*2*

“Hah… That was so hurt to see. You should be gentle and be the one who told him, not me, kid.” His father complained at him, looking so guilty. He took a seat beside Jongdae, pushing his round glasses up, sighing once more.

“I’m not kid, Dad. I just can’t see him right n- aw aw. Slower, Mom~ It’s hurt~” Jongdae whined, lips pouting as he tried to touch the wounds on his face. But his mother shoved his hand away.

“Don’t touch. You’re really such a kid.” His mother commented, putting another medicine liquid on his swollen face.

“Aahh~ not you too, Mom. And, Dad…” Jongdae tried to turn aside to face his father, but his mother held his head to stay still, commanding him with ‘don’t move’ which he obeyed halfheartedly. “… I asked you to tell him that I already asleep not telling him that I don’t want to see him.”

“Nah little Kim, you must be forget that I never lie, consciously. Anyway, you should talk to him tomorrow. I still felt bad to him. Hah… Why I should be the one who feel this guilty? You had to look at his face. I felt like I had crashed his precious doll. Also, starting from this weekend, you have to learn martial art. I can’t believe a boy with beautiful face like him could beat all the punks who hurt you.”

Jongdae hissed at the constant stings on his skin. His mind also felt bad as he had to hear all the lectures his father gave. He even couldn’t manage to think about his hurt feelings to Baekhyun. Until he laid on his bed, staring up at the plain roof of his room. He wondered why somewhere in his chest was hurt, so badly.

***

Jongdae really wanted to keep staying on his bed, skipping his school for a day, just like what his mother recommended. But when his mother spoke up the true reason why he should take a day off, he jumped off the bed, walking toward his bathroom in annoyance, instead. His mother said that his face looked so miserable, so it would be better if he stayed home rather than showing his unusual face. She also added that it would become hard for him to get a girlfriend if he damaged their good memory of his usual handsome face with his current condition. Her words were so irritating for him. But they were nothing compared to what his father had said. He said that he better not go out for telling the world that he had been beaten by punks without even fought back. Jongdae thought his parents were so mean. That was why he chose to fight the pain on his head and struggled to drag himself to go to school.

His left eye couldn’t be opened perfectly. It was swollen. But he still could see clearly a worry expression on that beautiful face, right after he closed his house’s gate. Baekhyun was standing beside the high wall of his own house, looking at him without his usual brightness. He walked closer to him, groping on his backpack’s straps in nerve. His pink lips moved un-purposely as they were struggling to make proper words before finally letting out a ‘sorry’.

Jongdae stood in his place. He didn’t understand the meaning of it at all. Why he should be sorry? After all, Jongdae was the one who had to say that word to him. He left him that night without even saying thanks. He also didn’t want to see him when he rang his house bell, waiting outside only for being greeted by his father who honestly told him that Jongdae didn’t want to see him.

Why he should be saying that word? Was he trying to say that he felt sorry for making Jongdae believed that he liked Jongdae, when in the fact he actually liked that handsome boy who had helped them? Did he feel sorry for placing Jongdae on the high place only for pushing him down like he was nothing?

“Sorry for what?” Finally he asked.

The other grabbed tightly on those white straps, fixing his eyes on the ground. “Sorry…” Baekhyun paused, biting his lower lip then letting out a desperate sigh. “… because of me… You got beaten by those strangers. I should listen to you when you asked me to go home alone. You wouldn’t get this pain if I wasn’t being stubborn.” He turned up and looked at Jongdae a second before looking nowhere specific. “I’m sorry. Please don’t get mad at me. I want to be friends with you.”

He really wanted to be his friend. Only be his friend. That was the true reason. Baekhyun only liked him to be his friend. Those people were wrong for thinking that Baekhyun wanted to be his boyfriend. Jongdae concluded. But why his heart was so hurt?

“You don’t need a friend like me, Byun Baekhyun.” He started and continued once Baekhyun met his swollen eyes. “Just like what you’ve said… If I didn’t walk with you yesterday, I wouldn’t meet those boys.” Because Baekhyun is so bright. “We can’t be friends. You don’t need me,” He is so independent. He didn’t need my attention. “… and I don’t want to be your friend.” I don’t want this kind of flower. “So you don’t have to look for me again. We’re school mates but we’re not friends. We don’t have to make any interaction.” Because I don’t want to get close to you. “I’ll go first… Good bye.” Because I am afraid of losing you.

***

It was already ten days past since the last Jongdae talked to Baekhyun. The rumor about him and Baekhyun also disappeared as Baekhyun didn’t do over friendly-manners to him again. There was no bright smile greeting him whenever their eyes met unintentionally. At first, Jongdae was the first one who looked away as if he didn’t ever know Baekhyun’s name. But lately, Baekhyun was the one who avoided his gaze, acted like he was considering Jongdae as a plain air. He was there, talking, smiling, and chuckling to his friends, mostly to the boy named Daehyun when Jongdae saw him. Jongdae didn’t know why but he craved the other to stop smiling only for looking down when their eyes met, like he did before, rather than kept smiling and talking to his friends as if he didn’t saw him at all, like this.

Jongdae knew he should be thankful by that. He was the one who proclaimed the idea though. He didn’t want to get close to that beautiful boy. He was afraid that someday he would leave him. And now, he was really leaving him, making him feel empty, even before he was being too close to him. Jongdae wondered why this happened to him.

