Chanyeol walks down the hall in a daze. People are talking around him; some cheer and some holler and some are actually calling him to greet him, but Chanyeol doesn’t hear him. Well he does, but he can’t exactly process what they’re saying. Not right now, at least, not when his condition swims around in his head.

It started just a few months back, as an occasional bad headache. Sometimes, his eyes went blurry or his muscles felt heavy, but he figured that was just a side effect of all the basketball practice. When they became more frequent, however, he finally had the courage to tell his mother about it; and like the worrisome mother she was, he was brought to the doctor and tests were run on him.

Which leads him to the day before, when his results were in and he was called into the doctor’s office. He thought it was just stress, maybe constipation or some sort of extreme cold. He was wrong, obviously.

Brain cancer. It was still the early stages of the disease, but fact was that he had cancer, and he didn’t know how long he had left. A tumor was found, they said it was small enough to treat and had given Chanyeol bottles of pills, but that they didn’t know if it’d work. They had also offered surgery to have it cleared up, but they couldn’t schedule him in for surgery for several months, and who knew what would happen to Chanyeol by then.

Someone bumps into him, and as his eyes turn in the direction of his assailant, a feeling of vertigo washes over him and he’s rooted where he stands with a hand on his stomach in case he needs to hurl. The pills are great and decrease the headaches plaguing him, but the side effects aren’t.

“Chan!” Someone takes advantage of his frozen silhouette and jumps on his back, legs winding tightly around his waist. Chanyeol immediately breaks out into a grin because he can tell it’s one of his friends. When he turns his head to the side, he can see Jongdae’s chin resting on his shoulder. Ignoring the fact that his muscles aren’t as strong as they used to be, Chanyeol holds his legs up and spins.

“Let me down you oaf!” Jongdae laughs, but he tightens his arms around Chanyeol’s shoulders and the taller of the two doesn’t even bother listening to the command.

“They’re at it again.” Someone says with a tired voice, and Chanyeol’s eyes flicker over to where a straight faced Sehun is watching them from against Joonmyeon’s locker. Joonmyeon is standing in front of it, one hand reaching into the locker while his gaze is focused on Chanyeol.

“Let him down before you hurt someone, Chan.” Joonmyeon tells him, though his lips are curled into an amused smile.

So he does, and while Jongdae waves his arms about trying to orientate himself, Chanyeol takes in a deep breath and shoves down the feeling of nausea that’s trying to overcome him.

“He listened to you for once!” Baekhyun’s voice calls out in awe, and Chanyeol’s eyes narrow over at his best friend. Baekhyun sports a smirk as he walks over and thumps him on the back and Chanyeol merely chuckles as he does so.

“Don’t get used to it, he doesn’t listen to anyone.” Joonmyeon grunts, and Chanyeol wishes he didn’t agree.

“That’s because we’re too easy on him.” Sehun says blankly, like the fact that Chanyeol’s right there listening to them doesn’t make a difference.

“We’re too easy on you, too, you spoiled brat.” Baekhyun counters, and Sehun merely shrugs as he adjusts the backpack on his shoulders. Joonmyeon chuckles under his breath, but Chanyeol’s gaze is on Baekhyun.

How would Baekhyun react to hearing about his condition? Should he tell his friends at all? Would it be best to keep it from everyone?

“What is he staring at?” A new voice calls out, and Chanyeol doesn’t notice until he finds Minseok in his line of focus, staring back at him with his eyebrows furrowed.

“Baek, can I talk to you? Alone?” And though the others seem absolutely surprised that he’s asking for privacy with Baekhyun, no one says a thing. They simply glance over at Baekhyun and Baekhyun simply stares at Chanyeol in return.

“Are you going to confess to me?” Baekhyun asks with a smirk widening on his face, and Chanyeol’s eyes widen,

“Because you know Dae and I’ve been dating for two years, right?”

Okay, so he didn’t actually know that – not that he wanted or needed to. His eyes flicker over to an amused Jongdae and then back to Baekhyun, whose smirk only continues to widen at his silence.

“I think Chan here’s a little jealous.” Quips Minseok, and his snickers are joined by Sehun’s.

“And all this time he thought Dae was the third wheel.” Sehun sighs in his naturally bored tone, and Chanyeol feels the irritation build in his chest.

“Come on, we have to get to class.” Joonmyeon finally speaks up, and he’s patting Chanyeol on the shoulder like they’re only standing there because of him and that causes for the tallest of the current group to finally lose it.

“I’m dying.”

