Warning(s): a LOT of sadness (I am so sorry lol)
drugs, blood, violence

Length: 13.6k words

The slow, thunderous guitar riffs still manage to escape the club in which its song plays. It touches Baekhyun, no, caresses him and leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth—and it’s not from the cigarettes that he swore he wouldn’t smoke.

Baekhyun sighs loudly, exhaling a puff of smoke in the process. All this rule-breaking happened because of her.

The girls waiting outside of the club have been staring at him for some time now, and he has debated whether or not he should just go ahead and talk to them—maybe take a lucky one for a ride. But with every slow drag that he takes, he thinks harder and harder for her: the girl who should already be in the passenger’s seat but isn’t because he’s that much of an insufferable person. He should just forget her. He’s in Tokyo now, after all.

As Baekhyun wonders if he’s capable of forgetting her that quickly, a familiar woman exits the club and walks to him, the sound of her heels like cracking glass.

“Alina,” Baekhyun says, standing from the hood of his borrowed electric blue Supra. Their original agreement was to have her working for his “team” when he’s in Europe, but the past few weeks have called for special circumstances. “So.” He blows out the lit end of his cigarette before flicking it into a marked bin. “You get the money?” he asks Alina, and she nods in response.

“Are we meeting Chanyeol at the other club?” Alina inquires, handing him the briefcase that she had been holding. “Or are we waiting for him here?”

“Waiting for him here.” Baekhyun frowns as he tries to look for Chanyeol’s bright-orange Ferrari. Even in Japan—where the cars drive on the left side of the road—Chanyeol has an orange Ferrari to keep up with appearances. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere to be found. “But I think,” Baekhyun adds to his previous statement. “Maybe we should go to the other club. What do you say?”

“Let’s go,” Alina says. She pulls down at her short dress, drawing Baekhyun’s attention to how she’s also shivering slightly. It’s nearly November now, and that means that the nights are only getting colder.

“You’re right,” Baekhyun agrees. “I need a drink.”

“I thought you didn’t drink.”

“I don’t. I only drink when I need to forget.”

Alina lifts her eyes gaze from the ground and onto Baekhyun’s. “Forget?” she asks. “What would you need to forget?”

“Some girl,” Baekhyun replies cryptically before walking to the left side of his car. He opens the door for Alina, and she slowly makes her way to him, her blue eyes coated in a shade of curiosity. “Probably the kind I can’t forget even after a few drinks, but who am I if I didn’t try?” Baekhyun smiles as if to joke about the matter, and Alina smiles back at him before entering the car.

Once the two of them are inside, Baekhyun turns on the heater to stop Alina from shivering. She rubs her hands together to create more warmth and even rubs them against her bare thighs—in the familiar way Ange used to when she got cold. Something about that makes Baekhyun bitter, and he lets out a frustrated sigh.

“Hey,” Alina says in a bright tone, “you told me not to be sad because we’re in Tokyo. So why are you?”

“I’m not sad,” Baekhyun murmurs as he starts the car. While Alina buckles her seatbelt, he places his hand around the back of her headrest so he can twist his body with ease and peer out of the rear window. He backs out of the parking space without difficulty and shifts his hands back to the gearstick. “Like I said,” he continues mumbling, “I’m just ready to start drinking and stop remembering this one ing girl.”

“Didn’t you tell me I shouldn’t get alcohol poisoning trying to forget a man who dumped then fired me?”

“Well, maybe I’m a hypocrite, Alina.”

“You’re a lot of things,” Alina muses, “but you’re not that.” She flicks her loose hair over her shoulder and shrugs again. “You were there for me when I thought my life was ending. Let be here for you.”

Baekhyun frowns and laughs at the absurdity—out of insecurity. “Is that the impression I give?” he questions sharply. “Like my life is quote, ending, unquote? Really?”

“A leather jacket and a moon—” Alina gestures to her own forehead as she looks at Baekhyun, most likely in references to the loose, crescent-shaped strand of hair that he keeps hanging over his forehead, “—can make you look cool, but it won’t change what you feel inside.”

“So you’re a therapist now?”

