When I left his apartment, it occurred to me finally why it seemed so similar to my own one; it was on the floor below mine. No wonder he knew the area so well.

I sighed as I left my penthouse, having hurriedly showered and changed for school. To my surprise, waiting just outside the apartment block was Sehun. He smiled a little when he saw me, I scowled at him. So he had known that he and I lived so closely all this time and yet never thought to say anything.

As we hurried alone, he chuckled.

"What?" I demanded.

Innocuously, he shook his head, "No, it’s nothing. I was just thinking about how different you are when you sleep."

I stopped walking and stared at him with disbelief, my mouth forming a little ‘O’ shape. He patted my head as he walked past me, ignoring my facial expression completely. 

"What is that supposed to mean?" I snapped, scuffling along to catch up to him.

He glanced down at me and pinched my scowling cheek. "I think it’s because you are just like an angry gnome normally."

I pulled my face away from his patronising hand and marched off, my face contorting into an ugly scowl. I couldn’t have this stupid blonde kid making me late for class on account of his utter nonsense. This was so not the life I was used to.

Baekhyun was in his seat when I reached the classroom, pouring over some book.

As I sat down, I said, “Hey.” 

He barely looked away from the book to greet me. Looking over his shoulder, it looked like he was reading a book in English. I was impressed. I wasn’t aware that English was as widely taught in non-international institutions. But then again, what did I know?

“Mira!” he suddenly implored, turning his entire torso towards me and learning close to my face. “You speak English, right?”

I nodded, leaning back a little from his intensity. English was my first language, so it was pretty easy for me even though I had moved to Korea when I was only six. At international schools the vast majority of the curriculum isn’t in Korean anyway.

Passing the book to me, he pointed at a sentence, “What does it say?”

I read the sentence he was pointing at. I had no idea what the book was about, but it said: Only those who trust, can find love and happiness.  And only those who love, can be betrayed.

It was an odd statement to me. Although I could translate it, I wasn’t sure I understood what it was angling at. Looking back to Baekhyun, I was about to translate it for him when I saw he had suddenly put on a pair of glasses and was sweeping his fringe to the side above them. For some reason, he gave the impression that he was about attend a photoshoot. I hadn’t seen him wearing glasses before, and wasn’t sure if he actually needed them. But whatever floats his boat.

A sudden rabble around us told me that Sehun was arriving. My mind instantly flashed to the night before. When he had been there; when he had taken me home; when he had stayed up all night to hold my hand. As I turned towards the door, his sharp features came slinging around the corner and into the class. Once again, Sehun had made it to class on time.

Whilst walking towards his seat, he would nod his head towards those that greeted him out of politeness. When he plonking down on the seat next to me, I couldn’t help but peer to the side at him.

“Yah! Mira!” Baekhyun called out suddenly, causing me to jump.

“Mm? What is it?” I asked, a little flustered.

Baekhyun coyly smirked, peering at me from over the top of his glasses.

I ignored this look. “It says, ‘Only those who trust, can find love and happiness. And only those who love, can be betrayed’. Anything else?” I snapped in English.

Blinking at me stupidly, Baekhyun seemed a little startled by my bluntness. Guilt rising within me, I let out a small sigh.

“What else are you stuck with?” I asked, altogether more kindly.

Appraising me for a moment, he shook his head with a little smile. “It was just that one thing. What does it mean though?”

As I looked down at the sentence, I wondered which word he wanted translated; they were all in the English syllabus, I was sure. Pointing a long finger out, he indicated to the last word. “That one.”

“Betrayed? It comes from the verb ‘betray’, here it’s used in the-”

“Argh! I don’t want all those grammary things, just tell me what it means!”

I smiled a little; he really didn’t seem like someone who wanted to learn about the conjugating of verbs into their correct tenses. I decided rather than explain the English, I would just switch to Korean.

When I said the Korean for it, Baekhyun momentarily looked like he understood, then went back to his default confused expression. “So it’s talking about something to do with how, if you don’t love anyone, you can’t be betrayed?”

His guess was as good as mine. I nodded.

It was at this point that Sehun sighed. “It’s like the blind leading the blind…” he quietly muttered.

Baekhyun turned his attention to Sehun. “Yah! I thought you weren’t coming in today?”

“Change of plans.” His eyes flicked to mine fleetingly as he said this.

Baekhyun seemed to see it as well, “Oh-ho! What-was-that-look? What-does-it-mean? Something’s-going-on-here, right? I’m right, aren’t I? Huh-Huh-huh?” He practically ran all the words together as he spoke, meaning that both Sehun and I only had a vague idea what he was even trying to say.

A little apprehensively, I glanced at Sehun who, in turn, glanced at me. He shrugged and turned to face the front. I continued to stare at him however. Since I had left his apartment this morning, I had been very aware of two things: the first was that I had seen Sehun with nothing but a pair of navy boxers on (wait, since when did I realise they were navy?); and the second was that I wanted to tell him how thankful I was for what he had done for me.

Sehun awkwardly cleared his throat; the reason being I was staring at him as my mind conjured up all this nonsense. Is that not the worst thing: you aren’t actually looking at someone, just in gazing off somewhere and they think you’re staring specifically at them? Sehun reacted to my accidental staring by crossing his hands across his chest as if I had x-ray vision and was using to see through his blazer and shirt.

“Mira, please, not here. There are kids around.” He couldn’t even pull off his serious tone with that utterly ridiculous smirk threatening to attack his mouth at any second.

This stupid blonde kid! My mouth was agape when I realised what he was implying. “B-believe me, that’s the last thing I want to see.”

“What is?” he asked, feigning innocence.

I pointed to his chest. “That!”

“What?”

“Your chest!” I hissed under my breath at him. Why couldn’t he just have dropped it?

“Oh, I hadn’t realised you had seen it.” Liar.

Well, I wasn’t about to be outdone by Sehun. With a deadpanned expression I replied, “I didn’t see it, but I don’t ever want to either. So you don’t have to worry about my x-ray vision defiling your,” I made inverted commas in the air, “innocence.”

I almost got away with it. Almost. But then my huge mouth just had to blurt out, “If you didn’t want me to look you shouldn’t have been sauntering around like you were on the beach!” The words escaped me like hot vapour as I vented my anger.

Even Baekhyun, previously unaware of our conversation, seemed to feel the steam now. “You two were at the beach ?”

I facepalmed the desk; I facedesked! Before I could even explain myself, the boy perched on the desk behind me fell forwards and hit Baekhyun, effectively knocking out of his seat like a bowling pin. Perhaps there was a god after all.

The teacher arrived just after that, effectively saving me from Baekhyun’s questions – for now, at least.

At lunch, I was queueing with Baekhyun and Sehun (on this particular day, Kai was attending some sports competition and Chanyeol was along to support him) and a coup