- machine  (X) -

"You don't care about anything," Kris mother had told him when he last met her right after she had married a businessman from Hong Kong. He hadn't had time to attend the ceremony because he had to prepare for an exam, so he had visited her about a month afterwards. He had gone all the way to Hong Kong because of her despite being tight on money, and he had tried to be polite to her husband, but in the end she still wasn't satisfied with his attitude. "It's as if you're a completely different person. Where has my sweet son gone?"
He wanted to reply that her son had slowly died the moment she had decided to divorce his father and to leave him behind in Korea. She had never even asked whether he wanted to follow her back to China because she had assumed that he would prefer to stay with his father. Her sweet son had withered away when he couldn't reach her for months and when he was outcasted in school and when his father blamed him for the divorce.
Her sweet son hadn't been strong enough to withstand.
But he had never told her that because he was tired of fighting.
That day, when he had last seen her, he had only shrugged, "I don't know."

What his mother didn't understand was that him not caring was deliberate. He didn't want to care because nothing he cared about lasted. His grandmother, his dog, his friends in China, his friend in Canada, her, none of them were still with him. Money issues were one reason why he had decided to stay in Korea rather than to go back to Canada, but in the end it had also been a matter of caring. He was more attached to Canada and it scared him to think that his old friends had probably long forgotten about him.
In Korea there was nothing he cared about apart from his father. But his love for his father was nothing but a default he could ignore. It had been weeks since he had last seen him either, because they were both too busy with their lives.
In Korea he had no other family members and no close friends. He had cared about Luhan before, only to realize how much of a mistake it was to get too involved with others. He never voiced it out loud because it made him feel stupid, but secretly he knew that Luhan had probably killed the last remaining bit of his mother's sweet son.

He didn't mean to care so he also wasn't sure what Chanyeol's presence meant in his life. It had started as nothing but a fling. They had met because Kris had been in a bad mood after arguing with Luhan and because Chanyeol had been invited to an event his cousin had organized in a club. Kris had been too drunk when he hit on him and they had ended up in his apartment. If not for the fact that Chanyeol had lost his contact lenses at one point and that Kris had to help him pick up his clothes in the morning, they probably wouldn't even have stayed in contact. But then Kris had found Chanyeol's student ID that was connected to his bus card behind the door and Chanyeol had started a long, confusing rant about how his cousin had smuggled him inside the club because of a DJ they both liked and about how he had been offered a drink by someone and about how it had been a really bad idea to drink it and anyway, he really never meant to lie to anyone, he just wanted to see the DJ but then he had lost his contact lenses and could barely see anything.
Kris had to laugh and decided that he liked him.
They had never tried to phrase it. The only one who used the term 'boyfriend' was Luhan and Kris only never argued about it because he didn't think it mattered. It was just a word. Chanyeol and him only met to fill something like a void they both had in their lives. He himself sometimes needed to remind himself that he was still made of flesh and blood, and Chanyeol probably mainly needed someone to talk to.
It was never meant to be more.
And yet, when Chanyeol stood at his doorstep a week after running into Kim Minseok and pretended that nothing was wrong, it unnerved Kris.
Chanyeol didn't ask why Kris hadn't told him about Kim Minseok and Kris didn't ask about the massive purple bruise on his back. As usual they simply ate ramyeon in his kitchen, slept with each other and then parted as if nothing had happened. What they had felt less than a relationship than an appointment in a clinic.

"Kim Minseok..." Kris eventually began on the third evening of pretending that there was nothing to discuss when Chanyeol sat on the floor in front of the TV and played around with his phone. At the mention of the name, Chanyeol looked up. "Did you talk to him after the party the other day?" Kris asked.
Chanyeol frowned as if Kris had broken a rule. "Yes," he then said. When Kris looked at him expectantly, he continued, "We went... or rather, I made him go to a coffee shop with me and we talked. He didn't talk much but I mean, he never talked much. We even exchanged numbers. When I went home, I was so happy, I accidentally woke up my sister because I sang too loudly in the shower." He clearly tried to joke it off, but he wouldn't have come to Kris' apartment if the story was that easy.
"And then?" Kris asked and Chanyeol looked down at his feet.
"Nothing," Chanyeol shrugged. "I guess he was just being polite. There are people like that, right? When you face them, they don't want you to get angry at them, so they don't tell you to piss off. But then they avoid you at all cost."
Kris nodded. "So you haven't talked to him since," he concluded and Chanyeol buried his head between his legs with a frustrated noise.
Kris looked at him for a moment and then at the TV playing the news. His head felt empty. He didn't care. He didn't want to care but it was strange to be 'the other one' in a love story.

