20. DISCOVER; REALISE.

In the time Kyungsoo spends in the bathroom, he realises many things.

The first is the most apparent, but also the hardest to believe. Kyungsoo - Kyungsoo who knows hurt, who's seen hurt for each time he's stared at his matted and contused form in the mirror these past four years and pictured the face of a boy whose dark eyes still haunt him and laugh still plays mockingly in his head - quite quickly, and quite expertly, can recognise hurt. He'd heard hurt in his sister's voice when he'd been in the hospital all those weeks back; he could see hurt in Mrs Kim's eyes when he'd told her his family name; he'd felt hurt, bathed in hurt, when his mother had named him 'disgusting' for a trait he can't and won't change.

And this knowledge, this expertise, has abruptly confronted Kyungsoo with the idea that the leader - the person who has single-handedly caused him so much torment and pain for almost his entire school life - might just be hurting too. He had seen it, in the leader's downturned lips, felt it, in the atmosphere that bathroom had held, in that dense, suffocating tension.

This realisation, though undoubtable, steals through Kyungsoo like a sudden biting wind. Suddenly stepping into these shoes - a pair he's never, he realises, sincerely tried to wear before - has put everything into glorious perspective.

Kyungsoo walks as the leader all while unmoving, frozen in that empty bathroom, and his thoughts turn sporadic.

The worst type of hurt isn't the one that you can see - Kyungsoo has learnt, through years of being surrounded by the force, that it stings more when it's silent, when it's hidden. It is, in plenty of ways, a selfless hurt - a hurt so severe that you can't and won't let yourself be helped, a hurt that you know, with utmost certainty, upon discovery from a third-party person, will only spread the pain. This hurt is one more difficult to dispel than any other. Sadder, more personal pain – this is a type of hurt Kyungsoo didn’t realise the leader to be capable of.

Kyungsoo takes more steps, his feet wearing at these new shoes.

Through all these years, Kyungsoo has been a detective hung up on a case. Without witness, without order, he has been the onlooker and correspondent to a suspect, a bad guy - his own to figure out. The bad guy, the leader, hasn't made it easy. Kyungsoo must've concocted a thousand stories about him, a thousand explanations for his actions; he has always intently believed that people don't go bad without reason, and thus made it a mission, almost imminent in its importance, to figure out the truth. Only now, in this moment, does it feel like something has finally gave.

Being the detective whilst also always being the victim has never quite sat right for Kyungsoo, and has never made sense.

Bad guys don't glitch, don't falter, and victims - well victims aren't supposed to notice. And even if it's been hard to see these past four years, and hard to figure out, it's becoming clearer day-by-day, up to this very moment; Kyungsoo knows.

Maybe, just maybe, Kyungsoo has been a doctor with a patient in need of help this whole time.

And if this realisation is true, Kyungsoo knows only one more thing.

He has to figure the leader out.

As soon as the end-of-school bell trills today, Kyungsoo is on his feet and weaving through the bustle of people packing up and out into the hallways. He knows he doesn't have much time; just as the leader may know Kyungsoo's routine, Kyungsoo knows the leader's just as thoroughly, if not more. Today, whilst his two cronies saunter off to their almost permanent detentions that the leader always manages to avoid, he will walk to the bus stop.

Kyungsoo's steps speed up, his eyes darting in apprehensive search of the back of a head he's seen too much of for it to leave his mind. All the while, his heart pounds; Kyungsoo's had stupid ideas before, many of them, but perhaps this one, the one to tail and follow a boy who has not only fractured his leg but has even given him stitches before, is by far the most absurd.

In what is probably less than a minute, but what feels like a whole hour, Kyungsoo at last, at last, recognises that head of hair moving towards the main entrance doors out with an unwavering speed, as if the leader is keener to leave than usual. He almost trips over his own feet to keep up, following him out into the bustle and keeping his head ducked as he trails from ten metres back. The bus-stop the leader uses is just outside the front of the school entrance, so Kyungsoo blends in with the students leaving as he follows. In any case, Kyungsoo lingers at the doors and allows the leader to walk further ahead, watching from a safe distance as the boy leans back against the bus stop advertising plane and instantly retrieves his phone to flick through. From his memory, the bus is due to arrive in a few minutes - a long enough time for students around Kyungsoo to start heading off in various directions and for Kyungsoo to realise he needs something better.

As quickly and casually as he can muster, Kyungsoo tugs off his school blazer and shoves it unceremoniously into the depths of his bag. For once, he is glad for the woollen beanie he leaves stuffed in an outside pocket; keeping his head as low as possible, he tugs the material over his head and glances back to the bus stop, heart racing so fast he's sure others might be able to hear it soon.

When Kyungsoo sees the leader start to glance up as if in search of the bus, Kyungsoo starts to approach the stop. Still with his head down, he stands to a side where the doors will be closer to himself, with a stray few people blocking the leader from view.

Kyungsoo inclines his head, a gust of wind biting red into his bare cheeks as he does so. Half-hidden, form wracking slightly with the occasional shiver, he peers speculatively at the leader through the heads of the people stood between them.

