Chapter Text
Beomgyu woke up to the sound of rustling in his ear. He grumbled and tried to drown out the sounds with his pillow but he was unsuccessful. “Hyung, if you’re going to sneak in then be quiet about it.” He muttered then the rustling stopped.
“How’d you know it was me?”
The room was plunged into silence for a moment before Beomgyu groaned, got up and turned on his lamp. They hissed when the light assaulted their eyes then blinked quickly to adjust to the sudden change. Beomgyu looked up to see Yeonjun staring at him with a split lip.
His brain supplied him with a faint image of the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen. The sky was an ombre of colours starting from blue, fading into purple, then pink, then yellow, then orange. The clouds were a mixture of both fluffy and wispy and reflected a yellow-orange of the sunset and the air was the perfect mix of warm and chilly. It was like looking at a painting, the moment felt surreal.
Then someone was falling from the roof to their death.
Beomgyu blinked out of the thought quickly to see Yeonjun staring at him worriedly. Beomgyu just sighed and shuffled over to create more space on the bed. “Let’s sleep, we have exams tomorrow.” He mumbled then drifted off again.
…………
Soobin sat sprawled out on the floor trying to beat the knowledge into his brain. His books were everywhere, on his bed, on his floor, his table, some probably under his bed, his laptop ran hot as it had been on for hours now.
“I don’t think that’s an effective way of studying.” A familiar voice teased.
Soobin groaned and decided to just lay down for a moment, letting the book rest on his face. “Should I regret giving you a key to my home?”
“Wasn’t Aunty the one who gave me a key?” There was still a teasing tone in his voice.
The room was silent for a while before Soobin began to mumble unintelligible words. The voice chuckled and sat next to him and Soobin wordlessly shuffled to rest his head on his lap. “Are you going to stay for the rest of the week, Hyung?” He asked softly.
“I don’t think that’s wise,” Yeonjun muttered softly as he gently ran his hands through the younger’s hair.
Soobin sighed and removed the book from his face to look up at Yeonjun for the first time since he arrived. “Why?” Pain. That was what his voice could be described as when he saw the bruises on his face and neck.
Yeonjun didn’t answer, he just smiled at him sadly.
“At least help me cram then.”
“Fine.” The older sighed as he reached for a book closest to him. He looked at the book in his hands then chuckled. “Why are you even in this class? I thought you didn’t like math?”
“I don’t,” Soobin mumbled as he sat up from his lap.
“Then why do you have this book?” He teased as he began to open the book.
“Because it reminds me of you,” Soobin replied, voice barely above a whisper.
A vivid memory of him reaching the roof five seconds too late assaulted his mind, then he began to break down and cry.
…………
“This is pair work, I’ll give you the option of choosing your partner. If you don’t want to then come to me and I’ll assign you one.” The teacher said then went to sit at her desk. She looked up to see everyone making their pairs then she looked to the side to see the soulless eyes of someone lost in their mind. “Mr Kang, would you like an assigned partner?” She asked her favourite student who blinked back to existence at the sound of his name. He gave her a nod and she smiled sadly at him before giving him someone to work with.
A delicate hand touched Taehyun and he looked up to see Soobin next to him, a small frown decorating his face. “You dragged me into this class, so help me not fail.” He mumbled softly then opened his book to the assigned content.
Taehyun looked at the textbook then at Soobin’s work and snorted. “Hyung, you mixed up the formulas.” He said softly before he grabbed a pencil and eraser and got to explaining everything. Soobin stayed engaged throughout the explanations and cracked a few jokes to hide how truly confused he was most times.
“Okay, but why math when you can calculator?” Soobin asked after an extra challenging question.
“I’m not going to pretend I understood what came out of your mouth.” Taehyun chuckled lightly.
“I get the formulas and everything but why should I calculate most things out of my head when a calculator does everything for me?”
“Hyung, you could’ve used your calculator, I just didn’t want you to be typing two times two in it.” Taehyun pointed out. “Or worse, two plus two.” He shuddered.
“Hey, you can never be too sure. I’m not a genius like some people.” And then a memory of Yeonjun rapping pi came to both of their minds.
Their mood sobered up quickly, then it reached a point of them both having tears in their eyes.
“Fuck.” Taehyun sighed before he got up and walked out of the class. He tried to mute his sniffles as he walked briskly to the bathroom, thankful that it was still class time so no one was on the corridors.