Alina shrugs as if to answer maybe, but Baekhyun knows better than that, so he shakes his head and starts driving to the upscale club located in Tokyo’s center. Since he’s in no rush to get anywhere, Baekhyun drives slowly, and that means more time to think—more time to think about her.

Ange, Baekhyun thinks to himself with a deep, desolate sadness. The last time that he saw her, it was still September—just before he left for Japan. Now, it’s October 28, he’s still in Tokyo, and the of them still haven’t tried calling each other or sending a text. In fact, Baekhyun hasn’t even opened their old messages because he knows that he’ll get sad reading through them. He’ll see her cute little texts and reassuring words, and then he’ll start kicking himself for hurting her in the way that he did because she was the last person who deserved that.

It’s too bad that there’s no going back now.

- - - - -

“Leave it to Loey,” Baekhyun stresses Chanyeol’s second name because it’s also his gang name, “to get the addresses so wrong that he forgot to mention that he’s having a party at a penthouse.”

As annoyed as Baekhyun is that he gets to experience another one of Chanyeol’s infamous house parties, Alina doesn’t share the same sentiment as him. Chanyeol’s parties always include rich men with gang relationships, so in turn, they bring in foreign girls and designer drugs—which, when combined, makes for the perfect recipe for chaos. Something about that chaos is alluring to some people, however, and Baekhyun isn’t surprised that a young 20-something model like Alina would be drawn to it. She’s quick to exit the elevator with the briefcase of cash in order to deliver it to Chanyeol and finish her job—while Baekhyun grumbles because he knows what’s coming.

Chanyeol doesn’t like to meet at random clubs—no matter how exclusive—when he has business affairs to settle. For the past month Baekhyun has been in Tokyo, that can only mean one thing: their plan to get rid of Junmyeon once and for all.

Baekhyun looks around Chanyeol’s penthouse to see if there’s still a semblance of sanity around him. After attending so many of these ually charged, drug-enhanced parties, it actually gets boring after a few times. They become routine, and everyone knows that there’s nothing exciting about routine. The spanning views of Tokyo’s skyline—or any skyline, for that matter—are beautiful, sure, but they’re nothing without someone to kiss under. If anything, being in these parties, high above the city, only makes Baekhyun realize how lonely he really is, and that just makes him miss her more.

“Hey, is that Lux?”

At the sound of his named yelled over the party’s electro-pop soundtrack, Baekhyun whips around to see the speaker. Almost immediately, his eyes find Chanyeol—pink-haired and smirking at him. However, something about the giggling girl on Chanyeol’s lap tells Baekhyun that it isn’t Chanyeol that called his name out like that.

“Loey,” Baekhyun says once he has approached Chanyeol. “Are we talking now?”

“You’re not gonna say ‘hi’ to Liz?” Chanyeol teases, and it’s at that point when Baekhyun recognizes who the laughing girl is. When he first met her in Italy, her hair was red, but now, it’s as pink as cotton candy and falls just over her collarbones. She seems to have trouble looking at him, her eyes glassy and glazed, but she smiles regardless.

“Lizeth,” Baekhyun states her name sternly. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“Oh, you’ll see a whole lot of me,” Lizeth mumbles in a slurred tone. She tries to rest her head on Chanyeol’s shoulder but somehow misses the mark by a few millimeters, causing her to giggle at her mistake. “Oops,” she hiccups.

Before Baekhyun can scold Chanyeol for getting involved with a clearly inebriated Lizeth, he’s interrupted.

“There you are,” another voice says. When Baekhyun turns to see the speaker, he sees Alex and Alina walking towards Chanyeol and him. Unlike Alina or any other girl in that party, Alex is quite literally not dressed like the other girls; she dons a two-piece women’s suit in a deep purple color. She isn’t wearing heels either—almost as if she has braced herself to run and run quickly. Her blonde hair is tied in a bun too, ensuring that loose hair doesn’t get in her way. “Lini and I were looking for you,” Alex says, nudging a shoulder towards Alina. “Are we talking now?”

