[A/N] The previous chapter was deleted for being awful. I know this LONG overdue so feel free to re-read the past few chapters or even the whole fic again so you're not lost haha. Thanks for reading if you do, and thanks for waiting if you did :)

Kyungsoo felt a strong sense of déjà vu as he sat in the bathroom during lunch and struggled to eat his food. He currently had no idea what to do with this entire situation, he knew he made some serious mistakes, but he was new to the country and new to the school. He had never been the popular guy before so of course it got to his head a little bit.

“I should have just stuck to myself.” He whispered as he picked at his chicken tenders. “None of this wouldn’t have happened if I never ran into that stupid Kai and never talked to that stupid Xiumin and Chen. I would just go on by being invisible like I was in Korea. Better invisible than the center of drama.” He mumbled.

This entire situation was so unfair. Contrary to popular belief, Kyungsoo isn’t trying to deny that he took part in the whole thing; he’s just wondering why he’s getting all the blame. He wasn’t the original mastermind behind the whole Baekhyun thing, he isn’t the one wanted to join The Fabs, it wasn’t his idea to fake date Chanyeol or anything of the sort, but here he is stuck in the bathroom to avoid anything else possibly being blamed on him.

He could only sigh before turning around and dumping his chicken tenders into the toilet. He wasn’t in the mood to eat, both because he wasn’t hungry and at this point he felt as if he didn’t deserve it. Maybe he should just go rot in a ditch somewhere; it seems that’s what everyone wants anyways.

As he was about to get up, he heard the door open so sat back down and remained silent while a group of guys walked in.

“Did you guys hear?” One of them asked.

“Hear what?” Another asked in return.

“Kyungsoo is back.”

“No way!” The other two exclaimed.

“Yeah he totally came back to school today. I heard at his party he tried to force himself on Kai and then he puked on him!” The guy said in a whisper. “Apparently someone went upstairs after they both left a room and there was puke everywhere. It was like so gross.”

“He really fits right in then.” One of the other guys chimed in. “Everyone thought he was just this shy innocent kid, but who knew he was just basically a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Yeah, well whatever. I can’t get into any more trouble or my parents are going to confiscate my makeup so I’m avoiding that drama with a 10 foot pole.” The guy said before leaving and having the other two follow.

Kyungsoo shaggily brought his knees up to his chest and started crying. How did he go from the new kid who loves school and books to the new kid who’s a and pukes on their own boyfriend, well ex-boyfriend. This was like his worst nightmare come to life. He couldn’t fathom possibly making a life at this school so at this point; he knew he was just going to ask his mother to transfer to a regular public high school. 

With misty eyes, Kyungsoo gazed at the stall door in front of him and silently wondered if he should just sit in here until school was over. Going to class was surely going to just be a repeat of the earlier half of the day. He decided he would risk getting in trouble and just leave school early. He thought about faking a sickness and going to the nurse, but honestly at the moment he didn’t care. He just wanted to leave.

He got up and quickly wiped his eyes before leaving the stall and exiting the bathroom. He sped walked to the school entrance and just left without letting another student or teacher know he was leaving.

Once he was outside he sighed in relief. That school just filled him with anxiety to the point where just stepping off its campus was enough to make him feel better. He started walking in a random direction and decided to just see where the sidewalk took him.

While walking he marveled at the sight of two squirrels seemingly fighting over an acorn. He stopped for a second to think about this scene as he looked around. There weren’t any trees so where were these squirrels living and how did they even find an acorn to fight over? He took out his phone and just recorded them pounce each other and laughed in the process. It had been so long since he genuinely laughed that he almost forgot how it felt, and boy did it feel good.

This is what he needed, he thought as kneeled down and looked through his backpack until he found a pop tart. He needed to find himself again and think about what it was that he actually wanted and who he actually wanted in his life.

He broke off a small piece of the pop tart and waved it at the squirrels until one of them took notice and stopped in its tracks suspiciously. It looked at him cautiously before slowly inching its way towards Kyungsoo. It stopped two feet in front of him and Kyungsoo pouted before throwing the piece at the squirrel. It quickly took the piece into its mouth and ran away causing the other squirrel to follow suit both seemingly forgetting about the acorn they were previously fighting over.

After the random squirrel encounter, Kyungsoo just wandered around until he eventually reached the mall. It bought back memories of his first real shopping experience with The Fabs and he smiled, just a bit. There was something incredibly bittersweet about reminiscing about his time with them; on one hand, he knew they mostly didn’t care about him and were willing to throw him aside for a new boy toy, but on the other hand, when they all got along he couldn’t deny that he had a lot of fun with them and learned a lot of about American culture.

As he continued to think about random things he eventually found himself in the book store. He remembered sneaking down here to free himself from Baekhyun, Luhan, and Sehun for a bit and running into Kai. Just remembering Kai and the smile he flashed after seeing him was enough to bring a smile to his face.

He sighed and mumbled, “This is silly.” Before grabbing a random manga and going to check-out. As he approached the cashier, he placed the manga on the counter and smiled brightly. “This will be all please.”

The cashier smiled at him and nodded before ringing it up and telling him it would be $8.75. Kyungsoo nodded in return and fumbled with his pockets before he realized his wallet was missing.

