"You're fighting with Tao right?" Yixing hears, causing him to turn his head and find Jongdae leaning against the wall beside his classroom, with a look of concern in his eyes.

"No," Yixing replies. "We're just upset with each other."

"What's the difference," Jongdae asks. He grabs Yixing's arm and leads him away from his class.

"You have to at least be talking to fight, we're both kind of ignoring the other. Where are you taking me?"

Jongdae stops in front of a stairway and Yixing already knows where they're going. "The only place we can have a private conversation at this school."

"What's wrong," Yixing asks once the two of them are on the rooftop, bags tossed to the ground.

"Are you fighting about Kai and the others? That's been your favorite topic to fight about recently."

"No," Yixing replies and before he can elaborate Jongdae interrupts him.

"So you really haven't met up with Kai or Junmyeon recently?"

Yixing frowns a bit, at the question, but finally concedes to telling the truth. There is no point in lying especially if he's planning to maybe return to that group someday.

"I talked to Junmyeon," Yixing admits, he felt a bit of guilt, knowing that he’ talked to Junmyeon about his past with Jongdae without actually consulted Jongdae, but he’d done it to because there was always a sadness that permeated Jongdae’s air whenever Junmyeon was brought up. "And Kai, but Tao doesn't know. We're fighting about our second favorite topic."

Jongdae's bottom lip is between his teeth as he stares openly at Yixing, seeming to be lost in thought. "What's your second favorite topic to fight about?"

"Kris," Yixing replies. "I'm never doing the right thing with him. I'm either being a terrible friend by ignoring him or I'm making Tao uncomfortable by being alone with him."

"Tao told you that," Jongdae asks, eyes widening.

"Yeah," Yixing replies. "Kris likes women more than men, but he can hang out with all of his women friends. I'm the only one Tao feels uncomfortable about."

"Well if you fell for Kris or hypothetically speaking, if Kris cheated on Tao with you. That would be a lot worse than if it was some random girl Tao knew nothing of.

"But that would never happen," Yixing states. "I'm their biggest fan. I wouldn't do a thing to hurt Tao, and Kris would never cheat. He's too moral to cheat."

"I know," Jongdae says, "and Tao probably knows deep down inside, but right now he's caught up in his insecurities."

"So what should I do," Yixing asks.

"Be a good friend or be a good cousin," Jongdae suggests. He plops down to the ground, sitting beside their backpacks and watching as Yixing fidgets about. "Tao will eventually get over it if you choose to keep being a good friend to Kris. Kris might not be happy if you choose to keep Tao pacified."

"So I should choose Kris," Yixing asks walking closer to the edge.

"Do whatever you think is best," Jongdae tells him, a silly noncommittal grin on his lip.

Yixing ignores him and just stands still for a moment, basking in the warm breeze as he stares into the distance. When he drops his gaze, he notices three familiar guys standing in the in front of the school gates. A bout of confusion washes over him, until he notices Kyungsoo and Baekhyun walking to the three boys, and the scene becomes a bit more familar.

"What are you looking at," Jongdae asks from behind him.

"Kyungsoo and Baekhyun just left the school," Yixing replies slightly distracted. Kai isn't amongst them and Yixing can't help the slight frown that graces his lips.

"Are you still uncomfortable with them being around?"

"No," Yixing says shaking his head. "Are they doing well?" Sehun notices him. His gaze flickers to the rooftop once and then he does it again lingering longer. At first Yixing wonders if he should wave, but he remains frozen. Sehun lifts his hand as if he's going to wave but he drops it and quickly looks away.

"They're doing well. I'm pretty sure Kyungsoo's a genius. I know Baekhyun said they were ahead of us in their former school, but Baekhyun isn't even as smart as him."

"He seems like he's really hardworking," Yixing muses.

"Baekhyun," Jongdae asks.

"No, Kyungsoo," Yixing says with a laugh. "I’m starting to feel bad about how I acted before. I want us to be friends. Better friends."

"You could be," Jongdae points out.

"He's friends with Kai," Yixing weakly points out.

"He's also friends with Junmyeon," Jongdae says. "He's a good person."

"I think I'm jealous of him," Yixing says, trying to combat, the embarrassment inching upon him as he finally admits, what he truly felt about Kyungsoo. “When we met I could only think about that time I saw him in Kai’s room, and afterwards, everything about him sort of annoyed me.”

Yixing can’t help but feel a little bad, when he thinks of how he acted towards Kyungsoo in the beginning. He had tried hard, not to let his personal feelings cloud his judgement, but it had been increasingly hard for Yixing to ignore those feelings after the jealousy had already crept inside him.

"Would you feel more comfortable if he stays away from Kai," Jongdae asks. Yixing frowns in Jongdae's direction and softly hits the younger boy.

"Yes, my cousin and I are really similar in all the wrong ways. You don't have to point it out." Yixing says pouting.

"You have some good similarities," Jongdae says. "I was just joking, but if you're jealous over someone it probably means you're not over Kai."

"I'm not," Yixing says frowning.

"Will you tell me what you talked about with them? I have a clue about what you talked about with Junmyeon, but if you need advice or someone to rant to, I'm right here."

