~*~

The next few days were terrible.

Kai just completely ignored Kyungsoo at every given moment. It wasn’t that Kai was being cold, no, he just always found a way to be wherever Kyungsoo wasn’t - if that makes sense.

For example, if we were all going out for dinner and Kyungsoo was going, Kai would say he had other things to do.

One night Kyungsoo came around to our apartment to see what Kai would do then.

When he was in the living room, Kai went to the kitchen.

When Kyungsoo entered the kitchen, Kai walked past him and went to his bedroom.

Tao seemed to notice this too, and he’d send us weird looks like ‘what’s going on?’ and Lu Han would shrug. Chen didn’t notice anything though, he was too busy talking about this really nice new flavour of milkshake or something.

It was...really hard on Kyungsoo. Kai was one of his most precious friends. I just- really wanted to approach Kai and ask him what the hell was going on.

“Don’t,” Lu Han said as folded up some towels on his bed one afternoon, “Let them work it out for themselves.”

“But look, Lu, look how choked up D.O is getting over it. That’s not right,” I cried in frustration and fell back onto my bed.

“I know but...this is Kai. He probably has a reason. Let them sort it out,” Lu Han sighed. I sat up and looked at him for a moment before I went over to his bed and started to help him sort out the clean clothes.

“Hey...guys is my red shirt here?” Kai said as he appeared at the doorway making us jump.

“Y-yeah it’s in this pile,” Lu Han answered as he pointed to a bundle of red underneath some of Kai’s folded vests and briefs.

“Oh...thanks,” he walked in hesitantly and took the shirt from the pile. His hair was still wet and slicked back from just getting out the shower. Something seemed different about the way he acted, he seemed kind of...lost?

I decided to try something crazy.

“So what are you doing later?”

“Nothing...why?” Kai said, disinterest lacing his voice.

“I was just thinking that...we should all go out to eat. I mean, we always get a takeaway but we never go out, so what do you think?”

Lu Han looked at me as if I was insane, I knew what he was thinking. If he rejected all those other times what makes you think he’ll accept now?

“Um-” Kai bit his lip and fiddled with the red shirt in his hands awkwardly.

“We could invite some of the others too,” I said to make it clear. The way he breathed in told me that he knew I meant Kyungsoo. After a few moments he replied.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

~*~