When Luhan woke up that morning, her first reaction was to groan out loud as she rolled around in her bed. Ignoring Minseok's lingering stare on her as the other made her way to the bathroom, she reached out for a pillow, and abruptly stuffed her face in it.

All she could ever think of at the moment was the fact that today is so going to be an awkward one. She nearly considered on skipping school, but immediately decided against it since she knew Suho would give her hell for it. She had enough of that yesterday when she decided to skip class after recess ended, not wanting to face her mysterious deskmate all over again. She had spent the rest of the time in the nurse's office, faking to be sick so she had an excuse to miss class. Suho nearly flipped when she found out, but the soft-hearted girl was never one to be angry for long. She was sure her absence hasn't go unnoticed by her deskmate though, and despite the creepiness that was radiating out of him, Luhan immediately felt bad for the guy. She doubted anybody would think it was the best idea to run away from someone you just met. In fact, it is plainly rude and riddiculous. It was not like he had done anything to her, but those unnerving, coal-black eyes..

She shuddered at the mere thought, and supressed another groan that was threatening to escape her lips. This is going to be hard. She was practically stuck between two ridiculously bad options. Eventually, she slowly sat up on her bed before dragging herself out of it, heading towards the bathroom that was newly vacated by Minseok. She decided that she'd rather endured a few hours of discomfort around her deskmate than listening to Suho's endless nagging all over again. With that resolution, she squared up her shoulders and made her way to school.

Her resolve instantly crumbled the moment she spotted the door of her classroom though. Her steps faltered as she felt the instant wavering that she was not strong enough to be able to do this. She bit her lower lip as she lingered in front of the opened door, dreading the moment her long hours of being under her deskmate's scrunitizing gaze will start.

“Get - in.” Suho said firmly as she entered the class ahead of her.

“I'm trying to..” muttered Luhan under her breath. She took a hesitant step, clenching her fists tightly to stop herself from shaking. Inhaling deeply, she gathered the courage and slowly walked through the door.

The empty seat immediately caught her eyes. Her eyes widened, and blinked profusely as she struggled to digest the situation. It took a few seconds, but when her brain finally began functioning like a normal person, her first reaction was to gasp out loud.

“Is there a problem there, Miss Luhan?” The teacher's voice immediately brought her back to reality, and her cheeks tinged pink when she finally realised that she was the only one left standing. Not wanting to further embarrass herself, she hurriedly rushed to her seat.

“Idiot.” She heard Minseok muttering under her breath as she walked past her. She glanced once to glare at the other, but quickly shifted her attention away when she met gaze with Minseok's deskmate instead. The male's eyes had flickered to her as an instinctive response to Minseok's word, and Luhan was sure he didn't mean to be intimidating, but it seemed like Sehun was not the only one with the unique gift of scaring people away through his mere gaze.

“I wonder who will win if they ever decide to have a staring contest with each other.” Luhan mumbled quietly to herself before leaning against her chair with a relieved sigh. Now that she knew her sudden panic attack earlier was completely unnecessary after all, she could almost felt the burden lifted from her shoulders.

Eventhough she knew it won't lasted for very long since the other obviously still had to attend school as much as she does, she appreciated the little breathing room that she had for the moment. She was perfectly content with it, and decided that she would deal with the rest later. A small voice at the back of her mind couldn't help wondering though, if this wasn't a coincidence after all. What was the chance of him being conveniently absent on her second day in this school? Pretty close to zero, if Luhan was to be honest. Could it be that he was actually avoiding her? Luhan nearly gasped out loud once again before remembering where she was, and slapping a hand across . She realised with a start that there was actually a huge probability to that theory.

I meant it all kind of made sense, Luhan thought silently. It didn't go unnoticed by her that Sehun was actually the only one missing school today. All of his other friends were present, comfortably seated with a straight face at their respective tables. He was obviously present yesterday, but only because he couldn't possibly knew she was coming. Logically, if you met someone you don't like and you wish to avoid them at all cost, you would obviously escaped at the first chance you got, right? And, that was evidently what Sehun was doing. Luhan snorted, amused by the thought. It seemed like she made the right decision to skip class yesterday after all.

On second thought, Luhan found herself getting slightly annoyed though because she had done nothing to offend the male either. Sure, she had bolted out of class yesterday - which might seemed quite rude to some people - but she was perfectly excused since he was the one making her uncomfortable first by staring at her from the corner of his eyes during the entire period. Unlike him with his creepy stare, Luhan had always been told that she had those doe-eyed look on more than one occassion so she knew it wasn't the eyes. But, as much curious as she was as to why would he wanted to avoid her when they barely even knew each other, she knew she was not going to get an answer any sooner because one, she didn't know when he will come to school again. He might asked to transfer to another class if he really intended on avoiding her or even quitting school altogether in the worst case scenario. And two, she was too terrified to ask anyway. Way to go, Luhan.

~~+~~

“Idiot.” Minseok mumbled under her breath as Luhan passed by. She didn't know what was wrong with the latter, but she knew it had something to do with that grumpy male seated next to her, who was suddenly absent today. Was it a pure coincidence? No freaking way. She had seen the way those two behaved around each other yesterday, and they looked like two idiots edging around a boiling volcano to be honest.

“She seems quite mad at you.” A male's voice suddenly interrupted her thought. She instinctively looked up, and widened her eyes.

“Huh?” was all that came out of as she dazedly stared at her deskmate. The guy had remained quiet all day yesterday, but Minseok hadn't been bothered to change that fact since she was not much of a talker either. She had naturally assumed the other shared the same trait, but apparently not.

“That little friend of yours.” He explained while gesturing with his eyes. “She was glaring at you just now.”

“Who? Luhan?” Minseok laughed nervously when he nodded. “Let her be. It's not the first time anyway.”

