Part XVI

Baekhyun

The remainder of the semester seemed to go by in a flash. We organized a party for Taemin the weekend before the actual graduation ceremony and by the time that weekend came, it became harder for me to believe that next year, we would all be where Taemin was, with one foot over the line of adulthood and one still firmly planted in adolescence. It was bittersweet in a way. I was excited for whatever the future held for Taemin and for us, but with the future came change. Everything had already changed so much and I kind of wanted some steadiness for a while longer. Unfortunately for me, the world just doesn't listen to what we want, though.

It also didn't really help that Chanyeol seemed particularly quiet that day. I was afraid to ask him what was going on because I knew that when he got stuck in his own head, only he could pull himself out. I figured he'd tell me when he was ready. Maybe he was worried about the future, too.

The weather was great that day, so rather than renting a space for the party, we decided to have it in our favorite park. Kyungsoo, Chanyeol, and I arrived early to help Luhan and Xiumin set everything up. Sehun came shortly after us, saying that Kai was going to ask Taemin to pick him up and bring him so we could surprise him.

We finished setting up and had only been sitting around for around ten minutes when we saw Taemin's car pull up. We all stood up as we watched him park, Kai getting out of the car before he did. 

"Surprise, motherfucker!" Sehun shouted once Taemin was closer to us. He was smiling brightly and laughing. 

"You guys really put this together for me?" he asked, his steps slowly coming to a halt as he looked around briefly.

"Of course, we did," Luhan said excitedly. "It wouldn't have been right for us to send you off to college without one last chaotic gathering."

"That and we didn't get invitations to the fancy party your parents are throwing you," I added in, earning a small eye roll and chuckle from him. 

"I'm sure this one will be way better anyway," he replied. "Thanks for real, though, guys. This is nice."

"No need to thank us. This is our way of saying we'll miss you and thank you for being one of the few people who puts up with their bullshit," Xiumin said. 

"Speak for yourself, dickwad," Sehun said in response, earning a laugh from us. 

"Can we please eat?" Kai asked in a whiny voice. "I practically starved myself for the sake of this party."

"Yeah, yeah, come on, you big baby," Taemin said, pinching behind his ear and making him wince a little.

::::::::

For the three or so hours the party lasted, we talked and ate and played some of the games Luhan brought just in case we got bored, this causing Sehun to feel quite insulted. The sun was just starting to go down when we decided to finally Taemin go.

"Thanks again for this, guys," he said as he stopped beside his car. "I'll definitely miss hanging out with you guys like this."

"Don't start, Lee Taemin, because I will start crying," Luhan said, making Taemin chuckle. 

"I'm not leaving for school yet," he replied. "I'll still see you at graduation if you can make time in your busy schedules to come."

"I'll see what I can do. I can already feel my popularity beginning to increase now that you'll be leaving," Sehun said jokingly. Taemin just laughed again, adding in a small head shake this time. He turned his eyes to Kai, whose eyes were narrowed and looking back at him. 

"Keep in touch. And don't think about me too much," was what he said, and I think we were all surprised he didn't say more. I guess everything they needed to say to each other had already been said.

"As if I ever do," Kai replied, giving him the faintest of grins. Taemin smiled back and then exhaled before scanning his eyes over us again. 

"Alright, I guess I'll be seeing you guys around," he said. He got in his car next and started it up, rolling down his window afterward. "Stay out of trouble please. I won't be around to save your asses forever."

"We make no promises," Sehun said smugly, his hands shoved in his pockets. Taemin laughed once more before giving us all a wave and then driving off. We stood there for a while until we couldn't see him anymore. 

"Looks like we have to defend ourselves now," Luhan said somberly, letting out a couple of sniffles. 

"We can take any asshole now, especially Chen and Suho," Sehun said. "We did charm two of their own over to our side."

"Sure because you're all so charming," Xiumin said with a roll of his eyes. "Come on, let's just clean up and go home."

As he walked away, Sehun clicked his tongue and scowled at him. "Why is he so prickly today?" he asked as we began following him.

"He's upset, moron." Luhan nudged Sehun a little. "This is how he gets when he's sad. Then he'll go home and watch a sad movie just so he can cry and before you know it, he'll be back to his mildly prickly self."

"And he wonders why he hangs out with us? He has met himself?" Sehun said, earning a laugh from some of us another, harder shove from Luhan.

We cleaned everything up and then said goodbye to Xiumin before he drove back to his house for the night. The rest of us decided to just walk since it wasn't that dark outside yet. We hadn't been walking for very long when we saw some people headed toward us, but I didn't think much of it, figuring whoever it was would just pass by us. But they didn't, suddenly stopping right in front of us.

"Fucking hell," Sehun groaned under his breath when he realized who it was. "Why can't we have nice things without him showing up?"

"How rude of you to not invite us to the celebration," Chen said, Suho, Tao and Lay not following too far behind. 

"Did we hurt your delicate feelings? We're so not sorry," Sehun shot back. 

"It's okay. We didn't come here to have a party anyway," he said while letting go of a small sigh. He turned his attention from Sehun to Kai and Kyungsoo. "We came to teach somebody a lesson. It's not cool to trick people's brothers into dating you for your own amusement, Kai."

Kai sighed and rolled his eyes in what I'm guessing was annoyance. "Is that what you think I'm doing? Are you really so narcissistic that you think I'm using Kyungsoo to get back at you, Suho?" he said. 

"Watch yourself, prick," Suho said, stepping forward a few more steps. "I warned you about what would happen if I ever caught you with him again, so you're asking for it as far as I'm concerned." He looked at Kyungsoo next. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out about you two? Are you really that stupid, Kyungsoo?"

Kai's facial expression instantly changed to anger and he started walking closer to Suho, but Kyungsoo pushed him back. "What Kai and I have is none of your business," he said.

"It is if you're risking your life and sneaking out at all hours of the night to go see him," he replied, making Kyungsoo sigh in frustration. "Don't you know how he sees you? You're nothing but a piece of ass to him, Kyungsoo. He doesn't care about you, no matter how much you've convinced yourself he does."

"You better choose your next words very, very carefully," Kai interjected, walking a couple of steps closer to Suho. Starting to feel anxious, I looked at Chanyeol as if to urge him to do something. 

"Suho, just drop it out, okay?" Chanyeol said. "It's not worth it."

"Back the fuck off, Chanyeol," Suho said, only briefly looking at him. He put his attention back on Kai. "What? Did you decide you don't have enough struggles in life and wanted to add being a fag to the list?"

"Call me whatever you want, but don't for a minute think that my feelings for Kyungsoo have anything to do with you," Kai said. "I honestly don't know why it irks you so much that I might actually care about him, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's because if someone actually shows that they care about him, who will there be to make you feel superior? You won't be able to make him feel like shit just because you feel like shit anymore and you hate that."

I could see Suho's jaw tighten. "Watching your fucking mouth, asshole. You don't know shit about me."

"Oh, but I do," Kai went on. "I know exactly the kind of bastard you are. The kind who needs to drag everyone else down with him because he isn't man enough to deal with his own shit. I'm no therapist, but my recommendation would be to work on yourself before you go inserting yourself into other people's business."

Suho fell quiet, so I thought--and hoped--that everything they wanted to say to each other had been said and that we could just part ways like we usually did. I should have been smart enough to know that wouldn't be the case, though.

:::::::::

They really needed to make police stations bigger was what I was thinking. I was also thinking about how bad our luck had to be for a police car to be patrolling the neighborhood right as Kai punched Suho back. 

"Let me see if I'm understanding this correctly," the officer said with an annoyed sigh. "Some of you are saying Suho threw the first punch, but others are saying it was Kai. So, please tell me who I should believe."

"It was obviously him who started it," Suho said, his arms crossed over his chest.

Kai rolled his eyes. "Obviously? Could you be any more of a classist asshole?" he said.

