“So…I have two tickets for movies this Friday…do you-“

“Great Soo! I was just thinking about what kind of date to take Taeyeon to this weekend. Movies would be really neat.”

“Oh…yeah…right.”

Doesn’t it just when the one person you really liked kind of ropes you in on their efforts in courting the one they like?

It’s a lazy afternoon and Kyungsoo is moping around in the university library by himself, ignoring all kinds of contact with his best friend. Oh Sehun, his other friend, spots him and sits at his table, taking the seat right across Kyungsoo.

“Stop moping around. Just find another guy to fawn over.”

Kyungsoo just mumbles onto the arms he’s currently laying his head on.

“Speak clearly, hyung.”

“There’s no one else. It’s always just his stupid face that pops up in my head every time I stop thinking.”

Sehun gives up. He suddenly grabs his friend’s head and slams it softly on the table. Kyungsoo doesn’t react violently but he still stares at Sehun murderously while clasping his forehead.

“Why would you do that? I won’t just suddenly get over him even if you break my skull, stupid.”

“You’re the stupid one. By the way, Jongin wanted me to give you this note.”

Kyungsoo takes the note and reads the inscription.

“He’s asking me out again. Won’t he ever give up?”

“Look who’s talking, like you’ve given up on Byunbaek…”

“Like you’ve given up on Jongin…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh come on. Everyone knows you like him.”

“I do not.”

“Then…should I go out with him, then?”

“No.”

“And why not?”

“Because he’s stupid.”

“Maybe I like stupid.”

“No.”

“Just say, ‘Because I called dibs on Jongin’.”

Sehun doesn’t speak.

“What?”, prods Kyungsoo.

“Is it…is it really that obvious?”

“Yes Oh Sehun. It’s obvious to everyone but the dork himself.”

Sehun suddenly opens his textbook and hides his face. Kyungsoo, taken aback, looks around for whatever was the reason for his friend’s actions and he sees it. It’s the dork.

“Jongin, come here!”

Kim Jongin, the dork, heeds the call when he sees it was Kyungsoo, the one he shamelessly declared his intentions for, who called him over.

“What is it, jagiya?”

“Stop that. Are you busy tonight?”

“Wow...have you finally decided to go out with me?”

“Of course not…I’m loyal.”

“Loyal? Haven’t you heard? They’re finally together. Just this morning, it happened right near the campus gates. Your crush was shouting in celebration like the crazy puppy he is.”

Kyungsoo becomes quiet. His thoughts have gone dark when it finally occurred to him that it was officially hopeless for him. Sehun comes out of hiding and holds Kyungsoo’s hand.

“I’m so sorry Soo…I was there when it happened. It’s the reason why I told you to start getting over him. I’m really sorry.”

Kyungsoo finds everything hard to take. He wants to go home to his apartment and maybe take a hot bath. He wants to go home to his parents and hide in his old room. He just wants to disappear.

The dork suddenly breaks his chain of thoughts.

“So…will you go out with me?”

Sehun slams his own head on the table now and Kyungsoo turns to face Jongin who has taken the seat to his left. He holds the boy’s shoulders and looks him in the eye.

“Sehun…Sehun’s been in love with you for almost two years now.”

“What?”

Sehun, shocked by Kyungsoo’s sudden outing of his feelings for the dork, couldn’t find the words he wants to say at the moment. Kyungsoo has already stood up and left when he turns to look at Jongin who was also left speechless by the sudden revelation.

“Uhmm…”

“Is it true?”

Sehun doesn’t answer but his feelings fail him when the redness creeping to his cheeks betray whatever poker face he was trying to present.

“Hmm…well, you’re cute, too. Well you’re definitely prettier than Kyungsoo.”

“What…shut up…”

Jongin just smirks and then holds Sehun’s hand.

“Let’s go out on a date tonight Sehun…my treat. We leave at eight.”

“Who stuck your foot up your behind?”

