For the most part, it seems like a beautiful day to be setting foot in kindergarten for the first time. The sun is shining. The breeze is light enough to not be overwhelming yet strong enough to tousle everyone’s hair lightly. Luhan is now also lice-free (“Curse you, pesky hair inhabitants and your devotion to my lovely locks!”), so he finds it easy to feel no shame about the fact that he’s arriving to school for the first time a month later than everyone else.

Sure, he’s in a whole ‘nother country that’s certainly nothing like homeland China and its Communist-not-Communist identity issues, but that’s okay because Luhan has come here with his best friend for life, Zhang Yixing.

(They’re also soulmates and Yixing doesn’t know that yet, but that’s okay because Luhan thinks that it makes him cuter.)

(It also means that Luhan is totally the smarter of the two and one day, when he gets older, he has sworn to use this to his advantage in order to make sure that his husband-to-be is absolutely whipped.)

There’s some guilt because the poor boy’s been on his own for an entire month since the dormitory/daycare that they’ve been staying at has isolated Luhan from every other boy in order to prevent the spread of infestation (“Actually, I’m pretty sure that my lice wouldn’t settle for Mister Junmyeon’s hair when they can have my luscious mane!”) and despite his incredibly logical reasoning, there was no way out of isolation.

When their mothers signed them up for the exchange program at the young age of five, the rationalization was that it would be good for their two sons to begin learning how to speak more languages, the school was prestigious for its academic prowess and position within the international social hierarchy, and the two of them would at least have each other, so it’s not like they would be completely on their own. Luhan and Yixing had grown up like family, after all: they tried to spend every waking moment of their time together, they began to cry whenever it was time for one to go home, and no one could forget the time that Luhan had snuck into the younger boy’s bed when the latter couldn’t go out because of his fever, the remnants of one of Yixing’s tissues, latched onto the barely-conscious boy’s body, and screamed, “Don’t worry, Xingxing, I’ll save you!”

The act was nothing short of stupid, but as Luhan lay in bed a week later with Yixing gripping his hand tightly and sniffling over the fact that it was his boogers that had gotten his best friend sick, the older boy explained himself by saying, “See, you’re fixed now, right? It’s because I swallowed all of the germs so that you wouldn’t have to anymore!”

“But what will you do now, Lu? Who will take your germs away?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll give them to that weird girl across the street that keeps sending me creepy smiles. I’m sure that she won’t mind all too much.”

Between the two of them, Luhan had always been the more outgoing one, so it makes him feel guilty whenever he imagines the younger boy dragging his bookbag to school all by himself and sitting in class all by himself and swinging on the swing set all by himself and eating by himself and just being by himself in general.

If he had remembered that his caretaker had confirmed the morbid massacre of the bug plantation atop his head last night (“Rest in peace,” he had decided to mumble after the woman had left, because Yixing had always been kind of religious and Luhan was kind of sort of really missing him and he figured that he would say something like that if he had been actually been there, but because he wasn’t, Luhan decided to go ahead and say the line in his stead anyway), then he would’ve bolted out of his confinement – which he was supposed to be moving out of later that day – as soon as the sun began to rise so that he could throw on his uniform and run to Yixing and interlock their fingers while saying, “I’ve killed all the intruders so that they can’t invade your hair now! Look at me, I’ve saved the day again!”

But alas, Luhan had grown so accustomed to the fits of itching that occurred atop his head that he had completely forgotten that said fits had – for the most part – disappeared entirely. He had forgotten that he was supposed to be getting ready for his first day of kindergarten and he was sure that their caretaker hadn’t bothered to tell Yixing of his best friend’s newfound freedom (Luhan’s almost positive that it’s because the caretaker wants Yixing for herself and knows some serious competition when she sees it) and so he mumbles a string of “poop, poop, poopity poop” as he rushes to make due for lost time and dashes through the one-minute walk to the school building.

He gets there out of breath because he’s Luhan and he’s been stuck in a room all by himself with nothing but lice to keep him company and ew, running. But the breath suddenly comes rushing back into his lungs as soon as he sees a familiar tangle of brown locks and an awkward body proportion and sees the familiar bag that’s an identical match to his own except in purple.

“Xingxing,” he screams in delight, somehow finding the energy to run towards his younger friend with arms that are already outspread to receive a huge hug. At the familiar nickname, said boy turns his head to face the newcomer, his trademark dimple already standing prominent within his right cheek.

However, as soon as he turns, Luhan gains access to something that he hadn’t exactly noticed before that sends his insides running cold and his legs suddenly running nowhere.

“Well, look who it is,” comes the slow purr that is strangely seductive and that infuriates Luhan because they’re only supposed to be five so it’s weird if one of them is seductive. And if anyone gets to be seductive in this story, Luhan’s almost positive that it should be him and he finds it infuriating that it’s not. “Lu Ge, I haven’t seen you in such a long time.”

