“Hey, Chen-chen, can hyungie tell you a secret?”

“What’s this about, hyung?”

“Hyungie… hyungie hasn’t really been a good boy…”

“What did you do?!” Chen asked, alarmed.

“I didn’t do anything! But… it’s actually… I couldn’t do anything.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s just… Jonginie… you remember him, right?”

“The dance teacher.”

“Yes! Jonginie cancelled classes this one day when it was really cold but hyungie didn’t know. So hyungie went to the studio as always. But when I entered, it was only Jonginie and Jonginie was there looking very very sad. So hyungie wanted to comfort him. We ate and drank beer. But hyungie eventually drank something that made hyungie feel very sleepy.”

“Huh?!” Chen almost shouted as he now faced Yixing.

“Soon I was really sleepy and couldn’t really move much…” Yixing said as he his eyes begin to water. He opted to rest his head on Chen’s chest as he continued.

“I thought it was okay because I was with someone I know… if I got drunk, it’s fine… like how I can be drunk with you or Luhan-hyung… but… but…”

“Tell me what happened, hyung,” the younger said as he comforted the other gently with one hand.

“I could still feel his lips, Chen-chen. On mine…on my body…” and Yixing cried. “How he removed his clothes as he walked towards me… the words he whispered… I can’t get them out of my mind.”

“But you couldn’t fight him off?”

“I lost consciousness as I was trying to make him stop and back away.”

Yixing remained on Chen’s arms for a while, crying hard enough to make breathing difficult. It was good that everyone else is in the party; no one could hear Yixing cry. Though he did try to keep quiet by crunching Chen’s shirt towards his mouth and eyes, the pain of the memory was too much to silently pass by.

“Does Yifan-hyung know?” Chen asked after a few minutes – when Yixing calmed himself a bit.

“No! It was stupid. I was stupid,” Yixing said. “I tried to make him stop but I couldn’t. I was conscious that I was hurting Yifan but I couldn’t stop it! I couldn’t move my arms… I couldn’t move away… I was crying… I could do nothing as I hurt Yifan. And since then it hurt so bad, Chen. I couldn’t smile at Yifan because it wouldn’t be right.”

“So it took you this long to tell this to anyone as well…”

“I could care less what Jongin does to me if I wasn’t in a relationship… but Yifan. I wanted to protect myself for Yifan. But I couldn’t! I felt so helpless. So stupid. So useless.”

Chen could do nothing but continue to watch Yixing wipe away his tears. In a night when everyone else is having fun, perhaps in a night when Yifan actually thought they were singing in glee, Yixing was in pain. It was complicated and wrong but as a friend, Chen knew there was not much he can do. “Love…” he said to himself as he watched cars pass by the road seen through the window of the staircase.  

“You know, Chen, when I was younger,” Yixing spoke once again. They had their backs on the wall, both facing the window. “When I was a small boy, I thought about a lot of things I’d experience when I grow up. And among them, I thought it would be great when I fall in love. How great it’ll be to be in love, you know? I’d have someone hold my hand that will make me feel safe. I’d have someone I can share happy moments with. Someone who can make me food when I’m sick, someone who will joke around when I’m said, and someone who I can imagine living with for a long time…”

“But everything that has been happening recently,” the older continued. “They weren’t in my plans at all. No one told me that loving someone could be as painful as it is pleasant. Tell me, Chen, if someone like me is worth to be loved? Never mind; don’t answer that, I already know. I don’t deserve Yifan’s ‘I love you’. I hurt him. I couldn’t protect myself for him. I couldn’t protect him from the hurt he would feel when he finds out…”

“So you’re just going to give up on Yifan-hyung?”

It hit like a bullet. Yixing never pondered on where to go from his mistake; he was too much at hurt by the memory of the event alone.

“Hyung, remember the time when you and Yifan-hyung wasn’t together? We once drank together… we talked about the camera and strap – I can still remember it. I told you something like the camera and strap being joined together always, like, it’s their fate to hold on to one another.”

“Fate is something rather imaginary… I said?” Yixing recalled their conversation.

