Work Text:
Long story short, it was a bad time
Long story short, I survived
Baekhyun had always thought he was bad at love. His best friend tells him that he might just be looking in the wrong direction, sometimes at the wrong person, or just simply falling in love at the wrong time. He got his heart broken far enough than how he would have wanted it — enough to make his stories painful for his readers to bleed for.
Sometimes he thinks that looking for the right person is like an endless loop while trying to be the right person feels like a waiting game. Especially when you know who you want, but can't have them in your life.
But since it was something he can't do anything about, he wrote it down —made it a story so he could have the ending that he wanted. No, it doesn't always have a happy ending or where the protagonist always ends up with the love of his life.
He ends his stories mostly with answers , with freedom of choice, a clear path of where to go, and a love that is given to yourself, because that's the cliché we know but don't really hope for enough.
Baekhyun chuckles to himself, the thoughts never leaving his head even when he was driving on his way to work on a Monday morning in the first week of the month.
When he gets out of his car, he looks up at the sky, clouds seemingly dancing with the breeze on a perfectly good day.
It made him feel at ease, if he was being honest, wrapping up some words in his head that goes somewhere along the lines of finding love under the same vast universe. The sky had always been an inspiration to him.
When he comes to their office, the usual noise he hears from his co-workers greets him as he sits in his own cubicle. He smiles at the sound of laughter, especially from that one tall man who heads their department.
Park Chanyeol.
Baekhyun wasn't particularly friends with him, acquaintances maybe, probably good partners whenever they had to work together on a project, but that's just it. However, he'd admit that he enjoys watching and hearing him laugh, boisterous and uncaring, so genuine that it was almost contagious. It was one of the best parts of his days because he feels like he is somehow sharing his energy with everyone. Just like the sun, he brightens up the room with his smile.
Funny thing is, he'd known Park Chanyeol since they were 5, but they were never attached by the hip like some of their friends assumed they would. They were neighbours back then until the Park had to move a few years back before their youngest entered college. Surprisingly, they ended up being in the same university taking up the same course but in different blocks so they don't see each other that often.
Sure, they were in the same circle of people hanging out together on Fridays and Saturdays that college students needed for themselves in front of drinks and a good karaoke booth, but that's just about it.
Park Chanyeol had always been the life of the party, maybe that's why Baekhyun had always found him endearing. He makes the room lit up, burts into a fit of giggles, and has a good time with his presence.
Baekhyun shakes his head. It's too early for this.
Starting his computer, he looks back to where he was talking with their colleagues, with a mug of hot chocolate on his right hand and a folder of papers in his left, which he assumes is the report that his assistant had to submit yesterday.
Some bosses would be mad about it, but Park Chanyeol had never been such a leader that would go off on someone just because they made a mistake. It's one of the reasons why people like him.
Park Chanyeol had always been the kindest, sure not the kind to be taken for granted, but he had this softness around him that Baekhyun just seems to be … attracted to. Like polar opposites of a magnet. Not that he is bad or anything, but he just seems to be everything Baekhyun isn't. Cool. Composed. Confident.
"It gets tiring sometimes," he remembers Chanyeol saying in one of those Friday nights they gather with their friends. "Being looked up to. Because what if I was the one who makes a mistake?"
Maybe it was the alcohol, but Chanyeol told him all his worries and doubts that he had, and he even lent him his shoulder when he started to get dizzy.
"Thank you, Hyun. You're a great friend. "
But they weren't. Mainly because Baekhyun is too adamant to call the tall boy as such.
They know each other, yes, they would have casual conversations about work, probably say hello when they see each other at the mall, but not quite close to know what present he wants for his birthday or where he will travel on Christmas.
So, no. Park Chanyeol wasn't his friend.
And he was 18 when Baekhyun realized why he certainly didn't want him to be.
***
Long story short, it was the wrong guy.
Baekhyun laughs at the last line of the current chapter he was writing. They were out for lunch and he decided to take his laptop with him.
"Writing for your novel, Light? " A voice said, and the sudden interruption made his fingers stop typing on his keyboard, his body becoming still.
He swiftly saves his draft, minimize the document, and faces the man who just arrived, now sitting by his side with the usual kind smile that he wears.
"Yes. Um. The report you needed for the next week's presentation is already at your desk. Ramos told me you'd review it first before I hand it to Dimitri by Friday." He says, purposely ignoring his question.
It wasn't a secret that he was a novelist but he wasn't loud about it either. Only a few people had known he was Light and it was a surprise that Park Chanyeol was one of those few people.
"I always loved your books, they're realistic. Far from what the young ones always want books to be. It's deep. An eye-opener more than just an alternate universe." The way Park Chanyeol says it, it feels like he lived in it. Just like how Baekhyun did.
It was as if he met people, kept and lost them, losing a part of himself that he could never take back. His stories were far from a fairytale, it wasn't exactly exuberant either, he knew that, and for someone he believed who had a colourful life—his book was the least of the things he could relate to.
"Your books also feel like I'm getting to know you." Park Chanyeol smiles at him, the kind that makes you stare. Charmed, even.
He looks away, catching himself even before his cheeks turns into a shade of crimson.
"You mean to say knowing my failed lovelife." He chuckles to himself. It was true, if Taylor Swift wrote her heartbreaks into a song, Baekhyun made the lesson he learned through that pain into a story.
"It's not your fault, you know." Park Chanyeol says after a while, sipping on his venti cup, and looking ahead the glass window of the café they were at, with the city bustling like it always does
"It was never our fault if we met the wrong person, or we had been the wrong one." His words made Baekhyun look at him again, stunned and surprised to hear the exact same words he said back then. Park Chanyeol looks back at him, catching his eyes this time, and Baekhyun could feel how his eyes are pulling him in.
It reminded him of that time, when Park Chanyeol was there when his first break-up happened and muttered the exact same words he said.
"It was the wrong guy, but it doesn't mean something is wrong with you." 19-year old Park Chanyeol had added to his kind words then and even now that they were facing each other out of their university uniforms ten years later—all Baekhyun could think about was telling him the same words he had in his head back then, probably until now, too: “ Because every guy is the wrong one, because they're not you.”
***
" You still like Park Chanyeol?"
"I think so."
"I still can't believe that you actually hid that for years like it was nothing."
"It is nothing."
"Yet it lasted for years."
"What can I do? We're just not meant to be something more."
"Because you don't actually make a move. Even a single step."
"What's the point?" He says, "I am always a step late anyway."
***
Long story short, it was a bad time
At 18, Baekhyun knew what liking someone felt like. It felt like the giddiness you feel on your first day of school. That excitement you feel when you open a gift from someone who has given you great presents from the past years. It's the happiness that blooms in your heart in the first week of December, feeling the Christmas air as you watch the snow fall down from the sky.
Those mundane little things that someone like Baekhyun finds joy in.
It was a beautiful feeling. Because when you like someone, it feels like the butterflies flutter with delight. Especially if the boy you like is the personification of happiness himself.
He didn't know he liked the boy at first. From the books he had read, he thought he liked mysterious types of guys, someone borderline vampiric but not blood-sucking. He likes it when they're quiet, when you have to think about the things that run on their minds and their gaze is deep, almost sucking you in an endless pit.
While they were dark and gray, Park Chanyeol was the complete opposite.
Chanyeol felt like an endearing shift from dark thriller to one sided love stories that always ends up with either being friend zoned or just having to take two different paths because that's just life.
And maybe he'd rather take a different path than just to be his friend.
He was 18 then, just got home after being dumped by the boy he thought would be that someone. He was cool, looks like he came from a magazine with his varsity jacket and pushed back hair. He was a gentleman, albeit his mysterious and snob demeanour. He was kind. Aced his class and maybe it was the first way he was sweet with him that Baekhyun had that urge to confess and maybe bring to life all those stories he read, but:
"Wow. I… I didn't know you felt that way. You're you and I'm … me. We're different. And I don't do relationship, Baekhyun. I'm sorry."
The way he said that they were different feels like he was the one with problems. The way that boy looked at him from his old sneakers to his flimsy blue cardigan over his white shirt that he loves so much made him feel small.
He wasn't even asking for a relationship! Hell, he wasn't even sure what he wanted but to get the feelings out but where did it take him?
