His body felt numb, his head dizzy and his feet didn’t seem to want to cooperate in his way to the kitchen. He managed to keep his eyes open, but they felt swollen, like he cried himself to sleep but he couldn’t remember doing so.

The slightest sound made his head spin and he felt sick. He made himself a cup of coffee, not knowing if his stomach could handle it but at least caffeine would wake him up just enough to pretend he didn’t feel like .

“What’s wrong with you today?” The question, even though it was formulated in a soft whisper, made him damn everything he could think of, feeling every word sinking in his brain like needles.

Chanyeol looked up to meet Suho’s worried gaze, giving him a little smile that didn’t reach his eyes. The elder’s frown deepened and Chanyeol gave up with a sigh. He felt Suho sitting by his side, the sound of his chair making his head cry in pain, staring at him obviously worried but pretending not being so.

“Are you okay?” Chanyeol could just manage to give his friend a brief shrug, not trusting his voice nor his feelings.

They fell silent until Chanyeol realised he hadn’t other choice but answering his friend.

“It’s just” he said but he didn’t know himself what the was wrong with him, how could he explain it to somebody else? “It’s just a lot of stuff in my mind recently”.

Suho gave him an understanding, but not less worried, look and kept silent for a couple of seconds, not knowing if he should or should ask Chanyeol about it or just leave him alone to realise his own feelings but Suho knew his friend good enough to swear he wouldn’t do so without a little push.

“I thought you and Baekhyun made up finally?” the older said, his attention shifting to his coffee from the black haired.

The man frowned and a trace of anxiousness could be seen shining in his eyes for an instant, but it was too brief for Suho to put a finger on it. He, did seemed helpless though and that made the shorter one sigh in exasperation.

It wasn’t a secret for any of their group those two liked each other, it’s been like that since they can recall, but Baekhyun was too afraid Chanyeol would hate him if he finds out about his crush and the later was just too slow at realising feelings.

When Baekhyun left, his tall friend was all sloppy and mourning and heartbroken but he would never accept that. He blamed himself for too long, he missed Baekhyun more than anyone and those feelings he could never express were now killing him from the inside. When he said he was getting married he couldn’t believe his friend’s words, “he actually had gone mad” was what Suho first thought after Chanyeol first told him. He was in so much pain he just needed something, or someone, that could erase it, something that could make him forget about the little boy who left without saying a word to anyone. So Suho wasn’t that surprised when he saw the puppy-like girl hanging from his friend’s arm.

Hs skin itched by just thinking about it and he was definitely so going to help those little bastards out to confess to each other before it’s too late for both of them. He won’t go through another dramatic separation like in the past.

“You know he doesn’t hate you, do you?” Chanyeol nodded shortly in answer, still to absent for Suho’s liking. He knew he was overthinking some stuff and that maybe wasn’t a bad thing, but he wanted him to do it right “whatever it is on you mind, you can trust me, Chanyeol”.

The young man looked at him with big eyes. Suho saw sheepishness and confusion at the same time shining in them and he, somehow, felt like everything was going to be work out for those two. He just needed a little more of time but that he was exactly what was lacking: time.

“Thank… You” Suho gave him a reassuring simile before leaving the room.

“By the way” he said opening the kitchen’s door “that’s not the sugar but the salt what you have in your hands, Canyeol-ah”

Chanyeol glared the recipient that contained what he thought it was sugar, thinking that maybe he wasn’t as “good” as he pretended to be. Then, he remembered something: Saebyul was spending the night there and that fact made him somehow uneasy, uncomfortable even.

--------

It was 7 PM when his fiancée arrived, he should be happier, at least, as happy as she was, as excited as she seemed, but he felt nothing… Nothing but Baekhyun’s burning glare from time to time during dinner.

Saebyul talked… a lot… and really loudly. She moved her hands with excitement as she told him about how nervous she was about their wedding and how much she loved him and how lucky she was about having a handsome man as Chanyeol in her life. She had dyed her hair raven black, Chanyeol remembers she said something about “wanting to look natural” or something like that but he wasn’t fully sure. He couldn’t bring himself to care though. His mind was so far away from their conversation he wasn’t even listening anymore, too busy thinking he liked black hair, more exactly, Baekhyun’s raven black hair. He liked his cute eyes too, his soft skin, his thin and long fingers, his cute hands and above all of that, his smile, his laugh.

Chanyeol thought about the way his chest felt when his little puppy-like friend laughed, about the way his stomach felt when they were close, the way his heart raced when he felt a “good night” wasn’t enough, that maybe he wanted a “goodnight-hug” too, that maybe he wanted a “goodnight-kiss” too.

The man snapped out of it, and now it were Saebyul’s ayes looking at him with annoyance

“Are you even listening?” Chanyeol blinked in confusion and fear, she was mad at him and worse, she had a reason to be.

They were in Chanyeol’s room, their door closed, and the rest of the group were either sleeping or watching the TV in the lounge.

“Yeah, I just... I just missed you so much I got distracted” He lied with a fake smile. He was behaving like a dickhead and Saebyul didn’t deserve it, she hadn’t done anything wrong.

He was lying, and Saebyul knew he was lying. Chanyeol also knew Saebyul knew, but it was easier for both of them to pretend that knew nothing. It was easier, simpler, and painless. That was all they needed for now, and they both may regret it in the near future, but, for now, they needed to pretend everything was okay. Because even though it wasn’t the correct path to follow, it was the simplest.

“I missed you too” the woman smiled to him and closed the distance between them.

Chanyeol didn’t care about the kiss. Maybe that was what he needed right now, he thought. Maybe kissing his fiancée could make him forget about kissing other people, more specifically a little man called Baekhyun who also was his childhood friend we always love platocanly.

The man tried his best to concentrate in the kiss. He closed his eyes and moved his lips slowly, but he could feel hunger coming from the little woman who introduced her tongue into his cave what surprised him. It has been a really long time since the last time they’d been… so personal with her and, even though he didn’t really mind that fact, it seemed like his mind couldn’t stop playing tricks with him and another silhouette was drawn in the back of his mind instead of his fiancée’s.

It was Baekhyun’s.

His soft hands, his cute bangs, his back, his deep eyes...

“Saebyul” he whispered between bitter kisses he no longer reciprocated “please stop” a ball of repentance founded its place in his stomach and it became hard to gulp.

He was indeed a negligible . Thinking about someone else while kissing his fiancée, that was just too depreciable and dirty.

The female didn’t seem to had heard him so he just took his hands and broke the kiss, what seemed to fluster the little woman.

“What’s wrong? I want to kiss you?” She said trying to start another round of wet kisses but Chanyeol had to stop her with an uneasy feeling in his bowels.

“I’m sorry I just-“Chanyeol started looking into those brown eyes of her, what made him feel even worst. She didn’t deserve a piece of garbage like him.

Saebyul noticed the man’s malaise and frowned, noticeably worried “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

The nickname seemed to stab him just in his stomach. He was the one who was wrong, the one who mas mixing feelings and somehow cheating on her. Maybe not in the literal meaning of the words but with his heart.

Saebyul caressed his check with his hand and everything was just too overwhelming, too confusing, too complicated, too complex he wasn’t sure of anything anymore and he hated that feeling, he hated himself.

“I’m sorry” Chanyeol repeated himself, fighting the tears that were starting to wet his eyes “I just can’t”.

You just don’t deserve someone like me, he unvoiced. And he had to leave the room without adding anything nor giving explanations because his heart couldn’t take it anymore nor could his mind. He was tired, tired of the confusing thoughts filling up his head, tired of realising things, he just wanted that unpleasant feeling to stop and go back to when everything was simpler.