It’s amazing – and pretty ridiculous, if you think about it – how something that can make us the happiest, can also be that one thing that can bring us the most pain. Like outliers. Two dots are hanging in the farthest, most opposite direction from each other on a given graph, the one being the most positive and the other being the most negative. It means that while you can be the happiest with that person, you can also be most in pain with the same.

Pretty ironic, isn’t it?

And stupid.

But maybe, that is life. Because when you give something to a person, when you invest something emotional to him and of course, there has to be some sort of return of investment, it’s sort of a given that this irony can happen. It might not be so extreme as it can be so extreme, varying from one person to another. But the point is, you have to be ready because one moment, you can be enjoying too much returns, over what is enough, over what you can handle, and then, another moment, you can be in loss. You wouldn’t even know you are falling until you’re down there, in the pit of what seems like a dark and unending abyss, and you couldn’t figure out how you ended up there.

 

There’s a ring that’s coming from the living room, heard all over the house not because it’s too loud but because the place is too quiet. Baekhyun dries his hands on the apron tied around his thin waist, carrots and different colors of bell peppers left on the kitchen, as he walks to answer the frustrated telephone.

Ring-Ring-Ring.

His hand is still a little wet because of the vegetables he is cutting for dinner when he answers the phone curtly, “Hello?”

“Hey, Baek, it’s me.”

Who the hell is me? Before, Baekhyun will probably say that, because that’s just how Baekhyun is, y and sassy, but after marrying Jongdae and living with him for almost ten years, he’s not sure if he’s not y anymore or if he’s not sassy anymore, but definitely, he can’t pull something like that with Jongdae anymore now. Not when their marriage has been crumbling, even if it’s either both of them are too proud or too scared to admit it.

“Hey, Jongdae,” Baekhyun’s voice is warm, and endearing, and it’s almost like he’s telling Jongdae to come home right now, “What time are you coming home? Is there something wrong?”

“Actually, Baek, I’ll probably come late tonight,” Jongdae’s voice is warm, too, but not endearing but escaping, and it’s almost like he’s telling Baekhyun to not sound like he is, kind, and just kind, “Don’t wait up for me, okay? I need to finish something and…”

Baekhyun decides not to hear anything, and stares at he vegetable for the dinner at the kitchen. He doesn’t need to hear them because it’s only going to be the same: Jongdae can’t come home on time and eat dinner with him like normal couples because he needs to do something else.

“And Baek,” Baekhyun hears, because this is something new. Normally, when Jongdae calls to tell him that he’s going to be late, it will end after Jongdae’s usual, same explanation, that his work requires him to stay longer than he normally should, but this is the first time Jongdae has something else to say.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

He doesn’t know if he’s too taken aback, but really, how can he? He is Jongdae’s husband. Isn’t it supposed to be perfectly normal for Jongdae to say that he loves him, for him to hear that Jongdae loves him? He doesn’t know if he’s too surprised or bemused or startled, because the phone beeps which means Jongdae has hung up already, before he can even think that he’s supposed to answer with an ‘I love you, too.’

Baekhyun goes back to the kitchen and decides to finish the spaghetti after all, previously considering throwing the already prepared ingredients because Jongdae won’t be coming home for dinner anyway. He considers that maybe, Jongdae will not eat outside and he’ll be hungry when he comes home. Besides, it’s not like Baekhyun doesn’t need to eat. But mostly, it’s probably because of Jongdae’s words and how Baekhyun’s heart still flutters whenever he hears them from his husband’s mouth.

He smiles as he opens the can of the tomato sauce and hums Jongdae’s favorite song.

 

Her name is Kim Taeyeon. Baekhyun knows her because she is Jongdae’s first girlfriend, Jongdae’s first relationship, Jongdae’s first kiss, Jongdae’s first experience, and Baekhyun knows her because she is Jongdae’s first love. It’s not a surprise, really, that Jongdae would fall with someone like her. Baekhyun isn’t an , and he knows that Taeyeon is caring, smart, funny, and probably a thousand other qualities he can’t be compared with. But Jongdae married him, and when Jongdae told him that he is going to be his last love, until death to them part, Baekhyun wants to believe in that promise.

That’s the thing. Baekhyun wants to believe in that promise, in Jongdae’s promise to him, but how do you believe something you can’t see and you can’t feel? Do you hang on that promise with faith? How long is faith going to last? How assured are you that it’s going to last forever?

Again, that’s the thing. You can’t be sure.

Baekhyun isn’t able to sleep last night. He never does, if Jongdae’s not on their bed beside him or Jongdae isn’t home, yet. He rubs the sleepiness off his eyes because it’s another day and like they say, it’s supposed to be another beginning, and Baekhyun so wants to believe in that, but Jongdae is nowhere inside their house. How is he supposed to start then?

