I was struggling to compose myself.

Was I allowed to feel betrayed?  As hard as I tried not to cry, tears came.  They came in masses.  After the first one spilled, a million others followed.  It caused my body to shake as sobs ripped through me and my soul.  All of the feelings I had been repressing to keep Chanyeol in my life came out.

I ran into the bathroom and shut the door.  I leaned back against it and slowly slid down as my emotions overtook me.  I brought my knees to my chest and compacted myself.  I rested my forehead against my knees as tears fell from my face.  The tears seemed to have no end.  I don't know why I was surprised, the sadness and pain that was gripping my heart felt as though it would remain there eternally.  Until the day I died, I would love Park Chanyeol.  This was unfair.  It was so brutally unfair.  Unfair that I loved him.  Unfair that he loved someone else.  Unfair that despite claiming to know better than anyone else, Chanyeol was ignorant of my feelings.  Unfair that I didn't think I'd ever be over this.

I wished I had never met him.  I wished he'd never kissed me.  I wished I hadn't been worried enough to go and search for him.  I wished I didn't find him.  I wished I hadn't opened the door to see my best friend practically and on top of Kai.

I wished a lot of things.  Nothing was going to change that I loved that gigantic idiot.  No matter how much I wanted to be free of this unrequited love for him, the past is etched in stone.  There is no going back.  The future, however, that has room for change.

I could make a change.

I stood up and wiped my tears and snot away.  I looked into the mirror.  My eyes were puffy, eyeliner ruined, and my face was red.  I the faucet, cupped my hands, and brought water to my face.  I plucked up a towel and patted my face dry.

As I took a deep breath, I told myself that today was the last day that Chanyeol would be unaware of what I was feeling.  I looked at myself in the mirror.

Today was the last day I was going to be pathetic.

"Baek?" Chanyeol walked out into the garden and saw me sitting on the bench.  His clothes had obviously been hastily reassembled.  I didn't acknowledge his presence.  I just kept staring at the statue that was in front of me.  "Hey, Byun Baekhyun."

I turned to look at him.  I suddenly hated the butterflies that lived in my stomach.  They'd get all excited whenever Chanyeol was near now.  He just needed to breathe and suddenly there would be thousands of wings fluttering.  I hated that I still thought he looked beautiful even though he was causing me physical pain.  Even after what I'd just seen, my heart bled for him.

"Sit." I uttered.

He sat next to me, orienting himself so that he was facing me. One leg was pulled up onto the bench while the other dangled off, meeting the ground.  "Is there a reason that walked in on me and Kai?  I mean we were pretty close to... Hey are you crying?"

"Not anymore." I replied.

"Baek, what happened?"

"You did.  Seriously, are you blind or something?" My emotions were boiling over.  Chanyeol stared at me with a confused look on his face.  I laughed bitterly, "For someone that claims to be my best friend, you know surprising little about me."

Chanyeol continued to stare at me wordlessly, his lips were trying to form words that wouldn't come.  I kept going, "It's really unbelievable.  I mean we've been friends for over a freaking decade, and you can't tell?"

"Can't tell what Baek?" Chanyeol asked, finding words.

I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his.  His eyes were frozen wide open.  It was like kissing a wall.  It certainly wasn't like our first kiss.  That had been full of passion, a mutual expression of attraction.  This was me, trying to convey my feelings.  It was Chanyeol rejecting me.  I pulled back.

He stared at me, uncomprehending of the events that just passed.  His eyebrows furrowed.  His failure to understand was like lemon juice on a paper cut.  It was stinging at the edges of my heart.

"You're an idiot." I said.  I could feel the pained expression on my face.  I pushed myself off of the bench and walked away.

Every step I took was to put more distance between myself and Chanyeol.  I didn't want to cry in front of him.  My heart was like a vase at the edge of a table. One careless brush and it would fall, shattering.  Instead of waiting for someone to come along and accidentally bump into it, I picked it up and threw it across the room.  It would take a long time for the pieces of my heart to be reassembled, and even then, it would be cracked and some parts would never fit quite the same.

I numbly rushed through the house full of drunk teens, who were finally free of the prison that was high school, finding my way out of the front door.  I rushed down the steps to get to my car.  I needed refuge.  I needed a place to break.  I needed a place to fall apart.  I fumbled to open the car, then to put the keys in the ignition; and when I finally started the car, I sped away.

By the time I reached the safety of my house, my cheeks were wet with salty tears.  I ran into my house and up the stairs, leaving my parents who were sitting in the living room confused.

I made it to the sanctuary of my room, and the second round of sobs quaked through me.  I cried into my pillow.  What was I expecting?  Chanyeol didn't love me the way I loved him.  He loved Kai the way I loved him.  This is what heartbreak felt like.  I'd fallen in love with Chanyeol without his permission.  It was like getting all of the bad times without experiencing the sugar-sweet moments that came with love.

In a way, I was glad. I didn't have to stifle my feelings which were slowly suffocating me.  I didn't have to try to stamp out the flame of jealousy that ignited itself when I saw Chanyeol and Kai together.  I didn't have to lie to myself and tell myself that I didn't want to be in Kai's position.  I didn't have to keep secretly despising Kai. I didn't need to keep myself from feeling what I felt.

However, I knew that when the light of tomorrow reached me, I would have to pay for my actions.  I would have to cut ties with Chanyeol because I couldn't do it anymore.  Whatever sick game I was playing with myself had come to an end.  If I was ever going to be happy, Chanyeol could not be in the picture.  Confessing my feelings to him was perhaps the bravest and stupidest thing I'd ever done.  It effectively ended a friendship that I had put years of my life into.  I would need to find out who I was when Chanyeol wasn't there.

I needed to move on.

It would be easier now that high school was over, and I was moving away.  Chanyeol and I were parting ways.

In every sense imaginable, Chanyeol and I were parting.

a/n:

Hello there beautiful people.

Soooo... what do you think?  I do in fact realize that this will probably make you really really really want to know what's happening on Chanyeol's end of things, so I think that I will be updating AGAIN after this in a few days. I'm not going to wait like a month.  That'd just be... diabolical... 

Right so emotions.

You guys are really awesome! Thanks for staying with it.

(P.S. for everyone who was worrying I'm a BaekYeol shipper so... KEEP FAITH)