“Hey, guys, look at this,” Chanyeol whispers, jerking his chin in the direction that he’s walking in. There’s a lone student not far up ahead.

Not bothering to see if his friends are looking, Chanyeol strides ahead, his up-to-no-good intent staining the floor with every silent step, and he purposefully bumps into the student. The noise of books dropping onto the floor echo in the hallway, with Chanyeol’s loud snigger following shortly after. Turning around, Chanyeol bends a little forward and smirks at the sight of the student picking up the books from the floor.

“Oops, sorry, didn’t see you there.”

As Chanyeol is taller than most of the student body in his high school (save for Kris), he has to tilt his head down a little in order to be able to see the (obviously) shorter student that’s now standing in front of him, four books in his arms. The student’s face is blank, though was that a flicker of hurt in his eyes or did Chanyeol imagine it. And Chanyeol doesn’t get any form of response to his supposed apology, for the student just bypasses him. Just continues to walk on, as though he hadn’t been knocked into by Chanyeol at all.

Chanyeol’s smirk immediately drops, and his expression turns dark. He didn’t get a reaction out of him again, despite amping up the strength he’d used to bump into him—strong enough to cause the books to be thrown out of the student’s hands, yet not that strong to make him fall over. Chanyeol hadn’t thought of causing the student to fall whenever he purposefully bumps into him, because he, honestly, doesn’t want to injure him physically. Chanyeol may be bad, but he's not that bad. But if he’s not getting a reaction anytime soon, a fall seems to be in order.

The back view of the student, gradually decreasing in size as he continues to walk down the empty hallway, is all that Chanyeol sees, until a familiar weight on his shoulders brings him back to reality, and Chanyeol turns his head to the left to find Kris frowning at him. It’s impressive, Kris’ frowning expression, and if Chanyeol hadn’t been best friends with him for the past two years since Kris transferred in, he would have been afraid of the taller student. Knowing that Kris isn't mad—probably—enables Chanyeol to straighten himself, and he frowns back.

“What.”

Kris opens his mouth, presumably about to say something when someone rudely interrupts. “Kris is just being his kind, yet confused, self again; he’s wondering why you’re still bullying that kid.”

Chanyeol glances (a little downwards) at Baekhyun, who’s in the midst of rolling his eyes when Kris lightly flicks his ear, causing him to shriek and jump a foot away, both hands cupping that ear. “What was that for!”

Kris opens his mouth for the second time, presumably about to say something when, again, someone rudely interrupts. “Kris hates you, Baekhyun, don’t you know?”

The noise of a second, but different-sounding, pained shriek fills the hallway as Baekhyun guffaws, before growling, “Oh Sehun, if I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut.” He glares (up) at Sehun. “That ear flick wouldn’t be the end of what I’d put you through if you continue.”

Chanyeol watches disinterestedly at how Baekhyun starts to bicker with Sehun, his best friends glaring at each other with no heat in their eyes. It’s not unusual to see Baekhyun and Sehun quarreling over dumb stuff. If anything, arguing over whether Kris likes Baekhyun as a friend is one of the more relevant topics that they’ve quarrelled about. Chanyeol mentally cringes when he recalls some topics, such as whether fried or yangnyeom chicken is the best, and if wearing boxers or going commando to sleep will be good for the development of length. Also, six years with Baekhyun and four years with Sehun have taught Chanyeol to sit himself out of their pointless squabbles if he doesn’t want to be implicated or used as a shield.

Yet, although he’s safe from two of his friends, Chanyeol quickly realises that he still has the attention of one. The familiar weight is still on his shoulders, frown still burning into the side of his face. Chanyeol sighs, “And you were saying, Kris…?”

“I just don't get it, that's all.”

“You don't have to get it, Kris,” Chanyeol replies. He circles an arm around Kris’ waist and rests his head on his shoulder. It's nice, leaning against someone who’s taller, and stronger, too; Baekhyun is too short, and Sehun is unable to support Chanyeol’s weight. Though, Chanyeol used to lean on another, back when he was a wee lad and shorter than everyone. The thought is fleeting, and unwelcomed, for Chanyeol forcefully pushes it to the back of his mind. He doesn’t want to remember his past, his childhood.

He doesn’t want to remember him.

Kris clucks his tongue, tone disapproving. “As someone who’s been bullied, I can’t stand watching others being bullied. You know this, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol withdraws his arm from Kris’ waist and peels himself off Kris’ body. Frowning, he says, “I’m not bullying him. I’m picking on him. There’s a difference.” And he folds his arms across his chest. “His life isn’t a living hell, Kris. He’s just being made to–”

“Hand over his lunch to you every day, tolerate your nonsensical behaviour every day, ignore your existence each time you deem fit it’s the moment to pick on him by either knocking into him, tripping him, or causing trouble for him.” Kris holds up six fingers to Chanyeol’s face. “And those are only what you’ve done since I became your friend two years ago. I don’t know what you did to him before our friendship–”

Scenes of the student asking other students if they’ve seen his belongings, and of Chanyeol throwing said belongings into resources cupboards in random classrooms surface in Chanyeol’s head. Guilt inexplicably gnaws at his heart.

