Ever since Sehun’s slip up about Chanyeol’s friends at lunch on Monday, the dance troupe will not leave Chanyeol alone.

Starting on Tuesday, the entire dance troupe waits outside in the student parking lot for Chanyeol to show up; from there, Zitao walks with Chanyeol to his first period history class, since Zitao has geography on the same hallway. Chanyeol doesn’t think much about it until Sehun is somewhat patiently waiting for him outside of his history class, and he knows for a fact that Sehun’s next period isn’t remotely close to his. As Sehun escorts him to his drama class, Chanyeol asks, “Don’t you have math this period?” After seeing Sehun simply nod his head, Chanyeol frowns and slightly narrows his eyes, “Aren’t you going to be late?” which makes Sehun chuckle sardonically, “Yes, and I don’t really give a .”

Chanyeol walks out of his drama class to see the five members of the dance troupe standing against a wall, seemingly waiting for him. The six of them walk to Chanyeol’s English class, the dance troupe claiming that it doesn’t really matter if they’re late to dance class. Sure enough, after his English class, Chanyeol walks a few steps down the hallway only to be greeted by the sight of Jongin running towards him; he then grabs Chanyeol’s bicep and pulls him to their shared fourth period: literature.

When Chanyeol exits his literature classroom after the bell sounds, he sees Taemin leaning against the lockers. Chanyeol shrinks a bit in fear, somewhat expecting some sort of a lecture from him, but when he sees Chanyeol’s obvious discomfort, Taemin laughs, slings an arm around his shoulder, and tells him that his calculus class is close to Chanyeol’s math class.

Chanyeol sits aimlessly in math class, wondering how the dance troupe knows his entire schedule, until the bell rings and he finds the five of them standing against the water fountain near the classroom, and the six of them walk together to the cafeteria. After lunch, Sehun leads him to his band class, once again under the, “I don’t give a ,” pretense, but by this point, Chanyeol thinks Sehun planned this whole thing himself, partially out of guilt from the day before, so in a sense, Chanyeol supposes Sehun really does, “give a ,” at least about something. When he walks out of his band class, Chanyeol is fully prepared to see someone of the dance troupe waiting for him, and just as he thought, Yixing is sitting on the ground outside the bandroom, iPod and a novel in hand, before he sees Chanyeol and stands up with a wide grin plastered on his face. From there, Yixing leads him to Chanyeol final period of the day, chemistry, which is conveniently a few classrooms away from his forensics class.

Though the person who escorts him to class sixth period changes everyday (Tuesday it was Sehun, Wednesday - Taemin, Thursday - Zitao, Friday - Jongin), the general routine continues for the rest of the week, and with Chanyeol’s constant sight of someone in the dance troupe, he hardly realizes that he does not notice any of his former friends around anymore, and he doesn’t feel too upset about that.

It isn’t until the following Monday that he even has an actual, lengthy conversation with one of his old friends, marking nearly a week and a half without talking to any of them. After Jongin leads Chanyeol into their shared literature class and removes his arm from around Chanyeol’s waist, he stares begrudgingly at Chanyeol’s desk beside Jongdae and walks away to the other side of the classroom with a faint, potentially forced smile on his face. Chanyeol watches him walk past and waits for him to sit down at his desk before he makes eye contact with him and smiles sweetly, wordlessly letting Jongin know that it’s alright, that he’s alright.

With a minute or two before the bell rings, Chanyeol pulls out his phone and inserts his earbuds, only for someone to tap on his shoulder and remove his left earbud a few seconds later. Chanyeol turns to the person with an unamused expression, and when he sees Jongdae’s sad eyes, he changes his expression to an impassive stare. “Yes?”

Jongdae drops his earbud and draws back in surprise, almost letting out a small mewl. “I-I hey, Chanyeol. We haven’t talked in, well, it’s been a while.”

Chanyeol nods his head curtly and rapidly blinks, but turns his hand in a way to say, “Go ahead.”

Noticing Chanyeol’s movement, Jongdae sheepishly smiles and says, “How have you been?”

Chanyeol raises an eyebrow, looks at his phone for the time, and finally pauses his music. “Fine?”

