happinessplate (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
happinessplate) wrote2015-04-20 11:45 am
happinessplate) wrote2015-04-20 11:45 am
air quote worthy
chanyeol/kyungsoo | pg | 16k
>> chanyeol "confessed" to kyungsoo. chanyeol "dated" kyungsoo. chanyeol "broke up" with kyungsoo.
don't ask. it's complicated.
pls note that beondegi is steamed or boiled silkworm pupae. don't google, unless strong stomach or you've eaten it before and loved it (why???)
♫♫♫
“So you’ve completed middle school and finally entered high school where you’ll enjoy the first two years and then die in the third one thanks to entrance exam preparation,” Kim-songsaengnim pauses here so he could appreciate the terror on the new high schoolers’ faces when they absorb this cold harsh fact, and then continues when they reassume their carefree teenage selves of oh-fuck-it-I’ll-think-about-it-two-years-later. “First lesson is lab. Your lab partners have been assigned and are sitting right next to you. Say hi to your fellow death row inmate,” he drawls to the class. The students are sitting in the chemistry lab according to the seats assigned to them.
Absolute silence follows his words because no one says hi voluntarily to strange new classmates on the first day of the school year. Everyone is sixteen and awkward and panicking over who to sit with during lunch break. Lunch break companionship is the most important thing in the world.
But then not everyone is Chanyeol.
“Hi!” He beams to his partner. At least he has the decency to lower his volume so that only the entire class hear him and not the neighboring lab, too.
“Uh, hello,” his partner says, looking a little startled and giving Chanyeol a stiff small bow. He positively exudes ‘please stop talking to me’ vibes but Chanyeol stays blissfully unaware.
“I know your name, you’re Kyungsoo. We were from the same middle school!” Chanyeol chirps. “You sang really well and everyone knew you.” Chanyeol knew Kyungsoo from the neighboring middle school class, although they’ve never talked before.
“Ah, no, I mean, thank you,” Kyungsoo mutters, and then feeling like he needs to reciprocate, he says earnestly, “I know you too. You’re Chanyeol, you once got the lowest marks for Maths in our grade and failed repeatedly to get into the basketball team even though you were the tallest chubby boy in school. You were kind of famous, you know,” Kyungsoo smiles politely while he compliments Chanyeol, “because you owned a ferret.”
This is a fairly succinct summary of Chanyeol’s middle school history that he wants buried in the most northern tip of Alaska so that no one would ever mention it again. That was the past. Chanyeol is going to be phenomenal in high school. He’s now tall and thin and no longer sobs over dead pets.
“…Yeah, that would be me,” Chanyeol finally replies with a strained smile after what seems like a lot of forevers.
“I know.” The oblivious Kyungsoo smiles back at him, like a ghost from his Christmas past.
“The ferret died,” Chanyeol continues half in spite as a means of conversation. Who the fuck cares anymore, let’s all be awkward together, he thinks.
“Everyone dies,” some mouthy classmate sitting behind them quips.
♫♫♫
“He said I once got the lowest marks for Maths in our grade and I failed repeatedly to get into the basketball team even though I was the tallest chubby boy in school and I was kind of famous because I owned Jongin!” Chanyeol complains to Baekhyun this Sunday afternoon in their weekly meet up in his house. It’s a ritual since their middle school days, one they keep even though Baekhyun no longer attends the same school as Chanyeol. The original intention of their ritual was very admirable, really. It was to help each other at schoolwork, although how Dumb could help Dumber was a complete mystery. At first, they honestly did try their hand at homework, but after hours of failure, they would give up and take to video games. Now they just go straight to the games because life is short.
“Kyungsoo is an honest young man,” Baekhyun deduces accurately, “and it’s actually kind of rude to name your ferret after your ex-crush.”
“Cheap thrills,” Chanyeol shrug, then he cringes. “Also, Kyungsoo bites his nails. Gross.”
“So what are you going to do about him?” asks Baekhyun.
“I will make sure he swallows his nail bits instead of spitting them out,” Chanyeol narrows his eyes and says ominously.
Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol looks the cutest when he’s pretending to be dangerous. “But if he spits them out, you’d have to pick his nails up and stuff it back into his mouth,” Baekhyun points out.
Chanyeol looks horrified at the prospect. “What. No, that’s disgusting-”
Before Chanyeol could finish his protest though, Baekhyun bulldozes his way through by upping his volume. “Because if you don’t, next time you rest your elbows on the table, you might be resting them on his nails, which would naturally be smeared with his saliva, and if Kyungsoo had beondegi for lunch that day, effectively, you would be resting your elbows on worms.” When Baekhyun utters that last word, his voice has dropped to a hoarse whisper and he drags out the pronunciation as if it was the climax of a ghost story. He widens his eyes dramatically, feeling them budge which is great, just the effect he’s looking for.
After a second of stunned silence, Chanyeol leans over and put a hand to Baekhyun’s forehead, as if testing his temperature. “Did you forget your meds again?” asks Chanyeol earnestly.
“Yes, I always forget them when you’re around, because your lunacy makes me feel so normal,” Baekhyun deadpans, slapping Chanyeol’s hand away. “What are you gonna do about Kyungsoo?” Baekhyun repeats his question, so Chaneyol could reply him right this time.
Frowning, Chanyeol says, “Nothing, he’s just my chem lab partner who has proven himself to be quite good with the Bunsen burner. We just probably wouldn’t end up being good friends or anything close to that.” Chanyeol throws himself onto Baekhyun’s bed.
“At least he’s kind of cute?” Baekhyun says, recalling Kyungsoo during his middle school days.
“I’m not cute?” Chanyeol rolls over, clenches his hands into fists and holds them against his cheeks while he pouts.
“I want to punch your face repeatedly with a hammer,” Baekhyun comments objectively.
“I don’t know, he’s not my type, he’s cute but not really, you know, good looking,” Chanyeol says.
“I think he’s good looking though. In fact, many in our middle school thought so too.” Baekhyun crawls into bed to sit beside Chanyeol.
“What.” That makes Chanyeol sit up. “Kyungsoo’s popular?”
“Very. Did you not notice the fansigns for him during all his school performances? Maybe you were too obsessed over Jongin to notice.”
“With that character of his?” asks Chanyeol disbelievingly. “He can’t even hold conversations!”
“Who cares about character when he has that face and voice?” Baekhyun cringes after saying this. Why does the truth always sound so ugly?
“Huh,” muses Chanyeol. “So how’s high school on your end?” he asks distractedly.
Baekhyun scowls, “My ajusshi class rep is the most infuriating-”
This is when Chanyeol flops down on bed again, engrossed in his internal monologue.
Kyungsoo is good looking?
♫♫♫
To confirm this ‘suspicion’, Chanyeol has taken to sneaking looks at Kyungsoo over the next few weeks of chem lab sessions.
Kyungsoo’s currently scraping some unknown blue thing off the bottom of a test tube, brows furrowing in concentration. He’s cute, really - Chanyeol evaluates. Small, compact, and useful as a lab partner, like 2-in-1 shampoos or 3-in-1 beverage mixes. Their lab duties have been clearly divided after the first session where Chanyeol demonstrated his ability to burn down the lab. Now Kyungsoo does all the experiments while Chanyeol does all the test tubes washing like a housewife, although he insists that Kyungsoo is the one to wipe down the table after their experiments and he always asks what Kyungsoo had for lunch on the day of chem lab. Just in case though, Chanyeol never rests his elbows on the table anymore.
After the initial awkwardness, Kyungsoo has shown that he possesses a narrow but nevertheless acceptable range of human emotions. But because he’s usually so quiet, Chanyeol is going to stand by his opinion that they’d probably never hit it off.
Good looking and popular though?
“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol calls out, and when Kyungsoo turns over with a nonplussed look on his small pale face, Chanyeol is even more convinced that Kyungsoo is not good looking. Jongin’s face is what comes to Chanyeol’s mind he thinks about good looks, and Kyungsoo is just this adorable little thing, like a, like a Pikachu keychain or something. Chanyeol wouldn’t mind a Kyungsoo keychain, to be honest.
“Never mind,” Chanyeol dismisses Kyungsoo so he could go back to conjuring mysterious blue crystals in test tubes like Hermione and let Chanyeol copy his work later like Ron.
Instead of resuming his work, Kyungsoo just takes a test tube filled with transparent liquid and lifts it to Chanyeol’s face. “Sniff it,” he says, and Chanyeol would later reflect on his obedience, but now he simply side-eyes Kyungsoo’s fingers (one fingernail is bloodied because it has been bitten past the quick - Chanyeol imagines a silkworm pupa squiggling over the nail, ugh, fuckyoubyunbaekhyun) curved around the test tube, before leaning forward and taking a deep sniff of the liquid. His nose immediately begins to sting.
“Ahhh!” he yelps, pushing Kyungsoo’s hand away, and the smell must have scrambled Chanyeol’s brains because the next thing Kyungsoo knows, Chanyeol’s leaning over the sink at their bench to wash his nose, turning his face upward so that water could fill his nostrils. Then he gasps and chokes, water running out of his nose and mouth simultaneously. Shocked, he gapes at Kyungsoo with his mouth opened, a small trail of water making its way down like a mini waterfall. Did Pikachu just prank him?
Kyungsoo loses it. He shrieks with laughter and bends over, barely capable of holding onto that test tube containing the foul liquid. And it’s this that Chanyeol sees when he pulls wet bangs away from his face. Kyungsoo’s eyes are all scrunched up with mirth, his mouth forming a heart shape when he laughs. The harsh white light from the overhead lighting gleams off Kyungsoo’s hair and becomes a gentle glow, making his hair looks so soft and black.
The sight is so pleasant that Chanyeol feels a tickle within his chest, like a feather brushing over his heart. An unconscious smile lifts the corners of Chanyeol’s lips. Then he begins laughing, too. It starts off as a stupid giggle, but his giggling sets Kyungsoo off all over again and Chanyeol begins howling with laughter.
“What happened?” Jongdae asks in bewilderment from where he sits behind them, staring at the laughing pair.
Kyungsoo points at Chanyeol, Chanyeol points at his nose, and they both clutch their stomachs, laughing so hard they can’t even make a sound.
“What?” repeats Jongdae, then realizing he isn’t going to get an answer out of them, he mutters, “Crazy.”
“What if I put ammonia into a glass and give it to Jongdae?” Kyungsoo huddles closer and whispers to Chanyeol.
“So he’d drink it?” Chanyeol whispers back and the two of them explode again. Fuck, everything is suddenly funny.
“I, I can’t believe you took such a deep sniff, I was going to stop y-you but it was too late!” Kyungsoo gasps between fits of laughter.
Chanyeol laughs, looking at Kyungsoo and there’s that heart-shape again. “When you smile, your mouth,” he says, a trickle of water still making its way over his philtrum.
Kyungsoo laughs until he collapses in his seat when he sees Chanyeol’s wet philtrum.
Chanyeol wipes his face on his sleeve while he draws a heart shape in mid-air with a finger but Kyungsoo is laughing too hard to capture that.
“What?” Kyungsoo gasps.
So Chanyeol arcs his forefingers, sticks his thumbs out and forms a heart shape with his hands. He shows it to Kyungsoo with a smile. To his surprise, however, Kyungsoo’s grin freezes on his face before it drops off entirely.
“What?” Chanyeol asks in puzzlement, that stupid smile still on his face.
Jongdae shoots up from his seat behind them and screams while he points at them, “Park Chanyeol is confessing to Do Kyungsoo!”
Before lunch break that day, the news of Park Chanyeol being hopelessly in love with Do Kyungsoo has spread all over school.
♫♫♫
When Chanyeol relates his sad life to Baekhyun during their weekly ritual, his ex-best friend says with a solemn look on his face, “Listen, you have only one way forward. I have some rat poison over at my place, if you need it, I can-”
“Yes, I need the exact amount that is required to kill you,” snarls Chanyeol.
“Let’s put murderous feelings aside and discuss the matter at hand enthusiastically like girls!” declares Baekhyun and he shifts closer to Chanyeol in bed to show that he’s serious in offering the hand of friendship. “So, you’ve cleared it up with Kyungsoo?”
Chanyeol sighs heavily and collapses back into Baekhyun’s bed. His pillow smells nice; Chanyeol sniffs it again. He wonders what shampoo Baekhyun uses.
What shampoo does Kyungsoo use?
The question whizzes past Chanyeol’s mind in a bolt of blue and he shoots upright in shock. What the hell just happened? Who the fuck cares what shampoo another dude uses?
“He said it’s all right, he understands! He understands, right!?” Chanyeol asks Baekhyun with more ferocity than necessary.
“It depends,” Baekhyun says, assuming an air of superiority, as if he too, wears pink on Wednesdays, “Does he mean “all right” like, ‘you don’t have to explain anymore, the more you explain the more desperate you seem, I know you like me, and it’s all right’ or is it the ‘all right, all right, all right’ kind of all right?”
“Um,” Chanyeol twiddles his thumbs, because none of Baekhyun’s “all right” scenarios fit Chanyeol’s situation. “He just said all right, but I think it’s the ‘all right, no worries, I know you weren’t confessing’ kind of all right?”
“You never know,” Baekhyun says cryptically.
“You mean, he might still think I like him?” Chanyeol asks worriedly.
“I don’t know,” Baekhyun says scathingly, as if Chanyeol was accusing him of something he didn’t say. “I just said you never know.”
God, this bitch, Chanyeol thinks. “Great, so we all don’t know.” Chanyeol flops back to bed and then shoots right up when ’What shampoo does Kyungsoo use?’ begins flashing in his mind again. This is worrying. Chanyeol decides to confide some of his feelings to Baekhyun. “You know, last lab session, when he looked into my eyes and smiled, I felt this really strange feeling in my heart. Like, there was a feather tickling my heart or something. Man, I know this sounds stupid. There must be something wrong with me.”
“Indeed, there must be something wrong,” Baekhyun says gravely.
“I know right,” Chanyeol moans.
“Because you have no heart.”
Making full use of his bigger size, Chanyeol throws Baekhyun down into bed and wraps him up with his blanket so that he ends up looking like a burrito. Then he sits on him so Baekhyun can’t unwrap himself.
When he finally manages to poke his head out from one end, Baekhyun asks, panting a little from suffocation, “Does this mean you really like him or what?”
“We aren’t even friends!” protests Chanyeol, but the thought of Kyungsoo pranking him suddenly surfaces and Chanyeol couldn’t resist a smile at the memory of Kyungsoo’s cheekiness. It doesn’t seem like they are such different people they could never be friends anymore.
“You’re smiling. This is so creepy, I am going to scream for my mom,” Baekhyun says. But all he does is to wiggle so he could free an arm out from his burrito to reach for the bag of opened chips on the bed. “Hey, get up for a bit, I can’t reach.”
Chanyeol very nicely lifts his butt up for a while for Baekhyun to get the chips and then sits down again when he finally has them. “You could still like him, even if you aren’t friends.” Baekhyun stuffs a chip into his mouth with his free hand, the other arm still stuck in the burrito.
“He’s not my type, I told you. I like the hot ones and he’s just,” a Pikachu keychain, but Chanyeol can’t say that so he simply flutters his fingers as if to say, 'you know'.
“Not good looking enough for you, eh?” Baekhyun sticks his head out further from his wrap so he could fix an accusing stare at Chanyeol who’s still sitting on him.
“You make me sound like an asshole,” Chanyeol scowls, gazing back at Baekhyun, feeling a little hot under his collar.
“Well, asshole, you used to be the tallest chubby kid in school. You haven’t always been this hotshot,” Baekhyun points out.
“My type has never changed, chubby or not,” counters Chanyeol, and it’s true, he did always fancy good looking faces, although Baekhyun’s words seem to linger.
Not good looking enough for you, eh?
As if he really was considering Kyungsoo as a boyfriend, which is totally not the case here, so that makes the statement invalid, right? Right?
Frustrated, Chanyeol smacks Baekhyun’s butt in retaliation only to realize the blanket has absorbed most of the blow. Baekhyun wiggles to show that this is indeed true.
“Stop talking about Kyungsoo, tell me your side of things.” Chanyeol opts to divert his attention away from Kyungsoo, but when Baekhyun begins with, “Sooo, my ajusshi class rep? I was hating on him-” Chanyeol starts thinking again.
If Chanyeol really was considering Kyungsoo, would he feel that Kyungsoo wasn’t good enough for him?
♫♫♫
Chanyeol has a lot on his plate when it comes to Kyungsoo these days. To organize things, Chanyeol makes a list:
However, #3 requires Chanyeol to notice Kyungsoo a lot and whenever Chanyeol looks over to evaluate Kyungsoo’s good looks and then his own soul, Jongdae would do a PSA and ensure that the whole of Seoul knows, so #2 is out. On the bright side, #1 and #4 seem fairly feasible, because even though Kyungsoo sometimes catches Chanyeol staring at him, he would just stare back for a bit and Chanyeol would blink back at him with his large innocent eyes. Then Kyungsoo would shake his head like he’s shaking off a spell and tell Chanyeol to copy his work faster. What a nice lab partner he is.
Chanyeol is super conscious of Kyungso now. Honestly, he is surprised to wake up every morning and find that Kyungsoo-feelers haven’t popped out from his head yet. He looks at Kyungsoo from the corner of his eyes whenever classmates stop by their bench to chat and he isn’t sure if he’s being sensitive or not, but the number of boys who talk to Kyungsoo is veering dangerously close to the ‘everyone’s gay???’ side of the meter. Maybe Baekhyun’s right about Kyungsoo being popular. On the other hand, the number of girls who pause at their bench to talk to Chanyeol is eyebrow-raising. Or at least, it’s raising Kyungsoo’s brows. Whenever Chanyeol turns around after chatting with the girls, he spots Kyungsoo turning his head, too. There are times when Chanyeol feels like they are creeping on each other (ok, fine, Chanyeol is spying on Kyungsoo), which is really weird because they never ever talk about it. But then what is there to say? I’m checking out all the people who are checking you out, like how you’re checking out all the people who are checking me out? Um, pass.
Whenever Kyungsoo laughs, there’s that terrible heart shape that ruined Chanyeol’s life and a fucking feather in his heart. Every now and then, Kyungsoo still threatens Chanyeol with ammonia, but instead of cowering, Chanyeol would go to the tap and perform his signature act of water running out of his nose. It gets Kyungsoo every single time, which in turn gets Chanyeol with the heart shape and feather-in-heart. He still can’t seem to think of Kyungsoo as a hottie but man, he sure would make a cute pal and Chanyeol does seem to think they could be good friends now, given the chance. It’s just that there’s this horrible insane burning question that’s always sticking at the back of Chanyeol’s mind like an axe: What shampoo does Kyungsoo use?
Sometimes Chanyeol thinks ‘who the fuck cares!’, but then there are days when he cannot go by without staring at Kyungsoo’s awfully soft black hair. It’s all Baekyun’s pillow’s fault. The question is at the tip of Chanyeol’s tongue today. Kyungsoo has just pushed his bangs back and that’s it, Chanyeol has reached his limit. Luckily, Kim-songsaengnim saves him, first by interrupting him and then banishing him into the depths of hell with news of a chem lab test.
“Look, no one dies from a chemistry lab test,” Kim Heechul consoles his class of emotional teenagers, “you just fail.”
Upon the sight of Chanyeol’s crestfallen face, Kyungsoo shifts closer and Chanyeol’s Kyungsoo-feelers perk up immediately. There’s a feather in Chanyeol’s heart again, making him feel warm and fuzzy all over even though Kyungsoo isn’t smiling and that’s weird, but Chanyeol shrugs this realization off because Kyungsoo’s speaking.
“Just study and you won’t fail,” Kyungsoo says matter-of-factly.
“I will fail,” Chanyeol says so resolutely and sullenly that Kyungsoo is starting to believe in it, too. And maybe Kyungsoo’s partly to blame as well, since he lets Chanyeol copy all his answers. It’s all his puppy eyes’ fault.
“Do you want a tutor?” Kyungsoo asks tentatively, as if he’s afraid Chanyeol would say no.
But Chanyeol widens puppy eyes at Kyungsoo and his Kyungsoo-feelers begin to flail wildly.
♫♫♫
Come Saturday, they find themselves in a café for the tuition session Kyungsoo promised because Chanyeol decided that it would be too forward for them to meet at each other’s house. If Kyungsoo is still under the mistaken impression that Chanyeol likes him, he might think Chanyeol has ulterior motives for inviting him to his house. And god forbids if Chanyeol invites himself to Kyungsoo’s house. Besides, it’s not like they’re close friends yet, despite the fact that their entire cohort already know they’re going on a ‘date’ today (die, Jongdae). Although ammonia had been a catalyst in their relationship, it isn’t as if Chanyeol is going to do any bro stuff like chest bumps with Kyungsoo anytime soon. Not that it’s advisable due to their height difference - his crotch might end up in Kyungsoo’s face.
Once upon a time, Chanyeol had thought the ‘it’s complicated’ statement was a pretentious way to describe the relationship between two people.
All in all, it seems like today is going to be full of awkwardness.
Instead, they end up having an impromptu napkin origami session because Chanyeol’s late and when he arrives, he sees Kyungsoo hastily trying to hide the paper napkin swan he folded out of boredom.
“You have to teach me!” Chanyeol insists, dragging the swan’s corpse out from under Kyungsoo’s backpack on the table and admiring it.
Kyungsoo’s face is a little red but he still manages to say coolly, “All right, but lunch is on you.”
This is rather brusque considering the fact that they don’t even know each other so well. Slightly taken aback, Chanyeol pauses for a second before saying, “Uh, sure!” He has plans to treat Kyungsoo in return for tuition anyway.
At this, Kyungsoo’s blush deepens until his face is bright red. “I was just kidding,” he mutters in a small voice, left hand scratching his elbow, looking very conscious with his eyes fixed to the floor.
Chanyeol lifts his brows at Kyungsoo’s obvious distress. “You’re really bad at this,” he muses. Then he stops to think.
Oh.
“So, when we first talked and you were going on about my middle school failure… that was a joke too?” Chanyeol asks in disbelief. Now that he knows Kyungsoo slightly better, it does seem rather out of character for him to have said something so rude.
“I was trying to break the ice,” Kyungsoo protests, scratching his elbow even more vigorously now. “Then you looked offended and it was just too embarrassing, I couldn’t even bring myself to apologise.” He looks at Chanyeol sheepishly.
