“Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, I wanted to hear Jongdae reveal all of your dirty childhood secrets?”

“Yes. That’s why I dragged you out of there.” Kyungsoo glances at Baekhyun out of the corner of his eyes. “Though whatever comes out of Jongdae’s mouth is guaranteed to be a lie. Because he’s a dirty liar. I think it runs in his blood or something. You should stay away from guys like him, Baek."

Baekhyun makes a face. “So not only are we close enough to hold hands, we’re calling each other by nicknames now, Soo?” He catches Kyungsoo’s eye before casting a meaningful look to their connected hands.

It doesn’t bother him, the holding hands thing, but Kyungsoo rips his hand away and stuffs it into his pocket. Baekhyun doesn’t question it. Shrugging, he looks over his shoulder in the direction where they came, missing the feather light dusting of pink across Kyungsoo’s face. He makes a note to go back to the small cafe someday and continue his conversation with Jongdae about what mini Kyungsoo was like. None of them may be particularly close but that doesn’t mean Baekhyun can’t stock up on decent blackmail material. You never know when stuff like that comes in handy.

“Where are we going now?” Baekhyun asks, facing forward. His phone vibrates in his back pocket and he pulls the device out, only to immediately put it back when he sees it’s just another text message from Sehun. It’s weird. Sort of. Normally, Baekhyun wouldn’t have cared about a random text message from the dance student (not that he cares any more than he used to because he doesn’t), but now he can’t bare to talk to the kid. At least not after the confusion that was the conversation with him earlier. The cause of his distress still sounds clear in his ears.

It’s not like we’re close or anything. We don’t have that kind of relationship.

Baekhyun would love to say that it isn’t bothering him but it is. It’s bothering him that he doesn’t know what that means, what’s going through Sehun’s head, or what’s going through his own.

“I don’t know.” Kyungsoo shrugs. “I just wanted to take you out for brunch; not on a date.”

Baekhyun frowns because he never said anything about this being a date but chalks it up to Kyungsoo being stupid as always. Suddenly, he remembers something. “Did you pay Jongdae for the food?”

“No?”

“Neither did I.” Baekhyun looks at Kyungsoo. “You’re a terrible influence.”

A grin breaks out on Kyungsoo’s face and he slings his arm over Baekhyun’s shoulder and draws the frailer boy in to ruffle his hair. “Do you want me to teach you how to be a delinquent too?”

Baekhyun is surprised Kyungsoo knows the word ‘delinquent’ but instead of insulting the other’s intelligence he breaks out of his hold, complaining about his ruined hair.

“What are you doing around here?” Lu Han asks, voice much too loud for the empty street.

He swipes his finger along the side of his cell phone, hoping when the screen brightens the alert for a missed call, missed text message, missed anything will pop up, but there is nothing but the background of a large cup of almond milk tea. He’s always been attached to his cell phone, always having it in his hands, checking the time or replying to a text or email, but now when he’s hoping for a text, he doesn’t receive one. And he doesn’t know how he feels about that.

“I was just taking a walk,” an unfamiliar voice breaks through the ramble of his thoughts.

He catches onto Lu Han’s exclamations but retreats back into his thoughts just as quickly. It’s strange. He’s almost desperate but he doesn’t know why. He’s actually afraid to find the reason. Never has he had this problem before — the problem of being completely unsure of what he wants — not even when he was just that foolish boy who dreamed of choreographing for the best with Jongin.

Sehun puffs out his cheeks and refocuses on the conversation happening around him. He recognizes the short guy from some place Sehun doesn’t remember off the top of his head. Minseok, he thinks Lu Han calls him or something like that. The guy is cute, Sehun will admit. He understands why Lu Han likes him. Lu Han has a strange obsession with cute things.

“How have you been these last couple of days? It was so weird waking up on Monday and not seeing you struggle to reach the cereal with your short arms,” Lu Han says, all smiles and poorly contained enthusiasm.

Sehun twitches, starting to reach out to warn Lu Han that he’s venturing into it’s-obvious-that-i’m-crushing-on-you territory. He glances up and stops when he notices a pair of eyes from the other side of the street burning holes into the short kid’s side. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he raises a brow at Minseok, raising the other when the smaller Korean gives him an unreadable look.

Something is off.

He forgets about his phone and the text message that’ll never come, looking from Minseok to Lu Han to the guy crossing the street and heading towards them. Suddenly, Sehun wishes he went to get his bubble tea by himself instead of dragging Lu Han along. Lu Han always brings him trouble.

“Talking to strangers, I see.”

