- moonlight (serenade) -

It was past midnight when the subway train finally reached their station in the suburbs. The cold silence of the night hung over them like a heavy burden. They hadn't talked for at least an hour.
Without a word they had simply left Kris Wu's apartment after finding him and Luhan in the kitchen together and had walked to the station with Minseok lagging a little behind. He hadn't really known where he was because they had met Luhan on the station on their way to whatever Kris Wu had planned and Minseok hadn't really paid that much attention then. Park Chanyeol seemed to know his way really well and something about that knowledge nagged Minseok at the back of his mind.
It was as if they moved through twilight. As if their reflections in the subway window were just an illusion. As if none of this was really happening. Whenever the lights of the city scattered apart their images in the window opposite them, he wondered whether he would stop existing altogether. Meeting Park Chanyeol seemed liked the last stop at the end of his road.
When they left the train, Park Chanyeol didn't look at him when he walked through the ticket gates and towards the south exit to where most of the buses departed. He probably lived closer to the school than Minseok who had to take the only bus that left from the other side of the station. For a moment he hesitated after passing through the gates and looked at Park Chanyeol's back moving away. Tentatively he took a step into his direction while biting his lip, when Park Chanyeol suddenly stopped and turned around with a confused expression.
Minseok vaguely pointed into the direction of the north exit. "I need to go that way."
Park Chanyeol frowned at the dimly lit corridor and the stairs he had probably never climbed. Apart from the bus stop there was not much to see on that side, so most people would never go there. Instead they all went to the brightly lit shopping streets in the south. For a second Park Chanyeol looked back into that direction he had meant to go to and then walked back and towards the north exit.
"You don't have to come with me. I don't live close-by," Minseok hurriedly said. "My bus only departs from behind the station. My house is far. It's about twenty minutes." His voice gradually faded out when Park Chanyeol looked at him blankly and for a moment he wondered whether he had maybe misunderstood him after all.
"Oh. Okay," Park Chanyeol said and seemed lost. He swayed towards the south exit, half turned and then looked at Minseok with a troubled expression. "I'm not sure I want to go home already," he admitted.
At first Minseok genuinely wondered whether he could take him home with him. He himself had rarely brought friends home but his brother Minkyoo had constantly been surrounded by team members. All around the weekend they had stayed in the living room and Minkyoo's room  and sometimes even Minseok's room and their parents had never minded. But that had been when Minkyoo actually was on his way towards a major league career. Also, it probably would have seemed out of character for Minseok to bring a friend and Minkyung knew Park Chanyeol, too. Even though he hadn't told her everything, she must have come to her own conlusions.
For a moment he only thought about it logistically and then the implication behind Park Chanyeol's words dawned to him. This was a boy who had probably meant to stay over at Kris Wu's house, only to find him preoccupied with Luhan. Minseok could almost feel the blood rushing to his face. "I don't think there's anything open around here except for bars," he muttered and tried to shake the image of Luhan and Kris Wu. Bodies pressed against one another, hands everywhere, all of these things were part of a world he didn't want to understand, a world Park Chanyeol belonged to.
"We could break into the school," Park Chanyeol suggested and seemed to realize how stupid it sounded because he immediately looked apologetic.
Minseok bit his cheeks. The only thing he liked about his house being on the wrong side of the station was that it was also far from his former school. Although he did know that beneath all the failures and misjudgments there were a few good memories, he also knew that if he wanted to remember them, he had to remember everything else, too. His downward road had started there and even now there were still things he couldn't shake. If it had been that easy to escape, he would have been able to run from Park Chanyeol.
But he couldn't and he hated himself to be like that but something prevented him from leaving.
So he said, "There's a way to sneak in from behind the baseball field."

With every step his legs seemed to get heavier, as if he waded through drying concrete. The silence of the night weighed him down, as if the ground was slowly swallowing him. Again, he always was a few steps behind Park Chanyeol. None of them said a word as the world was illuminated by pale moonlight. When the school gates appeared in front  of them as menacing shadows, his legs wouldn't move any further.
"Sunbae?" Park Chanyeol asked but Minseok was too overwhelmed too reply. Just the welded metal brought so many memories that he felt breathless. All the mornings when the bus had been too late and when he had ran through the gates to make it in time for his first lesson. All the afternoons of boys from his club yelling at each other. To run faster, to throw quicker, to hit further. He could almost hear the commotion, that constant buzzing that prove that they were all alive. It was as if he was back there again. Running through the hallways. Teachers scolding them. Girls giggling. Boys trying to outrun each other. Changing into slippers in the entrance hall and the smell of wet socks on rainy days. The bell and the noise that came with it when hundreds of students jumped up from their seats. Arms sticking to the surface of polished desks on hot days, pulling the shirt collars a little higher on cold days.
He had liked it, he had liked all those things, but there were too many other things. Minkyoo throwing his glove at him in the hallway. Hari yelling at him in an empty classroom. Taekgi telling him that if he wasn't going to play, he had no more value to them. The girl whose name he couldn't remember crying that he was making her sick. Kangho trying to convince him to come back to practice. Minkyung asking if he really was okay.
The ball that broke his hand. The song that broke his heart. The moment that broke his life.
"Sunbae?" Park Chanyeol asked again, this time more urgently, and Minseok snapped out of it.
"This way," he muttered and walked along the fence towards the back of the school where the hole had been two years ago. He didn't know how long it had been there but when he had just entered high school his seniors had forbidden to tell anyone about it. With the hole in the fence it was easier to retrieve rogue balls that had flewn past it. Whole afternoons had consisted of him and the other newbies trying to find all the scattered balls behind the field and past the fence. More than once he had ripped his white practice uniform because, as one of the smallest members, he had always been made the one to climb out.
So much time had passed since then but when he finally reached the hole after a few minutes of walking along concrete and overgrown lawn, he felt scared. The hole suddenly seemed like a portal into his past.
"Is this the holy secret of the baseball club?" Park Chanyeol asked jokingly and curiously stuck his head through the hole. "A secret escape route? Do I have to swear an oath now or something?" He looked at Minseok with a grin that became a farce in the moonlight.
Minseok furrowed his brows. His tongue felt heavy and before he had a chance to reply a raindrop hit his cheek and made him blink in surprise.
Park Chanyeol glanced up and quickly climbed through the fence. "We should better hurry," he said and held out his hand to help Minseok.
Minseok looked at it but didn't move. "Where to?"
Park Chanyeol awkwardly withdrew his hand but still managed to sound cheerful when he said, "To my club room. I have something to show you."
For a moment Minseok felt as if he was brushed by an old summer breeze. There were no bad memories about the room of the rock band club.
More raindrops pattered on the pavement behind him when he finally took a step forward.