"Stupid boy. Stupid books. Stupid Baekhyun." He mutters to himself as he kicks the snow beneath his feet as he walks home.
"What did the snow ever do to you, Hyun? "
Baekhyun stops. He knew that voice. Seemingly well, if he might add. He looks at his side to see their former neighbour's oldest son. Oh, the Park's came to visit.
"Yeol." The nickname slips out from his mouth easily and his eyes meet his as a smile blossoms from the welcomed intruder's lips.
He was lanky still, got that dimpled smile that makes everyone stop and stare and his hair was still that auburn coloured curls that Baekhyun is secretly fascinated with.
"Bad day?" The boy asks and Baekhyun shakes his head, remembering the incident earlier that day. It wasn't just a bad day
"A bad rejection." Baekhyun doesn't even know what a bad rejection is or how to tell it was bad considering that this was his first one. It just feels bad.
"What!?"
"What? Haven't heard of someone getting rejected. Jones from down the street got rejected and you were there and I am not—"
"Who would have the audacity to reject you?" Baekhyun purses his lips, his heart threatening to fall from his ribcage.
He said what?
"He's a fool for not seeing how amazing you are, Byun."
Baekhyun scoffed. "I'm not. Something might just be wrong with me. It's my fault that he doesn't like me anyway. "
Park Chanyeol frowns. "Don't say that.” Why Park Chanyeol cares about how he talks to himself, Baekhyun doesn’t know but something in him flutters. “It was never our fault if we met the wrong person, or we had been the wrong one."
He smiles, the kind that he wears so easily that Baekhyun forgets how to breathe. Was he really rejected today? Why was he feeling this flutter for someone else? Wasn’t he supposed to be hurt? Wasn’t he supposed to feel comforted by his words and not be moved by it?
“Byun,” he calls once again and he walks closer to where he is and for a second, Baekhyun wants to take a step back. His heart was beating so loud in his chest, he could almost feel it reverberating in the open street that they were in. "It was the wrong guy, but it doesn't mean something is wrong with you."
Baekhyun looks up to where Park Chanyeol stood, his smile blinding still. His heart settled, the flutters there and as he breathed him in, that cedar and sandalwood that felt familiar. It took him a second to wonder. Momentarily. It was then that he realized that it wasn’t just his words that calmed him down, because as he looked into those brown irises he got lost into, he knew it was him.
He was the reason why it didn't hurt when he was rejected. It stung, but it wasn't heavy as he expected it would.
He was the reason why.
Why love was something he wanted. Why every book seem to describe one man. Why every song seems to be talking about him. Why poetry seems to be his name. Why he loved the sun. Why he loved words, both spoken and sung.
Oh, shit. Baekhyun curses under his breath and then looks up behind his lashes to see the man still smiling at him kindly.
God, it was him.
It was him all along.
***
Baekhyun finds it hard to compare Park Chanyeol to any inanimate object so he could write it down, from the sunshine that peeks from the clouds or a flower that blooms in spring or the warmth that you feel in winter. The —
He should probably stop.
He hovers his fingertips across the keyboard, staring at the screen of his laptop with words unpolished but plenty enough to fill in pages. He sighs.
This is good for the book.
But never good for him.
The way that word easily bleeds because of him.
After lunch with Park Chanyeol yesterday, Baekhyun’s fingertips didn't seem to stop itching to type words. It doesn’t help that the man himself keeps popping out of nowhere, running around within his range of periphery. Now, ever since he had admitted he had liked Park Chanyeol, all he did was stare.
Because that’s all he could ever do.
He always believed that Park Chanyeol was out of his reach. Be it because he was too good, but mostly because, he is always three steps ahead, while Baekhyun - he was just starting to walk.
***
They were 21 when Baekhyun accepted that he was in love with Park Chanyeol. 3rd year in college, shy and aloof, with words more of a companion than a hobby. His poetry was his name and the thought in every waking day and the turbulence of every short ‘hellos’ in cafe and hallways.
“You’re his friend, Baekhyun.” He used to remind himself, but all fall back to the thought that there is a large percentage of people falling in love with the same person they call their pals.
“So, Park Chanyeol just asked me if you’re leaving at 5 in the morning or 5 in the afternoon.”
Baekhyun hides the way his cheeks reddened by focusing on his scrapbook. It was their last day before summer break and Chanyeol had informed him that he’ll be coming back home with him this year. He’d even adjust to his time they could leave together. Baekhyun blushes with the thought of Park Chanyeol waiting for him outside his place.
“You’re blushing,” Chen supplies unhelpfully, grinning from ear to ear with his best friend’s flustered face. “You’ll have the Park Chanyeol all summer long.”
Baekhyun groans, but his heart is already jumping with joy. The flutters seem to not die down with the mere idea of him.
He may not say it to his best friend’s face or to anyone for that matter but Summer is the season Baekhyun always waits for. After having figured out that Baekhyun goes home every summer break from university, Chanyeol seems to be tagging along with him every time he catches him on the train ride going home.
“I wanted to visit Nana,” is the answer he always gets when he asks why he doesn’t spend his breaks with his family back in the city. College life was busy. They rarely get breaks that is why when they do, Baekhyun makes sure he gets to go home. Most of them do. Well, except for Park Chanyeol. Every summer, he would go somewhere far from his family. The city is big, but his life seems to be much bigger outside of it.
His Nana meant the world to Chanyeol, that he knows. It made him closer to him as well, especially that Nana seems to be fond of him and a selfish part of him is happy that he gets to see this version of Park Chanyeol that not everyone had the privilege to know.
“I’ll tell him we’ll leave in the morning.”
Chen grins wider, nodding in understanding. “Enjoy the summer, Hyun.”
He nods, “and while you both are. Confess while you’re at it. It’s been years, Hyun. Take that step .”
***
The train ride was comfortably quiet, Park Chanyeol comfortably leaning his head on his shoulder and despite their obvious height difference, the taller one didn't seem to mind, now napping peacefully. Baekhyun feels all fuzzy, his hands itching to cradle his head and run his fingers through his brown locks lulling down against the side of his neck.
He held the tickets held safely in his coat pocket, the concert tickets he had bought for Chanyeol’s favorite band who happens to be a part of the upcoming Music Fest in their town. He was about to give it before their train was going to arrive but Park Chanyeol seemed to be tired, so he let himself have his quiet.
Then his phone rings. It disrupted the taller’s slumber, fumbling with his pockets with his eyes closed and picking up his phone. “Hello?” he asks the person on the other line. Then, “Oh. Sorry, babe. I fell asleep.”
Baekhyun froze. The conversation went over his head like a mindless tune he had listened to on the radio. All he remembers were the words they exchanged - words that he had been practicing in front of the mirror to tell him one day.
“Baek?” Park Chanyeol called when they arrived at the station, waiting for his parents’ car to arrive and pick them up. He hums.
“You’ve been quiet. Are you okay?”
Baekhyun nods, hands still in his coat pocket—slightly trembling, holding the tickets he was now unsure if he'd give.
"Yeah. I'm okay." He answers the man quietly and sighs. Contemplating. He bought this ticket for him. For both of them. He planned to confess. He planned to tell him what he felt all those years for the boy who had been a constant and lingering part of his life.
But then—he pulls out the tickets from his pockets, handing it to Chanyeol without sparing him a glance.
"Here. I thought you'd like to watch the Music Fest."
The glow in his face was priceless, and something fluttered in his chest with the way the smile spread on his face. He would've basked in it a little longer, if only he didn't say the name of his lover whom he had left in the city. She would've loved this, Baekhyun hears him say before the taller engulfed him an embrace that felt too cold despite his permanent warmth.
"I'm so happy, Baek! I fucking love you! Thank you for this!" Park Chanyeol had never been greedy with his words but as much as it made his heart pound in his chest a little louder, he knew. Baekhyun knew it meant nothing.
"You don't." Baekhyun mutters to himself quietly as Chanyeol pulls back completely and makes a call, excitedly telling her the gift his friend gave. " You don't love me the way I want you to."
So, the confession never happened.
8 years later. It never did.
***
Tristan had watched Geo's eyes glisten under the moonlight and the lights that danced across the place, the hues of pink and blue making his eyes seemingly more enthralling than it ever was. Tristan loves Geo. He loves him in a way that no words could ever describe, in a way that the world could never understand, in a way that his heart breaks into pieces while Geo starts to build his own as a whole.
