After calming down though, he decided he had to take matters into his own hands.

If he wanted to win the girl, he couldn't keep reassuring her that they were just friends.

He didn't want to be just friends, and even though he had no idea how he was going to do it, he was going to have to convince Bomi that she didn't want to be just friends with him either.

With that, he started to put his plan into motion.

+++

"We promise to give up on trying to get you and Chorong-ah together," Kai and Sehun repeated in exasperation.

And 'repeated' was an understatement. Luhan had been making them recite the same phrase for the past five minutes because he was suspicious of their sincerity.

"Because you guys know that—,"

"—that Suho-hyung likes Chorong," Sehun finished his sentence.

"Yes. And because everything is—,"

"— is new, so we shouldn’t try to add extra pressure on them and just leave them alone," Kai interrupted him again.

Luhan grinned, satisfied that his message was getting through. While he didn’t doubt the good intentions of his dongsaengs, he also didn’t doubt that sometimes they were just a little too gung-ho about everything.

"Okay, well now that that’s settled—I have something else to talk to you about."

"What is it? A new song?" Kai asked.

"Not quite," Luhan replied, "It’s—,"

"—a new gig?" Sehun guessed.

"This is not a guessing game. If you stay quiet for more than a few seconds I’ll tell you—," and satisfied that they weren’t going to interrupt him again, he continued, "—I need your help with something."

"Anything!!" Sehun and Kai instantly replied.

"When Suho or Chorong asks you to go to the theme park—say no. I don’t care what excuse you give them, just make it believable."

"Why wouldn’t you want us to go? I haven’t been to Everland in awhile!" Kai complained.

"You can go another time—maybe you’ll ask Namjoo-ah to go with you," Luhan said.

Kai blushed and fell quiet, unable to think of a witty response.

"And me? Who am I supposed to take?" Sehun whined.

"You won’t need to take anyone—aren’t you busy with the play anyway?"

He groaned, "Don’t remind me! She’s trying to kill me."

Luhan and Kai exchanged an amused glance.

It was obvious that despite disapproving of her, Sehun had a thing for Hayoung. Why else would he have let himself be railroaded into playing a part in the university’s musical when there weren’t enough guys to make the numbers—and why did he agree to take the role of the male lead who’d broken a leg two weeks from opening night?

For all his complaints, he was happy to be able to spend long hours 'learning lines' with Hayoung.

"I have to go," Sehun looked at his phone, where it played a ringtone that they’d all become familiar with because it was assigned to Hayoung.

"Kai-ah?"

"Yeah hyung, I understand! I’m busy from now until you tell me I’m free," his maknae assured him.

Luhan grinned in satisfaction.

<><><>

"Bomi!!"

Bomi turned to see where Chorong was standing next to Suho, waving to get her attention. She grinned and bounded over to greet them.

"Thanks for coming Bomi," Chorong linked arms with her, "I feel embarrassed that I have to keep calling you out to chaperone—I should be old enough to do this on my own but..."

"Chorong-ah, what else do I do as your Dongsaeng? I should at least do this, right?"

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