The atmosphere in the drama classroom was close to chaotic when Miss Hwang entered.

Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Tao were on stage doing some kind of improvised performance, with Tao freestyle rapping, Baekhyun singing loudly at random moments and Chanyeol beatboxing. Yifan had stolen a whole bunch of chairs and placed them next to each other, creating some sort of bench where he was now lying coolly while scrolling his phone, sometimes nodding and giving a thumbs up to the idiots on stage. Minseok and Kyungsoo were trying to build a skyscraper of all the classroom’s soundtrack CDs out of sheer boredom while they both, unlike Yifan, tried their best to ignore the stage performance. Jongin and Sehun had raided the props storage and were currently trying to tie a glittery pink feather boa around an unsuspecting Luhan, who was talking animatedly with Yixing (who totally noticed the two youngsters creeping up behind Luhan but was doing nothing to stop them).

Jongdae was just about to join the two when he noticed their teacher’s entrance. Before he even got the chance to react Junmyun appeared out of nowhere (where had he been until now?) and tried to tell everyone to be quiet and return to their seats, but with zero success.

However, when everyone saw Miss Hwang waiting for them expectantly, they obeyed and went back to their assigned seatings. Luhan ended up discovering the pranksters behind him and promptly took the feather boa from Jongin’s hands and tied it around the other instead. Sehun laughed at his friend, and Jongdae felt himself smile at the sight. Being the two youngest in their drama class, it was hard not to take a liking to the both of them. Especially the younger out of the two, with his sometimes awkward but at the same time playful personality. Jongdae realised he had missed Sehun over the holidays, this was the first time he’d seen the other since the end of last semester. With the two of them being in different years, the only class they shared was this one, their elective class.

When everyone had calmed down, their teacher clasped her hands.

“Since it’s the start of a new semester and all, let’s start anew and forget what happened earlier, including me being late”, she said with a pleasant laugh. Relieved sounds were heard throughout the classroom (Miss Hwang was probably everyone’s favourite teacher at that moment), and the teacher continued.

“For this semester, I’ve thought it’d be time for you to perform a real classic!” The excitement in her voice wasn’t very well hidden.

“Not another Shakespeare…” groaned Luhan, having flashbacks from his first year.

“No, I was thinking of something more… fantasy, I guess”, the teacher replied.

“Oh, ooh! Lord of the Rings!” Chanyeol shouted with enthusiasm.

“As a play?” Baekhyun uttered sarcastically, making some of the people in the room laugh, including their teacher.

“A bit more fairy tale-ish, I’d say”, she told them.

The classroom was soon filled with the sound of people shouting out their guesses, but Jongdae found himself not paying attention to the discussion, instead glancing at the boy in the seat in front of him. Sehun was still wearing a huge sombrero he’d taken from the props storage before, but beneath it Jongdae could still sneak a peek of his short hair, long neck and the shirt that hanged loosely over his slim shoulders. The mentioned shoulders seemed to have gotten somewhat wider since the last time Jongdae saw Sehun before the break, though. Actually, the whole boy seemed to have grown a little, he was now almost taller than Jongin, who had been taller than him at the beginning of the school year.

Jongdae recalled the first time he met Sehun. It was about half a year ago, during the beginning of their current year of school. Since the previous third years had graduated, Minseok, Luhan, Yifan, Junmyun and Yixing had taken the roles of the oldest ones in their class. Jongdae had been pretty pumped about not being among the youngest anymore, since he, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and Tao had started their second year. Starting a new year also meant the addition of new first years to the group, and this time only two had decided to join. But their teacher proudly presented the two to the class anyway.

Both of them were tall, one of them had a darker skin tone while the other one was pretty pale. They were both surprisingly handsome, but Jongdae’s eyes had immediately darted to the shorter and younger out of the two. There was something about him that was just intriguing, somehow, like he really wanted to get to know more about the boy. Maybe it was the lanky figure, maybe it was the narrow face which was free from any signs of nervousness (or any emotions whatsoever) although his body language spoke differently. Jongdae didn’t really know what it was, but there was something.

Jongin and Sehun had both been quite shy and didn’t take up much place in the beginning (which was pretty different from how Jongdae and his fellow second years had been back in their first year), but they soon opened up and became an important part of their group. Now, Jongdae couldn’t imagine drama class without them.

He sighed and half-assedly tried to tear his eyes away from the younger boy’s back, not succeeding very well. Jongdae had figured out that the more he got to know Sehun, the more attached he grew to him. It wasn’t until maybe two thirds of their last semester had gone by that he’d realised he was very fond of the other boy. It was those weird kinds of feelings where he’d want to drag the other over to his house, nerd over old film classics together and become the bestest of friends. However, sometimes he just wanted to do the same thing but while holding hands and maybe, possibly, make out a little. Sehun had an attractive face and a cute mouth so Jongdae wouldn’t really mind. Also, it would be a nice bonus if he’d get to touch those shoulders and that neck and the arms and the . Yeah, definitely the , too.

