Baekhyun didn’t know how long he ran for. He eyes stung with tears and he could still feel Kris’s hands on his body. He decided to head back to his room, but he realized his room key had fell out of his pocket during his ordeal. Then again, when Baekhyun left, Chen and Minseok were alone in their room. Baekhyun didn’t want to know what they were doing. Kyungsoo had went out with Joonmyun, so he had no idea where they were.

He leaned against the wall and sat down, his face in his knees. A new wave of tears threatened to pour from his eyes, so he let them. The past few months had just been mistake after mistake. All he wanted was to enjoy his senior year. He was so excited about going to Seoul Academy, but now he felt like he should have just stayed at his old high school. Then he could have avoided everything that had happened. He wouldn’t have gotten locked in the freezer, he wouldn’t have had his heart broken by Chanyeol, and the whole Kris thing wouldn’t have existed. Baekhyun raised his head to wipe his eyes, and he realized there was someone standing in front of him.

It was Chanyeol.

Chanyeol was the last person Baekhyun wanted to see at that moment, other than Kris. A part of his chest still hurt thinking about Chanyeol, and although Baekhyun wanted nothing more than for him to go away, that small part of him wanted the taller boy to stay. “What do you want?” Baekhyun muttered, his voice nasally from crying. Great, he thought to himself. I must look so attractive right now.

The taller boy held out his hand. He looked awkward and uncomfortable, shifting his weight from his left to right foot in nervousness. “Do you need a place to stay?” he asked.

Baekhyun hesitated. Should he go with Chanyeol? As much as he didn’t want to be alone with him, there was nowhere else he could go. He couldn’t go back to his room, and he sure as hell couldn’t go back to the party. He didn’t have a choice. “Yeah,” he said, taking Chanyeol’s hand. “I do.”

Baekhyun followed Chanyeol to his room. No one else was there, so it was just the two of them. They stood in front of the doorway awkwardly. Chanyeol coughed quietly and motioned for Baekhyun to sit on the couch. The black haired boy passed Baekhyun a tissue box.

The pair sat in silence before Chanyeol broke the silence. “I-I wanted to tell you… I’m really sorry about what happened.” It was the first time Baekhyun saw Chanyeol so flustered. The tall boy rubbed his ripped arms. “I didn’t want to… I really didn’t…”

“Then why did you?” Baekhyun looked at Chanyeol sadly. This was the guy who broke his heart. He had absolutely no reason to trust him and feel pity towards him. “If you didn’t want to, then why did you?”

Chanyeol flinched from Baekhyun’s harsh tone. “I guess I should start from the beginning.” He took a deep breath. “My family is dead. My parents died in a car accident when I was young. My grandfather, who took care of me afterwards, passed away from old age 3 years later.” He paused, clenching and unclenching his fists. His eyes were filled with pain as he recounted the events of his past.  “Max, Sehun and Kai, we all grew up the same. When no one would take me in, they did. I don’t follow Kai as much as I used to, because I don’t want to turn out like him.”

Baekhyun frowned. “What do you mean?”

Chanyeol sighed sadly. “He wasn’t always like this. Things happen, and people change. It’s not in my place to tell you his past.” He took a deep breath. “The point is, I owe Kai and Sehun a lot. I can’t say no to him.” He scoffed. “I’m pathetic, that I still listen to him after all this time.”

Though Baekhyun didn’t completely trust Chanyeol, he couldn’t help but feel sad for him. He couldn’t imagine what if would be like to lose his entire family. Baekhyun always knew he was considered “privileged”, but he never realized exactly how lucky he was until he met all these people. Everyone had been through so much, yet here he was, complaining about going to the most prestigious school in Korea. He felt terrible.

“I-I’m sorry,” was all he could say. He wanted to reach out and comfort Chanyeol, but he wasn’t ready.

“No,” Chanyeol said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hurt you. I’m a coward, I couldn’t bring myself to say no to Kai. I can’t---”

Baekhyun put his hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder. “It’s okay.” He felt bad enough as it was. Although he hadn’t fully forgiven Chanyeol, a part of him hoped there would be a time when they could go back to the way they were before.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, letting the heavy atmosphere slowly settle around them. “Why were you in the hallway alone?” Chanyeol asked.

 “I was at Luhan’s party,” Baekhyun started. “And then Kris---” His voice caught in his throat. He couldn’t get the words out. Just thinking about it scared him. Chanyeol’s head snapped up. “What did he do?” Even though he had no way of knowing what actually happened, Baekhyun somehow knew Chanyeol knew exactly what had happened. “I-I…” Baekhyun stuttered.

Chanyeol shot up, his fists clenched and eyes blazing with anger. Baekhyun grabbed his arm. “It wasn’t like that!” He paused. “Like, not like that at least…”

Chanyeol’s expression softened, but he still hesitated before sitting down. “Are you okay?”

Baekhyun nodded. “Y-Yeah, I’m okay. Can I sleep here? I’m really tired.”

Chanyeol still looked like he wanted to beat the living daylights out of Kris, but he nodded. “There’s an extra room, you can use that one. Take a shower too if you want, I’ll lend you my clothes.”

The red haired boy smiled briefly. “Thank you.” 

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A/N: Well would you look at that I updated again lol

Sorry I keep updating so infrequently, school always kills me lol I know I keep using that excuse but please forgive :(

I may or may not update again soon? (soon basically means anywhere between tomorrow and perhaps like 6 months from now lol) I'll try my best I swear lol I don't write as often as I used to, so I get writers block a lot more haha

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, let me know what you think of this story! I'm pretty proud of this one, and I kind of have the rest of the story planned out in my head, just writing it is hard :P 

Anyways, I'll see you in the next chapter, whenever that is haha