A/N: Parallel chapter to the following part which will be in Sehun's P.O.V!~

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Opening the door, Jongin shudders when a cold gust of wind slaps him right in the face. , it’s chilly. He figures the temperature must’ve dropped by at least two degrees since he went inside. He scans his surroundings and clenches his jaw when he looks to his right and lays his eyes on the same spot he stood on when Sehun had saved him from potential humiliation earlier. Goddamn es, he thinks. I hope they get stuck at the bar and never leave.

Speaking of which, Jongin blinks when he’s suddenly struck with the thought of where Sehun even is, given that the blond can’t spot him anywhere despite having scanned the entire area. He partially blames it on the fact that it’s nearly pitch black outside but even so, he finds it extremely strange that Sehun doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight no matter how hard he looks. Now that Jongin thinks about it, he can’t even hear anything save for his own breathing and footsteps as his shoes rub against a few pebbles underneath him. To his right, he sees a corner where a couple of dumpsters and trash cans sit but it’s so dark he can’t see anything. He seriously hopes there aren't any drunk, y, homeless people nearby.

A sudden wave of agony suddenly crashes down on Jongin like a bag of bricks when it dawns on him that Sehun might as well have left and gone home, and he bites his lip in worry when he scans his surroundings an extra time for good measure only to, yet again, find nobody in sight.

So he really did leave, Jongin thinks to himself and promptly swallows the bile that rises to the top of his throat; he figures the butterflies in his stomach bit the dust the minute he stepped outside into the godforsaken alley. As much as he hated them going absolutely haywire, he almost wishes they’d rise from the dead and fill him up with the warm, fuzzy feeling of euphoria he had felt only a short while ago. .

Did he hear me say he’s not my date? Was I too hyper? Did I freak him out? Did what I said about Jungah freak him out? Was I too personal? Did he catch me staring? Does he think I’m weird? Jongin bites his lip even harder as the endless possibilities of what he could’ve possibly screwed up (a lot, he figures) fill his head one by one and he swallows the lump in his throat which is beginning to suffocate him at this point, and he scrambles to remove his jacket, despite the below zero degree weather, in an attempt to free his airways since he’s genuinely worried he’ll collapse from asphyxiation if he keeps it on any longer.

Did he run off to join her at the bar?

Ignoring the painful tearing sensation in his chest, Jongin runs a hand through his hair in distress. He probably did. He nearly chuckles. At least now I know which way he swings.

He stands there in the cold for a painfully long time, heart and head racing impossibly fast. He listens for anything that could possibly hint at Sehun being close by, with no success, and swallows when Jongdae’s words appear in shining lights in his head.

Don’t treat it like a date.

Damn right, Jongin thinks as he sticks his hand in his back pocket to make sure his bus card is there, which it is. He suddenly thinks of what Baekhyun had said two days ago, which was something along the lines of footballers being ice cold, ignorant jerks and Jongin nearly chuckles. I should listen to Baek more in the future.

Jongin flinches when the sound of a trash can getting knocked over somewhere in the distance suddenly fills the air before reaching up and swiping a hand across his cheek. His makeup has nearly washed off of his face completely, which makes the feeling of deflation in his chest grow even stronger for reasons he can’t explain.

He stands in the alleyway for another minute, just in case, before reality seems to catch up with him and he exhales a shaky (he doesn’t know if it’s because of the cold or...well, the obvious) breath before pressing his lips together. No use standing here, he thinks before swallowing and turning on his heel.

After walking three steps, he momentarily stops to pull out his phone to call Jongdae because honestly, as much as Jongin hates the thought of walking home brokenhearted, he’d much rather walk home brokenhearted whilst talking to his (annoying) best friend than walk home brokenhearted in complete and utter silence.

Jongdae picks up after the first ring. “Jongin!” he squeals and Jongin thinks he hears Baekhyun’s voice in the background. “How are you two? How’s everything going? You’re calling early, by the way, is everything fine? Hey, are you wearing that sparkly shirt I suggested you wear earlier? Please, please tell me you are!”

“He left, Dae,” Jongin practically croaks into the receiver, trying to stifle a sob, and the next thing he hears is silence, closely followed by the muffled sound of a door closing.

Jongdae is silent for a full minute before speaking. “Could you run that by me one more time?”

Jongin closes his eyes in at attempt to pull his head together. “He left, Sehun left,” he repeats and this time he doesn’t even bother holding back the sob which was practically begging to be let out anyway. “I don’t even- I don’t know, we were there for like an hour and he said he wanted to do something else and then he darted out of the café before I had a chance to follow him and when I-” He pauses, swallowing the lump in his throat. “When I came out he was just gone-” He mentally smacks himself when he lets out another sob (but honestly, he’s beyond caring at this point), which seems to echo down the deserted alleyway. In fact, he’s surprised his voice echoes, too, given that he’s nearly whispering. “I looked for him and he isn’t around here anywhere- he took off, Dae, damn it-”

“ dude,” Jongdae sighs in exasperation, voice laced with sympathy. “Hold on, where are you right now? You sure you didn’t just lose each other by accident? Have you tried calling Sehun?”

