A/N: heeey guys long time no see....... or er... no update? sorry I've been so busy bc of school work and it's probably going to be that way from now on... I won't update as regularly and I will not update my other two on-going fics any time soon... But the GOOD news is, THIS IS THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THIS FIC!! Hopely the ending won't be a disappointment…  oh and there MIGHT be an epilogue… idk yet

From now on, if I ever do have the time to write (I'm writing new ones without posting them), I'll only post them when I finish them completely so you guys don't have to wait... but it probably won't be for another couple of months... I'm sorry I'm so inactive these days.

Every single day I've been doing so much school work and I finally decided to take a day to rest today and I had a kdrama marathon and now I'm updating after a month of hiatus... Hopefull I can still write...

The lights were blinding him.

He couldn't help it when the world began tilting and the ground began to slip away. It felt like a free fall, like the time in Beijing, the day the scandal of him and Chanyeol broke out. But he wasn't scared then. He had Chanyeol.

This time, when he opened his eyes again, there was no goofy face with a deep frown looking back at him. The feeling of lying on the couch after blacking out onstage seemed so familiar, and yet so foreign without Chanyeol.

"Are you alright?" came a familiar voice.

Then in the corner of his vision, Kris came into view.

"You fainted onstage. Are you hurt anywhere? Does anything hurt?" His manager continued to ask.

"No..." Baekhyun sighed and put a hand to his throbbing forehead. "I'm fine," he said out of habit.

Slowly, he pushed himself up on his twiggy arms and took in the surrounding. He was backstage, surrounded by staff members looking worriedly at him. Someone passed him a bottle of water and he muttered a "thanks."

Kris sighed loudly and rubbed his hands over his face, his shoulders dropping. "I told you to eat something and you haven't eaten all day."

"I'm not hungry," Baekhyun tried to say, but it came out raspy and out of breath. It is the truth. Instead of feeling hungry, he feels like he's going to throw up. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom..." He got up, refused the help from people to assist him, and left the room.

The hallway was dark and the deeper he got backstage, the less people he encountered. Around the corner, the lights were off and he felt along the wall, knowing that the bathroom is only a short distance away. Suddenly, a hand gripped onto his wrist and spun him around, emitting a gasp from the shocked singer.

"Ssshh it's me," the voice said and a hand was clamped around Baekhyun's mouth.

The voice sounded so familiar and yet surreal, but the next thing the stranger said confirmed Baekhyun's deepest fears. "It's Chanyeol."

For a while, Baekhyun's frantic eyes searched the dark for another pair of eyes, the eyes sparkling wide with optimism and curiosity, the eyes so familiar that he can see them in his sleep. But the pair of eyes staring back at him were completely foreign. They were squinted in a deep set frown; the crinkles in the corners were missing. They weren't smiling. They were cold. Baekhyun can feel breaths blowing onto his face from less than a foot away..

His initial reaction was to step back and free his wrist, but the grip only tightened, the fingers digging into his flesh and sweaty palms pressing against his skin.

Chanyeol is a stranger now.

The glares Baekhyun received yesterday at Chanyeol's debut stage was uncomfortably alien. The old Chanyeol would never throw the roses on the ground. And the fear of the unknown is what makes Baekhyun feel so afraid, so distant from the man standing in front of him.

"Why are you here?" Baekhyun said quietly, in case anyone is nearby.

"I came to see you." If Chanyeol showed any emotions, Baekhyun couldn't see it in the dark.

"Why?"

Just one word, and yet there were so many answers.

Chanyeol hesitated. His grip loosened and Baekhyun took the chance to pull free, putting at least a three-feet distance between them. Chanyeol's hand seemed to search for Baekhyun, but all he was grasping was thin air. When his hand stopped, his mouth opened but he didn't know what to say. He lost his anchor and he too, was falling in the dark.

"Please... let me hold you again..." Desperation dragged its ragged path on every syllable, dying and crying for just one touch. Longing and regret suffocated every attempt to breath and oxygen seemed to have disappeared between them. Chanyeol stumbled forward, reaching out for the familiar pulse of rushing blood underneath the warm skin. The pulse that used to match his heartbeat.

Finally, his fingertips came into contact, not with the warmth he expected, but rather, cold, flinching skin.

But Baekhyun didn't pull away this time. He allowed the foreign hands to pull him close and cup his face. It's been so long since someone held him with so much care, as if he's a fragile, stained glass that will shatter if dropped, and he kind of missed it.

Chanyeol can feel the sunken face with his hands and the sight of the petite male fainting onstage only worried him even more. "Are you sick? How come you fainted just now?"

"I'm fine. I didn't know you were watching me..." Baekhyun's voice faded to a whisper, staring down instead of up at those concerned eyes. "I thought you hated me..."

As gentle and soothing as a warm blanket on a winter day, Chanyeol's voice oozed out with care as he brushed his thumbs against the smaller's cheekbones. "I was angry with you, but I've never hated you."

Okay. That sounds fake but okay.

"I'm sorry I got mad at you when I didn't even know your situation. I read the card after you left and I regretted saying those things to you," Chanyeol searched for the smaller's e