“That’s good…” Jongdae mumbles, “If you weren’t good, or if you needed help, or if you just needed somebody to talk to, you know I’m here, right?”

Chanyeol resists the urge to yawn, “Thank you, Jongdae.”

Jongdae huffs and pats Chanyeol’s knee affectionately, “I’m serious, Chanyeol. I’ve missed you; hell, we’ve all missed you. I don’t like to hear news about my best friend through other people.”

Chanyeol squints his eyes and looks at Jongdae strangely, “And what news have you heard about-”

The bell interrupts him, and not feeling the need to continue what he said, Chanyeol turns towards the front of the classroom, but obviously, Jongdae isn’t finished with their conversation. “Channie, I’d really appreciate it if you came and sat with us again at lunch.”

Chanyeol pretends not to hear Jongdae as he listens to his teacher’s instructions about listing the rhetorical strategies that Salinger has used thus far, and though he feels Jongdae’s stare boring into him, Chanyeol pointedly ignores it. As he writes something about metaphors and foreshadowing in his journal, he sees Jongdae out of the corner of his eye flipping through the pages of the novel while heaving a sigh.

-

It isn’t until Wednesday that Chanyeol sits with his old friends at lunch.

Just when Chanyeol though Jongdae would give up after he blatantly ignored him, Jongdae continued to badger him for the next day and half in the two classes he has with Chanyeol, literature and band, and on Tuesday, Jongdae finally had enough courage to approach Chanyeol when he was being escorted class to class by a member in the dance troupe. His first attempts, with Zitao and Sehun beside Chanyeol respectively, failed miserably, as the two freshmen regarded Jongdae coldly and kept walking without allowing him to say a word to Chanyeol. Jongdae didn’t even attempt when the entire dance troupe led him to class, or when it was just Jongin, or even when it was Taemin; however, when Yixing tugged him to his final class of the day, Jongdae, who had sixth period with Chanyeol, slid in beside both of them and beamed brightly at Yixing. Yixing, recognizing Jongdae as a fellow student in his forensics class, smiled and left the two of them, in favor of buying something out of the vending machine, and Chanyeol shot daggers into the back of Yixing’s oblivious head. From there, Jongdae asked him again, for what Chanyeol thinks has to be the fourth time, about sitting with them at lunch, and Chanyeol finally acquiesced, if only to stop Jongdae’s pestering.

And here he is on Wednesday in his math class before lunch, and ironically for the fact that he will be sitting with him at lunch, Baekhyun still hasn’t talked to him in nearly two weeks. The bell rings and he walks out into the hallway to find his dance troupe friends calmly waiting for him by the water fountain, like always, and they approach him with smiles and open mouths, as if they’re going to tell him about their dancing accomplishments from earlier, but he returns their smiles with a grimace. “Guys, I-I-I’m not sitting with you guys today.”

Sehun flicks his eyes from the floor to Chanyeol’s face with a look of disgust, “What.”

“It’s only for today-”

“Sure it is, after all-”

Chanyeol clenches his fist and claws at the palm of his hand with his fingernails, “Seriously! Jongdae has been-”

Sehun stares at him stonily, “So, you’re back to talking to them?”

Chanyeol waves his hands in front of him, silently telling Sehun, “no,” before he squeezes his eyes closed, breathes deeply, and tries to calm himself down. “No, no. The only one who’s talked to me is Jongdae, and I wasn’t exactly willing.”

“Obviously you were if-”

“Sehun, stop it,” Taemin announces. “You of all people should know this is almost exactly how Chanyeol’s other friends treated him before they abandoned-” Hearing multiple gasps, Taemin looks at his friends and rolls his eyes, “It’s true, and you guys know it. Besides, Chanyeol’s a big boy; by this point, there’s no sense in shielding him from conversation about his friends, especially considering that he’s on amicable terms with one of them. It’s only one day, and it would do him some good to make up with his friends. If it’s more than one day, we’ll just have to steal you from fourth period again.” Taemin smirks and walks forward, expecting the other five to follow behind him, and that they do.

“Is Jongdae the one who talked to you on the way to forensics yesterday?” Yixing asks Chanyeol, who currently has an arm tangled in one of Jongin’s.