“Oh, you call her ‘Lini’ now?” Chanyeol quips to which Alex scoffs and shakes her head in disgust. “O-kay, whatever. Since the whole gang is here, I guess we can.” Chanyeol starts lifting Lizeth off his lap, prompting her to whine. “Don’t worry baby girl, I’ll be back,” he chuckles darkly before standing up. He then looks at Baekhyun. “Come on. Let’s go outside.”

Baekhyun follows Chanyeol outside to a large balcony filled with plants and spanned with a view of Tokyo’s Shibuya ward. Fairy lights are strung up on an arbor to illuminate the area. As if the balcony isn’t enough of a private space, Chanyeol signals for four men to block the entrance, effectively shutting anyone out.

Since the weather has been getting colder, Chanyeol turns on an outdoor heater that quickly begins to emanate heat from a caged, glowing orange rod. Baekhyun sits across from Chanyeol on one of the pieces of outdoor furniture, separated only by table; and Alex and Alina sit next to each other, the two of them perpendicular to Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Alina slides the briefcase over to Chanyeol who stops it with a hand.

“So you’re probably wondering why I gathered you all here today—”

“Chanyeol, shut the up,” Alex interjects with a scowl. “We know why we’re here. Updates. Now.”

“You’re so fun to be around,” Chanyeol quips as he opens the briefcase. He then turns it so everyone sitting by the table can see. Under the warm lights of the balcony, stacks and stacks of Euros are made present. Lying atop them are what appears to be sets of passports. “Since Miss Alex here,” he gives her a pointed look, “couldn’t secure the passports, I had to do it, and thankfully I know a guy in a Russia.”

“Give mine to me,” Alex demands, already reaching for hers. Chanyeol tosses Alex her passport, and upon catching and opening it, she frowns. “You couldn’t have chosen a better picture?” she hisses. “The hell is this?”

“If you hate it so much, don’t use it then,” Chanyeol quickly shuts her down. With a palm, he slicks his hair back and sighs. “Whatever. Those are just part one of our escape plan. We all talked about part two. Anyone remember that? Alina?”

“Go home,” Alina answers in a murmur, “and make a fire.”

“Burn and destroy evidence of your existence,” Chanyeol rephrases. He makes eye contact with everyone at the table. “We can’t have anything getting traced back to us. The creation and deployment of a bomb is considered as terrorist activity.” He lowers his already low voice and knocks on the wooden table. “But everyone here should already know that because we are all past the point of no return.” Baekhyun looks at his hands because he has nothing else. No return. Not even to Ange, it seems. “Tomorrow, at approximately 9PM Japanese Standard Time, the bomb should go off,” Chanyeol continues, “and if we’re lucky, it’ll kill Junmyeon. If we’re not, then we’ll have scared him into oblivion.”

“Oh, it’ll scared him alright,” Alex mumbles. “Germans don’t mess with their bombs.”

“Do we really have to leave?” Alina whines. Unlike the rest of them, she’s the only relatively innocent one here. Relatively. “Aren’t we safe here? In Japan?”

“The Yakuza can only tolerate my presence for so long,” Chanyeol says, shaking his head. “And besides, this isn’t forever. You can go back to Berlin,” he assures Alina, “in maybe a few years or so. It’s just to be safe, remember?”

Alina frowns, evidently displeased with the circumstances, but it’s the way things have fallen for her—and for the rest of them. When Baekhyun promised her money to aid Alex, Alina didn’t hesitate; she merely did as she was instructed no questions asked. Blind trust like that has its repercussions, but she already knew that. They all already knew that.

“So we’re done here?” Alex asks, breaking the silence. “Lini and I can go?”

“Yeah, you’re good.” Chanyeol shrugs a shoulder, and the women stand to leave. They quickly walk off, leaving Baekhyun alone with Chanyeol.

“What do you need me for?” Baekhyun mutters in question. “It seems like everything’s falling into place.”

“But it isn’t,” Chanyeol retorts. “You’ve been having second thoughts, and I don’t like my main priorities treated as secondary.” He crosses his arms and glares disapprovingly at Baekhyun. The fire in his eyes isn’t softened by his pink hair. “On the off chance that we don’t kill Junmyeon, you’re the first person he’ll come after, and I don’t think for a second that you’ll offer that much resistance to torture.”

