I’m not sure what time it is, or how long I’ve been up. For all I do know, time has become a blip in my existence. Currently, I’m coping. Somehow. I’d organized Baekhyun’s closet. All his shirts are ordered by colors and types. All his pants are too. Then, I moved on to the fridge and the pantry.

I was still in the middle of organizing the kitchen cabinets when I hear voices. Two voices to be exact.

“Hello?” I ask, not taking my eyes away from the cabinet for even a second.

Baekhyun clears his throat, but he doesn’t say the next words. Those words belong to my long-time friend. “How long has she been there?”

Irene’s voice is familiar. She sounds like a therapist right about now with her questions and intensity.

Baekhyun answers her, “I’m not sure. I woke up to her like this. She was just done organizing the pantry, but I called her name a couple of times. She didn’t answer either time, and I didn’t know what the hell to do.”

I pause, turning to eye the two of them. “I’m still here, you know?”

Irene ignores me. “How long has she been in this state?”

“Since last night. We went to dinner with Chanyeol,” Baekhyun responds with a grimace.

Irene hisses through her teeth. “Yikes. First time, I suppose?”

“And her mother was there too,” Baekhyun adds helpfully.

She shakes her head. “Yun, babes, are you okay?”

I blink at her. “Of course, I am. But you guys are in my way. I need to get these.”

Irene grabs the bandaids in my hand. “You are not organizing all the bandaids in this damn box. You have to go to sleep, Yun. Speaking of, no breaching our seventy-two-hour rule.”

I force a smile, stealing back the bandaids from Irene. “Hey, no worries, I haven’t gotten that close. I’m sure I’ll eventually exhaust myself and pass out somewhere. Besides, this box is bothering me. The clear ones aren’t separated from the tan ones. Also, the sizes don’t match up. Doesn’t that drive you crazy?” I direct the last question to Baekhyun who is watching me with furrowed brows.

He shakes his head. “It’s not a big deal, cerise. I’m sure if I were to bleed out, there wouldn’t be much time for specificity.”

I snort. “Well, then, I don’t see the problem. Why don’t you two just let me be? I’ll be done soon.”

Irene crosses her arms. “Yun, what did we say about letting your compulsions take over physiological needs? Let’s say that you’re done color-coding the bandaids. What next? His medicine cabinet?”

“You read my mind—“

Irene slaps the bandaid out of my hand. “I’m not joking right now. It is six in the morning—not to mention, you probably haven’t slept in the past twenty-four hours. The Yun I know wouldn’t let her OCD take over life like this again.”

Baekhyun does a double-take. “She has—what now?”

I swallow, turning to glare at Irene. To which her response was to fix me a look of disappointment.

“You didn’t tell him?”

###

I couldn’t recall the last time I’ve felt the familiar sink of venom in my blood. The rash anger that takes charge as it did when I fully loathed the idea of Baekhyun.

Of who he was. His never-ending supply of money. The debauchery that included girls who lined up for him, and then, when the was over, they exited one by one—only to do it again weeks after weeks.

It was now that I felt this anger again. Not that these last few months have been for naught. It was the biting self-doubt that came back to (unironically) bite me back in the .

We were standing in his ugly kitchen with the off-white ceramic floors that looked a lot like it’s been stained with piss. The island was too big, and now as I stood on the opposite side facing him, it felt even bigger. Miles big. Like if I reached over, I wouldn’t be able to reach him because he was already on a boat heading to a faraway place.

I don’t remember what I said before. The sniping comment that I may or may not have made escalated into silence and harsh breathing.

I pant for whatever reason with my arms crossed. To take charge. To defend myself. From what? I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t sure what I was fighting against.

“You’re making an awfully big deal over nothing,” I say. Irene left because she said she didn’t want to be a part of this fight that would break out. I couldn’t believe it. She predicted a fight, and now the cameras were rolling and there was nothing stopping this from getting worse.

Baekhyun takes a deep breath to steady himself before he answers, “nice job, Yun. Invalidating me? This is your strongest suit after all.”

I’m not sure what hurts more. The personal attack or the usage of my name. He never uses my name.

“My having OCD has nothing to do with you. I don’t see why it’ll affect your life at all. I may have forgotten to tell you, but that doesn’t result in this kind of reaction. It’s not like you found out about my secret baby daddy or something.”

He scoffs, “do you have one?”

I throw my hands up. “No! Of course not.”

“If this is your way of apologizing, you’re doing a job of it,” he says.

“Sorry that I forgot to tell you.”

He shakes his head. “Gee, you make it sound like you’re apologizing for forgetting to turn off the thermostat. Forgetting is when you forget to walk the dog or you forget to wipe up a spill. You didn’t forget to tell me that you have OCD. Not had. No, your condition is present tense, Yun. You kept it from me, so—“ He does air quotes. “maybe I’m ing valid to have a reaction.”

I bite down on my lip. “Does that change the way you feel about me? Do you see me differently now?”

Baekhyun huffs an incredulous laugh. “Are you kidding? This is what you’re going to do. You’re not even gonna validate my argument or defend yourself? You go straight to equivocating as always.”

“I don’t always equivocate!”

“You just did, champ,” he says.

“Answer the damn question,” I snap.