“Yes, the one who you let talk to me when you went to buy whatever the hell you so desperately needed out of the vending machine.”

Sehun, with his arm around Zitao, looks back at the other three and says, “So, you’re telling me that essentially, this is all Yixing’s fault? Yixing, you had one job.”

Seeing Yixing’s distressed face, Jongin responds, “It was doomed to happen eventually, Sehun. Jongdae has been trying to speak to Chanyeol in lit class for the past three days, if not more.”

Sehun simply nods and looks back to the front, and Chanyeol looks over at Jongin with a small, but very genuine smile, which in turn makes Jongin’s eye shine with a look of happiness.

All too quickly, they reach the cafeteria, but in order to waste time, Zitao and Jongin rush in front of Chanyeol in the lunch line, and when it comes to the point where they have to pick their specialty items, they take the most amount of time possible before the lunch ladies and the students behind Chanyeol yell at them, causing them to chuckle under their breath. Yixing, Taemin, and Sehun were waiting for them beside the lunch line, and together, they walk Chanyeol to his former lunch table, all with varying looks of disgust painted on their faces, with Sehun’s being the most apparent and Taemin’s being the most faint and disguised as indifference (though almost everyone could tell he was slightly at unease).

Chanyeol sets his plate down in the empty place beside Jongdae, and ignoring all of his former friends’ fish-out-of-water faces, he turns back to the dance troupe and smiles/frowns, making many dimples they didn’t know he had appear. Before they go to their lunch table, they either clap him on the shoulder and tell him they’ll see him later (Yixing and Taemin), hug him quickly and walk away (Jongin and Zitao), or wait for everyone else to leave to whisper, “Be safe. Leave whenever you want. You know where we are,” into his ear (Sehun). Chanyeol nods and grins, and Chanyeol sees the first wide smile Sehun has ever directed towards him before he speeds off to throw an arm around Zitao’s neck.

Chanyeol sinks into the seat beside Jongdae and looks at everyone’s surprised expressions while trying to prevent himself from chucking; he pretty much succeeds.

No one says anything for at least two whole minutes, until Joonmyun asks, “So, how have you been, Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol stirs his soup absentmindedly as he lays his head in his hand. “Good, I suppose,” he averts his eyes to Joonmyun and lazily raises an eyebrow, “and you?”

“Just fine,” Joonmyun sweetly smiles, and Chanyeol thinks he may have missed that. “I didn’t know you were friends with Lee Taemin. He’s in my calculus class; he’s very smart.”

Chanyeol takes back what he thought about Joonmyun’s smile, because it’s very deceitful. Joonmyun had to know he was friends with Lee Taemin, because he was there when Taemin and the dance troupe were defending him against Baekhyun’s attacks. Chanyeol breathes deeply and runs his fingers through his hair. “Yes, Taemin is very intelligent.”

“He’s in my literature class,” Luhan says with a mouth full of soup, “and, I’m pretty sure he’s already read every book the teacher assigns or even mentions as an allusion to whatever we’re reading. It’s impressive, and a bit intimidating.”

Chanyeol inwardly chuckles, “That’s an accurate definition of Taemin himself.”

“He’s in mine and Baekhyun’s Mandarin class, right Baek?” Jongdae nudges the boy on the other side of him, and for the first time in nearly two weeks, Baekhyun pays some form of acknowledgement to Chanyeol when he nods his head in agreement. Jongdae, pleased with the occurrence, beams when he says, “He’s not supposed to be in there, though. Something about a scheduling conflict. He’s supposed to be in the highest level Mandarin class, even past the college entrance class.”

Minseok drops his spoon in surprise, “Joonmyun and I are in the college entrance class, and we’re seniors! What grade is he in?”

Everyone turns to Chanyeol, and he shrugs his shoulders, “It’s a bit complicated, but from what I’ve found out, Taemin has taken extra classes every year, so he probably is a senior by this point.”

After their small-talk about Taemin, their lunch table falls into a normal conversation (minus any contribution from Baekhyun), almost as if there had never been a tear in their friendship. Just as Chanyeol was laughing and telling them about a day last week after school when he and Yixing wrote a parody of a popular boy band song, Baekhyun buts in, “Is that all you and Yixing do together? Play guitar?”

