I like to think of myself as sensible, at least most of the time. Especially when it came to boys, considering my best friend is one (although he isn’t what you would call ‘normal’). That’s why it shocked me when I found myself stupidly in love with one.

            At the age of sixteen, I was happy. Why wouldn’t I be? I had Chanyeol, as crazy as he was, he was my best friend, and I was doing well at school, and had a great group of friends.

            But it was turned upside down when Chanyeol brought a new student, one he was supposed to be ‘taking care of’ to our table during lunch.

            “Hey,” Chanyeol greeted us, while beckoning the boy to come over, “Meet my minion, Baekhyun.”

            “OW!” He yelped when Baekhyun turned and pinched his arm, “Okay, jeez, you’re not my minion.”

            “Nope,” Baekhyun rolled his eyes, “Our homeroom teacher assigned him as a ‘guide’ for me.”

            “Wow,” I whistled, “Chanyeol can barely get around here, who in their right mind would assign him as a guide?” I looked over at Baekhyun, “You poor soul, hopefully your teacher will come to his, or her, senses. But until then, good luck.”

            But when I finished talking, I was frozen.

            My eyes were caught on Baekhyun’s face, his features. I’ve never met a boy who looked as angelic and pure, and my heart went *ba-thump* in my chest.

            Now, before you think I’m shallow about this, let me remind you about Chanyeol. As much as I , calling him ugly and such, he is not. He is quite easily the most attractive boy in the entire school, well at least until now.

            A feeling of timidity washed over me as Baekhyun plopped in the seat next to me, I thanked the heavens for the fact that I never blushed. (And during all this Chanyeol was ‘weeping’ dramatically on Kai Xin’s shoulder, wailing about my insensitivity. I only stuck my tongue out at him.)

            “So,” Baekhyun said, looking between me and Chanyeol, “You two seem close.”

            “Yup,” Chanyeol had ceased his theatrics and was sitting across from me, “Been best friends since seven, when we bonded over a badly drawn puppy and a brown crayon.”

            “O-okay,” Baekhyun nodded, before turning to me and asking, “So what’s your name?”

            I have never felt so shy before, but I pressed it down and answered, “Yan Hana, nice to meetcha’.”

            “And I’m Kai Xin!” Kai Xin piped in, waving enthusiastically at Baekhyun, but quickly turning to slap Chanyeol’s hand away from her food.

            After my friends had introduced themselves to Baekhyun, everyone dug into their food. But there was only a couple seconds of silence before it was interrupted.

            “Does anyone want a Hello Panda cookie?” Tao asked waving a pack in the air.

            “Yeah, me. Pass ‘em,” Kai Xin raised her hand, waiting for Tao to throw them. After catching the bag, she opened it before taking out a cookie, but instead of tossing it immediately into , a funny expression came over her face, and she sniffed it.

            “Tao!” She exclaimed, making a face, “You eat the strawberry ones?! That is sad.”

            “What?” Tao responded, defensive, “The strawberry ones are the best.”

            “Really?” Kai Xin raised her eyebrows, “It doesn’t even taste like strawberries.”

            I was watching this exchange amused when Baekhyun poked my shoulder, “Does this happen a lot?”

            I nodded, “Yeah, we argue about the most ridiculous things, just yesterday we had a debate over whether often is pronounced with the ‘t’ or not.”

           “And? Is it pronounced with the ‘t’ on not?” Baekhyun asked, curious.

           “After checking a dictionary, it said it can be pronounced both ways,” I shrugged, “Although both Tao and Kai Xin looked like the dictionary had failed them.”

           “You guys sure are something,” Baekhyun laughed.

Looking at his face, my heart hammered and I knew I was in trouble.

            At the age of eighteen, my crush on Baekhyun hadn’t faded, like I hoped and wished it would. It made interacting with him extremely hard on my part.

            How did I know it was one-sided? Maybe it was because he was the biggest ladies man; seriously this guy was the Casanova of Casanovas. You wouldn’t expect it right? Baekhyun looking like an angelic puppy, no one would expect him to be such a heartbreaker, wrong. I swear he has slept with practically all the girls that were willing, and there was a sea of them.