With the crowd of school students now almost entirely dispersed from behind and around them, the resting scowl that usually adorns the leader's face as a permanent fixture has softened, slackened like frost on a warm day. The tire of the school day and of, perhaps, the meeting with Kyungsoo, fixes keenly on his usually hard features; if Kyungsoo didn't know, if he'd been a silent spectator, the leader's current countenance would not make him weary, but would make him sombre. He looks completely and inexplicably like a child deep in thoughts beyond his years, in things he should not have to deal with. Perhaps it's the early realisations, the unshakeable feeling that the boy now leant unassumingly against this mundane bus stop panel is just that - a boy - but Kyungsoo can't help but wonder how he's spent so many years mistaking this vacancy as a harsh and sullen resting scowl when so much contained within those orbs is unreadable.

Kyungsoo's gaze veers, falls to rest at his legs, and he is struck, with the same suddenness of an electric shock, with thoughts of glaring, hating eyes.

Maybe, Kyungsoo thinks, looking back the leader's way. But maybe it's just a trick of the light.

The leader glances up, perhaps sensing eyes on him, and Kyungsoo ducks and turns his head – too quickly, he knows, for the action to have seemed casual. Something tickles at the back of his head, like cold water running down his neck, as he feels the leader's eyes linger his way: speculating, calculating, questioning. Without meaning to, Kyungsoo finds himself holding in a breath, stiff and almost unmoving as the trickle runs up and down his form. But in the next moment the creeping discomfort has dissipated, and Kyungsoo releases the air in his mouth with a long, drawn out sigh.

As discreetly as he is able to, Kyungsoo shrugs his bag to the side and retrieves from within its depths a book, a cover. Without looking, he peels two pages apart and raises the book high around his head, shielding his face as best he can as his eyes stay peeking over to watch the leader (now back on his phone) from afar.

After a couple more minutes wait, a bus starts to approach that, Kyungsoo sees, makes the leader tuck his phone back into his front pocket and stand up a little straighter. Kyungsoo moves forward, lingering at the spot where he thinks the bus will be; the leader would surely see Kyungsoo if he sat down after him, and that is a situation Kyungsoo very much wants to avoid.

The bus does stop and, with Kyungsoo's bag bundled into his arms and away from view, he breathes a sigh of relief as the door opens just before him. Head low, book high, he scans his bus card in and treks without hesitation to the very back of the bus. People stare; as he passes, an elderly lady - clearly, yet without evidence, local - fixes him with a look, distrust evident in her eyes. He tries to smile, but his heart is pounding too fast, and he knows it turns out wrong when the lady looks hastily away. Instead, he settles in a corner seat at the very back of the bus, and tilts his head once more to follow the leader's movements.

The leader is only just scanning his bus card in, a lazy, motorised motion that he grants little to no focus. It's only when he starts heading down the bus that Kyungsoo raises the book he'd been holding higher, peeking eyes as much as he dares to track the leader's movements.

For each step he moves closer, Kyungsoo's book, like they're positively correlated, raises higher - sure but dreading the leader's eyes to dart to his form and where he is sat.

But in amongst this dread, with this intent focus grabbing a tight hold over his system and holding him in place, something happens that stuns Kyungsoo so much so that he very nearly drops the book altogether.

The leader smiles.

Kyungsoo's heart stops.

It was sudden; the leader had moved his eyes a fleeting step to the side, and met those of, Kyungsoo sees, the woman who'd seemed so apprehensive as Kyungsoo had stepped onto the bus. And from Kyungsoo's viewpoint, from where he's sat, the smile on the leader's face is instantly met with a smile stronger if not matching the amiable emotion on the boy's face, growing even more as the leader halts before the elder and greets her in a way Kyungsoo never would have thought the boy able.

"How was school-" he hears from the lady when he blinks himself back into focus and the two delve into comfortable talk, but the moment is only fleeting when, once more, the leader does something so unexpected that it steals Kyungsoo’s breath.

He laughs.

Kyungsoo's seen the leader's face whilst he laughs before, and that too on multiple occasions, often for long times. He's seen the leader when he guffaws around his friends, seen the harsh sort of glint his face holds when he laughs as he hurts Kyungsoo, has even seen the leader laugh to himself when scrolling absentmindedly through his phone.

But this, this laugh he releases as he converses with the lady; Kyungsoo is sure he has never before seen it. The mere action grips the leader's entire body; his mouth stretches wide and square to let this peel of laughter be released, chest shaking, head nodding, a full, involved action so real and true that Kyungsoo realises, abruptly but with a strange, undoubting certainty, that this is the leader when he's happy. Not with friends, not (like Kyungsoo has always before now thought) whilst bullying him, but, of all things, when conversing with a little old lady with years between himself who (judging by the conversation topic) is no one more or less than an acquaintance.

“I don't know you at all,” Kyungsoo breathes aloud, not even blinking as he stares the leader's way and sees a face he can't even claim to recognise.

He is so caught off guard that Kyungsoo fails to notice that the conversation has stopped, and that the leader is steadily approaching him until the very last second; the leader's gaze flickers, Kyungsoo (without thought) ducks behind the pages before him instead of raising his book. In this position, he knows he is too harried to not not get a second glance. The movement brings back the cold trickle from before, except when the leader rests his eyes on him this time, everything feels so much hotter - so hot, in fact, that Kyungsoo cannot tell where they begin or end, and stays instead frozen in place, unsure if it is safe to do so.

