“Gayoon?”

She heard the voice, whipped her head around to look at it. Kyungsoo was looking at her with a funny look on his face, somewhat torn between worry and amusement. His hair in the sun was the fading ink of old books, a dusting of copper where it hung over his eyes.

“I asked you a question three times,” he told her.

She blinked. “I’m so sorry, Kyungsoo. I didn’t hear.”

“You were pretty up and gone.” He blinked owlishly at her; without the glasses he had much larger eyes, strange and pixie-ish. “Should I be concerned?”

She thought of how Kyungsoo had been concerned for her throughout the past few months and concluded she needn’t add up to it. “Nothing,” she shook her head. “Nothing to worry over.”

Kyungsoo looked sceptical, but a quick flicker at her eyes and he dropped the topic, fishing his pockets for a bar of chocolate. They ate under the sun, as the gravel under their feet gave way to a bumpy terrain of a verdant field.

A shrill whistle split the air, just as she was away the chocolate trails on her fingers. Kyungsoo crumpled the wrapper, shoved it in his pockets. The voice cut through air, whistling over blades of grass and buttery patches of the spring sun.

“Laps around the field. Five each.”

There were groans, the shuffle and shift of sluggish limbs, but not ten minutes later the field was seeing a procession marching upon its planes. Gayoon kept pace with Kyungsoo, who, despite his rather bookish tendencies, happened to be quite fit.

They neared the soccer field at one point, howls and whistles punctuating their loud breaths. A team of boys running, scattered, a formation both haphazard and structured. They chased a whizzing ball that bounced and skipped and skimmed the grass to fight for its possession.

The second time they passed the field, she spotted a familiar figure, a little bit smaller than the rest, a wreath of damp bangs over his eyes. He caught her eyes, held them for a while. The third time they came, the figure came to them and joined their jog from the other side of the fence.

“How does it look on the other side?” Baekhyun joked.

“Two more laps to go.”

“Hardly a thing worth complaining about. I’ve a whole field to cover.”

Her laugh was short due to her lack of breath, and even in his focus Kyungsoo managed a small smile.

“I passed my test,” Baekhyun said, pulling a topic out of the blue. “With a B.”

This time Kyungsoo did turn his head. There was genuine pleasure in his eyes and true pride in his voice when he said, “That’s great!”

“I’ve you to thank, and Gayoon too, to be honest. I’d never have understood half of those equations if you hadn’t sat with me and explained each one.”

Kyungsoo shrugged, dropped his eyes onto the track beneath their feet, as he was wont to do when he was embarrassed. “It’s no big deal.”

“It’s a pretty big deal on my part. I passed! And with something higher than a C, that’s more than I hoped for.”

They were nearing the edge of the border. She saw the bend ahead, the track arching away; soon they’ll have their backs to the soccer field. Baekhyun sidled nearer to the fence, the iron mesh of twists and knots. He pressed his hands against the network. “I owe you guys, really.”

“Forget it. It’s no problem,” Kyungsoo hollered over his shoulder, veering into a turn. Gayoon spun around in her heels, running backwards, waving at Baekhyun. He still had his fingers twined on the fence, leaning forwards. He smiled at her and pulled his hand to wave, then slowly trudged away, straight into a pack of boys chasing a black and white ball.

Kyungsoo caught her arm, prompting her to turn. When she did, he studied her face.

“What is it, Soo?”

He drew back, refocused on the track ahead. “Just wondering if your vacancy of mind just now had something to do with him.”

“… part of it did.””

She saw Kyungsoo raise his brow from the corner of her eyes. “Part of it?”

“Yes. My mind is capable of being divided, as is yours.”

“Yeah, but I rarely think about two things at the same time, unless they’re involved in a related situation,” he smoothly countered. He caught the look on her face and sighed. “Sorry. Should have remembered. No interference.”

They jogged in silence during the final lap.

She left the track alone, Kyungsoo having gone his own way. He’d trudged off with the boys to the male locker room, exchanging very little words with her on his departure. She figured he must be tired, or more likely, wary, afraid to set her off further. It would be a very Kyungsoo-like thing to do for him to take his leave before the situation degenerated into something worse. Kyungsoo wasn’t one for passiveness, but he really did dislike arguing with her.

The girls were far off figures in front of her, a chattering mass of bobbing ponytails. Their voices carried far back; to her ears it was like a river, rushing beneath foliage and the afternoon sun.

She didn’t quite hear his voice until he was near, a few tones deeper than the ringing bells of giggling. Baekhyun tapped her shoulder; she jumped.

“Deep thoughts?”

“Um… yeah.”

“We’re they good?”

“I –Baekhyun is that blood coming down your nose?”

He let out a groan and his hand flew up, pinched the bridge. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes at the fire of the sun. She yanked a wad of tissue from the small packet she always carried in her pocket and handed it to him, for which he grunted something that sounded like ‘thanks’.

“I got hit by a ball straight on the face,” he explained.

She stepped closer to him, curling her fingers lightly on his wrists, pulling them down to inspect the severity of the damage. “They didn’t break it, did they?”

“Nah, it’s not that serious.”

