"Bobby, I'm not interested." Chanyeol repeated for the nth time to the blue haired boy sitting next to him in a scratched yellow separe of a fast food restaurant.
"I'm telling you man, she's a really nice girl! She's got the curves, dude, like for real-"
"You do realize she's your girlfriend's best friend, right?" Chanyeol's curly haired teammate, Leo D'Angelo, gave Bobby a disgusted look.
"No, no, no, there's no question that Jenna is the hottest girl alive and she's mine-", he pointed two fingers from his own towards both of the boys' eyes, "but I'm trying to convince him here. Don't be a spoilsport, idiot."
"I'm not a spoilsport, can't you see you're fucking annoying him?" Leo snapped back, throwing french fry at him.
Chanyeol ignored them, scrolling down Instagram as he had already finished his burger. He was tired of his friends (mainly Bobby) trying to set him up with girls every chance they got. He didn't even have desire to even hook up, not to mention date anyone.
Anyone but one person.
He hadn't seen or heard from Baekhyun since that night. That meant that Baekhyun remembered and found out nothing, so that was a good thing. In theory. In reality, Chanyeol couldn't decide what hurt him more: lying to him or knowing that he had ruined every chance of them getting back together. But still, Baekhyun didn't want it anyway. He had Jaebum, so he was probably happy and didn't even think of him and-
Facebook messanger: you have 1 new message.
From: Byun Baekhyun
Chanyeol froze. His limbs went dead and his mind stopped functioning. That couldn't be happening. It meant that Baekhyun knew. That could be the only thing he wanted to contact Chanyeol for. Without even opening the message, because he couldn't bring himself to, he already predicted the worst.
"Dude, are you okay? You're as pale as a corpse, man." Bobby waved his hand in front of Chanyeol's eyes, turning him back to reality.
"O-oh, yeah, it's- nothing." he said, trying to sound as collected as possible. Bobby and Leo kept giving him strange looks.
"Gotta pee." he muttered quickly and rushed out towards the toilets.
Luckily, there was no one there. He backed against the wall, staring at his own reflection in the mirrors in front of him. He gripped his phone in his hands as his life depended on it. He didn't know what to do. This is what he'd been waiting for, right?
The reflection in the mirror stared back at him. Faded red hair mixed with black roots showing. Chest rising up and down more quickly than usual. In his eyes there was a flicker of horror, a sign of guilt.
He unlocked his phone again, the Messanger chat appearing in front of his eyes again.
Harvard sports facility, gym number 2. Tuesday, 9 p.m. It will be unlocked.
That was the only content of Baekhyun's message. No context whatsoever, nothing that could even slightly indicate what Baekhyun wanted to talk about.
Chanyeol sighed deeply. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe he had no chances of ever having Baekhyun back, but at least he could be honest to him. He owed him that much, for the sake of what they used to have. Chanyeol was the one who made him cheat. He deserved to at least know the truth.
Chanyeol's trembling fingers typed back.
I'll be there.
---
"Yo, you okay? You're spacing out." Baekhyun heard Mark's voice from behind, snapping out of the trans he was in.
He was standing next to the court, arms crossed, waiting for his turn to serve. They were having serving and receiving practices, and since there were many of them, he had breaks which he tried to use to follow his senior's moves and try to learn from them.
Still, he couldn't kick Chanyeol and his message out of his head.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." he gave Mark a small smile. The other tapped his back and ran off, being his turn to receive the ball.
Baekhyun felt nervous thudding in his chest. He was both excited and anxious as hell. After receiving Chanyeol's message of agreement to coming to see him, he couldn't help his palms from sweating and his mind from overthinking.
"Byun!" He turned around in the direction of his coach's voice.
"Hey, coach." He greeted.
"Feeling well?" his coach stood beside him with arms crossed and eyes scanning the players on the court.
"Yeah, and my knee's been great lately, too."
"That's what I like to hear. You're playing the starting team on Saturday for the Nationals qualifiers."
"Really?" Baekhyun was surprised, because despite all, he was a freshman, and not even the team's official setter. The official one was famous Sean Myers, a guy in his senior year.
"I talked to Myers already, he agrees. He's focused on his final year more than volleyball now, and anyway I'm not looking at the age, I'm looking at the skill. You have it, kid. Just keep working." the coach smiled at him and walked away, explaining something to a one of the spikers.
Baekhyun felt accomplished. At least in terms of his volleyball career. His lifelong dream was becoming a reality step by step. It was right in front of him, ready for him to grasp it.
There was only one thing he had to deal with now to come to terms with himself.
One more thing to fulfill a promise given to his brother.
---
The gym had already emptied out by 8:30 p.m., when Baekhyun was sitting on a bench in the gym with a volley in his hands, spinning it between his palms. He had taken a shower and put on some fresh training clothes, fixed his hair and put on his usual perfume. The one Chanyeol loved the most on him.