Yixing shakes his head and walks away from the edge of the building, near their backpacks. “Kai didn’t really say much, and Junmyeon talked about your past.”

Jongdae’s eyes narrow and a frown makes its way to his lips as he steps closer to Yixing. “What did he say,” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks really offended at the thought of Junmyeon talking about him, and it makes Yixing wonder if he thought Junmyeon would slander him, or something.

“He said that everything was his fault, and he was a terrible friend,” Yixing explains.

“Oh,” Jongdae mutters, the tension leaving him. “Anyway, you said you wanted to fix your relationship with Kyungsoo and Baekhyun right?’

“Yeah,” Yixing says, reaching down and grabbing his and Jongdae’s backpacks. He hands over Jongdae’s and puts his own on. “Why?”

“Remember when Amber and I invited you to see one of our favorite bands,” Jongdae asks. Yixing nods his head and Jongdae continues on. “Well, something like that is happening again. I thought it would be fun to make a day out of it and you can work on that friendship thing.”

Yixing thinks back to the first time they all went out to see Jongdae’s and Amber’s favorite band. He can’t really remember much of the latter show, but it had been fun, even if a majority of that fun had happened when he skipped out on the show to spent time with Kai.

“Okay,” he mutters a second later.

Yixing doesn’t feel too surprised when he runs into Sehun a day later. He wouldn’t be surprised to run into anyone actually, they all lived in the same vicinity, so coming across one another on multiple occasions was to be expected.

He is surprised when Sehun stops in front of him, looking both upset and anxious. “I wanted to talk to you,” Sehun says, voice above a whisper as if he’s worried someone might be listening into their conversation. Yixing hesitates for a moment and then nods his head.

“What do you want to talk about,” Yixing asks, they’re sitting in the same restaurant that he’d brought Sehun to a while ago. There is food, and drinks in front of each of them, and Yixing watches as Sehun frowns down at the table.

“There’s a lot,” Sehun admits, “but I’m still really mad at you, so it’s hard to sort my thoughts.”

“I’m sorry,” Yixing says sincerely.

“Have you told Kai that,” Sehun asks, looking up into Yixing’s eyes. His frown is still there, and Yixing can see the disdain in his eyes.

“No,” Yixing admits. “Has he told you, what happened?”

“No,” Sehun says shaking his head, “there’s no need. Secrets don’t stay secrets for long in our house. We just do our best to ignore them unless it’s causing someone to get hurt.”

Sehun’s words hold a lot more weight, than him admitting that he knows the limited details about their breakup. It implies that he knows everything about their relationship that could be known and it makes him wonder why they’re even bothering to want him around.

“I really mad at you,” Sehun says frowning. “I mad because of Kai of course, but also because I thought we were friends as well.”

Yixing doesn’t know what to say, so he remains silent and lets Sehun continue to speak.

“Luhan’s mad at you as well,” Sehun says. “He says it’s only because you hurt Kai, but you hurt us as well. When you broke up with Kai, you left us in a terrible position because we didn’t understand anything. We didn’t know why, or even when it happened, and not only did it blindside us, but it made it hard to be there for Kai in a way he needed.” He pauses in his rant fidgets a bit, he looks unsure, and worried, but when he glances up all the uncertainty. “I wanted to know what Suho told you. He and Kai are really short-sighted when it comes to you, and I don’t want to see either of them hurt again.”

“He said he was glad I broke up with Kai now, instead of getting even more attached and abandoning him when I go to College. He also said that you all saw me as friends and not as Kai’s boyfriend.”

“You didn’t already know that,” Sehun asks in surprise. “If we saw you as only Kai’s boyfriend we probably wouldn’t have paid as much attention to you. I think Suho’s right, but Kai asked you to come back didn’t he? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Yixing says. “I do care about him, even now. I don’t want to hurt him either.” Sehun frowns once more, but unlike the other times where he made it a point to portray his unhappiness and frustration, the frown he shows Yixing, lacks hostility.

“Maybe you should think about it some more then,” he suggests softly. He looks as if he wants to say more, but instead he stares down at his food and continues eating.

So I normally try not to go off-topic or overload you in my ANs but I'm in a rather talkative mood right now, so I'll start with story info, and get off-topic after, so you don't have to read everything if you don't want to.

So first off I want to say sorry for the long wait. I know I give you guys excuses a lot, but honestly the truth behind this wait was that I sometimes get really overwhelmed with life, and I kind of hide away from things, until I can get back on track. Also, I'm not sure if I told you all months ago, but my family and I were planning to move, and we finally did last week, and I had no internet until mid-week. Like I had written on my profile page a while back, despite my break from the internet, I was writing, and the next chapter is the second to last one and will be a bit longer. For some reason It's hard for me start the ending despite the ideas I have for it, but I've already begun to plan out the epilogue lol.

Off-topic! Today's EXO's third anniversary, (and my parents' marriage anniversary) and it's a bit funny that I write fanfics for them since despite my initial interest, I lost all interest after like the first few teasers due to my lack of patience and attention and then my classmate told me about History and the moment I saw that MV, the exit door slammed shut before I could get back out and has been locked ever since. #3yearswithEXO