            But we were friends, besides the fact he was such a bed hopper, he was honestly a great person, how did I know? Because the sleeping around started 6 months ago. Before it started he was honestly my dream guy, true he was still a bit a flirt back then, but he was very caring and empathetic.

            Now though, he was changing, extremely fast. After the first few times of bringing his ‘girls’ to our table, doing nothing but make out for the entire lunch, Chanyeol told him to leave, after seeing the look on my face.

            I’ve forgotten how many times Chanyeol had comforted me about this, watching Inception and eating popcorn, his arm wrapped tightly around me, while tears slipped silently down my cheeks. Everyone knew about it, except for Baekhyun himself, the dimwit.

            Everyone was concerned about Baekhyun; honestly, he very quickly became very important to all of us. We all wanted to put an end to this behaviour; we didn’t have any idea what caused his change. Baekhyun’s change didn’t affect how he acted to us; he was still the same guy but as of late he was changing drastically. He rarely ate with us anymore, he never joined us when we went out, and he even cut class on a daily basis doing God knows what.   

            But even through all of this, my stupid infatuation with him never faltered, I still got butterflies whenever I saw him, I still felt shy talking to him, and my heart wouldn’t stop fluttering when I thought about him. I’ve never felt so helpless, Chanyeol had wanted to say something, but I couldn’t let him, everything would change if Baekhyun knew.

            Unrequited love, I never thought it would happen to me, but here I was, crying over a player.

            It happened on my birthday, the explosion. Up until then, I always hoped and dreamed that Baekhyun would come to his senses and go back to being the dorky jokester we all knew him to be. But on my birthday, at my birthday party was when I lost that hope.

            I was so happy that morning, my family and Chanyeol had woke me up by singing happy birthday (with guitar, courtesy of Chanyeol). After having breakfast, Chanyeol had dragged me all around town, going to cafés, shops, parks, until I was exhausted. By three in the afternoon, I was done with him, I was worn out from the crazy day of being lugged everywhere, and wanted to go home.

            I couldn’t tell for sure, but Chanyeol’s smile seemed even brighter as he walked back to my house, he seemed to be bouncing with excitement. As I fumbled with the keys to the house, Chanyeol was filled with energy, but I was way too tired to figure out why. As I stepped into the house, I could hear voices yelling.

            “Baekhyun, not NOW! STOP! WHAT THE HECK!”

            “What are you doing?!”

            “We didn’t ask you to come to do that!”

            “She’s going to be here any minute!”

            As I turned the corner to the living room, I saw it was decorated beautifully, streamers, a banner, and balloons, but the one thing I focused on was Baekhyun, kissing a girl on the couch.

            “BAEKHYUN!” Chanyeol’s voice was thunderous, it was deep already, but in this moment, it was downright demonic.

            Everyone turned to see a seething Chanyeol and me; I didn’t know what to feel. They all had a lost sort of expression on their face, looking between me and Baekhyun who was rubbing lipstick off his lips. At that moment my heart broke, he really didn’t care, he was probably forced here or something. I suppose I could have cried, running out of the room, but maybe I was really angry, or just completely fed up, or most likely, it was because that couch was the one I loved to death (and having two people making out on it was not okay, IT'S MY COUCH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE).

            Chanyeol was going to go over, when I turned around and shook my head, something on my face probably told him that Baekhyun was going to get the beating of the century (Chanyeol knew about my love for my couch), and raised his eyebrows. I gave him a swift nod before storming over to Baekhyun.

            “Get off my couch,” I demanded, eerily calm. Baekhyun stood; at least he had the decency to look embarrassed.

            “What has gotten into you?” I ask the question everyone wanted to know the answer of.

            Baekhyun shrugged, avoiding looking at anyone.

            “Sleeping with practically half the female population, acting like a complete jerk, and now this,” I pause, gathering my thoughts, “Really? On my birthday of all days, nice going.”

            As I was talking, Baekhyun’s eyebrows drew together, “Why do you care?”

            I stare at him incredulously, “Why do I care? Maybe it’s because I know, we know that you are better than this.”

            I take a deep breath, “Or maybe it’s because I’ve been pretty much in love with you since day one.”

