Suho is torn down. Should he wake this boy up? Should he not? But the class is starting in 10 minutes. The said boy looks so peaceful in his sleep that Suho would feel so bad if he woke him up. But he has no choice, doesn’t he?

He gently shakes the sleeping boy’s shoulder. He stirs a little bit in his sleep. Suho shakes his shoulders a little harder now.

“Hey, wake up…” He tries to call.

The boy rubs his eyes before he opens his eyes. Blond hair comes first in his vision.

“…uhm?” He sleepily mumbles.

“I’m sorry for waking you up, but the class is starting soon. You don’t want to be late, do you?” Suho says.

Wide eyes immediately open. Suho realizes that the sleeping boy happens to be Do Kyungsoo, the new student from abroad. He’s the talk for today. It’s not like every day you get new student from abroad in your school.

Kyungsoo hurriedly stands and takes off his headphones. He mumbles a quite thank you to Suho then goes out of the library. Suho watches the new boy’s figure until it disappears from his sight. Somehow, Kyungsoo looks lonely.

Yixing comes closer to Suho and naturally intertwines their fingers together. Suho smiles when his boyfriend does that.

“Isn’t that the new student from America?” Yixing asks. He still has his accent.

“Yeah. I woke him up because class starts soon. Are you done with your volunteer work?” Suho turns to see Yixing.

“Yup. Let’s go back to the class.” Yixing pulls Suho towards the door.

“Ah! Talking about new student, my friend from China will transfer to our school next week. He moves here! I’m so happy! I heard he also will have his fiancé transfers to our school as well.” Yixing chirps happily and Suho listens carefully as his boyfriend keeps talking on their way to the class.

---

Kyungsoo looks at the school map on his school agenda and decides that it’s useless. He almost got lost on his way to his biology class. This school is too big to his liking. It’s a good thing one nice senior named Luhan helped him to find his class.

He sighs when he sees Baekhyun is in the same biology class as him. For some reasons, it makes Kyungsoo thinks that maybe he needs to talk to the counselor to change his schedule. Baekhyun looks at him and fidgets in his seat. He looks really uncomfortable and it makes Kyungsoo tries even harder not to make any contact, or even glances to Baekhyun. He thinks it must be better this way, to treat each other like strangers.

Class is ended in a blink of eye. Kyungsoo doesn’t even remember what they had learned in Bio Class. His mind is fuzzy with so many things to think about. Too much for a first day of school.

Students happily get out from the class as Kyungsoo puts his belonging one by one into his bag. He then realizes a hand touches his table. He looks up to see Baekhyun looks at him nervously.

“Uhm…” Baekhyun bites his lips. He’s not sure what to say.

“Yes?” Kyungsoo smiles at him. It seems like his effort to avoid Baekhyun is not working at all.

“We need to talk” Baekhyun finally says.

“Sure” Kyungsoo sighs but he follows Baekhyun to the rooftop anyway.

The wind blows slowly as both Baekhyun  and Kyungsoo stands side by side. Kyungsoo waits until Baekhyun says something.

“I’m sorry.” Baekhyun bows deeply at Kyungsoo.

“Chanyeol told you, right?” Kyungsoo looks at Baekhyun. He smiles, but Baekhyun decides that there’s something behind that smile.

“I am truly sorry, Kyungsoo…”

“It’s okay. It’s my fault anyway. I promise I won’t get near Chanyeol in the future.” Kyungsoo finally says.

“That’s not what I’m trying to say! I mean, I didn’t know that--“ Baekhyun is cut by Kyungsoo

“That I committed suicide before? Nobody needs to know that. I’m okay. I don’t need your pity. I’m going home” Kyungsoo turns his back around and walks to the door.

Baekhyun feels thousands times even worse.

---

Kyungsoo comes home to an empty house. Silence engulfs him as soon as he opens the door. He feels lonely, yes. But sometimes, he finds serenity in the quite silence.

He walks to the couch and flops his body down. He drops his eyes to the small frame of family picture on the small table beside the couch. He smiles at the picture sadly then puts it down. He doesn’t want to see it anymore.

Kyungsoo’s parents divorced long time ago. His dad’s job made him worked away from home and he came home once in every couples of months. Kyungsoo grew up with his mom. His mom was not really good at financial management. Kyungsoo had to live his life with debt collectors banging on their door every day. He grew up as a tiny-timid little boy. He was afraid to talk to people, he was afraid to the sound of the banging on the door. He flinched every time people knocked on the door. He had nobody to talk to. His mom always blamed him for everything he didn’t understand.

Kyungsoo never understands anything about his childhood. He never asked much from his parents, yet his mom always blamed him for being an ungrateful kid. He was lonely; he didn’t have his dad by his side.

One day, he was alone in his house. He didn’t know where his mom was. His dad was still working and he hasn’t come back home for a long time. The debt collectors came again, Kyungsoo flinched in fear. He didn’t know what to do. His mom was not there to answer them.

He kept hearing the loud banging on the door and the debt collectors kept throwing insults about how poor and irresponsible his family was. Kyungsoo curled himself and blocked his ears but the loud sounds were still able creeping into his ears.

Kyungsoo felt so broken, so alone. After a few minutes, the banging stopped.  But the tears streaming on his cheeks didn’t.

He felt like everything was his fault, just like his mom said. He felt like he was just a burden to his family, the reason why the debt collectors came to their house.

That was then when he decided to cut himself. The one who found him was the son of the family who lived on the apartment next to his family’s. It was Chanyeol.

---

Kyungsoo’s eyes flutter open. He’s been sleeping on the couch without him realizing. He had a dream about his childhood which he doesn’t even want to remember.

He pulls up his long sleeve sweater. There are a lot of lines drawn on his forearm. Some even crossing the others. He traces the lines. Each line has its reason.

The sound of the door opened brings him out of his reveries. He immediately pulls down his sleeve. The figure of his dad comes in vision.

His dad smiles warmly to his son, “Did you fall asleep on the couch again, Soo?” he ruffles his son’s hair. Kyungsoo chuckles then nods.

“How’s your first day of school?” his dad asks while pouring water into glass.

“It was fine” Kyungsoo answers.

“You met Chanyeol, right? Was it him that I saw when I dropped you in front of the school?” Kyungsoo nods again.

Kyungsoo’s dad realizes that his son being quite, “Is there something wrong, son?” he asks. Kyungsoo looks up to see his dad worried face, and that’s enough to make him feel guilty. His dad must be tired from work yet he makes his dad worried.

He fakes a smile then says, “No dad, everything’s fine” There’s no way he’d tell his dad about Baekhyun. Eventually, his dad buys his lie.

“Soo?” His dad calls him

“Yes, dad?”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you this…” Kyungsoo sees his dad taking a deep breath.

“I’m going back to America tomorrow. The company still needs me there” his dad finally says.

It takes a moment for Kyungsoo to realize that his dad is not going to live with him here. He will be by himself alone soon.

“Soo?”

“I understand, dad.” Kyungsoo answers.

“Are you sure? I’ll fly back here occasionally.” His dad reassures.

“I’ll be fine, dad. No worries.” He smiles.

“You have to call me if anything happens, understand?” he holds his son’s shoulder. Kyungsoo smiles then hugs his father as a reply.