Xiumin visibly stiffens when Kris slides up beside him, recently purchased bottle of cola in his hands. He glances at Lu Han and ignores the unexplainable feeling that washes over him at the confusion on the singer’s face. His friend with the blank face isn’t any better; Xiumin can see the wheels turning in his head and he doesn’t want to know what the kid is thinking about. “They’re not strangers,” Xiumin explains. Whether or not this is a smart plan of action, he’ll find out soon enough.

Kris rolls his eyes. “I don’t recognize them so they’re strangers.” The tallest male out of the four cracks open the soda and takes a swig. “I thought I told you not to pick up conversation with people on the street.”

Xiumin can see him run his eyes critically over the duo. He hopes the two of them don’t pick up on the tension rolling off of Kris in waves. “But they’re not random people. This is Lu Han,” he points to the ashy blond, “and his friend…”

“Sehun,” the kid answers, nodding his head politely enough for the current situation.

“Sehun,” Xiumin confirms. He bows his head, digging his front teeth into his lip.

Should he do it? He feels like he shouldn’t but Minseok hasn’t protested (though he hasn’t heard from Minseok in a really long time) and if he doesn’t do it then Kris will and really this is just a lose-lose situation. Looking back and forth between the two boys and Kris, Xiumin blurts it out carelessly. “Lu Han, this is my boyfriend, Kris.”

Lu Han wasn’t expecting that plot twist. He was waiting for Minseok to say ‘oh, hey, this is my long lost brother recently returned to me from aliens’ or ‘this is my dad’ or something equally realistic and not heartbreaking. But boyfriend? He was not emotionally prepared for Minseok to introduce his boyfriend. Not even a little bit. It was just earlier in the week that he threw out all his worries and recognized his crush on Minseok as the truth. God hates him. Seriously. This Kris guy is taller than any stilt walker on the planet. How is Lu Han supposed to compete with a man who is tall enough to be a telephone pole?

Nonetheless, he offers Kris a smile, opting to be cordial despite his sad, broken heart. It’s Minseok’s boyfriend after all; he should be nice.

Kris stares blankly at him (and Lu Han swears he sees the slightest hint of a glare cross the telephone pole’s face), wrapping an arm around Minseok’s shoulder and kissing the top of his head.

Lu Han flinches. The fear a normal person would have felt from the glare flies right over his head and he’s left surprised about the display of possessiveness. Half of Lu Han drowns in a tsunami of depression and the other half flares in mild anger at Kris’ -ish behavior. He’s already slightly heartbroken, there’s no reason for the tall man to rub his bleeding heart in a mound of salt and stomp on it (not that Kris knows Lu Han has a teeny weeny schoolboy crush on Minseok).

They reach a stalemate — an awkward minute and a half of Lu Han and Kris staring at each other, Minseok staring at the cracks in the sidewalk, and Sehun being of no help at all. Kris breaks the silence with a clearing of his throat. Lu Han watches as he nudges Minseok forward, the short Korean quiet and very unlike his usual self.

“Uh…I guess we’re heading back home. It was nice seeing you, Lu Han. And it was nice meeting you, Sehun.” Minseok nods at the both of them.

Lu Han chuckles awkwardly, unable to get his throat to work and produce understandable sounds. Sehun pats the singer’s shoulder while offering Minseok a small smile, returning the polite words.

They walk past, in the direction the two friends came from. Lu Han continues to stare at the retreating couple with a sad, drowning puppy look until Sehun slaps his arm.

“Ah, right, we were getting bubble tea.” Lu Han turns to Sehun with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

Sehun waves him off, not wanting to be stuck with a depressed Lu Han if he complains about the roadblock that was Minseok and Kris on the way to get his beloved milk tea. He hates dealing with a depressed Lu Han. The Chinese man looks best when he has that stupid grin on his face that always looks wide enough to wrap around the circumference of Saturn. It’s an ugly smile but it works well with the rest of Lu Han’s blinding hideousness. Sehun doesn’t like the frown that is stitching itself into place on Lu Han’s face instead.

“Cheer up, man,” Sehun thumps Lu Han on the back hard. “There are plenty of other fish in the sea.”

“You at making people feel better. Please stop trying.” Lu Han frowns, punching Sehun in the arm because now his back hurts. He kicks at a non-existent rock, mumbling about how he doesn’t want other fish, he wants Minseok. It’s funny. (Not really). Back when they first met, he was upset because Minseok was cute but was from the enemy school, and after he gets over that he finds out he still can’t have him because he’s already taken. He really just has the worst luck.

