- stronger (sister) -

It was something that Boyoung said that made Yura fully understand how easy everything could have been right from the start.
She and Boyoung sat outside the event hall on that chilly afternoon in autumn and Yura fanned fresh air at her with a pamphlet because she was afraid that Boyoung would faint again. One incident of Boyoung nearly hitting the floor in a crowded hall because Chanyeol's initial reaction had been to flinch away had been enough. His only luck had been that Boyoung was tough and hadn't just out and fallen backwards like the heroine in an old movie. Instead she had slowly faltered and involuntarily given him time enough to reconsider his action and catch her shoulders just in time.
"You honestly have every right to hate him," Yura said angrily and scanned the crowd around them to make sure that Chanyeol and the boy had scampered off. Had she been Boyoung, the mere sight of them would have instantly made her throw up. To be Chanyeol's sister was difficult but to be the decoy girlfriend must have been unbearable.
But rather than to scream or wail or curse, Boyoung just sat very still with her hands folded in her lap. "I don't hate him," she said. "I think that maybe... Maybe I always knew."
Yura frowned at her. "That he's...?" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.
"That there was something he didn't tell anyone," Boyoung simply said. "That there was something missing to him."
Yura considered that answer and slowly stopped fanning. She had never thought about it that way because she had always just seen her brother from the perspective of the older sister. She had expected him not to tell her everything and to hide magazines in his room and make out with girls he knew she wouldn't like. So unlike Boyoung she wouldn't have noticed that he wasn't acting like a regular boy around a regular girl.
But there was something about the way Boyoung said it, that made her wonder whether she should have realized that something was amiss even before he had voiced it out in drunken stupor.
"He seems happy," Boyoung said evenly and looked into the direction Chanyeol had disappeared into after making sure that she was safe with Yura. Boyoung could have only seen him and the boy for a few seconds but that must have been enough for her.
Yura wasn't sure what to say because all this time she had probably only thought about herself. She was the one who couldn't accept her brother to be different. She was sure that she knew better what his life was supposed to be like. She had been so generous to try and talk to the boy. She, she, she. Her, her, her.
"Is he nice?" Boyoung asked and it took Yura a split second to understand who she meant. But even then she wasn't sure how to answer. When she had talked to Kim Minseok during the competition he had seemed very well-mannered and reserved. Judging by the fact that his sister also seemed that way, she guessed that they were from a conservative middle-class family. His friends meanwhile had been a complete contrast to them. The girl had seemed arrogant and the boy whiny and they both were like bright rainbow colours compared to the muted earthiness of Kim Minseok and his sister.
If she thought about it, she had not got much of an impression of Kim Minseok as a person even though she had spoken to him. He was the boy who stood behind her brother and the boy who smiled at his friends' silliness and the boy who seemed pale in the hospital waiting room and the boy who looked at the stage of the crowded event hall as if he had a revelation.
"I doubt Chanyeol would like him if he wasn't nice," she said vaguely.
Boyoung smiled at her with a strange expression that seemed almost sad and Yura unwillingy asked, "But why aren't you mad? How can you not be mad at him?"
Boyoung seemed to consider this and furrowed her brows when she looked down and fumbled with the hem of her sleeve. Then she said, "I like him. And if he's happy now, I'm happy for him."
To Yura it felt like a slap in the face.
Because she herself had asked him why he had to be that way.
She had asked him what the hell was wrong with him and why he couldn't just be like everyone else.
But all this time there really was only one question she should have asked.
"Does he make you happy?"
Only that.

So after making sure that Boyoung safely got to the station, Yura walked back to the event hall and looked around. Something told her that her brother would have stayed close-by to make sure she could find him if she needed him. That was what he was like. No matter what, he would be worried about Boyoung.
And sure enough, after less than five minutes he found him and his new crowd of people close to where she and Boyoung had sat. He and Jongdae and Kim Minseok's whiny friend sat on a metal bench. The case with Jongdae's bass leaned against the bench while Chanyeol hugged his guitar case. Kim Minseok's sister and his other female friend stood beside the bench and shivered in their skirts while Kim Minseok paced around with his hands in his pockets.
And as she watched them she realized that part of her wanted to ignore that her brother's  eyes absent-mindedly followed Kim Minseok. Part of her wanted to glaze over it and pretend that this would sooner or later end. It was just a phase, nothing that was going to last.
But then Kim Minseok's shoelace became undone and he stumbled. And although Chanyeol eventually grinned into the top of his guitar case, his initial reaction was to nearly jump off the bench the way he hadn't jumped when Boyoung had fainted in front of him.
Yura sighed. He was her brother so when he fell, he probably fell hard. After all, they were the children of their mother, a woman who never got tired of singing the same old love song over and over again and who loved a man who was often described as being like a brick. So for all she knew, all her brother's songs during the last months had been about Kim Minseok who to her was not more than a strangely quiet boy.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second to collect her thoughts, before she quickly walked closer and used the momentum to announce, "So, I'm not sure what you're all up to after this but I'm hungry and I feel generous, so I'm willing to invite two of you out for dinner."
They all seemed to hold their breath, as if she was a wolf in a flock of sheep. It did make her wonder what her brother had told them about her. Chanyeol also blinked at her with a curious expression, as if he didn't dare to move before she did.
"Jajangmyeon?" she asked him and he frowned.
When he finally opened his mouth, there still weren't any words coming out of it, like a film in slow motion.
"How about meat?" he finally asked with a tiny hint of his usual mischievous smile.
She clicked her tongue in mock offense. "Don't get too greedy, my love. Meat is for winners. You didn't win."
The whiny boy next to him crinkled his nose in a subdued grin and Jongdae pretended to be preoccupied with staring at the ground when Chanyeol put on a grimace and replied, "Well, not technically, but we were mentioned, noona. That's kind of like winning."
She blew air through her nose in a soundless laugh and said, "Well, that is why I am willing to buy you a small treat and you know what? This isn't a debate." She put her hands on her hips and decidedly turned towards Kim Minseok who nearly choked on his breath in response to the sudden attention. He hadn't come closer since she had joined the group and she figured that if they really were all sheep, he would be the one with the highest chance of surviving. "Do you have any issues with jajangmyeon, too?" she asked him and he seemed too stupefied to even nod or shake his head.
After a much too long moment of awkward silence, his female friend eventually sighed, "Minseok-ah, you know that she can see you, don't you? You're not a chameleon."

Chanyoel had a sauce stain at the corner of his mouth but was too preoccupied with cleaning his plate with a piece of picked radish to notice it. She was about to lean forward and roughly wipe her paper napkin across his face the way she had done for years, when Chanyeol noticed Kim Minseok who motioned at his own face.
"What?" Chanyeol asked with a frown. When Kim Minseok finally pointed right at the sauce stain, Chanyeol blinked. "Ah," he said and grabbed a tissue he then dabbed at his face. "Thanks."
She didn't know why it bothered her that someone else would be capable of helping out with her brother's table manners. She only knew that it did.
Before she could stop herself, she leaned her face into her right hand and asked, "So, Minseok-ah, have you tried dating girls before?"
It was a tactlessly blunt question. She could tell by the way her brother spit a radish piece across the table in surprise. "Noona," he gasped.
"What, you're not curious?" she asked and angled her head in a way that she knew most definitely looked y.
"I don't have to be curious because I know the answer," Chanyeol said meekly and clearly was flustered. His ears were slowly turning bright pink.
"Well, I don't," she said and looked right at Kim Minseok who seemed like a trapped mouse. He scanned the surface of the table as if there was anything to see in the polished plastic. "So is that a yes or a no?"
"It's a yes," Chanyeol said quickly and busily looked around as if in a hurry. "You've seen one. They dated and now they don't. So can we leave it at that?"
Yura frowned at him in annoyance and then it finally registered to her what he had said. "Wait, the one at the competition?" she asked and tried to think back to the two friends Kim Minseok had brought. "That girl with the long hair?"
"Yeah," Chanyeol said with a twitch of his eye. Yura wasn't sure what she had expected to hear. Maybe that Kim Minseok was a loner who had never tried to be in any relationship with any other human being until her brother had entered his life. But the girl she had seen, arrogant though she was, had been pretty and way out of league for most guys.
"Did you sleep with her?" Yura unwillingly asked and for a moment she was afraid that her brother was just going to jump up and leave. But something prevented him and Kim Minseok, too, seemed to realize that there was no easy way out of her grasp.
"Yes," Kim Minseok said in the faintest of voices.
"But not any longer?" she asked because it occurred to her that it was strange for a girl to hang out with her ex. She couldn't think of a single guy she had slept with and whom she had still been able to talk to afterwards as if nothing had ever happened.
"No," Kim Minseok said in a tone and with such an indignated expression that made her feel almost bad for considering that possibility. People were different after all.
"And others? Have you slept with other girls?" she asked curiously while her brother sharply in air through his teeth.
"Noona, I don't see how that," Chanyeol began but stopped when she put up her hand.
"Yes," Kim Minseok said and Yura felt a sting in her heart when she noticed how her brother's breath immediately quickened. She could almost hear his heart beating in his chest like a sledgehammer and for the first time she understood what he had meant. He would have never sat any of her boyfriends down to ask about their previous relationships while she had to listen.
But this was not to embarrass him. She just needed certainty.
"So when you say that you want him it's not just because you don't know the alternative," she concluded quietly and Chanyeol threw her a glance with a strange expression.
"I know the alternative," Kim Minseok nodded gravely and finally managed to look her in the eye, even if just for a split second.
"But you didn't like it," she said and made it sound like an open question.
"I tried," he said and folded his hands on the table. The gesture reminded her of her father on every morning after having come home drunk from watching a Lotte Giant game in a bar. Whenever her mother kept making small disappoving noises while preparing breakfast, her father sat down with his hands on the table as if to show that there was nothing he could hide from her and said something simple, something like, "I know I shouldn't have left my shoes on the couch."
And her mother said something like, "Or your pants in front of the toilet for that matter."
And in the end he always apologized and she always forgave him because she knew that it couldn't be helped. He loved his team, he would always drink and in the end he would always come back to eat his wife's cooking.
Yura let out a long sigh that turned into a frustrated moan and leaned back in her chair to stare at the grey ceiling. She ruffled her hair and that part of her that wanted to occupy itself with something different noted that it was about time that she got a new haircut. The ends were all soft and frayed and not as sharp and neat as she liked them to be.
"Things would be so much easier if you were dishonest, you know," she finally said. "It would be so much easier to dislike you for trying to take away my brother."
The sad truth probably was that all this time she had thought of herself as the one who struggled the most while her brother decided to be foolish. Again, it was all about her. Her, her, her. Chanyeol had told her before that it wasn't a choice to be that way but the thought that maybe he had been honest from the start only slowly found its way into her brain. To like someone probably wasn't a decision.
"No one's taking me away, noona," her brother quietly said in an earnest tone that made her feel silly. She wasn't the one who needed to be consoled.
It wasn't easy but she managed to plaster a smile on her face when she let her head snap back and squinted at Kim Minseok.
"So are you a choir boy, too?" she asked and unwillingly chuckled when her brother groaned. Kim Minseok just looked at her in imcomprehension and then threw Chanyeol a questioning glance.
"Noona, it's been like ten years since the choir," Chanyeol said and shook his head.
"You know what I mean," Yura said in mock offense. "Choirs, bands, acapella groups, orchestras..." She used her fingers to count them and sized up Kim Minseok. She wondered how he fit in. "Don't tell me not everyone you know falls into one of those categories."
Chanyeol grimaced at her but didn't immediately protest because he knew that she was right. All his close friends were musicians which consequently meant that almost every single friend he had ever brought home had in some way annoyed his father with their mere presence.
"Well, he doesn't," Chanyeol finally said and Yura at first laughed and then frowned at him because she wasn't sure whether he meant it ironically.
"So what is he?" she asked when it seemed clear that her brother was serious and curiously eyed Kim Minseok, as if a different light shone on him. It was as if she had looked at a picture without her glasses on, only to then realize that what she had believed to be a monochromatic surface actually was awfully intricate to a degree that she barely understood what she saw. "What do you spend your days with if you're not annoying everyone around you with guitar solos in the middle of the night like my brother does?" And why would her brother even be interested then?
Kim Minseok looked at her as if she had asked her about the meaning of life. In her experience most people had something they identified themselves with, especially when they were still young. For her brother it was music, for her it was journalism, for her father it was baseball. Everyone had something.
"Running," Kim Minseok said in his quiet voice while Chanyeol in his attempt to shield him from her questions barked, "Baseball."
She blinked.
Chanyeol and Kim Minseok looked at each other with wide eyes and were both about to say something, only to then stop themselves because they didn't want to interrupt the other again.
"I mean," Chanyeol began and Kim Minseok closed his mouth, as if in silent agreement that Chanyeol was going to do the talking.
"Baseball is what he did in high school," Chanyeol explained and looked at her like a lawyer during a press conference. "Now he runs a lot."
There probably was a joke somewhere about Kim Minseok literally running away the previous night when Yura had suggested that he should meet their parents. But instead she could only gawk at them in complete dumbfoundedness.
"Baseball," she echoed and raised her eyebrows at her brother. "In our high school?"
Chanyeol nodded.
"Dad's old high school?" she specified.
Chanyeol nodded again, albeit much slower, obviously not getting the point.
"Because, you know, which other team did Dad ever love as much as he loves the Lotte Giants?" she asked a little more urgently.
At first Chanyeol just continued to stare back at her in confusion but then it slowly seemed to dawn to him as his mouth widened in a conspirational grin. Kim Minseok meanwhile seemed even more lost.
"His old high school team," Chanyeol replied and she wondered whether that thought had honestly never occured to him. It seemed so obvious but to him his love life and his family life had probably never been connected in any way.
It suddenly all seemed so easy. Literally all they had to do was to sit Kim Minseok down with their father and after ten minutes he would be liked better than she and Chanyeol combined. Their father was as predictable as he was opionated and he had always wanted a son who played baseball. She doubted that she would ever dislike anyone who had played on his old high school team, unless of course...
"You don't hate the Lotte Giants or anything, do you?" Yura asked Kim Minseok and as he shook his head in bewilderment, she realized that something had changed.
He was a person now.
He wasn't a vague shape that tried to corrupt her brother or someone who couldn't possibly be good enough.
He was a person. And although she didn't personally like him as much as her brother clearly did, she realized that she couldn't really hate him either. There was nothing apparently bad about him and if he was the one who could make her brother happy, then she probably had no choice but to be happy for them.

