growl [exo]
title: growl {girlsau}
author: himawarixxsandz
rating: nc-17
pairing(s): xiuhan
summary: luhan's research
a/n: ideally, the last part of you're here would've been up before summer ends for me but that's just not gonna happen. i will finish it, but it's just a really slow burning thing right now i'm sorry. and i wanted to get this up before i left tmrw evening because i probably won't be posting for a good few months while i adjust to higher education. so bye for now! danie is off to higher education in colder places :3 (yes also im taking huge literary liberties with korean high school ok modu da fiction fiction fiction)
Getting caught engaging in unwholesome activities on the student council president’s bed by the student council president, Luhan has learned, actually makes for a decent icebreaker. Junmyeon is easy to talk to and there’s no better person to ask for advice in how to adapt to the school-there’s no one who knows the ins and outs of the administration better than the school president. And Luhan finds that as long as he doesn’t expressly state his intentions to skirt the rules, Junmyeon has no problems with accommodating those rule-bending needs. In spite of the fact that Junmyeon refuses to drink until he’s graduated and cleanly of age, the president actually isn’t quite as lame as Minseok had made him out to be.
“She said I’m lame?” Junmyeon’s voice goes high enough that the teacher looks up from where she’s punching the attendance into the system.
When Luhan and Junmyeon have quietly ducked their heads down in apology low enough for the teacher to be satisfied, Luhan taps his pencil against the desk and says, consolingly, “Just a little.”
Junmyeon makes a face, his disgruntled gaze making its way towards where Minseok is seated in the cluster of desks near the window. Their math class is always opened with going through last night’s problems in assigned pairs and writing the few that they had trouble with on the board. Wufan was pulled into an odd group of three, but Luhan and Junmyeon are paired together while Minseok is with Yixing. And as much as Luhan likes Yixing the way Luhan likes all of the exchange students he’s living with, he doesn’t like how Yixing and Minseok are laughing with their faces a little too close together.
Early morning calculus isn’t supposed to be that fun.
“I’m not lame,” Junmyeon mutters defensively, and Luhan tries to look understanding and convinced as the other boy stabs his finger at the keys of his calculator.
Luhan flips to the back of his textbook for the answers, propping his chin against his free hand. “Anyway,” he says, because there are more pressing matters in this life than Kim Junmyeon’s self-esteem. “Does Minseok have a lot of guy friends?”
Junmyeon looks up from his calculator. The look he gives Luhan is nothing short of withering. “Are you a guy?” Junmyeon asks.
Luhan blinks. “Yeah,” he answers because he’s fairly certain he is.
“D’you want to put your face up her skirt?” Junmyeon taps his pencil irritably.
“I mean-”
“There’s your answer,” Junmyeon concludes, “because so does everyone else with a penis in the school.” He tilts his head, frowning to himself. “Almost everyone with a penis.”
It’s Luhan’s turn to frown now. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Junmyeon smiles faintly and points, with the tip of his eraser, to where Minseok is following Yixing’s line of equations intently with her eyes as the boy explains quietly how he got his answer. “Yixing has a penis,” Junmyeon says factually, like he’s the nice anatomy teacher that Luhan always sees eating kimbap for breakfast in the mornings, “but he doesn’t want to put his face up Minseok’s skirt.” And then the president pats Luhan on the shoulder. “So stop being creepy and staring at them.”
Luhan stares at Junmyeon’s face for long enough that Junmyeon breaks the gaze and continues with correcting last night’s problem set. But Luhan still hasn’t finished processing and goes on staring distantly at Yixing and Minseok before he finally gets it and pops up to his feet, palms slammed down on his work and none too softly shouts, “You’re gay?”
Everyone in the class looks at him.
“Detention,” the teacher says brightly, pointing her pen at Luhan, “for disrupting the class and be thankful I’m not making it a week’s worth for the addition of being inappropriate and personal, Luhan-ah.”
With the way the rest of the class continues on quietly chatting about the newest episode of that hospital drama and discussing the harder word problems from last night, Luhan, as he’s tugged back down by Junmyeon, concludes that it must be general knowledge amongst the third years. Yixing has been at this school since he was a first year, after all. No one even pays Luhan any more attention except for Junmyeon who’s looking at Luhan warily as if Luhan will stand up again and announce that Junmyeon has a secret third eye embedded into his left foot, and Wufan, who has the oddest expression on his face before he catches Luhan staring back and the other boy quickly looks away.
Yixing didn’t even seem to turn in Luhan’s direction, more engaged in Minseok whispering something into his ear that’s bringing the boy’s dimples out in full.
“Are you sure he’s gay?” Luhan hisses at Junmyeon.
“Shut up and tell me what you got for seventy-six,” Junmyeon sighs.
At the end of first period, Minseok passes by Luhan packing up his things and pats him on the head. “Have fun in detention,” she singsongs ruthlessly and links arms with a miserable vice-president, suggesting that they walk together today to the second period history that they share. Luhan looks after her and Wufan’s backs with the kind of longing that makes him wish he was a hummingbird so he could stab Wufan in the eye with his beak and then fly away unharmed.
Luhan has just swung his backpack over his shoulder when Yixing arrives at his desk, nearly ready to follow the rest of their classmates out the door. “Was Junmyeon the one who told you?” Yixing asks in Mandarin, the way they all do when talking amongst each other even in school.
“Wh-yeah,” Luhan says when he realizes what Yixing is referring to. “Sorry-if you didn’t want me to know-”
Yixing shakes his head, the corners of his lips quirking up lightly. “I don’t care. It doesn’t b-”
Luhan shakes his own head quickly. “I don’t care,” he echoes and returns the smile that he knew was beginning to tug at Yixing’s lips. He realizes this is the first time he’s really talked to Yixing since Luhan’s arrived in Korea. The other boy is always so quiet both at school and at the house-and they don’t have that many periods together either.