“At the café, in this weird alley, but I’m heading to the stop, it’s cold as hell,” Jongin says. The mention of Sehun’s name automatically triggers his Sehun-reflex and the next thing he knows, Sehun’s face and voice is all he sees and hears for a brief moment. He clenches his jaw in both frustration and agony. “No missed texts or calls, Dae, -” He promptly lets out a third sob. “He’s gone; he actually, uh, took some girl’s number before we went in, and she said she was heading to a bar, so yeah.” He inhales a shaky breath. Despite the fact that he'd convinced himself Sehun had, in fact, eyed the brunette with a certain level of interest earlier, he never, ever thought Sehun would actually go as far as to run off to her without as much as a word. In fact, on multiple occasions, the blond came dangerously close to mentally beating himself up for ever thinking Sehun would do something so unthinkable. Who would've thought. 

Again, Jongdae is silent, making sure Jongin is finished before speaking. “Yeah, it really does sound like he- man, Jongin, dude, this , I’m so sorry-” he babbles, empathy prominent in his voice. “Jesus, that son of a ; I always knew there was something fishy about him; , what an imbecile, I’m sorry Jongin, this really, really .” He takes a deep breath, seemingly to pull himself together before continuing, his voice turning much more soft. “Listen, do you want to come over to my place for a while? Only if you want to, that is.”

Jongin promptly stops walking to lean against a wall. Shaking his head, he mentally slaps himself when he realizes Jongdae, can’t, in fact, see it. “No,” he says weakly, tying his right shoe. The surface of the wall is cold, so cold; a giant contrast to the warmth he’d been feeling only ten minutes ago. “No, it’s fine, I, uh, I think I’m gonna go home,” he adds before swallowing and holding his jacket closer to his body when a gust of wind passes. 

“Look, we’ll talk about this nice and thoroughly tomorrow,” Jongdae says in a concerned tone. “If you’d like to that is,” he adds when Jongin goes silent. “Look, man; I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now, God, I wish I was there but I’m stuck at home, .” He sighs in frustration before mumbling something along the lines of ‘ing son of a ’ under his breath. “That motherer. Who the does he think he is.”

“Look, Dae,” Jongin says, “I’m just gonna go home.” As much as he appreciates Jongdae’s efforts to lighten his mood, Jongin admits that having him bad mouth Sehun does absolutely nothing to cheer him up, despite the agony that’s filling every crevice of his heart. In fact, it only makes him feel that much worse and he can’t stop the tears that well up in his eyes from spilling out and flowing freely down the sides of his face, and he doesn't even bother caring about the fact that his makeup will most certainly be ruined. Another cold gust of wind passes and he seriously contemplates putting on his jacket but he doesn’t it in him to do so for odd reasons. “Okay?”

“Okay, sure,” Jongdae says without a single trace of rudeness or sarcasm in his voice. In fact, the blond still thinks he sounds heavily concerned. “Of course. Hey look, do you want to talk to Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun. Jongin nearly cackles because Jongdae never calls Baekhyun by his full name. Ever. It’s always, always either ‘Baek’ or ‘The Thing’. Either way, it makes Jongin’s head hurt. “No, it’s fine.” As much as he appreciates Baekhyun, he doesn’t want to talk to the latter for reasons unknown. He figures having one best friend to talk to at a time is plenty enough. “I mean, he did so many things that- I mean, I genuinely thought, for a second, that he li- Listen, I’m gonna hang up now, I’ll see you on Monday, okay?” he says before wiping his eyes. He longs for some peace and quiet at the moment because his brain, which is spinning at an alarming rate, really needs some time to cool down.

Jongdae seems to hesitate for a second before replying. “Okay,” he finally says, although he still sounds a tad bit worried. “Sure. Just...try not to think about it too much, okay? Try not to think about him. I know it’s easier said than done but still, just go home and get some sleep and we’ll talk about it tomorrow when you’re ready. Jesus, I feel so ing sorry for you, I hope you know that.”

Jongin nods and barely gets a chance to reply and end the call when his knees give in, and he collapses, tumbling down to the ground and landing on the hard pavement with a dull thud. His phone lands a few feet away and the cracking noise it emits the moment it comes in contact with the cement leads Jongin to believe he doesn’t need to end the call, after all. Shoving all thoughts of how one’s mood could possibly go from being on top to hitting rock bottom in less than ten minutes, he looks up. From his position on the cold, hard ground he sees his bus stop 100 yards away but he has absolutely no willpower to spare it another glance, nor does he have neither the physical nor mental strength needed to get on his feet and walk towards it. Instead, he opts to back up against the wall and curl up in a fetal position; pulling his legs towards his chest and burying his face in his hands. The thought of going home to his father and, especially, Jungah sends a chill of uncomfort down his spine.

He sits there for a minute before the sound of the café door opening a few feet away shatters the silence, and Jongin slowly lifts his head just in time to see the same girl, the girl whose laptop he’d accidentally managed to strike with a tissue earlier, as before, exit the café before the door slams shut behind her. Once she properly comes into view (she’d been reduced to a short shadow thanks to the darkening night), she seemingly stops dead in her tracks when her gaze lands on Jongin, and the latter doesn’t know if it’s because she recognizes him or because of the sight of him curled up against a wall by himself. He settles for both.

