[align=center]❝ Chapter Five of Interning: Paddle, Paddle, Paddle that Dragon Boat ❞
The following Friday, the company van arrived at the lake at seven in the evening. Yixing, Kris, Tao, Sehun and Baekhyun poured out onto the parking lot along with a string of other interns, and scattered off towards the main space for the tents and stands that would cater them the following day, during the race.
Lu Han's car made it to camping area less than half an hour later. Chanyeol's Land Cruiser stopped behind it within a few minutes; the younger intern coming out with a rolled up sleeping bag over his shoulder.
"Where's the sleeping place?" Lu Han interrogated through a yawn, not bothering to say hi.
Chanyeol pointed behind the nearest tent with a smile:
"Over there," he said and headed off in the opposite direction. "It's one of those underground compounds that served as bombing shelter during the war or something..."
"Hold on, where are you going?" Lu Han frowned.
"Um, Baekhyun said to find him at the refreshments tent, his supervisor is helping there," Chanyeol called out from over his shoulder as he headed for the lake, "I'll meet you up at the dormitory later!"
Lu Han watched him leave with a repressed smirk of amusement. He eventually snorted and studied the peacefulness of the rustling forest surrounding him, before squinting at the entrance of the said bombing shelter. The opening leading to the underground compound seemed unlocked for now, the grillage swinging slightly under the waning sun. He rearranged his orange beanie and headed for the door when Sehun unexpectedly popped out of the tunnel, stopping at his sight with an underwhelming nod and snuffle for all greeting.
Lu Han returned the gesture:
"Hey, how is it down there?"
"Liveable. But kind of gross," Sehun replied. "Then again, you live with rats at the moment, so..."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"There are something like ten shower rooms and twenty dorms down there, all of them with twenty bunk beds," Sehun explained expressionlessly, "They spread over three levels, so I'd go down quickly if I were you. Unless you want to sleep seven feet above the ground...Where's your sleeping bag?"
"I don't have one," Lu Han frowned. "Am I supposed to have one?"
"How on bloody earth are you going to sleep otherwise?"
"I thought they'd provide...oh fuck it, never mind." Lu Han dug into his pockets in annoyance, "I'll deal with it some way or another."
"It's two nights. ..You'll freeze to death."
"No I won't, I'll just wear more layers, or something," he rolled his eyes, and Sehun opened his mouth, only to be interrupted by a third voice behind them.
"Oi, you two."
Lu Han turned around, but not before noticing that Sehun's expression had suddenly frozen into sheer terror. The man who was heading towards them had a pair of keys swinging around his finger, red tie skilfully secured, severe eyes over bulging lips and an air that seemed to say ‘I-don't-have-time-for-any-of-this-shit'.
"Changmin," Lu Han greeted their team coach with a nod, "hi."
"It's not 'hi'," Changmin grabbed the keys in one hand with a snort, "you're late. This dragon boat race is a firm-wide event. Company tradition. Told you guys to arrive at quarter past seven, latest."
"Traffic jam, sorry," Lu Han lied while Sehun muffled some apologies. "To be fair, Yunho isn't here either, though."
"Yunho's never a good example for anything," Changmin dropped in distaste. "I'm here to hand your dorm keys to your team captain. Where is he?"
"What team captain?"
"What do you mean, ‘what team captain', you guys are supposed to have decided on a team captain by now. The captain leads your team in the dragon boat race tomorrow."
"We never talked about a team captain," Lu Han frowned.
"You don't have a...?" the senior consultant passed a hand over his face, "God help us."
"I can keep the keys until we find a team captain," Sehun murmured, but Changmin threw him a look.
"No, it's okay. Just gather all our team members down in your dorm before eight, we'll have a briefing, with or without Yunho. Be there," the elder man glared, "no late comers."
"Um, sure." Lu Han nodded.
"And Lu," Changmin said before leaving, causing Lu Han to look up, "don't know how your supervisor allows you to keep that during work... but you might want to take off that beanie."
