Lay really hates Herbology.

Defense Against the Dark Arts, fine.

Transfiguration, perfect.

But Herbology. Gross. 

Lay sees enough plants around the Hufflepuff common room everyday, thank you very much.

“I hate Herbology,” he mutters to himself.

“What was that Mr. Zhang?” Professor Sprout calls out, and Lay jumps.

“Oh, um, I was just saying that I really love plants. Like a lot,” Lay stutters, and there are a few laughs from the class. 

Professor Sprout rolls her eyes and continues teaching. 

Lay sticks his hand into the pot of dirt in front of him and grimaces. 

Luhan, sitting next to him, is staring dejectedly at his plant, and Suho keeps glancing across Lay at him. 

Lay rolls his eyes when Tao, Kris, and Kai walk into the room and Luhan jerks upright, scattering dirt across the table. 

“Watch it,” Lay snaps. For some reason, he’s feeling irritated, and each time Suho glances over at Luhan, the feeling grows. 

Luhan glares at him, the expression unusual on his face. 

“What happened now?” Lay asks him, feeling the need to annoy Luhan. “Did you hit Oh Sehun with your cauldron this time?”

Sehun isn’t even in class today, which is unusual. And Tao and Kris are sitting as far away from each other as possible, which is also not normal. But Lay is too angry to think too long about it. 

Lay imitates Luhan’s voice. “Oh, I’m so sorry Sehun. I don’t mean to run into you all the time, but I just can’t pull my eyes away from your perfect face to watch where I’m going, and then I get all doe-eyed and sappy, and -”

But Lay doesn’t get to finish his tirade because Luhan has grabbed his pot of dirt and dumped it over Lay’s head. 

Suho gasps behind him.

Lay sits there, dirt falling down his shirt, aware that the entire class has gone silent and is watching the two of them. 

And Luhan looks shocked by himself, holding the now empty pot. 

He gets up when Lay stands. 

Takes a step back when Lay grabs a jar of water on the table.

“Now boys,” Professor Sprout begins, but Lay has already thrown the contents of the jar in Luhan’s face. 

“BOYS!” Professor Sprout yells, making everyone jump. 

She’s looking at Lay and Luhan as if she could set mandrakes on both of them and get away with it. 

Suho jumps up from his seat. 

“Professor Sprout,” he says, shrinking back a little when she turns her gaze on him. “I don’t think Lay or Luhan are feeling that well today. I could take them to the infirmary.”

Professor Sprout eyes Suho as if he’s gone completely mental.

“Or I could take them to the headmaster?” Suho offers meekly, ignoring the glares Lay and Luhan throw him. 

Professor Sprout sighs. “You all will return to your seats, and the two of you,” she says, gesturing to Lay and Luhan, “will serve detention together tonight.” 

Lay stifles a groan, but moves back to his chair.

For the rest of class, the trio are silent.

Lay really hates Herbology. 

Kai is disappointed.

But he shouldn’t be. 

But he is.

He slaps his palm against his forehead, earning some stares from other Slytherins hanging out in the common room and doing homework.

Kai looks down, trying to focus on his own work.

But he just can’t help but feel upset that no cupcakes came last night. He kind of misses seeing his name written across those cupcakes.

They’re always a different color. Sometimes they’re green, then pink, then blue.

Green is his favorite.

“Stop it,” he thinks to himself. “You shouldn’t miss the cupcakes. You should be glad no one dropped them off tonight. Maybe they’ve decided to stop giving you cupcakes. Forget the cupcakes.” 

Another part of him is thinking, “But they were so delicious. And colorful. And pretty. And delicious.”

Sure, at first it had been kind of annoying and just a tad bit creepy when he found a batch of acid green cupcakes with his name on them sitting outside the Slytherin common room door. 

But then he had gotten used to finding the cupcakes, and some part of him had looked forward to finding them sitting there in all of their bright, yummy gloriousness. 

And then he had decided to figure out who exactly was his secret admirer. 

And he had almost caught the “cupcake psycho”, as Sehun fondly called whoever it was, once last year.

It had been perfect. He had jumped out of the common room door at the perfect moment, with a battle cry of sure victory.