Math class was one of his and Yeonjun’s favourite classes to be in as it was an escape from the real world. The problems in math could be solved and reasons for their answers could be proven, it was a nice break from the ambiguousness of real life.
Then Yeonjun wasn’t a constant in his life and class became a void. Dragging Soobin along helped him somewhat but it wasn’t the same. Of course, it wasn’t.
He found an empty stall and cried, he wanted to scream but that was a little too much to deal with in a public space.
…………
Kai sat at a tree, playing with his food. He wasn’t hungry and he brought a lot of extras. It has barely been two months since that constant in his life has left so it wasn’t that far fetched to see why he still brought extra food but, damn, it was annoying. It was annoying to wake up in the mornings and plan his entire day around his drifting friends, it was annoying to pack two extra cups of ramen or just to have an extra lunch dish and two extra chopsticks for no one to be there to eat it. It was annoying to think of his constant constantly because he’s no longer a part of the equation.
“Do you still bring extra lunch?” A voice asked calmly.
“Beomgyu-ssi?”
Beomgyu chuckled and sat down beside him. “I thought we broke that habit?”
“I forgot,” Kai mumbled, still playing with his food.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.” He grits out. Who was he to ignore him for so long them come back all caring and kind?
“Kai-”
“Why are you here?” It came out harsher than Kai had intended but he was not going to take it back.
“I just missed you,” Beomgyu replied, regret lacing his tone. “I- we shouldn’t have done that.” His was voice soft, velvet and calm and, oh, did Kai miss his voice. Oh, how he missed Beomgyu.
He missed the spontaneous trips he would plan for them when the stress of school got too much. He missed how he would drag him along to those horrible parties. He missed how he encouraged him to talk to his parents about his problems or how he would congratulate him on the simplest of things. He missed their sleepovers or even their random and unnecessary fights.
He missed everything.
“But you still did it,” Kai replied in anger then got up, grabbed his bag and left.
Beomgyu sighed and didn’t fight the tears that spilt from his eyes. Why’d they have to do that? It was obvious Kai was hurting as well. He groaned and flopped to the ground, now staring at the sky. The clouds were fluffy and white, some were wispy and the sky was blue.
What a crap day.
Kai stormed off to his classroom and sat in his assigned seat trying to calm himself down.
“Huening, are you okay?” An unfortunate soul asked.
“Do I look okay?” He answered with a sharp glare, effectively scaring them off.
“Of course he’s not. His social standings with the popular kids are up in smoke.” A dumbass whispered poorly. Kai was very close to ending the dumbass and their future kids’ future when he heard a stern voice.
“Kai!”
He turned to see Taehyun, eyes red and tear-stained cheeks. He was standing at his classroom door, blocking incoming traffic.
“What?” The younger answered- softer than intended. Taehyun did a familiar motion with his hands, it helped them remember to control their anger. He did not want to go through breathing exercises and it showed evidently on his face.
Taehyun sighed, walked up to his desk and attempted to grab his wrists.
“I have class,” Kai muttered weakly.
“So do I,” Taehyun replied then grabbed his hand again and with his freakish strength, dragged Kai out of the classroom. “It is advised by the guidance counsellor that we should go into classes with a clear head,” Taehyun whispered, still dragging Kai along. “And if we need a moment to collect ourselves then we should.”
“I miss you,” Kai whispered, effectively stopping Taehyung. “I miss all of you so much.” He gently pulled his hands out of his. “But what you did, what all of you did, it hurt. It fucking hurts worse than watching Yeonjun-hyung fall to his death.” He took a step back from Taehyun and looked him in the eye. “I don’t want you to calm me down, or tell me what the guidance teacher said. I don’t want you touching me acting like the past two months were just a horrible nightmare. You said it yourself Taehyung-ssi, we were only friends because of Yeonjun-hyung.” There was a dark glint in his eyes that was ruined by his abundance of tears.
Taehyung stood there, tears also falling from his eyes. “Kai-”
“Goodbye, Hyung.” He interrupted softly then turned his back and walked back to his class.
His teacher was in the middle of roll call when he entered, all eyes turning to him as he made his way to his seat. He saw the lunch he abandoned packed neatly on his table with a note.
‘At least eat something ~ Gyu.’
“Fuck!” He cried as pulled harshly at the strands of his hair.
The teacher never commented on his outburst and left him alone for the rest of the class.