Lu Han glanced down at the ground, feigning to pull the headwear off, only to drop his hand back to his side as soon as he was certain that the consultant had already gone. Sehun let out an audible sigh of relief at his side, causing him to cock an eyebrow:
"Wow there, big baby, don't piss your pants. You look scared to death."
"I'm not scared," Sehun furrowed his brow instinctively. "And also, I am not going to piss my pants."
"Please. The tough guy behaviour doesn't even remotely suit you," Lu Han sneered with a shrug. "He does look like the kind of guy who'd appear in your worst nightmares... but he's just a team coach."
"He's my supervisor as well."
Lu Han's neck snapped back.
"Huh," he smiled mockingly. "Shim Changmin's your supervisor?"
"He hates my guts," Sehun emphasized, the traumatizing memories swirling in his eyes as he spoke, "I never get any of the bloody stuff he gives me; each time he catches me asking Minseok for explanations, he notes down stuff on his notepad like he's writing my death sentence and each time I flunk one of his tasks he looks like he's going to go after my family when I'm asleep. I think one day he's going to bloody snap a vein because of me because even Jongdae said he can hear him shouting at me from the O&O department."
Lu Han cackled and pulled the grillage open: "I don't envy you one bit."
Sehun threw him a vicious look:
"I heard from Jongin that you were rolling on the floor of your department, the other day."
"I was not rolling on the floor, for fuck's sake," Lu Han blurted out with an angry hand gesture of indignation.
Sehun mimicked the movement exaggeratedly and then slipped through the open doors while Lu Han was busy staring at him in outrage.
"Thanks for holding the door," the younger man darted his tongue out at him.
"You little twat," Lu Han spluttered before following him into the tunnel and walking behind him in silence.
Sehun turned to face him a few seconds later, seeming marginally more reserved:
"You can borrow my coat if you want..." he said, "Tonight. I brought a winter coat with me just in case it would rain; you can use it as a duvet."
"That'd be lovely, thanks," Lu Han grumbled without looking at him.
Sehun sped up to stand in front of him:
"Will you ever take off your beanie?"
"No," the elder intern spat, then overtook him as he headed for the staircase.
⚜
"How did your week go?" Yixing came tumbling down from the higher bunk beds and graciously dropped in front of Kyungsoo with a dazzling – but slightly unfocused – smile.
"Um, great." Kyungsoo hesitated, tried to smile back. "Working on an acquisition case. It's kind of refreshing."
"Are you ready to paddle tomorrow?" the intern said peacefully while Jongin snorted softly on the bed above them. "I am totally hyped. I feel like I'm here to fulfil the mission that I was born to do."
"You said that about winning mah-jong last week too," Tao noted sullenly from the spot near the door, where he was fighting to open up his sleeping bag.
"I've never paddled in my entire life," Joonmyun admitted with a worried look on his face, "I watched videos on Youtube all night yesterday, so I think I know where to put my hands and feet but, um, sorry if I underperform tomorrow."
"Don't worry, buddy," Yixing smiled, "we're all on the same boat after all. See what I did there? Boat? Dragon Boat?"
"Okay, Yixing," Kris sighed, "you're getting a little too carried away, here. Slow down."
"That's not what your dog said last night," the younger man sang lightly, and all the other interns instantly spun to look at them.
"What."
"No, no," Kris hurriedly intervened, eyes shutting in consternation, "No. My mum's in town for a week and she brought my husky over, who's always excited, so Yixing and I had to walk him yesterday night. We just walked him. Okay? Not..."
"Not judging," Jongdae shrugged from over his bunk bed, and Kris opened his mouth to protest.
"Ace is so affectionate," Yixing remarked with another fond smile.
"Alright, stop." Kris raised one hand. "Not another word from you."
"Group EXO," Changmin's voice suddenly boomed through the opening as the tall consultant appeared through the doorway, with Yunho grinning behind him. "Are you all here for the briefing?"
