Pride

               John Ruskin once said “it is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.”

               ‘Such words couldn’t be any truer,’ Wu Yifan thought to himself as he sat in a coffee shop, looking out through the window to spot two men, one shorter with curled reddish locks and a taller with wavy dark blonde. They walking down the sidewalk with a swing in their tightly held hands, laughing as they spoke with each other.

               If he hadn’t thought so much about his pride, then it would be him there, with the redhead, not the other tall blonde. It was too late for regrets, as he had just heard through the work grapevine that there were plans for a proposal. Yifan had nothing left but regrets. It was almost three years ago that he had first met Kim Joonmyun. Three years that he had almost fallen in love at first sight.

               “Yifan, please bring these papers to the new contract manager on floor 5.”

               “Yes sir.” The tall blonde took the folder filled with contracts and left the desk that he was sitting at. The job he was working at wasn’t a glamorous job, but his father managed to secure him an intern position at his friend’s international law firm while Yifan was still doing law school. It would be good experience for him when he finished.

               He entered the elevator that would take him to the 5^th floor. The new contract manager was someone that just started last week, but Yifan hadn’t had a chance to meet him, and as he stepped in at a crucial time, there wasn’t been a walkthrough yet. All he knew was that Luhan, the divorce intern who shared a room with him said that he was small and cute.

               He knocked on the door with the new silver plate that said Kim Joonmyun. ‘That’s a cute name…’ He thought to himself. A soft voice told him to enter and he did.

               A small black haired man stood on the other side, trying to rearrange the papers on his desk. “Ah, you must be Yifan, and those must be my contracts.” He looked up and smiled.

               Yifan felt the heart in his body jump. The man was beautiful. He had pale skin and rosy cheeks and a small mouth with pink lips. He was slim and much shorter than Yifan’s 6 feet, but he held himself with confidence. “My name is Kim Joonmyun. But my friends call me Suho.” Joonmyun reached out a hand for a handshake which Yifan stared at before jumping to attention.

               “Ah, yes. Ehm.” He coughed embarrassed. “My name is Wu Yifan, but people call me Kris.” He shook the smaller man’s hand, noticing that the other may look frail but had a pretty strong grip.

~

                After that fated meeting, they had spent any free time together and became friends really quickly. Yifan learned that though Joonmyun had already been out in the working world for several years, he was half a year younger than he was. He learned that Joonmyun had a father in the hospital and a brother in university and when he himself had finished university, he went straight into the working world to help support the family with his mother.

               It wasn’t something that Yifan understood a lot of, as his father and mother were the ones supporting him and him working was more for his own spending money than it was for the bills of the family, but Yifan could see the love Joonmyun had for his family every time he spoke of them. His eyes would light up and his face would relax and though his father was battling cancer, he never had a depressed view of life.

               Yifan fell more and more in love with Joonmyun every day, and it wasn’t until Luhan mentioned at work that he looked like he was falling in love, that it dawned on him. He was falling in love with a guy.

               Yifan had had his share of relationships. But they were always with girls and never with a guy. He wondered how his parents would take that. They came from a pretty traditional background and Yifan wasn’t sure that they would adopt to Joonmyun as quickly as he had.

               He tried to distance himself from Joonmyun, but he couldn’t help himself. His feelings for the younger man grew and grew until one day after a company dinner, he finally asked him out.

               The next year was spent in bliss.

               They kept the relationship a secret even though Yifan had finished his internship there and was already promised a fulltime position once he finished school. It wasn’t that hard to keep it away from others as Joonmyun often went to see him after his classes, or Yifan waited at a coffee shop after school for him to finish work. They went to dinner together and to trips together and oftentimes they even just stayed at home and Joonmyun would catch up on some work while Yifan studied.

               The months passed by, but Yifan was scared as to what others may think, so he never held hands with him, never showed any sort of public affection. But in private, he would be cuddly and almost clingy.

               It hadn’t bother Joonmyun the first year, because he was also going through the same thing. His parents were much more understanding but he had never had time for dating before and this wasn’t something he had ever shared with them. One day he let it slip that he was dating a boy and to his surprise, they were all for it and asked to meet him.

               Joonmyun was ecstatic that they understood. 

               Yifan wasn’t as happy.

               He was fine where their relationship stood. He had just finished his law school and started working at the firm again. He didn’t want there to be unnecessary rumours. He didn’t want to lose his position and his job, and even when the company took it well that Luhan was dating a boy back in school, he still refused to reveal their relationship like Joonmyun begged.

