*Chapter 7;

"Did you hear? Park Chanyeol... is Byun Baekhyun's stepbrother."

"The new retard in the special ed class?"

"The very one. If they're related, doesn't that mean Baekhyun's mentally disabled, too?"

"Hey," Jongin grinned from ear to ear, "How can they be related when Baekhyun's grades are in the school's Top Five list? Chanyeol can't even count to five."

Baekhyun pretended he couldn't hear what his classmates were gossiping about only a few feet away from him, his arms folded under his head. Even if it aggravated and frustrated him to hear his own friends joining in on the rumor-spreading, he couldn't do anything about it. He really didn't want to. It wasn't like Chanyeol could understand what they were talking about, so why did any of it concern him? He wasn't the target his peers were after, and he knew after a while that the hot, trending gossip of the day would eventually lose its interesting factor and everyone would just exaggerate and comment on some other topic.

When he slowly raised his head and yawned as if he had just woken up from a lazy cat nap, the gossip crowd dispersed and his soccer teammates were back to bickering amongst themselves. For the most part, the day was no different than any other day except there was a gentle giant sitting two seats in front of him now.

No matter where he went, Chanyeol was so tall that he stuck out like a sore thumb. Even his uniform had to be tailored so it would fit his abnormally long limbs. Curiously, Baekhyun peeked over Chanyeol's shoulder and found the other boy practicing sentences on his notebook, like always. There were three, perfectly sharpened pencils right next to Chanyeol's notebook, and whenever a rowdy classmate bumped into his desk and knocked one off, Chanyeol calmly picked it back up and aligned them in a straight row.

"Chanyeol, can I borrow a pencil?" a girl asked with a fake smile, and Chanyeol was more than happy to lend her one of his spare ones with a genuine smile.

"Chanyeol, can I borrow one too?" another girl asked. The others giggled behind her.

Baekhyun raised his eyebrow as Chanyeol gave her a second.

"I forgot mine at home too, Chanyeol, could I borrow one?" Jongdae asked this time, responding with a chipper "thanks, buddy!" when the clueless boy handed him the last of his spare pencils.

"Hey, Chanyeol, we're friends, what's a pencil between us, right?" Jongin laughed, "You mind if I take this one?" He took Chanyeol's last pencil right out of his hand, and to his surprise, Chanyeol nodded with a nervous smile.

"O-Okay." Chanyeol smiled, rubbing his empty hands together, "You... You can borrow them because you're my friends." No matter how brightly he said it, there was no mistaking how nervous he looked, his clammy hands rubbing his pants like a child coping without its security blanket. His right eye was twitching every two seconds.

Baekhyun couldn't believe Chanyeol had just given out his writing utensils like party favors, even when it was obvious that his classmates had a pencil case of their own and had no use for Chanyeol's. He muttered under his breath and stood up, but not so noticeably, then walked past Chanyeol's desk to place his own pencil by his notebook. "I'll be in the restroom," he mumbled as he pushed past Jongin, the bump to his shoulder a little too hard for it to be a careless accident.

Thankfully, after the second bell, his peers moved on to talking about the season's soccer match against a rival team from Kyeongkido. Apparently, everyone was going to be attending, even students not from the area. Why? Seasonal matches were like the Olympics to a bunch of kids living in the rural part of the country, and a free ticket for a stress-free evening. Instead of solving math problems and hoping they would have a better chance at acing the entrance exam, they could watch the game and forget studying.

It was a win-win situation for everyone, except Baekhyun.

He had not been in the best condition to practice for the game, and there was much more pressure on him since he was one of the strikers. The upcoming seasonal match was like a nightmare to Baekhyun, but he only thought it was so because he hadn't played to his heart's content in a long time. He was starting to wonder how it once felt like to enjoy soccer as a hobby rather than a competitive sport.

Baekhyun sighed and leaned his head against the wall next to him, drowning out the noise filtering through one ear and out the other before the bell rang. It wasn't like everybody quieted down immediately, but when their homeroom teacher came in with two unfamiliar boys following her, the entire class went dead silent.

The new students looked intimidating at best. Even though they were wearing the same uniforms, they made the formal attire look like something out of an organized crime scenario; in short, their first impressions spelled out trouble. The one on the right was abnormally tall, with thick, charismatic eyebrows and smoldering flames for eyes. Baekhyun couldn't believe he was their age. The one on the left, however, was smaller and more exotic-looking than scary. There was something about the shorter one's visage that reminded Baekhyun of a feline... not something small and harmless like a house cat, but a sleek panther.