And Tristan wonders to whom was he doing this for.
The office was quiet and the only thing he could hear was the sound of his fingers against the keyboard finishing up the report he had to submit the day after. His draft sits finished and unedited at the laptop he had left open, taunting him with the names that felt foreign in his tongue.
While the report wasn't necessarily urgent, he had to finish his tasks for tomorrow so he could edit his manuscript and hand it over to his editor. He didn’t expect he’d finish it, he’d been procrastinating about it for the last month, the story blurry in his head along with the faces which names he had given it with. Tristan and Geo, a name he got from two people he met at different places and time, but once connected with a promise. Geo, an artist from the West and Tristan, a writer that travels the world to get away with the memories this country holds. He remembers him saying that everything in this land reminded him of the godforsaken story he never had.
Baekhyun wanted to put that kind of story into something. A story that would leave a lesson of waiting, of grief, of a happy ending unmet because that's life—and life is unkind to some hearts, and we learn to live with it. We learn to live that there are stories that aren't meant for us, as much as it isn't for us.
He wanted to make a story from the lesson he got from Tristan—of letting go, and a lesson he got from Geo—of choosing your dreams. The story wasn't theirs, but the lesson came from them—but suddenly, the lines blur—the story and the lesson became his; the pains of Byun Baekhyun.
When he feels like his words recently were fleeting, like melodies of a song you hear in cafés and forgetting the lyrics just an hour after. He comes along with a key, opening a door of unheard stories that he has yet to tell.
Because of him, the words on the tip of his tongue had never ceased. They bleed—they bleed more for him, like the words that come out from his fingertips is not just a story inspired from his own, but his story itself written like a history now ready to be told.
He finishes the analytics he was making as the clock strikes 10 and Baekhyun cleans up his table, laptop now closed and kept in his bag.
"Baek?" he hears someone call his name and he momentarily freezes with it.
"Why are you still here?" Was the question that came after.
He sighs, "Hi, Park. Just finished the reports I had to submit tomorrow because I asked for an early out tomorrow. It's better to hand it to you early in the morning."
“You know that I won’t take it against you if you prioritize writing your novel, Baek.” Of course he didn’t, in his little ways Park Chanyeol had always shown he cared and with the flutters in his heart came that guilt because even if it was, he always felt like it wasn’t enough to matter.
So he averted his gaze away from his kind eyes, mesmerizing to the point that he would believe there's something more behind it.
Instead he looks down at the papers that are now being printed and just as he was closing his writing laptop, he gets a glimpse of Chanyeol's hand, covered with his gloves and jacket pulled until his wrist. He was sure that he saw a bandage sticking out from it.
"Are you okay? I think I just saw a bandage on your left hand."
When he looked up at him, Chanyeol's face was suddenly wiped out with any reaction, and in a split second, a smile grew back on his lips like Baekhyun didn't just see how fast his emotions could change.
"Nothing. I just got burned with my tea earlier today." He answers.
Then there it was again, his eyes. His eyes bore into his the moment he catches it and holds onto it for a lingering moment before Baekhyun pulls away because it felt too much.
"You take all the time you need. Your leave is approved for the week and no buts—I heard from Joe he was about to tell you something important. And Jongdae is in the lobby waiting for you. Get home safe, Hyun."
Baekhyun dumbly nods as Park Chanyeol collected the papers himself and held his arms before disappearing to his office late that night.
It was later that evening when he realized that Park Chanyeol doesn't work overtime.
Nor does he drink tea.
***
"Congratulations, Mr. Byun!"
When he went to the publishing house the next day, he didn't expect the congratulatory greeting he'd received since he went in. Was there a competition he wasn't aware of that he won over? A raffle, perhaps? He wasn't sure.
He became even more confused when he saw Junmyeon, his friend and publisher, was grinning from ear to ear as soon as he entered his office.
“This is weird. Why are you smiling like that Myeon?” Baekhyun had his brows creased, frowning at the grin that Junmyeon had on his face.
"I guess Tristan and Geo will have a sudden plot twist with a change of scenery don't you think?"
Baekhyun purses his lips. He had known what he wanted for his characters even before he came up with a title. He still doesn't know how to completely get there, but there's an inkling—that stubborn thought—where he wanted their story the way he pictured it in his head.
"Or maybe not. This is for you anyway, not for them ."
"Myeon…" Baekhyun runs his fingers through his hair in frustration, his agitation seemingly making Junmyeon grin a little wider as if his distress is the exact reaction he wanted, "can you please just tell me what this is about? I doubt this is about the chapters or the plot or—"
"You're going to Glasgow, Light!"
***
"You said what?"
Jongdae had asked again, as if he wasn’t able to hear him the first time, squinting his eyes as if doing so would inevitably change what he said.
Baekhyun sighs, "I said I'd consider it." When Junmyeon had told him the news, he didn’t know why he froze into place and wasn't able to give a coherent response. He said that Baekhyun was chosen as one of the speakers for the new generation of writers in Glasgow. He was also offered a position in the main company as EIC and Baekhyun feels overwhelmed.
"But this is what you wanted." Jongdae points out.”You pursued to be a writer, studied for it, dreamt about this, and now—you hesitated ?” Baekhyun looks at his hands, the same hands who wrote stories that he wanted for people to know. He never was one to want recognition for himself, he just wanted his stories to touch hearts and help them heal with the pain that comes with it. He wanted his stories to be known, but not him. It was different.
"I know. It's just ….." hard, he wanted to say.
Jongdae leans back to his chair, smiling at him understandingly. "Nothing ever is easy, Baek."
Baekhyun had always wanted to leave. Sometimes, it came to a point that it was scary to feed your cowardice that much. He wanted to do what Tristan did– to leave because he couldn’t find a reason to stay. His family had always been opposed to letting him leave, always telling him that where he was now is already something he should be thankful for.
But through the years, Baekhyun always wanted to grow for himself. Being in a safe zone had hurt him, trapped him in a loop that doesn’t seem to stop turning, and it was getting tiring being in a place that makes you feel that you can’t change–that this place is all you could ever be.
It makes him feel that this city is going to be the only place he'd live in. That his heart will be forever shattered in the ground of this town.
“Sometimes, my mind tells me that I’m leaving because of an irrelevant reason. Like I can’t just leave because I’m hurt. Just because this city doesn’t make me happy anymore. Everyone is unhappy at some point.” He says, his voice breaking. He feels…stagnant. He feels like even if he’s already almost twenty-nine, and the world rapidly changing he is still there, 21 and unmoving .
Park Chanyeol’s face came into his mind like a flash of memory he can’t shake off, a thundering breath as his heart squeezed in his chest remembering the years he loved this man. A decade.
A decade and he was still here.
“Baek,” Jongdae’s voice came to stop his thought from spiralling, his hand warm against his arm. “Stop invalidating what you feel,” he says; sitting on the couch beside him and bumping his shoulder against his. “There’s no such thing as too little of a reason to leave. If it feels suffocating, it suffocates you. Just like that song you like so much, if it feels like a trap then, probably you’re already in one .”
Jongdae sighs and says, “You changed.”
Baekhyun could only nod, because he was aware. “You were loud back then, full of energy. I don't think it's because we grew up that the sunshine you carry suddenly dimmed, and maybe it was. But, as your friend, Baek, I want you to be happy.”
“And if leaving will help you find yourself again,” he adds, “do it. I can’t keep seeing you miserable here, Baek. Live for yourself this time. You’d been loving everything in this city that you forgot the things you wanted to see.”
Jongdae was right. He’d been in the city for far too long. He wanted to be someone better.
The next day, he drafts his resignation letter.
***
Geo had dreams. He had plans. One pile from another. He was benevolent. That his heart became something Tristan craved for. He’d cling so much to him it almost became dependent, to the point that he wanted to be in his world just to keep him close.
Tristan had nothing to keep in this town. The sad memories clouding all of the joyous ones. Maybe that’s why he loves Geo. He was his joy amidst his melancholic, almost black and white world. He was that summer in the middle of the storm, and maybe that’s where he was wrong. He made a person the center of his universe, ignoring the turbulence of his life because of the temporary joy he brings.