“You know what will make you feel better?” Sehun asks.

Lu Han sighs, already knowing the answer. “Bubble tea,” they say simultaneously.

Sehun claps and hits Lu Han on the back again. “Exactly. I’ll even pay for yours this time since you feel like .”

Rolling his eyes, Lu Han shoves his hands in his pockets. “Gee, thanks.”

Xiumin doesn’t curse but , . Minseok is going to kill him. He’s going to gain control over their body and kill him — kill them both because it’s impossible to kill only one of them. He told Lu Han when it wasn’t his place to. He could have royally messed everything up for Minseok. He knows how much Lu Han means to Minseok. Xiumin might not be aware of most of what happens when Minseok is out but that doesn’t mean he’s completely oblivious. He hears the other’s thoughts every know and then; remembers back when his memory would be fogged for days on end during the inter-school charity concert, only being able to recall Minseok’s shy musings about some guy neither of them knew.

It was cute back then, because Minseok had always been the more solitary one out of the two despite how insecure Xiumin was. Kris may have scared away all of his friends in high school but Xiumin still had Tao and for a while Sandeul talked to him before he too was frightened off like the rest of them. Minseok never had anyone; he couldn’t make friends because he was too busy with pretending to be Xiumin so no one would figure something was wrong about them, that they were maybe, just a little, crazy. Hearing Minseok’s nervous schoolboy thoughts over the Chinese student made Xiumin feel less upset with himself for stealing his other half’s life away. They made the agreement to live as Xiumin in public. He forced Minseok to give up any and all of his individuality to act as him. He doesn’t even know what Minseok’s favorite color is or his favorite food or what he really wants to be when he grows up. The only thing Minseok did as himself was taekwondo and even that didn’t last long because Xiumin couldn’t pretend to be tough and athletic like that if he tried. Lu Han’s the only thing Minseok has to himself beside Chanyeol (and Chanyeol isn’t anything to brag about). Xiumin doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s ruined that.

The slight ache between his eyes that he knows will only grow into stronger pain worries him as well. He and Minseok have been having problems ever since Minseok woke up in control that morning and dry heaved over the side of the bed and then threw up hours later. He feels Minseok’s conscious pushing at the edges of his own, as if they’re about to switch, and he really just needs to sit down. He pulls away from Kris, slipping beneath his arm and lagging behind the younger man who continues walking without him. Xiumin tries to keep from being left behind but the dull ache explodes and his vision swirls like a kaleidescope. Before his fingers can brush against the back of Kris’ light sports jacket, everything flips upside down and he’s on his knees, vomiting bile in the middle of the sidewalk.

Minseok blinks his eyes open, groaning. He felt way too much of Xiumin’s pain than he wanted to. That’s a first — sharing the other’s senses. Sure he’s witnessed all of the hurt Kris has caused his other half but he’s never experienced any of it when Xiumin was awake.

“The are you doing, embarrassing me in public? First I see you getting cozy with those two idiots earlier and now you’re doing like this.”

If he wasn’t still reeling from the sudden nausea, Minseok would have snapped at Kris. The Chinese man must have came back when he heard Minseok puke. He could have kept walking in Minseok’s opinion. The only think Kris is good for is being a .

“Get up. People are starting to look.”

Getting into a crouch, Minseok wipes the bit of vomit that landed on the back of his right hand on the bottom of his pants. Disgusting, but he doesn’t have anything better at the moment. “People are starting to look? Are you kidding with me right now?” He jerks his head to move his hair from in front of his face. Standing, Minseok walks around the puddle and steps up to Kris. “Why don’t you find some decency and recognize that, oh I don’t know, something is legitimately ing wrong with me?”

Recognition zips across Kris’ face when he understands the two of them switched and he sneers. Minseok scoffs and rolls his eyes. He tries to step around the taller man but is easily blocked off when Kris extends his arm outward.

“Move,” Minseok demands.

“Who do you think you are to order me around, hm?”

Too physically drained to deal with Xiumin’s boyfriend’s antics, Minseok pushes the arm away only for Kris to shift and wrap his monster hands around his forearm.

“Let go of me.” Minseok narrows his eyes, attempting to yank his arm out of Kris’ grip.

Kris shakes his head, tutting. “You see, Minseok, that’s not how this relationship works.” He slaps the small man’s cheek playfully. “You think just because you two are supposedly different people that it means you can do whatever the hell you want and that’s not true.”

