But suddenly, they heard hiccuping and short gasps, and lighthearted noises. It was female laughter. It was so unfamiliar to them that they couldn’t help but awkwardly stare at Jinah. She was laughing at the fridge’s contents and looked at the gang. “There – it – oh dear –” she started laughing again.

           A few of them came up to see what she was laughing about. She pushed the fridge door all the way, showing the gang what was inside the refrigerator. She was still laughing, but they couldn’t find what was wrong. And finally, Chanyeol spoke for the rest: “What’s wrong?”

           Lay held back his chuckle. He understood what Jinah was laughing at. Slowly, bits of laughter escaped, until he finally openly laughed.

           “What’s wrong, Lay?” Chen asked, not knowing what there was to laugh at either. In the fridge were the bottles of water, vegetables, and –

           “Who puts instant ramen in the fridge?” Jinah exclaimed and laughed again. Then they realized that the strong emotion she was hiding behind her voice wasn’t anger, but a type of glee. Not quite happiness, but glee. She took out the box of ramen, opened a drawer, and put the box there. “You don’t need to refrigerate ramen. You silly idiots, the ramen won’t melt or spoil – it’s instant!”

           Then gradually, the gang started to laugh, bit by bit. “Oh yeah,” Baekhyun said, coming to realization of their mistake. “It’s not going to melt or anything. Damn,” he laughed. Everyone did. And they felt much lighter. Most of their ‘kindness’ towards their new Prix was kind of forced and awkward. But this laughter was true – the lack of general knowledge was funny, and it wasn’t targeted to one specific person, and it wasn’t a bullying type of mock, but a cheerful, friendly one. No one saw what was wrong with the fridge’s contents until Jinah pointed out, they were all silly – well, except for Lay.

           D.O got up with a grin. “So where’s that food?”

           Jinah closed the fridge, shaking her head, that teeth smile still on her face, scooped up rice from the cooker and dumped it in a large, wide bowl. She put the flat spoon in the bowl and put it in the center of the table. “Here,” she said, after putting some rice into her bowl. Their stew wasn’t hot anymore but not cold. They passed the bowl or rice around and ate, digging into the kimchi stew.

           Suho closed his eyes in bliss. “Mm, this is so good.” His mouth was full when he talked and a scold almost came out of Jinah’s mouth, the way Miss Kim had chastised her for her unladylike manner. But then she remembered how she wasn’t supposed to care. Mind your own business, Jinah thought to herself, and her gaze lowered to her food once more.

           Sehun, who was on the other side, nudged her inconspicuously. “Keep smiling. It’s the first real one I’ve seen since you arrived.”

           She looked at Sehun for about two seconds, who still had a poker-face. She suppressed another smile but it turned into a crooked grin as she said, “You’re the one to talk, Emotionless Demon of the Gang.”

           She thought that maybe Sehun had smiled too, but he looked away much too quickly for her to confirm properly. Jinah had to bite her inner cheeks to keep herself from smiling again – at his behavior, at his words. Keep smiling, Sehun had said. Keep smiling.

After the meal, they put the dishes away and Lay volunteered to wash the dishes so that Jinah could take his place in the game. Tao and D.O said that they were good with watching, for they were too full to concentrate on the game. Curious, Jinah followed the gang to the living room area, where the three screens still read either “YOU WON” or “YOU DIED”. Baekhyun came to play too. Luhan clicked a button and the screen refreshed, and then went back to the home page. There, he changed the location to “airport”. Suho groaned, “Not this scene!” Luhan grinned sideways as he selected his gun to shotgun. Everyone else chose their gun too.

           Jinah chose a sniper, making Chanyeol shake his head. “No, don’t. Go with a shotgun instead – wide range plus eight ammo, reload is twice as fast as a sniper. It might be kind of hard to handle so you can go with a rocket launcher; slow but powerful, sixty ammo.”

