Things were even worse the next day. Suho either hadn’t noticed the tension between the two the previous night, or he had and was trying to fix it somehow – you could never be sure with him. He had assigned Baekhyun and Chanyeol to evidence review for this case, saying that he wanted Chanyeol to get used to doing it, and that it was Baekhyun’s turn anyway since he had gotten out of doing it for the past few investigations. This meant that the two of them had been stuck sitting in their tiny office together all morning, after very little sleep the night before.  It was awkward to say the least, neither of them saying a word to the other unless it was absolutely necessary.

Baekhyun was not happy at all. Evidence review was usually not very fun in the first place, having to sit all day and go over hours of video and audio searching for the smallest thing out of the ordinary. Then when they did find something, often times they found a non-paranormal explanation for it. They tried to debunk anything they could, so that whatever was left unexplained stood stronger as true evidence of the paranormal. It did make it that much more satisfying when they found something solid, but the hours of watching and listening to nothing could still get tiring. They usually worked on it in pairs or threes, so that no one had to do too much on their own and they could get a second opinion on anything they found, which at least kept it from being too boring most of the time. Even when Suho holed himself up in the back room of the bookstore to go over things, he would often have Kyungsoo stop by or call Kris occasionally to discuss anything he found. Right now though, Baekhyun would much rather have been doing this on his own. He would have been happy to do it normally, since this time he was at least pretty certain they caught some great evidence, but the tense atmosphere between he and Chanyeol after last night was getting to him. He was certain the younger man hated him now, and trying to show him what to look for during the review this morning had been one of the most awkward things he had ever done. They hadn’t said a word to each other since then, Baekhyun keeping all his attention on the screen he was watching while Chanyeol listened to the audio recordings with a stoic expression. He was acting nothing like the overly cheerful person Baekhyun had met five days ago, and it bothered him that it was his fault. He may have wanted the other man to talk less sometimes, but not like this.

It was nearing lunch time when Baekhyun finally broke the silence. They had decided that Baekhyun would review the mini DV footage, Chanyeol would take all the audio, and then they would split up the DVR footage. They hadn’t recorded with the thermal that much, so Suho had taken that to look over when he had free time at work. Baekhyun had just gotten to the mini DV footage of the two of them in Anna’s bedroom, and he knew Chanyeol would want to see it too. So, he paused the video, took off his headphones, and tried to decide the best way to get Chanyeol’s attention. He settled on clearing his throat, hoping the other man would notice. Chanyeol did notice, pausing what he had been listening to and looking over at Baekhyun questioningly.

“I, um… the little girl’s room… thought you would want to see,” Baekhyun mumbled awkwardly, gesturing towards the monitor. Seeming to understand, Chanyeol nodded and took his headphones off, turning to face the screen. Baekhyun unplugged his own headphones from the computer and turned the volume up so they could both hear, then hit play.

They watched as Baekhyun picked up the audio recorder and started talking quietly, asking if there was anyone in there with them. They saw themselves react to the sounds they heard, and soon Chanyeol was on the floor by the toy box. At first the ball was blocked from the camera’s view, and they weren’t able to see Chanyeol roll it over to where the spirit seemed to be, but after Baekhyun told him to move they had a perfect shot. Sure enough, they were able to see clearly on video the ball roll back towards Chanyeol on its own. Baekhyun joined in with the questions after a minute, and the two of them watched as the ball continued to go back and forth between Chanyeol and this spirit for several minutes. They couldn’t hear any responses on the mini DV, but since they camera had been on the other side of the room, there was still a chance that something would be picked up on the audio recorder.

When the scene finally finished, the two of them were grinning widely. Not only had they had this amazing experience, but they had solid proof of it. Things like this were why Baekhyun had dedicated the last five years of his life to investigating the paranormal, in addition to helping people of course. Anytime they found evidence like this, it was proof that they weren’t crazy, that this was real and that the experiences they’d had in the past were real. Chanyeol just couldn’t believe that he was able to have an experience like that on his first investigation, let alone have it caught on video.

