The sky is a purplish blue when Baekhyun finds Chanyeol laying on the gazebo bench, a faint outline of the moon coming into view. The stars are beginning to make their debut and Chanyeol seems deeper in thought than Baekhyun has ever seen him before and it makes him slightly uncomfortable. There’s a furrow in his brows that he’d rather not see there; a sense of unfamiliarity that he doesn’t like.

“Hey,” Baekhyun says lowly, as he hesitantly takes a seat on the bench perpendicular to his roommate, not wanting to upset the boy even further.

Chanyeol presses his lips in a tight line and exhales through his nose. “Hey,” he replies.

“Are you okay?” Baekhyun asks, trying to find his eyes in the quickly approaching darkness.

Chanyeol tries to find the words to describe how he’s feeling, but it feels like he’s been burnt out. His response comes out as a shrug and a quiet, “I don’t know.”

The two settle into an unusually comfortable silence, only the sound of crickets chirping and slow breathing being heard. Both their eyes are on the sky, despite their minds being somewhere else. Chanyeol feels a million things right now and wracks his brain trying to create a coherent sentence, but nothing comes to him.

“I think I’m upset,” he finally says. Baekhyun shifts his body towards Chanyeol, with open ears. “Mostly at myself though. And a little relieved, I guess.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m bad at talking,” he continues. “I don’t know why I am or why it’s so hard for me, so it makes me upset. It makes me upset because I’m bad at explaining why I’m upset.”

“I think you’re doing pretty okay right now,” Baekhyun reassures.

“Thanks,” Chanyeol mutters, not knowing what to say next.

“So, why are you relieved?” Baekhyun questions, wanting to help Chanyeol express himself better.

“Because I don’t have to lie anymore,” he laughs a little. “It was hard having to talk about Kris but even harder not being able to. So I’m relieved.”

Baekhyun grins at the resonance of Chanyeol’s laughter, feeling a little less awkward than when he first approached him. “What do you want to do now then?” he poses another question.

Chanyeol sits up and shoves his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, grinning at Baekhyun. “I think I want to talk to Kris,” he affirms. “I mean, I don’t want to, but I think I have to. I’m just not sure if he wants to talk to me.”

“Would you be even more relieved if I told you he does?” Baekhyun proposes.

“He does?” Chanyeol asks, a combination of surprise and eagerness in his voice.

“Mhm,” Baekhyun hums, nodding his head. “Let’s go back, Yeol.”

Chanyeol flashes a smile and pushes himself off the bench, making his way towards the dorms. By the time Baekhyun is on his feet, the boy’s already a few metres ahead of him. Baekhyun chuckles and runs to catch up, trying to keep pace with the lanky boy.

Perhaps Chanyeol’s issue wasn’t his awkwardness or inability to express his feelings, Baekhyun ponders, as he listens to his roommate ramble about Taco Night. Maybe the issue was others’ inability to ask him about his feelings; that Chanyeol just needed to be presented with the opportunity to express those emotions.

“Do you believe in hard shells or soft shells?” Chanyeol stops, placing his hands on the shorter boy’s shoulders, a playful glint in his eye. A pout finds its way on his face when his tiny crush snorts, continuing to walk.

Baekhyun isn’t too sure about his hypothesis on why this gentle giant has difficulty communicating with others and how it could be resolved.

“You didn’t answer me!” Chanyeol eggs on, nudging him at the side.

“Soft. Someone told me that hard shells are fake tacos,” he deadpans, pulling out his key card.

What Baekhyun is sure of is that he wants to be there for him.

--

“Listen, you don’t understand how passionate I am about pasta,” Jongdae stresses, slamming his fist down on the table.

“We get it, you love a good noodle,” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, taking a bite out of his steak. Sehun and Jongin snicker at the comment, proceeding to make roughly eleven consecutive jokes to each other.

“No Kyungsoo, you don’t get it. I don’t just love pasta. I ing love pasta,” he nearly shouts at the end of his sentence. Jongdae takes a deep breath in attempt to recollect himself. “On god, I would probably sell you for one whole single spaghetti.”

The restaurant is loud and boisterous, families, couples and groups of students alike chatting the night away. Despite the environment being lively to begin with, if it was even humanly possible, the boys’ table just might have been the most obnoxious one there.