“–and, honestly, I don’t want to know.” Kris puts his hands down, choosing to fold them across his chest, like Chanyeol, instead. He also mirrors Chanyeol’s frown, only that it’s slightly more impressive because Kris—according to Sehun—has an amazing resting (or in this case, bastard) face that effectively scares everyone away. Kris’ face is damn useful, and his three friends can attest to that, what with them calling Kris to bail them out of sticky situations each time shady characters approach them at bars (entered illegally, of course) on weekends. In those situations, Kris is a wonderful friend to have.

Now, though, he’s not.

“I do want to know something else. And that something else is why do you keep picking on him?”

Kris’ question is not new. It’s an old question that not only Kris has asked countless times before, but both Sehun and Baekhyun, too, have brought up when they first befriended Chanyeol and watched in confusion as Chanyeol picked on the same student over and over. Chanyeol has never truly answered them, choosing to pacify with the same ol’ reply of—

“There is no why. I just do it.”

—that just seems to add fuel to his friends’ raging flames of curiosity and exasperation. Chanyeol is glad that Baekhyun and Sehun have stopped questioning his actions, but he’s certain that they don’t approve of him, and not for the student.it, if the pitiful expressions on their faces Chanyeol sees each time he returns to them after having done something to the student are indications of their disapproval. Chanyeol is almost certain that their pity is for

Kris, on the other hand, has never once stopped asking for Chanyeol’s justification regarding this. As someone who had been bullied when he was in Canada’s elementary and Seoul’s secondary schools because of his ethnicity, Kris can’t sit back and watch others. He’s made this known to Chanyeol the first time he saw Chanyeol pick on the student by tripping him in the hallway and causing the papers in his hands to fly. Chanyeol watched, dumbfoundedly, as Kris instantly reacted, squatting down to retrieve the papers for the student who profusely thanked him before dashing off. The aftermath of that incident wasn’t pretty, for Chanyeol found himself pushed up against the wall in the next second, with Kris’ forearm jammed at his throat as Kris practically screamed bloody murder at him. Kris is so, so strong, that even the combined strength of Baekhyun and Sehun and another one of their classmates couldn’t pull him off of Chanyeol.

Chanyeol experienced a taste of death that day, and for the sake of his life and throat, he didn’t pick on the student for a week. But Chanyeol can’t help himself. He’d been picking on the student for almost four years by then, the instinct to do something to him is ingrained in him. So Chanyeol gave in to his urges—he snatched the student’s lunch the following Monday. To his surprise, Kris hadn’t said or done anything in response to that. He even wanted a small slice of the broiled unagi in the procured lunchbox. Til this day, Chanyeol still doesn’t know what happened to Kris. And he’s never thought of asking, not when the feeling of Kris’ forearm still ghosts across the skin of his throat sometimes.

The look of utter exasperation on Kris’ face is something that Chanyeol hates seeing, but he doesn’t want to make his reason for picking on the student known to him, or to Baekhyun and Sehun for that matter of fact. It might sound dumb to them, the reason, since sometimes even Chanyeol thinks it’s dumb when he finds himself thinking about it. So, no. He’s probably never going to let anyone know why he keeps picking on the student. If anyone wants to know the truth, Chanyeol would first like to say that there is no ing way, deal with it.

“Stop looking at me like that every time,” Chanyeol mutters, looking away from Kris’ face to glance at the end of the hallway. It’s empty; the student has already rounded the corner and disappeared. Chanyeol stares at the corner for a heartbeat longer. He’ll see the student again tomorrow, and tomorrow he’ll definitely earn himself a reaction from the student. “Might I remind you of your occasional theft of food from his lunchbox, especially pieces of unagi and omelette.” Chanyeol turns his head back, and gives Kris a pointed look. “You’re just as… evil as I am.”

Kris opens his mouth, but closes it a couple of seconds later. A resigned expression forms on his face, and Chanyeol immediately smirks in triumph.

Leaving Kris to wallow in his own thoughts, Chanyeol walks to one of the windows that line the hallway, eyes looking out and darting wildly in search of a familiar back view. He finds it amongst the few groups of students traipsing across the courtyard and toward the school gates. Chanyeol’s eyes take in the same old black bag that he’s seen on the student’s back for the past few years, and if he squints a little, he’d notice the signs of wear and tear on the bag, most of which probably caused by Chanyeol’s abuse of it. Removing his eyes away from the bag, Chanyeol looks at the overall view of the student instead. He trails his eyes upwards, from the student’s shoes to the waistband of his school pants, from the hem of the school jacket to the collar of the school shirt, and from the base of the student’s neck to the top of his head. Chanyeol scoffs.

“Still so small.”

He rests an elbow on the ledge of the window, and props his chin on the knuckle, watching as the student nears the gate where several other students, who seemed to have been waiting, pull him into their little circle.

“Still so–”

The student then turns to face one of them, and even though only a side profile can be seen from his point of view, the half-a-heart of a smile and the crinkle of a big, round eye are enough for a breath to lodge in Chanyeol’s throat while a tinge of heat attacks Chanyeol’s cheeks.

Good-looking.