He couldn't remember the last time he felt that nervous. He felt like a teenager waiting his crush to finally confess to them. There was still that little grain of worry in case Chanyeol changes his mind and doesn't show up. Baekhyun was tired of running away, but maybe Chanyeol was tired of chasing. Maybe he was coming to tell Baekhyun to give up. Maybe he wanted to stop trying to fix something so broken.
His little insecurities running through his head were silenced down by Kyungsoo's voice ringing through his mind. He closed his eyes, imagining his brother was there next to him, putting his warm hand on top of Baekhyun's and calming him down like he used to do when they were younger. How he used to when Baekhyun was stressed out and worried before important matches, feeling nauseous a whole day beforehand.
His stomach showed similar signs now, but there was no Kyungsoo's voice and his hand to take them away. At least not physically. Having been in peace with his brother's passing for some time now, Baekhyun smiled a little at himself, thinking how proud his brother must've been at him, seeing him make the right decision.
Seeing him choose Chanyeol. Choose happiness.
Baekhyun didn't know how much time had passed with his eyes closed when he finally heard a creak of doors opening and familiar footsteps insecurely entering the gym.
Trying to ignore the nervous thudding in his chest, he raised his head up.
Park Chanyeol was standing few feet away. Wearing Boston team tracksuit, red hair faded with black roots mixed in, jaw strong and a look in his eyes undefined. He stood there, without a word of greeting, looking at Baekhyun.
Baekhyun stood up, brushing his sweaty palms off his shorts.
"Hi." he managed to squeak out, feeling like even his voice was betraying him at that moment.
"Hey." Chanyeol gave him a small smile.
"How are you?"
"Fine, fine. You?"
"Yeah I'm... I'm good too." Baekhyun said, clearing his throat.
He didn't know where to look, since looking at Chanyeol felt strangely uncomfortable. He tried to organise the speech he had practiced so many times already in his head, but he felt like the moment the words left his mouth he'd get lost in them.
"How's Jaebum?" Chanyeol suddenly asked, catching Baekhyun off guard.
"He- we broke up." Baekhyun replied. There was no turning back anymore, and the first step he had to take was putting all the cards on the table.
Baekhyun barely noticed how Chanyeol instantly tensed on those words. He knew that his assumption was right, Baekhyun remembered about the night they spent together.
"Oh." he just said, feeling like everything he could say in his defense at that moment was inadequate.
"I-I'll just get straight to the point." Baekhyun took a breath. Every script he had in his head had vanished, leaving him with nothing but the rawness of his feelings to be poured out.
"I-"
"Baekhyun." the older was interrupted before he even started, furrowing his eyebrows and looking at Chanyeol's eyes. They were getting teary, and Chanyeol's face went from collected to petrified.
"Before you say it, I want you to know I'm sorry. I knew and I know I shouldn't have let it happen, but I couldn't resist it. I was so weak Baek, and- and I'm so sorry. It's all my fault." he finished in a shaky voice.
He could see the confusion on Baekhyun's face through his teary vision. Baekhyun stepped closer.
"Chanyeol... What are you talking about?" he whispered insecurely.
At that moment, Chanyeol wanted to kill himself.
Baekhyun didn't remember. He had no idea, and Chanyeol himself revealed the cards to him.
He looked at Baekhyun wordlessly for a minute. He didn't know, and Chanyeol had to confess his sin to the love of his life, knowing that it would completely destroy even that last bit of love Baekhyun had for him.
But maybe, that was the right thing to do. Baekhyun deserved to know.
Chanyeol took a breath, daring to look Baekhyun in the eyes.
"You remember that New Year's party at some basketball jock's house?" he asked, and Baekhyun confirmed by nodding.
"I was there that night." Chanyeol said, and he could already see slight surprise in Baekhyun's expression.
"I saw you and you were drunk and you... I did a stupid thing, Baek. You were still with Jaebum and I knew how wrong it was but I couldn't resist you." Chanyeol let out, words silent like the wind ruffling the trees at midnight.
Baekhyun's eyes filled with tears as they now stood barely few feet apart.
"We made love that night. I was almost completely sober, but when I saw you... I lost my mind. I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't think of the consequences. After it happened I even convinced Namjoon not to tell you anything in case you didn't remember. I made your best friend lie to you."
Baekhyun buried his face in his hands, and Chanyeol knew he lost him.
"You have every right to hate me." Chanyeol stepped back, his heart tearing apart.
"I know it doesn't mean anything now, but just know that I love you. And if I could take back time, I'd do everything differently." he looked one more at the boy who was silently sobbing in his palms, and he started to walk away.
---
A/N
Sooo, after 2581 years, hello again!!
First of all, I owe an apology to all of you who were waiting for me to update for so long, but being an University freshman this year, it was terribly busy for me and it killed all of my inspiration :(
Now I'm on vacation so let's get this y'aaal
Now!!! The big news!
*Drum roll*
The next chapter is going to be the last ! We've come to an end of this journey, it took me almost 2 years to finish this fanfic ahh
There are things that I love and hate about it and maybe I will edit everything once it's finished, but nevertheless I thank all of you for all the support you gave me, especially through my writing blocks :)
There's probably going to be an epilogue too!