Aira sensed something was off when she entered Tuesday’s morning lecture. Sitting down in her usual in the back corner, she glanced around while taking her supplies out. She figured out what was wrong after locking eyes with a classmate. She had people who were blatantly staring at her. Aira could feel their eyes boring holes into her soul and she shrunk back into her seat uncomfortably.

“So much for thinking no one would remember,” she sighed, flipping her notebook to a blank page to begin doodling in one of the corners.

Some minutes passed before she watched someone in the corner of her eye sit beside her. How surprising. Aira didn’t feel the need to look up to see the person so she didn’t. She waited for the professor to finish setting up as she continued her drawing.

It was supposed to be a sunflower but even she couldn’t fool herself into thinking it looked remotely close to one.

“Ah, Aria, is it?” He asked. This caused her to finally lift her head up.

“Aira,” she corrected with a polite smile.

“Shoot, sorry,” he chuckled, causing his dimples to appear. Cute, Aira thought. She couldn’t help but wish she had his dimples. He stuck his hand out towards her, “I’m Yixing, a friend of Jongdae’s.”

“Oh, hi,” Aira’s smile warmed at the mention of Jongdae and accepted his hand, giving him a light handshake. “It’s nice to meet you.”
 

Yixing’s dimple seemed to deepen as his smile grew wider. “Same to you.”

Aira silently pondered what caused him to sit next to her and introduce himself. This type of thing doesn’t usually happen unless the guy’s interested in the girl and Aira would be labelled foolish if she believed that to be the reason for even a second. Then again, he could be looking for a new friend or someone to copy homework off of since most of the kids in this lecture block don’t know what’s going on half the time.

“So, I know you probably don’t want to be reminded of this,” he started off and Aira immediately knew why he came to bother her. “But I just wanted to say I’m sorry for my friends’ actions at the party.”

“What?” she was caught off guard. Instead of commenting on how gross she was and making fun of her for it, he was apologizing?
 

“I want to apologize on behalf of my friends for the way they laughed at you.” Yixing clarified, smile never once faltering with his words. “What they did wasn’t very mature of them. Especially with posting the video-”
 

“They what?” Aira nearly screeched. Video… There was a video. Luhan could see that video. With all her luck, he’s probably seen it already. Rewinded and laughed at it nonstop, probably.

Yixing’s eyes widened at her outburst and he grew flustered, cheeks reddening in embarrassment. “I, um…” he was unable to find the words but after swallowing, he tried to give a wholehearted explanation. “There was a video that was shared among the Fraternity and then someone decided to post it under a discussion board for the Frat house.”

Aira’s heart was beating erratically and she feared she was going into a panic attack because of the news. Her hands balled into fists and she clenched her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry right there in class. Yixing threw himself into a caring mode and hesitated to put a hand on her shoulder. After a moment, he did and rubbed her shoulder in soothing circles. Aira thought to shrug off his hand but decided against it. He was kind enough to approach her and inform her of all this so the least she could do was be grateful in return.

“I’m fine now, thank you.” She whispered after taking deep breaths and calming herself down. “Thank you for telling me.”

Yixing was unsure whether or not to say ‘you’re welcome’ so he opted to stay quiet instead. He looked over at the Professor to find him opening up a slideshow on the SmartBoard. He glanced back at Aira who was putting her school supplies back into her schoolbag.

“Is that video still up?” she questioned, only giving him a quick glance while zipping up her bag.

“Ah, no.” Yixing shook his head and he heard her relieved sigh. “I managed to talk to Yifan into taking down the post and he did.”

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