Ricky walked up the stairs with a goofy smiled plastered onto his lips. That day had been... unusually fun to him. It was a different fun than what he was used to. With L.Joe, there were never a moment where he wasn't bored. But being with him all the time had made things a little... not boring, but it was the same. They hadn't done anything out of the ordinary for a long time, he realized.

That fair had been the first one Ricky had ever gone to. And it sure had been fun. He liked that Changjo was a bold person that told him what went on on his mind. There had been that moment where someone had accidentally bumped into Ricky, and almost made him fall. Changjo had grabbed that person and made sure he apologized before he ran off, probably scared to death.
Not to mention when Ricky had said a funny comment about him looking like a clown in a rounded hat. He had stared at Ricky a couple of times, then said a comment that he looked like a dwarf in the top hat he had tried on. That the hat made him look smaller than what he was. The two had laughed, though Ricky had given the boy a bittersweet smile. Just because he was a giant didn't mean he was a dwarf.

He turned down the doorknob and was greeted by a sour girl with her arms folded over her chest and a tight pout over her lips. On her left stood a shorter, old woman with a somewhat similar look on her face.

“Yah”, Eunhee said. “You totally ditched me today. And went off with that... ugh, that disrespectful kid! How could you do that? And don't think I don't care about you, because I do, I just didn't think it was that... bad, with you, okay!”.
Ricky blinked a couple of times and watched the girl take a deep breath before going back to her “angry” facade.
Ricky's grandmother let out a chuckle before patting Eunhee on the back. “Breathe. - Ricky-ah. Go to bed. It's late. And by the smell of it, you've already had dinner”.
Both Ricky and Eunhee shot the woman a look. She... smelled that Ricky had had food? That was insane!
“Aigoo! Now go, both of you. Giving me a headache with those stares”, the woman sighed and turned around to go to her own room.

Eunhee walked Ricky to the guestroom and helped him make his bed before she left the room to get home. Or at least, that's what Ricky thought. But he was wrong. She had already fixed the sofa in the living room so she could sleep on that.
Ricky cuddled down in the bed and made himself comfortable, before pulling out his phone from his pocket.
He stared at the display before unlocking it and quickly typed in a message that he sent to Changjo. Seconds after he sent it, did he receive a text message from L.Joe.

“Oh, it's a video”, he muttered and felt happiness spread inside his body.
He tapped the play button and looked directly at his blonde, who fixed his hair before letting out a nervous chuckle.
“Jagi-yah”, he began and laughed over his own cuteness, or perhaps silliness. “I miss you! I have been so bored these days without you! I have... been studying, for some weird reason. I hope you've had fun with your grandmother! Tell her I said hi! And uhm... I just wanted to make sure you're happy, if that's even possible without me, hehe. Hm... why don't we go out tomorrow? For dinner! I'll totally pay! As the gentleman I am”, L.Joe said with a cute, surprisingly slow voice. He cracked up in laughter and so did Ricky. His L.Joe didn't like acting cute, so if must've been hard doing that video.
“Aish, just call me after you've seen this. Bye Ricky! Oh and, sweet dreams! Dream cute, fluffy dreams about me, ne?! Okay, bye”.

So cute, Ricky thought and quickly tapped in a reply to his boyfriend. After making sure he had mentioned how cute he was, and also agreeing on the dinner, he pulled the blanket over his head and let out a chuckle.
So maybe, he had just over reacted with the whole L.Joe-thing. Otherwise, why would he feel so light and happy by just a video?

Suddenly, did the door to his room open and someone stumbled inside, and landed hard on Ricky.

“Ow!”, Ricky whined and pushed the heavy, monster off of him “Yah!”.
The monster sat up straight and stared at him. “Ricky? Wha- why are you in my room?”.
Oh. It was Chanyeol. Well, the monster guess wasn't too wrong, he thought and pulled the blanket tighter around him.
“This is my room”, he said.
“Yeah, no. You live in your school, remember?”, Chanyeol slurred in a matter-of-fact voice. “Ireona. I'm tired”.
“Park Chanyeol... have you been drinking?”.
The boy blinked a few times, then chuckled huskily and waved his hands in the air. “Ani-yah”, he said with a wide grin. “Why would I drink? I just–”, he continued but was shut up by a hiccup. “Oh-kaay, maybe a little, little, LITTLE sip of soju, but I'm fine! Really!”.

