locked [chanbaek and kaisoo]

Chapter 18

Kyungsoo knew he was still hated in that school. He knew it fairly well.

With the strong efforts of his classmates, he was never actually allowed to forget it. Although bullying and calling him names stopped as soon as Jongin stepped into the picture, and basically began cracking his knuckles at every other personwho dared to look at Kyungsoo in a strange way, the hatred-filled glares and the heavy atmosphere everywhere he went stayed just as it was before. It was still awful. It might have even gotten worse.

If the students in their school were displeased and angry about Jongin and his friends becoming friends with Kyungsoo, they were outright furious about Jongin and Kyungsoo dating each other. Jongin, although he might have not wanted it, was the king of their school. Rich parents, good looks, smart, good at sports, sociable – in a nutshell, he was simply every student's dream. And then Jongin, this perfect image of someone whom everybody wants to be, turned around and chose Kyungsoo as his boyfriend. Kyungsoo, the poor, silent freak everybody hated. The school's outcast.

No need to say, they were angry. Especially the football team, who took Jongin's, one of their main player's, act as an offense to their own image. If they could, they would have wiped Kyungsoo off like a stain from this school, and pretended he never happened. But Jongin, walking everywhere with Kyungsoo and openly showering him with affection and protectiveness stood in their way like a massive wall.

They couldn't get rid of Kyungsoo just like that. It would have just brought anger on them from the richest kids, Jongin and Chanyeol, and probably even got them into serious fight with them. They would probably leave the team. And in the end, everything would fall apart, instead of just Kyungsoo.

In their heads, sacrificing Kyungsoo was the best choice. But they couldn't break him themselves.

They needed Jongin to do it for them.

"What... what is that?.."

Kyungsoo stared up at Jongin's shocked face. Although his heart was about to leap out of his chest, feeling the taller's hands on his skin after all these years, he didn't say anything. Didn't move. He just froze there, against the wall, with Jongin's hands on his skin. And Jongin's eyes on the web of scars on his collarbone.

The feeling was strange, so strange. On one hand, he felt some sort of sick satisfaction, that Jongin finally saw justhow much he had hurt him in the past, because he never saw it in the end. Kyungsoo thought it was just right that he sees, sees and understands, how much his stupid entertainment back in highschool cost someone, and how painful it was for him. How much damage he gave Kyungsoo, both physical and emotional.

But then again... something was not right. Something bothered Kyungsoo a lot, and he didn't know what it was.

Maybe it was that stupid part of his heart, that still trusted Jongin and loved him to death. That part of his mind, that thought seeing this would hurt Jongin a lot. Not because he regretted doing such things when he was young, but because it was all not true, and he really sincerely did love Kyungsoo. And because Kyungsoo's pain was his pain, like Jongin had always said to him, back when they were dating.

And looking at those shocked, panicked chocolate eyes, Kyungsoo found himself starting to doubt, starting to ask himself things he hadn't been thinking about before.

He could see through people quite well. He was a lawyer after all, and that was one of the main qualities that Kyungsoo used to get his cases solved, and to find out the truth. And the hurt, and fear in Jongin's eyes, that absolute shock and his shivering hands, were not something that easily faked. Kyungsoo knew it better than anyone else. And that made him feel so lost.