“Hey, Soo!”

No response.

“Kyungsoo-yah.”

Still no response.

Kris huffs in annoyance and steps around to face Kyungsoo and oh- he has his earphones on and his eyes closed. His fingers are tapping out the beat on his thigh and his head is bobbing to its rhythm. He looks adorable like that – brown hair fluffing up in the wind, heart-shaped lips stretched into a lazy smile.

Kris watches him for another silent minute thinking that he will finally notice him – it’s hard not to right, standing like this Kris’ impressive height almost casts a shadow over Kyungsoo. But a minute or so passes with Kyungsoo bopping his head to the music with abandon, blissfully unaware of anything around him, even tall, striking people like himself which makes Kris pout.

“Soo… Kyungsoo…” he pokes him on the shoulder and Kyungsoo’s eyes fly open and he takes a startled step back.

“Oh, hey, Kris. didn’t see you there.”

Kris decides to ignore this slight and instead focus on Kyungsoo’s brilliant smile. “That’s ok, Soo.” He reaches out to ruffle Kyungsoo's hair and smiles back at him. “Ready to go?”

It’s lunchtime and the school cafeteria is full of the all the usual things – people flirting, people eating, people making out, people spilling their food, people pantsing other people, people on their phones and people…. Well, you get the general drift.

Kris is used to all of this – people doing what they want to do. But what he is not used to is Kyungsoo bopping his head at his lunch box with his headphones on for the 3^rd day in row. Usually Kyungsoo would be poking fun of Sehun’s dead expressions or goading Taeyeon in to flirting with Baekhyun or feeding Kris his lunch or venting his frustration at the amount of his homework load. But the past few days he had  been so taken up with some band that he spends any and all of his free time, ignoring the rest of the world (and Kris) while he listens to the same set of songs again and again.

Kris is watching this with a very discontented expression when he sees Sehun huffing a laugh into his gross cup of green milk tea.

“What?!” Kris spits in his direction.

“Nothing.” Sehun slurps at his drink in an obnoxiously loud manner. “It’s just that you are so pathetically hilarious.”

Kris kicks at him underneath the table and starts cursing because he hit his toe against the table leg instead of Sehun and it freaking hurts.

Sehun laughs so hard that he inhales his green tea the wrong way and starts coughing. Kris watches this with a look of great satisfaction until Sehun kicks back at him. Unfortunately for Kris, unlike him Sehun does not miss his leg and Kris ends up limping away to Calculus ll.

It is the fifth day with this new band obsession and frankly Kris is tired of having Kyungsoo in a complete other world when he just wants to show off how cute he is in his new Harry Potter-esque glasses. Since the morning when he had met Kyungsoo at the bus stop he had preened and coughed and removed and put on his glasses about a million times but did Kyungsoo notice? Nooooooooooooooo, of course not, because he was busy with hat stupid band and all that stupid head bopping.

Sehun watches Kris sigh dramatically with narrowed eyes and Kris almost asks him to stop that because Sehun is wasting a year’s worth of expressions for him right there.

After practically dropping his new pair of glasses into Kyungsoo's lunch box and still not getting noticed Kris decides that he has just about had it enough with Kyungsoo ignoring him. He pokes his head determinedly into Kyungsoo's iPod display and looks at the name of the band that has been taking away Kyungsoo from him.

He reads the name and frowns at it.

What a stupid name, he scoffs, Boys Like Girls. Like WHAT a stupid name, it’s like stupid in 5 different ways and like….just stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Kyungsoo's playlist is full of their songs and it makes Kris want to trample his ipod underneath his feet because stupid. Like so, so, so stupid!

“Boys Like Girls” Kris sneers. “Like isn’t that the stupidest name ever you have heard for a band?”

“Hmmm, not really, no. I think I have heard of this band called shinny or shinee or something? Ooooh and there was this one called ‘not making no more sanwiches’ and oooooooooh…”

Kris tunes Minseok out because really, that’s not the response he wanted.


