Baekhyun has always treated me well at work. He makes sure that I don’t get bullied just because I’m a mere intern. He takes care of me well too, constantly asking if I was hungry or if I was tired. I would always shake my head with a grateful smile on my face. He’d return my smiles and would squeeze my arm before he leaves to attend to his own work.

He’s also the most polite when he asks me to do things for him and our breaks were usually spent outside the building in a comfy little restaurant or a ramen shop across the street. We do more talking than eating really and I try every single time not to fall for him even harder than I already have. Saying its hard is probably an understatement.

He’s just so easy to be around. My heart feels so light when he’s with me and I feel like I could just let loose, bring my walls down and let him see me as me. There was no boundary between us. Conversations flow easily and spontaneously, jokes come in naturally and so do teasing too. There would even be light skinship like slapping each other when we were laughing too hard, squeezing each other’s shoulder or arm for encouragements and even hugging when we bid goodbye.

I try not to put any meaning to all of it. He’s my friend, my co-worker, nothing more, nothing less and yet my heartbeat still doubles when we have tiny moments like that. I’d always feel disgusted with myself for loving a man who’s engaged. Yes, Byun Baekhyun is already engaged to his girlfriend of five years. And guess who the first person to know about the news is? Yup, it’s me. Apparently it’s not only Baekhyun who I’m close to but also Nari, his goddess of a girlfriend or well– fiancée.

I knew long ago that there was really no hope for me, not even a sliver but now that he’s engaged, I felt even more hopeless (if that’s even possible). I should’ve stopped my feelings. I should’ve stopped them the moment I saw him with his girlfriend at the resort. I should’ve stopped them the moment we became workmates.

I should’ve stopped them long ago but I didn’t, no– I couldn’t. Not when he hugged me when I was crying about a department head scolding me. Not when he stayed at the office later than he should to help me finish up my work and definitely not when we had a company outing and he kissed the cheek.

He was drunk. He had no idea what he was doing but there was something in his eyes that told me he wasn’t, like he meant to do that and he meant to screw with my feelings. My eyes were darting over his features slowly, drinking them in, memorizing them. I was about to give in. I wanted to kiss him so bad. He’s only a few centimeters away and he wouldn’t even be fighting back if I try but I felt sick, appalled with myself. It was so wrong.

I can’t be taking advantage of that moment so I didn’t. I took a deep breath, tentatively putting his arm over my shoulder. I wrapped my arm around his torso to steady him. He was staring at the side of my face and I tried very hard to ignore the heat of that stare as I hauled him up. I successfully had him up to his feet, with much difficulty might I mention since almost everyone was too wasted help me out. I sighed deeply. “C’mon, Baekhyun. I’ll take you back up to your room.” I was about to start walking when his phone suddenly started to ring.

I froze. I knew exactly who’d be calling. He grimaced at the annoying sound of his phone while I fixed his arm around me and reached into his pocket to grab it. I shouldn’t have done that though. I was so close to him that I could feel his steamy breath fanning my cheek but I pulled myself together enough to quickly move away.

I pressed the green button and was about to give it to him but he was drunk as hell. I doubted that he’d be decent enough to actually speak so I pressed his phone to my ear instead. Carefully, I sat him back down as I spoke softly into the phone. “Hello, Nari. I know you want to talk to Baekhyun and ask him how he’s doing but the poor guy’s drunk right now.” I bit my lip hard.

If I was his fiancée and his female co-worker picked up his phone, stating that he’s drunk, I would’ve gone berserk but Nari is too sophisticated for that and I knew she trusted Baekhyun way too much to even think wrongly of this whole situation. “Really? Wow. He must’ve had a lot of fun, huh?” she managed to joke, giggling a little. “Alright then. Please tell him I called to check up on him and please take care of him for me. Thanks, boo. Love you!” then she hung up.

I exhaled that breath I had been unconsciously holding and dropped the phone on my lap. Maybe she trusts me a little too much too and the mere thought of it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. That’s the last thing she should do. I should be the last person she’d trust when it came to Baekhyun.

I’ve already accepted the fact that Sehun and I could never be together again. I knew that I should keep moving on and forget about him but how exactly can I do that when the boy almost never leaves me alone? He’s like a puppy following his owner everywhere. We have a few classes together and those are the only times that I think it’d be necessary to be together but in between? Before? After? Why is he still sticking around me?

He goes to my apartment in the morning for god’s sake and gives me a ride to school. He looks for me whenever he knows I have a break. He drives me home too and when I go to work. I tried to convince myself that he’s just doing that because he’s a very considerate friend and because we’re close now.

I don’t have that many friends in college so he probably feels like he should hang out with me so I don’t feel so alone. I appreciate it, I really do and I love his company but there are times when he’d talk about us and I’d just end up feeling sick to my stomach, wondering why I hadn’t pushed him away long ago.

Remember when we did this? Remember when we did that? Yes, Oh Sehun. I remember and quite vividly too because he gives in so much detail to his storytelling. I found it very weird. Why is he bringing it up all the time? Why does he keep telling me how much he was dying to finally ask me out back then? What efforts he had to do to make me notice him? He’s always so casual about that topic and sometimes I feel annoyed that he couldn’t notice how uncomfortable I was and how forced my smiles were getting.

Is he somehow making me feel guilty for wasting what we had? I’m not sure. It doesn’t sound that way when he talks. He just… genuinely wanted to ask me if I remembered I guess. But I don’t know. One moment, he could be talking about the professor we hate, make fun of him and curse him out then he’d suddenly tell me about the moment we kissed under the rain and how he felt about it, the next.

He’d have this unreadable gaze on me as he talked and I’d merely take a couple of glances, already feeling my heart unsettling. I keep trying to redirect our conversation but it would always end the same. It would end with us and our previous relationship.

“Why did you do it?” he asked out of the blue while I was busy laughing at what I did to his hair. I willed myself to stop laughing, taking a comb and using it to style Sehun’s hair into something more ridiculous than before. “Because you look funny,” I said, trying to stop myself from snickering. I heard him groan. He suddenly grabbed my wrists, shooting up from his seat and turning to face me. “I’m not talking about my hair,” he said, his tone and face serious now. I merely blinked at him. What is he even talking about?

The more I search his eyes, the more things started to sink in. Automatically, I felt exhausted knowing where this conversation was heading. Sighing, I shrugged his hands off of me. “Really? Are we really going to talk about this?” I can hear the annoyance in my tone and I’m sure he could too. I just didn’t understand why he always has to bring up a topic about us when it was completely irrelevant and unnecessary.

We were having a pretty good time. We were just merely hanging out now that exams are over and I have time to spare before I go to work later but why’d he have to bring this up and dampened my mood? “I just want to know why you suddenly did that. There’s no way it was only because you think we don’t belong together–”

“It wasn’t just me! Everyone around us thought that way, Sehun!” I snappe