CHAPTER SEVEN

“So…” Baekhyun begins tentatively, gingerly sitting down beside Kyungsoo. “…you’re really not upset at me?”

The latter lets out a long suffering sigh. “If you ask me one more time, I might actually hurt you.” 

Luhan barks out a laugh, setting the tray of muffins and coffee down on the table before taking his seat opposite the two of them. “Byun, just believe him already.” 

It was a Saturday morning, and upon Baekhyun’s insistence, they were at XOXO having breakfast together. Kyungsoo, having worked overtime the day before, had resented the idea of being made to wake up early over the weekend but decided that it wouldn’t be the worst idea if it meant that he got to spend time with Luhan. He hadn’t seen Luhan in a while and Kyungsoo kinda missed him… (he just couldn’t say the same for a certain Byun Baekhyun)  

“Trust me, hyung. I would love to believe him, but he’s doing that ‘thing’ again where there’s something obviously on his mind but he’s just not talking about it and it’s driving me nuts!” Baekhyun whines, earning yet another chuckle out of Luhan who is more amused than he is sympathetic. 

Kyungsoo says nothing, giving his best friend a sideways glance before reaching out to pick a muffin from the tray (blueberry walnut this time), and then ing another in Baekhyun’s direction. “Shut up and eat this.” 

Now, Kyungsoo wasn’t lying at all when he said he wasn’t mad at Baekhyun for giving his number—without his consent, mind you—to Jongin. He couldn’t bring himself to get angry at his friend because, if he were being brutally honest, he probably wanted something like that to happen… It was just difficult admitting it even to himself because he just couldn’t stop feeling guilty about it. What exactly was he trying to get out of this? Was it right of him to go along with it when he was well aware that this wasn’t what he should be doing? 

“Hyung,” Baekhyun calls out to Luhan, taking a large bite out of the muffin (banana chocolate chip) he receives from Kyungsoo. “Do you think it was wrong of me to give Soo’s number to Kai?” 

The eldest tries to catch his eye from across the table but Kyungsoo resolutely looks away. 

“Why not?” He replies with a wry smile. “Someone has got to try for his happiness… since he’s clearly hell-bent on punishing himself.” Luhan mutters the last part quietly but he knows that Kyungsoo had heard him anyway from the way his face contorts into a grimace—

“…and you’ve never told Chanyeol or Baekhyun about this?” 

“No.” Kyungsoo mumbles into the sleeve of his pullover, head nestled in his folded arms on the coffee table. 

After his encounter with Jongin, Kyungsoo decided in a split second that he wasn’t going to be able to last the rest of the day being with him in the same enclosed space. With that thought in mind, he decided to make a swift escape, heading straight to Suho’s office and asking if he could take the rest of the day off because “he wasn’t feeling so good”. Having never taken a day off work—and regularly working overtime because he was that much of a workaholic—his leave got approved instantly, with a concerned Suho telling him to “rest well” for as long he needed. 

With that, Kyungsoo found himself at XOXO. 

When he left the studio, he hadn’t thought about where we exactly he was wanted to go, but his body seemed to take him straight to Luhan on its own volition. And it made sense, really, because who else was he to turn to? Baekhyun was out of the question, and Chanyeol… 

Luhan was older and wiser, it seemed like the most natural choice to turn to him for advice. 

“Why not though?” Luhan asks, genuinely curious. 

“I don’t know…” Kyungsoo replies with a sigh, sounding defeated as he sits up and pulls his cup of coffee closer to him. It’s now cold, but he stirs it anyway. “It was just easier to move on by pretending it never happened.”

“Didn’t Chanyeol go to the same high school as the both of you though? Wouldn’t he have known about Jongin?”

“Yeah, Chanyeol knew… but not the whole story.” The words seem to get stuck in his throat, so he brings his cup to his lips and drinks the cold coffee in hopes of unsticking them. “Chanyeol and I had only gotten close at the end of it, in university, mostly, and by then… it just got weird to talk about it so we never did.”

“Because you know that he’s in love with you.” Luhan states matter-of-factly and Kyungsoo’s head sinks back down onto the table, suddenly feeling heavy from the guilt that continues to weigh down on him. 

This elicits a laugh from Luhan, suddenly feeling so endeared to his friend. This was just so… typical of Kyungsoo. To take everything upon himself, always trying so, so hard for the people he cared about yet—

“Hey,” he reaches out to ruffle his hair, flashing Kyungsoo (what he hopes is) an encouraging smile. “Don’t be like that, you can’t help what people feel for you.”