“Oh no…” He groaned. “I’m terribly sorry!” He said almost too loudly as he looked at the cashier. “I think I forgot my wallet at home, so do you mind if I put it on hold and stop by later?”

He laughed, “I supposed that would work.” He then seemed to contemplate something else before asking, “I feel like I’ve seen you in here before. You come often?”

“Not really. I’ve been a couple times is all. I used to come with my friend Kai but that doesn’t happen anymore.”

“Kai!” The cashier lit up upon hearing that name. It appeared even when it wasn’t school related people still loved Kai.

“You know him?” Kyungsoo asked.

“Of course! Probably our most loyal customer. He buys at least one manga a week.” The guy laughed. “I take it that means you’re Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo blushed, “How do you know my name?”

“All of us cashiers have pretty much all talked to Kai at some point and he talks about you a lot. In fact, just last week he was telling me how he couldn’t stop thinking about you no matter how hard he tried. You must be pretty special to get someone like his attention.” The cashier said with a smile.

Kyungsoo faltered at those words and looked down, “I think the fact that he’s trying to forget about me are more telling. I’m definitely nothing special.”

“You know,” the guy said while leaning over, “Take this with a grain of salt, but he said he doesn’t think he will ever stop loving you.”

Kyungsoo froze. Kai said that? Even after everything? They hadn’t even talked much recently and he still felt that way?

“Don’t give up on him.” The guy said with a faint smile as if he pitied Kyungsoo. “No matter he said, I promise you that he hasn’t given up on you. I’ve known him for years, and no one has ever managed to capture his attention like you have. He literally talks about you non-stop it’s almost annoying.”

“Do you really believe that?” Kyungsoo asked fearfully. The last thing he wanted to do was give up on everyone and everything if there was even a tiny chance that things could be rectified.

“100%” He laughed, “Also, take the book. I’ll put it on Kai’s tab. I’m 99% sure the by the time you guys come in here again you’ll be a couple and he won’t mind.” He said with a wink.

Kyungsoo blushed profusely and bowed before taking the manga and basically running out of the store.

He decided that was enough for today considering he didn’t have his wallet and contemplated what he wanted to do. After thinking about it for a few seconds he made up his mind and left the mall. This could either go very well or very bad, but knowing his luck, this was probably going to end badly.

--

At his vanity, Kyungsoo positioned his new webcam to face him directly and took a deep breath before opening his eyes and hitting record.

“Hi guys, it’s me. Kyungsoo. I guess I should say Do Kyungsoo to be formal since I haven’t met many of you personally.”

He took another deep breath and shook his head. He could do this.

“I never thought me recording this video would ever be a possibility. The fact that I’m doing this is still bizarre to me, but I don’t know any other way to speak my truth without having a million other people tell my story for me or misinterpret what I say or do.

Look. I messed up. Badly… and many of you hate me now and honestly, I would hate me too.”

He smiled and a bit and he could feel the tears starting to form in his eyes but he willed them away.

--

“DUDE!” Xiumin shouted as he stormed into Chen’s class. Everyone looked up away from the teacher and towards Xiumin.

“What on earth?” The teacher asked and Chen also looked at him like he was psychotic.

“I don’t have time to explain.” Xiumin said quickly, “Just get on Facebook and go to Kyungsoo’s page. He’s recording a live video!”

“What?” Chen asked confused. “During school?”

“Just do it!” He yelled and he looked to see everyone was whipping out their phones including the teacher.

--

“The purpose of this video is just to kind of address some things to certain people. And I want to say that if I personally hurt you and I don’t specifically mention you then I am terribly sorry and feel free to approach me later.

Onto the main event, the first person I’d like to address is Chen, or Kim Jongdae, whichever one you’re going to be using from now on. I’d like to just say that I’m really proud of you. Seeing as I’m from Korea, I know of SM’s influence and often danced and sang to their idol songs growing up. What am I saying? I’m still growing up. Anyways, they’re known to have such a hard selection process so I know you must have been simply amazing to get them to notice you. You’re special and I always knew it. If you’re lucky maybe you’ll debut in a huge boy group and become super successful and rich and you can tell us all about it someday! I mean, I hope at some point we can reconnect and you’ll want to tell me.

Honestly, since the first day of school, you went out of your way to be nice to me, even if it was awkwardly telling me about where I should sit in class. I still appreciated it. You made me feel like I actually fit in somewhere and honestly, your excessive thirst kind of boosted my self-confidence.”

Kyungsoo chuckled slightly before sighing before looking at the camera again.

“I just want to say I’m sorry for missing your audition. I have no excuse for not going. I should have been there and I will always regret not being able to see the looks on their faces as you showed them how you basically invented singing. I’m sure it was magical considering they signed you! The sky is the limit and I hope to watch you on Youtube someday and see you have hundreds of millions of views. You deserve it. I hope you realize that too.”

--

Chen and Xiumin were sitting next to each other as the whole class huddled around to watch the livestream. The teacher was nice enough to let Xiumin log into Facebook on her computer so she could display it on the projector and the whole class could watch together. This whole thing was very odd, but no one seemed to notice or care as they watched the video.

As Kyungsoo finished talking about Chen on his live stream, Xiumin turned to see Chen wiping away a few tears.

“We’re s.” Chen said while turning to Xiumin.

“I don’t even have to finish the livestream to know that.” Xiumin said