The air was dead for about a minute, which felt like an eternity to everyone in the room. Nobody moved or utter a word. The temperature of the room soared within those 60 silent seconds and the palms of the motionless boys began to sweat. The combination of tension and humidity within the air wasn't helping with the boys' acids, churning in their stomachs.

Then someone actually threw up.

"Ew…"

Sehun wrinkled his nose at the unattractive sight of Kyungsoo retching and the pool of vomit that drained out the colours on his already pale face.

"I'll take him," Suho almost shoved whatever was in his way to Kyungsoo and grabbed the frail boy before anyone could argue. As the concerned Suho quickly steered Kyungsoo out of the crowd, probably towards the bathroom once more, he brushed past a paralyzed Kai before he left the room, without sparing the younger even one look.

Kai could only gaze longingly as they got further and further away from him.

Sensing Kai's hesitation, Chanyeol quickly jumped in with a warm smile, "I think they could do with some towels and such. Do you mind?"

Blinking rapidly before finally understanding Chanyeol's instructions, Kai gave a hesitant nod, "Yeah...I'll go...erm...I'll go after them."

The reluctant boy placed the bucket with bottled beers that he was gripping tightly onto a nearby table and slowly walked out of the room before his walk turned into a quick jog.

Chanyeol gave a quick wink to his boyfriend, who stood idly by the doorframe, and spoke to him with his eyes.

One down, one to go.

Kris' lips curved up on one corner and pointed his chin towards the bickering couple's direction, replying also with his eyes.

Actually, it's two to go.

"Aigoo...my favourite jacket is ruined…" Tao moaned while Baekhyun tried (and failed) to hide his snickers. Unfortunately, Tao was sat nearest to the exit of the room, where Kyungsoo was, when the latter decided to throw up the entire contents of dinner that they had consumed mere hours ago.

"Don't worry too much. It'll wash out, I promise."

"You shouldn't warned me!"

"Aw but I thought that my baby kung fu panda would be fast enough for the projectile vomiting thing," Baekhyun placed a comforting hand around the pouting boy, trying his best to withhold his smirk, "I thought that you could avoid it in time."

"You totally just ducked without looking out for me," Tao pushed his sniggering boyfriend's arm away and raised his voice, "What kind of boyfriend are you? Shouldn't you be protecting me?"

"Yah! That's not fair! It's not my fault that Kyunggie just randomly decided to throw up!"

"I told you we shouldn't have let him taken that last shot! I bet you anything that it was that shot that tipped him over!"

"You were the one who gave him all kinds of different drinks all night! I told you that we shouldn't be mixing so many drinks together!"

Chanyeol quickly walked over to the red-face couple and tried to capture their attention, even clapping his hands together.

"Guys?"

"He wanted to try different drinks! Was I supposed to not let him? I thought that he could handle it!"

"Well that worked out pretty well now, didn't it? I guess karma is a fair ."

"I was only trying to help you!"

"Guys?!"

"I didn't need your help! I had everything under control!"

"Yeah right. Who was drinking for you when we were playing the drinking games? If I hadn't had come along, you'd probably be drunker than Kyungsoo gege right now. You needed me."

"I don't need you!"

Tao gasped slightly, tears rolling in his eyes, failing to come up with another retort, "Oh yeah? Well--"

"GUYS!"

Chanyeol had finally raised his voice high enough to capture the attention of the bickering couple. With a bright smile and hinting eyes, he patted his best friend's back, "Baekhyun-ah, why don't you take Tao back home and go get changed first? We'll be back home shortly…"

Baekhyun sighed and nodded, noting that Tao's tears were pouring out of his dark eyes, suspecting that his boyfriend was probably both drunk and tired.

"Come on, panda. Let's get you home first. We'll talk later."

"But we're not done--"

In one sweep scoop, Baekhyun carried his drunk boyfriend out of the room, with the younger sobbing and hitting Baekhyun with frail limps.

After the noisy duo had exited the scene, Chanyeol turned his attention on the hiccupping Sehun, who was busying himself with...anything just to avoid looking at Luhan, who was still dumbstruck by Kris at the door.

"I...should...I really need to.." Luhan was finally awakening from his trance and shuffled his feet to escape the scene, but someone was close at his heels.

"Kris--"

"I thought we were going to talk," Kris blocked the path with his long limps.

"I don't even know why I'm here."

"Look, I'm sorry I lied. But you didn't run out of the door the moment you realised that I lied to you, and that's got to mean something. You wanna stay, don't you?"

Luhan could only sigh.

"Please, gege. Let's try and mend things. I don't want to lose you," Kris wrapped his warm hands around Luhan's trembling ones, "And Sehun can't lose you."

Luhan closed his eyes and understood. Of course Kris was right. Running away wasn't going to solve anything.

"I don't even know where to start."

"You can start by apologising to me," Kris smiled.

"Fan-ah, I--"

"I'm only joking, gege. There's nothing to be sorry for. I told you, none of the past matters to me anymore. What's past has passed and it's time to let go."

One look at his best friend's dark brown eyes told Luhan that he wasn't lying. Kris had truly let go, especially now that he had Chanyeol beside him. Luhan doesn't recall ever seeing Kris smile so often and so blissfully.

"It's not me that's stopping you. So what's really going on?"

"I just...I didn't know how to face you, a