- differences -

In that short time that Luhan knew Hari, he had never actually seen her actively flirt with anyone, not even when she had somehow sneakily seduced Tao. Like the heroine in a movie she always only occupied herself with the people that actually belonged to a scene while everyone else was dismissed as faceless extras.
A guy in a coffee shop for example beamed at her and gave her a free cupcake but all she cared about was whether or nor she should bleach her hair.
"Well, I don't think you should. You're beautiful with black hair," Luhan said and gave the coffee shop guy the most apologizing smile he could muster without breaking out into laughter.
"You think?" Hari asked and raised her eyebrow at the cupcake without a comment, only to then leave the counter with a shrug.
That was what she was like. She had guys under her spell just by looking the way she did, so if she actually wanted to, she could have anyone. Tao's obsession with her prove that it didn't even take her much effort.
The truth was that in the end she didn't have time to flirt because most of their conversations circled around one topic: Kim Minseok. Luhan's initial interest in Minseok was what had ultimately brought him and Hari together and she also was what eventually cured him. Because to Hari Minseok was an essential part of her life her concern for him also naturally became part of her portfolio of topics to talk about.
"To be honest, I'm not really into sports so I never understood that part about him. Like, I understand that I need to work out because it's good for my body but for him it's like... you know, like breathing."
"You should have seen that last girlfriend of his. You could tell that he was slowly giving it up because she was just obscene."
"He is kind of avoiding me right now but that's probably a good thing."
"So I think that we should support them. If we all hang out together, it's probably less awkward for him. I know what he is like and if we just leave him, he will make excuses to not see the boy in public. And then all our efforts will go to waste."
There were times when it was strange to Luhan because it made him wonder whether it would really make her happy if Minseok found a boyfriend. Because there obviously would be less space in his life for her, the ex-girlfriend turned best friend.
And indeed, when she invited them all over to her house and looked uncannily gloomy, Luhan thought that it would take her a while to get over the fact that to Minseok she most definitely meant less than he meant to her.
Shortly after that he saw her flirt for the first time and it felt like watching a magic show.

For days now Kris had pretended to be too busy to hang out in the cafeteria, so after an awkward twenty minutes of having a table all to himself in a huge room full of people, followed by a whole week of eating packaged bread and kimbab on the go because no one had time to sit down with him, Luhan eventually begged Hari to have lunch with him.
"You could ask Minseok to sit with you," Hari said in exasperation over the phone and he could easily picture her eyeroll. "He eats there all the time."
"Oh, right, I'm sure he would be delighted to sit with me, a person who probably insulted him more often than he can count on the fingers of both his hands, when he could instead sit with the track team, a bunch of people who like running and who eat healthy stuff and who don't ask him uncomfortable questions," he said and made sure that he not only sounded sarcastic but also desperate.
"I don't understand why he spends so much time with those people anyway," Hari said in a bored tone. He pictured her looking at her manicured fingernails. "I doubt he actually talks to them."
"I mean, it's not like he talks to me unless I corner him," Luhan noted. When Hari snorted into the receiver, he started wailing, "Come on, Hari-yah, don't leave me hanging. You're the only friend I have left."
The was a pause that dragged on for so long that he moved his phone away from his face to check whether they were still connected. He was about to ask whether she could hear him, when she said, "What about that Vicky girl then? I thought she was your ultimate sidekick."
He frowned. "Well, I mean, Vicky already graduated and actually has a job, so I can't really ask her to come to campus in the middle of the day, can I?" he said and then realized that something about her tone had seemed wrong. "Wait, you're not jealous, are you?" he asked and the strange breathing sound he got in return confirmed that suspicion. "Hari-yah, if I'd known that you're secretly in love with me," he began jokingly because he didn't really know what else to say.
"Oh, shut up," she said and he was glad to hear that she sounded almost amused. "No one's in love with you."
"Rude," he said in mock offense while she quietly laughed at the other end. Then, he added in a more somber tone, "You know, I've known Vicky since she came to Korea a few years ago. I don't have siblings, so to me she's like the big sister I never had."
Again, there was no reply.
"So, tomorrow at twelve in the cafeteria?" he asked and actually pressed his eyes close in silent prayer although he wasn't technically a religious person.
There was a short disappoving noise at the other end and then an ever shorter, "Yeah, whatever."
He grinned, "Love you, too."
Hari groaned in response but he could literally hear her smile when she said, "I'm hanging up. See you tomorrow."

He was barely through the doors of the cafeteria when the magic unfolded.
Hari wasn't a difficult person to spot even on normal days because there was something  about her that just filled every room she entered. There were always heads turned her way, even when she had a bad day and wore her hair in a greasy ponytail. But on this day he understood how bright Hari could shine if she really wanted to.
He wasn't sure why but the first thing he noticed was how straight her posture was when she leaned over to a very tall, very hunky guy in the lunch line. The guy looked like prey trapped in a spider's net as he tried hard not to stare down at her s when she  affectionately slapped his arm with the most seductice smile Luhan had seen outside ads for sites. Behind them a guy blatantly stared at her and even from where Luhan stood, he could hear her mockingly sweet voice.
The situation was both impressive and very strange because to him Ahn Hari was the kind of person who never gave a and who never used her abilities for evil. She was a potential seductress, not an actual one.

"So, I thought that you were into short, shy boys," he said with a raised eyebrow when Hari finally came over to the table he had chosen for them. The tall guy from the lunch line had disappeared with a group of other hunks who had cheered and clapped his back upon realizing that he and Hari had exchanged numbers. "Although I suppose that, if I didn't know you better, I'd assume that guy just now to be the kind of guy you'd usually go for."
"Hot but dumb, you mean? Do I look so shallow?" she asked as she put down her tray with salad and orange juice.
"Kind of, yes," he nodded and she threw him an exasperated glance. They looked at each other for a tense second and then they both burst out laughing. She began to spread sauce over her salad and he took a spoonful of his fried rice and for a moment none of them said another word. It was nice not to sit alone.
But then two people in bright sportswear walked by and before he knew what he was doing, he asked, "You didn't hit on the guy to make Minseok jealous though, did you?"
Her impression immediately darkened and he involuntarily bit his tongue.
"No," she then said and sounded oddly earnest. At first she thought that she wouldn't comment on it any further but as she picked at her salad with a mixed expression, she eventually said, "I mean, let's be honest, I wish it was that easy and that I could make him jealous by hooking up with some guy. But he's not wired that way. So, no, it's not to make him jealous." She sighed, forked up a salad leaf and then looked up to Luhan. "It's to prove to myself that I can still have any other guy."
He searched her gaze for a sign that she wasn't in a potentially self-destructive mood but all he saw was dull resolve as she turned back to her salad. If he thought about it, she had never directly admitted that she still even saw Minseok in a romantic way before. It was always just about her trying to fix his life like a fairy godmother. Which maybe was a sign that her sudden honesty now meant that she really was giving up.
"Well," he finally said. "There obviously are millions of dumb but hot and most probably straight guys you can choose from, so you're in luck."
"I'd prefer them to be definitely and undeniably straight though," she said to her salad with an unreadable expression.
"The touch-their-junk-in-public, spit-on-the-ground and not-shave-their-hairy-backs kind of straight?" he asked and shook his head as if she was mad. She only snorted in response and looked at him with a twinkle in her eyes as if she couldn't believe herself to be amused in this kind of situation.
"Because, you know, guys like that eventually get fat and bald and slap your while calling you 'their woman'," he added and pulled a face in distaste. He looked up to him in a way but his father was one of those guys and ever since he was a little boy, Luhan had dreaded the thought that one day he could end up like that.
This time Hari straight out laughed and he couldn't help but think that he wanted her to find a guy who made her laugh just to marvel at how beautiful she looked when she did. Everybody deserved to find that kind of person.
"Also," she said with a grin rather than to comment on his words. "I'm not sure I want someone dumb."
In return he touched the side of his face with his hand and his elbow with his other hand the way his female relatives often did whenever he said something outrageous. "Girl, I'm afraid you're a bit too picky," he said in a mimickry of one of his aunts. "Most guys are dumb. Just look at them." As if to prove his point he gestured at the room and she let her gaze wander around as if he had revealed something grand to her.
"You make it sound like you're not actually a guy," she then noted and took another bite of her drippy salad.
"Oh, I am," he said. "So I'm kind of an expert on that. And I know out of experience that trying to hook up with a smart guy can be super frustrating."
For a moment she looked at him with a blank expression while chewing her salad and didn't say a word. At first he thought it was hilarious for her to act like a cow but the longer she looked at him, the more uncomfortable he felt. He knew those stretched out pauses. They happened when she decided whether or not to say something potentially problematic.
"I guess Kris counts as smart," she then said and he tried, he really tried to not react but it did feel like a slap in the face.
"That's not what I-," he began but she interrupted him.
"Look," she said with a deep sigh. "I honestly didn't want to meddle any longer because I feel that in the end I'm always the one who gets left behind. But this is getting hard to watch. You're my friend and you're pissing me off the exact same way Minseok did."
He wanted to crack a joke at that, something about her having a crush on him and him having to reject her affection the way the hero of a TV drama rejected a side character. But her exasperated expression made it hard to say anything at all.
"I mean, think about it. Why did we get along so well in the first place?" Hari asked and raised her eyebrow as if to dare him to say anything stupid.
"Our fabulous sense of fashion?" Luhan said weakly and she looked at him in annoyance. Then she shook her head and spent a few seconds staring at their surroundings, as if to stop herself from snapping at him.
"We both have someone who we believe will never love us the way we love them," she said, still not looking directly at him and he swallowed. 'Love' was such a strong word and he really didn't want to have this conversation. 'Love' was a word he often used idly for food and shoes and bars and as a joke around friends. He couldn't even tell his parents that he loved them, exactly because he did and because it was so hard to put into words.
"But you know what the difference between us is?" Hari asked and he frantically tried to think of an answer that could distract her enough to change the topic. But nothing came to mind.
"The difference is that I love a guy who turned out to be gay and who is into a boy who is everything I'm not," she answered her question with a bitter smile and Luhan unwillingly had to think of every moment in which he had seen her and Minseok and the boy together. Every time Minseok and the boy's interactions had become more and more intimate while Hari had grown more and more weary.
"And you," she continued and frowned in irritation. "All you'd have to do is to reach out and just be with the guy you want to be with." She turned her head to glare at him.
It was like having a bucket of cold water emptied across his head. Her words scared him because he knew that if he lead himself to believe them, he would be crushed once he faced reality.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he muttered and wanted to hold her gaze but couldn't.
She let out a low frustrated noise and scoffed, "Oh, and you do?"
He meant to reply when she already sighed and continued, "The way I see it, you're just a coward who constantly gets discouraged before he actually tries. You think that getting on Kris' nerves all the time is enough? Do you honestly think that he got the hint and is acting like an for the sake of it?"
He frowned at her. "What are you even...?" he began but didn't know how to finish the question.
"I mean, has it ever occurred to you that maybe he's just as scared because you let him down before and because he thinks that everything you do is part of a messed up game?" she asked and he looked at her with wide eyes. He wanted to protest because he had never thought of it as a game. But then again had he never really seen himself from Kris' perspective either.
When she noticed his confusion, her expression softened. "You're really stupid, you know that?" she said.

- isolated mountains -

Finding an opportunity to spend time with Minseok was hard because they had nowhere to go. Had they both still been in the same school, the could have snuck off during breaks and after their last lesson. They could have hid in empty classrooms or climbed through the hole in the fence. Thinking about what could have been made Chanyeol regret that he hadn't tried harder back when Minseok had still been in high school because now they constantly had to plan every tiny move.
He had  classes until late afternoon and although he didn't technically have a curfew, he knew that his parents minded him staying out for too long. Minseok's classes meanwhie were irregular and it took him almost an hour to get back from university. Their houses weren't close either and there weren't many buses to Minseok's, so there were many awkward moments when they hung out at the station like homeless people and when Minseok frowned at the station clock.
"You should catch your bus," Chanyeol would say and Minseok would give him the same apologetic look he always did.
"I can run home," Minseok would say.
And Chanyeol would grin and say, "We can just meet tomorrow."
The problem was that it was the same every day. Sometimes he went a few train stops into the city, still wearing his school uniform and they would hang out in a coffee shop somewhere on Minseok's way home. But all they did was sit and talk and steal small touches, only to then part again because the world was constantly watching.
On the weekends they had more time but still the same problem. They walked through the city and spent their time in cafés and fast food restaurants and arcades and stores. And it was nice and he enjoyed just the fact that they could do this much, but in the end it was never enough. Being together wasn't just a matter of being in the same place at the same time.
They couldn't even freely talk often because Minseok had a strange issue with talking on the phone.
"It's weird to talk to someone when you can't see their face," he would say and Chanyeol would wrinkle his nose in imcomprehension.
"But I mean, you know what I look like, so it's not like you're talking to a stranger," he would say and Minseok would look troubled, like a parent who tried to find a way to explain socialism in a simple way to their little child.
"Okay, but you can text, right?" Chanyeol would then ask and Minseok would nod eagerly and with a relieved smile.
So that was what most days amounted to. Texts in the morning and during breaks and late at night. Thousands of words forming meaningless banter and meaningful confessions that drowned in a sea of emojis.
He liked it and he hated it and he couldn't help but image what it could be like if they were less bound by all their social obligations. Because between the empty club room and Jongdae and Minkyung being overly supportive and Baekhyun avoiding him and Boyoung giving him a sad smile whenever he encountered her and the stress of having to graduate and carry on with his life... In all this he really needed something to hold onto.

