The shape of a little kid with black hair, soft skin and innocent eyes appeared in front of Chanyeol. He smiled at himself as soon as their eyes met, because that kid was too cute to be real, too frail to even be a boy as he was. Chanyeol never knew how or why, but suddenly he found himself wanting to protect that strange that looked like a puppy.

Chanyeol blinked twice as he looked up to the strange kid again, the thing was he wasn’t a “strange boy” anymore, he was Baekhyun, the actual 23 years old Byun Baekhyun, his childhood friend, his mate mischief, his adventures partner. He was his Baekhyun, but, at the same time, that person standing in front of him at the end of the stairs that was looking him in silent witch cold and clank eyes was a total strange to him.

 Chanyeol tried to find the sparkly in his deep brown eyes that they used to have, the sweet pink tone of his cheeks when they used to joke around and laugh way too much because of any of their foolishness, that smile that made him feel that bubbly thing in his stomach, but he couldn’t. That Baekhyun wasn’t the Baekhyun he remembered, the person he was staring at wasn’t his Baekhyun.

His eyes hadn’t that special glow of life they used to have when he dived again and in those dark pools of glitter again his friend had; they were lifeless, cold, and emotionless, as if someone would have drained the life out of them, leaving big dark circles below them. His cheeks were pale, too pale being honest, tinted with that greenish shade of death and sickness that appears after not take enough sleep, and when the smaller smiled to greet the rest of their friends (except him) his smile fell to turn into a painful grin.

That was the moment when Chanyeol realised how broke his little dwarf was.

He knew Baekhyun cried last night, he knew he hugged his knees until he fell asleep, because that was what he used to do when he argued with his father and ran to Chanyeol’s uncle’s house (where he lived with his cousin Kyungsoo since he was nine), the problem was that, this time, Baekhyun cried because of him. Chanyeol was the reason of his tears, his pain.

And that fact made him feel like .

His heart ached because he knew he would cried hugging his pillow, having nothing else that could give him some comfort, he blamed himself because he knew he just would let out silent sobs when there weren’t tears he could cry anymore, he felt himself falling apart because he knew his friend wasn’t exactly alright when he couldn’t even fake a smile. His swollen eyes were shouting his secret, and he couldn’t help but want to protect him, but how in earth can you protect someone of yourself?

Damn it. He knew Baekhyun as the back of his hand; they have been friends since primary school. He knew everything about him and Baekhyun knew everything about Chanyeol too, because they were best friends, almost like brothers.

They’ve shared theirs greatest fears, theirs most private secrets, theirs bigger dreams; they’ve shared all theirs everythings with each other, and, even though he always knew what was thinking about his friend and vice versa, when he looked up and met that pair of dead dark eyes, he couldn’t figure out what was in earth was going through his friend’s head, he couldn’t even recognise him as his beloved friend.

Where was that shy Baekhyun with a hopeful glace that could make any person fall for him?

Where was his cutie dwarf?

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.” Jongdae said once he spoted his friend at the end of the stairs, with his hands inside of the pockets of his hoodie and his eyes fixed in the floor,  standing next to Sehun, what made him look even smaller “I was about to call someone to kiss you if you wouldn't have woke up before lunch”.

Chanyeol saw the shorter guy flush almost negligibly (but not enough for him) as he stuttered something that sounded like a complaint and a “ you, Jongdae” before Sehun interrupted their conversation, looking kinda upset for only-God-knows-why.

“Good morning to you too” said the maknae with a pinch of irony in his words.

“Oh, you were there, I didn’t saw you” Sehun laughed coldly as he muttered “I’m 1.80, how the wouldn’t you-?” most for himself than for the black haired, who cut him off as he tried his best to don’t laugh at the younger’s face.

“Thought you disappeared just like las night, when you didn’t help us to set the table for dinner” Jongdae added with a playful smile raising the corners of his lips, unable to hold it back anymore almost laughing and obviously teasing Sehun, who, as everybody knew, gets upset easily.

“Yixing-hyung! Jongdae is nagging me again! Tell him to stop!” the maknae shouted making Baekhyun almost laugh though he was feeling worse than bad at that point, with Chanyeol’s glace on him, burning his skin with every second it passed, but still, he managed to not feel a damn thing, just numbness, dullness, just nothing. Baekhyun managed to stop feeling and he felt even relieved because it was fine if he didn’t feel anymore, it wasn’t as bad as it sounded; because it meant he wouldn’t ever get hurt.

He looked at his friends and slimed nostalgically.

Maybe there were some things that never change.

And maybe there were things that absolutely change; even when you don’t want them to.