Baekhyun removed his hands; she realised she was staring straight at his eyes, playful and flitting, mirthful. “It stopped before I came over, I guess…” Baekhyun watched her with that same intensity as she let go of his wrists, stepping a couple of steps back. “It came back.”

 “You should get it looked at,” she said, hugging herself. She felt unsure, vulnerable.

“Nothing ice can’t fix.” He waved her concerns away. “Listen, are you free this evening?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Lunch on me,” he grinned.

She paused before she responded. “Why don’t you ask Kyungsoo?”

“Is he going to accept?”

“You should ask him,” she pressed.

“You’re here, so I’m asking you.” His eyes were dark and level. “Is he going to accept?”

She thought of the Kyungsoo she knew, the benevolent Kyungsoo, the Kyungsoo who opened his door to stray cats and fed them milk on his doorstep. The boy who’d quietly finished her mathematics homework for her in their third grade when she fell ill and had to skip half of the class, and never asked for anything in return. “No, he wouldn’t.”

“I guess that means it’s you and me, then.”

“Baekhyun…”

“Hear me out.” He held up his hand, pleading her silence so that he could speak. “I don’t like feeling indebted. If I can’t repay him then at least let me do you the pleasure.”

She felt torn, sighing at the sun. Baekhyun was looking at her expectantly, brightly, if a little anxious at the edges. Her thoughts flickered to Jongin, still absent from his shift, though vastly improving. If there was a way to end this anguish, it was now, with her and him alone, nothing in between, nothing to steer away a proper answer.

“Okay.”

It turned out that Baekhyun didn’t exactly mean lunch, but a meal in a restaurant straight after school. She found him lounging against her locker, swinging his bag back and forth, shifting in his feet like a restless child. He smiled when she came, held her locker open for her as she put away her things, and walked with her out the door while batting away Chanyeol’s pleads to tag along.

“I’m not paying for your food,” he snapped, slamming the door to Chanyeol’s chortles on the other side.

“He eats like a man starved,” he explained as they descended in quick patters down the steps. “My wallet bleeds whenever he cons me into feeding him.”

Gayoon laughed softly. She didn’t flinch when Baekhyun touched her lightly on the arm, steering her in the direction opposite from whence she usually came. His touch was the comforting warmth of a glowing fire, an assurance of his presence; quite the opposite of Jongin’s, whose hands sparked current through her veins in hot, startling bursts.

 A few times in Baekhyun’s company taught her that he was an easy conversationalist, an accommodating partner who is unfussy about topics. They coasted from school to vacation experiences, innocent childhood to erratic adolescence. As Baekhyun spoke of the little details, she realised that she already knew most, if not all, that made up Byun Baekhyun: his parents and their more than comfortable financial status, his love for singing, his dislike of water and swimming.

Have I stalked him too well? she thought, somewhat amused. A girl in love could reach great depths and glean even the slightest, most insignificant details in regards to the object of her affection. Now, instead of questionable sources she had Baekhyun all to herself to interview and pick apart. It came to mind that although she’d once been curious, Baekhyun’s narration now seemed to her pleasant accounts than stories to keep in that little box in her mind.

When they arrived at Baekhyun’s choice of a restaurant, she blinked, did a double take, and retraced her steps to read the sign by the door. Her jaw dropped a little at the scribble of numbers on the glass pane.

“What’s wrong?” Baekhyun popped his head back out the door, concerned.

“Whoa, Baekhyun.” She gestured at the price tags, flailing helplessly, somewhat panicked. “You’re taking this ‘repayment of my deeds’ thing a little too seriously, don’t you think?”

Baekhyun laughed. Though not as sonorous as Jongin’s, it was still nice, a cadence of notes. “Let me worry about that. The food here’s great!” He grabbed her arm and towed her in; his touch was light when he patted her head, cupped her hair. “My philosophy in life is that good food is worth its weight in gold.”

He guided her to a table and made her sit. The menus came too fast for her to object, and the next minute saw her blinking speechlessly at Baekhyun, who, grinning, was taking the liberty of ordering for her.

“Trust me,” he said. “I go here all the time.”

“On dates?” she asked. Corners of the napkin drooped, unwound from a pretty crane to a limp rectangle by her tugging fingers. She tried to spread it onto her lap.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. She noticed it was far too noncommittal.

“How’s your girlfriend, by the way?”

“Well?” He didn’t meet her eyes. “I guess she is. We haven’t talked since last week.”

She wanted to ask so very desperately, but her tongue was in knots. In Baekhyun’s frown she saw a tormented Jongin, who wouldn’t have responded with such reluctance, but instead a smile that buried away his pain, so no one needn’t worry.

“She’s very busy,” Baekhyun continued, his hands still, his eyes fixed onto his silverware. “Even for me.”

The rawness of Jongin’s pain had been bittersweet; on Baekhyun it was froths on still water, a shiver of an earthquake on an ocean floor.

He grew silent when the waiter returned, drinks in hand. His words grew scarce over the wait; the holes of their silence he let fill by silverware, which he toyed on the small plate. It was only when his spaghetti marinara came that he resumed where he left off… before the topic of Yeonjoo was broached.