"Why don't you go running with him?" Minkyung then asked during one of the lunch breaks when she and Jongdae decided to ditch their other friends and hang out with him in the club room. "He goes running all the time so you might as well go with him."
In response Jongdae simply laughed at her until the mean glare she threw him shut him up. "Chanyeol can't run," he then said as if the mere thought was absurd. Chanyeol couldn't even argue because Jongdae wasn't technically wrong. Even if he could run a few steps to catch a bus, he wouldn't have been able to follow someone who ran for the sake of it.
"Why not?" she asked and boxed Jongdae's arm when he tried to steal an apple slice from her lunch box. It was hard not to be envious of them.
Jongdae was about to reply but then cautiously looked at Chanyeol, as if he wasn't sure how to phrase it without making it sound like an insult. Chanyeol being bad at sports had been a running gag for years and Chanyeol himself had never really minded it much, so he had never properly explained it either. He didn't want to pitied but figured that it was too late for that anyway.
"Asthma," Chanyeol said and Jongdae nodded, as if he finally got an explanation to something he had only suspected. Minkyung meanwhile looked awfully concerned, so that Chanyeol quickly explained, "I mean, it's not as bad as it used to be and I can do sports if I want to. But I never did, so I have zero stamina. If I went running with Minseok-sunbae I'd only slow him down."
Minkyung frowned at him, so that Jongdae helpfully added, "I heard that even people who do marathons and stuff usually have trouble finding someone who runs at the same pace as them."
Minkyung sighed but continued to have a concentrated expression on her face as she took a bite off one of her apple slices. Chanyeol noisily finished his milk carton and Jongdae chewed on a carrot, when Minkyung finally said, "Do you have a bike then?"
Chanyeol nearly choked and Jongdae patted his back while laughing, "Why are you so obsessed with the idea that Chanyeol and your brother should go running together?"
Minkyung let out another long sigh and neatly finished her apple slice before she said, "He always goes off into the mountains and there's usually not a single soul there."
Chanyeol and Jongdae must have looked at her incomprehensively, so she added, "So if you want to be alone with him, that's probably the place to be."
Jongdae laughed at the idea but Minkyung seemed oddly determined and looked at Chanyeol in a way that was almost urgent. As if something serious depended on his answer.
"Lately he goes running later than he normally would, doesn't he?" Chanyeol asked and her pained smile made her answer obvious. He had never even thought about it that way. He knew that Minseok always went running in the mountains but he had been so stupid not to see the impact of them meeting. The later Minseok went running, the more dangerous it naturally was and the more worried Minkyung would be if he went by himself.
"I have a bike," he then said and Minkyung smiled at him gratefully.

So that was what his evenings turned into. After school he hurried home, changed into an old tracksuit he had slightly outgrown, sometimes spent some time in the living room with whoever was there until Minseok texted him and then he sped off on his sister's red bike because he had forgotten that his bike's brakes were damaged. He had realized that on the first day of nearly crashing into a wall. His luck was that Yura was tall for a girl and thus had a tall bike which allowed him to ride it in an almost dignified fashion.
It usually took nearly thirty minutes of fairly quick speed to reach the street corner where Minseok warmed up in his fancy workout attire. On the first couple of days Chanyeol already wheezed before they started their departure into the mountains and whenever Minseok, all perky and agile, asked him whether they should stop, he felt as embarrassed as he hadn't felt since grade school.
At first he cursed Minkyung for urging him to do what he was no good at, and Yura for allowing him to use her bike after laughing at him for at least five minutes straight, and his mother for telling him that if he didn't want to, he didn't have to do sports as a little boy.
But as he slowly began to adapt, it eventually became fun. The air was crisp and fresh and his lungs almost stopped feeling tight. It felt good, too, to come back home, take a hot shower and fall into bed like a stone. He hadn't slept that well in ages.
 
"I told you about a million times that it feels great to work out, did I not?" Yura grinned one evening when he whistled in the kitchen while fixing himself a sandwich with his hair still wet. She stood in the doorframe with her arms folded in front of her chest. "I can't believe it took Kim Minseok for you to finally understand that much."
He unwillingly looked at the corridor behind her that was illuminated by the fickering light that came from the TV in the living room where their parents watched a period drama. He didn't think that they could hear them. Or that they would have known what Yura was talking about.
Yura followed his gaze and then smiled at him in a way that somehow looked both sad and encouraging. "If you tell them, I'm sure they'll understand," she said. "None of us thought you'd ever like someone enough to do sports for them. That's something he already has going for him."
He smiled at her but still felt a lump in his throat because he couldn't be so sure that his parents really would understand when Yura herself had repeatedly yelled at him. She seemed to sense his trail of thought so in the grand fashion of almost everyone in their family she broke the budding tenseness by joking. "You know, I don't think you should eat so late in the evening. That'll make you gain weight,"  she said and moved her chin forward to motion at his sandwich. "Does Minseok know how chubby you were as a child?"
He scrunched up his face into a grimace. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he does now because you were so kind to show him that picture from when we were little."
After investigating Minseok like a criminal on trial after the competition, Yura had continued to embarrass Chanyeol by showing Minseok pictures on her phone. One of them was the one taken in Busan after a victorious Busan Seagulls game when Chanyeol had been seven. It was the happiest family portrait they had because his father had been in a great mood that day. He had positively beamed, their mother had looked pretty in a new summer dress, Yura had had her hair in pigtails and Chanyeol had looked like a pig with glasses and a hat.
"Well, I happen to think that it's a cute picture," she grinned.
"I'm sure you do," he muttered and looked down at his sandwich that suddenly looked a lot less appetizing. He also tried not to think about the way Minseok had curiously looked from the picture to Chanyeol and back again like a researcher studying a rare creature in the wild. According to what Minkyung had told him before, Minseok had always been a tiny, skinny kid that ran around.
"I'm sure he did, too," Yura said and he raised his eyebrow at her. "He had that look," she added. When he clearly still didn't understand her point, she formed a heart with her hands in front of her chest and said, "You know, that look people have when they're so out of it, they can't see fault in the object of their affection. He had that."
In response he shook his head at her, put his sandwich on a plate and proceeded to exit the kitchen. "Why am I even talking to you?" he muttered on his way to his room.
"Because you love me," she yelled after him and he tried but couldn't fully suppress his smile.

So Minseok ran and Chanyeol followed behind on his sister's bike. On their rounds they rarely encountered anyone and yet they didn't talk much more than usual. The world was filled with huffing and feet hitting the cold earth and the sound of the wheels on the dust roads and of passing cars in the distance.
But although there was not much time to talk, Chanyeol enjoyed their actualy conversations more than those in the city because now they didn't have to play pretend. They didn't have to imply things or do small talk about the weather or school. In the mountains they had the freedom.

It was on one of those evenings with almost fine weather when none of them had said a word for over half an hour. They had followed a straight dirt road for much longer than Chanyeol would have normally had the patience for but Minseok pushed on as if it was his holy mission. It was out of sheer boredom that Chanyeol began, "So imagine this."
Minseok shot him a small glance and slowed down so that they were level and that he could listen.
"You have to spend a year on an uninhabited island," Chanyeol continued which caused Minseok to frown at him. "But you can take one person with you. Who would you choose?"
The question admittedly was stupid and for a moment he thought that Minseok was just going to ignore it because he quickened his pace again. Chanyeol only saw his back when he finally said, "My brother."
"Huh," Chanyeol said because he didn't like the answer but figured that he probably deserved it.  
When Chanyeol stayed behind him at the slowest possible speed he could keep up without falling sideways, Minseok eventually turned around and ran backwards. He smiled and Chanyeol wrinkled his nose. If there was one thing he had learned about Minseok, it was the fact that he clearly liked to be a tease at times.
"My brother used to be obsessed with reading outdoor magazines," Minseok explained and turned back when he nearly stumbled over a rock.  "So I think that my chances of surviving are highest with him. Maybe we could even build a raft and escape."
Chanyeol unwillingly laughed at the serious response because it was probably exactly what he should have expected Minseok to say. Being stranded on an uninhabited island was not exactly a very likely thing to happen to anyone, let alone to someone who was not a professional sailor. The aim of the question was not a serious consideration on how to survive in the wild. But it was true that, if Chanyeol himself ever found himself in a situation in which his life was on the line, he would like to have someone around who actually knew how to survive, too. So although it wasn't the answer he wanted to hear, he couldn't argue against it either.
"Right," Chanyeol said and leaned his head back to look at the calm evening sky. "Okay, so what if it's not an island but, let's say, a space ship? You have a room and you get three meels a day and there's a sauna and stuff but apart from you there's only robots. And you have to stay for a year. And the robots can't talk to you, obviously."
He threw a glance at Minseok who looked straight ahead but still had a bright smile all over his face.
"And I can take only one person with me?" Minseok asked as if it wasn't obvious.
"Yeah," Chanyeol nodded and then hastily added, "But not your brother because he's already going on that island with you."
Minseok snorted in response and it took him a second to get his face under control. Then he turned to Chanyeol with a frown and asked, "Why do I have to go to the island and into space though?"
Chanyeol shrugged. "Because I say so."
Minseok laughed but didn't reply and simply continued running.
"So who's it going to be?" Chanyeol asked.
"Hm," Minseok said and put on a thoughtful expression. "Is there a way to contact anyone from the space ship?" he asked in return.
"Nope," Chanyeol said. "It's just you and the robots and one other person."
Minseok nodded and continued running.
"Sunbae, come one," Chanyeol said after a while. He couldn't decide whether he felt more annoyed, anxious or embarassed for having his stupid question backfire.
"So why are we in space for a year?" Minseok asked and Chanyeol couldn't suppress a groan.
"I don't know. To travel to another planet? I mean, why would anyone ever be in space? Probably to go on adventures and stuff," Chanyeol said and tried not to sound as frustrated as he was. He forcefully pedalled forward until he was past Minseok and then realized something. He quickly stepped on his brake and a cloud of dust formed around his feet when he turned around to Minseok who had also stopped.
"'We'," Chanyeol said and squinted his eyes. "'We' as in...?"
Minseok walked closer. "As in, the robots and I," he said.
"And?" Chanyeol asked when Minseok was level with him again.
"And you," Minseok shrugged and there was something comforting in the way he said it as if there was no doubt in his answer. As if it was the only answer.
Of course Chanyeol knew that he had created this situation in which Minseok had only one way of answering without making things awkward. Anyone could have given a healfhearted, potentially dishonest answer. 'Of course I would take you with me.' Anyone could have said that. But the point was that Minseok being Minseok, it probably wasn't just a lie made up on the spot. Minseok must have honestly wondered what it would be like to be in space for a year.
"Just you and I in space?" Chanyeol asked. "You wouldn't mind that?"
Minseok angled his head a little and gave him another long thoughtful glance before he said, "There are also robots."
In response Chanyeol kicked dust at him with a grimace and almost lost his balance in consequence. Minseok took a step backwards to avoid the dust, then saw Chanyeol struggle with his bike and rushed forward to take hold of the handle to stabilize him.
"Sometimes you're really annoying," Chanyeol said and for a second Minseok's eyes widened in guilt. "I mean, not in a bad way," Chanyeol quickly added. "Not like when someone sits next to you on the bus and their headphones are so loud that you can hear the lyrics of the song they're listening to. Or like, when you have to share a hotel room with your father and he snores all night and then he blames you when you're tired the next day." Minseok didn't let go of the handle and regarded him curiously and something in Chanyeol's brain stopped functioning upon realizing how close they were. "You're annoying like, when you look into the sun and have to sneeze. Not very annoying. Just a little."
The corners of Minseok's lips curled up and Chanyeol tried not to stare at them.
"I'm annoying like the sun?" Minseok asked quietly.
"Hah," Chanyeol said and tried to laugh but it came out as a gurgle when he looked down at the ground. "Yeah. Cheesy, I know."
Minseok laughed and leaned in.
And then he froze.
And then he quickly let go of the bike and stumbled backwards.
"What's wrong?" Chanyeol asked in confusion. And then he heard it. A car in the distance. A car coming their way on the dirt road. It always only took so little to make everything undone.
When the car passed by as they stood at the side of the road Minseok didn't look at him but had his hands balled into fists.
Then, when car was finally out of sight, Minseok bit his lips as he threw him a sad glance. He continued to run and Chanyeol continued to ride his bike next to him.
Because the problem was that not even in the mountains they were ever really alone.

It was already dark when Chanyeol rode down the mountain back into civilization with Minseok on the back of the bike.
"I would like it," Minseok said after another long moment of silence and tightened his grip on the front of Chanyeol's shirt.
"What?" Chanyeol asked and tried to look back but then swayed too far to the side.
"If we were in space," Minseok said and leaned his head against Chanyeol's back. "With no one around but robots. I think I would like that."
Chanyeol gulped because he wanted to stop and do something, anything. But the reality around them would not disappear. It was getting late, they were too far out and the temperatures were steadily dropping. They had families waiting for them, families who didn't know that they were even there together.
So he let the bike roll down the mountain and took one of Minseok's hands clasping his shirt.
"Me, too," he said because there was nothing else he could say.

- the idiot and the badass -

The irony in Jungyoon and Baehyun dating probably was that she only slowly grew to like him when his life was beginning to falter around him. Although they had never actually been classmates, she had never really been impressed by what she had seen of him. Despite what everyone seemed to think, it also wasn't him singing to her in the middle of the schoolyard that had seduced her. If anything, she had disliked him for being unable to take no for an answer and had meant to teach him a lesson.
There where moments when she wondered whether she would have ever cared for him if not for the issues around Chanyeol.
"It's just... There's nothing I wouldn't tell him," Baekhyun had said one day. "And I thought that he would tell me everything, too. But now, I don't know, I can tell that there's something I don't know of," Baekhyun had said while staring outside the window of the convenience store in which they had stood and eaten instant noodles. It had already been dark outside and the streets had been wet from the last rain shower. "It's like we're sitting on a time bomb and I can hear it ticking but I don't know where it is and or how to stop it and everyone else is just... They're either leaving or pretending that they can't hear it. And it's driving me crazy."
It maybe was the vulnerability she hadn't expected but as he had seemed lost and helpless, something in her had stirred. Before she had been able to stop herself, she had leaned in and kissed him.
No matter how stupid and self-centered he sometimes appeared to be, Jungyoon knew that Baekhyun genuinely cared about the people around him. The only problem was that he wasn't always very good at showing it. He and Chanyeol both apparently had a habit of trying to cope with serious situations by either ignoring them or by turning them into a joke. So it was probably inevitable that the bomb would eventually set off.

