It was another hot summer afternoon. The teacher drones on about colonialism and makes an impassioned plea for Dokdo and implores the students of Korea to rise and win the Nobel Prize in literature! Nonsense--this isn't literature class, this is civics. 

Do Kyungsoo yawns discreetly. He's pretty sure no one notices because he's mastered the trick of yawning without opening his mouth, but just in case, he pops his eyes open extra wide. The way to the teacher's heart, Kyungsoo's learned, is to stare at him with bulging eyeballs and a slightly puzzled expression. Teacher, his large guiless eyes seem to beseech, I, for one, am absolutely riveted. 

Meanwhile, he's falling asleep on the inside. 

As his brain slowly shuts down, he feels a commotion in the classroom. Someone seems to be screaming about something or other, but a) Kyungsoo can't really process words right now and b) he's at that juncture of sleepiness where he can't really turn his head and observe his surroundings, even though his eyes remain open.

The result, of course, is that he gets smashed in the side of his head by a flying object that zooms through the open window at a murderous speed. 

The last thing Kyungsoo sees before he's knocked out cold is the blurred pattern of the black and white patches on a worn soccer ball, and that's when he knows. He can feel it in his guts--it must, again, be that devil in the next class over, the captain of the soccer team, the darling of girls, the leader of the boys, and the perpetual pain in his --

That little er, Lu Han.

The nightmare had begun exactly a month ago.

The school had just posted the top scores of the first school-wide test of the semester, and Kyungsoo had meandered over to the bulletin feeling pretty good about himself. To provide some context, Kyungsoo was a relatively average dude by a number of measures--a couple friends, middling looks, middle class family. He had some deficiencies--miniature sized, barely-there shoulders, and the denigrating nickname of teacher's pet. But if there was one thing going for him, it was the fact that he was, to this point, the undisputed number one student among the juniors in his high school. Those moments of viewing his test scores on the school bulletin were moments of pure glory for Kyungsoo. His name, without fail, listed above all others, trampling upon those lower beings with their lower intellect, vindicating his lack of physical stature with his much superior and enduring gift of brains. In those moments, he felt like a god. 

So you can probably imagine what a soul-crushing experience it must have been to see his name knocked off its pedestal onto the measly and forgettable number two position: 

No. 1: Lu Han - 100

No. 2: Do Kyungsoo - 99

Kyungsoo stood there, motionless and stiff. His world had gone topsy turvy in a matter of seconds--there were no absolute truths. He felt lost at turbulent sea with nothing to anchor him. He was keenly aware that he was nothing without his grades. Just another average Joe mass manufactured by god so that he could become a faceless cog in this world’s population of amorphous, undistinguished, replaceable humans who lived to work and worked to die, like stupid lonely ants marching slowly towards an inevitable anonymous expiration.

But more importantly, who the was Lu Han?

"Hey there!"

Kyungsoo turned around in the direction of the voice on instinct, but being shell-shocked as he was, he could do little more than stare soulessly at the face of the unknown boy who confronted him. It was a friendly, nice-looking face: large sparkly eyes, a tall nose, porcelain skin, and tiny lips. Strangely anime-like.

"Hi!” repeated the boy chirpily with a wide smile, seemingly unfazed by Kyungsoo’s lack of response. Even In his distracted state, Kyungsoo nevertheless thought that the face would look slightly better if the jaw did not unhinge and the eyes did not crinkle so unattractively in smiling. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” the boy continued, “But I transferred here this semester, you know. From China. I’m Lu Han, nice to meet you!”

What does one respond to that? Ah, yes. On automatic mode now, Kyungsoo replied in a dead-sounding voice, “Yes hi, I’m Kyungsoo. You say your name is—” But wait a minute! “You’re Lu Han!”

The boy, Lu Han, smiled wider and nodded. “Yeah. Nice to meet you Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo could no longer speak. He looked at the bulletin and the name at the top of the rankings, then looked back at the expectant Lu Han. “Uh.” He could do nothing more than stare at Lu Han’s pretty face disbelievingly and unblinkingly with haunted, owlish eyes.

Coincidentally, the bulletin was located next to a window that faced the west and outside the window was a cherry blossom tree. And so it happened that the afternoon sun’s setting rays hit Kyungsoo’s pale face, casting it with an ethereal, golden sheen. Behind him, delicate pastel petals floated to the ground in a flurry of pink. As Lu Han watched this scene unfold before him—Kyungsoo standing among the blossoms with his glowing skin and eerily large eyes, much like an angel painted into an other-worldly .gif—his smile slowly faded and in its place was a look of breathless wonder.

