Baekhyun was married. Those words rang in his head over and over; it made things so final, any chance Zitao had had was now completely gone. After the wedding, he couldn't even bring himself to stay in contact with the other anymore.

Whenever Zitao received an email from Baekhyun, he would delete it without reading it; there was no point in pretending that everything was all right anymore, he had decided. There was a new e-mail at least once a week, and Zitao ignored every single one of them; he wished that Baekhyun would just stop. There was an occasional phone call at first too, but that soon stopped happening. Eventually, Zitao resorted to deleting that e-mail and making a new one, but he still added Baekhyun as a contact.

Zitao and Kris were still living relatively well since they had moved away from the other town and to where they still were. Kris had gotten a job as a stock boy at a supermarket, Zitao was working as a waiter at a restaurant, and as a cashier at a local convenience store; the pay wasn't really that great for either of them, but it was enough.

"Zitao, I have to work overtime," Kris said over the phone, and Zitao could hear the sound of shuffling behind him, telling him that he was indeed working. Not that he doubted him. "Hello?"

"Sure, see you when you get back then."

Kris mumbled something along the lines of “okay” and “take care” before hanging up. Tossing the phone aside, Zitao settled into the couch, hoping to enjoy one of those rare days off.

He had been sitting there for about ten minutes before he heard the unmistakable sound of someone knocking on his door. Sighing, he sank further back into the cushions; anyone at this time was most likely a salesman or someone annoying like that. Normally, though, they would go away after knocking a couple times, but this person wouldn't stop, not even after more than a full minute. Groaning, Zitao, very unwillingly, got to his feet and started to walk towards the door.

"Go away!" He yelled as he opened the door a crack. "I don't want whatever you-!"

"Hi, Zitao… I-"

Zitao slammed the door shut. He leaned against the door, breathing heavily, trying to figure out what to do or say; of all the people he expected to be there, he had never expected Baekhyun.

"Zitao… Did I do something wrong?" Zitao closed his eyes when the other started speaking again. "Why have you stopped responding to me?"

The taller male still didn't respond though, partially hoping that Baekhyun would just leave.

"I'm sorry, Zitao," Baekhyun's voice cracked a little. "I'm sorry for inviting you to the wedding, if that's what the problem is. I'm sorry if I hurt you in any way… I… I still have feelings for you, and I know that you still feel something for me… and I just wanted a sense of closure and I know that I might not have gone about it the right way-"

"Go away, Baekhyun!" Zitao shouted, covering his ears. "I don't want to listen to anything you have to say!"

There was stunned silence from the other side of the door.

"I… just want you to know that I'm here for you…" Baekhyun eventually said, his voice much lower than it had been. "I-"

"Just leave, please…" Zitao slid down the door and pulled his knees up to his chest, his heart pounding painfully. "Please…"

"I… Okay."

And then there was silence for a moment before he heard his footsteps moving further and further from the door. Zitao sighed and buried his face into his arms. Now he was going to spend the rest of the day thinking about Baekhyun, again. So much for enjoying his day off…

Kris was worried about him; it was so obvious that Zitao could tell without looking at him. He wasn't just worried about this last encounter with Baekhyun, but he had also been worried for the majority of the last year since the other's wedding.

"Taozi, talk to me," Kris said, placing an arm around his boyfriend's shoulder. "Let me help."

Zitao sighed before leaning his head on the older male's shoulder and closing his eyes.

"Have you ever loved someone so much that you couldn't bear to let them go?" Zitao asked, a little rhetorically, but he still paused, waiting for an answer. When he didn't get one after about a minute, he continued. "That's how I feel about Baekhyun. I loved him, still do, so much that it hurt to see him even interact with Chanyeol. When he broke up with me, I died a little inside. When we made up, I never wanted to let him go again. I got a little possessive, and I treated him a little more roughly than I should have. And then he told me that Chanyeol asked him out, and I could see in his eyes that he wanted to, he wanted to be with him. So I let him go, I let him go because I knew that he deserved better than me. I left the city after that. You've been the best thing that's happened to me since… and I'm sorry…" It wasn't until he trailed off, did Zitao realize that he was crying.