“Torture?”

“Come on, you think Junmyeon just wants you dead? No, he wants you suffering, Baekhyun.”

The idea of torture is as attractive as spending a night wallowing in sewer filth. Baekhyun shakes his head, however, because that still doesn’t sound as bad as his current reality. This broken, stupid, pointless reality where Ange hates him, and he still loves her.

“I’ll die before I ever let Junmyeon have the last laugh,” Baekhyun assures Chanyeol. “And I haven’t been having second thoughts. I just…” Baekhyun takes a deep breath and leans back into the soft cushions of his chair. With his eyes closed, he’s once again haunted by the memories of the plump-lipped girl with soft hands and a soft heart. “I don’t know,” Baekhyun continues with a slight stammer, “what the point of all this is if I don’t have her with me.”

“You really think a girl is worth more than freedom?”

“She is if I felt free around her.”

“Look,” Chanyeol snaps, “you need to wake the up.” The harsh delivery of his already harsh words causes Baekhyun to open his eyes and look at the glaring man before him. “You already told me that she saw you kill her brother. Why the hell would she want you back? She hasn’t even tried calling you, okay? She’s gone. ing act like it.”

“You don’t get it. I love her,” Baekhyun stresses. He runs his hands through his air as if to bring to life his sorrows. “I don’t wanna see a life without her. I—”

“Baekhyun.”

With his name stated so evenly, so pitifully, Baekhyun stops his mindless blubbering. “What?” he asks Chanyeol.

“You really haven’t been keeping up with her, have you?” Chanyeol asks in a much quieter tone. His scowl has faded away to form an expression of concern. Although Baekhyun hasn’t known Chanyeol for long—and considered him as a friend—they are still allies, no matter how begrudging. And even allies such as them have to show compassion, despite how misplaced the concern is. “You don’t know what that little angel is up, don’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” Baekhyun asks, suspicious. “Have you been stalking her?”

“Stalking?” Chanyeol laughs at the assumption. “She works at a club in Daegu—the Munsung Nightclub.” Baekhyun’s heart stops because it’s simply too absurd for him to believe, but Chanyeol isn’t done with the earthshattering news. “Not just any club too. The one where, you know, a lot of messed up happens.”

“What the are you talking about?” Baekhyun demands. “Ange doesn’t work at a club.”

“You wanna see proof? Step up, motherer.” Chanyeol’s softness, as quickly as he wore it, is now gone and vanished into disapproval. He shakes his head at Baekhyun and crosses his arms. “When a person doesn’t have anyone to look after themselves,” Chanyeol states, “they have to start working actual jobs. Since you left her and the rest of your old team behind,” Chanyeol takes a sharp intake of breath, “I guess your girl took matters into her own hands.”

What have I done? Baekhyun punches himself. Of course. Of ing course. Without her brother and without him, Ange wouldn’t have anyone else to look after her—take care of her. Undoubtedly, she took up a job to make up for incurred expenses since a savings account can only last for so long until it has to be replenished. The worst part of it all is that it’s all his fault.

I wasn’t there for her, Baekhyun thinks. I didn’t stay.

“You look surprised,” Chanyeol says. “What? You didn’t see this coming?”

Truthfully, Baekhyun didn’t think that far ahead. He only saw how angry she had been when she yelled at him to leave, so naturally, he wanted to give her space. Leaving her to fend for herself was never a part of his intentions.

“How,” Baekhyun coughs, his throat suddenly dry, “is she? Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s doing great—really great, actually.” Chanyeol reaches inside his suit jacket and takes out his phone. Baekhyun is curious as to what he’ll do with it, but Chanyeol is seemingly only answering a text. “She’s popular at that club where she works—gets the best clients and whatever.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t act stupid,” Chanyeol scoffs. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. She’s a dancer. What kind of ing clients do you think she gets?”

The word angry can’t even begin to describe the rage that Baekhyun feels. He’s mad, yes, that Ange would be with anyone else other than him—and it is rightfully deserved—but he is boiling over with wrath. All Baekhyun has to do is imagine another man’s hand resting on Ange’s thigh, driving her home or God-knows-where, and he hates it, can’t stand it, wants to ing end it. In the middle of his white-hot anger, however, is a profound sadness because he still loves her, and it seems like she’s already over it—already over him.