Dimples. Really pretty dimples that have Luhan wondering who Yixing’s boyfriend must be because it’s just not possible that he’s single. “I hear you like Minseok,” Yixing says, and his eyes crinkle in amusement in addition to the dimples.
“Walk with me to bio,” Luhan says, slinging an arm around Yixing’s neck. “You have to tell me about what she was whispering to you in great detail.”
Yixing laughs.
In a perfect world, Luhan thinks, Kim Jongin would be unattractive and a douchebag and Kim Minseok would want nothing to do with the first year when he sneaks into the cafeteria during a lunch period that’s definitely not Jongin’s own with a five-minute pass in his hand-doing that thing that all first years did, thinking they were so badass, and ditched class under the guise of going to the bathroom. In a perfect world, Jongin definitely would not have stopped by their table, one arm slung over Kyungsoo’s shoulder and the other bringing Minseok’s cheek to the first year’s full lips.
Luhan sits on the opposite and one seat down from Wufan who had taken the seat across from Minseok. Right next to Luhan’s ear, Wufan sighs. “He’s not her boyfriend,” Wufan says under his breath in Mandarin, rolling his eyes. “So unclench and finish your bean sprouts.”
“I know,” Luhan whispers back. “And I am not clenching.”
Across the table, Jongin has somehow slipped into Minseok’s seat with Minseok in his lap, and Kyungsoo has somehow roped the first year into listening to the second year’s report on how his new breed of ferns have been adapting to their new growing station. Jongin, much like Luhan had glimpsed at the party before-well-things happened-is the perfect listener, the perfect conversation partner. He somehow laughs at all the right moments (how funny misread soil densities are) and look like he’s intently engaged as if there’s just no limit to how intently engaging root absorption rates can be.
All through that, Jongin has his tanned, slender-muscled arms around Minseok’s waist as she curls in his lap, a bag of mini strawberry cookies in her hands. She feeds Jongin five cookies for every two she pops into her own mouth.
“So, Kyungsoo-ah,” Luhan says, because he’s going to engage himself intently into this conversation like the forward thinker that he is, “how much do you water your new ferns a day?”
Kyungsoo stops then, abruptly and in mid-sentence with his chopsticks still holding a piece of potato that’s clearly on a one-way trip to his mouth. He and Jongin both round on Luhan, and Luhan hopes he’s just imagining Yixing and Wufan burying their faces away to hide the laughter. The silence that falls upon the table is just a little disconcerting, mildly deafening. Kyungsoo looks fairly offended, decently insulted, and it’s only when Minseok reaches out and pats his hand with her fingers (pale blue nails today with tiny pink dots on the ring finger nails) that he finishes his simmering glower at Luhan’s confused expression.
Jongin’s face is all sorts of amused as Kyungsoo spares Luhan one last disapproving glare before he turns back and continues his declaration of bravely changing additives for his fourth fern. Minseok is now looking at Luhan with an entirely different brand of amusement as she holds out the bag of cookies towards him. “Want one?” she asks, and her tone is laced with laughter.
Luhan’s hand is just dipping into the bag when Jongin looks over while Kyungsoo is momentarily preoccupied with chewing an oversized chunk of potato from his stew. “Noona,” Jongin frowns, eyeing the cookies and then Luhan. “I thought you were giving the rest to me-I don’t have lunch for another three periods.”
Luhan seriously contemplates the repercussions of taking his bowl of boiling stew and pouring it over the first year’s head.
“He’s just taking one,” Minseok says, as Luhan finishes the motion of pulling out a single, lonely pink cookie. “There’s still a lot left.”
“Can I have one more?” Luhan asks, once he’s swallowed the first one, minimizing the risk of Jongin somehow taking it back. He looks from Minseok’s face to Jongin’s-and the first year’s expression shifts from a simple frown to furrowed eyebrows completely directed at Luhan. There’s something in Jongin’s gaze that’s sizing Luhan up and the third year meets the other boy’s eyes head on, blinking unassumingly.
Minseok is still chewing on a cookie herself and holds the bag out to Luhan again. “Help yourself,” she says, motioning with her free hand at Kyungsoo to bring her bottle of water closer.
“Noona!” Jongin says loudly, visibly squeezing his arms around her. “You want me to starve?”
Minseok turns in his arms just enough to glance at him. “Don’t be a baby, Kim Jongin,” she says, kissing his cheek. Once Luhan’s grabbed a second cookie, she rolls up the bag’s opening and places it in her lap. “Okay,” she announces, looking around at the table, “no more. These are Jonginie’s.”
Smug is the only way to describe the look that Jongin gives Luhan as the first year sets Minseok back into her seat, another kiss on her cheek before he takes the bag of cookies and strides out of the cafeteria to head back to his class. Yixing, with all of his trash already gathered onto his plate, swings his backpack over his shoulder and follows Jongin’s path with a short detour around the disposal belt. “Library,” he says with a brief smile and waves as he leaves.
His seat is only unoccupied for a minute before tall, unsteady, and flailing is sliding in on Wufan’s other side, slamming his thin arms down on the table and demanding, “Where’s Baekhyunie?”
The moment Chanyeol sits, Wufan stands. “I’m not here for this bullshit,” the vice-president snorts, tray balanced in one hand and backpack in the other.
“Hyung,” Chanyeol whines, as he watches Wufan get ready to leave. “Wait-”
But Wufan is already sliding his tray onto the belt and heading towards the front doors of the cafeteria. Luhan watches the other boy walk out and wonders if maybe he should’ve went with him to try and weasel out some of those lit answers. No doubt though, Wufan is probably headed for the student council room and even though Luhan has snuck in there before to hand Wufan back a paper or two, Junmyeon doesn’t particularly like it when the rule-bending happens in bright daylight on risky territory.
“Baekhyunie went to the nurse to sleep,” Kyungsoo says, answering Chanyeol.