It’s been three brokenhearted days for Kyungsoo and he really doesn’t want to talk to anyone, be it his friends or even his professors, thus his self-exile in his apartment. His roommates, Kris and Chanyeol, the towers who’ve been feeding him and doing his tasks for him in respect for his current state, also took it upon themselves to make fun of Kyungsoo’s said brokenhearted state.

“It’s been three days, Soo. You should attend your classes already.”

“Yeah, don’t you miss sitting in? Stealing glances on your seatmate? Dropping your pen so he’ll pick it up for you and brush skin against skin in the process?”

“I hate the both of you…”

Kyungsoo hates everything. He wants to get out and get over everything. Maybe even bang his head so hard on something solid to cause himself amnesia and erase maybe the last five or six years of his life…forget Baekhyun.

Rapid-fire knocks on the door break him out of his thoughts.

“Hyung!!! Kyungsoo-hyung! I need you!”

It was Sehun. Of course it was Sehun. It’s just been Sehun who comes to visit him.

“What is it?” says Kyungsoo after he peeks through the hole. He has nothing against Sehun but he just wants to be alone.

“Jongin…last night…he made me drunk…and then…”

Kyungsoo immediately opens the door and pulls his friend inside. Sehun was crying and Kyungsoo makes him sit on the couch before prodding him to go on.

“Jongin… took advantage of me...he made me dance and recorded it, too.”

“Made you dance?”

“…yeah?”

Kyungsoo was red all over. He thought something else happened.

“What? What did you think happened?”

“…”

“What? …are you being green?”

“Green?”

“You know…green-minded…”

“Oh…”

“You were, right? You thought he took advantage of me?”

“’took advantage’ is too broad. I thought he…molested you…or something.”

Sehun just shakes his head and flicks Kyungsoo on the forehead.

“What about you? When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know…next week? Its Friday tomorrow…coming back on a Friday is weird.”

“…you’re weird.”

“How are things with Jongin?”

“Oh you know him…” clingy, touchy, the ultimate brat. But Sehun secretly likes it. He liked it more when Jongin confessed the other night that he really always wanted Sehun but thought Sehun liked Kyungsoo so he went stupid and competed against Sehun for Kyungsoo.

Still, Sehun knows Kyungsoo is dodging his question.

“Can’t you just move on with your life? You said you knew it was hopeless from the start yet you’re still sulking.”

“I know what I said. It’s just…the ‘feeling hopeless but not knowing it was sure’ is so different than the ‘knowing it is hopeless and being very sure of it’.”

“I know…still though, you can’t just put your life on hold for this. Find something to do!”

“I’m not putting my life on hold, Oh Sehun. I’m just taking a break. Besides, what’s there to do anyway?”

“I don’t know…what you feel like doing.”

“I feel like taking a dump.”

“What?”

Sehun looks at Kyungsoo and sees the smug look on the older one’s face.

“Idiot.”

Friday night comes and Kyungsoo decides to spend the weekend doing something productive…or just anything fun. He doesn’t want to be alone for whatever he wants to do so he ropes Sehun in with his plans.

Saturday morning finds them at the local park. Jongin seems to have learned of the two going out and has decided to join them. What Kyungsoo found though were the two not talking to each other…or more like Sehun blushing madly while Jongin tries to make him talk to him.

“What’s wrong with you two? It’s a nice morning and your vibes are ruining it for me before we can even start.”

“It was him!”

“It was him!”

The two speaking at the same time, blaming each other for whatever happened, makes Kyungsoo break into a laughing fit. The two, knowing how Kyungsoo is feeling at the time brighten up with the thought that they made Kyungsoo laugh.

“Okay, Sehun, talk.”

“Why him? I’ll explain it.”

“No. Sehun’s the better friend.”

“It was Jongin. This morning…I was about to brush my teeth and the bathroom door was unlocked so I just went in but he was inside and he was wiping himself with the towel and I just froze but he suddenly pulled me towards him and he kissed me and harassed me…he finally molested me, hyung!”

