"Chanyeol." Baekhyun's voice came out weakly, and no matter how bad he wanted to run away, to stop looking at it, he couldn't. He kept staring until Chanyeol raised his head up, eyes widening at the sight of teary eyed Baekhyun.
"Baek. Baek!" he called after him, but it was too late, because Baekhyun ran away.
"Wait here." Chanyeol said to the girl, putting his track jacket over her shoulders and ran away in sprint, even though it had started raining a little and he had nothing but his training robes on.
"Baek!"
Silver haired figure kept running but his steps were getting slower and slappier, turning more into trotting than running. His hair was illuminated by moonlight, making him look like a broken, fallen angel because next moment he lost his balance and almost fell down, but he managed to lean against a tree before falling.
"Baek..." Chanyeol slowed down, slowly approaching Baekhyun's back, scared of his reaction. He heard quiet sobs despite the rain, and he used all of his gentleness as he carefully put his hand on Baekhyun's shoulder to turn him around.
"Don't touch me, Chanyeol." Baekyun's voice sounded so threatening and sharp that it almost made Chanyeol flinch and pull back, but he didn't give up. He suprised Baekhyun by turning him around to face him, but when he did, he was the one more suprised.
Baekhyun's eyes looked like pieces of shattered glass. Broken, tears gleaming under moonlight. Hurt. Those tears weren't ordinary ones. Those were tears caused by feeling of betrayal, heartbreak and wasted love.
"Baby, please." it was Chanyeol's first time to call Baekhyun that, but his heart ached for seeing Baekhyun that way. Even though he did nothing and there was no reason for that, he felt like he shared all Baekhyun's pain.
"Get away from me, you-" Baekhyun gritted his teeth, kicking Chanyeol and trying to break free, and he wasn't weak at all, as the best volleyball server in the country. But force that was driving Chanyeol at the moment, his sudden realization of how scary a future without Baekhyun would look and importance of keeping him made Chanyeol even stronger, gripping onto Baekhyun's biceps even harder.
"She's my sister! That's Yoora. My younger sister, and she's pregnant." Chanyeol spilled out, and Baekhyun froze, his big eyes finally looking at Chanyeol.
"W-what? She's not... You're not..."
"No." Chanyeol whispered softly, cupping Baekhyun's cheek. "Why would you think that, don't you believe me?"
All of a sudden, Baekhyun pulled back, moving away. Rain was getting stronger and stronger, soaking up both of them to their skins.
"Believe you what? What are we, Chanyeol?"
And that's when Chanyeol went back to being a coward. That small, gentle creature standing in front of him was finally asking him to give him that last thing he needed to be happy. He needed to be loved, and Chanyeol was a coward who couldn't make a step that would provide happiness for both of them.
"Why did you react like that then, if you don't know what we are?" he couldn't help but slip those words off his lips, even though he was regretting them while saying them. He was stupid. He just had to say those three words, but he had to blow everything up instead.
Baekhyun's palms were balled into fists as he looked at the giant in disbelief. All his hopes that Chanyeol would step out and take him into his arms- literally and figuratively- were starting to fade.
"Because I don't know what we are, but I know what I am! I am in love with you and thinking that you might love someone else fucking hurts! I'm in love with you and I can't help it!" Baekhyun shouted. He was angry, so angry, and Chanyeol could see it on his face how dissapointed he was.
"Maybe I was wrong about the girl's identity, but I think this situation has only proved that even though you have all conditions to like me back freely, you still can't do it."
Knowing that Baekhyun had realized his weaknesses too hurt Chanyeol more than being aware of it himself.
Seeing Baekhyun give up on those last strings of hope, telling out the truth they both carried inside was worse than being punched in the face over and over again.
But his heart stuck to specific five words it chose among all words Baekhyun had spilled out.
I'm in love with you.
I'm in love with you too. So in love with you.
And when Baekhyun turned around and started walking away, Chanyeol kept standing in his place.
But I don't know if my love is good enough for you.
----
"I messed up so bad, Soo." Baekhyun sobbed, his forehead pressed against his knees while he sat on his bed, crying over the headphones to Kyungsoo.
"Tell me again what happened? I don't think I understood quite well." Kyungsoo's voice was calming and soft as always, but for the first time, it wasn't enough for Baekhyun to calm down.
"I saw him with some pregnant girl in front of the hospital and it looked like they are really close so I thought... I didn't actually even take time to think, I just made an assumption and I pictured it like that and... It hurt so bad." he sniffed again, recalling what it felt like. The closest feeling to that would be having his heart ripped out of his chest, as dramatic as it sounds. Chanyeol was his only source of hope in life, that something good can finally happen to him too. That he can be loved and cared for.
"I ran away but he caught up, and he told me it's his sister. He asked me if I believed him and then... I just snapped. I told him I'm in love with him and I got mad at him because he couldn't confess the same. Why do I always have to ruin everything?" Baekhyun burried his head in a nearest pillow he could grab, muffling his groans of frustration.
"Two weeks ago he told me his dad left them when he was five. He's lacked that kind of love for his whole life. And his sister is pregnant, I think she's only sixteen? His life is far from nice and easy and I acted so immature, selfish and just stupid."
"Don't say that. You're not stupid."
"I am." Another sob.
"Baekhyun. You are in love, and it's completely natural that you're hurt. Talk to him. Talk to him about his problems, too, and his past. The more you understand him, the better you two will bond."
"But what then? What if we sort everything out and fall for each other even harder, and then have to part ways? I'm going to the States, Soo. What will happen then?"
"Don't bother yourself with future. Let's try it like this. Can you see yourself and Chanyeol together in the future? Can you picture that life in theory?"