“And another thing,” Chanyeol adds. He taps on his phone a few times before showing its face to Baekhyun. “Seems like she’s on the other side now.”

At first, Baekhyun doesn’t know what Chanyeol means—not even when his eyes focus on the photo that he’s looking at. Chanyeol seems to have shown him a random photo of two men—probably Chanyeol’s fellow gang members—posing with shot glasses in their hands. However, upon a closer inspection at the background, Baekhyun realizes exactly what Chanyeol is showing him.

Ange is in the background, her face clearly illuminated by the club’s red lights. Despite the fact that she’s dressed way too scantily for Baekhyun’s liking, he’s more worried over who she’s with. In the photo, she appears to be sitting on the lap of another man.

“Is that…” Baekhyun stops just short of speaking the man’s name. Even in the dim photo, the man’s face is visible.

“That’s your boy,” Chanyeol confirms, “Kim Junmyeon with your girl on his lap.”

“This isn’t real,” Baekhyun whispers, simply choosing not to believe his own eyes. There’s no way that Ange would do this to him. She wouldn’t just go take Junmyeon’s side and be rash enough to literally sit on the devil’s lap. I didn’t mean much to her, did I? Baekhyun thinks to himself. “She wouldn’t do this,” Baekhyun stammers. “N-No, she wouldn’t.”

“You wanna see the other pic with his hand up her skirt? Because I’ve got—”

Chanyeol doesn’t get to finish his statement. Baekhyun’s imagination is enough to bring him to his breaking point, and with a yell uncharacteristic of his personality, he stands up and kicks a pot so hard that it slams into a wall and breaks into three large pieces. The ruckus causes Chanyeol’s guard to open the balcony doors, but Chanyeol hold his hand up for them to stop. Baekhyun knows better than to break things out of anger, but oh, he’s so goddamn angry that he could tear Tokyo apart with his teeth. Seething, he grabs at his leather jacket, buries his nails into its lapel, and tries to get ahold of himself before he does anything else that he’ll regret.

“You know, this penthouse isn’t mine,” Chanyeol says as Baekhyun kicks over another pot. “I’m just renting it out for the night.”

Baekhyun tunes Chanyeol out as he continues trying to make himself feel better by being destructive. Unfortunately, like the other times he gave up to his rage, being angry and destroying things doesn’t make him feel any better. It just tires him out and leaves him as a shell of a man as he bends over, seething and shaking with agony.

Chanyeol seems to know this too because he asks coolly, “I take it that you don’t want the see picture where she’s kissing him too?”

If the sound of a breaking heart sings like the muffled guitar riffs of a slow rock ballad song, then the sound of a breaking heart is so thick that it seeps through brick and mortar.

“You’re just saying that,” Baekhyun mutters as Chanyeol grabs him by the shoulders, “to make me feel worse than I already do.”

“I don’t get off to sad men.” Chanyeol literally shakes Baekhyun by his shoulders, but it does little to shake Baekhyun back into reality. His heart feels like someone sliced it half with a hot knife, but not hot enough to cauterize the wound—just hot enough that he feels the burn before he feels the sting. “Baek, listen to me. She’s gone, okay? She’s not yours anymore.”

Baekhyun feels his mouth tremble on its own. “I don’t think she was mine to begin with,” he confesses sadly, painfully. “And that too.”

“Shut up,” Chanyeol snaps, and it’s surprising to Baekhyun that he hasn’t slapped him yet. If it were Baekhyun in Chanyeol’s shoes, he would have slapped himself a few times by now. “You can’t be sad when we commit war crimes tomorrow.”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to feel?” Baekhyun spits. He bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from blubbering like a child. “She’s out there, probably ing some other guy, and I can’t be sad over that? off. I’ll be as sad as I want.”

“No.” Chanyeol stops Baekhyun from pushing him away. He leans his face close to Baekhyun’s until they’re close enough that Baekhyun can feel his breath on his face. In this angle, Baekhyun becomes aware of just how welted the scar on Chanyeol’s face is. Through gritted teeth, Chanyeol hisses, “You’re gonna get over it, you hear me?”

