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Sehun woke up to a pounding headache and compromising circumstances. He found himself in Junkyu’s bed, half-, only shirtless thankfully, with someone’s arm draped loosely around his waist. He recognised the arm as belonging to Jongin, to his horror. The last thing Sehun remembered was playing “never have I ever” with Jongdae’s mysterious stash of alcohol. He vaguely wondered what happened after the games ended or even whether they continued playing games past where Sehun’s memories ended. No doubt with a lack of inhibition, there were plenty of sloppy make-out sessions, some of which more regrettable than others.

Sehun tried to stay as still as possible as he scanned the room for signs of shenanigans from the night prior. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were tucked away neatly in the other bed in the room, appearing to have fallen asleep together. Sehun thought it was bridging on cute as they slept peacefully with a matching pace of smooth breathing. Jongdae was sleeping in a much less cute position on the floor, limbs splayed in a graceless pile and drool hanging out the corner of his mouth. Sehun probably pulled his usual sour face in response to the sight.

Considering the shenanigans the party got up to, the room looked surprisingly clean, almost unsettlingly so. If Sehun were scrutinising the room closely enough, he would actually notice that the room was cleaner now than it was at the start of the night. Only later would Sehun find out that Joonmyun got in a cleaning mood whenever he got drunk. Even the papers on Junkyu’s desk were neatly organised. Joonmyun was curled up on the floor almost across the room from the messy pile that was Jongdae. Chanyeol and Yixing were evidently in the other room, on the other side of the bathroom, probably alone. For a brief moment, the thought of Chanyeol and Yixing together in a bed for the night flitted through Sehun’s mind, but he quickly pushed it away. The likelihood of that happening was pretty close to zero if it weren’t actually.

Sehun decided that it was too early to wake up, and as much as he wanted to escape Jongin’s hug, that would require effort if he were to attempt to do so without waking the other up. Little did he know that Jongin was already awake and watching the other sleep, or so he thought, which was really not creepy in the least. As weird as it was, it wasn’t uncomfortable there. The embrace was warm and before he knew it, Sehun had fallen back asleep, inadvertently snuggling up against the person behind him, much to Jongin’s surprise and a little bit of something else. Jongin also decided that it was too early to wake up and drifted back to sleep.

--

Their rude awakening included Jongdae cooing about how cute the two looked sleeping. Sehun and Jongin sat up abruptly, face turning bright red. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Sehun stammered.

“That and everything that led up to it,” Jongdae snickered, no hangover apparent in his features or mannerisms. Although Sehun and Jongin weren’t the last ones to wake, the noise from their protests woke up the sleeping couple composed of Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. Baekhyun rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“What do you mean everything that led up to it?”

“Would you believe me if I said you had an intense make out session last night?” Jongdae cackled.

“You’re dumb, Jongdae,” Jongin replied flatly. “We did no such thing. I remember the whole night and at no point did we lock lips more than during the games. Too bad really,” he mused, much to Sehun’s chagrin.

“Y-you’re sure?” Sehun asked timidly.

“Positive,” Jongin replied.

“I wasn’t talking about you two,” Jongdae replied coolly. “I was talking about—“ before he could finish, Joonmyun covered Jongdae’s mouth.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Joonmyun put in reassuringly. “Our actions inebriated do not really matter, right?” Jongdae took the hint and shrugged. “That, and I am fairly sure that everyone was feeling pretty out of it by the end of the night, especially you, Jongdae, everyone aside from Yixing. Who knew he could hold his liquor like that?” Joonmyun rambled.

“He’s full of secrets and surprises,” Jongdae replied with a sly eyebrow wiggle, which earned an eye roll from Sehun.

“Everyone has secrets,” he grumbled.

“But not all are nearly so –“

“Those of us who woke up early went and got things for possible hangovers,” Joonmyun cut off before Jongdae could provoke Sehun anymore and increase his headache. He tossed the bottle of aspirin pills to Jongin and a bottle of water to Sehun, who managed to bounce the bottle off his forearm. Luckily, Jongin managed to catch the stray bottle. He held out the bottle for Sehun from behind.

“Thanks,” Sehun mumbled, not turning around to show reddening cheeks Jongin could, however, see the back of Sehun’s neck turning a matching shade and he stifled a giggle.

“Hopefully this will make packing for the bus back bearable at least,” Yixing put in helpfully although he looked as if he hadn’t been drinking the night prior. Sehun inwardly damned his friends who seemed to be immune to hangovers, including Yixing.

“You can always sleep on the bus, just be sure not to sit next to any good-looking dancers,” Jongdae teased.

“Why did you have to tell them?” Sehun whined, turning to face Jongin.

“It was a slip of the tongue,” Jongin replied casually. Sehun noticed that he appeared to be hung-over, which was somehow a relief. He didn’t know why, but he was relieved to see that. Perhaps it was a confirmation that Jongin had his flaws too.

