|new kid|

Chapter 5 - Suburbia!

Chen stretched his arms. "Waah, that was a long day...!" he mumbled. "I'll see you guys later!" he waved at the others. 

"Same here," Kai said and waved, before leaving. "Wait for me, Kai!" Xiumin yelled and ran after them.

"Well, Baekyun, Sehun, we'll see you later. Lay, Chanyeol and I have academy," Suho explained. "I'll text you after we're done!" Chanyeol said. 

"Sure! Sehun and I take the same road, so we're gonna go now," Baekhyun said and nudged Sehun. "See you guys!" he waved and began walking, Sehun following close behind.

"... Where exactly are we going?" Sehun asked quietly. Baekhyun shrugged. "To my house," he answered nonchalantly. "You need a place to stay, and if you want to stay somewhere safe, my house is your best bet." he explained.

"... Don't you have your parents?" Sehun asked. "They won't be a problem," Baekhyun replied. "My dad's not at home, and my sister is too young to even do anything."

"Your mom?" Sehun asked. Baekhyun shot him a certain look.

"I don't have one... we just gotta worry about my dad, my sister, and my sister's babysitter." 

"Baby-sitter?" Sehun asked. Baekhyun rolled his eyes. "I guess she's my babysitter also but I'm too old for a babysitter..." he muttered.

"What's a babysitter...?" What were all these complex terms to describe family in the first place?

"You don't have to understand... she won't bother us. Just... as long as you don't mention anything to the others, it's going to be fine," Baekhyun said. "... Why not?" Sehun asked.

"... Right... I guess you wouldn't know..." Baekhyun sighed. "Some people just... don't have the best family situations, and they don't want that getting around outside of their house. Doesn't have to be for any particular reason, but some just feel like it's something they shouldn't share... just because they're uncomfortable with it. How does that sound?"

"... A little confusing... but I think I get it. I shouldn't talk about your babysitter to the others, because you're uncomfortable..." Sehun repeated. Baekhyun smiled and nodded. "There, you get it! Perfect," he said. "My house is kinda big, so we're not gonna run into either of them very often."

"Oh... about that..." Sehun mumbled. "... I don't exactly know what a house is..."

"... Wait, where do people from the Exoplanet live then?" Baekhyun asked. "If you don't live in houses, where do you sle- oh." he looked down. "... Right... I guess you theoretically wouldn't need a house..."

"When we needed to sit down and relax, we would usually sit down, maybe on the roots of the Tree of Life, or just... wherever we found, basically," Sehun explained.

"That does sound pretty nifty... But things are kinda different here," he explained. "We need to eat and sleep, and in a house, we can do both without going very far! I'll explain more when we get there," he reassured.

They continued walking for a while until they came to this small sign with some weird picture on it. It showed a girl holding a red and silver stick near her face. She looked happy.

"What is she doing?" Sehun asked and pointed at the sign. "Oh, that's an ad. An advertisement. There's this thing some beauticians and people in general use called lipstick, and different brands make different lipsticks. This picture is trying to urge us to buy that lipstick because it's 'better than the others', but it comes down to personal preference. Also, this is a bus stop!"

Sehun looked around. There were words on a sign that had places -or what he assumed to be places- on and times right next to them. There were other ads too, some for food, and some for other weird things Sehun couldn't grasp just yet. They were the only ones there, too, which meant he could be weird freely.

"Can you explain..." Sehun moved his hands to point around the station. "All of this...?"

"Let's see... these are ads, nothing too important. These, over here, are the busses. They're sorted by time rather than distance. For example, this one here just gets you around Incheon, but this one takes you all the way to Seoul. Some of these take you much further, but the busses arrive first. We're going to be taking this one over here," he said and pointed at a specific station. "This is the one that's closest to my house. We'll still have a 10-minute walk, but that's pretty short in comparison to if we hadn't taken the bus."

Baekhyun looked down at his watch. "The bus arrives in, like, 15 minutes, so we have to wait for a bit," he explained. "Inside the bus there are seats, so we're gonna sit down. There are a lot of people in busses, so don't freak out, they usually aren't too chatty. If we talk at all, we're gonna have to be quiet. I'll tell you when we get off the bus." Sehun nodded. It made sense to him, for now at least. And he knew he had the ability to ask more questions.

"One more thing," he added. He handed Sehun a small piece of paper. "This is a bus ticket, you can have the spare one I have until I can buy you a bus pass. You'll have to ring it on the machine in front of the bus entrance. Just stay behind me and watch how I do it, okay?" he asked. 

Sehun examined the small piece of paper. It was small and had many words on it. Sehun took it closer to his face and tried reading them all, one by one. Baekhyun chuckled. "You don't have to do that... just watch how I do it and try it yourself. You should have no problem! You're a fast learner," he reassured and smiled at him.

Sehun nodded. He looked up and saw what he assumed to be the bus rolling up to the bus stop. "Come on, let's go," Baekhyun said and headed towards the bus. He stepped inside the bus and scanned his bus pass along the machine, earning a high pitched beep while he stepped inside. Sehun braced himself and headed on the bus, trying the same thing.

Beep.

Sehun looked to find Baekhyun and then followed him to where he sat.

He looked around the bus. There were a lot of people inside indeed, but all of them seemed to be too preoccupied with something else. Some were on their phones, others were talking, groups of kids their age were loudly talking to each other, earning glares from the other passengers. Busses were hectic, to say the least. He felt Baekhyun nudge him.

"Here," he said and passed him his own phone and headphones. "I'll check what homework we have, you can play with my phone." 

Sehun awkwardly took the phone and put the headphones on his ears, which helped silence the commotion of the bus.

Life on earth was hectic, but it had its calm moments.

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oof, i kinda forgot to update :v
its ok tho (i think) ill try not to forget
a bit of a longer chapter since i forgot to update it (and then i said id update twice a day lolol)
thanks for reading~~