Hey my lovely readers<3 This chapter is an early Christmas/holiday gift for all of you, and I hope you guys like it *^.^* Thanks as always for being wonderful and reading/commenting/subscribing *Hugs* Also, as always, please comment any thoughts *Throws glitter and snow*

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Kang-Dae stares out the window of the train as the buildings of the city come into view, shining and bright and new.

    He clutches the one duffel bag he had brought with him to his side and tries to focus on what’s ahead of him instead of what he has left behind, sneaking out in the early hours of the morning, tiptoeing out of the huge house that always felt more like a prison than a home, past the shiny metal kitchen and the five-car garage and the manicured lawn until he was running down streets, his shadow cast in front of him by the streetlights, until he could hear the bustling of the subway station, bag hanging over his shoulder, until he felt safe enough to breathe.

    He is 18 and free and all that matters today is finding a place to stay and something to eat.

    He is free and this city is going to be his new beginning.

“I was never planning on keeping you forever, Yixing.”

    Yixing blinks back hot tears, cold hands shoved into the pockets of his sweatshirt, knuckles bruised from where he had punched Luhan in the face, the older reeling backwards as Yixing had run out the door.

    The words won’t stop echoing in his head, won’t stop wrapping tight around his heart and squeezing, dark and painful and sharp.

    Luhan’s face when he said them is imprinted onto the backs of Yixing’s eyelids, the other boy’s eyes hard, mouth a firm line, bracelets around his wrists like they always were, matching to the one he had given Yixing in between kisses a week into their relationship.

    Yixing doesn’t understand.

    But slowly, his own doubts, the ones he had started to have the night Luhan and him had gone to a mutual friend’s house for a party a few months ago, the night they had met Xiumin and Yixing had seen the lingering looks, had noticed the distracted lilt to Luhan’s voice when he had tried to talk to him over the chaos of music coming from the speakers, start to drift slowly through his mind, feather-light and full of pain.

    And then come the whispers amongst his own friends, the conversations cutting off abruptly whenever he entered a room, replaced with looks of badly concealed sympathy, until one day, one of them had pulled him to the side, had tried to tell Yixing the truth, and Yixing hadn’t wanted to listen.

    He hadn’t listened for another month, four weeks of muggy summer days and an increasing distance between him and Luhan, punctuated with hushed phone calls and claims of essays and exams that kept Luhan too busy to go out anywhere, the bracelet around Yixing’s wrist growing tighter every time he heard the excuses and decided to ignore them, sugar-coating reality because no one ever asked if he wanted to listen, they just told him.

    Eventually he had taken it off, throwing it into a trash can on his way to school because surely Luhan would notice that, would ask him where it was, would give him a new one when Yixing told him he had lost it.

    Luhan never said a word.

    Yixing never listened.

    And now, Yixing thinks as he walks down the street back home with bruised knuckles and tears in his eyes, now he’s paying the price.

“What are you doing?” Chanyeol asks, blinking blearily in the dim glow coming from the light above the oven in Jongdae’s kitchen.

    Everyone else has already gone to bed, Jongdae’s parents ushering his younger brother and sister up to their shared bedroom while Chanyeol had been in the bathroom he and Jongdae shared, brushing his teeth.

    He had fallen asleep on the futon that Jongdae had managed to squeeze into his bedroom a little under half a year ago after Chanyeol had shown up on his doorstep with a suitcase and a duffel bag, directions crumpled in his fist.

    They had been inseparable friends ever since preschool, all of the way through half of high school until Jongdae’s father had gotten a better job offer, moving their family from the crowded streets of Chicago all of the way to the quiet suburbs of Maryland.

    Even then, they kept in touch over phone, saw each other over summer break, stayed up late face-timing each other.

    Chanyeol had woken up who knows how much later, the house quiet and dark, but Jongdae’s bed still empty, and had tiptoed downstairs in his socks.

    The digital clock above the stove reads that it’s past midnight, but Jongdae is still hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table, the glow from the screen lighting up the dark circles under his eyes.

    He glances up at Chanyeol’s voice, jumping a little before smiling.

    “Jeez, you scared me,” he says quietly, running a hand through his hair. “I’m just re-writing a few things in my essay for NYU. The application’s due in a month.”

    Chanyeol drops into the chair opposite Jongdae, yawning before answering.

    “Can’t it wait until morning?”

    Jongdae kicks at Chanyeol’s ankle under the table, bare foot cold, and Chanyeol grimaces, shifting back at Jongdae’s quiet laugh.

    “No, I need to get it done tonight because I’m going to be up all night tomorrow studying for my AP chem exam,” he answers, fingers moving over his keys rapidly before he stops and frowns at his screen and then hits the delete key several times.

    Chanyeol pulls a face.

    “I don’t see how you handle that class,” he says sleepily, resting his forehead on top of the kitchen table and closing his eyes. “If I had to take anymore science classes I would just quit school.”

    “Well it’s good you’re not planning on becoming a doctor,” is Jongdae’s reply, his tone telling Chanyeol that he’s only half paying attention to their conversation. It’s okay because Chanyeol is barely staying awake, exhaustion dragging at him after the gigantic coding project he had turned in at three in the morning that day.

    “I’d rather debug a gazillion lines of code than become a doctor,” Chanyeol says, or thinks he says.

    He must manage to form the words because Jongdae laughs again, pausing in his typing.

    There’s silence for a moment, Chanyeol falling in and out of sleep, his head pillowed on his arms.

    And then Jongdae is speaking again, jerking Chanyeol from his half-dreams.

    “You should apply to NYU with me.”

    Chanyeo