From: Keegan Jung

I have patient tonight. Gonna be home at 10pm. Guess I can’t come with you in your departement’s ball? Mian, Soojung-ah.

Soojung locks the phone after reading the message from Jongsuk. She plops herself on a couch, letting out a heavy sigh and pouting in annoyance. Tonight’s ball is one of her rare chances to meet the professors and expertises in Architectures from Yale University, and she barely comes because Jongsuk’s text has made it official that she has no pair at all right now.

That dumb rule, she repeats in her mind as she rubs her own temple. She thinks hard on strategy to keep attending the ball despite of having no pair.  Sneaking to the hallway? Coming with the security—well he’s a man afterall! Or, jumping from the back gate of the department? Oh, don’t be crazy Soojung, she aimlessly thought. She finally gives up on strategy and texts some of her male classmates instead, but to be her unfortunate, all of them are sold out. Some are offering to cancel their original pair for the sake of coming with Soojung but Soojung disagrees. She doesn’t want to become public enemy for arrogating others’ pairs. She decides to just ignore those messages and stops texting her male classmates. It was not a good choice.

She looks at her surrounding which feels empty because it’s unusual since the EXO members haven’t been seen. She thinks of Jongin, out of the blue, but it’s going to be a bad choice for her to go with Jongin because if they’re caught by media, SM will directly confirm it because they know about both relationship. Darn, she thought. She shouldn’t be lying if she didn’t want complex things to come like this.

From: Keenan Jung

Arriving in China! Here’s sooooo hot like the worst summer in Seoul!

Soojung chuckles at her brother message, replying it with ‘Have fun’, followed by the text of asking to buy her some souvenirs or good stuffs from China. Not long after Woobin’s message, a message from her male classmates come up again, asking her to give him one more chance. He insists that he surely wants to cancel his original pair, making Soojung groans in disbelief and annoyance. She quickly locks her phone again and throws it to other side of the couch.

She silently regrets her decision to refuse most of men in her department because she initially thought that Jongsuk and her were settled. For her, this ball will decide her life as the future architect, but for most of male students in her department, this ball will decide their lovelife since it is facility for them to get a girl. She was actually proposed by many, even 99% of men in her department were asking her out.

Except for one.

Oh Sehun.

She clicks her fingers in the air, remembering Sehun said that he was not going to come tonight. He was not interested because he had no plan to be an architect. Furthermore, this ball didn’t mean anything for him because he wanted to keep being a singer until the rest of his life. It basicaly means that Sehun has no pair to go to the ball.

Soojung suddenly jumps before running out of her condo to get into EXO dorm.

Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong.

“Soojung-ah!” Luhan opens the door and greets her excitedly. He gives her a high five before asking her to enter their dorm, “…what’s up?”

“Is Sehun here?” she nonchalantly asked, eyes are trailing over the dorm, looking for her bestfriend’s presence. EXO dorm is quite big, even bigger than Jung’s condo since it’s lived by twelve members. Eleven persons and one manager. There’s no one to be found in the dorm, that day. It is usually crowded and noisy by the sounds of Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Chanyeol. But today, it seems very quiet. There seems to be no one in the dorm except Luhan.

“He is. In his room,” Luhan points at Sehun’s room.

“Where are the others? It seems quiet,” she plops herself on one of the couches, joined by Luhan to be on her side, “Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Jongdae went to the company; re-recording. Tao went back to China. The others are eating out, and there’re only me and Sehun in the dorm,”

“What a coincidence,” Soojung bluntly said, giggling in advanced.

“Why?” Luhan frowns his forehead, curious.

“Hmm.. just want to disturb Sehun’s good time,” she naughtily winks at Luhan, making the latter laughs. He quickly ruffles the girl’s smooth hair and stands up.

“Aigooo. Are you that bored? Are you alone in condo?” Luhan asked as he proceeds to go to kitchen, making lunch for himself. Soojung only nods before standing up.

“Have you eaten? Do you want something?” only his voice appears, with the sound of him chopping something.

“No, thanks. I just want to talk to Sehun,” she said, proceeding to go to Sehun’s room. She knocks it only once before opening the door a bit.

“Sehun-ah,” Soojung’s head peeks to inside of Sehun’s room. The boy was found to be sitting on the couch while reading to a newspaper in the corner of the room. Soojung suddenly chuckles, finding how odd his way of reading. Sehun doesn’t bother and keeps his eyes locked in newspaper.

“Are you reading? Seriously?” Soojung asked in mocking tone, but Sehun doesn’t answer. She folds her arms in front of her chest, making a soft laugh before continuing to speak, “Is it a new habit? Reading in reverse?” she points at Sehun’s newspaper. Sehun widens his eyes, realizing that all this time, his newspaper is reverse. He tightened his mouth and closed his eyes, cursing at his own dumbness. He quickly turns back the newspaper to the right position and acts like he continues reading. He actually knew when Soojung was coming to the dorm, overheard at Luhan and Soojung’s conversation, and quickly grabbed random newspaper on Tao’s table when he heard Soojung’s steps toward his room.

Sehun still plays his role, he doesn’t mutter a word to Soojung at all until now. Instead, he continues reading as if Soojung was not there. Even after Soojung got him red handed.

Soojung giggles, noticing how cute Sehun is.

“Sehun-ah~~” she said in full aegyo while her finger is poking Sehun’s cheek, making the latter shivers all over his body. He doesn’t respond nor make any inch of move. Instead, his heart just goes wild as it beats faster, faster and faster.

She stops poking all of sudden and points at the newspaper again after taking a good look at it, “…so, you understand Mandarin, now?” she bluntly said, making Sehun widens his eyes. He finally takes a better look at the newspaper and to be his surprise, it’s Chinese newspaper.

Of course, it’s Tao’s newspaper.

He mentally curses once again at his own dumbness.

“So, you like reading a Chinese newspaper in reversed pages. How come I just found out about that right now, Mr. Oh?” Soojung smirks, mocking at Sehun.

“..it’s because you never think of me, so you never know,” Sehun bluntly said, still arguing about ‘Soojung doesn’t think of him’. Soojung laughs at the latter’s response, and Sehun know, that it just makes him look dumb as ever.

“What game are you playing right now, Mr. Oh?” Soojung sits herself on his side, her hand smashes softly the newspaper Sehun holds.

“Didn’t I make myself clear?” Sehun still looks straight, avoiding her eyes.

“What?” she doesn’t understand, seriously. Call her dumb, but she really has no ability to feel what others’ feeling. She even barely acknowledge her own feeling.

“I hate you for going to the company dinner with Jongin,”

“Why are you hating it so much?”

“How if Jongin falls for you?”

“It’s not gonna happen,”

He sighs, slightly laughing, “Like you know Jongin,”

“He falls for other girl,”

“What?”

“Kang Seulgi?” and her name answers everything.

“Really?” Sehun gapes his mouth, starting to be curious, and it leads Soojung to laugh even harder after the hard attempt that the latter put for being oh-so-stubborn and cool all the time. Sehun suddenly closes his mouth, gets unamused by her words because it simply means that Soojung wins over him again.

“Tch, like you know Jongin,” she turns the table and continues to laugh in glory, which is enough to annoy Oh Sehun.

“What do you want?” he asked, stopping Soojung’s laughs.

“Can you come tonight with me to the ball?” Soojung asked bluntly.

Thump.

He widens his eyes a little but trying to control his micro-expression hardly. He shouldn’t be that easy, he thought.

“Ask Jongin,” Sehun shrugs his shoulder, hands are now busy rolling the newspape