“Good call telling me to move,” Chanyeol said, looking at Baekhyun once the video was paused again. “We wouldn’t have gotten any of that otherwise. I’ll have to be more careful of that next time.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Baekhyun replied, smiling a little. “You’re not used to thinking about the camera angles like I am though, you’ll get the hang of it eventually. Hopefully we got something on audio as well; you’ll have to look out for it when you get to this part.”

Things were quiet again for a few minutes as they each thought about what to do next. The happiness from their findings had lifted some of the tension, but things were still awkward. They both thought the other hated them, and both felt like they had something to apologize for. The question now was whether to let things continue unresolved, or to take the chance and make things right. They seemed to make their decisions at the same time.

“Chanyeol, I…”

“I’m sorry.”

Baekhyun stared incredulously at the other man, wondering if he had heard right. By the look on Chanyeol’s face, he had. “What on earth are you apologizing for? I’m the one who messed up.”

“What?” Chanyeol blinked at him in confusion. “I’m the one who kept pestering you, even though it was obvious you didn’t want me here. You even told me to stop asking, but I kept pushing anyway. It was none of my business, and you had every right to be angry with me. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry if it seems like I’m trying to replace your friend, really that’s not my intention. I didn’t even know there was someone for me to replace. If… if you want me to leave the team, I would understand.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” Baekhyun said immediately, shaking his head. He was surprised to find it was true. When Suho had told him a week ago that someone new was joining the team, he had been so angry, and a few days ago he probably would have told Chanyeol to leave. But now… despite the incident at central command last night, he had enjoyed investigating with Chanyeol. He didn’t know if it was because of the man himself, or just because of the experience, but he wanted to find out. He couldn’t do that if Chanyeol didn’t investigate with them anymore.

“You don’t?” Chanyeol asked, surprised to hear that. He had thought for sure that Baekhyun would tell him that he was right, that he had been intrusive and rude and that he wanted him gone.

“No, I don’t.” Baekhyun confirmed. “I told you last night, didn’t I? It isn’t that I don’t like you; in fact none of this is your fault. It’s like you said – you didn’t even know there was someone else on the team before you.”

“Yeah, but I – ” Chanyeol started, but Baekhyun cut him off.

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he said, looking right into Chanyeol’s eyes as he spoke. “I haven’t been fair to you at all. I let my anger and frustration over something that has nothing to do with you get in the way, and I apologize for that. You should be able to ask questions without worrying about me flipping out on you like that.”

“Well… I still think you were right to be angry, but okay. I guess we can call it even?” Chanyeol said, smiling nervously. He was relieved when Baekhyun smiled back.

“Yeah, even.” Baekhyun nodded, then remembered something else he had said. “And you know, I think I was wrong last night.”

“Wrong about what?” Chanyeol asked.

“When I said that it would be better if we didn’t worry about trying to be friends, I was wrong. I think that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, being friends. If you still want to try that is.” Baekhyun replied. Chanyeol looked a little stunned by the words, but then he grinned brighter than Baekhyun had seen all day, and he knew he had said the right thing.

The rest of the afternoon went far better than the morning had. They went back to reviewing evidence in silence, but this time it was an amicable silence, without any of the awkward tension from before. They had been at it for about an hour when Baekhyun felt Chanyeol tap him lightly on the shoulder. The other man looked ecstatic as he handed over his headphones.

“You have to hear this,” he said excitedly. “We got it! He answered you, and we got it.”

He waited for Baekhyun to put the headphones on before hitting play, barely able to believe what he had just heard. He couldn’t wait to see what Baekhyun thought of it. Baekhyun was excited too, eager to hear what they managed to catch. He thought nothing could top the ball moving by itself, but if the spirit actually responded to them… well, that would be incredible.

“My name is Baekhyun, and my friend that you’re playing with is Chanyeol. We would really like to know your name too, do you think you can tell us?”

Baekhyun heard himself speaking, and then it was quiet for a second. But then, to his surprised, there was another voice. It was very quiet and shy sounding, but it definitely belonged to a little boy.

“…Kevin.”

“How about your age, could you tell me how old you are?”

“Six.”

“Is what Chanyeol said right? You don’t mean to scare her, you just like playing with Anna?”