Jongin wanted to state his side but something that Sehun said caught his attention.

“Finally? I finally molested you? What? Were you waiting for it or something?”

Sehun embarrassingly flushes a bright red on his face but Kyungsoo saves him from his humiliation.

“It was me. He told me last time that you took advantage of him and I thought you molested him.”

Jongin glares at Sehun and asks, “When have I ever taken advantage of you? You’re the one who creeps onto my bed to cuddle!”

 Sehun suddenly punches Jongin’s arm. He is still red but now it’s more out of fury than embarrassment.

“It’s not that you idiot! It was about that night when you recorded my drunken dance. And if you don’t want to cuddle then you could have just said so. From now on I won’t go even a foot near you.”

“What?” Jongin panics and looks to Kyungsoo for help but the other only breaks out into another fit of laughter.

“Can the both you stop? You can all cuddle later. For now, let’s just go to the food stands. I’m hungry.”

The rest of the day is spent hanging around the park talking about the plainest of topics, talking to friends they meet, eating, goofing around, and just having fun.

By the time the sun sets they’re exhausted and badly in need of their beds.

“So, we’ll walk you to your apartment first so you won’t be all sad and lonely on the way.”

Throughout the day, after seeing Kyungsoo being Kyungsoo again, the two have stopped holding their jokes back.

“Shut up. What are your plans tomorrow?”

Kyungsoo knows the two are together now and he should give them time to be by themselves but he just can’t bear to be alone. His roommates have gone camping with their friends and won’t be back until early on Monday.

“We haven’t made any plans yet.”

“Yeah. Sehun wants us to make you happy and because what makes you happy makes Sehun happy, I’ll be happy.”

Sehun blushes again. For the whole time, he’s been blushing at every greasy phrase pertaining to him from Jongin’s mouth. It’s not that he doesn’t like it but he doesn’t relish in it either. So he resorts to punching Jongin’s arm every time he so much as says Sehun in a sentence.

“Shut up, you cheesy schmuck. Hyung, you know you’ll always be my priority right? Even though you always just considered me as the second best friend, I won’t abandon you for any dork that makes my feelings and judgment hazy.”

Jongin hugs Sehun from behind and asks, “Is that your way of saying you love me?”

Kyungsoo cuts in before the two erupt into another bout of punching.

“I know it’s selfish of me to do this but I really just want some company, even if just for one more day. Thank you…both of you.”

Seeing Sehun showing signs of starting to cry, Jongin announces that the next day would be beach day and everyone agrees.

It’s Sunday evening and Kyungsoo lies on his bed wrapped up in most of his blankets and drowning in his snot. He drank a lot of water the past night wishing and hoping that he doesn’t catch a cold.

He woke up before the sun even rose with a slight fever, an itchy throat and clogged nose. Colds. Sometimes it’s worse than cancer.

When Sehun and Jongin showed up at his doorstep dressed in their beach attire and with Jongin’s car in the background equipped with what looked like a giant dolphin floater, he had nothing to say to them except sneeze at their presence. Gone were his hopes of having fun on a Sunday. Sehun offered to accompany him in his misery but he refused, saying he should not keep them from having fun and that he was old enough to take care of himself.

So they went on without him and thus begun the desolation of Kyungsoo.

At the start of his day, there was nothing that water and a box or boxes of tissue could not take care of. By midday however, his body felt sore all over and he felt like he couldn’t even move. By the evening, Kyungsoo realized he was so hungry and he has not eaten anything except the tablets that promised fast cures to his ailments. Well those .

Kyungsoo tried calling Sehun and Jongin to ask them to buy takeout food for him but both of them didn’t seem to be on their phones. There was only one other person he could call but he wasn’t sure if he should, what with all the avoiding he’s been making.

Still, he has no choice. Well there is another choice and it is to starve.

So he goes for the ugly path.

“Hello?”

“Soo, hey! How are you? Are you done with the report given to us last Thursday?”

