Waking up to go to school the next day seemed like a drag. To make things worst, Baekhyun had class with Chanyeol first thing in the morning. Then another class with the latter after lunch for 5th period Chemistry. God it was awful but 1st period, Home Economics, was less awkward than Baekhyun had expected considering the fact that Mr. Lee taught a lesson instead of working with their partners.

5th period was the problem.

"Listen about yesterday-"

"You were drunk. I understand, Chanyeol." Baekhyun says, avoiding all eye contact with the latter because of the awkwardness that would ensue. "You didn't mean for it to happen. I get it. Let's just... just finish this assignment or Mr. Kang is going to kill us for just talking."


"Are you sure that it didn't mean anything?" Chanyeol scoffs, watching as Baekhyun's hands shake as he holds the beaker. Leaning in, he whispers something into his partner's ear. "You didn't push me away. Does that mean you like me?"


"You're unbelievable." Baekhyun says, rolling his eyes. His cheeks were beginning to feel hot and hoped that Chanyeol wouldn't have noticed. Turning away, Baekhyun turns his attention back to the beaker filled with alcohol and adds a couple drops of blue food coloring. "I have a boyfriend."


"Yeah, a pretty crappy one if you ask me."


Baekhyun furrows his eyebrows, obviously angered by what Chanyeol had just said. "Oh yeah? Well he's alot better than you."


"What's that supposed to mean?" Chanyeol questions, raising his voice a little.


Baekhyun rolls his eyes. "What I mean is, you've hated me since Freshmen year and now you're suddenly trying to be nice to me? What's up with that? If this is all because of the project then I quit!"

A person across the other side of the room shushes them, causing Chanyeol to glare fiercefully into their eyes. In a low voice, Chanyeol responds. "Hate you? Byun Baekhyun when did I ever say that I hated you?"

"That's rich." Baekhyun says, shaking his head in response. "Because I swear-"


"Chanyeol and Baekhyun keep your talking to a minimum." The teacher says. "You're interrupting the class."

-

"You're back." Jongin says, watching as Kyungsoo walks into class with a late note in his hand.


Kyungsoo only nods.

"What's wrong?" Jongin asks, grabbing onto Kyungsoo's wrist. He watches as Kyungsoo's face turns grim. His expression unreadable.


Kyungsoo shakes in fear. "Look, I'm sorry for making you take of the baby while I was gone-"


"Kyungsoo, I'm not angry." Jongin says softly, watching Kyungsoo's bottom lip tremble. He caresses Kyungsoo's cheeks and watches as the latter begin to calm down. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"


Kyungsoo looks up at him, looking as if he had wanted to say something, but only shakes his head in response. He puts on a short smile, before he responds. "I... I'm just feeling under the weather. That's all."


-


When Baekhyun walks out of 5th period, he doesn't expect Chanyeol to be outside of the class waiting for him. Rolling his eyes, Baekhyun tries to walk past only to get stopped when Chanyeol grabs his wrist. "We need to talk."


"No, we don't."

"Apparently we do." Chanyeol says, forcefully grabbing Baekhyun's wrist and leading him towards the stairs to get up to the rooftop. During his Sophomore year, Chanyeol spent majority of his lunch time there to think about his thoughts. And to nap alittle before class started again. Thankfully, when they reach the top of the roof it's empty.

"What do you think you're doing?"


"I don't hate you." Chanyeol states. "I've never hated you."


"Chanyeol you say that like it's nothing." Baekhyun sighs. "You threw me away. Do you know how hurt I felt when you suddenly stopped talking to me before? I thought I did something wrong. Something that angered you... so how am I supposed to believe what you say now?"


"I was trying to protect you."


"Protect me? Protect me from what?"


Chanyeol sighs. "In the past, my father fired a student's parent because of an unreasonable thing. The guy got mad and confronted me about it. He said that his father commited suicide and was threatening me that he would murder anyone that was close to me... I wanted to protect you, Baek. I didn't want him to lay a finger on you."


"What about Jongin?" Baekhyun says, eyes beginning to water. "Kris?"

"What about Suho? Why didn't you stay away from them?" Baekhyun sniffs. "Why was I the only one that got left behind...? Why was I the one that got thrown out in the dark."

"They could've fought for theirselves. But believe me Baek, you couldn't. You were weak and vulnerable." Chanyeol cups Baekhyun's cheeks, with a serious look on his face. "I didn't want them to hurt you-"

"But you hurt me!" Baekhyun lashes out. "I... I thought you hated me. I thought I did something wrong-"

"You didn't do anything." Chanyeol replies, pulling Baekhyun into his embrace. He comforts Baekhyun as the latter continues to spill tears. "It was my fault. You didn't do anything wrong. It was my fault. All my fault."


"I wasn't drunk, you know."


Baekhyun looks up with a puzzled look on his face. He hiccups and wipes his tears, before he opens his mouth to speak. "What?"


Instead of responding, Chanyeol leans down and presses a warm kiss on top of Baekhyun's lips. This takes the latter by suprised but nevertheless Baekhyun complies. When Baekhyun opens his lips slightly, Chanyeol takes it as a sign to quickly insert his tongue. As their tongues mingle, Chanyeol pushes Baekhyun against the wall and slots his knee in between Baekhyuns legs, he begins to feel his own beginning to take form.


Breaking the kiss, Chanyeol begins to nibble on Baekhyuns ear, before Baekhyun feels a gush of hot air. "You're so beautiful, Baek."


-

"Has anyone seen Chanyeol?" Tao asks, scanning the cafeteria. Frowning, Tao sits down to eat his lunch. "He told me he would help me with my homework for Mr. Lee's class."


