(BACKSTORY)

(42) CHANYEOL II

Everything was dark, only the smallest of lights making its way into the pitch black space to form into a single orb as it glowed weakly. Swaying ever so slightly, Chanyeol was afraid it would go out if he even took a breath, becoming dizzy from the lack of air.

“You… You must forget everything… It’s for the best, Chanyeol.”

“I wouldn’t do that, stupid. We’re friends remember?”

Chanyeol woke up with a gasp, large intake of air and bright light hitting him all at once until his head began to spin again. Sunlight streamed in through his curtains to illuminate his room in the early hours of the day. He had the same dream that had been coming around recently, making it’s way into his head when he was supposed to be dreaming of happy things, or at least things that wouldn’t make him wake up sweating rivers.

It’s been like this for a few weeks now, he having to get up at the break of dawn to change his clothes and hop back under the hot sheets before his parents came into his room to wake him up. If they’d found out he was having these sort of strange dreams, they’d probably take some sort of unnecessary drastic measures. He did think about telling them, but for some reason, he felt like he’d already done so before, and yet both parents acted as if they didn’t know a thing.

Once they’d finally opened the door to alert him it was morning, Chanyeol hopped out of bed and greeted them with a small yawn. It would look weird if he was too energetic this early in the morning. Taking a quick shower and brushing his teeth for the morning, he grabbed his lunch box that was prepared by his mother before getting into the car to be dropped off at school.

This is how it’s always been, or at least, that’s what Chanyeol thought.

--

Almost immediately as Chanyeol’s parents pulled up to his school did he see a group of boys waiting right by the entrance. They didn’t seem to notice him at first, talking amongst themselves until one had spotted him through the window. The boys all elbowed one another and pointed towards Chanyeol once he began to slowly step out through the door, waving goodbye to his mom before she drove off to work.

Being the only one lingering around the drop off area, Chanyeol felt more out of place than he should be, heading in towards the cafeteria while the group of boys continued to get closer to him. They called his name too, but Chanyeol didn’t turn around to see why. Instead he continued to walk away from them, as if he hadn’t heard them at all.

The sounds of their shoes scuffing against the ground slowly grew louder and louder, until a hand grabbed onto Chanyeol’s shoulder.

“Yo! Chanyeol!”

Slowly turning around, each boy that was now following Chanyeol stood in a semi circle, all facing his way as they all smiled-

Though instead of the wicked smirks and sour expressions, they were much more kind and if anything, a bit excited.

“We were calling you since you got out of the car!” One of the boy’s grumbled, shoving Chanyeol a bit as he continued to complain.

Another boy stood with his arms crossed as his expression turned grim, “Yeah Chanyeol... If you couldn’t hear us, you should probably get that checked out at the doctor’s or something.”

Still taken aback, Chanyeol just shrugged and grinned the biggest smile he could manage. He could feel the dampness behind his backpack from how anxious he was and then it hit him that these boys were actually his friends. He could still vividly recall the first day of school because of them too.

Long story short, his new name for the year almost became Pork Chanyeol until Jiho had gladly pointed out that the teacher was reading it wrong- and also ended up getting detention for acting so strongly upon his opinion.

“Nobody has the last name Pork!” He cried out, pointing his finger at the teacher accusingly.

It appears that the teacher’s warnings to calm down weren’t strong enough and Kyung had been next to stand up out of his chair to stand on the table, “Stupid teacher!”

Yookwon was just laughing off to the side so he wasn’t included in the duo’s detention. He’d introduced himself to Chanyeol once class had finished and been kind enough to show him around the school. Ever since then he’s seen the school in such a brighter light, the atmosphere becoming much more calmer and enjoyable than he thought it would be.

Jiho, Yookwon and Kyung were the strangest kids he’s ever met, but they really took care of one another, including himself.

“You look tired.” Jiho looked Chanyeol up and down before pointing towards the cafeteria, “To eat breakfast we shall go!”

Kyung was eager to run after Jiho while Yookwon and Chanyeol took their time to follow after them. Through out the entire morning, Chanyeol couldn’t help but feel as though something was missing and it wasn’t because Jiho and Kyung were off somewhere doing their own thing.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Yookwon asked curiously.

Chanyeol was usually the kind of kid that fidgeted a lot, but it was becoming too much for Yookwon to watch as Chanyeol began to tap his fingers against the table top and shake his leg until he began to sweat.