Chanyeol's bullying slowly ebbed down as graduation slowly appeared within sight and as it became vital to study for the university entrance exams. That was his luck, although she figured that the rumours around him would have quieted down eventually either way. High school life was fickle like that. People still sometimes talked about her supposedly murdering someone, but after months of her acting relatively inconspicious, she eventually was rehabilitated. For Chanyeol it was the same. Minkyung and Jongdae both hung around him more and more often which consequently caused Jongdae's best friends to follow them, too. Jongin still was part of the band club and Kyungsoo occasionally came by after feeling guilty for not having been there during the competition. Boyoung talked to Chanyeol again because she was the most stupidly loyal person on earth. And with none of them saying a word about Minkyung's brother and no more sightings of Chanyeol making out with other guys, the attention of the bullies eventually shifted elsewhere. Of course there was a joke here and there and of course Chanyeol would never fit in with the general crowd again, but they could literally count the weeks until all of that was over.
In the end the only problem was Baekhyun who stubbornly refused to rejoin his old group.

On one cold afternoon Baekhyun and Jungyoon had just left the school building when they spotted Boyoung who hurriedly ran after Chanyeol. She jumped him, he stumbled in surprise and she laughed as she pulled a CD out of her bag and gave it to him. He clearly tried to give it back but she shoved it at him with a smile and disappeared into the crowd. It was such a heartbreakingly innocent exchange that Jungyoon unwillingly said, "See, she has reason enough to want him dead. If she can forgive him, why can't you?"
Rather than to reply he let out a small groan and continued to carry on without her.
"I mean, what are you so scared of?" she asked as she followed him towards the school gates. "That people will think you're like him? That people will think you're worthless?"
"He's not-," Baekhyun began sharply and then looked around as if anyone could have cared to overhear them.
"Not worthless?" she asked. "Yeah, I know that. And Boyoung knows that. And even that coward Jongdae knows that. But do you? Do you really?"
He sighed and avoided to look her in the eye. "Yeah," he said. "I know. But that's not the point."
"So what is the point?" she asked and tried to sound gentle but still caused him to flinch.
"The point is that things have changed," he simply said and she shook her head at him in exasperation.
Part of her understood him. His best friend had lied to him and rather than to be reprimanded for it, everyone around him simply clapped him on the back in appreciation of his courage. To Baekhyun, who had tried to be a good friend, that obviously was hard to swallow.
But although she understood him in a way, she also found his actions nonsensical. She could tell that his issue wasn't that his best friend apparently preferred to date guys. No matter what he said and no matter how many profanities he spouted, to her that seemed like nothing but a tired excuse. If anything, it was odd that someone mild-mannered like Baekhyun would swear at all. He was like an old guy who used youth slang to appear younger and who in consequence only sounded stupid.

"I mean, he's practically in love with him," she said angrily which caused Jongdae in front of her to accidentally push his lunch tray into Minkyung's back. He wildly looked back at Jungyoon and she felt reminded of why Jongdae probably was her least favourite of the whole band club bunch.
"You mean, like...?" he hissed and she rolled her eyes at him. Behind him Minkyung smiled knowingly as the lunch lady put a plate with curry rice on her tray. In front of them there were boys talking about an online game and behind them was a group of noisy baseball club members. Clearly none of them would have paid them any attention.
"Oh, please," she said in annoyance. "No. Not 'like that'. I mean, he's practically in love with him like a dog who loves his owner and who is lost without him around."
When Jongdae just put on an odd expression as he got his curry, she sighed. Talking to him and the sister of the reason why Baekhyun and Chanyeol had stopped talking in the first place probably was not going to help. To them it obviously wouldn't matter if Baekhyun and Chanyeol never talked to each other again. They didn't have to listen to all the pauses in which Baekhyun would have normally talked about Chanyeol, only to then stop himself from saying anything at all.
"I don't know Baekhyun very well," Minkyung began in her melodic voice when Jungyoon  got her heap of curry and Jungyoon turned to look at her. "But don't you think that he maybe simply feels left out?"
Jungyoon raised her eyebrow. "Meaning?" she asked in an impatient tone that made Minkyung look flustered.
"That day when we went to the hospital..." she began and looked away as she collected her thoughts. "I think we all realized that day that my brother and Chanyeol were serious. But I think that meant completely different things to each of us. To Baekhyun it maybe meant that Chanyeol had no more space for him in his life," Minkyung continued in a strange tone, as if it only dawned to her then what her actions had caused.
"That's ridiculous," Jungyoon said but immediately had to think back. Chanyeol getting hurt and Minkyung trying to defend him and them running and Baekhyun being unable to help. Chanyeol's sister being rude and Minkyung's brother obviously being sick with worry. What must have been an important step in the story of Chanyeol and Minkyung's brother, probably was the moment when things had changed for Baekhyun.

"Talk to him," she said when Baekhyun came back from the kitchen with two bottles of water. She had just opened the top drawer of Baekhyun's desk in search of a pair of scissors to cut a loose thread on her sweater and had instead only found a picture of little Baekhyun happily putting his arm around the shoulder of a fat boy. She had meant to ask whether the boy was one of Baekhyun's cousins when it had dawned to her who she was looking at. At first she had laughed because she had met Chanyeol as a potential heartthrob instead of a little fatty and because it always was funny to see embarrassing childhood pictures. But then it hit her how sad the mere existence of the picture was. It must have stood on Baekhyun's desk for years. Him and his best friend against the rest of the world.
At first Baekhyun only looked at her curiously but then he noticed the picture in her hands. His expression immediately darkened as he placed one water bottle in front of her.
"Talk to him or I won't talk to you again," she said and he raised his eyebrows at her as he sat down on his bed.
"And if you think, 'Great, I was waiting for the moment when that finally shuts up,'" she continued. "Let me tell you this. I will not only not talk to you, I won't come to your house and make out with you either." Her words caused him to give her a lopsided grin.
"And not just that," she said. "I will go so far as to join Chanyeol's stupid new group and become best friends with Kim Minkyung and maybe sleep with one of Jongdae's friends just to piss you off."
He still grinned but it was turning into a grimace as he leaned forward and stared down at his hands.
"Does it really bother you so much that he hooked up with Minkyung's brother?" she asked and he flinched a little.
"I don't know," he said in a barely audible voice.
"He can still be your friend," she said gently.
"It wouldn't be the same though," he said and looked at the ceiling before he let himself fall back and spread his arms on the mattress.
She sighed and let her finger run over his grinning face on the picture. In it he wore a bright blue sweater with a duck on it and Chanyeol's glasses were dirty but they both looked quite content with themselves as they stood in front of an ugly concrete building.
"So what if it's not the same?" she asked. "I mean, you're not the boys in the picture any longer but you were still friends until a little while ago. There will always be things that change. But you're still you and he's still him, even if you both have grown."
At first there was no reply and she thought that he was going to ignore her again. Lately he often ignored her and it irked her a little that she suddenly had to run after him, the boy who had ran after her.
She wrinkled her nose as she placed the picture on his desk, when he said, "There's something I don't get about you."
"What's that?" she asked in the most neutral tone she could muster because she didn't feel like arguing.
"I used to think you were the greatest badass in history," he said and she rolled her eyes. "But sometimes you sound like a collection of calendar mottos."
She just looked at him blankly. Then, she wasn't sure whether he tried to insult her in a roundabout way and snapped, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean," he said and made an awkwardly long pause.  "Sometimes you say stuff that sounds... I don't know. Cheesy. But right. Calendar mottos always sound right but it's not that easy to follow them."
She blinked and then unwillingly smiled.
"It's not easy because you make it harder than it's supposed to be," she said and he snapped his fingers at her with a chuckle that sounded as though he was choking because he still lay on his back.
"Another calendar motto," he said triumphantly and she shook her head at him. He most definitely was an idiot and she wasn't even sure what it was she liked about him. He was stupid and annoying and deep down she knew that all she wanted was to see him as happy as he had been when he had sung for her on the schoolyard.

- five days -

Chanyeol's weekend had been almost too perfect. The sun had shone, his mother had fed them beef she had bought on sale, his sister had insisted on buying him new sneakers and he and Minseok had made it all the way to the top of one of the mountains in Minseok's neighbourhood. The world had seemed great and bright and full of possilities.
And then every day that had followed had brought a new uncomfortable conversation. Each single day it had gradually grown more serious.

On Monday he talked to his guidance teacher about his future prospects. He listed the universities he was going to try out for and his teacher nodded and gave him advice.
On the whole it wasn't bad but it felt unreal to talk about something that was so close but felt so far away. Soon he was going to graduate and go to university and make new friends and leave behind people that had been with him for years. Adulthood was slowly creeping closer.

On Tuesday evening Yura barged into his room while he was in the middle of changing.
"," he yelped and quickly zipped up his pants while only one of his arms was still in his shirt. "Can't you knock?"
"Pfft," she said and leaned against his desk. "There's nothing I wouldn't have seen before."
He let out a disgruntled noise and turned away as he threw his school shirt on his bed and hurriedly pulled a t-shirt over his head.
"I found something today that I want you to read," she said matter-of-factly and rustled with paper. He didn't look at her as he picked at a stain on his jumper.
"What, right now?" he asked as he put on his jumper despite the stain and sat on his bed to take off his socks.
"Whenever," she shrugged and threw him a colourful pamphlet that opened midair and flattered to the ground in front of his feet. "You're really not very good at catching, are you?" she asked disapprovingly.
"I'm as good as you are at throwing," he muttered and then looked down at the bright blue letters on the front of the pamphlet reading 'safer '. It took him a few seconds before he understood the implication. When he did, he could literally feel the blood rushing into his face. "Are you kidding me?" he gasped.
"So I went to see my gynecologist today for a check-up," she said and he could only stare at her in imcomprehension. He couldn't even crack a joke because he had no idea why she would tell him that. Girl stuff like that was not exactly something he wanted her to talk to him about. "And they had that in the waiting room. It's quite informative."
He looked down at the pamphlet and then back at her and felt oddly accused.
"What do you take me for?" he asked in bafflement and she shook her head in resignation as if he had asked something very absurd.
"A teenage boy," she explained. "If there's one thing I know it's how stupid teenage boys can be. I would have been pregnant at least a dozen times if I had not been careful around teenage boys. Protection is vital."
"Oh my God," he groaned and pressed his hands to his face. This really was not the kind of conversation he had ever wanted to have with any family member.
"Look, if you think that you're off the hook because you can't get anyone pregnant, you're mistaken," she said and he could swear that he heard amusement in her voice. When he still refused to look at her, she let out a small chuckle and proceeded to exit his room. "Just read it, all right?" she asked and left his door open. "And don't do anything stupid," she yelled when she was already in the hallway.
He sighed, rubbed his face and kicked the pamphlet and his socks under his bed. Then, when he thought of how his mother would probably find it when she cleaned his room, he left the socks where they were but picked up the pamphlet.
"I can't exactly do anything stupid when all we do is spend time in the mountains, you know," he said to it in an accusatory tone. "It's cold out there."

On Wednesday he poured himself a glass with orange juice when Minseok sent him three cryptic texts:
'Don't'
'Hyung'
'Sorry'
He frowned at his phone when Yura entered the kitchen.
"Anything up?" she asked and he showed her his phone.
"What do you think that means?" he asked and she looked at his phone with a blank expression. She was about to scroll further up and read the texts before that, when he quickly took it back.
"Maybe he meant to text someone else? Or maybe he had a ," she said vaguely and then shrugged. "I mean, ask him, not me. No use guessing."
"Right," he muttered and chewed his lip as he replied with three question marks. For a moment he thought of calling but Minseok most probably wasn't going to pick up anyway.
"You're going to see him tonight?" Yura asked as she rummaged through the fridge and fished out a yoghurt.
"I guess I am," he nodded absent-mindedly.
"Did you read the pamphlet?" she asked as she noisily opened the drawer with cutlery to get a plastic spoon.
"I burned it," he said shortly and left the kitchen with his orange juice in one hand and his phone in the other while Yura loudly laughed behind him.

Minseok didn't reply so Chanyeol took off on his bike as usual. Even if Minseok had not actually texted the wrong person and did not actually show up, Chanyeol at least had some time to clear his head and to get away from Yura's new-found idea of being a supportive sister. Lately he always felt guilty at home. He felt guilty for not telling his mother what he did in the evening and for being in his room in which he had hung out with Baekhyun and all his other friends for thousands of hours. Being at home made him feel dishonest.
So he spent the thirty minutes riding off towards the street corner where Minseok usually waited in blissful mindlessness and even when Minseok wasn't there yet, Chanyeol just shrugged. He could wait.
But then the reason behind Minseok's text turned up at the end of the street and Chanyeol realized that he probably was the world's most clueless moron.
He immediately recognised Minseok's brother because the family resemblance was hard to ignore. His brother looked like a warped version of him, as if someone had cloned Minseok, stripped off the skin and stretched it over a much taller body. Minseok's brother immediately came off as more confident and more imposing. It wasn't hard to imagine why Hari's mother would have liked the idea of him dating her daughter but Chanyeol also had a feeling that he himself wouldn't get along with him. Guys like him had shoved him around for being too chubby or too slow or too weird.
For a moment he thought of pretending to be a random passerby. Minseok would probably try to run past him without acknowledging him, too, so maybe there still was a chance. Only then his brother politely smiled at Chanyeol and ran right towards him while Minseok stopped behind him like a person who knew that he couldn't prevent the train crash he was about to witness.
"Hi," Minseok's brother said in a measuringly friendly tone and sized him up. Because Chanyeol still sat on his bike saddle he had to look up and just that fact made him feel weirdly self-conscious. He probably looked like a slob.
"I have to apologize for this ambush," Minseok's brother smiled. "Minseok didn't want me to meet you. He did in fact not even want me to find out about you but Minkyung accidentally told me what he was up to." There was something odd in the way he just expected Chanyeol to know who he was. Chanyeol unwillingly wondered whether that was what Minseok's whole childhood had been like. He was just the little brother of someone larger than life.
Minseok's brother seemed to sense his caution because he added, "I'm Kim Minkyoo by the way. Their big brother. I'm not sure if you've heard about me." He threw a questioning glance back at Minseok as if it only occurred to him then that his younger brother maybe did not see the need to tell everyone about him.

