Chapter 25

When Kyungsoo returned to their hotel, she was gone. He took one look at the empty hotel room before heading straight to the mini bar.

When the mini bar had been robbed for whatever alcohol was left after its last raid, Kyungsoo opted to finding an actual bar, with bigger bottles and more intoxication juice. He had stumbled out of the hotel walking to the nearest building with a 'bar' sign lit up in neon.

What do you know? A karaoke bar.

Kyungsoo sat down at the bar, ordering a tall glass of 'whatever will make me drunk." After the second of those, a song he knew was being sung. Kyungsoo getting the urge to sing, grabbed his drink and stumbled his way towards the stage. Managing not to land face first on the floor, Kyungsoo tore  the microphone out of the unsuspecting singing Canadian's hand. Singing along to the sad lyrics of Bryan Adams when suddenly Kyungsoo's face hurt. Also he was lying on the ground. The other guy, also pretty drunk, had punched him in the face, ultimately leading to a grand scale bar fight. Kyungsoo had unsteadily gotten up and punched him right back. Soon the police arrived and Kyungsoo and the interrupted singing Canadian, sat on the side-walk, both sporting matching black eyes.

Luckily for them they weren't taken in by the police. The other guy had apologized and helped Kyungsoo to his feet, offering him a 'Sorry I punched you, let's be buddies, ay?', beer at another bar, quite a bit further away from the more or less destroyed karaoke bar.

Kyungsoo managed to get even more faced that night.

The guy had taken him to a different bar. Even introduced him to some of his friends whose names were, erh... Mustache guy, Big Bewbs, Blondie and 'Have another' man. Okay so maybe that weren't their exact names but close enough. The night had pretty much been a haze.      

Kyungsoo woke up in his own hotel room bed, much to his own surprise, because he had vague, very vague memories of sticking his tongue down Big Bews throat... or had it been Moustache guy? Or... Oh, who cared, he had been drunk, he was allowed.   

He had no idea how he had gotten home last night or when. All he knew at this point was that his head hurt like crazy, not to mention spinning. His mouth was dry as sandpaper and an aftertaste of stomach fluids and cheap alcohol lingered on his tongue. Kyungsoo was pretty sure that if he wanted to, he could kill a man with his foul breath. His jaw was soar, as were other places of his body and he could hardly see on his left eye. Slowly he started to remember events from the night before.

He had consumed an inhumane amount of alcohol, been in his first fist fight ever, and been arrested by the police. Well sort of.  The night should have been a horrible experience but Kyungsoo had actually enjoyed himself. Maybe even had fun?

In fact, after  the first punch was thrown he hadn't given Krystal a second thought.

"Huh."

Oh right. She abandoned  him. At the sidewalk. In a different country. On the night he was going to propose.

He aHe had planned everything a month prior. After a romantic dinner at Restaurant Araxi, he had arranged with VanDusen Botanical Garden to  place candles all around the Korean Pavilion within the garden. They would prepare a music player and Kyungsoo would provide the music. Before they had left home, he had composed his first ever piano piece and dedicated it to Krystal. In the pavilion he would've gotten on  one knee and popped the question. She would say yes and they would live happily ever... Oh yeah... Kyungsoo dared moving from the bed, not without difficulties. After searching for a few minutes and a small emergency meeting between the rest of his stomach contents and the toilet bowl Kyungsoo finally got hold of his phone. 10 missed calls. Kyungsoo sighed. He should probably have called VanDusen yesterday and told them his were-to-be wife didn't love him anymore. He threw his phone on one of the pillows, plopping down on the bed again. He'd call them later.

As he lay there thinking, Kyungsoo realized he hadn't had one of his panic attacks when she broke it off. What did it mean?

Kyungsoo rolled onto his stomach, regretting it immediately. Apparently his insides were in for another emergency meeting.

An uncomfortable cold sweat made his skin itchy and sticky. Fumbling for a while with his jeans he hadn't bothered removing before hitting the sack, he stripped down and quickly entered the shower. Taking his time scrubbing his skin raw, his mind kept wandering. Why wasn't he sad? Why didn't his chest hurt? He reluctantly exited the shower. Hurriedly he toweled his body dry and wrapped it around his narrow hips. He reached out his hand to wipe off the steam from the bathroom mirror. The image that greeted him was quite different. His left eye was swollen, painted a nice, rich purple. His flawless pale skin was disrupted by various shades of blue and yellow all over his body. He grinned to himself. This was definitely a change. He pressed a finger to one of the sore spots, enjoying the pain. It made him feel alive.

