Sehun: Sundays and Lemonades
Lazy Sundays were the best Sundays.
You walked into your room with a tall mason jar of cherry lemonade, a refreshing drink to set the tone of the incoming afternoon. You place the mug on your nightstand and reach to unplug your phone, plunging yourself into your bed with great ease.
But you didn’t even enjoy a full ten minutes of mindlessly scrolling through Instagram when you notice a new DM request pop up in your notification bar.
“Who’s this?” you mutter, opening the message.
Your heart freezes.
It is a DM from a celebrity, a very well known celebrity at that fact, who had responded to a story of a breakfast plate photo you’d shared earlier that morning.
“Sehun…EXO?”
You try talking yourself into waking up from a cruel dream, but after many arm pinches and several attempts at washing your face with cold water in the sink, you realized that the interaction was very much real.
You creep back to your bed and open the DM, reading over his message again.
[New DM: yummy! 😋]
It wasn’t much, but it was still very much an interaction.
You look back to your stories to see if anything else was new, and you almost fling your phone across the room when you realize the boy had actually left a like on a story selfie that came just before your breakfast post.
“Is this real? Is this boy… real? This has to be a scam. What the—”
You realize you have three options.
Never respond. Ever.
Actually, maybe even delete it.
…respond. Why not?
A fourth option was to post about it, but you realized that wouldn’t do him any good. It would probably cause a heap of unwanted attention and scandals in your own life and probably even his, and you honestly weren’t up for any external interruptions into your otherwise peaceful life. You didn’t even follow him, and he most definitely did not follow you. Also, what if his intention was to… genuinely reach out and be friendly?
I think I’m gonna respond. What could happen?
You decide to keep it short and sweet, just as he did.
[Me: it was so good!! u should try! 😆]
You waited for a few minutes for a reply, but eventually none came.
It’s a scam. A very well thought-out scam. I’m being scammed, I just know it, you thought, reaching over to drink some of your lemonade.
You decide to turn your attention to your television, curiously deciding to watch EXO videos on YouTube to get a jist of what he was like.
Ten minutes into the video, you hear your phone ping again, and you immediately scramble to it without hesitation. And sure enough, the mysterious boy had answered.
[New DM: ☺️ let’s go?]
The DM’s were short and to the point. You were still a bit skeptical as you watched the boy dancing on your television, turning back to your phone and contemplating whether it really was the same boy who was messaging you at this particular moment.
[Me: u want to?? 😄😊]
[New DM: 🤔]
[New DM: 🤫🫣]
You giggle, realizing he was saying many things with such little emojis.
[Me: wanna be friends? 🤫]
[New DM: that’s not risky? 🥴]
[Me: i can keep a secret ☺️]
[New DM: :) tomorrow?]
You giggle at the secret life that would soon ensue.
It could be fun, it was very risky, and you’d make sure to keep your distance until… until you felt safe.
Suddenly, a dawning thought occurred to you.
What if… he’s just a normal person, just like me.
You look back from your phone to the television where the videos had auto-played to a reality show starring the boy and his group.
He definitely was an average person, just like you.
And you were an ordinary person, just like him.
Your pictures ended up on his explore page, just as anyone else’s could.
He thought you were cute and looked through your page, just as anyone crushing on a person might do.
He’d swiped up quietly, not knowing where it would lead, just like anyone intrigued would.
And you followed suit, contemplating whether giving this new potential friendship a shot could be just as any ordinarily sane human interaction would play out.
Regardless of the millions of cameras that surrounded him his whole life, he was still just another person,
just like you.
