insecurity (1/2)

- the road to adulthood -Zhang Yixing found out that he had a bit of a loose tongue when he got drunk during his first year in high school.

His father was one of those parents who believed that the best way to learn the difference between right and wrong was to experience it. When Yixing wanted to light a candle by himself when he was six, his father held his hand so close to a gas burner that he started crying. The result of that whole experience was Yixing's incredible fear of open fire and the whole inside joke that was his mother threatening to call his paternal grandmother whenever she found out about any of his father's other questionable education methods.

His father was not one to be stopped though and Yixing had no choice but to accept his craziness. When he was in middle school and when his father found out that some of his classmates started smoking, he forced Yixing to smoke as many cigarettes in a row as he could before throwing up (his mother never found out) and when he reached high school his father made him down a whole bottle of some really strong Chinese rice liquor. He should have been happy that Yixing neither turned blind nor died of alcohol poisoning but instead he grew grumpy when his wife threw him out and refused to let him return home for a week.

Yixing didn't hate his father for it and sometimes he even wondered whether shock therapy wasn't really the solution for everything. He most definitely still felt sick whenever he smelled a cigarette and was still embarrassed to think back to his drunkenness during which he had supposedly insulted everyone who was unfortunate enough to meet him, so he figured that he probably shouldn't get drunk again.

What his father never told him about though were things such as peer pressure and the social rules of adult society. Not that he thought of himself as an adult during his third year in high school but he was at this awkward stage in which he was neither just a boy nor officially an adult. He had both minor and adult friends and sometimes the border became blurry.Now that Wu Yifan was working in his family's restaurant it had become their new hide-out. It made them all feel like proper adults, even if some of them were still students and it often made Yixing forget that he was one of those who hadn't graduated yet.

It also didn't seem wrong to have a drink or two in the evening. He was with friends and didn't drink a whole bottle at once, so he didn't actually think of it as getting drunk.

Now the problem was that he didn't seem to hold his liquor very well. He didn't feel dizzy and didn't forget anything he said but it did make him blurt out things he wouldn't have talked about otherwise.

Someone started talking about Lu Han and how the reason why he moved out of his parents' house and into an apartment closer to his university probably was that he wanted to leave behind his Chinese heritage when Yixing remembered something that happened a week earlier.

"Can't blame him with all the gossip around him here," he said and took another sip of his cheap beer. "I saw him lately and he looks much happier now. Looks like he even got back together with the guy he used to be tight with in high school."

"Who? I can't remember him being tight with anyone," someone joked.

"Oh, come one, you know!" he exclaimed and almost knocked down the plate with dried squid next to him. "The quiet one Park Chanyeol always hung out with last year."

- older brothers -Thoughtlessness was one of the character traits Park Chanyeol was almost proud of.

If played well it was a good way to get rid of others. Thinking that he was too thoughtless to be reliable they left him alone with anything that would have demanded an extensive amount of his precious time.

Thoughtlessness was also a good excuse for anything in general. His plans for the future? Oh, well, he didn't really think about it yet.

Truth was that he didn't want to think about it. His future was a blank page without any guidelines or expectations. No one wanted him to be anything or told him how to become someone, so he didn't really know what to make of it. In a way he hoped it would just somehow happen, just like the last ten years had somehow happened."Minseok-hyung again?" Jongdae asked as Chanyeol frowned at his phone when they were halfway through the school gate.

"Yeah," Chanyeol grumbled. "He keeps sending me these stupid study reminders. I bet he sends the same shit to everyone he knows who's still in high school." He really felt cheated out of the time he invested in finding a part-time job as a convenience store cashier just to be able to afford a fancy new phone to keep up with Minseok the university student. He wasn't sure what he expected but certainly not to have Minseok nag him all day long. He did consider to just leave his phone at home sometimes but then he was afraid that he could miss anything important. Like Minseok telling him that his father wasn't home after all or random other messages like the one that informed him that if he was to leave his dirty shirts in Minseok's house, he could at least put them in the dirty laundry basket and not on the kitchen table. Sometimes he felt like all they ever did was a role play of the family life neither of them had.

"I'm just glad I'm not his sister," he continued when Jongdae chuckled. "She probably gets an additional reminder about how dating anyone ever will kick her straight into the pit that is teenage pregnancy."

"Really? He doesn't look like the overprotective type," Jongdae said as if he found it too hard to imagine. "How old is his sister anyway?"

