"YAH! Don't you know how long it took to get over here?!" Baekhyun dawdled over to the familar food stand, panting.  

"Mianheyo, Baek hyung!" Kyungsoo shouted.  The other eleven giggled with amusement, their angelic faces sprinkled yellow by the streetlight.  Their bowls were already empty and their alcohol cans half full.  This prank was fun.

It was their favorite place to hang out after a long day of practice-- bottoms on the metal folding chairs, faces over steaming plates of meat.  Delicious meat.  Their conversations were overheard by the stars above their heads and their boisterous midnight laughs were quietly scolded by the neighborhood ahjummas.  Going on midnight dates like these filled the airy abyss between their trainee lives and their old, simple lives.  As if food mixed with friends were liquid stitches closing the homesick gashes in their hearts.

 

"Baek, come get your food!"  Xiumin teased.  Jongin even made a gesture as if he was making room for his hyung.  The others burst out in laughter again, this time winning a small chuckle from Baekhyun.  Suddenly, a tall Chanyeol got up to his feet, blocking a great deal of light.  He slung his arm over Baekhyun like the loyal friend he was, pretending that he wasn't part of the plan to hide his bike and ditch him.  "Baek, let's go get noodles."

"Yah Chanyeol hyung!  If you keep pretending, next time it's your turn to be ditched," Tao said innocently.

Chanyeol flashed a neat idiotic smile.  "Tao babie, you wouldn't do that to me."

"Ugh, gross," said a disgusted Tao.  Xiumin air high-fived Chanyeol, and Channie flashed the panda another silly wink.

"Aish, Tao belongs to me! Taoris ftw!"  Kris jealously squeezed the panda next to him til the poor boy's eyes popped out.  The yellow-haired Chinese boy had superb, A-class aegyo.  "Kris hyung, Chanyeol ridiculed, "Sometimes I wonder how you'll get that cold city guy image that the CEO wants you to have."

Suho replied for Kris.  "He doesn't need to act that way if he doesn't want to."

"Thanks, Waterboy," Kris mocked his superpower.

"Hey Li Jiaheng!" Suho retaliated.

"That's not my name, Waterboy. It's Kris.  K-R-I-S.  Kris," he said, very sure of himself.

"Jiaheng," Suho said, teasingly, in perfect Chinese.

"You--!"

Chanyeol and Baekhyun shuffled to the table with the freshly cooked noodles, cutting off the feud that was just getting good.  "Yah you guys stop talking.  Ditched Baek and now you're disturbing him from his dinner."

"He hasn't even started eating!" A giggling Chen squeaked.

Chanyeol shrugged, playing through with his nice friend image.

"Now we're really going to make you the victim next time we eat here," Tao reminded, his menacing smile showing him that he'd already planned next time's ditching mission.

Chanyeol charismatically shrugged again. "Becky's gonna back me up, right?" He rested his chin on Baekhyun's shoulder.

Upon hearing his plea, Baek coughed on his noodles, gracing best friend Chanyeol with the chewed up bits and pieces from his mouth.  For some reason, this was funny.  Everything was.  Like the sounds of laughter were pulled up from their throats and released to warm the night air.

"YAA!!!"

 

Twilight adventures were an outlet when skinned knees, strained throats, and piled angst reached the brink of tipping over their lives.  Being a trainee wasn't easy: If school was brutal, practice was merciless.  But twelve teenagers found something in each other that they couldn't find anywhere else.  Something that consisted of soju, meat, and going out all night.  A repose of both deafening laughter and relaxing tranquility.  A repose on Earth.

 

"Do we really have to go up this hill?"  Chanyeol clinged his right arm to Baekhyun, his other to Suho.  Everything was so small and so far away and his fear of heights didn't make it any better.

As always, Leader Suho paid for everyone's meals because he had assets as great as Siwon's.  They were so great that even after the meals for 12, his wallet still jingled with coins and won bills when he bent down and leaned his elbows against the grass.  There was just something rewarding about taking care of his dongsaengs.

Baekhyun laid in a similar position, but with his arms stretched backward in a triangle, the back of his head pressed against his palms.

The view of Seoul at night from a hill was nowhere near its sunny counterpart.  The tiny rectangular prisms rose like transparent glass castles from the ground.  The bright ones screamed for attention; the dark ones hid in the shadows.  But when dawn comes and pins down the glossy blackness, everything would revert to the way it was before...

"Baekhyun!"  Chanyeol rolled over to him, appearing in his sight before he was done studying the Seoul city lights.

 He scoffed.  "Chanyeol-sshi, are you bothering me because you are scared of heights?"  He'd already forgiven them for the prank, but it wasn't like he was mad at the first place.

He ignored his embarassing question, brushing it off as if he'd heard it from Baaekhyun's rectangle mouth many times.  Now, continuing like an inquisitive yet strangely philosophical five-year old:  "Do you ever think... about why we're living?"

"Oh, not this again," an eavesdropping Luhan complained.  He shifted in his grassy seat and rolled his deer eyes.

"What hyung said," replied Baekhyun.

He ignores him.  "No, really.  Baek. Baek, answer.  Beck. Baek.  Beck," He scrunched his brows. "Baek. Beck. Peck. Beck. Beckieee."

 "Chanyeol. Chan. Yeol. Yeol. Yeol. Channie. Yeol. ChanChan. Yeol."

"Baek. Beck. Baek. Beck. Peck--" Okay, Chanyeol was winning this one.

Baekhyun sighed.  "What's the question again?"

"What's life for."

He thinks of a clever response, then gathers his thoughts to put into what he thinks is a poem.  "People live to love, hurt, and die.  That's life.  We live to die."

Cynical bastard, he thought.  Typical Baekhyun.  Chanyeol got out of Baekhyun's face, dissatisfied with the thoughtless reply.  He then hovered over to his chest and cutely found the way to his heart.  He propped his ear on top of the beating muscle and pretended to sleep.  The rhythmic sound drowned out all the noises and whistles of the city cars.

---

Love is sharing underwear in the dorms.  Hurt is when you found out Wu Yifan took your and stretched them a whole lot.  And death is when that pair of underwear stretches so much that you just can't wear them anymore. Nope. Nothing is that easy, Baekhyun thought, still pondering about Chanyeol's question.  He looks at his ruined and stuffs it back in the far corner of the drawer.  He pulls out a blue plaid shirt and a pair of jeans and gets dressed for the day.  Another day of practice.  He sighs.  Back to life.

Another day of going to school.

"WHAT?! Myungsoo got a perfect on that test?"

"It was on differential equations too!!"

"And here we have the participle phrase: the adjective..."

"No, no you got it wrong, centrifugal force has nothing to do with centripetal force."

"Dude, Lay is so hot."

"This is the gerund, always add -ing..."

"Which would land first: the metal ball or the..."

"Eat lunch with me..."

"Can you help me on this one?"

 

And another day of training.

"Baekhyun, project your high notes. You're doing it..."

"Suho, sing from your diaphragm!"

"Your foot has to touch the floor..."

"You're kind of flat, Chen."

"Got it."

"Aish, it's so hot in here."

"You have to spot when you turn, otherwise..."

"Baekhyun, come here."

Baekhyun stiffened at the throaty voice.  It belonged to the CEO.