Yes, temporary.
Because nothing ever stays.
No one ever loved him to a point that they would stay.
He didn't want to pull him into his uncertainty. He didn't want Geo to carry another burden because he wanted to be in his world so badly even if he was aware he couldn't handle it.
Geo didn't love him enough to be his choice, and Tristan loved him too much that he didn't want to be his downfall. Geo had wings that would let him fly so high and he didn’t want to clip them. His love deserves the world and nothing less than that.
So he lets go.
Baekhyun sighs as he finishes another chapter, then glancing at the printed resignation letter sitting atop of his table. He wondered when Tristan and Geo's story became his instead of a story he had to just write.
He was in the corporate world because Park Chanyeol was in it. Remembering it now, most of his choices revolved around the said man. It's not that he wasn't able to make a decision of his own, it was just that—life was bearable with Park Chanyeol in it. He didn't know when he looked at Park Chanyeol and thought that he could fill the emptiness he felt.
Byun Baekhyun's life wasn't perfect. Far from it. His father left them when he was in grade school, and his mother was working most of the time to care — or maybe she does, but the pain was too much for her to just stay still and cradle Baekhyun until he falls asleep. And maybe, that's the kind of love he knew — fleeting.
Even when he was loved by his grandparents immensely, he knew that with their frail times, they wouldn't stay forever.
He always believed everything was just a matter of time before they went away.
You can count with one hand the friends he has, Jongdae being the longest, and while he knew the man was amazing, he didn't want to keep him down just because he refused to move.
Park Chanyeol. He was never fleeting. He was a constant inevitable feeling. But not his to own. Ironic, he knows.
It was like in his mundanity, Park Chanyeol was the sunshine that peered through it. He was like a force that reckoned him to be grounded, but pushed him to fly. It was an addictive feeling. Of bouncing back with the thought that he can be everything, and that pain of knowing he was just that—an inevitable fall, but never a sanctuary to hold.
A failed confession.
A bad time.
A misfit.
An end.
Because just like the chapters of his book, it will not end if he will not decide that it was enough. It was enough of taking a step forward, a little leap of faith, only to take a step back when he was holding someone else’s hand. It was enough of the uncertainty, that whenever it felt like he was finally there—when he started to see that he looked at him like he was his everything— only to find the same look of enchantment directed at someone else. It was getting tiring to be trying to fit in a world you don’t know is willing to have you in it.
“Baek? You’re resigning? Why?” When Park Chanyeol towered over him, while he was keeping his things in order, he let his heart soar as it bleeds with the look on his eyes. They were frantic, confused, and hurt.
“Yes,” he smiled as he answered. “Gonna make something for myself. I know you understand.” But Park Chanyeol looks like he doesn’t. As if him leaving would make a huge difference, would leave a void, in his rather colorful world.
He wondered how much he held into the idea that he could be anything just to be close. Just to be enough. Just to always know what to do.
He wondered how long he had made this man in front of him the center of his universe to the point that he was already itching to take the letter back and tear it into pieces just so he could remove that pained look on his face.The same look he’d give to just anyone. Or maybe he was just reading it wrong. Maybe he was just delusional because he had loved him for way too long.
Baekhyun doesn’t really know. Just like he didn’t know who he was anymore—because the love he had for everyone else, was the kind of love he didn’t give to himself.
So maybe it was time.
It was time that just like Tristan, he'd let go.
He'd finally let go.
***
Baekhyun woke up that Saturday morning because of an incessant call. It was 8 am and he knew that on this particular day, their company was in a busy streak. Which is why he was confused why he was getting a call from them on such a busy day.
“Sunny?”
"Baekhyun, you really need to talk to Chanyeol." Sunny, the ever direct to the point marketing assistant, said without any hi or hello, “like right now.”
"What? Why?" He tried to sound uncaring but he was already scrambling out of his bed, his eyes still heavy with sleep because of exhaustion.
“He isn’t picking up his calls. He’s always late. Even when he’s here, he’s spacing out. He’s like …” Baekhyun waits for her words with patience, as he walks back and forth in his living room, holding his phone against his ears and another holding his pounding head. “He seems achingly sad, Baek. And you know this isn’t just about work. We’re worried about him.”
Baekhyun was aware of that. Park Chanyeol was an amazing guy, not just with his job but also with how he treats people. He was memorable to anyone that way so it wasn’t a surprise that the department was worried about him. What the surprise was, why were they calling him?
“Did something happen? Maybe at home. Maybe someone he was seeing? Have you asked—-”
"Your immediate resignation. ” Sunny cuts him off, “he didn't take it lightly."
Baekhyun stops. "What? Sunny, he did. You were there." When they talked after the initial shock that Monday morning, Chanyeol showed nothing but understanding. At least, that’s what the only thing he saw with how unreadable his eyes were.
"I was and I am here. But Park Chanyeol isn't."
"Maybe he's just late, Sunny." He reasoned.
"For an hour when he knows that we have a board meeting this morning?"
"Sunny, I'm not his secretary."
"And neither of us is. We’re his friends, Baek. You’re his friend. He listens to you. ” Baekhyun didn’t speak. Thinking about the words he hears because at some point it all sounds ridiculous. For Chanyeol, he was just everyone else. What made the difference?
"We don't know where he is. He doesn't even answer his work phone. He's been late for several days now. The office has been in shambles for almost two weeks, Baek. Two weeks after you left and we can see it. Everything felt different when you left. Especially when he found out you're leaving the country and just not in another company.”
***
"What the hell, Baekhyun. You didn't tell him?"
Look. He didn’t mean to not tell him that he wasn't just looking for a publishing house in the same country and let him figure out that he was actually leaving for Glasgow through a text message.
That day, he just wanted to remove the frown, probably a scowl, on his face, questioning him where he'll go without making him more agitated than he already was with reasons that he can't really fathom. He didn't understand. He didn't want to put meaning in anything that he does, because if he did—he would never leave. Even if he didn't ask him to stay.
"I think you owe him an apology, Baek. Maybe a goodbye, too. It doesn't always mean that you're moving forward, it'll be over. You're just going to be remembering it. Not living in it." He remembers Jongdae saying and he was probably right.
That's why that Monday morning, he ended up waiting outside his building. He wasn't answering his calls as if he was purposely ignoring them. He didn't understand.
They never had misunderstandings before. Sure, they didn't talk for months or maybe it was awkward when they did, and gradually just that, but not to the point that he feels like he did something. Something that hurt him. He wanted to smack his head on his steering wheel, the frustration making his mind reel with the question why.
"Park Chanyeol, I just want to move on. Make me fucking move on. "
He was about to just leave, when he saw Chanyeol walk out from the building. And Baekhyun almost had his jaw dropped. Then, he frowns. He notices that he wasn’t wearing his office clothes but instead he was wearing a fitted black t-shirt that accentuated his build, gray sweatpants, and a black cap. He looks … burning, far from the usual gentleman fit he wears.
He didn’t know that his tattoos were more than just one, his right arm almost littered with black ink and designs that he swears that he hasn't seen before. It was like he was a different person, with the same face.
His frown deepens when he sees that Chanyeol got on a ducati panigale instead of his usual Mercedes-AMG G-Class SUV. He never rode a motorcycle, and never a ducati that is as expensive as that. Something was … not normal. He couldn’t say it was bad nor it was good but it was something he didn’t understand.
Park Chanyeol, the boy that he knew and the man he always had seen despite their distance is far from what he was seeing now.
So instead of calling his name. He follows.
***
“Okay, Park. Spill.” Baekhyun heard Eddie— Chanyeol’s coach, he learned —from where he was completely hidden like a child under the bleachers with his oversized hoodie on. He followed Park Chanyeol to a decent and modernized underground warehouse where there are, as he deduced, fighters , and Park Chanyeol seems to be one of them.
His fight inside the octagon boxing ring didn't feel real. Like he wasn't real. This man smiled with the pain, almost ruthless, almost unrecognizable.
The bruises on his face, along with the other faded ones in his body was an indication that he truly didn't know who Park Chanyeol was. That he didn't try to know the depths of who he is other than what he showed on the surface. He wasn't even mad, why would he? Baekhyun looked at him and while he was unfamiliar, he looked free. Like he was out of the shackles that held him down in the city.