"Our age," Chanyeol answered and stuffed his hands in his pockets after making sure that his fancy phone was safe in his bag. "And he's nuts. If that's what older brothers are like, I'm glad I only have a sister."

"Trust me, that's really only if you're a girl," Jongdae said. "My brother always tells me that I have to date as many girls as possible while I'm still young and have the time."

"Just make sure those girls don't have older brothers, too," Chanyeol said glumly.

"Oh but isn't that actually the real challenge?" Jongdae said emphatically and threw his hands in the air like a Greek philosopher. "Can the younger brother of an older brother win against the older brother of a younger sister? Isn't that what it's all about? Brother versus brother?" He seemed confused himself at what kind of point he was trying to make when he skipped to the main question, "So is his sister cute?"

Chanyeol shrugged. "I guess. I mean, I never met her in real life." He actually had to think of what she looked like on pictures and the only ones he ever saw were some she took with Minseok. He never really paid that much attention to her if he thought about it. Most of the time he just made fun of Minseok for looking stupid while doing some cute pose or for looking weird. To him her smiling picture face next him was that of a rival he had to share Minseok's attention with. "But well, she is Minseok-hyung's sister, so..."

It was probably the way he said it that suddenly changed Jongdae's playful expression into that of someone who just found out that someone had changed the script without giving him the latest revision. It was a topic they always avoided. Talking about Minseok generally was fine and Jongdae probably realized that Chanyeol didn't spend so much time at Minseok's house just to study, especially considering that his grades were still steadily dropping, but they never talked about just what kind of relationship that was. Jongdae was a really good friend in that aspect. There was that one time when their friendship hit a serious point but most of the time they were good at ignoring whatever it was the other didn't want to talk about.

It was almost funny how it was Baekhyun ignoring them that moment that gave them an opportunity to change the topic. He sped past them on his bike while acting as if he couldn't hear Jongdae shouting his name.

"He's still not talking to you either?" Chanyeol asked, pulling a face. Baekhyun was one of those other problems he tried not to think about.

"Yeah, well, looks like to him there's only your side and his," Jongdae sighed and stared at the street corner where Baekhyun had disappeared out of their sight. "And I guess he concluded that I'm on yours."

"You can hit me in the hallway tomorrow if you want to switch to his," Chanyeol offered and wasn't sure if it was really something he should joke about. In the end it was all because of him after all.

"Never mind," Jongdae shrugged. "I thought about it and it would be harder to ignore you than to be ignored by Baekhyun anyway. In the end I'd have the same problem all over again." He kicked a pebble as if to demonstrate that he didn't really care but Chanyeol figured that Jongdae liked this prolonged cease-fire as little as he did.

"Wow, you know," he said after a pause with mocked emotion.  "That was probably the single most heart-warming thing anyone has ever said to me."

- the end of an era -Wu Yifan wasn't satisfied.

It was his own fault really. During high school he was so preoccupied with making alliances that he forgot to think of his life afterwards.

It was probably because he always had a certain road, that of following his parents and taking over the restaurant. To him there was nothing shameful about having a business and at first he was proud to have a stable job unlike many of his former classmates who either went to university or found small part-time jobs. It wasn't exciting but he felt like a proper grown-up and he didn't think it would change anything about his past friendships.

He probably thought too highly of himself all the time because it genuinely surprised him when many of his friends barely ever came back to visit him. Those still in high school were the ones that came by the restaurant the most, the part-timers came a couple of times, the university students were never to be seen again.

He didn't want to think that way but the ones that stayed were either those that still had their future ahead or those who he considered to be losers. They would either leave him eventually or stay with him. At the bottom. Making him feel like he was one of them, whether he had a proper job and his own business or not.

And he hated to realize that he wasn't the only one who noticed that he lost his former glory. He was used to people looking down on him because there always had been those who considered him to be scum but now even some of those who blindly followed him before gave him pitiful looks."So, did you make these?" Chanyeol asked one afternoon while munching on a dumpling.

"No," he said and sat down at the table opposite him while lighting himself a cigarette. There usually weren't many customers around this time but Chanyeol had a habit of stopping by around the weirdest times. "But I fried them."

"They're awesome," Chanyeol said approvingly and put up his thumb. "Tell whoever made them that I'm their new fan."

"That could become difficult," Yifan smirked and blew smoke in the air. "We order all the dumplings from a company in China. I could try phoning them of course but I guess they wouldn't give a shit."