Chanyeol’s eyes widen that he even spoke to him, disregarding the fact that Baekhyun isn’t looking at him, and he offhandedly says, “Pretty much. None of the others play guitar, so Yixing said he was excited to meet someone who-”

“You know what I meant,” Baekhyun snaps.

Chanyeol can feel Sehun’s influence on him when he snarls, “No, I don’t think I did.”

Baekhyun huffs and dramatically rolls his eyes before glaring at Chanyeol, and any sound from the table falls silent when he begins, “Do you think I’m some idiot? Is that all you ing think of us, that we’re idiots? Like we didn’t ing know that you were skipping two weeks ago? And what did you do when you skipped with the resident delinquents, smoke pot?” Chanyeol freezes at his allegation, and when Baekhyun notices that, he smirks. “Chanyeol, probably everyone in the ing school knows that you smoked pot with them; your friend Yixing wasn’t too quiet about it.”

Chanyeol narrows his eyes and grits, “Don’t call them delinquents. And, besides I call bull on that Baek; you don’t even have a class with Yixing. How the would you know?”

Baekhyun sardonically smiles and snorts before icing his expression, “It’s a small world, Channie. If I’m correct, I heard some other people talking about it, claiming they heard from him. Something about one of his friends invited another friend, and he doesn’t remember all that much, but he’s pretty sure the two friends made out. However, that’s not how we,” Baekhyun sneers and moves an arm, so as to indicate the entire table, “found out. No, no, we found out when Yixing blabbed his mouth in his forensics class-”

Chanyeol slams his fist down on the table and forcefully turns Jongdae’s head, who was looking down at his food pensively. “It was you. Is that the ‘news’ you heard about your ‘best friend’?” Chanyeol accents his words with air quotes. “What the is wrong with you?”

Jongdae’s eyes shine with what Chanyeol thinks is water, and he blinks before saying, “I didn’t tell him! I only told Joonmyun and Minseok because we were worried about you! I have no idea how everyone else found out! You have to believe me!”

“I didn’t know it was a secret,” someone across from them, either Minseok, Luhan, or Joonmyun, whispers, and Chanyeol ragingly grabs his backpack from the ground and prepares to take Sehun’s advice and leave, until Baekhyun acerbically laughs, “I’m not finished yet. I want you to know exactly what I think, and unlike you, I’m going to tell you this right to your face.”

Chanyeol tugs Jongdae’s arm away from his forearm, but before he could leave, Baekhyun affronts, “You think you’re so good that you don’t need us, your original friends. And, you think you’re so cool because you got high off your ? And, what about you and the kid from our lit. class? Are you the school’s most popular couple in your mind? Give me a ing break Chanyeol; you’re nothing but a narcissistic piece of ,” Baekhyun slows his speech and spits his previous four words. “Get over yourself.”

Chanyeol’s backpack accidentally hits Jongdae in the face when he storms away, and as he walks out of the cafeteria, he overhears Jongdae saying, “Dammit, Baek! Do you have to be that much of an everyday of your life?”

Chanyeol, clenching his fist in his backpack straps and panting, stops by the water fountain and quickly gets some water before racing, where, he doesn’t know; he doesn’t see where he’s going because his mind is focusing all of its energy on his upcoming panic attack, and the defense to counteract the attack. Chanyeol stumbles into a room where two of the overhead light bulbs aren’t working and a shoddy paint job covers what used to be a trivial amount of graffiti, and from there he slumps down the wall and holds his head in his hands as he feels the small streams of tears from anger, stress, and anxiety travel down his face.

Chanyeol haphazardly throws his backpack somewhere in the room, and he shakes side-to-side in an almost fetal position. His heart is racing, his fists are constantly clenching and unclenching in his hair, and his tears are still streaming; never before in an attack has he sobbed, from either sadness or fear, but right now he quietly whimpers as a series of trembles travel up his spine and cause him to fall over onto his side, with his face touching the disgusting, cold, tile floor.