"We already reported the broken door last year," Park Chanyeol said as he rummaged through the shadows of the back of the club room. Something metallic fell to the ground with a shattering sound that startled Minseok enough to move further into the middle of the room where the light of the moon hit the linoleum floor. He shivered but wasn't sure whether he was cold because his clothes were damp or just scared of being in the empty school. There were so many ghost stories set in school. He felt as if he finally understood why.
"But there's not much worth protecting in this building, so they probably forgot about it," Park Chanyeol continued chattily while Minseok walked to the window. When he had first come here, it had felt strange to see the baseball field from that perspective because it made him feel like an outsider. Now he actually was one. After the short rain shower the baseball grounds outside looked like a different planet. "Instead they bought new mats for the gym. I guess that's good, too. At least they're doing something for people who are not in that damn-." He suddenly stopped and Minseok looked into the direction of where his voice had come from but couldn't see anything but darkness. "Not in the baseball club," Park Chanyeol said.
Minseok unwillingly smiled. Some things would probably never change. "Are you still watching the practice?" he asked and from the shadows there came a disapproving noise.
"No way. I don't think I could show my face around here if I still did. Two years ago I nearly got thrown out of the club because I spent too much time watching baseball practice."
"Oh," Minseok said and felt stupid. "I didn't know."
For a moment there was nothing to hear but the rustling of paper when Park Chanyeol finally said, "Well, I didn't want you to."
Minseok sighed but didn't say a word in return. His past self had made even more mistakes than he had thought.
There was more cluttering and the noise of untuned strings when Park Chanyeol eventually emergerd from the shadows with an old acoustic guitar and a grin.
"That's what you were going to show me?" Minseok asked with a nod at the guitar and probably sounded mean.
"Read this," Park Chanyeol said and handed him a folded sheet of paper. Warily he took it and held it up so that the moonlight shone on it enough to make out the words. Park Chanyeol meanwhile sat down on the shelf in front of the window and began to tune the guitar.
"The Boksan School Band Competition?" Minseok read out loud and gave him a questioning glance. Because his back faced the window Park Chanyeol's face was half buried in shadows again but there was something about his mannerism that made it clear that he was smiling.
"I hate this guitar," he said rather than to answer. "It belongs to the school so normally no one really uses it. My guess is that it's as old as my father. Maybe even older. It was probably already here when he attended the school." He continued to tune it and Minseok furrowed his brows as he looked down at the sheet of paper in his hands.
Then, suddenly, the randomn notes began to form a familiar melody and his heart skipped a beat. Upon noticing his reaction Park Chanyeol looked up with a strange expression.
"So there's this competition coming up," he said and turned his eyes back at his hands playing the chords. His face was still illuminated. "But we couldn't decide what to play and things happened, so I thought that we maybe can't participate after all. Sometimes I thought that I was the only one who wants to go anyway. Everyone else is moving on with their lives and I'm still here. But if I give up now that's bad, too, right? There are so many things I gave up on. Baseball and swimming and ballet and joining the marching band... People told me I couldn't do those things, so I didn't. And now my club keeps losing its members and we have to lock the door because the other day people came in and made a mess of everything. So it seems as if I'm supposed to give up again. But I don't want to." As he slowly talked himself into rage he still managed to calmy play his chords and Minseok stared at his hands playing them. The melody slowly filled the room like a cloud of buried memories.
"That..." Minseok muttered. It was that song, the butterfly song.
"So I decided to play a song that keeps reminding me of something I gave up on before," Park Chanyeol continued and scrunched his face. When he opened his mouth again to start singing, Minseok quickly took his left hand and forced it up. The music stopped.
"Please don't," he said urgently. "Please just don't." He hated how much his voice quivered. "Not that song."
Park Chanyeol looked at him imploringly and Minseok stumbled backwards into the shadows that engulfed him like the darkness in his mind. He was scared. He was scared out of his mind. It was just a song, a good song, but it always broke something free in him he liked to pretend didn't exist.
When he slipped and fell into something that loudly crashed to the ground, Park Chanyeol jumped up. "Sunbae?" he asked worriedly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to..." He was only a step away when Minseok waved his hand and said, "Stop."
Like a child Minseok closed his eyes and covered his ears until he could hear nothing but his blood rushing through his veins. It had always helped him focus but this time he felt as if he was trapped in a body with a heart that reacted too brutally.
"Are you hurt?" Park Chanyeol asked after a moment and when Minseok opened his eyes he saw the dark figure crouch down next to him. He guessed that Park Chanyeol couldn't really see him either because when he held out his hand, it bumbed into Minseok's shoulder.
The situation was absurd and without meaning to Minseok laughed out humourlessly.
"Sunbae, seriously, are you okay?" Park Chanyeol asked again and held onto Minseok's arm. It was just a minimal amount of touch but it threw him back to the day two years ago when his heart had raced so violently, he had wondered whether it was trying to escape. He didn't mean to, he really didn't mean to, but he threw his arms around Park Chanyeol's neck and pulled him close. Time appeared to stand still in the darkness.