It’s a Saturday night and Junmyeon decides that to celebrate the return of a friend, a new acquaintance and the reconciliation of Chanyeol and Kris, he’d take everybody out for dinner—his treat. It’s a friendly and newly discovered restaurant that Junmyeon is quite fond of and something he’s been wanting to share with his friends for a while.

“Like… one strand? One spaghetti?” Kyungsoo looks at the elder in disgust and offense.

“One,” he affirms, throwing up his index finger in emphasis.

“Whatever,” the younger scoffs, going back to eating his sirloin steak.

Junmyeon just hoped he wouldn’t regret that decision.

Chanyeol is wedged between Kris and Baekhyun, conversing with his ex-boyfriend animatedly from how things were in China to new favourite movies and everything in between. Neither of them would say it, but they missed each other’s company. Baekhyun tries not to bother them and talks to Junmyeon about the boys and what life with the group has been like and anything else that came to mind.

“Hey what’s that?” Kris asks, pointing at Chanyeol’s plate.

“It’s popcorn shrimp,” Chanyeol answers enthusiastically. “It tastes so good. I honestly think I’m going to buy some to take home later. Want some?”

When Kris nods his head and opens his mouth wide, Chanyeol laughs. The younger complies, feeding him one of the bigger pieces, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Tao.

Tao squints at Chanyeol before shoving Kris over. “Can I have some too, Chanyeol?” he smiles sweetly.

“Uh yeah sure,” Chanyeol replies, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the way Tao says his name. Regardless, he obediently pops a piece into the sharp eyed boy’s mouth, who strangely closes his mouth too early, biting Chanyeol’s finger in the process.

“Sorry I guess I was hungrier than I thought,” Tao beams at him, apologizing with a certain ambience Kris doesn’t particularly like.

Jongin watches the entire exchange and pokes at his plate of grilled chicken and steals a glance at Kyungsoo from his peripheral. Sehun ceases his passionate debate with Yixing and Luhan about the greatest meme of all time to sigh at his best friend.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Sehun asks, nudging at his side.

“I am,” Jongin mumbles, continuing to poke at his food.

“No you’re not. You’re–” he chides, stopping mid-sentence as he catches sight of Chanyeol feeding Kris again and Tao glowering from the side. Sehun groans and rubs his temple in mild exasperation. So that’s it.

“Hey Kyungsoo,” Sehun exclaims. “What’s that you’re eating? It looks really delicious.”

“It’s some kind of fancy bacon and goat cheese sirloin steak,” Kyungsoo grins, open to any discussion about food and the culinary arts. “I think I might beg for the recipe before we leave. It’s rare that I find dishes with bacon I like.”

Sehun overreacts and continues to ask Kyungsoo questions about the restaurant until he’s sick of it and deems it enough small talk to create the perfect chance. “Can I try some of your steak, Soo?” Sehun asks, getting ready to fork a bit off his plate.

“Yeah totally, it’s really good,” Kyungsoo nods, cutting a piece himself and feeding the youngest.

Sehun swallows it down quickly, hating the taste of the goat cheese and whatever other weird food contributed to the odd flavour. “Man that was delicious,” he grins, “Jongin, you should try some too!” he suggests, harshly poking his best friend.

Jongin’s eyes light up as he opens his mouth wide, waiting for Kyungsoo to feed him a piece as well.

“Are you stretching your jaw or something?” Kyungsoo looks at the boy strangely, not hearing Sehun’s exclamation from before.

“No…” Jongin mutters, returning to his previous actions.

Sehun rolls his eyes and shoves a piece of his own, notably less disgusting, sirloin steak into Jongin’s mouth. “You’re never going to get anywhere if you keep this up,” he reprimands, propping his elbow on the table to lean his face against his hand.

So far the night has been nothing but pleasant and Baekhyun feels that he’s gotten a lot closer with everyone. However, there’s something that bugs him to no end but he can’t figure out just what it is, as he simultaneously tries to ignore Kris and Chanyeol’s interactions.

Baekhyun swears he wasn’t trying to eavesdrop and that if anybody asked, he’d retort by saying the two just so happened to be speaking very loudly. Either way, he didn’t want to listen to all the “remember when’s” and memories of Chanyeol that had no trace of Baekhyun with him.