***

Jongdae was messaging Yixing, trying to support the other to keep his tutoring to the first year student, Kim Jongin when he turned his path to right. Suddenly he stopped walking on the corridor, turning up from his phone to look at two boys who was having conversation as they walked in front of him, very oblivious about someone presence behind them.

“How about having ice cream after that?” Baekhyun looked up at the person beside him expectantly. From behind, Jongdae still could catch his cute eyes and smile. Kind of expression Jongdae used to receive some days ago. Now, the other never gave that expression to him.

Daehyun chuckled, looking down at the beautiful boy with gentle gaze. “You can get your ice cream now if you want.”

“And miss your practice? No way! I’ll be waiting for you!” He pouted cutely before turning to his front again, and Jongdae couldn’t see another expression of his any longer.

Jongdae breathed hard and looked away to the windows’ glass when Daehyun placing his arm around Baekhyun’s back, pulling him closer to him as he chuckled. “Then be waiting for me.”

Jongdae pushed his glasses up, stopping his pace, looking at the two from afar as they kept walking forward.

He thought that Daehyun was the right friend for Baekhyun. Because he was a bright person too. He was very handsome. Most girls in gardening club were having crush for him. They talked about him every day like he was more interesting than the flowers around them. He was the captain on their school’s soccer club. He could do martial arts and do fighting for helping Baekhyun in unsafe place out there. He was independent just like Baekhyun was. And the most important thing, he treated the beautiful boy very well, not like him.

He remembered how he pushed Baekhyun away when the older really wanted to wait for him, be there so he could walk home with him. And now, he was nowhere near the glass house. How many times Jongdae looked around like this, the other still never showed outside the transparent building. There was no Baekhyun’s presence out there as the beautiful boy was sitting on supporter bench in the soccer field right now; waiting for another person. And that another person, indeed was not him.

“Jongdae oppa.”

Jongdae turned aside to find a girl with shoulder-long wavy hair was staring cutely at him with those deer eyes. She was a new member in the club, along with another first year students.

“What is it, Hana?”

“Oh you remember my name!” She put his both hands to cover that widened because of shock.

“I know all the members’ names though.”

“Oh of course you do. You’re smart anyway.” She chuckled, tongue out as she rubbing her neck in embarrassed.

Jongdae pushed his glasses up. There was not much who praised him like that, though he thought that he was indeed smart. “There was no such relation between smart and knowing all members’ names.” He smiled, splashing more water to the yellow flowers in front of him.

“If it’s not related with smart, then how about care? You care about us then you know our names.” She grinned cutely

“Try asking the others. They must be know your name too. It’s not a big deal.”

“They don’t know our names yet. Today is the fifth day since the first year students join this club.” She pouted cutely.

Jongdae sighed. This girl was so stubborn. He didn’t want to continue the debate any longer, so he continued asking his first question. “Okay. What can I help you?”

She grinned widely again. “You’re so nice. You know, I just already knew that you’re not tutoring Sehun any longer. So… I want to ask you… do you mind being my tutor? I’m so sooo bad in math. Can you please help me, oppa?”

Jongdae turned to the yellow flowers again, Coreopsis. The flowers that were bright, cheerful, friends of the sun. Somehow, Jongdae thought that Song Hana was similar to this flower. They needed him as much as Hana needed him right now. “Ask my ex-tutoring student, Sehun about the day, time, and place.” He simply said before walking away, willing to take his backpack. His parents would go to China, so he needed to go home fast.

“Is that mean- Oppa! You’re leaving now? Be careful~ See you tomorrow~!”

***

Jongdae already knew that sometimes his parents acted weird. But he never knew that they would be this weird. “Why I should do packing too? I have school tomorrow!”

“You do! Who said that you won’t go to school anyway?” His father said, checking his phone for so many times. “Do it faster! We have to go shortly!”

“But I’m not going to China!” He mumbled, looking at amazing speed his mother made while she prepared his luggage. When his clothes done. She then started to insert all of his school books into the box.

“Can you help me? Take all important things you may need in next one week! You won’t be able to step into this house again until we come back. Don’t regret it later!”

“Alright I get it! You will entrust me to your related again right?” Jongdae yelled as he gathered his things fast. He couldn’t believe that his parents would do this kind of thing again. He was seventeen this year! Not child anymore! He could live alone in their house. “Just please don’t make me embarrassed with it.” He murmured. The last time he be entrusted was when he was fourteen, and to one of their family in China, like always. Now in Korea, they had a few families in Seoul. Jongdae thought that he would stay in one of their house. Maybe he should take subway to his school, because of the far distance. He wouldn’t mind.

He wouldn’t mind at all to stay that far, rather than to stay in this house. When his parents made their way to the gate of this house, Jongdae thought that their parents wanted to bid good bye, and entrusted their house to them. But then they called him to get out the car, taking all his things, and bringing them in. He kept standing blankly, feeling confused, as his father became in charge to bring his things inside the house.

“Dad, Mom…” He managed to say, looking at his parents and two other people at doorway. Byun Baekhyun kept looking at him, without expression. Meanwhile his mother was smiling widely to him, beckoning him to come closer to her house. “… we need to talk.” Jongdae said, trying so hard to hide his panic.