- choices -

When Baekhyun reached the club room, Jongin was outside and ripped off all the pieces of paper that were stuck to the door and the wall next to it. There were dozens. Badly photoshopped pictures of Chanyeol in a dress, service flyers and pages ripped out of notebooks that read all kinds of insults. Someone had even gone so far as to use permanent marker to cross out the 'rock band' part of their club sign and write 'homo' instead.
"You'd think they'd get tired of it," he muttered and scratched at the sign to see whether it could still be cleaned. He looked at Jongin who had a deflated expression and wondered why he even was there. Their state of emergency had been going on for over a week now and Jongin was the last one who should have bothered. Chanyeol had been nothing but rude to him.
"Anyone else inside?" Baekhyun asked when Jongin ripped off the last piece.
"Just Boyoung," he said and Baekhyun nodded. He knew that Jongdae wouldn't be there because he had seen him leave with their classmates. And Kyungsoo had always been too busy studying since. Baekhyun couldn't really blame them. Had he and Chanyeol not been best friends for over half their lives, he maybe wouldn't have cared either.
When he entered, Boyoung sat at the keyboard and looked up expectantly. Upon realizing that it was him, she smiled anyway but he could tell that she was disappointed.
"Where's Chanyeol?" he asked and looked around. There still were chairs they hadn't picked up after someone had come in and messed up the whole room the other day. It was why they had finally begun locking the room.
"He gave me the key and told me to wait," Boyoung said.
"When?" he asked and she looked down on her hands.
"After class. He came to my classroom, gave me the key and hurried off," she said miserably. Jongin entered and she turned her face as if to hide tears. "I don't understand why this is happening."
Baekhyun sighed. He understood it but didn't want to tell her that. He himself had never been bullied so he didn't know the feeling, but he knew that Chanyeol easily fell into his old victim role. He was no good in confrontations and that was what had probably made everything worse. Rather than to tell everyone to shut up, he constantly ran away. It wasn't even about the content of the rumour anymore because no one really seemed to believe that anyway. It was all about the mob of students having found another victim to pick on.
"Have you tried calling him?" Baekhyun asked and Boyoung gave him a tired expression, when the door was thrown open. Chanyeol burst in, looked outside for a few more seconds and then slammed the door shut with a deep breath.
"So I've been thinking," he said energetically when they all stared at him and tried to get his breathing under control. "And we still haven't picked a song, so if we want to make it in time for the competition we really need to choose something." He looked around. "Where are the others? Or, whatever, we can overrule them. So I think we should vote today. Boyoung can vote for the others."
For a moment they were all too baffled to reply, so Chanyeol wrinkled his nose and walked towards his guitar case he had wisely left in the club room before going to class. In fourth grade he had once broken his violin when a few boys had chased him across the school yard, so he probably resorted to the experiences he had made during that time.
"You're missing something," Jongin noted and pointed at Chanyeol's feet. He wore only one shoe.
"Oh," Chanyeol said and looked down with a frown. "I must have lost it somewhere." He didn't even sneer at Jongin as he would have normally done. The whole situation just was strange. They were friends either way but Baekhyun didn't want Chanyeol to go back to being the kid he had been a few years ago.
"You could just fight for once," Baekhyun said when Chanyeol bent over his guitar to tune it. He probably sounded angrier than intended because Chanyeol flinched without giving an immediate reply. It was the kind of reaction that just fuelled negative emotion.
Baekhyun almost swore at him when Chanyeol looked up and said, "I try to. That's why I want to go to the competition and show everyone."
Baekhyun sighed and sat down on a chair next to the keyboard. "Okay," he finally said and Chanyeol smiled at him tiredly. He continued to tune and Jongin sat down behind the drums.
"I vote for 'Flying Butterfly'," Boyoung suddenly said excitedly and jumped up from the bench in front of the keyboard while gesturing at Baekhyun to sit down there. "Maybe you can make it sound more like a ballad. You know, in the beginning, if you play it slowly, that's almost like a ballad, right?" She looked at Baekhyun hopefully and he nodded. Maybe it was the right song. Maybe they could rearrange it so that he could play the keyboard and that it wasn't too apparent that Jongin barely knew what he was doing.
"I don't mind if we choose something else," Chanyeol began but Boyoung already stood in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips.
"Any objections against 'Flying Butterfly'?" she asked with squinted eyes. Jongin just shrugged and Baekhyun shook his head. "Then it's decided?" She looked at Chanyeol whose frown slowly lit up into a smile.
"I guess," he grinned.
Baekhyun had to hand it to her. Boyoung always knew how to improve a situation and it was true that if they had a goal to work towards to things would maybe become easier. Not giving up on something important probably was one way of fighting whatever life threw in their way.
But still...
There still was something that troubled him.
The Friday when the rumour had come into life was the day when Chanyeol hadn't had time because of a supposed family thing. When they had met the day afterwards Chanyeol hadn't said a word about it but instead told them that he was going to spend the evening watching TV with his father. Which prove that he definitely would have told Baekhyun if he had to do anything with his family on Friday, too.
It was too much of a coincidence to ignore. Wherever Chanyeol had been, Baekhyun believed that someone must have seen him doing... something. He didn't think that the whole rumour was completely baseless, exactly because Chanyeol remained quiet about it.
The thought was too uncomfortable for Baekhyun to pursue because he didn't want everything to completely blow up around them. He liked the way life was. He liked the club and he liked to have Boyoung around and to just live in that high school bubble before graduation was going to scatter them all apart.
So although he felt like a coward, he didn't ask Chanyeol about it. He didn't ask where he had been and what he had done that could have caused a rumour about him making out with... someone else than Boyoung. Instead he pretended not to notice anything.