What he does notice, what he can register, is the noise; loud enough a settling rattle that Kyungsoo's breath bates, his body tenses. To make sure, he raises the book a bit, drags his eyes down as close as he dares, and almost startles all over again when he sees an unmistakeable square of the school blazer and realises (all of these events being in very quick succession) that the leader is sat a mere two seats away from himself.

His entire body tenses up - he can’t help it. The image of a smiling leader escapes his thoughts like they’d never even entered; instead, he imagines the curious eyes staring his way to be glaring, harsh like the ones Kyungsoo has known for longer. And, in his thoughts, they appear so much more sinister - the threat they hold, though impossible to show through on, becomes tangible; those eyes, in his mind, cause him palpable pain like they never successfully could in reality.

“I give you the power,” Kyungsoo thinks to himself, wondering when such a change could possibly have first come about.

But the hot and cold trickle disappears once more when amongst what feels like silence a phone rings, and, in the next second, he hears the leader say, “Hello?”

The nearness of his voice startles Kyungsoo; it feels almost private, like a whispering in his ear, to hear the leader speaking so near to him with such a resolute absence of malevolence in his voice. The concept seems so strange; that you could’ve known someone for years, communicated with someone for years, and not yet have met every tone their voice could take on, not have experienced its full capacity.

"I know what the day is." Kyungsoo hears, except this time his voice sounds hard and controlled, like his words have had to escape through clenched teeth. Kyungsoo peeks under his book; the leader’s other hand, resting on his knee, is clenched into a tight, restraining fist. The veins before his knuckles protrude against pale skin; if he wanted, Kyungsoo could take a pen from his bag and trace the course of those veins with complete accuracy. If Kyungsoo wanted.

"Is he there now?” Another pause, shorter this time; the fist loosens, coils again, loosens. Has the body always had so many ways of showcasing thoughts and feelings?

"Good.” Kyungsoo hears, brusque and gruff from the leader’s mouth. “I'm hanging up." There’s another beep as the leader ends the call, and then the rumble of the moving bus feels louder than it was before, Kyungsoo’s ears readjusting to the non-silence and the spoken words of the leader’s conversation replaying over and over in his mind. That phone call, for the next few minutes, becomes the science problem Kyungsoo can’t solve. Try to fill in the words of the person on the other line. He picks at them, head almost spinning over that static rumble in the leader’s moments of silence; stupidly, he dissects that rumble, tries to find words in the longer and shorter crackles. Who could’ve been on the other line to make the leader so- so-

Kyungsoo ducks a little, peeks, at the fist which has stayed clenched even with the call now over.

So live. He finishes, tucking himself back behind his book as the bus rattles onwards. Even without seeing the leader’s face, Kyungsoo knows that there had been something different, something specific about that phone call that had been getting to the boy in a way he’s never thought the boy could be affected.

Who was on the other line?

In amongst these thoughts, as time passes by neither slowly nor quickly, Kyungsoo is struck, quite abruptly, with the realisation that this is the longest he's ever been so close to the leader without the boy laying a finger on him. The book still raised, his gaze falls to the two seats length which separates them - an almost solid vacancy, where not even the flap of the leader's blazer or the scruff of Kyungsoo's shoe dares to breach. It feels so strange - how, physically, Kyungsoo could lean one way too far or reach an arm out with no effort and the leader would be there - present and breathing - to touch, whilst all at the same time the boy and his mind, his struggles, and his close-kept inner-workings remain just as unobtainable as ever.

Or maybe they only seem that way because you’ve never tried to look before, a voice in Kyungsoo’s head reasons. Maybe you’ve been missing all the signs.

Kyungsoo shakes the voice away, his eyes falling shut and a slow, soundless sigh passing from between his lips. “It wouldn’t be my fault,” he reminds himself aloud, voice murmured and so impossibly soft you’d have only known he’d spoken if you’d seen the flutters of his mouth as he’d said the words.

He hears the leader shift, the noise in sharper focus with one sense lost, and per-automatic he raises his textbook higher - the lids of his eyes darkening as the dissipating window sunlight is blocked from view. With his eyes still closed, he doesn’t think about how the movement looks; in fact, he’s almost completely zoned out when, from the blue, he hears someone calling out to him.

“Hey,” the person repeats, and then again, except this time the person reaches out and taps him on the shoulder and Kyungsoo is suddenly impossibly alert as he realises that the leader is trying to get his attention.

Kyungsoo freezes. His body tenses, blood pumping impossibly loud in his ears, and the trickle from before becomes a waterfall as he feels the leader stare curiously at his lack of response, at the refusal to answer or to move his book aside. He knows, he knows, he knows, Kyungsoo recites, a grave and resigned sort of mantra as he remains paralysed in place. From his peripheral vision, he watches. He watches as the still form of the leader starts to, slowly, lean forward, yet still paralysis grips him. He doesn’t know what it is, exactly – maybe it’s the fear over how much of the leader’s school blazer has suddenly come into view, or perhaps it’s just the realisation that he could truly be caught right now – but it’s in just these next few seconds that Kyungsoo musters up enough thought to respond.