The Chinese guy looked up, stopping reading whatever he was reading and giving the blonde boy, who was approaching at him and sitting on his lap with crossed arms and anger glowing in his eyes, a confused look.

“What? What happened?” asked Yixing closing his book, still more into the fictional world than the real one.

“Don’t run away and hide behind your mother, baby-boy” screamed Jongdae from the across the lounge, laughing as he entered into the kitchen with a heap of dirty clothes between his arms and started to do the laundry.

Meanwhile, Yixing gave the younger man a questioning stare, one mixed with worry and a bit of sadness.

“Are you goin’ back with your family? Why? But the weeding is in five days. Why are you le-?”

Sehun couldn’t help but burst into laughter, forgetting all his previous annoyance, starting to laugh out loud (way too hard causing the rest of the people of the room stared at them) with his entire body and making Yixing worry even more as he watched with concerned eyes the younger man's weird behaviour.

Chanyeol almost could read the question “What the hell is wrong with this guy?” in the Chinese guy’s stare.

“Of course I’m not leaving, you fool!” Sehun  asserted once he recovered of his giggles, wiping tears of laughter of the corner of his eyes “That’s why you’re my favourite, you always know how to make me laugh” added the blonde with a bright smile while patting Yixing’s head, making the last above flush a little and look at the floor with embarrassment.

“I-I I wasn’t t-trying…”

“Forget it” The younger cut him off shaking his head “What were you reading?” The black haired smiled widely knowing he wouldn’t get lost in this conversation.

Yixing wasn’t too talkative, to be honest. Yeah, he was a sunshine and a very good person, but not exactly talkative, but when you touched a matter that he really loves, he could talk for hours straight without need to breathe nor get bored of the conversation in any time.

They started to talk about books and about an apparently very good writer the both of them loved called John-something.

“Are all your friends normally that close?” Chanyeol’s stare went from his friends to the woman next to him, meeting Saebyul’s big eyes with a blank and dead glow in his owns, having disconnected of his friends’ jolly conversation when a weird thought passed through his head for a split second.

Baekhyun and I used to be like them.

Chanyeol just shrugged, half listening to his girlfriend’s question “Yeah, I guess they are” he mumbled as he stared back at the two of his friends, who were laughing and pertly chatting about John-something’s best books Sehun still sitting on Yixing’s lap and both of them with bright smiles drawn on their lighted up faces.

Chanyeol couldn’t help but feel kind of jealous, missing something as dead as his friendship with Baekhyun when he looked for the smaller at the bottom of the stairs, but he already had disappeared from his prior spot.

Chanyeol wouldn’t ever say it out loud, but he missed his friend, he missed him maybe too bad. His friend who even thought was half a year older that him but that looked years younger, being this reason of a lot of teasing from the taller guy to his hyung, his friend who has been there since he can remember. He missed Baekhyun and now… What have they become? The raven haired was avoiding him not so covertly, and he couldn’t even look at him in the eye without feel guilty.

Why was he feeling guilty anyways?

It wasn’t him who left and moved to Europe without even say a word to who supposed to be his best friend; it wasn’t him who changed his number without even send a short message saying he was okay; it wasn’t him who didn’t talked to his worried friend in five ing years and suddenly appeared from nowhere a week before his weeding.

And it wasn’t him who was mistaken, that safe, he was sure of that, maybe too sure.

But then, why was him still feeling guilty?

Because Baekhyun looked miserable?

But he was miserable too when he left, and he shouldn’t pity him.

Maybe because he looked regretful?

A bunch of sorry words wouldn’t turn back those five years nor take away the pain he endured during that time.

Because when they finally met again he is getting married?

Damn it. Damnitdamnitdamnitdamnit. God, damn it, Byun Baekhyun!

He didn’t have had to feel guilty!

If there was someone who had to feel guilty that was Baekhyun, If there was someone who had to feel guilty that was Baekhyun, if there was someone...

He didn’t need his friend’s approbation to getting married nor have a relationship with whoever he wanted. He didn’t depend of Baekhyun and he didn’t need his “okay” for any bloody decision he made, he was a grown up straight and Baekhyun wasn’t his mother.

Then, why he was still feeling like he should have told him before, like he has betrayed his friend? Why was he feeling that way, feeling like he needed to explain him why he was getting married?

Chanyeol suddenly found himself angry with his friend, he didn’t even know the reason, he just wanted to blame someone of those weird feelings which made him look like the bad guy when he knew he wasn’t, wasn’t he?

Mentally exhausted of too much thinking, Chanyeol pulled all those annoying thoughts back and locked them in a metaphorical box inside his head, hoping they’ll never come out again.