He nods, pursing his lips. Then another reluctant wave of his hand as if he’s trying to prevent himself from spilling the beans. Or worse, from hurting my feelings. “No, of course not, I still lo—“ He abruptly stops, shaking his head.

The hurt is immense. The heaviness of how he could just stop in the middle of his sentence when I knew just exactly what he was admitting to.

That he loved me.

But—

There. That was the problem. There was a ‘but’ involved. Reluctance isn’t good. It meant that there was a subliminal issue that we’ve both been ignoring for a while now. Maybe pretending to not see it was more accurate. I’ve done it most of my life.

“You didn’t trust me,” he says, switching the subject from him to me, “to be frank, it hurt my feelings. How could I not know something so important? It’s a part of your identity, and you just thought that you could keep it from me. Forever.”

I stutter, my face feeling hot all of a sudden. “No,” I protest, eyeing him earnestly. “I do trust you. You don’t understand. Baekhyun. I never wanted to keep it from you with the intent of hurting you. It was never about that. You mean so much to me. You can ask me for a reason, but I don’t know why I kept it from you, okay? We had lots of fun before. You said it yourself that—that we have something special. So what’s changed?”

Baekhyun’s eyes are red, and he squeezes his hands into a fist like he needs something else to ground him. “The story that I told you before.”

“About your family.”

“Yes,” he confirms. “I lied to you. About my family.” He loses a sardonic laugh. “So, I guess that makes us even.” The snarky comment confuses me, but before I can ask questions to confirm, he says, “my mother wasn’t who I thought she was. All my ing life. You wanna know the reason for my alcoholism? She wasn’t my mother. Can you believe it? The person who I grew up believing wholeheartedly to be my mother was, in fact, my ing grandmother. I think you can guess who my actual mother was.”

“Your sister,” I surmise. Upon hearing my confirmation aloud, my heart pangs for him. Oh. God. Her death. He didn’t lie about his entire story. His sister did indeed blame her death on him, and the truth weighed like a ton now that I knew who his sister truly was.

He nods, glancing sideways. His eyes are red, but I know he won’t cry in front of me. I know that, but it still hurts.

“Where does this put us?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says.

I do know. I know why he cares so much that I lied to him. I may have not directly lied to him, but keeping that one part of me—the important part of my identity—from him, it hurt him viscerally.

This issue may not measure up to what he had to deal with in his family, but it stilled stoked the same feelings, I assume.

Betrayal. It must’ve felt like someone pulled the rug from under his feet. He was utterly unprepared and alone. And now, someone he loves has done it again.

“I wish that you considered telling me,” Baekhyun whispers. The entire time, he’s unable to look at me. I feel like a monster because what he believes is right. I hadn’t considered it. It was like being stuck in this ongoing euphoric dream only to wake up in ice water.

It was the rug being pulled from my feet.

“You didn’t trust me either,” I murmur. “That’s our problem. Neither of us wants to confront our own feelings. We’re okay with love until we have to admit it. We’re both afraid that it’ll uproot us somehow. And it’s happening right now as we speak.”

“Chanyeol was right,” Baekhyun musters. My heart cracks. He’s really going there. “We don’t work. We would never work in the long run.”

I nod, trembling. “Right. Of course not, we’ve been fooling around this entire time. We’re not ready for whatever this is.” I’m lying. The taste is metallic, and my heart burns like I’ve been doused in acid.

This must be a joke. I’ve never fought with anyone like this before. Not even with Baekhyun, considering our rocky history. This was so calm and resolute, unlike our usual personalities.

It was almost like we both knew about the inevitable, and then when it happens, we just accept it.

My head spins. No. This isn’t right. I stare at him. At the boy who’s always rocked my world no matter how much turbulence he puts me through. The good. The bad. Doesn’t matter. I love him. It has to mean more than this. This futile breakup.

“This is what I would’ve done before I met Irene,” I tell him. “If she saw me right now, she would slap me across the face and tell me that I’m being stupid. Not that she would literally. Maybe metaphorically—“ I cut myself off because I was starting to ramble. “I won’t accept your conditions. I can’t let us end like this. I made a mistake. Look, my mother’s walked out on me once. I couldn’t change that, so maybe I thought that if you walked out on me, then I wouldn’t be able to change that either. But at least, if you did, it would be because of me. Because, in the end, I did something that was worth you giving up on me. I hurt myself. Not you. Do you see the problem? I’m not saying that it was me all alone. Because we’re not perfect. But that doesn’t mean that we give up when we stumble on our first rift. We’re not even going to try to make this right?”

He’s silent, taking in my words. I’m surprised he even let me finish at all. I wish he would say something. Anything. But that was a selfish thought. I knew I was being selfish; yet, I wanted him to forgive me and we could put this behind us.

“I—“ He begins, trailing off. “I need time.” I understand the three words. I was an adult. I was capable, and I had patience. But the next words that leave his mouth hurt like hell. “Frankly, I can’t look at you right now without feeling a surge of anger. I want to drink, Yun. I haven’t had those urges in years.”

[a/n] it was kind of difficult writing this fight because yun is probably the most relatable character i've written. i see a little of myself in her. the stubbornness and self-righteousness. though i'm really glad i created a character like her. not many of you may have OCD but it's very validating to see an OC who mirrors the parts that we hate about ourselves. or maybe that's just me lol

i do like to write as a hobby but part of that is representing the imperfections of humanity