Ricky only rolled his eyes and walked up to turn on the light in the room. Fine my , Ricky thought as he got a clearer view of Chanyeol. Which made him almost scream, because in his eyes, there was no sight of Chanyeol, but a monster.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?!”, Ricky exclaimed and slapped both hands over his mouth.
Basically, what Ricky was looking at, was an attempt of applying make up that probably had looked quite good on the male. Traces of eye-liner and mascara was still in place over the boy's eyelid and eyelashes. Other than that, had it been smeared out all over his face. He smelled, no he stank, alcohol. His white shirt had been ripped on the sleeves so it looked a lot like a tank top. His hair was tousled, and... wet? Why was it wet? It hadn't been raining, Ricky thought.

Chanyeol grinned, and show Ricky a fine row of perfectly shaped teeth, but instead of white, were there traces of blood.

“Uhm... I felt kind of sad that Baek had left for Seoul. So I thought I should cheer myself up a lil. So I kinda uhm, went to a party a friend held. I guess somewhere, I just lost it. I was told to leave the party, but I didn't wanna, so I just didn't. Like, who leaves a party that just begun, y'know? Then this gurl kind of threw her drink on me. I was mad at her, like, who does that? That'sjustrude, y'know. So I said I'd teach her a lesson, right? But then her boyfriendeu hit me. The mood was kind of down by then, so I took one bottle of Soju and left. I drank it all on the way home, and then, you laid in my bed. Why did'ya do that by theum way?”, Chanyeol slurred in one breath and grabbed Ricky by the collar.
Ricky bit his lower lip and saw how tears filled the boy's eyes and he let go of Ricky. He clenched his fist and hit the floor with it.

“I miss him so much”, Chanyeol sobbed huskily and started to cry. He leaned onto the curve of Ricky's neck and sobbed while crying. His one hand was still holding onto Ricky's collar, while the other hung loosely over the floor.
Ricky loosened up and one hand up and down Chanyeol's back in a simple gesture of comfort.
“Ssch, it's going to be okay, Chanyeol-ah. I guess we have to think of it as a great opportunity for him to fulfill his dream”, Ricky whispered and felt a smile spread over his face. Yes, Baekhyun was going to fulfill his dream and become the best singer in Korea's history.
“I know, I know”, Chanyeol sobbed. “But I still miss him. I didn't even give him a proper goodbye. And from what I've heard, SM tire their trainees for years before they debut. And some, might even do so”.
“But our Baekhyun is so talented! Of course he will debut! We just have to have patience”, Ricky replied with a soft voice. “And I'm sure he miss you just as much as you miss him”. Then, an idea popped up in Ricky's head and he pushed Chanyeol away from him to give him a bright smile.
“Hey! Why don't you send him a video?! And tell him how you feel and get an update on what he's doing!”, he exclaimed and saw how the boy blinked the tears away, but wasn't convinced. A tear slowly rolled down Chanyeol's cheek, and he shook his head.
“Why not? He's going to be SO happy to hear your vo–”, but before Ricky could finish his sentence, did the drunk boy interrupt him with a bittersweet “Because”.
Ricky blinked a couple of times and watched as Chanyeol removed his shirt. And laid down on the bed.
“Because”, he said again. “We broke up”.

Ricky bit his lips together and felt shock fill his body. Even though he hadn't seen the two or even thought of them as a couple, it surprised him to hear the words from Chanyeol. It just... didn't seem right. The fact that Baekhyun had made such a strong impact on someone made Ricky smile; if he hadn't fallen in love with L.Joe, maybe that would've been him?

“I'm sorry, I didn't know”, Ricky whispered and was soon pulled down on the mattress.
“Shush. My head is having WW3 and your voice isn't making things better”, Chanyeol slurred and then fell deep asleep, his both arms wrapped around Ricky's waist.
Basically, Ricky had taken the form of a teddy bear at that very moment. Not that it was any fun or comfortable, but he figured Chanyeol needed him and he didn't want to let the boy down.

The morning after, were Ricky's eyes wide open. He hadn't been able to find peace and fall asleep himself, so he had studied the roof and listened to the small noises Chanyeol made in his sleep. He weren't very loud, no snoring or heavy breathing at all. He slept like a baby, curled up like a ball.
A couple of times, had Ricky turned around to see if he hadn't died in his sleep. But the boy was just sleeping, fortunately.

“What is that smell...”, Ricky heard from outside the room and saw how the door to the room slid open, and Eunhee peeked inside through the spring. “What's he doing here? He said he was sleeping out!”, she hissed and pointed at the lump beside Ricky.
“Shush!”, Ricky hissed back and carefully got up from the bed and tip-toed his way to Eunhee.

The two walked out to the living-room and Ricky explained what had happened. He saw how Eunhee rolled her eyes in annoyance; she was always like that with people she wasn't very close to. That was probably why people made up funny nicknames for her, such as the queen of ice. Then there were the not so nice ones.

