“I’m such an idiot.”

 I lay face up next to my best friend on her decent sized queen size bed. She told me she just washed the sheets and I find it comforting and also a little bit disturbing.

“Hey, I thought that shoe metaphor was pretty good. Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Hyosung replies. We’ve finally called it a night and shut her house down.

I can hear the rain again.

“Oh, no not that. That was brilliant. I’m an idiot for bigger reasons.”

“You’re not an idiot. You’re just a little lost,” she murmurs as I can tell she’s drifting off to sleep.

Great. So now I’m lost and I’m barefoot.

* * *

I can hear faint, muffled sounds of Hyosung trying to wake me up, but my dream’s too strong to let go just yet. I’m at the altar with Jongin and the minister just asked if I will take Jongin’s hand in marriage. I’m trying my hardest to say “I do”, but I can’t even form the words in my own head. Everyone’s staring at me: Jongin’s parents, his sister, his family, his friends, my parents, my sister, my cousins, my family. They’re all watching and I can tell they’re starting to doubt me.

Hyosung is urging me with her eyes, and I catch Baekhyun sitting in the very back watching intently as well. I turn my head back to Jongin and he nods his head down insisting I finally say the simple two words. I try to open my mouth to speak, and still nothing comes out and only silence is heard. Everyone’s watching me and I can’t even speak at all. I don’t even know if I’m breathing.

Jongin is looking deep into my eyes, almost as if he is staring into my soul, checking to see if I really do love him and if this wedding was all a mistake. I desperately try to move my body at all, but it’s like I’m lucidly dreaming. I have no control over my body at all and it’s as if there’s a giant weight sitting on all of my muscles preventing me from moving at all.  The last thing I see are Jongin’s sad, hopeful eyes.

I don’t wake up with a jolt. The dream slowly fades away into reality and I can feel Hyosung’s hands on my back, violently shaking me awake.

“Wake up! We have to go to work!”

I groan and attempt to push her away blindly as I bury my face into the pillow beneath me. “I can’t.”

“Girl, I know you’re not necessarily mentally in tune for work today, but you don’t have a choice. We have that meeting today,” she grunts as she grabs me firmly by the shoulders.

I’m forcibly pulled up and Hyosung’s white room is very, very bright, despite the dark clouds looming outside the window. I squint hard and scratch an itch at the top of my head.

“Jongin and I were getting married and I couldn’t say, ‘I do’,” I mumble with a dry mouth, still adjusting to the light.

“That’s very nice, but you have to get up and face the real world now,” Hyosung says pulling me up and pushing me towards the bathroom. She turns on the shower to warm up the water and sets a towel down on the counter. She notices the dejection of my posture and turns me around to face her. “Hey, it was just a dream,” she says with a comforting rub on the shoulder.

I gently nod my head at her and she walks out, closing the door behind her. I glance at the clock hanging by the door wondering how early she’d woken me up. Thankfully I had a good thirty minutes till we had to leave and I didn’t need to rush through the morning.

Heaven knows I need all the time I can get.

* * *

“Jesus Christ, Hyosung, you just had to lend me the tightest pencil skirt you owned didn’t you,” I say as I struggle to get out of the car.

“I have bigger hips than you. I figured that one would have fit you well… Sorry,” she says with a chuckle. We walk into the building, although I probably look more like I’m scurrying since my legs can only move so far from the other.

The receptionists at the front desk look like they’re in a deep conversation of gossip with each other so it seems there is no need for sending them fake smiles this morning. As we walk past them, I catch one of them say, “I’d never think Chanyeol would be the type to do such a thing,” and I almost gasp. Bad news travels fast, doesn’t it?

I can only wonder how it even got around to them in the first place, considering only a handful of people knew about it in the first place.

“I wonder how Baekhyun’s holding up. He’s such a nice guy, he didn’t deserve that.”

I faintly hear as we step into the elevator. I’m thankful they don’t know what Baekhyun and I have been doing on the side, but it only leaves me wondering more. Does he deserve it because he made some bad choices? Or are bad things universal and always undeserving to those even with bad deeds?

I see Hyosung watching me tentatively in the corner of my eyes, knowing that I’m listening to their conversation as well. Thankfully she doesn’t say anything about it and leaves me to my thoughts.

I watch the elevator doors close and take note that there is no one charging for the elevator like there used to be. No one seamlessly gliding through the small opening of the closing doors and sending a knowing smirk my way. I used to enjoy those moments so much back then, but after last night it seems like even such innocent encounters seem so sinful.

Luhan and Jongdae had arrived just before us and seemed to be gossiping about the same thing as their computers started up. The news had already made its way to the third floor… Luhan looked over his shoulder towards us and gives me a once over.

