"There are many times when I am alone"

Jongdae hummed as he walked to Biology the next day, a funny bounce in his step. He was in a ridiculously good mood for some reason. He didn’t question why. Absently he wondered if Baekhyun would still be dressed in that ridiculous sweater. He grinned at the thought of whatever sassy comments the other boy would spit out today, hand on hip and eyes bright with humor.

However Jongdae didn’t get to find out because Baekhyun wasn’t in class today; nor was he there the next day, or the day after that. A week passed slowly and still Byun Baekhyun was no where to be seen.

Jongdae had asked around, casually, if anyone had seen the other boy but no one seemed to know where he had gone. He was just gone.

He tried telling himself that the anxiety weighing heavily on his chest was just because he had lost his most recent form of entertainment. Or it was because Baekhyun had taken Jongdae’s favorite bear. It wasn’t because he was actually worried about a kid he barely knew. Totally wasn’t because of that.

Yet no matter how hard he tried to distract himself the other boys sudden absence lingered in the back of Jongdae’s head, quietly pestering him like an itch somewhere he couldn’t reach. It was annoying as hell.

“You look constipated.”

Jongdae jumped as a deep voice rumbled right next to his head, the owner leaning to drape himself heavily across his shoulders.

“I hear there’s yogurt that helps with that. Maybe you should buy some,” Chanyeol’s face twisted into a grin.

“The only i need to get rid of currently is this giant bug clinging to my back. Think I should go get some Off!?”Jongdae replied, easily ducking away from his best friend.

Chanyeol laughed, the loud sound bouncing down the hallway. A few eyes glanced over only to look away when people realized it was “only Park Chanyeol being obnoxious again”, nothing new there.

“No seriously, what’s up with you lately dude? You look like you’re head is about to explode from thinking too much or something.”

They easily fell in step with each other, Chanyeol naturally shortening his 10000 ft stride to accommodate for Jongdae’s shorter one.

“Its nothing really. Its just you know Baekhyun?” Jongdae said as they entered the lunch room, steering towards the usual table.

“Byun Baekhyun? The drama kid? What about him?” Chanyeol questioned, pulling out his standardized lunch of a peanut butter sandwich and doritos.

“Isn’t it kinda weird that he’s been gone for like, a month?” It probably had only been about two weeks but it sure as hell felt like a month.

“Has he been gone that long?” Chanyeol said absently, fishing around in his fastly diminishing Doritos bag. He had cheddar powder all over his lips.

“Probably not, but its been a long time. No one seems to know or care where he went,” Jongdae huffed, moodily poking at his own lunch of leftover spaghetti.

“The real question is,” Chanyeol gave up trying to pick out all the broken pieces of chips and just dumped the remaining contents in his mouth, “why do you care about it? I didn’t even know you two knew each other.”

“He’s in my Biology class,” Jongdae mumbled, frowning.

Chanyeol gave him a weird look.

“What?” Jongdae asked.

“You haven’t gone over to the dark side have you?” Chanyeol said and Jongdae took a minute to catch his meaning.

“What? No! What are you even talking about?” Jongdae scoffed, rolling his eyes as Chanyeol just shrugged.

“I’m just saying. You seem really interested in the guy is all.”

“That doesn’t mean I’ve… gone dark side,” Jongdae said flicking his fork and successfully sending a noodle across the table right onto Chanyeol’s face.

“Hey! You’re gonna stain my shirt!” Chanyeol yelped wiping at the sauce on his face.

“Oh I think you have that covered yourself,” Jongdae gestured to an orange patch that looked suspiciously like powdered nacho cheese.

Chanyeol cursed like a sailor, making Jongdae nearly fall out of his chair with laughter. Chanyeol always made it easy to forget the things bothering Jongdae, it was one of the reasons they had remained friends since practically birth. Too bad he couldn’t just tape Chanyeol to his side 24/7 as a sort of naggy-thoughts-repellent. Sometimes he had a lot of naggy thoughts.