The two boys stare at each other, each preoccupied by his own thoughts,

Then: “Well. I have to go.” Kyungsoo marched off, expressionless. As he walked down the hallway in quick, clipped steps, he prayed to god that he would never have to see Lu Han again.

Oh, and also that he would beat him on the next test.

Obviously, neither of his wishes came true because Kyungsoo is actually a pretty terrible person—just ask Baekhyun or Chanyeol, or even better, just look at the bruises on their bodies—and if anything, he’s pretty sure he’s going to hell, but he thought a prayer would be worth a try.

Anyway, it got worse.

They started small, almost unobtrusively. Lu Han just got named soccer captain!—the girls twitter in the awe-struck voices. What’s the big deal? Have you seen his dreamy eyes? Don’t you just want to kiss those adorable lips!

It wasn’t so bad, because among other skills, Kyungsoo was very capable at filtering out distasteful girl voices. But the really awful thing was that the soccer practice area was adjacent to Kyungsoo’s classroom, and he sat right by the window, so that day in and day out, whether he wanted to or not (and it was always ‘not’), Lu Han’s lithe running figure pricked at the corner of his vision, like an obstinate sty.

And even more inexplicably frustrating was that every so often, Lu Han would catch his eye, smile his blinding if slightly-ugly smile and raise a fist in acknowledgment or comradery or victory or whatever. It would send all the girls into titters as they fought over who had a claim to Lu Han’s smile, and it was all very, very annoying to Kyungsoo.

Then Lu Han joined student council. It was unprecedented, but apparently he had requested to join and the teachers had easily acquiesced because Lu Han was now the number one and in Korean schools, number one students got to do whatever the hell they wanted.

Needless to say, it was a huge affront to Kyungsoo, student council president who had won his election fair and square. (Or not so fair, as Chanyeol would protest, because he had helped stuff the ballot boxes on threat of bodily from Kyungsoo, or more bodily harm than usual. But whatever, you get the idea.)

“Kyungsoo, I’ve been meaning to talk to you!” Lu Han exclaimed on his first day of joining. He had glided up to Kyungsoo, elegant but excited, and swung an arm around Kyungsoo’s narrow shoulders as if they were old buds. His arm was thin but toned, which Kyungsoo found strange, because didn’t he play soccer? But maybe it was an athlete thing—Kyungsoo wouldn’t know, he was just thin and flabby, which meant he was, in yet another way, inferior to this Lu Han. In a fit of dark rage, Kyungsoo slapped Lu Han’s arm away and bestowed upon him a withering glare.

“I don’t like it when people touch me.”

Baekhyun cooed sympathetically at a dumbstruck Lu Han. “It’s okay bro, the rest of us here are normal.”

Lu Han nodded uncertainly but continued staring at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo leveled a frown at him: “Look, I know what you’re doing.”

Lu Han blinked in confusion: “What?”

“You’re trying to beat me.” Kyungsoo responded coldly, matter-of-fact. “And I know you beat me on the last test, but you’re not going to top forever”—Kyungsoo ignored a stifled snigger from Baekhyun—“You may have snuck your way onto student council, but you better watch your back.” He appended his threat with a sly, knowing look.

Lu Han protested, of course—Wait no, that’s not why I wanted to join—but Kyungsoo would not be fooled.

He would beat this Lu Han and reclaim what was his or die trying.

At some point, Kyungsoo realized that Lu Han was so desperate to maintain his top position and beat out Kyungsoo that he had resorted to stalking. The stalking theory explained a lot—including the soccer outside Kyungsoo’s window, the student council bit, as well as Lu Han’s insistence on sitting by him in the dining hall and taking the bus home with him, even though Kyungsoo knew they lived in completely different directions because he had not-so-ethically looked at Lu Han’s private files.

But Kyungsoo really realized this when Lu Han inexplicably showed up during his meet-up with Jongin.

They had just finished getting coffee and catching up and were on their way out. Once outside, a gust of wind blew some particles of dust into Kyungsoo’s abnormally large eyes and Kyungsoo cried out in pain. Being the caring person he was, Jongin asked to take a look, so Kyungsoo tilted his head up and Jongin bent down to peer into his eyes. To better facilitate this process, Jongin lifted his hand and took a gentle hold of Kyungsoo’s chin.

“I see it. I think I can blow it out.”

“That’s really weird. Are you sure? I can also just start crying.”

“No really, I think a puff of air will do the trick.”

Jongin puckered his lips and was just about let out a gentle whoosh of air when suddenly, someone grabbed Kyungsoo by the wrist and tugged him back, hard. With a bit of stumbling, Kyungsoo found himself locked in the familiar thin, toned arms of one very displeased looking Lu Han.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Lu Han asked, his usual sweet voice transformed by rage.