It took Baekhyun some time to answer.
"That's exactly my point. The most important thing is that Chanyeol is what you want, but future is too far away for any human to know, no matter if it's tomorrow or in ten years. You'll be unhappy if you don't fix this now."
Sometimes Baekhyun hated the fact that the younger always knew what to say, albeit he was thankful for that too. The realisation that one day Kyungsoo will be gone again and again there will be no one to confide to washed over him, adding even more bitter taste to his mouth.
"But it's not that easy. I bet he doesn't want to see me at all after this."
"You are such an idiot sometimes, hyung." Kyungsoo sighed.
"You never call me hyung."
"I'm trying to comfot you so I resort for anything that could work."
Nothing could work. Nothing, but Chanyeol's secure arms around him and knowing that they will be okay.
----
Hours passed in thick fog around him, then days, and weeks.
Sleepless nights turned into conversations with Kyungsoo till dawn, lax turning pages of ontology books and deep sea of thoughts that often left him tired, longing for dream he couldn't get.
It was a mix of both his pride and shame that kept him back from approaching Chanyeol. Instead he found just a little bit of comfort and assurance that maybe it's not over yet in glances he would catch from the latter.
During their volleyball practices his tosses were what connected him to Chanyeol, those perfectly aimed tosses that Chanyeol spiked effortlessly, showing that they truly were destined to do that together. Destined for each other, but a man can fight against his own destiny, and that's what the two were doing.
There was harsh pain in Baekhyun's chest every time their eyes would meet, memories and pictures projecting around them, words repressed under the surface.
Anxiety was starting to overflow him more and more, making him feel like an addict. Park Chanyeol was his addiction.
But more than that, Park Chanyeol was a person with feelings. A person who wasn't guilty for the fear to take over responsibility to love. The more he was getting to understand that, the more remorseful Baekhyun felt for reacting like he had and hurting Chanyeol who had done nothing wrong and had been hurt enough during his lifetime already.
"What's up with you lately?" Junmyeon asked him one afternoon. The day was warm in mid March, with enjoyable light breeze caressing their faces.Two best friends headed back home together from practice through narrow, well known streets of Seoul.
"Hm? Nothing." an old coke can kept rolling with every kick of Baekhyun's foot.
"Don't even try." Junmyeon warned. "You know you can't hide things from me. Is it Chanyeol?"
On the mention of the name Baekhyun rised his head up. Still careful like a prey about to get caught by a predator, he asked: "How do you know about us?"
It seemed to him that he saw a little smile washing over Junmyeon's face like a sea wave and dissapearing just as fast, and uncertain sadness in his eyes as he tried to keep his gaze steady on the road was visible to no one but Baekhyun.
"I've known. For a while. New Year's Eve, when you... When you kissed him." it sounded like his guts were tangled in a knot and those words were hard to press out.
Baekhyun didn't remember the mentioned kiss very well but Chanyeol once told him about it, so he knew what Junmyeon was talking about.
"Listen, Baek." suddenly the other boy stopped, turning towards Baekhyun. He kept the distance, but his gaze went so deep into Baekhyun's. He was looking for confession, understanding, anything that could give him proof that the words that were about to leave his mouth were right.
"I've known about you two for a long time and I've noticed when things went wrong. Don't think you can ever fool me or hide anything from me, because I know you. I've noticed how happy and full of life you looked while you two were together. Like there was nothing stopping you. And then suddenly everything turned around, you started looking depressed again, and I knew there could be only one reason. I went to talk to Chanyeol after some time that I gave you and you went on being stubborn idiots. Of course he didn't want to tell anything at first either, but when I finally pulled something out, he started crying. I don't know if you've ever seen him crying, but I have. He looked devastated, Baekhyun. Like someone took all of his happiness away. So whatever you two have to solve, do it. You have no idea how much that man loves you, Byun Baekhyun, and how lucky you are because of that."
----
After so many years, Chanyeol though he should've already gotten used people leaving him.
But when Byun Baekhyun left, leaving him shattered with words stuck like arrows inside his chest, it was worse than ever before.
He broke down for the first time since his father left and he swore he would never cry again, because of anyone.
He cried with his head in Junmyeon's arms and the other caressing his hair.
Love is just a trick to make people weak. Love is the most wonderful feeling in the world. Love equals to pain, because it always hurts. Love is his heart beating in the same rhythm as Baekhyun's.
He wanted to stop coming to practices. Baekhyun's laughter filled the gym and tickled his ears but it was fake, Chanyeol knew it, because Baekhyun's real laughter was the one he heard when they were alone, the one caused by his lame jokes and tickly kisses he planted on the side of Baekhyun's stomach, his most sensitive spot.
He turned into a lifeless, dry being, into a walking corpse.
Baekhyun wasn't his boyfriend. He had never told him he loved him, he never did anything to claim Baekhyun as his.
That's why it hurt the most. He lost someone he never had.
Bud of hope started blossoming in his chest and life flowing back into his veins when one day he found a blue sticker note on inside of his locker door.
Meet me at the roof terrace.
____
A/N
I've printed out Anterograde tomorrow PDF and I've read it about 5 times and I still keep doing it and wondering how could someone write such a masterpiece as a fanfiction I mean EVERYTHING is on point - plot, vocabulary, expressions, phrases, well developed writing style, methaphores, as a writer I just love it and look up to whoever wrote it!!
If you haven't read it already that's your homework, it's a classic of fanfictions(Kaisoo btw)
Anyhow thank you for all the waiting you have to handle with me, I've just been so slow lately -,-