“Well,” Kim Jongin says monotonously, as if he hasn’t just walked in on yet another spectacle that’s contributing to his increasingly damaged eyes. “This is awkward.”

Awkward, yes, but sadly, not surprising or uncommon. He can think of several times just off the top of his head that, in the not so distant past, he’s found his friends feeling each other up and trying to eat the other’s face off, emitting sounds he’s pretty sure he could have gone a lifetime without hearing. And Kai doesn’t know if it’s his ty luck or the work of some higher power that just likes to watch him suffer, but more often than not, he’s the one that finds them. It’s like they know exactly where he’s going to be, and then they pick that place to continue their not-so-private displays of affection. At first, he just thought they had really bad hiding spots, but now, he’s beginning to think that they’re being purposely cruel.

It’s been a few months since they got together, and it first it was just shy touches and a lot of blushing. Kai remembers the first time he saw Baekhyun press a kiss to Chanyeol’s pink cheek, and he couldn’t help the rush of pride that shot through him because, after all, it was all thanks to him that they were even together in the first place. Even when he saw Baekhyun inconspicuously slide his hand onto Chanyeol’s thigh at the back of the bus, after getting over the initial shock, he was smiling the entire rest of the day. It made him happy to see them so happy, especially after all the crying and drama and just plain stupidity he had to put up with to even get them to this point. 

But then… this started happening. Kai wouldn’t say that he’s one to make other people’s life his business, especially not his one of his best friends, but it seems like the more he tries to ignore it, the worse it becomes. He thinks the last straw was when weekly hangouts over at Baekhyun’s place turned into him and Sehun sitting boredly on the couch while bumps, creaks, and groans constantly sounded from the smaller boy’s room. No amount of free pizza and video games could make up for the mental scarring he’s sustained over the last few months. And even though Baekhyun gets all red and flustered when he complains about it, it’s obviously not enough to make him stop.

Because, well… here they are.

Though at first he’s not sure, because the only thing he can see is Chanyeol’s broad back and shoulders, so whoever the giant’s got pressed up against the staircase railing (which looks so painful, Kai’s back hurts for them) is a mystery. He can only assume that it’s Baekhyun, and then he sees the girly hands, one grasping the back of Chanyeol’s already wrinkly blazer, the other going up to tangle in his hair, easily confirming his suspicions that it is, indeed, Byun Baekhyun. Not that Chanyeol would even think about kissing anyone but Baekhyun in a million years anyways. 

How do they even know about this staircase anyways? That’s what’s really plaguing his mind, not the fact that his friends are about to get it on right in front of him. This staircase is abandoned and never used. It’s in the right wing of the school where they store all the old desks and filing cabinets and everything that’s been confiscated from students since the school opened (and Kai’s actually found some good stuff in there, too). No one ever comes over here unless they absolutely have to, since it’s dark and creepy and supposedly haunted by an old janitor or something. But stories like that haven’t scared Kai since he was about ten years old. Haunted or not, this place is the best because it’s literally the only place he can be alone.

Well, it used to be. But now it’s well on it’s way to being contaminated by Baekhyun and Chanyeol, much like the Oh’s front hall closet, the bathroom on the third floor, and the backseat of Baekhyun’s mother’s car (just to name a few). They’re like rabbits, or ually active band geeks, as Jongdae affectionately calls them (even though neither of them are in the band, but still… it’s funny). More than being just plain gross, it’s annoying. Kai really didn’t used to care, but now they’ve crossed the line, taking over his spot; the place he’s supposed to go to get away from stupid stuff like guys that can't keep it in their pants and girls that care too much about how they look and just the overall lameness of high school in general. He feels like he just got kicked out of his own home. Seriously, is nothing sacred anymore?

Despite the fact that’s been standing here for a good two minutes, neither Baekhyun nor Chanyeol have noticed him yet. Nothing can break them apart when they’re like this. Kai knows because he’s tested it, with bits of food, pencils, even a soccer ball. It could be a song or something.

♪It doesn’t matter if there’s a ball hurdling at my face at the speed of a train, as long as I’m kissing you… baby? ♫

It’s so ridiculous, Kai can’t help but laugh. It sounds like something Chanyeol would actually sing, which makes it ten times funnier (Chanyeol’s actually a funny guy, he’s come to find out. When he’s not being a giant, clumsy dork, which isn’t often).  The laugh leaves his throat abrupt and sudden, echoing out in the nearly empty staircase. He regrets it a millisecond later, but by then it’s too late, and everything that happens next happens in slow motion.

