Chapter 6

They were in one of the cafés Wu Fan had especially chosen to be his study place, after his Korean friend got them banned from the library.

However, Kris was not doing his essay at the moment. Chanyeol wasn’t either.

They looked at each other desperately and the Canadian would have sworn he heard his friend sigh in exasperation. 

The reason behind their failed study session was sitting beside them. Actually all five were, drinking and talking –more like shouting- about all kinds of ridiculous stuff.

Sehun, right next to Kris, was drinking orange juice in a somewhat angry fashion, like he hated that green straw and that orange juice and the orange trees that made it and the world in general. He made that distinct, annoying noise his straw that made Chanyeol flinch every time.

“And she was like, ‘oppa you dance so well and you’re so handsome’.” Jongin was sitting casually between Baekhyun and Kyungsoo and he was telling a story from the previous night, so loudly that the whole café listened- whether they liked to or not.

“And so I told her ‘I know I dance well and I’m pretty handsome too, but… oppa? You might want to take that hand off of me, noona, cause I’m a highschool student.’ ” That heartless guy, Jongin laughed at the incident as Kyungsoo smacked him at the back of his head.

“That was rude!” The boy with the big eyes scolded.

“Yah, Kim Jongin! Did you go to a club again? Oh- watch out Baekhyun-ah!” A tray full of drinks appeared in front of the group and a voice yelled from behind it.

“Omo, Junmyung-hyung, either this tray is too big or you’re too small.” Baekhyun, whose face had barely missed the tray, joked.

“I’ll bet it’s the second.” Sehun sniggered evilly.

“Stop being so noisy or else my boss will fire me.” Junmyung warned. He probably had a scowl on his face, thought Kris, but he couldn’t be sure, because the not-very-tall guy was invisible when he held a tray full of bottles, glasses and plates.

“He’ll have to find you first, under this pile of drinks.” Wu Fan gave a curious look to Sehun who had made the comment.

“You sound extra sarcastic today.” The Canadian pointed out to the young boy, leaving his book aside.

“Duizhang is right. What’s up Sehun-ah?” Chanyeol peeped from his book.

 “What’s up with me?!” The eighteen-year-old boy looked at the two very different hyungs and furrowed his eyebrows. “You mean what’s up with you two!” He returned accusingly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Wu Fan instinctively frowned.

“Duizhang-hyung hasn’t spoken two words all morning, even though he’s usually so talkative. Chanyeol-hyung, on the other hand, has been hiding behind his Economics textbook that he’s not even reading for the past hour. You’re both suspicious. Did you have a lovers’ quarrel or something?” Sehun mocked.

It was not uncommon for the maknae of the group to joke around and tease his friends. Nevertheless, Kris felt the difference. That time, Sehun was not just teasing, his voice had lost that childlike tone which made everyone forgive him so easily. In the past, you could tell Sehun was just being a kid and playing around.

Now he sounded hostile.

The blonde was so immersed into trying to understand the maknae’s sudden change of behavior that he didn’t even notice Chanyeol’s innocent smile being swept away by a flustered expression.

“Of course a lovers’ quarrel is impossible, since we’re not dating.” Kris stated unfazed by the boy’s aggressive manner. He knew this was an awkward conversation, but if he gave in to Sehun’s accusations and allowed himself to feel embarrassed, he’d have lost the game.

“Chanyeol-hyung doesn’t look so sure about it. Look how uneasy he is!” The eighteen-year-old boy smirked and that was when the blonde finally realized that he hadn’t shared his plan to ‘act cool’ with his friend.

“Wh-what?! Me? D-don’t be ridiculous, Sehun-ah!” The curly-haired guy’s eyes were looking everywhere but Wu Fan’s face and he was nervously fiddling with the pages of his textbook.

“Chanyeol is like that by nature.” The foreigner hurried to put in. “Besides, even if we were having a lovers’ quarrel, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re being extra mean today.” He scrutinized the maknae’s reaction as he talked and almost smirked triumphantly at the evident redness of his face.

“I’m not extra mean today. I’m like this by nature, like Chanyeol-hyung is awkward!” He crossed his arms defensively.

“No, you’re not! Sehun is a nice and adorable kid. So just tell hyung what is wrong.” Chanyeol reached over and messed the boy’s brown hair with his hand, having gained courage from Wu Fan’s calmness.