"Class 3-1. These two will be your new classmates for a month. They've come a long way from Beijing, so be sure to give them a warm welcome." the teacher explained.

The tall one on the right raised two fingers to interrupt the teacher. He spoke in English. "Vancouver, actually."

"Ah, yes, Vancouver. I'm sorry about that. Class, this is Huang Zitao. The friend from Vancouver is Wu Yifan."

"Kris." Yifan corrected her again.

Zitao glanced over at the other exchange student and snorted.

Vancouver or Beijing, Baekhyun couldn't care less. He didn't want to get on their bad side because he knew (or thought he knew) how well Chinese people were trained in martial arts (he obviously watched too many kungfu movies).

Huang Zitao ended in the empty seat behind him, and Wu Yifan across the room between Jongin and Sehun. Compared to the Vancouver guy, Jongin and Sehun looked like gnomes; at least, from his angle. He leaned forward lazily and folded his arms over the desk again, but this time, he was far from sleepy. How could he catch a nap when the new kid was boring holes into the back of his skull?

Baekhyun didn't see Chanyeol after homeroom for the whole day. It was normal, but maybe Baekhyun expected to see him in the hallways... or maybe in the cafeteria, just a moment's glance because it was weird not having him close. But, when he realized he was just being unnecessarily clingy, he shook the thought from his head and went straight into soccer practice.

Halfway into their first break, Jongin jogged up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Baekhyun thought he had a hunch as to what he was going to talk about.

"Hey, sorry about earlier," he said, and Baekhyun brushed his hand off of his shoulder with a casual shake of his head.

"Don't apologize to me; apologize to Chanyeol." He didn't feel right saying anything else about the matter because he had more than one reason to beg for Chanyeol's forgiveness, so he picked up the mud-covered soccer ball and tucked it under his arm, leaving Jongin with the tension thick as ever between them.

Much to his surprise (and dismay), Chanyeol didn't come to watch.

Even stranger, Chanyeol didn't say a word to him on their way back home, nor when they were eating dinner. It was awkward, picking beansprouts and slices of SPAM off the same side dish, but not initiating any type of conversation because Baekhyun expected Chanyeol to talk about his day first. When the other boy remained as solemn as ever, he didn't press any further and cleared the table after they were done.

It was when they were curled up in their respective beds that Baekhyun scooted closer to the paper-thin wall that separated his and Chanyeol's room. If he leaned in real close, he could almost hear Chanyeol's soft breathing on the other side. He rapped the fragile surface gently with his knuckles. "Hey... Chanyeol... are you sleeping?"

There was a muffled sound on the other end.

"You know, they said you can continue going to school if you get good grades. You like school, don't you?" He thought it was harmless to tell a little white lie, in hopes that maybe the education board would see Chanyeol's potential and let him attend a bit longer. He tucked his blankets close to his chin and sighed, turning back around to face the ceiling. The glow in the dark star stickers were still bright, which was odd because he had bought them for a cheap price.

He stared up at the collection of plastic stars, some small and others big. He put the biggest one right where he could see it every night, and the smaller ones clustered around it or in constellations he vaguely remembered. Then, he caught sight of the brightest, littlest star in the corner. Baekhyun had to tilt his head up slightly to see it, but it was there, shining brighter than the others despite it being in the darkest corner.

That star was Chanyeol, tossed out of a galaxy of stars that weren't brighter than he was.

They were bright, but Chanyeol was brighter.

"You know..." he trailed off, still staring at the plethora of stars on his ceiling, "When those kids bully you... they're not your friends, Chanyeol. You can say no. They're going to keep bothering you if you're nice to them all the time." Granted, it was pathetic that Baekhyun still didn't have the courage to stand up for Chanyeol in front of his friends, but he at least wanted his stepbrother to know he stood no match against them. After all, nice guys finished last. At least... in high school.

He stopped talking when he realized that he had been the only one holding up the conversation, saying things to a wall. He knocked again, softly, in case Chanyeol had fallen asleep.

"Nnnh..."

"Chanyeol, are you okay?"

"Ghh..."

Baekhyun pushed back his covers and power-walked to Chanyeol's room like his feet were on fire. He nearly burst through the door and found Chanyeol sweating bullets under the covers, his face pale and skin clammy and cold. Panicking, Baekhyun pressed his palm to Chanyeol's forehead. It was burning up. The dying sounds Chanyeol was making hardly reassured him any as Baekhyun reached for the nearest phone and thumbed in three digits.

"Hello? I need an ambulance here right away. Please, come quickly. Please."

He held Chanyeol's hand tightly.

"Hold on, Chanyeol. Hold on."