Hey guysss!!! I usually read my previous chapie before starting writing the next, and I realised that the last one had so many grammatical errors >

"I'm fine now." Myungsoo waved his hand in front of his face. His hand slipped down from where it had clawed at his chest underneath his shirt, and hung limply by his side, resting on the ground. The pain had gone as quickly as it had gone, just like the other time, but Myungsoo could tell that the burning sensation had intensified this time round. So his condition was really worsening, afterall. Myungsoo straightened his clothes.

"Mhmm?" Sungyeol hummed, as his fingers still drew calming circles on his back. Myungsoo drew away from them, and looked over at the boy crouched behind him.

"I'm fine now." Myungsoo repeated, and stuffed the stray pair of shorts in his hand behind the sofa, and straightened up, and collected his keys, handphone. He looked over at Sungyeol who was still watching him, as if expecting him to collapse at any moment.

"I'm going out to meet my friends." Myungsoo shrugged on his jacket, and held the door open for Sungyeol.

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"Who's he?" Sunggyu flashed a grin in Sungyeol's direction. Myungsoo looked over his shoulder at the boy who had stubbornly followed him to Hoya's house. Myungsoo grimaced a little.

"He's" Myungsoo started, but Sungyeol cut him off.

"Sungyeol. My name's Sungyeol." Sungyeol smiled so wide Myungsoo could see his gums again.

"We're playing a game of saboteur. Wanna join?" Hoya held out a stack of playing cards and grinned at Sungyeol. Myungsoo's friends had already split the cards into stacks by the time Myungsoo had arrived, with the boy in tow, and the way they had divided the cards into seven equal stacks made it look as if they had been expecting someone in addition to Myungsoo, as if they had been expecting Sungyeol.

Myungsoo glanced over, to see Sungyeol looking so happy, chatting to his friends, that Myungsoo hadn't the heart to tell him that they'd been expecting his best friend, instead of Sungyeol.

Woohyun finished explaining the card game to Sungyeol, who listened with wide eyes and an open mouth, and looked for all the world like an intrigued goldfish. Myungsoo smiled at that.

Then frowned.

Sungyeol was happy now, but Myungsoo could still see the hurt in his eyes just a moment ago, when he'd exploded, and shouted at him. It wasn't that Sungyeol was nobody to Myungsoo-- he'd be lying if he claimed that Sungyeol wasn't going to be a big part of his last two months, if the yelling just now wouldn't drive him away (Myungsoo smiled at the boy's persistence), but he'd been rather shaken at the encounter with his best friend. Myungsoo hated apologising (who likes admitting they're wrong?), but he was afraid of Sungyeol leaving him just like his best friend did, simply walking out of his life.

Because this time, if he really lost Sungyeol too, Myungsoo knew it would be his own damn fault for speaking rashly. Myungsoo didn't want that to happen, as he didn't think he could very well die in peace if Sungyeol hated him. It was weird--Myungsoo hadn't known Sungyeol for long and yet...

Myungsoo had heard that ghosts exist because they have unfinished business on earth. Myungsoo didn't like the idea, he wanted to just go peacefully. Myungsoo decided to apologise when both of them left Hoya's house, and it was just the two of them.

"Understand now?" Woohyun looked at Sungyeol expectantly, and Sungyeol nodded uncertaintly, and closed his eyes, as if trying to memorise Woohyun's sketchy instructions.

"I see," Sungyeol murmured, and Myungsoo almost laughed his off the way the boy said so with his eyes shut. Myungsoo turned to tap Sunggyu on the shoulder--this hyung would give better directions than the excitable Woohyun.

"I don't understand how to play." Myungsoo pointed his chin towards the cards in the middle of the room. Sunggyu looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

"You played this with us two weeks ago." Sunggyu pointed out.