“Chanyeol is right. You don’t need to react so aggressively Sehun-ah. We want to help you!” The blonde added.

With every good word Sehun heard from the two guys, his defenses seemed to be dropping a bit. His body, that was stiff for a long time, slowly relaxed and despite himself, the maknae allowed Chanyeol to play with his hair and pinch his cheek.

“I’m not a kid, hyung.” He started hesitantly.

“You’re not an adult either, so don’t try to be too mature.” Kris pointed out trying to lift some of the burden off the young boy’s shoulders.

“I’m not an adult, but I don’t think innocently like a kid anymore.” Sehun confessed. “I-I’m no good. I’ve messed up somewhere in my life and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Kris and Chanyeol side-glanced at each other worriedly.

“Did you kill someone?” The curly-haired hyung asked in a fatherly tone and the maknae shook his head, no, he didn’t.

“Then, it can’t be so bad.” Chanyeol encouraged.

“It is bad! If everyone hates me and throws me away because of it, it will be bad.” Now the shy-looking boy was shouting and his eyes were filled with tears. People were starting to look at them too.

So Kris decided to act fast.

He grabbed the maknae’s shirt and asking Chanyeol to let the others know they would go to buy instant noodles, he pushed Sehun out of the café and to the street.

Once they were sitting peacefully outside a convenience store, Kris returned to the previous subject. He handed the boy a cup of hot noodles and took another for himself as he asked him to explain clearly the problem.

“I… You see, I...” The boy hesitated and his hyung had to give quite a few encouraging words to make him keep talking.

“I am…I’m- I’m into guys. Like…you know…” Sehun whispered almost inaudibly, in the end,  letting his tears fall freely. “You’re the first person I’m telling this to, hyung.”

“How long have you known?” Kris asked, fighting to find the right words and get over the surprise.

“I s-suspected it for” he sniffed loudly, “over two years.” The boy tried to shrug but his shoulders were already trembling too much from the sobs.

“And now something happened that confirmed your suspicions.” It was more of a statement than a question. Yet Sehun nodded anyway.

“I started dating this girl for a month ago. And she’s nice and pretty a-and… everything I should want. But we broke up. Because, last night we… we kissed and I felt no-nothing.” Sehun stuffed his mouth with some noodles and grimaced from the warmth.

“I’m not attracted to girls. I never was. The only person I’ve ever been attracted to is Jongin, when we first met two years ago.” The boy explained less nervous now, but equally depressed.

Kris wanted to say that he was afraid Jongin could never see Sehun that way, judging by the way he described his success with the noonas. He wanted to tell that to Sehun in a way that wouldn’t hurt him much but the maknae beat him to it.

“Oh, don’t worry! I only liked him for a second. Then he opened his mouth and started bossing people around, so of course I got over him quickly.” He laughed for the first time that day.

The blonde rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, Jongin can surprise you like this.” He said.

“What should I do now, Duizhang-hyung? Just tell me how to solve this.” Sehun inquired, back to his old, childlike and shy self.

The blonde gave him a good look.

A teenage boy, not even twenty yet, smart, kind and strong. The way Wu Fan saw it, Sehun hadn’t done anything to feel bad about. He had no reason to be ashamed or depressed. Being young and falling in love, shouldn’t it be the best thing? Still, to Sehun it was scary and embarrassing.

He wanted to tell the maknae everything was fine, that no one would be angry at him because of his preferences and that he was sure one day he’d find a nice guy and be happy with him.

However, Kris couldn’t say all those things.

Because somehow in front of him he didn’t have Sehun anymore.

An old version of himself, a more innocent and happy version, was sitting in that chair that Sehun was occupying a second ago. Young Kris was looking at his older counterpart expectantly.

‘What should I do now? Please figure it out for me. Tell me it’s going to be ok!’ His younger self begged with eyes, as scared and powerless as Sehun’s.

And Wu Fan knew he couldn’t say that.

It hurt him and made him feel so sorry for Sehun, because he had seen the future – or at least one possible version of it- and it wasn’t all that great.

“Tell you how to solve this? That’s easy. You can’t.” Kris finally said sternly.