There were things he couldn't explain, things that were just vague shapes in his mind. Fears and worries and wants and needs. Things that weren't rational.
He and his brother were so different, but in the end they had both diappointed their parents in the same way. Unlike Minkyoo he had still had a chance however, so why had he thrown that away? Why had he not continued to pursue baseball? There was an answer, somewhere there was an answer, but he never tried to phrase it and the people around him eventually stopped asking.
Why did he always passively watch the train roll in and wonder what it would be like if he took a single step forward? Why did he spent his dull life in an endless cycle of eating and sleeping and commuting to university although he had nothing to look forward to? He didn't try to make friends or to become a better student. He did what he could but unlike before he didn't have a goal dangling in front of him. And yet, even though there still was a chance, he would never pick up his tattered glove and his dented bat again. They would rot in the back of his closet until he moved out one day. He lived without being alive.
Why?
What for?
He didn't even know why he was thinking about these things as he lay on the dusty floor and looked up at the moon shining through the clouds.
There were things he couldn't explain. He knew that he could easily outrun anyone but when Park Chanyeol had followed him, he had stopped. Why?
Why had he become worried when Minkyung had told him about what had happened in school? Why had he agreed to go to Kris Wu's apartment although Luhan had warned him that it could become unpleasant? Why hadn't he left when he had the chance? Why had he come to the school?
All his life he had tried to figure out what love even meant but when he finally came close to comprehending it, he stopped. Why?
Why was he here on the floor with Park Chanyeol on top of him and not in his bed at home?  Why did he allow warm lips to graze his neck and his collarbone? There was an answer, an answer that chilled his bones.
Park Chanyeol's hand wandered up his shirt when Minseok sharply the air through his teeth and put Park Chanyeol's face between both his hands to make them look at each other. He wanted to give in and pretend that none of their actions would have any consequences, he really did. But then, when Park Chanyeol leaned in, he slightly moved his head so that his lips only touched the corner of Minseok's mouth.
"Let's not meet again after this," Minseok said with his hand still touching Park Chanyeol's warm cheek.
"What?" Park Chanyeol asked and pushed himself up a little until they faced each other again. "Why?"
There it was, that question.
"I shouldn't have come," Minseok said evasively because he didn't want to answer. He didn't know how.
Park Chanyeol just looked down on him incomprehensively. Then he heaved himself up and for a split second Minseok had the urge to hold onto him despite knowing better.
Park Chanyeol sat down and tousled his hair even more. He sounded hurt and angry when he began, "I just don't understand you. What you do and what you say doesn't match. It doesn't match at all and I-."
"I don't want to lie," Minseok quickly said as he sat up and Park Chanyeol frowned at him. "So I can't pretend that this... this thing..." He didn't know how to phrase it. Rather than to try he wanted to stand up and leave but this time he wanted to explain. This time he felt that he owed an explanation. "It doesn't mean nothing."
Park Chanyeol seemed about to protest, so he continued heavily, "But I don't want to lie to my family either. And I know that if I tell them about you, they won't see me again."

It started raining again when he jumped over the fence and painfully landed on his knees. There were no more buses home so although it was far, he ran. Running usually helped him clear his head.
But this time he ran and ran until his lungs hurt but he still felt horrible. When he slipped on a patch of wet grass and hit the concrete, he unwillingly cried out in frustration.
He hated it. He hated it all so much.
There were things in his life he couldn't explain and no matter how much he tried to ignore him, Park Chanyeol was one of those things.