"Chanyeol's in the bathroom," Baekhyun explained, "he drank too much at the refreshments tent earlier on."
"I'm back," the said intern piped up and rapidly bent down to slide under Changmin's extended arm in the doorway. "Sorry."
"Okay, here's the drill," Changmin began flatly, "tonight, dinner in half an hour in the main tent. Then, it's free time until you sleep. As I said, however, the summer internship programme's dragon boat race has become an annual company tradition at TTM, so many of the higher ups are actually here to watch the event, and you would be well advised to use this time as a networking opportunity."
"But really, you're free to do whatever you want as long as you stay safe. So if you feel that the air is too stuffy around the tent, you're not forced to stay." Yunho smiled. "It's actually free time."
"But you might want to use that as networking time," Changmin repeated, "also, strictly forbidden to wander off into the forest around the lake. That's a hundred percent off limits."
"But if you're responsible, and I'm sure you all are, you can take a stroll through the little woodland paths. It's really lovely there when it's sunny."
"Curfew is at midnight."
"But you're all grown-ups so you can chat quietly until you feel ready to sleep."
"Yunho," Changmin said, "you need to stop."
"Sorry, I just don't want to scare them."
"Tomorrow, the real thing starts. Breakfast at six in the main tent," Changmin elaborated sternly, "From seven thirty onwards, each team gets thirty minutes of training on how to handle a dragon boat, you need to choose one drummer to keep the rhythm and one guy to be the coxswain."
"What's that?" Baekhyun frowned.
"Steersperson." Yunho clarified.
"Actual race starts at one sharp." Changmin hammered on, "you get three chances. Winner's based on the sum of your time records, not ranking in the actual rounds, so you have a chance at winning even if you don't finish first in all races. Got it?"
The room nodded soundlessly. Their team coach then lowered his arm, only to fold them over his chest.
"Good. Don't forget that this is a team-building activity which counts as part of your graded assessments, so winning tomorrow will get you points that will be recorded on your team board, and eventually, towards whether you are shortlisted for the job positions."
"But we also want you to have fun," Yunho quickly said, "because this is one of the times you can do something quirky that you wouldn't do in any other internship and we want you to enjoy the sportive exhilaration-"
"Yunho."
"Okay, I'm sorry..."
"One last thing," Changmin exhaled and looked at them, "I need one team captain for the purpose of this activity, to keep your dorm keys and to make sure everyone's doing the right thing at the right time. Volunteers?"
"Minseok is the oldest," Lu Han noted casually, and the Princeton graduate hissed at him.
"Minseok, are you up for the job?"
"Well," Minseok shifted his gaze uneasily, "I think we need someone more athletic than me on this one."
Chanyeol leaned towards Kris in curiosity: "Don't you play basketball?"
"What?"
"Well, then, here we go," Changmin stated, and tossed the keys in Kris's direction, who caught them with a bewildered look on his face. "You're team leader for EXO. Don't let your team down."
"Wait..." Kris stammered, "I don't-"
"Dinner in twenty minutes!" the consultants simply declaimed before leaving them alone in the bright neon lights of the dormitory. Lu Han immediately rolled onto his stomach and stared at Kris with a derisive smile:
"You just won the lottery, team leader. Good job."
"I don't want to be team leader," the Economics graduate retorted, letting the keys dangle from the tip of his fingers: "can someone else take the role? I don't think I can..."
"Don't be ridiculous, you'll do a great job at it," Tao firmly declared and threw his sleeping bag onto his mattress.
"Of course," Chanyeol nodded enthusiastically, "you'll be brilliant, I'm sure."
Jongdae smiled widely before popping open a bag of chips. Jongin was looking at his phone while touching his lips, and Minseok was already heaving a sigh of relief whilst staring up at the ceiling, before leaving the dorm with Lu Han behind him, the two of them starting a discussion about the most recent football matches.