“Yes… want to play…”

Baekhyun sat listening in awe as his questions were answered. The boy didn’t talk anymore after that, but the girl had said that he didn’t like talking so that wasn’t a surprise. What they had caught was no less astounding… between the video and the EVPs, he wasn’t sure if they had ever gotten better results in the past. This might be the best piece of evidence they had captured in the five years since EXO was formed.

“It’s amazing right?” Chanyeol said once Baekhyun was finished listening, hardly able to contain his excitement. He had no idea how he had gotten so lucky for his first case to go this well, but he couldn’t be happier.

“Yeah… it’s… I don’t think we’ve ever caught anything like it.” Baekhyun replied, just as giddy, though he didn’t show it as much as his partner. “We’ve had decent EVPs before, even caught objects moving, but we’ve never had such clear interaction with a spirit. I can’t wait to show this to the others.”

“I know, they’re going to love it.” Chanyeol grinned, then laughed as he realized something. “We never even told them about it, did we?”

“Huh. No, I don’t think we did. We were too busy trying not to talk to each other,” Baekhyun said, laughing as well. “Well, guess they’re in for a surprise then. From the way we were acting last night, they probably assumed nothing happened at all.”

Chanyeol was about to reply when his stomach made a very loud grumbling noise. The two stared at each other for a moment before bursting out into laughter. Once they had calmed down, Baekhyun checked the time on the computer and saw that it was nearly two o’clock. They had been sitting here since early this morning, so no wonder Chanyeol was hungry.

“I think that would be our cue to break for lunch. We can go bug Kyungsoo for food?” Baekhyun suggested, still smiling. He pulled his headphones off and sat them on the table, then got up to stretch. “He should be working now, we can probably get him to sneak us something for free.”

“Well I’m certainly not going to turn down free food. Let’s go!” Chanyeol agreed, standing up as well. They left the room, making sure the door was locked and headed down to Baekhyun’s car.

It didn’t take too long for them to get to the restaurant, and there weren’t too many customers so they were quickly seated. A waitress had come over to take their order, but then she saw Baekhyun and promptly walked back towards the kitchen, already knowing why he was there. A few minutes later Kyungsoo came out, and the chef headed over towards their table.

“Baekhyun, you know I’m not supposed to be giving out food for free,” Kyungsoo frowned, though inwardly he was surprised. The waitress had just said that one of his friends was there, not who it was. He had been expecting Suho or Kai, since they were the ones who visited most frequently. Baekhyun showing up wasn’t too odd, but he definitely hadn’t been expecting Baekhyun and Chanyeol together. He knew things hadn’t been going too well between them, and when they left the house they were investigating last night, Baekhyun had looked like he would rather jump off a bridge than have to sit in a car with Chanyeol for the hour it would take to get home. Now, they were not only together, but they were actually smiling. He wondered what exactly had happened while they were in the office together today.

“If you want me to pay, I can, but then you’ll feel bad,” Baekhyun replied. They had this conversation every time he showed up at the restaurant. Kyungsoo would complain about giving out free food, but in the end he would give it to them anyway, saying that he felt guilty making his friends pay for his cooking.

“Alright, fine, just tell me what you want,” Kyungsoo huffed, knowing Baekhyun was right. He cooked for them for free all the time outside of the restaurant, so it never felt right to make them pay when he was working either. He felt even guiltier when he thought about how Kai and Sehun really didn’t have much, being students only working part time, and how Suho and Baekhyun had put so much of their money into buying equipment and such when Kyungsoo had still been in school. With all that in mind, he could never bring himself to ask for their money. They knew it too, which is why they always came here when they were hungry. They claimed it was because they loved his cooking too much to go elsewhere, but he was pretty sure it was just because they never had to pay.  

Kyungsoo took their orders and went back into the kitchen, telling them it might be awhile because he had to serve the other customers first. That left the two with a bit of time to sit and talk.

“So… is there anything you want to know about the group?” Baekhyun asked, knowing there was probably a lot Chanyeol was curious about. “Since apparently Suho didn’t tell you much before asking you to join.”