- dawn -

There were times when Hari wondered whether she had done something to offend someone important in a past life. Had she broken a heart? Had she destroyed a marriage? Had she turned down her soulmate who had then thrown himself off a cliff? Whatever it was, in this life her fate seemed to be to get entangled into the lives of attractive guys who were all interested in each other rather than into her.
Sure, after getting drunk during her attempt of hooking up her ex-boyfriend with the boy he clearly was still madly in love with, she had woken up next to Luhan's cousin who wasn't technically unattractive. But after determining where she was, her first instinct was to look for Minseok and check whether he was okay. Minseok had never stopped being a sportsmen at heart, so he still stuck to his healthy lifestyle and thus didn't normally drink much. So getting wasted while stealing glances at The Boy With The Guitar Case had showcased his tenseness rather well.
She felt as if someone had tried to slash her brain with a razor while she picked up her clothes in the dark. The cousin slept with his mouth open but thankfully didn't snore and from what she could see they were the only ones in the room.
Outside she was greeted by even more flimsy darkness. The only lights came from outside and the only sign that someone else than her was still alive inside the apartment was a lit cigarette at the open balcony door, so that was where she headed.
It was like a curse. Luhan's angry-looking friend Kris looked like a painting as he sat backwards on a chair with his shirt open and blew smoke into the night. Guys like him weren't easy to seduce, but normally she would have at least tried. Only that this time she knew that she had no chance. She had seen him kissing his boyfriend, who happened to be Minseok's crush. And on the couch behind them Luhan's bare legs were sticking out from under a blanket.
"I'm looking for my friend," she said and although she hadn't said it loudly her voice broke through the quietness of the night like a police siren.
The guy must have noticed her already because he wasn't startled and instead looked into the direction of the couch where Luhan stirred in his sleep. "He left."
"And your boyfriend?" she asked and he shot her a tired glare.
"Don't call him that," he said. When she still looked at him expectantly, he added, "Gone."
"Together with my friend?" she asked and he shrugged. "Were you too preoccupied to notice your surroundings?" she grinned and nodded at Luhan.
His expression turned sour as he moved his head to glance outside the balcony door. Amazingly he still managed to look handsome. "I would assume they left together because they were together on the balcony when I saw them last."
"That's good then," she said, sat down on the floor next to him and pulled her legs up to her chest. "Can I borrow a cigarette?" He looked down on her grimly but then pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.
"The lighter is inside," he said and she smiled at him thankfully as she took a cigarette from the pack and put it between her lips. The flame of the lighter caused lights to dance in front of her eyes and as the smoke filled her lungs she felt oddly calm. Her headache also seemed to ebb away a little.
"So why did you do it?" she asked after a few seconds. He gave her a questioning glance, so she added, "I mean, Luhan kept going on about how you were probably going to kill Minseok, so I thought you were trying to prove that you're a superior being and more deserving of your... of the boy. But then you just sat there like they were none of your business. Why?"
He sighed and threw his still lit cigarette but on the balcony. For a moment it still glimmed. "It was getting annoying."
"What, being in a relationship?" she asked and he shook his head.
"Listening to someone who constantly talks about someone else."
"Huh," she said and looked down on her toes wiggling in her dirty socks. She knew that feeling. Even though Minseok had never talked about anyone else, she had always known that he was never really with her. No matter how much she had liked him, he had always acted like a captain on a ship who searched the horizon for new land. To him she had never been enough.
"So did you sleep with Luhan as some kind of payback?" she asked and to her surprise he smiled. The smile wasn't warm or friendly, but a smile nonetheless.
"No," he simply said and for a moment she thought he wasn't going to comment further. They weren't close enough for her to pry either, so the conversation seemed to end with that, when he continued, "I mean, there are things like that, aren't they? Things you know you shouldn't do but then you make excuses and do them anyway."
"Guilty pleasures?" she asked helpfully and he let out another sigh.
"I guess."
She nodded and took another puff. "So he's your guilty pleasure?" she asked and him not replying was answer enough to her. "Does that mean that you two are...?"
"We're nothing," he said coldly. "We were nothing and tomorrow we'll still be nothing."
"Right," she said because she knew emotional responses like that. With Minseok she already had enough to worry about. Once his relationship was fixed, she really wanted to be no one else's little helper, so she leaned forward to put out her cigarette on the concrete floor of the balcony and stood up.
"Well, I'm leaving then. Looks like the first train might start running soon," she said and didn't wait for another reply. She tried not to look at Luhan as she passed him because she knew that it would only make her worry. Instead she looked ahead as she put on her shoes and left with her jacket slung over her shoulders.

- family ties -

"Chanyeol, where is your second school blazer?" their mother asked as she put the soup on the table. She sounded calm put there was an edge to her voice. "I told you to put it out so that I can get it cleaned."
Chanyeol didn't look up when he answered, "It's in my room." As if there was nothing to add to the story, he casually took some of the pork from the bowl in front of him although his father wasn't seated at the table yet. It was obvious that he simply tried to avert his mother's attention by acting like a brat.
His mother slapped his hand and said, "Well, that's where I looked but I only found one. Where is the other one? I can tell that you have been wearing the same blazer for a while now. I don't want you to stink like a sewer rat."
Chanyeol looked caught and stared at his bowl of rice rather than to reply.
"He ripped the sleeve and is probably hiding it somewhere," Yura said. Under different circumstances Chanyeol probably would have shot her a deadly glare but instead he seemed to disappear even further within his shell. He looked awfully pale and it stung. Yura thought she would forever stand on his side, always protecting him, always looking out for him, but she could hardly save him from himself.
"Why did you rip the sleeve?" his mother asked in bafflement and finally sat down at the table. She frowned at him for a moment and then seemed to understand something. The ripped school blazer was like the broken violin and the dented frame of his glasses and the wet math book. For years he had been fine but now it was starting all over again. She seemed about to say something when her husband entered the kitchen.
"What's for lunch?" he asked grumpily and she jumped up to get him a bowl with rice.
Yura sighed. There definitely was something wrong with her family. Chanyeol turning out badly maybe was as much his fault as that of his parents and her.

After lunch Chanyeol jumped up right after his father had left the room and hurried off without another word.
"Chanyeol, if you bring me the blazer I'll see if I can mend it," his mother yelled after him from the table and shook her head when she heard him slam the door of the toilet. In the living room her husband had already the TV to the sports channel. She looked at the table with a resigned expression and then began to pile up dirty dishes.
Yura was about to pick up the pot with soup, when her mother said, "You don't need to help. You should talk to your brother instead." Yura meant to protest, when she added, "He listens to you."
Yura sighed and bit her lips. "Fine."