               If Joonmyun were a different person, he would have told others about their relationship. But he wasn’t. He was selfless and thoughtful and caring and he kept everything inside.

               But it was hard to keep everything inside.

               Joonmyun’s father’s chemotherapy wasn’t going well, and the family could tell that he didn’t have much time left. Yifan and Joonmyun spent a lot of time just curled up at home while Joonmyun went through the albums of photos taken from when he was young. Yifan would bring him food after work, and he would hold him tight while Joonmyun cried and reminisced, looking through family photos.

               But he still refused the meet his family.

               Yifan remembered the night before they had “broken up”. It was as clear to him as yesterday, even though it happened a long time ago. It was their 2 year anniversary, and Joonmyun tried to be happy and not let his father’s treatment both him for that night. They had booked a private room at a seafood restaurant and had a fun dinner together. It was after Yifan had ordered dessert that the call came in.

               Yifan had watched silently as Joonmyun picked up the phone. The fact that the younger man had willingly picked up during their anniversary dinner meant that it was his family calling, most likely about Joonmyun’s father.

               He had tuned out the conversation, focusing on the cheesecake in front of him. He didn’t want to think about what was happening with Joonmyun’s family. He knew that once he got off the phone, that Joonmyun would look at him sadly, his eyes filled with the same question and he would give the same answer that he always did.

               Of course he didn’t realized that Joonmyun had had enough.

               “Okay.” Joonmyun ended the call quietly and looked at his boyfriend of two years. He sighed, looking down at the dessert before him. It was cheesecake, his favourite, but there was no way he could eat it happily now. “I have to go to the hospital.” He said looking up at Yifan, his eyes blanked over with something that Yifan had never seen before. His eyes had always been so expressive, filled with happiness and amusement when they looked at Yifan. But all the taller blonde could see now was sadness and resignedness.

               Joonmyun stood up, reaching one hand out to Yifan, but the blonde kept sitting and just staring. If he took the hand now, their relationship would be out in the open. He didn’t think he could do that. Even though Joonmyun’s family was willing to accept them, even without meeting Yifan, he could not see his family doing the same. Or his friends. Or the company.

               The smaller man withdrew his hand, smiling sadly. “This is the last time Yifan. My father is dying. And as much as I know you love me, I need more than just that.” He bent over and kissed Yifan on the cheek. “Goodbye.”

               Yifan watched as the other man left some money on the table and walked out the door of the restaurant without looking back.

               Yifan yelled at himself in his head. He urged his legs to move, his body to move. ‘Go chase after him, go see his parents with him, go be with him.’ But his pride kept him sitting at the table.

               His pride kept him attached to that table.

               His pride reminded him of the possible company rumours that could destroy his career.

               His pride reminded him of the disgust that would be in his parents’ face when he found out.

               His pride helped him pay the rest of the dinner with a straight poker face and helped him make it home without breaking down.

               But his pride abandoned him as soon as he got home, back to the empty apartment that still held traces of Joonmyun. As soon as he stepped inside, he sank to the ground and stared at the photograph of him and Joonmyun from last year’s anniversary.

               Yifan remembered sobbing to sleep that night.

               He remembered waking up groggy and tired and just plain disgusting the next day.

               He remembered stumbling to the office, only to find out from his boss that Joonmyun’s father had died that night, and that Joonmyun had taken a few months off to help with funeral proceedings.

               He remembered feeling so lost, sitting at his desk, trying to type a text to Joonmyun, but not really realizing what he was writing.

               And he remembered wondering whether this was how Joonmyun felt when he refused to come out with him.

~

                The first month was the hardest.

                Yifan tried sending text after text, calling Joonmyun’s home and cell phone, and even tried haunting his front door. But he never saw a glimpse of the other man.

               The only updates he got were from Luhan; who had also gotten a fulltime position at the firm, who had received updates from Byun Baekhyun, a smaller man with a grating speaking voice but a beautiful singing one.  Baekhyun had attended school with Joonmyun and had also gotten the job when he finished. And he had also taken time off to go to the burgundy haired man’s father’s funeral.

               He was the only one, other than Luhan’s one-off comment, that suspected Yifan and Joonmyun of having a relationship, but was never able to catch them in the act.