           Kris used the back of his hand to lightly smack Chanyeol’s arm. “Just let her be. Snipers are always away from the scene – till she learns the basics first-hand, it might be the most beneficial decision.”

           Jinah confirmed on her selection of the sniper when Chanyeol nodded. Narrow range, high speed bullet, forty ammo, recommended distance: far, plus an additional crosshair scope. It sounded like a decent gun considering she could keep her distance from everyone else.

           Luhan clicked start but then put the game on pause right after. He looked at Jinah and she stopped moving again. “Do you know the controls?” he asked.

           “What?” Jinah looked down at the foreign buttons on the controller. “Oh, um…”

           Luhan raised an eyebrow at her teammates, who had forgotten that Jinah had no idea how to play this game. It was easy to forget since she was so tough and boyish, it seemed like she was the gaming type, one to enjoy watching gory films and stuff. Fearless. She seemed like the brotherly friend type of girl that wore sweats and did spit handshakes. But with her cold aura, pretty face, and hesitant personality, she had somewhat a feminine atmosphere, which reminded the gang that she was not a gangster, but a Prix.

           “You see the mini controller there? You use that to move, accordingly to the direction – top is forward, bottom is back, left is left, right is right. Diagonal is possible too,” Luhan explained, leaning over to test the tiny, flexible mover. “In the middle are two buttons, right? The bottom one is pause or unpause, the top one is to reload. There will be a timer bar on your screen after you run out of ammo, and when it reaches totally green, you can reload. The speed depends by gun. Click that button twice and you can use your scope. Make sense?” Jinah nodded. Luhan continued, “Good. On the right side are four buttons. The right one is shoot, bottom is duck, left is a time-bomb – a limit of five, and the top is jump. Following? Great. You see the two buttons on the top side?” he pressed her fingers against the button at the head of the controller. “Right one is view change. There are three in total – close up, panorama, and side.  Left is grenade, it explodes within two seconds.”

           “Got it…”

           Feeling uncomfortable with his slight skinship, Jinah backed up a bit and clicked all the buttons randomly to feel familiar with them. His skinship was like Suho’s – meaningless and carefree. It was like it was completely normal for them – did they not feel anything? Sure, with Suho, it was just some contact, but with Luhan…why did she feel the unexplainable sensation? She felt sick, sick and pathetic. But what could she do? “Okay, I’m ready.”

           “Wait,” Luhan pressed play but no one moved. He pointed at the little square with blinking dots. “The map is on the bottom right of your screen. You see that? That whole thing is a team screen. Each team screen is divided into three more parts – one for each person. That’s an individual screen. Find yours and follow that. Your avatar’s view will be that screen. Also,” he paused the game again in case Sehun was feeling cheeky again, “every avatar will have a glowing triangle on their heads. Your team is green, mine’s blue, Suho’s team is red. Your own dot will show up as yellow. These colors will also appear on your own map. Essentially, the dots on the map’s colors differ by team. Your objective is to kill everyone, survive yourself, and protect your team. The harsher and faster you kill, the more points you get. You can set traps by plating mines or time-bombs. Kill streaks give you a bonus that will either increase your health or upgrade your gun, depending on which is more crucial. You have a long health bar but only one life. Yeah?”

           Jinah nodded.

           “Okay. Let’s start.” He unpaused the game.

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If you guys think Sehun was being too... "forward" or the moment was rushed, there's a reason behind it [why Sehun is acting out of character]. I actually wasn't going to put it there but that's just how much of an impact a certain someone had. >:)

OMFG THE GAME EXPLANATION.. IDEK RANDOM IDEA AND I DEPLOYED IT /CRIES DID YOU GUYS GET IT.. WHATEVER THAT'S NOT THE POINT. When they start um..  Jinah does something.. interesting LOOOL

btw.. do I have any Kai-baised readers? :o or Kai as a second-bias/close-bias.. well.. yeah I'll just stop there LOOOL

-Seohee