Chanyeol slams his arms down again. “Damn it,” he mutters.
Park Chanyeol, from what Luhan has gleamed, is a second year like Baekhyun and Kyungsoo and if he’s not seen whacking unfortunate students who get too close to him in the halls unintentionally with his limbs, he’s whacking unfortunate students who walk behind him on days where he brings his guitar to school for after-school jazz band practice.
“Why d’you need her?” Minseok asks, as Chanyeol scoots in from Yixing’s seat to Wufan’s seat. This close, Luhan realizes that Chanyeol really is just about Wufan’s height only with none of the intimidation factor.
“Wanted to drop by her table,” Chanyeol says glumly, setting his chin in his folded arms on the tabletop. “That hot first year that she’s always dragging around to try and recruit for the squad.”
“Melting snow cone?” Minseok blinks. “Sehunie?”
There’s a first year that everyone in the school knows by sight even if not by name. Luhan saw her on the first day of school, a rainbow beacon making its way through the crowd of students in the hallway, expressionless and unperturbed by the stares she was getting because of her multi-colored hair. Since then, he supposes the administration had told her to do something about her hair or face consequences and now she’d opted for a less conspicuous pale blond that fell neatly into school guidelines. But everyone Luhan knew still referred to her as the melting snow cone, and until he found her name (he supposes he knows it now), she was a melting snow cone.
“Yeah, her,” Chanyeol says, stealing a piece of kimchi from Kyungsoo’s tray with his bare hands. He flops it around in the air, nearly spraying flecks of pepper onto Luhan’s cheek, before stuffing it into his mouth. “I’m going to be her boyfriend.”
Kyungsoo exchanges glances with Minseok. “You don’t know her,” Kyungsoo says.
“Why the fuck else d’you think I need Byun Baekhyun for?” Chanyeol’s tone clearly indicates who he thinks is really lacking foresight in this discussion as he stands back up and storms out of the cafeteria, but only after stealing another few pieces of kimchi from Luhan’s tray this time.
“Sehun’s too hot for him,” Minseok says.
“He’s too Chanyeol for her,” Kyungsoo says.
“I don’t have any kimchi left,” Luhan says.
Luhan likes Minseok’s friends. They’re all also Wufan’s friends, but Luhan knows that some of them Wufan isn’t as close to as Minseok is and, without Minseok pulling him into conversations where Kyungsoo isn’t staring daggers into Luhan’s soul, Luhan wouldn’t get to know most of them as well as he’s beginning to now. As much as Luhan had been in this friendship scheme because he wanted Minseok and because Wufan had told him that he’d better get in this friendship scheme or Wufan and Junmyeon would be sorely upset that they haven’t properly assimilated this year’s crop of exchange students into school life, Luhan has decided that he likes this friendship scheme because the friends are all pretty nice.
Almost.
Almost all of Minseok’s friends are nice and Luhan likes almost all of Minseok’s friends except for a first year. Except for the first year, the one that keeps looking at Luhan like he’s a funny slug inching along the ground trying to slime up Minseok’s leg while she’s not looking. And Luhan just doesn’t understand what Jongin’s problem is because Luhan hasn’t said one uncivilized word towards him (okay, lots of glaring and lots of posturing but who doesn’t wave around their dick mine is bigger when they’re near a pretty girl?).
Because if Jongin isn’t Minseok’s boyfriend, and Jongin clearly doesn’t seem to be interested in becoming Minseok’s boyfriend, Luhan doesn’t understand why Jongin seems to feel entitled to playing the role of gypped guard dog.
Wufan has student council after school today so Luhan doesn’t feel too bad about getting detention because he, Yixing, and Zitao would’ve all had to wait for Wufan anyway since their guardian obviously isn’t going to pick the three of them up and then come back again an hour later for Wufan. Luhan’s detention is also an hour and he spends the first fifteen minutes diligently and uneventfully washing the blackboard of the classroom he’d caused a disruption in this morning.
It’s not until twenty minutes have gone by that the door of the classroom slides open without a knock, and Luhan doesn’t have to look up to know who it is. He hears the soft footsteps that are only quiet because of how small the feet walking are rather than from any sort of hesitance, and he smiles to himself. A hand skims over his back and when he turns around after dropping the washcloth and cleaned erasers back into the bucket on the floor, Minseok is sitting on the teacher’s desk, legs crossed and expression expectant.
“Hi,” Luhan says, hands at his sides, chalk dusted over his rolled-up sleeves and bare forearms.
Minseok just smiles.
So Luhan takes that as his cue to step forward, taking her small face into his chalky hands (she doesn’t complain-she laughs), and he kisses her once, lightly on the lips. When he pulls back, pulls his hands away, there’re yellow handprints on her face and she seems to know it by how the urge to laugh is reflected in Luhan’s eyes when he meets her gaze. “How bad?” she asks.
“It’s cute,” he shrugs.
She raises her eyebrows, pulling him in between her legs, thighs hooking onto his hips, ankles locking against his back. He feels her shoes dig into his spine with how tightly she’s holding him there. “Next time, you should probably just go over your homework in class and creep about who I’m friends with later.”
“I wasn’t creeping-”
Minseok is yanking Luhan’s shirt out of his pants, slipping her tiny hands underneath the hem and playing with the waistband of his boxers. His words die right on his tongue, hands moving up along her thighs-up and up until he can thumb the elastic edge of her underwear beneath her skirt. “How come you don’t like Jonginie?” Minseok says plainly, and she absently cups Luhan in one hand, kneading him even though he was already well on the way to half-hardness without her touching him.
He has to swallow dryly, tempted to push her away to answer the question first-to even be able to word it in a way that doesn’t make him sound like a blubbering jackass because right now he can’t really think. His hand hovers shakily for a moment over her wrist to stop her from distracting him. “I don’t not like him,” Luhan finally manages to grind out, fairly proud that he hasn’t done anything actually embarrassing like buck into her hand. He tries to make it even-tries to reach in and press a finger against her but she’s so close against him that he can’t fit a hand between his stomach and her.