               Yifan wasn’t sure if Joonmyun had told him anything, but it was clear from the piercing gazes that he had received every time their eyes met that Baekhyun knew something. He just wasn’t sure to what extent.

~

                Days became weeks and weeks became months.

               People came and went. A couple divorce lawyers and contract lawyers left while one of the vice-presidents went to an opposing law firm, taking along a few of his contract managers. A few new people were hired. A pair of female paralegals, Tiffany and Taeyeon, who had taken law school together, and a personal injury lawyer, a Park Chanyeol, who was also a childhood friend of Baekhyun’s.

               There was something about Chanyeol that irked Yifan when he first started. He was loud and obnoxious, and his job as a personal injury lawyer was ironic as he was very clumsy himself. He had shaggy dark blonde coloured hair that flopped over his eyes and his ears and was tall and lanky: almost reaching Yifan’s height.  He spent his first week at the office trying to fix the espresso machine as he had somehow managed to get the coffee stirrers stuck in the bean grinder: Yifan had to leave his apartment earlier to be able to get some decent coffee.

               The next week, they had to call in the technician who dealt with computer set-ups to come at least 3 times as Chanyeol had problems with navigating the complex law systems and somehow his mouse always ended up wrapped around the ceiling light: Yifan suspect that every time Baekhyun walked into Chanyeol’s office, there was probably an argument going on as there is usually a lot of yelling accompanied by some loud noises of things being thrown.

                But when Yifan brought up the topic of the new guy with his uncle, he always got something along the lines of “the guy is a genius and he has won tons of cases. If we have to put up with some eccentrics, so be it”, meaning that someone higher up definitely liked him and Park Chanyeol was there to stay.

               And though things of the office have definitely changed, one thing did not. Yifan continued thinking about Joonmyun. He would text and call Joonmyun in his spare time, but he never got a response. He also continued hassling Luhan for updates, but it seems the doe-eyed man was no longer fed information as well, as Baekhyun had found out why Luhan was asking about their contract manager though he hardly worked with him.

               There wasn’t much he could do but wait.

               So he did.

~

               One bright and sunny day, Joonmyun came back to work. His hair was black again and he was thinner and gaunter than before, but there was a small relieved smile on his face. He was glad that his father was no longer suffering, even if he wasn’t with them anymore.

               He settled in really quickly, taking in the changes in staff and in higher level management and the different processes put in place. He made quick friends with Tiffany and Taeyeon and could often be seen with them and Baekhyun in his spare time.

               Yifan felt happy- relieved? - that Joonmyun came back to work. He remembered thinking to himself that he now had a second chance and he wasn’t going to waste it.

               It was lunchtime a week later when Yifan finally pulled up the courage to walk to Joonmyun’s new office. He rapped his knuckle on the door, taking a deep breathe to settle his stomach.

               There was a shuffling on the other side and a voice hissing quietly. “Stop that!”

               Yifan craned his neck forward towards the door to hear better but the shuffling made its way to the office door and it opened. Joonmyun stood there, slightly flushed with an embarrassed smile. The smile dropped a bit when he saw who it was, but Yifan didn’t let it faze him.

               “Hi Joonmyun. Welcome back.” He said, trying to smile warmly at the smaller man. He opened his arms to wrap them around Joonmyun, who had not moved nor said anything back.

               “Myun-hyung? Who is it?” A deep voice said from inside the office.  The door opened wider and a tousled wavy blonde popped his head out. “Ah, Kris-hyung, are you here to drop off contracts?”

                Yifan dropped his arms when he saw Chanyeol stick his head out. Thoughts were racing wildly in his mind. ‘Why was Chanyeol here? What was he doing in Joonmyun’s office? How did they know each other? What was the “stop that” he had heard before?’

               “Ah…ehm..” He stammered. He didn’t know what to say. He had a million questions to ask Joonmyun, but they didn’t seem appropriate to ask now.

               Joonmyun smiled at him sadly. “Hello Yifan. I hope you’ve been doing well.” He leaned back onto Chanyeol for support, and Yifan saw the taller man place a large hand on his back to stabilize him.

               “I’ve been... ah. Doing okay.” Yifan said. It was obvious that there was something there.  It was obvious that he no longer had the opportunity to have that second chance. “Sorry, I was just wanted to welcome you back. I have to get back to work!” He dashed away from Joonmyun’s office, trying his best to not look like he was running, but just briskly walking.

