He got me coffee. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I see the cup on my desk.

Baekhyun barely looks at me when I ask him, “dude, what?”

His eyebrows knit together with conflicted emotions. “I thought you needed it. You’re acting off.”

I stare at him. The conversation with Irene repeats in my head like a tape. “Uh, thanks—“ As I go to grab the cup, the cup slips from my hand and onto my clothes. I sit there in silence, admiring the mess I made.

Baekhyun has this incredulous look on his face like he can’t fathom the last sixty seconds. He sighs. “Take it off.”

My lip wobbles. “Hey, I really think we should stop.”

He crosses his arms. I realize that is the last thing on his mind when he pulls my sweater from my chair and tosses it at me. My cheeks are burning red when our eyes meet. “Not what I had in mind, and you’re the furthest thing I’d sleep with.”

My gaze hardens, and I huff. Okay? What the hell? He has no right to say that. I should be the one stabbing him multiple times in the chest with my heels.

“Turn around,” I grumble, my fingers flying to my buttons.

He snorts. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”

I glare at him. “It’s called respect, Byun. Your mother ever taught you how to treat women?”

Baekhyun’s expression drops a couple of degrees into the pissy territory. “Sure, she has. You just don’t count as one.”

“You’re so ing childish.”

“Says you, cerise.”

A familiar set of knocks rattle on the door, and we both exchanged exasperated looks when Simon pokes his head through with a cheery smile. “Hey,” he drawls. Then, his eyes fall to my half ed top. “Oh, was I interrupting something?”

“I spilled coffee, Simon. There’s nothing here to see,” I snap, simply not giving a about his feelings anymore.

Baekhyun, whether he intended to or not, shields me with his back. I find myself looking at that back, feeling a settling degree of attraction. Oh dear god. There was definitely something wrong with me. I just had a great refresher course with my therapist, but I still can’t seem to get it together.

“Oh my bad, sweetheart. I just wanted to remind you both about the gala tonight. We’re trying to get a ton of sponsors before our next quarter, so I’m going to need both my chief editors there.”

It was Friday, and despite me not ever having plans, I still wanted to anticipate my weekend. I must have a real stink eye going on because Baekhyun turns slightly, mouthing the words relax. Anger threatens to squeeze the life out of me.

Tonight was going to be a ing trip. And I'm referring to the bad kind.

###

Half of the craziness in high school I can definitely attribute to OCD. I’m not sure when my compulsions exactly began, and I never had time to really let it stew in my mind. Until I hit the bottom and sank.

When my dad intervened, he meant it. Of course, by intervening, he made me drop half of my commitments. Chanyeol was even involved and gave specific reports to Dad. So with all of that time on my hand, I had to really think. It seemed then that I had all the time in the world compared to before.

I came to the one conclusion that I could find and that was Baekhyun. He may or may not have been the main factor in my downward spiral of no return.

I also may or may not have lied when I said I hated Baekhyun on the spot. Because I didn’t. Okay? And the stupid thing was that he wasn’t even a compulsion that I had.

Freshman Yun was a pitiful thing. She cared way too much about appearances. And what was the easiest way to make people think you were cool? Being chummy with your brother’s friends.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, and before I knew it, Baekhyun and I were a thing. But not a thing.

He was really shady about it. He gave me some bull excuse about not going public because he didn’t like attention.

Which, in hindsight, was the biggest ing lie to this day. Baekhyun loved attention. He basked in it. Hell, he practically bathed in it. He could give the most disgustingly crude speech and girls would still come at his beck and call.

Freshman Yun liked Baekhyun. She let him sweet-talk her into skipping class with him. She let him hold her hands. Do couple-y things without the title or commitment of spoken one. She was practically an enabler. No—an accomplice. That’s exactly what she was. Someone who let a pretty boy sleep his way into her mind.

Because once he infiltrated her and left her to rot? She began overcompensating to make up for that brain space. There was no explanation. There was just after.

As you can tell, I no longer embody her. Because after he strung me along for half a semester, our semi-committal arrangement of ended unceremoniously when I found him with somebody else.

We went our separate ways, and I avoided confrontation which meant we never talked about it other than the occasional snide insults. And if you weren’t already enlightened, I also have serious confrontation issues on top of the other gnarly runner-ups.

So now that you know, you may be asking: Yun, what the hell were you thinking?

The answer is: I wasn’t thinking. I only began to hate his guts after he ed with me. It wasn’t like I was in love with him, but it would be nice to be told that I wasn’t worth it rather than having to see evidence of it and coming to my own conclusions.

He hurt me. Embarrassing to admit. But I wished he would’ve told me.

Or maybe not. Scratch that. If I had to have a conversation with a stupid, -driven teenager, I couldn’t tell you where I’d hid their body the next day.

You know when a red flag is so red that it looks like a green light? Yeah. I might as well be color blind. It would save me from the embarrassment.

Because he confused me. His entire existence. Byun Baekhyun embodied an anti-hero in the spirit of all of his charming -y debauchery. He wasn’t a good person per se; yet, somehow, you still can’t help but root for him.

And as annoying as he was, he was stupid smart. I may be butthurt over losing half of our childish competitions, but I’m not going to sit here and lie to you.

Freshman Yun wasn’t all that dumb. She didn’t like your average boy. No. This one could actually read.

And ironically, it was Shakespeare that did it for her. His little British impersonating got to her when they’d gone over Romeo and Juliet and before she knew it, she let him in her pants.

I can’t really blame her because I understand her. She’s me; yet, at the same time, Byun Baekhyun has never not confused me.

He was an incessant ringing in my ear that never went away. It just got louder every time he graced me with his presence.

So maybe I let that confusion get the best of me because as of late, I haven’t been making the best choices.

When our tape was leaked in the tragic event of what was namely our graduation, he wasn’t there. If I recall, that last week—he didn’t show up at all. Baekhyun went MIA on all of us, and the only explanation was that his rich parents saved his from the aftermath of going down. Every chance that I’d given him? He intentionally flushed that down the toilet.

I wasn’t going to let him drop in my life again and dip out like he wasn’t even involved in the first place. This wasn’t ing West Bridge. This was real life with our jobs on the line.

I would be a lost cause if I let him step all over me again. And it was probably prime time that I took Irene’s advice.