When he finally stops gaping, Chanyeol pulls the chair beside Kyungsoo out and sits down. “I think you need me to tutor you on clowning instead,” Chanyeol says very seriously, putting an arm around Kyungsoo, which sets his Kyungsoo-feelers swaying rather excitedly. It’s just that Kyungsoo is very nice and warm to cuddle up to, Chanyeol reasons.
“Hey, your nape is red too,” says Chanyeol innocently, staring at the back of Kyungsoo’s neck from his vantage point. There’s a flush creeping up from the front.
Kyungsoo bolts upright, hands going around his neck like he's going to strangle himself. “So, uh, swan?” he says, voice raspy, fidgeting about in his seat and looking like he's been caught doing something wrong.
“Is pretty.” Chanyeol nods enthusiastically and they set about unraveling the complexities of napkin origami. After the swan, Chanyeol insists on learning more, so Kyungsoo begins folding an elephant, and then a rose, and then a peeled banana, and then, “Why did we meet here on a Sunday, again?” asks Kyungsoo, brows drawn together in a puzzled frown, a napkin still caught in his hands.
Chanyeol thinks about it. “Um, lunch?” he answers.
Kyungsoo agrees and they bicker over who has the lousier dish when their food arrives.
“Mankind didn’t risk deforestation to clear land for agriculture just to produce salads with withered lettuce in them.” Kyungsoo makes a valid point, forking some greens with brown edges and showing them towards Chanyeol.
Chanyeol examines Kyungsoo’s withering lettuce and makes a vague sound of disapproval. “But is your humor drier than my roast chicken?” Chanyeol raises his brows challengingly, attempting to cut out a slice of chicken to show Kyungsoo. But the meat just won’t be cut so he stabs the entire chicken leg and shakes it at Kyungsoo.
“Hey, someone put a brick on my plate and I’m supposed to pretend it’s actually toast, ok?” Kyungsoo jabs his block of toast with a fork and it flies over the edge of their table, toppling to the floor. Startled, Kyungsoo ducks under the table to check where the toast landed, only to meet Chanyeol’s equally surprised eyes. They stare at each other for a second before looking at the toast on the floor and then back up at each other again. Then they burst out laughing together. Kyungsoo knocks his head on the edge of the table but everything’s hysterical at this point and they just laugh even harder.
When they surface, Chanyeol hands Kyungsoo a glass of water. “Ok, you win,” he concedes, “lousiest dish ever.”
But Kyungsoo just replies with a doubtful look on his face as he examines the glass of water Chanyeol is holding out to him, “This isn’t ammonia, right?”
Chanyeol really doesn’t mean to let out a howl of laughter so loud it makes everyone in the café stare at him. He really doesn’t mean to spill the water in the glass either, but he just hasn’t been expecting Kyungsoo to be so hilarious - it’s at odds with his poker face. It’s all right anyway; Kyungsoo is laughing just as hard so Chanyeol isn’t alone in being embarrassing.
Kyungsoo takes a sip of his water and looks meaningfully at Chanyeol. “Because I trust you,” he says, holding his glass up.
Grinning, Chanyeol takes a swig of his drink, too. “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” he says, referring to Kyungsoo’s prank on him and Kyungsoo smiles so hard, his mouth becomes heart-shaped again.
“Can I ask what you did to have a growth spurt?” Kyungsoo breaks his remaining slice of brick-toast up into pieces and throws them into his soup. “I’d appreciate some tips,” he admits with a self-conscious shy smile, which is so cute, Chanyeol has to drop his eyes and hold a fist to his mouth in case he wails something stupid like, ‘Nooo, but being short suits you!’. Thankfully, he stops himself in time and ends up saying, “No, but being short suits you.” At least he sounds calm.
“What?” Kyungsoo sputters and Chanyeol wishes there was a vat of ammonia in here somewhere so he could dip himself in it.
“Well,” he says feebly because Kyungsoo is fixing him with a confused stare. “Well!” Chanyeol starts flinging his hands as if he’s struggling in quicksand. “You’re popular in middle school, aren’t you?”
“Oh,” Kyungsoo immediately lowers his head at Chanyeol’s words and he flushes red.
Oh my god, Chanyeol thinks, Baekhyun is right. Why didn’t Chanyeol notice Kyungsoo was popular back then?
“A lot of boys like to talk to you in class, too,” Chanyeol points out and oops, is that accusation in his voice? Because he swears to god, he didn’t mean to sound like Kyungsoo had committed adultery. It’s just, it’s just that, why does Kyungsoo attract so much attention? It’s chem lab, for Christ’s sake, not a fan meeting. None of those boys bother with Chanyeol, why? Is he transparent? Does he not have a voice as deep as the pits of hell? He’s a fucking coconut tree, in your face and hard to miss.
Chanyeol opens his mouth to explain more, In case Kyungsoo misunderstands his irritation for jealousy, because as we all know, Chanyeol doesn’t fancy Kyungsoo at all. But just then, Kyungsoo wipes his mouth with a napkin and says very mildly, “That’s nothing compared to the girls who gather around you.” Then he folds his arms and gazes coolly at Chanyeol whose mouth has dropped open. Where did the shy Kyungsoo go? There are so many sides to Kyungsoo - the mischievous one who pranks him, the awkward one who doesn’t even know how to hold conversations, and the one who makes him laugh all the time. He’s too much for Chanyeol to handle.
“I,” Chanyeol squeaks, feeling like he has been caught committing adultery. He doesn’t understand this. His confession to Kyungsoo was a mistake; why does he feel commitment? “I didn’t ask them to,” he finishes his sentence weakly. “They come over on their own accord.” Chanyeol lowers his head with a small pout and starts drawing circles on the table top with a finger.
“Hmm, because you’re so attractive now?” Kyungsoo doesn’t relent, although vague amusement seems to lurk in his tone. He leisurely stirs his soup and the brick-toast bits sink to the bottom of the bowl. Chanyeol kind of knows how they feel. He understands that sinking feeling so well.
“I just lost weight and grew a couple of inches!” Chanyeol says indignantly, and how did it come to this? He didn’t ask to be popular, popularity just came to him! What could he do? It’s not his fault!
“I’ll tell the girls to stop it,” he declares to Kyungsoo.
“Hmm,” Kyungsoo hums nonchalantly again and Chanyeol wants to yell his innocence at the skies.
“I’ll tell them on Monday!” he says fiercely, but Kyungsoo just smiles and shrugs, "You are free to speak to anyone you like."
Which is true, actually, but Chanyeol says haughtily, "No, no, I'll only talk to you."
A small secretive smile pulls at the corners of Kyungsoo's lips as he lowers his head to take a sip of water. He looks like the cat that got the cream.
Fuming, Chanyeol waits. But to his horror, he realizes Kyungsoo has no intention of declaring his innocence to Chanyeol and there’s no promise from his end to tell the boys to stop. Did he just get manipulated? Chanyeol blinks at Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo smiles again and Chanyeol’s ire wobbles and fade into ashes. “Let’s start tuition now,” Kyungsoo says.
Chanyeol is flabbergasted. “I thought,” he begins.
“No,” Kyungsoo states.
“But, like,” Chanyeol stutters.
“No,” Kyungsoo repeats emotionlessly.
Tearfully, Chanyeol takes out his chemistry textbook. When they leave the cafe, Chanyeol is also the one who has to go under the table to retrieve that fallen piece of toast.
♫♫♫
“Let me be clear on this. You accidentally confessed to Kyungsoo before and everyone thinks you like him, but you guys aren’t even friends and he really does think it’s ‘all right’.” Since they never got to an agreement which kind of “all right” this is, Baekhyun pauses here to make air quotes with his fingers before continuing. “There’s some eyeing going on, although who cares because he’s absolutely not your type, but you guys had a ‘date’ anyway and you really enjoyed being with him, even though you have somehow been weaseled into promising that you’ll tell your suitors to back off while he’s free to do whatever he likes?” Baekhyun has all his facts right but he still looks confused when he reiterates what Chanyeol told him.
“Why do I feel like my whole life’s a mistake when you put it like this?” Chanyeol asks with a frown.
“Your birth was a mistake, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun corrects him.
“Anyway,” Chanyeol dismisses Baekhyun with a sweep of his hand, “it was tuition, hardly a date.”
“Well, besides agreeing to tell your girlfriend hopefuls to back off, I hope you didn’t do anything else to mislead him during tuition,” quips Baekhyun, “since we still don’t know if he’s convinced that you don’t like him.” Then he pauses while this fact sinks itself in. “Shit, your life is a mess.”
Chanyeol sighs and admits, “At one point, I did have my arm around him.”
“God, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun grits his teeth.
“What!” Chanyeol yelps because goddammit, it’s true, his life is a mess. “I put my arm around you all the time, too! Once, I even put my hand on your dic-”
“WE AGREED NEVER TO TALK ABOUT THAT AGAIN!” yells Baekhyun, “Seriously, considering your complicated relationship with him, putting an arm around him is the equivalent of declaring that he’s your possession or something.” Taking a deep breath, Baekhyun says, “You need to stop misleading him.”
Chanyeol puckers his lips, like he has something to say but he knows it’s going to infuriate Baekhyun, so.
“Stop doing that anus-mouth thing and just spit it out,” Baekhyun says dryly.
“But I really like being with him, even though I don’t like him that way?” Chanyeol turns the statement into a question so it’d be less offensive to Baekhyun.
Who clearly would have none of it, of course. Baekhyun’s face turns murderous. “You can’t! You can’t confess to a guy and say, oops, that was a mistake, I don’t like you that way but I still want to cuddle because I really! Like! Being! With! You!” Baekhyun punctuates his words with a hit to Chanyeol’s back using his bolster. “Jesus Christ, you men are such insufferable bastards!” he pants, pushing his messed up hair to one side, looking like he’s so agitated he has forgotten his own gender.
“I think you need tranquilizers.”
Baekhyun beats Chanyeol up with his bolster again.
“Did something happen?” The disheveled Chanyeol finally gets the hint and surfaces from his beating to question Baekhyun.
Baekhyun actually deflates at this. He has a deliberating look on his face when he gazes at Chanyeol, as if he isn’t sure if he should confide in him. When Chanyeol pokes him, Baekhyun finally confesses, “I found out that ajusshi class rep isn’t just accompanying me for my detention-”
Flopping over in Baekhyun’s bed, Chanyeol tunes his friend’s complaining out, and decides that Baekhyun’s right. He shouldn’t mislead Kyungsoo if he doesn’t like him that way, especially since things are already so sensitive between the two of them.
♫♫♫
It’s Monday and Chanyeol hasn’t had time to casually inform the girls he’s isn’t available anymore, when one of them pounces.
“Uh, sorry, but you’re not my type…” Chanyeol scratches his neck and lower his head so he could avoid the girl’s eyes. He’s not used to confessions yet. School just ended and he’s supposed to be at Baekhyun’s for games, instead he’s now at a quiet part of the school with a girl from the class beside his.
“I can change,” the girl says in a small voice, “just tell me your type.”
‘Why are you making me hurt you even more’, Chanyeol wants to moan. He’s trying to think of the best way to reject the girl when a voice suddenly calls out, making both of them jump.
“Chanyeol!” His name reverberates in the narrow stairway and Chanyeol whips around, eyes wide, hand clutched to his chest.
Kyungsoo is standing at the bottom of the stairs, and that horrendous sense of being caught committing adultery gushes right back to Chanyeol. He almost blurts out ‘it’s not what you think’.
“Kim-songsaengnim is looking for you,” Kyungsoo says mildly before turning to walk down.
Chance! Chanyeol twirls around and is about to use this convenient excuse to escape when he looks into the girl’s eyes.
She looks sad.
Chanyeol is sorry, he really is. He has never even had the courage to confess to anyone he likes, so he knows just how brave this girl must be. It’s great to be brave enough to take the first step, just that you might not be able to walk to the end.
“I… I am sorry, I just don’t feel that way about you.” There’s probably no better way to do this other than being honest. Chanyeol bows and holds it for a second before straightening himself and bounding down the steps to catch up with Kyungsoo.
“Saved your ass again, didn’t I?” Kyungsoo doesn’t turn around when Chanyeol’s footsteps come up from behind him. But the smugness in his voice echoes in the enclosed space like surround sound.
“I barely passed that chem lab test,” Chanyeol frowns. Kyungsoo has been enjoying too many upper hands when it comes to him. “So,” Chanyeol jumps down the last couple of steps to walk beside Kyungsoo, but his lab partner pauses so he gets left behind and now stands higher than Chanyeol on the stairs. “Did you… did you hear what we were-” Chanyeol turns his head around to look at Kyungsoo, only to find him at eye level, just two steps away.
Kyungsoo stares into Chanyeol’s eyes, and suddenly, Chanyeol can hear his heartbeat loud and fast in his ears. Sunlight streams in from a window at the top of the stairs, but down here, the two of them are bathed in shadows and Chanyeol feels like this is a secret, just between him and Kyungsoo. He doesn’t do anything misleading, but not doing anything will not make whatever it is between them go away either.
No one but the two of them knows just how complex their relationship is. They aren’t strangers, they aren’t friends, they aren’t dating either; so what are they? Sometimes, Chanyeol wants to ask Kyungsoo, ‘do you still think I like you?’, but it’s such a loaded question and Chanyeol doesn’t think he could deal with any answer so he refrains from doing so. He doesn’t know how to define what it is between the two of them, but he’s perfectly happy with this status quo. It’s effortless. Chanyeol might be alone in this sentiment though.
Kyungsoo lowers his eyes, bangs sweeping over his forehead, and those shadows now engulf Kyungsoo’s face. Chanyeol has an overwhelming urge to push his hair back, free the shadows, feel the tresses between his fingers and finally know how soft they are. Kyungsoo blinks and Chanyeol feels the sweep of his eyelashes right across his heart.
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo says, his voice soft, almost hypnotic, and Chanyeol’s breathing stops entirely when Kyungsoo brings his eyes back to gaze deeply into Chanyeol’s, “but you’re not my type.”
Chanyeol’s eyes widen in shock. He opens his mouth but ends up tightening his jaw instead. A surge of bitterness creeps up the back of his throat and Chanyeol forces it back down by swallowing hard. Just as he’s still struggling with Kyungsoo’s words, the culprit breaks into a smile.
“Yup, I heard,” Kyungsoo answers. Still smiling, he hops down the steps, leaving Chanyeol behind.
The surge of relief is so sudden, it takes Chanyeol a while to feel because he went a little numb. He didn't even realize he has stopped breathing from the impact of Kyungsoo's words. But Kyungsoo was just repeating what Chanyeol had said to the girl. He wasn’t rejecting Chanyeol. A hot flush floods Chanyeol’s face as he recalls his reaction when Kyungsoo ‘rejected’ him. Did Kyungsoo notice? What the hell was that? What did he feel so- so- that short little bastard should become an actor. Huffing, Chanyeol cuts short his internal rant and turns on his heels to catch up with Kyungsoo.
“Been getting a lot of confessions, haven’t you?” Kyungsoo says when he sees Chanyeol running up to him with his face red. His words are mocking, but his tone is flat so Chanyeol is clueless as to whether Kyungsoo is making fun of him.
“Nothing compared to you!” Chanyeol bursts out all disgruntled, throwing Kyungsoo’s words back at him and falling into step beside him. Is this misleading? Although seriously, who is misleading whom? It seems like an equal playing field here. They are now accusing each other of receiving confessions, great. This fake-real thing is snowballing, they should really go on We Got Married someday.
“I only received one and it was from you.” When Kyungsoo says this, he never stops doing air quotes with his fingers and Chanyeol feels like this is an accurate description of their relationship. They need to be shrouded with air quotes; there’s no one statement that would be entirely true when applied to them. Oh wait, there’s one: it’s complicated.
“What’s your type, Chanyeol?”
“Why?” Chanyeol asks, heart beginning to race again, "Why are you concerned?" Shit, he's baiting. But he just can't help it, he wants to know.
Kyungsoo drops his eyes to half mast, looking extremely unimpressed. "Really? You have no idea?" Was the half-serious dating and confession ribbing all for nothing?
"An idea of what?" Chanyeol asks quizzically. Is there something he should be aware of?
"An idea of just how stupid you are," Kyungsoo says plainly, giving up on Chanyeol. Whatever. He'd get it someday. Then, “Just curious,” replies Kyungsoo, switching tracks, “That girl isn’t your type, I’m not your type either.”
Chanyeol has to bend down to look at Kyungsoo because he’s so shocked at his words. “What did you say?” he asks incredulously. How did Kyungsoo know he isn’t Chanyeol’s type?
It’s Kyungsoo’s turn to be surprised. Looking flustered, he quickly takes a step back when he realizes how close Chanyeol has gotten, their breaths practically mingled. Chanyeol sees a familiar shade of red creeps up on Kyungsoo's nape. Clearly, Kyungsoo is better with exchanges of sarcasm than being in close proximity with Chanyeol. Wimp. All talk, no action.
“You said that to me, when you were clearing things up after your confession, well, not confession.” Kyungsoo gives an impatient wave of his hand. “Don’t worry, I know it’s just Jongdae exaggerating things.”
Chanyeol cups his hands over his mouth because the urge to scream is rather overwhelming right now. Did he really say that? Jesus Christ. If so, he must have sounded like he was rejecting Kyungsoo instead, pushing him away when the latter clearly did nothing wrong.
“No! I mean, you’re really cute and you’re so good at lab work, you sing so well, and you’re popular, too. It’s just, it’s just that,” Chanyeol falters, and then he smacks his face with both his hands, staring at Kyungsoo with a look of absolute horror, hands still cupping both sides of his face. He’s just admitted to Kyungsoo that he thinks Kyungsoo’s cute. Chanyeol really, really doesn’t want to live anymore.
Kyungsoo laughs at Chanyeol’s mortification. “It’s just that I’m not your type,” he finishes Chanyeol’s statement for him. Then, mother of Christ, Kyungsoo turns it into a question by asking, “Right?” and fixing his big eyes on Chanyeol.
Chanyeol looks right back at Kyungsoo, his eyes flickering with hesitation at Kyungsoo’s words. The silence is unrelenting. Tension tightens Chanyeol’s stomach into knots. This is his opportunity to clear the air. The words are full and heavy on the tip of his tongue, nervous sparrows that are ready to be spooked into flight. He doesn’t want to admit this. Although he knows this is exactly what Baekhyun means when he says Chanyeol is being misleading, and he also knows he has been telling Baekhyun that Kyungsoo isn’t his type, but right now, he doesn’t want to say the same to Kyungsoo. It would sound so… final.
Finally, Kyungsoo turns away first. He seems both amused and vindicated at Chanyeol’s silence, as if this was a victory of sorts. At least Chanyeol is no longer saying that Kyungsoo isn't his type.
“Bye, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo bids Chanyeol farewell and this is when Chanyeol discovers they have arrived at the school gate.
“I thought Kim-songsaengnim was looking for me?” He jogs to catch up with Kyungsoo, who rolls his eyes. Sometimes Chanyeol thinks this is a meaningless act for Kyungsoo since he has so much eye white, all he needs to do is just look sideway for the same effect.
“That was just an excuse to save your hide,” Kyungsoo explains while he walks to the bus stop, Chanyeol his every step. Some students from their school gape at them. This is so scandalous - the two most popular namshins from their school are openly dating.
“Oh,” Chanyeol exclaims. He runs until he’s in front of Kyungsoo, then he turns around and begins walking backward while he talks to the little one. “Want to go for games then?” he asks, before realizing he’s asking Kyungsoo out. Sometimes Chanyeol wants to slap himself on Baekhyun’s behalf too.
“No,” Kyungsoo says plainly.
“How about lunch then? Naengmyun? Jajangmyeon? Cham-”
Kyungsoo claps his hands over his ears as he continues walking.
“-pong? Ramyeon? Kalguksu? Bibimguk-”
“Why do you talk so much?!” Kyungsoo exclaims, sounding aghast. Park Chanyeol is single handedly putting Seoul on the noise pollution map. He sounds like a fly that’s buzzing around Kyungsoo, one he keeps swatting at but just couldn’t kill. An ambulance siren that wouldn’t go by. The car alarm in your neighborhood that blasts at 3am in the morning. Mating cats.
Chanyeol pouts, which le gasp, fans Kyungsoo’s ire even more. “Do. Not. Do. Aegyo.” He bites the words out and really punches Chanyeol’s right bicep this time. Chanyeol acts wounded. He really shouldn’t. It earns him a few more punches from Kyungsoo, until he learns that just quietly taking it and acting like Kyungsoo scares him is the best way out.
Kyungsoo raises a fist and glares at Chanyeol. ”Shut up.” The amount of eye white Kyungsoo is exhibiting is scary.
“Ye~” Chanyeol bows and says demurely in formal language.
Kyungsoo looks appeased. “I can’t lunch with you, I’m busy,” he finally replies. There’s a trash bin up ahead and Chanyeol’s back is going to collide with it if he keeps this up. Sighing, Kyungsoo steps to the left and quietly steers Chanyeol around the bin and all other obstacles that come their way. He has no idea why he puts up with Chanyeol so much.
Don’t pay so much attention to him, Chanyeol’s inner self mutters, don’t, don’t, don’t.
But, “What are you busy with? Can I come?” Chanyeol blatantly ignores his subconscious and invites himself to hang out with Kyungsoo. They’ve arrived at the bus stop and he plops himself down on the seat beside Kyungsoo, stretching his neck to read the numbers of the arriving buses even though he has no idea which bus Kyungsoo is waiting for.
To his surprise, Kyungsoo’s face turns pink, the color quickly reaching the tops of his ears too. “No! You cannot come! Do not follow me!” He warns Chanyeol fiercely, a hand clutching Chanyeol’s forearm as if physically restraining him.
Chanyeol pauses for a bit, then he chirrups, “No!”
Kyungsoo glowers.
Chanyeol’s mouth and eyes go round at Kyungsoo’s sudden burst of animated actions. It goes without saying that he now absolutely has to tag along with Kyungsoo, even at the risk of his own life.
♫♫♫
Kyungsoo sings at the local orphanage every Monday afternoon with some of his church mates. He looks so worried and embarrassed that when he asks Chanyeol not to watch, Chanyeol concedes and settles into a bench outside the orphanage.