                After that incident, Joonmyun and Yifan played as if nothing had ever happened. Joonmyun was not one to reveal any secrets, and Yifan hadn’t want anyone to know about their relationship anyways, so it was like the relationship had never taken place.

                Sometimes Yifan thought that he could see Joonmyun looking at him sadly, but he also saw the genuine affection and feelings in Joonmyun’s eyes when they look at Chanyeol. Though Yifan still didn’t like the taller, deep-voice man, he had to admit that he had a good heart and did treat Joonmyun right.

                A few weeks after the office incident, there were rumours around the office that Chanyeol and Joonmyun had gotten together. Yifan remembered being asked that question and shrugging it off. It would be up to Joonmyun and Chanyeol as to whether they wanted to bring out their relationship. He just played as if he didn’t know anything and kept his head down at his desk for a few days. Luhan tried to bring him into the office gossip, but he just frowned and motioned at all the papers sitting on his desk waiting for his signature, feigning being busy.

                He remembered his pride not allowing him to run after Joonmyun after their last meal together, but he also remembered the pride in Chanyeol’s voice when he announce his and Joonmyun’s relationship at a company dinner.

               They were celebrating for the fact that they had received further funding and was opening a branch in China. A large hall was rented out and everyone in the office was mingling and chatting with others. There was the tech team who sat in the corner typing away at their android phones, the lawyers who were handing out their business cards to everyone who would take them, the marketing team who was busy fiddling around with the sound system and the administrative team who was running around making sure that the food was laid out properly, before the upper management, who had yet to show, arrived.

               There was food and then some speeches and then more food.

               It was at the end of the night, before the dessert was served, when Chanyeol stood up, pulling a very embarrassed Joonmyun with him. He cleared his voice and everyone went silent. Someone even turned down the volume of the music that was playing in the background.

               “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Park Chanyeol.” He started, and smiled out to the crowd, but it seemed everyone had heard of the genius lawyer who could trip over air. “I know that there have been rumours on the floor of Joonmyun-hyung and I…” He paused, taking a deep breathe, “and I just wanted to tell you that yes the rumours are true, we are dating and if any of you bully Joonmyun-hyung at all, I will come after you and mess up your espresso makers and your computers.” He stuck out his tongue at everyone, making him seem much younger than his 27 years of age and pulled Joonmyun into a chaste kiss.

                Yifan had known at that time from the gasps that Chanyeol’s threat was indeed well placed, as a building full of 7am-8pm lawyers would not be able to function without their daily dose of caffeine and he had laughed. He had laughed as everyone cheered and he had kept laughing until he almost cried.

               He had enjoyed two wonderful years with Joonmyun and  he let himself think too much into it and get scared.

               He had been scared that there would have been a backlash at the office.

               He had been scared that his parents would disown him.

               He had been scared that his friends would disown him.

               He had been scared that the world would stereotype him into a category and he would never grow into a career.

               He had been scared of ruining his image in front of others.

               But did it really matter what people thought of his relationship?

               Chanyeol had pride in his and Joonmyun’s relationship, and that was the main difference between Yifan and him.

               Yifan had been prideful in things that may not have mattered to him.

               The office had several same- couples, whether they were still in the closet or not. Luhan had publicly stated he was dating another man and had been accepted and he was pretty sure the  two new girls were also together.

               His relationship with his parents would have been strained if they didn’t approve, but they would have never disowned him. They had always let him make his own decisions and respected him as an adult.

               He had a couple of gay friends and they never had problems within his group.

               He would have never been fired just because he was gay: there were laws about it and Yifan should know as a lawyer.

               In the end, his pride in himself overweighed the trust he had in others and he lost the one main thing he had that kept him happy.

~

               Yifan sighed to himself as he waited for his coffee. He glanced once more out the window where Joonmyun and Chanyeol had seen him and started waving. He smiled and waved back.

               Joonmyun gave him a soft smile, holding onto Chanyeol’s hand and they turned away, off to whatever adventures they were planning on.

               Yifan sighed again and went back to the papers in front of him. “Where was that coffee…” He muttered under his breathe.  He really needed the caffeine to get over these papers.

               A small cough alerted him to someone standing near him. A tall Chinese man with soft eyes and a gentle smile holding two coffees in his hand stood there, looking down at Yifan. He motioned to the chair in front of him. “is this seat taken?”

THE END