- confessions -

Minseok sat on the porch overlooking their small garden and their neighbour's cat when Minkyung flopped down next to him. Silently they watched a swarm of birds that loudly flew over them in the light blue autumn sky. A breeze rustled through the leaves and brought a chill while their mother loudly prepared dinner inside. When the cat meowed and jumped back into the garden, Minkyung said, "Oppa, if I confess something you have to confess something, too."
It was the same old game they had played since childhood. When they were on their own, they would huddle together and tell each other things they couldn't tell anyone else. Embarrassing things, great things, mistakes, secrets, everything. As a child there had been nothing he couldn't tell her because Minkyung never laughed at him. She always listened and if there was nothing she could say, she would hug him and make him feel that it would all be fine in the end. He had always treasured it but ever since high school it had slowly become increasingly harder to really tell her everything. All his girlfriends. His failure to be the sportsman his parents had wanted him to be. Hari starting to hate him. The boy watching from the window... There were things he didn't want his little sister to know bacause as the older brother he didn't want to look as pathetic to her as he really was. So more often than not he talked about meaningless things or staight up lied whenever she told him something serious. He knew that she could tell and yet she still always came to him to talk to him about whatever was on her mind.
There was nothing she didn't tell him so he inevitably knew about her boyfriend who was in her class. She had even made him swear not to get angry and to never ever tell their parents or their brother Minkyoo. He knew, so he could only imagine that it was about the boy again and wasn't sure what he could tell her in return. He had already told her about his picture that hung in an acquaintance's exhibition. Anything further than that would be too much.
But he couldn't exactly refuse to listen to her either, so he nodded and said the same thing he always said: "You first."
For a moment she just played with the hem of her skirt and he realized that she still wore her school uniform. The first thing she normally did after coming home was to change.
"I saw something today," she then began quietly. "I saw something and I should have done something, but then I didn't and I just feel bad about it." She furrowed her brows as if confused what she was trying to say.
"What did you see?" he asked helpfully. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, she balled her hands into fists.
"You know, Jongdae doesn't really want me to meet his friends yet but I already know that he has two sets of them," she said and Minseok nodded in apprehension but was confused as to what kind of confession this was going to become. He only understood Jongdae to be the name of her boyfriend. "One group are all his friends from his neighbourhood who went to the same middle school as him. Most of them are in my class and I don't like them because they're loud and mean. When he's around them, I sometimes don't like him, too. It's like there are two sides to him." She bit her lower lip and looked at the darkening sky.
When she didn't continue he asked, "And the other group is different?"
"Very different," she nodded and looked oddly sad. "The other group are the members in his club. I only started liking him because of the club actually. Last year I saw them perform during the school festival and he sang a song and he looked so happy on stage..."
He furrowed his brows and felt a lump in his throat. "A song?" he asked and his voice sounded hollow. The story felt almost too familiar.
"Ah, yes, he... Didn't I tell you? He's in the rock band club," she said and luckily didn't seem to notice how all the colour drained from his face when she continued. "I sometimes saw them together because another boy from the club is also in my class. It's weird because they always argued and Jongdae always looked annoyed when they dragged him along but it's as if... As if they're really friends because they like the same thing. They all like music."
"Ah..." Minseok said and felt the blood rushing into his ears. Even if the members had changed, he knew what she meant because he had witnessed the same thing. Three years he had run past the rock band club and even from outside he could hear them play and argue and laugh. Even if not for... even before the things in his third year had happened, he had always been curious about the noisy rock band in the shoddy building.
"But now he pretends that he doesn't like them anymore," she said forcefully and then hurriedly looked around to check whether her mother had heard her. After making sure that she was still busy in the kitchen, Minkyung quietly continued, "One of his friends in the club is being bullied. And I told Jongdae that he can't just ignore him. I told him his friend needs him. Because if the bullies see that he's not alone, they will go away. I told him that but then..."
"But then?" he asked and his mouth felt dry. Suddenly the story scared him.
"But then," she began and looked down at the knees. For a moment was nothing but a thin line. "But then, today, I saw the boy who is being bullied. Someone pushed him down the stairs and he fell and hit his head and there was blood but they didn't notice that at first. So they hit him with a broom and he didn't shout for help and everyone was watching. I was watching. And I wanted to help but then..." Her breathing had fastened and her hands were shaking. "I was so scared. I was so scared that the same thing could happen to Jongdae. There was blood and I just... I watched. And then one of my friends pulled me away and... and I... I keep thinking that if someone had helped him, if anyone had just helped him..." A tear rolled down her cheek when she pressed her eyes close and Minseok knew that this was the moment when he was supposed to tell her that it would all be fine. There was nothing she could have done. But he couldn't because there was a horror creeping at the back of his mind. As her older brother he was supposed to console her but instead his voice was oddly cold when he asked, "What's he called?"
"What?" she asked with a quizzical glance. It made him feel terrible. Even more tears streamed down her face.
"The one who was pushed," he pressed. "What's his name?"
She frowned at him and he knew that she probably just wanted to forget about it. Her voice cracked when she replied in confusion, "I think it's Chanyeol."
And he felt as if the wind was knocked out of his lungs.
Chanyeol. Park Chanyeol. The boy in the window. The boy with the endless supply of snacks. The boy who had always talked. The boy who had followed him on the worst day of his life. The boy... the boy who had suddenly burst into his life again and who had continually tried to call for days now. And like a child that was scared of the dark Minseok had ignored him.
"Is he...?" he began and was scared to continue.
"I don't know," she muttered and wiped her eyes. "I don't know what happened to him after that. But I keep thinking about it. I hope he's well. Oppa, I really... I should have helped him, shouldn't I?" She tried to catch his gaze but he could only stare at his hands. This had nothing to do with him. None of this had anything to do with him but he couldn't stop wishing that he had just picked up his phone.
"You couldn't have helped him..." he said but even to himself he didn't sound very convincing. Next to him she seemed to shrink as she hunched her shoulders in guilt and he hated how she probably thought that he blamed her. He didn't want to make her feel that way when she had trusted him enough to tell him in the first place. This wasn't what their confessions were supposed to be like. They were supposed to make each other feel better.
"Minkyungie, I..." he began and bit his lips. "There's something I need to tell you."