While quietly whispering to himself, “It’s alright; it’s alright. You’re okay,” he doesn’t notice the footsteps of someone entering the room, and he still doesn’t notice someone else’s presence until he or she taps on his shoulder, causing Chanyeol to quickly swing an arm back, which nearly hits the wavy-haired blonde staring at him with a blank expression. Seeing the unknown male in front of him makes Chanyeol cringe in fear, in turn causing a rapid chain of convulsions. Chanyeol hides his tear-covered face so that the other can’t see him, but he knows it’s too late when the other asks, “Are you alright?”

Hearing the one question he usually hates the most from the stranger makes Chanyeol break down in more sobs and uncontrollable gasps, and when the stranger tries to touch him, Chanyeol’s heart feels like it skipped a beat in complete terror, halfway caused by the other’s touch, halfway caused by his body’s knowledge that he has completely lost control of himself.

The stranger tries to touch him again, and every time Chanyeol feels his heart pounding harshly in his chest, to the point that Chanyeol, through his heavy breathing, croaks, “Stop-” gasp “please-” choking sound “stop.”

He thinks he hears the stranger leave, which causes Chanyeol to hit his head on the wall in self-hatred, that he scared away someone who was only trying to help, that he’s physically incapable of acting like a normal human being. His convulsions only worsen, and he feels the tell-tale sign of vomiting in his throat, so he tries to rise so that he doesn’t puke on his himself. Just as he belches and prepares for vomiting, the stranger, who apparently never left, yells, “Look at me!”

Chanyeol picks his head up from the wall, and after his wheezing transforms into steadier breaths, he looks at the student who is squatting down and looking at him with a more concerned gaze now. “I want to help. How can I help? Do I need to get the nurse?”

The thought of more people has Chanyeol’s mind racing and his heart pounding, so he quickly shakes his head and sighs, “No, please no.”

“You need someone who can help you, and I don’t-”

“I don’t need anyone,” Chanyeol growls, and the last bit of his composed facade breaks, and his head falls forward on his knees, his tears soaking his jeans. Once again, the stranger tries to touch him, but this time, Chanyeol is so resigned, and his body is so tired that it can’t put up an actual fight against his touch, so Chanyeol does what’s natural and leans into it. The stranger wraps his hand around Chanyeol’s waist, and the action feels very familiar to something someone did earlier to him, except that Chanyeol’s mind is too busy trying to fight the attack that he can’t remember anything.

“My name is Kibum,” the stranger cooes. “Do you know what I can do to help you?”

Chanyeol continues to tremble, and he shakes his head no. Chanyeol squeezes his knees with his hands and whispers to himself, “.... Don’t with his emotions…. One of the most selfless people….”

Kibum rubs his hand up and down Chanyeol’s back in an effort to comfort him, “What did you say?”

Chanyeol, not realizing that Kibum said that and not his own mind, quietly retorts, “Taemin said it, not me. Taemin….”

Kibum’s eyes widen, and he continues to rub Chanyeol’s back as he pulls out his phone, “What about Taemin?”

“Taemin-” pant “dance troupe-” wheeze “Yixing-” cough “Sehun Zitao-” gasp “J-Jongin” sob. “.... need…. Jongin….. need.”

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Kibum murmurs and lifts Chanyeol’s quivering torso so that he’s sitting upright. “Just… Calm down, okay? It’s alright.”

Kibum wraps an arm around Chanyeol’s waist again and continues to hold him until Chanyeol hears more footsteps surrounding him and he freezes before convulsing again. He hears a little chatter before all sound falls silent, and Chanyeol squeezes his eyes closed to prevent looking at the intruders.

“Chanyeol!” Someone who sounds an awful lot like Taemin yells, and Chanyeol tucks his head into Kibum’s neck so that whoever it is doesn’t see him crying. He feels Kibum moving beside him, and he gasps, “Don’t!” Kibum gently pats his head and stays still, and Chanyeol feels his intakes of breath slowing down, and his trembles lessening, until someone who sounds a lot like Sehun says, “Is he alright?”

Once again, he feels Kibum try to pull away from him, and he tries to clutch on to him before he leaves, but someone who sounds like Jongin whispers, “Chanyeol open your eyes and look at me.”

