buttoned up; 互扣; 1/2
12100w > hunhan
qt side krisyeol > carpe diem by specialises
sehun is emotionally & verbally crippled. but yay, lu han is there to save our ship
on the sideline, chanyeol harasses yifan on a regular basis
~pepper~ you're precious & i'd be sad if you don't visit me with cookies. please heart me back
new life mission: one sentence fics
i only write touchy-feely lu han. ik, one trick pony, that's me, hi there
why is this so small
★
Sehun is as magical as a paper cup. But don’t let him know that because he will ask you the Why (“Because you’re just about as interesting as a cup.” “Oh. Are paper cups very interesting? “…no.” “Oh.”). Although eventually, he’d just end off with a bewildered ‘But I’m human.'
Yes, because clearly, you really think he’s a paper cup.
Besides the inability to absorb similes, Sehun is also incapable of injecting changes into his life. He is not to be easily distracted from his sane life. Without a doubt, he’s going to graduate at the top of his class, get employed at Samsung or Lotte and drive a grey Hyundai car to wor- oh no, what is that weird and confusing booth in front of the university canteen?
It is, in fact, just a regular booth which consists of a table, red tablecloth and two people. What’s so irregular about it is the huge paper brain that’s plastered onto the wall behind it. Instead of the usual brain, the paper brain is divided into quadrants of red, blue, green and yellow. Beneath the paper brain is a sign that says, ‘Join Us!’, which in Sehun’s own brain language means, ‘Not Normal. Must Avoid’.
So when he sees one of them, who’s dressed in bright red, make a beeline for him from the eleven o’ clock direction, he employs his customary Avoid Strange Humans strategy.
(The Avoid Strange Humans Strategy
1. Walk fast in zig zag lines
2. Feign temporary blindness and deafness
3. Look fierce)
Sehun picks up his pace and walks with determination to the table where Chanyeol is waving frantically to him (nothing’s up. Chanyeol is simply born with a frantic face). This ‘talk to the dust in my wake’ tactic usually works on 88% of all street surveyors. But Red Person persists. Frowning, Sehun lengthens his strides. To his horror, however, Red Person begins to jog. With resignation, he stops and allows Red Person to ambush him, because this is getting ridiculous. “I’m not interested,” he begins but Red Person just looks past his shoulder and says to someone behind him, “Heh, I’m Lu Han. Would you like to volunteer to be a test subject in our study, Sir?”
Slightly embarrassed, Sehun turns around to see who this Lu Han is talking to.
There’s no one behind him.
He stills for a second before he turns around slowly and sees Lu Han smiling at him. A bright smile that brings out the wrinkles around his starry, starry eyes and threatens to wilt all the rainbows in the world. Sehun is confounded. “I was talking to you,” Lu Han beams.
“No,” Sehun crinkles his brows, “you were talking to someone behind me.”
“But there’s no one behind you.” Lu Han says with complete sincerity and continues to smile cutely. He even appears a little befuddled. His words are so true that Sehun is rendered speechless. This Lu Han seems like bad news, no matter how adorable his smile is. “I’m busy,” he says but a flyer - complete with a perplexing multi-colored brain printed on it - is thrust into his hands and he is cornered over to the booth. This involves Lu Han blocking off all his escape routes so that with each step forward, Sehun ends up taking three steps backwards.
“We’re an external company the School of Psychology has invested in and we’re currently on the lookout for test subjects to help us in our study.” The booth is now three meters away and is manned by someone dressed in neon green. The colors are beginning to hurt Sehun’s eyes.
“Test subjects?” he says with a note of caution. He eyes the hand that’s gripping his forearm and tries to pull away but while adorable face is adorable, vise-like grip is also vise-like.
“Yeah, we’re going to wire people up and electrocute them until they go mad.” There’s a dramatic pause.
And a dramatic expression on Sehun’s face.
“Kidding! What’s your name?” Lu Han giggles and asks when they’ve reached the booth.
But all Sehun catches is ‘mad’. That’s all the information he needs. He’s about to twirl around and flee towards sanity when the guy in green stands up. Oh.
He’s kind of tall.
For the first time in his life, Sehun feels like a dwarf. His thoughts of fleeing also begin to dwarf. “Thanks for joining the study,” Yifan says, his hand extending towards Sehun. “You are exactly who we’re looking for.”
“I am?” Sehun asks weakly. He looks down at himself. White shirt tucked into black slacks, black socks, black Oxford shoes. Perfect sense. Perfectly normal. He lifts his vision up up up to Yifan’s eyes quizzically.
“Yeah,” Lu Han elaborates, “We’ve found everyone we need. Just camping out in the engineering school for the freaks. I mean, geeks.” At the slightly offended look on Sehun’s face, he corrects himself, “Erm, Greeks.” The offended look morphs into one of confusion. “It rhymes,” Lu Han explains and Sehun isn’t sure if he’s following the right thread of logic (if it even exists). He shakes his head at Yifan’s hand. “I’m sorry but, no.”
“Hi!” A hand that is not Sehun’s takes Yifan’s outstretched hand. All three of them turn to Chanyeol who’s grinning manically. “What’s your name? This seems really interesting. I would love to join you. What’s your name again? You’re taller than me. Aww.”
“Yellow,” Yifans mutters lowly, hand still being jerked around by Chanyeol. “I don’t handle Yellows,” he says to Lu Han who’s about to speak but ends up getting interrupted.
“You can call me Yeolo,” Chanyeol smiles. Suggestively. Yifan immediately disengages his hand, in case the happy virus is contagious. Even Lu Han has a creeped-out look on his face now. Very nice.
“Maybe next time,” Yifan replies stoically. Because he knows there will not be a ‘next time’.
Sehun closes his eyes and tries to logic himself out of this. He is a fruit. He is a soursop. He has no feelings. He has no embarrassing Chanyeol friends. He is heartless, mindless, no one who car-
“Welcome?” Lu Han disrupts Sehun’s fruitilization. He waves the flyer playfully in Sehun’s face. The disturbance causes Sehun to blink rapidly and take a step back. Lu Han is immediately contrite; he offers an impish smile as apology. Sehun blinks some more. Lu Han’s smile glows and everything suddenly starts to twinkle; the particles in the air sparkle like stardust.
Twinkling stardust?
Hmm?
Sehun purses his lips. But at least he has stopped shaking his head.
★
While they’re on their way to the School of Psychology the next day, Sehun watches Chanyeol rummage around in his bag and sees a wad of tissue falls out from it. “You are vile,” he spits out because he knows that’s the tissue that Chanyeol used to stick his gum in during the Fluids Dynamic lecture three days ago. “Throw it away!” he exclaims when Chanyeol just picks the tissue up and stuffs it back into his bag.
“Life is too short to care so much about trash, Sehun,” Chanyeol says very philosophically. He pets his Sehun’s back as if to ensure that the idea sinks into Sehun’s hygienic soul. With great reluctance, Sehun allows himself to be petted by filthy Chanyeol. “I don’t think we have time for this, actually. Too much coursework. We have three tutorials in a row tomorrow and work on weekends. Have you even done your reading?” he asks when they reach the lab.
“No,” Chanyeol replies regretfully, “but Yifan is hot!” he continues brightly as if that seals it and pushes the door open to the lab open. Sehun follows him in and sighs heavily when he sees yet another multi-colored brain framed and hung up onto the white wall of the lab. Whatever happened to nice normal pink brains?
“Hi!” Lu Han bounces over when he catches sight of them. He places a hand on Sehun’s shoulder. “I thought you wouldn’t be coming,” he cheers. His hand slides down Sehun’s shoulder to grip his bicep in an easy manner. Too easy. Sehun stares at Lu Han’s hand. Since when did it become OK to touch strangers? Sehun’s eyes flit over to Chanyeol to perhaps share a look of WTF that’s only shared between friends, when he sees that his buddy has already wiggled over to Yifan’s side on the lab bench and his hand is most certainly resting on Yifan’s thigh.
Sehun ends up sharing a look of WTF with Yifan instead.
“Come on,” Lu Han says, hand now on Sehun’s back as he leads him into his seat. Sehun is too polite to shrug it off, but that doesn’t mean Lu Han hasn’t violated his code of prim and proper conduct. “All the volunteers have to sit through a test.”
“What test?” Sehun asks warily. He doesn’t like the feeling of being unprepared.