            And with that, I couldn’t look at him anymore, and so I turned around leaving the house.

Half an hour later Chanyeol found me sitting on a park bench, knees pulled to my chest, hiccupping. He immediately strode over and tucked me into his side, rubbing my back soothingly.

“Baekhyun’s a moron,” he says softly, “But he wasn’t the one for you anyway.”

I only sniffled.

“Come on, you great lump,” Chanyeol smiled, “We still have cake.”

            The next day at school there was an obscene amount of whispering about me, Baekhyun, and my now famous couch.

            I probably would have gotten more grief for this entire fiasco, except for the fact Baekhyun went back to being normal Baekhyun. I couldn’t say the same for me, I avoided Baekhyun as much as possible, but considering we were in the same group of friends, awkward run-ins happened. At first Chanyeol was very wary of Baekhyun but eventually he forgave him.

            Even though I knew Baekhyun didn’t like me back, unfinished ties were still there, and a small strand of hope was still there, weak, yes, but it was still present.

            Until graduation.

            Graduation was a blur, the ceremony, the speeches. All I felt was the closing of a chapter, and the opening of a new one.

            As I threw my hat up into the air along with all my fellow students, and was picked up and spun around by Chanyeol, I realized we would all be going separate ways now, and a wave of sadness hit me. But before I could be properly sad, I knew I would have plenty of time to mourn later and now wasn’t the time. So I pasted a smile on my face and laughed with my friends.

            Suddenly, someone tapped me on my shoulder, “Hana?”

            A hush settled over everyone as I turned to see Baekhyun behind me, holding a flower (I’m not a florist, I wouldn’t know what it was).

            “Yes?” I look at him skeptically.

            “Could I talk to you?” He asked bashfully, nervously fiddling with the flower.

            I turned to see Chanyeol send me a nod and a smile, so I inhaled deeply and said, “Okay.”

            We made our way to some large rocks, and I sat, trying not to completely ruin the robe.

            “Here,” Baekhyun says as he gives me the flower, “Do you know what it is?”

            As I turn the flower in my hand I answer, “No, I’m not much of a flower enthusiast.”

            “Well, this is the zinnia,” he hesitated, “It means your friendship means so much to me.”

            I continue to stare at the flower, nodding, still not being able to look at him.

            “Hana?” Baekhyun says softly, “I’m sorry. Really, I was a complete douche to everyone, and should be awarded the worst friend title. But I just wanted you to know that you are important to me, maybe not in a girlfriend, boyfriend way, but important nonetheless.”

            Hearing those words, what little hope my heart clung to disappeared, crushed, gone.

            Baekhyun gently lifted my chin for my eyes to meet his, and whispered again, “I’m sorry,” before leaning down and pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead. A bittersweet kiss.

            And as I felt his lips leave my forehead, I let my feelings go. I am starting a new chapter today, and the first thing I will be rewriting is Baekhyun.

            “So, are we good?” Baekhyun asks, grinning like a crazy lunatic. (How the heck did I find that attractive?)

            I smirk beckoning for him to move closer, when he leans over, I punch his chest as hard as I could.

            “OW! FRICK, OW!” Baekhyun rubs his chest frantically, as if doing that the pain would go away.

            I sigh satisfied while standing up, before offering a hand to Baekhyun, who stared balefully at the hand that punched him, “Yup. We’re good.”

            And that is the end of the story of my first love. (You should have seen the faces of everyone when we came back arms linked, with Baekhyun muttering about me being a sadistic maniac and me wearing a content grin on my face.)

            Baekhyun did eventually tell me why he changed in the first place, and his situation was eerily similar to mine at the time, the irony. (Although his way of dealing with it was crap.)

*trumpets blare* Oh look! It's A/N time, time for me to make excuses about how slow I'm writing.

But first, I don’t even know with this. Like honestly, have no idea. Brain=dead.

So there is only one more chapter left. Sorry guys.

(I'm pretty sure you guys can guess who it will be.)

The last chapter is going to be like the 'blue whale' chapter if you know what I'm saying, I just started it so...don't expect anything until like, Wednesday or something.

(in reality: probably going to take me a week to slap everything together OTL)

I think this is it.

HappyPistachio is out.