- unwanted invitations -

Luhan knew Kris long enough to understand that he wasn't as smart or as cool as he pretended to be. There were times when he had the most ridiculous ideas and said the most outrageous things with a straight face and the sad truth was that it was that trait of his that had made Luhan become interested in him in the first place. Back when they had attended the same cram school because they had tried out for the same university Luhan had found him hysterical enough to want him as a friend. Becoming friends with strange people was possibly his biggest weakness. That's how he always ended up spending time with people like his aunt's co-worker's genius son Tao and the morbidly quiet Minseok and his almost aggressively gorgeous ex-girlfriend Hari. And Kris who was possibly the oddest of them all, though in a not immediately apparent way.
"You have to be kidding me," Luhan said after Kris had hunted him down on campus and had finally cornered him at the vending machines behind the science building. Just the fact that Kris came looking for him made him panic because it couldn't possibly mean anything good but none of the ridiculous things he could have thought of himself were quite as ridiculous as what Kris came to ask. "You're mistaken if you think that I'll help you lure my friend into a trap and watch you stab him to death."
Kris gave him the same annoyed expression Luhan always found unfair because it made him feel as if he was the one spouting the nonsense. "I'm not going to stab anyone," Kris said. "I'm going to barbecue. Or to make hotpot. I haven't decided yet."
Luhan was about to say that he didn't want Minseok to turn into barbecue either but then bit his tongue.
"Look, if you're scared for his life, feel free to bring as many people as you want," Kris continued in exasperation. "Bring your yoga teacher or your aunt, I don't care. But he has to be there, too. And he can't know that I invited him."
Luhan stared at him in bafflement and then sat down on the bench next to one of the vending machines. "You can't seriously ask that of me," he said and looked in his Kris' eyes for a sign that he really was either homicidal or joking. But there was nothing but the strange sense of determination that came with all his stupid ideas. "What makes you even think that he'd come just because I ask him to? We both know what happened when I invited him last time." He tried to say it in a very reproachful tone but Kris' didn't even pretend to be sorry. "He and I aren't exactly best friends either," he then continued meekly. "If anything, he merely tolerates my existence."
The corner of Kris' mouth lifted in a way that really rubbed Luhan the wrong way. "I'm sure you'll think of something," Kris shrugged.
Luhan shook his head in incomprehension. He hated how it already felt as if he had no other choice than to agree because Kris had a way of making all his madness sound definite. For a moment Luhan just massagesdhis temples, then he looked up and sighed, "What about your boyfriend? Is he going to be there?"
"Yeah," Kris said a little too quickly as if there was no question about it.
"You're crazy," Luhan gasped. "And you're stupid if you think that I'm not going to warn him."
Kris' expression immediately turned foul, so Luhan added, "I don't know what you're trying to prove here but if I ask him to come, I'll tell him that your boyfriend is going to be there and that you might try to stab him."
For a moment he thought that Kris was going to change his mind about the whole plan, but then he simply shrugged, "If you think you can convince him despite that, sure, tell him whatever you want." He made it sound like a challenge and Luhan really didn't want to take the bait. He wasn't a goldfish in a pond that tried to gulp down anything that dangled in front of its face.
But then he said, "You'll be surprised what I can do."
Kris smirked and Luhan wondered whether he himself wasn't actually the stupid one in their duo.