“Being gay is like having blue eyes, when everyone else has brown. You can be happy about being different, or be sad for pretty much the same reason. What you cannot do is change it. Unless, of course, you want to be blind.” He kept going in a serious tone and saw the boy hanging from his every word.

“But that’s stupid. You shouldn’t be blind to your feelings Sehun-ah. Loving, with blue or brown eyes, is always better.” Wu Fan reached out and messed the boy’s hair just like Chanyeol had a while ago.

“It won’t be easy. And yes, some people might stop liking you. Others might give you weird looks. A ‘homo’, they’ll call you that a lot too.” The fearful look on the young boy’s face made Kris choke on his next words a bit.

“Your life… your life, from what it is now, it’s going to be ten times harder.” He sighed, seeing the tears welling up in Sehun’s eyes again.

“I-I can’t do it. I can’t.” The kid mumbled shaking his head frantically.

“Yes, you can.” His hyung assured. “You can, since you’re brave. You have to be strong and stand up for yourself. Even if others doubt you, you must never doubt yourself. And if you dare feel shame or guilt about it one more time, I will personally throw you in the Han River with a rock tied around your neck.” Kris pointed a warning finger at the boy with eyes as big as saucepans.

“Got it?” He asked in a menacing tone and Sehun sniffed out a ‘yes’.

“Now finish your food.” The Canadian ordered.

“I will. And… Duizhang-hyung?” Sehun looked up from his noodles with a shy smile.

“Hm?”

“Thanks. Thank you very much.” He repeated formally. “And sorry for making you sad.”

Now it was Wu Fan’s turn to avert his attention from his food.

“Why do you think you made me sad?” He asked.

“When I told you to help me, you stared at me with a face that seemed so sad. I didn’t know an impressive person, like Duizhang-hyung, could look so desperate.” The highschooler explained, not without a feeling of shame for being so judgmental to his new mentor.

 “You don’t have to be sorry about that.” Wu Fan’s mouth twitched upwards a bit.

“At that moment, with that depressed face, I wasn’t looking at Sehun.” The Canadian cleared up.

“I was looking at a twenty-year-old boy who once asked the same question as you did today. And I felt sad, because I can never go back and tell that boy all the things I told you today.” The blonde chuckled bitterly and raised his voice to an invisible person in front of him.

“‘Yah! If you go and hate yourself, you’ll mess up. And if you mess up, other people will get hurt. So don’t be so pathetic.’ I should have said that to that foolish boy...” All his energy seemed to be leaving him and the foreign guy lowered his head in regret. Then he laughed a strained laughter.

“Duizhang-hyung, that boy… is that you?” Sehun mumbled and Kris nodded solemnly.

Then as the maknae was about to bombard him with a million new questions, Wu Fan heard his cell phone ringing.

“Just wait a moment, Hun-ah.” The Canadian looked at the caller ID and cringed.

“Hello?” He picked up the phone.

“You’re a royal jerk!” A voice said and Wu Fan had to remove the phone from his ear to keep his eardrums intact.

“I didn’t think, you’d stoop low enough to use this kind of lang-” His sentence was left unfinished because of a new string of swears which Kris thought didn’t fit the caller at all.

“Can you please-” Wu Fan was about to ask for a moment of silence, when he saw something tall and familiar waving at him from the middle of the street.

“Sehun-ah! Duizhang! Finally, I found you.” Chanyeol called out, happily jumping up and down on the spot.

“What is this idiot doing in the middle of the road?” Kris muttered angrily.

“What?” The caller suddenly stopped shouting and asked.

“Sehun-ah, Duizhang, hurry up, let’s go back!” Unaware of his friend’s frantic signs to get out of the street, Chanyeol just smiled at them brightly, inviting them back.

The next few moments passed in a blur for Kris.

He threw the cellphone to Sehun, ordering, more than asking, him to keep the caller busy. After that he rushed to Chanyeol faster than he thought possible, grabbed the curly-haired guy by the hoodie and pushed him away from the car that was coming towards him. He felt himself falling so he closed his eyes when he heard a voice barking for them to ‘watch where they were going’.  

After that, time started flowing slower and slower, until he completely out.

A second later, or maybe an hour -the blonde couldn’t really tell- he opened his eyes. Making sure nothing looked blurry anymore, he slowly took in his whereabouts.

