selfishness (2/2)

Sehun was awake long enough to have some chicken and to get the last drops of soju before Kim Minseok took the bottle away from him. After that he rolled up in a corner.

Chanyeol meanwhile told them the story of how his sister was once scouted when she was about to return home from her part time job and how it turned out that it was for a porn movie. Jongin still wasn't sure whether Chanyeol even had a sister but he laughed at it anyway. Kim Minseok smiled half-heartedly and seemed very much unfazed.

It was a little awkward when Chanyeol peeled off bits of meat and fed them to Kim Minseok and when he talked about how Kim Minseok always slept with his mouth open and how Chanyeol sometimes woke up with a wet face because he accidentally lay on a part of the pillow he drooled on. But Chanyeol at least managed to entertain everyone around him. The moment he fell asleep on Kim Minseok's lap it was like being alone with someone's parent.

He had nothing to say and neither had Kim Minseok, so they basically sat in silence.

After a while Kim Minseok asked whether Jongin had decided on the high school he was going to attend and he said that he would probably go to Chanyeol's. Kim Minseok nodded and shifted his legs a little. "If your grades mean anything to you, avoid Chanyeol," he said when Chanyeol stirred in his slumber and started to snore.

Jongin was about to mention that Kim Minseok even managed to get into university although he obviously didn't avoid him and even broke into his house before but then he decided not to.

It wasn't that he judged them, not consciously at least, but he was really bad with people who talked about feelings and relationships, whether it was his family or friends or girls who confessed to him. He just never knew how to react. Still, to him that kind of relationship Park Chanyeol and Kim Minseok had, seemed kind of ideal and he wondered whether he would ever meet anyone he could be that comfortable with.

- bonds -"Do you think he's going to be okay?" Zhang Yixing asked as they walked back to their neighbourhood. The only other people on the streets were all those strange creatures of the night. Bar hostesses, drunk office worker, smoking taxi drivers, and them. It was the middle of the week and he knew he that his next day in school would probably become horrible. He would have skipped the morning classes but it was his last year, so he couldn't really waste any more chances. His grades weren't particularly good to begin with.

Yifan shrugged. "Who knows? Probably."

"He should have told us sooner that he needed help," Yixing said and Yifan didn't answer. It was still a sensitive topic.Lu Han did in fact not tell them that he needed help at all. They found out when his cousin complained that some guys started to press Lu Han's parents for money.

The moment Yifan heard about it, he looked for him and confronted him about it. Because Yifan still considered them to be friends. They grew up together and were close like brothers during their childhood. Yifan liked to act cool but deep down he was just a loyal idiot.

Lu Han of course refused to tell him what was going on, leaving Yifan no choice but to try and find out himself.

As it turned out was Lu Han owing quite a big amount of money to loan sharks that he now couldn't pay back. When Yifan told him, Yixing figured that Lu Han probably didn't want to burden his friends and family but then he heard that Lu Han apparently did ask someone for help before, that someone being Kim Minseok.It didn't really add up.

He still didn't know what Lu Han needed the money for and he figured it probably was something really private. They took care of it and it would be all right but the issue that remained was the whole thing that started the moment he entered high school. It was then that Lu Han's actions stopped making sense.

Yifan always said that Lu Han wanted to get rid of his friends for his career. Because they were Chinese and no-goods. It did make sense in a twisted way. It would have explained why Lu Han became friends with Kim Minseok who was an average Korean student with good grades. Lu Han's growing need to get to the top also could have explained why he cut off Kim Minseok after a while.

Just, to Yixing it didn't make sense why Lu Han would ask Kim Minseok to help him then. If he was too proud to get help, why ask the last one he left behind?

And Yixing didn't really believe that it was all about race. Lu Han used to be proud of being Chinese. It was only in high school that he suddenly tried to get away. But even now that he was in university he went to Chinese loan sharks, not Koreans, probably because he still felt like part of their dispora. Yixing figured that if he ever needed money, he would probably ask his own countrymen and he couldn't really imagine Lu Han to think differently.

He didn't mean to judge him. Whatever reason he had for borrowing money, it probably was something serious. But he just couldn't comprehend what was going on in his head.

- the blind date -Kim Jongdae waved them goodbye when they entered the bus although he didn't think they actually took note of him any longer. Minseok limped and probably was high on painkillers but it was him who had to shove Chanyeol, who was perfectly healthy, into the bus.

Minjung stood next to Jongdae and scoffed, "I still wonder where my brother found such an idiot."

Jongdae didn't really know what to say because he was friends with that idiot. Life at least never got boring with Chanyeol around but it didn't really seem right to mention that to a girl whose brother just got hurt due to that.The whole incident was really just a serious of unfortunate coincidences.