Luhan is certain that’s why she clamped her legs this tightly around him.
“You like Yixing a lot,” she says, her ministrations moving along with the inflections of her statements, “and you like Chanyeol and Wufan and Kyungsoo kind of, but you don’t like Jonginie.”
“He doesn’t like me,” Luhan says, but even to his own ears it comes out as more of a gasp. His fingers twitch in the folds of her skirt, aching to undo his pants to relieve some of the strain.
Her hand stops and she blinks. He deflates a little in relief when she draws her legs back and crosses them again, pushing him away so that there’s space in between them. “I think you and him are going to be best friends,” she says cheerily.
He stares. He’s never felt such glum confusion come onto him so quickly.
And then Minseok leans in, pulling him in with her arms around his neck, lips to his ear. “Green’s a really ugly color on you,” she whispers playfully.
Luhan frowns. “He’s not your boyfriend,” he says slowly.
Minseok raises her eyebrows again. “Neither are you.” The look in her eyes as she tilts her head and pats Luhan’s cheek tells him clearly that this is the end of this line of conversation. They haven’t spoken about it since that time at Junmyeon’s house, and every day since, Minseok has acted like it never happened. She treats Luhan like she treats every other boy she’s friends with, and while he likes that in a way-likes how he gets to know her as the Minseok that all the others know-it makes him wonder if she does this to every other boy she’s friends with too.
After all, amongst the names she’s listed, only Kyungsoo has a girlfriend and only Yixing is gay. And Junmyeon had said again when he’d caught her with Luhan in his bedroom. And Chanyeol seems like the sort of guy who wouldn’t say no to a little romp behind the gym until Sehun notices him. And Wufan seems so comfortable around Minseok that they must have do something every once in a while. And Luhan would honestly be more surprised if Jongin doesn’t occasionally have his fingers pushing into Minseok.
I want to be and the words never leave Luhan’s lips because he exchanges them for a less vulnerable, “I don’t have any condoms with me.”
Oddly, those are the words that make Minseok’s expression brighten. “That’s okay,” she says, gums flashing and Luhan feels his knees shake because he would walk into the burning fires of hell for those gums. “I’m creative.”
Minseok’s creativity has Luhan fucking her thighs, arm bent at an awkward angle to get his fingers inside of her, thrusting them in and up in time to each movement of his hips. She’s slicked her wetness down onto the skin between her thighs, spreading it until Luhan glides easily in and out of the tight clamp around his cock and it’s weird-he hasn’t fucked a girl like this before but it’s kind of interesting and it feels good and he’s heard of doing this but he just hasn’t done it, it’s just never come up, and oh-so creative-
He comes first, spurting over the underside of her flipped skirt and thankfully none of it gets on the teacher’s desk. She’s just rocking over the precipice of both desk and orgasm so Luhan pulls her down just a little bit more towards the desk’s edge and he kneels down, putting his mouth on her. He smiles against her when he feels her fingers in his hair, fingernails scratching lightly at his scalp, when he hears her breathy gasps turn into high moans. She starts to whimper just as his tongue flickers inside of her, and he squeezes her thighs as they tense on either side of his head.
Luhan muffles her keens and sighs with his own lips, kissing her just as she comes, clutching at the front of his shirt-the buttons that were never unbuttoned because they were too rushed and needy to bother pulling off any pieces of clothing other than what was necessary. They kiss for a while just like that, with her still too sensitive for him to touch-and when he does press his palm against her wetness playfully, she hits his shoulder blindly, eyes still closed from the kiss, and her hips shudder away from him.
When they break for a breath, Luhan stiffens at the same time that Minseok does. Their gazes meeting mutually before they both turn towards the door, and it’s open.
Wufan swallows. “My meeting finished early,” he says.
Luhan swallows. “Oh,” he says.
“Luhan-ah,” Minseok says. “My underwear’s on the floor. Pick it up for me.”
If Yixing or Zitao or their guardian notice anything unusual about Luhan (cheeks flushed, hair mussed, shirt rumpled, pants creased, tie completely undone, belt looped wrongly), they all have the good graces to say absolutely nothing as Luhan slides into the car after Wufan. Their guardian seems too preoccupied with tapping her fingers against the steering wheel during the evening rush hour anyway, and Yixing has fallen asleep against the window. Wufan is in the front seat and has his earphones firmly plugged in.
The atmosphere would have been safe enough for Luhan to join Yixing in falling asleep on the other window, except for Zitao, seated in between the two boys, who, during a red light, finally looks over at Luhan and whispers, “Ge, was it good?”
And Luhan waits for at least five seconds to make sure that their guardian really is getting ready to speed through that next yellow light, that Wufan really is listening to music, and that Yixing really is asleep, before he answers, “Fucking yes.”
“It’s that jie, right?” Zitao grins, and she leans into him, settling in to sleep against his shoulder. “How’d you fuck her?”
“Thighs,” Luhan says and he gives up on not trying to sound too dreamy.
She licks her lips. “Oh, I’ve done that. When we ran out of condoms so-”
Wufan turns in his seat so fast that even their guardian turns her head for the few seconds she can spare before she rams down on the gas and the car jerks forward, speeding up to pass through the nearly-red traffic light. One of Wufan’s earphones is in his hand and his eyes dart from Luhan to Zitao and then back. “Huang Zitao,” he intones, miserably. “You’re supposed to be a virgin-I promised your parents-”
“Ge, please,” Zitao snaps. She slips her own earphones in and promptly closes her eyes, head pillowed down on Luhan’s shoulder.
The vice-president glances at Luhan. “Beijing boys,” Wufan mutters, as he swivels back around.