“How?” Baekhyun whispers back. “I still love her.”

“Maybe, but you really think you’re gonna say that after I’m done with you?”

Baekhyun doesn’t completely understand the meaning of Chanyeol’s words so he frowns, momentarily confused, and Chanyeol smirks as he finally backs off.

“What?” Baekhyun asks, mystified by Chanyeol’s cryptic statement.

“Let’s get a drink.”

Chanyeol opens the door for Baekhyun, and Baekhyun reluctantly follows him inside to where the DJ has started playing an electro-pop, synth-filled song with a heavy bass mixed into it. The penthouse doesn’t have flashing lights like a club does, but it has LEDs light fixtures that flash in color every now and then, dousing all the furniture in mixed tones of the rainbow.

I’m blinded by the lights, the singer sings. No, I can’t sleep until I feel your touch.

“I don’t get sad anymore,” Chanyeol yells over the music. He hands Baekhyun two pills that seem to change color when the lights do. “I just pop a few pills, drink a few drinks, and I’m fine.”

“Chanyeol…” Baekhyun shakes his head, attempting to hand Chanyeol back his choice of drugs. Even with a broken heart, he’s not stupid enough to take random drugs at a party. “I’m not into this . I’ll just go on a drive and—”

“You don’t get to be sad!” Chanyeol yells again, pushing Baekhyun’s hand back to him. “You’re Lux, and we’re gonna ing blow it up tomorrow!”

The city’s cold and empty. No one’s around to judge me.

Baekhyun’s ears perk up—mostly because he has heard this song before. Ange showed it to him all those months ago when they were on a drive, and she deemed it too quiet for her taste, so he let her play whatever songs she pleased. Those were the days. The two of them were still strangers to each other, and he was still Lux before he was Baekhyun.

Things were so uncomplicated, weren’t they?

If only he could go back…

Baekhyun watches Chanyeol down a shot in one go before sauntering over to rejoin Lizeth on a couch. He grabs her by the and kisses her roughly, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She merely throws her head back and falls into the cushions with her pink hair splaying outward. Past Chanyeol and her, Baekhyun also catches a glimpse of the small crowd dancing on the penthouse’s makeshift dance floor. Some dance strangely, but most dance numbly—as if they only moved to touch another’s body gyrate against theirs.

With the lights blinding him, Baekhyun exhales and tosses the two pills that Chanyeol gave to him. They hang in the air for less than a second before falling directly into his mouth. Baekhyun chases it down with whatever the minibar is serving in its shots, and within seconds, he finds himself dancing with girls that he doesn’t know.

Everything makes sense now—why Chanyeol throws these parties and insists that he can’t be sad. They’re on their way to committing war crimes and killing innocent people. No one gets to be sad and then do those things—not even people like him.

And Baekhyun agrees completely. His heart aches, and he’s not sure why—is it Ange or is it the unnamed drugs that he just ingested?—but he goes on dancing and drinking his sorrows away.

On the dancefloor, Baekhyun quickly finds a girl with wavy red hair, grabs her by the waist to start the next song with her. In between choruses, Baekhyun makes contact with her brown eyes and, in the bright lights, finds that they’re dilated—probably as drunk and high as he is. Baekhyun knows better, but dammit, he isn’t any better. The girl’s intoxication and his own only fuels him to be more reckless, and he kisses her without thought, slipping his tongue into as if his lips were too numb to hold him back.

As the drugs he ingested take effect, Baekhyun feels less and less. Reality seems to make less and less sense too, so he’s indebted into doing more and more.

The colors in the room seem to shift in and out of shades that makes sense; suddenly girls have green skin, and out from the walls seem to seep a blue-colored tar. The air smells like artificial fruit, and the smoke that lingers in the air leaves a white sheen on Baekhyun’s black leather jacket. Baekhyun even swears that he sees Alina and Alex dancing with each other, faces too close to be anything less than sapphic, before kissing one another. Before he can get a second look, however, Baekhyun’s wobbly legs give start giving out until he ultimately stumbles onto a couch, the girl he had been dancing with landing on top of him. She immediately goes for his neck and at the sensitive skin by his collarbone, and Baekhyun squirms under her to sit upright.