He grabbed his toothbrush, squeezing out too much toothpaste. Brushing his teeth thoroughly. His thoughts never died down.

So what if she didn't l-lo... Ll...Vv... That anymore.

She had made it pretty obvious that she hadn't cared about him in the first place. Now that he thought about it, right from the beginning it had always been him, always him who'd had to initiate everything.

It was always him who would text or call her to know what she was doing.

Him who would ask is she wanted to meet up.

Kyungsoo had been the one keeping the relationship going all this while. She had never initiated anything, always waiting for him to make a move. Well, apart from forcing certain words out of his mouth, but had he even meant them? Kyungsoo was brushing his teeth so hard his gums started to bleed.

All his life Kyungsoo had refrained from doing anything remotely crazy. He had spent his teenage years in a relationship that had held him back from meeting new people, getting drunk and screw all responsibilities. Yesterday night he'd actually had fun, meeting new people, fighting and gotten drunk out of his mind. Something conservative Kyungsoo would never have dreamed of doing.

Well, that was all gonna change from now on because Do Kyungsoo took crap from no one! He rinsed his mouth with water and spit it out, intently staring at his own reflection.

Breaking up wasn't a bad thing. No this. This was an opportunity!

He was done being boring Kyungsoo, straight A student, closed in and held back by insecurities. He was gonna stick it to the man and do all the things he should've already done when he was younger but hadn't been stupid enough to do.

Who needed a relationship anyway? All it was, was a waste of time and if there was one thing Kyungsoo hated it was wasting his time. And couple tees.

He had already lost a good chunk of his life waiting for his so-called father to return and to a girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, he couldn't care less about.     

Ignoring his thundering head-ache, Kyungsoo got dressed in record time and hurried out the door.

There was no time to waste.

He had a life that needed to be lived.

Because one did not change in the span of one day no matter how much determination one possessed, Kyungsoo was still Kyungsoo. Perfectionist and in need of a plan. He entered a store close to the hotel where he bought a note pad, a  pen and a six-pack of Redbull. Just in case.

The weather was nice and the sun felt amazing on his bruised skin. He walked slowly along the trail towards a nearby park. There he found a bench in the shadow of a large oak tree. Sitting down he opened a can of energy drink and started writing.

'Kyungsoo's should've, could've list'

• Pull an all-nighter (Not to study)

• Drink 10 Redbulls and see what happens

• Smoke

• Drunk kiss someone's girlfriend

• Have a one night stand

• Say you'll call someone and don't

Kyungsoo started listing down things he had heard people do when they were young and stupid and didn't know better.

Finally satisfied with the number of reckless things, Kyungsoo was reminded of another reckless thing he'd almost done. Pulling out his phone he dialed the number for VanDusen Botanical Park.

"Hello. This. Is. Do. Kyungsoo. I am very sorry about last night but something urgent came up. You are free to charge extra, I won't care. Because I. Am a free man! Uh! And what is up with your maple syrup? It is like super delicious, like. Just...  Wow Pancakes!" Before the person had the chance to reply, a jittery Kyungsoo had already hung up. Fancying himself some pancakes with maple syrup, Kyungsoo gulped down the rest of his last Redbull. Man! Redbull was awesome! Oh right pancakes!

Kyungsoo crashed pretty hard that night. He had eaten maybe 20 pancakes, bought another six pack of Redbull and... No that's pretty much it. After his eight Redbull Kyungsoo had started shaking uncontrollably. Somehow he had managed to get back to the hotel and gotten into bed. Following a shaky 4 hour wait for his heart to calm down and the trembling to stop, Kyungsoo made a mental note. 7 Redbulls were his limit. If he kept his intake under 7 he'd be fiiiine.

His last two days Kyungsoo spent in a bliss. At day he went trekking in the mountains or sightseeing and at night he went from bar to bar meeting new and interesting people. It was such a change. Kyungsoo wasn't one to make friends easily. He had always been more than satisfied with his hyung, his best friend and Baekhyun whom he had met through Chanyeol. He didn't need more friends. Now, it was exhilarating making new friends, no matter how superficial the friendship.

Kyungsoo thought for sure that this was the dream, but deep inside of him, his heart was still that of his five year old self.

Naive, innocent and utterly broken.