“I’m an awful person,” Kyungsoo mutters miserably. 

“No you’re not,” Luhan insists.

“I’m aware of the situation and yet I’m still letting it happen. My selfishness is going to hurt him in the end…” he sighs sadly. “…the same way my seflishness had hurt Jongin before.” 

“You’re always so hard on yourself,” and this time, it is Luhan’s turn to sigh, feeling an odd sense of protectiveness wash over him as he regarded Kyungsoo. Luhan was beginning to find himself feeling very much like an older brother whenever he was around him (which he was enjoyed, having grown up as an only child with no siblings of his own). 

“It’s been five years Soo, how long more are you intending to beat yourself up over this?” His hand slides down to Kyungsoo’s neck, rubbing soothing circles into the muscles with his thumb and index finger. “You deserve to be happy too.”

—Luhan watches the way that Kyungsoo’s expression changes, notices the way the frown slips away after a long moment and is subtly replaced by a look that tells him that Kyungsoo has made some kind of a decision. Luhan smiles at this, feeling strangely optimistic. 

In the background, Baekhyun chatters away. “…I knew that he would get pissed if I did it, but I just had to. Hyung, you should have seen it.” 

His tone goes serious. “To date, I have never seen Kyungsoo look at anyone the way he looked at Kai that night.” 

“Oh?” Luhan replies, an amused lilt in his voice. “And what about Kai?”

“Good lord, I can’t even begin to tell you, Kai looks at Kyungsoo like he’s hung the moon.” 

At this point, Baekhyun is out of breath from rambling on about the night he saw Kyungsoo and Kai together. He feels his heart rate accelerating slightly from just talking about it, because the mere thought of Kyungsoo possibly finding happiness was making him so excited. He had just known from the way they gazed at each other that there was something really special that existed between them, the attraction was just too electric to ignore. 

For as long as he could remember, Kyungsoo always seemed to be practicing some kind of restraint. While Baekhyun had no qualms about openly discussing his love life (both past and present) and his romantic pursuits, and Kyungsoo was always more than happy to offer a listening year and sound advice, Baekhyun was also not blind to the fact that Kyungsoo had never once offered any such information of himself.

Being the person that Kyungsoo was, Baekhyun knew better than to pry. All he knew, from what Chanyeol told him, was that Kyungsoo had loved someone deeply before but that person was no longer in his life now. Under what circumstances did they have to break up? Was Kyungsoo waiting for him to come back? Or had the breakup left him so traumatised that Kyungsoo no longer believed in love? These were questions that Baekhyun had continually considered over the years but never pursued the answers to because he knew from the way that Kyungsoo was such a private person that probing too much into his life would rub him the wrong way (and god, Kyungsoo’s deadlock was enough to deter anyone from sticking their heads into places where they did not belong). 

But this time, Baekhyun just knew that he had to intervene. 

On the night of CL’s fashion show, he had seen the way Kyungsoo and Kai seemed to melt into one another and it made something in his mind click. As his best friend, it felt as if he were standing at the precipice of something amazing. Whatever it was between the two of them was different from all the times Kyungsoo had half-heartedly chatted up potential suitors (if only to get Baekhyun to stop nagging at him) and he would be damned if he didn’t fight to to death to help Kyungsoo finally move on from that heartbreak he had suffered from before. 

Everything that Kyungsoo did was always so controlled and calculated, each decision he made was always well thought-out and meticulously executed. He was always so careful in the way he lead his life that sometimes it was difficult for Baekhyun to watch because it necessarily meant that Kyungsoo wasn’t as free-spirited as he could have been and oh god, Baekhyun just wants his best friend to be happy. 

“So…” He reaches out to hold onto Kyungsoo’s hand, relieved when he doesn’t pull away. “…you’re really not upset at me?” 

To his (pleasant) surprise, Kyungsoo smiles a small smile at him and gives his hands a gentle squeeze. “Maybe not.” 

* * *

Luhan was right (though he doesn’t know it), because Kyungsoo had made a decision that morning. 

He had run Luhan’s words over and over in his head since that morning and he decided that he wasn’t going to even think about it anymore. He was so… weary of always overthinking things, always considering the worst case scenario in any given situation and always trying to come up with reasons to convince himself as to why he shouldn’t be doing something. 

Kyungsoo had told himself that this time was going to be the exception. Since Jongin was barreling back into his life like a hurricane, wrecking havoc in his mind and his heart, he had decided that he was going to allow himself to get swept away. This time, for once, he wasn’t going to resist. 

However, by the time Jongin finally contacts him, almost a