At the age of eighteen, and to fulfill his dream, he applies to a good university in a big city, away from the vast nature that surrounded his childhood. He leaves his world behind in the hopes of seeing a brighter one.

He lasts two years.

He goes back home, hunchbacked and disappointed in himself. City life wasn’t what he expected, too loud, too messy, too fast.

He spends the following two years working hard, earning enough money to go to a prestigious local university only two hours away from his hometown. Since it’s located in a town not that much bigger than his, he thinks it’s a good idea to move there on his own and start a new life, one that he wouldn’t regret.

Only luck wasn’t on his side, and he ends up getting the flu a week later, with still too many boxes left to unpack.

“Hello, Mr. Byun, my name is Dr. Kim and I’ll be your doctor today,” the man says with a pleasant smile, and he looks awfully young to be a doctor.

The doctor ends up being older, and quite a smooth talker.

They meet again, out of coincidence, at the local pub about a month after their first encounter, which ends up being some sort of unplanned routine for them. He introduces himself as Jongdae, an intern at the hospital. It’s a fate thing, he thinks, that we bump into each other so often, so he arms himself with courage and decides to ask him out. His plan fails when Jongdae calls him a day later and asks him out first. Baekhyun couldn’t be happier.

Out of all the things he thinks he could be doing with his life, dating Jongdae might be the best one, but there’s still something else he thinks could make him even happier. He applies to the after school arts program as a vocal coach, since he’s been singing ever since he could remember. He meets Chanyeol there, a grad student finishing up his studies, and they become instant friends. Chanyeol introduces him to his girlfriend, a lovely girl by the name of Jinri, and they set up a small close-knit group where he feels comfortable and happy.

Life is great.

It isn’t until a year later that he realizes there was something off about one of the children in his vocal class.

He is a small boy with big eyes that is always late for class and usually too shy to even sing. He doesn’t if his parents keep sending him or he wants to be there, but he keeps trying to break him out of his shell any chance he gets.

Kyungsoo is the boy’s name, and he’s ten years old.

One day, when Baekhyun gets to the school too early, he settles in the empty playground to wait for the bell to ring, and the room he usually uses to empty.

“Get up, you dweeb,” he hears some boys talking behind him. He picks up his backpack and gets up to see what is going on.

“You , I bet you can’t even fight,” another voice says.

Baekhyun can’t allow these kind of things to happen, so he goes over and breaks up the fight.

Kyungsoo is left with a small bruise in his arm, and the other boys with detention. However, he suspects this isn’t a one-time thing.

He makes it his duty to watch over Kyungsoo as much as he can, but with his own classes and papers to deliver, he can hardly even take care of himself.

“I worry about him,” he confesses to Jongdae one day. “He gets picked on endlessly and his teacher is not doing anything about it.”

“How do you know that? Maybe she is,” Jongdae tells him. And maybe it’s true, but Baekhyun would rather see it for himself.

-

After some time, he notices Kyungsoo becoming shier and shier and helplessness takes over him. Talking doesn’t help and he’s afraid cornering the kid to try a get words out of him will only get him in trouble. Getting fired is the last thing he wants.

He keeps a close eye on Kyungsoo, who comes in alone and with a dirty uniform more often than not. Until, one day, a boy named Yixing started coming in alongside him.

Yixing, Baekhyun found out, was a friend of Kyungsoo’s sister, Soojung. He protected Kyungsoo, but in return, got picked on himself. However, Yixing was resilient. It made Kyungsoo more confident, having someone there by his side, and Baekhyun found out about the wonderful voice Kyungsoo had been hiding.

“Hey, Yixing, right?” he asks the young boy one afternoon.

“Yes,” he answers. His backpack his torn up and Baekhyun feels bad about not realizing what was going on sooner.

“Uhm, I just wanted to thank you for sticking up for Kyungsoo, he’s really showing us his true self lately.”

Yixing smiles sweetly, “Ah, yeah, he’s nice. Soojung was worried about him so I thought helping him out was a good idea.”

“Your backpack, though, are those kids picking on you now?”

“Not– I mean, a little, but better me than Kyungsoo, plus I don’t really eat my lunch anyways since it gives me a stomach ache, so they can have it.”

“Yixing, it’s not ok what those kids are doing, you should talk to your teacher.”

“I will, don’t worry.”

When Baekhyun later sees Yixing going home with his dad, who he immediately recognizes from one of Jongdae’s picture frames, he decides his next course of action. Jongdae can help.

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a/n: A little update with a different point of view~ Thank you guys for subscribing, I really appreciate it <3 I hope you guys like this update and next chapter I'll continue witht he regular storyline, I just thought this would be a nice change. Please let me know if you liked it or not ^^

I'm working on an extra chapter for weekend getaway, so let's see if that works c: