Everyone was worried, beyond worried. It was late at night and Baekhyun and Jongin had not returned to the dorms. When they had left the practice room at the SM building, it had been midafternoon and now they were approaching midnight and they had yet to show any sign of being alive.

Everyone had already called, at least five times,to both their cellphones and they hadn’t picked up. Tao had actually made a valid point by stating that if they were angry with them, the chances of them picking up would be close to none, he wouldn’t.

Chanyeol was making a hole in the carpet, pacing, clearly agitated, even Sehun looked extremely worried, perched on the armrest of the couch.

After the scuffle in the practice room, Junmyeon had no choice to explain everyone Baekhyun’s situation, since the cat was thrown of the bag, by Baekhyun himself. Patiently, he had explain the episode that had occurred during the other’s teen years, that it had landed the man on the psychiatric ward of a hospital, that Baekhyun had to be medicated for a while. He also revealed that Baekhyun still had the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress, condition that smaller man refused to acknowledge, even if they were mild ones, as said by the man’s therapist, that shown themselves in the form of flashbacks, nightmares and intense physical reactions to anything that reminded him of that event, making all of them realize the reactions that Baekhyun had to what was deemed as normal by them, such as jumping due to loud noises or refusing to go on buses, had a reason.

Chanyeol had also told them that Baekhyun was very prone to nightmares and, the reason they were always roommates, were because he knew the secret.

At first some of the members had been really outraged, feeling that Baekhyun hadn’t trust them enough to tell them his secret, choosing only some of them to do so making Chanyeol angry and leaving Junmyeon feeling guilty. Surprisingly enough Sehun had been the voice of reason that calmed them all down.

“We are being unfair here, for once it was not Chanyeol nor Junmyeon’s secret to tell, it was Baekhyun’s; secondly, we are talking about a traumatic experience not about who Baekhyun stole clothes from. It is a serious, delicate matter and it wouldn’t be something you just blurt out, especially when all he must want is to forget. Wouldn’t you do the same? This is not about trust, it never was; it is about the gravity of the situation. He probably didn’t want us to look at him differently, have a little more consideration and think more about his feelings and less about yours. He’s way more hurt than you can possibly be.”

After the brief explanation about Baekhyun’s situation, and the scolding, courtesy of Sehun, the discussion moved along to the two presents that Baekhyun had received, though Jongdae had scoffed when the word ‘presents’ was uttered.

“Presents? Those aren’t presents.”             

“They aren’t.” agreed Minseok “I think someone is purposefully sending them to him and let’s face it, it scaring the crap out of him, he had a panic attack!”

“Whoever sent those knew exactly what they were doing. So, my guess, they know about the bus incident.”

“I agree with Kyungsoo. But do you think it was a prank or something more?” asked Jongdae, sitting on the edge of the coffee table, grabbing the newspaper cut and the two notes that had come with the packages sent to Baekhyun.

“I think it’s a really bad prank, someone must had found out about it, doesn’t like Baekhyun or think this is funny and sent it to him.”

“But Chanyeol” interrupted Tao, seeming a little too reluctant to speak “This notes talk about remembering. Do you think that, maybe it could be the guy who…”

“No!” answered Chanyeol vehemently “You really think that I wouldn’t keep tabs on the guy that hurt Baekhyun as soon as he told me? The guy is still is jail.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent sure.”

“So basically, what happens is that we have an anonymous person sending things to Baekhyun to scare him or, at the worst case scenario, make him have a mental breakdown.” groaned Minseok, hiding his face with his ends, clearly tired by the serious conversation they had been having.

“We have to keep an eye on him and everything that is delivered to him. I don’t want him to deal with unnecessary stress. So I want all of your cooperation.” everyone nodded at Junmyeon’s words, agreeing to the leader’s plan “And also we need to find who’s doing this.”

“Which is nearly impossible with little to no clue at all, leader.” muttered Jongdae.

“Nevertheless, we should try. But, the most important thing is to apologize to Baekhyun; everyone was way out of line today.”

“We will, as soon as he gets home.”

Despite everyone’s wish to stay up and wait for the missing duo, things didn’t go as planned; Kyungsoo, Jongdae and Yixing had to go to bed due to early schedules on the next day, Tao fell asleep while watching TV, making Junmyeon and Chanyeol take him to bed. The only people who managed to stay awake were Junmyeon, Chanyeol, Minseok and Sehun.

“Are you sure they are okay?” asked Junmyeon, sited on the couch.

“Jongin said that they are.” assured Chanyeol, referring to the text message that Jongin had sent him a while ago.

“I tried to call Baekhyun but he doesn’t answer.” mumbled Sehun, earning a snort from Minseok.

“Did you expect him too? He just left pissed at us.”

“As pissed as he gets at me, he always answers the phone.”

Everybody was well aware of the ‘when I call’ that was left unsaid by the maknae. Chanyeol choose to ignore him, he didn’t want another scuffle between them, he imagined that Baekhyun was upset with him for doing it and he didn’t want to imagine Jongin; the brief text that he received plus the unanswered phone call were enough to clue him that Jongin was going to chop him to pieces, he wasn’t as oblivious as he seemed. Junmyeon was in his own little world, changing from looking to the door to looking at his phone. Minseok however was another case entirely.