There was a pause before he felt himself being scooped up into strong arms and being held tightly. Zitao allowed himself to cry freely; it felt so good to just let his feelings out.

"And then I saw him again, after all those years, and I just cracked…" Zitao sniffled, his face buried in Kris' chest. "I wanted to hurt Chanyeol, because he took him away from me, but then Baekhyun pushed him out of the way. I didn't stop, though, I took out almost every little ounce of frustration I felt towards him on him, and didn't stop until Chanyeol yelled for me to… I don't even really understand what came over me. I don't know anymore, Kris."

"It'll be okay, just keep talking," Kris told him, placing a soft kiss on top of his head. "Get it off your chest."

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Zitao sighed, snuggling against the other. "And then he invited me to his wedding… and he wrote me a letter, he said he still had feelings for me and all of that… you know, giving me false hope. I agreed to go to the wedding because… because part of me still believed that we had a chance…" He paused and looked up at Kris. "I'm so sorry… you… you deserve better too…"

"Hey, you're still here, aren't you?" Kris gave him one of those smiles that made Zitao's heartbeat quicken. "That means a lot to me. No one had ever stayed by my side for so long."

Leaning down, the older male gave him a kiss, and for a moment they just stayed there, with their lips pressed together, no one pushing any harder. When they pulled away, Zitao smiled back at him, and leaned his head into the crook between the other's neck and shoulder.

"Well, I'm not going to dwell on him anymore," Zitao decided. "Because now, any chance there had been, is completely gone… so I can move on… perhaps it's time to settle our differences once and for all…"

Kris responded by kissing the top of Zitao's head once again before whispering, "good luck." And the younger boy felt like he could do anything from those two words alone.

"Thank you."

"I believe… I believe it's time to find that closure that you wanted," Zitao stated, after a deep breath. "And perhaps part ways…"

"Zitao," Baekhyun breathed deeply, and his fingers dug deeper into his own palms, leaving small crescent shapes. "You and I… we should have settled this years ago… when we first broke up. I shouldn't have let it end the way it did… I've been regretting my actions every day since then."

Zitao's gaze had settled upon Baekhyun's wedding ring upon his left hand, and steeled himself, reminding himself why he was here in the first place.

"I regret the way that I acted towards you after we had made up," Zitao replied, reaching out and pulling Baekhyun's left hand into his own and began to gently run a finger over the wedding band. "And I regret the way that I had hurt you… I… hadn't realized that I had so much anger and frustration towards you. I'm sorry."

"Well, I learned an important lesson," Baekhyun cracked a smile as he pushed his hair away from his forehead to reveal the scar that was there. "Don't make Huang Zitao angry, and I have the scar to prove it!" That had apparently been meant as a joke because Baekhyun started to laugh, but then stopped almost immediately because Zitao was staring at him rather seriously. "I'm sorry…" He mumbled awkwardly, before letting his fringe fall back into place.

Using his free hand, Zitao brushed some loose hairs away from the other's face and allowed his hand to gently brush across the scar that he had left on Baekhyun. When the older boy winced, he immediately pulled his hand away.

"Does it still hurt?" Zitao asked, worried. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"No," Baekhyun replied, shaking his head. "I'm just not used to anyone else touching it."

Zitao nodded and they were silent for a bit. The younger boy continued to play with the other's ring, and briefly entertained the thought of taking it off and throwing it away, but didn't do any more then twisting it one way, and back.

"So, Taozi," Baekhyun's voice was unsure as he looked Zitao in the eye. "Are… are we okay?"

The taller boy twisted the ring to the left, settling it in its original position before letting Baekhyun's hand go.

"Yeah, we're okay."

Peace never lasts too long, though, and Zitao's first sign of the end of theirs was when Kris came home with a bruise on his cheek. The older male had claimed that a couple of his coworkers had gotten into a fight, and he got the bruise when he tried to break it up. Zitao wasn't sure if he completely believed that, but he told Kris he did anyways.