“Hey,” a slurred voice next to Baekhyun says. Upon turning, Baekhyun realizes that he landed in the same couch where Chanyeol had been. Lizeth is still on his lap, also kissing him by the neck.

“Chanyeol?” Baekhyun asks, squinting although his vision is 20/20. “What—”

Chanyeol calls something out in a language that Baekhyun can’t quite fully grasp—perhaps Japanese—and three women approach them with eager smiles.

“The Yakuza’s favorite girls of the night,” Chanyeol says with a crooked smile. “So you know they’re clean, and you know they’re limber.” His face seems to morph as the lights around them change color, but his grin is unmistakable. “Sana, Mina, Momo.” Those must be their names because they simultaneously wave at Baekhyun, causing him to laugh. Chanyeol doesn’t see the humor, however. “Which one do you want, hm?”

“Which one?” Baekhyun repeats like it’s absurd. “Chan, I can’t—”

“Choose one!” Chanyeol yells.

“Choose one?” Baekhyun echoes. “Bro, choosing one. I want all three.”

Finally, Chanyeol aligns himself on the same wavelength as Baekhyun. He throws his head back in a laugh and points at Baekhyun, as if to say that’s more like it. Baekhyun still feels a prolonging ache in his chest, but when he laughs, he can dismiss it for something other than it is.

“Liz,” Chanyeol says, pulling Lizeth away from his neck, “bring your friend. The hot one from New Mexico.”

Chanyeol stands up and starts to lead the three Japanese girls away—presumably to a private bedroom—while Lizeth pulls away another from a small dancing group. The two of them follow Chanyeol’s lead, leaving Baekhyun to gather himself and the girl who has started straddling him.

“Come on,” Baekhyun tells her. “We’re moving.”

The girl rises and moves her red hair away from her face, revealing wide, mono-lidded eyes made larger by a thick wing of sparkling back eyeliner. Her lips are as thick and full as Ange’s—though Ange would never wear black lipstick like that. Regardless, Baekhyun thinks of her and every kiss that they’ve shared. His heart shatters just a little more, and the girl on his lap seems to understand—perhaps even feel—his hesitance because she his cheeks with the pad of her thumb.

Like how Ange used to do it.

“What’s your name?” Baekhyun yells over the music.

“Yumi,” she answers.

“Yumi,” Baekhyun repeats. The name is pretty, but he really wishes it was someone else’s. “Can I…” he begins to ask as he sits upright, staring right into her eyes. “Can I call you Angel?”

The complexity of the request escapes Yumi, thankfully, and she nods just after a second of thought.

“Call me anything,” Yumi says in an accented English.

“Hi Angel,” Baekhyun whispers, her cheek as he cups her face with a hand. “My name’s Lux, but call me Baekhyun tonight.”

Chanyeol calls for Baekhyun, signaling him that their night of debauchery is just about to start. Baekhyun grabs Yumi’s hand and leads her to the hallway where Chanyeol stands waiting. He and Baekhyun make eye contact, and Baekhyun’s chest hurts again, but he forces himself to smile for the sake of fun—and forgetting. High out of his own mind, Baekhyun gives Chanyeol a nod, and the latter turns to open the door to a bedroom.

Once inside, the music grows muffled, but Baekhyun hears one last line before Chanyeol shuts the door.

And I’m back to my ways ‘cause I’m heartless.

- - - - -

Baekhyun wakes up and with what feels like a pounding metal bell in the center of his brain. He groans, rolling out of bed and taking the comforters down with him. They get entangled around his waist and legs, and he struggles to escape from their silken grasp. Upon doing so, however, he stands up and looks around the room to see it completely empty. Chanyeol and the girls must have left earlier. With that, Baekhyun staggers to the bathroom—where the natural light streaming in from the windows blinds him and makes him wince.

He stands in front of the mirror, frowning at his reflection, half unable to open his eyes and half unwilling to look at himself. There are pink scratch