She seems to send him an unreadable look, probably out of pity, Jongin assumes, before wordlessly resuming her walk down the path leading to the bus stop. Following her with his gaze, Jongin sees his bus come into view but he only buries his face in his hands again and sits there until he listens to the sound of the engine roaring loudly as the bus drives away.

It’s not until the sound of the bus pulling away gradually fades, to the point that the same silence fills the air, that Jongin is suddenly struck with the sudden, overwhelming urge to vomit, which he finds strange given that he hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast, which had merely consisted of half a sandwich (or, he assumes, it’s one of the side effects of having four years worth of repressed emotions weighing down on your heart, head and stomach, but he figures the sandwich theory is much more likely), but he finds himself scrambling to his hands and feet anyway, and the next thing he knows, he’s busy emptying the contents of his stomach onto the grounds below; covering a small part of the black pavement in a shade of bright pink, and he stays in that position for a few seconds until he goes back to leaning back against the wall. Well then.

He spends the next couple of minutes (although it feels like hours) thinking back to, well, everything. In his semi dazed state, he thinks back to the first time he ever laid his eyes on Sehun, which was back in 5th grade, although Sehun was in 6th grade at the time, only a week after the latter’s team had won their first match (although the blond uses the term very loosely given that they were all around 13 years old at the time and playing against another class, but still.) and Jongin had signed up for the hockey team. He knew that from that day on, nothing would be the same. And he nearly chuckles because technically, I was half right.

Reaching up, he runs a hand through his hair, which has been reduced to a completely flat and a mangled mess atop of his head, before burying his face in his hands again. However, he soon pulls back like he’s been burned when he feels just how hot his entire face is. Christ, it’s like somebody pressed a clothes iron against my face.

In the dim lights, he intently inspects his palms and blinks when he comes to the realization that they’re both covered in a glistening layer of tears. Putting a hand up in front of his face, Jongin watches as a single tear travels from the center of his palm and all the way down his wrist until it finally comes to a brief stop on the tip of his elbow.

Damn, do I need a tissue.

Jongin highly regrets even thinking said thought in the first place because the next thing he knows, his brain is supplying him with images and sounds from when he and Sehun had been sitting mere inches apart, the latter demonstrating a football pass by tossing a used tissue, which he had used to wipe the blond’s face with seconds prior, into his empty cup of tea and Jongin instinctively presses his legs even closer to his chest when he suddenly, out of nowhere, feels his chest swell with a certain warmth which he can only describe as a warmth nobody else but Sehun could provide him with. The feeling disappears as quick as it came, however, and he shudders as a cold gust of wind passes, the hot tears coating his face making him shudder even more when the icy wind hits his cheeks, and he winces a little, although it comes out sounding more like a hiss.

He suddenly thinks of Sehun’s smile and how downright happy the latter had looked while they were busy trying to throw the tissue into the cup, or, more specifically, when Jongin had attempted to do the same thing only to fail miserably, and Jongin shifts a little when the hard pavement makes his bottom go numb, although he can barely feel the numbness over the constricting of his heart as well as every single vein and capillary in his body.

Don’t treat it like a date.

Scanning his surroundings for the nth time, even though he knows it’s useless, he listens intently for any signs that may hint at Sehun being nearby, only to be met with the sound of the wind howling as it passes by the tall buildings above. All of a sudden, Jongin thinks of Sehun and where the latter could possibly be, and before he knows it, his brain is supplying him (imaginary, of course, but even so) with photos of Sehun, at whatever bar those women were headed off to, while talking to and laughing with them about God knows what (honestly, Jongin figures he's better off not knowing) over some alcoholic beverage. Stupid bimbos don't deserve to hear his precious laugh, the blond thinks and subconsciously balls his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms. Now that he thinks about it, he's almost certain he recalls hearing Sehun's phone buzz an alarming amount of times while they were talking over a cup of bubble tea, and Jongin clearly remembers Sehun sneaking occasional glances down at his crotch, presumably at his phone, one of those times being when he was in the process of drying the blond's face. However, Jongin doesn't know if he should trust himself on this one considering the fact that his brain feels like it's seconds away from self combusting and if he knows anything about the human brain, it's that it can recall alarmingly inaccurate descriptions and events while in a state of...well, Jongin doesn't even know which state his brain is currently in, but he figures it's nothing pleasant. Despite that, he chooses to trust himself for reasons he can't explain, and he nearly shakes his head in disbelief.

At some point, he vaguely recalls Sehun, of all people, lecturing him about not jumping to conclusions since it could screw things up even more, but Jongin is honestly beyond the point of caring. The dead silence combined with his empty lock screen and the ordeal outside the café door is all he needs to assure himself.

Four whole years.

Jongin double checks to make sure there isn’t a soul in sight (not that he cares, but still) before he feels something snap in the back of his head, seemingly on cue, and before he can stop himself, he leans forward, careful to avoid the puddle of pink vomit to his left (even though it's so dark he has no idea where it even is), and bursts into tears.

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