Everything was easier when we were just kids, he thought and maybe he was just being a coward and a childish immature, but he did what he always does when he’s starting to feel stifle by his own problems: stop thinking.

That’s right, he always erased out of his mind everything that worried him, because it’s easier, it doesn’t help at all though, but it’s definitely easier than actually try to solve his problems like the grownup he was.

And because he’s too afraid to face all the huge mistakes he has made (and keeps making) in his entire lifetime, because he knows he has made a lot of them, because he knows how ed up he is, but he’ll never recognise it.

Because, even so, he didn’t feel like do anything about it.

Baekhyun slipped away from the lounge as soon as Chanyeol’s stare left him and focused in their loud friendswho were brazenly flirting, finding Kyungsoo and Jongin in there, standing next to each other way too close and he felt like he just interrupted something that shouldn’t been interrupted.

“Baek-hyung! Good morning” greatened Jongin cheerfully without even move an inch from he was and making the smaller standing right next to him flush after realise how close they actually were.

What is personal space anyways? Thought Baekhyun with a half-smile curving his lips, internally relieved he could nose on another’s love life, a love life that wasn’t his own for this time, more specifically, Kyungsoo’s one.

“Good morning, ehh, guys. How are you?” commented casually (at least he tried to) Baekhyun, making his best to shut the hell up his internal fangirl and do not freak out, shout nor ask his friends if Joinging was helping Kyungsoo with his contact lenses or if it was an eyelash.

“Good. Slept like a baby last night” answered Jonging widening his smile. It was so big (only God know what were these two doing before Baekhyun entered in the kitchen. The eldest came to the conclusion he needed to interrogate his friend later) that Baekhyun thought the younger man would hurt himself.

“Fine, you good?” asked Kyungsoo as red as a tomato and Baekhyun had to put all his efforts in not to laugh at his friend’s funny face of embarrassment, stepping away from his crush under his friend’s watchful eye “There’s still some hot coffee in the kettle. Want some?” The shortest asked ignoring Baekhyun playful smile and turning around, so Jongin wouldn’t notice his increasing blush.

“I’d rather black tea” Baekhyun said and the brown haired giggled.

“Britain didn’t make you well, hyung. Weren’t you a coffee lover?” he laughed, but Baekhyun just flashed his hand while rolling his eyes in sing of “whatever” and heated some water for himself.

Everything went normal till lunchtime. They talked about everyday things, nothing relevant, just simple random topics that kept Baekhyun’s mind far away from a certain giant with funny large ears who Baekhyun wanted to avoid as long as it were possible.

The problem came when he couldn’t avoid Chanyeol’s stare anymore; the problem came when he couldn’t stand the lovebirds constantly flirting anymore.

He watched the couple whispering sweet-bull to each other and that leaning too close to Chanyeol (at least closer than it’s socially accepted, although they were in public) and damn it, they were eating, actually eating! And Baekhyun swore for God that he would throw up on the sweet couple if they didn’t behave themselves for ing once.

Kyungsoo noticed his friend’s annoyance and shook his head after steep on the elder’s foot, telling him without any words that it didn’t worth it, that didn’t worth hid anger, even fury.

Baekhyun didn’t seem to calm down though, he just kept in silent as he stuffed his mouth with food and chewed it as he were scrunching the woman’s head before sallow with a big gulp, almost gagging in the process.

I’mnotjealousI’mnotjealousI’mnotingjeaslous.

Kyungsoo shocked again his head, this time for himself. His friend was hopeless.

Saebyul was a , she already knew that and she didn’t need anybody to remember that damn fact about herself, but she also knew how to get whatever she wanted from anyone, and she was kind of proud of that. It’s usually easy for the female to trick anybody, especially men, and make them to do whatever she wanted, because, once they have fall for her, there’s no turning back nor a way to escape from her spell.

But, as the world isn’t perfect, there’s always an exception to the rule, and that exception wasn’t another than Park Chanyeol.

Even with her big eyes, her shining log hair and her slender (but still slightly curvy) figure, it was difficult for her to even approach the giraffe for the first time. The older man was a disaster when they first met (thanks to her mother) and she wondered if that man lying on his hospital gurney was the same man her mother told her about.

He had big dark circles under his eyes, messy hair and pale skin (skin too pale to be healthy if she was being honest), unable to move from his bed and without any willing to smile (and apparently neither to live) anymore.

She didn’t know the reason why his objective was so depressed, and it wasn’t like she cared anyways, so, she took advantage of the situation and offered him a shoulder to cry on and he took it. What surprised her was that he never asked her to step forward in that weird friendship they started in those three days he was hospitalized, she made the entire job by herself.