Glaring harder, Minseok lifts up his foot and stomps down on Kris’, cutting off the latter’s egotistic speech early. Kris falters, looking away off into the distance and Minseok takes the chance to try and rip his arm away again. He’s too focused on drawing his arm out of Kris’ hand that he’s caught off guard by the backhand hit to the side of his face and stumbles. Tripping over his feet, he almost lands in his own puddle of vomit but Kris draws him up by the collar of his shirt and shoves him up against the brick side of an unfamiliar building. Face pressed against the grainy blocks, Minseok growls. He tries to ignore the growing number of bystanders, curious as to what’s happening but not willing to stop it. Kris seems to notice them as well and he chuckles, clutching a handful of Minseok’s hair and forcing his head into the side of the building once, twice, three times — and Minseok’s not sure if that’s the reason for his growing headache or if Xiumin is trying to get out. It’s hard to judge.

Slumping to the sidewalk, Minseok glares up at Kris despite all else. It isn’t the worst beating their body has taken. There was the event two (or was it three) years ago. Compared to that, this is nothing but child’s play. He doesn’t let up the glare even when Kris delivers a kick to his solar plexus that makes his vision dance and leaves him gasping for air much more than he was during the bathroom incident. He only narrows his eyes further when Kris blows him a kiss and leaves him there, head spinning and breath labored amongst the useless grouping of people from the nearby buildings.

There is a sudden thump against the front door and he jumps, strumming a chord that’s horrible enough to make his ears bleed. his teeth, he sets his guitar down on the couch cushion beside him. Whoever is making that racket outside better be happy he’s in a damn good mood because he made a point to the other residents of the building to keep the noise level at a negative ten. His bones crack a sickly sound as he picks himself up from his couch and lazes his way to the door, ripping it open with a scowl on his face. His foul expression collapses faster than a sinkhole and worry — something he’s been feeling a lot lately — pools in his chest until he forgets how to breathe for a second. The memories whip past his eyes for the second time this month and he has to take a second to collect himself before he too finds himself unconscious in the middle of the doorway. Shaking his head, Chanyeol worms his hands beneath the small man, making sure he’s comfortable with the weight before hoisting the other up and bringing him into his house.

He brings the man into his bedroom, laying him across his blankets, uncaring of how the still wet blood may stain. Tilting the man’s head to the side, Chanyeol inspects the head wound, calming when he realizes it’s just a foul scrape and nothing serious. Running still shaking fingers through his hair, he leaves his bedroom to retrieve a bowl from the kitchen. He fills the plastic basin with warm water and, on the way back to his bedroom, picks up a clean rag from the bathroom. Crawling over the unresponsive man, Chanyeol gently lifts his head and settles it into his lap.

“Seriously, Minseok,” he sighs as he begins to clean the older man’s face of the dried blood, “are you trying to send me to an early grave or do you get some kind of sick satisfaction from scaring the out of me?”

He cracks his neck. Turning Minseok’s head to the left a bit, he washes the blood out of his hair before it mats. He’s grateful the man is out cold because Minseok, no matter how big he talks and despite his short stint with martial arts, is a weakling with a low pain tolerance and this probably would have hurt a bit. When he finishes, he parts Minseok’s hair to check the damage just in case he was wrong. Confirming his initial belief, he leans back on his palms.

He sighs again. “I’d kill him for you, you know that.” Chanyeol curls a strand of Minseok’s hair around his little finger. “All you’d have to do is ask.”

He sits there for a while longer, playing with Minseok’s hair and looking around his bare room. It’s lucky he decided to stay in tonight. He’s never home; usually out with his girlfriend or sleeping over at the garage. Minseok knows that. Unless it was Xiumin who came here but Xiumin would have gone to Zitao before he even thought about coming here. Deciding to get up before thoughts of decorating, something his girlfriend often pesters him about, invade his mind, Chanyeol lays Minseok down again before slipping off his bed. Grabbing the bowl, the cloth sitting inside the polluted red water, he walks into the kitchen to dump the water out before tossing both items into the trash. Walking back into his living room, he grabs his cell phone off the top of the rickety wooden dvd rack. Cradling it between his ear and his shoulder, he picks up his guitar from the couch and walks it back to its stand in the corner of the room next to the nearly ten year old television.

“What are you calling me for?”

“Nothing important. I just thought you’d want to know that Min passed out in front of my door unconscious and bleeding about an hour ago,” Chanyeol answers, ignoring Zitao’s attitude. He hangs up before the Chinese man has a change to respond, dropping his phone back onto the dvd rack. If he’s off work like Chanyeol thinks he is, he’ll be here in less than fifteen minutes anyway.