She hated to admit it but her brother had become a stranger and she dreaded the idea of having to talk to him again. When she had come home from clubbing the day before at dawn and when she had found him throwing up into the kitchen sink, something had broken between them, something that she wasn't sure could be mended.
"Why do you have to be like this?" she asked when he was about to disappear in his room. He didn't turn around but she could tell by looking at his posture that he knew exactly what she meant. "Mom is worried. And she will be even more worried when she finds out that you..." She couldn't finish the sentence.
"It's not a decision I made," Chanyeol muttered with his hand gripping the door handle.
Yura scoffed. "Oh, you didn't decide to cheat on your girlfriend?" Her voice was louder than intended but she didn't care. "On your sweet girlfriend everyone likes? How can she not be enough for you?"
Chanyeol quickly turned around to check whether anyone could have overheard her. In the living room the TV was blaring and in the kitchen their mother was cluttering with the dishes. For some reason it filled Yura with grim satisfaction that her brother at least seemed to understand that what he was doing was wrong.
"That's not the point," he quietly said after a while, still avoiding her eyes. "I will take care of that. I will tell her."
"Tell her what exactly?" Yura asked and her eyes widened. "The truth of what you did? Because that would really be the worst thing you could do to her. She deserves better than that. You could at least have the decency to make up a lie."
He looked up and shivers ran down her spine. His eyes were the hard eyes of stranger. "A lie, noona?" he asked coldly. "You mean the way you lied to that guy who threw a stone through your bedroom window because you told him that you broke up with him because you weren't in the mood for a relationship? But then he saw you and your new boyfriend at the mall together? That kind of lie, noona?"
She felt the heat rushing up her cheeks at the memory. It had been three years since then and part of her knew that her brother was the exact age she had been then. In high school she had fooled around a lot, and if she was completely honest she still wasn't any better now. "That was different," she said meekly and felt like a fraud. Maybe it was her who had broken her brother because she wasn't a better example.
Chanyeol seemed about to argue but then rubbed his face. He sounded defeated when he said, "All of this only happened because I lied in the first place. I don't want that anymore."
For a moment they were both quiet. In the background they heard their father shouting and their mother who hummed along to the radio she must have to drown out the TV noises.
"You're the son," Yura finally said and Chanyeol drew together his eyebrows in question. "You're supposed to give Mom and Dad an heir."
He looked at her blankly and then let out a toneless laugh that startled her. She wondered whether he had lost it but then he calmed down again and seemed hurt when he said, "I was turned down, you know."
"What?" she asked and her voice sounded hollow.
"He said that he can't be with me because he can't tell his family about me. He said that they wouldn't accept him if they knew. Isn't that mad? They're family." He laughed again but this time he was choking up at the same time. His asthma always returned when he was upset and she really wanted to help him in any way but was frozen.
"I wanted to prove that he was wrong," Chanyeol continued. "So I told you about him."
But she wouldn't accept him. He didn't say those words but they hung heavily in the air.
"I just want my brother back," she whispered and felt stupid. It wasn't that simple and his expression showed that. There was pain in his eyes.
"I am your brother," he said.

- the glorious return -

"Why's the door locked?" Jongdae asked and pulled at the door handle once more to prove his point. The door to the club room was never locked. It was part of their whole Bohemian lifestyle deal of open doors and open minds and all that stuff.
Rather than to answer Chanyeol just stared at him warily from his position at the end of the hallway where he had stopped the moment he had spotted him.
"So do you have the key or not?" Jongdae asked in annoyance and Chanyeol finally hurried up to him. He swiftly pulled a key from the front pocket of his backpack to unlock the door.
"Where's Baekhyun?" he asked and Jongdae shrugged. Just because they were in the same class didn't mean that he always knew where Baekhyun might have gone to. That was what had always bothered him. Back in their first year Jongdae had been in Chanyeol's class, so Baekhyun had constantly asked him about his whereabouts and now it was the other way around. It always made him feel like the eternal sidekick. He doubted that anyone gave a when he was gone.
But he never tried to pick a fight about it, so he said, "He went into the opposite direction so maybe he's meeting The Fist Lee. When did those two even become a thing?"
Chanyeol grinned weakly as he walked through the door and put his backpack on the floor. He picked up the old school guitar that lay openly in front of the shelf at the window. It was only then that Jongdae noticed that Chanyeol wasn't carrying his guitar case as usual. When he looked around the room he couldn't see it anywhere inside the room either. Instead there were two of the metal music stands on the floor like old ladies who had fallen down on a rainy day.
"Baekhyun likes challenges so I guess that's what Jungyoon is to him," Chanyeol laughed but his voice sounded flat. Jongdae wondered whether that's what they all called her now. The Fist had always been The Fist, not Lee Jungyoon or Jungyoon or Baekhyun's Girlfriend. Just that little detail made him realize how much he had missed out on.
"Look, I'm sorry," Jongdae said when Chanyeol aimlessly bustled around the room with the old guitar in his right hand and his other hand still dangling around the key. Chanyeol looked up with a confused expression and Jongdae shrugged, "I didn't really come here lately and I know that with the competition coming up and everything, I really should have. I'll make up for it. I'll practice all night if I have to."
Chanyeol looked at him expressionlessly which caused Jongdae too feel even more uncomfortable. He knew that it wouldn't be easy to just come back after witnessing Chanyeol being chased around the school, but this was different from what he had expected.
"What changed your mind?" Chanyeol asked.
"Well," Jongdae said and really wanted to pretend that his own bravery had. He wanted to proudly say that he had told his childhood friends to shut up rather than to follow them like a stupid dog without an opinion. But the truth was that if it had been up to him, he would be at the game arcade that very moment, so he said, "Minkyung threatened to break up with me if I leave you hanging."
"Minkyung?" Chanyeol asked incomprehensively and Jongdae wondered whether he had maybe said too much, when Chanyeol's eyes widened. "Minkyung... Kim Minkyung? She's your mystery date?"
"Yeah, well, I thought you knew," Jongdae said vaguely.
"I mean, I heard that there's a sister who is friends with one of my friends, not that that friend is you," Chanyeol muttered in confusion and nearly dropped the key.
"You heard that from her brother?" Jongdae concluded because he wanted to make sure that at least that detail was right and Chanyeol nodded with an oddly pale face.
When Minkyung had explained how her brother and Chanyeol were friends and how she thus believed that she would betray her brother if she didn't stand on Chanyeol's side, it had seemed as if they were all already closely related. Of course he had wondered about it because he couldn't quite imagine how and when Chanyeol would have become friends with the older brother of someone his age, but then again had Jongdae only known him since high school. There probably were even more things he didn't know about.
He wasn't sure what to say although there were at least a dozen questions on his mind. Just then he heard Baekhyun outside. "If you tell the others about her, I'll kill you," he quickly muttered and Chanyeol gave him a weirdly knowing smile.
The door was thrown open and Baekhyun also stopped in his tracks when he saw Jongdae. Unlike Chanyeol who had acted as if a ghost had materialized in front of his eyes however, Baekhyun narrowed his eyes and loudly said, "Ha! Look who dared to show his ugly mug around here!"
Behind him Boyoung appeared with a broad smile. "Jongdae-oppa! You're back! Has Chanyeol already told you which song we're playing for the competition?"
Jongdae looked at Chanyeol who visibly tensed up. "Not yet."
"We voted for 'Flying Butterfly' by YB," Boyoung beamed and brightly put her bag on a chair in the middle of the room while Baekhyun sat down at the keyboard. "I hope you don't mind?"
"Why should he mind?" Baekhyun scoffed. "He wasn't there to vote, so he has to deal with it."
Jongdae cleared his throat in mock offense but something about the whole act bothered him. He was the bad friend, the one who never bothered much about what the others did and who only tagged along to whatever decisions they made, and yet he seemed to be the only one who could tell that Chanyeol didn't fully act like himself. Chanyeol sat down with the old guitar and played chords without tuning it but no one said anything about it. Baekhyun played one of those warm-up tunes he must have learned during his piano lessons, Boyoung looked at her phone and Jongdae felt out of place. He could only assume that it was related to the rumour around Chanyeol that had driven him away like the coward he was. But something about it made him think that there was more to the whole situation. Just like the sudden revelation that Minkyung and Chanyeol and her brother were somehow related, everything seemed to be riddled with secrets.