But he hears Kyungsoo nevertheless; he has solo parts in all the songs. Although Chanyeol thinks he would recognize Kyungsoo’s voice from the way it makes him feel anyway. A warm simmering in the chest, as if he’s concocting something sweet in his heart, and then there’s- Chanyeol laughs before he could even finish this thought. He lifts his hands and puts them over his head, where he thinks his feelers might be. He closes his eyes, the memory of Kyungsoo’s voice in his ears. They haven’t even known each other for a long time, but nostalgia is suddenly bittersweet on the tip of Chanyeol’s tongue.
When he next opens his eyes, he finds that the singing has stopped and Kyungsoo is sitting beside him on the stone bench. A secretive smile on his face, his large eyes closed, hands folded quietly on his lap. His face is tilted up towards the sky so the sun could lend its glow to him, turning Kyungsoo gold all over. The wind swirls the leaves in noisy dancing circles and Chanyeol fears this moment is coming to an end, but Kyungsoo just turns his face towards the breeze. The wind ruffles Kyungsoo’s hair, sweeping his bangs over his face, drawing Chanyeol’s attention to his features. They were right; Kyungsoo is really good-looking. Why did it take Chanyeol so long to realize this?
Chanyeol thinks he has a complicated relationship with Kyungsoo, but he discovers they can be as simple as this, sitting quietly side by side, companionship settling over them like a blanket. This is good.
The sight of Kyungsoo’s profile makes Chanyeol’s heart heavy and full, so he has to turn away to save himself from this strange ache.
“You didn’t hear me sing, did you?” Kyungsoo asks and Chanyeol looks over, expecting the peace to be broken. But Kyungsoo’s eyes are still closed and everything is so mellow, Chanyeol could feel the weight of contentment in his embrace, tangible and warm. He realizes he feels happy.
“Nope,” Chanyeol says easily, kicking a leaf at his feet, a little confused at how he’s feeling.
“You’re lying.” This time, Kyungsoo peels his lids open and scowls at Chanyeol.
“Yeah, I lied,” Chanyeol admits wholeheartedly, nodding his head, and the both of them burst out laughing,
“Why aren’t you playing with the children?” Chanyeol asks. They could hear peals of laughter around them, as the kids play dodge ball with Kyungsoo’s friends.
“I’m… I’m not good at this sort of thing,” Kyungsoo says with a quiet smile, “you know that.”
Abruptly, Chanyeol opens his mouth to say something and Kyungsoo looks over instinctively at him, but Chanyeol closes his mouth and thinks over his words before he just says, “No, you’re good with people.”
He almost said, You’re good with me. You make me feel happy.
“Was our singing good?” asks Kyungsoo. But Chanyeol thinks he could read Kyungsoo’s real question in his eyes. They are bright and eager as they peer into Chanyeol’s eyes.
Was I good? Did you like my singing?
“I like it a lot.” Chanyeol rushes to answer, then he blinks and bites his lip when he realizes how much his words resemble that of a confession.
A real one.
Lowering his head, Kyungsoo diverts his eyes and curls his lips up into a small smile, as if he too, thinks the same.
♫♫♫
As Chanyeol interacts more and more with Kyungsoo, he becomes happier and happier, although the joy is mixed with that strange ache, which causes the little spot of confusion he harbors to grow into a clusterfuck of I-don’t-know-what’s-happening-anymore. Why is he feeling all these things? And whenever Chanyeol tries to right whatever ‘misunderstanding’ there is between him and Kyungsoo, his agenda for the little one grows until it becomes so impossible, he just gives up and banishes it to Lala-land. But for the record, it is as below:
So he lets his boat float. Chanyeol thinks he has arrived at the point of equilibrium even in his current precarious location, which if he were to illustrate would be something like this: hard place >chanyeol< rock.
But there’s one thing he cannot ignore. If Baekhyun thinks that Chanyeol putting an arm around Kyungsoo is a show of possessiveness, well, recently, Chanyeol has been wishing he could put all his limbs on Kyungsoo.
Chanyeol is trying very hard not to do it, but every time one of their male classmates saunters over to chat with Kyungsoo, he simply cannot help but sit behind Kyungsoo and glower at the classmate like he’s a vengeful spirit. Look, Chanyeol has kept his promise and told the girls to stop walking over, so why are the dudes still hanging around Kyungsoo like he’s a clothes rack or something? It’s so unfair.
When he overhears a dude comment on Kyungsoo’s hair today, Chanyeol decides he’s had it. He forcefully inserts himself between Kyungsoo and said classmate and scowls down at him, using his height to its full advantage. Chanyeol has invested so much emotion into this and he still hasn’t found out what shampoo Kyungsoo uses, so who the hell does this guy think he is? Who is he to just randomly walk up to Kyungsoo and go, ‘hey, your hair looks so soft’?
“Um, your classmate?” Jongdae answers Chanyeol tentatively, tilting his head back to look up at Chanyeol.
“This is soft too, take this.” Chanyeol grabs a sponge from the lab sink and stuffs it into Jongdae’s hand, dismissing him.
When Chanyeol turns back to Kyungsoo, he sees an indecipherable smile on his face.
“What?” Chanyeol demands, agitation making his deep voice shrill.
“Why are you bullying Jongdae?” Kyungsoo asks quietly, while he continues to sit and do his experiment. But he sounds like he already know the answer.
It’s a good question, but Chanyeol's reply sounds too juvenile, too dumb, and no matter what he says, it would seem like he’s angry because he’s jealous of Jongdae, instead of being short-changed. If he were to be honest with himself and just think it over though, Chanyeol would realize that he can’t even pinpoint which option it is anymore. But he doesn’t bother pondering about it and he doesn’t answer Kyungsoo’s question. Chanyeol just sits down on his side of the table and seethes.
Something warm suddenly envelops his hand. Surprised, Chanyeol looks up to see Kyungsoo’s hand over his. The warmth from their overlapping hands seeps right into Chanyeol’s skin and he soaks it up, translating the touch into a series of rapid heartbeats, and it feels like Kyungsoo has reached inside Chanyeol to touch his heart instead.
All of Chanyeol’s anger dies in a heartbeat.
“Come,” Kyungsoo urges, pulling Chanyeol to his feet and then beside him. “Help me with this experiment.” He passes a test tube to Chanyeol before measuring some stuff out and spooning it into another test tube.
“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol mumbles, even though he doesn’t really have anything to say, but Kyungsoo cuts him off.
“It’s all right.”
He says these words as if they were of no importance, but they sound like a reply to Chanyeol’s silence. Again and again, Kyungsoo permits Chanyeol’s silence; he will not chase for an answer.
It’s all right, I understand.
There’s a sudden lump in Chanyeol’s throat when he finally realizes what it means when Kyungsoo says ‘all right’.
They are simply gentle words of forgiveness.
Kyungsoo forgives Chanyeol for being careless with his feelings. And now, he forgives Chanyeol for staying silent.
But what does Kyungsoo understand? Chanyeol wonders.
♫♫♫
Chanyeol really wants to ask Baekhyun’s opinion on things, but the latter drags him out for a middle school class reunion this Sunday instead. This puts Chanyeol on the spot because he wants to show everyone how hot and lithe he has become, but at the same time, he wants to wrap himself in the safety of Baekhyun’s ratty old blanket and sob about Kyungsoo while he gorges on Mommy Byun’s cookies. It’s been a whole week since he smelled that blanket and Chanyeol is clearly suffering.
Thankfully, Baekhyun doesn’t give him a choice.
Only half the class make it to the reunion, but that’s still a good sixteen people, so they have to join several tables up at the eatery in order to accommodate everyone. Chanyeol finds himself dispersing advice on weight loss to several of his ex-classmates in the beginning (which is really just him bullshitting about sweet potatoes), but he soon gets tired of the fame beauty brings and retires to a corner seat to continue being sad.
“Hi, long time no see.”
Chanyeol looks up from where he’s quietly folding a napkin banana to find the very manifestation of hotness smiling down at him.
“Hi,” Chanyeol repeats stupidly, gaping at Jongin before he realizes that the only empty seat left at the table is the one beside him. “Oh, um,” he makes a serious of unintelligent sounds before folding his legs to let Jongin past.
“Your legs are really long,” Jongin laughs while he squeezes past Chanyeol, who has to politely turn his head and focus on Baekhyun stuffing fries into his nose as a dare at the other end of the table, so that it wouldn’t look like he’s checking Jongin’s ass out. “Is that a banana?” Jongin asks when he takes his seat and leans forward to peer into Chanyeol’s hands which are currently folded over his lap, the paper banana trapped within his fingers.
Chanyeol is so out of it that he heard ‘is your banana long?’ instead and gasps at Jongin who’s still gazing at his crotch. “No!” he says indignantly before catching on, “Yes!” he corrects himself. Then he flushes when he catches on. “Oh, this banana…” Chanyeol says weakly, holding up his banana. The napkin one.
“That’s amazing. How did you do that?” Jongin smiles at him.
Being noticed by a crush feels pretty amazing, Chanyeol discovers, even if said crush has been relegated to an ex-crush. “Well,” Chanyeol begins, grinning and lowering his eyes because he’s a little conscious to be looking into Jongin’s smiley eyes.
“I taught him that.”
The familiar voice that comes up from behind Chanyeol causes his tummy to do a roll and turn like it’s a puppy. He freezes, and as if connected by telepathy, Baekhyun glances over. He too, freezes on the spot. A French fry drops from his nose.
Is it? Chanyeol mouths to Baekhyun.
Yeah, Baekhyun mouths back.
You sure? Chanyeol mouths.
Baekhyun’s eyes flicker up to survey the person behind Chanyeol, then they flick back down to look into Chanyeol’s.
Yeah, Baekhyun mouths.
In that instance, Chanyeol really does feel like he’s been caught being unfaithful when he whips his head around and see Kyungsoo nursing a vague smile at him.
♫♫♫
Someone very motherfucking kindly gives up her seat to Kyungsoo so that Chanyeol is now stuck between Kyungsoo and Jongin.
hard place >chanyeol< rock
Chanyeol is actually pretty sure the unfaithful feeling is just that same bizarre guilty conscience on his part because seriously, it’s not like Kyungsoo and he are dating or anything. There’s no reason for Kyungsoo to be upset, right? Right?
Uh.
“This is so cute,” marvels Jongin when Kyungsoo maneuvers a napkin into an elephant and hands it over to him. Chanyeol tries to take the elephant so he could help pass it along to Jongin, but Kyungsoo ignores his hand and places the elly straight into Jongin’s hand.
Why is Baekhyun sitting at the other end of the world? Chanyeol wants to bury his face into his best friend’s neck and sob. He feels small and unloved.
“I can teach you,” Kyungsoo offers with a smile, gazing at Jongin even though gigantic Chanyeol is a little in the way, but oh, no matter, he’s beginning to feel transparent anyway. He thinks his right foot looks a little misty already. Ready for Heaven anytime now.
“Cool,” quips Jongin and Chanyeol turns his head slowly to stare at him with narrow eyes. He regards Jongin with fresh and sudden animosity.
”I will teach you,” Chanyeol says lowly, shifting in his seat so that he’s blocking Kyungsoo from Jongin.
Warmth suddenly pours into Jongin’s eyes, turning them honey-brown and limpid. “It’s a date then,” Jongin says, voice just as low and what the fuck just happened? Chanyeol’s eyes resume their wide doe-eyed look in surprise.
He swivels in his seat to look at Kyungsoo, and sure enough, the little one has astonishment written all over his face too, his mouth agape with shock. Shit, thinks Chanyeol, I just accidentally flirted with Kim Jongin in front of Do Kyungsoo.
Some classmate whistles. “Chanyeol always had a crush on Jongin,” she teases.
Chanyeol sees Kyungsoo sit upright at that announcement and cold sweat bursts out on his back, sending a tingle up his spine. “That was a long time ago!” he exclaims to the table before turning to Kyungsoo. “Long time,” Chanyeol repeats to him earnestly.
But Kyungsoo just looks very disinterested. “You don’t need to explain to me,” he tells Chanyeol, his tone as flat as the tone of the heart monitor as it beeps out a patient’s death, and Chanyeol feels like he has been sentenced to death indeed.
“I never knew you felt that way,” Jongin murmurs from beside him and Chanyeol gapes at him. ‘You shameless person, I don’t even like you anymore, why are you doing this to me’, he wants to scream.
“Hmm,” Kyungsoo mutters from his other side, and how? How in the world did Kyungsoo manage to make ‘hmm’ sound so judging?
“Who asked you come here? You aren’t even in our class!” Chanyeol mutters under his breath. He really didn’t expect Kyungsoo to turn up at his class reunion, even though they attended the same middle school.
“I did,” a girl across the table raises her hand and Chanyeol realizes he has spoken out loud instead. When he finally musters the courage to look over at Kyungsoo, he finds his seat empty.
♫♫♫
Chanyeol catches up with Kyungsoo somewhere between Faceshop and Innisfree. “Kyungsoo!” he calls out, reaching out to grasp Kyungsoo’s arm. But Kyungsoo snatches his hand back forcefully and continues to walk briskly down the street without a backward glance.
Shit, he’s really upset, Chanyeol thinks in utter bewilderment.
“Wait! Why are you angry?” Chanyeol runs up to Kyungsoo again. Unexpectedly, Kyungsoo brakes and Chanyeol hits his chin on the back of Kyungsoo’s head.
“Why am I angry?” Kyungsoo turns around stiffly and asks with a blank face. He stalks up to Chanyeol who blinks and backs away until his head hits the wall of the building. But Kyungsoo continues to close in until he’s pressed up against Chanyeol.
“You really have no idea?” At such close proximity, Kyungsoo has to tilt his head up in order to look into Chanyeol’s eyes. It still feels like a challenge, even if Chanyeol is the one looking down at Kyungsoo.
“Why did you run out to chase me, Chanyeol?” The question is uttered in a soft whisper, but Chanyeol could feel it nailing him onto the wall.
Chanyeol tenses, gazing into Kyungso’s unrelenting glare. But as the seconds slip by with Chanyeol’s silence, Kyungsoo’s expression changes. His face is a still a picture of calmness, but Kyungsoo’s eyes tell a different story. There’s the usual spot of stubbornness in them but now, Kyungsoo’s large eyes are also tinted with a layer of moisture. They make Kyungsoo look hurt.
“I,” Chanyeol starts. He wants to rush to pacify Kyungsoo, but his thoughts are distracted as Kyungsoo’s breathing skims the slope of his chin, the heat of Kyungsoo’s body seeping through the layers of their clothes and burning against Chanyeol’s chest. Kyungsoo is standing far too close, and Chanyeol can’t think right like this. His heart starts driving an insane beat in his ears; he could hardly hear himself. The toe-curling tension is back, clawing at his insides and making his blood sing. It’s been hinting at Chanyeol all this while; whatever it is that’s between them isn’t so simple, it burns just as hot as the tension. His heartbeat spikes, there’s that weird ache in his chest again and the inexplicable need to be closer, despite how terribly jumpy Chanyeol gets when there’s a lack of distance between them. Even if it makes Chanyeol unbearably nervous, he can’t help himself from wanting to be close to Kyungsoo.
“I don’t know,” Chanyeol ends up saying, hands on Kyungsoo’s shoulders pushing him away so he could ease his body’s strange reactions to Kyungsoo’s closeness.
That was a wrong move. Chanyeol could tell when Kyungsoo’s indifference vanishes and one side of his mouth scrunches up; it’s just a tiny reaction that Kyungsoo permits himself to exhibit, showing that Chanyeol has affected him. Or maybe it’s just that he can no longer hide how much Chanyeol affects him.
Chanyeol is alarmed. “No,” he says, meaning to explain how he didn’t want to push Kyungsoo away. Not like this.
But Kyungsoo has had enough of Chanyeol’s rejections. “Why don’t you go back to your date with Jongin?” he says, voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
Great. Not Jongin again. “I wasn’t the one who suggested the date!” protests Chanyeol, feeling his irritation grow.
Kyungsoo stares at him in disbelief, ditching any last shred of his composure. “You were the one who insisted on teaching him how to fold that stupid-” Kyungsoo is so outraged at Chanyeol’s denial that he couldn’t even finish his sentence.
“That was only because, because,” Chanyeol’s arms flail as he tries to defend himself, but there’s no way he could bring himself to say, ‘because I was trying to stop you from dating Jongin’. Chanyeol doesn’t want to lose this fight though; he’s angry as well, and his emotions drive him to pick the words that would do the worst damage.
“Why? I can’t date Jongin?” Chanyeol retaliates, voice going loud in his agitation.
It works. Kyungsoo shuts up at his words. He widens his eyes at Chanyeol, looking at a loss for words for the first time. Then the knot between Kyungsoo’s brows eases and the tightness in his mouth falls slack. When Kyungsoo’s shoulders fall forward into a slump, Chanyeol knows their fight is over. Kyungsoo casts his eyes down, but Chanyeol could still see how gentle they’ve become, after all the resolve has seeped out of them.
Chanyeol’s chest goes tight at the sight. It’s as if someone has closed a fist around his heart. He’s won the fight but it feels like he’s lost everything else.
When Kyungsoo opens his mouth this time, he doesn’t say it’s all right. It isn’t all right anymore. “Of course you can,” Kyungsoo says quietly. He lifts his eyes up to look at Chanyeol, his face slipping back into its expressionless mask. “What was I thinking?”
This is the stoic Kyungsoo that Chanyeol knows so well, always so calm and cool. How did Chanyeol manage to force such a person into the extremes of his emotions not too long ago? And how did he force all those emotions to fade from Kyungsoo’s face within seconds? Chanyeol feels like he has forced Kyungsoo into a corner until he has no other choice but to give up. But he doesn’t know how he did all this, can’t even connect the wayward dots.
“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol utters his name but Kyungsoo backs away; he backs away like how Chanyeol has always done. Guarded, but not confused, unlike Chanyeol. It’s as if Kyungsoo knows all of Chanyeol’s secrets while he’s kept in the dark, and now Kyungsoo’s angry even though he’s the one not telling. Helplessness sours Chanyeol’s mouth, and when he locks his jaw tight to stanch the gush of emotions, Chanyeol feels his eyes redden instead. He doesn’t even know the right question to ask for the answer he needs. How could he not know?
“I was wrong, Chanyeol. You do have a type.” Kyungsoo continues speaking, voice going softer and softer until Chanyeol has to strain in order to make out his words. “It just really isn’t…”
And the night breeze steals Kyungsoo’s last word from Chanyeol, when he turns his back and walks down the street again. His gait is a slow sway this time because he knows Chanyeol would not give chase.
♫♫♫
Chanyeol has wallowed in the comfort of Baekhyun’s blanket for a good afternoon. It is, in fact, just a 17”x17” sized cloth, because that’s just how small Baekhyun was when he was a baby. But that doesn’t stop Chanyeol from draping it carefully over his back like armor, something that would shield him from the world’s harm, while he curls up in a fetal position in Baekhyun’s bed and thinks about nothing.
“Don’t you have your own baby blanket?” Baekhyun finally asks, plopping down beside Chanyeol in bed.
Chanyeol replies him with dead-fish eyes. “You buried it in the school’s garden when we were having school camp in 9th grad-”
“Hush, baby, hush,” Baekhyun interrupts Chanyeol and reaches over to pull his baby blanket tighter around Chanyeol. “There, there,” he mutters soothingly. But it’s no use; the blanket is simply too tiny for Chanyeol and it’s just lying on Chanyeol’s back instead of covering him.
“So,” Baekhyun lies back down in bed, careless enough to throw his leg over Chanyeol’s body, but careful enough to just gently prod in case he breaks his friend. “What happened when you chased him out?”
Baekhyun’s question reminds Chanyeol of Kyungsoo’s.
Why did you run out to chase me, Chanyeol?
“He asked me why I did that,” Chanyeol whispers, looking at Baekhyun as if his friend could provide the answers that he needs.
“You didn’t reply, right? Oh wait, no;” Baekhyun mulls it over based on his understanding of Chanyeol. “Hell, you said you didn’t know, didn’t you!” Baekhyun gasps and his face swiftly morphs into a look of horror. “Get off my bed, you monster!” he scolds, pushing at Chanyeol’s shoulders. “Your slime is dripping all over my bedsheet.”
Chanyeol whimpers and buries himself deeper into his nest because goddamnit, he came here for comfort, not more hurt. Why does Baekhyun’s blanket have to come with its owner?
“Do you really not know?” Baekhyun asks impatiently, throwing a pillow over Chanyeol’s face. “Seriously, you keep thinking about whether he’s your type or not, whether you like him or not, whether he thinks you like him or not, but have you ever wondered if he likes you?”
Chanyeol’s whimpering ceases, but Baekhyun cannot see Chanyeol’s face because of the pillow.
“That’s ok, shut up, I know you’ve never thought about it,” says Baekhyun flippantly. “Now I will ask you a few questions and you will answer me, do you understand?”
The pillow moves back and fro as Chanyeol nods his head.
“Honestly, do you like Do Kyungsoo?”
The pillow moves to the left but Chanyeol lets out a muffled whine before he could complete shaking his head.
“Again, you don’t know. But that’s fine, I’ve been adequately trained to deal with your negative level of EQ after all these years,” Baekhyun says coolly.
“Do you think he likes you?”
Chanyeol whimpers again.
Baekhyun explodes. “Exactly what do you know! You’re useless! Useless! Useless! Useless!” Grabbing his towel from the back of his chair, Baekhyun uses it to whip Chanyeol again and again with each cry of ‘useless!’. When he has calmed down sufficiently, Baekhyun pants while he adjusts his messed up bangs and asks his next question.
“If he liked you and confessed, would you accept him?”
The pillow moves in an erratic manner that makes it hard for Baekyun to decipher whether Chanyeol’s nodding or shaking his head.
“Be clear! Men who are ambiguous are the worst! Worst! Worst! Worst!” Baekhyun whips Chanyeol with his towel. It seems like personal feelings are involved. He’s still in the midst of aggressively whipping Chanyeol when Chanyeol suddenly removes the pillow from his face.
Surprised, Baekhyun settles back on his heels and watches while Chanyeol gets up into a sitting position.
There’s a tiny pinch to Chanyeol’s eyebrows when he looks into Baekhyun’s eyes, and Baekhyun mellows. “Would you?” he repeats his question wryly.
Chanyeol nods his head, just a slight inclination. His eyes look wet and shiny, like a child who’s admitting his mistake. Baekhyun twists his lips at the sight, but reaches over for his baby blanket and hands it over to Chanyeol who looks like he’d need it after Baekhyun’s next sentence.