“That’s presumptuous of you. You’re not that special.”

That made Chanyeol perk up a little; Minseok wasn’t the one to argue with, well, anyone, but it seemed that when it came to Baekhyun, or anything Baekhyun related, the oldest of them all would make the effort. From the corner of his eye, he saw Junmyeon look up as well.

“What would you know about my relation with Baekhyun?”

“That is one sided.” Chanyeol winced at that one and Sehun looked at Minseok in shock “You are a bratty little kid that wants a new toy from the store just to break it into pieces as soon as you can. I really hope Baekhyun gets tired of you and give other people a try.”

“Like you, you mean?” scoffed Sehun.

“Actually, yes!”

And wow! If that wasn’t a turn of the events, Chanyeol didn’t know what to call it. He could see everyone in the room staring at Minseok with mouths wide open.

“Are you serious?” asked Junmyeon.

“Absolutely! He’s an amazing person and he’s just breathtaking. Why wouldn’t I?”

Junmyeon and Chanyeol could clearly see the anger, mixed with a lot of jealousy and a hint of panic in Sehun’s eyes.

“Too bad for you, Baekhyun likes me! He’s not going to look at anyone.” replied Sehun with confidence, his cocky demeanor surging forward.

Alarm bells sounded in Chanyeol’s and Junmyeon’s heads when they watched Minseok’s lips twist upwards in a little smirk that grew and grew until it was well displayed.

“Wouldn’t he?”

And that was the moment when it clicked and Chanyeol plus Junmyeon eyes widened, making signals with their hands to try and stop Minseok from spilling a secret that had been kept from Sehun and other few members. Their efforts were in vain.

“Liking you didn’t stop him from dating Kris did it?

The secret was out and there was such a silence in the room that Chanyeol though he could almost hear Kyungsoo breathing in his room upstairs. Sehun was pale as chalk and his mouth was opening and closing at a fast pace.

“What?” he asked faintly.

“I know that we agreed to shut up on this but I am sick and tired of this little runt over here thinking he’s the big man around here because he’s not. Baekhyun dated Kris even though he had a slight crush on you. You were too obsessed with Tao and Luhan at the time to notice him so he tried to squash his feeling by dating Kris. It kind of worked until Kris went away and you started to pay a little attention to him. Now that I think about it, I am resenting Kris for leaving and leaving him as your prey. You don’t deserve him.”

Sehun didn’t say anything else, instead he got up from the chair he was sitting on and shakily dragged himself to his bedroom. As soon as he was out of sight, Junmyeon turned to Minseok.

“Was that really necessary?”

“It was. He needs to realize that Baekhyun isn’t going to wait around him forever and if he doesn’t make a move someone else will.”

“And what makes you think that he is going to make a move in the first place?”

“At the moment nothing but we’ll see how he reacts when I step up my game.”

“What do you mean?” asked Chanyeol, going to his protective mode “Baekhyun doesn’t need you two to play tug-of-war with him.”

“Do you really like him?”

“I do like him. I must confess I have a slight crush on him; I wasn’t lying when I said what I said about him. It’s not love but I care about him and I want him to feel loved.”

“Angering Sehun is not the best way to do so.” sighed Junmyeon “Just…be careful I don’t want him hurt because of you and Sehun pushing each other’s buttons. I know how this is going to go and Baekhyun should not be collateral damage of your rough playing.”

At that moment, the dorm door opened and Baekhyun and Jongin walked in and, by the look of it, Baekhyun looked tired and his eyes were rimmed red. They stopped when they noticed that there were people standing in the room.

He looked at them for a moment before going upstairs into his rooms ignoring everyone calling him.

“He’s not going to answer you know, he didn’t do it so far so I really doubt he will listen to any of you at the moment.”

The three older males in the room looked at Jongin. The younger man just ran a hand through his hair before acknowledging them.

“He’s not angry at you, not really. He’s just really scared and really embarrassed right now. I suggest that you just let him be and try to talk to him, if that was what you want, tomorrow.”

“What do you mean scared?”

“You know the one thing he didn’t want you to know. It’s not a pretty secret, it’s a rather gruesome one, and everyone knows it. He hid it from most of people because he wanted to be treated as a normal person not like a crazy and traumatized one. He knows that he’s not over what happened yet, the nightmares, the panic attacks and all the screaming were good indicators and he’s scared to death that you are going to begin to treat him like he he’s mentally impaired or something.”

“We don’t!” exclaimed Minseok.

“And I know that, he, on the other hand, doesn’t. But it surely doesn’t help when you act like a bunch of idiots and go around beating each other and whisper behind his back.” interrupted Jongin, glancing pointedly to Chanyeol. “What would you think if you were him?”

When the other three just looked at him with guilty eyes, Jongin sighed.

