The next week Jongdae made an important discovery.

They had practise, again, and all the people playing the dwarfs sat in front of the stage, watching the scene where the queen tricks Snow White into eating the poisonous apple. Jongdae had seated himself next to Yixing, who had been assigned to play Bashful, and the two were chatting quietly about the play.

Jongdae liked talking to Yixing, the guy was nice and easy to talk to, even if he sometimes seemed a bit lost in his own thoughts, as if he didn’t pay attention to some of the things going on around him. Therefore Jongdae was a little surprised when the other asked him the following question:

“You seemed a bit upset over the kiss scene, why?”

“Uh, well… I just think it’s unfair to force them to do that, I mean, Sehun seemed pretty uncomfortable with it. I don’t really understand the point of having them actually kiss, there are probably tons of ways to fake it and still make the play romantic, or whatever”, Jongdae said with a sigh, knowing that he couldn’t do anything to change it at this point. However, he was completely unprepared for what Yixing said next.

“Hm… Did you know that in the original fairy tale, the prince doesn’t kiss Snow White? Instead, the piece of apple that was stuck in flies out because of a bump in the road on the way to the prince’s castle. It’s only in the Disney-”

“What?!?” Jongdae couldn’t believe it.

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?!” he pretty much shouted out, and soon all eyes in the room were on him, even Luhan looked up from the ground he was lying on after having bit into the imaginary apple.

“Is that something you want to share with the rest of the class, or should we continue…?” the teacher asked.

“I’m sorry, but this is really important, uh, hyung, can you tell them?” he directed his eyes to Yixing, who just looked back at Jongdae with a gentle smile on his face. Then he told the others the same thing he had said to Jongdae, which sparked a lot of different reactions throughout the classroom.

“Wait, so, there was just a piece of apple stuck in the entire time?” Junmyun said at the same time Luhan shouted out an “Oh my god!!” and Chanyeol laughed loudly at the discovery.

“Yeah! Can’t we stay true to the original story and do it that way instead?” Jongdae asked the teacher.

“I- I agree! Did you seriously not know about that version?” Luhan contributed, and Miss Hwang seemed mildly irritated at that.

“Of course I know about the original story! I had, after all, a class a couple of years ago who performed the exact same version. That’s why I’m choosing a different version for you. A better version, in my opinion, since it’s a lot more romantic!”

“Guys, did you also know that in the end of the original version, the queen is forced to dance in a pair of burning shoes until she dies? It’s supposed to be her punishment”, Yixing then added in a casual voice, as if he was wasn’t talking about something that morbid. Various exclaims of shock were heard, and the teacher just gestured to Yixing as to further prove her point that the Disney version was a better alternative.

“If we’re voting, I’m choosing the Disney version!” Tao shuddered, and Chanyeol started to laugh again. He pointed to Luhan and then to Sehun.

“Y-you two really have to kiss!” he said while laughing maliciously.

“Shut up, Dopey”, Luhan simply replied to that.

When class was over Jongdae quickly gathered his things and left, wanting to come home as soon as possible. He was feeling a little bit giddy because Sehun had flashed him a large (cute) smile after he’d said something stupid funny at the end of the lesson. It made his stomach feel warm. It also made him think.

Did Jongdae like Sehun? Well, he had pretty much established that he would very much like to be on the receiving end of Sehun’s kiss(es), and that was a major sign of having a crush. And he had after all done everything he could to prevent the kiss between Sehun and Luhan from happening, just because he didn’t like the thought of anyone other than him getting to kiss the younger. Not like he had actually done that, although he’d had a bunch of dreams where he kissed Sehun, among… other things.

Jongdae tried to clear his head of those thoughts and instead focus on the answer to his inner question. Said answer was yep, he liked the other boy. More than liked. Sehun was attractive, yet dorky and cute at the same time. And ridiculously hot. It was embarrassing how much Jongdae tried not to stare at the younger, and even more embarrassing how much he failed at doing that. One time he had almost-

“Jongdae-yah!”

Jongdae’s whole thought process was interrupted by a loud voice calling his name, and a second later he felt the presence of someone else’s arm around his shoulder.

“Jongdae-yah”, the voice said again, a little bit quieter this time, “where are you going? Are you busy this afternoon?”