Jongin blinked at him with a stoned expression. This was all very confusing. Meanwhile, Kyungsoo had recovered from his initial shock and had elbowed Lu Han in the stomach, hard.

“Let go, you douche,” he yelled. “I’m still trying to get this crap out of my eyes.”

Ultimately, Kyungsoo managed flush out the dust in his eyes all on his own. He did this after he grabbed ahold of Jongin and marched off without a glance back. Had he glanced back, he would have noticed that Lu Han was staring after him with an uncharacteristic, wobbly frown, his fists clenched at his side.

That was about a week ago. Lu Han had left him well enough alone for the past week. Kyungsoo felt almost off-balance by the sudden descent of peace, until he realized that maybe it was all part of Lu Han’s nefarious ploy to simultaneously erode his concentration on his studies and to lure him into a false sense of security.

He felt pretty vindicated in his prescient analysis of Lu Han’s plot when the ball hit him in the face. Ha, he wanted to say, I knew you were up to no good!

Only, what was happening now?

He had woken up in what appeared to be the nursing office, although it was hard to tell because there was a huge head blocking his line of vision. Lu Han’s head, to be precise.

Lu Han was sitting on a chair at his bedside but had bent over to lean close. Too close, if Lu Han’s soft breath ghosting over his face was any indication. But before Kyungsoo could react in his newfound consciousness, Lu Han had already closed what miniscule distance separated them and had pressed his lips upon Kyungsoo’s.

The kiss started off tender, but Lu Han soon wanted more and the kiss took on a more exigent tenor. He ran the tip of his tongue along the parting of Kyungsoo’s lips and nipped lightly at his bottom lip to slowly coax them open. Growing bolder, his tongue darts lightly into Kyungsoo’s mouth and begins to explore, dancing with the other boy’s tongue and lapping at his pearl like teeth.

Meanwhile, the dumbstruck astonishment that afflicted Kyungsoo at first had begun to wear off while the lack of oxygen began to feel more urgent. With his tiny fists, Kyungsoo pounds lightly on Lu Han’s chest. Lu Han captures him by the wrists and presses one last butterfly of a kiss on his lips before pulling away with a sigh.

In the silence of the room, all that could be heard was Kyungsoo’s short gasping breaths. Lu Han found the sounds inexplicably y, but Kyungsoo glared at him in warning before he could swoop back in for another round.

“Stop. What are you trying to achieve here?”

Lu Han blinks his pretty sparkly eyes in total confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Are you trying to seduce me now?”

“I mean...I’ve kind been trying to seduce you for awhile now...?” Lu Han replies sheepishly, brushing his fringe back with a measure of demure shyness. “Oh, and sorry about the soccer ball. That wasn’t part of the plan. But I thought I’d take the opportunity, you know?”

Kyungsoo narrows his eyes. “Ok stop. First of all, that’s like, ual assault. And second of all, I’m not going to let you distract me anymore! It’s very underhanded of you to try to beat me this way.”

“Kyungsoo,” Lu Han says with an exasperated sigh. ”How many times do I have to tell you? I’m really not interested in beating you academically or socially or whatever! I just like you okay? And I’m tired of you flirting with that other guy, the one who was trying to kiss you—”

“—Jongin?”

“—Whatever his name is—I hate him—and I really wish you’d stop seeing me as some rival and just...just give me a chance instead?” Lu Han peers at Kyungsoo with his pretty doe-like eyes lit with desperate flames of passion.

With every second passing, Kyungsoo can feel his resolve crumbling, but the panic remains—What if this is just another plot? His grades might drop again! What if he can’t study because all he can think about is Lu Han’s face (which is basically what happens now anyway, if he were really honest, because Lu Han’s face is very nice and all)? What if—

“And I promise I’ll let you beat me on the next test if you let me kiss you again.”

“Let me beat you? What do you take me for?” Kyungsoo screeches indignantly. A pause. Lu Han smiles and leans closer while he watches Kyungsoo’s large eyes roll upwards in thought as the wheels turn in his head. Then, in an uncertain, suspicious voice, “Really? Do you promise?”

“I promise,” Lu Han says solemnly, though a playful smile peeks out from the corner of his lips.

Kyungsoo nods in satisfaction.

In a split second, he leans up and presses a quick kiss to Lu Han’s lips. “Deal.”

Lu Han blinks in wonderment at the smirking little devil in his arms—he really has the best taste—before breaking into a huge smile.

Just before he leans in for another kiss, Kyungsoo adds, “By the way, Jongin’s my little cousin, you know.”

“Wait, what?”

“Okay, you can kiss me now.”

***THE END***

Thanks for reading :D