And then there had been two of them. 

Two.

That was what had thrown him off.

Kai knew he was magnificently attractive, but seriously, you would think one of them would make something different.

Like cake. 

And he had been confused enough for both of them to take off running down the hall. The second had shrieked like a girl before following the first one. And Kai had taken off in pursuit. But he had lost them. 

Kai lets his head rest against his desk, missing his cupcakes. 

Kris is confused.

And angry.

Kris can’t believe Tao didn’t sit next to him today in Herbology.

And Kris can’t believe it’s bothering him so much.

That stupid, lying, stubborn, attractive, crazy idiot sat by Kai the whole time.

Kris pauses for a second, stopping in the middle of the hallway.

He repeats what he just thought in his head again.

“That stupid, lying, stubborn, attractive-”

“Attractive?!”

“What the hell Kris?” he mutters to himself, beyond confused.

He doesn’t think Tao is attractive, does he?

“I mean, Tao has to be attractive to some people, right?” Kris thinks, ignoring the weird stares he’s getting from the other students who have to dodge his tall frame to continue walking down the hall. Kris had noticed in their third year that girls would stare at Tao. They would stare at Kris too. But he had never thought about whether Tao was attractive or not. 

“Hey, move it would you?” someone says from behind him, and Kris turns, distracted from his thoughts. 

It’s Tao of all people.

“Crap,” Kris thinks.

“Excuse me?” Kris asks, shaking his head to clear it. He hopes Tao can’t tell he was just thinking about him. Although, how would he?

“Do you need tutoring in the art of listening?” Tao asks, throwing Kris off guard. The shorter boy glares at Kris, arms crossed across his chest. 

He has not seen Tao like this for a long time. At least, not since Kris had purposely accidentally turned Tao’s hair bright blue their third year with a spell Kai taught him. 

Or when Kris had hid those Decoy Detonators in Tao’s bed their fifth year. Boy, did those things make Tao scream like a girl. 

Come to think of it, Tao had also gotten mad when Kris had switched Tao’s wand with one of those Trick Wands. Tao had tried to use it in their Transfiguration class, and the thing had ended up attacking him, making Tao run around the classroom trying to avoid a swinging wand. 

But Tao looks furious this time instead of merely angry. All of the other times, they had been able to laugh it off and joke about it later. Tao had pulled his fair share of pranks on Kris too. 

This time Kris isn’t sure what they’re going to do. 

“Hello?”

Kris jumps when Tao snaps his fingers in front of his face.

He’s still glaring. 

“What?” Kris asks unhelpfully.

“Did I not speak slowly enough for you?” the shorter boy asks. “Move.”

He draws the last word out annoyingly, and Kris glares.

“Make me,” Kris says, and Tao raises an eyebrow.

Uh-oh.

Before Kris can blink, he’s on his back in the middle of the hall, with a smirking Tao looking down at him.

“How was that?” Tao asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

Kris can’t reply because the breath has been knocked out of him. Instead, he watches as Tao steps over him and walks away. Watches as all of the other students who paused mid-walk or mid-sprint to watch the spectacle that is now him sprawled on the floor. Watches as his pride waves goodbye and skips down the hall, laughing. 

Crap. 

“Crap,” Luhan mutters, looking at the time.

He can’t believe he has to serve detention tonight. He’s just finished all of his homework and he’s exhausted. And now he’s late.

Luhan looks around the common room, but there’s no sign of Lay. Maybe he already went ahead and didn’t tell Luhan he was going to be late. He probably would’ve done the same thing if Lay had dumped dirt over his head.

It’s just that Luhan was so on edge, so worried all day that he would bump into Oh Sehun. The boy practically hated him now.

And then Lay had gone and done a horrible imitation of his voice, because it definitely wasn’t that high-pitched, and Sehun’s friends had been sitting right there. He had seen Kai throw him a curious look later in Herbology class, and he hoped Kai wasn’t going to go talk to Sehun about Lay’s acting. It was not what he needed at the moment. 

So Luhan had dumped the nearest pot of dirt he could find over Lay’s head. 

Luhan had seen Kai’s surprised stare, Tao’s smirk, Kris’s sudden turn of