•BAEKHYUN•

So...there's this other thing about me that you should know. It's just as freakish as being fearless. It's also very had to put into words because it's so embarrassing. I've never even told anyone, I'd be way too humiliated.

Humiliation by the way is the worst feeling there is. It's truly horrendous. It's right there at the bottom of the pile along with anger, hurt, betrayal, compassion and selfishness. Oh, and don't forget guilt. If only I could take all of those unnecessary emotions and put them wherever my fear is so I never have to feel them again. Maybe then I could imagine being happy one day.

There you go folks, I, Byun Baekhyun, have discovered the secret to happiness. A lobotomy. Feeling nothing at all. It only took me seventeen years, how did no one else figure it out? (Sense the sarcasm)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, there's a reason I was getting distracted. I'd rather not talk about this. Okay, here it goes.

I'm a .

But it gets worse. I wish that was it.

I've never had a boyfriend.

That's true, but there's even more unfortunately. Apparently that's not humiliation enough.

I've never kissed anyone.

Not a boy, not a girl, no one. So there you have it. It's perfectly acceptable to call me a loser now okay?

Let me soften the blow a bit. I almost had a boyfriend when I was twelve. A pre-boyfriend if you will. His name was Finn and he lived around the corner from me. He had the right kind of hair (sandy brown, straight and short), the coolest bike (not that you care), the in-fashion jeans (at the time). His parents even had a cool car (black Range Rover with heated seats) and they had a huge pool.

These were the reasons all of the popular girls fawned over him. I liked him because he was secretly just as weird, if not weirder, than me. We played chess together and created elaborate fantasy games a mile under the sea or in outer space, long after it was socially acceptable to concoct imaginary lands (I think the age of four is the limit). We were nerdy in that we watched Bill Nye, the science guy yet cool enough that we only admitted that fact to each other.

Wait. Why am I telling you all of this? Am I really trying to pass off my friendship with a neighbour with no armpit hair as a romantic conquest? All just to cover up the fact that I'm actually a loser. This is a new low, even for me.

However it kind of helps tell the story of how my life changed the autumn after my twelfth birthday. My love life was stunted and got left behind with the rest of my life in that old neighbourhood I lived in with Finn. When the moving van came I just told Finn that I hated him so as not to leave any loose ends. My life ended but I kept growing.

Usually, I don't give a about the fact that I'm a freak. Why would I care what others think of me? But somehow this kissing thing, or lack thereof, bothers me. I won't pretend it doesn't. That's probably the worst part, how much I'm bothered by it. How much I actually think about it.

I'm gonna be brutally honest right now. Ready? Okay.

Of all the awful, horrible things that have happened to me in my life - my mom, my dad, the life I lost - I'm so vain, petty and selfish that the thing I think about and get upset about the most is the fact that I've never been kissed. And this thought drives me to more than just a desire for a lobotomy; it drives me to something worse.

Hey Rapunzel, forget a ladder. There's a much faster way down.

•

•

"I started thinking /not drinking was better for me / so it got me to thinking /about getting a lobotomy.."

"What did she say?" Baekhyun sat with a large cup of tea across from Yixing and was squinting at the band that was playing in the corner of the coffee shop. Usually he just ignored these garage bands, he'd heard them all before, but snippets of the lyrics kept floating into his head and stuck there like jelly.

"Huh?" Yixing asked.

"The girl singing. Did you hear what she sang?" Baekhyun asked him. Yixing tried to listen to the words over the hustle and bustle of the shop; the spoons tapping off the edge of coffee cups and the mechanics of the cappuccino machine. "Something about a lobotomy."

"You're kidding," Baekhyun said. Yixing looked at him oddly.

"If so, it wasn't a very funny joke."

"No, I mean, there's no way she said lobotomy."

"Okay, she didn't." Yixing shrugged. "Why does that matter?"

Baekhyun stirred his tea. "Never mind." He stared at the singer. She looked like Miley Cyrus but with bigger eyes, a hippie version kind of. She had shoulder length dreadlocks with the top half covered by a large navy beanie. A large tattoo of a wolf howling was on her inner right arm the top part covered by her elbow length sleeves of her leather jacket. Her makeup looked smudged and you could see the huge amount of freckles on her nose and cheeks. The thing Baekhyun loved the most were the two gold hoops in her straight nose. He longed to be as cool as this girl.

Baekhyun fidgeted in his chair. He didn't want a long silence between him and Yixing because he might bring up the night before. That was the last thing he wanted.

"You know what the problem is with these fancy packets of brown sugar?" Baekhyun asked holding one up. "The granules are too big and they don't dissolve in the drink. They just sort of chill at the bottom of the mug so your drink isn't as sweet as you want it to be until you reach the very end and then it's so sweet it makes you want to puke." He rambled on for as long as one could. Yixing looked puzzled and amused at the same time.