“Thursday? I wasn’t in class last Thursday.”

“Oh… I didn’t know. Anyways, why’d you call? Did you need something?”

“Well, if it’s not too much to ask, can you get me some takeout food. Anything in the area will do. They don’t do deliveries so I had to ask someone. Can you?”

“Oh sorry Soo, I can’t…I’m busy right now…uhmm…can’t you just ask someone else?”

“Oh…right. Yeah, I will. Thanks anyway.”

“Okay, bye!”

“Yeah.”

It’s way too cold to be outside but Kyungsoo has no choice. He’s starving and he just had to buy food.

So there he was at the minimart, near the window, waiting for the noodles to cool down a little and that’s when he saw them.

There they were, holding hands and all smiles while talking about whatever, walking down the sidewalk without a care for the rest of the world. They looked so happy together.

So very busy being happy.

It’s a bad move for Kyungsoo. In his frustration, he went out and walked back to his apartment without eating and now, he’s cold, and starved, and lost.

He kept looking down that he forgot where to turn a corner that he just walked on and on and on.

He’s tears blur his vision and he’s mad at Baekhyun, at himself, at everything. Was it too much to ask for a little favor? And then he had to lie and Kyungsoo just had to find out the real reason. He felt like everything was working against him and he seemed so alone in his problem. The person who was once his best friend didn’t even notice that he’s stopped attending classes and showing up at their hangouts.

Kyungsoo just wants to find his way home and bury himself in his bed and cry himself to sleep but he just had to get lost.

Now there’s this guy talking to him and asking him if he’s okay and Kyungsoo can’t even tell who this guy was and then there’s someone calling his name and he’s being hugged and then he’s falling and then everything stopped. Just like how he wanted it. Everything just stopped and he feels fine. He feels light and free.

Kyungsoo wakes up to bright lights and he realizes it’s not his apartment. He’s somewhere else. The door to the room where he’s at opens and it’s Sehun. His face brightens up at seeing Kyungsoo awake and soon Jongin also enters the room and then there’s Junmyeon and they all look relieved.

“What happened?”, he asks, trying to sit up only to be stopped by the tubes on his arm.

Sehun approaches him and helps him up.

“You were not in your apartment last night so we went around looking for you. Junmyeon found you walking around aimlessly and he texted me so we went to get you but you fainted. You had such a high fever and you were dehydrated and starving. It was good that we brought you here.”

Kyungsoo just closes his eyes and when he opens them again, it’s just Sehun in the room. He realizes he fell asleep and he moves to straighten up so Sehun helps him again.

“Hyung, what happened? Junmyeon-hyung said you were crying last night.”

“Oh. It was nothing. I just…I was hungry so I went out to buy some food.”

Sehun knows there’s more to it so he’s about to prod Kyungsoo on but Kyungsoo, knowing he has to say something, beats him to it.

“I saw them…and then…I just…broke down. It was the first time I saw him for some time and he looked so happy. And I felt like I wasn’t anything anymore…like I shouldn’t have been there.”

“I’m so sorry hyung.”

“I asked him for a favor, you know. When I couldn’t get to you or Jongin, I had no choice. He couldn’t because he said he was busy. He didn’t even realize I was absent from my classes the whole week. I don’t even know how I thought we were best friends after that. I felt like someone slammed the door right at my face.”

“Hyung…I don’t know what to say…”

“No…it’s fine. I think I needed that anyway. It was a wakeup call. A sign that said, “Move on Kyungsoo. You’re just wasting away like this.” I really did feel like I woke up.”

Sehun just holds Kyungsoo’s hand and offers a smile. He knows Kyungsoo is hurting but he doesn’t know how to help. He just knows he can be there for Kyungsoo.

“Well, if that’s true…then I’m happy that you finally decided to move on.”

Their conversation stops to make way for a comfortable silence and Kyungsoo thinks that yes, it’s fine to move on now. He now realizes that maybe he spent so much time waiting that he forgot he had his own path he wants to finish.