Talking to Kim Minkyoo probably was the payback for allowing Yura to pester Minseok with questions. The odd thing only was that, while Yura had been emotional and blunt, Kim Minkyoo sounded like a detective asking routine questions in a robbery case. He ran at a steady pace while he talked in an even voice and something about it was incredibly eerie. He asked Chanyeol genereal questions, such as how old he was, whether he had siblings, whether he planned to attend university and whether his parents owned a house. But no matter what Chanyeol answered, Kim Minkyoo just nodded with the expression of someone who did not actually care. Next to him Minseok had a similarly blank face. Chanyeol unwillingly had to think of the baseball club doing their daily rounds around the baseball field and how inhuman they sometimes looked. "It's like none of them has a personality," Baekhyun had once said and Chanyeol didn't mean to think of those words because he knew them not to be true. At least in Minseok's case he knew that there was more to him. But as he followed Minseok and his brother into the mountains he couldn't help but think that they looked exactly like former members of the baseball club. And he wasn't sure whether he liked it.
"So I'm sure you understand that you can't tell Mom and Dad about him," Minkyoo said to his brother after a round of questions around Chanyeol's father's work and Chanyeol swerved off the path in surprise. He tried to get his foot on the ground, slipped and ended up falling sideways into a bush with his bike. "," he yelped and for a moment he just pressed his eyes close. He didn't want to get up and answer more questions and embarrass himself even further.
"Are you okay?" Minseok asked in a genuinely worried tone and Chanyeol opened is eyes to see him pull the bike off him. Minseok took hold of his arm and helped him up. "Are you hurt?" Minseok asked and looked at him imploringly.
"No, I'm... I'm fine," Chanyeol muttered and shot a glance at Minkyoo who had stopped in the middle of the path with a resigned expression. Minseok picked a withered leaf from his hair and Chanyeol picked up his bike but Minkyoo remained still. He looked like a general on a battle field who would not allow his commands to be ignored. Minseok meanwhile clearly avoided to look at him.
"The things is," Minkyoo began when Minseok and Chanyeol were back on the path, as if he had waited for them to be ready for his speech. This time Minkyoo looked directly at Chanyeol. "You seem like a normal enough guy. I don't know what I was expecting, but I don't mind you as much as I thought I would."
Chanyeol blinked and wondered what kind of person Kim Minkyoo had expected to meet. It was one of those questions he didn't dare ask. His sister, too, had acted as if Chanyeol would hook up with a creepy ert, only to then finally give in when she actually met Minseok. He could only imagine the preconceptions that lurked in other people's imagination.
"But this is not about what I think, or about what our sister thinks," Minkyoo continued. "I have no idea what my brother has told you about our parents but I know that they would not like you. Even if you dated our sister they wouldn't. They want her to get together with someone who is older and richer and better educated than her. And for my brother and I they want docile girls whose only concern is to make enough kimchi to feed all the babies they give birth to. You frankly don't fit in."
It sounded like a joke but Minkyoo's voice remained perfectly even as he spoke. Chanyeol unwillingly looked at Minseok for confirmation but Minseok only stared at the ground with a cold expression.
"If he was so stupid to not only tell them about you but to insinst on being with you in front of them, there's a very high risk of them throwing him out and cutting off all his resources," Minkyoo said and Chanyeol felt a shiver run down his spine. Minseok had told him about his parents before but to hear the potential consequences spelled out like this was hard to listen to.
"The point is that even if he works part time and if I support him with everything I have, it probably wouldn't be enough to get him to graduate," Minkyoo said. "Of course he could still try to get a scholarship but the truth is that he got on that track much too late. Throughout his childhood he wasn't trained to become a scholar but an athlete, so to be honest, I believe that he can only follow the regular path now. And for the regular path he needs our parents' money."
"Hyung," Minseok said sharply and looked at him pleadingly. "Lets not-."
"Maybe it's not fair," Minkyoo said and stared at Chanyeol for a second longer, only to then shift his gaze to his brother. "Maybe it's unfair to lie to them until then. Maybe it really is. But I don't think it was fair to turn us into machines who can do nothing but swings bats and throw balls either. If you were a tad less smart than you are, you wouldn't even have made it as far as university without a baseball scholarship. I didn't." He scoffed and for a second he lost control of his face. His expression was full of anger and regret and all the memories that had led him to where he was now. Then he spat on the ground and turned back to Chanyeol with a measured mask as a face.
"You see, I need my brother to graduate," Minkyoo said evenly. "I need him to get a stable job and his own apartment and then, only then he can tell them to shove it. And if you're still around by that time, great, I will personally stand behind you and cheer you on. But until that day I'll have to ask you to help him lie to our parents and to never insist on meeting them."
Minseok sighed and looked at Chanyeol. "You don't have to promise him anything," he said but didn't dispute the point his brother had made either. Chanyeol couldn't imagine their parents to be bad people. It didn't make sense for bad people to raise someone like Minkyoo who had apparently considered to pay for his brother's university tuition, or like Minkyung who was always there with a smile. Bad people couldn't have been responsible for Minseok who was constantly afraid of hurting others.
But the problem probably was that it wasn't so easy. They didn't necessarily have to be bad people to have opposing ideas of what the world was supposed to be like. Yura wasn't a bad person and she had repeatedly yelled at him. Baekhyun wasn't a bad person and he wasn't talking to him any longer.
"I'll do what I can and won't ask to meet them," Chanyeol said and Minkyoo let out a heavy sigh in relieve while Minseok seemed unsure whether he was supposed to feel glad or apologetic.
"Good," Minkyoo said and actually showed a genuine smile. He turned away from them and clearly was about to continue running when he seemed to realize something. "I mean," he quickly said. "I hope this didn't come off as me opposing to, you know..." He frowned at his brother and then at Chanyeol over his shoulder and vaguely said, "Whatever it is you do. Obviously you can do whatever you want. I just don't want that to get in the way of my brother's future career. Because to be honest, I'm counting on him to succeed, so that one day I can proudly tell everyone that, even when I messed up my own life, I at least helped him make the best of his." He shrugged and jogged on the spot to warm up his muscles. Before he started to run, he half turned around to them and said, "You can tell me if you need money to, you know, get a room or whatever."
"Hyung," Minseok gasped in a strangled voice and Minkyoo gave him a completey unnecessary thumbs up before he sprinted off.
They both just watched his back move away from them. Chanyeol wondered whether he simply expected them to follow or whether he deliberately wanted to leave them alone after he had said what he had come to say. Kim Minkyoo seemed more confident than his brother, but in the end he probably was just as overly thoughtful as his siblings.
"You know," Chanyeol said and grinned at Minseok who still looked mortified. "I'm not sure if it makes you feel better but my sister made me read a pamphlet on venereal diseases."
Rather than to laugh the way he was supposed to, Minseok frowned at him and possibly looked even more embarrassed.
"What I'm trying to say is that I believe she's worse than your brother," Chanyeol explained and Minseok blew air through his nose in a soundless laugh.
"I mean, I'm not sure whom of us she was trying to accuse of anything," Chanyeol continued light-heartedly. "And I don't think I have any venereal diseases but according to the pamphlet you sometimes only know that you do when it's already too late. So I guess you have to be careful and stuff." He was beginning to ramble and had a feeling that Minseok was about to stop paying attention and to get back into his head, so Chanyeol asked, "So do you want to get a room or whatever?"
At first Minseok frowned. Then he repeatedly blinked. Then he smiled like someone who didn't mean to be amused by a bad joke and asked, "After telling me that you might carry a venereal disease?"
"Yeah," Chanyeol said.
Minseok looked at him thoughtfully and then said, "I don't think you should joke about diseases." He sounded serious but obviously tried another of those diversion tactics he knew annoyed Chanyeol. His expression was that of someone who tried to hold in his laughter.
Chanyeol nodded, "I agree that I definitely shouldn't joke about diseases. So is that a yes?"
He only half expected Minseok to immediately give him a reply. But then Minseok looked up at the sky and back at him and half shrugged, half nodded.

On Thursday he was in a good mood when he left the house but then it started raining right  before he reached the school gate. By the time he ran into the entrance hall for shelter, he was soaking wet and his shoes made squeaky noises. From that point onwards it only got worse. He slipped when he hurried into his classroom and knocked a metal pencil case off the desk of a guy who had previously chased him across the schoolyard for less. The only thing that saved him was the bell and the appearance of their disgruntled math teacher.
During the first break then he dropped his phone on his way down the staircases and the screen cracked.
During their history class he fell asleep and woke up to his teacher slapping his book across his face.
During lunch break he could find neither Jongdae nor Minkyung and was invited to sit at a table with Jongdae's two sidekicks who had for some reason decided that Chanyeol was as good a subtitute as anyone.
"You know, some people say quite some about you but I think you're okay," Yangil said with his mouth full of bread while Hyuk fumbled with the straw of his banana milk. Rather than to reply, Chanyeol let his gaze wander around the cafeteria. When his eyes fell on Boyoung at a different table, she gave him another encouraging smile that still always made him feel bad. Jungyoon and Baekhyun walked by and when she noticed Chanyeol, she grabbed the back of Baekhyun's collar to make him slow down but he just marched forward although she clearly choked him. Jungyoon gave Chanyeol a resigned wave and followed Baekhyun.
"Wow, your friend is an ," Yangil noted.
"The Fist is probably holding him hostage," Hyuk said and Chanyeol laughed although it wasn't funny. If anything, the situation was just absurd. High school had never been as bad as it was these days.
The worst part was when Minseok texted him right before his last period that he had to join an outing of the track team. Someone had won some marathon related event Chanyeol had no interest learning more about and in consequence Minseok could not go running that evening because he had to eat salads and drink healthy detox teas with a bunch of athletic university students.
'OK,' Chanyeol texted back and hoped that his lack of words sufficiently conveyed his unhappiness. But he honestly couldn't protest. He probably couldn't expect Minseok to only have weird friends like Ahn Hari and Luhan who would even come to support Chanyeol's school band.

The problem was that, once school was over and he packed his bag, he wasn't sure what to do with himself. Over the last couple of weeks he had got so used to meeting Minseok that he had forgotten what it had been like before. It also was too early to go home and study.
With no better alternative he did what he had done for years and crossed the schoolyard to get to the old building with the band club room.
When he saw that the door was open he didn't think much about it because he was too much in his own head. But then he heard the keyboard and froze. It wasn't just the fact that he had seen Jongdae leave with Minkyung a little earlier. Even if he hadn't seen him, he would have been able to hear the difference. Music was the only thing on earth he really understood and just like how Jongdae's and Baekhyun's voices were different, the way they played the piano was, too.
Baekhyun being in the club room meant that he couldn't go there, no matter how much he wanted to. That part of his life had ended.
So he balled his hands into fists, the spot and was halfway to the staircases when the music was interrupted. For a split second there was nothing at all to be heard and then Baekhyun exclaimed, "I hope you know how rude it is to leave before you even said hello."
Chanyeol stopped but didn't dare look back. He wasn't even sure if he was meant to react at all. For all he knew this was just the continuation of a day full of .
"I mean, you've met my family," he said tentatively but his voice sounded stiff even to him. "We're not exactly known to be very polite."
"Very true," Baekhyun agreed a tad too quickly so that Chanyeol unwillingly laughed. He turned around in mock indignation and saw Baekhyun stand in the door with a silly expression. Something about the image was awfully familiar, like an old childhood photo that showed a moment that had long passed.
"Well, okay, let me try again," Chanyeol said and cleared his throat. "Hello, my fellow student. Nice to see you. How have you been lately?"
When he bowed his head politely, Baekhyun nodded in approval and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "That's better," he said. "You almost sound like a regular person with manners."
"Thanks," Chanyeol said and they grinned at each other for a second before the moment faded away. The grin turned into a grimace and awkwardness spread in the space between them. It didn't feel right. When they had been younger, they had always known what the other was thinking. At times they had even been able to finish each others sentences, much to the annoyance of their families. 'You're getting more stupid the more you let him say what you think,' Yura had once said and Chanyeol had informed her that she only was jealous and that she was the stupid one. Things had been so easy then.
And now he needed the right words but they wouldn't come and he had no idea what was going through Baekhyun's head. Suddenly a familiar face had turned into that of a stranger.
"I shouldn't have lied to you," he said quietly and as he said it he knew how naive he sounded. It was the continuation of the conversation they had never really had. There were so many mistakes he had made. They were what had led to this moment.
"No," Baekhyun agreed and looked at the ground with his arms now like a barrier between him and the world. He furrowed his brows as if he couldn't collect his thoughts. Then he said, "And if I'm honest, I'm not sure anymore if I ever really knew you that well."
Chanyeol wanted to protest. Just because one tiny detail had changed, everything else didn't immediately become a lie. The thousands of hours of hanging around and playing music and talking nonsense and walking around town were still real.
He wanted to say something but didn't know what. Memories weren't solid and for all he knew, Baekhyun's memories now sounded like a song played in the wrong key. He couldn't argue against that.
"But, I don't know," Baekhyun continued without looking up. "Maybe that is because I didn't really pay attention. I mean, that sometimes happens, doesn't it? You think you see something but what you really see is what you expect to see. So when it changes, you don't notice a thing. What's that called? Partial perception?"
Chanyeol just frowned at him in incomprehension.
"So I kept thinking about how things would have been different if I had known," Baekhyun said and his voice sounded oddly distant. "At first I thought that we probably wouldn't be friends anymore, but..." He made a pause and chewed the inside of his cheek for a second. "I mean, you never did anything weird to me or else I probably would have noticed something, right? So I don't know, maybe I simply wouldn't have allowed you to stay over as often. Or maybe I just would have refused to let you use me as an alibi to stay over at other people's houses. Maybe I would have punched Han Jaehong in the face when he hooked up with Yoo Hyenhwa. And I wouldn't have convinced you to date Boyoung after concluding that, if she likes you better than me, she could have you." He looked up at his last words and gave Chanyeol a lopsided grin.
"About Boyoung..." Chanyeol began because he wasn't sure about the direction this conversation was taking. But Baekhyun held up his hand to gesture him to stop.
"What I'm trying to say is... Who knows how things would have turned out if I had found out earlier. You lied and I was blind," Baekhyun said firmly. "And I think in the end we both acted like s. So I don't think we could ever continue to be friends the way we were."
Chanyeol bit his lips. This probably was the perfect conclusion of this day. It was one thing for Baekhyun to be mad and a completely different one to have a rational explanation on why they couldn't be friends anymore. Rationality made it hard to be mad because being mad usually was irrational.
"So that's it?" Chanyeol asked and crinkled his nose. His body felt numb, as if he had just walked through a snow storm and couldn't immediately warm up.
"Yeah, well," Baekhyun shrugged and shuffled his feet across the linoleum.
Chanyeol was about to turn around and leave and maybe do it like Minseok and run until he couldn't run anymore, but then Baekhyun added, "But we can always start afresh, right?"
"What?" Chanyeol asked and Baekhyun shrugged again.
"We can start afresh. But this time with all the cards on the table," he said and gave Chanyeol an unusually uncertain glance, as if he feared to be laughed at. The truth was that neither of them had ever been very good at serious conversations.
When Chanyeol didn't move and just stared at him, Baekhyun eventually cleared his throat, uncrossed his arm and took a step into his direction. In surprise Chanyeol almost stumbled backwards.
"So, I'm Byun Baekhyun," he said. "My secret is that I've been a little mad at my best friend for years because he grew up to be taller than me. I never expected that. Also, I have a huge crush on his sister. Oh, and I'm dating Lee Jungyoon because I wanted to be edgy but now I actually really like her." He smiled cautiously and held out his right hand.
Chanyeol frowned at it and then at Baekhyun and still wasn't sure what to do. He was frozen. But then Baekhyun slowly retracted his hand and Chanyeol quickly rushed forward to take hold of it. He tripped and Baekhyun held out his other hand in surprise to prevent him from falling.
"Park Chanyeol," Chanyeol said and shook Baekhyun's head a little too eagerly. "I just lost my best friend and it really bugs me because now I have to eat lunch with Jongdae's friends," he said and Baekhyun grinned knowingly. "And I," he began but then hesitated. The next words were what he had hidden for years. He bit his lips but Baekhyun just looked at him evenly, as if they both knew that this was the point that would change things.
"I'm dating Kim Minkyung's brother," Chanyeol said and held his breath when Baekhyun flinched a little.
But then Baekhyun pressed his hand and said, "Cool. Nice to meet you."

