*Chapter 19;

Chanyeol was dismissed from school the day before his leave. His special education teacher who was usually so forgiving and kind to Chanyeol handed him a pink note and patted him on the back, saying his future would be brighter if he went down a different path. Baekhyun thought it was ironic how an instructor of all people was saying this to a boy who loved studying. Where else would he have a bright future, if not for school?

Baekhyun only saw Chanyeol twice in homeroom, then his special education class. He had to be at the office to explain why he had been absent for the last few days, even if the principal was not so pleased with whatever he had to say. He bit his tongue before he could say anything that could risk his expulsion as well, but why would he care at this point? School was a chore.

He slumped in his seat and gazed out of the window during math class, slept during history, then excused himself to the restroom during language arts, just so he could spend half an hour out of the classroom. When the teacher asked to see him after class, he brushed off her irritation with a hearty joke: "I had serious constipation."

Baekhyun sort of zoned out the whole time until the last bell rang and he was on his way to the grass field for the last practice before the tournament. His leg had healed considerably well, and all there was on his kneecap was just an unsightly bruise where a welt had been earlier. A little squirt of antibiotic spray fixed the sore joints, so he ran well for the first few practice matches until his leg started throbbing again.

He ignored it, although there was no mistaking the slight limp in his step when the coach gathered the players in the center of the field.

"Where's Sehun?" the coach asked.

Jongin wiped a towel through his sweaty, damp hair and jerked a thumb over his shoulder, grinning, "He's coming late. He had to go volunteer at the blood donations today."

"Say what? He's getting his blood drawn the day before the match? Ai!"

Baekhyun jogged up to Jongin once the coach had finished reviewing tomorrow's drills for them for the hundredth time. "Blood donation? Since when was he into community service? Sehun probably doesn't even know what community service means." he teased, although his words were nothing short of facts.

"Oi, you really haven't been paying attention to new gossip these days, huh?" Jongin chuckled, "Sehun asked Luhan out again and he said yes. Now Sehun's trying to impress him by going to these volunteer events. I don't know what he's thinking, but Sehun won't listen to me, I think he's a... what do you call it, head over heels in love?"

Baekhyun nearly choked on his own saliva. After moping and sobbing all over the cafeteria table that day, Sehun had mustered up the courage to confess a second time? Now, he supposed the proverb "Rome wasn't built in a day" made a little more sense. "I'd call that whipped," Baekhyun snorted, and the two laughed some more as practice continued.

When the boys had finished soccer practice, Baekhyun found Chanyeol sitting where he usually sat on the bleachers, patiently waiting for him to say "let's go home" first. Baekhyun had assigned him some homework to do while sitting there, although the assignment itself was rather easy and required nothing more than for Chanyeol to write his own name a hundred times. It was repetitive and boring, but practice made progress.

On his way out, he saw Yifan pulling out a heavy bag from one of the long lockers.

"Are you part of a sports team, too?" Baekhyun asked out of curiosity, deciding that it was harmless to treat him like a friend at school, since he wasn't endangering his secret identity any.

Yifan looked at him, then at the duffel bag with a wry grin. "Oh, no, the school let me borrow one of these big lockers because my police equipment's too big to fit in the tiny ones. I don't really have the time to arrive and dress before my shift starts, so I save a little time this way." he said, "Where's large fry?"

"Large fry?" Baekhyun lowered his eyebrows, looking beside him where Chanyeol should be, "Oh... haven't gotten him yet."

"Ah."

A pause.

Baekhyun lifted his gaze a bit, then around, to survey their surroundings. He hoped Yifan wasn't in a hurry to leave. "Listen, my brother, well, he's being taken away tomorrow; I don't know if you've heard recent news, but he hurt a kid from Jeon-Il really bad and..."

"And you want me to talk some sense into the big guys back at the department?"

He nodded.

"I'd really like to help you, small fry, but when a case is closed, a case is closed. Although..." Yifan trailed off, "I can bear testimonial for you. Large fry helped you out back there and we caught some criminals at large. A heroic deed like that should be rewarded. I don't know what good it'll do, but it's better than nothing, huh?"

"Really? You... You'd do that?"

Yifan stuck a thumbs-up. "I'll fax it to a friend of mine who works in the department around here. His name's Kyungsoo, and if he receives it, he should let you know what's up before..." he checked his wristwatch, "Six in the afternoon."

"Thanks..." Baekhyun said, the shock welling up to his throat, "Thanks..."

"You're welcome, that's what friends are for." Yifan left Baekhyun in the locker room with a gentle bump to his shoulder.

Feeling much better than he had before, Baekhyun walked step-by-step with Chanyeol, back home. He realized that if things didn't go well, this would end up being their last walk to school together. It couldn't be wasted, so he bought ice cream from the local market with some pocket change and handed Chanyeol's favorite to him. It was a ritual of theirs he would sorely miss.

"Hey," Baekhyun said after they had walked a few blocks down, without saying anything to each other, "I'm sorry about school. You... not being able to go and stuff. They should have let you stay after I said all of that in front of everyone..." He might have muttered a few profanities under his breath, but who wouldn't, in an unfair situation like this?

Chanyeol glanced down at his brother and shook his head. "It's okay," he said.

"It's not okay, though, you like school... Hell, you probably like school more than anyone in that place and you want to be smarter... and you want to learn. It just... bothers me that they're not letting you stay." Baekhyun said, kicking a pebble the way he would a soccer ball, passing it between his two feet at times.

"It's okay," Chanyeol repeated, "Chanyeol didn't go to school to learn... not always..."

Baekhyun his ice cream.

