“Look what I got.”

Jongdae squinted to read the label on the small white bottle that Baekhyun was holding up in front of him, the word ‘Percocet’ standing out among the gibberish that he couldn’t make head or tail of. It had taken them longer than expected to finish stapling the giant stack of notices around campus. By the time they were done, the sky was a splash of orange, red, and purple, and Jongdae had long since forgotten that he was supposed to be suffering from an intense hangover. Maybe fresh air was the only cure he needed. Anyhow they had grown into a party of three on the way back, with Baekhyun up to his druggie ex all the way to his bedroom. Apparently all his efforts weren’t for naught

“Why does everything he gives you look so convincing?” Jongdae asked, taking the bottle from Baekhyun to read the label on the back. “It probably costs more to make the packaging than it does to make the drugs themselves.”

“That’s probably because those drugs are legal.”

Jongdae frowned at the date printed on the bottle. “Legal or not, it’s expired. I hope you didn’t pay for this.”

“I didn't,” Baekhyun said, snatching the bottle back from Jongdae before he could throw it out. “He told me beforehand that he had some expired stock he could give me.”

“Stock? So he really is a walking pharmacy.”

“He didn’t have any oxys to give away but this is good enough.” Baekhyun twisted the cap off the bottle and offered it to Jongdae. “Want some?”

Expired supposedly legal drugs obtained from god knows where held zero appeal to Jongdae, but he took the bottle anyway just to get it away from Baekhyun. “You slept with him for old drugs that you don’t even want?”

Baekhyun gestured at the bottle. “Try it. Take a couple.”

“He left in – what? Less than ten minutes?” Jongdae asked, absently shaking a few pills onto his palm before putting them back into the bottle. “You sure weren’t kidding when you said he’s a lousy lay.”

“He has places to be and people to see,” Baekhyun said dismissively. “I kind of like that about him.”

Jongdae walked into the kitchen and took one of the glasses from the drying rack to fill it with water. “You’re into the whole wham bam thank you ma’am routine?”

“What do you think I used to do with you?” Baekhyun nodded at the glass of water. “It’s better if you chew the pills. They taste disgusting but you’ll thank me soon enough.”

“I thought you like it when your randos stay overnight?”

“Exactly. My randos.”

Jongdae took a sip of the water before walking back out to the living room with both the glass of water and bottle of Percocet and settling on the old couch. “So the better you know someone, the less you care about them?”

“Pretty much.” Baekhyun headed to the room at the far end of the house and opened the closed door without bothering to knock. “When is that other guy coming back anyway? He’s been gone for the whole day.”

“Well, we’ve been out for almost the whole day too.”

“Chanyeol left pretty much everything,” Baekhyun said, his voice becoming more distant as he entered the room. “I’m pretty sure he moved out on a whim.”

Jongdae swiftly poured all the pills in the small bottle into the glass of water. “I don’t think he left anything behind. The curtains and lamps and all that came with the house, remember?”

“He left his stash of CDs.”

“Are you sure those aren’t Tao’s?” Jongdae asked, surreptitiously getting off the couch and walking over to the bathroom.

“They’re definitely Chanyeol’s.” There was a momentary pause as Baekhyun looked through the CDs, the faint sound of jewel cases being moved and stacked assuring Jongdae that he was still well inside the room. “I gave some of these to him.”

Jongdae stopped in front of the bathroom door. “You never gave me anything.”

“I gave you those pills,” Baekhyun said, appearing in the doorway with a CD case in his hand. His eyes immediately dropped to the pill-laden glass of water. “Which you’re apparently going to kill yourself with.”

Jongdae quickly stepped inside the bathroom and flushed the contents of the glass down the toilet.

“Or rather, be completely ungrateful for,” Baekhyun continued, frowning. “Do you know how hard it was to get those?”

“All you had to do was screw an ex who you still have feelings for,” Jongdae pointed out.

“He’s not usually that generous.”

Jongdae paused, thinking that over. “Have you always slept with him for drugs?”

Baekhyun shrugged in response and flung the CD case back to where he took it from and pulled the door to the bedroom shut.

“I think I figured out your relationship with him.”