"Oh, just tell us already!" Baekhyun shouted from right next to Jongdae, effectively interrupting his thoughts and bringing him back to reality. He thanked heavens for the fact that Miss Hwang was such a tolerant teacher, because she just smiled in reply to the boy.

“Okay, so, what am I doing now?” She imitated biting into something and suddenly her face was struck with panic. Then she put her hands to in shock and suddenly fell down to the floor, faking death. After that she stood up and looked expectantly at the class.

“Well… uh, you ate something…” Chanyeol uselessly commented.

“Oh! Snow White!” Minseok shouted out in a sudden realisation and the statement was followed by several “oooh”s throughout the classroom.

“That’s right!” Miss Hwang said, smiling widely. “I had a class that performed the original fairy tale version of Snow White a couple of years ago, and it turned out great, so it’s going to be nice to do it again. This time I’ve changed things up a bit though, because I’m basing this play on the Disney movie version! You’ve all seen it, right?”

Luckily, everyone seemed to have seen it at least once in their lives, and even if it was a long time ago, everyone still knew how the story went.

“Good! So”, the teacher started to look for something in her bag, and after a moment she took out a thick folder, “I’ve prepared the script already, but as always you’re very welcome to change any of your lines to something you feel fits better, or just tell me if you have any other inputs.”

She started handing out the scripts to all of the students, and when Jongdae got his he took a quick look at the first page, the character list. There seemed to be just enough characters for the twelve of them, which was something Miss Hwang was also fast to point out.

“The characters in the play are of course Snow White, the evil queen, the mirror, the seven dwarfs, the huntsman and the prince. That’s exactly twelve characters, so it fits you perfectly”, she said. “Have you all already decided which character you want to portray?”

Jongdae hadn’t, but he realised it didn’t matter that much to him. He could be the huntsman, he could be one of the dwarfs, as long as he wasn’t Snow White it was going to be okay with him, really. And he knew the risk of him playing Snow White was very small, especially when their teacher asked who was willing to play her and everyone immediately directed their eyes to Luhan.

“Wh-what?! Are you suggesting what I think you are? I can’t play Snow White, I’m a man!” Luhan sputtered. Baekhyun rolled his eyes at him.

“If you haven’t noticed, all of us are men, and someone’s gotta play her.”

“And Snow White is supposed to be a beautiful, delicate person and you’re the only one here who’s pretty and feminine looking enough to play her”, Junmyun said matter-of-factly, earning himself a couple of nods in agreement from some of the people in the room. Luhan was quick to retort, however.

“But, I-I’m a lot manlier than what she’s supposed to be! It’ll look really weird!” He paused and nervously looked around the room. “You, Baekhyun, you’re just as feminine looking as I am, if not more! Sehun and Junmyun have paler skin than I have! Minseok is really pretty- I mean…” he trailed off, realising he had pretty much lost when all he got in reply to his rambling was judging looks from the others.

“See this as a compliment! We all think you are a good enough actor to play a character that’s completely different from yourself”, Yixing said, trying to cheer his friend up. It was partly true actually, Luhan was definitely one of the best actors among them. Not that Jongdae would admit that to him, though.

“Yes, a good actor should be able to portray a large range of different characters! This is your chance to prove yourself”, Miss Hwang suddenly said, marking an end to the discussion. Luckily, Luhan then looked like he was slowly accepting his fate.

“Shall we move on to… maybe the dwarfs? The first one is Doc, he is the seemingly wise leader of the dwarfs, I’m sure you remember him”, she asked and one student immediately raised his hand.

“I volunteer”, Junmyun said, surprising no one.

“Great! Then we have Grumpy, is there anyone who wants to play him?”

The room was silent for a couple of seconds until Chanyeol spoke up.

“Kyungsoo will”, he said, and was met with an expression of surprise from the mentioned boy.

“Yeah, c’mon Kyungsoo, it will be great”, Jongdae said, siding with Chanyeol on this one. He could definitely see Kyungsoo as the irritable dwarf, especially since the boy always had on a serious expression while acting in front of others.

“Well, …okay, I guess it’s fine with me”, Kyungsoo finally replied, and soon all the dwarfs’ roles had been assigned, and there were only four characters left. Jongdae had been assigned to play Sneezy after accidentally having sneezed at an unfortunate moment, but he was okay with it. He was more interested in finding out who, out of the four people left, would play the evil queen.

“Tao will do it, right?” Baekhyun uttered loudly and said boy looked at him with a terrified expression.

“…Why me?” Tao said after a moment of silence.

“Duh, because you’re the best at playing evil characters”, Sehun answered as if it was obvious, which it kinda was. Tao was a surprisingly good actor, and his speciality was, just as Sehun had said, the evil characters. They had found out about that during the second semester of their first year, when they had done a play about an urban crime story. Tao had played the bad guy, the mafia boss, and had done it so well that the not very easily scared Jongdae had several nightmares about a suit-clad Tao who threatened to cut his little finger off with a pocket knife. Since then, Tao had been assigned to play the bad guys in every play they performed.

