In the beginning, they came in a trickle; couples in pretty clothes, laughing friends with generous offerings, all with delighted, excited eyes. Then they came in packs, groups of four and five, like wolves on a hunt. Baekhyun greeted them with the same smile, the same welcome. She watched him, how his hair flopped, how the creases on his clothes disappeared after every move even though sometimes, he was nearly crushed in hugs.

“Don’t you know any of them?” Jongin asked. He was sitting next to her. She didn’t blame him, didn’t tell him to shoo. Quite the contrary, she wanted him there, wanted him because his presence was comforting, because his voice was music.

“I do,” she answered. For a moment, she turned her head away from him, looked over his shoulder to the mass of people lingering behind. They talked, laughed. It was a painting of dark, tumbling hair and open expressions; a sonata of laughter, whispered secrets and public jokes. “They’re all in my grade.”

“Don’t you want to talk to any of them?”

“What about you? What’ll you do if I leave?”

His expression softened. “I’ll stay here. I won’t go anywhere, I promise.”

She felt guilty for keeping him. “You could dance, you know. I wouldn’t mind.”

Jongin leaned back, rested his elbows against the counter. He shook his head, smiled at her wearily. “I’m not in the mood for it. I’ve danced enough for one night.”

She hesitated, but made up her mind and left him. The party was lively; friends brought her close in their arms. She smelled perfume and cologne and sweet orange juice in breaths. She laughed with them, mingled like any teenage girl, but her eyes kept going to Jongin, how he sometimes made small talk to the people who came to him, how he kept his eyes on her when they didn’t. With him, she felt safe.

She only managed to talk to Baekhyun after he cut the cake. There was a ridiculous party hat haphazardly perched on his head, one she’d seen Chanyeol wrestle him into with not a little brute force. His eyes look glazed, his voice had acquired a lower dip in its huskiness, and in the music, her heart pounded.

“This is seriously good!” he exclaimed sincerely. “Why have I never come to you before?”

She tried not to smile too brightly. “It’s just a small bakery.”

“You’ve gotten yourself a new regular,” he joked, waving his fork. “Where’s your friend?”

She pointed to Jongin, who, even at this time, still remained in his little corner. She then in a deep breath, preparing herself for the quivering ground when she asked, “Where’s your girlfriend?”

Baekhyun’s eyes found hers, held them for far too long. There was surprise in his expression; it was a film on his eyes, a fluttered touch against his lips. “We kept it a secret,” he said, his voice low. “We thought no one knew. How did you?”

She blushed. From her cheeks to the roots of her hair. She imagined tossing oceans of humiliation caressed by gales of Baekhyun’s scrutiny and sunk herself in deeper.

“I… I saw you that day, at the park.” She kept her eyes away from him. “I saw her hug you, so I assumed. I promise I won’t say anything.”

Baekhyun was biting his lip. He didn’t look mad; if anything, he looked worried. “I suppose that was rather careless. I guess all I can ask of you now is that you don’t tell anyone.” He was looking at something in the distance. His eyes caught the light, and she saw in them scintillating disco balls amidst warm chandeliers.

“She’s here too, isn’t she?” The words were bitter; the terrible aftertaste of a ruined heart.

“Yes.”

There were a few painful seconds she had to wait for before he tore his eyes away, but when he did there was a sigh, and then a touch on her arm. “I really do have to ask you to keep this a secret. I don’t really care much, but she begged for it. So, please.”

Baekhyun’s eyes were unsteadying. She wasn’t prepared for their shocking gravity. She gulped and managed a nod.

His smile was slow-spreading. “Thanks.”

“I should go,” she stuttered, and for what had to be the first time in her life, she willingly fled from Byun Baekhyun’s company.

The lights were glaring, soldering this horrifying moment into the backs of her lids, her mind. The music was a forceful hammer, feeding her notes she refused to hear.  

Her heart sobbed, her person a numbed, separate creature.

What brought her back to life was Jongin, a frantic one, with one hand on her waist and another accosting her fingers.

“Dance with me,” he said, urgent.

“Jongin, I’m not in the mood…”

“Please,” he begged, completely, hysterically, desperate.

 He spun her. She noticed that while his movements were like water, the fingers he had her hold were shaking. For a moment, she forgot everything about Baekhyun.

“Jongin, are you sick?” she asked worriedly.

“I feel sick.” His head was bent, his words a low murmur. His eyes had a feverish glow in them –headlights into a deer’s fearful eyes.

She made to pull away. “Then we should go –”

“It’s her,” he blurted. He looked like he had something ripped out of him. A layer of skin maybe, a mask –a heart. “And it’s just –” he shook his head, unable to finish. “It just hasn’t been that long.”

She understood. She let him lead, let him dance.

The world was spinning; they were the sun, the circling couples in orbits around them. All she could see was Jongin and his pressed lips, paling face, and wide, tormented eyes.