The remaining boys pause for a moment and Chanyeol thinks what’s floating around in their eyes is understanding or possibly even horror, but then they burst into laughter.

“Did you lose your phone again? I keep telling you, keep it out of Zitao’s reach!” Baekhyun continues to chortle, and Chanyeol drops his shoulders in defeat.

Knowing his friends, even showing them his bottle of pills wouldn’t be enough proof; he’s known as the resident prankster, after all.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m going to head off to class first.” He decides, and though his friends calm down and stare at him in confusion, Chanyeol merely turns on his heels and heads to class.

It’s not like it matters anyway. Whether they do or do not know, Chanyeol still has cancer, and Chanyeol is still on his way to meeting death.

In class, he’s joined by Kris. You might be wondering who Kris is. Kris’s only the most feared boy in all of school and Chanyeol does his best to sit as far away from the taller and certainly more intimidating male. Kris’s the kind of guy you would fear just after seeing him. He’s even been the reason why a few people have dropped out.

But they do have friends in common, including Chanyeol’s next door neighbor Zitao; and though Chanyeol wonders how someone like Kris has managed to make friends like Zitao, he doesn’t care so long as Kris is far, far away from him.

Well, not today. Being as he had to drag his feet to class because the slightest bit of drowsiness has hit him, Chanyeol ends up being the last to enter his classroom and learns that the last remaining seat is actually beside Kris in the back corner of the room.

Most of the students sitting around Kris have already moved their chairs as far away as they could, and Chanyeol could feel the pitying stares that follow him on his way.

He doesn’t know what’s worse; cancer, or Kris Wu.

“Hey!” He tries as he takes his seat, goofy smile playing his lips as he places his backpack on the desk, a gentle thud being heard as something falls out of it; but Chanyeol doesn’t even hear it.

Kris looks up from the phone he has placed on his desk. There’s the smallest quirk of his lips as he does so, but the moment his gaze lands on Chanyeol, that quirk of his lips disappears and Chanyeol remembers that as much as he doesn’t like Kris, Kris doesn’t like him.

“How are you today?” Chanyeol tries again, because he doesn’t want the whole day to go by so awkwardly, and maybe he’s actually wrong about Kris, but the taller of the pair simply pulls out a pair of earphones and shoves them in his ears to block Chanyeol out.

“I’m great too, thanks for asking.” Chanyeol mutters, and with a sigh he takes the books he needs out of his bag and pretends he’s paying attention.

Now don’t go thinking he’s pretending because he’s the type who doesn’t care about school. On the contrary, Chanyeol’s been on the honor roll since his first semester of high school and doesn’t plan to leave it. With the pain that’s in his head, however, it’s a little hard to focus.

That’s his least favorite part about his cancer, he decides; how randomly the symptoms hit him. Of course, he had been in pain before, but he was sure he’d be okay during his classes. He was wrong, obviously.

With a low groan, Chanyeol drops his head into his hands. The headache he had earlier that day has returned full force, and along with it comes nausea. He remembers his pills, then, and in a desperate attempt to stop the nausea that’s building, he opens his bag and curses silently when he can’t find the pills he had gotten just the day prior.

“Do you have anything to add, Park?” The teacher calls, and he can hear that but barely.

Chanyeol lifts his head slowly, finding that the entire class has decided his being called out was the most entertaining part of the class. He can even feel Kris’s gaze shifting onto him.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” Chanyeol asks, and several students start to laugh while the teacher rolls his eyes.

“Next time, just raise your hand. Don’t disrupt the class with your theatrics.”

Chanyeol practically jumps out of his seat and hurries over to where the teacher stands, and he’s outside the room within moments.

He makes it to the bathroom in seconds with how quickly he runs. Or maybe it just feels like seconds, but he knows for sure that he’s relieved when he’s inside so he can heave into the toilet in peace.

There’s no one in any of the stalls, and no one using the urinal, so Chanyeol hopes he can finish before someone comes with the hope of using the bathroom.

However, he’s completely unprepared when someone slams open the bathroom door while he’s dumping the contents of his stomach into the toilet. He hopes he’s not too loud and that whoever just came in won’t ask questions, but there’s no need. Someone’s rubbing his back and when he’s done, a bottle of cold water is pressed against his neck and oh, it feels so good.

Slowly, his head turns so he can see if maybe it was one of his friends; but instead, it’s Kris. Kris, who is holding his bottle of pills with the hand he had been using to rub Chanyeol’s back.

Figures that the one person to find out would be Kris.