They were about to go to Baekhyun's classroom to meet him because Chanyeol insisted that they should all meet up with Minseok and his sister who were waiting outside.

It was all a really bad setup. Jongdae figured that neither Minseok nor his sister knew why they were lured to school and that Baekhyun felt extremely uncomfortable at the thought of being around Minseok but couldn't say no because they barely got back to being friends again. But Baekhyun also thought that the whole operation was part of their friendship reunion.

Jongdae knew better than that. Chanyeol spent so much time complaining about Minseok's sister and how the whole problem was that she really needed a boyfriend and that Minseok didn't allow her to date, he must have felt like a genius when he concluded that the only way out was to hook her up with one of his friends. He probably thought that Minseok would eventually agree if it was someone Chanyeol could monitor. Now it was all about making sure that either Baekhyun or Jongdae were interested in the girl.

Jongdae did feel used but in the end it was his curiosity that won. That whole blind date thing did have the potential to become extremely awkward but he began to wonder what Minseok's sister really was like. He also, frankly, got excited that Chanyeol allowed them to meet after Jongdae still didn't even get to see a picture of his real sister.Things deteriorated from then on.

What they sometimes forgot about, now that they and Baekhyun were back to being friends, was that Hanna was still in Baekhyun's class.

He knew that Hanna's position in school was really bad. After she broke up with Baekhyun everyone assumed that she was crazy and a liar. He never really liked her that much and he believed that it was her own fault but it did make him feel bad. It was unfair but he tried to just forget about her.

When they got Baekhyun and were about to leave the school, she suddenly followed them though.

She pulled Chanyeol's arm and yelled at him. It was just like that time a year ago when she demanded him to tell the 'truth' and to stop lying. But then it was obviously because she liked him, now she just seemed miserable. When Chanyeol shoved her away and when Baekhyun looked extremely pale and sorry, she started crying and wailing and begged Chanyeol to be honest for once. She just wanted her life back.

And Chanyeol walked away again, just like he always did whenever they met. Just like always when he encountered a problem.

It was wrong. Jongdae knew it was but he dragged Baekhyun away from her because it was the only thing that could save their friendship. Because their friendship still meant more to him than Kang Hanna.

They were already outside and saw Minseok who leaned against the school gate and a girl in a school uniform he didn't know who waved Chanyeol hello. Jongdae hoped it would be okay and that they could just forget the incident when Hanna came running after them. Rather than to try talking to Chanyeol again, she immediately took hold of Minseok though.

Her eyes were red and swollen when she grabbed his hands. She asked if he still remembered her and that if he did, he could maybe tell Baekhyun the truth about her and Chanyeol.

Minseok looked extremely uncomfortable and didn't say anything. It could of course have been because Hanna acted like a complete maniac but there was something really odd about the way he helplessly looked at Chanyeol. He knew. He obviously knew what Jongdae had always suspected. He knew that Hanna never lied. Before any of them had a chance to say anthing, everything just became a mess.

Minseok's sister abrasively told her to leave her brother alone. Hanna then pushed Minseok's sister and when Minseok turned away from her to see if his sister was all right, Hanna aggresively grabbed his shoulder to force him to look at her again. Chanyeol who must have been in a daze until then, took her wrist and tried to pull her away but she attempted to slap him. Minseok's sister, apparently provoked now, pulled Hanna's hair and when Hanna kept kicking both Chanyeol and Minseok's sister who basically both attacked her and when Jongdae and Baekhyun just were perplexed, it was Minseok who tried to get between them to stop the fight.Now the problem was the last coincidence that brought another serious consequence.

Their school itself was really nice and average and the school grounds were really clean but the same couldn't be said about the area surrounding it. All the bars around it were closed when parents put pressure on the school board to get rid of them, but there were still delinquents, often former students, who hung around the school gates.

During the day that usually wasn't an issue but it ocassionally happened that people broke into the school and smoked and drank outside at night. They often left their cigarette butts and broken bottles around and it sometimes happened that no one cleaned them away right away. They day Chanyeol accidentally pushed Minseok after being kicked by Hanna was one of those times and Minseok landed in a pile of broken shards.

His sister shrieked as Minseok got up and just looked at his right leg. A particularly big shard stuck out of it and he pulled it out with a frown. As blood was running down his leg, he suddenly stared at Chanyeol. It was probably the adrenaline but he seemed more concerned about Chanyeol who started to look extremely sick than about the fact that he was bleeding and still had several more dirty pieces of glass stuck in his leg.

