A/N: Oh my gosh, you can't imagine how worried I am no one will like this. It would be understandable why :') please bear with me, and give me constructive criticism - I want to improve, for you, dear reader.

Enjoy the first installment of word vomit *flourishes*

When they first met, it was nothing extraordinary. Another, as they would later put it, ‘Luhan-forced-encounter’.

“Sehun, this is the guy I was telling you about, you know, the amazing dancer?” Jongin closed his locker and turned to face the deer eyed boy, somehow his senior, who had appeared by his side in the busy school corridor, another boy in tow.

Jongin felt his cheeks heat a little at the praise, but nonetheless stretched out his hand to the other boy,

“Kim Jongin… But most people call me Kai.”

The boy reached out and took his hand, and Jongin couldn’t help but notice how verging on dainty he was; so slim, with willowy wrists and porcelain pale skin.

“Oh Sehun,” the boy replied, shaking gently before releasing his grasp.

With basic introductions completed, Luhan instantly began to reel off the various hare-brained schemes and plans he had already hatched for the three of them, most of which involved his gaining the attention of another boy in his year named Kim Minseok, who he frequently referred to as “the baozi”; but Jongin wasn’t really listening. He was, he hoped, gazing subtly at the other boy, Sehun. What stuck with Jongin wasn’t just his pale skin, nor his slim physique. Oh no. It was the deadness in his eyes, and how his hand had felt so completely ice cold in his own.

__________

They don’t talk about it; neither of them really knew how it happened anyway, but soon enough, Sehun and Jongin grew close.

Being truthful, Jongin puts it down to his own curiosity surrounding the shy, quiet boy, with the slightest hint of a long forgotten lisp. They both agree, however, that it was probably down to Luhan. At least, that’s what Luhan likes them to think.

Due to their being separated into different year groups and different classes, the main portion of their time spent together is during breaks, sometimes after school, and lunchtimes.

Jongin, being active with his dancing, and with the appetite of two or three average teenage boys anyway, always wolfs down his plate of school-provided food each lunch time, whatever frightening concoction it may be. He assumed Luhan has a healthy appetite too – that is, if he ever stopped talking long enough for food to reach his mouth. Sehun, however, rarely touches anything. Ever. And Jongin begins to wonder…

But they aren’t that close. It isn’t his business to ask.

__________

They soon grow closer and closer though, and Jongin cares about Sehun. After a few months of each other’s company (plus Luhan and that of his ‘baobei baozi’), they’re something like best friends now; and as more lunch times come and go, and spring begins to turn into summer, Jongin begins to wonder, at what point does it become his business to ask? Has it already?

Jongin makes the decision to probe, albeit gently at first.

“Sehun-ah, the weather is so hot, are you making sure you drink enough?”

“Yes, hyung,” Sehun drawls back, hidden behind his phone where he is seated across the cafeteria table from Jongin. His long fingers dance and tap across the screen rapidly, and Jongin wonders if he’s texting another friend, or just playing some game. Now, the part he was watching for:

“I was just going to get another bottle of juice or maybe a soda, do you want me to get you anything?”

It was just fractionally, ever so slightly, but Jongin still saw Sehun tense.

“Just water is fine… Thanks, hyung.”

No. Something definitely isn’t right.

__________

He honestly isn’t surprised when it finally happens; he’d figured it would sooner or later. He watches Sehun on his knees in the bathroom stall, convulsions rippling up his torso violently, and blood curdling wet noises soon to follow.

Even as he places a gentle hand on Sehun’s shoulder, it doesn’t feel quite real.

Choking around his words, Sehun just about coughs out,

“Give me… a second…”

Once his coughing ceased, Jongin watched him reach to his left and grab a chunk of toilet paper. Still faced with his back, he watched Sehun wipe his mouth, drop the paper in the bowl and pull the flush, before Sehun turns to look at him at last. His eyes look a little wild, he’s somewhat paler than usual, and his clothing is a little rumpled, but he appears otherwise unfazed.

A tiny smudge of bile lingers at the edge of his lower lip, and Jongin can’t stop himself cupping Sehun’s cheek with his palm, gently smoothing it away with his thumb.

 “Why?” he asks.

The silence before Sehun replies is as eerie as his answer.

“I really don’t know.”

The dead look is back in his eyes.