dear baekhyun,

it’s your birthday, may 6th. you turn 28. i can’t believe how old you are.

you’re 28 and i spent a year and a half hating you. i regret hating you. i regret despising your every move and your whole existence because now i realise how much i love you.

i’m sorry. i’m sorry i detested your being for so long, you probably resent me. that one time i made your life hell when you needed someone simply because i hated you is what i regret the most. the time you were close to death and i watched until someone else helped you. that time i had you by the neck because you told me to stop hurting people, i’m sorry for that too.

when i came across you in the street, lost and alone, when you needed to get home to your sister, i should’ve helped you, but i didn’t. i regret that. 

that time we ended up trapped in an old building together and i had a gun, there was a reason i didn’t pull it out on you. not because i liked you, but because i was broken. lost and destroyed so you helped me. to this day i still don’t know why you did, why you were good to me when all i did was make your life hell. you comforted me and told me that being bad wasn’t my fault.

you told me that you felt isolated too, that you didn’t have anyone. to be honest, when you said having an enemy was better than nothing, i understood because i felt that. i fell in love with hating you. sick, it was. but now i love you.

that night you came across me in an alleyway, when it was hailing and freezing as , you approached my bleeding self and saw me crying. you didn’t walk away, laugh at me or tell me to it up and i don’t know why you did because i was your enemy and you were supposed to hate me. you lifted me up and took me to your gross apartment where you used your last bandage to patch me up. you should’ve hated me but you didn’t. maybe you didn’t want me dead, maybe you wanted me alive so you would have someone to fight against rather than nothing. because something is better than nothing. i’ve learned that.

i’m sorry if i threw it back in your face, i was confused. i was supposed to hate you, at least dislike. yet i found myself needing you, wanting you around all the time. i never sought to hurt you after that one day i ran into you at a bar. when there was this woman rubbing up on you, trying to get you into bed. i abhorred that woman, i hated her, not you. i found myself loathing her and willing to help you. 

after that, i found myself approaching you and softening rather than tensing. i thought maybe i just didn’t hate you anymore, or i just didn’t feel like hurting you, lost the anger i had in me to fight. i thought about it for a while, too long, and i finally realised that i loved you. i love you.

you weren’t my enemy anymore because i lived off of your comfort, i didn’t want to hurt you. i wanted to protect you. i was once the evil you kept at the back door, and you were my way of showing hatred for the world, but it changed. it wasn’t like that anymore. you were my serenity. you had become my tranquility when the world was filled to the brim with evil. i came to love you.

the thing i remember the most is when i first kissed you. you were close to tears about your sister being ill and i didn’t know how to comfort you so i thought about distracting you. i leaned into you slowly because i was worried how you would react. you kissed me back though, and i knew then that i never wanted to stop kissing you. i fell in love with kissing you. i fell in love with you.

i never told you. i might never know if you loved me.

i never told you but i’m telling you now in this letter. 

because today is the anniversary of your death and you’re turning 28. i never got to show how much i love you when you were alive, that’s my biggest regret. but i still love you and i’ll never stop. i hope you know that.

celebrate your birthday well. 

love, your sehun.