He stares at the cold spaghetti on the fridge, unsurprised that it isn’t touched. It’s supposed to be Jongdae’s, because Jongdae loves pasta, and if Baekhyun can’t prepare spaghetti, carbonara, or lasagna, only some of Jongdae’s favorites, Baekhyun will make sure that there are instant noodles in the house. But Jongdae didn’t come home.

Suddenly, the door opens.

“You’re awake,” is the first thing that comes out from Jongdae’s mouth, when he sees Baekhyun eating the cold spaghetti on their dining room. He seems a little too stunned that Baekhyun is already awake.

“You’re expecting me to be asleep?” is what Baekhyun asks, looking a little too hostile to his husband.

“No,” Jongdae sighs, dropping his bags on the kitchen counter and kissing Baekhyun’s cheek. “I’m just saying, isn’t it a little too early for you to be awake on a Saturday?” He sits beside Baekhyun and pulls him closer to him, snuggling and cuddling because Jongdae likes that.

It’s apparent that Baekhyun doesn’t even remember that it’s Saturday, but that’s not what they’re going to talk about that early morning. He drops the fork he’s holding and looks at Jongdae’s eyes. Jongdae meets his gaze and they’re staring at each other. It’s one of Baekhyun’s most favorite and least favorite thing to do with Jongdae. They say that eyes are the windows in someone’s soul, and profoundly, Baekhyun believes in that, because that’s how he learned Jongdae loves him and that’s how he is assured that Jongdae still does. But it’s not always bliss because what if one day, he looks into Jongdae’s dark eyes and sees no love anymore?

How is Baekhyun going to live with that?

He looks into Jongdae’s eyes and sees no guilt, no pretense and no lies.

“Why didn’t you come home last night?”

“I need to finish something at work… with Taeyeon.”

The sort of quiet misery that is as lovely as death. That’s what Baekhyun is feeling. He trusts Jongdae, and he knows that Jongdae loves him enough to not do anything that can possibly hurt Baekhyun, but still, even though Baekhyun knows that, why does his heart ache? Why does he feel like dying when Jongdae tells him that he spent the night together with Taeyeon?

Baekhyun silently nods his head, picks up his fork again and continues eating the cold spaghetti he left last night for Jongdae and his husband snuggles his head on the crook of Baekhyun’s neck, sleepy and tired.

“You didn’t get much sleep last night?”

“No,” Jongdae answers with a yawn. “There’re so many things to finish and clients’ orders are starting to pile up again. I don’t think we’re going to finish until Christmas if we don’t do overtime, like for the whole night.”

Baekhyun nods again, mindlessly swirling the spaghetti noodles on the plate in his fork, and even though Baekhyun knows, he shouldn’t probably ask it, even though he knows, it’s like putting salt to his would, he still asks because he needs to know.

“Are you alone… with Taeyeon?”

Both of them are quiet for the longest time, Baekhyun hearing Jongdae’s rhythmic breathing and Jongdae hearing Baekhyun’s erratic heartbeat. Somewhere in the planet, just slightly above the equator, at the lower half region of what used to be the only Korea, inside a beautiful house near the outskirts of Seoul, an entire world collapses.

“Yes.”

 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there.

It happens a few times – for Taeyeon, several times – for Jongdae, and way too many times – for Baekhyun, Jongdae not coming home, calling it a night at their office, and coming back to Baekhyun the next morning. For someone who’s not the doctor between the two, Baekhyun thinks that Jongdae is really spending too much nights outside their home.

Baekhyun stops and stares outside the building from the twelfth floor of the hospital, his hands on the pocket of his long, white coat he’s always dreamed of wearing ever since he was a kid. He wonders if it will snow soon, and how cold it’s going to be. He wonders how cold it’s going to be, and if Jongdae will be there beside him to hold his hand or to embrace his shivering body.

It’s not even snowing yet Baekhyun feels ice inside his chest, constricting his heart gently but surely, and he has to catch his breath to keep himself from fainting.

Three more hours and his duty for the night will be done.

He remembers that the reason he chose to be a doctor is, no matter how lame it sounds, all doctors with the same white coat he is wearing now looks absolutely cool. It’s not a very good reason, one of his professors told him before, because being a doctor is not a simple joke, and it’s not enough. Baekhyun realizes that now, after one of their patients died because of lung cancer.

It’s not the first, but it doesn’t take away the feeling of emptiness and distress. It’s those moments that you wish you can change something, just change it, because you know how it will end, and no matter what happens, you didn’t want that inevitable ending. It’s those moments that you feel so helpless, because you want to do something, to change something, but you can’t, because it will be futile anyway. It’s inevitable, isn’t it?

So, you stand there, numb and emotionless, because no emotion is necessary and no emotion will reveal what you’re truly feeling as you watch it happen before your own eyes.