But all Lu Han says is, “I bet you’re Blue.” He smiles to Sehun and pats his back in a reassuring manner. His touch only causes Sehun’s scowl to deepen.
★
Sehun ends up being Blue. The research company’s staff is going through the Whole Brain Thinking test results with the student volunteers. Lu Han assigns himself to Sehun because ‘we already know each other anyway’. Sehun likes to think that he has more complex definitions to the word ‘friend’.
“Being predominantly blue means you’re a logical person, all facts, no fluff. You’re analytical, rational, efficient and unemotional.” Lu Han does a bit of nose-wrinkling at the last word and Sehun feels vaguely insulted. “You’re result-focused and realistic. Do you agree?” Lu Han asks, pencil poised over Sehun’s test results, ready to scribble down his words.
“Before I comment, I need to know the basis of this test, how the results are tabulated and the percentage error involved.”
“OK,” Lu Han says seriously and nods in agreement. But Sehun spies him scribbling ‘test results affirmative’ onto the paper.
“Eh,” he protests. Lu Han grins cheekily as a form of diversion of sorts. It works. Sehun’s eyes dart around in confusion for a while and his hand makes a meaningless swipe at the air. Eventually he settles for averting his eyes and studying the paint cracks in the lab’s ceiling.
“Heh. It doesn’t mean you fit entirely into this scope. Your secondary color is Green. In addition to being logical, you’re a planner, you pay attention to details and you like to follow procedures.” Tilting his head to the right, Lu Han muses, “You’re lacking in the emotions department, aren’t you? But no worries, this is not a tool to gauge your personality, just how you prefer to think. So I’m sure you weep buckets in movie theatres too.”
“What type are you?” Sehun asks self-defensively.
“Your type.”
Before Sehun could even muster an appropriate facial expression (one which would explicitly express something like, ‘Go away, gross human’), Lu Han chimes, “Kidding!”
Sehun could only stare. Lu Han is outrageous.
“Hmm,” Lu Han mutters, resting his chin on a hand. “I’m mainly Red. It means I’m expressive, sensitive, talkative, playful.” At this, Lu Han gives Sehun a small kick beneath the table as if to prove a point. He chuckles when Sehun flinches and withdraws his legs. “I also like the personal touch. My secondary color is Yellow. So I’m also someone who gets major headaches from Math, a risk-taker, a rule-breaker, somewhat unpredictable, ho-hum~” Lu Han ends off with a bit of a tune.
“Test results affirmative,” Sehun folds his arms and declares self-importantly.
Lu Han laughs loudly. He leans forward, reaches across the table they’re seated at and slaps Sehun’s forearm lightly in reprimand. His hand remains on Sehun’s forearm while he continues to giggle. Mischievous little imp.
Very slowly, Sehun withdraws his tingling arm and starts frowning again.
“OK, I get it,” Lu Han sighs remorsefully, putting both his hands up, “no more touching.” But the cheeky grin never left his face. “So, back to business. Brain thinking tends to evolve over the years due to aging and changes in the environment. It’s likely our colors will shift at one point or another. Who we interact with might also influence the way we think. The objective of this study is to determine what happens over time when two extremes interact. So we will split up into pairs and have dates-“
“Dates?” Sehun repeats. Excessive social interaction with other humans? No.
“Kidding!” Lu Han trills. “Interactive sessions, I mean. Vocabulary, so tricky,” he grins, stopping only when he realizes he’s the only one laughing. “Can you please relax?” he sighs again.
“What?” Sehun says blankly. “I’m relaxed. I just don’t find you funny. Can I pair up with Chanyeol? We’re opposites, trust me.”
For a moment, Lu Han looks like he just swallowed a volcano. “Fine,” he sputters eventually, choosing not to erupt, “anyway, students will pair up with the staff. A professional will have to be present to log the interactions. That means, me,” Lu Han says, index finger pointing to himself, “and you,” he continues, now planting his finger onto Sehun’s chest, “so much fun.” Then he pauses for a while before continuing to jab Sehun. “Dude, you’re scrawny.”
No more touching. Right. OK. Of course.
Sehun looks at the finger poking him in the chest and pushes Lu Han’s hand aside. “You’re scrawnier.”
“Fiercer than you think, Sehun, fiercer than you think,” Lu Han sings. Sehun has no idea what he means and for once, he prefers to stay in the unknown.
★
Chanyeol is so Yellow, it’s mortifying. Sehun finally understands why Chanyeol sometimes insists on watching late night movies when they have finals the next day (“Might as well, Sehun. From 0 to 59, the grade is still F.”), why he sometimes tear up instruction manuals that Sehun treasures like tiny bibles (“They make me doubt my intelligence.” “You don’t have any.” “No wonder.”) and why he’s never, ever on time (“A watch? What’s that. Is it a phoenix.”).
Well. It’s time for improvement.
“You’re late!” Chanyeol exclaims when he sees Sehun the next day after classes.
“No, we are late. I’m just later than you,” Sehun clarifies.
“You’re never late,” Chanyeol pouts and bumps Sehun’s shoulders. They proceed to walk to the lab.
“Thanks to the test, I’ve realized that you’re just never going to be on time, Chanyeol. You’re also going to be disgusting and filthy for the rest of your life, it’s in your brain,” Sehun says with utter conviction. “So I averaged out the minutes you’re usually late for and added it to our original meet-up time,” Sehun admits, “I’m sorry I’m a bit off the first time but I’ll improve.”
“Can you please be normal?” Chanyeol begs.
“Can you please stop touching Yifan?” Sehun counter-pleas. His friend is so embarrassing. He wants to bury Chanyeol alive and sit on his grave to make sure he doesn’t crawl out every time he sees the look on Yifan’s face when they near.
“I’m just a friendly person,” Chanyeol retorts.
“That’s molest, Chanyeol. In some countries, you get stoned for doing that,” Sehun says sternly. In a great show of defiance, Chanyeol begins whistling joyously. His ridiculousness forcefully reminds Sehun of someone else. Consciously, he lifts a hand to his shoulder and exhales a sigh of relief when he confirms that there’s only his hand there. Hands-free shoulders are so nice.
“Sehun!” Someone pounces onto his back. He screams a little and scoots over to Chanyeol. Lu Han and Chanyeol stare at him. “I was thinking Deep Thoughts.” Sehun elaborates when he has calmed down sufficiently. “Please don’t do this again,” he says earnestly to Lu Han.
For some reason, Lu Han looks over to Chanyeol as if he could offer a better explanation.
Chanyeol studies Lu Han. “Sehun’s sensitive,” he finally deduces, one hand coming down on Lu Han’s shoulders as if to assure him of the fact.
“…to what?” Lu Han asks, a careful eye on Chanyeol’s hand. Sure, Lu Han’s a little way off the normal scale. But Chanyeol.
Chanyeol is clearly insane.
“Cute.”
“Oh, you think I’m cute,” Lu Han says to Sehun.
“I have never,” Sehun gapes at the two of them. Troublemakers. Chanyeol merely grins and shrugs.
“Kidding!” Lu Han choruses and Chanyeol chortles. This Lu Han seems OK. He holds out his hand. Lu Han looks at him skeptically, but eventually says, “Oh, well”, and slaps him a five. They smile at each other.
“Let’s go,” Lu Han says and tugs on Sehun’s backpack. “Go to the lab, Yeolo. Yifan is waiting for you.” Chanyeol needs no further persuasion. When Sehun turns his head, he has already faded into a tragic black speck in the far distance.
“Where are we going?” asks Sehun as he reaches up to brush his fringe to the side. In reality, he’s just hoping the move will dislodge Lu Han’s hand on his arm. It didn’t.
“To the supermart, I need to get groceries,” Lu Han replies.
“Is this your so-called interactive sessions?” Sehun asks incredulously. He has been looking forward to something much more intellectual.
“Every situation needs a fancy name,” Lu Han clarifies.
“I have homework, bye,” Sehun mutters and starts to walk off in the opposite direction.
“You’re going to get points for this, you know that?”
Extra academic points? Lotte might like that. “I want cereal,” Sehun sniffs and trails after Lu Han.
★
Sehun watches Lu Han pick up yet another packet of chips. “You don’t need any more of those,” he quips before returning to studying the nutritional table of the chips he’s holding. “They are cardiac arrest inducing,” he comments and removes a packet from Lu Han’s trolley. The bag of cheddar & sour cream flavored chips is put back to its rightful place beside the tomato flavored ones.