He was facing the cement and he vaguely knew, without actually feeling them, that his knees were injured. His elbow was definitely bleeding, he noted, seeing the red dots on the street around it. How did he land on his elbow anyway?

Suddenly, he felt a wild breath of air brazing the left side of his head.

Then his ears unplugged, only to let in what made the previous shouts from his cell phone sound like birds singing.

“Duizhang! Oh ! Duizhang! He’s bleeding…” It was Chanyeol, there was no doubt about it. Kris could recognize that deep, unsettling voice anywhere.

“Damn it, Sehun, hung up the bloody phone and call an ambulance. Duizhang can you hear me! Is he dead?!” Chanyeol shouted next to his ear as he shook him left and right, like the crazy person that he was. Of course Wu Fan could hear him, but his head hurt a little too much for him to say so.

Meanwhile Sehun was fretting somewhere close by, trying, as far as the blonde could tell, to talk both to the caller and crazy Chanyeol at the same time.

“No- no, I don’t think he’s dead, you don’t need to worry Ahjussi. Oh you’re not that old! Ok… I won’t call you Ahjussi anymore. And, Chanyeol-hyung, I don’t think he’s going to need an ambulance. Look, he’s awake.” Sehun was good at multi-tasking, the Canadian thought.

“He is?!” The curly-haired guy gasped and his face was so close to Kris that he felt him flinch.

“Duizhang?” He said in a softer voice this time and the foreigner coughed in reply.

“I think I ate some cement.” Kris croaked, looking at his friend’s teary eyes weakly, as a wobbly smile formed on his mouth.

“Hello? Are you still there? Wu Fan-hyung is ok, just a little hit in the head. He was trying to save this other hyung. No, the car didn’t hit him, he just fell on his face. Yeah, I know, he is pretty clumsy. Yes. Sure, I will…” Sehun kept talking on the phone but the blonde was no longer paying attention.

Because a pair of arms was wrapped around him and his shirt was getting damp from the guy’s tears and he wasn’t sure whose heart was beating louder, his or Chanyeol’s.

His eyes that he could hardly open a second ago, widened in shock. For some unfathomable reason he wanted to stay like that, bruised and hurt, lying on the street in an uncomfortable position, with a big mass of meat and bones fussing over him, for a really long time.

He must have gotten a concussion, Kris told himself, but then he was cut off by a soft, low whisper.

“Thank goodness you’re okay, Wu Fan. I’m thankful, really thankful.” The crazy guy breathed out and to the blonde it felt like a summer wind was blowing in his mind when Chanyeol called him Wu Fan.

“Chanyeol-hyung I think you’re cutting off his airstream.” The maknae put in hesitantly and Chanyeol jumped up, like an arrow and messed his hair awkwardly.

“Oh, right! Sorry Duizhang.” He apologized not meeting his eyes.

“It’s okay.” Kris struggled to stand up, mostly because of his hurt limbs but also because the places Chanyeol had touched were still burning.

With the help of both his friends he went to the hospital. After couple of tests, the doctors assured them nothing serious was. Nevertheless they were keeping him in for the night.

The curly-haired guy offered to pay for the visit, since it was his fault anyway.

 The next ten minutes that followed consisted of Kris stubbornly refusing to take money from the younger boy and Chanyeol yelling that he would drag him out and throw him into the next car he saw, so he’d be so unconscious he wouldn’t have a choice but to accept his money.

Somewhere, after the point when Chanyeol kidnapped the Canadian’s crutch and run to the hospital directory and before he came back with a triumphant smile and a plate of strawberry flavoured jelly, Kris turned to Sehun and thanked him for being so calm and taking care of his phone call.

“It was nothing, Duizhang-hyung. You’ve done much for me anyway. Oh and before I forget it, your friend says he’s going to kill you when he comes to Korea.” The maknae announced with a small smirk.

“He’s a real pain sometimes.” Kris frowned childishly. “

“Is he? I thought he sounded nice. He had a nice name too.” Sehun smiled to himself at that. “Luhan...”

A/N: Sooo, I don't know what you will think about this chapter. Too much serious talk, I guess...

Well, I hope it didn't feel too weird. 

Kisses to the NEW SUBSCRIBERS and a big hug for THE ONES WHO COMMENTED.  

Q_Q *happiness brings tears*