“Doesn’t that just mean you like him, too?”
♫♫♫
Chanyeol desperately wants to make up with Kyungsoo. It would be easier if Kyungsoo just ignored him, because at least Chanyeol could broach the subject and resolve it. Instead it’s as if they’ve never had an argument. Kyungsoo treats him normally; he still does the experiments and lets Chanyeol copy his work. This makes it extra hard for Chanyeol to broach the subject. It’s like telling a person not to be angry when he isn’t angry at all.
But Chanyeol knows that’s just things on the surface. He never gets to find out what Kyungsoo does after school anymore; he doesn’t get invited to singing sessions at the orphanage on Monday anymore; he doesn’t get told to shut up for talking too much because they aren’t talking anymore.
Things drag until it’s term break and Chanyeol doesn’t get to see Kyungsoo now. He mopes during the school holidays, frequenting the café he and Kyungsoo once went to, just sitting there and folding napkins, reminiscing the happy past.
At first, the crew of the café is puzzled at the strange kkonminam’s antics, but soon they figure ‘hey, why not, free labor, yay’, and start collecting the napkin origami he makes to set tables.
Today, Chanyeol is sitting there, sadly and idly folding a Tyrannosaurus (he has since branched out) when he hears a gasp. Instinctively, he looks up and his eyes bulge when he sees Kyungsoo and Jongdae at the entrance of the café. They’ve seen him too, Kyungsoo mirrors Chanyeol’s surprise but Jongdae’s legs actually wobble a little when he sees Chanyeol and he has to cling to the café’s door for support. Yes, that’s right, his knees have gone soft because he knows he’s being a boyfriend snatcher, that sonovabitch.
A mini commotion ensues where it seems like Jongdae wants to leave and there’s a pleading look on his face, but Do Kyungsoo is his usual heartless self. He grabs Jongdae’s arm and steers him to the table beside Chanyeol. The table they sat at on their “first date”. It’s a taunt, at least that’s how Chanyeol sees it, especially when Kyungsoo takes the seat with the back facing Chanyeol. He is enraged. So much for Kyungsoo’s anger when he talks about Chanyeol’s “date” with Jongin. Now he’s so eager to see another the second they “broke up”? Why is everything in air quotes again?
Fine! Two can play this game. Chanyeol ditches his dinosaur and saunters up to their table. “What a coincidence, dear classmates. I don’t think you guys saw me sitting back there because that would mean you’re ignoring me which nah, couldn’t be,” he grits his teeth and says, “let’s sit together.”
Jongdae looks at Kyungsoo fearfully as if seeking protection, and it stirs Chanyeol’s wrath. Why? He’s unwelcomed? Do they want to be alone so much? Aww, that’s a shame because Chanyeol is going to split them up like a vicious kdrama second female lead.
Kyungsoo looks away from Jongdae to peer up at Chanyeol. “This table is for two,” he points out coldly.
“Well, since the two of you are so tiny, you guys are basically just one person…” Chanyeol trails off suggestively and with his long arm, he pulls a nearby chair over, plopping down on it and beckoning the waiter over. “Ready to order?” he asks brightly.
“No?” Jongdae quips. He hasn’t even flipped the menu open yet.
“Boo, that’s too bad because the waiter’s already here,” Chanyeol says regretfully, seeing Kyungsoo shoot him a glare at this. Chanyeol ignores him; he knows he’s being an ass and he doesn’t care.
“We will have an all-day breakfast for Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol orders without asking Kyungsoo, “and roast chicken for Jongdae.” Kyungsoo looks up sharply when Chanyeol places their orders. It’s exactly the same as what they had when they first visited this place. Chanyeol meets his stare head-on, holding it until Kyungsoo blinks and looks away first. He seems calm, but that scrunch to Kyungsoo’s mouth is back. Chanyeol is unsure if this is the effect he wants.
“But I don’t want roast chicken,” Jongdae protests weakly.
“It’s all right, Jongdae, everything tastes bad in this place,” Chanyeol says pacifyingly to him, “Right, Kyungsoo?” he adds on, but Kyungsoo just fixes his gaze on the menu, intent on ignoring Chanyeol now.
Jongdae blinks at Kyungsoo. “You’ve been here before and know the food’s bad? Then why did you suggest we eat here?” he asks innocently and Chanyeol forgives him for everything in an instant; he wants to plant one on Jongdae’s lips.
Chanyeol turns to look at Kyungsoo, imitating Jongdae’s look of curiosity. “Yeah, why did you suggest this place, Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol himself marvels at his own courage. Maybe he has a death wish he isn’t aware of.
When Kyungsoo finally lifts his eyes from the menu and looks at Chanyeol, the shift in atmosphere is abrupt and cold. He doesn’t reply at all, just staring at Chanyeol, letting long moments pass, until the guilt in Chanyeol accumulates to form a lump in his throat. He knows he’s being deliberately obnoxious despite being the one at fault.
Jongdae fidgets uncomfortably in his seat. He only asked for a date with Kyungsoo, not a confrontation. “Look, I thought you guys have broken up because I noticed you weren’t talking, so yeah, maybe I misjudged, but hey, if you two need to have a good talk, I guess I better get going,” he makes to get up.
“Sit!” Both Kyungsoo and Chanyeol snap, even if they’re still glaring at each other.
“Meow,” says Jongdae as he sits down again.
“Why am I here?” Kyungsoo repeats Chanyeol question, anger creeping into his voice. “You still need to hear it from my own mouth? No, Chanyeol, I think we both know why I’m here. You know exactly why I miss this place. Unlike you, I have never disguised the way I feel,” he says, emotions making his voice shaky, and Chanyeol loses any doubts he’s had whether Kyungsoo likes him. But why should he harbor any doubts towards this at all? Kyungsoo was the one who asked him out first. Kyungsoo deliberately messed up the girl’s confession to Chanyeol. Kyungsoo allowed Chanyeol to follow him to the orphanage despite his extreme discomfort. And Kyungsoo made his jealousy for Jongin known clear as day. How could Chanyeol not know?
Stunned, Chanyeol forgets to breathe. He simply stares at Kyungsoo, belatedly realizing that what he has been doing is forcing Kyungsoo to confess first, even when Chanyeol has fully intended to be the one to succumb before Kyungsoo and make him take Chanyeol back. Baekhyun is right, he is useless. Why can’t he even say sorry right?
“But tell me, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo continues to bites out, his ire climbing notches with each word he utters, “Why are you here?”
Then Kyungsoo waits. Chanyeol knows he is giving him an opportunity, he knows now. He can finally answer Kyungsoo right this time. All the answers are in his pocket; he rehearsed them so well. But panic suddenly crawls up his throat, choking him. He wants to do it right so much; he’s so afraid of screwing up again that he doesn’t know how to say his words. Chanyeol lets his mouth fall open but nothing comes out, and this time, he falls silent again.
And as he watches, the tightness in Kyungsoo’s jaw eases and the light in his eyes dims. Chanyeol knows his time is up when Kyungsoo laughs softly, “Thank god I haven’t been holding my breath.” It’s a lie and an obvious one, the disappointment so evident in Kyungsoo’s wet eyes and weak smile. He is all too aware that he has given himself away, and it’s too embarrassing to sit here and continue to be rejected by Chanyeol.
“Sorry, Jongdae,” he mutters and is half way to getting up when a hand clutches his forearm. It hurts because Chanyeol forgets his strength when he’s flustered, but the touch only lasts for a while. After Chanyeol removes his hand, Kyungsoo finds something stuffed into his fist. He opens it up and a napkin heart lies in his palm. Kyungsoo’s eyes flit to Chanyeol in surprise. He didn’t teach him how to fold a heart.
“I forgot what I wanted to say,” Chanyeol says earnestly with the corners of his mouth down, his eyes just as shiny as Kyungsoo’s. “I’ve thought about what I want to say to you. I think I have the answers to all your questions already, and it’s supposed to be a really nice speech but,” his lips twist, “I forgot what I wanted to say but can you please stay?” Honesty is all Chanyeol has on his hands now. “Please stay?"
Kyungsoo’s fingers play with the paper heart and Chanyeol feels his own heartstrings being strummed. He reaches out and touches that scrunch to Kyungsoo’s lips. Kyungsoo flinches but doesn’t move away, so Chanyeol’s fingertips move over Kyungsoo’s mouth, easing that pinch. “This means you’re hurt,” Chanyeol says, feeling his heart full with that strange ache again. “Please don’t be hurt,” he says in a small voice, as if he’s the one hurt.
Kyungsoo stares at Chanyeol like he’s undecided if he should stay, then he blurts out, “I’m not your type.” He frowns after saying this, as if this fact displeases him.
And Chanyeol finally realizes how much Kyungsoo minds this. He has kept this in his heart all this while, ever since Chanyeol explained to him about the false confession. No wonder he looks so hurt. “You’re right,” Chanyeol agrees, and couldn’t believe his eyes when Kyungsoo’s face falls again. He thought he was the only dumb one around here. “But so what? I’m still here because I miss eating lousy food with you and squabbling over who has the worse order.”
There. That’s not so hard, even though it sounds as dumb as Chanyeol thought it would, but it’s really these stupid little things he misses so much. He peers up at Kyungsoo, who doesn’t seem to mind the stupidity of Chanyeol’s words. If anything, he just looks taken aback, mouth opening slightly in surprise.
“I chased after you that day because I didn’t want you to be upset over Jongin. I didn’t want you at the class reunion because I didn’t want you to know I used to have a crush on him. Just that, really. I didn’t know I would end up ruining everything.” Chanyeol’s mouth draws up in the middle, making him look upset, his voice more breathless than it should be. “I didn’t mean to say all those things. I’d always want you beside me. Always.” Chanyeol pulls Kyungsoo down so he’s sitting beside him again. “Like this.”
Kyungsoo lowers his eyes, then he lifts them up again. “How am I supposed to know if you don’t tell me?” he asks sadly.
“I know now, I’m sorry,” Chanyeol says remorsefully, feeling his heart throb. “I will tell you everything now,” he says, trying to pave his way forward. “I was bullying Jongdae because I was jealous that he could just go up to you and tell you how much he fancied you, while I was still trapped in the stupid type thinking.” He heaves a harsh sigh as he recollects, “and this is going to sound stupid.”
“You are stupid,” Kyungsoo interrupts with a shrug, “so.”
“You don’t mean that,” Chanyeol says with a weary smile. “You never mean the horrible things you say to me.”
Kyungsoo glares at Chanyeol like he’s discovered a well-kept secret of his. It’s too cute, Chanyeol can’t stop laughing.
“I couldn’t stop staring at you, did you know? I always looked at you when I thought you weren’t looking,” Chanyeol laughs. “And I, I had to keep a list of things not to do about you.” He stops laughing, stops looking at Kyungsoo, too. “But I still couldn’t take my eyes off you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” Chanyeol places his hands on the table, palms up, and he stares at his hands as he whispers, “I can’t date Jongin, because I don’t like him that way, even though he’s my type.”
“And you aren’t my type, but I like you anyway.”
Chanyeol waits with bated breath for Kyungsoo’s reply, which had better be something along the line of ‘I like you, too,’ but when Kyungsoo finally speaks, he says, “In the lapses when you weren’t looking at me, I was looking at you.” Chanyeol perks up in surprise.
“I thought you liked me,” Kyungsoo confesses with a small smile, “even when you said the confession was a mistake. Because when you talked to me, your eyes,” His smile grows wide. Kyungsoo opens and closes his fist repeatedly, a poor imitation of a twinkling star. “So I was just checking out this dude who liked me.”
“I did,” Chanyeol insists, “even back then.”
“But you told me you didn’t, and I didn’t believe you, anyway.” Kyungsoo sounds a little haughty when he declares this. “Because everything you did said, ‘I like you’, even though all you said was ‘I don’t like you.’” Kyungsoo’s eyes went gentle as he recalls. “I thought you were just too dumb to realize it. It was all right, I just needed to wait for you to realize this. So I waited.” His lips draw up into a whimsical smile. “And you made me wait for so long.”
Chanyeol nods slowly and blinks beautiful large eyes at Kyungsoo, and even like this, Chanyeol charms him.
“But I was starting to believe you were telling me the truth.” Kyungsoo’s voice drop to a murmur. “You really didn’t like me; I was alone in this after all. Especially when I saw you looking at Jongin.” Kyungsoo smiles wryly. “You were very attracted to him, and I was nowhere like him. I realized you weren’t lying at all when you said I wasn’t your type. I was too full of myself.
“I fell for you after your confession, only to find out it was really a fake confession after all.”
Chanyeol and Kyungsoo peer into each other’s eyes. That nostalgic feeling is back; it hangs as heavy as the sad smile on Kyungsoo’s face. Chanyeol recognizes that familiar ache as yearning. They should be happier.
Chanyeol curves his hands together into a heart shape and shows it to Kyungsoo. “It’s real this time,” he smiles shyly at Kyungsoo.
“So, are we really, or…” Kyungsoo’s words fade away, but he puts his hands up and starts making quotation marks with his fingers.
Laughing out loud, Chanyeol’s large hands cover Kyungsoo’s and pull them down onto his lap. Kyungsoo laughs, too. He laughs so hard he has to remove one hand from Chanyeol’s warm grasp to cover his mouth.
“Official, then.”
♫♫♫
“So, like, I’m actually still here?” Jongdae reminds them of his existence.
“Great, can you please tell the whole school about us again? It’s official this time, thanks.” Chanyeol pats Jongdae’s shoulder, before pausing and re-evaluating Jongdae. “I’m watching you, by the way.” Chanyeol holds up a V sign with his fingers, then he points them at his own eyes before aiming them at Jongdae’s.
Jongdae didn’t expect Chanyeol to really poke him in the eyes, to be honest.
♫♫♫
“Why is my knife resting on a napkin folded in the shape of a bunny?” Baekhyun asks when he gets seated at Best Food in the World.
The café has gotten into the habit of napkin origami even though Chanyeol has stopped moping over there, and staff training is now in place to ensure the waitstaff knows their origami. It helps to improve business which is now just bad instead of very bad. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo still frequent the café, but only because they wish to challenge the limits of bad tasting food, like, how hard can bread get? Is that food or just carbon atoms: a dissection. Something like that. And today, they are initiating Baekyun to their monthly session of bad food intake.
“Nugu?” Instead of answering Baekhyun, Chanyeol points to the guy sitting beside Baekhyun and asks.
Baekhyun’s voice drops to a conspiratorial volume. “I told you Joonmyun was joining us today!” he exclaims as quietly as he can, which isn’t very quiet to be honest, because he’s very flustered. Joonmyun smiles like he thinks Baekhyun’s cute, which makes him mildly insane to Chanyeol. “You never listen to me!” Baekhyun continues to whisper aggressively.
Chanyeol sits up stiffly. “As your best bro for life, I have always endeavored to lend my ears to your deepest sorrows and-”
“Shut up,” Baekhyun hisses scathingly because this is such a lie his ears are burning.
“What do you see in him?” Chanyeol demands of Joonmyun.
“Love is blind,” Joonmyun answers sweetly, which sends a million goosebumps erupting over Chanyeol’s skin and a blush over Baekhyun’s face.
‘And so are you,’ is what Chanyeol thinks but doesn’t say. He just asks very politely, “Which century did you come from?” He had no idea this kind of vintage shit appealed to Baekhyun. Just look at the way he’s going smiley-eyed at Joonmyun right now. A white horse had better gallop up to them when they leave this place because Chanyeol is going to be very disappointed if Joonmyun rides a cab instead.
But Baekhyun is right. He has been telling Chanyeol about Joonmyun, if he would just listen.
My ajusshi class rep is the most infuriating person in the world. I’ve been coerced into detention for the week just because he caught me copying homework. We’re sixteen! Isn’t copying homework just part and parcel of our lives? Worse, he told me he’s going to be there every single detention session to make sure I finish work before going home. It must be an invitation to spend the night with him ‘cos no one’s going home.
Sooo, my ajusshi class rep? I was hating on him for monopolizing my time after school, but then he took off his shirt during PE today and, no one hates abs, Chanyeol. No one.
I found out that ajusshi class rep isn’t just accompanying me for my detention. He’s accompanying everyone because he’s such a responsible class rep of course, that seed-sowing bastard. I curse that he loses all his abs by summer and gains ten kilos.
And then as things got progressively worse with Kyungsoo, Chanyeol lost his will to pay attention to Baekhyun and missed out wholly on entire conversations (or monologues) with him. That’s why he wasn’t aware when they moved on to the cycle of ajusshi class rep taking off his shirt, Baekhyun taking back his curse to preserve Joonmyun’s abs for himself and their taking off together. Taking is too easy but that’s the way it is.
Kyungsoo arrives late and when he sits down beside Chanyeol, he points to Joonmyun. “Nugu?”
“You learned from the best, didn’t you?” Baekhyun mourns sadly, then he notices Kyungsoo’s nails. “Is that?” he asks.
“That’s Feelin' Hot-Hot-Hot!,” Chanyeol answers like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“No, I’m not asking about the shade. I mean, why is Kyungsoo wearing nail polish?” asks Baekhyun, examining Kyungsoo’s short stubby nails which are now covered in a bright pink shade of nail polish.
“Well, since we tried dipping his nails in chili, and it didn’t work,” Chanyeol says.
“I like chili,” explains Kyungsoo.
“So we’re trying out nail polish now, in order for him to stop biting his nails,” Chanyeol sighs.
“It’s not working. I told him and he just doesn’t get it. What he’s doing is flavoring the nails and when my nails are bare, it’s original flavor,” Kyungsoo says exasperatedly.
“Why pink?” asks Baekhyun.
“The brightness of the color indicates the severity of the situation,” deadpans Chanyeol. “For your information, we started with colorless polish and things escalated quickly to bright pink.”
“We actually haven’t had lunch,” Joonmyun points out as his appetite is getting ruined right now. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol reply him at the same time.
“It’s ok, you won’t enjoy it anyway. Food sucks,” says Kyungsoo matter-of-factly.
“It’s just that whenever we hold hands, I feel like I’m holding worms,” Chanyeol complains, his words overlapping with Kyungsoo’s.
“Please don’t break up with me because of my friends,” Baekhyun says to Joonmyun. Then to Kyungsoo, he says, “I didn’t think you would indulge him.”
“Because if I don’t- “ Kyungsoo begins and gets cut off by Chanyeol.
“Kyungoo-yah! Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol suddenly shouts, “Yah, Do Kyungsoo! Kyungsoo yahhh!”
“-he will do this all day.” Kyungsoo smacks Chanyeol on the back with the menu, leaping onto him so he’s half on Chanyeol’s lap and throwing an arm around his neck, holding Chanyeol in a headlock. ”All day.” He grits his teeth.
“I’m good at being annoying,” Chanyeol elaborates to Joonmyun, all the while supporting Kungsoo by holding him at the waist so he doesn’t fall off and is able to continue to strangle Chanyeol. In addition, he has to contort his face and acts like he’s actually hurting. Tough work, but someone’s got to do the hard job of fulfilling Do Kyungsoo’s belief that he’s actually a threat.
“He’s not good at a lot of things,” Kyungsoo says to Joonmyun, who’s learning a lot today. “So please appreciate him.”
“Oh yeah?” Chanyeol gives up his pretense and lifts his brows at Kyungsoo. The timbre of his voice runs along Kyungsoo’s chest which is now pressed against Chanyeol’s shoulder. It almost makes Kyungsoo shiver.
“Ok, sure, if you call that ‘kissing’.” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and make air quotes when he said the word.
The corners of Chanyeol’s mouth draw up. He thought they were done with this.
“I don’t need this,” Baekhyun speaks up when he senses danger right around the corner.
Unexpectedly, Chanyeol tips his head forward to press his lips against Kyungsoo. His lips are still stretched tight into a smile, so he really isn’t doing anything more than pressing their mouths together. It’s warm and sweet; honestly it’s just a peck on the lips, nothing serious but it still sends bubbles of excitement fizzling in Kyungsoo’s stomach. Chanyeol’s breath is hot and familiar on Kyungsoo’s neck. He really shivers this time.
“You know, I practically brought Chanyeol up. I’m like his mom or something, can you at least not do it in front of me- is that tongue? Did I see a tongue? God, I need a paper bag,” Baekhyun declares loudly. God, or Joonmyun, very kindly passes him a paper napkin in the shape of a rose. Joonmyun thinks there’s a time and place for romance. And it is clearly every time and everywhere.
“So this isn’t kissing?” Chanyeol says with an air of ignorance, when he parts from Kyungsoo after mere seconds.
“Nope,” Kyungsoo quips with a shake of his head, trying very hard to restrain his smile.
“Hello! Is anyone at home! Can you hear me!” Baekyun yells.
“Show me your definition of kissing then,” Chanyeol tilts his head up challengingly.
Kyungsoo actually lowers his head and Baekhyun thinks, ‘yeah, at least one of you is shy’, but then Kyungsoo lifts his hands up and cups Chanyeol’s face, boldly pulling him forward until their lips meet in an open-mouthed kiss.
Chanyeol’s Kyungsoo-feelers squirm excitedly when the tip of his tongue touches Kyungsoo’s and his boyfriend makes a small sound when he feels the touch, too. Chanyeol almost forgets where he is when he stretches his neck to lean more into the kiss, Kyungsoo’s plush lips so soft beneath his own, his breath unsteady and searing along the slope of Chanyeol’s cheeks. Chanyeol wants to make Kyungsoo even more breathless.
Baekhyun loses it. He definitely saw that tongue.
Something hits Chanyeol on the head and he flinches mid-kiss. When he looks down on the floor, he sees a piece of toast.
It is indeed, as hard as a brick.
♫♫♫
thanks to you, little one. for that geographical correction, too. lol you know everything. what would i do without you. even if you sometimes have passenger rage....
>> chanyeol "confessed" to kyungsoo. chanyeol "dated" kyungsoo. chanyeol "broke up" with kyungsoo.
don't ask. it's complicated.
pls note that beondegi is steamed or boiled silkworm pupae. don't google, unless strong stomach or you've eaten it before and loved it (why???)