“Yeah, uh… Just tired.”

He smiled and Yookwon shrugged his shoulders before accepting his answer. Chanyeol hadn’t touched his food at all that morning and used his fork to absentmindedly push the fruit to one side before scraping the bottom to drag it back to where it’s original spot. Luckily Yookwon was having a blast watching Jiho and Kyung’s food flinging fight to worry too much about him.

“Hey Kyung?”

Kyung used his bag to shield himself from the oncoming catapult of corn that Jiho was flying his way, too distracted to see why Yookwon had called him in the first place. Near the front of the breakfast line stood a frantic girl, her eyes scanning through the entire cafeteria for something until coming across their table of four. She marched up to where they sat, slamming her closed fist against the table to get Kyung’s attention.

He was still much too occupied by the game he and Jiho were playing to care. Chanyeol looked at Yookwon confusedly at the sudden appearance of this girl and the latter just held up a finger, telling him to wait and watch.

As the girl continued to be ignored, her patience was running thin the more vegetables were tossed around carelessly. She turned to Kyung before pinching his arm as hard as she could, her nails digging into the skin until his jaw dropped. He hadn’t said anything at first, giving Jiho the perfect timing to shoot a soggy carrot right into Kyung’s mouth and into his tastebuds.

“What the hell Elly?” He screeched, spitting out the carrot as Jiho and Yookwon laughed at his misfortune. “What do you want-”

“I need your help.”

All three boys went quiet and just stared at her as if they hadn’t believed her in the slightest.

“What do you need help with?” Chanyeol said slowly, unsure if he should be interfering with something that appeared to be Kyung and her problem.

She bit her lip before tears began to fill her eyes, “It’s Heeyeon. Those stupid boys keep picking on her.”

“So?” Jiho scoffed, “Beat them up like always. You’re old enough.”

She grabbed a lock of Kyung’s hair before yanking on the edge a bit. “Do something!”

“Alright jeez! Stop trying to make me go bald woman.” Kyung grumbled, swatting away her hand. “I don’t understand why you need our help. They’re two years younger than you.”

“But they’re taller and bigger than me!”

“We are too.” Yookwon hummed happily, not really helping, but wanting to put that out there.

Chanyeol watched as the girl tried her best to get Kyung to go and help her friend, his chest growing tight as he too began to worry. He’d never really talked to Kyung’s friend, nor did he know which one of her friends were being bullied, but just hearing that a girl was being picked on by a bunch of boys was unacceptable.

“We should go.” Chanyeol stood up and went to dump his plate into the trash.

The three boys followed unsurely, but Elly was glad to lead the way, tugging on Chanyeol’s shirt sleeve at a group of kids that was growing larger by the second. She did her best to try and shove herself into the circle, the feat proving difficult as a bunch of the kids in the inner circle being much bigger than her like she said.

Once they’d all gone in, they’d seen why Elly wasn’t able to do any damage on her own. The boys clearly rose over her own height, and even if she had enough courage to almost make Kyung bleed without batting an eye, she wouldn’t be able to take on guys like this in such a large group. In the center was a girl who cowered on the floor, white legs getting covered in dirt as she sat on the floor.

Her hands were pressing down her bangs as the boys continued to , flattening out the hair as much as she could while screaming for the boys to leave her alone.

“Nu-uh. Why would we want to do that big head?” A boy jeered, grabbing at her wrists so that her forehead would be revealed. “Big head has big hands too! Look!”

“Really? They’re teasing her because of her forehead?” Jiho didn’t look too pleased to have been dragged out into the school yard for something so trivial, and the other boys didn’t like the way that Jiho was looking down on them either.

“What? Do you have a problem?”

Jiho raised an eyebrow before shrugging, easily stepping forward and kicking the boy to the floor. “Not really, but she does.”

He jabbed a thumb back towards Elly as she hurried to go down to her friend, trying her best to pull her out of there before any of the other boys would notice.

“She’s two years older than you too.” Yookwon added.

“So?”

Looks like the younger boys weren’t catching their drift, even as their friend was kicked into the dirt. Chanyeol watched as the girl had a hard time picking her friend up when all she could do was cry, the scene becoming worse with time.

He looked over at Yookwon who was already nodding in his direction, giving him time to go down to the two girls to help them. “Are you alright?”

