This chapter. :) 

catharsis- (n.) the act of emotional cleansing done in art forn

>>>SEUL MIN'S POV<<<

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51TSs9dVSDQ  Farewell My Love by SHINee

I told myself that he would come by Thursday night, 11:59 pm, dressed in his training clothes, face mask on, ready to tell me "every single damn thing I ought to know."

"Of course he will come." I said aloud that Thursday night, and as I stood in front of The Coffee Club at 11:58 pm, I smiled and kept a positive disposition.

"He will be here in two minutes." I reassured clumsy old me and looked at the closed doors of the beloved coffee shop.

But as soon as the clock struck 1:14 am of Friday, my body failed on me and I landed on my knees. 

Baekhyun did not keep his promise. Baekhyun never went to The Coffee Club, and once again, I was stood up without any prior notice. 

Exactly what Chanyeol did, many heartaches ago...

But I never gave up on the idea of loving Byun Baekhyun. Who said that he needed to keep his promise? I was not an obligation after all.

I was just Seul Min.

Just Seul Min.

So to answer your question, "Why the hell was Seul Min standing in front of Baekhyun after their concert?", the answer is simple.

I made up my mind to tell Baekhyun that I was irrevocably in love with him, and he ought to know.

I did not have the money to watch the concert, but I had the patience to wait for Baekhyun at the backstage alley. Call me an oaf, but I waited for two hours and a half. I did not have the assurance that Baekhyun would use the backstage alley to exit, but beneath me was a hopeful soul.

And the hopeful soul was not mistaken. Indeed, Baekhyun used the backstage alley to exit.

The first thing I noticed was not his EXO'luXion shirt nor his pristine stage makeup. His eyes.

I looked at his eyes and aimed to decipher the sadness masked by the grey contact lenses and red-toned eyeshadow.

My heart almost leaped when he hauled me with his arms. When his arms started wrapping around my waist, he leaned his head on my shoulder, and in that very second, I figured out that something was wrong. It was his turn to cry.

"Come. I'll take you home." I whispered back and tightened my hold on him by hugging him back.

As soon as the taxi cab pulled up at my small but homey apartment, Baekhyun breathed so deep, I heard it.

"I'm sorry for the clutter." I apologized to him when I had pushed the front door open. I earned no reply from Baekhyun. He remained silent, and the silence was deafening. His unusual taciturnity stirred my curiosity, and my own ears threatened to split apart because Baekhyun refused to say a word. He remained motionless as he sat curtly on my tattered leatherette couch.

I reached for the light switch, but his equally strong arm stopped me. In one swift move, Baekhyun successfully pulled my arm, causing me to sit beside him on the couch.

Uncomfortable with the darkness and mosquitoes buzzing, I managed to turn on the dim lampshade placed on the worn out wooden coffee table, and I studied Baekhyun's face. His eyeliner was smearing on his lashline, and his eyes were growing scarlet because he had been rubbing his eyes in the taxi cab. The red undertone of Baekhyun's eyeshadow was starting to look like a bad blackeye.

Knowing Baekhyun, he was the type to remove his makeup immediately.

"Wait here." I told him and his hair before going to the bathroom. Wow I was being a flirtatious . 

I came back to the living room with a basin filled with water and a damp towel. "I hope you don't mind, but allow me to remove your makeup for you. If you're injured, I have my medical insurance here. Tell me ASAP. Whatever it is you're thinking, Baekhyun, tell me. For now, let's remove that makeup."

Baekhyun nodded and looked down at the broken tiles of my apartment. Again, he responded with no words. 

And just then, Byun Baekhyun began weeping.

His weeping turned into a sorrowful medley of sobs and hiccups. I opened my mouth to say something, but my own tears choked me. I cried because it pained me to see Baekhyun like that.

"What's wrong?" I asked him, pretending to be neutral, but I was an idiot. I was crying too, ugly crying.

"I'm, I'm I don't know. Look at me. Look at the mess I have become." Baekhyun said in between his cries. I took note of his eyeliner streaming terribly on his BB Cream-splattered skin. 

It was probably my first time to see him so weak and defenseless, and the churning in my abdomen worsened when he cried harder by the minute.

As Baekhyun cried an emotional cry, I began wiping his face with the damp towel.

With every wipe of the towel was a smear of makeup bidding goodbye from Baekhyun's face.

With every wipe of the towel was a tear from Baekhyun's eyes.

With every wipe of the towel was my growing realization that the person in front of me was only human. 

Baekhyun without the makeup was imperfectly human. He had blemishes on his left cheek and forehead, he had bags under his eyes, and his lips chapped too. But he was still beautiful.

Under the thick makeup and perfectly coiffed dirty blonde hair was just Baekhyun, and it hurt to see Baekhyun in such merciful vulnerability, but at the same time, it was beguiling to see Baekhyun as human, divorced from the labels society created for him.

Power vocals, Eyeliner Idol, Chanyeol's , Master Imitator, Baekon, Beagle line Kkaebsong,

None of those labels existed as I continued removing the pretentious makeup from his face, exposing the human that was Byun Baekhyun. 

Just Byun Baekhyun

And just when I thought that Baekhyun had stopped crying, he had just begun. And I witnessed a human being unfold.

"Do you know how hard it was for me to endure all the insults thrown at me when my dating scandal broke out? Seul Min, I wanted to die. I was called a traitor on national tv, but nobody has seen me give up. Because I'm Baekhyun, and if I cried and showed my weak side, everybody would sympathize, but out of the seven million people in this world, who would understand? Who would carry this burden of insults? Nobody."

My tears were u