“Well, whatever. It’s already happened, I guess I’m fine with it happening again now that everyone knows,” Sehun sighed out loud without meaning to. “I-I mean,” he tried, but it was too late and Sehun wanted to wipe the grin spreading across Jongdae’s face off.

Sehun’s packing involved simply throwing wads of clothing into a suitcase and jamming it shut. He decided he would deal with the wrinkles later instead of spending energy trying to fold the articles and put them neatly in. He could almost hear Taeyeon scolding him for being so sloppy in her motherly way.

On the bus, Sehun and his friends managed to sit in the same area but the pairs were less than desirable from Sehun’s point of view. He ended up sitting beside Jongin, again, while Joonmyun sat with Jongdae, Baekhyun with Kyungsoo, and Yixing with Chanyeol. Jongin could not contain his happiness at the opportunity to sit next to Sehun once again on the long ride back to the city. Unfortunately, his joy came off as annoyingly victorious as he smirked, sitting in the aisle seat beside Sehun. Yixing watched fondly from his aisle seat in the same row as Jongin and Sehun.

Although the medication he had taken that morning had helped with his headache, he still felt tired and ended up falling asleep on the bus, listening to music, leaning on Jongin’s shoulder. As Jongin watched Sehun’s peaceful face as he slept, he couldn’t help from smiling genuinely.

As Jongdae attempted to take pictures of Sehun dosing on Jongin’s shoulder, Joonmyun chided him and Jongin defended his crush valiantly from the troll’s camera. Yixing simple watched with the usual vague expression on his face.

“Morning sunshine,” Jongdae teased when the bus had rolled to a stop and students had begun to disembark.

“I hate you,” Sehun mumbled groggily.

“That hurt Sehunnie,” Jongdae replied, pretending to be taken aback.

“I don’t care,” Sehun replied as he stretched. Once again, he had failed to notice that his headphones had been folded neatly and put away in his bag. Jongin got up, supressing a snicker, and Sehun followed suit as they filed off the bus.

“Sehun~” called a familiar voice.

“Taeyeon?” He couldn’t hide the surprise from his voice. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to meet you, silly,” she replied with a bright smile before pulling him into a tight hug. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” he replied sincerely. “Despite the fact that we text every single day for at least an hour,” he teased. “Are you sure you didn’t want to see what Jongin and Yixing look like?” he added.

“Well, I was a bit curious,” she admitted. “I didn’t feel particularly like waiting until later to see them.”

“And who might this be Sehunnie?” Jongdae asked.

“I’m Taeyeon. You must be Jongdae, based on the ‘devious smile that implies ulterior motives’ that Sehun always talks about,” she replied, shocking Jongdae momentarily.

“My goodness. She’s quite spunky,” Joonmyun commented although he was unable to keep the amusement from his voice. “My name is Joonmyun,” he introduced himself, extending a hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she replied shaking his hand.

“Hello,” came the voice of Baekhyun. “My name is Baekhyun, and this is Kyungsoo.” She beamed at the both of them.

“Hi,” said the surprisingly deep voice belonging to Chanyeol.

“My goodness,” Taeyeon gasped, taken aback by the contrast between his appearance and voice. “I’m sorry, I heard that you had a surprisingly deep voice but I guess I just wasn’t expecting it to be like that,” she tried to explain embarrassedly.

“No it’s okay, that happens quite often,” he replied with his borderline disconcerting grin.

“You must be Taeyeon,” sounded Yixing’s voice as he and Jongin joined the cluster. “We’ve heard quite a bit about you from Sehun.”

“I hope they were not anything too mean or embarrassing, he can do that sometimes,” she joked, elbowing him lightly in the side, which earned a scowl, not without affection. ”In a way, you’ve changed a lot but in a way, you haven’t changed at all,” she mused fondly.

“You’re being so embarrassing!” Sehun whined at his childhood friend.

“No, no, please continue. I want to hear all about little Sehun,” Jongdae implored.

“I’ll save that when we have time to properly talk about it,” Taeyeon teased with a wink. Jongin snickered with a bob of his shoulders. “You must be Yixing,” she added, turning her gaze to the smiling boy with prominent dimples. “And you’re Jongin right?” She turned to the tan boy. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you.” Sehun’s face turned a bright shade of red and Jongin’s a matching colour, dulled slightly by darker skin.

“Don’t you have parents to see?” Sehun grumbled.

“Don’t worry dears, we’ll have plenty of time to go down memory lane and embarrass Sehunnie. For now, why don’t you return to your families and recover from your hangovers,” Taeyeon suggested. “I’ll take him home.” The boys all nodded assent before scattering to find various family members to take them home.

“Your descriptions were quite accurate,” she observed once everyone was out of earshot. “I look forward to getting to know them better over the break.” Sehun scowled and in reply, Taeyeon stood on her toes and ruffled his hair.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please look forward to the next chapter with Taeyeon again! You will see the various shenanigans as the pairs begin to fall into place. ^_^