- togetherness -

Chanyeol sat on the shelf in front of the window and stared outside while playing a sad melody she found vaguely familiar when Boyoung sat down behind him and leaned her head against his back.
"What are you playing?" she asked and closed her eyes.
"Just a random melody," he said and she had to laugh because she could feel the vibration of his voice. It tingled. And she liked the way he smelled. It was rarely just the two of them, so they usually weren't so close that she could actually smell him. When she loosely wrapped her arms around him, he coughed and stopped playing.
"Uh," he said and half turned around so that she had to let go and open her eyes again. "I was just thinking... Do you know which cram school Kyungsoo goes to? I forgot the name."
It was his usual diversion tactic but she leaned back and gave it some thought anyway. "No," she said. "Why, are you thinking of attending?"
He shrugged, casually leaned his guitar against the wall and stood up to get the water bottle from his backpack at the other end of the room. "I don't know. Maybe it's already too late though." Rather than to sit down next to her again he inspected the pin board with pictures of past festivals. If she hadn't known better, she wouldn't even have thought it to be deliberate. Shortly after they had begun dating she had thought that he was just very shy, then she had believed him to be just thoughtless and now she knew that he was avoiding her. They could have easily spent more together if he actually allowed them to but he always found excuses to have others around.
"You could try out for a music academy," she said and forced herself to smile despite feeling awfully insecure. "I think that's what would suit you best."
"Maybe I should," he said and smoothed out the clipping from the school magazine that hung at the edge of the pin board. It was about a music festival that had happened before Boyoung had attended the school. Sometimes it was odd to think that Chanyeol had already hung out with the others in the club room back when she had still attended middle school. In a few months he would be gone and she would be alone with Jongin and hopefully new members.
She was sure that when Chanyeol left the school, he would leave her, too. It was the natural course of things.
She hated it. She hated to be so sure and she hated that she didn't know what to do about it. It made her feel vulnerable because she really did like him. She really did want to be with him. That's why she had become so angry when a girl from her class had hit her weakest spot.
"Did he even sleep with you?" she had asked and something in Boyoung's head had short-circuited.
It was a stupid question. So maybe he hadn't. Maybe he had only kissed her. Maybe he hadn't slept with her. That didn't mean that there was anything wrong with him. They were in high school. They still had time.
But rather than to explain it to the girl, she had said that yes, of course he had. Yes, of course they had. Yes, of course. Of course.
And then she had pulled her hair and had accidentally hit another girl who had tried to stop them. She had even hurt Chanyeol.
Only after a night of crying herself into sleep had she finally allowed herself to admit that he had a tendency to avoid being alone with her. She didn't know whether it had anything to do with her or the rumour or their age or the fact that she spent so much time among his friends. What she did know was that right from the start he had always kept a certain distance and that it wasn't just her. Baekhyun and him had been friends all their life but it was never just the two of them either. Chanyeol was always surrounded by at least two other people as if he was scared of any form of intimacy.
"Do you know where the others are?" he asked after a moment of almost burdensome silence and it took her all her effort not to laugh hysterically.
"No," she said and took out her phone to see whether she had maybe missed any texts. It was to prove that she made an effort and didn't mean to corner him. "I'm sure they'll be here soon."
He nodded but avoided her gaze and she stood up to get a textbook from her bag so that he could sit down with his guitar again without having to sit too close to her. It was all she could do. Either she treated him like a zookeeper might treat a scared wild animal or she would lose him right away.

- barbecue night -

For the first hour it drove him crazy. It was as if Kris had pushed him into the ocean to watch him drown from his safe spot on a boat. Right from the moment when he had entered Kris' apartment and had found him in the middle of preparing what looked like barbecue for at least five people in the living room, Chanyeol had known that this was not going to become one of their usual routine evenings. Not really wanting to run into another disaster with too many witnesses he had attempted to get himself out of the thing, only to be informed that he had no choice.
"Why is that?" he had asked in the angriest tone he could muster and Kris had given him the kind of annoyed looks all the PE teachers of his past had given him. For a moment Chanyeol even doubted that Kris would give him any explanation at all and he was beginning to think that he had maybe misunderstood something about the relationship they were having, when Kris said, "Kim Minseok will be here."
After that Chanyeol could only sit down on the couch like an idiot, unable to say another word. It was exactly the way he had always imagined drowning to feel like, as if he slowly lost consciousness while being pulled down. There was so much he didn't understand but he couldn't ask. He didn't know how Kris even knew Kim Minseok, so he could only imagine this to be his punishment for talking too much.

