Interlude

Miscalculation

A/n: This is just a short interlude that is mostly an intro to Kris' past. Mention of Heechul from Super Junior - I swear I don't hate him, he's actually my bias, he just fit the role really well! Anyways, hope you enjoy, and that this gives a bit of insight on some things. Posting the next chapter immediately after this. :)

“Chanyeol, are you going to Jongin’s party this weekend?” It was Friday and Jongin had been planning to have this party for weeks now. After Baekhyun’s car accident, Jongin had considered cancelling it, but Baekhyun urged him to have it, even if he couldn’t go. And he couldn’t. But it was just one party, he said. No big deal.

Chanyeol didn’t even glance to Baekhyun in his wheelchair, and shook his head. “Sorry, can’t.”

Tao frowned. “Why not? Because he’s not going?” Tao sent an obvious look Baekhyun’s way. “What, are you guys attached at the hip? You don’t have to go everywhere he goes.”

“I’m not going without Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said coolly.

“But-”

“Tao, don’t,” Kris said carefully. Tao stared at their leader, confused. “If he wants to be with Baekhyun, we aren’t getting between them.” Silence rose, and there was something beneath Kris’ words, a secret he was withholding. Tao knew better than to question it.

“Why don’t you just ditch him? Hang out with us instead of being a loner with him.”

Chanyeol was in ninth grade, and for days now the most popular kids had been asking them to join their group. He was tall and frightening in appearance, which seemed to be the main requirement to be in their group. It would be alright, but they wouldn’t let Baekhyun join them, and so he refused them. However, they were persistent. They pestered him constantly, at lunch and whenever they saw him in the hallways.

One boy, Kris, was in his junior gym class, in the grade above Chanyeol but one of the youngest members of the group. One day he started asking Chanyeol questions in the class.

“You should join us,” Kris said. “Why be with that dorky kid? You’d have security with us, you’d be at the top of the pyramid.”

“Baekhyun’s not a dork,” Chanyeol said angrily. “And if he is, he’s my dork. He’s my best friend, I’m not just ending years of friendship for popularity.”

At lunch, Chanyeol would sit with Baekhyun, and the smaller boy would wear a beanie to hide his bald head.

“It’s gonna grow back, right?” Chanyeol wondered worriedly. “Your hair.”

“Of course,” Baekhyun reassured. “It won’t happen overnight though. You could always cut yours off and make a wig out of it for me.”

Chanyeol chuckled. “I want you to have your hair, not mine.”

His hair would come back. Because he was going to live. And Chanyeol wasn’t going to leave him for anyone.

Kris took his seat in his fourth-period class, next to Zhang Yixing. Yixing looked up at him and gave him his sweet smile, making Kris’ heart flutter.

“Hi, Kris.”

“Hey,” Kris grinned. “Did you get the homework done?”

Yixing nodded. “I did. I found it easy, did you?”

“Of course,” Kris lied.

“You didn’t do it?”

“Not at all.”

A delightful, musical laughter slipped past Yixing’s lips, making Kris sigh internally. The boy was so beautiful, so angelic. Kris was so glad he had taken this first year course, not dropped out of it like he had planned at the beginning of the year. It had been an accident, being put into the ninth-grade economics class, but it felt like fate, ending up beside the gorgeous younger boy who had just come over from China. Lucky for Yixing, Kris was Chinese too, and they struck up a conversation easily on that first day. It was impossible not to feel happy being around Yixing, because he was so bright and beautiful. Kris had quickly found himself falling for the boy.

But Kris was forbidden by his friends to see Yixing. Well, not Yixing specifically, but younger, “weaker” boys – and just boys in general – were off limits for them to date. They had an image to keep up. Yixing would never be accepted by Kris’ friends.

The teacher began taking up homework, and called on Kris for one of the questions. He blanked, but Yixing subtly passed his answers to him, smiling. Kris returned the smile gratefully.

In gym class, he began to lightly harass Chanyeol again, knowing his friends were eager to pick the boy up. But Chanyeol wasn’t budging on the subject.

“Why do you care so much about Baekhyun anyways?” he asked.

“He’s my best friend,” Chanyeol returned, weighing each word heavily.

The next day though, Kris saw Chanyeol and Baekhyun together at lunch. They sat on the same side of the table as usual, knees bumping and hands grazing each other now and then. They were so comfortable with each other. But then they seemed to grow serious, for whatever reason, and they were looking into one another’s eyes, and Kris could see Baekhyun’s watering slightly. Then he leaned up and kissed Chanyeol gently before throwing his legs over Chanyeol and leaning his head against his chest. Chanyeol wrapped his arms around him, kissing the spot just beneath Baekhyun’s beanie. And then Kris understood.

“You’re dating him,” he said in gym class. “Baekhyun, he’s your boyfriend. That’s why you like him so much.”