“Right,” the younger said. “But I do believe in fate. For me, I also thought love would be something precious; an experience like the movies, you know? I’d be attracted at first sight but I’d slowly fall in love. Go on dates and meet the friends and family… little did I know that I’d fall in love with someone who keeps pestering me every day. It was annoying and it was not what I asked for, but I fell in love.”

“You’re in love?” Yixing asked.

“More or less… funny, right? It wasn’t what I wanted but I’m glad it happened. Maybe you can indeed call everything ‘fate’?”

“If fate is something people are happy to happen, then for Yifan, maybe fate would need me to grow old alone. I don’t deserve to be loved.”

“I didn’t say fate was just one path, hyung. Maybe I was fated to fall in love slowly until this person ruined it by being in my house almost every day. So let’s say you’re right; you were once to fated to be alone. But look at you know, the persons you’ve been with and the person you love now. There has been too many turns of fate that make you think otherwise. Too many things can happen that we can dismiss as something fated so we never really find out what the gods wanted. So, at the end, we just choose whichever makes us happiest – and that is the fate we will hold on to.”

Yixing was silently watching the night sky, remembering the time when everything began with Yifan. The renting of the apartment; the working at the same office; the Thursday dates; the clock; the confessions; the photoshoot; the girlfriend…

“The descriptions on falling love you talked about earlier…” Chen continued. “It may not be exact, but isn’t that what’s happening with you and Yifan-hyung right now? Hasn’t fate, in fact, led you correctly?”

“Fate is leading us to something that’ll hurt...”

“Fate isn’t enough, hyung, I told you that before as well. You know that you know what to do now. I’m happy you decided to finally share this and not bear the pain alone; but we’re not the ones that’s supposed to know. You can choose to get answers from Jongin first, but Yifan-hyung has to know soon and he has to know from you.”

Yixing knew everything Chen said was right. He felt stupid being lectured to, but he needed that. He needed a slap away from the pain he had been dwelling in to focus on what needs to be done. Chen was right. The things that had happened until now were too important to let go just because of one mistake. Still, it was great to cry everything out. Yixing had been too suffocated by thinking about it alone.

“You know, Chen-chen, you’re someone great to talk to when I’m drunk.”

“I’m always great to talk to, hyung,” Chen said with a smile.

“Sorry for your shirt,” Yixing said as he saw Chen’s shirt more than just drenched with tears.

“It’s fine, I have this with me,” the other said as he took off the shirt and wore his jacket over his undershirt. “Here, you can cry on this more if you want,” handing over the shirt to Yixing.

“It’s okay… I don’t want to cry anymore.” Yixing thought. If he had forgiven Yifan in the past, then maybe – or hopefully – Yixing will be forgiven as well.

A few steps away on the lobby of elevator, Sehun lifted himself from leaning on the wall. He walked away and into one office room.

“Well, I need to talk to Chen-hyung tomorrow…” he thought to himself as he picked up his phone that had been vibrating for a while.

“Yah, Sehun! Where are you?! Luhan-hyung is drooling on my car seats now! Have you found them yet?” Suho almost shouted from the other line.

“They told me they’re in the fifth floor stairs, I’m in the fifth now. We’ll go down as soon as I find them.”

“Hurry up!”

“O~~kayyy. Say, hyung?”

“Huh?”

“Have something scheduled for the next few days or so?”

“What’s this about? Why are you asking?”

“We need to look for someone; try to free up your schedule, will you?” the younger said as he hung up to walk towards the stairs.

“HEEEYYY~~!” Sehun greeted as soon as he was close enough, almost shouting in an extremely drunk-happy tone in a bid to dissolve the gloomy situation his ears bore witness too. “A drunk but hot model has come to take you to the car and get you home!”

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A/N: Does anyone remember the references i made to fate-given clues? you don't?? no one? dishonor! dishonor on you! dishonor on your cow! XD jk btw, who does Chen-chen looooove? maybe a separate fic? dunno, but he's my ultimate bias so... anyways, see you guys next week.