~종인~

I dump my school bag on the kitchen counter, kick off my socks and shoes, and run upstairs with nothing in my mind but a nice cool bath – I was practically steaming after dance practice. Maybe it was because I was so focused on the idea of icy water down my back and in my hair that I ran straight into Kyungsoo.

He was coming out of the bathroom just as I collided, a towel wrapped around his waist, and hair dripping. The moment he banged into me, his eyes widened, and he stared up at me, unblinking, lips parted.

He was scared!

The realization sent an electric shock through my body. I don’t understand what I am feeling. Earlier, today, I swore I’d kill him if he even looked at me, but…

I look into those brown puppy-dog eyes, the fear in them, and I… I can’t breathe.

Realization hits me in the gut. Hard. – I’m angry at myself – no, it’s worse: I hated myself for making him fear me like this. This isn’t what I was aiming at – I just wanted him to leave me alone.

Kyungsoo runs away.

He flees to his room, and in the darkness, breaks down. I still stand, motionless, staring at the spot he had once occupied.

It’s the sound of him sobbing that makes me move. Kyungsoo had left the door to his room open a crack–

Kyungsoo…

I begin to wonder why I’d called him D.O in the first place when he clearly had a name. it was the nickname Sehun had come up with. (Do – his surname, made the perfect emoticon that represented his huge ‘doe’ eyes: [D__O].) And thinking of Sehun, my mind flings back to his reaction when I hit Kyungsoo.

   He was horrified.

   “You didn’t have to do that, man,” his words ring in my mind. “That was low.”

   I may have shrugged it off when the bell rang to go back to class, just as I had shrugged off the looks Chanyeol and Sehun gave me. But all that while it had been building up inside me. And when I hear Kyungsoo sob, I realize what that feeling is.

   Guilt.

~

                   ~경수~

I’m shivering.

Hunched up on my bed, body bent into a ball, I sit. I wait. Wait for my racing heart to calm down.

Kai had appeared out of nowhere, and crashed straight into me. Unconsciously, my fingers trace over the bruise forming on my stomach. I look down at the bluish patch on white skin. It no longer stings – it’s reduced to a dull throb – yet my eyes sting with tears that threaten to fall.

When he looked at me, all that ran through my mind were those soulless words from this afternoon: ‘Do not talk to me. Do not smile at me. Do not even look at me.’

A sob escapes, I cannot help it.

‘I want to forget you exist; so I mean it when I say Stay. Out. Of. My. Life’

~

                    ~종인~

  I stare through the gap between the door and wall, at Kyungsoo seated on the bed. My heart pounds loud in my   chest, and when he examines his wound, it threatens to stop all together. I did that. I did that to him…

  My guilty mind forces me to stay and watch, all thoughts of a bath evaporated. I stand at the doorway, too           afraid to attempt to help him, too afraid to make a move – scared I’ll just mess up and end up hurting him more.

I never meant to hurt Kyungsoo. I was just jealous of him, and of all the attention he got. I was just angry that Eomma never really understood what I truly wanted – a little dongsaeng to take care of. And I was… I was angry at Eomma for – I know it wasn’t her fault, but… I was angry at Eomma for my Dongsaeng being dead when he was born.

From a distance, I watch Kyungsoo sob, but I am too afraid to approach him. I am angry, yet I am guilty. And in my confused state, I know I can, I will, and have hurt others.

So I silently retreat.

~

                    ~종인~

   “Go talk to him.” Sehun nudges me.

   I drag my eyes away from Kyungsoo’s retreating figure, to look at my best friend. Sehun nods encouragingly, but I just slump my head down on the table.

   “I can’t~” I moan, “I can’t face him. Not after what I did.”

   And it’s true.

All of yesterday, all this time up until now – heck, I don’t know how I managed to, but – I avoided Kyungsoo like a child avoids greens. I stare at the door through which he left.

“C’mon, man! This ain’t like you at all!” Chanyeol being his ever loud and cheery self, thumps my back. I just slump further on the table.

“Cheer up,” Sehun pokes my side, but neither get a reaction out of me.

“I know,” Chanyeol says suddenly, standing up and literally yanking me up by my upper arm. “We’ve just gotta cheer him up ourselves. Come on, Sehunnah!”

“Hey!” I cry, trying to jerk out of his iron-grip, “What have you got planned?”

I try hard to escape whatever Chanyeol has in mind for me. That clumsy giant can come up with the most horrendous plans that backfire in the most terrible of ways.