Kris stared at them wordlessly, mouth open, and then Yixing was in front of him with a peaceful smile.
"Congratulations, leader."
"Oh," Kris breathed out and cleared his throat, the keys still in his hands. "Well. Hmm. Eh. Yeah."
He then paused and brutally spun around, charging out of the room under the other intern's dumbfounded face:
"Yifan, where are you going?" Yixing blinked.
"Hasnnsghsh," the elder intern simply emitted before disappearing into the tunnel in an abrupt wave of internal panic, "I'll see you guys at the dinner table."
"Wait, Yifan. Yifan!"
He should have specified that he wanted to get some fresh air alone. Soon, hurried steps were echoing behind him and before he could even make it to the grillage, Yixing had already caught up to him with an intense look on his face.
Kris saw him and closed his mouth, then sidestepped him and marched forward.
"Yifan," the other intern persisted, "Hey, you okay?"
"Of course, I'm okay. I am totally okay, calm down." he then stopped and brandished the keys in front of his colleague's face. "I'd feel even better if you accepted to be leader in my stead, actually. What do you say?"
The younger man halted, blinking:
"Err."
"Thought so," Kris laughed curtly and strode off, only to have Yixing follow him. "No one wants to be leader, it's a shitty job as any."
"I genuinely think you'd do a good job," the McGill graduate hopped after him as he walked up the pebbled alley, "Why are you panicking about it? No one expects you to be a perfect leader, even though I'm sure you're a fire-cracking one..."
"Yixing, stop it. I just need a moment by myself..."
"No, really. I mean it." the younger intern raised his voice, "First of all, you're uh, you're snarky..."
"How does that have anything to do with being a leader?!"
"Secondly, you have a resting bitch face..."
"That's..." Kris frowned incredulously. "Thanks."
"Also, you're old..." Yixing paused, "...der than most of us, so you can make use of that as a form of authority."
Kris glanced back at him and produced an unimpressed sound.
"You don't have to feel stressed about it," Yixing suddenly said as he ran up to him, "you don't even have to do well, if that means anything to you."
"No, that does not mean anything to me," Kris grumbled.
"Yifan, I'm serious. You're better at this than most of us, and it's only a tiny added amount of responsibility, that's all."
"Yeah, but what if I don't want that added amount of responsibility," Kris spun around. "What if I don't want to be responsible for winning those points or losing them for the team, what if I don't want to be the one thinking ‘Fuck, I bloody messed up', or ‘Shit, I let everyone down' if we lose all those races tomorrow like a beginner? What then?"
Yixing braked behind him and contemplated his face without heat.
"So that's what it was about?"
"What is?"
"You're just scared because of what Changmin said about not letting your team down? You're scared of disappointing us?"
Kris stood there for a moment, then turned around without replying and stormed towards the parking lot. The younger intern trotted after him:
"Yifan. Calm down."
"What," he turned around, "our team is literally composed of a fluffy accountant in oversized sweaters, an aloof lawyer, a redbull-addicted hacker and his unattainable one-sided crush, two geeky engineers, a Scottish oddball, one social media-crazed hipster who doesn't know when to shut up, a fucking bohemian hippie, a diva running on two hours of sleep a day, and Sehun...And with that, you expect me to keep calm?"
"Yes!" Yixing exclaimed.
"What the fuck," Kris emitted weakly and turned on his heels, starting to walk off at a much slower pace now.
Yixing profited from his decreased speed and started trailing behind him:
"Am I the fucking bohemian hippie?"
"...You might be."
There was a silence, and then Yixing was back at his level, sliding his arm comfortably in his, making him blink down at their intertwined arms.
"What are you doing?" he mumbled.
"Nothing. Just showing that I'm not disappointed in you for your childish outburst or your tiny stress-intake capacity or anything."
Kris studied the younger man's face for a while, before finally letting out a tiny snort.
"Well," he said, "cheers for that."