“What?” Chanyeol nonchalantly replies, removing the band from his bloody fists. Baekhyun still couldn’t believe that Park Chanyeol was doing this. And he wasn’t sure why he was still there either. All he knows is that he couldn’t leave. It wasn’t about how he physically looked, he knew damn well how attractive he was – but there was something behind the fire in his eyes as he threw punch after punch that he couldn’t look away from.
“You don’t get to punch like a madman without a reason. Spill.” There was a pause, long and quiet enough that he could almost hear him breathing. It was already quiet, the gym was now void of other people done with their training. “The rage and that …I don’t know. You tell me .”
It took a moment. Baekhyun anticipates.
“Baekhyun’s leaving.”
He froze. His heart sent in a sudden frantic juncture. How was this about him leaving?
“Didn’t you say that he was? And you were okay with it last week.” Baekhyun wonders how much this Eddie knew about him.
“Because he said he was staying in town.” He hears Chanyeol reply, a strained sigh following his muffled words he could barely understand.
“But?”
“He’s going to Glasgow.”
“What?”
“He’s leaving everything, Eddie. He’s leaving me. ” The way Park Chanyeol had said was achingly devastating; it broke his heart. He never knew that he was able to put that kind of hurt in his voice. Nor even be a reason for such despair.
"Actually, he's not." Eddie says. "He's not leaving anyone because as far as you've told me, he doesn't know. He doesn't know that all his life, you intertwined it with yours. That he has a part of you that he will take. He doesn't know that because you didn't tell him. Isn't this the right time?"
"And then what?" Came the frustrated reply. Baekhyun doesn't know what they were talking about and why he was involved. Since when did Park Chanyeol feel too much for him? Isn't it Baekhyun's position to be devastated? To feel too much all at once as if it's strangling you alive with the thought of leaving? But why does Park Chanyeol look like the one bleeding profusely?
He couldn't understand.
"This may be your last shot, Park. Let him know."
To know what?
"And maybe by then you can finally let him go."
What?
"I have been in love with Baekhyun for as long as I can remember, Eddie. I don't think I can do that. Not yesterday, not today, not ever."
It felt like the world stopped. Park Chanyeol — he was what? Baekhyun almost feels like his heart dropped in his stomach. Did he hear that right?
He then hears heavy footsteps fading as it walked down the door and Eddie's voice straying away as he follows behind calling Chanyeol's name. They left.
When the place was entirely quiet, he staggered down the floor as he took a deep breath. His heart stung and the corner of his eyes burned, the words kept repeating in his head— he can't believe it.
It was confusing as much as he hears more to it than just a declaration. More than just admitting it out loud to someone. More than just a confession. But isn't he supposed to be happy with what he heard ?
Then why does it feel so wrong?
That the plot of his story…
— is taking a sudden turn?
***
And I fell from the pedestal
Right down the rabbit hole
Long story short, it was a bad time
“I am in love with you, Geo."
Geo visibly swallows, averting his eyes away from his. It was the very first time he said it, but he knew it wasn’t news. That it wasn’t enough of a surprise to get a reaction—because he always knew. Because even without words Tristan made sure that he did.
“Where are your things, Tristan?” Geo asks instead. Looking around for the pile of luggage he knew Tristan would bring. But he sees none of them, even a bag. Nothing.
“I’m not going with you.” Tristan says quietly, just enough for Geo to hear in the middle of the busy airport lobby.
Geo drops his bag, shoulders tense, eyes suddenly troubled–as if he was afraid. "Tristan."
“I am in love with you, Geo.” Tristan repeats, looking at Geo’s eyes as if he could find an answer to an unspoken question. “I would scream it to the world if I could.”
“Tristan,” he says his name like plea—for what? He doesn’t know. But he understands. He does.
"I know and it’s okay, really. I realized that… I can’t cage you with me, just because you… feel sorry.”
"No, no…” Geo moved towards but when he said the words, “I love you, Tristan.” he said, “But …" Tristan took a step back.
“You don’t,” Tristan smiled. "and I understand."
"Tristan…" The eyes that he loves so much looked pained or maybe it’s just a mirror of his own that he can see in its depths. Maybe he looked at them so much that he could see his own pain in them.
"Go," he urged. "It's waiting for you."
***
It always feels like the wrong time. When it comes to Park Chanyeol, it always feels like the right thing at the wrong time. Or maybe he was just the wrong guy.
When he got home, the tears from his eyes didn't seem to stop. The words he heard felt foreign instead of a declaration he’d daydream about since he was 18. It didn’t feel like butterflies anymore. It felt like shards of a vase full of roses.
"Are you going to stay then?" Jongdae asks on the phone that evening. "Are you going to forget Glasgow because Park Chanyeol finally admitted that he loves you?"
The question wasn't sarcastic nor condescending, it was more like a question he had to answer with a clear intention.
He knows what he wants. Clearly. Baekhyun ponders on the thought, will he stay because he loves him? Or whatever kind of love he feels for him that wasn't something he valued enough to tell.
It was confusing.
To a point that the only question that runs in his head is this: was it enough?
Was it enough to keep?
Was it enough to sweep under the rug?
Was it enough to build a cage?
Was it enough for him to stay after all those years?
Rationally, it wasn't. In the back of his mind, the thought that his love was something so unbelievable; unbelievably weak, makes its presence known.
It wasn't enough.
The city is big. It's full of bright city lights and fluttering excitement when you look at it from the surface. But in it, inside it , there is just a simple life of an ant in a big forest. We hustle and bustle. Struggle. Survive.
Make every little thing enough, so you can keep going.
And his love, no matter how he valued it, no matter how he was willing to pay the cost just to have it, wasn't enough. It wasn’t enough not in a sense that he demanded, but in a sense that it could be worth fighting for. What was he even fighting for?
It wasn't enough for Chanyeol to be brave for him.
It wasn't enough to be something he'd shout to the world.
It wasn't even enough to let him know.
So why would he give it the power?
So, no.
"No. I'm not staying here just because he felt something he didn't even let me know." he answers.
The next week, Baekhyun finally flies to Glasgow.
***
In his first week, Baekhyun writes a letter.
With words subtly saying to take care of his wounds and patch up his bruises, telling him shortened words that encompasses everything he kept all those years. The silence that was loud enough to be heard, he wrote it down until he didn’t know what to add anymore.
He wonders if those failed times meant something to Chanyeol. Although they were dancing to the uncertainty, he wonders if Chanyeol felt what Baekhyun was trying to prove.
It was the wrong time, he told himself.
But he knew that he wasn't someone to wait for time to be right. He tried, he knew he did. In those years he loved him, there were years that he could count that he was trying to be someone he'd see rather than the years he was telling himself that he wasn't someone Chanyeol would fall in love with.
They were 23 then, dancing in an invisible string that binds them into something Baekhyun couldn’t name. Those were the days he felt like he was loved by Chanyeol. He’d pick him up and bring him home. He’d hold his hand and won’t let go. He’d kiss his forehead good night, with a promise of tomorrow. He'd lay down on his shoulder, fall asleep with the tune of his baritone voice humming under his breath with a love song. It felt different. It felt magical.
Until it wasn't.
Baekhyun always wondered why the universe makes you experience things that you will love too much but ends up taking it away from you. It felt that way when Baekhyun braves himself to confess.
He remembers the nerves, the practised lines he did in front of the mirror, the excitement — the confidence that he had to finally put the words out. To put something out there that would define what they were and for once in his life Baekhyun would be the one taking the first step. The one who made the move.
He told Chanyeol he'd talk to him. That he had something to say, and he does, so many things he wanted to tell him. The words he'd written were seemingly not enough.
But when Park Chanyeol came, hand in hand with someone, all words died out in his throat. It came down to his chest, like pins and needles prickling every surface of his heart that it bleeds slowly.
"This is Cara, the one I was telling you about." Chanyeol says and he recalls all the stories they've shared. He might've mentioned her once, maybe twice if he asked more. But all them…all of them were vague. All of them show no indication that he was hers— because in all those times Baekhyun felt, he thought, Chanyeol was his.
He was wrong.
