Word Count: 1117

Baekhyun and Jongdae were walking down to the shopping district to buy some more clothes for Baekhyun’s aunt. It had been about a year, mayhaps a little less, since Baekhyun had met Jongdae but they behaved as if they had known one another all of their lives.

Jongdae wasn’t watching where he was looking when suddenly he collided with someone with an “oompf”. “Oh god, I am so sorry,” he said, bowing a few times apologetically.

“Oh no, its fine,” a girl’s voice replied. Jongdae looked up to see a beautiful girl around their age. “Are you okay?”

Jongdae gawked at her and Baekhyun had to elbow him in the ribs to snap him out of it. “Yeah. I’m fine.” He cleared his throat. “My name’s Jongdae and this is my best friend, Baekhyun.” As he said this, he wrapped his arm around Baekhyun’s shoulders.

“I’m Sulli,” she replied, smiling warmly.

“That’s a cute name,” Jongdae, said. Baekhyun giggled, knowing that Jongdae had fallen for this girl, not without reason. Jongdae replied to Baekhyun’s giggles with a sharp elbow in the ribs.

“I think you’re cute too,” Sulli said, bringing out a violent blush from Jongdae.

“I never said that!” He replied, flustered.

“It was written all over your face,” Baekhyun supplied unhelpfully.

“Wow. Thanks best friend. Remind me to never ask you to be a wingman ever again.”

“Everyone was thinking it,” Baekhyun replied, almost defensively. Sulli giggled, watching the exchange. Soon the boys followed suit and the three of them were laughing together.

“So what’s a pretty little girl like yourself doing out here all alone?” Jongdae asked once they had caught their breaths after the giggle fit.

“I’m just picking up some things for my mum. And I’m not that little. You’re about the same age I am.” She pouted cutely. “And besides, you two are always alone, so you really have no room to talk!”

“You’ve seen us before?” Baekhyun asked.

“Only a few times. It’s just that you’re always alone, the two of you. Young kids without parents are difficult to miss.”

“Hey, so we’re not doing anything in particular at the moment. Are you free to get a snack with us?” Jongdae asked, trying to casually change the topic of conversation.

“I’m free. I don’t need to be home for a while,” Sulli replied, humouring him. “What did you have in mind?”

“Whatever you want,” Jongdae replied. Baekhyun rolled his eyes at his friend.

“I was thinking of bubble tea,” Sulli replied.

“Sure,” Baekhyun and Jongdae replied in unison.

“You two act rather a lot like brothers,” Sulli observed.

“We’ve just spent a lot of time with each other,” the two replied in unison again.

“We’re probably closer than brothers actually,” Jongdae said.

“For better or for worse,” Baekhyun added, earning a light punch.

“Let’s get going then. This day won’t hang around forever,” Jongdae said, taking Sulli’s hand in his and then promptly dropping it in embarrassment. She only giggled and took his hand in hers.

--

Sulli soon became a close friend. She would come and visit Baekhyun and Jongdae on the weekends at the workshop. During the weekdays, she had school with actual teachers instead of the learning that Baekhyun and Jongdae did. Her mother believed that interacting with other people alongside learning from a real person was much healthier than homeschooling using a computer.

When she came over, at around nine in the morning, she would just let herself in. Baekhyun gave her a key after the first couple times that she came and knocked politely on the door. He said that it would just be easier for her to have her own key. In the workshop, she would sit on the counter, out of the way of the two working boys, and dangle her legs over the edge, swinging them cutely. She would just sit there and talk about life, her school, or anything that came to mind. Sometimes she would stay for dinner, but most of the time, her mother would ask her to come home before then.

At some point, the three of them realised that Jongdae and Sulli were more than just friends. Baekhyun was fine with this because their relationship didn’t really change even after Jongdae and Sulli realised their feelings for one another, which was after Baekhyun had noticed it. Jongdae was never particularly quick on the uptake when it came to things like that. Through it all, the two of them were there for Baekhyun, as much as they could be anyways.

When Baekhyun’s aunt left him, they were right there beside him to cheer him up. His aunt just left the house one day when Baekhyun and Jongdae were out with Sulli and she never returned. At the time, Baekhyun was only 13 years old and still considered too young to be independent. Jongdae helped him hack the database to change his age so that he wouldn’t be put in the foster care system. Once Baekhyun got old enough, he changed his age back to his real age.

Baekhyun only found out what truly happened to his aunt a few years later, when he received an email from Jongdae that was on a timer to be sent on a certain date. Jongdae said that he paid Baekhyun’s aunt €30,000,000 to leave and never return. Jongdae had also explained as kindly as he could that Baekhyun’s aunt just wanted money and that she would have cleaned out his inheritance the instant he came of age to be independent. She would have access to Baekhyun’s money and she would most likely simply take it and leave anyways. Baekhyun had known that his aunt was like that deep down, but he didn’t want to believe it.

--

About a year after Baekhyun’s aunt’s disappearance, Sulli suddenly fell ill. One day, she just didn’t show up to the workshop. It was a nice spring day, a Saturday. Nine passed with neither Baekhyun nor Jongdae noticing. Around 10:15, Baekhyun checked his watch and noted that Sulli was already an hour late.

“Did Sulli tell you that she wouldn’t be coming today?” Baekhyun asked.

“No, why?” Jongdae looked up from his work.

“It’s already past ten Dae.” Jongdae whipped out his phone to check for messages. There were none to be found. The two of them decided to go see if she was just sick. No one was at home.

After a couple days, they finally got a call from her. She was at the hospital. The doctors had diagnosed her with leukaemia. They said that they could do something and that she would get better and be as good as new. They were wrong.

A/N: And this brings us back to the Jongdae Chapters a couple Chapters back. We're going to get into the final arc in the next chapter. Thank you for reading and I hope this story has lived up to expectations.