"Come on," Yixing hummed indifferently, "let's check out the convenience store before going to dinner... We could get some midnight snacks for the others, like shrimp crackers. Everyone likes shrimp crackers."
⚜
"You think they'll be okay?" Baekhyun glanced at Chanyeol as the taller intern stood up from their table in the main tent, his emptied plate in hand.
"Yeah, of course they will," he nodded. "They just texted me saying they'd be back from the convenience store in ten minutes."
"Oh," Baekhyun snorted, chuckling at his plate of food, "okay, I see."
"They've got cream puffs at the desserts table," Chanyeol stated, pushing up his glasses with his vacant hand, and squinting into the distance, "I'm going to grab some before they're gone."
"Cool, you do that," the elder intern simply hummed. "Go get'em buddy."
"You want anything?"
"Hmm?"
Baekhyun looked up to Chanyeol's expectant face, and the younger intern simply nodded at his remains of mashed potatoes and vol-au-vent.
"You want any dessert? I can pick some up for you."
"Oh, uh," Baekhyun took a peek at the mount of delicacies on the furthest table of the tent, "some strawberry cheesecake would be very nice, thanks."
Chanyeol bobbed his head and easily picked up his empty pint.
"I'll fill up your glass while I'm at it."
"You don't have to..." Baekhyun started, "Chan-"
But the younger intern was already striding towards the desserts table, momentarily braking to say hi to his supervisor, and starting a brief polite chat with her. Baekhyun watched him for a little while, until he felt the bench creak next to him and a familiar Scottish accent in his ear:
"Nice bloke, aye?"
The Columbia graduate turned around, and jolted at the sight of an eerily grinning Jongdae sitting dangerously close, a pint of foamy golden ale in his hand. The sight caused him to gulp and look back in Chanyeol's direction:
"You mean, Chanyeol?"
"Uhuh," Jongdae leered through his pint.
"Yeah... he sure is."
"So you fancy him?"
"What?"
Jongdae stared at him in a ‘you-heard-me-perfectly' kind of way and Baekhyun faltered.
"I...I don't know, why?"
"Let me diagnose you," the younger intern rubbed his hands together like a spiritual guru and lifted them up in Baekhyun's direction, closing his eyes: "Tell me my child, does your heart beat faster when he's around you?"
"What are you doing?"
"Gotta play the game. Tell me: does your heart beat faster?"
"...No." Baekhyun frowned.
"Ah, then when you two are in close proximity with each other, do you feel this warmth inside of you?"
"Um, no...?"
"Do your pupils get dilated?"
"How the hell am I supposed to kn-"
"When you guys talk and he smiles at you, does he take your breath away? Does he dazzle? Does he make you feel like that smile is the only thing you'll ever want to see for the rest of your life?"
Baekhyun stared back at him.
"No."
"Well, then, you don't fancy him."
Baekhyun sat back onto his bench, wondering how it was possible that he could feel both so relieved and so disappointed at the same time.
"I don't?"
"Nupe," Jongdae said, wiping the foam around his mouth with the unused corner of a napkin. "Don't think you're quite there yet."
Outside the tent, a good ten metres away from them, Minseok, Joonmyun and Lu Han were doing their own simulation of paddling a dragon boat, moving their arms inanely in the air while Joonmyun shouted vague words like ‘HOLD' and ‘SIT UP', and Lu Han stopped every two seconds to reposition the corners of his beanie.
Baekhyun cleared his throat uneasily.
"He...uh, I genuinely think he's kind."
"Chanyeol? He sure is." the other man sneered, "'s got the heart of a flower as well. Heard about Lu Han's rat problems and went around buying rat poison and rat traps, which he then personally installed around Lu Han's flat... Didn't ask for a penny. I would have charged five dollars a trap, but oh well..."
"Yeah, he's pretty generous," Baekhyun agreed morosely. "Awesome guy, really."
