It starts on a mundane Thursday. Well as mundane as life gets for him. It’s the day Sehun graduates from High School. It’s a break from all the screaming girls and burning spotlights.

Actually who was he kidding, it was the same here.

“Noona,” he calls to the older, but tinier girl. He’s not sure what she’s doing here. She was sporting long brown hair with a cap that covered her face but Sehun recognises that face and the outline of her body. Well he has known her for three years already. “Joohyun noona!” Sehun calls her louder when she doesn’t hear him. Her footsteps stop in the hallway, she turns around, and her red coat putting on a magnificent display as she twirled.

“Oh, Sehun!” Joohyun chirps, “What are you doing here?”

“I go to school here,” he laughs when he inches closer to her. She looks flustered, a bit lost which makes him a bit concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m looking for Seulgi, she’s going to be really upset if she thinks that I didn’t make it to the graduation. After all I promised her.” Joohyun pushes the flowers in front of Sehun to show him and frowns, “I even bought her favourite flowers.”

Sehun smiles and shakes his head, “She’s in her classroom and she’s taking some photos. I can show you.” Sehun points backwards and Joohyun nods enthusiastically.

“You’re a life saver, Sehun,” Joohyun says and lets out a sigh of relief, “What would I do without you?” she reaches up for his head and tousles his hair playfully. Only on her tippy toes does Joohyun manage to reach his head but Sehun thinks it’s cute how Joohyun dotes on her dongsaengs.

He watches her in her bright red coat march ahead of him decisively until she stops and turns around. She stares at him with those wide, bright eyes of hers and Sehun has to catch himself from falling to chase after her. “This way, noona…” Sehun races up to her enthusiastically. “Wait so you bought flowers for Seulgi and not for me?” Sehun pouts.

Joohyun rolls her eyes, “You’ve got plenty of girls out there waiting to give you flowers, I’m not going to waste money buying you something you have plenty of.” Joohyun was honest, maybe too honest, bless her honesty – Sehun thought. Sehun snorts and it makes Joohyun glance over at him curiously.

“What’s so funny?”

Sehun shakes his head, “It’s the thought that counts,” he says finally and Joohyun merely shrugs off his remarks.

“Flowers wilt. You’ll throw them in the bin, that’s that. I’d rather get you something practical.”

“But you bought Seulgi flowers.”

“Cause she asked for it,” Joohyun peers through the windows of the classroom as she made her to Seulgi’s classroom. Seulgi was standing in the corner with her friends and the widest of grins that reaches her eyes. “Looks like she didn’t even notice,” Joohyun says and looks at the bouquet in her hand. Sehun laughs and pushes her forward causing her to stumble awkwardly.

“Yah, Kang Seulgi!” he shouts, “Joohyun noona is here for you,” he says.

Joohyun freezes in her spot, turns around and stares at Sehun in disbelief. She’s doing this to avoid the pairs of eyes that are staring at the now back of her head. “Who’s that?” she hears them whisper behind her. Sehun smiles and takes a step backwards when Seulgi lunges at the tinier girl and engulfs her in her infamous bear hug. They didn’t call the other girl ‘bear’ for a reason. Joohyun wraps one arm around Seulgi and hands her the flowers.

“Unnie! I thought you forgot about me,” Seulgi pouts and sniffs the flowers. Joohyun smiles at the younger girl and turns around to thank Sehun who was already halfway out the door before Joohyun could.

Sehun stares at the white piece of paper in front of him. He’s done this a few times already and the questions were mostly the same. Describe your ideal type. He gets asked this question quite a few times. Usually he gives generic answers because up until now Sehun really hasn’t had anyone on his mind. But the last message he received is from her and suddenly she’s all he can think about.

‘Congratulations! Stay warm and work hard.’

“Sehun’s ideal type is really interesting. Sehun-ah are you ok?” Shindong asks and everyone laughs.

“I don’t think he is,” Jongin teases as Shindong proceeds to read out Sehun’s writing.

“Someone with fair skin, around 162cm tall, round eyes and has a good body scent.” Kyungsoo who’s sitting next to him is trying to suppress his laughter so much that his body is trembling. “Also, has double eye lids, looks posh and chic but on the inside she’s really delicate and understanding. She needs to think of me and dress really well.”

Everyone cheers and Sehun covers his face, pride and embarrassment taking over. What if she was listening? Would she know?

