Monday (1/2)

<b style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;font-weight:normal;">He's gazing out of the classroom window, the wispy flecks of dust and fluff are swirling through the air. They dance happily, playing with each other without a care in the world until the sticky glass interferes and they’re suddenly trapped. He’s twirling his pencil, the shiny exterior sliding easily through his lithe fingers. He’s trying to tune out the drone of the professor at the front of the room with little success, eyes half-lidded and drowsy. Some passing girls are waving excitedly at him now from below, their faces heavily-caked with makeup. He quickly glances around behind him, making sure that he is indeed the person they’re waving at, and manages to plaster a fake smile on his face as he waves back. They squeal and giggle joyously as they skip away across the courtyard and he yawns.

In his distraction, he loses sight of the world just long enough for a solid object to blast itself through the air and come into sharp contact with the back of his head. The pain was dull despite the ear-splitting sound the collision created but he still lets out a sound of protest.

“Ow! What the heck!” he whines as he turns to the owner of the book that just collided with his head. He rubs the wound tenderly and feigns injury, hoping to garner some sympathy from his assailant. Students are shuffling out of the classroom now, books and papers rustling as they get tossed inside of overstuffed bookbags and backpacks. Murmurs hum in the air, filled with gossip, plans, and mindless chatter.

“It’s because you’re like that that your girlfriends are always dumping you, Kai!” Baekhyun reprimands harshly. Even though they’ve been friends for several years, he’s not about to let Kai get away with his sub-par manners. “You better be careful or your current one will dump you too.”

Kai sneers, taking in the scolding like he always does. “Too late. She dumped me yesterday.” Noticing the surprised look on his friend’s face, he attempts to elaborate, “She said that I’m not the person she thought I was. It’s her fault for assuming anyway. That’s the way it always is. They confess to me first and are disappointed in the end.”

Baekhyun sighs, knowing all too well Kai’s situation with his girlfriends. It’s the same story every time and he’s starting to think that maybe it’s Kai’s own fault for all of his random break-ups. “You can’t completely blame them either. There’s just a huge gap between your personality and your appearance. It’s practically a scam. How should I say this? Even though I know how you really are inside, I still catch myself thinking that you’ve got a handsome face and you give off the air of being stoic, especially when you’re swimming.”

Kai takes this in for a moment and laughs. “If only I could find someone as realistic as you!” he says, grinning widely as he moves to his next class with Baekhyun, joining the mobs and hordes of students moving classrooms too.

“How about it then? Want to try going out with me?” Baekhyun makes his best seductive face, oozing cool and handsome as he winks enticingly at his friend.

“Sure.”

At the nonchalant and uncaring response, Baekhyun whacks his friend on the head again with his book out of instinct. The old annoyance at Kai is starting to bubble up to the surface again and he’s not afraid to unleash it whenever he deems necessary. “You idiot! Don’t just respond immediately like that without any thought! Your impulsiveness is also what drives those girls away!” Kai rubs his injury slowly, thinking the same things he always does when Baekhyun scolds him about girls and laughs cheerfully again.

The enormous lecture hall is buzzing with voices as they wait for class to begin. Students are filling in the rowed and tiered aisles, arranging themselves closely despite the classroom’s size. Clumps of people pop up from all areas of the room like chocolate chips peeping out of a cookie. A familiar face enters the vast room and searches a bit, looking for some acquaintances before spotting them in the middle-back of the room.

“Hey! How are you guys doing?” Suho greets, his voice as cheerful and full of life as always. He’s smiling brilliantly at his friends, his face glowing vibrantly. He plops his belongings down next to Baekhyun on the polished cedar tables. “Wanna come to my house today? I got this new video game but it’s boring playing by myself.”

Baekhyun’s ears perk up from excitement and he’s been waiting for this moment since they all went to the video game store together last week. “Is it Cooking Mama?!” he exclaims excitedly, his blood rushing with enthusiasm.

Kai, uninterested in the heated conversation that his friends are having about the clear-eyed cartoon woman, looks around the hall of milling people and decides to eavesdrop on the especially perky girls sitting in front of him.

“Hey, I haven’t seen Kyungsoo yet today.”

“Maybe he’s sick?”

“But today’s Monday! Man, if I wasn’t failing this class I’d go and look for him right now.”

“We can try again next week.”

“Don’t you know Kyungsoo, Kai?”

Kai flinches, nearly slipping off of the plastic swivel chair from the surprise of seeing Suho and Baekhyun speaking right next to his ear, also staring at the girls in front of them. “Don’t just sneak up on me like that!” He rubs his ear gingerly and pouts, annoyed and slightly embarrassed at being caught off-guard. “Yeah, we’re more like acquaintances. He was my sunbae in the swim team before I quit.”

“Ahh, I keep on forgetting that you used to swim. Before you quit did you hear any weird things about him?” Confused at what Suho is really trying to get at, Kai squints his eyes and shakes his head, signaling for his friend to continue. “Well apparently he plays this ‘weekly girlfriend’ game.”

Kai glances back at the gossiping girls in front of him as they’re applying their mascara and eyeliner. He stares at the back of their coiffed heads as if they could magically know what he is thinking and telepathically answer all of his unspoken questions for him.

Suho, noticing that he’s piqued his friend’s curiosity decides to indulge him a bit more. “He’s immensely popular with all of the girls because of his good looks. At the beginning of each week, he’ll definitely go out with whoever asks him out first. At the end of the week he tells them--”

“I couldn’t fall in love with you. Let’s break up.”

Kai and Suho stare at Baekhyun, their mind’s fumbling through questions and assumptions as if the cogs in their minds had stopped working because of an unexpected jam. As if reading their minds, Baekhyun puts up a peace sign and responds with an ear-to-ear grin, “Yuuup. I went out with him for exactly a week back in May.”

“Why do you look so proud of yourself when you knew that and got dumped?” Kai grimaces, not quite understanding Baekhyun’s motives. Why would you go out with someone if you knew you were going to get dumped in the end? Isn’t that the same as playing a useless game where you know you’ll lose in the end?

“‘Cuz I felt like I hit the jackpot when he said yes. He’s a good person!” his friend replies happily, trying to justify the incident. Kai’s frown deepens and the corners of his luscious lips look like they’re going to rip themselves off of his beautiful face from the strain. “The reason why Kyungsoo’s popularity doesn’t drop even though he plays the weekly girlfriend game is because he sincerely does whatever his girlfriend wants in that one week.”

Kai pauses, trying to work through the information in his brain and failing. Exasperated and already tired from his drone of a professor that morning, he begins to shove the books and notebooks back into his worn book bag and says lethargically, “Well, I’ll see you guys later, okay?” He disconnects himself from the uncomfortable seat and slings his bag over his shoulder.

Surprised at the sudden turn of events, Suho asks, “Are you going to skip class? What about my house today?”

“Sorry, maybe next time,” he responds with an apologetic smile.

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<b style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;font-weight:normal;">“Do Kyungsoo,” Kai mumbles to himself quietly as he cranes his neck to gaze up at the infinitely blue sky from a scratchy bench near the university’s pristine entrance. He’s never been interested in him before but he finds himself wondering what kind of person this Kyungsoo might be. Why would he date people in such a way? Maybe he’s just a player... but he doesn’t remember any rumors about him from when they were on the swim team together and he’s oddly too interested in this guy.