“Sehun.”

“Yeah?”

“When I called you and Jongin, I was going to ask you to buy the food for me but both of you didn’t answer so I went out on my own and this happened. This is likely to be your fault.”

“What the- why are you being like this hyung? We’re sorry…but really, something came up…we were busy…uhmm…it’s a secret.”

“Were you doing the dirty?”

“No!”

“…”

“Okay…yeah…but I tried stopping Jongin! But he was so persistent and he was so flirty at the beach and it kind of made me hot all throughout yesterday and I didn’t have the willpower to stop him when we came back home so please…don’t think ill of me!”

The door suddenly opened to Jongin’s presence and Sehun quickly points a finger at him and declares, “He me! He touched me in ways that were all kinds of dirty!”

Jongin was suddenly dumbfounded and he looks from Sehun to Kyungsoo and back to Sehun and ends up rambling some kind of explanation.

Kyungsoo just finds the both them funny and starts to laugh, only to end up coughing instead.

It is early morning and its Monday; the start of the week and Kyungsoo thinks he has many things to do and hard decisions to make. A good laugh might just be the right way to start.

~4 yrs.

The ring of the chimes above the door breaks Kyungsoo out of his thoughts. It’s another student looking for some old reference book and Kyungsoo directs her to one of the aides. It’s these customers that bring back memories of when he was still in university. Memories before he suddenly dropped out without telling anyone.

Kyungsoo now runs the bookstore their family owns. His grandfather sometimes comes to check on him and the store but Kyungsoo is mostly left alone with the two aides his grandfather hired even before he passed the store on to Kyungsoo. Jongdae is a chatty part-time employee enrolled at the nearby community college. He easily became friends with Kyungsoo since they were generally of the same age. The other aide is a regular named Yixing who his grandfather hired to do the laborious tasks in the store. Yixing is older than the two but He’s casual with them though he mostly keeps to himself, reading books or playing songs on his guitar.

Kyungsoo finds relief in having his life slowed down. He just came to a point where he realized he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life anymore and so even if other people say it’s a cowardly act, running away, Kyungsoo doesn’t mind. Sometimes, we just have to run because there’s no other way. It’s just like facing a battle, putting up a brave façade, but also knowing when it’s time to retreat and live to fight another day. The only thing that Kyungsoo regrets is not telling anyone about it.

He knows his friends understand though. Or at least they should, anyway.

“Kyungsoo, can you take out the trash? Yixing forgot again. The garbage truck comes at three and Yixing won’t be back until later so…?”

“Jongdae. May I remind you I am the manager here? You take it out.”

“You take it out~ bull. You have nothing to manage. The only things you do are welcome customers and redirect them to me or Yixing. You’re practically a poster with the words “ask for the aides”.”

“I hate you.”

“You only say that to hide your true feelings for me.”

Jongdae does what he’s told however, but he doesn’t do it without shrieks of ‘eww’ and ‘gross’ and of course, he makes sure Kyungsoo hears it. He has to take the trash some distance away though, giving Kyungsoo some respite.

Kyungsoo finds some clutter and curses Jongdae for dropping some of the garbage but gets up to take it anyway. The door opens and Kyungsoo says out loud, “Jongdae, get me another trash bag, there are still some wrappers here.”

“Hyung?”

Kyungsoo knows that voice. He knows he will have to face Sehun again soon but he’s never thought about what to say when the time comes.

“Jagiya! Where have you been?”

“Jongin too?” asks Kyungsoo.

“Kyungsoo! We missed you!”

Kyungsoo is suddenly wrapped in lanky arms and he feels happy and terrible at the same time. Happy to be in familiar company but also down because he knows he owes them so much yet he didn’t even have the courtesy to contact them after so long.

“How have you both been?”

He’s suddenly bombarded by a chorus of answers that only come up empty as he is too busy familiarizing himself again with their presence. Their small reunion is only disturbed when Jongdae comes in.

