Chanyeol clicked his tongue, had been staring at his cellphone sourly. Kyungsoo hadn’t picked up on his phone in the last hour, despite him calling three times now.

He almost dropped his phone when there was an incoming call from his best friend suddenly.

“Chanyeollie.”

“About time you went home from your date,” Chanyeol grumbled. “It’s close to midnight!”

“Actually, I’m quite tired and would very much like to go to bed now, but seeing I received your three missed calls, I was worried Yeri might have done something inappropriate with you and you were signaling for an escape plan.”

Chanyeol frowned at the sound of Kyungsoo snickering.

But with his long black wig on and the flower crown.

And his heart… melted. “Well, Yeri had been a perfectly well-mannered young lady, except that she kept on hinting that a kiss would be a great way to end the night—”

“So, did you kiss her?”

An immediate—rather vivid—image of him leaning down to kiss a girl Kyungsoo flashed in his mind’s eye. “A-A-Aniya! She’s two years younger, for heaven’s sake!” Chanyeol could feel his cheeks heating up, but he wasn’t sure whether it was from what he had just pictured in his imagination, or if it was Kyungsoo’s question just now. “I’m not some kind of ert!”

Kyungsoo guffawed. “I didn’t say you were! You could have kissed her on the forehead, which she would have probably liked—”

“I shook her hand after we went out to dinner and then we went home separately. I had to change clothes at the train station,” Chanyeol grumpily admitted. “Happy?”

“Aigoo! I at least kissed Tiffany noona on the cheek after she dropped me off to my house. She took me to this fancy French restaurant uptown where I first tasted lavish food that I couldn’t quite pronounce properly, and it didn’t even matter that I was dressed like a girl because no one noticed that I was a boy, which was kind of strange?”

Because you look every bit as pretty as a girl, Chanyeol almost blurted out loud, still imagining talking to Kyungsoo with his long, black wig on.

“Then Tiffany noona called on the waiter and told them that it was my birthday, which of course, it wasn’t, and the waiters surprised us with a birthday cake with sparklers and they gave me a bouquet of roses!” Kyungsoo was laughing so very happily, and Chanyeol observed that he was being more talkative and open than usual. “I gave the flowers to Tiffany noona, of course, who was thrilled that the waiters believed us so easily.”

“Seems like you had a lot of fun on your date,” Chanyeol murmured, wishing he was there to have seen Kyungsoo receiving the flowers and being sung the birthday song too, even if his birthday was a couple of months ago.

“I did,” Kyungsoo told him. “She asked me if we could go out to see Avatar at the 4D cinema next Friday—”

“And you’re going?” Chanyeol suddenly demanded, not realizing his tone was sharper than he intended.

Kyungsoo fell quiet. “Well… I haven’t said yes yet, because it would depend on the amount of schoolwork I have to finish over the weekend. But if it’s manageable then, yeah, I would go. Wae?”

“Nothing.”

It didn’t sound like nothing. Kyungsoo began to wonder if Chanyeol might be feeling left out, because they usually would spend their spare time together, except for when either of them had family activities or Chanyeol had his band practice or Kyungsoo had extra school work to complete.

“Besides, it’s a group movie date. It’s not like it’s just going to be me and noona,” Kyungsoo couldn’t help adding, but he wasn’t sure why he had to.

“Oh.”

There was a change in Chanyeol’s tone… probably relief?

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo soothed. “Apparently, some of the senior students do this once a month, so there would be Taeyeon noona, Siwon hyung, Tiffany noona, Kris hyung—”

“KRIS?!”

Kyungsoo’s eyes narrowed as his best friend simply referred to by the basketball team captain by name alone. “Yeah, Kris hyung is included, among others. Wae?”

“D-Did you not notice how annoying he was during your bidding?!”

“Annoying? He was probably just trying to make the crowd laugh.”

“Aniya, he was being out of line when he knew only girls could bid on you! 500,000…” Chanyeol sputtered. “He was completely ridiculous!”

“So, are you saying he was only making fun of me? That I’m not worth that much to be bid on?!”

Chanyeol knew he had to backpedal. “A-Ani, Soo... That wasn’t what I… meant…”

“I know I’m not as popular as you, Chanyeol, but you’re upset that someone even thought to bid that high on me? And that I ended up with a higher bid than you tonight?!”

“ANIYA! It’s not even—”

“Some best friend, and to think I was going to ask you to come with me to the movies when I go with the seniors,” Kyungsoo muttered, grunting a little, as if he was pulling on something. “This wig is scratching the out of my scalp!”

Holy crap… Kyungsoo was still wearing the wig this whole time…

“K-Kyungsoo…”

“Goodnight.”

And the smaller one ended the call.

He and Kyungsoo hadn’t argued like this before. They had teased each other, wrestled, landed playful punches, but not one of those instances actually… hurt.

Unlike now.

Chanyeol had a hard time falling asleep that night, slipping in and out of shallow slumber with images of him kneeling in front of the beautiful, feminine Kyungsoo and asking for his/her forgiveness…

It was as if it was only moments later that he was being shaken awake by Yoora, who demanded where the clothes he borrowed were. He sleepily pointed to his backpack, and turned to his side, hugging his pillow.

Yoora went over to fetch her clothes to put in the laundry and was about to yell at him to get up when she noticed her brother’s forlorn expression. “Yah… what’s wrong?”

Chanyeol only shrugged, sighing heavily.

Yoora sat on the bed with him, Chanyeol