- budding friendship -

"Him avoiding you is a good thing?" Luhan asked and took a sip from his iced coffee although it made his teeth hurt. Once the colder days of autumn would finally hit them, he would have to switch to hot drinks and dreaded the thought. All the juggling of ice cubes and the waste of plastic straws, he would miss them. He would miss summer. "How is avoiding people ever a good thing?"
"Usually it isn't, obviously," Hari shrugged and sipped at her milk tea like a real fancy lady. Although she had always struck him to be the kind of female who would look best as the wife of a professional soccer player, she oddly didn't look out of place in the cute café next to campus. She was a chameleon, just like his yoga instructor Vicky, and he was weirdly envious of that. He wondered if life would be easier if he had been born as a beautiful girl. "But I mean, with Minseok, being avoided at times is a given and this time I didn't do anything he could blame me for," Hari continued in a bored tone. "So I think that there's something he doesn't want to talk to me about and that could be a good thing."
"Why are you still friends with him again? Because to me that sounds overly complicated," Luhan asked lamely and watched a group of girls outside. They all wore mini-skirts and all looked extremely cold. That probably was one of the downsides of being a beautiful girl. As a guy he could look cute and still be fully dressed.
"I don't know," Hari said and leaned back in her chair so that the afternoon sun fell on her face. A guy passing by outside visibly slowed down to stare at her and hurried off when he noticed Luhan glancing at him. "In high school we didn't talk for a while because he really pissed me off with his constant indecisiveness. But then I got worried. I don't think I'll ever find any peace of mind unless I know that he has someone who makes him happy."
Luhan looked at her and felt as if her image in front of him began to shift. After a few weeks of knowing Minseok, Luhan had also found reason enough to still want to be friends with him despite his constant avoidance and quietness, so until now he had thought that Hari was the same. Minseok was awfully polite and almost stupidly earnest once he did say something, so there was something very genuine about his presence. Luhan had figured that Hari simply appreciated those things, but now that she sat in front of him and stared out of the café window in a very forlorn way, he realized that it probably was different for her. She was in too deep. She was still in love.
Why did everything have to be so complicated?
He sighed dramatically and she frowned at him. "Well, the way I see things we're both in dire need of new friends," he said with a sip of his iced coffee. "Because the friends we already have clearly are nothing but trouble."
"True that," she nodded. With a grin she bumped her tea cup into his coffee glass, raised it and pronounced, "A toast to new friendship!" When she drank her hot tea a little too quickly, she swore under her breath and he burst out laughing. She glared at him in mock indignation, so he hurriedly took his glass and said, "To new friendship!"
She chuckled into her cup, again looking beautiful and divine, and he glanced outside the window to watch a cute boy in a striped jacket who carried two tote bags full of library books.
"Speaking of friends," Hari began but he didn't look because the boy outside stumpled and dropped one of his bags. One of the books flew out and nearly landed in a puddle. "What's with you and your angry friend?"
"Angry friend?" Luhan asked absent-mindedly when the boy outside was on the verge of tears. A cute girl came running to help him. Luhan clicked his tongue and turned his gaze back inside to where Hari still looked at him questioningly. "Well, my angry friend and I had lunch together," he said.
"What did you talk about?" Hari asked and he raised an eyebrow at her because he didn't understand the purpose of the question.
"I don't know," he shrugged in distaste. "Stuff. I think I told him about how my mother got all excited because one of our neighbour's son's wedding is coming up and he told me to shut up. That's what I mean. Sometimes I really ask myself why I'm still trying to be friends with him. He's the worst."
Hari frowned at him in a way that made him extremely self-conscious, so he asked, "Why?"
"You had ," she said and it sounded like a question. It was such a blunt way of phrasing it, he immediately felt his cheeks flushing although he normally wasn't embarrassed easily.
"Oh," he said. "Yeah. I mean, I guess we had." She didn't seem satisfied with his answer although she had been the one making out with Tao like it was no big deal, so he added, "We sometimes do when we're drunk. But that never changes anything."
"Were you ever...?" she asked and there was something sincere in her eyes that made him unable to crack a joke, no matter how much he wanted to.
"No. Not really," he said and hated how vulnerable he immediately felt. "There were things I said and did that I can't take back."
"What did you do?" she asked quietly.
He forced himself to smile. "Ahn Hari, don't tell me you have a helper syndrome. You should worry about yourself a little more." When she still only looked at him sadly, his smile died down and he said, "I was in a relationship I couldn't get out of but I didn't tell him about it because I didn't think it mattered. When he found out, it was already too late. I tried to joke it off because I never thought he was serious. And then he started hating me."
It was odd. Every single troubling story of his life had quickly become a funny anecdote but this one never did. His mother threatening to kill him after finding out that he wouldn't spawn her grandchildren, his grandmother telling him that he was a sinner, almost being choked to death by the boyfriend who wouldn't let him go, all of those moment had been terrible but after a while he could look back at them and laugh. He knew that if he made fun of bad memories, he took away their power over him. And yet he could never talk about the real reason why Kris and he weren't actually friends any longer without feeling as if darkness was closing in around him.
Hari sighed and threw back her head to stare at the ceiling of the café. "I think I must have really offended someone in my past life."