Both girls weren’t hurt, but Heeyeon wouldn’t stop crying to the point where her legs turned to jelly and she couldn’t stand. He heard about this girl from Jiho, something about how a lot of boys liked her because she was pretty when she really was like one of the guys in the end. She was pretty indeed and that made it worse that she was being picked on for not doing anything wrong.

Somehow, Chanyeol saw himself in her place, only instead of having Elly there by his side, it was a boy with a face he didn’t recognize. The memory was distorted and whoever was helping Chanyeol didn’t have a face at all, just the thought being enough to make Chanyeol shudder from the disturbing image. He could still feel something though, as a hand grabbed his arm comfortingly and he hadn’t been wary of his touch. Trying to remember made his head hurt and he’d been pulled back into the present before he could even realize it.

Standing up to face the group of boys who did this, Chanyeol realized that his tall stature easily hovered over the younger boys. Over the past year his parents had been constantly cooing about his growth spurt, though Chanyeol didn’t really notice anything until now.

The boy that Jiho kicked down was not only embarrassed, but his red face hid the angry flush that he was sporting after being humiliated. He went straight up to Chanyeol and tried to push him back in hopes he’d relieve some of his pent up rage.

“What? Are you going to do something?”

Chanyeol stood there as the boy continued to egg him on, not really knowing what to do in this situation. He glanced over to see all Jiho, Kyung and Yookwon all just looking at him, Chanyeol slowly feeling angry himself because nobody was really standing up for the crying girl on the floor. He grabbed her arm and hauled her up to her feet by force before pushing her over to Jiho who caught her with ease.

“Why would I?” Chanyeol finally answered.

Although he was being honest, Chanyeol’s words had slipped out almost like a threat. Everyone could hear it, and their vision of the shy new kid was overwritten by the boy that was brave enough to step up his game.

“I mean…” Chanyeol’s sudden confidence was faltering and he had to do something quick before he’d completely broke down in front of everyone. “You shouldn’t be mean to girls. Or they could gang up on you and kill you...”

“What?”

Yookwon’s laugher already pointed it out that Chanyeol wasn’t doing himself or anyone around them a favor, but he didn’t know what else to say. Jiho and Kyung were amused too, but the person that looked like they were having the most fun was the girl being bullied herself. Still standing by Jiho, she was bending over as her loud cackles traveled through the air.

Chanyeol grew a bit shy knowing she was laughing so hard at something that he meant to be serious and wanted to just end it already. “So, don’t do it.”

He looked up expecting to see the boy with some other sarcastic remark, but instead everyone's attention was directed on a new boy that appeared out of nowhere. The boy was short, much shorter than Chanyeol and even shorter than the boys that were picking on Heeyeon. He had dark black hair and although he was the smallest out of everyone here, he had a wicked expression that looked like he would attack anyone if provoked.

“Pick on girls and I’ll pick on you.” He growled, voice scaring off a few kids.

The boy was small though, so some boys didn’t take him seriously. Although it seemed like Chanyeol had solved the problem, the new kid that showed up was stirring up trouble again for everyone.

“What are you going to do about it? You’re so short-”

“And that’s enough!”

Just like the first one, another boy popped out of thin air to hold the first boy back as he lunged forward. He had chubby cheeks and a friendly smile, though the scene wasn’t friendly in the slightest.

“Good boys and girls would go back to class. Right now.”

Another entrance of the tallest boy Chanyeol’s ever seen. That was a lie, but it was the only thing that went through Chanyeol’s mind as he looked up at the older boy that successfully dispersed almost all of the kids back to their classes. His thick eyebrows made him look even more intimidating as he stared down anyone that hadn’t gone back to class like he’d ordered.

“Who are you guys?” Jiho asked more curiously, though his laid back expression looked a bit disrespectful.

“Could say the same for you.” The tall boy shot back.

“You guys are crazy!”

The boy looked like he regret picking on any girls in the first place, just shouting random words out in hopes it would scare everyone off. He was hanging onto whatever little pride he had left, that being thrown out the window as he felt something wet splatter against his cheek.

“Kyungsoo! You can’t just spit at people like that!”

Two more boys came in to try and control the small angry boy, dragging him away before he could do anything else. The boy that had spit in his eye let out a scream before running back to find a teacher to tattle on the others with, unaware that the newcomers didn’t even attend school with them, nor would they let some education system hold them back like last time.

“He was asking for it.” Kyungsoo seethed, a small smirk lingering on his lips even after the boy had run away.

“Good going stupid Soo.”

Chanyeol didn’t know