About a week later, when his bruise was almost gone, he came home with a deep cut on his forearm that was still bleeding.

"I refuse to believe that your coworkers got into another fight and one of them cut you with a knife," Zitao deadpanned, crossing his arms in front of him, feeling no satisfaction when Kris winced at his words. "Please, just tell me what happened…"

The older male shook his head, his features creased in worry. "I can't right now, Taozi… I promise… I promise I can figure this out on my own."

"…Fine," Zitao relented, extremely reluctantly. "At least let me patch you up, okay?"

Kris nodded, a grateful smile on his face, before moving to sit on the couch. Sighing, Zitao went to find the first-aid kit before sitting down next to the other on the couch. Carefully, the younger boy rolled up the other's sleeve and surveyed the extent of the wound.

"Yeah, I think you need stitches…" Zitao told him, looking for what he needed in the box. "Now, I've only done this once before, so bear with me, okay?"

Kris just nodded as Zitao threaded the needle before sticking it into the other's skin around the cut as gently as possible. The older male showed no sign of having felt it, so Zitao continued, making sure that it was sewed completely shut, and trying to make it as neat as possible, but failing somewhat in that aspect. Finally, he tied it off, cut the string and then bandaged it.

"Take it easy, okay?" Zitao said, packing the first aid materials away. "I don't like seeing you hurt."

"Thanks Taozi," Kris replied, slowly twisting his arm around, testing to see how much he could do without hurting or reopening the cut. "I feel better already."

The younger boy nodded and smiled slightly; he liked seeing Kris happy. The older male leaned forward and kissed Zitao on the forehead, before kissing his lips and letting then linger there for a moment, and in that moment, the two of them had never felt closer or happier.

Two weeks later, Kris didn't come home at all. Zitao got a text from the other saying something about work and his coworker needing help; it was a pretty incoherent text. To say that Zitao was worried about Kris, at this point, was the biggest understatement ever.

All of these things, from the bruise, to the deep cut, and now not coming home, most likely meant that Kris was in some kind of deep trouble and didn't want Zitao to know. Zitao wanted to know, he just didn't know how to get his answers; Kris didn't tell people about his problems until he either had no other choice, or it was too late, or both. It was just the way he was.

Warning bells had been going off in Zitao's head since Kris had come home with that bruise on his cheek, and since then they've been getting louder and louder with each passing day; just what was the other hiding from him? Was it some horrible and shameful secret that he didn't want to reveal in fear of Zitao leaving him? Or perhaps he had done something wrong, and was now facing the consequences? Whatever it was, Zitao wanted answers and he wanted them at that very moment.

And he got one, the very next day, when he found a note that was being held up by a knife attached to their apartment door that read:

It’s been three years, Wu Fan; we want our money now.

For a moment, Zitao wondered who this Wu Fan was, before briefly entertaining the thought of it being tacked to the wrong door, but then it clicked inside his head; there was no one else it could be, and the kind of people that stick notes on to you door with a knife don’t make mistakes. And when he made that connection, a few other things fell into place as well.

So, Kris, or Wu Fan apparently, had been running and hiding from these people, whoever they were, for three years? Zitao couldn't help but wonder how much of the last two years were really true then. Had he really cared about what Lu Han did, or had he just used that as an excuse to leave the town they had been in? Did he really care about Zitao, or was he just using him to hide from these people? Just who was Kris, or Wu Fan? And just when Zitao thought he really knew the man that he had been living with for the past two years… If he was lying about his identity, who knew what else he could be lying about.

"Taozi, we have to leave!" Kris shouted as he barged into the apartment. "We need to get away!"

He came to a halt in front Zitao, breathing heavily and his face wild. The younger boy didn't move a muscle though, if anything he settled further into his position.

"I'm not going anywhere without answers first, Kris," Zitao stated. "Or maybe I should call you Wu Fan?"

The older male froze at the other's words.