"Right. Hello, Cara." He remembers himself saying, swallowing down the tremble of his voice. She looks beautiful. She looks like someone so worthy to stand beside him. Someone that would make him smile. Someone that would love him, maybe not as much as Baekhyun does, but enough. Enough to make him stay by her side.
And just like that, all his doubts came crashing down like a wave of unforgiving voices saying, "you should've known".
He met Cara a week after that, accidentally bumping into each other in the department store.
"Baekhyun, right?" Her smile was kind, almost blinding that it dimmed his own.
"Yeah. Hi, Cara. How are you?" He asks and Cara sighs, giving him a pleading look as if she had something to say.
"I'm doing great. Um," she pauses, "I know you're his friend…" Visible emotions flashes in her face—embarrassment, determination, and—
Oh .
He knows where this is going.
Baekhyun wants to scoff and at the same time pity the girl because no one should feel uncertain about someone. She wasn't the first one to ever come to him this way and ask, and just like the others it doesn't feel right. To invalidate what they feel as much as he is invalidating his.
"Don't worry. Once I get out of that door," he points at the mall's exit, "you won't be asking if I'm just his friend or something more."
"That's not—" Cara tries to explain but her eyes show nothing but the truth, along with the nervousness this unfinished confrontation is about to take. She was easy to read.
He smiles. "Trust him, Cara. If he chose you, then it's you. "
Baekhyun remembers then, it was the last time that he allowed anyone, even himself to call Park Chanyeol his friend. Because he wasn't.
There was too much there to just settle for that, and it was too less of what he feels.
Yeol, I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault that I can't be what you need and it isn't your fault that I made you my life instead of just being a part of it. I've been stuck in a town with you as the only reason I was there. I am not lost with you, no. But I am not found here, either.
There's too much for you in me. There's so much of you with me. I don't want that. I don't want to cage myself and burden you with the pieces of me that I can't even pick up.
This letter sounds like a break-up letter but in fact, this is a confession. The long overdue confession that never happened because we were always in the middle of a wrong time.
It always felt like the wrong time and I guess we will never know what the right time would feel like.
This is me letting go, Yeol. Be happy.
Forever grateful,
Baekhyun.
***
He tried falling in love, too. Tried to meet and date, casually like someone else, be with someone else, and somehow they all felt like the time was right, but they weren't.
He wants to look at a person the way he would look at Chanyeol, like he was it. Like he was the one. But he always ends up looking for Chanyeol and everybody else was just the wrong one.
Maybe he loved sad stories too much, that at some point his own story became one.
***
Mundanity came with a price, Tristan thinks, as he looks up at the dark skies hovering up the metropolis. It was too dark for a 4:30 early release from work and he contemplates if he will rush at the grocery store with this kind of weather. The breeze was already cold, sending shivers in his skin. Geo loved rainy days, his mind reminds him. The cold days seemingly the warmth he was looking for, wrapped in his blanket, hair unstyled, and a cup of coffee in his hands. Sometimes, he’d catch him by the window, guitar on his lap, humming a melody under his breath.
“I hope you’re having a good time in Boston, Hyung.”
The storm took a sudden hit. It was strong, raging even, that he didn’t expect that there would be someone foolish enough to ring his doorbell that night in the middle of the barrage of thunder and lightning.
His phone rings. “Hello, Jenna?”
“Open your goddamn door.” She then drops the phone, leaving Tristan flabbergasted. Jenna lived a block away from him so how the hell did she know someone was knocking on his front door? Unless she was the one outside.
“Jenna,” he grumbles under his breath as he marches towards his front door, “if you really went here to—”
Tristan held his breath as he swung the door open, Jenna nowhere to be found but instead, in front of him was a ghost he didn’t know would visit. Never, in a million years, had he thought about finding Geo in his doorstep, soaked and looking lost, eyes red-rimmed, and almost begging. Two years. Two years without seeing him felt like forever, yet looking at him now, it felt like it was just yesterday when he watched him turn his back and leave.
“Tristan,” he hears Geo mutter his name in between the rage of the storm and that alone made his knees weak.
“Geo.”
Geo lets out a stuttering breath, smiling as a lone tear falls from his eyes, “Please,” he whispers breathlessly. “Take me back.”
***
Five busy weeks flew by in a blur. It wasn’t easy, Baekhyun would admit. It never was. Staying in a foreign land away from the safety of familiarity was nerve wracking. He'd cry every night and function in the morning. It will take a while of getting used to because as much as everything is unfamiliar, he was beginning to see himself better. Both his strengths and weaknesses. The things that he likes, not clouded with the influence of his heart that belongs to someone else.
He found a routine for himself, a distraction you could call, because there are times that the longing felt feral—irrational, because how could you miss something you never had.
He'd wake up at 5, run a few laps around the town square with the weather slightly warmer than the past few months. He makes himself breakfast at exactly 6:30. He'd go to work at 8. Write at 1. Finish at 5 and take a stroll around town at 6, sometimes stopping by at the local flower shop and grabbing dinner. He'd go home at 7, then watch the series 9-1-1 until 10 and go to bed shortly after. The next day, repeat.
Mundanity came with a price, he wrote on one of the last few chapters of his recent book that he found tedious to finish, and he realized it was because it felt too much of him to actually rush.
Mundanity. It was something he was familiar with and at the same time, it was something that made him want to rip it out from his skin so he could feel it all over again as disguised peace.
With that the 7th and 8th week passed.
In the 9th week, on a Friday night, a knock on his door came. It wasn't like the one he wrote, but it was cold outside even when it was summertime.
He walks toward his door, expecting a friend from work or maybe Janet, the little girl from next door, bringing him cookies.
It felt like deja vu. But instead of having to experience it before, he wrote it—Geo and Tristan meeting again at the doorsteps. The words he wrote was not as explicit as what he feels now that he is in front of him but he feels his knees weaken, that he had to hold onto the door frame to keep himself steady.
"W-what are you doing here, Chanyeol?"
Park Chanyeol smiled. The same disarming smile he sends his way but his eyes were sad, almost accusing, "You didn't say goodbye."
Baekhyun closes his eyes. He was familiar. The ache he feels all too well was there, along with the flutters that his traitorous heart doesn't seem to ever get tired of.
"I sent you a letter." He says, as if it weighed enough to be acceptable.
"Did you leave because of me, Baek?" Park Chanyeol asks, as straightforward and as kindly as always.
"No," he said, "I told you, I'm here because I want to choose something for myself."
For someone who weren't friends, the attachment they have was too present, taking up too much space that Baekhyun didn't know where to start decluttering them.
"It feels that way, Baek."
Baekhyun turns his back, leaving the door open, and sitting on the couch. This feels like a dream, just a chapter of the book he didn't quite finish yet and he feels like channelling Tristan just so he could know what to do.
He hears the door closes, then a soft thump on the floor with what he expects is Chanyeol's bag.
"I came here to see you."
"And I don't understand why you have to." Baekhyun didn't mean to sound so harsh. He willed himself to leave not because he wanted to forget but to be able to see him someday without falling apart. He feels like falling apart.
"You changed your number, Jongdae refuses to tell me anything that could reach out to you, you left all of a sudden, Baekhyun. Without warning, without a goodbye. What do you expect me to do?" Park Chanyeol says, his voice above a whisper, it was almost heartbreaking.
"Stay in Korea!" Baekhyun cries, "that's where your life is."
He looks up at the ceiling, trying to stop the tears threatening to fall. "I'm just building mine here."
"Can't you do it with me?" Baekhyun looks at him then, his eyes doubtful, confused, of the words he was hearing.
"I can't." He says, and he watches as pain fills his eyes and stays there.
"You told me you love me." Park Chanyeol said, disdain in his voice, and he wanted to scream in his face.
"I heard that you loved me .” he counters back, and watches as realization dawns on his face. “Since when? Since when have you loved me?"
It didn't occur to him that a confrontation would be done first before a confession. There was a pause, an uncertain amount of time passing by within seconds.
"Since we were in college, Baek."
Baekhyun wants to laugh. "Then it wasn't for as long as you can remember," He says, recalling the exact same words he heard from him, and Chanyeol looked momentarily stunned. Baekhyun feels like they were still in a fucking wrong time. "I have loved you since we were 18, Yeol. I think even before that. Too much for the last years that hearing you say you loved me feels so fucking unreal. You made it feel so unreal. "
This wasn't how the story was supposed to go. It meant to end as it was, like an unfinished book forgotten in his drafts.