He observed Chanyeol's animated figure from afar, watching the younger man's huge hands movements as he waved to his supervisor and almost knocked another consultant's plate over, bursting into thousands of apologies while his supervisor laughed at him. Baekhyun smiled when he felt Jongdae nudge him with his elbow.
"Just don't use him and then break his heart, alright?" the younger intern smirked.
Baekhyun's heart skipped a beat, forcing him to look back down at his plate. Two seconds later, Joonmyun's voice came blaring from outside the tent:
"Jongdae, we need four people for symmetry!"
"Sorry, coming right away," Jongdae laughed and left his pint on the table before skimping away and leaving Baekhyun alone in the tent. He sat there unmoving for a while, unable to tell his thoughts apart. Then, the buzz from his phone shook him awake, and he dazedly glanced down at the new message on the screen.
[div style="width:450px;text-align:justify;font-size:12px;margin-left:25px;color:#000;line-height:120%"]"Hey, long time no talk. What's going on?"
He heaved a sigh, and lowered the mobile. A pat on his shoulder asked for his attention. Chanyeol was back with the plates of desserts and a filled pint of beer.
"They ran out of cheesecake," he said, "but you like the company cafeteria's éclairs, so I got you some. Is that okay?"
Baekhyun pushed the phone back into his pocket and mustered his most genuine smile of gratitude:
"That's awesome, thanks."
⚜
"If no one's taking a shower right now, I'm going," Kyungsoo said, towel in hand, as they all dawdled around the dormitory.
The others did not bother with a reply. Only Joonmyun mumbled something through his improvised pillow, but he was already dozing off, compellingly carried towards a world of dreams by the strawberry scent of his newly washed and conditioned hair, and the sweet fragrance of coconut body lotion.
Kyungsoo slipped out of his bunk bed whilst taking care in not knocking his friend awake, and then walked out of the dorm. The underground compound was a maze of painted white walls and identical pipes. He bumped into a number of other interns on his road there and asked for the way three or four times before finally finding the boys' shower rooms, which were currently resonating with the sounds of dripping water and guys asking each other where the hot water handle was... He was glad that these were shower cubicles aligned next to each other, and not open spaces. Kyungsoo had always hated the awkwardness of public shower rooms, with all those naked bodies facing each other under similar water taps. Cuddling the towel closer to his chest, he walked along the line of cubicles until his eyes caught sight of a half-open one, at the end of the line.
Without hesitation, he pushed the door inwards, ready to step in when his gaze suddenly fell upon a broad, tanned back rustling with water, and a round pair of firm buttocks. Kyungsoo's eyes shot wide open, and at once, the buttocks' owner turned around and he let out a yelp, because it was Jongin, dark hair steamy and wet, with a surprised look on his face.
"Oh my...shit, I'm sorry, fuck!" he blurted out, cheeks burning as he tried to slam the door close, "sorry. I'm so sorry."
As soon as the booth was shut, he flattened himself against the wall, ignoring another intern who passed him by with an incredulous look on his face, and yelled out angrily:
"You could have locked the door, you moron!"
Jongin came out of the cubicle a few minutes later, a towel around his waist and their gazes barely crossing before the younger man sheepishly looked away with the beginning of a smile.
"The lock's broken on that one," he mumbled softly while passing the shampoo to him.
Kyungsoo remained stupidly rooted to the spot until Jongin had disappeared, then promptly paced into the emptied cubicle and slammed the door shut, in an attempt to hide his utter mortification.
⚜
"Lu Han, can you turn off your phone?" Baekhyun grumbled in the obscurity. "That's all I can see in this darkness and it's driving me insane."
"Sorry, will do in two seconds," Lu Han closed the Facebook window, ignoring Sehun's annoyed shifting on his right.
"It's two forty-five," Kris grunted, lying comfortably on his stomach with his arms folded underneath his chin, "we're waking up in less than three hours."
Tao immediately whimpered into his sleeping bag, "fuck my life."
"Lu Han," Minseok murmured in the darkness, "I'm sleeping across the room and I can still see your phone light – cut it out, please."