For some reason, Baekhyun felt drained sitting at the same table as Kris, a tinge of bitterness daring to seep through his weariness. It isn’t until he sees the irritation on Tao’s face when the younger looks at Kris that he mentally slaps himself across the face for even feeling that way. He doesn’t have a crush on Chanyeol. He isn’t Chanyeol’s boyfriend. Chanyeol holds no obligation towards him. He has no reason to feel jealous. But when were feelings ever reasonable, Baekhyun thinks to himself, heaving a sigh.

“I TOLD YOU I LOVED PASTA,” Jongdae shouts at Kyungsoo, whose eyes were as wide as saucers.

“YOU PUT ME UP FOR SALE IN THE UNIVERSITY’S TRADING GROUP IN EXCHANGE FOR ONE SPAGHETTI NOODLE,” Kyungsoo rises to his feet, smashing Jongdae’s phone onto the table. “HOW DID THE ADMINS APPROVE YOUR POST? THIS IS LITERALLY ILLEGAL.”

A repetitive ding resonates from the phone, vibrating a couple of times before Jongdae picks it up. “GUESS WHO’S EATING GOOD TONIGHT?” he exclaims, showing Kyungsoo the freshly cracked screen and a message from a moderator confirming that he’s been sold for two whole spaghetti noodles.

“ WHAT THE ?” Kyungsoo screams, putting Jongdae in a chokehold.

“I’m sorry I’m going to have to ask you all to leave the restaurant,” a manager requests sternly, arms crossed with three security guards trying to pry Kyungsoo off of the pasta enthusiast.

Junmyeon mutters curses to himself and glares at the boys, nodding his head towards the door, almost commanding them all to leave the restaurant. Junmyeon stays behind to apologize profusely to the manager and entire staff, trying to make sure that they aren’t banned from the establishment for who knows how long.

Nearly half of them are holding Kyungsoo back while the others discreetly commend Jongdae for accomplishing such an unusual task and validating his passion.

“Jongin, are you coming?” Sehun lags behind, calling out to the boy.

“Huh? Yeah, sorry. Give me a second,” Jongin stands, grinning sheepishly, quickly exiting Facebook on his phone.

Jongin thinks that Kyungsoo is worth more than one noodle.

--

It’s the middle of the night when Baekhyun, Jongin, Kyungsoo, Jongdae, and Minseok are sitting in the lounge, slumped in beanbag chairs and with their phones in one hand and sushi burritos in the other. It appeared that they were fighting the urge to sleep for the sole purpose of not sleeping (something they’ll definitely regret in the morning).

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Baekhyun speaks up, swallowing the food in his mouth. “Didn’t you guys find the whole ‘Kris is dead’ thing kind of fishy though? Like how did you guys believe that considering there was no funeral or whatever,” he asks, taking a bite out of his burrito.

“Oh… huh,” Jongin clicks his tongue. “You’re right…”

“You’ve got a point,” Minseok says slowly, furrowing his brows.

“We’re not the smartest bunch,” Jongdae replies blankly, scarfing down his food. Nearly half of the burrito’s filling has fallen out and onto the young man’s chest. Truly an iconic moment.

 “Oh,” Baekhyun nods confusedly. “I see?”

 “Well I’m stuffed and tired and ready for death,” Jongdae stands up, pieces of seaweed falling off his chest and onto the floor. “Good night friends,” he yawns, trudging back to his room.

Murmurs of good night are vaguely heard as the remaining three are somehow more slumped over and slob-like than before. Once the click of a door is heard from the distance, Minseok sits up almost urgently. “Kyungsoo, did Jongdae really sell you for a noodle?” the elder asks, expressing his utmost concern.

“Yeah, but the transaction didn’t fall through because it’s illegal to barter people,” Kyungsoo growls, angrily chewing his food. “I made that very clear when I fought with the group’s admins. I refuse to be sold for a ing noodle.”

“It was two,” Jongin interjects absent mindedly, scrolling through his phone.

“What?”

“At least, that’s what Jongdae told me,” he laughs awkwardly. Everybody stares at the boy in confusion, not a single person uttering a word.

“Haha… excuse me, someone’s calling me,” Jongin brings his phone up to his ear and repeats hello over and over again, suspiciously darting out the door.

Nobody makes any further comments.

Baekhyun decides it’s best to not question some things, putting the issues at hand to rest as he continues to eat alongside the others. Especially when it comes to these eleven oversized children, he thinks to himself.