It was almost comical how his sister crouched down and tried to stop the bleeding with a handkerchief while yelling that someone should fucking call an ambulance while Minseok himself held Chanyeol's face with both his hands and forced him to look him in the eyes, so that he wouldn't see the blood. Minseok obviously knew that Chanyeol was more likely to faint than he was.

It was Jongdae who made the emergency call. He couldn't really say when they disappeared but when they rushed to the hospital, both Baekhyun and Hanna were already gone.It was funny how Chanyeol's plan actually worked in the end.

Minseok had his leg stitched up and Chanyeol was somewhere on a drip after the nurses were convinced that he suffered from some kind of emotional trauma and Jongdae was alone with Minjung, the sister.

He told her the official version of the story. About crazy Hanna who liked Chanyeol and who broke up with Baekhyun.

Minjung complained that Minseok found himself a wimpy troublemaker and Jongdae couldn't really disagree because that probably was a legit way to portray Chanyeol. None of them would have been there if not for Chanyeol making a mess of everything and he wasn't really sure whether that was really such a bad thing. Right now for example he actually enjoyed talking to the girl he was only supposed to meet to get her out of the way.

- normality -Lu Han just stood in front of the tiny restaurant for a few minutes before he finally entered. Once inside he sat down at one of the tiny tables and ordered noodle soup.

When Yifan put the bowl in front of him, Lu Han didn't look at him and muttered, "I'll pay you back as fast as I can. Just give me some time."

Yifan probably scowled at him and was about to return to the kitchen, so he added,"Thanks."

"Whatever," Yifan snorted.Lu Han never hated Wu Yifan but he also never wanted to be in his debt. He always wanted them to become so estranged, they would only remember each other as opponents who better stayed apart forever. He wanted Yifan to think of him as someone who wasn't worth any effort.

It was probably bad karma.They grew up like brothers. They were the same age and lived in the same neighbourhood, so it was probably just natural that they grew really close. Lu Han was an only child but he knew that there were many siblings who were by far not as close as him and Yifan. He was proud to have his 'brother', although he never said that out loud.

If he thought back, all his childhood memories seemed to include Yifan, as if everything was centered around just the two of them. Around Yifan who always acted like the boss and who often made an idiot of himself and of Lu Han who everyone knew was the brain of their duo. There were memories of all the times they hung out with their gang of Chinese children and of how they picked fights with the Korean children of their neighbourhood. He remembered how they went to school in the morning and how they attended special Chinese lessons in the evenings. Lu Han helped Yifan with his homework and Yifan made sure that no hurt Lu Han.

Life was perfect and Lu Han was happy but things suddenly changed during their last year in middle school. He liked Yifan, he really liked him a lot because to him he was the only brother he would ever have but there suddenly was something odd about that feeling. He wondered why he didn't feel happy when Yifan met a cute girl who liked him despite all the nonsense he spouted.

It took him a while to realize that there definitely was something wrong with him but he thought that he could just hide it. He and Yifan would go to the same school and keep living together and it would be fine. He just had to get used to sharing him.It was a few days after their graduation ceremony that the incident with Yifan's cousin happened.

She was going to marry a really nice guy she met in university. Everyone like him and thought that they were the perfect couple but then it turned out that he betrayed her with her brother.

Everyone was of course disgusted. Her brother always caused trouble but no one thought he would step so low to go and seduce his sister's fiancé (although it probably was questionable whether that guy really was the right one for her to begin with).

Yifan's reaction in particular was very extreme because she was always one of his favourites. He literally set fire to his male cousin's car and almost broke her fiancé's legs.

And Lu Han became scared.

He never wanted to get on Yifan's bad side and he was afraid that there could come a time when he couldn't control himself. He didn't want to face the flames Yifan could set.

So he walked away.It was true that at some point he just became too ambitious. He was scared of allowing his feelings to drag him down and he figured that it was better to live successfully without feelings than to wake up with a burning car that came as the result of a moment of weakness and passion.

But in the end his ambition was just a lie he told himself.It confused him when he met Minseok who acted like there was no need to be 'normal'. Maybe there was a space in society, apart from all his old friends, where he he could just exist the way he was.

It was a really short time but it was nice and he thought that he maybe finally found the real him.Just, the real world never disappeared. The moment he broke free from Yifan, he lost all his friends. He made up excuses and lies and gave them reasons why he didn't want to be around them anymore. He said he wanted to climb to the top and no one ever questioned him, not even Minseok who should have known better.

But it just felt so wrong. Minseok acted like he was okay with defying the world but he, just like Lu Han, knew that their families wouldn't accept them without objections.