"Okay, here we go," Lu Han smiled and the blue glow of the mobile disappeared, attracting a wave of relieved groans and groggy shifting.
"I pity Sehun and Yixing, really," Minseok noted flatly before yawning in the newfound darkness. "Sleeping next to you must be a chore."
"You bet," Sehun muttered, facing the wall.
"Pffffffft," Lu Han simply snorted while propping himself on his elbows. "I'm definitely not the worst in this room. Besides, Yixing's already sleeping like a baby next to me, so it's not like I'm disturbing him. Right?"
He turned to the boy on his side, and froze, the smile slowly disappearing from his face. On his left, Yixing was indeed snoring softly like a new-born child, his lips parted fragilely and chest heaving relaxingly under the covers, but... the guy slept with his eyes open. The white part of his eyeballs was in fact showing in proportions way larger than any amount Lu Han found reassuring in a normal human being, and Jesus Christ, it was terrifying... Repressing a shudder, he delicately took the other intern's face between two fingers, and gently turned it in the other direction.
"What are you doing?" Kris suddenly said from Yixing's other side.
"Making you look at how cute he is?" he tried, pushing Yixing just a little to making sure he could not see the other man's eyes anymore. "Look at him snoring softly; isn't he sweet."
"Fucking hell," Kris dropped, eyes widening in terror at the sleeping intern's white eyeballs.
"Yeah, enjoy," Lu Han nodded and lied down, then gasped when the younger intern gently grabbed Yixing's chin and slowly turned it back towards him. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"You keep the view, I don't want to have nightmares," Kris whispered, burying himself into his sleeping bag. "Bye."
"No way in hell."
He smoothly placed both hands over Yixing's cheeks, taking a thousand precautions not to wake the slumbering younger man up as he nudged his face back in Kris's direction.
"Stop it," Kris hissed, before guiding the other intern's head back towards Lu Han. "Stop doing that!"
"No, you stop it," Lu Han rustled back, fingers on the snoring Yixing's temples again, "he's fucking disturbing, I'm not getting any sleep if he's facing me."
"Just deal with it, don't push it onto me."
"Stop moving him," Lu Han whispered harshly as Kris nudged Yixing's face towards him for the fifth time, "you'll wake him up...!"
"What are you guys doing?" Minseok grumbled drowsily from across the room.
"Nothing," Lu Han said.
Yixing snored between Kris and him. They looked at each other.
"Okay, he faces the ceiling," Kris stated. "This way we get one eye each... Kinda. And if he falls on either side again, no one touches him. Okay? We just deal with it and take those scary ass eyeballs on like a man."
"Like a man?" Lu Han's eyes glowed with a strange light.
"That's right, you heard me. Like a bloody man," the Economics graduate sneered before slipping deeper into his sleeping bag again and turning to face the empty bed on the other side, "Good night, Lu Han Lu."
"It's motherfucking Lu Han," he started, then paused as he saw Yixing's lips twitch in his sleep. With a groggy sound, the younger man's head tilted and soon fell over onto his side, white eyeballs staring at him over peaceful snores.
Lu Han closed his mouth and pursed his lips.
Well, fuck.
He heaved a sigh and rolled onto his right, resigning himself to face Sehun's snoozing figure on the other side. The younger intern was already curled up into a ball, drooling face half-buried into his sleeping bag and looking altogether like a gigantic overfed caterpillar that somehow forgot to go into cocoon stage.
"Wonderful," Lu Han thought sarcastically.
A chilly shiver later, he slowly brought his legs up, dragging Sehun's heavy winter coat over his body to shield himself against the cold. Then, tugging his beanie over his face as an improvised sleep mask, he took a deep breath – incidentally inhaling the remains of cologne impregnated on the coat's collar – and relaxed his shoulders to drift into overwhelming, restful peace.
I swear I'm not doing this to the China line because I hate them — Seli, don't come for me.