Our protagonist grits his teeth in frustration, trying to do his absolute best to not fling himself at the strange boy as me manages a dark, “Wufan. I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, I know. I just said that, didn’t I?”

Sometimes Luhan thinks that he’s too nice for his own good.

Before he has the chance to respond with something equally as witty and equally as bitter, Yixing pipes up with his oblivious smile to the tension electrocuting the air around the three boys. “Oh, good! The two of you already know each other. That means that we can skip the introductions!” He’s always had a habit of using animated hand gestures whenever he talks, so as he says this, Luhan suddenly realizes that the reason why Wufan’s arm is awkwardly moving along with whatever Yixing says is because the two of them are holding hands.

The action turns him livid and he’s about to go against everything that a good schoolboy should do in order to launch himself at  the taller boy, but then suddenly Yixing’s wrapped him in an excited embrace as he exclaims, “I’ve missed you so much, Lu! School hasn’t been as fun without you!”

Luhan’s a bit awkward and a bit stiff but then he realizes that if Yixing is hugging him right now, then it also means that he’s no longer holding hands with Wufan, so Luhan mans up and loosens up and squeezes Yixing equally as hard. “I’ve missed you too, Xingxing! Everything’s been so boring without my best friend by my side.” He makes sure to include extra emphasis over those two special words in order to give Wufan a hint because Zhang Yixing belongs to Luhan because they’re soulmates and will be getting married as soon as they’re legal so Wufan needs to back off because he is the definition of #rude.

But the taller boy does nothing but snort at the statement, saying, “What? Even the critters eating off your head didn’t want to be friends with you? What a shame.”

 Yixing doesn’t notice the poison that’s laced within Wufan’s joke, so he laughs, and that laugh makes Luhan’s face flusher brighter than it had ever flushed before.

“Who even says the word ‘critters’ anymore? Wow, Wufan, you’re the definition of outdated.”

Wufan rolls his eyes at this, but before he’s able to come up with something equally intelligent to say (which would be quite difficult, because Luhan’s an unspoken fact that he’s probably going to be the smartest kindergartener of their year), Yixing pipes up with a frown. “There’s no need to be such a bum today, Lulu. Are you sure that those bugs didn’t do anything to your brain? That would be kind of scary.”

Luhan flushes a bright shade of red because of course the bugs didn’t do anything to his brain – that would only be stupid – but he can’t call Yixing out for that because Yixing is Yixing and so he’s destined to live a beautiful life without having to ever receive a dosage of sassy Luhan.

The young boy doesn’t know how blessed he really is.

“Sorry,” the eldest boy mumbles, before continuing on with a halfassed excuse that doesn’t seem all that halfassed at all because, as mentioned earlier, Luhan’s pretty sure that he’s the smartest boy of his year, “While I was out, I had been reading a lot of books and wanted to show off my new vocabulary. I didn’t want anyone to think that I was allowing myself to fall behind.”

Yixing nods in quick understanding while Wufan only smirks. “Yeah, Mister Junmyeon actually released the results of the entrance exam up not too long ago. You should go check them out.”

The doe-eyed child blinks in confusion. “But we’re only kindergarteners. We’re already receiving a rank?”

“Yeah, I think that the Mister Yeollie said something about how age doesn’t matter and we all have to learn about responsibility,” Yixing states. “You’ll like him, Lu. He smells kind of funny, but he says that it’s just the smell of our dreams.”

“Pretty sure that he does drugs,” Wufan throws in, “And his English kind of .”

Luhan puffs out his chest suddenly before claiming, “That’s okay, I can teach the whole class English if Mister Yeollie isn’t good at it!” The idea is kind of absurd since Luhan doesn’t know the first thing about the language, but that’s okay, because he’s probably the smartest kid of his year and can learn quick enough anyway.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Lulu,” Yixing chirrups, “Wufannie’s actually been helping Mister Yeollie a lot with English because he grew up in Canada!”

“Wufannie?” Luhan internally squeaks while his eyes get all big and he feels the yet-to-be-released testosterone surging through his body.

“Yeah, according to our class ranks, I’m number one anyway.”

Luhan dramatically falls to the ground just as the bell rings to signal the start of class and he doesn’t get out of his position until he realizes that Yixing has stopped worriedly poking at his cheek with a sigh and had resumed walking hand-in-hand with Wufan towards the school building.

He looks on in astonishment for a few moments before angrily getting up out of his position and kicking the cement in frustration.

The young boy blames the fact that he’s still not used to being outside yet for his sudden faceplanting back into the sidewalk because Luhan is good at everything and walking is definitely one of those things.

Stupid sidewalk. Talk about #rude.

Stupid lice. Also being #rude.

Stupid Wufan for being the #rude-est of them all.

a/n: *sweats nervously* Sorry about the late upload! I know that I said I would have it out on New Years, but I got a little carried away with some of my other priorities. ;; Anyway, thoughts? c: I'd love to know what you all thought about this first chapter. I haven't written anything crack-like in the longest time, so tips are definitely appreciated!