Too soon for Sarang’s liking, it was time for Luhan to graduate from middle school.

She couldn’t believe that her last year of going to the same school as him had gone by so fast. It seemed like just yesterday she’d first met him as a seventh grader. And now he was graduating from ninth grade with honors and the highest scores he’d had before he’d met Sarang.

And when the headmaster called Luhan’s name up to the stage to collect his diploma, the entire gymnasium erupted into enthusiastic applause. He couldn’t help but peek up at Sarang to see how hard she’d be cheering for him.

He spotted her in the third row of bleachers, sandwiched between his mom and hers, all three of whom were clapping with grins so wide that they seemed to light up the entire gym. He smirked when he saw that she was cheering more wildly than she’d cheered for Minseok the year before.

Take that, Minseok hyung.

Afterwards, Luhan’s mother sobbed tears of pride while trying to snap a decent picture of her son with Eunji, Sarang, Minseok, Jongin, and Sehun. Then she wanted separate shots of just him with Eunji and Sarang, then even more shots of just him and Sarang.

“Mom, stop!” Luhan whined after she’d tried to get her to kiss his cheek for a picture. “You’re embarrassing us!” Of course he loved her, but sometimes he wanted to dig a hole and crawl into it to hide from the embarrassment his mother caused him.

“All right, all right.” She seemed disappointed that she hadn’t succeeded in making him do that much for her.

“Can I take the gown off now?” Luhan fidgeted in the heavy black polyester gown. “I want to go out with my friends.”

“Of course! Come home by dinner, okay? I’ve invited some family friends over to celebrate.”

Luhan grimaced; family friends likely meant Sarang and her mom, as well as some of his mom’s neighborhood ahjumma friends. “Okay.”

He quickly shed his robes and led his group of friends towards the bus stop. “What do you guys want to do today?”

“Luhan, do you want to come with us?” called a classmate from her parents’ car, already packed with her friends.

“No, I’m going with these guys!” Luhan waved her off. “Congratulations on graduating!” She waved and the door shut before it drove off for the city.

The group went to their favorite noraebang to sing and dance their hearts out before heading to an arcade.

“This is just a repeat of Minseok hyung’s post-graduation celebration.” Jongin rolled his eyes, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Let’s do something different.”

“Like what? We’re not even sixteen years old yet; there’s not much we can do apart from this,” Sehun pointed out.

“No, he’s right.” Eunji nodded. “We can do something else.”

“Like what?”

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