When the doorbell rang after ten minutes, he thought that his heart had stopped for a moment and he couldn't turn around. He felt like a puppet on the couch until he heard Kris speak Chinese to someone. A boy dressed in all black and with a face like a shark entered the living room and looked at him with a bored expression.
"That's Tao. He's the one with the exhibition. He's younger than you, so don't address him formally," Kris explained monotonously and went back to the kitchen.
"You don't look older," the boy called Tao said in slightly accented Korean. "You in high school?"
Chanyeol only nodded because he was confused and wondered whether Kris had maybe only thrown Kim Minseok's name around to trick him into staying. Who else was going to come? Kris' whole family? The complete Chinese community of the city? He didn't like the idea because as much as he hated to lie, he hated to be shoved around even more. And the result of people finding out what he did outside school would probably naturally lead to his school life becoming even worse. Even if Tao wasn't actually in his school, word would get around the way it had when Chanyeol had made the mistake to attend the damn exhibition.

After another ten minutes of Kris rummaging around the kitchen and Tao playing around with his phone on the floor, Chanyeol felt ready to leave. He jumped up and was about to announce that he was going home when the doorbell rang again and when Kris walked to the door. Tao gave him a strange look when Chanyeol nervously glanced into the direction of the entrance. For a few seconds he heard nothing but feet shuffling, muttering and fabric rustling but then someone clearly said something in Chinese again. He almost sighed in relief, when a female voice loudly said, "Okay, look, Minseok and I don't speak your language so I will have to assume that you're insulting us. Which is rude."
Chanyeol hurriedly sat down again, only to be frowned at by Tao. His heart raced, as did his mind and for a second he considered to rush to the window and jump out of it. Kris lived on the second floor, so he would definitely survive that jump. Maybe he would even be unharmed enough to run away in his socks. A few more bruises wouldn't kill him.
"Oh, Tao is already here," a bright male voice said but Chanyeol still didn't dare turn around. Instead he continued to stare at the window. "And hey, it's the boyfriend."
He quickly looked up and was greeted by the guy from the exhibition he had managed to avoid then and who squinted his eyes at  him for some reason. Behind him were a girl Chanyeol found vaguely familiar and...
"Stop calling him that," Kris said as he came from the kitchen with a basket full of still wet lettuce for the meat. He placed it on the table, the grill and very much acted as if someone else had forced him to organize this social gathering.
"Well, I forgot his name," the guy said sullenly and swiftly sat down next to Chanyeol on the couch with a scrutinzing glance.
"Uh, Park Chanyeol... That's my name," Chanyeol said and wondered whether he was supposed to offer him his hand. He knew nothing about Chinese customs and something about the way the guy acted seemed very non-traditional.
The guy looked him up and down once more as if he had to determine what to think of him and then smiled, "Nice to meet you. I'm Luhan and I want to inform you that this had nothing to do with me. Kris and I technically aren't even friends. We're more like frenemies. Or in-laws."
Chanyeol had no idea what he talked about, so he only nodded in confusion while Luhan gestured at Tao, "I don't know if you were introduced to him but that's my aunt's co-worker's son Tao. I have a feeling that he looks up to Kris a little but in a worst case scenario he would be on my side."
Tao pulled a grimace at that and the girl who sat down on the edge of the couch said, "I thought he was your cousin."
"That's Hari," Luhan said rather than to answer her. "I was informed  that she used to attend the same school as you." Behind him she waved at Chanyeol and he frowned because that was probably why she seemed familiar. Her being there probably meant that she also knew. The whole thing was turning into more and more of a trap.
"Minseok, what are you still standing there for?" she suddenly asked and they all gazed at Kim Minseok who stood in the doorframe and looked caught. He seemed shorter than ever when he walked to the other side of the couch table and sat down on the floor. When no one else seemed about to say anything, Hari looked from Minseok to Chanyeol and asked, "So, I guess there's no need to introduce you two, right?"
Chanyeol stole a glance at Kim Minseok who stared at his feet and for a moment there was an awkward silence as if everyone expected something to blow up. He had a feeling that none of them really knew what they were doing here. If this was all Kris' idea, Chanyeol could only wonder what he was trying to achieve.

Another twenty minutes in and Chanyeol finally understood why Kris had invited Luhan and Hari because without them it would have become even worse. They all sat in a circle on the floor around the couch table after having pushed the couch back a little. Kris was preoccupied with putting pork stripes on the small grill, Tao with eating them and Kim Minseok with looking out of place. The situation was completely different but it reminded Chanyeol of how Kim Minseok had looked whenever he was in a group of friends outside practice. He had never quite seemed to notice his surroundings as if he was lost somewhere in his head.
The only ones at the table who actually had a conversation were Luhan and Hari who tried to include everyone no matter how cold the response and who had brought a couple of bottles of soju they were distributing. When Chanyeol was about to decline a glass because he wasn't old enough yet and because he didn't know what he was going to do if he actually got drunk, Tao clicked his tongue at him and Luhan who sat next to him leaned in dangerously. "You do understand that I'm older than you, right?" he asked darkly. "Doesn't your culture teach you to follow the orders of more experienced persons such as me?"
"Experienced, my ," Kris muttered into his glass on his other side and while Luhan leaned over Chanyeol to hit him and Hari sighed in annoyance, Kim Minseok looked at Chanyeol for a second with an unreadable expression. It was the first time their eyes met that evening and when Kim Minseok looked away, Chanyeol quickly chucked down his drink.
"Good boy," Luhan said happily and poured him another glass. The evening was the worst.