“So you’ve completed middle school and finally entered high school where you’ll enjoy the first two years and then die in the third one thanks to entrance exam preparation,” Kim-songsaengnim pauses here so he could appreciate the terror on the new high schoolers’ faces when they absorb this cold harsh fact, and then continues when they reassume their carefree teenage selves of oh-fuck-it-I’ll-think-about-it-two-years-later. “First lesson is lab. Your lab partners have been assigned and are sitting right next to you. Say hi to your fellow death row inmate,” he drawls to the class. The students are sitting in the chemistry lab according to the seats assigned to them.
Absolute silence follows his words because no one says hi voluntarily to strange new classmates on the first day of the school year. Everyone is sixteen and awkward and panicking over who to sit with during lunch break. Lunch break companionship is the most important thing in the world.
But then not everyone is Chanyeol.
“Hi!” He beams to his partner. At least he has the decency to lower his volume so that only the entire class hear him and not the neighboring lab, too.
“Uh, hello,” his partner says, looking a little startled and giving Chanyeol a stiff small bow. He positively exudes ‘please stop talking to me’ vibes but Chanyeol stays blissfully unaware.
“I know your name, you’re Kyungsoo. We were from the same middle school!” Chanyeol chirps. “You sang really well and everyone knew you.” Chanyeol knew Kyungsoo from the neighboring middle school class, although they’ve never talked before.
“Ah, no, I mean, thank you,” Kyungsoo mutters, and then feeling like he needs to reciprocate, he says earnestly, “I know you too. You’re Chanyeol, you once got the lowest marks for Maths in our grade and failed repeatedly to get into the basketball team even though you were the tallest chubby boy in school. You were kind of famous, you know,” Kyungsoo smiles politely while he compliments Chanyeol, “because you owned a ferret.”
This is a fairly succinct summary of Chanyeol’s middle school history that he wants buried in the most northern tip of Alaska so that no one would ever mention it again. That was the past. Chanyeol is going to be phenomenal in high school. He’s now tall and thin and no longer sobs over dead pets.
“…Yeah, that would be me,” Chanyeol finally replies with a strained smile after what seems like a lot of forevers.
“I know.” The oblivious Kyungsoo smiles back at him, like a ghost from his Christmas past.
“The ferret died,” Chanyeol continues half in spite as a means of conversation. Who the fuck cares anymore, let’s all be awkward together, he thinks.
“Everyone dies,” some mouthy classmate sitting behind them quips.
“He said I once got the lowest marks for Maths in our grade and I failed repeatedly to get into the basketball team even though I was the tallest chubby boy in school and I was kind of famous because I owned Jongin!” Chanyeol complains to Baekhyun this Sunday afternoon in their weekly meet up in his house. It’s a ritual since their middle school days, one they keep even though Baekhyun no longer attends the same school as Chanyeol. The original intention of their ritual was very admirable, really. It was to help each other at schoolwork, although how Dumb could help Dumber was a complete mystery. At first, they honestly did try their hand at homework, but after hours of failure, they would give up and take to video games. Now they just go straight to the games because life is short.
“Kyungsoo is an honest young man,” Baekhyun deduces accurately, “and it’s actually kind of rude to name your ferret after your ex-crush.”
“Cheap thrills,” Chanyeol shrug, then he cringes. “Also, Kyungsoo bites his nails. Gross.”
“So what are you going to do about him?” asks Baekhyun.
“I will make sure he swallows his nail bits instead of spitting them out,” Chanyeol narrows his eyes and says ominously.
Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol looks the cutest when he’s pretending to be dangerous. “But if he spits them out, you’d have to pick his nails up and stuff it back into his mouth,” Baekhyun points out.
Chanyeol looks horrified at the prospect. “What. No, that’s disgusting-”
Before Chanyeol could finish his protest though, Baekhyun bulldozes his way through by upping his volume. “Because if you don’t, next time you rest your elbows on the table, you might be resting them on his nails, which would naturally be smeared with his saliva, and if Kyungsoo had beondegi for lunch that day, effectively, you would be resting your elbows on worms.” When Baekhyun utters that last word, his voice has dropped to a hoarse whisper and he drags out the pronunciation as if it was the climax of a ghost story. He widens his eyes dramatically, feeling them budge which is great, just the effect he’s looking for.
After a second of stunned silence, Chanyeol leans over and put a hand to Baekhyun’s forehead, as if testing his temperature. “Did you forget your meds again?” asks Chanyeol earnestly.
“Yes, I always forget them when you’re around, because your lunacy makes me feel so normal,” Baekhyun deadpans, slapping Chanyeol’s hand away. “What are you gonna do about Kyungsoo?” Baekhyun repeats his question, so Chaneyol could reply him right this time.
Frowning, Chanyeol says, “Nothing, he’s just my chem lab partner who has proven himself to be quite good with the Bunsen burner. We just probably wouldn’t end up being good friends or anything close to that.” Chanyeol throws himself onto Baekhyun’s bed.
“At least he’s kind of cute?” Baekhyun says, recalling Kyungsoo during his middle school days.
“I’m not cute?” Chanyeol rolls over, clenches his hands into fists and holds them against his cheeks while he pouts.
“I want to punch your face repeatedly with a hammer,” Baekhyun comments objectively.
“I don’t know, he’s not my type, he’s cute but not really, you know, good looking,” Chanyeol says.
“I think he’s good looking though. In fact, many in our middle school thought so too.” Baekhyun crawls into bed to sit beside Chanyeol.
“What.” That makes Chanyeol sit up. “Kyungsoo’s popular?”
“Very. Did you not notice the fansigns for him during all his school performances? Maybe you were too obsessed over Jongin to notice.”
“With that character of his?” asks Chanyeol disbelievingly. “He can’t even hold conversations!”
“Who cares about character when he has that face and voice?” Baekhyun cringes after saying this. Why does the truth always sound so ugly?
“Huh,” muses Chanyeol. “So how’s high school on your end?” he asks distractedly.
Baekhyun scowls, “My ajusshi class rep is the most infuriating-”
This is when Chanyeol flops down on bed again, engrossed in his internal monologue.
Kyungsoo is good looking?
To confirm this ‘suspicion’, Chanyeol has taken to sneaking looks at Kyungsoo over the next few weeks of chem lab sessions.
Kyungsoo’s currently scraping some unknown blue thing off the bottom of a test tube, brows furrowing in concentration. He’s cute, really - Chanyeol evaluates. Small, compact, and useful as a lab partner, like 2-in-1 shampoos or 3-in-1 beverage mixes. Their lab duties have been clearly divided after the first session where Chanyeol demonstrated his ability to burn down the lab. Now Kyungsoo does all the experiments while Chanyeol does all the test tubes washing like a housewife, although he insists that Kyungsoo is the one to wipe down the table after their experiments and he always asks what Kyungsoo had for lunch on the day of chem lab. Just in case though, Chanyeol never rests his elbows on the table anymore.
After the initial awkwardness, Kyungsoo has shown that he possesses a narrow but nevertheless acceptable range of human emotions. But because he’s usually so quiet, Chanyeol is going to stand by his opinion that they’d probably never hit it off.
Good looking and popular though?
“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol calls out, and when Kyungsoo turns over with a nonplussed look on his small pale face, Chanyeol is even more convinced that Kyungsoo is not good looking. Jongin’s face is what comes to Chanyeol’s mind he thinks about good looks, and Kyungsoo is just this adorable little thing, like a, like a Pikachu keychain or something. Chanyeol wouldn’t mind a Kyungsoo keychain, to be honest.
“Never mind,” Chanyeol dismisses Kyungsoo so he could go back to conjuring mysterious blue crystals in test tubes like Hermione and let Chanyeol copy his work later like Ron.
Instead of resuming his work, Kyungsoo just takes a test tube filled with transparent liquid and lifts it to Chanyeol’s face. “Sniff it,” he says, and Chanyeol would later reflect on his obedience, but now he simply side-eyes Kyungsoo’s fingers (one fingernail is bloodied because it has been bitten past the quick - Chanyeol imagines a silkworm pupa squiggling over the nail, ugh, fuckyoubyunbaekhyun) curved around the test tube, before leaning forward and taking a deep sniff of the liquid. His nose immediately begins to sting.
“Ahhh!” he yelps, pushing Kyungsoo’s hand away, and the smell must have scrambled Chanyeol’s brains because the next thing Kyungsoo knows, Chanyeol’s leaning over the sink at their bench to wash his nose, turning his face upward so that water could fill his nostrils. Then he gasps and chokes, water running out of his nose and mouth simultaneously. Shocked, he gapes at Kyungsoo with his mouth opened, a small trail of water making its way down like a mini waterfall. Did Pikachu just prank him?
Kyungsoo loses it. He shrieks with laughter and bends over, barely capable of holding onto that test tube containing the foul liquid. And it’s this that Chanyeol sees when he pulls wet bangs away from his face. Kyungsoo’s eyes are all scrunched up with mirth, his mouth forming a heart shape when he laughs. The harsh white light from the overhead lighting gleams off Kyungsoo’s hair and becomes a gentle glow, making his hair looks so soft and black.
The sight is so pleasant that Chanyeol feels a tickle within his chest, like a feather brushing over his heart. An unconscious smile lifts the corners of Chanyeol’s lips. Then he begins laughing, too. It starts off as a stupid giggle, but his giggling sets Kyungsoo off all over again and Chanyeol begins howling with laughter.
“What happened?” Jongdae asks in bewilderment from where he sits behind them, staring at the laughing pair.
Kyungsoo points at Chanyeol, Chanyeol points at his nose, and they both clutch their stomachs, laughing so hard they can’t even make a sound.
“What?” repeats Jongdae, then realizing he isn’t going to get an answer out of them, he mutters, “Crazy.”
“What if I put ammonia into a glass and give it to Jongdae?” Kyungsoo huddles closer and whispers to Chanyeol.
“So he’d drink it?” Chanyeol whispers back and the two of them explode again. Fuck, everything is suddenly funny.
“I, I can’t believe you took such a deep sniff, I was going to stop y-you but it was too late!” Kyungsoo gasps between fits of laughter.
Chanyeol laughs, looking at Kyungsoo and there’s that heart-shape again. “When you smile, your mouth,” he says, a trickle of water still making its way over his philtrum.
Kyungsoo laughs until he collapses in his seat when he sees Chanyeol’s wet philtrum.
Chanyeol wipes his face on his sleeve while he draws a heart shape in mid-air with a finger but Kyungsoo is laughing too hard to capture that.
“What?” Kyungsoo gasps.
So Chanyeol arcs his forefingers, sticks his thumbs out and forms a heart shape with his hands. He shows it to Kyungsoo with a smile. To his surprise, however, Kyungsoo’s grin freezes on his face before it drops off entirely.
“What?” Chanyeol asks in puzzlement, that stupid smile still on his face.
Jongdae shoots up from his seat behind them and screams while he points at them, “Park Chanyeol is confessing to Do Kyungsoo!”
Before lunch break that day, the news of Park Chanyeol being hopelessly in love with Do Kyungsoo has spread all over school.
When Chanyeol relates his sad life to Baekhyun during their weekly ritual, his ex-best friend says with a solemn look on his face, “Listen, you have only one way forward. I have some rat poison over at my place, if you need it, I can-”
“Yes, I need the exact amount that is required to kill you,” snarls Chanyeol.
“Let’s put murderous feelings aside and discuss the matter at hand enthusiastically like girls!” declares Baekhyun and he shifts closer to Chanyeol in bed to show that he’s serious in offering the hand of friendship. “So, you’ve cleared it up with Kyungsoo?”
Chanyeol sighs heavily and collapses back into Baekhyun’s bed. His pillow smells nice; Chanyeol sniffs it again. He wonders what shampoo Baekhyun uses.
What shampoo does Kyungsoo use?
The question whizzes past Chanyeol’s mind in a bolt of blue and he shoots upright in shock. What the hell just happened? Who the fuck cares what shampoo another dude uses?
“He said it’s all right, he understands! He understands, right!?” Chanyeol asks Baekhyun with more ferocity than necessary.
“It depends,” Baekhyun says, assuming an air of superiority, as if he too, wears pink on Wednesdays, “Does he mean “all right” like, ‘you don’t have to explain anymore, the more you explain the more desperate you seem, I know you like me, and it’s all right’ or is it the ‘all right, all right, all right’ kind of all right?”
“Um,” Chanyeol twiddles his thumbs, because none of Baekhyun’s “all right” scenarios fit Chanyeol’s situation. “He just said all right, but I think it’s the ‘all right, no worries, I know you weren’t confessing’ kind of all right?”
“You never know,” Baekhyun says cryptically.
“You mean, he might still think I like him?” Chanyeol asks worriedly.
“I don’t know,” Baekhyun says scathingly, as if Chanyeol was accusing him of something he didn’t say. “I just said you never know.”
God, this bitch, Chanyeol thinks. “Great, so we all don’t know.” Chanyeol flops back to bed and then shoots right up when ’What shampoo does Kyungsoo use?’ begins flashing in his mind again. This is worrying. Chanyeol decides to confide some of his feelings to Baekhyun. “You know, last lab session, when he looked into my eyes and smiled, I felt this really strange feeling in my heart. Like, there was a feather tickling my heart or something. Man, I know this sounds stupid. There must be something wrong with me.”
“Indeed, there must be something wrong,” Baekhyun says gravely.
“I know right,” Chanyeol moans.
“Because you have no heart.”
Making full use of his bigger size, Chanyeol throws Baekhyun down into bed and wraps him up with his blanket so that he ends up looking like a burrito. Then he sits on him so Baekhyun can’t unwrap himself.
When he finally manages to poke his head out from one end, Baekhyun asks, panting a little from suffocation, “Does this mean you really like him or what?”
“We aren’t even friends!” protests Chanyeol, but the thought of Kyungsoo pranking him suddenly surfaces and Chanyeol couldn’t resist a smile at the memory of Kyungsoo’s cheekiness. It doesn’t seem like they are such different people they could never be friends anymore.
“You’re smiling. This is so creepy, I am going to scream for my mom,” Baekhyun says. But all he does is to wiggle so he could free an arm out from his burrito to reach for the bag of opened chips on the bed. “Hey, get up for a bit, I can’t reach.”
Chanyeol very nicely lifts his butt up for a while for Baekhyun to get the chips and then sits down again when he finally has them. “You could still like him, even if you aren’t friends.” Baekhyun stuffs a chip into his mouth with his free hand, the other arm still stuck in the burrito.
“He’s not my type, I told you. I like the hot ones and he’s just,” a Pikachu keychain, but Chanyeol can’t say that so he simply flutters his fingers as if to say, 'you know'.
“Not good looking enough for you, eh?” Baekhyun sticks his head out further from his wrap so he could fix an accusing stare at Chanyeol who’s still sitting on him.
“You make me sound like an asshole,” Chanyeol scowls, gazing back at Baekhyun, feeling a little hot under his collar.
“Well, asshole, you used to be the tallest chubby kid in school. You haven’t always been this hotshot,” Baekhyun points out.
“My type has never changed, chubby or not,” counters Chanyeol, and it’s true, he did always fancy good looking faces, although Baekhyun’s words seem to linger.
Not good looking enough for you, eh?
As if he really was considering Kyungsoo as a boyfriend, which is totally not the case here, so that makes the statement invalid, right? Right?
Frustrated, Chanyeol smacks Baekhyun’s butt in retaliation only to realize the blanket has absorbed most of the blow. Baekhyun wiggles to show that this is indeed true.
“Stop talking about Kyungsoo, tell me your side of things.” Chanyeol opts to divert his attention away from Kyungsoo, but when Baekhyun begins with, “Sooo, my ajusshi class rep? I was hating on him-” Chanyeol starts thinking again.
If Chanyeol really was considering Kyungsoo, would he feel that Kyungsoo wasn’t good enough for him?
Chanyeol has a lot on his plate when it comes to Kyungsoo these days. To organize things, Chanyeol makes a list:
Things to do About Kyungsoo (including but not limited to the following):
• Make sure Kyungsoo is convinced that I don’t like him.
• Make sure the whole school is convinced that I don’t like Kyungsoo.
• Evaluate if I really am so superficial I would think that Kyungsoo isn’t good looking enough for me, assuming that I am seriously considering him as boyfriend material, which for the record, I’m not.
• Increase my writing speed so I can finish copying Kyungsoo’s answers before Kim-songsaengnim spots us.
However, #3 requires Chanyeol to notice Kyungsoo a lot and whenever Chanyeol looks over to evaluate Kyungsoo’s good looks and then his own soul, Jongdae would do a PSA and ensure that the whole of Seoul knows, so #2 is out. On the bright side, #1 and #4 seem fairly feasible, because even though Kyungsoo sometimes catches Chanyeol staring at him, he would just stare back for a bit and Chanyeol would blink back at him with his large innocent eyes. Then Kyungsoo would shake his head like he’s shaking off a spell and tell Chanyeol to copy his work faster. What a nice lab partner he is.
Chanyeol is super conscious of Kyungso now. Honestly, he is surprised to wake up every morning and find that Kyungsoo-feelers haven’t popped out from his head yet. He looks at Kyungsoo from the corner of his eyes whenever classmates stop by their bench to chat and he isn’t sure if he’s being sensitive or not, but the number of boys who talk to Kyungsoo is veering dangerously close to the ‘everyone’s gay???’ side of the meter. Maybe Baekhyun’s right about Kyungsoo being popular. On the other hand, the number of girls who pause at their bench to talk to Chanyeol is eyebrow-raising. Or at least, it’s raising Kyungsoo’s brows. Whenever Chanyeol turns around after chatting with the girls, he spots Kyungsoo turning his head, too. There are times when Chanyeol feels like they are creeping on each other (ok, fine, Chanyeol is spying on Kyungsoo), which is really weird because they never ever talk about it. But then what is there to say? I’m checking out all the people who are checking you out, like how you’re checking out all the people who are checking me out? Um, pass.
Whenever Kyungsoo laughs, there’s that terrible heart shape that ruined Chanyeol’s life and a fucking feather in his heart. Every now and then, Kyungsoo still threatens Chanyeol with ammonia, but instead of cowering, Chanyeol would go to the tap and perform his signature act of water running out of his nose. It gets Kyungsoo every single time, which in turn gets Chanyeol with the heart shape and feather-in-heart. He still can’t seem to think of Kyungsoo as a hottie but man, he sure would make a cute pal and Chanyeol does seem to think they could be good friends now, given the chance. It’s just that there’s this horrible insane burning question that’s always sticking at the back of Chanyeol’s mind like an axe: What shampoo does Kyungsoo use?
Sometimes Chanyeol thinks ‘who the fuck cares!’, but then there are days when he cannot go by without staring at Kyungsoo’s awfully soft black hair. It’s all Baekyun’s pillow’s fault. The question is at the tip of Chanyeol’s tongue today. Kyungsoo has just pushed his bangs back and that’s it, Chanyeol has reached his limit. Luckily, Kim-songsaengnim saves him, first by interrupting him and then banishing him into the depths of hell with news of a chem lab test.
“Look, no one dies from a chemistry lab test,” Kim Heechul consoles his class of emotional teenagers, “you just fail.”
Upon the sight of Chanyeol’s crestfallen face, Kyungsoo shifts closer and Chanyeol’s Kyungsoo-feelers perk up immediately. There’s a feather in Chanyeol’s heart again, making him feel warm and fuzzy all over even though Kyungsoo isn’t smiling and that’s weird, but Chanyeol shrugs this realization off because Kyungsoo’s speaking.
“Just study and you won’t fail,” Kyungsoo says matter-of-factly.
“I will fail,” Chanyeol says so resolutely and sullenly that Kyungsoo is starting to believe in it, too. And maybe Kyungsoo’s partly to blame as well, since he lets Chanyeol copy all his answers. It’s all his puppy eyes’ fault.
“Do you want a tutor?” Kyungsoo asks tentatively, as if he’s afraid Chanyeol would say no.
But Chanyeol widens puppy eyes at Kyungsoo and his Kyungsoo-feelers begin to flail wildly.
Come Saturday, they find themselves in a café for the tuition session Kyungsoo promised because Chanyeol decided that it would be too forward for them to meet at each other’s house. If Kyungsoo is still under the mistaken impression that Chanyeol likes him, he might think Chanyeol has ulterior motives for inviting him to his house. And god forbids if Chanyeol invites himself to Kyungsoo’s house. Besides, it’s not like they’re close friends yet, despite the fact that their entire cohort already know they’re going on a ‘date’ today (die, Jongdae). Although ammonia had been a catalyst in their relationship, it isn’t as if Chanyeol is going to do any bro stuff like chest bumps with Kyungsoo anytime soon. Not that it’s advisable due to their height difference - his crotch might end up in Kyungsoo’s face.
Once upon a time, Chanyeol had thought the ‘it’s complicated’ statement was a pretentious way to describe the relationship between two people.
All in all, it seems like today is going to be full of awkwardness.
Instead, they end up having an impromptu napkin origami session because Chanyeol’s late and when he arrives, he sees Kyungsoo hastily trying to hide the paper napkin swan he folded out of boredom.
“You have to teach me!” Chanyeol insists, dragging the swan’s corpse out from under Kyungsoo’s backpack on the table and admiring it.
Kyungsoo’s face is a little red but he still manages to say coolly, “All right, but lunch is on you.”
This is rather brusque considering the fact that they don’t even know each other so well. Slightly taken aback, Chanyeol pauses for a second before saying, “Uh, sure!” He has plans to treat Kyungsoo in return for tuition anyway.
At this, Kyungsoo’s blush deepens until his face is bright red. “I was just kidding,” he mutters in a small voice, left hand scratching his elbow, looking very conscious with his eyes fixed to the floor.
Chanyeol lifts his brows at Kyungsoo’s obvious distress. “You’re really bad at this,” he muses. Then he stops to think.
Oh.
“So, when we first talked and you were going on about my middle school failure… that was a joke too?” Chanyeol asks in disbelief. Now that he knows Kyungsoo slightly better, it does seem rather out of character for him to have said something so rude.
“I was trying to break the ice,” Kyungsoo protests, scratching his elbow even more vigorously now. “Then you looked offended and it was just too embarrassing, I couldn’t even bring myself to apologise.” He looks at Chanyeol sheepishly.
When he finally stops gaping, Chanyeol pulls the chair beside Kyungsoo out and sits down. “I think you need me to tutor you on clowning instead,” Chanyeol says very seriously, putting an arm around Kyungsoo, which sets his Kyungsoo-feelers swaying rather excitedly. It’s just that Kyungsoo is very nice and warm to cuddle up to, Chanyeol reasons.