Chanyeol had his mouth full with food when he said, "Why? I'm sure they'd value me as a customer." He spat some of the food on the table as he spoke, almost hitting Yifan's arm and attempted to wipe it off with his hand. "All these big companies, never giving a damn about the average man on the street," he continued with mock exasperation.

Yifan gave it a short laugh and watched Chanyeol eating and ranting. There were times when it annoyed him that Chanyeol often treated them as equals because in his mind he was always higher. He was older after all and had more people that followed his every command. But now that he felt more and more like he was being shoved to the sidelines of life, he was glad that there was someone who didn't treat him differently from before, even if he still didn't respect him properly.

He wished that it could be the same with some of his other friends. There were people like Yixing for example who still treated him respectfully but who seemed to slowly forget about him now that he wasn't constantly around anymore. Others like Zitao obviously forced themselves to still look up to him. Zitao had always been very straight-forward and ambitious, so he probably wondered whether Yifan could still count as a role model. And then there were people like Lu Han who didn't even give him the chance to argue with him anymore. He didn't think he'd ever miss it but they had been friends and Lu Han had always somehow been part of his life.

Although Lu Han still wasn't completely gone either. There were still some news every now and then, like the one Yixing blurted out a while ago.

He wondered if Chanyeol knew.

Chanyeol never seemed troubled with anything, seeing his constant rambling and his  extreme facial expression. He wasn't sure of course but he knew that Chanyeol was still seeing Kim Minseok who always seemed at least as secretive about everything as Lu Han, so he figured that it was very well possible for them to meet behind Chanyeol's back.

Not that it was any of his business. He didn't know what exactly it was Yixing had seen and he wasn't close friends with any of them, at least not enough to have an excuse to meddle with any of their lives.

And that was maybe the whole point. He felt like he used to be the centre of everything but that maybe had been an illusion from the start. Maybe it had taken all this time just to realize how insignificant he had been.

- puzzles -"Seriously though, don't you have other friends to bother?" Oh Sehun asked while Park Chanyeol lay on his bed and read his comics. "I need to do my homework."

"Do your homework then. I'm just quietly reading here," Chanyeol answered cheerfully and turned to the next page.

Sehun didn't really know what to do, so he sighed, sat down and opened his text book. Someone should have told him that becoming friends with Chanyeol was like signing a slave contract. His mother was always happy whenever he visited because it made her the main source of all the new gossip around the boy who lived by himself in the building and she even told Sehun to be nice to him, no matter how ridiculous he acted.

It wasn't even a proper friendship. Chanyeol was the older one, so it was him who decided when to come by. Sehun wasn't even allowed to enter his apartment. He couldn't even complain because Chanyeol allowed him to use his stuff. At least in theory, the problem being that Chanyeol didn't really have that much stuff to begin with.

Being friends with Chanyeol also didn't give him any proper answers to all the puzzles around him. He still didn't know why Chanyeol was living by himself because he gave a completely different explanation every time the topic came up. At first he told him his mother had a terminal illness and that she and his father stayed on a small island because it was her last wish (everyone in the building cried when they heard the story and told Chanyeol to cheer up), the next time he claimed that he was the result of his politician father's affair and that they sent him away so that he couldn't ruin anyone's lives. By now Sehun heard so many versions of Chanyeol's life that he didn't even bother to ask anymore.

There were few things he actually knew of him with certainty. Like the fact that he lived by himself since middle school and obviously didn't really like to be home alone. He also knew that he wasn't actually Chanyeol's first choice when it was about finding someone to annoy. He figured that if he could, Chanyeol probably would have spent all his time with the only other person next to his aunt he ever let in his house.

"So, how is Minseok-hyung lately?" he asked and turned around, partly because it gave him a good excuse to not do his homework.

"Busy," Chanyeol said flatly, still focussed on the comic.

"I thought life would get easier once you go to university," Sehun said. He always pictured his future life as a university student full of parties and the latest fashion items and dates with pretty girls.

"Guess not," Chanyeol shrugged and didn't even look up. It was a little odd because Chanyeol usually seemed to use every opportunity to rant about Kim Minseok who couldn't cook but kept nagging him like a mother.

"Something up between you two lately?" Sehun asked then, although he wasn't sure whether it was a good idea. Chanyeol usually lied about things he didn't want to talk about anyway.