Chanyeol opens his eyes and sees Jongin’s distressed features in front of him and the two overhead light bulbs that aren’t working, and that triggers his repressed memories to flash before his eyes; this time, the sequence starts with the time Jongin entered the bathroom (which Chanyeol realizes is the same room he’s in now) and introduced himself while Chanyeol was in a mild panic attack, and then the time Baekhyun accused him of being, “constantly bipolar,” in the seventh grade, and then the time his parents said-

“Chanyeol!” Jongin grabs his shoulders and shakes them, effectively bringing Chanyeol out of his onslaught of memories. “Chanyeol, you’re okay. I’m here; our friends are here; Kibum is still here; you’re safe. Please open your eyes and look at me.”

Chanyeol hadn’t realized that he had closed his eyes again until Jongin said it, so tentatively, he opens his eyes and looks at Jongin’s tearful expression, which quickly morphs into a look of watery glee at seeing Chanyeol’s eyes. Chanyeol averts his eyes quickly to see that, yes, Jongin did tell the truth: the entire dance troupe is here, which means all of them saw Chanyeol at his ultimate weakest-

“Stop,” Jongin instructs and sits beside him on the floor, “stop thinking. I can see you thinking, so stop. Let your mind relax; let your body relax. I’m here; we’re here.” Jongin waves a hand at the others, and they all sit down in front of the pair with smiles on their faces.

Chanyeol glances at every single one of them, and noticing that he’s crying again (though, not anxiously sobbing, so it’s an improvement), he wipes his eyes and looks away. “Chanyeol,” Sehun says, and Chanyeol peeks at him briefly, “I can speak for all of us when I say the last thing I care about is you wiping your tears. Let it out. I just want to see that you’re okay afterwards.”

Hearing Sehun’s heartfelt words and seeing everyone nod their heads in agreement, Chanyeol sighs and blinks his eyes rapidly, trying to keep his new tears at bay, but it doesn’t work, so he lets them stream down his face as he smiles a broken smile. “Thank you guys,” Chanyeol coughs slightly, and everyone leans forward to make sure he isn’t choking, making him chuckle. “I really appreciate it.”

Chanyeol evens out his breathing one last time, and Jongin leans his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder and wraps an arm around his waist, and now that Chanyeol is calm enough to recognize and feel the actions, Chanyeol finds that they are soothing, and he leans into Jongin’s touch.

The sixth period bell rang at least five minutes after the dance troupe arrived, so everyone is considerably late already, not that anyone really cares. When Chanyeol slides away from Jongin and stands up to stretch, he looks and smiles at everyone playing games on their phones, or listening to music, or, in Taemin’s case, studying. He searches around for his backpack, and when he finds it under one of the sink basins, he looks back at the dance troupe featuring Kibum and smirks to the best of his ability, “I know it’s not fourth period, but are you still up for skipping?”

Sehun sighs contently, stands, then pulls Zitao up as well, “Chanyeol, I don’t think you understand that I’m up for skipping every period of the day everyday.”

Zitao looks asquint at his boyfriend and mutters, “Maybe that’s why you made an 8 on your last geography test.”

Sehun shrugs his shoulders and laughs, “I’ll pass the midterm,” he pokes Zitao’s nose, “with your help.”

“Oh really?” Zitao hums.

“Well, I hope you guys enjoy that,” Kibum says before standing. “However, unlike you truants, I want to get back to class, and since I’m in such good standing with my economics teacher, she may not count me tardy. I’ll see you guys!” Kibum moves to hug Chanyeol and waves before leaving the bathroom.

“For the rest of us though….” Yixing ponders aloud, “why don’t we just skip both sixth and seventh and hang out at Taemin’s place tonight?”

“Way to invite yourselves over,” Taemin rolls his eyes, but his present smile disregards any annoyance.

Jongin looks over at Chanyeol, wordlessly asking if it’s alright with him, and he nods when Jongin slips an arm around his waist, “As long as I’m at work by seven.”

-

a/n: thanks for reading and subbing guys; I really appreciate it!!

side note: i never realized how much i enjoyed writing Sehun's character. i've been considering write a side taohun fic after i finish this one so that we can realize why sehun reacts the way he does at first (usually irrationally) and also so we can see the way he's capable of being a really good, loyal friend who can tone down the sass when he needs to. idk, he was supposed to be a minor character at first, but like taohun always does, he (they) somehow ended up in the more serious parts of the story.