Chanyeol walked the path he knew Baekhyun would have walked. He knew where he had gone and where to find him. He wandered along the street shrouded in darkness not caring that he had just walked out on his family reunion. All he cared about was the fact that eight years ago he had run away in tears and no one came for him. He wasn't going to let that happen again. This time he was going to make it right.

He walked past the bakery, past the nursery, around the back of the fence to the big tree. And he was right. There was Baekhyun, flat on his back on the grass, his arms spread over his head. "Hi." Chanyeol said tentatively as he sat next to him. "Hi." Baekhyun responded as he sat up. For a long time no one spoke as the words unsaid hung heavy and thick in the cloudy atmosphere between them. "How long?" Baekhyun finally spoke. "Consciously? Thirteen years. Unconsciously? Probably forever." Chanyeol sighed. He rested his head on his knees as he drew them close to his chest. "You know, I was so stupid, it was right in front of me all along." Baekhyun said as he laid back down and stared at the few stars peeking through the thick verdant branches bowering over them. "I always knew you had jealousy in you. I could feel it, it was always around us, ever since we were fifteen. But I thought you wanted her...." Baekhyun's voice trailed off as he thought hard.

"I thought you were jealous of me. But you were jealous of her. My God, Chanyeol, it must have been killing you. Everytime she treated me like , everytime she broke my heart, you were always there for me. " Baekhyun began to cry. "I flaunted my crush right in front of you and you never once resented me or lost patience." The smaller man sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ". All those ing double dates with her friends. Why did you put up with it?" The answer broke him. "I just wanted to be near you." Chanyeol admitted and Baekhyun sobbed.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he hiccupped. The combination of alcohol and emotion was overwhwelming and his body shook as he spoke. "I was going to. The last day of school. I was going to tell you that night. You had sworn you were done with her and I planned it all out, I was going to confess to you Baekhyun, I was ready to take the risk." Chanyeol had been doing a great job of holding it together but this was the point of no return and as he crossed it he broke as well. Huge silent tears poured from his eyes. He didn't sniff or hiccup or sob. His tears were as silent as they were painful as they ran rivers down his soft cheeks.

"I was going to tell you but then I found you and you were with them, and her, and it was all wrong. It was so wrong...." Chanyeol's body couldn't hold up any more and he found himself flat on his back beside Baekhun with tears still slowly dripping free from his tired eyes. "Maybe it worked out better anyway. Would you have accepted me Baekhyun? Would you have given me a chance?" 

Baekhyun took a deep breath while he thought hard. The past washed over him like a cleansing rain but with it came the realisation that he used to be young and immature, selfish and self centered, and bad at making decisions. And he had to be honest. "No," he said, and it was true. "Not then. But if you hadn't left the way you did, I don't know...." Baekhyun didn't have the end of that sentence. He didn't know. Neither of them did. What would have happened if Chanyeol hadn't left, if Baekhyun hadn't gone to the party, if he never married Taeyeon, if Chanyeol had come back more often? No one knew how things would have worked out.

"I'm sorry I hurt you." Baekhyun's voice was small in the darkness but the hand that found his was big and warm and calloused from years of plucking the strings of expensive guitars. "I'm sorry too." Chanyeol said and he began to laugh. "We're pretty much a pair of idiots aren't we!" Baekhyun began to laugh too and just like that the mood was broken, the sombre clouds of years of hurt and loneliness and longing dispersed, the laughter of two men breaking it apart like beams of blinding sunlight.

"I wasn't going to say anything." Chanyeol said. "I was going to let Sehun make you happy. I was even going to give him a ring for you." Baekhyun felt chills up his spine and he shook his head in confusion. "Why? Why would you do that?" Chanyeol stared into the leaves of the tree as he replied. "That day, the day I ran out on you at school, Kris followed me." "I know," Baekhyun said. "He went to talk you into coming to his party and apologise for making fun of you."

"Well that's not exacty what happened. He accused me of being gay, which I was, but also threatened me to stay out of Taeyeon's way. He said it was my fault you kept breaking up, that I was always in the way, that I was ruining your happiness. I wasn't going to do that again. I wasn't going to stand in the way of your happiness." 

Baekhyun groaned. He never should have trusted Kris. He knew all along he should have gone after Chanyeol that day and made it right. But the past was the past and it couldn't be changed. Instead he lay in the dark and squeezed the hand of his best friend who he needed back in his life. "It was just a stupid crush. Childish feelings that in the end meant nothing. You weren't in the way of my happiness Chanyeol. You were my happiness. When you left all the light went out of my life. Everything that could go wrong did. I never should have changed to study Law at University. You would have told me what a stupid decision that was. I never should have married her. You would have reminded me of all the times she hurt me."

Baekhyun rolled into Chanyeol's body and laid his head on Chanyeol's chest. The comfort he had been seeking, misplaced in his affections for Sehun, was found at last as the years slipped away and realisation filled Baekhyun's heart. "I never really wanted Sehun. He was just the closest thing I could get to having you back in my life." Baekhyun admitted. He buried his face in the cool linen of Chanyeol's shirt and inhaled that scent he had been craving, the combination of lemon and cotton and Chanyeol, and his body finally relaxed. In the damp earth, beneath their favorite tree, their friendship was renewed. 

"Do you still love me?" Baekhyun asked after a long still silence. "Yes. I never stopped." Chanyeol admitted as his fingers found their own comfort in Baekhyun's soft dark hair and his heart found comfort in the soft acceptance of Baekhyun's body moving a little closer.