Chapter VII: Tickles can wake you up.

 

The following weeks felt like a complete nightmare to Chanyeol.

 

He was determined not to lose Baekhyun, he was one of his best friends after all, but Baekhyun, whenever they were alone, asking about the incident, or his almost constant speech of admiration towards Yixing wasn’t helping at all. Furthermore, Jongdae was still in hospital, with his leg covered in bandages and unable to move.

 

The four of them visit Jongdae a lot, but Chanyeol goes alone sometimes, usually when Baekhyun is at the Students Council.

 

“Have you talked to Baek?” - Jongdae asked out of the blue one of those evenings Chanyeol spent at his hospital room doing homework with him.

 

“I talk to him every day” - Chanyeol’s answer came with a massive eye roll from Jongdae.

 

“Yeol…” - Jongdae sighed - “ He is our friend…”

 

“I know..” - Chanyeol dropped his pen and looked at Jongade - “But… right now it hurts a bit. And I don’t know why.”

 

Jongdae and Chanyeol remained like that for a short while, looking at each other, knowing what was inside of the other’s head. They have been friends for a lifetime, and reading the other’s mind was a normal thing for them. Jongdae wanted to tell him, wanted to open his mouth and tell him that he was feeling hurt because he was afraid of being left apart, that he was falling for Baekhyun. But Jongdae didn’t. Just looking at his friend he knew that Chanyeol didn’t need that extra pressure. For now.

 

Just a minute later, a girl entered the room breaking the moment, she bowed when she saw Chanyeol there and excused herself telling the boys that she was going to get something to drink.

 

“Who was that?” - Chanyeol asked getting close to Jongdae, almost jumping on his bed. Jongade laughed nervously.

 

“Well..” - He scratched his head - “She is from the cheer team… she visits me from time to time.”  Chanyeol looked at him, surprised, confused and, of course, excited.

 

“Is your girlfriend?! You have a girlfriend and didn’t told me?!” - Chanyeol got his hands around Jongdae’s neck.

 

“What?” - Jongdae started hitting Chanyeol everywhere until he got rid of him - “Is not!”

 

Chanyeol got out of the bed and started picking up his things with an offended look

 

“I guess I have to pick up my things because you prefer to be with your girlfriend!” - he said in a purposely loud voice.

 

“Shut the up! She isn’t” - Jongdae was now nervous - “And being a drama queen is MY job” - he whined.

 

Chanyeol laughed at the sight of his really nervous friend, and he laughed more inside of his head, thinking about the face Baekhyun, Kyungsoo and Jongin will make when he spilled everything about this the next day. He didn’t even realized that he was thinking about Baekhyun at all.

 

Of course, Chanyeol couldn’t wait longer the next day to tell his three friends about Jongdae’s girl, Baekhyun went nuts about the info, and Jongin too. Kyungsoo just told them not to be a pain in the to the girl, but during the lunch break he got along with the other three to see the girl in question.

The four of them found her with the rest of the cheer team near the football fields of the school.

 

“Is that one?” - asked Jongin pointing at her in the distance. Chanyeol just nodded, and Kyungsoo grabbed Jongin’s arm.

 

“As Baekhyun said this is a secret mission, you shouldn’t point at her” - Jongin laughed at Kyungsoo’s reaction.

 

“She’s pretty…” - Baekhyun mumbled.

 

“I wo