“I know you don’t want me to talk about that day, but believe me when I say, that day is all I ever think about. Your front to my back, watching me walk away. It’s torturous, you know? The idea of escaping from you.”

Soyeon’s lying on her bed, thinking about everything that transitioned yesterday night with her and Baekhyun, her back straighter than a ruler and her facial features as blank as a sheet paper. What’s she really thinking about anyway? Everything that had happened was her fault, really. She has been too advanced, she has been too annoyed. She shouldn’t have talked back and she shouldn’t have been there around him either. He always pulls something out of her.

Thankfully, her parents aren’t home (like really thankfully) and so she’s able to just lie down and do nothing, her palms over her stomach, her eyes staring at the glowing stars hanging on her roof from days back when her parents were truly her parents. She’s more of a thinker, a judging person than an extrovert that found joy in movement and friends; so her moment of nothingness right now isn’t as infrequent as she likes to believe. 

Her phone rings out of nowhere and she groans, not wanting to move out of her comfortable position and grab it. However, she forces herself to drag her hand to her desktop and take it. She hears Suho’s soft voice from the other side. Instead of greeting her, he instantly says.

“Wanna come over?” His tone of voice is suspiciously kind, too mellow, and despite the suspicion that glints on in her belly; she doesn’t question it.

“Sure, why not?” She shrugs her shoulders. She doesn’t have anything against Suho’s quiet gatherings with just friends. Fortunately, it’s not a party this time. 

He’s surprised by the instant reply. “Really?”

“Yup,” she stands up from her bed and stretches, swinging her legs off of the frame and getting ready to leave. “Want me to bring anything with me?”

“Just you and your cute little !” Suho exclaims, his soothing tenderness vanishing away like a pesky lie. 

“Ew. You’re disgusting,” she laughs from her stomach all the way to . “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Make that ten minutes!” He hangs up before she can tell him that it’s impossible.

She gets ready in record time, which is an easy trope considering her parents aren’t home to torment her with her personal time. She dresses up in skinny black jeans and a faded brown turtle neck after a cool shower. She takes a bus all the way to Suho’s house and manages to reach it actually forty minutes later. Suho’s house is nearer to the fancy area of Baekhyun’s dorm, which is an hour away from her house. The fact he wants her here in ten minutes makes him sound insane. Then again, rich people tend to be irrational at times. 

Ringing his bell, he opens the door for her with a massive scowl on.

“Thank you for arriving on your own leisure, my queen,” He states quite sarcastically, shooting her a look of absolute dissatisfaction. She simply shrugs and walks past him inside his large house, him following her with stomps.

“Thank you, peasant. I shall always take my leisure now and then.” She retaliates back just as sarcastically. 

“Don’t push it, kid.”

She ignores him and looks around her. Other than the lit television in the living room she’s currently standing in, the whole house looks unoccupied. She swivels around and gives him a curious look.

“Where’s everyone?”

“They’re coming,” he simply said. Then, as if trying to be discreet, clears his throat, avoiding her eyes and acting so badly at being conspicuous. She raises her eyebrows. “So, I have something to ask.”

“Oh no.” She groans, flopping down on the couch in front of the TV that typically had been occupied by Suho before she arrived. 

“Oh no?” He widens his eyes. “What’s with that tone?”

“I feel like I know where this is going.” She numbles, her voice coming out breathless and muffled under the couch she shoved her face against, legs dangling and kicking the air. Suho comes towards her and flicks her calves. 

“Well, you’re right,” he hides a troubled sigh by the sleeve of his arm. “I just want to know what exactly happened between you and Baekhyun. At first, I thought you guys don’t like each other because you’re too similar, but all those lingering stares, and that shouting in his dorms,” he pauses, a contemplating expression painting his face and he looks at the ceiling. “Man, I’ve never been wrong in presumption about a relationship before. How did I miss yours?” 

“There’s nothing between us—“

The door rings loudly, interrupting her loud, flustered protest. She sighs in resignation and relief, and Suho shoots her a long look.

“We’ll talk about this later.”

