The week had come to an end, and it was time for Yunseul to leave London. Baekhyun sighed as he held on to her luggage and they got onto the tube towards Paddington Station, silent and unable to look at each other. Quickly, she bought a ticket for the Heathrow Express. Smiling at each other, they walked to the designated platform together, where the next train was due to depart in three minutes. “You know what you’re doing, right?” Baekhyun asked.

For a second, she thought he was asking her about her life. Then Yunseul realised he was only inquiring about travel logistics. “Yup. This goes straight towards Heathrow, right?” 

Baekhyun smiled. “Yeah. Just get out at Terminal Three. It’s easy.”

They looked at each other for a while, still uncomfortable with what had happened the night before. It was obviously a mistake, albeit a small one. Baekhyun had never felt so guilty towards Jongin. It was wrong. Damn it! He thought, staring a hole into the ground. What was I thinking?

“So… See you. We’ll come visit you soon, together.” Yunseul smiled, slightly uneasily. 

They hugged awkwardly, Baekhyun for the first time unsure if he should encircle his arms around her waist or her shoulders, and Yunseul’s arms slightly in mid-air. She thanked him for everything, before turning away slowly…

“Seul!” Baekhyun called from behind suddenly, and she spun around, half in expectation, half in anxiety. 

“I… I’m sorry.” Baekhyun’s face contorted in guilt and worry. “I’m really sorry.”

She smiled. “It’s okay. Let’s put it behind us.”

He chewed on his bottom lip, a bundle of nerves. “I didn’t ruin everything, did I?”

“Every what?”

“Every...  us.” She could hear her heart thumping louder in her ears upon hearing him say that. It was so loud, she couldn’t hear herself, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. She shook her head.

“Not… not possible.” She smiled, her smile reaching her eyes.

He nodded and watched her turn away from him, and continued to watch as she boarded the train, found her seat, tapped on her phone and connected her earphones to her phone, inhaling the music emanating from it. She stood up from her seat and waved goodbye to him for the last time through the tinted glass window, and by the time he had lifted his hand to wave, she had sat herself back down. The last call for the train was announced, the announcement blaring in his ears like some sort of mockery. For a second, he felt like running after her, asking her to stay. He was prepared to. But then he thought of Jongin. His best, best friend. And then he wondered why the heck he was thinking of all this. His jeans felt like a thousand years old as they wrapped around his legs, almost like a blue bottle. His shirt burned him cold, and his leather jacket scraped at his arms, his mouth dry and feeling like sandpaper. 

What was going on with him? This is Yunseul, he thought to himself. 

He bit his lip and watched the train leave the platform, battling crazy urges to follow her. Whatever he felt at that moment… whether it was pure missing a friend or… something else, that he didn’t want to think about, it was temporary, right? This feeling of emptiness was going to go once he set his mind on his work…

Right?

Yunseul arrived at Terminal Three and went through the motions of checking in, going through security and customs, and then waiting to board. The flight felt endless, and even though she tried, she couldn’t sleep a wink, considering what had happened the night before. Then she thought about what Baekhyun said, about what had happened not ruining things between the two of them, and she worried. She hadn’t thought much about it when he said it, but now she felt there was something deeper that she did not grasp, between the lines. Placing a finger to her lips, she went through the happenings of the night before, and wondered if there had been some other sort of message he had been trying to get through to her.

It was the last night, just before Yunseul would leave London, and she was with Baekhyun at a bar, sitting in a nicely lit booth. She had wanted one more drink just before she left, and Baekhyun had suggested this bar for its name - Rhapsody, a term familiar to both. It is not an upbeat scene - Rhapsody is dingy and smoke-filled. But Yunseul decides she likes it anyway - it’s not sleek and it didn’t have a “try hard” feel to it, just a simple place for people to gather and spend time with each other. 

Baekhyun smiled at her sitting in the booth. “What can I get you?”

She told him to get her whatever he was having, then sat herself down and waited for him in the booth, watching him say something to the girl sitting at the bar before reporting his orders to the bartender, and then continuing to talk to the girl. Even from this distance, Yunseul knew Baekhyun wasn’t flirting. For one, the girl who had on a tank top and short cut-off shorts wasn’t his type at all (if he even had a type, which Yunseul had always been curious about). That said, the girl at the bar was obviously thirsting for Baekhyun, as she watched him hold the two mugs of beer and walk back towards the booth, totally checking out Baekhyun’s as he walked. She remembered how Jongin had told her Baekhyun attracts many stares from both women and men at the bar, and she laughed to herself. 

“What?” Baekhyun smiled in question, handing her her mug.

“Wow,” Yunseul smiled as she took a mug from him. “You really don’t know how people look at you.” 

He sat himself down next to her and shrugged. “You’re funny.”

So they continued to talk about their jobs and the vast differences between Western and Eastern cultures, the changes he felt he had to make when he first moved to London, and a lot of other things. After they finished their beers they moved over to the jukebox, fill it with dolla