“Hey!” Lu Han grabs the chips and places it back into the trolley. “I like cardiac arrests,” he snips at Sehun who shakes his head and proceeds to check out the cereal on the opposite shelf. “You’re going to die at forty in your sleep,” he says sensibly.
“Consuming this ambrosia? Gladly,” Lu Han sneers and drops the packet of chips into his trolley. While he smirks at Sehun, he decides to throw two more bags of Cheetos down. Then he turns his nose up at Sehun. ‘And what are you going to do about that, huh.’ is what Lu Han’s face is saying right now. Shrugging, Sehun picks up a box of whole grain cereal.
“Put that box of cardboard back on the shelf, Sehun,” Lu Han warns.
“You’re ridiculous,” Sehun says, just a note of weariness in his voice when he turns to face Lu Han.
To his surprise, Lu Han lets out a peal of laughter. “I am,” he concedes, a smile taking over his face. Something in the air starts glimmering again. Sehun repeats his head-shaking and scowls. He concentrates harder on the nutritional table of the cereal.
“Do you have to analyze cereal nutritional information too? I’m sure all ugly-tasting foods are healthy,” Lu Han says, turning a delicious packet of chips over too. Fifteen pieces of chips set a greedy person back ten grams of fat. That means a bag of chips would contain….who cares? Lu Han recalls that he’s skinny and really bad at Math, so he throws the chips back into the trolley.
“Fiber is important,” Sehun mutters.
“You’re weird,” Lu Han playfully imitates Sehun’s head-shaking.
Sehun is far less magnanimous than Lu Han. “Depends on who’s talking,” he retaliates but the corners of his mouth begin to curl up too. He doesn’t know what smiley disease Lu Han is suffering from, but it’s kind of contagious.
“Oh dear, you’re smiling. Are you feeling unwell?” Lu Han places a hand on Sehun’s forehead only to have it swatted away. “Kidding! I like your smile,” Lu Han says. He pokes two fingers at the corners of Sehun’s mouth and tug. “Much better,” he beams at his work. Lu Han’s eyes thin into crescents, soft lines fan out beneath his eyes and his stretched lips are a shade of pink lighter than usual. There are stars in his eyes.
Lu Han is adorable.
Sehun blinks wide-eyed in the face of that smile and quickly steps back until his back meets the shelf. Humming, Lu Han just resumes shopping for calorie-laden food.
Looking at Lu Han’s back, Sehun’s thoughts scatter in all directions. ‘I like your smile too’ but ‘Stop smiling at me like that’, and tell me, ‘Why are you so perplexing’. But of course, his brain-to-mouth filter is operating at its usual efficiency.
★
Chanyeol is sad. Or so he claims to be. While he’s chugging down half a pecan tart. “I’m too sad for my part-time job,” he mumbles, crumbs still hanging on for dear life at the side of his lips.
“Stop eating that tart, Chanyeol, it’s for sales,” Sehun chastises as he gently places the egg tarts that’s fresh from the oven onto the display case.
“Does it not matter to you that I’m dying?” Chanyeol dramatizes over several bites of tart. In a fit of emotional outburst, he grabs a cranberry scone from a nearby tray and bites down on it. “Are our years of friendship not worth anything?” He emotes and spits out scone bits.
“Don’t talk to me when you’re eating,” Sehun rebukes.
“Why is he so cruel?” Chanyeol cries into his orange bowtie. A couple of girls enter the bakery.
“Welcom-“ Sehun begins but is interrupted.
“We’re closed,” Chanyeol announces very firmly. He glares and takes another bite of the scone in what he perceives to be a threatening manner (it is not. Chanyeol is a puppy. He likes tickles and giggles).
“We’re so opened for business,” Sehun bestows upon the girls a professional smile and they begin to mumble excitedly among themselves.
“He never smiles to me like that,” Chanyeol says sadly to himself and helps himself to the princess cake that he knows is reserved for a customer. He is sad. Sad people have more rights to cakes.
“OK, I’m listening,” Sehun says when the girls finally leave.
“I’m never talking to you again,” Chanyeol sulks and turns so that his back is facing Sehun.
“That’s fine with me too,” shrugs Sehun. He wipes down the counter.
“Yifan doesn’t like me!” Chanyeol whips around and whines. With his persuasive powers, Chanyeol has managed to get himself paired with Yifan but the latter always goes running when he sees him.
“That’s not surprising. No one likes to be fondled with without permission,” Sehun says. He’s so reasonable that Chanyeol wants to slap him with a mango Danish. Without a care for anything Chanyeol-ish in this world, Sehun re-arranges the cakes in the display case. His friend is unable to differentiate black forests from chocolate mousse. ‘No one cares, alright, they are all brown,’ Chanyeol defended himself when Sehun first pointed this out to him.
“I had been looking forward to sympathy,” Chanyeol grimaces. Then he thinks back on Sehun’s advice. “I have to ask for permission to touch people?” Chanyeol side-eyes him. Sehun side-eyes Chanyeol back. They side-eye each other.
Chanyeol really does seem kind of sad, which is rare because he is usually stupid-happy. So Sehun decides to be kind. “Yifan is Green, Chanyeol. You have to get to him step by step,” Sehun analyses Chanyeol’s love situation while he shuffles the cakes, “first, you become friends. No, wait. First, stop touching him. Next, act normal, please, society likes it. Then you get to know him better. After which you ask him out on dates. And if things go smoothly…whatever happens next, please, never let me know.”
“But Yifan has such nice legs,” Chanyeol utters regretfully, “his thighs.” His fingers flutter in thin air as if they were recalling thigh feelings.
“Are you listening?” Sehun stands, arms akimbo.
Chanyeol’s fingers stop waving and he gives Sehun a grave nod. Satisfied, Sehun busies himself with the cakes again. “What about you and cutie pie?” Chanyeol suddenly asks.
Sehun pauses in his rearrangement of brown cakes. “He’s…” Chanyeol watches with great interest as Sehun straightens up from the display case and his hands grapple thin air as if he’s sifting through invisible vocabulary for the suitable word. “…illogical,” Sehun finally coughs out. Then he puckers his brows and shakes his head as if displeased with that word. He begins to wrestle with air again. After a minute of this, Sehun just sighs and looks tired. “I don’t know.”
This is the most expressive Sehun that Chanyeol has ever seen. “Wow. You’ve just exhausted a year’s worth of facial expressions,” marvels Chanyeol, “better save some for Christmas.”
“I don’t know,” he repeats with resignation. “I don’t know him at all. He likes seven sachets of creamer and four cubes of sugar in his tea, when I warned him about diabetes, he actually went ‘Tcht!’ at me. I looked at his logbook for this study and the only entry goes, ‘OK!’. What the hell does that even mean? I offered writing the observations for him, because, you know, I need something substantial to back my participation in this. But he accused me of invading his privacy. Those logs are supposed to be about me. And he is such a skinship monster. You know how much I hate it when people I don’t know well touch me.” No one likes to be fondled with without permission, but I don’t even dislike his touches that much. They just make me feel really nervous and it’s this perpetual sense of confusion that really gets under my skin, is what Sehun thinks but doesn’t say.
“He doesn’t make sense at all,” Sehun complains, “and there’s all this…” As a mean of completing his sentence, Sehun flings his arms around his head as if swatting away swarms of flies.
Or clouds of shimmering stardust.
“Yes, I get it,” Chanyeol nods knowingly, “despite years of my brave attempts, in the end, it only takes one Lu Han to drive you mad.”
Sehun pelts him with cream puffs.
★
“I have a make-up lecture scheduled right now,” Sehun says to Lu Han when they meet the next day outside his lecture hall, “you might have to-“
“Sure! I have nothing on anyway,” Lu Han interjects and Sehun’s ‘-leave right now’ suffers a painful untimely death somewhere in his throat. He doesn’t want Lu Han in near proximity so he manipulates their seating arrangement such that Chanyeol is seated between them. Lu Han gives Chanyeol a weird look. He returns him an even weirder look, ‘I don’t want this either, ‘kay, do I even look like I’d enjoy you’.
Sehun is wholly focused on the highly boring topic of diodes when he hears a loud yawn. He glances over to his right and sees Lu Han plopped down onto the lecture table with a piteous look on his face. When Lu Han realizes that he finally has Sehun’s attention, he pouts. “Poor baby,” Chanyeol coos darlingly beside him and strokes Lu Han’s head.