He lets out an affirming sort of throat clear, almost a grunt, a sound so foreign passing from between his lips that he can’t even recognise it as his own voice. But the gesture seems to do the trick; from his viewpoint, he sees the leader halt in his movement.

“Sorry it’s just…” The leader begins, the tone that of hesitant politeness granted to a stranger. “Your textbook is upside down?”

Kyungsoo’s breath stops; dread floods his system. His eyes dart, falling upon the pages he has open and, sure enough, the Hangul scattered on the pages is flipped – how did he not realise they were flipped? This time, he has no response; his words are stolen, heart pounding so fiercely he’s sure it must be unhealthy, and he resigns himself to the truth that he is going to be discovered.

Why do people shake when they feel fear? It seems so unjust, so unfair to have such a terrible thing show itself in your physical form too. The things fear can do to your mind... Seeing, plainly, your fear also laid out on a platter for onlookers to see - doesn't that only make it grow?

Kyungsoo feels it grow now. His eyes have caught so easily onto his hands - shaky, trembling things barely able to keep the textbook upright. If the leader hasn't already, he is bound to notice, to sense the truth, and that steals the very breath from between Kyungsoo's lips.

Kyungsoo can feel the leader's eyes trailing over his form, can feel the suspicious squint the leader is fixing on him through the textbook in his hands. Slowly, he sees how the leader starts to approach once more, the stretch of blue from his school blazer becoming bigger and bigger…

This was a stupid idea, this was a stupid idea, this was a stupid idea-

"!"

The exclamation comes suddenly, and then everything after in quick succession: the leader stands at top speed and races to the front of the bus, such urgency in his movements that Kyungsoo lowers his book and blinks in surprise.

“Wait, that’s my stop!”- he hears the leader calling up to the driver, voice dimming as he bounds further and further away from Kyungsoo. The words make Kyungsoo straighten, eyes darting to and from each view from the opposite sides of the still-moving bus, as if the leader’s home will glare a bright white colour and make itself known to him.

Kyungsoo looks back to the leader, raising slightly in his seat as the bus slows and the leader moves towards the exit. Keeping his head ducked, he watches as the doors open and the leader leaves, granting himself only a second after to yell out a, “Me too!” to the driver before following the leader’s movements and trailing carefully a few paces behind him. The bus doors close straight after he has left, his bag slung over his shoulder and body hunching naturally; the leader would only have to turn around and Kyungsoo’s cover would be blown, and the mere thought has Kyungsoo rubbing clammy hands at the sides of his school trousers. He can’t help but stay slightly lower than his natural height regardless, beanie slung down and eyes diverted to the pavement – in fact, he only raises his head and looks about himself when it’s been a couple of minutes and the leader’s fast-paced steps remain unchanged.

The area they start to walk in feels like it's alive, and if it could speak, it would hiss, "do not trespass." His mother taught him to run from this feeling, to get out without looking like you are and keep your head somewhere between low and high, alert and avoiding all and every attempt at eye contact. But his mother also taught him that a gay kid can be raised, and that doing so meant your job as guardian had failed; sometimes, his mother's words shouldn't be heeded.

Kyungsoo carries on; curling hands into his backpack straps and keeping a safe distance between himself and the leader his movements stay cautious, gaze alert and eyes watchful. They walk in silence for a while, time feeling sluggish and slow and the back of the leader’s head burning into Kyungsoo’s memory in almost intimate detail.

How did I not recognise before? Kyungsoo wonders. How much could I have possibly missed? How many acts of soundless kindness?

The question brings another act to his head; he thinks, suddenly, of the gift of an anonymous book, of the message within it and the lack of a From: that had sparked so many questions in his had that he could not seem to answer. It hadn’t been Taemin (Kyungsoo flinches just remembering that stupid hug) and since then, though Kyungsoo had still wondered, the gifted book had been pushed to the back of his mind.

“Could it be…” Kyungsoo thinks to himself, staring intently at the same back of a head. It could make sense; if the leader truly has kindness in himself, like Kyungsoo has borne witness to more in the last half hour alone than in four years put together, such a gift could make sense. But Kyungsoo just as strongly remembers those eyes, remembers the glee they had held as Kyungsoo had wept over torn pages, the spark of anger as Kyungsoo had attempted to fight back: no one could be capable of leading two lives that hold such disparity with each other. They’d go insane.

The leader suddenly turns off, fast steps down a narrower alleyway. At the opening, Kyungsoo hesitates, stilling in place, but the hesitation is short-lived; he follows, looking about himself at what he realises must be rows of apartment complexes, drab and dreary from all angles.

“Is this where he lives?” Kyungsoo ponders, staring around himself, his body tense even as he follows diligently behind. From the other side, a group of rowdier kids walk towards them, shoving around one another and walking in curved, uneven lines. Without even realising he is doing it, Kyungsoo speeds up, his distance between the leader and himself falling just short of a few metres, and the movement nearly makes him laugh aloud.

“Since when have you been safer?” Kyungsoo questions, staring at the leader’s back as the group passes – only a fleeting look granted Kyungsoo’s way as they go.