“Look, I really get that we just found out something shocking and that many of us need to wrap our heads around what happened and sort ourselves out, but we need to be considerate, put Baekhyun’s feelings as top priority and most importantly, treat him like a normal human being. That’s all he wants, that’s all I ask. He’s feeling really ashamed for reacting the way he did, you know.”

Jongin didn’t wait for anyone to say something; he his heels and marched to the stairs. Chanyeol, regaining use of his stunned limbs, ran after him and called him softly.

“Jongin…”

“I’ll deal with you later.”

“Don’t say that. I can’t stand the fact that you are mad at me.

“Chanyeol, it’s really late now it’s not the best time to…”

Chanyeol grabbed him suddenly, interrupting his speech and turned him around, bringing them face to face.

“Don’t. Just don’t Jongin. I’m really sorry about what happened, I already apologized to everyone, except Baekhyun for obvious reasons, and I have to apologize to you to. I don’t want to lay down tonight with you mad at me and I also don’t want to settle this with you later on, it’s not how I operate and you know that. So talk to me.”

“I’m disappointed Chanyeol. We talked about this; about not intruding too much and giving Baekhyun room to breathe. I know that he is your best friend and that you feel the need to protect him from everything, more so with this strange situation we have on hands but to actually fight with Sehun? I did not expect that from you, especially after you promised to be more patient.”

“I know. I’m sorry. He was just saying things that really made me see red and I just lost it.”

“You can’t just lose it, if anything you, and everyone else for the matter, need to keep it together. How can we help him if the only thing that we are doing is making him back away?” Looking at Chanyeol’s guilty face made Jongin pull the taller man into his arms “I know you are sorry, don’t beat yourself too much over it okay? Just try to get a grip when things like that happen. I still love you.”

The last bit of the sentence was whispered in Chanyeol’s ear and the taller perked up a little at hearing his favorite words.

“I swear to you that I’m going to try my best; for you, for Baekhyun and for everyone else.”

“That’s all I ask.”

They stood in the middle of the staircase holding each other for a while, even bidding Junmyeon and Minseok goodnight when they went to their rooms, before Jongin started yawning.

“You need to sleep; it’s way past one in the morning.” muttered Chanyeol.

“I do and so do you. It’s been a long day and an emotionally wrecking one at that.”

“Are you going to sleep in my room?”

“Yeah…Baekhyun needs someone right now and, well, at the moment that someone is me.”

“How is he?”

“He’s just drained and feeling very exposed right now. I think tomorrow, when you talk to him and reassure him, he’s going to be better.”

“Did he mention the packages?”

“Briefly; he’s scared of the meaning behind them and doesn’t really want to talk about it.”

“Understandable.”

“What happened here while we were away?”

“Oh man, you should have been here; if I didn’t hear what I heard I would think I was going mental.” At Jongin confused face, Chanyeol elaborated. “After we had a little discussion about the whole meaning of the packages and tried to understand why they are being sent and by whom, Junmyeon and I watched to most epic showdown between Sehun and Minseok. Minseok actually told Sehun about Baekhyun dating Kris and then confessed that he had a thing for Baekhyun.”

“You’re kidding me!”

“I kid you not. It took quite a toll on Sehun if the way he left the room was any indication.”

“I…I mean…How…What?!”

“My thoughts exactly. I wasn’t expecting that.”

When Jongin’s confused and utterly shocked face twisted into a yawn, Chanyeol laughed and told Jongin to go to sleep. He kissed the shorter man, holding the kiss for as long as he could; trying to convey all his love for the other.

Chanyeol guided Jongin to his own room door and opened it, revealing a sleeping Baekhyun, on top of his own bed. Joining efforts, Chanyeol and Jongin managed to put the smaller inside the covers. Chanyeol then kissed Baekhyun’s temple and grabbed a t-shirt and sweatpants

“You’re not sleeping here?” asked Jongin.

“No. Not today. You said that Baekhyun is a little embarrassed and I know that, right now, he’s more comfortable with you than anyone else, so I’ll give him some space. I’ll sleep on your bed tonight.”

Jongin smiled warmly at his giant thoughtfulness; he pecked the other on the lips.

“I love you.” he said feeling Chanyeol smiling into the kiss.

“I love you too. Now, go to sleep.”

“Chanyeol?” called Jongin just when other reached the door.

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow is going to be a better day, isn’t it?”

Chanyeol paused in his motion to look at Jongin, who,for the first time since everything began, looked uncertain. He tried to smile reassuringly at the other.

“It will. We’ll get through this.”

Jongin stood in the middle of the room for a while, watching the taller man shutting it gently, before dressing himself in shorts and a shirt and climbing into bed with Baekhyun, who immediately latched to him, seeking comfort. He ran his finger through the other's hair.

“Tomorrow is going to be better. We’ll get through this.” he said, repeating Chanyeol’s word.

He shut his eyes and repeated the words to himself again and again. As much as he tried, Jongin had a feeling that things were about to get very difficult.

A/N: Aaaaaaaaaaand here it goes! One more chapter to this story. It was an interesting night for them, wasn't it? I hope you like this chapter, if so let me know. Let me know what you think about it! I hope you have a magnificent day! I love you all. <3