Lu Han bats his hand away with a nasty snarl. Chanyeol jumps back in his seat. Dear God, this cute tiny Chihuahua bites.
Sehun ignores the pile of nonsense beside him and turns back. The next second though, his lecture notes are stolen away from him. “What,” he gasps at Lu Han who starts scribbling on his notes with Chanyeol’s pencil. Instead of snatching his pencil back, Chanyeol just peers over Lu Han’s shoulder to see what he’s writing. Fact: Shenanigans are always more important than whatever your teacher is talking about.
Sehun is a lost leaf caught up in a typhoon without his lecture notes. He panics for about five seconds before his notes are shoved back in his face. Staring at it, he forgets about anodes and cathodes and asks Lu Han, “What is this?” he whispers harshly and points to the drawing smack in the middle of his notes, right beside a diagram depicting the I-V characteristics of a p-n junction diode.
“Of course that’s a bunny,” Lu Han says with exasperation. “This is a pencil, I am Lu Han, that’s a bunny.”
“This is not a bunny,” Sehun states matter-of-factly.
“Yes, it is.”
“You cannot unilaterally decide for the world what a bunny looks like,” Sehun says very firmly.
“You know what. He’s right.” Chanyeol has to agree with Sehun.
“Why can’t I,” Lu Han frowns at Sehun.
“Um, yeah, why can’t he?” Chanyeol swivels back to Sehun and asks.
No one speaks for a while as Sehun and Lu Han take time out to shoot fierce looks at each other.
“Guys, I know how to draw a proper bunny. See, first, you draw the ears-” Chanyeol breaks the silence and doodles on his notes.
“Shut up, Chanyeol,” Sehun snaps.
“Yeah, no one cares about your bunny.” Lu Han follows closely behind.
Someone sitting in the row in front of them turns back. “I care,” Kyungsoo says to Chanyeol. Sehun decides to keep quiet. Chanyeol might be weird but Kyungsoo is…special. That’s another level he has no desire to explore.
“Thank you,” Chanyeol smiles fondly at Kyungsoo. He pats his head twice in gratitude.
“Da,” Kyungsoo chirps before turning back to the lecturer.
“Ugly bunny,” Sehun says to Chanyeol’s drawing when Kyungsoo has faded out of the conversation.
“Fact,” Lu Han nods his head. Sehun lifts an eyebrow at him.
“Why are you suddenly on his side?” Chanyeol accuses Lu Han.
“Because he’s my favorite,” Lu Han replies innocently. Chanyeol’s head turns rapidly from left to right and then back again as he alternates between Lu Han’s smug face and Sehun’s semi-horrified expression. Something’s been going on and he’s not in the loop. This is wrong.
Sehun ignores Chanyeol’s urgent look of ‘Tell Me. Tell Me. Everything’ and says faintly to Lu Han, “Kidding?”
Lu Han takes a while to think this over before he leans across until he’s approximately half-a-Chanyeol away from Sehun. “Maybe,” he says softly and flippantly into Sehun’s face. Then he moves back to his seat and hums a lovely tune. Chanyeol pokes Sehun but the latter has already transformed into a soursop.
“Can I change my seat already,” Chanyeol says with a dead voice. The aisle looks like a lovely place to park his butt right now. Or the opening of a bubbling volcano. That precarious spot that leads right off the edge of the world. The entrance of the White House with a fake toy gun.
Anywhere but smack in the middle of subtle flirtation.
★
Nothing peculiar happens the next day and Sehun is grateful for mundanity. He’s sitting in the lab doing his tutorial with Lu Han across him, writing on his logbook with a puzzled look on his face. Perfect.
OK, so Lu Han is looking extra cute today because, apple hair, why. But as we know, Sehun is pretty good at pretending to be very blind too. So he supposes that’s torment on a manageable scale.
Even Chanyeol is acting sane. He’s sitting in the bench in front with Yifan who decides Chanyeol is normal enough to sit with today. With a dumb grin, Chanyeol flashes Sehun a secret victory sign. Sehun flashes him a serious one back. Then he notices Yifan glaring at the side of Chanyeol’s head. His hand is already stretched out but he quickly takes it back when he sees Sehun looking over. Yifan looks slightly abashed at getting caught. But, Yifan? Shy? Nay. Pigs cannot fly, Yifan cannot shy. Twisting his lips, Sehun goes back to working on his tutorial.
The peace is broken minutes later when someone walks up to them. “Hello,” Jongin says, “I’m from the neighboring lab. We’re looking for people to try out a list of mental age test questions. Do you want to?“
“Yes!” Lu Han shouts and flings the offending logbook away. Jongin smiles and looks at the troubled-looking Sehun. “Won’t take you more than five minutes,” he says reassuringly.
Jongin is a motherfff!ing liar. A hundred questions and half an hour later, they find themselves standing in Jongin’s lab holding their test results.
“What’s your mental age?” Chanyeol asks Sehun.
“Eighty-nine,” Sehun twists his lips. Something is wrong with this test.
“Oh, Sehun,” Chanyeol clutches his results to his chest and whispers dramatically, “you shouldn’t be alive!”
“Yes, I really care about your opinion,” Sehun says without emotion. He flips Chanyeol his eye whites. Then he refocuses his gaze on Chanyeol again. There’s a tiny bit of leaf caught in his hair. Right by the side of his head, just above the ear. Sehun shoots Yifan a questioning look. But Yifan simply ignores him. “You?” Yifan asks Lu Han who has been fairly quiet, which is something rather unusual.
“What?” Lu Han looks up hurriedly from his result slip. “Oh, thirty.” There’s a tight smile on his face. Sehun looks at Chanyeol. Chanyeol looks at Yifan. “He’s lying,” Yifan speaks for everyone. There’s a murmur of consensus.
“Oy,“ Lu Han protests.
“How old?” Sehun asks again when they’re back in their lab.
“I’m a mature and responsible adult,” Lu Han says instead. Then, “Twelve,” he admits grudgingly, fingers reaching up to play with the adorable tuff of hair on his head. Sehun wants to throw things and scream at him to stop.
Instead, he clears his throat like the sane eighty-nine year old he is. “Look, if you were a mature and responsible twenty-two year old, you wouldn’t go around looking like an apple,” Sehun gestures to his head, “and you shouldn’t be wearing a tee with a deer on it,” he points to the atrocious headphone-wearing creature printed on Lu Han’s T-shirt.
“But I have natural curls, it’s neater if I tie my hair up,” Lu Han says, picking at the blue rubber band. Sehun suppresses bubbling hysteria and makes a tiny sound that Lu Han thinks might be disapproval.
“Not cute?” Lu Han asks, tugging on his tee and looking down at it.
“Yes, yes” Sehun finally surrenders, throwing up his hands in defeat, “you look adorable,” he says miserably.
Lu Han lifts his head up very slowly. “I was asking about the tee,” he corrects Sehun. His voice is so clear that Sehun can’t even feign temporary deafness. He looks like a rat caught with cheese in its cheeks.
Thankfully, Lu Han just continues playing with his hair. “This is called 揪揪 in Chinese,” he says, out of nowhere, twirling his hair with his fingers.
Sehun ogles at him wordlessly.
“Repeat after me,” Lu Han says, “Jiu Jiu.” His pink mouth puckers as he draws out the pronunciation.
“What? No. No, I refuse to repeat after you.” Sehun is mentally exhausted. What more does Lu Han want from him?
“Say it or you’re not getting your extra points,” Lu Han threatens lightly.
Sitting up straight, Sehun says, “Of course I’m getting my points, I’ve been actively participating in this…” He wants to say ‘study’, but honestly, Sehun isn’t sure what he has been doing with Lu Han all this while. It just involves him being nervous and exasperated and maybe, well, happy. “…thing,” he eventually decides.
Lu Han sits up too. He tilts his small chin and looks pointedly at Sehun.
Fine. Whatever. “Jiu jiu, alright there! Jiu jiu! Are you happy now.” Sehun gives up on himself.
Laughing aloud, Lu Han explains, “Jiu jiu is synonymous with bobo in Chinese.”
Sehun gapes at him. “Oh dear God. What have you done.” His voice sounds oddly strangled.
“Defiling you, that’s all,” Lu Han smiles devilishly. “Oh, you’re so cute, Sehun.”
So Sehun proceeds to plant his face onto Electronics Fundamentals: Circuits, Devices, and Applications (6th Edition) and decides to be sad forever.