“That's not a legit reason to drink”, she sighed and shook her head. “I guess I'll just... have to make him hangover soup”.
Ricky smiled. “Thank you. He's going to need it”.
“Yeah, yeah... that punk needs a good beating, that's what he needs”, Eunhee muttered bitterly before she got up and got directions from Ricky where everything laid in the kitchen.
It was amazing how good he felt that day. All the pain was gone and instead replaced with a little sourness, but other than that, did he feel good.

“Oh ... my head...”, someone whined inside the room. “Stupid alcohol... stupid Baekhyun... stupid me... AISH JINJA!”.
Ricky quickly walked over to the room where Chanyeol laid on the floor with the blanket loosely wrapped around his body. His hands covered his face and his legs were spread widely over the whole floor.
“Chanyeol-ah. Are you okay?”, he asked and received a grunt.
“No! I feel like my head's going to explode, that my heart's going to rip into thousands of pieces and my stomach to be chopped apart”, Chanyeol whined.
“Eunhee's making you soup. Do you think you're able to sit up?”, Ricky carefully asked and held out his hands towards the boy.
Chanyeol froze for a second and stared at Ricky. “I'm not a kid; I'm hung over. Ofcourse I can sit up!”. With that, did he slowly raise himself up. He still looked like a monster with all of the smeared make-up.
“You uh... should clean yourself up”, Ricky commented and clasped his hands together. “Halmeoni is still sleeping, so do it quietly before she wakes up”.
He nodded. “Ne, I will. I don't want to cause her anymore trouble. But I'm not eating the hangover soup. It's... it's beyond nasty, okay? Just... let me rest for today”.

Ricky sighed but nodded. He figured it was best to leave Chanyeol be, even though he probably had tons of homework to do before school tomorrow. The same went for Ricky, but he had done the most important things.

It didn't take long before Eunhee was done with the soup and poured some of it into a white bowl with gray decorative leaves around it. Ricky sat down on the chair and leaned his elbows on the table.

“Okay, I was being a little mean earlier. I understand what he's going through. If I didn't have you to take care of, I'd be crying my eyes out as well”, Eunhee said suddenly and sighed. “I decided that Chunji and I are better of as friends, and by the time I confessed to Kai, he had already been accepted to SME”.
Ricky widened his eyes. “MWO?!”. He had sure missed out a lot of things, he thought. Why hadn't Kai pulled together a last party before he left? Or bragged about it at least.

Eunhee smiled bitterly and stirred the spoon around in the soup. “It was right after Baek's celebratory party. We left quite late that night and it was just the perfect opportunity for me, you know. So I did it and then he said he was happy I felt like that, because he had felt something similar to that about me. Then he told about SME and all of that. I couldn't really tell him to stay; it's his dream and he's finally going to live it”.

Ricky pouted. Why did everything have to so difficult? Eunhee could've gone with Kai to Seoul and gone to a school there. There were tons of schools there that were much better than the one they went to now. Not to mention all the opportunities that were there.

“I know what you are thinking right now”, Eunhee giggled. “Kai told me to do that, but unlike him, I don't have any dream to strive after. I'm still trying to find out what I want to do with my life after school. And even if I did go to Seoul, it wouldn't take long until his schedule was insanely packed and there wouldn't be time for us to be together. It just... it wouldn't work”.
“Eunhee-ah”, Ricky whined as he saw how tears filled her eyes, but her lips were widened into a big, fake smile.
“I'm fine, Ricky. I am”, she said with a broken voice. “I should check to see if Chanyeol's done. The soup's getting cold”.

The girl got up from the chair and stumbled out of the kitchen. Ricky felt a little saddened about her situation. She had liked Kai for such a long time, and when she had finally got the courage to tell him, it was too late.
The sound of a vibrating phone broke his thoughts and he took out the device out of his pocket and answered with a low “Yoboseyo”.

“Ricky-ah! It's me, Changjo. What's up?”.
Ricky chuckled over the goofy voice and said that he wasn't doing anything.
“Really? Let's go out. I'm outside right now, so let's go to an amusement park. I'm craving for cotton candy and popcorn!”.
“I kind of have other plans”, Ricky weakly said and felt mean for turning Changjo down. He walked over to the window and saw indeed the brunette down there, looking all cool and fresh.
“No you don't. You are spending this day with me and no, I will not take a no for an answer. Seriously, I will walk up to you and drag you with me otherwise”, the boy said with a chuckle and looked up. The smile that formed the boy's lips was adorable, Ricky thought and bit his lower lip.
“But...”, he began and saw how Changjo raised a finger in the air, warning him. “Fine, I'll go. I'm just going to change my clothes”.
“Great! I'll wait outside for ya'!”.