As soon as the sound comes out, Kai sees Chanyeol jump. The boy whips around, the look on his face not unlike the dumb girl in the slasher movie that always dies first as the killer advances and she realizes she’s about to die a terrible, overly bloody, CGI-created death. An awkward, embarrassing tension fills the air for a moment when both Kai and Chanyeol realize that the latter is not unaffected from his little make out session with Baekhyun (in these uniform pants, that is hard to hide. Kai, being a healthy teenage guy, would know). But that quickly goes forgotten as Baekhyun lets out a shriek, his arms waving around wildly as he tries to grip onto something, anything, that will keep him from falling backwards down the stairs.

And because Chanyeol is sputtering and gesturing and completely oblivious to what’s going on behind him, there’s nothing stable for Baekhyun to grab onto, and all he grasps onto is air before he just… crashes down the stairs.

It’s like a multi-car pile up. A chain reaction that’s started and ended before he can even say “oh ”. And it’s all his fault.

Well, no it’s not. If Chanyeol weren’t such a spastic, the disaster that just unfolded in front of his eyes wouldn’t have happened. Baekhyun would be embarrassed probably, refusing to talk or look at or even acknowledge Kai for a few days, but he’d be okay eventually. He wouldn’t be where he is now, lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.

Kai has known Baekhyun for a while now. During their earlier years of high school, they played soccer alot together, and they've gotten into their fair share of tumbles, spats, and fights; normal stuff for rowdy teenagers. At each other’s mercy, they’ve had a few teeth knocked out, some stitches, and even a concussion or two. Kai has a few scars, but Baekhyun’s gotten something else: a life long fear of heights. (Kai still swears to this day that his foot slipped; he really didn’t mean to kick Baekhyun out of the tree. Really.) Either way, he’s seen Baekhyun bloody and battered and bruised, and more than half the time, it’s thanks to him anyways, but the guy always bounces back. Baekhyun is surprisingly sturdy for his little frame, but the Baekhyun he sees right now looks nothing like the Baekhyun he’s used to. He’s curled up on his side and his arm is twisted underneath him in a weird way. He’s not moving at all and he looks… dead.

He’s not dead, of course. Kai can’t even begin to imagine how many years of therapy he’d need to sit through if Baekhyun died just because he walked in on him and Chanyeol making out.  Not to mention Chanyeol would pitch himself off a cliff, just so he could be with Baekhyun forever; just so they could haunt him and continue to ruin his life, even in the afterlife.

(It’s a good thing it’s summer now because he thinks his brain is officially fried. Baekhyun and Chanyeol as ghosts? Really, what the …)

“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol cries, scrambling down the stairs with about as much grace as Baekhyun had tumbling down them. He reaches out for the boy but blanches and pales visibly and Kai watches somewhat disbelievingly as he faints. And then all of a sudden there’s two heaps of teenage boy lying at the bottom of the stairwell.

Not believing the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, Kai rolls his eyes and makes his way down the stairs. Why him? Honestly. Can’t they do this for Sehun or Jongdae or anyone else?

Kai boredly steps over the giant 180+ centimeters knocked out cold and squats down in front of his friend. “Baek,” he gently pokes the boy in the cheek. “You okay?”

Baekhyun’s eyes blink open slowly, and when he sees Kai, his face immediately flushes. “What are you—!” he starts to say but immediately cries out in pain as he tries to sit up. “What—“ he tries to say again but then his eyes land on Chanyeol, still unconscious, behind him. “What—“ he says once more.

“Stop,” Kai commands. “You’re going to make your brain explode.” He stands back up and nudges Chanyeol with his foot. “Yah! Wake up! Jesus Christ Chanyeol, get up!”

“I’m awake,” the boy groans, lethargically sitting up. “Please stop kicking me.” 

“You guys are the biggest losers in the entire world, I swear to god,” Kai scoffs.  “At least it was me that caught you and not a teacher. Although maybe that’s what it would take to teach you to keep it in your pants.” The last part is mumbled but both Baekhyun and Chanyeol hear it anyways.

“Y-yah!” Baekhyun calls weekly from the ground. “We… we weren’t doing that, okay?”

“You probably would have if I didn’t walk in,” Kai says with a raised eyebrow. He turns to Chanyeol, who has managed to stand up, though his chin is tucked into his chest, the bright red tips of his ears visible even through his mop of hair. “Help me get Baek up. We should probably take him to the hospital.”