"Okay, okay, stop," the officer said, waving his hands around before they could fight again. "I'm gonna tell you what I think we have here. I think you two are young, hot-headed guys who don't always think things through before you do them. So, in the name of youth and mostly because I'd like to go home on time tonight and not spend the evening trying to figure which one of you is lying, I'm going to let you all off with a warning. The next time you two want to work out your differences with your fists, make sure a police officer isn't around, okay?" Kai and Suho both scoffed, just nodding their heads. "Good. Now, do I need to call anyone's parents or can we all leave peacefully?"

"No!" they both said at the same time, even surprising each other.

"Okay then, you are all free to leave," he said as he motioned to the door. We bowed at the officer and said thank you before walking out of the station. Kyungsoo started to ask Kai if he was okay, to which Kai replied with a soft sigh and a nod.

"Kyungsoo, let's go," Suho said once our groups had separated. I was expecting Kyungsoo to turn to us and apologize for feeling like he needed to follow his brother, but instead, he just stayed with us. "Did you not hear me? I said let's go."

"No, not tonight. I don't really feel like going back with you," he said in a rather stern voice.

"Well too bad you don't have a choice. Unless you'd rather have me tell mom and dad about what's been going on."

"Do it, I don't care. I was gonna have to tell them eventually. Just go. You've done enough damage here." Huffing, Suho shook his head. I thought he'd try to get one more word in, but he just turned around and left. Kyungsoo turned back to Kai. "We should get you home before your bruise gets any worse."

"You didn't have to do that," Kai said in response. "Where are you gonna stay tonight now?"

"He can stay with us. Mom and dad won't be back till tomorrow afternoon anyway, remember? They're visiting dad's sister. Just don't have sex, okay? The walls are very thin even if I sleep in mom and dad's room," Sehun interjected.

Kyungsoo smiled. "Thanks, Sehun."

"Yeah, whatever," he said as he rolled his eyes. "Can we please leave now? I don't need any more excitement for today."

"I agree," Luhan said. "I'm ready to forget this night ever happened." 

So, with that, we parted ways. Chanyeol and I quietly walked back home, and I would look over at him occasionally. He never looked back at me and hadn't spoken a word to anyone since we were taken to the police station.

I walked closer to him and linked my arm around his. "You don't need to feel bad," I said, taking a stab at what I thought was bothering him. He looked down at me as I looked up at him. "Suho clearly wouldn't have listened to you no matter what you said."

He sighed heavily and looked down at the ground. "But I have the audacity to call them my friends. I should have been able to stop them from showing up at all," he said.

"Well, in that case, I think you need some new people to call friends," I replied, hoping to get at least a small laugh from him. But he just nodded and briefly raised his eyebrows. "I don't mean to brag, but I know some cool people you could befriend," I went on as I looked ahead. "I'm not sure how they feel about you yet, but I think with a few more tests, they could like you."

"I'm not so sure after tonight," he said as he glanced at me. "I think I just took five steps back."

I scoffed. "They don't blame you for what happened," I said. "It's not like you sided with Suho or anything."

"But I did tell them you guys were having a party for Taemin today," he confessed, making my steps slow to a stop. He stopped too and turned to face me timidly. "They figured you'd have one for him and asked me to find out from you. They didn't tell me what they had planned, but I knew they'd show up. I could have stopped them."

I just watched him as I put the dots together. That must have been what was keeping him quiet. I couldn't lie and say I wasn't upset that he did that, but it was easy for me to see how much he regretted it. So, I walked closer to him and grabbed one of his hands.

"I appreciate you being honest with me," I said as I looked into his soft, brown eyes. "But let's not tell the others. I know you didn't do it to be malicious and that Suho probably made you tell him."

"And if they find out? Won't that make me look bad?" he asked in concern.

"Probably, but I'll defend you," I answered. "I'll always defend you. I mean, unless you really mess up." That finally got him to laugh, which instantly made a smile appear on my face. I leaned up and kissed the corner of his mouth. "Let's go home?" I said. He just hummed. 

I took his arm again and then we continued walking.