“Baekhyun is not my boyfriend,” Chanyeol disagreed.

“I saw you kissing earlier.”

Chanyeol gave a shrug. “I love him, more than anything in the world. And he loves me. But we’re not – he’s not my boyfriend. ‘Boyfriend’ just sounds cheesy, and comes with too many standards and expectations and bull crap. We’re just, best friends.”

“Who are in love with each other.”

“So?” Chanyeol said challengingly. “I’m not leaving him after everything we’ve gone through. Not when…”

He trailed off. “Not when what?” Kris pressed.

“Nothing,” Chanyeol sighed. “I almost lost him. And I’m never going to again, not willingly. I’m not walking out of his life when he barely escaped with it.”

“He almost died?” Kris asked, raising his eyebrows. “What do you mean? When?”

Chanyeol heaved another sigh. “Last summer, he was diagnosed with cancer. At the end of this summer, they finally said it was gone. He didn’t even tell me about it for over half a year, and I thought he just didn’t want to be my friend. He was keeping secrets. I almost lost him twice – once to the cancer and once to my own ignorance. So no, I won’t leave him.”

“Wow,” Kris said, feeling guilty for pressuring the kid so much. “I didn’t know that. Sorry.” Chanyeol looked indifferent. “Well… let me talk to the guys. I could try to convince them, advocate for you and him. If that’s cool with you.”

“I’ll go anywhere as long as I can have Baekhyun with me.”

Kris nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

When Kris tried to explain to his friends about Chanyeol and Baekhyun, how Chanyeol was in love with the small boy and there was no way of separating them, it only made the situation worse. His friends began to pick on Baekhyun, calling him gay and a pathetic loser, tripping him when he walked past them, and generally trying to make his life miserable. They tried the same with Chanyeol, but Chanyeol didn’t care. He began to pick fights with the kids whenever they went after Baekhyun because Kris had told him it was a kill-or-be-killed situation, and Chanyeol knew there was no way he was leaving his Baekhyun undefended.

Kris stood by for the most part, but soon he started standing up for Chanyeol. “What’s so wrong with him being gay?” he would say, and “If I was gay, would you think differently of me?”

“Yes,” they would answer. “You can’t be gay. It’s wrong.”

But Kris was growing closer to Yixing. He still hadn’t confessed yet, and he didn’t know if Yixing liked him back, but he was liking him more every day. When he was caught hanging out with Yixing one day by his friends, though, they told him off. Yixing wasn’t “cool”. He was too nice, he was a foreigner. He wasn’t allowed.

“You know what?” He finally snapped one day. “I’m sick of having limits put on my life! I’m sick of you treating people like crap for being gay. I like guys – I like Yixing. That doesn’t make me less cool.”

Heechul, the leader of the group, slapped Kris, and told him that, yes, it did make him less cool, and he could stop hanging around them – he was out of the group. Kris was left on his own, humiliated.

However, a boy in his group – a year younger and very small but still feared by many – told Heechul that he was taking things too far, and if he didn’t rethink it, the boy too would leave. Heechul didn’t care, and Kris gained the companionship of the kid. His name was Jongdae, and he wasn’t afraid of Heechul or anyone else. The reason he’d been in the group in the first place was because he had picked a fight with one of the group members and totally kicked his , impressing Heechul, who asked him to join them. Kris was glad to have Jongdae on his side.

Not long after that, Kris told Chanyeol he could join him and Jongdae, with Baekhyun. He knew there was strength in numbers, and Chanyeol wasn’t doing well fending on his own. When Heechul didn’t like you, no one did. It would benefit both him and Kris to have a group of four, rather than two of two. Chanyeol could see this, and accepted the offer.

In the cafeteria the following day, Kris was initially confused, almost going to sit at his regular table before remembering he was no longer welcome there. Then he spotted Yixing, sitting alone as he usually did, though still looking cheerful even in his unaccompanied state. Kris approached him, asking if he and his new friends could sit with the Chinese boy. Of course, Yixing said yes.

Kris flirted with Yixing a lot, but the boy was either very oblivious or just too polite to turn him down. Only Jongdae seemed to notice, likely because he had been there when Kris had said he had feelings for Yixing.

As the year progressed, it became something of a battle of power between Heechul and Kris’ groups. Heechul reigned, and most people followed him, treating Kris and the rest like . They stood up for themselves, though – and Chanyeol for Baekhyun – not taking anything from anyone, making themselves known as people to be taken seriously. They fought with kids who tried to challenge them frequently, and always came out on top. Kris wasn’t backing down just because Heechul had expelled him from his pack.