★
qt side krisyeol > carpe diem by specialises
sehun is emotionally & verbally crippled. but yay, lu han is there to save our ship
on the sideline, chanyeol harasses yifan on a regular basis
~pepper~ you're precious & i'd be sad if you don't visit me with cookies. please heart me back
new life mission: one sentence fics
i only write touchy-feely lu han. ik, one trick pony, that's me, hi there
why is this so small
★
Sehun is as magical as a paper cup. But don’t let him know that because he will ask you the Why (“Because you’re just about as interesting as a cup.” “Oh. Are paper cups very interesting? “…no.” “Oh.”). Although eventually, he’d just end off with a bewildered ‘But I’m human.'
Yes, because clearly, you really think he’s a paper cup.
Besides the inability to absorb similes, Sehun is also incapable of injecting changes into his life. He is not to be easily distracted from his sane life. Without a doubt, he’s going to graduate at the top of his class, get employed at Samsung or Lotte and drive a grey Hyundai car to wor- oh no, what is that weird and confusing booth in front of the university canteen?
It is, in fact, just a regular booth which consists of a table, red tablecloth and two people. What’s so irregular about it is the huge paper brain that’s plastered onto the wall behind it. Instead of the usual brain, the paper brain is divided into quadrants of red, blue, green and yellow. Beneath the paper brain is a sign that says, ‘Join Us!’, which in Sehun’s own brain language means, ‘Not Normal. Must Avoid’.
So when he sees one of them, who’s dressed in bright red, make a beeline for him from the eleven o’ clock direction, he employs his customary Avoid Strange Humans strategy.
(The Avoid Strange Humans Strategy
1. Walk fast in zig zag lines
2. Feign temporary blindness and deafness
3. Look fierce)
Sehun picks up his pace and walks with determination to the table where Chanyeol is waving frantically to him (nothing’s up. Chanyeol is simply born with a frantic face). This ‘talk to the dust in my wake’ tactic usually works on 88% of all street surveyors. But Red Person persists. Frowning, Sehun lengthens his strides. To his horror, however, Red Person begins to jog. With resignation, he stops and allows Red Person to ambush him, because this is getting ridiculous. “I’m not interested,” he begins but Red Person just looks past his shoulder and says to someone behind him, “Heh, I’m Lu Han. Would you like to volunteer to be a test subject in our study, Sir?”
Slightly embarrassed, Sehun turns around to see who this Lu Han is talking to.
There’s no one behind him.
He stills for a second before he turns around slowly and sees Lu Han smiling at him. A bright smile that brings out the wrinkles around his starry, starry eyes and threatens to wilt all the rainbows in the world. Sehun is confounded. “I was talking to you,” Lu Han beams.
“No,” Sehun crinkles his brows, “you were talking to someone behind me.”
“But there’s no one behind you.” Lu Han says with complete sincerity and continues to smile cutely. He even appears a little befuddled. His words are so true that Sehun is rendered speechless. This Lu Han seems like bad news, no matter how adorable his smile is. “I’m busy,” he says but a flyer - complete with a perplexing multi-colored brain printed on it - is thrust into his hands and he is cornered over to the booth. This involves Lu Han blocking off all his escape routes so that with each step forward, Sehun ends up taking three steps backwards.
“We’re an external company the School of Psychology has invested in and we’re currently on the lookout for test subjects to help us in our study.” The booth is now three meters away and is manned by someone dressed in neon green. The colors are beginning to hurt Sehun’s eyes.
“Test subjects?” he says with a note of caution. He eyes the hand that’s gripping his forearm and tries to pull away but while adorable face is adorable, vise-like grip is also vise-like.
“Yeah, we’re going to wire people up and electrocute them until they go mad.” There’s a dramatic pause.
And a dramatic expression on Sehun’s face.
“Kidding! What’s your name?” Lu Han giggles and asks when they’ve reached the booth.
But all Sehun catches is ‘mad’. That’s all the information he needs. He’s about to twirl around and flee towards sanity when the guy in green stands up. Oh.
He’s kind of tall.
For the first time in his life, Sehun feels like a dwarf. His thoughts of fleeing also begin to dwarf. “Thanks for joining the study,” Yifan says, his hand extending towards Sehun. “You are exactly who we’re looking for.”
“I am?” Sehun asks weakly. He looks down at himself. White shirt tucked into black slacks, black socks, black Oxford shoes. Perfect sense. Perfectly normal. He lifts his vision up up up to Yifan’s eyes quizzically.
“Yeah,” Lu Han elaborates, “We’ve found everyone we need. Just camping out in the engineering school for the freaks. I mean, geeks.” At the slightly offended look on Sehun’s face, he corrects himself, “Erm, Greeks.” The offended look morphs into one of confusion. “It rhymes,” Lu Han explains and Sehun isn’t sure if he’s following the right thread of logic (if it even exists). He shakes his head at Yifan’s hand. “I’m sorry but, no.”
“Hi!” A hand that is not Sehun’s takes Yifan’s outstretched hand. All three of them turn to Chanyeol who’s grinning manically. “What’s your name? This seems really interesting. I would love to join you. What’s your name again? You’re taller than me. Aww.”
“Yellow,” Yifans mutters lowly, hand still being jerked around by Chanyeol. “I don’t handle Yellows,” he says to Lu Han who’s about to speak but ends up getting interrupted.
“You can call me Yeolo,” Chanyeol smiles. Suggestively. Yifan immediately disengages his hand, in case the happy virus is contagious. Even Lu Han has a creeped-out look on his face now. Very nice.
“Maybe next time,” Yifan replies stoically. Because he knows there will not be a ‘next time’.
Sehun closes his eyes and tries to logic himself out of this. He is a fruit. He is a soursop. He has no feelings. He has no embarrassing Chanyeol friends. He is heartless, mindless, no one who car-
“Welcome?” Lu Han disrupts Sehun’s fruitilization. He waves the flyer playfully in Sehun’s face. The disturbance causes Sehun to blink rapidly and take a step back. Lu Han is immediately contrite; he offers an impish smile as apology. Sehun blinks some more. Lu Han’s smile glows and everything suddenly starts to twinkle; the particles in the air sparkle like stardust.
Twinkling stardust?
Hmm?
Sehun purses his lips. But at least he has stopped shaking his head.
★
While they’re on their way to the School of Psychology the next day, Sehun watches Chanyeol rummage around in his bag and sees a wad of tissue falls out from it. “You are vile,” he spits out because he knows that’s the tissue that Chanyeol used to stick his gum in during the Fluids Dynamic lecture three days ago. “Throw it away!” he exclaims when Chanyeol just picks the tissue up and stuffs it back into his bag.
“Life is too short to care so much about trash, Sehun,” Chanyeol says very philosophically. He pets his Sehun’s back as if to ensure that the idea sinks into Sehun’s hygienic soul. With great reluctance, Sehun allows himself to be petted by filthy Chanyeol. “I don’t think we have time for this, actually. Too much coursework. We have three tutorials in a row tomorrow and work on weekends. Have you even done your reading?” he asks when they reach the lab.
“No,” Chanyeol replies regretfully, “but Yifan is hot!” he continues brightly as if that seals it and pushes the door open to the lab open. Sehun follows him in and sighs heavily when he sees yet another multi-colored brain framed and hung up onto the white wall of the lab. Whatever happened to nice normal pink brains?
“Hi!” Lu Han bounces over when he catches sight of them. He places a hand on Sehun’s shoulder. “I thought you wouldn’t be coming,” he cheers. His hand slides down Sehun’s shoulder to grip his bicep in an easy manner. Too easy. Sehun stares at Lu Han’s hand. Since when did it become OK to touch strangers? Sehun’s eyes flit over to Chanyeol to perhaps share a look of WTF that’s only shared between friends, when he sees that his buddy has already wiggled over to Yifan’s side on the lab bench and his hand is most certainly resting on Yifan’s thigh.
Sehun ends up sharing a look of WTF with Yifan instead.
“Come on,” Lu Han says, hand now on Sehun’s back as he leads him into his seat. Sehun is too polite to shrug it off, but that doesn’t mean Lu Han hasn’t violated his code of prim and proper conduct. “All the volunteers have to sit through a test.”
“What test?” Sehun asks warily. He doesn’t like the feeling of being unprepared.
But all Lu Han says is, “I bet you’re Blue.” He smiles to Sehun and pats his back in a reassuring manner. His touch only causes Sehun’s scowl to deepen.
