Baekhyun had felt liberated in the freedom of the farm. He had spent a day in the field reacquainting himself with the dirty fingernails of hard and honest work. He came for time to think things over and a day of squatting in a field cutting lettuce was enough. He wanted to go home. He was staying one more night and then he was heading home as quickly as his little blue car would convey him.

He was helping his mother make dinner when there was a knock at the door. He threw it open and stumbled backwards when his school friends assaulted him with hugs and squeals. "Ah - - guys let go of me!" Baekhyun shrugged out of their hold and away from their fussing hands. "Yixing!" Baekhyun grinned at his most caring and loving friend. The soft spoken Yixing was the son of Chinese immigrants who came to work hard in the rich agricultural area when their son was just a baby. "Junmyeon." He drew his strong and dependable friend into his arms. Junmyeon had dreams of studying architecture at the same university as Baekhyun but when his father died just months before graduation he threw his dreams away to take over their family's dairy farm.

The three friends, drawn apart as boys, reunited as men, walked along the dusty road towards town. Discussion turned from casual talk of small town gossip to the standard fodder for farmers. Weather conditions, crop rotations, the farm gate price of milk per litre. Baekhyun was pleasantly surprised to learn that Yixing was taking accounting by distance education and had taken a position bookkeeping for Junmyeon. As the three of them succumbed to the obligatory talk of girls Baekhyun found it strange that both were single. "For real?" He laughed. With Junmyeons dairy farm doing so well under his management, and Yixing boasting a clean cut office job, they would be the most eligible young bachelors in the area.

"What about you then Baek?" Yixing laughed. "Actually, I have to come clean with you both, about something I've wanted to say for a long time." Baekhyun took a deep breath as they continued their walk. Yixing had convinced him to go with them to the one bar still open in the small town and Baekhyun had said yes. That was what he came here for wasn't it? To learn about the things he was missing out on. To look through the window at a life left behind, to taste a life not lived, to walk the path of what could have been. Or could still be.

He steeled his inner resolve and stopped his friends. They were at the crossroad, the T junction between the dirt road of his farm and the bitumen road. One direction led towards the small town where he had never quite fit in. The other led him home, to Chanyeol's arms, to the joy of Jaehyun's smile and the glow in Taeyong's eyes.

"Guys. I'm gay." He stood and stared at them waiting for a response. "Gay?" Junmyeon said. "Like how gay?" Baekhyun laughed at the question. "What do you want? Like a percentage or a scale out of ten? One hundred percent. 10 out of 10. Like super ing gay." Baekhyun's giggles grew louder and the others soon joined in. Baekhyun's laughter died as he became serious again. "For real guys. I'm living with someone. His name is Chanyeol." Yixings eyes opened as wide as they could. Junmyeon seemed more shaken than Baekhyun expected.

All in, Baekhyun thought to himself again, might as well go all in. "He's 33. He has an advertisi