So he made the decision to live without feelings and to live a life focussed on climbing up in society.Once he entered university he made a mistake though.

In the end it was all about money. He didn't want to bother his family with his money issues just because he wanted to attend a proper university, so he tried really hard to get a scholarship. When he failed to get an official one, probably because of his heritage, he became so desperate to trust a professor who offered to help him if he could run some errands for her.

He didn't really think much about it when he had to go to an inconspicuous office where a smiling female clerk gave him a black duffle bag. He also wouldn't have thought that it was possible that there were femals who sold tapes of female university students using the toilet. He clearly underestimated his professor then.It was actually a really brilliant plan. His professor, sick of her job of lecturing rotten wannabe grown-ups, apparently dreamed of leading a different life in a different place but didn't have the money to realize it. She probably knew that it was always easy to make money out of perverts, so she offered some gangsters videos of girls who relieved themselves. She gave them a demo tape and offered to get more if she got enough money in advance to buy the equipment to install cameras all over the campus. She never meant to actually follow that plan through though. She was going to run away the moment she had the money. Now all she needed was a scapegoat and who would have been better for the job than the poor Chinese boy?

Once the professor was gone, it was Lu Han who either had to deliver the videos or the money.He really didn't know what to do. He didn't want to disappoint his family, so he couldn't tell them but he was barely able to pay for his own living expenses. So he asked the only person he knew who he felt he could trust.

It was maybe because he always saw Minseok as someone who didn't really know money issues that he very much expected him to help him. Minseok and him ended up in the same university but other than him did Minseok actually seem to live the carefree life of a student. He couldn't really say with a clear consciousness that he never wanted to spoil it for him.

But when Minseok gave him money without asking any questions and came with him to deliver it to the gangsters he owed it to, he suddenly felt horrible. He told himself that it was because he was being unfair but in the end he just hated to be reminded of the things he didn't have. Money. Someone to go home to. Happiness. Minseok could help him because he had all those things.So not knowing what else to do, Lu Han borrowed money from Chinese loan sharks, got punched in the face when he hurried out of their office and ran into another drunk gangster and dropped an envelope with the money in Minseok's mail box.He felt better after that but it didn't actually change much. Now it was other people he owed the money to and these people knew his family.

He never wanted Yifan to get involved but he lost control of the situation. He worked different part time jobs, barely had any time to study and didn't realize that people started bothering his parents until Yifan threatened to break his arm if he didn't tell him what was going on. He refused of course but Yifan probably suffered from a deep-rooted helper syndrome because he immediately went off and confronted the loan sharks himself. He never even consulted Lu Han before paying off his complete debt.

Now it was of course easiest to owe money to an old friend rather than to a complete stranger with a criminal history but he hated how Yifan didn't leave him any choice but to stick around. He wanted them to become strangers but Yifan just wouldn't abandon anyone he ever allowed to come close without wondering whether there maybe was a reason why they tried to get away. Not that any of this was Yifan's fault but Lu Han was just getting sick of people who helped him without  being any help. Because all they really did was to make him feel even more miserable for being such an idiot who constantly made the wrong decisions."We always need someone who washes the dishes," Yifan said as he refused to take Lu Han's money for the food. "Just think of it as helping out a relative you can't stand." He smirked and Lu Han was too tired of everything to argue.

- mistakes -When Chanyeol came back from taking a shower he found Minseok asleep in the living room. He was on his back and a book was covering his face. After making sure that he wasn't dead, Chanyeol took a picture of it to send to Minjung to remind them that studying too much would turn them into the kind of maniac who risked suffocating under a book.

He took the book away, put a sheet in the page Minseok had open and sat next to him with a sigh. He didn't mean to but he ended up staring at Minseok's leg that was still covered in bandages to hide all the tiny angry cuts. They would leave scars. Minseok would forever be reminded of the bastard who allowed him to fall into a pile of glass just because he had no control over his life. The idiot who couldn't even help him and who instead almost threw up just because he couldn't see blood.

Maybe it was fate. This was maybe the last warning life gave him to stay away before the next person he loved would just disappear forever.

His fingers were awkwardly hovering over the bandages when Minseok suddenly stirred in his sleep and turned to side the cuts were on. The pain apparently woke him up and he rolled on his stomach under groans.

"I told you to go to bed if you're tired," Chanyeol said and helped him sit up.

Minseok rubbed his face and yawned. "I just need to finish reading this one chapter." He looked around. "Where's the book?"