“I’ll take charge of things this time,” Sehun intervenes, and I sigh with relief. Though he too has a reputation for troublemaking, at least Sehun doesn’t get his hands sticky the way Chanyeol does (–Chanyeol manages to get his entire body covered in the said metaphorical gloop.)

~

                    ~경수~

   Eyes cast low, I walk briskly away from the class room, my feet taking me down the familiar path to the library. I pass a stream of students pouring out of the grade 10 classes, and I hunch lower, trying my best to be invisible.

   A shoulder brushes past me, and a gut feeling makes me turn my head to see who it was. A familiar figure flits past me, and I feel a pang.

   Byun Baekhyun.

   How long was it since I last spoke to him? I hadn’t even seen him since I was put from his class to the grade below. I bite my lower lip. I guess they were right when they said childhood friends could become strangers over time.

~

                    ~종인~

“Where you dragging me off to?” I say, half laughing.

Sehun had pulled all three of us out through the school gates, and was making his way down the street.

“Just shut up and follow me.”

Since it’s not like we have much of a choice, Chanyeol and I exchange a look, shrug, and follow the Maknae. We stop outside a café –a tiny thing between two large buildings.

“Chincha?” I ask.

“Chincha,” he says, barging in.

I look at Chanyeol, who just raises his arms up helplessly. When we enter, Sehun has already ordered, and is sipping a drink from a plastic cup. I raise an eyebrow in question, and he grins a rare smile.

“Let me introduce you,” he says, “to the awesomeness of Bubble Tea.”

~

                    ~경수~

I am still thinking of Baekhyun when I sit in a dusty corner of the library, reading the same line in ‘The Hobbit’ over and over again. Well, I say I’m thinking about Baekhyun. Truth is, my mind keeps flitting back to Kai.

   (I don’t know whether or not to feel guilty that I’m pushing Baekhyun out of my mind, but honestly, I have bigger concerns – like Kai – to bother about right now.)

   It’s true, those words has cut me deep. But what I keep thinking about isn’t what he said – it’s his eyes.

   Kai’s eyes, when he lifted my chin up and said, “Didn’t I tell you not to mess with me?”; his eyes, when he said, “Do not even look at me” – it was a steel    gaze he held, with the cold bite of metal. But beneath it, there had been something else, some driving force. Some…

   Loud footsteps remind me that I am still in the library. I look up and see Choi Jiwoo Sansaengnim, librarian and Literature teacher, stand before me.

   “It’s five minutes to the bell,” she says, “Do you want to borrow that book or not?”

  I stare at her for a good two minutes, mouth agape, till I finally process what  she was trying to say, and shake my head. “No, Sansaengnim,” I say, “Maybe next week?”

  Hearing me, she nods and leaves, and I am left staring at the book in my hands. Thinking I may as well start off back to class, since the bell would ring any minute, I chuck the untouched novel back onto the shelf and leave the library.

  As I walk down the wooden stairs, my mind roams back to where it had gone earlier.

  Kai’s eyes.

The only other time I’d seen him up close was when I banged into him when I was coming out of the bathroom yesterday, and seeing him up so close….

I realize then that I’d figured him out all wrong. I thought Kai was just like any other popular guy – and after he threw that punch at me, why, I even considered him a jerk – but when I looked into his eyes yesterday, I saw regret. The real, raw human emotion.

And it hits me hard. Kai does have feelings, after all. He is human. And he is more than just Kai. That’s merely an act he puts up at school.

He is Jongin.

A/N:

*excited little dance* Devolopment in the plot~ Haha, who else is excited? (I finally redeemed Kai- Him being cruel just made me feel guilty, so voila~ I made him feel guilty! Yall like? Kyungsoo... understands him! (This is why I love this chapter- well, one of the reasons, anyway)

And new character introduction: Baekhyun! Be excited for him, yayz!!!

Okay, sorry guys if I took long... (did I take long?) but notice, I've been making an effort to make the chapters longer. You can see the difference from chapter one and five, huh? Anyways, I believe a big thanks should go out to my very first readers, (you know who you are ;D) who also act as my              ?whadyacallit-beta? Well, Noona- Thanks for all the Korean-related help, like "sansaengnim" (did I spell it right?) and stuff.... (I know, my vocabulary is so meh, why do I even bother to write?) And also to all my subscribers (I mean, so many?? It's keurazy!) And all those who comment (Because I LOVE comments, and I LOVE you~)

Oh, and Arthemysia... I tried doing something about the gifs, since it was bugging you. Is it better now?