The leader turns off again, and Kyungsoo tails him as a soundless shadow, keeping his footsteps light and his head, as always, down. It seems that they’ve reached the heart of the complexes, high buildings skirting them to their right as they walk and a road separating another lot on the left. Kyungsoo feels himself become a little antsy – the leader can’t be too far from his home now, and the prospect of that has made him realise that he doesn’t actually know what he is doing. Tailing the leader is one thing, but what is Kyungsoo supposed to do when the leader stops walking? He may have learnt things during that bus ride, but the idea of making his presence known to the boy - even seeing him acting so kindly, so very unlike himself – terrifies Kyungsoo.

And its whilst he’s trying to figure out whether or not he should just turn back and call it a day that something completely unexpected and all at once horrifying happens.

"Kyungsoo?" He hears.

Kyungsoo's heart stops with the stutter and halt in the leader's steps. He turns per-automatic, searching for the caller of his name, and his eyes bulge when he sees Chanyeol stood just outside the doors to the closest apartment building block, wearing an expression, oddly, matching both the surprise and the panic Kyungsoo's own must undoubtedly hold. For a second which feels a lot longer than a second, their eyes, both stricken, meet. Trapped in that timeless lock of gazes, Kyungsoo watches how, in his periphery, the leader remains halted, and it strikes him in a rush that “he could turn around at any second”. The thought is so abruptly terrifying - being caught in the leader's home ground, caught defenceless as a silent follower - that it has him springing into action.

Before Chanyeol can utter a single word more (for his mouth does open to do so) Kyungsoo rushes towards him and, clasping a firm hand around Chanyeol's arm, tugs the taller out of sight behind the nearest wall - plastering his own back to the slab of brick straight after and freezing, ears picked, in place, as if moving even an inch will blare a siren over their hiding place. Chanyeol too, above Kyungsoo, falls silent and stone-still, perhaps wisely following his lead, but Kyungsoo's head is inclined away and he doesn't check to see, instead trying to listen for movement. The leader must have turned around, he thinks. He’d only have to walk a couple more steps and-

Kyungsoo stares around himself, looking at what the leader would see if he only turned this little corner, and his thoughts after happen both very quickly and without second-guessing. He leans forward a little, heart pounding in fear, pulls Chanyeol closer (all still without looking), and uses the long torso in front of him like a makeshift shield as he hears the footsteps getting closer. He freezes; he barely even moves in the minute that follows, so tense that he’s surprised he’s even still breathing, the grip he has on Chanyeol turning tighter and tighter until the force he’s using is almost impossibly unyielding. He doesn’t question as to why Chanyeol let’s himself be moved so easily; he doesn’t even look at Chanyeol’s face, focus intent instead on what’s happening from just beyond the wall. But finally, finally, he does hear it when the footsteps restart and get slowly dimmer as the leader shakes the moment away and continues walking the way he’d been before.

Breathing a sigh of relief he hadn't realised he'd been holding in, Kyungsoo's eyes fall shut, head falling back against the wall and lips parting as the panic which had struck him dissipates slowly from his body.

It's only when he's been stood silently for a long moment, mind clearing and heartbeat falling back to sinus, that he notices something off with the atmosphere, and his eyes peel back open.

Chanyeol's silence, it seems, had not just been through a wise choice, but - judging from the wide, vacant pupils now darting hesitantly to all parts of his face - from a proximity that Kyungsoo has only now realised; from how he'd pulled Chanyeol in, the taller's fingers had splayed out against the brick wall to steady himself, so that he now looms over Kyungsoo, boxing him in with his torso and outstretched arm. The height difference in such a close setting means that, to meet eyes, Kyungsoo has his head cocked up and Chanyeol’s down, so that they are abruptly close enough to bate Kyungsoo’s breath and wrack a fluster through his form.

They both seem to realise their ability to move away at the same time; Kyungsoo’s gaze darts down and he flattens himself to the wall, releasing his grip on Chanyeol’s shirt, and Chanyeol startles back like someone has reached out a hand and tugged him unexpectedly away. But the combined motion of dragging his eyes down and Chanyeol moving back makes something flash in Kyungsoo's vision.

Before Chanyeol can move fully, Kyungsoo, on instinct, reaches out for the front of Chanyeol's hoodie, gaze fixated to the unwelcome blur of colour he'd seen as Chanyeol had moved back, and as Chanyeol stumbles back forward, he - quickly but somehow tentatively - tugs the fabric down by just a centimetre.

Perhaps the action makes Chanyeol freeze because he realises what Kyungsoo has discovered, or maybe the motion has stilled him for its random nature, but, in any case, Kyungsoo is too fixated on his discovery to think too much into it - that is, the mirage of deeply hued bruises peeking out from beneath Chanyeol's hoodie, a sick array of harsh reds and smudged purples aged from a span of mere days to whole weeks. It's only a peek, only a slither, but Kyungsoo can see that there is more beneath the fabric, more that he can't see.

"What-" He blurts out, eyes magnetised to the marks blossoming cruelly across Chanyeol's chest - but he doesn't know how to finish the question. Chanyeol, who has been still since Kyungsoo's fingers had clasped at and tugged down his hoodie, comes back to life; in a sharp but shaky motion, he reels back, strength enough in the movement that Kyungsoo's hand is ripped away and a distance of a metre is placed firmly between them, as if now inhabited by a slab of concrete, and his face falls into something hard and unreadable.