Luhan blinks.
author: himawarixxsandz
rating: nc-17
pairing(s): xiuhan
summary: luhan's research
a/n: ideally, the last part of you're here would've been up before summer ends for me but that's just not gonna happen. i will finish it, but it's just a really slow burning thing right now i'm sorry. and i wanted to get this up before i left tmrw evening because i probably won't be posting for a good few months while i adjust to higher education. so bye for now! danie is off to higher education in colder places :3 (yes also im taking huge literary liberties with korean high school ok modu da fiction fiction fiction)
Getting caught engaging in unwholesome activities on the student council president’s bed by the student council president, Luhan has learned, actually makes for a decent icebreaker. Junmyeon is easy to talk to and there’s no better person to ask for advice in how to adapt to the school-there’s no one who knows the ins and outs of the administration better than the school president. And Luhan finds that as long as he doesn’t expressly state his intentions to skirt the rules, Junmyeon has no problems with accommodating those rule-bending needs. In spite of the fact that Junmyeon refuses to drink until he’s graduated and cleanly of age, the president actually isn’t quite as lame as Minseok had made him out to be.
“She said I’m lame?” Junmyeon’s voice goes high enough that the teacher looks up from where she’s punching the attendance into the system.
When Luhan and Junmyeon have quietly ducked their heads down in apology low enough for the teacher to be satisfied, Luhan taps his pencil against the desk and says, consolingly, “Just a little.”
Junmyeon makes a face, his disgruntled gaze making its way towards where Minseok is seated in the cluster of desks near the window. Their math class is always opened with going through last night’s problems in assigned pairs and writing the few that they had trouble with on the board. Wufan was pulled into an odd group of three, but Luhan and Junmyeon are paired together while Minseok is with Yixing. And as much as Luhan likes Yixing the way Luhan likes all of the exchange students he’s living with, he doesn’t like how Yixing and Minseok are laughing with their faces a little too close together.
Early morning calculus isn’t supposed to be that fun.
“I’m not lame,” Junmyeon mutters defensively, and Luhan tries to look understanding and convinced as the other boy stabs his finger at the keys of his calculator.
Luhan flips to the back of his textbook for the answers, propping his chin against his free hand. “Anyway,” he says, because there are more pressing matters in this life than Kim Junmyeon’s self-esteem. “Does Minseok have a lot of guy friends?”
Junmyeon looks up from his calculator. The look he gives Luhan is nothing short of withering. “Are you a guy?” Junmyeon asks.
Luhan blinks. “Yeah,” he answers because he’s fairly certain he is.
“D’you want to put your face up her skirt?” Junmyeon taps his pencil irritably.
“I mean-”
“There’s your answer,” Junmyeon concludes, “because so does everyone else with a penis in the school.” He tilts his head, frowning to himself. “Almost everyone with a penis.”
It’s Luhan’s turn to frown now. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Junmyeon smiles faintly and points, with the tip of his eraser, to where Minseok is following Yixing’s line of equations intently with her eyes as the boy explains quietly how he got his answer. “Yixing has a penis,” Junmyeon says factually, like he’s the nice anatomy teacher that Luhan always sees eating kimbap for breakfast in the mornings, “but he doesn’t want to put his face up Minseok’s skirt.” And then the president pats Luhan on the shoulder. “So stop being creepy and staring at them.”
Luhan stares at Junmyeon’s face for long enough that Junmyeon breaks the gaze and continues with correcting last night’s problem set. But Luhan still hasn’t finished processing and goes on staring distantly at Yixing and Minseok before he finally gets it and pops up to his feet, palms slammed down on his work and none too softly shouts, “You’re gay?”
Everyone in the class looks at him.
“Detention,” the teacher says brightly, pointing her pen at Luhan, “for disrupting the class and be thankful I’m not making it a week’s worth for the addition of being inappropriate and personal, Luhan-ah.”
With the way the rest of the class continues on quietly chatting about the newest episode of that hospital drama and discussing the harder word problems from last night, Luhan, as he’s tugged back down by Junmyeon, concludes that it must be general knowledge amongst the third years. Yixing has been at this school since he was a first year, after all. No one even pays Luhan any more attention except for Junmyeon who’s looking at Luhan warily as if Luhan will stand up again and announce that Junmyeon has a secret third eye embedded into his left foot, and Wufan, who has the oddest expression on his face before he catches Luhan staring back and the other boy quickly looks away.
Yixing didn’t even seem to turn in Luhan’s direction, more engaged in Minseok whispering something into his ear that’s bringing the boy’s dimples out in full.
“Are you sure he’s gay?” Luhan hisses at Junmyeon.
“Shut up and tell me what you got for seventy-six,” Junmyeon sighs.
At the end of first period, Minseok passes by Luhan packing up his things and pats him on the head. “Have fun in detention,” she singsongs ruthlessly and links arms with a miserable vice-president, suggesting that they walk together today to the second period history that they share. Luhan looks after her and Wufan’s backs with the kind of longing that makes him wish he was a hummingbird so he could stab Wufan in the eye with his beak and then fly away unharmed.
Luhan has just swung his backpack over his shoulder when Yixing arrives at his desk, nearly ready to follow the rest of their classmates out the door. “Was Junmyeon the one who told you?” Yixing asks in Mandarin, the way they all do when talking amongst each other even in school.
“Wh-yeah,” Luhan says when he realizes what Yixing is referring to. “Sorry-if you didn’t want me to know-”
Yixing shakes his head, the corners of his lips quirking up lightly. “I don’t care. It doesn’t b-”
Luhan shakes his own head quickly. “I don’t care,” he echoes and returns the smile that he knew was beginning to tug at Yixing’s lips. He realizes this is the first time he’s really talked to Yixing since Luhan’s arrived in Korea. The other boy is always so quiet both at school and at the house-and they don’t have that many periods together either.