“Hey, Baekhyun,” she called, cutting off his spiel on the unfairness of history and the research its essays required. It was now or never. “What are we?”

Baekhyun wore a funny look on his face. “What do you mean?”

“It’s… I –” she sighed, wincing internally at her next words even as she said it. “What am I to you?”

Baekhyun grew silent, his fork poised, his meal abandoned. It took him many seconds to set down his fork, to respond. “A very special person.”

“You mean as a friend?”

Baekhyun grinned cheekily. “Of course. Friend.”

Her chest felt light with relief. “Friend.”

 “You were wrong Kyungsoo,” she reported that night to the grainy details of Kyungsoo’s face in Skype. “He doesn’t like me that way at all.”

Kyungsoo blinked at her in the screen. He was in his room. Over his shoulder were dark green walls and their shelves, books running their length like teeth. “Really?”

Given his tentative, if stunned, reaction he clearly didn’t expect her to broach this topic. Except for the brief mention in the haziness of their gruelling P.E. class, he had, thus far, charitably refrained from commenting on all aspects of her love life.

“How are you so sure about it?”

“He told me.” She was fiddling with her phone, trying to prop it next to her laptop so the drama ran, uninterrupted, next to his face. “I asked him about it over lunch.”

Now Kyungsoo looked very surprised. “Wow. I don’t remember any occasion in which you were so –”

“Bold?” she finished. The weight of the situation, the many ways it could have gone wrong, was just beginning to settle into her. It came before dinner, stayed throughout, and as a final bid for the preservation of her sanity, she’d Skyped Kyungsoo with a stamp of desperation. “I didn’t know what came over me.”

Kyungsoo snorted. “I’ve no answer for that, but Baekhyun must have been stunned speechless to have such a question thrown smack onto his face.”

“Actually, he was calm about it.”

Kyungsoo’s brows hiked up higher on his forehead, but he listened.

“And rather plaintive about the matter, if I say so myself. I think he just likes my company.”

“Maybe you’re just an anchor for his sanity,” Kyungsoo said, amusement a pull on his lips. “I mean, Chanyeol is hardly one I’d trust to keep my life a peaceful one.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she agreed absently, eyes drawn towards the grand proposal of the histrionic male lead.

“You seem awfully placid about it.” The comment sounded criminally offhanded, but she caught slight flicker of his eyes, the little twitch of his lips. He was making a studious effort to hide his interest.

She paused the drama and took a deep breath. When she looked at the camera Kyungsoo held her gaze; he’d always held her, not in the usual direct, physical sense but in emotional understanding. No matter what her choices, there was always his arms to fall back into, his presence to rely on.

So she told him the truth.

“Actually Soo, I was relieved when he told me.”

For almost a whole minute he only looked at her. The camera dulled much of the sharpness of his penetrating eyes, but they were no less uncomfortable to look at. There was neither pity nor judgement, but Kyungsoo’s thoughts were palpable and viscous in the silence between them.

“How do you feel about that?”

“You’re asking how I feel about being relieved?”

His mouth twitched at the conundrum. “Yes.”

“I feel…”

She paused to think, to pick through her confusion. Throughout many weeks her emotions were threads entangled. To pull them apart demanded effort that was great and resolute, to snip away the old –the ones entangled with memory but now lay irrelevant –fierce endurance to pain.

But she caught one thread though, it. She traced its knots and its strains, let it lead her blind through paths she once daren’t venture. The conclusion, the answer to Kyungsoo’s question, pulled itself from the haze, into light.

“I’m glad,” she found herself saying. “I’m glad that he doesn’t like me that way.”

For a moment, she was looking at a still, unmoving Kyungsoo. Then he smiled, the barest of hints against his lips, the slightest of all his demonstrations of pride and affection.

“Then there has to be someone that had taken his place.”

The seconds crept and night toiled through its reign.

Kyungsoo lips were still frozen in his last smile, to the lingering echoes of a retold joke. At the last goodbye his merriment dripped, his eyes dimmed. His mask dropped, and Kyungsoo was once again pensive, staring at a too bright screen and its festive icons. He was a good actor, but not a proud one. This performance was his most difficult and strenuous, his most painful.

He hunched over the table, pressed his fingers hard and his lips tight. Her call was unprecedented; he’d had to rush to clean his desk, to sweep away the incriminating documents that her sharp eyes would have been more than capable to catch. He’d sat on that chair, fixed on his glasses, and smiled like clown, as though all in the world was right.

Even though it wasn’t.

He should have told her. It should have been out of his lips the minute her face flickered onto the screen. He shouldn’t have dallied. He should have known that every second edging into midnight, every pleasantry exchanged, every word spoken and assembled into sentences, wrested and wrung his courage thinner, until he had nothing but a smile on his lips and a mask over the truth.

His room was in the furthest corner of the hallway, a lair of solitude. It was a good thing, because Kyungsoo spent an embarrassing majority of his night counting his sighs. 

A/N: Okay. A couple more chaps and I'm done (and I intend it to be as soon as possible). Yay!

        Also, I have a feeling that many will ask this. No, what Kyungsoo couldn't tell her in the end was not a confession.