"I've forgotten, hyung," Myungsoo pouted, and shifted over to where Sungyeol was sitting, cross-legged, on the floor, a confused expression on his face as he looked through his cards, and tried to peek at Sungjong's--which earned him a playful smack to the shoulder, and and exasperated 'hyung!'. Sungyeol only looked more bewildered.

"Explain it to me, hyung?" Myungsoo pleaded, and sat close enough to Sungyeol, so that when Sunggyu explained, Sungyeol could listen as well.

Sunggyu sighed, and began, "You know these cards?" Sunggyu held up one:

(A/N: This is how one of the 'path' cards look like ><)

"It looks like a path, right? Just lay these down horizontally on the floor, to make a path towards the gold," Sunggyu lifted another card to show Myungsoo (and Sungyeol, who was looking over, and resting his chin on Myungsoo's shoulder--which was rather uncomfortable, and ticklish, but Myungsoo bore it bravely, because he was still feeling apologetic). Myungsoo nodded, to show he understood. Then, Sunggyu went on to talk about the dwarves and the saboteurs (Sungyeol tutted when Sunggyu told them the saboteurs took all the gold for themselves, and didn't share it like the dwarves).

"Let's start." Sunggyu shifted, so he was sitting infront of a pile of cards on the floor. Sungyeol suddenly got up, to sit further away from Myungsoo. Was he angry at what Myungsoo had said earlier? Myungsoo tilted his head as he watched Sungyeol settle down again, and pick his cards up. Sungyeol raised his eyes a little, and looked straight at him. So Myungsoo ducked his head down, angry at being caught watching the ridiculous boy.

After Sunggyu, Woohyun and Sungjong had made a rather winding path towards the gold, Dongwoo put down a card that blocked it off, and made Sunggyu's eyes shoot daggers in Dongwoo's direction.

"Yah!" Sungyeol's eyes opened wide. "What'd you do that for?"

Hoya, who was sitting closest to Dongwoo hit him on the arm, and threw a card that would block Dongwoo in the game, until he could find a similar one to unblock himself. Dongwoo screamed maniacally, and flung his hands about in the air, as if trying to ward off Hoya's card. "I'm not the saboteur!" He gasped in mock indignation.

Everyone was laughing, and Myungsoo watched Sungyeol throw his head back, and flop around with his friends, exhausted from laughing so hard, and realised how right it felt that Sungyeol was here with him, with his friends, having fun. Myungsoo was grateful that Sungyeol had decided to follow him.

"Who's next?" Woohyun sat upright again, and wiped his eyes.

Sungyeol placed a card beside the path, so that it now branched off, and turned downwards. Everyone stared at Sungyeol,

"You sure you want to do that hyung?" Sungjong asked, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to understand Sungyeol's move. Sungyeol nodded, and looked pleased with himself, as if he had thought up a great idea or something.

Myungsoo realised that there was a pattern in the way Sungyeol laid down his cards everytime it was his turn, by the time they'd played three rounds of the game. All Sungyeol did was lay cards down in the opposite direction from the others, so that he made a little path of his own, leading away from the gold. He wasn't trying to get to the gold cards at all. Myungsoo watched as Sungyeol's path extended even more in the wrong direction.

"Go the other way..." Myungsoo hissed to him, eyeing the gold cards. He couldn't understand the boy at all.

Sungyeol smiled at him. "I know." Sungyeol laid another card down, and Myungsoo shook his head at him again.

"Weirdo." He mumbled to himself, and focused on the game as best as he could. So it wasn't until Sungyeol was about to put down the last card on his little path, that Myungsoo realised where the path was really heading.

"There." Sungyeol looked satisfied with himself, and set it down, next to Myungsoo's foot. Myungsoo looked at Sungyeol. He didn't know what he was supposed to say, as his friends beside him erupted into cheers. Someone holding the dwarf card had uncovered the gold, and was in the process of splitting it. Myungsoo got two gold nuggets. He looked over. Sungyeol had been the saboteur, and so he'd not gotten any.