Yet another fourty minutes later the alcohol was finally kicking in and he was slowly adapting to the situation. The smell of meat filled the room so that Luhan had to open the door to the balcony while Kris continued to barbecue like a madman. Hari meanwhile had engaged Tao in a conversation about photography and smiled in a way that could only be described as flirtatious. Chanyeol must have watched them for a while, because Luhan suddenly moved his head very close to his and whispered conspiratorially, "It's already too late for him but I should warn you in case she tries to make a move on you later. If she wants someone, there's no stopping her. She apparently even managed to get into Minseok's pants before and God knows, he's not the easiest nut to crack."
He didn't mean to but Chanyeol choked at that information and stared from Hari to Kim Minseok who in return was so startled at the sudden attention, he almost dropped a piece of meat. Kim Minseok looked at Luhan with a questioning glance because he probably hadn't heard a single word and Chanyeol had to hold his hand in front of his mouth because he couldn't stop coughing.
"Yeah, that was exactly my reaction when she told me about it," Luhan said in an amused tone and patted his back while Kim Minseok watched them in confusion. Chanyeol waved his hand to signal that he was fine, when Luhan's smile widened and he explained to Kim Minseok, "I told him about you and Hari dating."
Kim Minseok's face dropped and Chanyeol had a suspicion that it was the reaction Luhan had been hoping for because he didn't look apologetic at all when Hari interrupted her conversation with Tao and gasped, "Oh my god, why are you telling him that? That was ages ago."

After another hour the grill was turned off, all the bowls with side dishes on the table were empty and Luhan loudly chewed on a piece of dried squid while explaining something to Kris in Chinese. Kris only gave short answers and Tao watched them passively which made Chanyeol vaguely curious as to what the conversation was about. It didn't look exactly fun.
On the other side of the table meanwhile Hari stared at him in drunken stupor while Kim Minseok stood up to go to the bathroom.
"You know," Hari began and leaned across the table to pour him another glass of soju. "From what I've seen so far, I can tell that you're just as stupid as him. You know how we broke up? I had to tell him that he didn't really seem to like sleeping with me. You know what he then asked me?" She didn't wait for a reply and quickly clinked her glass against his. Before continuing she completely downed it. "He asked if he's supposed to. Here I was, literally opening myself up to him and he asks if he's supposed to enjoy having with me. What kind of stupid question is that? Of course he's supposed to enjoy it. That's what dating is all about. I mean, why even be with someone if they don't make you feel as if your heart is ripping in two? I have to tell him everything because he's a goddamn idiot. He understands nothing about relationships."
In a sudden flash of anger she slammed her glass on the table and accidentally overturned a bowl that had contained kimchi. When the remaining liquid spilt on her hand she it off in frustration.
For a moment Chanyeol just looked at her because her words had stirred something in him. He didn't mean to think about Boyoung but he wondered whether that was how she secretly felt about him, too. To him their relationship was just a necessary part of his high school life. Dating didn't mean much to him but he had no idea whether it was the same for her. Her not pushing him maybe didn't have to mean much.
It made him feel sick, so he finished his glass and stood up to get some fresh air on the balcony.
"ing idiots," he heard Hari exclaim when the evening breeze already hit him in the face.