- the truth -

"Are not going to see your boyfriend, Boyoung?" one of the girls she had never got along with laughed when Boyoung still sat at her desk after class. Her notebook lay open in front of her. Her arms were parallel to it. This was what life was supposed to be like. In order. "Or is he busy making out with another boy?"
Boyoung took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When they realized that she wasn't going to reply, the other girls left.
She was all by herself when she looked at the blackboard in front of her. The afternoon sun illuminated the room in an orange glow. Outside there were students laughing and chatting. The metallic ping of a bat hitting a ball echoed in the distance.
"He broke up with me," she said to the hazy remnants of words that had filled the blackboard.
"He broke up with me," she repeated a little louder but it still sounded foreign to her. She still didn't comprehend it. Like a math equasion that was supposed to be so clear and obvious but to her it was just scribbles on white paper.
When Chanyeol had made her follow him to an empty classroom during lunch break she had felt stupidly happy. He had never tried to sneak off with her, so she thought that she was slowly breaking through to him.
She probably should have known then that there was something wrong.
"Let's break up," he had simply said and she had thought he was joking, so she had laughed. Then, when he had given her a troubled look, a shapeless mist had washed over her, like a sudden cold that creeped into her pores.
"Why?" she had asked. "If this is to protect me, you don't have to-."
"No," he had interrupted her a tad too quickly. "I mean, it's not because of you."
"Then why?" she had repeated and had almost felt sorry when he had clearly looked troubled, as if she was the one in the wrong.
"I don't want to lie anymore," he had said very quietly but the words had cracked something in her. All along she had walked on a floor made of thin glass that was now breaking.
She had never known everything about him. Even before she had noticed that he sometimes avoided her or disappeared without telling him where he went to. On the weekend he rarely returned calls or texts, as if there was an invisible contract that limited their relationship to those times when others could actually witness them together. All this time she had just accepted that quirk because she had genuinely believed that he was practicing during those moments when she didn't see him. Music was everything to him.
But in the end music had probably only been a convenient excuse.
It all suddenly seemed to obvious.
What would he have been lying about? Why would he have felt bad to be alone with her?
"There's someone else," she had whispered and the apologetic look in his eyes shattered the glass floor under her feet.
"He broke up with me," she now repeated once more into the ghostly classroom and banged her fist on the table. The pain shot up all the way into her wrist and finally cut something loose in her.
When the first tear rolled down like her cheek, she could manage to wipe it off. But then there was another and another and her vision blurred and she couldn't breathe as the sobs broke out of .

- moonlight (promises) -

When Minseok ran across the train platform he wasn't thinking straight. All his principles and excuses and images of the person he knew he would have to become were forgotten as his heart pounded in his chest. Frantically he pushed past tired commuters on their way home as his sister's voice kept replaying in his head.
He had still waited for his train to come when she had called and he had immediately known that there must have been something wrong. They saw each other every day at home so they never had much reason to call unless there was an emergency. So he had already been nervous when he had picked up and when she had asked where he was in a panicked tone.
"Oppa, when you reach the station can you come to the public toilets?" she had asked and for a second her voice had been drowned out by the approaching train. "...and he's hurt and Jongdae says that he often has trouble breathing but we can't help him because he's locked himself in."
"Who?" Minseok had asked as he had been pushed inside the train by the crowd around him and had put his free hand over his other ear to hear her better.
She hadn't immediately replied because someone else seemed to be talking to her. Then she had said, "Chanyeol. Park Chanyeol. He's hurt, oppa. I think you can maybe convince him to get out."
And the phone had nearly slipped out of his hand as something cold seemed to squeeze his lungs.
"I'll be there," he had muttered and she had thanked him before hanging up.
Throughtout the train ride he had stood at the door and had stared at the pale blue sky that came after the setting sun. The moon had already appeared on the horizon like a cold reminder of how messed up everything was becoming.