“Kyungsoo! Why is there mud on the floor again? I told you, always, always, always make sure your shoes are clean before…oh…I didn’t know he had company.”

Kyungsoo quickly introduces his old friends to Jongdae and unsurprisingly, they all hit it off in just a small amount of time.

“So, Jongdae, what do you do aside from helping out here?”

“Oh, I’m taking up my second course in the nearby college…can’t get enough of school, I guess.”

Both Sehun and Jongin are stunned by this guy. Who wants to experience college all over again?

“Well, enough of me. How did the two of you become friends with Kyungsoo? Wasn’t he all lonesome and brooding when you were still in school together?”

Kyungsoo flicks Jongdae right between his eyes.

“I wasn’t as stuck up as you make me up to be!”

“He he…when you were still new here, you barely even looked at the customers. Of course I thought you were some friendless soul that just suddenly got tired of life and went running back home.”

Kyungsoo stiffens upon realizing Jongdae’s sentiments. Jongin, being insensitive for the moment, makes a tactless comment about someone breaking Kyungsoo’s heart.

“What I did. Was I really running away?”

Jongin, not getting why Sehun pinched his sides, answered Kyungsoo instead.

“I’d like to think you chose to live to fight another day. In the state you were in, I doubt you would’ve made any progress with your studies anyway. I did think you’d come back the next semester, but, you never did. Maybe you didn’t want to fight after all.”

Sometimes, Jongin had some sense. Most of the time however, his insensitivity is too blunt it’s almost funny.

There are times when people hiding from their problems think, maybe, it’s time to face the problem head on. When that point in time comes however, people tend to just end up regretting everything.

“It’s been what, five years?”

“What—oh. Baekhyun.”

“Why didn’t you ever come back?”

Kyungsoo always imagined what would happen when Baekhyun does find him. The Baekhyun standing in front of him, looking at him, isn’t the dashing young man who used to be his best friend. He looks like someone who’s undergone so much stress for days on end. His shirt is clean but his jeans looked like they’ve been repeatedly used for quite some time already.

“You look…dirty. What happened to you?”

“Oh…I’m an animator now.”

“Finally, huh?”

“Yeah. I always thought it’d be easy but the hours, they’re just so demanding when it comes to deadlines.”

When they were in high school, they always talked about how even after college, they’d still be together, Kyungsoo wanted to be a writer or an editor while Baekhyun’s love of anime had him pining to be an animator or a manga artist.

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t answer my question though.”

“Oh. I just…got scared. I didn’t know what to expect after college and maybe I just…caved from the pressure.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“It doesn’t matter what you heard.”

“I heard someone broke your heart. It was what Sehun told me anyway. Did you like someone?”

Kyungsoo is taken aback by this. He doesn’t know how to react. Years of practice in evasion however, helps him at the moment.

“It’s funny how people make excuses for you. Nothing like that happened, I assure you.”

Baekhyun doesn’t give an answer to that and Kyungsoo can’t read what he’s thinking. They stay quiet like that for a while until Jongdae comes in and then there are introductions and light conversations about the weather, hobbies, and other things.

Kyungsoo learns that Baekhyun has been in the city for some time now and that he’s living in an apartment in the same building as Kyungsoo’s. Every day, Baekhyun comes to the store and walks home with Kyungsoo. At first, it was fine. It felt like old times, but then a while later, Kyungsoo just felt weird.

“Why do you do this?”

“Do what?”

“Waiting for me to close up and walking home with me.”

“What? Is that wrong?”

“No. But it’s weird.”

“Kyungsoo, we’re best friends. It’s not weird.”

“It is weird. It’s been five years, Baekhyun. We didn’t have communication for five years and suddenly everything is like before? Get real.”

“What is wrong with you?”

They stop in the middle of the empty road. Baekhyun is looking at Kyungsoo incredulously.

“You disappear without a word and now you say this is weird? You’re the weird one. You never even gave me a text or a call. You just went away. Did you think that was fine? God, Kyungsoo. I kept on hoping you were going to tell me why but you never did. If I didn’t come back here, I wouldn’t even know how you were, what you were up to. Why Kyungsoo? Why did you leave?”

