be at least over 6 feet since the rest had to be at least somewhere around 5 feet 9 inches.

Speaking of Chanyeol, the first thing that you would noticed about him was those Yoda ears of his. But as much as his ears stood out, Luhan was rather attracted by his big, childlike eyes. He seemed to have such childlike wonder in his eyes that it was almost ridiculous that it matched his sharp features. It became more prominent as he suddenly chuckled, laughing at whatever the dark-haired male next to him had said. The dark-haired male looked rather confused in response as if he hadn't meant to be funny in any way, but you could immediately tell that he had a naturally sweet personality from the way he quickly carved an awkward smile for the other's benefit. The smile revealed a beautiful deep-set dimple on the right side of his cheek, and Luhan briefly pondered how could someone looked so ethereal that it would put the Botticelli angel to shame.

Another dark-haired male was seated right across them, and boy, there was no other way to describe the latter else than he's all about that jawline. It could literally cut through the hardest object on earth, and nobody would even bat an eye. It was further accentuated by his high cheekbones, and upturned lips that occassionally tugged into a sinister smirk, which immediately unnerved you and led your mind to plunge into a silly imagination of him secretly planning on your funeral. He would dutifully tried to include the one next to him in the conversation, but much like Sehun, the other was rather impassive about the whole thing. He was playing around with his food instead, tossing an apple out of the blue. His golden brown hair hung over his forehead as he bent forward to snatch the apple, but you would find yourself getting easily distracted by his luscious lips instead.

“What are you guys talking about?” Luhan was immediately snapped out of reverie when Yuri suddenly decided to interrupt. She was looking expectantly at both Luhan and Yoona before elbowing Yoona when the other ignored her.

“None of your business.” said Yoona begrudgingly though there was no hint of real malice in her tone.

Yuri instinctively rolled her eyes. “Fine, be that way.” She flipped her hair and made an exaggerated motion of turning her face away from them.

Yoona only chuckled in response before smiling at Luhan when she shot a grateful look in her direction. Even if she had no idea on why the other would like to keep it as a secret, she knew better than to mindlessly reveal something without someone else's consent. Unbeknownst to her, Luhan was internally battling herself regarding the matter. She was simply not ready to tell the other girls yet about the event of yesterday or even today for that matter. Just not yet.