Awkward. It is difficult to act when she’s around. He finds it difficult to breathe, difficult to think, difficult to move a single muscle. The point is that he does not want to find himself under her scrutiny. Consequently, his frustration is bound to be never-ending. But why should he feel awkward in the first place? Why should he stress about this? She’s clearly the one at fault for having the audacity to still be the most beautiful girl that he knows, even after breaking his heart.

         Soojung—sorry, no—Krystal, was his biggest object of resentment. Was—he had moved on.  And now, he does not want anything to do with her anymore or else, he’d just end up going back to square one, when everything had felt bitter. At some point, to an extent, it was toxic. It was out of control and he hated himself for some of the things he’d done because of it.

          Terrible, how he had become a jerk back then, leaving his girlfriend, Hoyon, in a heartbeat when he realized his feelings for her. Terrible, how he had dated some other girl to save face after being turned down, how he had shamelessly used Yejin’s company and affection to recover his sanity and to hide the fact that he had fallen from grace after the rejection. Both girls did not deserve that, he would admit. And Chanyeol would bite his lip and grimace, whenever that familiar sensation of regret from the past crept up unpleasantly like ticklish fire in his chest, which came to plague him some nights.

          Now that he could say he’s finally through beating himself up, Chanyeol does not want to go back to feeling insecure, stupid, and just…the biggest loser in the world like it had felt back then. The loser whom Jung Soojung decided to avoid like a plague after he had told her that he loves her.

          If it was easy for her: to shut up and pretend that such remarkable history never happened between them, it definitely is not the case for Chanyeol. To this day, he has to suffer the awkwardness of being the vulnerable one – of being the idiot who expressed his stupid, unreciprocated feelings.

          And unfortunately, now more than ever, it’s impossible to avoid Krystal. His group had only been through a year since debut. And the possibility of crossing paths with her group and that he’d be working particularly with her are both very likely.

          Of course, Chanyeol has no doubts about SM being a very capable and promising company. He knows that his career has better chances to take off, working under a prominent and competent label. He also likes to believe that his dreams are far greater than his puppy love. But sometimes, Chanyeol secretly wishes that he had not contacted the company after they had scouted him from that modeling contest. He secretly wishes that he had went to audition to some other company. Perhaps, one of those companies where his high school friends had auditioned at. J Entertainment? Starship? Perhaps, at FNC, where he might have been casted in a pop-rock band of some sort, like what he had originally wanted. Perhaps, he could have tried his luck at YG too, where he could have better develop his music-making and lyric-writing skills (and, well, maybe, stan befriend his favorite girl group). Sometimes, he secretly wishes to be anywhere at all but where he is right now, so that he wouldn’t have known Soojung—sorry, no—Krystal the way he did and ended up with a daily dose of awkward, just like this.

         Oh, the perks of falling in love with a labelmate.

         But Chanyeol knows little of how awkward it has been for Soojung, too. He does not know how uncomfortable it had made her when he suddenly broke up with his girlfriend at that time just for her. He also does not know how awkward it had been back then for Soojung to know that their mutual friend, Yejin, has a hopeless crush on him.

         It was not that Soojung did not want Chanyeol to be her boyfriend; she just didn't see herself and him being a couple. Or perhaps, she opted to not think