“Hey, your nape is red too,” says Chanyeol innocently, staring at the back of Kyungsoo’s neck from his vantage point. There’s a flush creeping up from the front.
Kyungsoo bolts upright, hands going around his neck like he's going to strangle himself. “So, uh, swan?” he says, voice raspy, fidgeting about in his seat and looking like he's been caught doing something wrong.
“Is pretty.” Chanyeol nods enthusiastically and they set about unraveling the complexities of napkin origami. After the swan, Chanyeol insists on learning more, so Kyungsoo begins folding an elephant, and then a rose, and then a peeled banana, and then, “Why did we meet here on a Sunday, again?” asks Kyungsoo, brows drawn together in a puzzled frown, a napkin still caught in his hands.
Chanyeol thinks about it. “Um, lunch?” he answers.
Kyungsoo agrees and they bicker over who has the lousier dish when their food arrives.
“Mankind didn’t risk deforestation to clear land for agriculture just to produce salads with withered lettuce in them.” Kyungsoo makes a valid point, forking some greens with brown edges and showing them towards Chanyeol.
Chanyeol examines Kyungsoo’s withering lettuce and makes a vague sound of disapproval. “But is your humor drier than my roast chicken?” Chanyeol raises his brows challengingly, attempting to cut out a slice of chicken to show Kyungsoo. But the meat just won’t be cut so he stabs the entire chicken leg and shakes it at Kyungsoo.
“Hey, someone put a brick on my plate and I’m supposed to pretend it’s actually toast, ok?” Kyungsoo jabs his block of toast with a fork and it flies over the edge of their table, toppling to the floor. Startled, Kyungsoo ducks under the table to check where the toast landed, only to meet Chanyeol’s equally surprised eyes. They stare at each other for a second before looking at the toast on the floor and then back up at each other again. Then they burst out laughing together. Kyungsoo knocks his head on the edge of the table but everything’s hysterical at this point and they just laugh even harder.
When they surface, Chanyeol hands Kyungsoo a glass of water. “Ok, you win,” he concedes, “lousiest dish ever.”
But Kyungsoo just replies with a doubtful look on his face as he examines the glass of water Chanyeol is holding out to him, “This isn’t ammonia, right?”
Chanyeol really doesn’t mean to let out a howl of laughter so loud it makes everyone in the café stare at him. He really doesn’t mean to spill the water in the glass either, but he just hasn’t been expecting Kyungsoo to be so hilarious - it’s at odds with his poker face. It’s all right anyway; Kyungsoo is laughing just as hard so Chanyeol isn’t alone in being embarrassing.
Kyungsoo takes a sip of his water and looks meaningfully at Chanyeol. “Because I trust you,” he says, holding his glass up.
Grinning, Chanyeol takes a swig of his drink, too. “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” he says, referring to Kyungsoo’s prank on him and Kyungsoo smiles so hard, his mouth becomes heart-shaped again.
“Can I ask what you did to have a growth spurt?” Kyungsoo breaks his remaining slice of brick-toast up into pieces and throws them into his soup. “I’d appreciate some tips,” he admits with a self-conscious shy smile, which is so cute, Chanyeol has to drop his eyes and hold a fist to his mouth in case he wails something stupid like, ‘Nooo, but being short suits you!’. Thankfully, he stops himself in time and ends up saying, “No, but being short suits you.” At least he sounds calm.
“What?” Kyungsoo sputters and Chanyeol wishes there was a vat of ammonia in here somewhere so he could dip himself in it.
“Well,” he says feebly because Kyungsoo is fixing him with a confused stare. “Well!” Chanyeol starts flinging his hands as if he’s struggling in quicksand. “You’re popular in middle school, aren’t you?”
“Oh,” Kyungsoo immediately lowers his head at Chanyeol’s words and he flushes red.
Oh my god, Chanyeol thinks, Baekhyun is right. Why didn’t Chanyeol notice Kyungsoo was popular back then?
“A lot of boys like to talk to you in class, too,” Chanyeol points out and oops, is that accusation in his voice? Because he swears to god, he didn’t mean to sound like Kyungsoo had committed adultery. It’s just, it’s just that, why does Kyungsoo attract so much attention? It’s chem lab, for Christ’s sake, not a fan meeting. None of those boys bother with Chanyeol, why? Is he transparent? Does he not have a voice as deep as the pits of hell? He’s a fucking coconut tree, in your face and hard to miss.
Chanyeol opens his mouth to explain more, In case Kyungsoo misunderstands his irritation for jealousy, because as we all know, Chanyeol doesn’t fancy Kyungsoo at all. But just then, Kyungsoo wipes his mouth with a napkin and says very mildly, “That’s nothing compared to the girls who gather around you.” Then he folds his arms and gazes coolly at Chanyeol whose mouth has dropped open. Where did the shy Kyungsoo go? There are so many sides to Kyungsoo - the mischievous one who pranks him, the awkward one who doesn’t even know how to hold conversations, and the one who makes him laugh all the time. He’s too much for Chanyeol to handle.
“I,” Chanyeol squeaks, feeling like he has been caught committing adultery. He doesn’t understand this. His confession to Kyungsoo was a mistake; why does he feel commitment? “I didn’t ask them to,” he finishes his sentence weakly. “They come over on their own accord.” Chanyeol lowers his head with a small pout and starts drawing circles on the table top with a finger.
“Hmm, because you’re so attractive now?” Kyungsoo doesn’t relent, although vague amusement seems to lurk in his tone. He leisurely stirs his soup and the brick-toast bits sink to the bottom of the bowl. Chanyeol kind of knows how they feel. He understands that sinking feeling so well.
“I just lost weight and grew a couple of inches!” Chanyeol says indignantly, and how did it come to this? He didn’t ask to be popular, popularity just came to him! What could he do? It’s not his fault!
“I’ll tell the girls to stop it,” he declares to Kyungsoo.
“Hmm,” Kyungsoo hums nonchalantly again and Chanyeol wants to yell his innocence at the skies.
“I’ll tell them on Monday!” he says fiercely, but Kyungsoo just smiles and shrugs, "You are free to speak to anyone you like."
Which is true, actually, but Chanyeol says haughtily, "No, no, I'll only talk to you."
A small secretive smile pulls at the corners of Kyungsoo's lips as he lowers his head to take a sip of water. He looks like the cat that got the cream.
Fuming, Chanyeol waits. But to his horror, he realizes Kyungsoo has no intention of declaring his innocence to Chanyeol and there’s no promise from his end to tell the boys to stop. Did he just get manipulated? Chanyeol blinks at Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo smiles again and Chanyeol’s ire wobbles and fade into ashes. “Let’s start tuition now,” Kyungsoo says.
Chanyeol is flabbergasted. “I thought,” he begins.
“No,” Kyungsoo states.
“But, like,” Chanyeol stutters.
“No,” Kyungsoo repeats emotionlessly.
Tearfully, Chanyeol takes out his chemistry textbook. When they leave the cafe, Chanyeol is also the one who has to go under the table to retrieve that fallen piece of toast.
“Let me be clear on this. You accidentally confessed to Kyungsoo before and everyone thinks you like him, but you guys aren’t even friends and he really does think it’s ‘all right’.” Since they never got to an agreement which kind of “all right” this is, Baekhyun pauses here to make air quotes with his fingers before continuing. “There’s some eyeing going on, although who cares because he’s absolutely not your type, but you guys had a ‘date’ anyway and you really enjoyed being with him, even though you have somehow been weaseled into promising that you’ll tell your suitors to back off while he’s free to do whatever he likes?” Baekhyun has all his facts right but he still looks confused when he reiterates what Chanyeol told him.
“Why do I feel like my whole life’s a mistake when you put it like this?” Chanyeol asks with a frown.
“Your birth was a mistake, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun corrects him.
“Anyway,” Chanyeol dismisses Baekhyun with a sweep of his hand, “it was tuition, hardly a date.”
“Well, besides agreeing to tell your girlfriend hopefuls to back off, I hope you didn’t do anything else to mislead him during tuition,” quips Baekhyun, “since we still don’t know if he’s convinced that you don’t like him.” Then he pauses while this fact sinks itself in. “Shit, your life is a mess.”
Chanyeol sighs and admits, “At one point, I did have my arm around him.”
“God, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun grits his teeth.
“What!” Chanyeol yelps because goddammit, it’s true, his life is a mess. “I put my arm around you all the time, too! Once, I even put my hand on your dic-”
“WE AGREED NEVER TO TALK ABOUT THAT AGAIN!” yells Baekhyun, “Seriously, considering your complicated relationship with him, putting an arm around him is the equivalent of declaring that he’s your possession or something.” Taking a deep breath, Baekhyun says, “You need to stop misleading him.”
Chanyeol puckers his lips, like he has something to say but he knows it’s going to infuriate Baekhyun, so.
“Stop doing that anus-mouth thing and just spit it out,” Baekhyun says dryly.
“But I really like being with him, even though I don’t like him that way?” Chanyeol turns the statement into a question so it’d be less offensive to Baekhyun.
Who clearly would have none of it, of course. Baekhyun’s face turns murderous. “You can’t! You can’t confess to a guy and say, oops, that was a mistake, I don’t like you that way but I still want to cuddle because I really! Like! Being! With! You!” Baekhyun punctuates his words with a hit to Chanyeol’s back using his bolster. “Jesus Christ, you men are such insufferable bastards!” he pants, pushing his messed up hair to one side, looking like he’s so agitated he has forgotten his own gender.
“I think you need tranquilizers.”
Baekhyun beats Chanyeol up with his bolster again.
“Did something happen?” The disheveled Chanyeol finally gets the hint and surfaces from his beating to question Baekhyun.
Baekhyun actually deflates at this. He has a deliberating look on his face when he gazes at Chanyeol, as if he isn’t sure if he should confide in him. When Chanyeol pokes him, Baekhyun finally confesses, “I found out that ajusshi class rep isn’t just accompanying me for my detention-”
Flopping over in Baekhyun’s bed, Chanyeol tunes his friend’s complaining out, and decides that Baekhyun’s right. He shouldn’t mislead Kyungsoo if he doesn’t like him that way, especially since things are already so sensitive between the two of them.
It’s Monday and Chanyeol hasn’t had time to casually inform the girls he’s isn’t available anymore, when one of them pounces.
“Uh, sorry, but you’re not my type…” Chanyeol scratches his neck and lower his head so he could avoid the girl’s eyes. He’s not used to confessions yet. School just ended and he’s supposed to be at Baekhyun’s for games, instead he’s now at a quiet part of the school with a girl from the class beside his.
“I can change,” the girl says in a small voice, “just tell me your type.”
‘Why are you making me hurt you even more’, Chanyeol wants to moan. He’s trying to think of the best way to reject the girl when a voice suddenly calls out, making both of them jump.
“Chanyeol!” His name reverberates in the narrow stairway and Chanyeol whips around, eyes wide, hand clutched to his chest.
Kyungsoo is standing at the bottom of the stairs, and that horrendous sense of being caught committing adultery gushes right back to Chanyeol. He almost blurts out ‘it’s not what you think’.
“Kim-songsaengnim is looking for you,” Kyungsoo says mildly before turning to walk down.
Chance! Chanyeol twirls around and is about to use this convenient excuse to escape when he looks into the girl’s eyes.
She looks sad.
Chanyeol is sorry, he really is. He has never even had the courage to confess to anyone he likes, so he knows just how brave this girl must be. It’s great to be brave enough to take the first step, just that you might not be able to walk to the end.
“I… I am sorry, I just don’t feel that way about you.” There’s probably no better way to do this other than being honest. Chanyeol bows and holds it for a second before straightening himself and bounding down the steps to catch up with Kyungsoo.
“Saved your ass again, didn’t I?” Kyungsoo doesn’t turn around when Chanyeol’s footsteps come up from behind him. But the smugness in his voice echoes in the enclosed space like surround sound.
“I barely passed that chem lab test,” Chanyeol frowns. Kyungsoo has been enjoying too many upper hands when it comes to him. “So,” Chanyeol jumps down the last couple of steps to walk beside Kyungsoo, but his lab partner pauses so he gets left behind and now stands higher than Chanyeol on the stairs. “Did you… did you hear what we were-” Chanyeol turns his head around to look at Kyungsoo, only to find him at eye level, just two steps away.
Kyungsoo stares into Chanyeol’s eyes, and suddenly, Chanyeol can hear his heartbeat loud and fast in his ears. Sunlight streams in from a window at the top of the stairs, but down here, the two of them are bathed in shadows and Chanyeol feels like this is a secret, just between him and Kyungsoo. He doesn’t do anything misleading, but not doing anything will not make whatever it is between them go away either.
No one but the two of them knows just how complex their relationship is. They aren’t strangers, they aren’t friends, they aren’t dating either; so what are they? Sometimes, Chanyeol wants to ask Kyungsoo, ‘do you still think I like you?’, but it’s such a loaded question and Chanyeol doesn’t think he could deal with any answer so he refrains from doing so. He doesn’t know how to define what it is between the two of them, but he’s perfectly happy with this status quo. It’s effortless. Chanyeol might be alone in this sentiment though.
Kyungsoo lowers his eyes, bangs sweeping over his forehead, and those shadows now engulf Kyungsoo’s face. Chanyeol has an overwhelming urge to push his hair back, free the shadows, feel the tresses between his fingers and finally know how soft they are. Kyungsoo blinks and Chanyeol feels the sweep of his eyelashes right across his heart.
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo says, his voice soft, almost hypnotic, and Chanyeol’s breathing stops entirely when Kyungsoo brings his eyes back to gaze deeply into Chanyeol’s, “but you’re not my type.”
Chanyeol’s eyes widen in shock. He opens his mouth but ends up tightening his jaw instead. A surge of bitterness creeps up the back of his throat and Chanyeol forces it back down by swallowing hard. Just as he’s still struggling with Kyungsoo’s words, the culprit breaks into a smile.
“Yup, I heard,” Kyungsoo answers. Still smiling, he hops down the steps, leaving Chanyeol behind.
The surge of relief is so sudden, it takes Chanyeol a while to feel because he went a little numb. He didn't even realize he has stopped breathing from the impact of Kyungsoo's words. But Kyungsoo was just repeating what Chanyeol had said to the girl. He wasn’t rejecting Chanyeol. A hot flush floods Chanyeol’s face as he recalls his reaction when Kyungsoo ‘rejected’ him. Did Kyungsoo notice? What the hell was that? What did he feel so- so- that short little bastard should become an actor. Huffing, Chanyeol cuts short his internal rant and turns on his heels to catch up with Kyungsoo.
“Been getting a lot of confessions, haven’t you?” Kyungsoo says when he sees Chanyeol running up to him with his face red. His words are mocking, but his tone is flat so Chanyeol is clueless as to whether Kyungsoo is making fun of him.
“Nothing compared to you!” Chanyeol bursts out all disgruntled, throwing Kyungsoo’s words back at him and falling into step beside him. Is this misleading? Although seriously, who is misleading whom? It seems like an equal playing field here. They are now accusing each other of receiving confessions, great. This fake-real thing is snowballing, they should really go on We Got Married someday.
“I only received one and it was from you.” When Kyungsoo says this, he never stops doing air quotes with his fingers and Chanyeol feels like this is an accurate description of their relationship. They need to be shrouded with air quotes; there’s no one statement that would be entirely true when applied to them. Oh wait, there’s one: it’s complicated.
“What’s your type, Chanyeol?”
“Why?” Chanyeol asks, heart beginning to race again, "Why are you concerned?" Shit, he's baiting. But he just can't help it, he wants to know.
Kyungsoo drops his eyes to half mast, looking extremely unimpressed. "Really? You have no idea?" Was the half-serious dating and confession ribbing all for nothing?
"An idea of what?" Chanyeol asks quizzically. Is there something he should be aware of?
"An idea of just how stupid you are," Kyungsoo says plainly, giving up on Chanyeol. Whatever. He'd get it someday. Then, “Just curious,” replies Kyungsoo, switching tracks, “That girl isn’t your type, I’m not your type either.”
Chanyeol has to bend down to look at Kyungsoo because he’s so shocked at his words. “What did you say?” he asks incredulously. How did Kyungsoo know he isn’t Chanyeol’s type?
It’s Kyungsoo’s turn to be surprised. Looking flustered, he quickly takes a step back when he realizes how close Chanyeol has gotten, their breaths practically mingled. Chanyeol sees a familiar shade of red creeps up on Kyungsoo's nape. Clearly, Kyungsoo is better with exchanges of sarcasm than being in close proximity with Chanyeol. Wimp. All talk, no action.
“You said that to me, when you were clearing things up after your confession, well, not confession.” Kyungsoo gives an impatient wave of his hand. “Don’t worry, I know it’s just Jongdae exaggerating things.”
Chanyeol cups his hands over his mouth because the urge to scream is rather overwhelming right now. Did he really say that? Jesus Christ. If so, he must have sounded like he was rejecting Kyungsoo instead, pushing him away when the latter clearly did nothing wrong.
“No! I mean, you’re really cute and you’re so good at lab work, you sing so well, and you’re popular, too. It’s just, it’s just that,” Chanyeol falters, and then he smacks his face with both his hands, staring at Kyungsoo with a look of absolute horror, hands still cupping both sides of his face. He’s just admitted to Kyungsoo that he thinks Kyungsoo’s cute. Chanyeol really, really doesn’t want to live anymore.
Kyungsoo laughs at Chanyeol’s mortification. “It’s just that I’m not your type,” he finishes Chanyeol’s statement for him. Then, mother of Christ, Kyungsoo turns it into a question by asking, “Right?” and fixing his big eyes on Chanyeol.
Chanyeol looks right back at Kyungsoo, his eyes flickering with hesitation at Kyungsoo’s words. The silence is unrelenting. Tension tightens Chanyeol’s stomach into knots. This is his opportunity to clear the air. The words are full and heavy on the tip of his tongue, nervous sparrows that are ready to be spooked into flight. He doesn’t want to admit this. Although he knows this is exactly what Baekhyun means when he says Chanyeol is being misleading, and he also knows he has been telling Baekhyun that Kyungsoo isn’t his type, but right now, he doesn’t want to say the same to Kyungsoo. It would sound so… final.
Finally, Kyungsoo turns away first. He seems both amused and vindicated at Chanyeol’s silence, as if this was a victory of sorts. At least Chanyeol is no longer saying that Kyungsoo isn't his type.
“Bye, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo bids Chanyeol farewell and this is when Chanyeol discovers they have arrived at the school gate.
“I thought Kim-songsaengnim was looking for me?” He jogs to catch up with Kyungsoo, who rolls his eyes. Sometimes Chanyeol thinks this is a meaningless act for Kyungsoo since he has so much eye white, all he needs to do is just look sideway for the same effect.
“That was just an excuse to save your hide,” Kyungsoo explains while he walks to the bus stop, Chanyeol his every step. Some students from their school gape at them. This is so scandalous - the two most popular namshins from their school are openly dating.
“Oh,” Chanyeol exclaims. He runs until he’s in front of Kyungsoo, then he turns around and begins walking backward while he talks to the little one. “Want to go for games then?” he asks, before realizing he’s asking Kyungsoo out. Sometimes Chanyeol wants to slap himself on Baekhyun’s behalf too.
“No,” Kyungsoo says plainly.
“How about lunch then? Naengmyun? Jajangmyeon? Cham-”
Kyungsoo claps his hands over his ears as he continues walking.
“-pong? Ramyeon? Kalguksu? Bibimguk-”
“Why do you talk so much?!” Kyungsoo exclaims, sounding aghast. Park Chanyeol is single handedly putting Seoul on the noise pollution map. He sounds like a fly that’s buzzing around Kyungsoo, one he keeps swatting at but just couldn’t kill. An ambulance siren that wouldn’t go by. The car alarm in your neighborhood that blasts at 3am in the morning. Mating cats.
Chanyeol pouts, which le gasp, fans Kyungsoo’s ire even more. “Do. Not. Do. Aegyo.” He bites the words out and really punches Chanyeol’s right bicep this time. Chanyeol acts wounded. He really shouldn’t. It earns him a few more punches from Kyungsoo, until he learns that just quietly taking it and acting like Kyungsoo scares him is the best way out.
Kyungsoo raises a fist and glares at Chanyeol. ”Shut up.” The amount of eye white Kyungsoo is exhibiting is scary.
“Ye~” Chanyeol bows and says demurely in formal language.
Kyungsoo looks appeased. “I can’t lunch with you, I’m busy,” he finally replies. There’s a trash bin up ahead and Chanyeol’s back is going to collide with it if he keeps this up. Sighing, Kyungsoo steps to the left and quietly steers Chanyeol around the bin and all other obstacles that come their way. He has no idea why he puts up with Chanyeol so much.
Don’t pay so much attention to him, Chanyeol’s inner self mutters, don’t, don’t, don’t.
But, “What are you busy with? Can I come?” Chanyeol blatantly ignores his subconscious and invites himself to hang out with Kyungsoo. They’ve arrived at the bus stop and he plops himself down on the seat beside Kyungsoo, stretching his neck to read the numbers of the arriving buses even though he has no idea which bus Kyungsoo is waiting for.
To his surprise, Kyungsoo’s face turns pink, the color quickly reaching the tops of his ears too. “No! You cannot come! Do not follow me!” He warns Chanyeol fiercely, a hand clutching Chanyeol’s forearm as if physically restraining him.
Chanyeol pauses for a bit, then he chirrups, “No!”
Kyungsoo glowers.
Chanyeol’s mouth and eyes go round at Kyungsoo’s sudden burst of animated actions. It goes without saying that he now absolutely has to tag along with Kyungsoo, even at the risk of his own life.
Kyungsoo sings at the local orphanage every Monday afternoon with some of his church mates. He looks so worried and embarrassed that when he asks Chanyeol not to watch, Chanyeol concedes and settles into a bench outside the orphanage.
But he hears Kyungsoo nevertheless; he has solo parts in all the songs. Although Chanyeol thinks he would recognize Kyungsoo’s voice from the way it makes him feel anyway. A warm simmering in the chest, as if he’s concocting something sweet in his heart, and then there’s- Chanyeol laughs before he could even finish this thought. He lifts his hands and puts them over his head, where he thinks his feelers might be. He closes his eyes, the memory of Kyungsoo’s voice in his ears. They haven’t even known each other for a long time, but nostalgia is suddenly bittersweet on the tip of Chanyeol’s tongue.