“Are you sleeping with Hyosung now? You’re literally wearing all of her clothes,” he teases as I uncomfortably settle in my seat. I send him a look, a little put off by the ‘cheating’ comment and he seems to get the hint, sending me an apologetic smile. “If you lower the skirt a little you should have an easier time walking,” he adds, noticing my struggle. And I never noticed he was gay before…

I take his advice nonetheless. “Uh, thanks.”

“So, I’m sure you must have heard from those loud receptionists downstairs about Chanyeol and Baekhyun,” Luhan says turning his computer chair to face me. “Or did you hear from the big guy himself?”

“Uh, yeah we heard…” I carefully answer, not knowing if I should even talk about Jongin finding out. “Do you know who spread it?”

“Apparently Chanyeol called a bunch of people last night looking for Baekhyun since he wasn’t answering his phone. I think Minseok from Tech accidentally spilled some info to those two because they just can’t shut up about it,” Jongdae voices, clicking his tongue after.

“Is Minseok close to Baekhyun?” I ask, genuinely curious. I didn’t know as much about Baekhyun as I thought. Sure we learned things about each other through anecdotes and stories and such, but I’d never met any other friends of Baekhyun’s other than Chanyeol; who doesn’t seem to be quite a good friend after all. Like they say, you can tell a lot about a person by their friends. Those last two things contradict each other a little bit, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve never met his other friends.

“They went to high school together,” Luhan says plainly. “So I’d assume that they’re pretty close.” A friend kept from high school? They must be close. Those kinds of friends were hard to come by.

I met Jongin in high school, my conscience echoes at me.

“I wonder how Baek’s holding up,” Hyosung unexpectedly says with a frown placing a hand under her chin.

“Why don’t you ask him? He’s coming this way,” Luhan points out.

“What?” I say, almost in a panic. I don’t look behind me, afraid I’ll make eye contact with him.

“What is wrong with you all of a sudden?” Luhan asks, eyeing my suddenly stiff posture through hooded lids.

“JonginfoundoutyesterdayandBaekhyunhappenedtobethereaswellandIhaventtalkedtohimsinceandthisisalljustreallybadtimingokay,” I quickly whisper before Baekhyun can get close enough to hear. Luhan’s eyes grow to the size of saucers but he quickly returns them to normal. I notice his eyes travel above my head and I know he's standing behind me.

I hesitantly turn around and look up to face Baekhyun, who is standing right at the edge of my desk. He’s close, but is still keeping a friendly distance.

I don’t say anything and wait for him to speak, partially because I’m still very caught off guard by his presence and the fact that he still looks very put together after last night’s events.

“Are, um, you okay?” he cautiously asks, keeping his hands in his pockets. Oh, I think. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but it definitely wasn’t that.
 

“I’m okay,” I reply, although I was everything but okay, but sometimes you just have to hide those words behind ‘okay’s to keep other people okay. “Are you okay?” I ask back.

“I’ll be alright,” he says, then sends this closed smile my way, looking at me like I’m the only girl in the world. He stays there for a moment just slightly smiling down at me, before nodding at the others, smoothly turning on his feet, and walking away.

“He seems different,” Jongdae says when Baekhyun’s out of ear’s reach.

“How so?” Hyosung asks.

“He just seems more open I guess. Like he has no more restraints and can talk to you freely now,” he says directly to me.

“Whoa, Jongdae, are you team Baekhyun all of a sudden?” Luhan chimes in.

I squint my eyes at the term “team Baekhyun”. “My life is not a ‘Twilight’ movie. Please don’t be placing bets on my life guys,” I almost groan, shaking my head as I place it into my palm.

Luhan has a sympathetic look on his face for once. “We’re not placing bets. We’re simply assessing who we think you would be better with.” Jongdae nods. I figure it’s genuine if Jongdae is agreeing.

“And you’re rooting for Baekhyun now?” I ask out of curiosity. Obviously someone as level headed as Jongdae would have quality advice. If he had been on Jongin’s side this whole time, I needed to know what would change his mind.

“I don’t want to sway your decision or anything because this is a big ordeal, but now that Minkyung is out of the picture, for good I’m assuming, he can fully, um, care for you now, without hesitation. And I don’t know, it just shows.”

I press my lips together in a line.

“That doesn’t help me very much.”

Or maybe it does. 

Are you guys as surprised as I am? i was serious about getting a move on with this fic! heuehueheuhfeibger yehet ok, I'm glad you guys all enjoyed the shoe metaphor because I genuinely thought I was being a little bit of a lunatic. I write from like 2-7am in the morning with no sleep because I'm insane so I don't know if things always make sense. it's 8:30am someone slap me with a bed. 

Also yeah I gave in and am planning that Mark one shot right now OTL he's going to be deaf and I just- I DONT KNOW WHAT FLUFF IS OK