“Besides, the queen is also supposed to be extremely pretty, just not in an innocent and girly way like Snow White, so this role really fits you!” Baekhyun said with a wide smile, knowing that praising Tao would take him far in this situation. It seemed like his attempt was successful when Tao’s eyes lit up a little at the words.

“O-okay then. I will play the evil queen”, he said with a small smirk on his lips.

After that, Minseok quickly snatched the role of the magic mirror, and only Yifan and Sehun were left.

“I’ll play the huntsman, if that’s okay”, Yifan said, and their teacher nodded. She asked Sehun if it was okay with him to play the prince since he was the only character left, and Sehun nodded and told her that sure, it was fine. Jongdae totally thought so too, the boy was tall and pretty and very prince-like (at least when it came to his looks), so the role was perfect for him. At least, that’s what he thought until Luhan spoke after having stayed silent for a long time.

“Wait, does that mean… he’s gonna kiss me?!”

And then the whole classroom was filled with a symphony of different noises. There were sounds of laughter, wolf whistles, shouting and a couple “eww”s. Thankfully, the noises kept everyone else from hearing Jongdae’s breath hitch in his throat.

This… wasn’t a good situation at all. No way.

After steadying his breathing a little Jongdae finally managed to look up, catching Sehun’s reaction. To Jongdae’s delight, the younger did seem a bit shaken by the situation. But of course, that didn’t mean it was a negative reaction. Maybe Sehun was just feeling nervous because this was all he ever dreamed of, or something? Jongdae tried to ignore that thought as hard as he could.

“Well, the kiss is a very important part of the story, so yes”, their teacher said.

“Uh, but-, um…” Sehun attempted to tell the teacher something, but failed miserably. Jongdae decided to help him.

“Hey, you can’t force him to play the prince, then”, he stated loudly.

“He said he was okay with it, though. Right?” Miss Hwang replied, looking at Sehun who fidgeted nervously.

“Yeah, I did, but, uh…” Sehun answered dumbly, and Jongdae took that as a sign to continue speaking.

“But why does he have to play the prince?” he said, probably sounding very irritated, but he didn’t care. “Can’t someone else do it instead, like… Chanyeol, for example? What’s he doing playing a dwarf anyway, he’s one of the tallest people here! Don’t you realise how stupid it’ll look?” Jongdae pointed an accusatory finger at his tall classmate who’d been assigned to play Dopey. Chanyeol flinched a little, not used to the usually happy and nice Jongdae lashing out on him.

“I-, um”, he started but was interrupted by Baekhyun.

“But Jongdae, we need someone who’s actually somewhat good-looking to play the prince, so Chanyeol can’t possibly play him!” The comment made a couple of the others laugh and Chanyeol made an offended expression, Baekhyun just sticking out his tongue at him in response.

“Besides, I guess we’re all going to walk on our knees anyway, I mean, Jongin is pretty tall too”, Yixing contributed to the discussion.

“Yeah but… wouldn’t our way of walking look awkward if we all did that?” Junmyun wondered.

“Maybe we should crouch down instead”, Jongin said, and was immediately answered by Baekhyun.

“Then we’ll all look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame or something, dude.”

Jongdae felt his irritation grow.

“Whatever, but is there anyone else that could play the prince instead? Is anyone even listening to me?” he almost shouted out, trying to be heard over the others.

“Can everybody keep quiet, please? We’ll talk about the technical stuff later, alright? And, it’s decided, Sehun will play the prince and I will have no more objections, at least not from people who are not him”, Miss Hwang said and looked at Jongdae sternly while she said the last part. Jongdae found it hard to pay attention to that though when the boy in the seat in front of him turned around and gave him a small smile of appreciation and a shrug of the shoulders.

They spent the rest of the lesson reading through the script together until Miss Hwang clasped her hands, telling her students that class was over. Jongdae was just about to leave when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Um, Jongdae hyung”, sounded a voice that Jongdae probably could recognise from 50 miles away, and he turned around at (possibly) the speed of light. Sehun looked down at him with the same smile he’d given him earlier.

“I just wanted to say that I appreciate you sticking up for me before”, he said, hand still on Jongdae’s shoulder, making the shorter’s legs feel somewhat wobbly.

“But, yeah… It’s gonna be alright, really, I can deal”, the younger then said, shrugging again. “Anyway, thanks I guess. Didn’t know you cared so much.”

“Of course, I don’t think anyone should be forced to do something they’re uncomfortable with”, Jongdae lied nervously. Seriously, he was Kim Jongdae, why was he being nervous all of a sudden?

“You’re pretty nice, hyung”, Sehun smiled a bit wider and Jongdae found himself smiling just as wide.

“Well, I’ll see you next week, then”, the younger said and started to walk away, the opposite direction from the one Jongdae had been heading to.

“See ya!” Jongdae managed to reply before almost sprinting away in his suddenly happy mood. Turns out this situation wasn’t completely to his disadvantage after all.