"Not really," he said with a tiny hint of annoyance in his voice that caused Sehun to shut up and turn back to his studies. It was probably because Chanyeol ignored him for years that he was still a little scared of him. Sehun also had this feeling that everything Chanyeol refused to talk about probably was a really serious problem and he figured that the less he knew about other people's problems the better.

- blind men -Byun Baekhyun was happy with his life the way it was. He was in his second year in high school now, his grades were slowly improving and he was quite popular. There was nothing lacking and he told himself every day that it was no use to look back.But sometimes he wondered whether he didn't actually make a mistake. Sure, it was nice not to stand in anyone's shadow but he sometimes felt this nagging doubt whether he couldn't have achieved that without cutting ties with his friends. Maybe it wasn't them who overshadowed him but him who never tried hard enough to be someone by himself.

The doubt was there every time he saw Chanyeol and Jongdae laughing in the hallways or walking home as if they were the luckiest bastards the world had ever seen. And with the doubt came anger because they seemed pretty content without him. Jongdae still tried talking to him occasionally but Jongdae had never really been the main problem to begin with.

He still didn't know what to think of the whole issue with Hanna but it didn't really matter to him all that much anymore. He was over her and her stupid confession. What really annoyed him was Chanyeol, not because he never apologized but because he seemed fine with everything. He even replaced Baekhyun, who was supposedly his best friend, like it was no big deal.He didn't even really fully realize how much he still cared about that friendship, until he had to be dragged away from the Chinese kid in his class and found himself in the teacher's office waiting for his furious mother to arrive.

"We still haven't decided what to do with you," his homeroom teacher told him. "This was the second time something like that happened in your school career here." He had to think of the first time. It was when he punched Chanyeol after hearing Hanna's confession. Funny how that seemed even more ridiculous now. "But I don't think you're going to get suspended because you're normally a model student and the Huang Zitao didn't sustain any serious injuries. You will probably have to do a week or two of community service but..." He already stopped listening.

How did all this even happen?

He had never really been friends with Zitao but they never clashed either. There never was any reason and Baekhyun was sure that there never would have been any under normal circumstances.

It was all because of Chanyeol. Chanyeol who lived his life like a blind man in a mine field who was lucky enough not to blow up himself and who constantly risked the life of all those idiots who followed him. Sure, he had friends but there also were enough people who disliked him. It had been like that since middle school. Not everyone liked Chanyeol's pranks but he was good at blocking off everything he didn't want to hear.

The problem was that every now and then there were people like Zitao who seemed to hold a major grudge against Chanyeol. It was probably because he used to be unable to do anything as long as Wu Yifan was still in school.It was in the canteen when Zitao and his friends were in front of him in the queue. He didn't even mean to overhear their conversation but Zitao seemed like he was furious about something and talked loudly enough for everyone to hear him. He basically badmouthed both Chanyeol and Jongdae. Baekhyun knew them, so he figured that they probably deserved it when Zitao went overboard and spouted the most ridiculous accusations.

It was maybe because he was tired or because he thought it was unfair that no one said a word. Whatever it was, when he finally had his lunch, something in him clicked, like a bomb going off. He walked right behind Zitao and dropped his whole lunch plate on him, causing his whole lower back to be covered in rice, soup and pudding.

"Woops," he said in a dull voice and Zitao glared at him. The odd thing was that Zitao didn't hit him, he didn't even yell. Instead he turned away and insulted him in the same way he had insulted Chanyeol and Jongdae before, just as if he wasn't even there. It was then that Baekhyun snapped and started attacking him.

He couldn't say why he took it so personally. Maybe because he used to be friends with Chanyeol and because he felt like it was insulting him to badmouth someone he used to get along with just fine.

It was when he sat in the teacher's office though that he came to think and suddenly he had this nagging suspicion. He felt like he maybe misunderstood something, not just in the canteen but way before that."Listen, there's something I need to ask," he said in a hushed voice and pulled Jongdae away from the door to his classroom before he had a chance to enter. Jongdae just gave him a curious look but shrugged and followed him to the staircases.

After making sure that there was no one who could have overheard them, he suddenly felt awkward. "You know, I've been thinking," he began slowly. "And I was wondering..." It felt surprisingly hard to say certain things out loud. "I mean, do you think it could maybe be possible..."

Jongdae interrupted his introduction with a snort. "You do realize that the first lesson begins in like five minutes?"