Jongdae forced himself to turn around and face the owner of the voice, and was met with Luhan’s baby chicken coloured hair. It was actually supposed to have been a more natural-looking blonde colour, but since it was Luhan’s first time dyeing his hair by himself that time a couple of months ago, it instead turned out bright yellow. Luhan didn’t seem too bothered by it though, probably seeing it as a chance to express his personal style even when he was in school and wore a uniform. Jongdae wondered if he himself would look good in dyed hair. Not blonde obviously, but maybe a dark brown colour?

He then shook his head, both to get rid of all the thoughts that occupied his brain and to answer Luhan’s question. No, he wasn’t exactly busy. Of course he had homework and there were probably tons of things that wouldn’t hurt if he studied a little bit more thoroughly, but no, he wasn’t too busy.

“Is that a no? You’re free, then?” Jongdae nodded as an answer, and Luhan smiled widely.

“Okay, could you come over to my place, in that case? I need someone to practise my lines on and you are a nice friend and seem to be taking this play seriously, so yeah”, Luhan said and Jongdae was just about to refuse when he felt himself being dragged away by Luhan’s steady arm around his shoulders. Well. He probably couldn’t have said no anyway. Being rude wouldn’t take him anywhere in life and besides, Luhan was a pretty cool person to hang out with.

The two of them had bonded in Jongdae’s first year when they found out that they shared a passion for old film classics, but also, something completely unrelated, Chinese ballads. Luhan had been totally excited when he’d found out that Jongdae took classes in Chinese, and had immediately volunteered to help him with any difficulties he had in those classes (and also teach him some more or less useful phrases). Therefore Jongdae had actually visited Luhan’s place more than once before, so he didn’t feel lost at all when they after a while entered the house of the older.

Jongdae soon found himself sitting on Luhan’s bed, surrounded by walls covered with pictures of idol groups, Chinese singers, football players and movie posters. The owner of the room sat himself down next to Jongdae, taking out the script from his bag.

“Did you bring your script or do we have to share mine?” Luhan asked, looking at Jongdae expectantly.

“I have mine with me, but, uhm, why did you ask me of all people to practise with you? I mean, I have like four lines and it’s mostly just me sneezing. Couldn’t you have asked someone like…Tao, for example?” Jongdae had to ask about this, because he was genuinely curious. Luhan just looked at him in response, wearing a smile that looked like it said “are you dumb?”.

“Well, firstly, Miss Hwang told you that you needed to practice your sneezing”, he elbowed Jongdae playfully in the side, “but also because you’re a nice friend.” Luhan then looked at Jongdae conspiratorially, making the latter somewhat confused.

“I think it’s really sweet of you, what you’ve done. I mean, the whole thing about trying to remove the kiss scene from the play, and all that. I appreciate that.”

Wait. Did Luhan think Jongdae did all that for him? Oh wow. Jongdae had no idea how to respond to that. He couldn’t tell him the truth, because it would make him seem selfish and also make his crush on Sehun painfully obvious, but at the same time he didn’t want to lie Luhan in the face. So instead Jongdae just shrugged a little in reply, waiting for Luhan to continue.

“So, I think it’s nice of you to try to save me, but it’s okay. I’ve kinda gotten used to the fact that I’m gonna get kissed by Sehun now. Besides, he is quite handsome, don’t you agree?”

“Well, I guess…?” Jongdae replied, trying not to make his tone falter. As if it wasn’t enough with Luhan thinking Jongdae had tried to save him of all people, he now also thought that Sehun was attractive. Great. Hopefully his opinion on the youngest would stay there, and not turn into an actual crush.

“He is! I mean he’s pretty tall, and he has this face that’s both attractive and cute at the same time, if you get me?”

Yes, Jongdae would have said if he was brave enough. He got what Luhan meant. He definitely did. It’s just that he didn’t feel like telling him about it. So he shrugged for a second time, hopefully looking disinterested.

“Okay, enough with my babbling. Let’s start practising!” Luhan laughed briefly and put a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder, and then gestured at the script.

They spent the rest of their time together practising, or, well, Luhan practised. Jongdae did say his lines every now and then, but since Luhan had maybe fifteen times the amount of lines Jongdae had he naturally practised them a lot more. By the end of their session Jongdae could swear he’d memorised all of Luhan’s lines as well.

But what he remembered the clearest, he realised while on his way home, was Luhan saying that he didn’t mind getting kissed by Sehun and then proceeding to tell Jongdae about how good-looking the boy was. As he reached his house, Jongdae still had a large lump of worry residing in his stomach.