★
Sehun ends up being Blue. The research company’s staff is going through the Whole Brain Thinking test results with the student volunteers. Lu Han assigns himself to Sehun because ‘we already know each other anyway’. Sehun likes to think that he has more complex definitions to the word ‘friend’.
“Being predominantly blue means you’re a logical person, all facts, no fluff. You’re analytical, rational, efficient and unemotional.” Lu Han does a bit of nose-wrinkling at the last word and Sehun feels vaguely insulted. “You’re result-focused and realistic. Do you agree?” Lu Han asks, pencil poised over Sehun’s test results, ready to scribble down his words.
“Before I comment, I need to know the basis of this test, how the results are tabulated and the percentage error involved.”
“OK,” Lu Han says seriously and nods in agreement. But Sehun spies him scribbling ‘test results affirmative’ onto the paper.
“Eh,” he protests. Lu Han grins cheekily as a form of diversion of sorts. It works. Sehun’s eyes dart around in confusion for a while and his hand makes a meaningless swipe at the air. Eventually he settles for averting his eyes and studying the paint cracks in the lab’s ceiling.
“Heh. It doesn’t mean you fit entirely into this scope. Your secondary color is Green. In addition to being logical, you’re a planner, you pay attention to details and you like to follow procedures.” Tilting his head to the right, Lu Han muses, “You’re lacking in the emotions department, aren’t you? But no worries, this is not a tool to gauge your personality, just how you prefer to think. So I’m sure you weep buckets in movie theatres too.”
“What type are you?” Sehun asks self-defensively.
“Your type.”
Before Sehun could even muster an appropriate facial expression (one which would explicitly express something like, ‘Go away, gross human’), Lu Han chimes, “Kidding!”
Sehun could only stare. Lu Han is outrageous.
“Hmm,” Lu Han mutters, resting his chin on a hand. “I’m mainly Red. It means I’m expressive, sensitive, talkative, playful.” At this, Lu Han gives Sehun a small kick beneath the table as if to prove a point. He chuckles when Sehun flinches and withdraws his legs. “I also like the personal touch. My secondary color is Yellow. So I’m also someone who gets major headaches from Math, a risk-taker, a rule-breaker, somewhat unpredictable, ho-hum~” Lu Han ends off with a bit of a tune.
“Test results affirmative,” Sehun folds his arms and declares self-importantly.
Lu Han laughs loudly. He leans forward, reaches across the table they’re seated at and slaps Sehun’s forearm lightly in reprimand. His hand remains on Sehun’s forearm while he continues to giggle. Mischievous little imp.
Very slowly, Sehun withdraws his tingling arm and starts frowning again.
“OK, I get it,” Lu Han sighs remorsefully, putting both his hands up, “no more touching.” But the cheeky grin never left his face. “So, back to business. Brain thinking tends to evolve over the years due to aging and changes in the environment. It’s likely our colors will shift at one point or another. Who we interact with might also influence the way we think. The objective of this study is to determine what happens over time when two extremes interact. So we will split up into pairs and have dates-“
“Dates?” Sehun repeats. Excessive social interaction with other humans? No.
“Kidding!” Lu Han trills. “Interactive sessions, I mean. Vocabulary, so tricky,” he grins, stopping only when he realizes he’s the only one laughing. “Can you please relax?” he sighs again.
“What?” Sehun says blankly. “I’m relaxed. I just don’t find you funny. Can I pair up with Chanyeol? We’re opposites, trust me.”
For a moment, Lu Han looks like he just swallowed a volcano. “Fine,” he sputters eventually, choosing not to erupt, “anyway, students will pair up with the staff. A professional will have to be present to log the interactions. That means, me,” Lu Han says, index finger pointing to himself, “and you,” he continues, now planting his finger onto Sehun’s chest, “so much fun.” Then he pauses for a while before continuing to jab Sehun. “Dude, you’re scrawny.”
No more touching. Right. OK. Of course.
Sehun looks at the finger poking him in the chest and pushes Lu Han’s hand aside. “You’re scrawnier.”
“Fiercer than you think, Sehun, fiercer than you think,” Lu Han sings. Sehun has no idea what he means and for once, he prefers to stay in the unknown.
★
Chanyeol is so Yellow, it’s mortifying. Sehun finally understands why Chanyeol sometimes insists on watching late night movies when they have finals the next day (“Might as well, Sehun. From 0 to 59, the grade is still F.”), why he sometimes tear up instruction manuals that Sehun treasures like tiny bibles (“They make me doubt my intelligence.” “You don’t have any.” “No wonder.”) and why he’s never, ever on time (“A watch? What’s that. Is it a phoenix.”).
Well. It’s time for improvement.
“You’re late!” Chanyeol exclaims when he sees Sehun the next day after classes.
“No, we are late. I’m just later than you,” Sehun clarifies.
“You’re never late,” Chanyeol pouts and bumps Sehun’s shoulders. They proceed to walk to the lab.
“Thanks to the test, I’ve realized that you’re just never going to be on time, Chanyeol. You’re also going to be disgusting and filthy for the rest of your life, it’s in your brain,” Sehun says with utter conviction. “So I averaged out the minutes you’re usually late for and added it to our original meet-up time,” Sehun admits, “I’m sorry I’m a bit off the first time but I’ll improve.”
“Can you please be normal?” Chanyeol begs.
“Can you please stop touching Yifan?” Sehun counter-pleas. His friend is so embarrassing. He wants to bury Chanyeol alive and sit on his grave to make sure he doesn’t crawl out every time he sees the look on Yifan’s face when they near.
“I’m just a friendly person,” Chanyeol retorts.
“That’s molest, Chanyeol. In some countries, you get stoned for doing that,” Sehun says sternly. In a great show of defiance, Chanyeol begins whistling joyously. His ridiculousness forcefully reminds Sehun of someone else. Consciously, he lifts a hand to his shoulder and exhales a sigh of relief when he confirms that there’s only his hand there. Hands-free shoulders are so nice.
“Sehun!” Someone pounces onto his back. He screams a little and scoots over to Chanyeol. Lu Han and Chanyeol stare at him. “I was thinking Deep Thoughts.” Sehun elaborates when he has calmed down sufficiently. “Please don’t do this again,” he says earnestly to Lu Han.
For some reason, Lu Han looks over to Chanyeol as if he could offer a better explanation.
Chanyeol studies Lu Han. “Sehun’s sensitive,” he finally deduces, one hand coming down on Lu Han’s shoulders as if to assure him of the fact.
“…to what?” Lu Han asks, a careful eye on Chanyeol’s hand. Sure, Lu Han’s a little way off the normal scale. But Chanyeol.
Chanyeol is clearly insane.
“Cute.”
“Oh, you think I’m cute,” Lu Han says to Sehun.
“I have never,” Sehun gapes at the two of them. Troublemakers. Chanyeol merely grins and shrugs.
“Kidding!” Lu Han choruses and Chanyeol chortles. This Lu Han seems OK. He holds out his hand. Lu Han looks at him skeptically, but eventually says, “Oh, well”, and slaps him a five. They smile at each other.
“Let’s go,” Lu Han says and tugs on Sehun’s backpack. “Go to the lab, Yeolo. Yifan is waiting for you.” Chanyeol needs no further persuasion. When Sehun turns his head, he has already faded into a tragic black speck in the far distance.
“Where are we going?” asks Sehun as he reaches up to brush his fringe to the side. In reality, he’s just hoping the move will dislodge Lu Han’s hand on his arm. It didn’t.
“To the supermart, I need to get groceries,” Lu Han replies.
“Is this your so-called interactive sessions?” Sehun asks incredulously. He has been looking forward to something much more intellectual.
“Every situation needs a fancy name,” Lu Han clarifies.
“I have homework, bye,” Sehun mutters and starts to walk off in the opposite direction.
“You’re going to get points for this, you know that?”
Extra academic points? Lotte might like that. “I want cereal,” Sehun sniffs and trails after Lu Han.
★
Sehun watches Lu Han pick up yet another packet of chips. “You don’t need any more of those,” he quips before returning to studying the nutritional table of the chips he’s holding. “They are cardiac arrest inducing,” he comments and removes a packet from Lu Han’s trolley. The bag of cheddar & sour cream flavored chips is put back to its rightful place beside the tomato flavored ones.
