step five: touch him

'what are you doing?'

sehun freezes, hand still hanging awkwardly midair, as luhan whorls around with inquisitive eyes. they are waiting in line for some overpriced bubble tea that luhan had seen displayed in bright pixels on a food blog the week before.

'uh, you had a piece of fuzz,' sehun stammers before motioning for luhan to scoot up in the moving line.

'oh,' luhan says but continues sending sehun curious glances.

sehun had to clench his fist not to face palm in embarrassment.

yixing had given him his next mission in 'operation: make luhan fall for me'. 'touch him.'

'how am i suppose to touch him when i can't even look him straight in the eyes,' sehun had panted mid panic attack. yixing had shrugged before shoving sehun out of his apartment claiming he had company coming to visit.

he was failing miserably at this mission. he had tried to discreetly brush his hand against luhan's as they had walked to the tea shop, and blushed profusely while explaining that the three other people walking twenty feet ahead of them was making the sidewalk crowded thus forcing him to move closer. luhan had cackled. then when he held the door open for luhan to go in before him, sehun had slid his hand to the blonde's lower back only to have luhan smack his hand away and glare.

this mission looked like a complete failure already.

after luhan ordered for both him and sehun, he left to find a table and thus forced sehun to dig his wallet out of his back pocket to pay. sehun joined him at the table situated next to the window and took a deep breath before deploying his next tactic.

luhan was babbling about the food blogger, minseok or xiumin or they were the same person blah blah blah, when sehun slid his booted foot forward to toe at luhan's canvas slid ons. what he did expect is for the counter boy to suddenly pop out of fudging no where and startle sehun so bad that he ended up kicking a dent into luhan's undoubtedly no longer smooth pale shin.

'what the hell,' luhan shouted and promptly reached for his leg while banging both elbows on the table top.

'oh my god, i am so sorry. are you okay,' sehun was a flustered mess. he stood up too fast, knocked the table up and ended up sloshing the cups of tea over onto luhan's once pristine bleached bomber jacket.

abort, abort, abort.

'here,' the counter boy had apparently teleported to fetch a towel and handed it to a quickly turning red luhan who gladly accepted it.

'what is with you today,' luhan growled as he dabbed at the stain and simultaneously glared at a flushed sehun. 'you have been so out of it.'

'well, uh. i mean, i and you and the.'

'oh, i see,' luhan smirked and sat back down before shooing off the worker with the dirty towel. 'i think i know what this is about.'

sehun gulped and prayed for his salivate glands to begin functioning again because his mouth felt like the sahara desert in the middle of august. 'you do?'

'of course i do. i'm not stupid. i have seen the way you have been distracted here lately,' he brought his dainty hands up under his chin and sehun had to cut the line of temptation currently straining between his eyes and the slender fingers.

'well, uh. i can explain.'

'no need,' sehun felt his stomach clench and heart stop and lungs heave at the prospect of luhan even possibly reciprocating his feeling of affection. 'this is about you being in love with yixing, isn't it?'

there had been two times in sehun's life when he thought it quite possible that he would die of shock. the first had been in eighth grade when he walked in on his parents doing the nasty on the dining room table thus forcing him to throw a tantrum to have a completely new table bought after he refused to eat for two whole weeks after seeing the horrific scene. the second had been when he had watched a drunk baekhyun get a prince albert piercing and sehun had passed out at the sight of his close friend screaming with a profuse amount of blood oozing from his .

this time almost finished the job of doing him in because not only was he surprised beyond imagine but his heart was doing this weird palpitation thing that had him instinctively clutching at his ribcage.

'huh,' he wheezed.

'i mean, come on,' luhan smirked and reached out to pat fondly at sehun's clenched hand on top of the table. 'you guys are always together, even more than him and me use to hang out. you stay over at his place all the time, and you both sounded pretty rambunctious together at the party last week.'

'that... no, you don't...luhan,' sehun tried and failed to string together a coherent sentence. the blonde had planted a seed in his mind and it was slowly starting to grow. this was ridiculous, this was overload. he was in love with luhan. right? yixing was his friend, his mentor, his confidant.

'well, i think it is pretty obvious. he eats you up with his eyes when you aren't looking, you know?'

sehun's heart was skipping beats and his diaphragm was spasming. that chill was racing his spine and really this did not make any sense. he liked luhan, the blonde with fluffy hair and pearlescent skin. he was just fond of yixing, with his adorkable dimple and floppy bangs and persistently peeking tattoo that drove sehun plum crazy on some days and that time when he tickled him was...

oh .

'i don't like yixing, i like you,' sehun suddenly blurted.

luhan drew his hand back and blinked rapidly at sehun like he was crazy. 'you don't like me.'

'yes, i do.'

'no. i am selfish and snobby and a on my good days. you like the way i look, just like every one else. do you even know me or just who you think i am?'

this was getting too complicated. it had always just been, oh i like him. it was just an instant thing and as sehun thought back to the first time they had encountered each other in the cafe where he worked he really couldn't remember much except the way yixing's dimple had flashed while luhan ordered strawberry something or another in the background of his memory.

when he looked back at luhan, sehun cringed. the look of almost pity on his face had him on the edge of turning angry. so he did what he had been thinking about for a solid month now.

he leaned over the table and kissed luhan.

he leaned over the table and kissed luhan and promptly regretted it because luhan gave back ten fold what he got as sehun felt nothing but soft lips against his own. he didn't get that tingle. he didn't feel anything thumping through his veins.

'sorry,' sehun was already whispering out as he pulled back from luhan and he felt the crash of significance the lack of excitement he had drawn from the kiss.

luhan smiled and walked around the table until he could lean down and hug sehun's neck while he whispered in his ear. 'don't settle for me, someone you can have fun with for a while before i get bored and throw you away. snatch him up while you have the chance, before someone else comes along and steals him away.'

sehun's mouth gaped at the words because let's face it, he had always just thought luhan was an airhead. the blonde nearly reaffirmed that thought when he marched up to the counter and demanded a free bubble tea plus a coupon for 50% percent off the next purchase because their tables were wobbly and caused him to ruin a perfectly expensive jacket that they were lucky he wasn't suing for reimbursement over.

an hour after luhan marched out with a grin over his free tea and a month worth of free refills, sehun was still sitting at the table staring blankly at the wall opposite him. the counter boy had come by three times already, worried about him. he didn't move until his phone vibrated in his pocket.

'hello.'

'hey! you want to come to the club tonight? i have to only work half a shift then we can hang out,' yixing bubbled over the line.

sehun had to settle for agreeing with a gurgle of incoherent words because he was too busy trying not to hyperventilate as that feeling ran his spine and his skin broke out in gooseflesh and his heart kicked into overdrive again.

double oh .

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a/n: so sorry i made you guys wait again for so long even though i promise to update faster. i have been super super busy and will only get busier as the holiday season approaches. so i apologize in advance. so what do you guys thing? is this too rushed. i feel like it maybe kind of is, but oh well. that is how the characters played it out in my head, i have no control over them. hehe.

also super awesome thanks to the amazingly sweet layhuns for making me a pretty thing for this story. i love her so much for it, even though i loved her before she even made too. hehe. go check it out here. http://xingdere.tumblr.com/post/62707282073/ginseng-and-honey-by-say-fwat-sehun-thinks-he . you should also follow her on tumblr. she is fantastically wonderful. you deserve all the praise. /hugs.