The third time he spun her, she forced herself to look over her shoulder. She followed the trail of his burning gaze and found its end on a very stunning girl with hair like satin and eyes shrouded like smoke.  She wasn’t looking at them; she was smiling at someone across the room, someone who wasn’t within speaking vicinity. It was a smile that didn’t look like it belonged to anyone who was standing close to her.

Gayoon followed her eyes –and almost had a heart attack, for it was Baekhyun that returned that smile in all its gentleness, its intimacy.

She didn’t realise that she’d gone limp until Jongin’s grip tightened around her hands and waist, supporting her, drawing her near to comfort her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, the agony in his eyes ebbing away into worry. “Do you feel alright?”

“No,” she choked. “Not at all.”

Jongin’s eyes darted over her head –stayed over her head for a very long time. “That’s Baekhyun, isn’t it?” he said after a long silence.

“Yes,” she answered weakly. “Is that Yeonjoo?”

Jongin’s lips were pressed tight when he nodded.

She shook her head, released his hands. Lightly, she grasped his upper arm, and pulled. “Let’s go, Jongin. This party isn’t meant for broken hearts.”

They ended up sitting by the fountain, a mammoth-like, physical representation of the Byun family’s wealth. The water was a dark mirror, holding the sky in its depths and stars in its ripples. The dolphin that spitted out water was a delightful, smiling thing that looked almost mocking in its cheeriness.

Her heart was bleak, empty, and she could see it in his eyes that Jongin’s was equally hollow. But there must have been more suppressed emotion, she thought, for Jongin’s adoration for Yeonjoo had once been physically manifested, while hers had been in a box, kept too far away for Baekhyun to have seen or understood.

She watched him perch himself onto the rim of the fountain, pretty hands grasping the edge. They weren’t as tense, but there were veins bulging –clear silhouettes. He seemed dejected, crushed, and his eyes looked like he had his soul by the shadows.

“I’m sorry I brought you here,” she found herself saying. “I shouldn’t have forced you.”

Jongin’s head shot up. He blinked at her with those large, glittering eyes. “Don’t apologise, it’s not your fault. My being here has nothing to do with coercion; it was at my own will.”

“I’m sorry I asked then,” she said, feeling wretched and miserable, “I’m sorry for everything I did that could have caused you to see them. It’s not fair to you, it’s not fair to –” she choked then, like a broken well.

She felt a hand on hers, large and warm and soothing. “Hey, listen.” Jongin’s voice was music, made her think of chocolates and trickling rivers. “This is not your fault, none of it is.” He laughed; amidst the bleakness, she was surprised to find that it contained actual amusement. “How many times have I said that? Why do you keep insisting that you’re the cause of all my misfortunes?”

 “Because,” she paused, thinking, “when something bad happens in your life, I’m always there.”

Jongin crinkled his eyes with a smile. “Nah, you haven’t the slightest idea how my life actually looks like.”

“I’m starting to get the picture of it,” she said gently.

Jongin’s lips took on a smile of dark humour, broken with pain. “I’m pretty pathetic, aren’t I? A couple of years of dating and I hadn’t the slightest clue that my girlfriend was in love with someone else.”

“Jongin…”

“No.” He shook his head, speaking softly. “Don’t say ‘I’m sorry’. It’s the present what matters and truthfully, I’m actually glad that bad things happen when you’re around.”

“Why?”

Jongin pulled away his hand and dipped it in fountain water. He traced circles around the stars and tried to halve the moon. “Because it’s sort of nice to know you’re not suffering alone. That there’s someone who understands what you feel.” He smiled at her forlornly. “Don’t you feel the same way? I mean, I feel like I’ve had my heart shredded to pieces and then flung away to wither.”

She furrowed her brows deeply. “I would never find joy in anyone’s suffering. Especially not yours.”

“How incredibly kind of you,” Jongin said with a bitter laugh. “I regret that I’m not as noble.”

“You’re here with me, aren’t you?” she said unhappily. “Misery does love company.”

“Indeed.” He bent and picked something at his feet. When he rose she realised it was a dandelion, soft and puffy in the dim, pulsing lights. “If I told you this dandelion has the magic power to make us smile, would you believe me?”

She couldn’t help but give him a disbelieving look. “What do you take me as? A child?”

“I’m telling the truth,” he said, turning wide, innocent eyes at her. “See?”

And then he brought it to his lips and blew a puff of dandelion seeds at her.

She shrieked and fanned them away, trying not to sneeze. He laughed and the sound filled the desolate night, rich, musical and alive. Jongin was by so many ways alive, she marvelled; he was alive in the way he presented himself to her, letting her read the words of the love story printed in his heart to its tragic end. He was alive in the ways he filled the quiet stillness of the bakery with his footsteps and his smile.

“It made you smile,” he said after a draft picked up the seeds and tossed them to the world. “And it made me laugh. I say that theory is well proven.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head, standing.

Jongin chuckled some more and breathed onto the dandelion again, where one stubborn seed remained caught. He managed displace it in the end, and it flew up, and away.

a/n: I'd love to get myself a Jongin too, but we can't all have what we want in life :p

       Which is part of the reason why this fic exists in the first place.