"How… how did you-?" He eventually stammered, shock, guilt and, something that seemed to be, anger all over his face.

"This." Zitao picked up the note that he had found on the door, and scrunched it up, before he threw it towards Kris, where it landed fairly close to his feet.

Stiffly, the older male bent down to pick up the note, and as he read it, a number of emotions crossed his face, from defeat to guilt, to sadness and anger. Eventually, he tossed the wrinkled note aside and the look on his face told Zitao that he would finally get those answers that he has wanted for weeks.

"Yes, my real name is Wu Fan," He began, ringing his hands nervously in front of him. "And for three years I had been trying to run away from a debt that I owe some people… I had borrowed money for my mother's hospital fees. She had cancer and we were poor."

Kris wandered over to the couch and sat down, but was careful to leave a distance between him and Zitao. The younger boy looked at the other sympathetically, feeling slightly guilty about his earlier attitude.

"And then mother passed away… my father ran away," Kris said after a couple of heavy sighs. "And I was left with the heavy debt, and a bunch of angry people on my trail… I had managed to avoid them for about a year when I bumped into you that night. I had been angry, because I had just spent the day thinking about my current predicament, and was just generally in a bad mood, so when I bumped into you, I wanted to bring you down too. Misery loves company, after all…"

Kris gave a short and bitter laugh before shifting towards Zitao, his face apologetic.

"I know what you're thinking, Taozi," Kris pulled one of the other's hands into his, a small smile on his face. "You think that these last two years have been a lie, that everything I've ever told you is a lie and that I don't really care about you. I can tell you that besides my name and this little money thing, nothing has been a lie. The Lu Han thing… I may have exaggerated a little bit, and truthfully, I had known that had all been self-defense. I just wanted – needed – a reason to leave that town… Now, the amount of terrible things I've done just keeps piling up, and to top it all off, I may lose you too. I don't want that, Taozi, because my feelings for you are the most genuine thing. I love you, Huang Zitao, and I don't want you to get hurt…"

"How much do you owe them?" Zitao whispered, after considering everything that Kris had just said. "And I've already been in for this long, albeit unknowingly, so I'm going to stay until the end. I love you too, Kris."

"I… about $200,000," The older male said, his hand tightening around Zitao's. "Thank you, Taozi, you being here is more than I could ever ask for."  

"That's… a lot of money…" Zitao swallowed as he mentally tried to calculate how long it would take them to earn that much. "I had no idea hospitals charged that much…"

"Well, it started out as about $100,000," Kris replied, giving the other a rather helpless look. "After three years, though, they decided to charge interest, and a lot of it…"

When Zitao said nothing, Kris added: "My mother was in the hospital for a long time… and this actually includes funeral costs as well."

The younger boy swallowed rather audibly before closing his eyes for a moment and opening them again.

"Well, at this point, the only thing we can do is try to come up with that money as soon as possible," Zitao stated rather matter-of-factly. "We may have to borrow money… who are these people anyways? Who leaves notes stuck to your door with a knife?"

Kris winced at that question but remained quiet.

"…Needless to say, they're bad people, right?"

Zitao got a nod in response, but that was it. With a sigh, the younger boy got off the couch and walked over to his computer. He had no idea how they were going to solve this problem, but one thing was for sure, and that was that they needed to stop running away. With that thought in mind, Zitao started composing an email to Baekhyun; as much as he didn't want to involve any more people, they would need all the help they could get.

"Money… money… it's always about money…" Baekhyun mumbled under his breath as he paced back and force in front Zitao. "Why do people care about money so much?"

Zitao could only shrug as he watched the other.

"Maybe you two should uh," Baekhyun paused, but continued to pace. "Try negotiating? Pay them like, maybe, a thousand or so per month? And then you could pay it off in like… 16 years…" Baekhyun groaned before trailing off again.

"Why don't you come sit before you wear a hole in the floor?" Zitao smiled a little, trying to keep this discussion as light–hearted as possible, despite the situation. "Come on, Baekhyun, sit."