“Hey!” Lu Han grabs the chips and places it back into the trolley. “I like cardiac arrests,” he snips at Sehun who shakes his head and proceeds to check out the cereal on the opposite shelf. “You’re going to die at forty in your sleep,” he says sensibly.
“Consuming this ambrosia? Gladly,” Lu Han sneers and drops the packet of chips into his trolley. While he smirks at Sehun, he decides to throw two more bags of Cheetos down. Then he turns his nose up at Sehun. ‘And what are you going to do about that, huh.’ is what Lu Han’s face is saying right now. Shrugging, Sehun picks up a box of whole grain cereal.
“Put that box of cardboard back on the shelf, Sehun,” Lu Han warns.
“You’re ridiculous,” Sehun says, just a note of weariness in his voice when he turns to face Lu Han.
To his surprise, Lu Han lets out a peal of laughter. “I am,” he concedes, a smile taking over his face. Something in the air starts glimmering again. Sehun repeats his head-shaking and scowls. He concentrates harder on the nutritional table of the cereal.
“Do you have to analyze cereal nutritional information too? I’m sure all ugly-tasting foods are healthy,” Lu Han says, turning a delicious packet of chips over too. Fifteen pieces of chips set a greedy person back ten grams of fat. That means a bag of chips would contain….who cares? Lu Han recalls that he’s skinny and really bad at Math, so he throws the chips back into the trolley.
“Fiber is important,” Sehun mutters.
“You’re weird,” Lu Han playfully imitates Sehun’s head-shaking.
Sehun is far less magnanimous than Lu Han. “Depends on who’s talking,” he retaliates but the corners of his mouth begin to curl up too. He doesn’t know what smiley disease Lu Han is suffering from, but it’s kind of contagious.
“Oh dear, you’re smiling. Are you feeling unwell?” Lu Han places a hand on Sehun’s forehead only to have it swatted away. “Kidding! I like your smile,” Lu Han says. He pokes two fingers at the corners of Sehun’s mouth and tug. “Much better,” he beams at his work. Lu Han’s eyes thin into crescents, soft lines fan out beneath his eyes and his stretched lips are a shade of pink lighter than usual. There are stars in his eyes.
Lu Han is adorable.
Sehun blinks wide-eyed in the face of that smile and quickly steps back until his back meets the shelf. Humming, Lu Han just resumes shopping for calorie-laden food.
Looking at Lu Han’s back, Sehun’s thoughts scatter in all directions. ‘I like your smile too’ but ‘Stop smiling at me like that’, and tell me, ‘Why are you so perplexing’. But of course, his brain-to-mouth filter is operating at its usual efficiency.
★
Chanyeol is sad. Or so he claims to be. While he’s chugging down half a pecan tart. “I’m too sad for my part-time job,” he mumbles, crumbs still hanging on for dear life at the side of his lips.
“Stop eating that tart, Chanyeol, it’s for sales,” Sehun chastises as he gently places the egg tarts that’s fresh from the oven onto the display case.
“Does it not matter to you that I’m dying?” Chanyeol dramatizes over several bites of tart. In a fit of emotional outburst, he grabs a cranberry scone from a nearby tray and bites down on it. “Are our years of friendship not worth anything?” He emotes and spits out scone bits.
“Don’t talk to me when you’re eating,” Sehun rebukes.
“Why is he so cruel?” Chanyeol cries into his orange bowtie. A couple of girls enter the bakery.
“Welcom-“ Sehun begins but is interrupted.
“We’re closed,” Chanyeol announces very firmly. He glares and takes another bite of the scone in what he perceives to be a threatening manner (it is not. Chanyeol is a puppy. He likes tickles and giggles).
“We’re so opened for business,” Sehun bestows upon the girls a professional smile and they begin to mumble excitedly among themselves.
“He never smiles to me like that,” Chanyeol says sadly to himself and helps himself to the princess cake that he knows is reserved for a customer. He is sad. Sad people have more rights to cakes.
“OK, I’m listening,” Sehun says when the girls finally leave.
“I’m never talking to you again,” Chanyeol sulks and turns so that his back is facing Sehun.
“That’s fine with me too,” shrugs Sehun. He wipes down the counter.
“Yifan doesn’t like me!” Chanyeol whips around and whines. With his persuasive powers, Chanyeol has managed to get himself paired with Yifan but the latter always goes running when he sees him.
“That’s not surprising. No one likes to be fondled with without permission,” Sehun says. He’s so reasonable that Chanyeol wants to slap him with a mango Danish. Without a care for anything Chanyeol-ish in this world, Sehun re-arranges the cakes in the display case. His friend is unable to differentiate black forests from chocolate mousse. ‘No one cares, alright, they are all brown,’ Chanyeol defended himself when Sehun first pointed this out to him.
“I had been looking forward to sympathy,” Chanyeol grimaces. Then he thinks back on Sehun’s advice. “I have to ask for permission to touch people?” Chanyeol side-eyes him. Sehun side-eyes Chanyeol back. They side-eye each other.
Chanyeol really does seem kind of sad, which is rare because he is usually stupid-happy. So Sehun decides to be kind. “Yifan is Green, Chanyeol. You have to get to him step by step,” Sehun analyses Chanyeol’s love situation while he shuffles the cakes, “first, you become friends. No, wait. First, stop touching him. Next, act normal, please, society likes it. Then you get to know him better. After which you ask him out on dates. And if things go smoothly…whatever happens next, please, never let me know.”
“But Yifan has such nice legs,” Chanyeol utters regretfully, “his thighs.” His fingers flutter in thin air as if they were recalling thigh feelings.
“Are you listening?” Sehun stands, arms akimbo.
Chanyeol’s fingers stop waving and he gives Sehun a grave nod. Satisfied, Sehun busies himself with the cakes again. “What about you and cutie pie?” Chanyeol suddenly asks.
Sehun pauses in his rearrangement of brown cakes. “He’s…” Chanyeol watches with great interest as Sehun straightens up from the display case and his hands grapple thin air as if he’s sifting through invisible vocabulary for the suitable word. “…illogical,” Sehun finally coughs out. Then he puckers his brows and shakes his head as if displeased with that word. He begins to wrestle with air again. After a minute of this, Sehun just sighs and looks tired. “I don’t know.”
This is the most expressive Sehun that Chanyeol has ever seen. “Wow. You’ve just exhausted a year’s worth of facial expressions,” marvels Chanyeol, “better save some for Christmas.”
“I don’t know,” he repeats with resignation. “I don’t know him at all. He likes seven sachets of creamer and four cubes of sugar in his tea, when I warned him about diabetes, he actually went ‘Tcht!’ at me. I looked at his logbook for this study and the only entry goes, ‘OK!’. What the hell does that even mean? I offered writing the observations for him, because, you know, I need something substantial to back my participation in this. But he accused me of invading his privacy. Those logs are supposed to be about me. And he is such a skinship monster. You know how much I hate it when people I don’t know well touch me.” No one likes to be fondled with without permission, but I don’t even dislike his touches that much. They just make me feel really nervous and it’s this perpetual sense of confusion that really gets under my skin, is what Sehun thinks but doesn’t say.
“He doesn’t make sense at all,” Sehun complains, “and there’s all this…” As a mean of completing his sentence, Sehun flings his arms around his head as if swatting away swarms of flies.
Or clouds of shimmering stardust.
“Yes, I get it,” Chanyeol nods knowingly, “despite years of my brave attempts, in the end, it only takes one Lu Han to drive you mad.”
Sehun pelts him with cream puffs.
★
“I have a make-up lecture scheduled right now,” Sehun says to Lu Han when they meet the next day outside his lecture hall, “you might have to-“
“Sure! I have nothing on anyway,” Lu Han interjects and Sehun’s ‘-leave right now’ suffers a painful untimely death somewhere in his throat. He doesn’t want Lu Han in near proximity so he manipulates their seating arrangement such that Chanyeol is seated between them. Lu Han gives Chanyeol a weird look. He returns him an even weirder look, ‘I don’t want this either, ‘kay, do I even look like I’d enjoy you’.
Sehun is wholly focused on the highly boring topic of diodes when he hears a loud yawn. He glances over to his right and sees Lu Han plopped down onto the lecture table with a piteous look on his face. When Lu Han realizes that he finally has Sehun’s attention, he pouts. “Poor baby,” Chanyeol coos darlingly beside him and strokes Lu Han’s head.
