Forever third wheel. He should be used to it, really; it was what he’d always been. There had never been any sign – any indication – that he would be anything more.

It was fine. He could accept that. He could be happy for him.

Happiness was a relative term, right? It didn’t mean he had to be ecstatic…just happy that his best friend – the man that he, in all honesty, loved above anyone else – had found the one for him.

That was possible. He would not cry. He would not throw a tantrum in the middle of the ceremony, nor would he give a long-winded and nasty speech about how he’d never seen this coming.

It would be too cruel to both of them. And besides, Kyuhyun had no idea of his…feelings. Feelings felt like too weak a word to describe this thing he had for the other man. He’d never quite wanted to admit that it was love.

That was a can of worms best left unopened.

Still, it stung more than anything else ever had before. It hurt like hell to realise that his half-formed thoughts of ever telling Kyuhyun that he liked him – possibly even loved him – were nothing more than fleeting fancies, things that could never truly happen. It hurt to know that he’d lost his chance, that there would be no more moments when they were together and it just felt right when Kyuhyun smiled at him.

There would be no more illicit moments in which Zhou Mi could pretend that Kyuhyun understood that he wanted him, and that Kyuhyun was just waiting for the right time to act on it. He couldn’t live in his fantasies anymore; they were redundant – broken and useless – now that he had seen the ridiculously large smile on Kyuhyun’s face as he flashed his fiancée’s (oh, how he hated the word) ring at him.

It was a nice one. Expensive, sparkly. It must have taken months to save up for.

He should have seen it coming.

But he’d been trying so hard to blind himself to how much Kyuhyun liked her. She was a lovely girl – he’d never say she wasn’t – and yet, it didn’t feel like she was enough for Kyuhyun.