On Friday then Chanyeol decided to invite Minseok over for dinner.

- chicken -

"Can I stay over at your house tonight?" Luhan asked when Kris was about to turn away and pretend to urgently rearrange the neat rows with cigarette packages behind him. It was hilarious how empty the convenience store constantly was and how Kris still managed to appear busy. It had been days since they had last seen each other because Kris always supposedly had something to do but when Luhan actually looked for him, he usually seemed bored out of his mind. At least he still found time to listen, so rather than to ignore him, Kris raised his eyebrows at him.
"On the couch I mean?" Luhan specified, which caused the eyebrows to fall again.
"Why?" Kris asked and squinted his eyes at him like a detective in a cop movie who knew that a suspect straight out lied to his face.
"We have relatives over," Luhan shrugged. "And I'm not sure I will survive another evening of questions to determine whether or not I should better be purged from the family tree."
Kris still eyed him suspiciously and Luhan sighed heavily. It was not technically a lie. They had two aunts, one uncle and two cousins over and they were all awfully annoying, especially because one aunt and the corresponding uncle were occupying his room, while Luhan and his cousins slept on the floor in the living room because the other aunt snored away on the couch. One of his cousins knew that he was gay but all the others didn't and just the way his mother tiptoed around him not being quite the son she wanted, frustrated him. She could neither say that she was proud of him nor admit to her sisters that she did not adore everything about him. So it was true that he did not necessarily want to stay in his house for the moment.
And yet it was nothing but an excuse.
"You're the only person I know who lives on his own and has an empty couch," Luhan added when Kris seemed about to protest. "And I can fix you dinner."
"You can cook?" Kris scoffed in a way that made it very clear that he did not believe that one bit.
"Well," Luhan said and put on his brightest smile. "I can't, but I can definitely treat you to whatever take-out dinner you fancy."
For a second Kris looked insecure. His face had the expression Luhan always dreaded to see, full of disappointment and hurt and disbelief. Every time Luhan saw it, he wondered whether there would ever be a day when he could talk to Kris without seeing it. But now, every time he overstepped the border between them, it was there, too.
He was sure that Kris would tell him to piss off but then he only shrugged, "Fried chicken."
Luhan blinked while Kris started to busy himself with wiping imaginary dust off the cash register.
"Okay, sure," Luhan then smiled. "Fried chicken it is."
"I won't be home before ten though," Kris said as he finally turned to the cigarette racks behind him. Luhan only got so far as to open his mouth, when Kris added, "And I sure as hell won't give you the key."
In return Luhan threw up his hands in exasperation. "How are you so sure that I was going to ask you to give me the key? Do I look so desperate to go through you stuff?" he asked and Kris threw him a glare over his shoulder.
"I mean," Luhan said meekly and suppressed a stupidly happy smile. "Let's be honest. If I had the chance, I would most definitely go through you stuff, so you're not mistaken," he admitted which caused Kris' back to move in silent laughter.
"So, see you at ten?" Luhan asked when Kris refused to turn back to face him.
"Whatever," Kris said in his usual annoyed tone. When Luhan was about to make another snarky remark, Kris added, "Just don't forget the chicken."
"I won't," Luhan laughed and left the store.
It was only when he was outside that he could feel the adrenaline rush through his veins as if he had just made it out of a particularly exciting rollercoaster. His knees felt weak and his heart hammered in his chest and before he knew better, he called Hari.

"I mean, if you were a girl," Hari said skeptically as she watched him put a six-pack with beer into the shopping cart. "I would tell you to just wear y lingerie and a short skirt. And you could for example ask him to watch a scary movie with you and get super close on the couch." To show what she meant she took hold of Luhan's arm and pressed herself against his side. "And then you say something like," she cleared and continued in a grotesquely high voice, "Oh honey, I'm so scared."
He stared at her in disgust and shook her off himself while she laughed, "And then you accidentally slide your skirt up a little and when you take his hand, you place it on your thigh."
"Is that what you did to poor Minseok?" he asked and her expression immediately turned foul.
"If I had done that to him, he would have pissed himself," she said.
"Because he would have laughed too hard?" he asked and she slapped his arm hard enough for him to wince in pain.
"But seriously," she said in a more earnest tone when he proceeded to walk towards the register. "Has getting him drunk and seducing him ever really worked for you?" As she said those words, a middle-aged women they passed looked at them with wide eyes. He could almost hear her silent prayer.
"Who says that that's what I'm planning to do?" Luhan asked and avoided to look at Hari because that was exactly what he had planned to do. The truth was that it had indeed never really worked before. Drunkenly sleeping with each other had never changed anything on the long run. But it was the only thing he knew how to do.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe your grocery selection?" Hari said with a nod at his shopping cart.
"Huh," he said and stopped. He looked at the snacks and the beer and suddenly felt stupid. If he brought plastic bags full of party food his intentions probably were instantly clear. Kris, being as moody as he sometimes was, especially when he was tired, would probably not even let him enter the apartment.
"I don't know how to talk to him," Luhan finally admitted and Hari sighed.
"You talk to him all the time," she said but obviously knew what he meant. He did talk to Kris a lot but not really, not about anything that mattered. It was always just meaningless banter and often enough, Kris didn't even bother to say anything at all in return. Talking to Kris tended to be like talking to a brick wall.
"If you need to get drunk, you'll only look like an ," she said. "Just talk to him like you always do, but this time be honest. The more embarrassed you feel, the better, because then he will understand that you actually mean what you say."
He grimaced at her. "That's terrible advice," he said meekly.
"Shut up," she laughed and hit the exact same spot on his arm she had hit before. He could literally feel it turning purple. "You know that it's great advice. You're just too much of a chicken."
He sighed but eventually put the beer and the snacks back.

"Just be honest," he said to his reflection in the mirror of his closet as he held two different sweaters in front of him to decide which one looked better. Even without y lingerie and overly complex hidden agendas, he wanted to appear presentable in a subtle way. He needed to look like the right choice.
"Just be honest," he muttered to himself as he looked at his warped image in the bus window. He tried to smile in a non-creepy, non-predatory, non-ironic way but wasn't quite satisfied with the outcome. If anything, he looked stupid.
"Be honest," he whispered as he sat on a stool in the chicken restaurant and waited for his take-out. A girl at a table nearby winked at him and her friend giggled. Normally, he would have reacted and maybe tried to get her number just for the heck of it but this time he could only bury his face in his scarf like an introvert. He probably looked like Minseok.
"Just be honest, just be honest, just be honest," he repeated over and over again as he walked to Kris' apartment building. The closer he got, the slower he became.
"Maybe this is a mistake," he said and stopped. He looked down at the take-out box in his sweaty hand and at the new fancy shoes he had originally bought for a job interview. The backpack on his left shoulder suddenly felt awfully heavy although he had made sure to only pack absolute necessities. He didn't want to appear as though he planned to move in.
Maybe it was a mistake. For years this hadn't worked out, no matter what he had done. Luhan had no idea what Kris was thinking or else he probably would have managed to talk things out. All he had was Hari's conviction that he had a chance. But what did she know anyway?
It was a mistake. This was not going to work. Honesty was not going to cut it as his sole weapon and he had nothing else prepared. No matter what Hari said, if he embarrassed himself by trying to be  more honest than usual, he would gain nothing but even more awkwardness.
He was about to turn back and run home like a dog with his tail between his legs, when a voice behind him said, "Don't tell me you already forgot where I live."
He froze. Although he barely ever froze. Most things in life didn't faze him enough for him to completely snap out of it, but here he was, completely frozen. He couldn't even turn to look at Kris as he heard his footsteps come closer. When Kris was level with him, he forced himself to look up but couldn't even lift the corners of his mouth in a mock smile. He felt sick.
And then Kris frowned with a worried expression and Luhan could feel his heart again. It started like a formular 1 car at the beginning of a race and drowned out everything else.
"I brought chicken," he managed to say with an eerily high-pitched voice and held up the take-out box to prove it.
At first he didn't think that Kris was going to say anything. As good as Kris was at sensing schemes and mood changes and dishonesties, as oblivious was he in his reactions. Even if he knew that something was wrong, he shrugged it off. That was how the last couple of months had passed without any notabe changes in their strange relationship. Luhan circled around everything he really wanted to say and Kris ignored him doing so. This was the moment when Luhan would say something stupid and Kris would maybe give a snarky reply and they would spend the rest of the evening watching stuff on TV and then falling asleep. If they luckly, Kris had liquor at home and they would get drunk and make out. But no matter what they were going to do, in the end they would fall asleep and wake up to another day without changes.
Luhan was tired of it but couldn't say anything either. He didn't want to joke around again, so in the end he was at a loss for words. His whole vocabulary consisted of nothing but useless nonsense.
And then Kris asked, "You're not sick, are you?" He seemed so genuinely concerned that Luhan unwillingly felt reminded of their time back in cram school, when they had still been able to talk freely. One day in early winter he had coughed throughout their lessons and Kris had lent him his scarf after ten minutes of Luhan protesting and Kris insisting. Back then Kris had had the exact same expression he had now. It had been the last time he had looked at him that way. After that everything had broken.
Luhan unwillingly laughed but it came out like a choked whine. He was a complete idiot.
"Seriously, are you okay?" Kris asked and sounded urgent as he came half a step closer.
"Remember that time when you lent me your scarf in cram school?" Luhan asked quietly and Kris immediately stopped. Luhan didn't need to look at him to be able to tell that the tiny hint of warmth immediately disappeared from his face. Of course Kris would remember the scarf. "And when Moon Seongcheol tried to choke me with it? And when you kept hitting him? And when I told you that he-"
"Are you drunk?" Kris interrupted him coldly and Luhan looked up in confusion.
"What?" he asked.
"I asked you if you got drunk before you came here like some ing moron," Kris said and sounded oddly furious, as if he tried to keep his anger in but part of it just flowed past his flood barriers. "If I have to hear that story one more time, I'll..." He didn't finish the sentence and half turned away, as if he was ready to march off by himself and to never look back.
"What, no, I..." Luhan began hurriedly and then realisation crept up to him like a spider at night. "I told you before," he said but it was meant as a question. He couldn't remember ever uttering a word about Moon Seongcheol and all the regrets in high school. But he also knew that he tended to forget about the things he said or did when he got too drunk. Kris scoffing confirmed that theory.
"," Luhan said and felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. He was such in idiot. Of course he would have talked about it when he was irresponsibly brave and of course he would forget about it and of course Kris would pretend that nothing had ever happened. Because nothing could change, unless they both remembered the same thing.
"I'm not drunk," he then said and tried to sound reassuring but could hear his voice waver.  Kris didn't look convinced either. This was what he had been scared of. He was embarrassed but didn't come off as honest either. All this did would probably do was to cut the last remaining thread between them.
"What did you come here for?" Kris asked in a low voice and for a moment Luhan wanted to joke badly. He had come because his family was annoying, he could had said in exasperation. There was hair all over the bathroom floor and his uncle constantly burped and his cousin had tried to steal one of his pants. He wanted to laugh about those things and shake off this suffocating feeling of having failed at something that was meant to be simple. He didn't want to continue his way down the slope of certain humiliation.
But then he gripped the handle of the take-out box until his nails dug into his palm and said, "I came here because I miss you." His heart hammered against his chest and Kris' expression didn't change, but he still forced himself to press on. "And not that you you've been lately who constantly looks like he smells a fart." For a second he thought he saw a tiny hint of a smile on Kris' lips. "I miss that you from before I messed things up. When you told me how your days had been and when you forced me to wear your scarf and when you constantly asked me to translate words you didn't know in Korean and when you didn't pretend to be annoyed every time you saw me. You have no idea how much I miss that."
For a long moment Kris just looked at him with a solemn expression. Then he asked, "Don't you think it's too late for that?" There was a strange undertone to his voice, as if he himself genuinely wondered about it. To Luhan it sounded like hope.
"No, I don't," Luhan said and prayed that he didn't come off as uncertain as he definitely was. "And if you really thought that, why would you have allowed me to come over? You know that you're not the only person with a couch I know. If I really just wanted to avoid my relatives, I would have asked to stay over at the house of someone who gives me free food. Vicky's fiancé is on a business trip anyway and she's always happy to have people over, so I definitely would have asked her first. I don't mean to exaggerate but her cooking is divine."
Kris unwillingly let out a short, toneless laugh at that. His expression had only softened a little but Luhan already immediately felt much lighter.
"And her fiancé wouldn't have minded that?" he asked.
Luhan shrugged, "I think that when he met me for the first time he immediately determined that I'm not a threat. I suspect that he thinks of me as one of Vicky's girlfriends."
Kris looked him up and down and then nodded as if he agreed with that assessment which caused Luhan to click his tongue at him. For a second they look at each other in amusement but then the reality of the situation slowly sunk in. They still stood outside. The night around them was cold and heavy. And they were at a crossroad.
"Can I come in?" Luhan asked and Kris furrowed his brows. "I have chicken," Luhan continued. "Although that's probably cold by now."
Kris looked at the road ahead of them with an troubled expression. "If I let you in," he began but seemed unsure how to continue the question. This was not just about staying over.
"If you let me in, I won't expect anything from you," Luhan said helpfully but then realized how fake that probably sounded in light of what he had said before. He did have expectations and Kris must have understood that much. "And I promise I won't break anything," he added.
Kris sighed. "That's what you said when you borrowed that pencil you then threw out of the window," he said and proceeded to walk towards his apartment building.
At first Luhan didn't know what he meant and just frowned at him in dumbfoundedness. And then he remembered. On his first day in cram school he had forgotten his pencil case and had borrowed a pencil from the person next to him, that person being Kris. 'I'm always very careful with things that don't belong to me, you know,' he had said but then he had somehow accidentally thrown it out of the open window at some point. Someone had startled him although he couldn't remember how or why. 'Always careful, my ,' Kris had snorted. It was the stupid story of how they had talked for the first time and Luhan had almost forgotten about it. Because the point was that they never talked about cram school or anything else that had happened before Luhan had begun stalking Kris on campus.
"You coming?" Kris loudly said without turning around and Luhan grinned like a child when he followed him.