Baekhyun stands there, arms fallen on either side of his body, and he doesn’t feel his legs weaken because they’re trained for this. They should know how to act in situations like this as the cardiac monitor displays flat lines and unlike other circumstances, they will look for other options, for other means and any other methods to save the patient, but this time, it’s not an option anymore. She is gone and there’s nothing they can do about it anymore.

He takes his leave.

He doesn’t expect that he’ll see Taeyeon on one of the waiting chairs outside the emergency room.

Baekhyun could have ignored or avoided her, and he could have walked away in the opposite direction where Taeyeon stood up upon seeing him, but Baekhyun didn’t do any of those things as he saw something – someone he wasn’t prepared for. His legs weaken until he can’t feel them anymore and he feels like he is floating when he sees Jongdae rushing with two cups of coffee on his hands, looking really concerned.

Jongdae instantly sees Baekhyun and he smiles sympathetically at his husband.

He hands one cup of coffee to Taeyeon, nods at her and walks past her to Baekhyun. He offers Baekhyun the other cup he’s holding but Baekhyun shakes his head. Baekhyun plans to talk to Taeyeon, and he knows it shouldn’t be the best idea, but he is Jongdae’s husband. He wants to ask and he wants to know.

“Hey,” Jongdae says to his husband.

“Hey,” Baekhyun replies, meeting his husband’s eyes and sees worry in them, and he wants to kiss those worry away because he doesn’t want Jongdae worrying over him. He just wants Jongdae loving him and that’ll be enough. No, that’ll be perfect.

Jongdae explains that she is – was Taeyeon’s cousin, the patient who just died. They are about to spend another all-nighter at the office when she received a call from her aunt, updating her while crying profusely about her cousin’s worsening every second’s condition. She immediately wanted to rush to the hospital and Jongdae, being the nice man he is, offered to come along with Taeyeon.

“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun says, because no matter what, a patient was still gone and no matter who that patient’s cousin is, and no matter how Baekhyun did his best to save her, there’s still no way they’re going to see her smile again.

Jongdae puts his arm on Baekhyun’s shoulder and pulls his husband closer.

Baekhyun relishes over the warmth from Jongdae’s hold and forgets the realization that if he wasn’t the doctor in charge of Taeyeon’s cousin, if Taeyeon’s cousin didn’t die, he wouldn’t have seen Taeyeon and he wouldn’t have seen Jongdae, and he’ll be at home alone tonight again.

 

It’s quiet.

It’s discreet, subtle, and inconspicuous. Maybe, because it’s quiet that it’s not confronted, not met, and maybe, because it’s quiet that it hangs around their house like an old ghoul, haunting Baekhyun and Jongdae, continuously, unendingly.

Baekhyun asks more questions.

Jongdae answers less.

Soon, what used to be a very noisy home, full of life and love, becomes a structure of solitude.

 

Baekhyun doesn’t believe in fate or destiny or kismet or anything similarly ridiculous with those. He likes one Chinese proverb about it though: “An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.” But only because Baekhyun doesn’t believe the thread is always red. He imagines that the thread may be red, for that person who’ll spend forever with you, blue, for that person who’ll save you, or even black, for that person who’ll be the cause of your demise.

He wants to know what’s the color of the thread connecting him to Taeyeon.

The skies are gray and it’s lightly snowing.

Baekhyun is just turning the last aisle at the farthest right when he sees Taeyeon, holding two cans of different tomato sauce brands, like she is critically considering what the right brand to buy is. He doesn’t know if it’s the weigh of his stare or if there’s really that thing called fate, but Taeyeon suddenly turns to his direction and sees him.

She smiles at him.

“Hi, Baekhyun.”

He doesn’t answer. He’s not a bastard, who’ll suddenly lash out at Taeyeon and cause both of them a scandal inside a supermarket, about a husband tearing his husband’s mistress’ hair off her head, but Baekhyun isn’t a masochist, too. Or a liar.

He doesn’t stop and continues to walk towards the cashier.

But Taeyeon runs after him and holds his arm tightly, stopping Baekhyun. “Wait, Baekhyun.” Then, she lets go of Baekhyun’s arm as the latter turns around to face her. She looks at his eyes and asks, “Can we talk?”

Baekhyun thinks about it. Then, he shakes his head, mostly to himself rather than to Taeyeon and answers, “Actually, I’d rather not,” already turning his back on her again.

“There’s nothing going on between Jongdae and me.”

“Is there?”

He wants to leave, to turn his back on Taeyeon while he still can, but he’s pushed towards the edge. He stares at Taeyeon’s eyes and is about to spit everything he is holding together for too long in him, but he knows he shouldn’t, because it’s not just Taeyeon, as painful as it is. No matter how much it breaks his heart, no matter how much it shatters him, Baekhyun knows that it’s not only her. It’s also Jongdae, and it’s so painful. So painful.