Baekhyun felt weirdly offended that Jongdae didn't really see the graveness of the issue he was trying to talk about and it was somehow just that that allowed him to finish the question, "Do you think that Chanyeol could be, you know, into guys?" And suddenly that possibility felt real beyond the realms of undefined suspicions, as if he completely pulled it into existence the moment he shared the thought.

Jongdae frowned at him. "Why?" he asked and then looked at him in mock surprise. "Oh, you mean, you want me to help you confess to him?"

"What? Hell, no," he exclaimed and punched Jongdae's shoulder, just to suddenly wonder if that maybe seemed like an odd gesture. "But I mean, did you never, I don't know, wonder?"

It was Jongdae's blank expression as he rubbed his shoulder that somehow unnerved Baekhyun the most.

"Would that change anything?" Jongdae shrugged and Baekhyun wasn't really sure if it would.

- the idiot -Kim Minjung was born as the youngest child of a very average family. She had two older brothers who spoilt her and a father who worked all the time and a mother who stayed home. Everything was supposed to be perfect but their happy family life soon started to crumble behind the facade of normality.

Her parents never really fought but none of the siblings were surprised when their parenthey announced they would get divorced. They knew that there was nothing that could have kept them together, not even the stigma a divorce would mean to their children.

Minjung loved her parents but sometimes she wondered whether it wasn't a little irresponsible to break up the family before all their children were old enough to have their own lives. It seemed as if they only cared about Minki, the proud heir, as if only the oldest son mattered. Minki was lucky enough to be able to take the first opportunity to move out and to a different city where he attended university. Minjung meanwhile went with their mother, Minseok stayed with their father and she hated it.

She knew that Minseok really stayed because he would have felt bad to leave his father alone, just like how she would have felt if she left her mother but she also knew how little their father actually was home, so she figured that Minseok probably just wanted to be out of his mother's grasp, before she had a chance to dictate the rest of his life.She was already in front of the apartment building when she called Minseok to ask if he was home. It was already getting dark and she saw that the light inside was being turned on, so she waited for Minseok to pick up to surprise him right after announcing her arrival. She did consider ringing the bell right away but it felt wrong to intrude just like that. With every day passing by their relationship lost more of its former childish sibling banter.

When Minseok picked up and was barely audible because he seemed to stand right next to a busy street, telling her that he had to rush off to meet someone and wouldn't be home until late, she just stared at the brightly lit window. There were about three possible explanations, A) her father was home unannounced although he was supposed to be in Thailand or Vietnam or wherever else he went to on his 'business trips', B) someone just robbed the house or C) (and she really hoped it was that) 'idiot' was home alone.She ran all the way to the other side of the road and repeatedly pressed the elevator button as if that could make it arrive a little faster. This was the chance she had been waiting for all the time, the chance to meet 'idiot' as Minseok had renamed him in his phone.

She found out about him by chance when Minseok visited her and their mother on his birthday and when she accidentally opened the message on his phone when Minseok was in the kitchen with his mother to help her put about a billion side dishes into small plastic containers for him to take home. The message had a picture of a boy who intently stared at a magazine with women in bikinis and read, 'Jongdae and I finally decided to study. Thank you for the reminder!'. Back then 'idiot' still had a proper name and a few seconds later he sent another picture, this time of another boy grinning at the camera while holding up the magazine. The text read, 'We decided to do a research project. The title is: Fake Boobs vs. Real Boobs'.

It was really odd but she figured that it probably just was a friend who fell victim to Minseok's study hell when the third message arrived: 'I hope you're not crying! It was Jongdae's idea!! He's evil! But don't tell him I said that!".

She got up to inform Minseok that his weird friends kept sending him nonsensical messages and just entered the kitchen where their mother still explained how to prepare simple dishes with all the food she assembled for him when another message arrived. Luck wanted it that Minseok didn't pay attention to her, so she opened it and found another picture of the second boy who now pulled a sad face. 'I hope you feel bad now for ignoring me!'

It was amusing, so she went through all the messages once more, quietly giggling when Minseok noticed her. He probably didn't realize that it was his phone, so he smiled when he asked what she was laughing about and she was about to tell him that his weird friend must have been really bored when the last message arrived. She honestly didn't meant to read it this time but when it arrived she just automatically looked at the phone display. 'To my beloved hyung: You know I think you're hotter than any girl with fake boobs! Answer already!'

She thought it was a joke at first, so she said, "Someone called Chanyeol sent you some messages." And Minseok just stared at her wide-eyed and she suddenly wondered if she maybe intruded into something really personal.