Dimples. Really pretty dimples that have Luhan wondering who Yixing’s boyfriend must be because it’s just not possible that he’s single. “I hear you like Minseok,” Yixing says, and his eyes crinkle in amusement in addition to the dimples.
“Walk with me to bio,” Luhan says, slinging an arm around Yixing’s neck. “You have to tell me about what she was whispering to you in great detail.”
Yixing laughs.
In a perfect world, Luhan thinks, Kim Jongin would be unattractive and a douchebag and Kim Minseok would want nothing to do with the first year when he sneaks into the cafeteria during a lunch period that’s definitely not Jongin’s own with a five-minute pass in his hand-doing that thing that all first years did, thinking they were so badass, and ditched class under the guise of going to the bathroom. In a perfect world, Jongin definitely would not have stopped by their table, one arm slung over Kyungsoo’s shoulder and the other bringing Minseok’s cheek to the first year’s full lips.
Luhan sits on the opposite and one seat down from Wufan who had taken the seat across from Minseok. Right next to Luhan’s ear, Wufan sighs. “He’s not her boyfriend,” Wufan says under his breath in Mandarin, rolling his eyes. “So unclench and finish your bean sprouts.”
“I know,” Luhan whispers back. “And I am not clenching.”
Across the table, Jongin has somehow slipped into Minseok’s seat with Minseok in his lap, and Kyungsoo has somehow roped the first year into listening to the second year’s report on how his new breed of ferns have been adapting to their new growing station. Jongin, much like Luhan had glimpsed at the party before-well-things happened-is the perfect listener, the perfect conversation partner. He somehow laughs at all the right moments (how funny misread soil densities are) and look like he’s intently engaged as if there’s just no limit to how intently engaging root absorption rates can be.
All through that, Jongin has his tanned, slender-muscled arms around Minseok’s waist as she curls in his lap, a bag of mini strawberry cookies in her hands. She feeds Jongin five cookies for every two she pops into her own mouth.
“So, Kyungsoo-ah,” Luhan says, because he’s going to engage himself intently into this conversation like the forward thinker that he is, “how much do you water your new ferns a day?”
Kyungsoo stops then, abruptly and in mid-sentence with his chopsticks still holding a piece of potato that’s clearly on a one-way trip to his mouth. He and Jongin both round on Luhan, and Luhan hopes he’s just imagining Yixing and Wufan burying their faces away to hide the laughter. The silence that falls upon the table is just a little disconcerting, mildly deafening. Kyungsoo looks fairly offended, decently insulted, and it’s only when Minseok reaches out and pats his hand with her fingers (pale blue nails today with tiny pink dots on the ring finger nails) that he finishes his simmering glower at Luhan’s confused expression.
Jongin’s face is all sorts of amused as Kyungsoo spares Luhan one last disapproving glare before he turns back and continues his declaration of bravely changing additives for his fourth fern. Minseok is now looking at Luhan with an entirely different brand of amusement as she holds out the bag of cookies towards him. “Want one?” she asks, and her tone is laced with laughter.
Luhan’s hand is just dipping into the bag when Jongin looks over while Kyungsoo is momentarily preoccupied with chewing an oversized chunk of potato from his stew. “Noona,” Jongin frowns, eyeing the cookies and then Luhan. “I thought you were giving the rest to me-I don’t have lunch for another three periods.”
Luhan seriously contemplates the repercussions of taking his bowl of boiling stew and pouring it over the first year’s head.
“He’s just taking one,” Minseok says, as Luhan finishes the motion of pulling out a single, lonely pink cookie. “There’s still a lot left.”
“Can I have one more?” Luhan asks, once he’s swallowed the first one, minimizing the risk of Jongin somehow taking it back. He looks from Minseok’s face to Jongin’s-and the first year’s expression shifts from a simple frown to furrowed eyebrows completely directed at Luhan. There’s something in Jongin’s gaze that’s sizing Luhan up and the third year meets the other boy’s eyes head on, blinking unassumingly.
Minseok is still chewing on a cookie herself and holds the bag out to Luhan again. “Help yourself,” she says, motioning with her free hand at Kyungsoo to bring her bottle of water closer.
“Noona!” Jongin says loudly, visibly squeezing his arms around her. “You want me to starve?”
Minseok turns in his arms just enough to glance at him. “Don’t be a baby, Kim Jongin,” she says, kissing his cheek. Once Luhan’s grabbed a second cookie, she rolls up the bag’s opening and places it in her lap. “Okay,” she announces, looking around at the table, “no more. These are Jonginie’s.”
Smug is the only way to describe the look that Jongin gives Luhan as the first year sets Minseok back into her seat, another kiss on her cheek before he takes the bag of cookies and strides out of the cafeteria to head back to his class. Yixing, with all of his trash already gathered onto his plate, swings his backpack over his shoulder and follows Jongin’s path with a short detour around the disposal belt. “Library,” he says with a brief smile and waves as he leaves.
His seat is only unoccupied for a minute before tall, unsteady, and flailing is sliding in on Wufan’s other side, slamming his thin arms down on the table and demanding, “Where’s Baekhyunie?”
The moment Chanyeol sits, Wufan stands. “I’m not here for this bullshit,” the vice-president snorts, tray balanced in one hand and backpack in the other.
“Hyung,” Chanyeol whines, as he watches Wufan get ready to leave. “Wait-”
But Wufan is already sliding his tray onto the belt and heading towards the front doors of the cafeteria. Luhan watches the other boy walk out and wonders if maybe he should’ve went with him to try and weasel out some of those lit answers. No doubt though, Wufan is probably headed for the student council room and even though Luhan has snuck in there before to hand Wufan back a paper or two, Junmyeon doesn’t particularly like it when the rule-bending happens in bright daylight on risky territory.
“Baekhyunie went to the nurse to sleep,” Kyungsoo says, answering Chanyeol.