"Why don't you just ask Kris to help you?" Luhan teases, cuddling besides Sehun. "I heard you guys became an item. Congrats! I was cheering for you- what's wrong? You don't look too happy about it."

"Because it's not real." Tao pouts. "He just said we were together so that his mom would stop bothering him. He doesn't really like me."


"Pretend or not. At least now you actually have a chance." Sehun butts into the conversation. "It's you're chance to get to know him. And once you do get to know him, you'll realize how much of an he really is-"


Luhan hits Sehun in the arm and scowls for him to be quiet. "Sehun!"


"What? The kid's an !"


"A cute ." Tao replies, standing up with a determined look on his face. "But you guys are right. This is my chance. It mught possibly be my one and only chance. Now, if you excuse me I have to look for my boyfriend."


"Woah, what's up with him?" Jongin says, approaching the table with his lunch. "And where is everyone? Why's the table so empty?"


"Suho had a meeting today with the student council. Jongdae's in the library, checking out a book for english class. Xuimin's in the restroom. And I have absolutely no idea where Chanyeol, Lay, or Kris are." Sehun states.


Jongin raises an eyebrow. "So basically, I'm here to third-wheel?"


Luhan nods his head. "Basically."


Jongin stares at the couple and shakes his head. There was no way he was going to spend lunch third-wheeling. Standing up, he grabs his belongings before he speaks. "I think I'll have lunch somewhere else today."


"Suit yourself."


Jongin marches down the hallway and stops when he passes by the garden. Curiously, Jongin takes a peak across the window to see if Kyungsoo was there. Thankfully, he was. Smiling, Jongin leans against the window. "Do you need some help?"


Startled, Kyungsoo faces Jongin with his eyes widened. "You scared me."


"Sorry, I didn't mean to."


"It's fine." Kyungsoo replies, smiling slightly. "I might need help pulling some of these weeds out though."


"Great!" Jongin replies, as he enters the garden. "What should I do?"


Kneeling down, Kyungsoo beckons Jongin to do the same to get on the same level as the plants. Kyungsoo then shows Jongin what weeds look like and proceeds to show a demonstration on how to remove them. "You just pull them."


Jongin smiles, staring at the bracelet on Kyungsoo's arm. "You're still wearing the bracelet."


Shyly, Kyungsoo nods his head.


It's then that Jongin notices a bruise on upper side of Kyungsoo's arm. Furrowing his eyebrows, Jongin doesn't recall the bruise being there this morning... but then again Kyungsoo's jacket had probably been covering it. But since the jacket's sleeves were pulled up, the bruise was visable enough to get Jongin worried. "What happened?"


Kyungsoo tilts his head in confusion, unaware of the question Jongin had just asked. When he sees Jongin staring at his arm, Kyungsoo pulls his sleeve down and avoids eye contact with the latter. "Nothing."


"Kyungsoo." Jongin says in a stern voice. "What's wrong?"


"Nothing, really. It was an accident." Kyungsoo replies. "Nothing's wrong."


Jongin raises his eyebrows. "Are you sure you're not just feeding me bull so that you won't have to talk?"


Kyungsoo shakes his head. "No."


Jongin sighs. There was no use in arguing about it. "Okay, but really if something's bothering you, you can tell me."


Kyungsoo nods his head, before he continues to weed the garden alongside Jongin. They keep their conversation to a minimum -asking about the weather and their favorite classes. Jongin liked conversations like these, in which he got to know more about the doe-eyed boy.


"Ouch." Kyungsoo quietly says, causing Jongin to turn his attention to the latter.


Approaching Kyungsoo, Jongin sees Kyungsoo's finger bleeding. He figures that Kyungsoo had probably gotten pricked by a rose thorn. Jongin watches, as Kyungsoo pulls the bleeding finger in front of his vision to examine it fully.


"Let me take a look."


Kneeling down beside the latter, Jongin takes the finger and places it on the top of his lips to the blood out. This takes Kyungsoo by suprise and causes him to turn a bright shade of red.


"I've seen it in a drama before." Jongin says, smiling at his accomplishment. "See, it's effective! The bleeding stopped!"


When Jongin sees Kyungsoo's red face, he laughs slightly. "Are you embarrassed?"


"Of course." Kyungsoo replies, staring at the finger. "Most people would have just ignored it and put a bandaid on it... It's dirty."


"It's okay. If it's for you then I'll do anything."


Kyungsoo blinks. "Why are you like this?"

"Like what?"


"Why are you being so nice to me?" Kyungsoo questions. "You shouldn't even be here. Aren't you scared of what people might think? What would they think if they see you here... with me?"


Jongin shakes his head. "I don't give a damn about what other people think. I can hang out with anyone I want to."


"But why me?"

(flashback)

His life was a mess. With his parent's rocky divorce, Jongin found it hard to choose between days to hang out with his dad or mom. Especially, when both his parents keep making rude, malious comments about each other in hopes to influence his opinions of each other. Too make things worst, he found out that his mom was already in a new relationship with a man, who was also divorced and had a son, a year older than Jongin. This meant more awkward dinners with his mom's boyfriend and his mom's boyfriend's kid. Yeah, it was complicated.

But the worst part of it all was that he can't even play basketball anymore because he got injured from falling off the stairs. Jongin just wanted to take a break from everything. He just wanted to get away. He just wanted to escape.

On his way to school, however, he catches a glimpse of something that changed his outlook on everything. Because beside a cherry blossom tree, a doe-eyed boy was there, smiling at the sight in front of him. The smile that the boy had was warm and genuine. It didn't seem like the one that Jongin had been putting on for show to show people that he was doing okay, even though inside he was dying.

It took him a couple of months to find out the boy's name.

Do Kyungsoo.

(end of flashback)

"Because I like you."