He goes to open the door and she corrects herself on the couch so she’d be sitting down instead of hanging upside down like a banshee.  She tilts her head towards the door and she sees him. It’s Baekhyun, and he scowls almost right away when he sees her sitting and looking at him as he emerges. Suho’s walking behind him, smirking at an inside comment only he can hear.

“You’re strangely punctual today,” said Baekhyun rather stiffly, staring at her with quizzical eyes. “What the heck happened?”

“Punctual?” Suho scoffs before she can speak. “She came here after forty minutes, now fifty. Don’t kid me. She’s never going to learn time measurements.”

Baekhyun smirks in approval, more of the fact she got insulted than anything, really. She rolls her eyes. 

“Can we begin this gathering, or what?” She asks miffedly. 

“We’re waiting for the rest,” Suho rolls his eyes in the same manner that she did before. Then,  all of a sudden, he beams, remembering something. “I brought tons of good alcohol from my father’s house. We’re gonna get super wasted. "Soyeon,” she perks at her name, detaching her eyes from Baekhyun’s fluffy cheeks. “Wanna drink today?”

She shrugs. “Sure.”

They both blink simultaneously, taken aback at her answer and at how casual she responded. “What.” They mutter.

Soyeon’s good at a lot of things. She’s studious, observant, clever, and knows tons of information about space. Her friends tell her she’s a good listener too, despite her casual sarcastic remarks whenever they tell her of something stupid they did, especially Suho. But there’s never once where she withstood her alcohol correctly. One drink and she’s a goner. Everyone knows that, and she knows that, too. Which is why she rarely ever drinks, so her approval of drinking so casually made them astonished. Who is this girl standing in front of them?

“I said sure,” she curls her arms around herself, feeling insecure with their looks. “Why are you looking at me like this?”

“Because of that sure, dummy,” Baekhyun blinks his eyes, and she’s so taken aback by how cute he looks blinking she’s biting her lips so hard so she wouldn’t blurt it out. “Since when do you drink?” He finishes. 

“Since today,” She looks at him cooly, but there’s a bite in her tone. Everyone hears it, even Suho, and he looks between them suspiciously. “What is it? Want me to stop before I begin, Baekhyun? You think I’m supposed to be restrained, or better yet, helped?” 

Baekhyun’s heartbeats race inside of him, and he scowls. He knows exactly what she’s insinuating, but he’s not about to fall for that game she’s playing. If she wants to act like an independent little girl, then he’s not going to play it with her. 

Suho blinks between them, standing like a sore thumb as the two shoot angry, reproachful stares at one another. 

Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything. Not yet, at least. 

-

Soyeon’s drunk.

How does she know that? Well, because she drank four shots of soju and a cup of red wine. She’s very bad at holding herself still when she’s drunk and tends to gallop her way and trample over anything that’s in her way. She walks to the kitchen with unsteady footsteps, giggling at nothing in particular.

When Sehun and the rest arrived; Suho instantly brought the alcohol out and connected his big TV to Netflix. She’d rather read about astronomy than watch a stupid, unrealistic sci-fi about moon-born kids, but she was forced to sit with them by a single swipe of Kyungsoo’s hand, pulling her down to sit next to him and shoving a glass of alcohol happily into her hands when Suho announced to everyone she was drinking. Now she was four cups too deep and she’s seeing stuff in her vision she buried a long, long time ago, and she needs to get out of the living room or she’d burst into tears in front of everyone. If there’s anything she truly, truly loathed; it‘s showing weakness in front of people she cares about and suffers the feeling of pathetic depression that swallows her after it. 

So she distracts herself by going the kitchen, hoping she’d get herself a glass of water and run away from the thoughts that brought her into drinking in the first place. They’re so vivid in her mind, so translucent, so vibrant; she can almost hear the sound of her parents’ fingers drawing marks on her body, or their nails like iron grating wood as they drag them across her back. She stifles a gasp, whispering for the thoughts to ignite a warning sign in her head and then disappear like quenched fire. 

She’s so drunk. She can see her mom’s face smiling at her. She’s so drunk. She can see her dad’s disapproval from miles away. She’s so drunk she can smell the blood of her body littering along the floor. She’s so dr—

Her swinging arms unconsciously smack against Sehun’s face as