Chanyeol slams his arms down again. “Damn it,” he mutters.
Park Chanyeol, from what Luhan has gleamed, is a second year like Baekhyun and Kyungsoo and if he’s not seen whacking unfortunate students who get too close to him in the halls unintentionally with his limbs, he’s whacking unfortunate students who walk behind him on days where he brings his guitar to school for after-school jazz band practice.
“Why d’you need her?” Minseok asks, as Chanyeol scoots in from Yixing’s seat to Wufan’s seat. This close, Luhan realizes that Chanyeol really is just about Wufan’s height only with none of the intimidation factor.
“Wanted to drop by her table,” Chanyeol says glumly, setting his chin in his folded arms on the tabletop. “That hot first year that she’s always dragging around to try and recruit for the squad.”
“Melting snow cone?” Minseok blinks. “Sehunie?”
There’s a first year that everyone in the school knows by sight even if not by name. Luhan saw her on the first day of school, a rainbow beacon making its way through the crowd of students in the hallway, expressionless and unperturbed by the stares she was getting because of her multi-colored hair. Since then, he supposes the administration had told her to do something about her hair or face consequences and now she’d opted for a less conspicuous pale blond that fell neatly into school guidelines. But everyone Luhan knew still referred to her as the melting snow cone, and until he found her name (he supposes he knows it now), she was a melting snow cone.
“Yeah, her,” Chanyeol says, stealing a piece of kimchi from Kyungsoo’s tray with his bare hands. He flops it around in the air, nearly spraying flecks of pepper onto Luhan’s cheek, before stuffing it into his mouth. “I’m going to be her boyfriend.”
Kyungsoo exchanges glances with Minseok. “You don’t know her,” Kyungsoo says.
“Why the fuck else d’you think I need Byun Baekhyun for?” Chanyeol’s tone clearly indicates who he thinks is really lacking foresight in this discussion as he stands back up and storms out of the cafeteria, but only after stealing another few pieces of kimchi from Luhan’s tray this time.
“Sehun’s too hot for him,” Minseok says.
“He’s too Chanyeol for her,” Kyungsoo says.
“I don’t have any kimchi left,” Luhan says.
Luhan likes Minseok’s friends. They’re all also Wufan’s friends, but Luhan knows that some of them Wufan isn’t as close to as Minseok is and, without Minseok pulling him into conversations where Kyungsoo isn’t staring daggers into Luhan’s soul, Luhan wouldn’t get to know most of them as well as he’s beginning to now. As much as Luhan had been in this friendship scheme because he wanted Minseok and because Wufan had told him that he’d better get in this friendship scheme or Wufan and Junmyeon would be sorely upset that they haven’t properly assimilated this year’s crop of exchange students into school life, Luhan has decided that he likes this friendship scheme because the friends are all pretty nice.
Almost.
Almost all of Minseok’s friends are nice and Luhan likes almost all of Minseok’s friends except for a first year. Except for the first year, the one that keeps looking at Luhan like he’s a funny slug inching along the ground trying to slime up Minseok’s leg while she’s not looking. And Luhan just doesn’t understand what Jongin’s problem is because Luhan hasn’t said one uncivilized word towards him (okay, lots of glaring and lots of posturing but who doesn’t wave around their dick mine is bigger when they’re near a pretty girl?).
Because if Jongin isn’t Minseok’s boyfriend, and Jongin clearly doesn’t seem to be interested in becoming Minseok’s boyfriend, Luhan doesn’t understand why Jongin seems to feel entitled to playing the role of gypped guard dog.
Wufan has student council after school today so Luhan doesn’t feel too bad about getting detention because he, Yixing, and Zitao would’ve all had to wait for Wufan anyway since their guardian obviously isn’t going to pick the three of them up and then come back again an hour later for Wufan. Luhan’s detention is also an hour and he spends the first fifteen minutes diligently and uneventfully washing the blackboard of the classroom he’d caused a disruption in this morning.
It’s not until twenty minutes have gone by that the door of the classroom slides open without a knock, and Luhan doesn’t have to look up to know who it is. He hears the soft footsteps that are only quiet because of how small the feet walking are rather than from any sort of hesitance, and he smiles to himself. A hand skims over his back and when he turns around after dropping the washcloth and cleaned erasers back into the bucket on the floor, Minseok is sitting on the teacher’s desk, legs crossed and expression expectant.
“Hi,” Luhan says, hands at his sides, chalk dusted over his rolled-up sleeves and bare forearms.
Minseok just smiles.
So Luhan takes that as his cue to step forward, taking her small face into his chalky hands (she doesn’t complain-she laughs), and he kisses her once, lightly on the lips. When he pulls back, pulls his hands away, there’re yellow handprints on her face and she seems to know it by how the urge to laugh is reflected in Luhan’s eyes when he meets her gaze. “How bad?” she asks.
“It’s cute,” he shrugs.
She raises her eyebrows, pulling him in between her legs, thighs hooking onto his hips, ankles locking against his back. He feels her shoes dig into his spine with how tightly she’s holding him there. “Next time, you should probably just go over your homework in class and creep about who I’m friends with later.”
“I wasn’t creeping-”
Minseok is yanking Luhan’s shirt out of his pants, slipping her tiny hands underneath the hem and playing with the waistband of his boxers. His words die right on his tongue, hands moving up along her thighs-up and up until he can thumb the elastic edge of her underwear beneath her skirt. “How come you don’t like Jonginie?” Minseok says plainly, and she absently cups Luhan in one hand, kneading him even though he was already well on the way to half-hardness without her touching him.
He has to swallow dryly, tempted to push her away to answer the question first-to even be able to word it in a way that doesn’t make him sound like a blubbering jackass because right now he can’t really think. His hand hovers shakily for a moment over her wrist to stop her from distracting him. “I don’t not like him,” Luhan finally manages to grind out, fairly proud that he hasn’t done anything actually embarrassing like buck into her hand. He tries to make it even-tries to reach in and press a finger against her but she’s so close against him that he can’t fit a hand between his stomach and her.