“Well, it was me asking him, but no I hadn’t really heard much about you guys. I had just heard that there was this group of paranormal investigators with a lot of equipment and a great track record, and I wanted in.” Chanyeol explained. He tried to think of something to ask about the group; Baekhyun was right in thinking he had a lot of questions, but he didn’t want to ask anything that might offend him. He wasn’t going to risk messing up their shaky friendship so quickly. “Hmm… how long has EXO been around? Actually, why are you called EXO, does it stand for something?”

“Oh, I see. We’ve officially been a group for about five years now,” Baekhyun answered, thinking back to when exactly they had decided to form a team. “As for our name, I think it’s kind of silly, but it stuck over the years. None of us at the time were really all that creative, so we were just going to go for something generic like ‘Eastern Paranormal Organization’ since we’re on the east coast and all. Apparently there was already another group with that name though, so we tried to come up with something else and eventually Kyungsoo suggested replacing ‘paranormal’ with ‘extranormal.’ They basically mean the same thing, so it sounded kind of odd but it worked. Suho didn’t like the acronym ‘EEO’ though, so to be ‘cool’ he decided that we should use the ‘X’ instead and make it ‘EXO.’”

“I think it’s a great name!” Chanyeol said. He was surprised to hear how long they had been investigating. “Wow though, five years? Was it just the three of you at first?”

“No, there were four of us.” Baekhyun replied, then shook his head. “Actually, no, it was just two at first. From what I know, Suho and Kris met in college and kind of started it with some amateur investigations. Like, hanging out in abandoned buildings with tape recorders and things like that. One day they came into the electronics store I work at looking for more equipment, we got to talking and soon I started joining them. We met Kyungsoo not too long after that, he went to the same college as the other two. It was about a year after Kris and Suho first started that we decided to be more serious about it and make an official group, and thus EXO was formed.”

“So Suho has actually been at this for six years then? What about Kris, where is he?” Chanyeol asked, wondering how many former members there were.

“Kris? He… he left, along with a few other members. They went to start up a team on the west coast.” Baekhyun’s tone changed slightly, a hint of sadness in his voice. Kris left, and took Tao with him.

“Oh… is that where your friend that you mentioned is? Tao? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Chanyeol was curious, but he didn’t want to push too much and risk upsetting Baekhyun again.

“I… yes, that’s where Tao is.” Baekhyun hadn’t exactly planned on talking about this, but he had already blurted out his feelings to Chanyeol anyway, there was no point in hiding it from him now. “Over the years, as you would expect, we picked up more members. Kris brought in Jongdae and Minseok about a year after we were officially formed, and Tao joined six months later. We had known Tao for a year before that though, it just took us that long to convince him to investigate with us. I was so excited when we finally got him to join… we’ve pretty much been best friends since the first time we met, and we were always partners investigating too. We stayed as seven for a year and a half, then right around the time we started renting out the office, we ran into Kai and Sehun and somehow or another they ended up on the team.”

“What happened then?” Chanyeol asked. It sounded like the group had worked together for awhile and were pretty close, so he wondered what had made four of them decide to leave.

“A little over a year ago, five months after Kai and Sehun joined, Kris got a call from an old friend of his in California named Luhan,” Baekhyun tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice at that. Luhan was a great guy, Sehun obviously liked him enough, but he couldn’t help feeling that none of this would have happened if not for that call. “Luhan is really interested in the paranormal, but he’s a bit of a coward and isn’t all that into the investigating part. He and a friend of his, Yixing, had gotten permission to check out a notoriously haunted hotel that was closed for renovations at the time, but it was large and they needed more people. It was a bit difficult – we don’t have much money to spare, if you couldn’t tell from the office – but we managed to scrape enough together to fly over there and help him out. We had a lot of fun investigating, Luhan and Yixing were great, and we captured some really good evidence. It was really a nice trip.”

“But something happened after that?” Chanyeol pressed. He hadn’t missed the odd change in Baekhyun’s voice as he started telling the story.

“When we got back, Kris started to realize how much we were missing by being limited to this side of the country. A month after the trip, he told us that he wanted to move to California and start a proper team with Luhan and Yixing. He also decided this was a good time to tell us he and Tao had been dating for months,” Baekhyun explained, hating the way his eyes started to sting as he said it. He had cried enough over this, he wasn’t going to do it here in the middle of the restaurant. “Naturally, Tao had already known about Kris’s decision and chose to go with him. Jongdae and Minseok had always been closer to Kris, since he brought them into the team and pretty much taught them everything. They figured he would need more people with experience over there and decided to go with him as well. They left a few weeks later.”