Later that night, as Jongdae was sent out on an emergency mission for more eggs by his mother, a lot of those naggy thoughts made themselves known. He had opted to walk down to the store; as the night had brought a temporary relief from the suffering heat plaguing the day time, but it gave him way too much time to think.

Exams were coming up. He should probably start actually paying attention  in Biology. Then there was that talent show Chanyeol wanted them to participate in; Yixing had been working on new songs for it all week. Jongdae’s birthday was coming up, he’ll be officially 17, even though he had been calling himself 17 for at least two months now. He’ll probably spend it how he had every year, holed up in Yixing’s basement with unhealthy amounts of mountain dew, red vines, pizza and enough Xbox games to trigger early signs of carpal tunnel.

Jongdae chuckled to himself remembering last year, when Minseok had snuck out a 6 pack of his fathers beer and Chanyeol had ended up completely faced after just one beer, parading around the basement with a pair of underwear (Jongdae couldn’t remember whose exactly) on his head and singing Mily Cyrus songs at the top of his lungs. Good times.

He was singing softly to himself, a random tune that played far too often on the radio, and swinging the plastic bag on his wrist recklessly. He liked scrambled eggs best anyways. A small huddled form on a park bench caught his attention, sure the person had not been there on his first trip by. The street light illuminated a small body curled in on itself, legs drawn up under a ridiculously large sweatshirt.  As he got closer Jongdae noticed the trembling in the boys shoulders.

Beakhyun.

A muffled sob drifted over to him and Jongdae froze. Baekhyun was crying.

Terror stabbed his heart as his mind went crazy. He never knew how to react to crying people. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do? And dear lord what was he supposed to do with his hands?!

He could sneak away, Baekhyun hadn’t noticed him yet. He could just leave and pretend nothing happened, he never saw anything. But honestly, what kind of person would do that?

So instead he gently put the grocery bag down, the plastic rustling as it left his hand and Baekhyun jumped, head lifting from its previous place on his knees to stare at Jongdae in shock.

“Jongdae? What-” Jongdae noticed that Baekhyun wasn’t wearing any makeup today. His eyes were swollen and red as he quickly wiped at them with his sleeves.

Jongdae never knew what to say to people when they cried, so he didn’t say anything. Instead he sat down next to the other, wrapped an arm around Baekhyun’s shoulders and pushed his head down to rest in the crook of Jongdae’s neck. At first Baekhyun stiffed, his body rigid against Jongdae’s, but with a shuddering breath he softened; pressing his face into Jongdae’s neck and gripping the fabric of his shirt like it was the only solid thing in the world.

“Shh~ shh~ it’s okay~,” Jongdae cooed softly laying his head on top of Baekhyuns, a hand up and down the boys arm as his mother had done countless times when Jongdae was a child.

The minutes went on and they didn’t move cept for the slow pace of Jongdae’s hand as he tried to sooth the boy. The still night air was only stirred by the occasional far off siren and the chirping of cicadas. Eventually, the painful gasping of Baekhyun’s breathing slowed, and the trembling of his body settled. The hand clutching to Jongdae’s shirt never let go.

When he heard nothing but quiet sniffles from the other boy Jongdae lifted his head to peer down at him. Baekhyun had his eyes open, still glistening with tears as he stared off into the distance. His hand was absently pulling at a stray thread on Jongdae’s collar. His gaze flashed upwards to catch Jongdae’s inquisitive look and quickly flashed down, finding the thread to be a much safer subject. From this angle Jongdae could just see the slight red tint of his cheekbones in the dim lighting.

With an increasing sense of panic Jongdae realized the time had come for words to be spoken. Rarely did it happen that Jongdae had nothing to say, or that his mind was blank but this just so happened to be one of those times. His blabber mouth was seriously letting him down here. The only thing his brain managed to create was the faint thought that Baekhyun’s hair smelt  like strawberries.

