It became Monday fast. There was a depressive atmosphere embracing the group of friends. They had gathered in the canteen and were gloomy, tired, and awkwardly silent. They avoided to talk about last Saturday night. The only one who seemed to be cheerful was Chanyeol, because he was, together with Sehun, the one who could not remember what had happened in the basement of the arcade. His last memories were when he had won the match of pool with Baekhyun against the other two, thanks to Kyungsoo’s bad aim.

“Guys, what’s the matter?” he asked confused and bumped his fist onto Kai’s upper arm, “What’s with your faces? Come on? Did something happen?”

He got ignored. Kai would not lift his head. He was still wearing a mask to cover up the little bruise on his lip. Xiumin and Chen exchanged brief glances. Baekhyun likewise wandered his eyes to them, but they all remained silent. Sehun buried his head in his arms and was half asleep. Kyungsoo was missing out on today. He had texted them that he was not feeling well.

“Alright, whatever.” Chanyeol said a little bit annoyed and slid between Sehun and Baekhyun.

He put his arms around the latter and pulled him closer to whisper into his ear.

“Did we all fight? What’s with this gloomy atmosphere?” he asked Baekhyun and was pushed away.

The roommate of Sehun shook his head and told him that there was a situation he had missed out on together with Kyungsoo, but the others had witnessed it. Chanyeol instantly glanced at Sehun, who was sleeping next to him, then he jumped up and slid between Chen and Xiumin.

“Xiumin… You can’t lie to me, right?” he started with his questions and continued with a begging voice, “Your alcohol tolerance is high, you know what happened that night, right?”

Xiumin tried to escape his glance, but Chanyeol would block him by following his eyes with his moves. Chen cleared his throat and said that Kai should be the one to explain what had happened. Kai flinched and clenched his trousers. He lowered his head deeper. Chanyeol glanced at his best friend and jumped up once again. He laughed mischievously and sat next to the sun-kissed student, making him scoot over.

“So?” Chanyeol kept drilling with his questions, “What happened? Why are you blushing this much?”

Kai covered his face with his hands as he felt extremely embarrassed. Chanyeol raised his brows and tilted his head to the left. He was curious and surprised at the same time. Then he sulked because he was mad at himself for having a hangover about that day. He poked Kai’s arm repeatedly because he wanted to be informed. Everyone knew, except him. That was not fair. After about five minutes of unstopping pokes, Kai finally sighed hopelessly and gave in.

“Senior Taemin wants me to sleep with him.” he told his friends once again, “He… he said that if I did, he would give up…”

Chanyeol nearly choked again, but this time no alcohol was involved, and he was not spitting at anyone. He leaned back in disbelief and stared at his friend with wide eyes.

“YOU SLEPT WITH LEE TAEMIN?!” he shouted in utter shock and made Sehun wake up and jump up reflexively.

The tall student looked around all confused and noticed that he was still in the canteen. He then glimpsed at Chanyeol and rubbed his eyes. Kai clenched his teeth in worry and immediately covered the mouth of his athletic friend to make him hush, but it was too late. All the students in the canteen were looking at them and all of a sudden the university’s chat went crazy.

.

.

“Did you guys hear that?! They slept together?”

“They already ed?”

“They slept together?”

“THEY FREAKED!”

“Taemin is going to dump him soon.”

“Senior Taemin will get rid of him, just like he did with Naeun earlier.”

“Woah, the player scored once again!”

“Who’s bottom though?”

“Soo disgusting.”

“They should be expelled from school.”

“They are bad influence.”

“Two guys? How even?”

“NOOOOOO! Jongin’s no more ! I wanted to be his first!”

“EWWWWWWWWWWW!”

“When Lee Taemin tosses him aside, we can bully that junior again. He’ll no longer be protected by the senior.”

“Taemin is really a addict. He s everyone and everything that has a hole.”

.

.

Chanyeol sunk on the bench all ashamed and Kai instantly covered his head in embarrassment with both his arms. Xiumin slapped the back of the nosy boy’s head and Chen grabbed Kai’s arm to make him get up. They all jumped up. They needed to leave the canteen for now. They rushed outside and hid behind the gym.

“You idiot!” Xiumin yelled at Chanyeol, “Nothing like that happened!”

Kai was shivering. What if his sister found out about this false rumor? The students went crazy over it. Girls from his university visited Kamong frequently. What if someone talked about this at the café?

Chanyeol apologized to his wrong assumption. He felt bad about it. He became the reason why his best friend got into a difficult situation. Kai took some time, but finally he told the boys what exactly had happened. The kiss, the teasing, the touches… And then, his voice broke, and he shed tears. The sun-kissed student suffered emotionally. Suddenly he realized that Taemin’s actions actually were set to hurt him in the end. He never intended to fall for a guy, he at no time wanted to make his sister worry about it, he at no period wished to get involved with the handsome player. Baekhyun instantly hugged Kai and patted his back. Sehun watched them from aside and lit a cigarette. He needed to release stress as now that he had heard what had happened in the basement, he was concerned about Kyungsoo too. Chanyeol lowered his head in sadness, now he felt worse than before. Chen patted his back, since he knew that he had not intended to hurt Kai.

“Do you like senior Taemin?” Baekhyun asked after a while and waited for a response.

Everyone became attentive and remained silent. Sehun looked up from his cigarette and tilted his head back while he released the smoke from his slightly opened lips. Kai buried his head into Baekhyun’s shoulder and kept sobbing. The boys knew it. They all were sure about it. Their handsome waiter-friend had fallen for the enemy.

“Alright…”, Chen said and let go of Chanyeol, “Nothing wrong about liking a guy.”

He patted Kai’s back and wrapped his arms around him and Baekhyun, who still held their crying friend. Xiumin approached them and joined the hug. Chanyeol hesitated, but Xiumin nodded, indicating that he should not worry about it. The saddened athlete wrapped his arms around them too. Sehun threw the cigarette to the ground and stomped it then he joined the group hug. They stood there like this until Kai stopped crying. And it took a while.

“Okay!” Chanyeol said after the hug and dialed Minho’s number.

His friends looked at him in confusion. Chanyeol wanted to make amends. Luckily the senior picked up and asked the junior where he had been because their training had started minutes ago.

“Sorry… I’ll not be able to attend today.” Chanyeol apologized and asked the senior to check out the university’s chat later, “Please… could you skip training too? Uh! Something important occured… Could you take out Kai’s sister now? Mmmmhhhmmm… something urgent came up, we need her to leave the café asap. You would?! Oh, thank you so so so much! I’ll owe you!”

He hung up and told the boys to be ready to skip courses today.

“We need to clear this me