Baekhyun’s screech of “what?!” goes ignored as Chanyeol nods dutifully. He’s silent, a sure sign of his embarrassment but Kai figures he’ll get over it eventually. He doesn’t understand why Chanyeol does this to himself. They get caught literally every time they do this, yet they both act like they’d rather get swallowed up by a hole in the ground when they get found out. Why don’t they just… stop? It’s dumb. They’re dumb. This is all so dumb.

Chanyeol grabs Baekhyun’s uninjured arm as gently as he can, trying to pull him at least into a sitting position, but as soon as he does Baekhyun cries out in pain, tearing his arm away from Chanyeol’s grip and using it to whack the boy in the shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” Baekhyun snaps, conveniently ignoring the scolded puppy look that’s taken over Chanyeol’s face. “It hurts!”

“Oh, my god, Baek, stop being such a drama queen,” Kai steps in, partly because could have been home by now and he just wants to get the hell out of here, but mostly because he never can stand seeing that wounded look that Chanyeol gets whenever Baekhyun says or does something dumb. Which is often.

Kai takes the same good arm and unceremoniously heaves Baekhyun up from the ground, paying no attention to the boy’s cries and whines and threats to kick Kai’s as soon as he’s physically able. With his free hand, Kai digs his keys out of his pocket and tosses them to Chanyeol, who fumbles and drops them, naturally.

“Bring my car up to the door by the gym,” Kai instructs him. Once again, Chanyeol nods quietly before disappearing out the door. “Why do you have to be such a to him all the time?”

Baekhyun grunts and rips his arm out of Kai’s hold much like he did Chanyeol’s, though he winces as he does so. “You would be one too if you just fell down the stairs and broken your ing arm,” he grounds out, gingerly cradling his injured arm.

If there’s one thing Baekhyun’s right about, his arm is broken, or at least maybe his wrist. It wouldn’t take a doctor to diagnose that. It’s twisted the completely wrong way and it looks so unnatural and weird, Kai has to actually give Baekhyun credit for not wailing at the top of his lungs in pain. Because that looks like it hurts.

“God, that’s ing gross,” he mutters, picking up his bag, which got kicked off to the side in all the chaos.

“Shut the up,” Baekhyun winces as he tries to open the door to the hallway with his back. “I swear to god, if they have to rebreak my bones and I’m going to break yours.”

Kai rolls his eyes and follows Baekhyun to where Chanyeol, by now probably a nervous wreck, is waiting with the car. If he knows anything from being friends with Baekhyun for so long, it’s the fact that boy is even more y and whiny than normal (something he hadn’t even thought possible) when he’s sick or hurt. Coupled with the fact that Chanyeol will probably be moping about this for days, Kai knows, he just knows, that once again he’s the one that will have to step in and play mediator. And for what? Just so they can go back to making out on every available surface in front of him again?

Yeah, no ing thank you.

The ride to the hospital is quiet. Baekhyun sits in the back by himself, pouting and sniffling, turning on the theatrics just because Chanyeol is there. Chanyeol, who’s had his license for less than month, is a careful driver, but that doesn’t stop him from looking into the rearview mirror back at Baekhyun every two seconds (which is what the little er wants, Kai knows).

He’s never met two more frustrating people in his entire life. But he guesses, for that, they deserve each other. And well, they’re in love. At least he thinks so. Baekhyun still doesn’t call Chanyeol his boyfriend but god, that’s an entirely new can of worms all together. But still, when they’re not being dumb (as they currently are), Kai sees the soft smiles and the little gestures and he knows he didn’t make a mistake in helping them get together. But he swears down to the bottom of his heart that he’s definitely never going to meddle in other people’s relationships ever again.

Ever. 

just the prologue technically. but omg i missed writing 'awkward' kai. he's so wonderful ^o^

it feels so weird to be posting again but... idk. i missed you guys. and like i told avi omg the other day i sort of started crying because i just felt the love and wow yeah you guys are so amazing. i haven't written (well....posted) in literally ages so feedback is so appreciated yes.

thank you for nearly 1000 subscribers! already oh my gosh! 

i'm not sure when the next update will be bc i haven't even started writing it yet hah. midterms are over this week but i still have presentations to do (in chinese AND japanese OH GOD) plus my bap feels are legit hurting my heart and i've been rewatching ta-dah and killing camp and everything over again and i think i need to let them calm down before i can focus on exo lol. 

(but comeback is soon guys. I can smell it.)

ps i love you. 

(i've also decided that the unofficial song for this story is 爱你 that's been playing on repeat for like three days and i have autoplaying on my tumblr lol.)