"It got to a point when it got too much, that I was making it enough so I could stay sane when I was losing myself every time I felt like I failed to love you right." He remembers those days. He would cry at night, sob into his pillow, and pray that the pain would end, that it could just stay from where it came from and never come back. "Because no matter what I do, you didn't see it. No matter what I say, it feels like you can't hear it."
"You didn't tell me anything." Park Chanyeol kneels before him by the couch he was sitting on, making himself small by hugging his knees close to his chest.
"Don't give me that excuse." Baekhyun smiles down at him. The heaviness of their unexpected conversation slowly took its toll on him. It felt like drowning. "Because I know you knew. And that every time you felt like I was going to say something. The next day, you'll tell me you'd been in love with someone else."
"And when I thought, if I'd pull back, you'd stop me." Baekhyun laughs and a voice in his head seems to tell him he's getting crazy by the minute. Or maybe intoxicated from the overwhelming assault of emotions he doesn't know is capable of crashing all at once.
"But you let me slowly drift away. Every time. "
Park Chanyeol looks down. Guilty. "Now that I'm trying to be someone, now when I'm trying to love myself first rather than loving the boy who couldn't even be brave to hear me say I'm in love with him, why are you asking for it now? "
He sighs, resigned. "I had always thought we were just in a bad time. That in this fucking story of ours, the perfect time wasn't there yet. I didn't even stop and think that maybe it wasn't really wrong, maybe you were just the wrong one."
“Baek,”
“I’m so confused. We had years in our hands, Yeol. Years . Why now? Why not then?”
“Because I was unsure of myself, Baek,” Chanyeol finally looked up to where he was kneeling down, tears pooling in his eyes, and a tremble on his lips. He looked too punishing to look at now despite the lack of everything he had done.
But something undone can haunt you, too.
“I was afraid I won’t be the kind of love that you need.” He hears Park Chanyeol under his breath. “I was afraid that I won’t be the right one you had always written in your stories.”
Baekhyun wanted to scream again, he didn't have to. He writes for himself. He had written stories to get out of his own head because reality was difficult to live in. It wasn’t just about him, not just about how he wanted Park Chanyeol in his fairytale. He just wanted to be in his story. That was enough.
“All my life, I’d been someone everyone expected me to and I didn’t have any problems with that. I wasn’t afraid that I’d mess up. But when it comes to you, Baek, you make me forget that I had to be perfect. And that scares me. Because what if…what if when I’m not perfect, I wouldn’t be able to love you right?”
Baekhyun crumbles, the sob ripping out from his throat. What does it need to be too much to love and be loved? Can it just be as simple? Less hurtful. Less tiring. Less like it weighs a ton.
“Yeol,” he says his name breathlessly, trying to get into his head.
“What if I loved you too much, I’d scare you off?” Park Chanyeol smiles, but it looks so broken. “What if I made you feel like I love you too less and you’d walk away?” Baekhyun wonders what kind of pain he also had to feel for him to follow, for him to be on his knees asking questions he knows that he would all refute, because regardless if he loved him too much or he loved him too less, he would bask in that love foolishly. It doesn’t help that he understands, that he couldn’t even call it ridiculous. Because he knows that those fears came from somewhere, too. The baggage heavy even without knowing you’re carrying it.
Baekhyun reaches out, cradling his face with his hands. “We are not your parents, Yeol.” he whispers.
Chanyeol holds his hand, gripping it tightly. "Yet that's the only love I know."
***
Baekhyun stares at the last chapter he was writing. It was finished, far from the end he wanted—a happy ending he wasn’t willing to give. He remembers Chanyeol’s face, the dried tears glistening under the moon of that summer night.
"I am myself when I'm with you.” He says, “I didn't have to be perfect. I didn't have to be everything they asked me to. Maybe I loved you when you smiled and told me to rest or maybe it was the time you kissed my sweaty forehead telling me you were proud of me even though I didn't win. There was a lot of time that I could remember where there was only you. I was so afraid I’d break you that I didn’t realize—I already did.”
“There was only you for me, too.” Baekhyun smiles, reminiscent yet his heart didn’t soar as much as it did with the memories of him even the person itself was just right beside him. The confession was like a long story shortened, like all their life it was just there but not acknowledged. “I don’t regret loving you. I don’t regret gravitating my world to you. But it was consuming me whole.”
He looked at Chanyeol, leaning against the front of the couch, face illuminated by the streetlights peering through the window. He looked beautiful like this, without his mask albeit wearing his vulnerability on his sleeves. He’d miss those eyes looking at him like he mattered–like he was worth everything. How he hopes he had the heart to believe it.
“I think I’m lost, Yeol.” he admits, sniffling yet laughing at the same time, it was tearing him to pieces. “It’s something so cliche, I want to laugh every time I say it but it also feels real. I don’t know who I am with the shadows I left in the city. With the shadows of a boy who only knew to love everyone but himself. I want to love myself first, Yeol. Let me be the one to step back this time.”
Baekhyun doesn’t regret it. Watching him walk away. Watching him catch a flight back home.Watching him accept that their lives were completely different; that at 29, they had things to fix on their own and stories to write alone. “I love you,” Chanyeol murmurs as he says goodbye, his feather-like kiss still lingering on his lips just like the first time.
"Tanny, I want to hold your hand. To keep you in my arms as you sleep and wake up with you sleeping in my chest. I want to have mundane days with you. Breakfast at lunch and desserts for dinners. I want to talk about the battles I've had and my triumphs that I know you’d tell the world if you can. I want to share with you my downfalls and my failures. My broken notes and the chords I’ll come up with. I want to continue sharing my afternoon coffees with you. Let you scold me for my bad habits and kiss away the taste of my cigarette. I’d follow you around wherever you may go, promise you forever in front of all the people we might know. I want you to wear the pair of this ring, to tell the world that you’re mine just as much as I am yours. You are my home, Tristan. And the universe might say that this is the wrong time, Tanny, you would never be the wrong one.”
As Baekhyun writes the last words on the last chapter of his book, he hopes that it was easy like this. It was easy to write a story and change its ending the way you'd want it to. To give an alternate ending, to save the tears from falling, and make it worth saving. Because in real life, there was no such thing as a backspace or edit; only the next page that will eventually keep turning.
Pushed from the precipice
Clung to the nearest lips
Long story short, it was the wrong guy
Chanyeol was an enigma. You would think that you know him, when in fact, there's only a number of people who do. Because under the facade of his perfect smile, was a force of nature caged in his own mind.
He was sure of many things; that includes everything he does. His hands are skilled, they said. An intelligent young boy, many had praised. He had done so much yet he had felt too little. His heart swept down until he forgot it was almost beating.
He knew it was there. Love .
He loved his mother and his pockets full of love. His father, with his withdrawn state and hesitation. His sister, in a way that he felt almost sorry that she had to feel everything first hand and having to explain why perfection was something they value and had to keep.
Love, albeit in a facade, was valued. He valued it so he could feel it. So he could enjoy what it feels like. Love was something he didn't want to break.
He knew love, at least that's what he believes.
He loved many, at least he thought he did.
He found a love that was loud, so loud it was almost deafening. That kind that would tell you everything you have to do, the kind that would hold you by the neck, and cry when you step back as if you were the one to hurt them. Park Chanyeol was a free man. He valued respect and boundaries, and if you can't accept that—he'd let go of you.
He found a love that was quiet, too much that he felt like everything was done in silence. The expectation was heavier, like one look he had to know what's wrong and if he didn't, he had to bear the excruciating stillness. Park Chanyeol loved to talk, he is a man with words that could melt you. He wants to communicate, and if you can't show him the least that you're willing to do that for him, too—he'd let go of you.
He found a love that was kind, but fake and traitorous. The kind that would be perfect for you. Doing everything right except accept the people in your life that could be a threat to their fantasy. He'd been livid. And if you can't respect those people around him, too— he'd let go of you.
Then there comes this love. Park Chanyeol thinks it has always been there. It wasn't innate. But he knew since they were little kids that this kind of love, in whatever form, is meant to be protected.
It came with a name. Byun Baekhyun.
