Boss Complex

48. Homecoming Confessions

"Why the sudden move, Byun Baekhyun?"

Elbow deep in a half unpacked box, Baekhyun looks over with a stack of magazines in his arms, having been, completely lost in thoughts of the night before.

"Is it because of him still?"

Victoria's stinging words about love still tattood, he clears his throat and shuffles away with a laugh.

"It's been over a year, Kyungsoo."

But that doesn't really mean anything in this world. Saying that things are different now is still a lie. When he set foot in Korea, he could have sworn that he was over it. He had himself convinced that he was only hiding from him because he didn't want the shame of having to see him after all that they had been through. But all of that time spent flying to different countries, climbing the social ladder at work, moving higher until he was delegated the responsibility to take on the Korean branch of their offices when time to open came... He knew that this all had something to do with his brother in law. His sister had lied about a pregnancy in her desperation to make her marriage work, in order to save her family, and when she came clean about it, he hadn't been upset at her, he had been upset at himself. He needs to focus on his career now, he has so much work ahead of him when his position starts in 2 weeks, and yet... once again, the world only sees him as an emotional pawn in Chanyeol's complicated love fetish.

"You're not going to prove anything with that measure, Baekhyun. I was in love with you for almost half of my life."

There could have been something teasing there in his tone, something that the bickering besties were comfortable with. With one glance over to the man at his side though, he knew that this was no small admission. He slumps down to Kyungsoo's level where his friend is carefully removing an assortment of paperwork from a brown cardboard box. His eyes, so round and wide, the whites so clear on most days, now look pooled with red in the corners, tears pulling at him but unable to fall.

"Hey..."

"You must have known. All of these years, Baekhyun. You're just not that dense."

Not known in the sense that Kyungsoo wanted. It was more an intuitive feeling that he passed off as vanity. Do Kyungsoo has been as constant as the sun, a daily reminder that some bonds are thicker than blood. When he's happy, when he's sad, when he has nowhere to go... When he needs someone on his side, when he needs to cry... There is always Do Kyungsoo with an offer to have a drink, or let him sleep on his lap. He's been through hell and back and in each small step, there this little doe eyed bastard was, patiently at his side. Had he thought that it was friendship, or maybe brotherhood, but his heart never beat unsteadily with anything but loyalty for the man at his side, and on some level he had appropriated those feelings to Kyungsoo as well. He had seen the burn of jealousy in the past, but that had always been the potential loss of attention. It was nothing more than friendship, and something deeper than that. Kyungsoo is family that he chose, no, the universe chose him and he treasured that friendship more than he could express in comfortable words. Knowing that it would be wrong to belittle those emotions he glazes over it with a half-truth, feeling a slight panic.

"I had... suspicions at times." Baekhyun admits, taking hold of Kyungsoo's arm.

"You were being nice. You were sparing my feelings, I think. And you rarely think of anyone else like that. Maybe I thought that meant something. I always knew somehow that you weren't interested in me... But there was this sick part of me that had decided that if you did want to be with a man, it had to be me. If you decided that you were going to be with a man...I thought that you would have been with me. I thought that you would have chosen to be with me..."

"If it makes you feel better, I was drunk when I kissed Jongin so I didn't technically choose to kiss him." Baekhyun says softly.

"I really can't fault you with that though because I didn't choose to kiss him either. He kissed me."