She offered the man someone who could make him forget everything, she promised him she would help him to get over whatever was hurting him, and they started some kind of relationship that afternoon when she leaned in and kissed Chanyeol on the lips. He didn’t even kissed her back; she didn’t know why he asked her to be his girlfriend since he almost looked disgusted when he pulled back after a couple of seconds of their kiss (which made Saebyul freak out. Nobody has never refuse to any kiss of hers, nobody) but be it.

She didn’t even know if what they had was an actual relationship since all they talked about was Chanyeol’s best friend, who moved to London days before they first meet.

They talked about how the two friends met when they were kids, how they spent all their childhood together, how they grown up together, how they did it ing all together.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out, for how the boy talked about his dear friend, that his feelings toward the above weren’t just in a friendly way (though the black haired didn’t seem like notice his own feelings yet) and Saebyul could bet that that Baekhyun, who Chanyeol was always talking about, felt in the same way towards the taller boy.

It wasn’t like she was jealous nor anything, Lord no, she was even thankful she didn’t have to endure another sham relationship in which her partner would act like a bloody octopus, always wanting awful physical stuff like disgusting with men twenty years older than her or continuing kisses from smoking mouths.

Chanyeol didn’t even acted like an actual boyfriend, but she couldn’t complain though. Chanyeol wasn’t a dirty old man nor a ert sick at least. The black haired was just two years older that her, he was kind, even pretty good-looking. He didn’t force her to do anything (moreover, it was her who always had to make the first move in anything ual related) and she could perfectly fall for him if he weren’t who he was, her actual victim.

That’s right, she doesn’t seduce men for love; she doesn’t even make them fall for her for lust. What Saebyul looks for in their preys is their money, and Chanyeol was damn rolling in it. But now that Baekhyun is back into his boyfriend’s (and hopefully future husband) life, it seems like all her efforts to make the boy marry her (so she would inherit his family’s fortune) were in vain.

She could feel the tension between the two men growing up with every second it passed, she could feel their mutual sneaky (if you want to call them that) stares at each other when they thing nobody’s looking at lunch, she could even feel how badly they want to just talk to the other but they’re too ashamed and afraid for that.

She could feel Chanyeol ignoring her again, absently, thinking too much, and that was the last thing Saebyul wanted when their wedding was within less than a week.

Maybe Chanyeol was a berk unable to realise his own feelings and a bigger one who could mistake friendship with love and vice versa, but he wasn’t that stupid. Saebyul fears that if Baekhyun sticks around her boy too much her fiancée wouldn’t be her fiancée anymore if he would find out something she definably didn’t wanted him to find out (aka his true feelings towards her and that damn Baekhyun).

If Baekhyun sticks around too much Chanyeol would realise that what he has with her isn’t more than a bad joke in comparison with how his face lighted up like a Christmas tree every time he talked about the old times and that dwarf he called his best friend.

She fears Chanyeol would leave her for him.

She fears her mother.

But Saebyul wouldn’t let it happen.

There weren’t too many things Saebyul was actually bad at, but one of them was lose, and she’ll never lose, not against someone like Byun Baekhyun, not when there’s so much at stake.

So she leaned in and whispered something into Chanyeol’s ear, leaving a quick pick on it too. It didn’t really matter what she said; she knew that, when her boyfriend let out a little “Mhpf” in response, he hadn’t even payed attention to her, but her move was being an absolute success. She could read it in Baekhyun’s nauseated expression, almost hurt, when his eyes on her and the taller boy.

The female smiled from ear to ear, pleased by the guy’s that she already considerate her enemy obvious expression.

Since she had to leave Chanyeol’s cousin’s (Kyunwoo or whatever his name was, she really didn’t mind) parent’s summer house today (because it would be fishy if she didn’t let her beloved boyfriend some space and time to enjoy himself with his friends for his stag-party), she’ll make sure to keep that little dwarf away from Chanyeol, at least, enough time before her come back the morning before the wedding day.

She’ll make sure no one gets in her plans, and if that means she has to act even ter, she would do it for sure. There are two long days and nights before her return and anything can happen in this house.

Anything.

Wow, it's been a long time since I updated the last chapter, mianhae (?

I'm sorry (as always) for the long wait. I know how hard it's wait for a new update when the story isn't completed yet, so thank you for the patience, really. This time I do kind of have an idea of what I want for the next chapter, so I hope it doesn't take me as long as this time.

Also, thank you so much for all the subs, specially the upvotes and the comments. Means a lot :)

Btw, I included ing because I could.

I promise there will be more chanbaek fluff soon, just don't kill me yet.

ilyasfm <3

-Ari.