Chapter 3

Sehun doesn’t know what he did or said in the past that made people think that he’s some cold-hearted, unsympathetic, uncaring and impenetrable guy, but really—he’s quite a softie. Beneath that resting face and cold attitude, he’s actually pretty gullible and his frankness is often mistaken to be rudeness, while it’s essentially his childlike personality. Not even his brothers can tell whether he’s being innocently honest or just being a total and brutal pain in the , but hey, that’s Oh Sehun for you, the guy always keeps you guessing.

The problem is, however, when it comes to apologizing, his tone and expression aren’t really the best accompaniment when showing genuine remorse. It makes him look like he’s not serious with his apology, and to be frank, it only adds to his obnoxious persona. This issue often troubles him, because he’s usually genuine with his apologies, but because people don’t buy it, he gets offended and normally ends up being actually upset and reluctant to apologize to said person anymore.

And this is exactly the problem he’s dealing with right now.

“I’m sorry about yesterday.”

Sehun will not forget how your face morphed into an upset, yet subdued scowl when he apologized to you earlier this morning. Okay, maybe slamming his hands on your table and apologizing sternly in a commanding voice sort of gave you the wrong impression, but at least the poor boy did his best to control his facial expression.

“Get your hands off my desk.” you spoke softly, and yet the gentleness of your voice zapped his body like a taser, the sheer sharpness of your glare alone being enough to make him remove his hands as if he touched something hot.

Feeling that he blew his first apology, Sehun cleared his throat and put his hands inside his pockets just in case he does something stupid again. “I want to apologize about raising my voice,” he cleared his voice.

“Yeah, sure,” you muttered, focusing your gaze back on your phone.

All of a sudden, Sehun pressed your hands down on the table, causing your phone to drop flat on the table. You stared at your phone for a moment before looking up to furrow your eyebrows deeply at him. “I’m serious,” he subtly hissed, but this time he managed to pipe down his voice, the boy glancing side to side just in case his voice was loud enough to be heard by their classmates.

You stared at him for a good minute, your expression rather vague. “Fine.” you sighed.

“… That’s it?”

“What do you mean?” you frowned a bit at him. 

“Is that it? Is that all you have to say?”

“Um… Yeah?”

 “You don’t want to slap me or something?”

You stared at him wide eyed for a moment as his words sunk into you. “What?” you let out a breathy laugh, fairly surprised at him because he sounded so frank. “Why would I hit you? Stop talking nonsense. Go back to your seat.”

“But,” Sehun hesitated to move away, his eyebrows knit together. “Are you sure you’re okay? I made people look at you weirdly—“

“Yes, Sehun. Go, the teacher’s coming.” you encouraged him to go with a nudge of your hand on his arm.

Sehun finally moved away, but he couldn’t take his frown off his face. Sehun doesn’t know what it is, but something in his gut told him that you weren’t telling the truth. However, the boy knew better than to probe, so he went back to his seat with his lips sealed tight. Resisting his urge and curiosity to steal glances, Sehun took a deep breath and focused as class went underway.

And that was the last encounter Sehun had with you for a while. The lack of interaction wasn’t necessarily intended, nor was it planned, at least for the male. It’s been three days since your last talk with him, and although you two don’t normally socialize with each other, the knot in Sehun’s stomach still hasn’t left him—and that’s telling him something. You two would occasionally lock eyes by accident, or pass by each other in the halls, but that was it. Before any sort of further contact could be made, you would look away or occupy yourself with something. It was as if Sehun wasn’t given a chance to greet or approach you, but even though he doesn’t know you all too well, he could tell that you were holding your tongue.

Based on his experience, there could only be three explanations to this. One, he messed up and you’re avoiding him out of contempt. Two, something or somebody is forcing you to refrain yourself from making any sort of contact with him. Or three, girls on their period are just plain weird and unpredictable as hell.

To be frank, Sehun’s thinking that it could be all three.

“I have no idea how you guys handle girls,” Sehun complained during lunch, stabbing his food with his plastic fork.

Suho, who was sitting across him, lifted a brow at him. “What’s with you all of a sudden?”

“He’s sad that his lady friend won’t talk to him,” Jongin said with his mouth full of food, earning a scold from Kyungsoo afterwards.

“Shut it,” Sehun kicked the boy’s foot, shooting him a pointed look.

“You mean that girl who said Jongin was the hotter and more talented guy?” Baekhyun sputtered out a fit of laughter, drawing chuckles and cackles from their table.

“She’s my friend,” Sehun stressed that last bit, rolling his eyes. “I’m just wondering what’s wrong with her,”

“Have you ever thought that she’s thinking the exact same thing about you?” Chanyeol scoffed.

“Maybe she just wants to be alone, Sehun,” Kyungsoo, who was a bit more serious, told him as he ate his food. “Or maybe she’s the type who needs to be approached first.”

“Um, please don’t give advices,” Baekhyun turned to Kyungsoo with an awkward yet mocking smile. “The difference between you and Sehun when it comes to socializing is really thin,”

“Thin?” Jongin nearly choked on his drink, his tone showing disapproval. “How in the world is ‘ice prince’ and ‘monster under your bed’ considered a thin difference?”

“Can’t help it if Kyungsoo has murderous eyes—oww!” Chanyeol could barely finish his words when Kyungsoo poked him with his plastic knife on his sides.

“You all should know perfectly well that the difference between Sehun and I is that he does things orally, while I like to finish things physically.” he demonstrated his words by placing the tip of his plastic knife under Chanyeol’s chin, making the taller widen his eyes in panic.

“W-We trust you! Get it off me!” Chanyeol stammered, carefully pushing Kyungsoo’s hand away from him. Everybody on the table was sure to get Kyungsoo’s message.

“Just don’t do anything stupid,” Suho continued on with Sehun’s topic with an advice. “We don’t want the board to use her against you,”

“You’re exaggerating,” Sehun huffed. “One person wouldn’t make too much on an impact on them. They wouldn’t have enough proof to make us move,”

“On most cases,” Suho partially agreed. “But it would give them a reason to watch us, giving them room for their foot to step in, so to speak.”

The table got quiet for a second, tension heaving down on top of their shoulders.  While everybody looked uncomfortable and concerned, Sehun displayed a highly discontented expression. Suho caught this expression and decided that he should elaborate further in a nicer way.

“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t befriend her. If you play your cards well, you can use her to prove to the board that we’re capable of melding into society,”

“Use her?” Sehun echoed with grimace. “What is she, a tool?”

“You know that I don’t mean it that way,” Suho, now also agitated, looked up with piercing eyes.

“Dude, calm down,” Jongin immediately poked the younger.

“Take it with a grain of salt, he didn’t mean it literally like that,” Baekhyun added, putting a ha