The drive home was surprisingly quiet with Kyungsoo leaning on him in the back seat and staring off into space. When they'd rode there, Chanyeol had made sure the older was in the passenger seat next to him, but he cast him off on the ride back.

Instead Baekhyun was practically hanging around the giant's neck, mining for every detail he could get out of his now fiancé about what the plans were. Of course, the plans mostly were just reiterations of what the blonde had probably detailed a million times over, but it still seemed to excite him.

Or maybe he was just acting this way to drive Kyungsoo crazy.

Since the day Chanyeol left, Kai had been very suspicious of their relationship. For all the dirty he'd found out that the giant was comfortable with, he'd never questioned his character as much as he should of.

His loud , indiscretion, and adultery somehow never set off any alarms in Kai's mind ... after-all, the giant was his best friend. Even at his worst, he couldn't be that bad.

That's what he'd always believed ... but things had been shaken, specifically by his implications the day he silently left for home. Maybe Jongin was just reading into things too much, but it seemed like Yeol wasn't just bailing because he'd gotten a second chance with Baek.

It was the bitterness to how he'd addressed it -- specifically his lack of action -- that made the younger think that maybe things had darker origins. He hated feeling this way because there is no comfortable way to suspect things of people you're close too.

But everything just seemed so ... so ... twisted. Dragging Kyungsoo out here to see this (while Baekhyun may not have known the extent of his relationship with Yeol, the giant didn't have the same excuse) wasn't right. What Yeol and Soo were doing wasn't right either, but why on earth would he feel it necessary to punish someone he considered just 'his side piece.'

The older's breathing became more shallow and he ran his hand down Kyungsoo's arm to see if he was still awake. When he didn't react, Kai felt pretty confident he'd nodded off which would have been a good thing after how tiring today was.

At least there was this .... this lovely moment in which he got to just hold the person he adored and tried to forget about all the rest that had happened. Before he knew it, he was starting to feel his eyes get lazy too and he didn't fight his body to stay conscious.

He blinked himself back awake when he felt light beat his lids and he woke up to the sight of the blinding city. It wasn't much longer till they got to their complex, so he was grateful to his body for so diligently bringing him back from the world of dreams.

Silence filled the car and he couldn't help but notice that things had quieted as soon as Kyungsoo and he had fallen asleep. Before Baekhyun was annoyingly gushing about their future plans, but it seemed as soon as someone wasn't there to be 'dazzled' by it, the blonde didn't care.

That suspicion was making him dream up scenarios again, but increasingly it was getting hard not too. This behavior was just so strange and it seemed so intentional.

As soon as they parked in the garage, Baek rushed himself out of the car and practically ran to the elevator. Such strange behavior for someone who'd just been proposed to.

Chanyeol gazed into the mirror and Jongin and he caught eyes, "he's so adorable when he's asleep."

"I'd know that better than you," Kai could taste the disdain in his every syllable.

"That's probably true ..." he let it slide, but maybe the giant just didn't notice the obvious elephant in the room right now, "... I kind of don't want to wake him up."

He wished Chanyeol would stop pretending to care. He wished Chanyeol would just be ing clear right now because Jongin felt more trapped than ever even with this supposed freedom.

"You should go be with your future husband," he wasn't sure how to phrase things right now so of course everything was going to come off terribly biting, "I'll take care of him."

"Your tone is pointed," the giant was catching on. But the energy for a fight was sapped from Kai; he just wanted to get Kyungsoo away from the monsters that wanted to crush his spirit so.

The older wasn't anyone's rag-doll, but he was fragile and the younger had made it his duty long ago to protect this supreme beauty which he was allowed to possess.

Kai carefully pushed Soo off and onto the seat and then next dipped one arm under the older's thighs and the other behind his shoulders. And with utmost attentiveness, doing his best not to awake his beloved, he scooped him up and got out of the car.

It took a minute to adjust himself to adding this weight -- after-all, a lot of his muscles were more show-muscles than strength bearing ones -- but he found his footing and took a step. Then another. And another. Until he was finally walking stably enough to carry Kyungsoo all the way over, into the elevator, and up to their floor.

It was amazing to him how Kyungsoo was completely sleeping through this ordeal as Jongin was actually kind of struggling with this. Lately the older had been sleeping a lot stronger than he had in the past ... it seemed like Soo was becoming more trusting of the man in his life.

There was so much that the younger had grown to love ... so many little Soo niches that he enjoyed in a strange way. Partially it was these little things that helped him realize how he truly felt in the beginning.

When he finally got to the apartment door, he fumbled to get his key and tried to keep the older in his arms, but it was too hard to balance him and have one hand probing his pocket. There was no way he was going to be able to get the door open and continue holding Kyungsoo so he finally relented, and used his last possible option.

"Soo," he was cooing a little, he wanted to awake the older without startling him, "Kyungsoo ... Kyungsoo ... I need you to wake up."

The older wasn't budging so he took more drastic measures.

He rocked his a