‘Cause that was helpful.

“Jongdae,” he jumped at the sound of his name, heart about ready to pound right out of his chest.

“Uh, yeah?”

He had expected Baekhyun to move away now that the physical contact seemed unnecessary, but the other stayed as he was, head leaning against Jongdae’s shoulder.

“Why are you here?” Baekhyun asked in a soft voice that scratched against his throat.

“Mmm, eggs.” Jongdae muttered, still trying to recover brain function. Simple responses seemed like the best option.

Baekhyun pulled away to frown at him.

“What?”

Jongdae gestured to the grocery bag at his feet.

“I was sent to buy some eggs.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Awkward silence of doom.

Baekhyun suddenly jerked further away as if just realizing that he was cuddling with a kid he barely knew. A kid who just witnessed him losing his and was not supposed to. Just some random kid from his Biology class who liked to pester him about his choice of clothing. Kim Jongdae was not someone he should be sitting with on a park bench in the middle of the night where anyone could walk by and get the wrong impression over their interesting position. Kim Jongdae was not a person he should be doing anything with really.

“Ah, you should probably get home before your mom starts thinking you like, fainted or something and some random creeper took you home while you were unconscious,” Baekhyun said, not looking at Jongdae.

Jongdae blushed, still embarrassed over his previous questionable decisions. “Yeah, there are some messed up people out there. Thats like, kidnapping or something. Who does that ? Psh.”

From his viewpoint Jongdae saw the corner of Baekhyun's smile before the other boy quickly stood up from the bench.

“I’ll see ya Jongdae, don’t get kidnapped.”

It was a familiar scene: Baekhyun quickly departing after a questionable interaction to disappear once again. Only Jongdae didn’t want him to disappear again.

“Hey, wait.” Jongdae reached out to quickly grab the other boys wrist before he could run away. Baekhyun stopped but didn’t look at Jongdae, his wrist seemed thin and too fragile beneath Jongdae's hand.

“Baek,” Jongdae stared at Baekhyun who was refusing to look at Jongdae. “Are you...okay?”

Baekhyun took a studdering breath before saying softly, “No, but that's fine. You should get going Jongdae.”

Jongdae responded by tightening his grip, “Are you coming back to school? We have exams soon.”

He didn’t know why he was saying this. He didn’t care about exams very much and doubted Baekhyun did either. But he didn’t want the boy to run away and disappear again. Everytime he interacted with Baekhyun it just left him with more and more questions. Why had he been crying? Why was it alright that Baekhyun wasn’t really okay? And god damnit he hadn’t figured out what was with that obnoxious sweater yet!

If Baekhyun disappeared again, all these questions would go unanswered, and there was nothing Jongdae hated more than unanswered questions.

Baekhyun looked up to the sky, muttering to himself. “Right… exams huh…”

“Baekhyun.”

The other boy finally looked at Jongdae offering a small sad smile. “I’ll be back on Monday okay? Let go Jongdae.”

Jongdae didn’t know how to take this Baekhyun. He was so sad and defeated, opposite of the spunky diva Baek he was used to. He didn’t like it.

“You better not disappear again, you have my favorite bear, jerk.” Jongdae tried to tease, letting his hand fall back to his side.

Baekhyun laughed in surprise, causing Jongdae to smile in response. It was much better having a smiling Baekhyun than the sad lonely one.

“Don’t worry. He likes it better with me anyways. Don’t die on the way home. Later.” With a parting half smile Baekhyun walked off in the opposite direction of Jongdae’s house.

Vaguely Jongdae wondered why he was the only one who needed to ‘be safe’ on his way home.

A/N: Loooong chapter! Little bit more serious. I feel like all of their interactions are super awkward but somehow its okay? haha. Thank you to all the new subscribers! And thank you for all the words of incouragment! :D I'll work hard ! The next chapter is probably one of my favroite things on the planet so please look forward to it!

I love you <3