Lu Han bats his hand away with a nasty snarl. Chanyeol jumps back in his seat. Dear God, this cute tiny Chihuahua bites.
Sehun ignores the pile of nonsense beside him and turns back. The next second though, his lecture notes are stolen away from him. “What,” he gasps at Lu Han who starts scribbling on his notes with Chanyeol’s pencil. Instead of snatching his pencil back, Chanyeol just peers over Lu Han’s shoulder to see what he’s writing. Fact: Shenanigans are always more important than whatever your teacher is talking about.
Sehun is a lost leaf caught up in a typhoon without his lecture notes. He panics for about five seconds before his notes are shoved back in his face. Staring at it, he forgets about anodes and cathodes and asks Lu Han, “What is this?” he whispers harshly and points to the drawing smack in the middle of his notes, right beside a diagram depicting the I-V characteristics of a p-n junction diode.
“Of course that’s a bunny,” Lu Han says with exasperation. “This is a pencil, I am Lu Han, that’s a bunny.”
“This is not a bunny,” Sehun states matter-of-factly.
“Yes, it is.”
“You cannot unilaterally decide for the world what a bunny looks like,” Sehun says very firmly.
“You know what. He’s right.” Chanyeol has to agree with Sehun.
“Why can’t I,” Lu Han frowns at Sehun.
“Um, yeah, why can’t he?” Chanyeol swivels back to Sehun and asks.
No one speaks for a while as Sehun and Lu Han take time out to shoot fierce looks at each other.
“Guys, I know how to draw a proper bunny. See, first, you draw the ears-” Chanyeol breaks the silence and doodles on his notes.
“Shut up, Chanyeol,” Sehun snaps.
“Yeah, no one cares about your bunny.” Lu Han follows closely behind.
Someone sitting in the row in front of them turns back. “I care,” Kyungsoo says to Chanyeol. Sehun decides to keep quiet. Chanyeol might be weird but Kyungsoo is…special. That’s another level he has no desire to explore.
“Thank you,” Chanyeol smiles fondly at Kyungsoo. He pats his head twice in gratitude.
“Da,” Kyungsoo chirps before turning back to the lecturer.
“Ugly bunny,” Sehun says to Chanyeol’s drawing when Kyungsoo has faded out of the conversation.
“Fact,” Lu Han nods his head. Sehun lifts an eyebrow at him.
“Why are you suddenly on his side?” Chanyeol accuses Lu Han.
“Because he’s my favorite,” Lu Han replies innocently. Chanyeol’s head turns rapidly from left to right and then back again as he alternates between Lu Han’s smug face and Sehun’s semi-horrified expression. Something’s been going on and he’s not in the loop. This is wrong.
Sehun ignores Chanyeol’s urgent look of ‘Tell Me. Tell Me. Everything’ and says faintly to Lu Han, “Kidding?”
Lu Han takes a while to think this over before he leans across until he’s approximately half-a-Chanyeol away from Sehun. “Maybe,” he says softly and flippantly into Sehun’s face. Then he moves back to his seat and hums a lovely tune. Chanyeol pokes Sehun but the latter has already transformed into a soursop.
“Can I change my seat already,” Chanyeol says with a dead voice. The aisle looks like a lovely place to park his butt right now. Or the opening of a bubbling volcano. That precarious spot that leads right off the edge of the world. The entrance of the White House with a fake toy gun.
Anywhere but smack in the middle of subtle flirtation.
★
Nothing peculiar happens the next day and Sehun is grateful for mundanity. He’s sitting in the lab doing his tutorial with Lu Han across him, writing on his logbook with a puzzled look on his face. Perfect.
OK, so Lu Han is looking extra cute today because, apple hair, why. But as we know, Sehun is pretty good at pretending to be very blind too. So he supposes that’s torment on a manageable scale.
Even Chanyeol is acting sane. He’s sitting in the bench in front with Yifan who decides Chanyeol is normal enough to sit with today. With a dumb grin, Chanyeol flashes Sehun a secret victory sign. Sehun flashes him a serious one back. Then he notices Yifan glaring at the side of Chanyeol’s head. His hand is already stretched out but he quickly takes it back when he sees Sehun looking over. Yifan looks slightly abashed at getting caught. But, Yifan? Shy? Nay. Pigs cannot fly, Yifan cannot shy. Twisting his lips, Sehun goes back to working on his tutorial.
The peace is broken minutes later when someone walks up to them. “Hello,” Jongin says, “I’m from the neighboring lab. We’re looking for people to try out a list of mental age test questions. Do you want to?“
“Yes!” Lu Han shouts and flings the offending logbook away. Jongin smiles and looks at the troubled-looking Sehun. “Won’t take you more than five minutes,” he says reassuringly.
Jongin is a motherfff!ing liar. A hundred questions and half an hour later, they find themselves standing in Jongin’s lab holding their test results.
“What’s your mental age?” Chanyeol asks Sehun.
“Eighty-nine,” Sehun twists his lips. Something is wrong with this test.
“Oh, Sehun,” Chanyeol clutches his results to his chest and whispers dramatically, “you shouldn’t be alive!”
“Yes, I really care about your opinion,” Sehun says without emotion. He flips Chanyeol his eye whites. Then he refocuses his gaze on Chanyeol again. There’s a tiny bit of leaf caught in his hair. Right by the side of his head, just above the ear. Sehun shoots Yifan a questioning look. But Yifan simply ignores him. “You?” Yifan asks Lu Han who has been fairly quiet, which is something rather unusual.
“What?” Lu Han looks up hurriedly from his result slip. “Oh, thirty.” There’s a tight smile on his face. Sehun looks at Chanyeol. Chanyeol looks at Yifan. “He’s lying,” Yifan speaks for everyone. There’s a murmur of consensus.
“Oy,“ Lu Han protests.
“How old?” Sehun asks again when they’re back in their lab.
“I’m a mature and responsible adult,” Lu Han says instead. Then, “Twelve,” he admits grudgingly, fingers reaching up to play with the adorable tuff of hair on his head. Sehun wants to throw things and scream at him to stop.
Instead, he clears his throat like the sane eighty-nine year old he is. “Look, if you were a mature and responsible twenty-two year old, you wouldn’t go around looking like an apple,” Sehun gestures to his head, “and you shouldn’t be wearing a tee with a deer on it,” he points to the atrocious headphone-wearing creature printed on Lu Han’s T-shirt.
“But I have natural curls, it’s neater if I tie my hair up,” Lu Han says, picking at the blue rubber band. Sehun suppresses bubbling hysteria and makes a tiny sound that Lu Han thinks might be disapproval.
“Not cute?” Lu Han asks, tugging on his tee and looking down at it.
“Yes, yes” Sehun finally surrenders, throwing up his hands in defeat, “you look adorable,” he says miserably.
Lu Han lifts his head up very slowly. “I was asking about the tee,” he corrects Sehun. His voice is so clear that Sehun can’t even feign temporary deafness. He looks like a rat caught with cheese in its cheeks.
Thankfully, Lu Han just continues playing with his hair. “This is called 揪揪 in Chinese,” he says, out of nowhere, twirling his hair with his fingers.
Sehun ogles at him wordlessly.
“Repeat after me,” Lu Han says, “Jiu Jiu.” His pink mouth puckers as he draws out the pronunciation.
“What? No. No, I refuse to repeat after you.” Sehun is mentally exhausted. What more does Lu Han want from him?
“Say it or you’re not getting your extra points,” Lu Han threatens lightly.
Sitting up straight, Sehun says, “Of course I’m getting my points, I’ve been actively participating in this…” He wants to say ‘study’, but honestly, Sehun isn’t sure what he has been doing with Lu Han all this while. It just involves him being nervous and exasperated and maybe, well, happy. “…thing,” he eventually decides.
Lu Han sits up too. He tilts his small chin and looks pointedly at Sehun.
Fine. Whatever. “Jiu jiu, alright there! Jiu jiu! Are you happy now.” Sehun gives up on himself.
Laughing aloud, Lu Han explains, “Jiu jiu is synonymous with bobo in Chinese.”
Sehun gapes at him. “Oh dear God. What have you done.” His voice sounds oddly strangled.
“Defiling you, that’s all,” Lu Han smiles devilishly. “Oh, you’re so cute, Sehun.”
So Sehun proceeds to plant his face onto Electronics Fundamentals: Circuits, Devices, and Applications (6th Edition) and decides to be sad forever.
★