 

“So like don’t you think it’s a super super stupid name?”

“I think you are super super stupid”

Kris vows never to ask Jongin his opinion on anything ever again – he is an idiot anyway.

Kris watches Baekhyun expectantly. He is known to be generally smart and is famous for being snarky. He would have something good to say about a band having such a stupid name right? Wrong. Kris is left thoroughly disgruntled as Baekhyun laughs at him for 10 straight minutes and then walks off without saying a word.

“So he is listening to this band over and over again but I mean shouldn’t you like at least chose a band with a proper name to go crazy about?”

Yixing thinks about this for 5 full minutes before he finally nods, and Kris thinks finally! Somebody gets him.

“True. I totally think the Mariana Trench should have been named something less girlie sounding too.”

“WHAT? What are you even talking about?”

“Why?” Yixing blinks his sleepy eyes at him. “Weren’t we talking about the Mariana Trench?”

“No! why would I even- ARGH! NEVERMIND!”

“So what do you think? Am I right or what? Isn’t that name just so stupid?”

Suho puts his fingers together and observes him contemplatively.

“Kris I feel like you are trying to take out some other unnamed anger on a certain band? Sit down, we can talk about this, we can get you through this, I promise, you have wonderful friends who won’t abandon you and-”

But Kris had already left, because he should have known better than to go to the budding psychologist-slash-class-president for anything.

In a fit of desperation Kris decides to pose his question at Sehun. He had known it was a bad idea from the very beginning but well, it couldn’t be worse than the answers the other have been giving him right? He finds out later, sadly, that he had been wrong about this too.

They are in the cafeteria polishing off the last of their lunch (Kyungsoo had been dragged off for extra choir practice) when he asks Sehun the question.

Sehun is so silent at first that he thinks he might not have heard him. But then he looks up at Kris from his horrible green tea latte and says “speaking about stupid things - I actually have a better question.”

“Oh?” Kris asks eagerly taking a large sip of his chocolate milk – this is starting to sound promising.

 “Well, I was wondering why you are stupid enough not to do anything about your little crush on Kyungsoo instead of going around asking people stupid questions?”

His large sip of choco milk gets stuck in his throat and then comes spewing out as Kris gasps and thumps his chest trying to drag in precious oxygen into his lungs at this shocking question.

“Wh-wha-what?” he coughs “I’m not in love with Soo-” he wheezes some more. He can’t-no-no way- Soo was just…Soo- they had known each other since elementary school-he-they were-

“Yes you are. And that-” Sehun points at the mess of spilled milk on the table dispassionately“-that is exactly why he won’t love you back.”

This time when Kris kicks Sehun underneath the table he doesn’t miss and this time it is Sehun who has to limp away to World History with Jongin’s help. (But Krris thinks he looks secretly pleased about having Jongin's arms around his waist)

“So….” Kris says as he plops himself down next to Kyungsoo on a bench in the school courtyard one week later.

Kyungsoo merely lifts an eyebrow at him waiting for him to continue as he continue to soak in the afternoon sun.

“I talked to Sehun.”

“Oh. That is never a good idea.”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat again.

“spit it out kriscasso.”

“oh. You heard about that?”

“yeah.” Kyungsoo smirks at him. “It’s all over the school.”

“It-it was just a joke.” Kris says lamely.

Kyungsoo smiles at him and Kris is stunned for a few seconds at how this transforms Kyungsoo's usually deadpan expression into a dazzling one. He clears his throat and thinks that he absolutely hates it when Sehun is right about anything.

“yeah so I talked to Sehun.”

“So you said. Going to tell me more or are you going to keep repeating just that?”

Kris takes a deep breath and gathers up every ounce of courage he has ever had in his life.

“so I talked to-”

Kyungsoo huffs at him.

“Ok. ok. fine. So he – he thinks that I am um…sort of…like in love with you? Or in like with you? Or crushing? Or something? I don’t know?” Kris looks away from Kyungsoo's eyes and braces himself for the laughter, ridicule that might possibly (probably) follow.