They made it through, and Heechul graduated, many of his group members leaving with him. The following year, Tao and Jongin arrived, both intimidating and desired by Kris. It quickly became obvious Tao still had feelings for him, but Kris still had feelings for Yixing. After a lot of contemplation, he decided it would be best to move on from him, however, because one of the things that was held over him was his uality, and attraction to Yixing, which Heechul was sure to spread around the school before he left. Kris did his best to deny it, but he supposed he couldn’t be with Yixing ever, because of it. Within another year, he began his secret relationship with Tao, but there was a permanent ache in his chest, a scar left as a reminder of the chance he had lost. Tao was very healing, which Kris appreciated, but he would always have that something for Yixing – like your first crush that you could never forget.

In his final year in high school, Kris became the king. No one dared to question him anymore. Still, he didn’t lighten up. He had learned his lesson – you had to earn your way to freedom, safety. Fight, sacrifice, and then maintain it. There was no backing down now. He was feared, but it was better than being in fear.

Jongdae was sitting with a sulking Tao at Jongin’s party. Kris had gone off with some random girl, as per usual, and Tao had entered that depressed state he always seemed to take on whenever this happened – which was every party. Jongdae had pretty much figured out they were together, even if they hadn’t told him. It wasn’t very subtle. He wondered if anyone else had caught on.

He was slowly working through a bottle of beer, when someone sat down beside him on the couch. He turned to tell them not to bother, he wasn’t interested in flirting or sleeping with anyone tonight, but then his heart crashed to a halt as he saw Minseok’s beautiful eyes piercing into his.

“Hey, Jongie,” Minseok said warmly. Jongdae smiled at the nickname his hyung had given him. He was filled up with the memories of his time with the boy, but it slowly crumbled away, leaving him with the sickening reality he was living.

“Hey,” he replied, attempting to be cheery. They chatted lightheartedly, the way friends would. Not like the way one that had broken the other’s heart would. But Jongdae loved Minseok’s voice, and the way his lips moved when he spoke, and how his eyes shined when he smiled. It made it seem like things were okay, even if Jongdae knew otherwise.

“So,” Minseok said. “How’s your heart?”

Jongdae was confused, processing things slowly under his influence of alcohol. “Uh, still pretty broken,” he answered honestly. Minseok swallowed thickly, nodding. “Don’t blame yourself, hyung. I mean, it’s your fault, but… You were just doing the right thing.”

Jongdae had known all along that Minseok was going to break up with him. He’d never fully managed to convince himself that Minseok loved him at all, despite how many times Minseok assured him he did, he had, and he still did even now. It really doesn’t seem like it.

“But… are you okay?”

Minseok had asked him that already, so many times, yet Jongdae’s answer never changed. “I will be.” He believed it. One day, he knew, his heart would mend, patch itself back together. “I know it’s probably better to just let you go,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to. I’m glad you’ll still stay, even if it’s just as my friend. If I’d lost you completely, I’d hate myself later.”

“I couldn’t just walk away from you, Jongdae-yah,” Minseok said. “You really mean a lot to me still. I’m happy things are okay between us.”

Jongdae smiled. “Somewhere, some guy who is way cuter than you is waiting for me, who’s not gonna devastate my whole life,” he teased.

“As if!” Minseok laughed, faking a pout. “You can’t get cuter than this.”

“Fair enough,” Jongdae grinned. “But your cuteness is deceiving. You look so sweet, but you really know how to ruin a guy.”

Minseok’s eyes grew sad. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Jongdae was tired of the endless, futile apologies. It didn’t really help anything. But he told the boy not to worry about him. He would be fine.

At least, he hoped he would, one day.

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bd8d94
Logged in after years and am so happy to see people are still reading this. Thank you all <3

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Galaxyboo_
#1
Chapter 39: Wow jongin you jerk you coward. You deserve that stoopiddd
Galaxyboo_
#2
Chapter 21: Wah it's quite dark...
Galaxyboo_
#3
Chapter 5: I really don't understand why they beating him. Hopefully can see some light
ChikenBang #4
Chapter 41: came back to re read this and i loved it ❤️ it was honestly hard to read some parts cus of how dark they were and i even cried reading some chapters 😭 why were these kids so mean to kyungsoo? ;___; i think i first read this years back when i was a fishy in college~ reread this after seeing an announcement that you were writing again on here! thanks for this story, it was a RIDE, and for giving us a happy ending ❤!!!
shonwanigop
#5
💙
Parkkyungsoo12 #6
Chapter 41: Thank you so much for writing this, i love your story<333
Parkkyungsoo12 #7
Chapter 40: AAAAKKKK I HAPPY THEY MADE UP!!!! i love the ending🤩
Parkkyungsoo12 #8
Chapter 39: oh.. my.. god.. jongin you're messed up again
Parkkyungsoo12 #9
Chapter 37: Wow.. i didn't see it coming
Parkkyungsoo12 #10
Chapter 36: ajsjsjs sehun is so cute 😂