- stonger (family) -

Yura wasn't always busy on Friday nights. Every once in a while she stayed home, had dinner with her family and then watched whatever TV had to offer with them. Friday nights at home were supposed to be the most relaxing ones, when she could wear mismatching clothes and her fingers after eating dried squid on the couch. On Friday nights at home she didn't have to refresh her make-up or wear shoes that made her calves look pretty and made her feel every single bone in her feet. Friday nights at home were not supposed to be nerve-racking. And yet, this Friday she was as tense as she hadn't felt in ages at the prospect of dinner with her family. As she sat in front of her laptop in her room and scrolled through rows and rows of cute cat pictures, she kept wishing that she was instead preparing to go out with Hwajung. All just because of her brother.

"Okay, great, they will definitely like him," she had happily said to him over the phone when he had called her to tell her that he had asked Minseok to have dinner with them. They had discussed it before. She had disliked the idea of Minseok but when she had met him, she had eventually liked him. All they had to do was to introduce him as a friend and once their parents had got used to him, they could slowly etch closer to the truth.
"I'll tell them everything," Chanyeol had said and she had nodded.
"Tonight," he had added and she had spat some of her americano over her notes in surprise. Her friend Hwajung, who had been in the middle of another call with her cheating boyfriend, had given her a nasty look from across the coffee shop table they were sharing.
"Are you serious? And he's okay with that?" Yura had asked because she couldn't quite picture Kim Minseok, possible the most timid person she had met in all her life, to agree to being introduced as The Boyfriend to The Parents during their first meeting.
"He doesn't know," her brother had said in a suspiciously casual voice and before she had had a chance to talk him out of it, he had pretended to suddenly be busy.
"You're crazy," she had muttered to the phone after he had hung up. "You are completely crazy."
"Who?" Hwajung had asked in a bored voice because her call also seemed to have ended.
"My brother," Yura had muttered while her imagination played horror scenarios to her. If they were lucky, Mineok was just going to faint and then jump out of the window once he woke up. They lived on the first floor, so he would survive that. The worst thing that could happen was that he would run right away and then be hit by a truck. And then Chanyeol would become an alcoholic and throw himself off a bridge. "He's completely lost his mind. He's trying to kill his boyfriend," she had gasped, completely lost in thought.
"Boyfriend?" Hwajung had asked with a raised eyebrow and Yura had snapped out of it.
Hwajung, who had probably thought that she had misheard her, had then shrugged, "That's because he's hot now. In my experience, hot boys all turn crazy at some point. They get too full of themselves. I tell you, you should only date guys who are ugly and humble. Once they're hot like your brother, they'll hook up with a girl and completely ruin her." To prove her point she had snapped her fingers with a dramatic sigh.
Yura had pulled a face. "Can you please stop calling my brother hot? That's creeping me out," she had said disapprovingly and Hwajung had laughed. Her saying awkward things about Chanyeol was the eternal payback for that one time when they had met Hwajung's older brother in a club and when Yura, completely drunk, had been trying to hook up with him. The difference however was that Hwajung's brother was an adult. Yura's wasn't.
"And before you get any ideas," Yura had added. "He's currently ruining a boy."
It had been such a simply thing to say and Hwajung was one of her best friends, but she had felt still proud of how herself. It had felt as weird or awkward or wrong anymore. Her brother had a boyfriend and really, that was all there was to say.
"A hot boy?" Hwajung had asked as she had scratched her ear in a way that had made Yura wonder whether she had really followed the conversation.
Yura had shrugged and had tried to picture Minseok. "If anything, I'd rather call him cute."
Hwajung had nodded and had then leaned back in her chair with a heavy sigh. "The world is just unfair. Hot guys are always either s or gay. Or they're already married to some other . I mean, every single day I'm asking myself why I'm still seeing Yongwoo-oppa but it's either him or someone ugly, right? At least with Yongwoo-oppa I'd have gorgeous wedding pictures and pretty children."
Yura had unwillingly laughed and had then felt amazed at how easy these things could be. Hwajung admittedly was an airhead and Chanyeol wasn't her brother, but Yura would have expected her to at least ask for more details.
Maybe it really only was Yura who had made things difficult.

Until she had reached home, she had actually managed to be hopeful that everything would be all right. There were so many people who just accepted her brother and Kim Minseok, why would her parents be different? They had spawned Chanyeol after all. They were the ones who had raised him into the blockhead he now was.
But then she had entered the apartment and had already heard her father curse at the news in the living room. He had been home early and had clearly already in a bad mood. A burnt smell kitchen from the kitchen had filled the room and second later her brother had emerged with a fuming frying pan. "Mom, , it's burning," he had yelled.
"Park Chanyeol, what are you doing?" her mother had exclaimed as she had rushed from the bathroom and had quickly stuffed her blouse in her skirt. "I can't leave you alone for one second. Bring that back in the kitchen! Don't you dare stain the carpet!" When she had noticed Yura she had smiled at her, "Welcome home," and had then pushed Chanyeol into the kitchen.
"Just open the windows already," Yura had still heard her mother when she had already been in her room and about to close the door. Her father meanwhile had loudly cleared his voice in a very disgruntled way.
The whole evening could only become a complete disaster.

"Do you seriously want to do this to him?" she asked in a hushed voice after breaking into his room and quickly closed the door behind her like a spy parody. Chanyeol, who by now would have worn an old t-shirt and his glasses, looked both amused and nervous. He had showered and combed his hair and although he didn't quite look like someone who was about to introduce the love of his life to his parents, he did look a little suspicious. He looked too clean.
"We need a place to stay," he said evenly and she sighed as she sat down on his bed next to him. She could tell that it wasn't just a hasty decision.
"You could stay here without causing him a heart attack," she said and he wrinkled his nose. "And you know that he will probably have a heart attack," she continued. "Why can't you just let them get used to him first?"
He scratched his neck uncomfortable and then folded his hands in his lap. "I'm not going to lie."
"Lying  and not telling the truth aren't necessarily the same thing," she said but the moment those words left , she immediately doubted them. To invite a boyfriend over and pretend that he was anything but, probably counted as lying.
"And you lied to him," she added.
He shrugged. "In that case it was necessary. He would have swum all the way across the Pacific Ocean to reach America by now if I had told him what I was up to."
She snorted a laugh and then took his left hand in hers. She had thought that he would be a lot calmer than she was but as his sweaty hands pressed hers, she felt reminded of the time when they had been little children scared of a thunderstorm outside.
"He's so going to have a heart attack," she muttered.
"Cheer up, noona," he said light-heartedly and bumped his shoulder into hers. "The hospital is close-by so I'm sure he'll survive. And I mean, if that's not a great icebreaker, I don't know what is."
She laughed and just in that moment the doorbell rang.
"All right, then," Chanyeol said and jumped up while rubbing his hands.
"Better call the ambulance," she muttered as she followed him outside.

Up until that point she still thought that her brother would at least be subtle about it. She thought that he would give them all some time to get used to each other and then, maybe after dinner, he would have made a heartfelt confession in the living room before they the TV. They could have shared stories about how hard to was for Chanyeol to grow up and could have looked through photo albums together.
Instead, Chanyeol decided to approach things in the roughest way imaginable.
Minseok stood in the doorway with a basket full of clementines and still had his shoes on and his jacket zipped up. Their mother had been the first person at the door, so she stood closest to him while Chanyeol behind her said, "Mom, that's Kim Minseok. We're dating."
For a moment none of them said a word in numb shock. The only noises came from the living room where their father watched a game show.
Then Yura said, "Oh my God," and hurried past her brother and her mother because she genuinely feared a medical emergency.
What really impressed her was that Minseok did not fall or waver or lose consciousness. He didn't even let the clementine basket drop, although he clearly looked shaken. It probably had to do with the fact that he had played baseball since young. Maybe that was also the reason why her father always seemed like a rock. Maybe she had misunderstood him all those years. Whatever it was however, when she reached Minseok, all the colour had drained from his face and he stared at Chanyeol as if he had seen a ghost, but he remained on his feet and yet didn't run. That in itself already was a good sign.
"I told him not to do this," she quickly muttered when Minseok's gaze shifted to her. "Here, let me take this." She held out her hands and when he just gawked at her, she nodded at the clementines. He handed her the basket but still clung to it for a split second too long, like a drowning man who held onto a log in the ocean.
"Dating?" her mother repeated a little too late and turned to Chanyeol in an accusatory way. Yura could only pray that she was not going to say anything stupid.
"I'm so sorry," Yura mouthed to Minseok who looked down at his feet as if it slowly dawned to him that he still wore his shoes. All he had to do was open the door behind him and escape. She thought of holding onto his arm to make him stay but then decided that it wouldn't be fair.
"Yeah," Chanyeol said. "Dating. As in-"
"Oh, please, I know what that means," his mother interrupted him and slapped his arm. "I wasn't born as the wife of your father, you know? What I'm asking is why you're only telling me this now while we all stand here in the cold? You had all day," She huffed as she put her hands on her hips and then shook her head as she looked at Minseok. "The poor boy didn't even have time to take off his shoes and jacket. Yura, give him a pair of house slippers, will you?"
"Yes, m'am," Yura quickly said as she put the basket on the shelf next to the door and then rummaged through it for a pair of guest slippers. When she found it, she put them in front of Minseok and tried to give him a reassuring smile. He clearly tried to return it but only managed to grimace.
"I didn't know I raised a monkey as a son," her mother said to Chanyeol as she slapped his arm once more. "Go tell your father that we will have dinner in twenty minutes and that your guest has arrived."
At first Chanyeol hesitated and threw a quick glance at Minseok who still hadn't moved.
"We're not going to swallow him whole, son," his mother sighed and pushed him further inside.
Chanyeol pulled a face and took a step backwards to get rid of her, only to then push past her and towards Minseok. "Sunbae," he said happily and swiftly took the basket off the shelf. "Thank you. I'll put them in the kitchen. And you heard her. We'll have dinner in twenty minutes." He leaned towards Minseok a little but then turned around and skittered inside on his socked feet.
"I keep telling him to wear slippers," his mother muttered and shook her head. "But you know what he then says?" She looked at Minseok who only blinked at her. "He says that this way I won't have to mop the floor that often." Minseok still blinked and Yura unwillingly laughed.
"You can give me your jacket," Yura said and Minseok touched the zipper without pulling it down as if he only wanted to check that it was still there and closed. "And then you should really come in. You heard the woman. We don't bite."
He slowly nodded and while he took off his jacket and slipped out of his shoes, her mother let out another sigh. "I am really sorry about this. My son can be awfully thoughtless sometimes. When he told me that we'd have a friend over for dinner I thought it would be one of his other friends. Sometimes we have two or three of those over and they eat like a pack of wild dogs." She rubbed her face with a shudder as if she remembered a complete catastrophe. Yura burst out laughing as she put Minseok's jacket on a hanger and even he gave them a tense smile.
"And I'm not saying that they're not all nice but there's only so much meat I can feed to boys who aren't my own," Yura's mother continued with a sorrowful expression. "So I'm afraid to say that it's mainly vegetables tonight and some cheap pork."
"So that's why you're so mad," Yura noted and her mother sighed. When Minseok just looked at her quizzically, Yura explained, "She's mad that my brother didn't tell her to buy better meat. Now we look poor and she hates that. She wants to make a good first impression."
"We don't even have any dessert," Yura's mother said apologetically and Minseok quickly put his hands up to gesture that he didn't mind that. Yura noticed that he had not actually had the chance to say anything yet. Maybe that was his reaction to shock. Rather than to have a heart attack he turned into a pantomime
"Good thing he brought clementines then," Yura grinned and took hold of Minseok's arm to make him follow them inside.

