THE group was working peacefully on the banners, which were supposed to be hung on the walls on the day of the semi-formal dance. Mal tried her best to focus on her friends and her drawings and to try to ignore the noise everyone else was making. However, to her dismay, Joshua, Olivia, and Sabrina kept yelling at each other, while Griffin kept ordering people what to do in his loud, bossy tone. Diego kept himself silent while working on the lights, occasionally throwing a snarky comment. Ava continued to gossip to Josie about something Mal couldn't focus on.

All she could focus on was the noise ringing in her ears.

She didn't like it when people spoke so loudly next to her, and she certainly didn't like it when people talked to each other at the same time. She hated the noise.

She glanced at Felix, who was sitting right next to her, only to find him focused on the drawing settled on the floor. To her, he looked incredibly peaceful while he concentrated on any task in his hand. Her heart slowed its beating, only for a second, as she admired his handsome features.

She turned away after a few minutes, as she didn't want to make him uncomfortable. She reached for her backpack, opened the zipper, then reached for something she wanted all along.

She let it out and stared at it for a second. It was a Dior Lip Glow strawberry lip balm. She quickly opened the lid and began to apply it to her lips anxiously.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine." she repeated inside her head, trying to force herself to act upon the words. She was okay. She didn't need to cause a scene for them to keep silent like what happened in Egypt a while back. She didn't need to be dramatic about it.

The idea that she was only overreacting kept ringing inside her head, and it could only hurt her.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Felix's voice echoed inside her ears. She glanced into his eyes, only to find his confused, concerned look.

"I-I'm just nervous. The n-noise is too much..."

He wrapped his arm around her torso reassuringly, then planted a small, soft kiss on her forehead. "Do you want to get out of here?"

"No, I'm fine, I guess. The faster we finish this the faster we get out of here."

He then looked at the lip balm attached to her hand. "Do you think I can try it?"

She nodded swiftly, then handed it over to him. He took it with no hesitation, then began applying it to his soft, plump lips, which caused some of the students in the room to look over at the couple. Including Griffin.

Griffin rolled his eyes in dismay.

"Just when I thought you couldn't get any more girly, you go ahead and do that. What the hell are you doing?"

Mal ignored him, knowing that arguing with him about a point like that would be useless. Griffin believed that putting on makeup was unmanly, while Felix believed the opposite. While Griffin was busy trying to prove that his bad-boy attitude, his black, leather jacket, and big, black half-boots were enough to make him 'manly', Felix was trying to prove that putting on makeup, showing emotions, and crying were definitely human traits and he didn't have to hide his identity for it. He also had to wear a lot of makeup when he was in the group along with his friends, so he wasn't new to it in the first place.

"Shut up, Griffin." Joshua called out from behind the basketball hoop, "I think that lip balm looks great."

"Nobody wants to know what you think-"

Before Griffin could continue his sentence, Mal's phone rang loudly from inside her backpack. She turned to Felix for a moment, a teasing expression over her face, taking a quick look at the caller's identity on the screen.

"You can ask them if they want to try it too," she began, motioning to Han and Hyunjin, "I'm going to talk to my mum real quick."

She got up from the polished, porcelain floor and ran out of the room. Felix watched her disappear out of the gymnasium, then turned to his friends and handed them the lip balm.

"Would you like to try it?"

Han nodded with an enthusiastic smile, like a child who was given candy and began applying it to his lips, followed by Hyunjin as soon as he was done.

"This is so good," Hyunjin began, "how much is that?"

"I don't know, but I'll ask Mal when she gets back."

A few minutes passed with them sitting in silence, while the other students kept yelling at each other to stop wasting the confetti and to put it in the balloons. Mal came in after she put the phone away from her ear, an enthusiastic smile over her face.

"Guys! That wasn't my mum. It was Chan, he borrowed my mum's phone to tell us that he's in the studio right now. He already finished a lot of tracks with the new equipment!"

The three boys greeted her with excited, happy smiles. "That's great!"

"Your mums got the new equipment already?" Han asked, making the girl nod happily.

"Yes! Now we get to finish things faster, and set a date for our first concert together!"

They all cheered at that. Felix glanced at Mal with a small, excited smile, inching closer to her face.

"It will be our first concert together."

Mal nodded again, this time hugging him tightly while almost jumping up and down.

"I can't wait to sing with you guys!"

At that, everyone in the room turned to her, a baffled expression over their face. Griffin stepped closer towards the group, furrowing his eyebrows, stopping himself from making a snarky remark as he tried to understand.

"What do you mean by 'singing with you' and 'on stage'?"

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