"I never really...thought about it," he said chuckling lightly "But you know there's regular sugar up at the counter?" He gestured with his head towards where they'd placed their order. Baekhyun nodded. Why had he agreed to this? Why was he having coffee with Yixing after school? Mainly because he'd been asked to. Because he'd tried to save Baekhyun's life even though he ended up saving Yixing's. He failed to remember that going for a coffee with someone usually meant talking to them.

Yixing stared at him a lot more than he liked. He stretched his arms out in front of him to lean on the table. "Listen Baekhyun, I just wanted to say-"

"I don't wanna talk about it," he jumped in quickly.

"Sorry?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"What is it?"

Now he was really going to think Baekhyun was a wacko. "It. Anything."

"You don't want to talk about anything?" Yixing asked carefully. Baekhyun tugged at her blonde hair awkwardly.

"I don't want to talk about last night. I don't want you to ask me any questions."

Yixing nodded quietly. "Hey Baekhyun?"

"Yeah."

"I'll make you a promise."

"That sounds heavy."

He laughed. "Just listen, alright?"

"Okay."

"I promise that I will never ask you a question aright?"

Baekhyun laughed too. "I think that was a question."

"Well consider it the last one," he chuckled, the crinkles by his eyes becoming more prominent.

"Deal." Baekhyun could feel the amount of friendliness in the air increasing and decided to end it. He stood up quickly banging the front of his calf off the table. "I'm going to go get that regular sugar, I'll be back in a sec."

"Okay."

"Good."

"Great."

Baekhyun stared at him for a second before walking up to the counter with his mug. This whole situation was so normal he felt like he was in someone else's body. He dumped two bags of sugar into the tea without even thinking about it. Yup, he was a happy teenage boy just casually having coffee with a friend.

Just then a group of familiar looking people walked into the coffee shop. He realised that they were from school, the self-claimed 'pretty people' of the world. The troop consisted of two girls and three guys and every one of them were laughing loudly, showing off their perfect pearly whites. Everything about them from their clothes to their figures screamed 'I want to be a Hollister model right now!' One boy in particular was above the average handsome, with short, black, shiny hair, a matching set of sweatpants and sweater, most likely designer, and trainers, also probably designer. All of it was nicer than anything Baehyun had seen before.

As much as Baekhyun tried to ignore them ordering their lattes, frappuchinos and whatever else they were getting, he couldn't help but imagine an alternate universe where he was one of them. What if he was witty and well dressed and didn't have a care in the world? What if his biggest dilemma was choosing what shirt matched best with those pants? What if the really cute guy with the tight Abercrombie sweater on called him all the time? Baekhyun studied his sandy blonde hair and his dimples and his green eyes. His eyes fell onto his lips and he imagined them kissing. Not just once, but over and over again, hundreds of times.

He felt something downstairs as he let the fantasy evolve in his mind. The guy would stand next to him while looking up at the coffee board, even though he'd order the same as always, and he'd reach for him naturally without even thinking about it. Hee'd be wearing black skinny jeans, maybe a nice shirt and some fancy shoes instead of his oversized red football jersey and jogging pants with old trainers. The guy's arm would wrap around his waist, pulling him in closer before he ordered his usual and ordered for Baekhyun as well. He'd pay for the drinks even though it was like six dollars and then Baekhyun would say something funny and adorable and he'd look at him, really look at him, and remember to remember how beautiful he was without even trying. He'd remember how much he loved him. They'd kiss, not with tongue or anything just a quick peck that left no questions unanswered or leave any expectations because he'd have nothing to prove. Soft and simple, yet meaning thousands of lovely things. He'd kiss him back softly and then-

The boy he was kissing changed suddenly. The sandy hair turned to a dark brown and the Abercrombie sweater changed to a tight black tshirt. Then Baekhyun realised it was him; the guy who'd interrupted his time by the chessboards at the park. How did he get here? he thought furiously. Who invited him?

"Baekhyun?" He was so startled by his name being called that he forgot he had hands, let alone a cup of boiling tea in one of them. He watched in horror as the brown sugary liquid soared from the mug across to the crisp white sweater of his alternate-universe best friend. Obviously the guy screamed. Loudly.

"Oh ," Baekhyun muttered.

Suddenly, everybody moved. The cute guy was grabbing napkins, the two girls were fanning around their friend and the other boy was picking up pieces of mug from the floor. Baekhyun knew the right thing to do was apologise a lot, grab some napkins, say something about how clumsy he was and offer to get the guy's sweater dry-cleaned. However, he did none of this. He stood there gaping like a fish.

The wounded guy looked up and gave Baekhyun the most horrible glare. "Excuse me, but you just poured scalding tea down my shirt!"

"I-" Baekhyun started, but before he could say anything else he was cut off.

"What the hell is your problem? Are you some sort of idiot? Could you at least try to apologise?" The guy didn't seem handsome anymore.

"I ju