Illusions of Broken Glass

Luhan stared up at the building, the windows tinted with red lights. He frowned a little, the eerie feel of the red-light district at night sending a shiver up his spine. He looked over to Chanyeol, who was looking just as uncomfortable.

“Jongdae, do we have to be here?” he whined, inching backwards to stand behind his shorter friend.

The filmmaker scoffed, holding up his camera. “We’re shooting here tonight. Just get ready to get caught by Chanyeol with a e,” explained Jongdae.

A frown adorned Luhan’s pale, pretty face. He crossed his arms, clearly not enjoying what Jongdae had planned for the shot. “It’s like we’re taking advantage of the women here,” he pointed out. “I don’t like it.”

Jongdae simply shrugged. “Chill, Lu. I approached the guy who owns this place about it. He said he talked to one of the girls, who agreed to do it as long as I agreed not to release her name in the credits,” he explained, smiling. “So c’mon, chill out. Let’s just get this done as quickly as possible. We only have two cameras, so let’s just get this done.” With that, he marched right into the building.

Luhan rolled his eyes, but followed his friend inside, Chanyeol carefully trailing behind them.

Inside Red Midnight, there was a man with a petite girl next to him.

“You’re Jongdae? I’m Changmin. We spoke on the phone.” He held his hand out to Jongdae, who shook it with a smile. “This is the girl I spoke to you about. Her name is Seohyun.” The girl bowed her head.

Jongdae smiled down at her. “Don’t worry, Seohyun, it’s not going to be anything bad, I promise. But thank you for doing this. This is Luhan, and behind him is Chanyeol.” Both boys waved, small smiles on their face. “You’re going to be working with the two of them.”

Seohyun blinked. “It’s… nice to meet you,” she bowed. “I’m glad I could help out. Unnie never lets me help them out… so I wanted to help someone who needed it.” She smiled brightly, her face flushing.

Ruffling her hair with a soft chuckle, Changmin looked to Jongdae. “I’ll show you guys where you’ll be shooting. All the other girls are out today, so you’ll probably have around four hours to shoot whatever you need,” said the building’s owner. Jongdae nodded, following Changmin and Seohyun.

Joonmyeon closed his computer with a sigh, rubbing his eyes. He was more stressed than he’d been in a while, all because of his stupid business classes.

“Stressed?” Baekhyun asked from where he was reading a book, sympathy clear in his voice. Joonmyeon just groaned. The brunette boy stood, marking his place in the pages and placing his novel on the coffee table. “I’ll go make you some hot chocolate. That okay?”

Joonmyeon managed, “Thank you so much, Baek.”

He leaned back on the couch, placing his laptop on the floor of the apartment he and Yixing shared. Yixing, however, was getting some sleep, having passed out as soon as he returned. Joonmyeon knew that his friend was completely stressed because of his upcoming dance performance that would determine his semester grade. Baekhyun, who had already finished his vocal demo almost a month prior, was keeping Joonmyeon company as well as keeping him sane.

Baekhyun returned not five minutes later, two mugs filled to the brim with hot chocolate, marshmallows and whipped cream covering the steaming drink. He handed one to Joonmyeon, who took it gratefully.

“Thanks again, Baek.”

Giving him a smile, Baekhyun plopped himself back down on the couch, sipping his own mug.

There was silence between the two friends as they drank their hot chocolate.

When both of their mugs were half empty, Baekhyun spoke up. “Hey… Joonmyeon hyung?” Joonmyeon made a sound in the back of his throat, too engrossed in his drink to speak. “I’m sorry.”

Joonmyeon nearly choked. “What? Baek, is this still about Jinri?”

“Yeah. But… I’m also not sorry.” He looked the older right in the eye. “She wasn’t good for you. And once I realized that… I knew she wasn’t good for me, either.” Joonmyeon could see that Baekhyun was tearing up. Baekhyun realized this, too, but quickly wiped his tears with his sleeve before they could escape. “She wasn’t a good person, hyung. I made a mistake, betraying you just because she told me that she was in love with me. She lied when she said that, she lied.”

A frown manifested on Joonmyeon’s face. He didn’t understand why Baekhyun was telling him this.

Baekhyun sniffled, doing his best to hold back the tears that pooled in his eyes. “She told me that she loved me, and that she wanted me there to tell you. I felt awful about it, but… I… I just couldn’t say no to her. Not when she looked at me the way she did.” Another sniffle made Joonmyeon hand Baekhyun a few tissues, which he gratefully accepted. “It wasn’t a day later, one ing day later, that she told me that she was so thankful to me for getting her away from you, that she was tired of faking that she’d ever loved you in the first. God, I felt like an idiot. I felt like an idiot and an .” Baekhyun wiped his eyes again.

At those words though, Joonmyeon had frozen.

He felt the hurt he’d felt almost a month ago coming back. It was no longer the hurt from the fact that Baekhyun had betrayed him. He was over that, he could see in that moment that Baekhyun was really upset about what he’d done.

It was the hurt from the fact that Jinri had lied.

“You said… that she was faking that she loved me the entire time?” Joonmyeon choked out, suppressing his emotions as best he could. Both of them couldn’t cry at once. There were to