"You know, Zitao," Baekhyun said as he settled himself on to the couch. "You don't deserve any of this, this… crap that you've been through, that I know I'm partially responsible for… I want you to find peace."

"Thanks," The younger boy told the other earnestly. "But, I think the good outweigh the bad at this point. I mean, I've never felt closer to Kris or you, and that alone is worth the bad things. Besides, it'll pass."

Smiling, Baekhyun leaned forward and embraced Zitao tightly. For that little bit, neither of them said anything, and for that moment, both of them were trying, in vain, to ignore the seriousness of the current situation. They released each other when Baekhyun's phone started ringing. Pulling it out his pocket, he checked the caller I.D, and made a face before answering.

"Hi, Channie," Baekhyun had this awkwardly fake smile on his face. "I'm with Zitao… Yeah, we're fine… Everything's fine… We were just catching up… I know, love, but I swear to you that nothing will ever happen… I love you, too… Yes, I'll call you on my way home… Bye."

Baekhyun snapped the phone shut with a sigh and put it away.

"Keeping secrets from your husband, are we?" Zitao teased gently, a slight smirk on his face.

"Chanyeol doesn't need to get involved in this, Zitao," The other replied, his eyes narrowed slightly. "This… this could get dangerous, and… and I can't stand the thought of him getting hurt…"

"Have you thought about it from his point of view?" Zitao asked, his voice firm. "Do you think he would want you to get hurt?"

"I…" Baekhyun paused as realization dawned on him. "…I've been so selfish…"

Zitao reached a hand out and patted the other's arm comfortingly.

"It's okay, Baekhyun," He said. "Just talk to him when you get home, let him know what you're getting yourself into. Let him decide whether or not he wants to get involved."

"You're right," Baekhyun muttered, nodding. "I will. I will not make decisions for him."

"Okay, so can we get back to Kris' problem?" Zitao asked. "You promised to help."

"Right, right," The older boy nodded, his face twisting in thought. "Um… I can ask my parents? They're pretty rich. Or uh… Sehun even. His parents left him quite a bit when they passed away."

"I hate having to ask people for money," Zitao groaned, leaning back against the couch. "But fine, at this point I'm fairly desperate…"

"I'll ask for you, but you should probably come with me," Baekhyun said. "Okay?"

"Fine," Zitao sighed, turning his head to look at the other. "Let's go… tomorrow? I'll take a day off."

"No, I can't tomorrow… the day after? So… this coming Tuesday?"

"Okay, I'll just tell my bosses that it's an emergency… hopefully they'll forgive how last minute it is… Regardless, I'm still going." Zitao was a bit more worried about his and Kris' lives at this point than losing his jobs.

"I'll call you then," Baekhyun smiled before embracing the other again. "I need to get going."

"Thank you, Baekhyun," Zitao hugged him tightly. "And be careful."

All or nothing. Those words flashed across the screen in large and unclear letters.

Money for Baekhyun's life.

Zitao just stared at those words for an entire minute, even though it felt much longer than that. And then he realized that his second worst fear had just come true. The thing that he feared most, at this point, was losing Kris As the image of Baekhyun, bruised and beaten, appeared on the screen, Zitao's hands clinched; these people had gone way too far. Hands shaking, he dialed Chanyeol's number; someone needed to tell him.

"Hello, Chanyeol?"

"Who is this?"

"It's Zitao," He said as he released the breath he had been holding.

"Where's my Baekkie?" Chanyeol whispered, fear all too clear in his voice. "Did something happen to him?"

"I'm sorry, Chanyeol… but he…" Zitao his lips, suddenly finding the air in the room to be suffocating. "He…"

End of part three

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I know I originally said that there were only going to be 3 parts, but I was writing it, and this felt right? So yes, there will be a part 4, and part will definitely be the final part, I swear. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this part ^_^;

Thank you so much to the people who subscribed and to the people who commented! <3 I love you all! You guys really make my day ^_^

So, until next time! ^_^ I promise that I will post the final part as soon as possible... hopefully within the next couple of weeks or so =3