“We’re only working, Baekhyun,” Taeyeon continues. “I’m married… Jongdae and I, we’re long over.”

“Do you love my husband?”                                                

Taeyeon looks up, from the wedding ring on her finger to Baekhyun’s eyes, clearly surprised by his question and she doesn’t answer.

Baekhyun holds his stare, losing all the sympathy, understanding, and pity he is feeling for himself, for Jongdae, and even for Taeyeon, as he spits in Taeyeon’s face like venom, “You might not be doing anything wrong. You might not be committing adultery or ion. But you loving my husband, even only in your mind, that’s clearly cheating.”

 

“I don’t want this kind of relationship, Baekhyun. I don’t want this kind of marriage. I want us to be back, to how we used to be, to how we were before.”

“Don’t say that to me, Jongdae. Say that to yourself.”

 

Christmas is over. The roads and the grass are not covered with white snow anymore but are now blossoming, with cars going from somewhere to somewhere and with tall, bothersome grasses and weeds. Red and green aren’t in anymore. Mistletoes aren’t ‘accidentally’ seen from random places and you can’t see Christmas wreaths, Christmas trees, and Christmas bells, too.

The sun is up. The sky isn’t gray, but the color of beautiful blue. It’s not the same as that of the sea, but it’s as peaceful and as calming, even through the waves. Clouds of fluffy white are making a show of different shapes any mind can make something of and Baekhyun has always liked the white of the clouds over than of the snow.

It’s not winter anymore.

It’s already spring.

It’s Baekhyun and Jongdae’s tenth anniversary.

“This is supposed to be a surprise, you know,” Jongdae whispers to Baekhyun’s ear, nuzzling his nose against his husband’s cheek and wrapping his arms tighter around Baekhyun’s body.

They’re at the veranda of a small, not-exactly-popular, but absolutely magnificent beach house at Athens, Jongdae’s tenth anniversary gift to Baekhyun. He planned it for ages and it was supposed to be a secret until that afternoon, when Baekhyun came home from the supermarket without any groceries on his hands and confronted Jongdae if he is in love with Taeyeon.

Baekhyun learned that Jongdae’s been working, just working, all-nighters with Taeyeon because he needed more commission so that this gift, his gift will make it in time, just in time for their tenth anniversary.

He learned that Taeyeon is Jongdae’s first love. That’s never going to change, because really, how do you change the past?

He learned that Taeyeon is a special part of Jongdae, because she was the first person who showed him what love is, who made him feel loved and who made him experience what it’s like to be loved by a person you truly loves. They say that the most amazing feeling is to love, but Baekhyun thinks it’s not, but to be loved by the person you love.

“I love you,” Jongdae whispers again. “I hope you know that.”

“I know,” Baekhyun whispers back. “I’m sorry.”

Jongdae leans as Baekhyun slightly tilts his head and meets Jongdae’s lips. They both savor the touch and the moment, Baekhyun deepening the kiss more and more until Jongdae pulls away, just enough to meet Baekhyun’s gaze.

“I love you, Baek. I love you. Why…”

Baekhyun catches Jongdae’s lips on his again, whispering between each kiss, “I know… I love you, too…”

 

They say, drop everything that hurts you. It’s as simple as that, and you’ll be free, happy even, since there won’t be anything that can hurt you. Easy to say, but like all things easy to say, like ‘I love you’ and ‘I will never leave you’ and ‘You are the only one’, difficult to do. How do you just drop something that makes you the happiest? It’s like, how do you just give up something that is the same thing that can make your heart flutter and your toes tingle?

It hurts you, yes, but it means the world to you.

It causes you pain, yes, but it brings you the whole universe.

That’s it. You can’t just drop it, because dropping it may mean there’s no agony anymore. No heartbreak, no pain, no suffering. Who wouldn’t want a life like that right? But is that even a life? Because dropping it will also mean taking away that one thing that can make you the happiest.

Pretty ironic, isn’t it?

And stupid.

 

End?

 

 

A/N: I know. Crappy ending. I’m so sorry. To both the readers and myself. I’m not sure if the ending is alright, or suitable, or right. But I don’t want painful BaekChen anymore even though I still think a sad ending will be the most alright, suitable, and right. I tried making it as “happy” as I could with the plot.

This line: “But loving my husband, even only in your mind, that’s clearly cheating.” It came from a Filipino TV series called Ikaw Lamang (It’s You Only). The original words are: “Pero ang mahalin mo ang asawa ko, kahit sa isip lang, malinaw na pakikiapid ‘yon.”

I fell in love with the words, and thus, this story.

Also, I may or may not post an alternate ending.

Comments, please? :)