Baekhyun grabs him during the break and grins, “You weren’t obvious at all…” he says sarcasm dripping from his lips.

Shindong his head sideways and tunes into their conversation, during the ad break “Who is it?” he asks curiously.

The members glance sideways at each other before Chanyeol bursts out, “Joohyun noona!”

“Joohyun?” Shindong asks. He wasn’t familiar with a lot of the trainees after his debut, but Joohyun he’s heard of her a few times. “The pretty one? The one that hangs around with Seulgi a lot, right?”

Sehun hides behind his hands and cowers over the table, “She’s pretty, but there are a lot of people out there with white skin and are around 162cm.”

“We should message and ask if she’s listening to the radio,” Baekhyun grins and fishes for Sehun’s phone from his pocket.

Sehun kicks Baekhyun’s chair and tries to grab his phone back but to no avail. Sehun feels his heart beating wildly in his chest, and butterflies fluttering about in the pit of his stomach. Curse Baekhyun the . He’s staring at his phone nervously, waiting for a response.

‘Nope—sorry—practising. Got to run.’

Sehun is relieved and disappointed at the same time but the boys point their fingers and tease about how he got lucky this time. He forces a sheepish grin.

He hasn’t been able to see a lot of his friends. His schedules are keeping him from them. He doesn’t see her either as much as he wants too, even though they spend most of their time in the same building. She’s on the bottom level where all the rookies tend to gather for practice and he’s upstairs where all the debuted idols have to practice.

Joohyun has been chasing after her dream for five years. Although she tells herself to not get so worked up when she makes a mistake she can’t. It’s ingrained in her. Perfection. She had trained herself in hopes that she could be like other performers before her.

“You’re too over practiced,” he breaks her train of thought and she trips onto the floor. Joohyun curses and grumbles about how Sehun has too much free time these days (despite the fact that he really doesn’t) and picks herself up. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t get the choreography right,” she scratches the back of her neck and looks at her reflection in the mirror. She sees him inch closer behind him. “The audit is next week and they’re picking new members for the dance group and if I don’t nail this I’m not sure if I can wait around for them to debut a new girl group.”

Joohyun’s fears weren’t unfounded. She was one of the older girls there and despite the fact that she still loved to sing and dance, the stress of this audit was getting to her. She wasn’t Joohyun anymore she was a mess trying to piece things together. At least that’s what Sehun saw.

“When Boa sunbaenim…” Sehun starts and Joohyun shoots him a glare. Everyone in SM adored Boa more or less. Joohyun wasn’t the first nor would she be the last but Boa was the driving force behind Joohyun’s desire to be on stage. Sehun knows how much Joohyun adores Boa, so much that when he was asked to dance with her on stage, Sehun had gloated about it to Joohyun who only puffed her chest and stormed off. To be fair, Sehun did offer to grab her autograph for her. “Boa sunbaenim gave me some advice when I was about to get on stage. It was to have fun.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re not getting judged and ripped to shreds in a few days.”

“That’s my job every day,” Sehun says softly, his voice barely above a whisper but it speaks volume. Joohyun feels bad as she stares back at him that had never been her intention.

“Teach me,” she says to fill the silence that had engulfed them.

Sehun looks up eagerly with a wide grin and he’s back to his old self again and Joohyun feels relieved. “Are you sure?” he even has the audacity to ask but Joohyun rolls her eyes good naturedly and purses her lips together before nodding. Sehun swoops in quickly and grabs her, and Joohyun leaps backwards.

“W-what?”

“The choreography to only one, my part,” Sehun smirks.

“Why bother? It’s not like you’re going to be there the day of the audit to dance with me,” Joohyun puffs her cheeks in frustration but Sehun laughs. She’s cute, he tells himself.

“It’s about having fun, you’ve danced the same dance I’ll bet a hundred times already it’s time to do something else,” he says but he’s greeted with protests from Joohyun. “Noona!” he swoops in one more time. “Trust me,” he says, holding onto her so close that Sehun barely registers how he feels her breath running down his palm as he caresses her cheek.

It was her first solo project ever and to say she was nervous would be an understatement.

Joohyun slips into the school uniform with ease. Ironic considering it had been three good years since she had worn one and eases herself into the makeup chair. They talk her through the concept and she listens eagerly and nods to show that she’s paying attention.

