Everybody in the office knew better than to piss Chanyeol off. If they stayed out of his way, avoided eye contact and didn't utter a word to him then they were going to get through this day alive. Everywhere Tao looked, he saw that his co-workers were absolutely afraid to even get up out of their seats in case they started off a chain reaction which would end in Chanyeol blowing up and shouting at them. 

Tao was not impressed... 

He didn't want to work in an environment where people were too afraid to do anything because of who they worked for. And then there was this; why all of a sudden were they so afraid Chanyeol now? What the hell had happened to make them fear Chanyeol like this? 

This time he actually made a point to knock on the door to Chanyeol's office before entering, met with the sight of Chanyeol marching around his office and chucking pieces of paper onto the floor when he couldn't find what he wanted. 

"What do you need Tao?" he asked when he heard the door shut and spared his friend  brief glance before carrying on with what he had been doing 
"What's wrong with you?" 
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong with me. I'm feeling fantastic" though the way Chanyeol spat out the last few words failed to convince Tao otherwise. 

"Well then how come everybody in this building fears you? That they're too afraid to say or do anything in case you pounced of them?" 
"That's their problem I don- look, Tao, if you're not in here to tell me anything of use could you please leave? I'm kinda looking for something here" 

Chanyeol's attitude was not going to sit well with Tao. He may have been moody but that gave the guy no right to speak to Tao like that when he, not once in the time they had known each other, would never speak to him like that. Okay maybe there was that one time but Tao was extremely cranky and soon apologised, which he gathered that in the mood Chanyeol was in, he wasn't apologising too soon. 

About to open his mouth and give Chanyeol a lecture on being polite to concerned friends, Tao's eyesight instantly zoomed onto his finger where the ring that had previously occupied the space was no longer there. Was this why he was feeling so angry and snapping at everybody? 

"Are you like this because Bokyung left you?" he asked, being completely blunt because he knew this was the only way to get something out of Chanyeol 
"No, I'm like this because she turned out to be some guy called Baekhyun who all along played this sick game and is now a new edition onto my list of people who screwed me over. There, happy now?" Chanyeol replied, voice raised and practically shouting at Tao by the end of his explanation. Instead of shouting back, Tao took Chanyeol and pushed him down onto his seat, pinning him there so he couldn't push Tao away and get up. 

"Look, I know you're moody and that explanation you gave me I may not be willing to believe right now because of your mood, but that doesn't mean you can take your mood out on me and everybody else here. You're going to sit here, calm the heck down and then you're going to calmly tell me what's wrong." 

Hearing Chanyeol have to explain to him just what had happened and the situation he currently found himself in with Baekhyun, Tao was astounded. He had only ever heard of people dressing up as the opposite gender in random Wikipedia searches of boredom, in films and in books, he never though his friend was actually going through it. 

"Did you at least give Baekhyun a chance to sit down and explain himself?" he asked, having had the time to fully take in and understand the situation before he began to question his friend 
"What was there for him to explain? It's pretty clear that he dressed as a woman and pretended to be somebody he wasn't" 

Tao hated it when Chanyeol became stubborn like this. It was almost impossible to speak to him when he was in one of his moods. 

"You're acting extremely stubborn right now" he pointed out 
"No I'm not! I'm stating the truth!" Chanyeol exclaimed. 

"Stubborn" Tao repeated "And extremely foolish. You said about Baekhyun being an adult and had the power to say no and do what he wanted, but you're an adult yourself Chanyeol. You could have said no before the wedding, you could have said no during the wedding. I think that in all of this anger you're putting the blame on Baekhyun, your parents and anybody else instead of sharing the blame yourself" 

"So now you're defending Baekhyun? Is that it?"
"Did the words 'you were wrong it was not Baekhyun's fault and I shall defend him for that' come out of my mouth? No, it didn't. What I'm saying is that you're pinning the blame all on Baekhyun and pinning it all onto him when you had an equal part to play. That maybe the blame should go on the people who forced Baekhyun to do this, yet you don't know because you didn't give him the chance to explain". 

Shrugging his shoulders Tao leant back on the desk whilst Chanyeol remained sat in his seat "That's just my opinion" 

Chanyeol hated it when Tao was like this. Whilst most of the time he acted and whined like a little child, it was at times like these he was able to mature and whatever he was saying actually sounded right... 

For the most part of Baekhyun's stay at Sehun's place, he spent most of his time in bed. Feeling so guilty for what he had done, he just wanted to stay in bed and have Sehun leave him there to deal with his guilt by himself. 

Sehun however was not having any of it. For starters he couldn't bare to see his friend like this and the way in which Baekhyun was acting reminded him of he reacted after his injury forced him to give up his original dream of being a dancer. It was because of this that Sehun made sure that Baekhyun got out of bed every morning (and if he wasn't there, that the various alarms he set up were sure to wake Baekhyun up), that Baekhyun still ate properly and went outside if it was just only for a little while to avoid being cooped up inside all the time. 

Sat in the living room watching television, Baekhyun was waiting for Sehun to finish his shift so that the two of them could go out and do some window shopping like Sehun had promised. Baekhyun wasn't completely over what had happened between him and Chanyeol- a trip to the house to collect the last of his things earlier in the day reinforcing the memories- but at least with Sehun keeping him busy he wasn't thinking about it all the time. 

A knock on the door and Baekhyun was stood in the hallway debating on whether he wanted to open the door or leave it and hope the person on the other side would come back when Sehun was home. Wanting a look at who the person was, Baekhyun stood on his tiptoes and looked through the eye piece on the door, eyes widening and stumbling back when he saw Chanyeol on the other side... 

It seems like Sehun and Tao are the only logical ones here. Thank God Baekyeol have these two as friends to rely on! 

And the last part about Chanyeol being there; if you're confused never fear it will all be explained in the next chapter! Don't sit there thinking "How did Chanyeol know he was there?" it shall be explained! 

Until then!!