Guardians

Chapter 19 - Phoenix Physiology

Once inside the dorm, after hiding from the staff and the group's manager, Chanyeol's personality did a 180. He was smiling and enjoying his ice cream forgetting all about earlier.

Chanyeol finished his ice cream and he noticed me observing him. He smiled awkwardly and stood up from his spot by the kitchen and sat next to me on the couch in their living room.

"Hey." Chanyeol said, while staring at the wall in front of us.

"Hey." I continued eating my strawberry ice cream wishing that he'd leave. I looked over at the other guys in the kitchen hoping one of them would help me.

"So." He said, I waited for him to say something else, but realized he was waiting for me to say something.

"So?" I asked slightly annoyed.

"Sorry."

"Huh?"

"I lost my ear phones."

"What do you mean?"

Chanyeol sighed loudly. "This is so much harder than I thought." He muttered to himself.

"You do realize I'm right here. I heard everything you just said."

"Oh, right. Sorry...it's just I'm not good at apologies." Chanyeol said rubbing his knees.

I forced myself to turn to look at him and noticed his mouth was covered in ice cream. I started laughing and pointed at his face. "You have ice cream all over your mouth." He looked like a 5 year old. I think he even had some dripping off his chin and nose.

Chanyeol got so embarrassed that even his weird pokey ears turned red. I laughed even more.

Chanyeol pointed at my face. "You're covered in ice cream, too!" He said angrily.

I wiped my mouth and kept laughing, this time at myself. I felt as if I was back home goofing off with my brothers.

"Relax. It's okay to laugh at yourself sometimes you know?" Chanyeol's expression relaxed and caught on that I wasn't laughing at him in bad blood. "How about you start over and don't be so weird. You made me uncomfortable, like, super uncomfortable." I said.

Chanyeol nodded, then cleared his throat and crossed his legs while wrapping his hands on his knee. He looked like he was being interviewed on a variety show.

"I wanted to apologize for acting like a dick earlier. I'm usually more upbeat and happy, but I was having a bad day since I lost my earbuds this morning."

"Oh, I see." Truthfully, I didn't quite understand him, but I figured that's just how he was.

Chanyeol seemed to catch on to my doubts. I was starting to figure out that my facial expressions gave away how I felt.

"I, uh, get frustrated when I lose things that are important to me." He added. "Luckily, though, I found my earbuds when I started moving my things into the other room. So, I wanted to say, I'm sorry." Chanyeol finished with a thumbs.

I nodded. I didn't expect Chanyeol to be so awkward or maybe it was me. I didn't know what to say to him. I guessed it was because I tend to freak out when people are more outgoing and social than me. Even though I was older, mentally, I still had a tendency to shut down when it came to meeting new people.

"It's okay, I bet it was hard on you to have a bomb drop in and ruin your day even more. Don't worry, though, you aren't the only one that acted out of hand today. I was pretty mean to some people today, too." I said glancing at Jongin. I extend my arm for a hand shake. Chanyeol confidently reached out and shook my hand.

"I'm Stanza." I said. "Hopefully, we can get along while I stay."

"I'm Chanyeol and I'll try to be on my best behavior." He said with a bright smile.

D.O. stood up from the couch next us. I hadn't seen him since Chanyeol blocked my view of him. I completely forgot he had sat down there earlier. He slowly walked past us and threw away his wrapper in the kitchen. On his way back, heading towards his room, he paused and looked at us and shook his head.

"You are a sad, sad pair." He said in a serious tone. Then walked off before we could respond.

A few seconds passed. Chanyeol and I looked at each other with a surprised look and started laughing.