Chapter 35: Truth

"Are you gay?" 

If there was one question Baekhyun didn't know how to answer, it was that. He'd never answered it before. Though his father had never asked him, he had in as many words berated him for the mere possibility since his early teens. Phoenix, on the other hand, had simply known, and acted confidently on his knowledge. Phoenix. He couldn't think of him as Chanyeol anymore. He knew nothing about Chanyeol. Perhaps that was where he had gone wrong.

"I don't know. I think it's more accurate to say I'm bi."

Jaehee frowned, and chewed the inside of her lower lip in thought. It wasn't a reassuring expression. 

Her silence stretched on and made him anxious. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I didn't really know myself. I'd never actually confirmed it. Until recently. It had nothing to do with you, I just... I thought it would go away, if I ignored it. But it didn't. I was confused, and I felt trapped." His shoulders were tense as he rambled, as if facing an unpredictable enemy. "I'm sorry my mistakes ended up hurting you."

"Are you-- would you rather... be with a man?" She asked at long last. He could see the uncertainty in her eyes, the way her gaze darted as she tried to piece the puzzle together without knowing what the picture was supposed to be.

He swallowed, forcing the words past his lips, unsure where they would land. "It's not... that I would rather be with a man or a woman. I just want to be with someone I love - and who loves and understands me."

She nodded slowly. The seam of her lips was unsettled, as if she was holding something back.

"What?" His pulse jumped in his throat. The whole conversation had him on edge - as if, at any moment, an attack would come from left field and knock him out by surprise. He forced the paranoia down and made himself breathe - and listen.

"I guess it's just... I'm not entirely surprised."

Baekhyun paled.

"I always wondered." She looked down at her hands. Their hands, as he held hers in his, carefully. "You seemed to lose interest in me... so I wondered." A soft laugh was edged with a note of hysteria. "It was too easy to think it was my fault. Once I started, it only got worse. I didn't like who I was becoming around you once I started blaming myself. So I started telling myself there had to be another reason." She looked up at him, hesitant. "I was more surprised to hear you cheated on me than I am to hear you're biual."

It took Baekhyun a moment to process all that she had said. He opened his mouth but no words came out.

"I felt like I couldn't talk to you anymore." She forged on.  "Like there was this wall between us that I couldn't climb over, and it kept getting higher."

"It wasn't you." Baekhyun found his words. "When did you begin to feel this way?"

"Soon after our engagement."

"That was when I got my promotion," he murmured to himself. Before Phoenix.

She nodded. "It was like I was fighting your job for your attention. You were always busy."

Baekhyun remembered. He recalled his guilt as he forwent dinners and weekends with his new fiancee in favor of late nights and weekends at work, determined to impress. How the higher ups did the same with their wives and families, and nodded approvingly at his drive.

"I was," he sighed. "I felt terrible, but the pressure to do well was too high. I wanted-- I needed to live up to their expectations. I felt like everything was riding on my success. And then I felt guilty every time I couldn't see you." He shook his head. "I felt like I couldn't talk to you, either. What could I say? That my job was more important?" The line of his lips twisted. "I couldn't say it. I couldn't face you. I put up that wall."

"I wish I had known. I wish you had told me." Jaehee mourned. "We could have talked, before things got to be like this. I would have understood."

It incensed him that anyone could be so forgiving. "I couldn't face you as a loser, Jaehee. I couldn't ask you to change your expectations so I could focus on other things. It just didn't make sense, it was too unfair to you."

"It's not unfair, Baekhyun. That's what relationships are about. Supporting and sacrificing for one another." Her eyes glittered. "I would have done it. I would have understood."

"I didn't want you to!" Baekhyun exploded, taking her wrists in his hands. "I didn't want you to wait around for me, give things up for me, and be alone all the time because I made you that way. I've seen my mother go through that her whole life and I can't stand it! You deserved more than that. You deserved someone who wouldn't put you second in line. And I couldn't be that person. So I couldn't face you." His heart raced as he searched her eyes, praying that she would understand.

A thread of tears caught the light on her cheeks. "But it happened like that anyway, don't you see? Except you didn't help me understand." She sniffled. "It still happened, except I didn't have any way of knowing what was really going on, so I thought it was all my fault, like I'd pushed you away."

"No," Baekhyun said, shaking his head. "No. It wasn't you. I'm so sorry." He reached for her, pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry I shut you out like that. I didn't realize how you felt." She hiccuped as her tears bled anew. He was very good at making her cry. Too good. Each of her sobs made him shrivel inside. He tried his best to soothe her, a hand down her back and holding her close until she pulled away.

"So what do you choose now?" She pulled one hand free to wipe at her eyes.

"Is it even fair if I ask you for understanding now, after all I've done wrong?"

"Do you want to?"

"I do. But I can't. How can I, Jaehee?"

"If you want to-- just do it. But, Baek, you have to accept yourself - and me. You can't run or hide from situations like this. They're going to happen. That's life. You have to accept that you won't make everyone happy all the time. Not me, not your boss, an