In a brusque, swift motion, Chanyeol tugs the material of his hoodie back up, concealing the suggestions of hues that mar his skin beneath a slab of fabric. His eyes, ones that Kyungsoo had discovered to be hinted with a soft, barely-there chestnut, pinch. Kyungsoo meets them, those large, clear orbs, and he comes to several conclusions all at once, the most important being this:

These bruises were not accidental.

Something must change in him, must tweak on Kyungsoo's face, for even though he does not speak the thought aloud, Chanyeol flinches like he has, the resolute harshness in the expression he wears faltering like a child whimpering to a parent who doesn’t love.

"Chanyeol-" he starts, but he realises immediately after he has spoken that he doesn't know where he's going with this, can't think of the words. His lips, parted to speak, full shut once more; instead, Kyungsoo stares at the boy before him, someone he barely knows, and a worry like none he’s felt before exemplifies his system, the force of it enough to bate his breath.

He swallows. He opens his mouth once more, a little firmer and a little clearer, but it seems Chanyeol has been granted enough time to recover; Kyungsoo can do nothing but watch, wide-eyed, as the silent tear in a (he now sees) impenetrable system re-attaches itself seam-by-seam and all at once.

"Kyungsoo, what are you doing here?" Chanyeol asks, voice returned to that it has been in any session Kyungsoo has seen him in - that same, almost-hesitant, almost-pleading tone he is so accustomed to hearing from that mouth.

Kyungsoo stares. He reads the unspoken words on Chanyeol’s lips – “just-just forget what you’ve seen” - but the ask is too big.

"Chanyeol..." Kyungsoo tries again, flicking his gaze down to the expanse of his neck on show and then back up to those now-darting eyes.

"I know you don't live here." He ripostes, ignoring the attempt. "This isn't-"

"Chanyeol-" Kyungsoo interrupts this time, but Chanyeol's next words stutter at his thoughts.

"Why were you following that boy?" the taller asks now, moving to peek behind the wall. Kyungsoo reaches out without thinking, hands on Chanyeol's face to move him back into place.

"I-I wasn't," he lies, swallowing the lump in his throat. Chanyeol's eyes dart again, except, this time, they move to the sides of his face, and back at Kyungsoo, before their gazes once more meet.

"Then what are you doing here?" Chanyeol's asks in a hush, voice so comparatively softer that Kyungsoo drops his hands like he's been stung.

He knows I'm lying. Kyungsoo realises. And then, by follow-up, who is he protecting?

"I'm researching," Kyungsoo hears himself saying. "For a school project."

Chanyeol barely registers the answer, but his form does change in a different way - his brows pinch, the line of his lips turns almost disapproving, and yet, through it all, his big eyes remain impossibly soft.

"This- this isn't a good neighbourhood to be in," Chanyeol says in the end, though it looks to Kyungsoo like there's so much more poised at his lips - waiting and ready for an input, to be spoken. Kyungsoo makes a mental note to check if they always look like that: ready to talk but unable to find someone right to listen.

"Then why are you here?" Kyungsoo questions. “You were at the building doors.”

“I’m visiting a friend,” Chanyeol answers instantaneously, eyes almost glowing in what seems like challenge, but even then the response seems somehow practiced. Kyungsoo searches that face, tries to notice something in expressions he is only just getting to know, but there is nothing there to give the boy’s thoughts away; if a blank canvas could be personified, it would be in the form Chanyeol’s face takes now - the very picture of inscrutability.

“Well, then why can’t I be here-” Kyungsoo starts to complain, but he is cut short by a “Listen” so firm that his mouth falls instantly shut.

"Please listen." Chanyeol's goes on, and in the course of that first word his whole countenance has changed: the soft eyes have turned just the slightest bit harder, almost pleading; those lips have drawn into a thin, severe line; his whole body has stiffened, his height accentuated. "I'm serious, Kyungsoo. Don't come back here by yourself again, okay?"

For the briefest of moment, as he stares at Chanyeol after the warning has been spoken, Kyungsoo wonders if the words are a ploy to keep his secrets hidden, and stop Kyungsoo from investigating. But Kyungsoo has seen many faces in his time as a silent spectator, and though this face is rare for him at times, he does know it; the sincerity, the (Kyungsoo picks up) gentle concern - these are things which cannot be mistaken. He knows, too, that there is more to the warning than Chanyeol is letting on; something personal, something staunchly real, something that now bathes in Chanyeol's eyes as a memory.

So even as he looks into that face a while longer, neck bent for the difference in height and a strange, almost solid atmosphere building between them, Kyungsoo knows with utmost certainty that someone- something about this neighbourhood is worth fearing.

"I- okay," he settles for in the end, leaving, he decides, some words for another time. "I won't come back here by myself again." He promises, quietly conceding to the taller’s qualms.

The words work enough to return Chanyeol’s softness back to his face; his whole body deflates with the serious tone his voice had taken on. “Good,” he murmurs faintly to himself. His gaze attaches to Kyungsoo for a moment longer, thoughts unreadable as a quiet contemplation settles in the atmosphere. If Kyungsoo could have had any wish granted at that moment, it would be to hear those soundless wonders, to put words to every miniscule face change Chanyeol owns and to find sense in them.