Luhan is certain that’s why she clamped her legs this tightly around him.
“You like Yixing a lot,” she says, her ministrations moving along with the inflections of her statements, “and you like Chanyeol and Wufan and Kyungsoo kind of, but you don’t like Jonginie.”
“He doesn’t like me,” Luhan says, but even to his own ears it comes out as more of a gasp. His fingers twitch in the folds of her skirt, aching to undo his pants to relieve some of the strain.
Her hand stops and she blinks. He deflates a little in relief when she draws her legs back and crosses them again, pushing him away so that there’s space in between them. “I think you and him are going to be best friends,” she says cheerily.
He stares. He’s never felt such glum confusion come onto him so quickly.
And then Minseok leans in, pulling him in with her arms around his neck, lips to his ear. “Green’s a really ugly color on you,” she whispers playfully.
Luhan frowns. “He’s not your boyfriend,” he says slowly.
Minseok raises her eyebrows again. “Neither are you.” The look in her eyes as she tilts her head and pats Luhan’s cheek tells him clearly that this is the end of this line of conversation. They haven’t spoken about it since that time at Junmyeon’s house, and every day since, Minseok has acted like it never happened. She treats Luhan like she treats every other boy she’s friends with, and while he likes that in a way-likes how he gets to know her as the Minseok that all the others know-it makes him wonder if she does this to every other boy she’s friends with too.
After all, amongst the names she’s listed, only Kyungsoo has a girlfriend and only Yixing is gay. And Junmyeon had said again when he’d caught her with Luhan in his bedroom. And Chanyeol seems like the sort of guy who wouldn’t say no to a little romp behind the gym until Sehun notices him. And Wufan seems so comfortable around Minseok that they must have do something every once in a while. And Luhan would honestly be more surprised if Jongin doesn’t occasionally have his fingers pushing into Minseok.
I want to be and the words never leave Luhan’s lips because he exchanges them for a less vulnerable, “I don’t have any condoms with me.”
Oddly, those are the words that make Minseok’s expression brighten. “That’s okay,” she says, gums flashing and Luhan feels his knees shake because he would walk into the burning fires of hell for those gums. “I’m creative.”
Minseok’s creativity has Luhan fucking her thighs, arm bent at an awkward angle to get his fingers inside of her, thrusting them in and up in time to each movement of his hips. She’s slicked her wetness down onto the skin between her thighs, spreading it until Luhan glides easily in and out of the tight clamp around his cock and it’s weird-he hasn’t fucked a girl like this before but it’s kind of interesting and it feels good and he’s heard of doing this but he just hasn’t done it, it’s just never come up, and oh-so creative-
He comes first, spurting over the underside of her flipped skirt and thankfully none of it gets on the teacher’s desk. She’s just rocking over the precipice of both desk and orgasm so Luhan pulls her down just a little bit more towards the desk’s edge and he kneels down, putting his mouth on her. He smiles against her when he feels her fingers in his hair, fingernails scratching lightly at his scalp, when he hears her breathy gasps turn into high moans. She starts to whimper just as his tongue flickers inside of her, and he squeezes her thighs as they tense on either side of his head.
Luhan muffles her keens and sighs with his own lips, kissing her just as she comes, clutching at the front of his shirt-the buttons that were never unbuttoned because they were too rushed and needy to bother pulling off any pieces of clothing other than what was necessary. They kiss for a while just like that, with her still too sensitive for him to touch-and when he does press his palm against her wetness playfully, she hits his shoulder blindly, eyes still closed from the kiss, and her hips shudder away from him.
When they break for a breath, Luhan stiffens at the same time that Minseok does. Their gazes meeting mutually before they both turn towards the door, and it’s open.
Wufan swallows. “My meeting finished early,” he says.
Luhan swallows. “Oh,” he says.
“Luhan-ah,” Minseok says. “My underwear’s on the floor. Pick it up for me.”
If Yixing or Zitao or their guardian notice anything unusual about Luhan (cheeks flushed, hair mussed, shirt rumpled, pants creased, tie completely undone, belt looped wrongly), they all have the good graces to say absolutely nothing as Luhan slides into the car after Wufan. Their guardian seems too preoccupied with tapping her fingers against the steering wheel during the evening rush hour anyway, and Yixing has fallen asleep against the window. Wufan is in the front seat and has his earphones firmly plugged in.
The atmosphere would have been safe enough for Luhan to join Yixing in falling asleep on the other window, except for Zitao, seated in between the two boys, who, during a red light, finally looks over at Luhan and whispers, “Ge, was it good?”
And Luhan waits for at least five seconds to make sure that their guardian really is getting ready to speed through that next yellow light, that Wufan really is listening to music, and that Yixing really is asleep, before he answers, “Fucking yes.”
“It’s that jie, right?” Zitao grins, and she leans into him, settling in to sleep against his shoulder. “How’d you fuck her?”
“Thighs,” Luhan says and he gives up on not trying to sound too dreamy.
She licks her lips. “Oh, I’ve done that. When we ran out of condoms so-”
Wufan turns in his seat so fast that even their guardian turns her head for the few seconds she can spare before she rams down on the gas and the car jerks forward, speeding up to pass through the nearly-red traffic light. One of Wufan’s earphones is in his hand and his eyes dart from Luhan to Zitao and then back. “Huang Zitao,” he intones, miserably. “You’re supposed to be a virgin-I promised your parents-”
“Ge, please,” Zitao snaps. She slips her own earphones in and promptly closes her eyes, head pillowed down on Luhan’s shoulder.
The vice-president glances at Luhan. “Beijing boys,” Wufan mutters, as he swivels back around.
Luhan blinks.