When he next opens his eyes, he finds that the singing has stopped and Kyungsoo is sitting beside him on the stone bench. A secretive smile on his face, his large eyes closed, hands folded quietly on his lap. His face is tilted up towards the sky so the sun could lend its glow to him, turning Kyungsoo gold all over. The wind swirls the leaves in noisy dancing circles and Chanyeol fears this moment is coming to an end, but Kyungsoo just turns his face towards the breeze. The wind ruffles Kyungsoo’s hair, sweeping his bangs over his face, drawing Chanyeol’s attention to his features. They were right; Kyungsoo is really good-looking. Why did it take Chanyeol so long to realize this?
Chanyeol thinks he has a complicated relationship with Kyungsoo, but he discovers they can be as simple as this, sitting quietly side by side, companionship settling over them like a blanket. This is good.
The sight of Kyungsoo’s profile makes Chanyeol’s heart heavy and full, so he has to turn away to save himself from this strange ache.
“You didn’t hear me sing, did you?” Kyungsoo asks and Chanyeol looks over, expecting the peace to be broken. But Kyungsoo’s eyes are still closed and everything is so mellow, Chanyeol could feel the weight of contentment in his embrace, tangible and warm. He realizes he feels happy.
“Nope,” Chanyeol says easily, kicking a leaf at his feet, a little confused at how he’s feeling.
“You’re lying.” This time, Kyungsoo peels his lids open and scowls at Chanyeol.
“Yeah, I lied,” Chanyeol admits wholeheartedly, nodding his head, and the both of them burst out laughing,
“Why aren’t you playing with the children?” Chanyeol asks. They could hear peals of laughter around them, as the kids play dodge ball with Kyungsoo’s friends.
“I’m… I’m not good at this sort of thing,” Kyungsoo says with a quiet smile, “you know that.”
Abruptly, Chanyeol opens his mouth to say something and Kyungsoo looks over instinctively at him, but Chanyeol closes his mouth and thinks over his words before he just says, “No, you’re good with people.”
He almost said, You’re good with me. You make me feel happy.
“Was our singing good?” asks Kyungsoo. But Chanyeol thinks he could read Kyungsoo’s real question in his eyes. They are bright and eager as they peer into Chanyeol’s eyes.
Was I good? Did you like my singing?
“I like it a lot.” Chanyeol rushes to answer, then he blinks and bites his lip when he realizes how much his words resemble that of a confession.
A real one.
Lowering his head, Kyungsoo diverts his eyes and curls his lips up into a small smile, as if he too, thinks the same.
As Chanyeol interacts more and more with Kyungsoo, he becomes happier and happier, although the joy is mixed with that strange ache, which causes the little spot of confusion he harbors to grow into a clusterfuck of I-don’t-know-what’s-happening-anymore. Why is he feeling all these things? And whenever Chanyeol tries to right whatever ‘misunderstanding’ there is between him and Kyungsoo, his agenda for the little one grows until it becomes so impossible, he just gives up and banishes it to Lala-land. But for the record, it is as below:
*Things to do About Kyungsoo (including but not limited to the following) (ver.9):
• Make sure Kyungsoo is convinced that I don’t like him.
• Make sure the whole school is convinced that I don’t like Kyungsoo.
• Evaluate if I really am so superficial I would think that Kyungsoo isn’t good looking enough for me, assuming that I am seriously considering him as boyfriend material, which for the record, I’m not. Edit: Kyungsoo has been verified to be good looking.
• Increase my writing speed so I can finish copying Kyungsoo’s answers before Kim-songsaengnim spots us.
• Don’t mislead Kyungsoo.
• Never aegyo.
• Stop accidentally asking Kyungsoo out. Stop wanting to know what he’s doing after school!!!
• Stop staring at Kyungsoo’s hair. Stop wanting to touch Kyungsoo’s hair. Stop wanting to ask what shampoo he uses. This bullet point is reserved for All Things to do with Kyungsoo’s Hair.
• Stop talking and try to breathe with less noise.
• Stop staring at Kyungsoo’s profile, but if I get caught, I must not look away because obvious. Looking disoriented often helps to fool him that I’m merely daydreaming, I find.
• Stop, oh, whatever.
*abandoned
So he lets his boat float. Chanyeol thinks he has arrived at the point of equilibrium even in his current precarious location, which if he were to illustrate would be something like this: hard place >chanyeol< rock.
But there’s one thing he cannot ignore. If Baekhyun thinks that Chanyeol putting an arm around Kyungsoo is a show of possessiveness, well, recently, Chanyeol has been wishing he could put all his limbs on Kyungsoo.
Chanyeol is trying very hard not to do it, but every time one of their male classmates saunters over to chat with Kyungsoo, he simply cannot help but sit behind Kyungsoo and glower at the classmate like he’s a vengeful spirit. Look, Chanyeol has kept his promise and told the girls to stop walking over, so why are the dudes still hanging around Kyungsoo like he’s a clothes rack or something? It’s so unfair.
When he overhears a dude comment on Kyungsoo’s hair today, Chanyeol decides he’s had it. He forcefully inserts himself between Kyungsoo and said classmate and scowls down at him, using his height to its full advantage. Chanyeol has invested so much emotion into this and he still hasn’t found out what shampoo Kyungsoo uses, so who the hell does this guy think he is? Who is he to just randomly walk up to Kyungsoo and go, ‘hey, your hair looks so soft’?
“Um, your classmate?” Jongdae answers Chanyeol tentatively, tilting his head back to look up at Chanyeol.
“This is soft too, take this.” Chanyeol grabs a sponge from the lab sink and stuffs it into Jongdae’s hand, dismissing him.
When Chanyeol turns back to Kyungsoo, he sees an indecipherable smile on his face.
“What?” Chanyeol demands, agitation making his deep voice shrill.
“Why are you bullying Jongdae?” Kyungsoo asks quietly, while he continues to sit and do his experiment. But he sounds like he already know the answer.
It’s a good question, but Chanyeol's reply sounds too juvenile, too dumb, and no matter what he says, it would seem like he’s angry because he’s jealous of Jongdae, instead of being short-changed. If he were to be honest with himself and just think it over though, Chanyeol would realize that he can’t even pinpoint which option it is anymore. But he doesn’t bother pondering about it and he doesn’t answer Kyungsoo’s question. Chanyeol just sits down on his side of the table and seethes.
Something warm suddenly envelops his hand. Surprised, Chanyeol looks up to see Kyungsoo’s hand over his. The warmth from their overlapping hands seeps right into Chanyeol’s skin and he soaks it up, translating the touch into a series of rapid heartbeats, and it feels like Kyungsoo has reached inside Chanyeol to touch his heart instead.
All of Chanyeol’s anger dies in a heartbeat.
“Come,” Kyungsoo urges, pulling Chanyeol to his feet and then beside him. “Help me with this experiment.” He passes a test tube to Chanyeol before measuring some stuff out and spooning it into another test tube.
“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol mumbles, even though he doesn’t really have anything to say, but Kyungsoo cuts him off.
“It’s all right.”
He says these words as if they were of no importance, but they sound like a reply to Chanyeol’s silence. Again and again, Kyungsoo permits Chanyeol’s silence; he will not chase for an answer.
It’s all right, I understand.
There’s a sudden lump in Chanyeol’s throat when he finally realizes what it means when Kyungsoo says ‘all right’.
They are simply gentle words of forgiveness.
Kyungsoo forgives Chanyeol for being careless with his feelings. And now, he forgives Chanyeol for staying silent.
But what does Kyungsoo understand? Chanyeol wonders.
Chanyeol really wants to ask Baekhyun’s opinion on things, but the latter drags him out for a middle school class reunion this Sunday instead. This puts Chanyeol on the spot because he wants to show everyone how hot and lithe he has become, but at the same time, he wants to wrap himself in the safety of Baekhyun’s ratty old blanket and sob about Kyungsoo while he gorges on Mommy Byun’s cookies. It’s been a whole week since he smelled that blanket and Chanyeol is clearly suffering.
Thankfully, Baekhyun doesn’t give him a choice.
Only half the class make it to the reunion, but that’s still a good sixteen people, so they have to join several tables up at the eatery in order to accommodate everyone. Chanyeol finds himself dispersing advice on weight loss to several of his ex-classmates in the beginning (which is really just him bullshitting about sweet potatoes), but he soon gets tired of the fame beauty brings and retires to a corner seat to continue being sad.
“Hi, long time no see.”
Chanyeol looks up from where he’s quietly folding a napkin banana to find the very manifestation of hotness smiling down at him.
“Hi,” Chanyeol repeats stupidly, gaping at Jongin before he realizes that the only empty seat left at the table is the one beside him. “Oh, um,” he makes a serious of unintelligent sounds before folding his legs to let Jongin past.
“Your legs are really long,” Jongin laughs while he squeezes past Chanyeol, who has to politely turn his head and focus on Baekhyun stuffing fries into his nose as a dare at the other end of the table, so that it wouldn’t look like he’s checking Jongin’s ass out. “Is that a banana?” Jongin asks when he takes his seat and leans forward to peer into Chanyeol’s hands which are currently folded over his lap, the paper banana trapped within his fingers.
Chanyeol is so out of it that he heard ‘is your banana long?’ instead and gasps at Jongin who’s still gazing at his crotch. “No!” he says indignantly before catching on, “Yes!” he corrects himself. Then he flushes when he catches on. “Oh, this banana…” Chanyeol says weakly, holding up his banana. The napkin one.
“That’s amazing. How did you do that?” Jongin smiles at him.
Being noticed by a crush feels pretty amazing, Chanyeol discovers, even if said crush has been relegated to an ex-crush. “Well,” Chanyeol begins, grinning and lowering his eyes because he’s a little conscious to be looking into Jongin’s smiley eyes.
“I taught him that.”
The familiar voice that comes up from behind Chanyeol causes his tummy to do a roll and turn like it’s a puppy. He freezes, and as if connected by telepathy, Baekhyun glances over. He too, freezes on the spot. A French fry drops from his nose.
Is it? Chanyeol mouths to Baekhyun.
Yeah, Baekhyun mouths back.
You sure? Chanyeol mouths.
Baekhyun’s eyes flicker up to survey the person behind Chanyeol, then they flick back down to look into Chanyeol’s.
Yeah, Baekhyun mouths.
In that instance, Chanyeol really does feel like he’s been caught being unfaithful when he whips his head around and see Kyungsoo nursing a vague smile at him.
Someone very motherfucking kindly gives up her seat to Kyungsoo so that Chanyeol is now stuck between Kyungsoo and Jongin.
hard place >chanyeol< rock
Chanyeol is actually pretty sure the unfaithful feeling is just that same bizarre guilty conscience on his part because seriously, it’s not like Kyungsoo and he are dating or anything. There’s no reason for Kyungsoo to be upset, right? Right?
Uh.
“This is so cute,” marvels Jongin when Kyungsoo maneuvers a napkin into an elephant and hands it over to him. Chanyeol tries to take the elephant so he could help pass it along to Jongin, but Kyungsoo ignores his hand and places the elly straight into Jongin’s hand.
Why is Baekhyun sitting at the other end of the world? Chanyeol wants to bury his face into his best friend’s neck and sob. He feels small and unloved.
“I can teach you,” Kyungsoo offers with a smile, gazing at Jongin even though gigantic Chanyeol is a little in the way, but oh, no matter, he’s beginning to feel transparent anyway. He thinks his right foot looks a little misty already. Ready for Heaven anytime now.
“Cool,” quips Jongin and Chanyeol turns his head slowly to stare at him with narrow eyes. He regards Jongin with fresh and sudden animosity.
”I will teach you,” Chanyeol says lowly, shifting in his seat so that he’s blocking Kyungsoo from Jongin.
Warmth suddenly pours into Jongin’s eyes, turning them honey-brown and limpid. “It’s a date then,” Jongin says, voice just as low and what the fuck just happened? Chanyeol’s eyes resume their wide doe-eyed look in surprise.
He swivels in his seat to look at Kyungsoo, and sure enough, the little one has astonishment written all over his face too, his mouth agape with shock. Shit, thinks Chanyeol, I just accidentally flirted with Kim Jongin in front of Do Kyungsoo.
Some classmate whistles. “Chanyeol always had a crush on Jongin,” she teases.
Chanyeol sees Kyungsoo sit upright at that announcement and cold sweat bursts out on his back, sending a tingle up his spine. “That was a long time ago!” he exclaims to the table before turning to Kyungsoo. “Long time,” Chanyeol repeats to him earnestly.
But Kyungsoo just looks very disinterested. “You don’t need to explain to me,” he tells Chanyeol, his tone as flat as the tone of the heart monitor as it beeps out a patient’s death, and Chanyeol feels like he has been sentenced to death indeed.
“I never knew you felt that way,” Jongin murmurs from beside him and Chanyeol gapes at him. ‘You shameless person, I don’t even like you anymore, why are you doing this to me’, he wants to scream.
“Hmm,” Kyungsoo mutters from his other side, and how? How in the world did Kyungsoo manage to make ‘hmm’ sound so judging?
“Who asked you come here? You aren’t even in our class!” Chanyeol mutters under his breath. He really didn’t expect Kyungsoo to turn up at his class reunion, even though they attended the same middle school.
“I did,” a girl across the table raises her hand and Chanyeol realizes he has spoken out loud instead. When he finally musters the courage to look over at Kyungsoo, he finds his seat empty.
Chanyeol catches up with Kyungsoo somewhere between Faceshop and Innisfree. “Kyungsoo!” he calls out, reaching out to grasp Kyungsoo’s arm. But Kyungsoo snatches his hand back forcefully and continues to walk briskly down the street without a backward glance.
Shit, he’s really upset, Chanyeol thinks in utter bewilderment.
“Wait! Why are you angry?” Chanyeol runs up to Kyungsoo again. Unexpectedly, Kyungsoo brakes and Chanyeol hits his chin on the back of Kyungsoo’s head.
“Why am I angry?” Kyungsoo turns around stiffly and asks with a blank face. He stalks up to Chanyeol who blinks and backs away until his head hits the wall of the building. But Kyungsoo continues to close in until he’s pressed up against Chanyeol.
“You really have no idea?” At such close proximity, Kyungsoo has to tilt his head up in order to look into Chanyeol’s eyes. It still feels like a challenge, even if Chanyeol is the one looking down at Kyungsoo.
“Why did you run out to chase me, Chanyeol?” The question is uttered in a soft whisper, but Chanyeol could feel it nailing him onto the wall.
Chanyeol tenses, gazing into Kyungso’s unrelenting glare. But as the seconds slip by with Chanyeol’s silence, Kyungsoo’s expression changes. His face is a still a picture of calmness, but Kyungsoo’s eyes tell a different story. There’s the usual spot of stubbornness in them but now, Kyungsoo’s large eyes are also tinted with a layer of moisture. They make Kyungsoo look hurt.
“I,” Chanyeol starts. He wants to rush to pacify Kyungsoo, but his thoughts are distracted as Kyungsoo’s breathing skims the slope of his chin, the heat of Kyungsoo’s body seeping through the layers of their clothes and burning against Chanyeol’s chest. Kyungsoo is standing far too close, and Chanyeol can’t think right like this. His heart starts driving an insane beat in his ears; he could hardly hear himself. The toe-curling tension is back, clawing at his insides and making his blood sing. It’s been hinting at Chanyeol all this while; whatever it is that’s between them isn’t so simple, it burns just as hot as the tension. His heartbeat spikes, there’s that weird ache in his chest again and the inexplicable need to be closer, despite how terribly jumpy Chanyeol gets when there’s a lack of distance between them. Even if it makes Chanyeol unbearably nervous, he can’t help himself from wanting to be close to Kyungsoo.
“I don’t know,” Chanyeol ends up saying, hands on Kyungsoo’s shoulders pushing him away so he could ease his body’s strange reactions to Kyungsoo’s closeness.
That was a wrong move. Chanyeol could tell when Kyungsoo’s indifference vanishes and one side of his mouth scrunches up; it’s just a tiny reaction that Kyungsoo permits himself to exhibit, showing that Chanyeol has affected him. Or maybe it’s just that he can no longer hide how much Chanyeol affects him.
Chanyeol is alarmed. “No,” he says, meaning to explain how he didn’t want to push Kyungsoo away. Not like this.
But Kyungsoo has had enough of Chanyeol’s rejections. “Why don’t you go back to your date with Jongin?” he says, voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
Great. Not Jongin again. “I wasn’t the one who suggested the date!” protests Chanyeol, feeling his irritation grow.
Kyungsoo stares at him in disbelief, ditching any last shred of his composure. “You were the one who insisted on teaching him how to fold that stupid-” Kyungsoo is so outraged at Chanyeol’s denial that he couldn’t even finish his sentence.
“That was only because, because,” Chanyeol’s arms flail as he tries to defend himself, but there’s no way he could bring himself to say, ‘because I was trying to stop you from dating Jongin’. Chanyeol doesn’t want to lose this fight though; he’s angry as well, and his emotions drive him to pick the words that would do the worst damage.
“Why? I can’t date Jongin?” Chanyeol retaliates, voice going loud in his agitation.
It works. Kyungsoo shuts up at his words. He widens his eyes at Chanyeol, looking at a loss for words for the first time. Then the knot between Kyungsoo’s brows eases and the tightness in his mouth falls slack. When Kyungsoo’s shoulders fall forward into a slump, Chanyeol knows their fight is over. Kyungsoo casts his eyes down, but Chanyeol could still see how gentle they’ve become, after all the resolve has seeped out of them.
Chanyeol’s chest goes tight at the sight. It’s as if someone has closed a fist around his heart. He’s won the fight but it feels like he’s lost everything else.
When Kyungsoo opens his mouth this time, he doesn’t say it’s all right. It isn’t all right anymore. “Of course you can,” Kyungsoo says quietly. He lifts his eyes up to look at Chanyeol, his face slipping back into its expressionless mask. “What was I thinking?”
This is the stoic Kyungsoo that Chanyeol knows so well, always so calm and cool. How did Chanyeol manage to force such a person into the extremes of his emotions not too long ago? And how did he force all those emotions to fade from Kyungsoo’s face within seconds? Chanyeol feels like he has forced Kyungsoo into a corner until he has no other choice but to give up. But he doesn’t know how he did all this, can’t even connect the wayward dots.
“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol utters his name but Kyungsoo backs away; he backs away like how Chanyeol has always done. Guarded, but not confused, unlike Chanyeol. It’s as if Kyungsoo knows all of Chanyeol’s secrets while he’s kept in the dark, and now Kyungsoo’s angry even though he’s the one not telling. Helplessness sours Chanyeol’s mouth, and when he locks his jaw tight to stanch the gush of emotions, Chanyeol feels his eyes redden instead. He doesn’t even know the right question to ask for the answer he needs. How could he not know?
“I was wrong, Chanyeol. You do have a type.” Kyungsoo continues speaking, voice going softer and softer until Chanyeol has to strain in order to make out his words. “It just really isn’t…”
And the night breeze steals Kyungsoo’s last word from Chanyeol, when he turns his back and walks down the street again. His gait is a slow sway this time because he knows Chanyeol would not give chase.
Chanyeol has wallowed in the comfort of Baekhyun’s blanket for a good afternoon. It is, in fact, just a 17”x17” sized cloth, because that’s just how small Baekhyun was when he was a baby. But that doesn’t stop Chanyeol from draping it carefully over his back like armor, something that would shield him from the world’s harm, while he curls up in a fetal position in Baekhyun’s bed and thinks about nothing.
“Don’t you have your own baby blanket?” Baekhyun finally asks, plopping down beside Chanyeol in bed.
Chanyeol replies him with dead-fish eyes. “You buried it in the school’s garden when we were having school camp in 9th grad-”
“Hush, baby, hush,” Baekhyun interrupts Chanyeol and reaches over to pull his baby blanket tighter around Chanyeol. “There, there,” he mutters soothingly. But it’s no use; the blanket is simply too tiny for Chanyeol and it’s just lying on Chanyeol’s back instead of covering him.
“So,” Baekhyun lies back down in bed, careless enough to throw his leg over Chanyeol’s body, but careful enough to just gently prod in case he breaks his friend. “What happened when you chased him out?”
Baekhyun’s question reminds Chanyeol of Kyungsoo’s.
Why did you run out to chase me, Chanyeol?
“He asked me why I did that,” Chanyeol whispers, looking at Baekhyun as if his friend could provide the answers that he needs.
“You didn’t reply, right? Oh wait, no;” Baekhyun mulls it over based on his understanding of Chanyeol. “Hell, you said you didn’t know, didn’t you!” Baekhyun gasps and his face swiftly morphs into a look of horror. “Get off my bed, you monster!” he scolds, pushing at Chanyeol’s shoulders. “Your slime is dripping all over my bedsheet.”
Chanyeol whimpers and buries himself deeper into his nest because goddamnit, he came here for comfort, not more hurt. Why does Baekhyun’s blanket have to come with its owner?
“Do you really not know?” Baekhyun asks impatiently, throwing a pillow over Chanyeol’s face. “Seriously, you keep thinking about whether he’s your type or not, whether you like him or not, whether he thinks you like him or not, but have you ever wondered if he likes you?”
Chanyeol’s whimpering ceases, but Baekhyun cannot see Chanyeol’s face because of the pillow.
“That’s ok, shut up, I know you’ve never thought about it,” says Baekhyun flippantly. “Now I will ask you a few questions and you will answer me, do you understand?”
The pillow moves back and fro as Chanyeol nods his head.
“Honestly, do you like Do Kyungsoo?”
The pillow moves to the left but Chanyeol lets out a muffled whine before he could complete shaking his head.
“Again, you don’t know. But that’s fine, I’ve been adequately trained to deal with your negative level of EQ after all these years,” Baekhyun says coolly.
“Do you think he likes you?”
Chanyeol whimpers again.
Baekhyun explodes. “Exactly what do you know! You’re useless! Useless! Useless! Useless!” Grabbing his towel from the back of his chair, Baekhyun uses it to whip Chanyeol again and again with each cry of ‘useless!’. When he has calmed down sufficiently, Baekhyun pants while he adjusts his messed up bangs and asks his next question.
“If he liked you and confessed, would you accept him?”
The pillow moves in an erratic manner that makes it hard for Baekyun to decipher whether Chanyeol’s nodding or shaking his head.