Chanyeol steps back again, his gaze losing that intent focus even as he continues to stare. “You- um… are you going to the group today?”

With all that has happened it takes Kyungsoo a moment to realise what Chanyeol is asking, and even longer to fathom a response. “Oh! Yeah, yes, I was- um- “

“Great,” Chanyeol interrupts. “We should go together.”

Kyungsoo blinks. “What-?” He starts to say, but Chanyeol has already turned around and starting walk back down the path Kyungsoo had been on before. Kyungsoo follows, though his response-time is stilted, having to fast-walk to reach the taller and fall in place by his side.

“Why should we go together?” Kyungsoo asks, because even if the suggestion made sense, something in the way Chanyeol had suggested it had spoken of more.

Chanyeol looks at first like he might try to lie, his expression fluttering and lips curling in on themselves. But Kyungsoo also watches as he shrugs away the thought of deceit and resigns himself to answer.

“Like I said,” he starts, words almost careful in how he poses them, “this isn’t a good neighbourhood.” He stays staring forward, not meeting Kyungsoo’s eyes which bore into the side of his face, expecting further explanation. But Kyungsoo can see it in the slight tightening of Chanyeol’s jaw; he’ll get nothing more out of the taller for now. So he doesn’t question, doesn’t prod – instead, Kyungsoo watches: watches how Chanyeol deviates closer to Kyungsoo’s side as they pass other people during their silent walk, how he meets eyes which might glint with eyes Kyungsoo didn’t know Chanyeol could be capable of. He witnesses Chanyeol take on the role of silent protector.

“So, Park Chanyeol likes to protect things,” Kyungsoo thinks, staring up at the taller’s face. His eyes, naturally, dart to the dip of Chanyeol’s hoodie; the pale of his skin dips into a pink at the hem, like his body’s silent plea for help.

“Then who protects Park Chanyeol?” Kyungsoo wonders.

“So,” Chanyeol starts suddenly, shocking Kyungsoo from his thoughts. “Were you- err- trying to disguise yourself with that beanie or...?” He asks, pointing a little at the garment Kyungsoo had forgotten he still had on.

Kyungsoo feels his cheeks pink a little in embarrassment, eyeing the way Chanyeol is trying to stop himself from laughing and tugging the hat off his head to stuff it into his trouser pockets. “I thought you were shyer than this.” Kyungsoo grumbles to himself, glaring suspiciously Chanyeol’s way. In all the sessions Kyungsoo has been in, he has never seen Chanyeol to act like he is right now; if there faces had been different, he wouldn’t have recognised them as the same person.

Chanyeol shrugs nonchalantly and, as they walk, Kyungsoo is surprised to see the tinge of red now dusting in the taller’s cheeks at his words. “What would give you that idea?”

Kyungsoo thinks, almost instantly, back to the session with the birds. “Baekhyun is a nightingale,” Kyungsoo remembers, Chanyeol’s response replaying in his head. Maybe it’s the fact that Chanyeol just been teasing him, but the words come out before Kyungsoo can help it-

"Maybe it’s just when you’re around Baekhyun…"

Chanyeol chokes on his spit. “Wh-wha-what do you mean?” he questions, the Chanyeol Kyungsoo recognises making itself known to him once more. Kyungsoo cannot even supress the smile that spreads across his face at rediscovering this Chanyeol; he laughs aloud, eyes crinkling at the change.

“There you are,” he teases, grinning from ear-to-ear and feeling his lips stretch wider as Chanyeol’s cheeks redden more. “Shy Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, a little smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Baekhyun is…” he trails off for a moment, and Kyungsoo watches his eyes as he goes off into a daze. Kyungsoo has never before seen a face show care as plainly and as transparently as Chanyeol does in that moment; this would be what Kyungsoo thinks of if someone ever asked him what does love look like?

“He’s just a really great person,” Chanyeol says finally, lips stuttering like there’s both so much more to say and nothing more he can possibly verbalise at that moment. “I think I’m just constantly in awe of him. And I guess that’s why I struggle with what to say around him sometimes…” He thinks aloud, a flush filling his neck and his long fingers fumbling over one another as he speaks.

“Alsohe’skindofreallycuteandsoftandIwanttohughimallthetime.” He rushes, but Kyungsoo catches the sentence anyway and laughs loudly at Chanyeol’s face – which by now has turned a shade of red Kyungsoo didn’t even know existed. For a split second, in this moment, Kyungsoo remembers the bruises from before in distinct detail; he remembers the hues, he remembers how the colour had sung a timeline, and he remembers Chanyeol’s expression as Kyungsoo had discovered the line and done the maths, had brewed over that very first hit. Yet as he stares at the Chanyeol before him now, almost unrecognisable from the one from before, all he can do is marvel at how someone so quietly broken can look so beautifully animated when thinking about another person.

“You must really like him,” Kyungsoo voices the thought aloud, his tone gentle and lulling even to his own ears. Chanyeol only smiles, neither denying or accepting the comment, looking like a man with his head in the clouds.

“I would compare us to you and Jongin but I don’t know enough about your relationship really-?

“Jongin and I?” Kyungsoo questions, eyes going wide and cheeks stupidly heating at Chanyeol’s casual use of the collective term.

Chanyeol blinks. “Yeah, you and- I mean- you’re-you’re dating, aren’t you?”