"Chanyeol... wanted to go to school because of Baekhyun..." a wide smile spread on his cheeks, "Because going to school with Baekhyun makes Chanyeol happy, because Chanyeol... no, I... wanted to be Baekhyun's friend." Chanyeol looked down at his toes as they walked, so his curly hair was covering the top half of his face. "I was really happy... wearing this uniform... and eating lunch with Baekhyun... and watching Baekhyun play soccer! School was my favorite because of Baekhyun."

As Baekhyun heard every one of Chanyeol's heartfelt words, his own heart tightened in his chest. His eyes might have glossed over with tears, they might have fallen past his lower eyelids, and he might have wiped them away with his sleeve.

Chanyeol hadn't noticed.

Baekhyun laughed softly. "Hey, Chanyeol, we are already friends. We're best friends," he nodded firmly, "We'll meet again one day when you're the smartest teacher in the world and I'm the best soccer player in the world, right?"

Chanyeol nodded with a bright smile that shattered Baekhyun's heart.

Kyungsoo's call came forty-two minutes and thirteen seconds after six, not that Baekhyun had been waiting and keeping track of time. He had been eating dinner with Chanyeol (the usual with SPAM, beansprouts, and eggs), when the belated call came and a familiar voice answered his 'hello' on the other end.

The conversation didn't last very long, because most of it was Kyungsoo just apologizing that he couldn't do much about Chanyeol's case since the records had already carried over to the hospital. The only good piece of news was that it was just a probation; if Chanyeol showed good behavior in three years, he'd be allowed to come back home. It wasn't the best news, but it was something. Baekhyun thanked Kyungsoo and hung up the phone.

Weirdly, his heart didn't sink because it had already dropped to the pit of his stomach a long time ago, when he first found out that he had been the reason Chanyeol was the way he was. Nothing overcame that trauma.

At the dinner table, he tried making the situation as comfortable as possible, although the rice didn't chew right and he felt like vomiting shortly after he ate the SPAM. He placed more beansprouts on Chanyeol's rice and watched his brother scarf it all down like a starved animal. Baekhyun couldn't stop watching him.

"You have a grain of rice right here," Baekhyun chuckled, pointing to the corner of his own lips to show Chanyeol where it was on his face.

Chanyeol rubbed the wrong side.

Baekhyun shook his head and reached over to wipe it with his thumb, then nibbled the sticky grain off, "Stop eating so fast, aren't you even a little bit sad?"

Chanyeol just tilted his head a little, and Baekhyun quickly dismissed it.

When dinner was cleared and Baekhyun's mother came home with a load of paperwork, she had Baekhyun help pack Chanyeol's belongings. It was heartbreaking how every little item that Chanyeol owned was slowly being packed into suitcases until the room was empty again, the walls no longer a showcase for family photographs and the floor clean.

Chanyeol seemed to know what was going on as he sat folding his clothes, packing them away into the suitcase he had first moved in with. Baekhyun refused to help, he had lost it the moment he saw Chanyeol folding away his school uniform.

After a while, when all of Chanyeol's things were lined against the wall and the curly-haired boy was just lying stomach-down with a dim nightstand to illuminate his nearly-full notebook, Baekhyun finally walked into his room. The room was cold and empty, if not for the cans of Baby's Breath lined up on the windowsill.

He sat down next to Chanyeol and held out something.

"Oh no! Rita Repulsa is destroying the city again with her top warrior, Goldar!" he shouted in the most animated voice he could muster, stationing his black Power Ranger on Chanyeol's notebook. He imitated the helpless shriek of a female victim. "Ahh! Help! Red and black ranger, please help!"

Baekhyun grinned when he saw Chanyeol's smile, because this black ranger was not the Dino Thunder version but the old one he had kept for years. He had lost the Dino Thunder one years ago, but he had never held onto it so preciously like the original action figure. "Where's red ranger? I can't do this without him!" he huffed.

Chanyeol scrambled up from the ground and rummaged through his backpack where he pulled out his red ranger, all nicked and scratched-up.

"Rita Repulsa's getting away to the mountain of boxes, we can't let her get away with this!" Baekhyun yelled.

"I'll use my Blade Blaster!" Chanyeol shrieked.

"Oh no, there's an avalanche! It got me, Chanyeol!" he laughed, covering his action figure with his notebook.

The two relived their adventures as children for an hour before their story closed, and Rita Repulsa was locked up in jail that was actually Chanyeol's suitcase. Baekhyun saw a glimpse of Chanyeol's face, and he swore he had never seen him happier. Chuckling softly, he extended his black ranger to Chanyeol. "Here, you can have it. It's my favorite toy, but I think you'll take better care of it, so when we meet again, we can beat Goldar that ran away, right?" he smirked.

Chanyeol took the toy with wide eyes, carefully handling it. He looked up at Baekhyun.

In a flash, Baekhyun felt Chanyeol's arms around him. He held him closely, and the two said nothing for a minute or two. They just held each other, took comfort in each other's warmth, and took some time to thank God for what they had, not what they didn't. Chanyeol had hugged him plenty of times before, but when had he held his brother like this? When had he curled his fingers into Chanyeol's hair, or felt Chanyeol's tears soaking his shirt? When had he wished he could hold someone so tight they would never leave?

They talked about everything as the night waned. They laughed about silly jokes. They shared stories. Baekhyun talked about what they used to do together. Chanyeol talked about what he remembered. Then, in the midst of corny knock-knock jokes (Chanyeol really liked saying 'who's there' after Baekhyun would say 'knock knock', even if the punchline was never funny) and scary stories, Chanyeol fell asleep.

Baekhyun did too, shortly after memorizing that

Chanyeol was allergic to peaches.

Chanyeol liked rollercoasters.

Chanyeol liked to scream after drinking coffee.

Chanyeol was actually left-handed, but he had kept making him write with his right.

Chanyeol thought unicorns were real.

Chanyeol...

...