When he finally reached the corridor with the public toilets, Minkyung already waved at him from afar. She stood outside with a girl and a boy he didn't know, her ponytail was loose and her right knee was scraped. The boy muttered some apologies and Minseok knew that he was supposed to ask her what had happened, whether she was okay, whether she needed help, but she simply took hold of his arm.
"I'm fine," she said and took his hand in hers. "But I don't think he is." She looked at the grimy door of the men's restrooms and urged him towards it. And suddenly he was afraid of what he would find.
When he went through the door the first thing he noticed was the stench. Then he saw the boy in school uniform who pounded at the door of the toilet stall in the furthest corner of the room.
"Listen, you idiot, this is not just about you. Your father already hates me so if you bleed to death in there, who do you think he'll hold responsible?" the boy yelled and sounded tired. "What about my plan to marry Yura-noona? I can't marry her if you're dead." He weakly pounded against the door once more and then leaned his forehead against it. "Just come out already. This is annoying."
Minseok felt oddly out of place as he moved closer.
When the boy noticed him, he put on an apologetic smile and said, "Sorry, my friend is in there. Don't mind us."
Minseok bent down a little. There was a mountain of blue fabric right behind the door of the toilet stall. The stall next to it was empty, so he went in there and climbed on the toilet.
"What are you doing?" the boy asked in confusion but didn't do anything when Minseok put his hand on the wall of the toilet stall and lifted himself up. "Hey, what-?"
"Baekhyun, come here," an unfamiliar female voice shouted from outside.
"But-," the boy began when the girl barged into the toilets and took hold of his neck.
"Just come with me," she hissed threateningly.
"Baekhyun, he's a friend," the other boy, probably Jongdae, said from the door and the boy called Baekhyun looked up to Minseok with an unreadable expression.
When everyone was gone, Minseok finally dared to look down the other stall.
Park Chanyeol sat in front of the closed toilet and frowned at him. Blood streamed down the right side of his face and seeped into the collar of his white shirt. "What the hell?" he muttered in a low voice and his breathing sounded oddly uneven. "The hell are you doing here? Am I dying or something?"
Minseok pressed his lips together and fully climbed over the wall to crouch down on the toilet. "Your friend seems to think that you are," he said quietly and Park Chanyeol wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"You heard him. He only wants my sister," he said and leaned the back of his head against the door. "She's pretty."
"Prettier than mine?" Minseok asked and the corners of Park Chanyeol's mouth lifted a little.
"Prettier? Possibly. Cuter? No," he answered with a cough that made him hunch down and bury his head between his legs. Instinctively Minseok leaned forward and held out his hand but didn't dare touch him. His fingers awkwardly hovered over the crown of Park Chanyeol's head.
"Did she call you?" Park Chanyeol asked with a muffled voice. "Because if that's why you're here, you should leave. Tell her that I'm fine."
Minseok sighed and balled his hand into a fist. When he opened it again he looked at it for a moment and then hesitantly touched Park Chanyeol's skin behind his ear.
"I'm not a dog, you know," Park Chanyeol muttered when Minseok aimlessly began to his hair.
"I know," Minseok said but didn't stop.
"What you do and what you say doesn't match," Park Chanyeol said and winced when Minseok came too close to the spot where there blood came from. He finally looked up again and seemed even more worn out because he wasn't trying to put up a tough front any longer.
"You're hurt," Minseok said and Park Chanyeol scoffed but didn't say anything. "You keep losing blood." He lightly tried to touch the side of the face that was unharmed but Park Chanyeol flinched away. "You need to get out of here."
"Then what?" Park Chanyeol asked and took hold of Minseok's hand to pull it away from his face. "Then what, sunbaenim? Now you act nice but once you saved me, you'll leave again? Why even bother? Just leave now. I'm fine."
For what felt like an eternity they only looked at each other like opposing armies on a battefield.
Why?
Why was he even here? Why did Minkyung have to get involved? Why?
There they were again. The questions he didn't know how to answer.
"I'm not leaving," he said quietly and before Park Chanyeol had a chance to react he took hold of the back of his head and pulled him into his chest. "I'm not leaving," he repeated as if to convince himself.
"Don't lie," Park Chanyeol whispered into the crook of his neck.
"I'm not," he said because he wasn't.

There were things in his life he couldn't explain. Fears and worries and wants and needs. Things that weren't rational. Things that he knew he couldn't always be honest about.
He had already strayed from the path that he knew would make his parents happy and it scared him to think that they would never look at him full of pride again.
But if he was honest, if he was complete honest to himself, had he never been happy with the path they had chosen. Their goals were his goals and as long as he had tried to fufill them they had loved him. But then he slipped and all he received was scorn.
He never meant to lie to them, but by lying to himself he already had.

There was blood on his jacket when they left the public toilet. The boys called Baekhyun and Jongdae took hold of Park Chanyeol and forced him away under loud swears. The girl next to them kicked Baekhyun's shin and told him to be more gentle if he still wanted to marry Chanyeol's sister.
Minseok watched them leave, when Minkyung took hold of his hand. "He'll be fine now," she smiled and he frowned at her but she simply pulled him along and after the others.
They were halfway through the entrance hall when Park Chanyeol looked back as if to check that he was still there.
When their eyes met, he tried to smile.
He wasn't leaving this time.