Now with the first hurdle mastered, Yura already felt better but still thought that her father would have to be tackled differently. This was the man who hated almost every single person his son had ever brought home. They first needed to convince him that Minseok was not like Baekhyun despite the similar height and only then did they have a chance.
"Honey, this is," her mother began when their small convoy had reached the living room. Chanyeol stood warily in the door on the opposite side of the room. Even he seemed to understand that his father needed to be approached differently.
"Oh dear, I already forgot your name," Yura's mother said to Minseok.
"Minseok," Yura answered for him. "Kim Minseok."
Minseok nodded in approval.
"Honey, this is Minseokie," her mother said to her father who sat on the couch and had his eyes fixated on the TV screen. He watched a comedy show but didn't really seem to pay attention to it because he frowned rather than to laugh. He let out a grunt to acknowledge their presence.
"Minseokie is Chanyeol's boyfriend," their mother said in complete oblivion and Yura gasped audibly. It was like an alarm going off. Minseok took a step backwards and she instinctively took his hand and moved in front of him a little while Chanyeol took two steps forward while staring at his father. Except for their mother they all positioned themselves in battle formation. Yura readied herself to shout a dozens valid points at her father that would possibly convince him that it was okay to have a son who preferred to date other boys. She had a complete list in her head that had eventually swayed her own opinion, too.
Her father slowly turned his head into Minseok's direction and then looked at his family members like a dragon that had only just awoken. "Is he a choir boy?" he asked with a blatant lack of interest.
"Baseball," Yura immediately said, while Chanyeol on the other side explained, "Dad, he used to play on the baseball team of our school."
As expected, their father straightened his back a little and said, "hoho." This time he looked directly at Minseok. "What position did you play?"
Minseok gulped and for a moment Yura was afraid that he would not find the right words in time. This time she couldn't help him. Chanyeol was about to answer, when Minseok said, "Shortstop, sir."
"Batting average?" their father fired his next question and squinted his eyes the way he always did when he watched sports news. To outsiders it probably looked menacing but Yura knew it to be his intrigued face.
Minseok hesitated for a second. "Around .400," he then said and when Yura's fathers eyes widened, he quickly added, "On a high school level, of course. I was lucky."
"As a shortstop?" Yura's father asked and Minseok shifted uncomfortably. Yura had no idea what they were talking about but she knew her father well enough to understand that he sounded suspicious. "Ever scored noteworthy homerunes?" he asked in a way that made it very obvious that this was trick question.
"No, sir," Minseok said and for the first time Yura actually saw the athlete in him. Boys who played sports tended to have a rough and short way of barking out answers, as if they knew that any second wasted on unnecessary words was a second they could have used to improve their game. "Never had the right physique for that. Never quite hit that far."
Yura's father nodded and seemed quite satisfied with that answer. "And you're not playing any longer?"
"No, sir," Minseok said in that clipped athlete tone.
Yura's father nodded knowingly and asked, "Busy preparing for the university entrance exams?"
"Ah, no," Minseok said and quickly looked at Chanyeol. If their age difference made any of them look bad, it was him, since he was the older one. "I already graduated."
"Oh, really?" Yura's mother asked cheerfully. "You look so young."
"He's only two years older," Chanyeol threw in helpfully. "He was in high school when we met."
Their father seemed to consider that answer for a while and then asked, "So you in university now?"
Minseok nodded.
"Without a baseball scholarship I presume?"
Minseok nodded again.
"You bribed yourself in?" their father asked and Yura groaned. This was the exact same way her father had previously scared off one of her boyfriends. As if it was impossible for someone who was not physically unattractive to be smart. It was even more ridiculous considering that her father himself had attended university, despite having been a handsome, poor, inarticulate baseball kid without a scholarship. According to the standards he had set for Yura so far, her father would not have allowed himself to marry his wife.
"No, I..." Minseok began and clearly tried to steady his voice. "I got in the regular way."
Their father gave him another hard look but Minseok managed to stand his ground. Then their father turned to Chanyeol and asked, "Is this a trick?"
Chanyeol blinked. "What? No. What trick?" Then, when he seemed to sense what his father meant, he said, "If I wanted to trick you, I'd have told him to build in one flaw to make it more plausible."
At first his father frowned at him but then he barked out a laugh that startled Minseok enough to jump a little. "The flaw is that he's too timid," Yura's father said and nodded at Minseok who clearly looked scared.
"You know," their father said to Minseok and leaned back a little. "Back in high school I was an outfielder and a terrible one at that. I was no good at batting either. I don't know why you quit but I had to because I was awful. That's why I have two children and none of them ever picked up my glove. It's karma. When he was little, my son was so fat, every time he ran, I thought he was going to collapse." At the others side of the room Chanyeol let out a disapproving noise.
"My children are both smart," their father continued and tapped the side of his head. "Got that from their mother. That and their constant yapping. So before you make any commitment, let me warn you. My son will never shut up, not even when he's unconscious. In his sleep he still yaps on. And when you come home after a stressful day, he'll bring all his stupid friends over and they'll make all that noise with their hell instruments. You'll never sleep again." The longer he spoke, the heavier his native accent became and in response Chanyeol put his hands in front of his face in embarrassment.
His mother meanwhile laughed heartily, "Honey, don't scare the poor boy off. Maybe he likes your son's yapping. You seem to like mine after all."
Her husband put on a sour expression but didn't say anything as she finally exited the room towards the kitchen. "Yura, are you going to help me prepare the table?" she exclaimed and then added, "Chanyeol, show Minseokie around, will you? If you leave him with your father, he might hear even more nonsense. And if you aggravate your father too much, he ends up sounding like he's fresh off the boat from Busan."
Her husband grunted in return but didn't argue against it. He had only spent a tiny fraction of his life in Busan but cherished his accent more than anything, no matter how often his family made fun of him for it.
"I didn't do anything to aggravate him though," Chanyeol muttered meekly as he walked across the room to finally save Minseok from their family madness.
"Hell instruments?" Minseok asked quietly and Yura chuckled.
"Guitars," she laughed and eventually slowly followed her mother. "He's talking about guitars. And human voices, I guess. Our father hates music. He thinks it's all noise."
She had said it loudly enough for her father to hear her but he stared at the TV again while scratching his left foot as if he was all by himself. It was very gross and very him but she still took it as a positive sign.
When she had already left the room, her father asked, "Shortstop, which team do you root for?"
She didn't hear whether Minseok replied in any way. All she heard was her brother's indignant, "He has a name, Dad."
 
"You knew about Chanyeol, didn't you?" Yura asked when her mother hummed while putting dishes on the table. She seemed quite content with whole situation. "You knew that this day would come, didn't you? And you prepared Dad, too. That's why he was so nice."
Her mother smiled at her innocently and said, "Child, what do you take your father for? Of course he would be nice to a nice boy."
 Yura shook her head in disbelief. They both knew her father's temper. It wasn't hard to imagine how her mother had sat him down one day and told him that sooner or later their son would bring home someone he wouldn't necessarily approve of. But as his father, it was his duty to support his son. As his parents, it was their duty to love him and to try and like the person he wanted to be with. Her mother didn't even have to say a single word for Yura to be certain that such a moment must have happened.
"But how did you find out?" Yura unwillingly asked when her mother frowned at the stew that barely contained any meat and probably wondered whether she still had anything in the freezer.
Her mother looked at her curiously and seemed to consider her answer for a moment, before she shrugged, "I'm his mother."
Yura bit her lips and looked down at the table. Of course it would be so simple.
"I'm his sister and I made things hard for him," she quietly admitted and the more she thought about it, the worse she felt. All the things she had said would never be forgotten. Even if she was supportive now and did whatever she could to make things right again, she had already broken their relationship a little. It was even worse now that she knew that not even her father had put up a fight. "I told him he'd lost his mind. I didn't even try to understand him."
Her mother sighed but didn't say anything for a moment. Then, she said, "One day, when we were little, I was mad at your aunt and told her to jump off a bridge."
Yura frowned at her because she didn't feel like hearing a poor joke, but her mother seemed oddly solemn. "Right after I told her that, she ran off and we couldn't find her for hours," she continued. "I really thought she had, you know, jumped. I was so mad at her but then I got so worried, I couldn't stop crying. Even when she came home, I still cried and cried and told her that I hadn't meant what I had said. But the truth is that, when I had said it, I had meant it. Sometimes we say awful things and mean them. There's no use pretending that it was any different."
Yura unwillingly clenched her fist until her nail dug into her palm and her wrist hurt. Her mother always acted like an airhead but sometimes she said things that made Yura wonder if she could read thoughts. Nothing remained hidden from her and it felt terrible. Yura had meant what she had said. She had believed her brother to be sick and she had hated the person who had corrupted him. That was the sad truth.
"Everybody makes mistakes," her mother said and shrugged with a sad smile. "The point is that you realized that you were wrong and that what you said was hurtful. That's how we grow. I'm sure your brother understands because you're here for him now. That's what matters."
Yura bit her lips and then tried to smile. In times like these she was certain that her mother secretly was a witch. She immediately managed to make things better.

After that the evening passed by in perfect normality. It wasn't quite like all the other times when they had dinner however. Although Minseok most definitely was not a very talkative person, did he somehow improve the situation with his mere presence.
Chanyeol seemed quite content and so did his mother. They were the kind of people whose general pleasentness heavily depended on their mood. Were they in a bad mood, they could easily ruin any moment. When they were happy however, they were brilliant company.  
Chanyeol's mother swiftly took all the meat bits she could find and put them on Minseok's rice, completely ignoring the look of betrayal in her husband's eyes. Even he knew not to fight her. This was an important moment and he probably figured that, if Minseok came by more often, the meat quantity would increase on the short run. And once the novelty of Minseok's presence had passed, they would go back to the old system in which the husband and father of the family got the best bits of everything. Yura knew her father well enough to see that brain process of his just by looking at the way he shrugged the second time his wife snatched a piece of meat he had clearly set his eyes on.
Chanyeol meanwhile was chattier than he normally would be with his father around. He talked about school and about how he had nearly died riding his broken bike and about how Baekhyun's girlfriend's first choice for university was the same as his.
"I'm sure Baekhyun's is mad at you for that," his mother smiled.
"Baekhyun?" Yura asked and raised her eyebrows at him. Minseok seemed equally surprised. "I thought he wasn't talking to you anymore."
Her brother shrugged. "Turns out," he said with a careless grin. "He can't live without me."
Yura rolled her eyes and Minseok had an expression she found very hard to read. She would have expected him to be jealous but instead he frowned but still looked relieved. There was something oddly comforting about the way he seemed to doubt himself more than he would have doubted Yura's brother.
"I don't like that boy," their father mumbled and then cleared his throat because nomally when he voiced his dislike of his son's best friend he was either ignored or scolded. But this time he seemed to believe that he had finally found an ally because he suddenly turned to Minseok and asked, "You ever met that boy?"
In response Minseok choked on his rice and then, after Chanyeol had clapped his back, answered, "Once."
Chanyeol's father nodded as if that was as good a reply as any and said, "A smartass, that's what he is. Thinks he knows everything."
Minseok not disputing his point, which obviously was due to the fact that Minseok wasn't much of a talker to begin with and then didn't seem to be an overly eager accuser, was proof enough for Chanyeol's father who glared at his son in triumph, as though he had finally won their eternal argument.
"Well," Chanyeol said lightly. "You're not technically wrong. He is a smartass."
Before his father could scoff at him for being a smartass himself, his mother worriedly said, "Minseokie, you're barely eating. Do you not like the food? Is it the meat?"
Minseok, too startled to give an immediate reply, coughed and Chanyeol explained, "He's just nervous."
"Silly," his mother said and put another piece of meat on Minseok's rice. "There's nothing to be nervous about. Except maybe your father. I have a feeling he's dying to finally show his baseball collection to someone who actually knows how that game works."
On the other end of the table her husband pretended not to hear her as he noisily slurped down a spoonful of soup.
"I know how that game works," Chanyeol said meakly and was interrupted by his father clearing his throat. He didn't even have to say a word for them to understand that in his humble opinion only players could truly understand the game. For a second Yura was afraid that her brother would bring up the fact that their father himself had only just admitted to not having been a great player himself, but then he bit down his response the way he usually did.
"Sunbae, I'm afraid that you'll have to look through my father's Busan Saegulls memorabilia at some point," Chanyeol instead said to Minseok. "There's a lot of it and he will probably try to convert you with it. You really shouldn't have said that you don't have a favourite team."
"Everyone has a favourite team," his father agreed with a look at the soup.
At first Minseok only continued to blink at them but then, when Chanyeol's mother gave him more meat, he eventually broke out into a smile that lasted troughout the rest of the evening.

It made her a little envious. Her parents had never been as nice to any of her boyfriends as they were to Kim Minseok and she knew that it was not only because they wanted to do their son a favour. They were nice because they liked him. Because Chanyeol liked him. Because it all seemed to awfully right.
It made her envious because she herself didn't have someone like that but at the same time she felt completely overjoyed to see her brother happy. After weeks of arguments and uncomfortable silences and her refusing to imagine his life from his point of view, she finally saw what she had failed to see before: Kim Minseok made him better.