After three games, and three small paths from Sungyeol that led to Myungsoo, Myungsoo had three gold nuggets, and everyone had at least one too--all except for Sungyeol. All the boy had done was to continue making his little paths, and all of them led to Myungsoo, and Sungyeol hadn't been able to win anything. Although that said, Sungyeol looked like he'd done, everytime he managed to get the path to end at Myungsoo's knee, ot at his foot. He shook his head as he saw Sungyeol smiling.

"You were supposed to make a path towards the gold." Myungsoo ruffled his hair up in frustration as he reminded the boy for about the hundredth time that day.

"I know." Sungyeol still looked satisfied.

Sunggyu looked between them, and decided to cut in then, and looked regretful. "Who has the smallest amount of gold?" Everyone turned to look at Sungyeol, who raised his hands in defeat, still grinning blissfully. Hoya started cracking his knuckles menacingly, and even Sungjong, who was--hands down--the least threatening person in the room, smirked evilly at Sungyeol.

"What? Why?" Sungyeol eyed them warily, and turned to Myungsoo for help, but the boy had moved over to join the "dark side", and only looked back at him, grinning ominously.

"There's a forfeit..." Sunggyu's voice was low, dangerous. Sungyeol's eyes widened, and he was about to plead with them to let him off--it was his first time playing the game afterall, but it was to late. Sunggyu jumped up, and jabbed a finger in Sungyeol's direction.

"Attackkkkk!" The order came out as a strangled roar, and Sungyeol squeezed his eyes shut, and cowered away into the corner, and hoped for the best, when all six bodies launched themselves at him.

"Wha--" Sungyeol began, trying to cover his head with his thin arms (he wanted to come out of Hoya's house alive, for pete's sake), when hhis words were cut off by his own desperate giggles.

"Stop...it..." Sungyeol's hands went up, to try to push away the many fingers that scrabbled at his sides, poking him in the ribs, crawling up and down his tummy, and made him giggle like a rabid schoolgirl.

"No...Don't...Myungsoo, you're squishing me..." Sungyeol gasped out, desperately trying to detatch the tickling hands from his body, and failing. His legs flailed wildly in the air, and his six attackers steered clear of them, and only pulled back when Sungyeol was flushed, and out of breath, and he lay on the ground with messy hair, and tears in his eyes. A shadow fell on his face, and Sungyeol looked up, to see Myungsoo leaning over him, with what seemed to be a permanent smirk plastered on his face.

"Yah..." Sungyeol tried to swing an arm at his face, but missed, and flopped back down onto the ground, and decided on a kick to the boy's rump, amidst the laughter.

Sungyeol couldn't help it--he smiled too. He liked Myungsoo's friends--they were a good bunch of people.

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 Myungsoo walked with Sungyeol to the bus stop, where they would go their separate ways home--Myungsoo would take a fifteen minute walk home, and Sungyeol would catch a bus back.

Myungsoo paused, before turning back to Sungyeol. He had meant to ask Sungyeol something. He paused, watching the way the dying sun made Sungyeol's bright smile light up even more, and turned Sungyeol's brown hair golden, even lighting up the tiny stray strands that waved about in the breeze. Sungyeol looked so blissful.

"Why were you there after school?" Myungsoo spoke as if he was in a trance.

"Hmm?" Sungyeol turned to face him. "My school was nearby--I ran to meet you after your text." Sungyeol's smile widened. Myungsoo's lips also curved upwards--how could he help it? It wasn't as if Sungyeol's cheeriness could be resisted. "I see." Myungsoo raised his hand and waved to Sungyeol, and turned to leave. "See you tomorrow!" Sungyeol called behind him.

It wasn't until he'd reached home that Myungsoo realised he'd not apologised for earlier. He ran a hand through his hair.

Nevermind. He'd do it tomorrow.

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Hey guysss!! Hope you enjoyed this chappie!! Also, if you're liking this fic in general, pleaseprettyplease click on the grey arrow beside the title in the foreword!!! Thankssss <33333333