Kyungsoo thinks he actually stops breathing for a second. “Jongin and I aren’t dating!” he exclaims, raising his hands and shaking them back and forth. “What- I mean- what gave you that idea?!” Kyungsoo asks, perplexed and (somewhere deep within him) a little pleased at the misconception.

“I mean- I don’t know you just- you guys look at each other like you’re already a couple,” Chanyeol explains. “I just- damn, you really aren’t...?”

“We aren’t,” Kyungsoo assures, a little sheepish as he looks Chanyeol’s way. He worries at his lip for a moment, trying words on the tip of his tongue. “What- err…” He stops, tries again, and stares at Chanyeol with a new, still-hesitant sort of resolve. “How do we look at each other?” He questions, unable to stop himself.

Chanyeol smiles at the words, a big, involved sort of smile that spans across his face and paints happy creases into his cheeks and around his eyes. “Try looking for yourself.” He suggests, grin broadening as he walks. “When you have a spare moment, look at Jongin when you know he’d not expect you to look back.”

Kyungsoo laughs to himself, shaking his head a little as he moves to keep up with Chanyeol. “Yeah because he stares at me every time that could happen,” Kyungsoo chortles, soft and disbelieving so that he doesn’t expect Chanyeol to respond.

“Yes.” Chanyeol deadpans, such succinct seriousness in his tone that when Kyungsoo meets his gaze to try to find the joke in his face, he is surprised to see how very sincere the taller looks. “Pretty much. He stares at you a lot more than you notice. It’s like your face is his resting place.”

Kyungsoo can’t even hide the blush that spreads across his face at the words. “Stop exaggerating,” he mutters, unable to meet Chanyeol’s eyes.

Chanyeol by his side almost bellows in laughter, his whole form coming alive with the movement. Kyungsoo turns when a finger prods at his hot cheek, and comes face to face with that bright, squinting face as Chanyeol leans close and whispers with undeniable glee, “Your cheeks are red.”

But before Kyungsoo can even open his mouth to respond, someone calls out to him for the second time that day.

“Kyungsoo?”

Kyungsoo whips his head around, Chanyeol’s finger moving with his cheek, and balks when he sees Jongin stood just a few metres away and before them.

“Jongin?” Kyungsoo questions back. He’s clearly just gotten back form dance practice, which Kyungsoo knows to only finish an hour after school; the knowledge has him looking around himself, and realising, with a start, that they’ve already reached the support group centre.

He’s brought out of his thoughts though when Jongin speaks again, asking in a tone that is unreadable, “you two… came together?”, his eyes darting between Chanyeol and Kyungsoo and then back again several times in very few seconds. The words suddenly remind Kyungsoo of how Chanyeol’s finger is still pressed incessantly to his cheek, only before he can move back to let it fall away, the pressure lifts. Kyungsoo turns to Jongin to answer, but in the next second he feels an arm slung around his shoulder and then he is pressed almost completely to Chanyeol’s chest, so startled by the motion that the words he had been about to say remain clogged in his throat.

"Let's say… by happenstance?” he hears Chanyeol call out, chest rumbling cheerfully as Kyungsoo stares up at him in shock and a hundred soundless questions building on his lips. Kyungsoo glances fleetingly Jongin’s way, and his stress levels triple when he sees how the other boy looks away last minute, as if he’d been staring intently at the exchange – even if his expression remains as indecipherable as ever. “Isn’t that right, Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol beams down at him, but before Kyungsoo can even say another word or voice everything in his head (most of which starts with what the , Park) the taller has released him, only turning back for a moment to lean in and whisper quickly in his ear, “A little jealously never hurt anyone,” before prancing straight through the entrance doors and leaving Kyungsoo in a daze.

He only remembers Jongin standing there after a prolonged few seconds, and he almost cringes back seeing how intently Jongin is staring after Chanyeol’s movements, enough expression in that face for Kyungsoo to recognise a suggestion of something that makes his heart leap in his chest: it’s present in the slight curl to Jongin’s thick lips, the little quiver in his brows and the squint to his eyes.

Suddenly, Jongin turns to face him, only this time when their gazes meet, the taller does not even attempt to hide all those tweaks to his features and what they spell out.

“Huh,’ Kyungsoo thinks, heart pounding hard in his chest and every other thought in his head dissipating away fast. “Maybe Chanyeol is right.”

A/N:

SO, I’M AN AWFUL HUMAN BEING WHO HASN’T POSTED IN A LIFETIME.

I’m really sorry guys :( I hope these 8,000 words somewhat make up for how big of a fail I am. Explanation-wise, I’ve had the worst writer’s block I have ever had to deal with since I started writing and it’s been freaking awful. I can’t explain what it’s like to want nothing more than to write and then to get to your computer/phone/notebook and have no words in your head. It’s just, yeah, it just a lot.

Other than that, I have had exams (now over, now got results, now a confirmed deferred entry place at my ideal university woooooo :D) and I think the stress of those did not help my writer’s block. In any case, I have a year out and I’m planning to just focus on this fic, with the odd one-shot every now and then.

Again, please forgive my lack of updates, and I hope to be back on track from here on.

Hope you liked the chapter in any case – comment opinions below: D xxx