“I’m sorry…” Chanyeol wasn’t sure what else to say, knowing it must have been very hard for Baekhyun to suddenly be without his closest friend. But even more than that… “Did he know? Tao I mean… about your feelings.”

“No one knew,” Baekhyun replied, biting his lip to try and hold back the tears that were starting to well up, looking down at his lap in hopes Chanyeol wouldn’t see. Despite his efforts, one spilled down his cheek, and he wiped at it frantically. “Until last night, I hadn’t told anyone, not even Suho and Kyungsoo. They just think I’ve been upset because I miss my best friend… which is true, but it’s not everything. I don’t even know why I told you, it just came out before I realized what I was saying.”

“It was bound to come out to someone eventually. You can’t just bottle things up like that,” Chanyeol said, frowning as he saw more tears spill. He hadn’t meant to make Baekhyun cry, and he didn’t like it. Last night, when he saw the older man smile, he had decided it was something he definitely wanted to make happen again. This… this he never wanted to see again. It just wasn’t right, that he was hurting so much but felt like he had to keep it to himself.

“I couldn’t… I didn’t want anyone to know. Kris and Tao are happy together, and Tao and I will only ever be friends… I didn’t see any point in telling anyone, and I didn’t want him to find out somehow.” Baekhyun’s eyes widened slightly as he realized something, looking up suddenly. “You won’t tell anyone will you? Please, don’t tell anyone, I beg you.”

“No, of course not, if you don’t want me to I won’t tell anyone,” Chanyeol assured, glad when that seemed to calm the older man down a bit. “But you can talk to me about it, you know. Anytime it feels like too much, you can talk to me.”

“Thank you…” Baekhyun replied quietly, looking down again. “More than anything, it just hurts that he didn’t tell me. I thought we were supposed to tell each other everything, but he hid something so big from me for months, all while I went on hoping that one day I might have a chance with him. Even the move, part of me was hurt that I had to find out when everyone else did. We lived together, you know. It’s not like I can’t afford rent on my own or anything, but the apartment has been so lonely since he left.”

“Well… I don’t know if I’m really the best company, but if you ever get too lonely I’d be happy to come over and hang out or talk or whatever.” Chanyeol offered, hoping that maybe he could help somehow. “We can spend more time getting to know each other.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad, I guess.” Baekhyun said, expression brightening a little. “The other guys have been trying to help as much as they can, but they all have their own lives too. Kyungsoo and Kai barely have enough time to spend with each other, let alone time to waste trying to make me feel better. Suho and Sehun have their own things too.”

“I wouldn’t call it a waste of time. But… Kyungsoo and Kai?” Chanyeol asked, raising an eyebrow. That was interesting to know.

“Oh, that’s right, I guess you haven’t spent enough time with them to notice.” Baekhyun finally smiled a little at the thought. “Those two have been together for awhile now. That’s why Suho called us down to central command so suddenly last night, they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves long enough to actually pay attention to the monitor, though it was probably mostly Kai’s fault. You’ll notice that most of the time Suho makes Kai partner with Sehun, there’s a reason for that. And speaking of Sehun… none of us are totally sure of the details since he won’t talk about it, but we’re pretty sure he has something going on with Luhan. They’re on the phone, on webcam, or texting each other practically twenty-four seven.”

“Huh… somehow I wasn’t really expecting that. Good to know though, now I know to stay away from central command if they’re together in there again.” Chanyeol said, grinning when he saw Baekhyun’s smile widen. That’s how it should always be, he thought.

A few minutes later Kyungsoo came out with their food, along with a plate for himself (he was taking his break). The three of them sat there eating and chatting for awhile, until Kyungsoo had to go back to work. Baekhyun and Chanyeol also had to work that night, so the two finished eating and parted ways, promising to see each other bright and early the next day to continue with the evidence review. All in all, Baekhyun felt the day had gone rather well, much better than he had expected to when he walked into the office that morning.