It wasn't the kind of love that he knew from the start, but he was aware that he was fond of him, looking at him like he was someone so fragile but so brave in dealing with the despair that came his way.
Baekhyun only had his grandparents, well a mother that was absent. They bonded with the guise of playing soccer when they were little kids, but growing up, you realize that it was something you do to fill the silence in your home. He felt that. Because just like him, the only family he'd ever come home to was his Nana. And maybe that's the first thing they ever had in common.
Baekhyun was a ray of sunshine albeit being painstakingly shy.
He was kind. Carefree despite his circumstances and he was genuine to a fault that he was afraid people might take advantage of it.
Baekhyun makes him feel like he could breathe.
Like he could be that boy without the expectations that weighed on his shoulders. He loved what he did. He knows what he wants. Even with the control he knew he was good at. What he doesn't want is the expectations pushing him to be someone they see fit. With Baekhyun, he doesn't feel any of those.
At some point, being with him made him feel invincible. Like he could do anything because the trust he had wasn't expectations, it was like a promise that even when he falls, he will never see him less.
Growing up was inevitable. Growing apart was, too.
Change was everywhere, and while he was afraid that the only constant thing in his life might change, too—Baekhyun came in a familiarity that he basked in like the warmth of the morning sun.
He grew up beautifully. The shine in his hazel brown eyes was ethereal along with that rectangle-shaped smile, and auburn hair that was soft to touch.
He was so beautiful and whenever he gravitated towards him, he felt like everything he had ever wanted—- it scared him shitless.
He was someone he didn't want to drift away, never someone who would ruin because of his love. Because his love was flawed. Because his love wasn't love before—it was fear, fear of being alone. Fear of being someone incapable of keeping something for himself that wasn't destructive as what his parents had.
And Baekhyun doesn't deserve that. Baekhyun doesn't deserve a love he made out of scratch nor the love he picked up from the remnants of everything he had incompletely.
No.
Not yet.
But his eyes— his eyes changed so quickly—from admiration to something even deeper. So deep that it scared him that once he fell into that pit, he would take Baekhyun with him and break him apart. He wasn’t ready for that yet.
Then he learns how to fight. You need an outlet, they said, to show that you were mad without screaming, to let the voices quiet down, the voices of his parents screaming at each other, the echo of the steps walking away—to make it all stop.
The pain did wonders, the wounds gave him something to patch up, the bruises as a reminder that he was still here, that he would exist, even if he was flawed and broken. That was when he was 26.
Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.
3 years later at 29, he was ready. He dealt with himself. Dealt with the emotions he suppressed. But then he read the resignation letter on his desk. The dread came crawling back.
Not now. Not now. Not now.
So he follows him in Glasgow, after a month and half of almost losing his mind in finding where he exactly was, with high hopes of coming home with him in tow.
But just like Jongdae had told him, Baekhyun isn’t going home.
***
He doesn’t regret it.
Walking away and letting him find himself. He knows what being lost feels like and the way he looked so tired, so resigned, so done of everything he put him through albeit not wanting to— he knows that he was going to fight a losing battle against his love and against Baekhyun himself and he wouldn't do that to him. He wouldn't reprimand Baekhyun for looking for himself just to prove that he could love him this time.
Baekhyun didn't owe him anything.
They didn’t deserve pieces of each other, dealing with the baggage they carried since then, making the other heal. No. You don't heal someone. You can't fix someone. You can't look for their lost self in the guise that you love them. Sometimes, even your love can make them lose themselves.
Maybe it was the wrong time, maybe the universe was telling them that they were still the wrong ones. Maybe they needed to find the way out the woods first, maybe they needed to save themselves first because no one will ever do that for you.
Loving someone came with a price. That he knows. It came with misunderstandings, bad decisions, fears, and a lot of fuck-ups.
"Baekhyun released his book last week here in Korea. Have you grabbed a copy yet?" Sunny asks as they went out at the back with the team to have lunch.
Chanyeol smiles. "Not yet."
The book was published last month and just a week ago it became available in their country, translated to five different languages.
"Wait," Chanyeol frowns as Sunny rummages through his bag, then pulls out a book. Tenderly Giving. "I thought I'd show you the first page first."
Chanyeol looks down and the book and read—
for you; and the happy endings we could've had.
"I just know it's for—"
"My bag! Fuck."
They saw a silver-haired man running after a man wearing a mask, his shirt was ripped on and by the looks of it, the silver-haired man put up a fight.
Park Chanyeol didn't think twice running after the man who got the bag and probably a purse that contains IDs and cash.
When he reached the man, it tried to fight back. He was strong, well-built, and probably a reckless thug but unluckily for him, Park Chanyeol was a fighter.
"Wrong guy, asshole." He smirks at the siren blasts and all the man could do was curse as he cradles his bruised face and cracked jaws.
"Oh my god, thank you!"
And he feels like home
If the shoe fits, walk in it everywhere you go
Chanyeol froze upon hearing the voice, breathless and familiar, and the scent, god, his scent that never seemed to change.
One hundred and eighty-two days, nine hours, forty-seven minutes. That’s how long it was since he last saw him. One hundred and eighty-two days, nine hours, forty-seven minutes since he last heard his voice.
Yes, he was counting. He wasn't particularly waiting. But Baekhyun had a big part of his life that he couldn't just remove. He was a constant memory that he cannot just put aside. Baekhyun was someone unforgettable.
"I didn't know you could fight like that, boss." Sunny walked up to him after the man had been dragged away, the silver-haired man, Baekhyun's, bag and purse in his hand.
He couldn't speak. Rooted in his place, back facing the man that occupies his mind.
"Hey, are you okay?" He can hear Sunny ask Baekhyun, who she doesn't seem to recognize.
"Yeah, just breathless — Sunny!? "
"Oh my god, Baekhyun!" The squeals were heard and he can't help but smile hearing the laughter he emits. He missed it. He missed everything about him that he could remember.
"I didn't recognize you because of your hair! Silver! God, you look ethereal, Byun! Just like our boss here who is blonde now with an undercut. Can you believe it?"
"Boss? Chanyeol?"
Chanyeol slowly turns around, and it might be cliche, but the moment their eyes met, he felt his breath was caught in his throat. The butterflies that he thought that died down, fluttered profusely as if saying– it’s alive. His heart feels like it is about to burst from his chest the moment he smiles - unstrained, unforced. Peace looks breathtaking on him.
Sunny was right. He looked ethereal. His eyes were as beautiful as the day they met and he looks angelic with his gray contact lenses and silver hair. He looked like he was sent from the heavens.
"Boss, you're staring."
Chanyeol pointedly ignores Sunny, taking a step forward to hand Baekhyun his things. "Are you okay?" he asks
"Yes, he just got my bag but you got it back for me. Thank you." His smile was blinding, he wanted to keep it from the world and make sure that it stays there.
"Baek," he says his name like a plea, his name rolling out of his tongue in a way he'd worship forever.
“Yeol,”
“You know what, I’ll tell the team that we are going to have lunch on our own. Why don’t you catch up? Okay? Okay. Bye!” Sunny’s voice came like a quiet passing voice that didn’t linger with the way their eyes seem to never let go.
“I haven’t read Tristan and Geo’s story yet. How did it go?” Chanyeol asks, the smile on his face hopeful.
“They found their happy ending. It wasn’t an easy ride, I can tell you that, but they got there.”
“Tell me more about it while we’re eating lunch?”
“Sure. Your treat?” Baekhyun’s sunny smile is back and he vowed to do everything he could to protect it this time.
“Of course,” he then offers his hand and if the smile on his face gets a little bit wider, he doesn’t have to hide it to the world, especially not to Baekhyun.
If Baekhyun lets his hand hold his as they walk across the street a little tighter, Chanyeol just smiles, giddy with familiarity, high with the laughter they exchanged, and excited for the unknown as they walk through a path they walked up to before. He basks in the afterglow of the daylight, sharing a new hope, sharing a new promise. If Baekhyun can write a happy ending, then Chanyeol would be the one to make it happen.
If they didn't know when the right time was, or how it would feel like— today, he swears. He is going to make the right time happen, come what may.
And who knows, maybe this could be the happy ending they now could have and not just a what could’ve been . Because a happy ending doesn’t always mean the end , sometimes it means starting all over again .