He frowned in return. “You guys are weird.”

“You're much weirder.” She retorted back without thinking before realising much too late what she had said. Strangely, the other only laughed in response, and Minseok couldn't help staring. He was beautiful, and there's just no other way to describe him. She had been preventing herself from staring at him since yesterday because she didn't want to come out as rude, but it was almost an impossible task especially right now. She was instantly drawn by the chiming of his musical laughter, and the way his skin crinkled around the eyes when he laughed, giving him that effortlessly innocent and childlike look.

“So I've been told.” He said when he finally stopped laughing. “My name is Kim Jongdae, but I always go with Chen. I don't really get your name yesterday. What was it again?”

“M-Minseok.” Minseok nearly slapped herself out of shame. “I meant, Minseok. Kim Minseok.”

“Ah, another Kim it seems.” Chen said playfully. “Everybody is either a Kim, Lee or Park nowadays that it's almost amusing to watch.” He added, looking indeed pretty amused.

His face distracted her so much that Minseok took a few seconds to digest his words. Then, she slowly furrowed her brows.

“Nowadays?” She questioned warily. “You make it sounds like you've been there, back then in the Joseon dynasty, where surnames are much less common for everyone except the nobles and the royal family.”

Chen's face changed slightly, but it was so brief that you would've missed it if you blinked. His face was back to its smooth, and serene expression when he spoke again.

“Impressive.” He praised with an appraising look. “You know the history of this country. I thought you just moved here recently? Our classmates really like to gossip a lot, you see, so if I were to take their words for it, you were supposedly from the States, right?”

Minseok instantly rolled her eyes. “I was obviously born, and raised in this country, silly. Couldn't you tell from the name? If I were born in the States, don't you think my name would've been Jennie Kim or something?”

“No, certainly not Jennie.” replied Chen automatically before looking at her up and down. “Maybe Minnie Kim instead? You kind of look like Minnie Mouse from this side.”

“I'll shoot you through the head if you said that again.” Minseok said with annoyance.

“You can try, but I doubt it'll do much good.” Chen shrugged nonchalantly. “It might leave quite a mess behind though.”

Minseok instantly furrowed her brows, weirded out by the other's choice of words. She wondered if this was just how people were joking around with each other here or if it was just the other being weird as ? After a moment of deliberation, she decided it must be the latter. 

“Damn it.” Chen suddenly cursed under his breath before turning his body away from her in favor of facing the teacher, who was currently glaring at them by the way. Apparently, they were too deep in a conversation to notice that the teacher had caught them. “You can't even have a little bit of fun around here.”

Somehow, Minseok just knew that the male was so not talking about the teacher because despite his best effort at trying to be discreet about it, Minseok managed to catch him glaring at someone through the corner of his eyes. She suddenly wondered if his words had not been so randomly thrown after all.

~~+~~

Kyungsoo didn't know what was wrong with her, but her mind was unable to focus on anything today. Ever since she got discharged from the hospital yesterday, all she could ever think about is the event of yesterday and the anonymous male. She sighed, and closed the book she was holding. She had been trying to read the book for the past few minutes, but she had ended up of only staring at the front page, unable to comprehend the words as if she was reading a completely different language.

“You're not going to read it?” Kyungsoo nearly fell off her chair because of the sudden question. It wasn't because she was caught off-guard though, but rather because she knew that voice. She could recognized it anywhere, those smooth, velvety voice. She was extremely sure that it was the same voice as yesterday, which meant that the stranger she met yesterday was actually her schoolmate.

Kyungsoo immediately whipped her head around to the source of the voice before her eyes widened in disbelief. For a brief moment, she wondered if she had been imagining things because the owner of the voice turned out to be her deskmate. But then, she realised that she had never actually heard his voice. Mainly because he was always fast asleep during the entire lesson, and the teacher did nothing to change that. She suspected the teacher had tried, and failed more than once before, which would explained the resigned look on his face whenever his gaze swept across the class, and landed on the sleeping male.

“Are you not going to read it?” He repeated, rephrasing his words as if he feared she didn't get him the first time. He had also raised his voice slightly, though it was still not more than above a low murmur. They were in the library after all.

Kyungsoo blankly turned to look at the book before looking up back at him. He was casually seated a few seats away from her, and he had his arms folded across his chest as he waited for her answer. He raised a brow when she didn't reply, and just kept on staring at him instead.

“No, not really.” Kyungsoo finally managed to choke out, mentally cringing at her awkwardness. “Do you want it?”

“Yes, if you please.” He replied quietly, already holding his hand out.

“Have we ever met before?” Kyungsoo asked all of a sudden, rushing through her words before her courage could have the chance to fly out of the window.

His eyebrows shot even higher if that was even possible. “What made you think so?”

“It's just that your voice.. I meant I don't know if it's you, but I'm pretty sure it's the same—it can't be though, right?” Kyungsoo stumbled around with her words. It didn't make sense even to herself, but the other looked rather amused. “What am I even talking about? It can't be, no, I guess not. Nevermind, let's just forget I ever said anything.”

“If you say so.” He said curtly, shrugging nonchalantly before making a move to stand up. “The book, please.”

“The book!” Kyungsoo's voice turned slightly shrill out of panic. “Oh yeah, right. I'm sorry, here you go.” She quickly placed the book in his waiting hand, mentally scolding herself for her stupidity. However, she instantly froze when her finger accidentally grazed his skin. It was cold. Icy cold, in fact. But, that was not the main point. It was the fact that this scene felt familiar. It felt like a deja vú as she was instantly reminded of the cold sensation that she felt while she was losing her consciousness. It can't be..

“Thank you.”

Kyungsoo only nodded in response, too numb to form a coherent thought. That voice, that cold skin, it can't all be a coincidence, was all that she could think of at the moment.