“Be clear! Men who are ambiguous are the worst! Worst! Worst! Worst!” Baekhyun whips Chanyeol with his towel. It seems like personal feelings are involved. He’s still in the midst of aggressively whipping Chanyeol when Chanyeol suddenly removes the pillow from his face.
Surprised, Baekhyun settles back on his heels and watches while Chanyeol gets up into a sitting position.
There’s a tiny pinch to Chanyeol’s eyebrows when he looks into Baekhyun’s eyes, and Baekhyun mellows. “Would you?” he repeats his question wryly.
Chanyeol nods his head, just a slight inclination. His eyes look wet and shiny, like a child who’s admitting his mistake. Baekhyun twists his lips at the sight, but reaches over for his baby blanket and hands it over to Chanyeol who looks like he’d need it after Baekhyun’s next sentence.
“Doesn’t that just mean you like him, too?”
Chanyeol desperately wants to make up with Kyungsoo. It would be easier if Kyungsoo just ignored him, because at least Chanyeol could broach the subject and resolve it. Instead it’s as if they’ve never had an argument. Kyungsoo treats him normally; he still does the experiments and lets Chanyeol copy his work. This makes it extra hard for Chanyeol to broach the subject. It’s like telling a person not to be angry when he isn’t angry at all.
But Chanyeol knows that’s just things on the surface. He never gets to find out what Kyungsoo does after school anymore; he doesn’t get invited to singing sessions at the orphanage on Monday anymore; he doesn’t get told to shut up for talking too much because they aren’t talking anymore.
Things drag until it’s term break and Chanyeol doesn’t get to see Kyungsoo now. He mopes during the school holidays, frequenting the café he and Kyungsoo once went to, just sitting there and folding napkins, reminiscing the happy past.
At first, the crew of the café is puzzled at the strange kkonminam’s antics, but soon they figure ‘hey, why not, free labor, yay’, and start collecting the napkin origami he makes to set tables.
Today, Chanyeol is sitting there, sadly and idly folding a Tyrannosaurus (he has since branched out) when he hears a gasp. Instinctively, he looks up and his eyes bulge when he sees Kyungsoo and Jongdae at the entrance of the café. They’ve seen him too, Kyungsoo mirrors Chanyeol’s surprise but Jongdae’s legs actually wobble a little when he sees Chanyeol and he has to cling to the café’s door for support. Yes, that’s right, his knees have gone soft because he knows he’s being a boyfriend snatcher, that sonovabitch.
A mini commotion ensues where it seems like Jongdae wants to leave and there’s a pleading look on his face, but Do Kyungsoo is his usual heartless self. He grabs Jongdae’s arm and steers him to the table beside Chanyeol. The table they sat at on their “first date”. It’s a taunt, at least that’s how Chanyeol sees it, especially when Kyungsoo takes the seat with the back facing Chanyeol. He is enraged. So much for Kyungsoo’s anger when he talks about Chanyeol’s “date” with Jongin. Now he’s so eager to see another the second they “broke up”? Why is everything in air quotes again?
Fine! Two can play this game. Chanyeol ditches his dinosaur and saunters up to their table. “What a coincidence, dear classmates. I don’t think you guys saw me sitting back there because that would mean you’re ignoring me which nah, couldn’t be,” he grits his teeth and says, “let’s sit together.”
Jongdae looks at Kyungsoo fearfully as if seeking protection, and it stirs Chanyeol’s wrath. Why? He’s unwelcomed? Do they want to be alone so much? Aww, that’s a shame because Chanyeol is going to split them up like a vicious kdrama second female lead.
Kyungsoo looks away from Jongdae to peer up at Chanyeol. “This table is for two,” he points out coldly.
“Well, since the two of you are so tiny, you guys are basically just one person…” Chanyeol trails off suggestively and with his long arm, he pulls a nearby chair over, plopping down on it and beckoning the waiter over. “Ready to order?” he asks brightly.
“No?” Jongdae quips. He hasn’t even flipped the menu open yet.
“Boo, that’s too bad because the waiter’s already here,” Chanyeol says regretfully, seeing Kyungsoo shoot him a glare at this. Chanyeol ignores him; he knows he’s being an ass and he doesn’t care.
“We will have an all-day breakfast for Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol orders without asking Kyungsoo, “and roast chicken for Jongdae.” Kyungsoo looks up sharply when Chanyeol places their orders. It’s exactly the same as what they had when they first visited this place. Chanyeol meets his stare head-on, holding it until Kyungsoo blinks and looks away first. He seems calm, but that scrunch to Kyungsoo’s mouth is back. Chanyeol is unsure if this is the effect he wants.
“But I don’t want roast chicken,” Jongdae protests weakly.
“It’s all right, Jongdae, everything tastes bad in this place,” Chanyeol says pacifyingly to him, “Right, Kyungsoo?” he adds on, but Kyungsoo just fixes his gaze on the menu, intent on ignoring Chanyeol now.
Jongdae blinks at Kyungsoo. “You’ve been here before and know the food’s bad? Then why did you suggest we eat here?” he asks innocently and Chanyeol forgives him for everything in an instant; he wants to plant one on Jongdae’s lips.
Chanyeol turns to look at Kyungsoo, imitating Jongdae’s look of curiosity. “Yeah, why did you suggest this place, Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol himself marvels at his own courage. Maybe he has a death wish he isn’t aware of.
When Kyungsoo finally lifts his eyes from the menu and looks at Chanyeol, the shift in atmosphere is abrupt and cold. He doesn’t reply at all, just staring at Chanyeol, letting long moments pass, until the guilt in Chanyeol accumulates to form a lump in his throat. He knows he’s being deliberately obnoxious despite being the one at fault.
Jongdae fidgets uncomfortably in his seat. He only asked for a date with Kyungsoo, not a confrontation. “Look, I thought you guys have broken up because I noticed you weren’t talking, so yeah, maybe I misjudged, but hey, if you two need to have a good talk, I guess I better get going,” he makes to get up.
“Sit!” Both Kyungsoo and Chanyeol snap, even if they’re still glaring at each other.
“Meow,” says Jongdae as he sits down again.
“Why am I here?” Kyungsoo repeats Chanyeol question, anger creeping into his voice. “You still need to hear it from my own mouth? No, Chanyeol, I think we both know why I’m here. You know exactly why I miss this place. Unlike you, I have never disguised the way I feel,” he says, emotions making his voice shaky, and Chanyeol loses any doubts he’s had whether Kyungsoo likes him. But why should he harbor any doubts towards this at all? Kyungsoo was the one who asked him out first. Kyungsoo deliberately messed up the girl’s confession to Chanyeol. Kyungsoo allowed Chanyeol to follow him to the orphanage despite his extreme discomfort. And Kyungsoo made his jealousy for Jongin known clear as day. How could Chanyeol not know?
Stunned, Chanyeol forgets to breathe. He simply stares at Kyungsoo, belatedly realizing that what he has been doing is forcing Kyungsoo to confess first, even when Chanyeol has fully intended to be the one to succumb before Kyungsoo and make him take Chanyeol back. Baekhyun is right, he is useless. Why can’t he even say sorry right?
“But tell me, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo continues to bites out, his ire climbing notches with each word he utters, “Why are you here?”
Then Kyungsoo waits. Chanyeol knows he is giving him an opportunity, he knows now. He can finally answer Kyungsoo right this time. All the answers are in his pocket; he rehearsed them so well. But panic suddenly crawls up his throat, choking him. He wants to do it right so much; he’s so afraid of screwing up again that he doesn’t know how to say his words. Chanyeol lets his mouth fall open but nothing comes out, and this time, he falls silent again.
And as he watches, the tightness in Kyungsoo’s jaw eases and the light in his eyes dims. Chanyeol knows his time is up when Kyungsoo laughs softly, “Thank god I haven’t been holding my breath.” It’s a lie and an obvious one, the disappointment so evident in Kyungsoo’s wet eyes and weak smile. He is all too aware that he has given himself away, and it’s too embarrassing to sit here and continue to be rejected by Chanyeol.
“Sorry, Jongdae,” he mutters and is half way to getting up when a hand clutches his forearm. It hurts because Chanyeol forgets his strength when he’s flustered, but the touch only lasts for a while. After Chanyeol removes his hand, Kyungsoo finds something stuffed into his fist. He opens it up and a napkin heart lies in his palm. Kyungsoo’s eyes flit to Chanyeol in surprise. He didn’t teach him how to fold a heart.
“I forgot what I wanted to say,” Chanyeol says earnestly with the corners of his mouth down, his eyes just as shiny as Kyungsoo’s. “I’ve thought about what I want to say to you. I think I have the answers to all your questions already, and it’s supposed to be a really nice speech but,” his lips twist, “I forgot what I wanted to say but can you please stay?” Honesty is all Chanyeol has on his hands now. “Please stay?"
Kyungsoo’s fingers play with the paper heart and Chanyeol feels his own heartstrings being strummed. He reaches out and touches that scrunch to Kyungsoo’s lips. Kyungsoo flinches but doesn’t move away, so Chanyeol’s fingertips move over Kyungsoo’s mouth, easing that pinch. “This means you’re hurt,” Chanyeol says, feeling his heart full with that strange ache again. “Please don’t be hurt,” he says in a small voice, as if he’s the one hurt.
Kyungsoo stares at Chanyeol like he’s undecided if he should stay, then he blurts out, “I’m not your type.” He frowns after saying this, as if this fact displeases him.
And Chanyeol finally realizes how much Kyungsoo minds this. He has kept this in his heart all this while, ever since Chanyeol explained to him about the false confession. No wonder he looks so hurt. “You’re right,” Chanyeol agrees, and couldn’t believe his eyes when Kyungsoo’s face falls again. He thought he was the only dumb one around here. “But so what? I’m still here because I miss eating lousy food with you and squabbling over who has the worse order.”
There. That’s not so hard, even though it sounds as dumb as Chanyeol thought it would, but it’s really these stupid little things he misses so much. He peers up at Kyungsoo, who doesn’t seem to mind the stupidity of Chanyeol’s words. If anything, he just looks taken aback, mouth opening slightly in surprise.
“I chased after you that day because I didn’t want you to be upset over Jongin. I didn’t want you at the class reunion because I didn’t want you to know I used to have a crush on him. Just that, really. I didn’t know I would end up ruining everything.” Chanyeol’s mouth draws up in the middle, making him look upset, his voice more breathless than it should be. “I didn’t mean to say all those things. I’d always want you beside me. Always.” Chanyeol pulls Kyungsoo down so he’s sitting beside him again. “Like this.”
Kyungsoo lowers his eyes, then he lifts them up again. “How am I supposed to know if you don’t tell me?” he asks sadly.
“I know now, I’m sorry,” Chanyeol says remorsefully, feeling his heart throb. “I will tell you everything now,” he says, trying to pave his way forward. “I was bullying Jongdae because I was jealous that he could just go up to you and tell you how much he fancied you, while I was still trapped in the stupid type thinking.” He heaves a harsh sigh as he recollects, “and this is going to sound stupid.”
“You are stupid,” Kyungsoo interrupts with a shrug, “so.”
“You don’t mean that,” Chanyeol says with a weary smile. “You never mean the horrible things you say to me.”
Kyungsoo glares at Chanyeol like he’s discovered a well-kept secret of his. It’s too cute, Chanyeol can’t stop laughing.
“I couldn’t stop staring at you, did you know? I always looked at you when I thought you weren’t looking,” Chanyeol laughs. “And I, I had to keep a list of things not to do about you.” He stops laughing, stops looking at Kyungsoo, too. “But I still couldn’t take my eyes off you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” Chanyeol places his hands on the table, palms up, and he stares at his hands as he whispers, “I can’t date Jongin, because I don’t like him that way, even though he’s my type.”
“And you aren’t my type, but I like you anyway.”
Chanyeol waits with bated breath for Kyungsoo’s reply, which had better be something along the line of ‘I like you, too,’ but when Kyungsoo finally speaks, he says, “In the lapses when you weren’t looking at me, I was looking at you.” Chanyeol perks up in surprise.
“I thought you liked me,” Kyungsoo confesses with a small smile, “even when you said the confession was a mistake. Because when you talked to me, your eyes,” His smile grows wide. Kyungsoo opens and closes his fist repeatedly, a poor imitation of a twinkling star. “So I was just checking out this dude who liked me.”
“I did,” Chanyeol insists, “even back then.”
“But you told me you didn’t, and I didn’t believe you, anyway.” Kyungsoo sounds a little haughty when he declares this. “Because everything you did said, ‘I like you’, even though all you said was ‘I don’t like you.’” Kyungsoo’s eyes went gentle as he recalls. “I thought you were just too dumb to realize it. It was all right, I just needed to wait for you to realize this. So I waited.” His lips draw up into a whimsical smile. “And you made me wait for so long.”
Chanyeol nods slowly and blinks beautiful large eyes at Kyungsoo, and even like this, Chanyeol charms him.
“But I was starting to believe you were telling me the truth.” Kyungsoo’s voice drop to a murmur. “You really didn’t like me; I was alone in this after all. Especially when I saw you looking at Jongin.” Kyungsoo smiles wryly. “You were very attracted to him, and I was nowhere like him. I realized you weren’t lying at all when you said I wasn’t your type. I was too full of myself.
“I fell for you after your confession, only to find out it was really a fake confession after all.”
Chanyeol and Kyungsoo peer into each other’s eyes. That nostalgic feeling is back; it hangs as heavy as the sad smile on Kyungsoo’s face. Chanyeol recognizes that familiar ache as yearning. They should be happier.
Chanyeol curves his hands together into a heart shape and shows it to Kyungsoo. “It’s real this time,” he smiles shyly at Kyungsoo.
“So, are we really, or…” Kyungsoo’s words fade away, but he puts his hands up and starts making quotation marks with his fingers.
Laughing out loud, Chanyeol’s large hands cover Kyungsoo’s and pull them down onto his lap. Kyungsoo laughs, too. He laughs so hard he has to remove one hand from Chanyeol’s warm grasp to cover his mouth.
“Official, then.”
“So, like, I’m actually still here?” Jongdae reminds them of his existence.
“Great, can you please tell the whole school about us again? It’s official this time, thanks.” Chanyeol pats Jongdae’s shoulder, before pausing and re-evaluating Jongdae. “I’m watching you, by the way.” Chanyeol holds up a V sign with his fingers, then he points them at his own eyes before aiming them at Jongdae’s.
Jongdae didn’t expect Chanyeol to really poke him in the eyes, to be honest.
“Why is my knife resting on a napkin folded in the shape of a bunny?” Baekhyun asks when he gets seated at Best Food in the World.
The café has gotten into the habit of napkin origami even though Chanyeol has stopped moping over there, and staff training is now in place to ensure the waitstaff knows their origami. It helps to improve business which is now just bad instead of very bad. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo still frequent the café, but only because they wish to challenge the limits of bad tasting food, like, how hard can bread get? Is that food or just carbon atoms: a dissection. Something like that. And today, they are initiating Baekyun to their monthly session of bad food intake.
“Nugu?” Instead of answering Baekhyun, Chanyeol points to the guy sitting beside Baekhyun and asks.
Baekhyun’s voice drops to a conspiratorial volume. “I told you Joonmyun was joining us today!” he exclaims as quietly as he can, which isn’t very quiet to be honest, because he’s very flustered. Joonmyun smiles like he thinks Baekhyun’s cute, which makes him mildly insane to Chanyeol. “You never listen to me!” Baekhyun continues to whisper aggressively.
Chanyeol sits up stiffly. “As your best bro for life, I have always endeavored to lend my ears to your deepest sorrows and-”
“Shut up,” Baekhyun hisses scathingly because this is such a lie his ears are burning.
“What do you see in him?” Chanyeol demands of Joonmyun.
“Love is blind,” Joonmyun answers sweetly, which sends a million goosebumps erupting over Chanyeol’s skin and a blush over Baekhyun’s face.
‘And so are you,’ is what Chanyeol thinks but doesn’t say. He just asks very politely, “Which century did you come from?” He had no idea this kind of vintage shit appealed to Baekhyun. Just look at the way he’s going smiley-eyed at Joonmyun right now. A white horse had better gallop up to them when they leave this place because Chanyeol is going to be very disappointed if Joonmyun rides a cab instead.
But Baekhyun is right. He has been telling Chanyeol about Joonmyun, if he would just listen.
My ajusshi class rep is the most infuriating person in the world. I’ve been coerced into detention for the week just because he caught me copying homework. We’re sixteen! Isn’t copying homework just part and parcel of our lives? Worse, he told me he’s going to be there every single detention session to make sure I finish work before going home. It must be an invitation to spend the night with him ‘cos no one’s going home.
Sooo, my ajusshi class rep? I was hating on him for monopolizing my time after school, but then he took off his shirt during PE today and, no one hates abs, Chanyeol. No one.
I found out that ajusshi class rep isn’t just accompanying me for my detention. He’s accompanying everyone because he’s such a responsible class rep of course, that seed-sowing bastard. I curse that he loses all his abs by summer and gains ten kilos.
And then as things got progressively worse with Kyungsoo, Chanyeol lost his will to pay attention to Baekhyun and missed out wholly on entire conversations (or monologues) with him. That’s why he wasn’t aware when they moved on to the cycle of ajusshi class rep taking off his shirt, Baekhyun taking back his curse to preserve Joonmyun’s abs for himself and their taking off together. Taking is too easy but that’s the way it is.
Kyungsoo arrives late and when he sits down beside Chanyeol, he points to Joonmyun. “Nugu?”
“You learned from the best, didn’t you?” Baekhyun mourns sadly, then he notices Kyungsoo’s nails. “Is that?” he asks.
“That’s Feelin' Hot-Hot-Hot!,” Chanyeol answers like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“No, I’m not asking about the shade. I mean, why is Kyungsoo wearing nail polish?” asks Baekhyun, examining Kyungsoo’s short stubby nails which are now covered in a bright pink shade of nail polish.
“Well, since we tried dipping his nails in chili, and it didn’t work,” Chanyeol says.
“I like chili,” explains Kyungsoo.
“So we’re trying out nail polish now, in order for him to stop biting his nails,” Chanyeol sighs.
“It’s not working. I told him and he just doesn’t get it. What he’s doing is flavoring the nails and when my nails are bare, it’s original flavor,” Kyungsoo says exasperatedly.
“Why pink?” asks Baekhyun.
“The brightness of the color indicates the severity of the situation,” deadpans Chanyeol. “For your information, we started with colorless polish and things escalated quickly to bright pink.”
“We actually haven’t had lunch,” Joonmyun points out as his appetite is getting ruined right now. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol reply him at the same time.
“It’s ok, you won’t enjoy it anyway. Food sucks,” says Kyungsoo matter-of-factly.
“It’s just that whenever we hold hands, I feel like I’m holding worms,” Chanyeol complains, his words overlapping with Kyungsoo’s.
“Please don’t break up with me because of my friends,” Baekhyun says to Joonmyun. Then to Kyungsoo, he says, “I didn’t think you would indulge him.”
“Because if I don’t- “ Kyungsoo begins and gets cut off by Chanyeol.
“Kyungoo-yah! Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol suddenly shouts, “Yah, Do Kyungsoo! Kyungsoo yahhh!”
“-he will do this all day.” Kyungsoo smacks Chanyeol on the back with the menu, leaping onto him so he’s half on Chanyeol’s lap and throwing an arm around his neck, holding Chanyeol in a headlock. ”All day.” He grits his teeth.
“I’m good at being annoying,” Chanyeol elaborates to Joonmyun, all the while supporting Kungsoo by holding him at the waist so he doesn’t fall off and is able to continue to strangle Chanyeol. In addition, he has to contort his face and acts like he’s actually hurting. Tough work, but someone’s got to do the hard job of fulfilling Do Kyungsoo’s belief that he’s actually a threat.
“He’s not good at a lot of things,” Kyungsoo says to Joonmyun, who’s learning a lot today. “So please appreciate him.”
“Oh yeah?” Chanyeol gives up his pretense and lifts his brows at Kyungsoo. The timbre of his voice runs along Kyungsoo’s chest which is now pressed against Chanyeol’s shoulder. It almost makes Kyungsoo shiver.
“Ok, sure, if you call that ‘kissing’.” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and make air quotes when he said the word.
The corners of Chanyeol’s mouth draw up. He thought they were done with this.
“I don’t need this,” Baekhyun speaks up when he senses danger right around the corner.
Unexpectedly, Chanyeol tips his head forward to press his lips against Kyungsoo. His lips are still stretched tight into a smile, so he really isn’t doing anything more than pressing their mouths together. It’s warm and sweet; honestly it’s just a peck on the lips, nothing serious but it still sends bubbles of excitement fizzling in Kyungsoo’s stomach. Chanyeol’s breath is hot and familiar on Kyungsoo’s neck. He really shivers this time.
“You know, I practically brought Chanyeol up. I’m like his mom or something, can you at least not do it in front of me- is that tongue? Did I see a tongue? God, I need a paper bag,” Baekhyun declares loudly. God, or Joonmyun, very kindly passes him a paper napkin in the shape of a rose. Joonmyun thinks there’s a time and place for romance. And it is clearly every time and everywhere.
“So this isn’t kissing?” Chanyeol says with an air of ignorance, when he parts from Kyungsoo after mere seconds.
“Nope,” Kyungsoo quips with a shake of his head, trying very hard to restrain his smile.
“Hello! Is anyone at home! Can you hear me!” Baekyun yells.
“Show me your definition of kissing then,” Chanyeol tilts his head up challengingly.
Kyungsoo actually lowers his head and Baekhyun thinks, ‘yeah, at least one of you is shy’, but then Kyungsoo lifts his hands up and cups Chanyeol’s face, boldly pulling him forward until their lips meet in an open-mouthed kiss.
Chanyeol’s Kyungsoo-feelers squirm excitedly when the tip of his tongue touches Kyungsoo’s and his boyfriend makes a small sound when he feels the touch, too. Chanyeol almost forgets where he is when he stretches his neck to lean more into the kiss, Kyungsoo’s plush lips so soft beneath his own, his breath unsteady and searing along the slope of Chanyeol’s cheeks. Chanyeol wants to make Kyungsoo even more breathless.
Baekhyun loses it. He definitely saw that tongue.
Something hits Chanyeol on the head and he flinches mid-kiss. When he looks down on the floor, he sees a piece of toast.
It is indeed, as hard as a brick.
thanks to you, little one. for that geographical correction, too. lol you know everything. what would i do without you. even if you sometimes have passenger rage....
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