He didn't know how long he sat on a small stool on the balcony by himself because he was too dizzy for any coherent time perception. A single jacket dangled on the clothes line over him and he leaned his head against the glass door while staring at the noisy night in front of him. On the road downstairs a couple argued loudly, inside Luhan yelled something he didn't understand and he slowly lost the feeling in his toes because it was too chilly to be outside without shoes but he didn't want to go back inside either.
He finally felt as of the commotion inside his head was slowly ebbing away when the door was opened and he almost fell off his stool. He quickly looked up which caused Kim Minseok, who halfway through the door, to hesitate. "Ah, sorry, I didn't mean to..." he began when behind him there was more yelling in Chinese.
"No, it's fine," Chanyeol hurriedly said and moved to the side a little. Kim Minseok gave him a grateful smile, closed the door and sat down on an upturned bucket.
"What's going on in there anyway?" Chanyeol asked and turned around to have a look inside but couldn't see much.
"Madness," Kim Minseok simply said and rubbed his eyes. He looked even more worn out than him, so Chanyeol smiled empathically.
"So, those are your friends," he noted and Kim Minseok sighed.
"Seems like it."
They sat in silence for a while but it oddly already felt a lot more comfortable than the time they had spent in the living room. In the distance were the sounds of cars and sirens, inside Luhan seemed to bawl and the breeze caused Chanyeol to warm his feet with his hands.
Kim Minseok turned to him but didn't say anything for a moment. Chanyeol looked at him quizzically, when he finally asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she shrugged. "Just a little cold."
Kim Minseok frowned, as if that wasn't the right answer. He seemed unsure what to say for a second and stared into the dark sky, before he began, "My sister is in your grade."
"Is she?" Chanyeol asked because he wasn't sure what to do with that information. He had never heard about a sister, let alone one his age, and he felt even more distant than before. He barely knew anything about Kim Minseok.
"She told me about what happened the other day," Kim Minseok continued slowly and looked at Chanyeol's lips for a second. Unconsciously Chanyeol touched them and felt a sting.
"Ah," he said and his eyes widened. So that's what it was about. His bottom lip was still split because he had accidentally bit it after falling down a flight of stairs in school. If Kim Minseok's sister knew about that she probably had been there. Frenziedly he tried to think back to the day but it all felt like a haze. It had probably looked worse than it really was because of the blood, so if that's what she had seen and if that's what she had told her brother...
"No, I'm... I'm okay," he said hastily and had to look down because he felt embarrassed.
"Sorry..." Kim Minseok quietly said and Chanyeol was about to tell him that the whole thing had nothing to do with him and that he should better forget about it. But then Kim Minseok continued, "You called..."
"Ah," Chanyeol said and felt like a stupid parrot that could only repeat the same sound. "Yes, I... But that had nothing to do with what happened in school. I just..." He trailed off while Kim Minseok seemed to shut down a little again. "I actually wondered whether you'd maybe given me a fake number," he said jokingly and Kim Minseok's face turned into an apologetic grimace.
"Sorry," he said again and Chanyeol sighed.
"Don't be."
He rested his arms on his knees and on the other side of the balcony Kim Minseok leaned against the wall. This was not what he had imagined them meeting again to be like. Right after the exhibition it hadn't been easy to corner Kim Minseok into having a coffee with him but this was worse because this was nothing but him being pitied.
But then it dawned to him that something about the whole situation was odd. "You talked to your sister about me," he said but it sounded more like a question. He didn't think that he knew her or else he probably would have known that her brother had been one of the former sports aces.
Kim Minseok avoided to look him in the eye which made it very obvious that he felt caught. "She said she's friends with one of your friends." The way he stressed the word 'friends' made it obvious that she probably wasn't simply that. For a moment Chanyeol had to think about Lee Jungyoon but her family name was different and the thought was ridiculous. But still, even if it was Jungyoon, someone he actually knew, he wondered whether she would just tell her brother that some guy in school had fallen down the stairs. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. All of it seemed like too much of a coincidence. Kim Minseok's sister who supposedly knew him. Kris who was somehow friends with Kim Minseok.
Chanyeol didn't think that Kim Minseok had anything to do with him being lured into meeting him because as little as Chanyeol knew about him, he was sure that he was more straight-forward in his actions. But something still didn't quite add up.
"Did you know I would be here tonight?" he asked and for a painfully long moment Kim Minseok just stared at his hands.
Then he said, "I knew."
Chanyeol wanted to ask why he had come despite knowing that then but was too scared to. He wanted to be angry because Kim Minseok had been the one to push him away over and over again but all the could feel was the same undefined warmth that had made him unable to form coherent thoughts after the exhibition.
"I was worried," Kim Minseok admitted and Chanyeol unwillingly dug his hands in the fabric of his pants to stop them from shaking.

- machine (O) -

"You're really stupid, you know that?" Luhan said and painfully kicked Kris' side. After putting all the dirty dishes in the kitchen to worry about them the next day, Kris had sat down on the couch, only to be ambushed by Luhan who came from the toilet and decided to sprawl on the couch with his legs in Kris' lap. The only reason why Kris didn't put up a fight was that he was too tired. Socializing was hard enough but to cook and socialize with a bunch of ridiculous people was the worst. He couldn't even go to his bedroom and fall into a delirium because he suspected Hari and Tao to be there.
"I mean, if you want to break up with your boyfriend there definitely are easier ways than to spend all your money on tons of meat so that you can lure him and his ex-boyfriend into your house in hope that they make out on the balcony," Luhan slurred and attempted to kick his head, but Kris blocked him off with his arm.
"You're drunk," Kris said which caused Luhan to haul swears at him. When he was finished, Kris continued, "And I checked, they're not making out on the balcony. They sit as far apart as physically possible."
For a moment Luhan just stared at him in his drunken stupor and Kris was about to push his legs off him, when Luhan grabbed his arm and lifted himseld up. "You're gross," he said and bumped his head into Kris' shoulder like a cat. "I really racked my brain to figure out what your grand plan was and now it turns out that you're just a good guy who wants to see his boyfriend happy."
"Shut up," Kris said and pushed away his head.
"Disgusting," Luhan said and threw his arms around him. "Want to sleep with me to feel better?"
For a second he felt tempted because he didn't want to be the solemn loser during this evening. "No, thanks," he then said and shook Luhan off himself as he stood up to get himself a glass of water to clear up his head. Outside Chanyeol and Kim Minseok still sat apart but actually seemed to talk.
He didn't care. He willed himself not to care.