All is silent for a few seconds and Kris almost gets up to run away but then Kyungsoo huffs again and asks. “So?”

Kris turns his head around to look at Kyungsoo so fast that he swears that he hears it cricks.

“what? Like don’t you think that is like-I don’t know- stupid? Ridiculous? Anything?”

Kyungsoo smiles again. “Not really, no.”

Kris feels utterly stumped. “What?” he asks again weakly. He had had this whole conversation planned out in his head. He would tell Kyungsoo what Sehun said, Kyungsoo would laugh about it, then Kris would laugh about it and then they will walk away to their next period classes in comfortable banter or silence as they have for the past 10 something years.

“you have been running around the school like a lunatic for the past 2 weeks just because I like a band a little too much, Kris.”

“that doesn’t prove any- wait how do you know about that?”

Kyungsoo reached out and flicks his ear. “Just because I had ear buds on it doesn’t mean that I am blind.”

“But-”

“who even makes that much of a fuss about a name of a band? You are such a girl sometimes.”

“but! It is a really stupid name!” and hey, he was totally manly ok, he was like 6 feet!

Kyungsoo lets out a huffing laugh-giggle-snort hybrid and Kris’ indignation melts away immediately because cute,cute,cute!

“how many years…..? And all it takes is one band to drive you over the edge. I should have known that you wouldn’t get anything as obvious as me clinging on to you all the time and curling into you in the cinemas or putting up with all of your stupid all these years….”

Kris gapes at him, as Kyungsoo shakes his head and mutters to himself.

Kyungsoo… Kyungsoo…ok so he had noticed all the clinging, and the excessive hand holding and cuddling when they had sleepovers and he had also noticed the heavy, fluttery feeling in the bottom of his stomach that just wouldn’t go away at those moments. But they had been around each other for such a long time that Kris had not let himself think of what that fluttering was all about.

He valued what they had too much to wonder about complicating it. Kyungsoo crossing the street early in the morning in his pajamas and fluffy slippers to kick him awake, Kyungsoo lying on his bed as he lazily talks about his day, Kyungsoo waiting for him at the bus stop no matter how late he is to take the bus with him to school, Kyungsoo tutoring him chemistry, Kyungsoo cheering for him in a crowd of people who were booing at him in the basketball court, Kyungsoo making all his favorite soups for him when he is sick, Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo….

Something heavy like realization drops into the bottom of his stomach and for some reason it is completely different from the frenzy of the last two weeks. It feels warm and fuzzy and small and bright and loving- and like everything Kyungsoo is and has ever been to him.

He has no idea what he is doing but he reaches out and brushes soft fingers against Kyungsoo's soft cheeks. Kyungsoo immediately stops him ranting monologue and turns to look at Kris with wide eyes. Whatever he sees in Kris’ eyes make him blush so hard that Kris forgets his discormfort and all his uncertainty and leans in to place a small kiss next to Kyungsoo's plump lips – soft and light but it’s intention unmistakable. Kyungsoo blinks at him before his lips fall open in a smile that is almost a smug smirk. Kris is not given any time to react (or freak out) before he is tangling his fingers confidently in his blonde hair and presses his lips against him.

Kris’s senses are flooded with the scent of vanilla and home that Kyungsoo always seem to carry around him before he forgets everything but the feel of soft, heartbreakingly addictive lips moving against his.

The next day at lunch, Kris feeds Kyungsoo his lunch as Kyungsoo shares an ear bud with him. It had taken quite some make-out sessions but Kris was now convinced that they were a pretty good band. Sehun is slurping at his green tea as if he regrets ever telling Kris anything but he seemed to be handling the fact that his two friends started being mushy with each other pretty well.

However, when Kris starts singing along to ‘two is better than one’ with Kyungsoo nothing stops him from kicking at the both of them until the whole table topples over.

A/N : Thank you for reading! comments are greatly appreciated ^_^