Dressed in her trainers, Joohyun comes out of the change room to be greeted by none other than Oh Sehun already standing by the backdrop. He’s receiving the final touches on his makeup and Joohyun just stands awkwardly, staring, waiting for directions.

Sehun sits down, he’s seen her by now, she’s certain but he doesn’t say anything. Weird since he’s always the one that can’t seem to ever stop talking. “Alright, Irene,” the photographer says and she jumps a little, the name still sounding foreign.

Sehun brings his legs up onto the block and the photographer places Irene close beside him, standing. “You’ll just lean back against each other.” She notices how Sehun tries to stifle a laugh but she won’t say anything, especially since he refuses to acknowledge that she exists. Not even a ‘Hello, Noona’ pft.

“The visuals in this shot is no joke,” the photographer notes only to have Sehun chime in about how it would be because he’s in it. Joohyun rolls her eyes and smiles even brighter at the compliment.

They have a few more shots and Sehun inches closer each time till she feels him resting his back against her arm.

“What a pretty couple,” the photographer comments and Joohyun’s expression changes to one of bewilderment. The camera snaps for the last time and the photographer calls it a wrap.

Sehun leaps off the box and stands up straight, “You worked hard today,” it’s all he says and he walks off without mentioning another word to her. Joohyun doesn’t admit that she’s impressed with how he carries himself at work. After all it’s not like they were in the basement training room and Sehun was free to be the little brat that nagged her all the time. He treats all the other staff sweetly, thanks them all loudly and he’s just being his charming self.

Except when it came to her.

Joohyun presses her lips into a thin line and dashes past him quickly. “Brat,” she mumbles just loud enough for him to hear.

“Congrats on your debut,” Sehun catches her in the dance room one day. “I mean after five years I guess they really want to get rid of you.” She hops off the chair and turns around, reaching for the towel he held in her hand to dab away the sweat rolling down her porcelain skin.

“Thanks,” Joohyun puffs as she takes the bubble tea from him as well. Sehun doesn’t even think much of how she’s drinking from the exact same straw her drank from before she hands it back to him. He’s used to this, he’s used to her.

“Your hair’s pink,” he notices how the tips of her hair were so vibrant, so different from her usual demeanour. “It’s so different.” It should be noted that up until this point Joohyun hadn’t really had much experienced with dying her hair. For as long as he’s known her it’s been black and maybe it was the reason why he liked her even more.

“Yeah, I really wanted purple,” she says with a sigh escaping from her lips.

Sehun pouts and indignantly cries, “What’s wrong with pink? I had pink hair.”

“Does it suit me?”

“The company only chooses the best looking member to have pink hair,” Sehun teases and Joohyun feels her cheeks flush. The exhaustion was getting to her she though, and the darn aircon wasn’t working either.

“Yeah, yeah,” Joohyun rolls her eyes and resumes stretching.

Sehun notices how Joohyun doesn’t fight back when he teases her and the fire in her eye is dim. He remembers what it felt like too, the weeks leading up to his debut. They were so close, but they were also running on tight schedules and they hadn’t even debuted yet.

“So you’re going to have to call me sunbae now,” Sehun teases and immediately Joohyun stops, turns around and places her hands firmly on her hips. There’s a spark and Sehun grins he always knew how to push her buttons.

“What did you say?” she taunts with her chest pushed forward but it didn’t make her seem any bigger.

Sehun laughs, “I debuted before you so I’m your sunbae.”

“I’m your sunbae at life, Oh Sehun, don’t forget that!” Joohyun slaps his chest and resumes stretching once more. Gosh this kid was a nuisance, she thought whilst sweeping the hair away from her face.

“Fair enough, but you can’t walk around calling me that brat anymore either, noona,” he coos and she feels the hair on the back of her arms standing up.

Joohyun rolls her eyes, Sehun the brat who likes to loop his arm around her shoulder when he’s tired just because he’s taller. Sehun the brat who likes to tousle her hair even though she’s older, who likes to lift her up when they hug, who likes to brag about how popular he is with all the other noonas. Sehun the brat who has absolutely no respect for this noona of his.

“But I can call you that in private, can’t I?” Joohyun turns around and saunters over to him slowly which makes Sehun step backwards nervously, stumbling over his foot. Joohyun inches closer, hovering over him just long eno