Kyungsoo is shocked at how this ended up here. It wasn’t at all what he had expected. Why did he end up being the bad guy in this, the bad friend?

“I didn’t want to leave. I had to. And you can’t ask me why. You won’t get it. You won’t understand.”

Kyungsoo walks toward his apartment building desperately trying to hold back his tears in fear of what he might say when all his walls break down. After all this time, he’s still running.

Baekhyun calls Kyungsoo at night. It’s just a little after eleven and Kyungsoo can tell he’s drunk. His first few words were non-coherent but his sentences gradually start to make sense.

“I saw you, you know. I was worried about not being able to buy food for you that night. I went to your apartment. It was still early morning, I don’t know what day, but I saw you board that taxi. You were all packed and I wanted to talk to you but you already sped away.”

Kyungsoo can recall the day he decided to come home. He didn’t feel very sure about that decision but he just went with what his feeling dictated that day. He starts talking but Baekhyun continues, cutting him off.

“I waited for you to tell me you had gone. I waited for you to tell me why. You didn’t. Not a call, not a text from you arrived for so many days, I just lost it. I asked Sehun about you but he didn’t even know you had left. He thought you were just resting, taking a break and then he just cried. Jongin said ‘it’s the blockhead’s fault’ and I asked him but he just looked at Sehun. Sehun said you were heartbroken and maybe you just had enough of it and gave up. I wanted to confront whoever broke your heart but they wouldn’t tell me who it was. Eventually, they stopped giving me information and you still couldn’t be reached so I went on with my life there, hoping you will call me one day, maybe out of boredom or just to insult me. You never did. Not once.”

Kyungsoo can’t hold his tears back anymore and he just lets them fall.

“I was miserable without you Soo. Taeyeon eventually moved on to another a guy and you still weren’t reaching out. I realized maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I offended you in some way that you just got tired of me. I found Sehun alone one day and we talked.”

Kyungsoo suddenly felt scared. He suddenly fears whatever Sehun might have told Baekhyun and when Baekhyun does speak, he feels like every wall he’s built up the past few years suddenly crumble.

“I’m sorry Soo. I didn’t know how you felt for me. I couldn’t think of a way to make it up to you, any way to somehow make it easier. I didn’t know what you wanted from me. I’m sorry.”

It’s weird…hearing all of this from Baekhyun, the person he thought didn’t care about him anymore. The person who didn’t even realize he had stopped attending classes, the person who was too busy to grant one request.

But he knows he needs to say something, too.

“I missed you. I didn’t expect for you to feel for me. I just couldn’t forgive myself for falling for my best friend and realizing it was hopeless. I’m sorry for confusing you. I just couldn’t deal with it and I just couldn’t bear staying there, seeing you and knowing you no longer needed me. I needed to get away from it all. It’s not all your fault.”

Kyungsoo knows Baekhyun might not even remember what’s being said between them. He knows the next step for them isn’t easy. Baekhyun however, even in his drunken state, vows to rekindle their friendship and that, at least, reassures Kyungsoo that maybe, there is a better way out of his slump. Maybe accepting what could be and what couldn’t be is easier for everyone.

It was hard for them to reach a point where silences were comfortable and each other’s presence was all welcome, but they eventually find a common ground. Kyungsoo promises himself, he’ll never let his feelings come between them and Baekhyun is resolved to just supporting Kyungsoo, until he finds his footing.

They both enjoy a friendship almost long gone and forgotten.

It’s almost like old times for them, almost as close as before.

And maybe it’s just fine like this. Kyungsoo sorts out his feelings and tries not to feel more and Baekhyun just tries to catch up on everything.

Until things start happening and Kyungsoo turns his attention to someone else.

It does become somewhat like old times. Only, the situation has changed and they’re roles are reversed.

END OF PART ONE