Baekhyun heaved a weary sigh as he walked towards the living room and plopped himself down on the couch. “I thought you were done with all that psychoanalysing stuff.”

“You like him because occasionally he’ll give you something in exchange for , lousy or otherwise, which makes him a whole lot better than the people you usually sleep with.”

Baekhyun nodded thoughtfully. “That’s not too bad.”

“And you also have a soft spot for him because his endless supply of drugs reminds you of your junkie mum.”

“For a second there I thought you actually made sense.”

“No, wait,” Jongdae said, a sudden thought crossing his mind. “That junkie mum story actually explains everything. You obviously weren’t planned and she didn’t want you so chances are your dad’s MIA. Or maybe she didn’t even know who he was. Anyway, somewhere along the way you came up with that imaginary, absent dad that you look up to but don’t really agree with and managed to convince yourself that he’s real. I don’t think I’d be completely sane either if I was raised by a junkie mum who doesn’t want me. When did the care home take you in?”

“Before I started kindy.”

“Okay, so-” Jongdae halted. “Huh?”

“I went to live at the care home before I started kindy,” Baekhyun said, sounding bored.

“You mean I’m on the right track?”

“I lived at home with my parents – my real parents, not your made up ones – until my mum got a job at the care home and had to move there.”

“I thought she’s always worked there. Why would she take that kind of job when she has a family to take care of?”

“She took that job because she has a family to take care of. My parents were worried about sending me to school on a carpenter’s paycheck.”

“That care home must pay a fortune if they can afford to send you to Catholic school.”

“I was a scholarship student.”

“On what grounds?”

“Financial hardship. What did you think?”

“Fair enough,” Jongdae mumbled. “As much as I want to believe you though, the gaping loopholes are a bit too much. Even if I can get past the fact that Joseph and Mary decided to call their son Baekhyun out of nowhere, your story still doesn’t add up. You keep changing bits of it as you go until it sounds plausible but at the end of the day, I still haven’t been able to track down your parents after months of searching.”

“I don’t know where they are either.”

“You never tried to look for them,” Jongdae pointed out. “It’s also weird that your memory’s so clear about what happened when you were three or four years old but you can’t even remember something that happened a few months back.”

“That’s probably because moving is a major life event.”

“Or it’s because you’ve had more time to hammer it into your head and convince yourself that it’s true.”

“Your word against mine, and I was actually there.”

“I was there last semester when you didn’t sleep with our tutor and we failed that assignment, but somehow you managed to convince yourself otherwise.”

“I think your memory’s a bit rusty.”

Jongdae walked over to the couch and sat himself down beside Baekhyun as he mulled it over, the empty glass and bottle still in his hands. There must be a simple explanation for everything, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. “Maybe it’s because you want it to be true.”

“Huh?”

“You want us to pass that assignment. You wish you didn’t listen to Chanyeol and me and slept with that tutor anyway. The same way that you want to have wholesome parents and a clichéd dysfunctional upbringing for whatever reason. You want something to be true, you conjure up situations or elaborate stories in your head, and you actually believe them. You’re ridiculously susceptible to false memories.” Jongdae paused, belatedly realizing what he just said. “That’s exactly it. Your memory’s so pliable, you’re just like a kid. I can probably make something up right now and in a few months time you’ll be utterly convinced that it actually happened.”

Baekhyun frowned. “Did you read about that somewhere?”

“It doesn’t matter what your life story is, my theory explains the why.”

“Well, if it makes you happy,” Baekhyun muttered. He immediately got to his feet when he heard the timely ringing of his phone from inside his room. “Thank god.”

Jongdae stood up as well. “I don’t think I can be completely happy until I figure out that mess with the phone call and everything.”

“Someday I’m going to lose patience with you,” Baekhyun said under his breath as he headed to his room.

“Speaking of phone calls, I don’t think I’ve ever heard your phone ring except that time your dad called.”

Baekhyun halted mid-step. “You’re actually right for once.”

“If it’s him, put him on speakerphone. I’ll make sure you hear him right this time.”

“My hearing’s just fine.” Baekhyun resumed his steps and picked up the phone that had been left on his bedroom floor. He took a brief look at the screen before turning it around to show it to Jongdae. “It’s Luhan.”