Chanyeol nodded to the table and shook his head when Minseok opened the book rather than to be sensible and sleep. "You know, I told Minjung that you're trying to kill yourself with all that studying," he said glumly. When Minseok just ignored him, he added, "But I think she's too occupied with sending texts to Jongdae."

Minseok immediately looked at him baffled and Chanyeol tried hard not to burst out laughing. It was funny how his plan ultimately worked out. He knew Minjung would get along with Jongdae and that Minseok couldn't really say anything against them meeting. What Minseok of course didn't know was that Minjung spent a great deal of time sending Jongdae messages in which she complained about both her brother and Chanyeol. She obviously didn't realize that Jongdae only answered because he liked her and Chanyeol suspected that she assumed Jongdae to be one of Chanyeol's gay friends, just like how she assumed that Chanyeol wasn't interested into girls at all. He probably should have clarified the whole thing but in the end he always liked to toy with others.

He suddenly felt sick.

Toying. Wasn't that basically what started all the trouble? Him playing around with everyone's feelings? Wasn't the problem that he thought it was hilarious to see how far he could go?

"What's wrong?" Minseok suddenly asked with a worried expression and put down his book.

Chanyeol tried to smile but it suddenly felt as if he was staring at a bottomless pit again. It had been there for years and the only thing he could do to stop himself from falling inside was to ignore it. "Nothing, just," he said and avoided looking at Minseok so that he wouldn't have to see his leg. "You know how Kang Hanna asked you to talk to Baekhyun the other day?"

Of course he remembered. He would have scars to remember him of that but rather than to say that out loud, Minseok just nodded.

"I thought about it," he continued. "And I mean, isn't growing up all about being honest and about admitting your mistakes?"

He gave Minseok a short side glance. "So today I decided to tell Baekhyun the truth. But I guess he really won't talk to me again after this."

It was odd. He thought Baekhyun would get angry, just like how he got angry a year ago. Instead he asked why Chanyeol would tell him that. If he really felt guilty, why couldn't he just live with that guilty conscience? Why make him miserable?

'Lying is all you do, so why be honest about this?' Baekhyun had asked coldly. 'It's not like I feel better after knowing for sure that you're just a bastard who watched Hanna being bullied for a year. And it's not like I get back together with her after knowing that she didn't just make everything up.'

Minseok looked at him as if he was a puppy that got hurt after fighting a street dog and ruffled his hair. "Growing up is about learning from your mistakes."

Chanyeol grabbed Minseok's hand to stop him from making an even bigger mess of his hair. "Right," he snorted. "Course you'd say that. I mean, you're the one who really benefitted from the whole thing." He shook his head in mock indignation.

He wanted to turn it into a joke and hoped that Minseok would play along but Minseok just looked at him with a weird expression. It always unnerved Chanyeol when Minseok seemed to be about to say something serious. He couldn't lie, so when he did decide to voice his opinion, it could be brutal and Chanyeol wasn't sure whether he could stomach that.

"Well, I'm not a saint," Minseok finally said. "Even if I can understand him, I don't think there's any absolute right or wrong in life. None of you were completely wrong and maybe you need mistakes for some things to happen at all. Personally, I wouldn't mind you making that mistake over and over again if that's what it takes to make you stay."

Chanyeol felt weirdly stupefied. MInseok, who suddenly looked awkward, stood up and was about to leave the room, when Chanyeol took hold of the ankle of the leg that was undamaged and caused him to stumble.

"So what, hyung? You mean you don't mind me hurting others as long as I come back to you?" he asked and looked up to him.

Minseok at first just shook his leg to get rid of Chanyeol's hand and then crouched down. "Yeah," he said.

Chanyeol frowned. "And if you're the one who gets hurt?"

"I don't care," Minseok said casually and peeled of Chanyeol's hand. "As long as you stay."

Chanyeol pulled a face. "You know, hyung, that's really not a very healthy attitude." When Minseok took his book and turned off the lights in the living room, Chanyeol jumped up. "I mean, you pretty much sound like a masochist to me. That could kill you if you're not careful."

Minseok just yawned again. "I'm off to bed," he said.

And Chanyeol just stood in the dark room for a while. It was weird but he felt both relieved and even more scared than before. He knew that it was his careless mistake that allowed them to meet but he wondered whether that wasn't actually the biggest mistake. The more he cared about others, the more he hurt them in the end. Baekhyun was his best friend. And his family, they were the ones he loved the most in the world. It terrified him to think what could happen to Minseok, even more after hearing that Minseok wasn't careful himself.

After a few minutes Minseok returned and dragged him away, muttering something about how he couldn't sleep with the lights in his room turned on and that he couldn't turn them off because he didn't want Chanyeol to crash into him in the dark.