Love Contract
Pairing: Byun Baekhyun x Reader
Word Count: 6.8k
Genre: angsty af / neighbor!au
Summary: It had become a part of his daily routine to complain about you and your s/o’s rowdiness, but when one quiet day turns into weeks of silence, Baekhyun can’t help but worry about you
a/n: special appearance by kim jongdae | chen
Byun Baekhyun sat up in his rumpled mess of blankets, the incessant knocking on his front door beginning to give him a headache. His eyes were still closed, shut by the lingering sleep that he was forced out of, and the drool in the corner of his mouth was still damp. He quickly wiped it away with the sleeve of his t-shirt, reluctantly opening one eye to look at the clock.
10:42 AM.
“Fuck.” He was late for work yet again. He’d already run out of excuses to tell his boss the last two times, and another fake car accident on the road wasn’t going to cut it. He tore the blanket away from his body, and threw his legs over the side of the bed, sliding his feet into his gray house slippers as he stood to answer the door.
“Can you tell your friend (Y/N) to get her mail every once in a while?” The older man hissed, slapping a stack of envelopes into Baekhyun’s chest.
“She’s not my friend,” he said, attempting to hand the mail back to the old man.
“I don’t care. Her mailbox is full, and they started putting her mail in other people’s mailboxes. It’s getting annoying!” The old man spat, pushing Baekhyun’s hand away from him.
“Why don’t you just give it her then?”
“You don’t think we’ve tried?” Another neighbor chimed in, slapping a thicker stack of mail on top of the one that was already in Baekhyun’s hand. “She won’t answer her door.” The lady huffed, a bead of sweat dribbling down her forehead from her climb up the stairs. The giant pink velcro curlers had come loose, hanging on by the dry and frayed ends of her black hair, and her slippers were of different colors. Baekhyun recognized her from the group of ladies that often huddled around the coffee maker in the lobby, and he instantly became annoyed.
“Elevator still not working?” The old man asked.
“No,” she answered. “And I shouldn’t have to leave my kids and walk up four flights of stairs to bring that girl her mail. I don’t care if she’s heartbroken or dead! We’ve all got problems, but we still pick up our shit!” She wrapped her bathrobe tightly around her body, fanning herself with the single envelope in her hand as she angrily shuffled back toward the exit, disappearing behind the railing.
The old man raised his eyebrow, and pointed at the door with the golden numbers 415B bolted near the peephole. That was your apartment.
“You know I heard her boyfriend left her. I was downstairs doing laundry the other day when I heard a group of ladies saying that he had been cheating on her, and after the girl got pregnant he left her to help take care of the baby,” he said in a hushed voice.
Baekhyun stared at the old man for a second. “You know, you’re too old to be believing those kinds of rumors,” he said, waving the large stack of mail in his face. “I’ll be sure to give this to her. Have a nice day.” Baekhyun shut the door before the old man could say anything else, and quickly shuffled back to the comfort of his bed. He sat down, skimming through the mail in his hands. They were all addressed to you.
He picked up his phone to text you when he saw the missed calls from his boss. Five in total. He groaned, questioning how long he could put off having that dreaded conversation with his boss about the “principle of showing up on time”. He already had the entire thing memorized, as if by now it would be like reading off of a script. Baekhyun bit his lip, and dialed his boss. Best to just get it over with.
The line clicked two rings in, and the familiar voice spoke in his ear. “I don’t know why, and at this point I don’t really care. This is the eighth time this month, and we’re only twelve days in!” This was not in the script. Her voice resonated through the small speaker of his phone, and he was afraid if she yelled any louder she would certainly destroy the mechanics. “I won’t keep doing this. You’re fired.”
“I understand,” Baekhyun said, and the line immediately went dead. He let himself fall back onto the bed, sighing loudly. It was kind of alleviating knowing he didn’t have to wake up so early in the morning for a while, but it also meant he’d have to do some serious budgeting in order to get by until he found a new job.
He held his phone up again, scrolling through his contacts until he found your name, cleverly nicknamed ‘Noise Pollution (Y/N)’. His finger hovered over the dial button, and he wondered if you were even home.
He pressed the green icon next to your name, and held his phone to his ear, growing more and more nervous with every ring. He could hear the ringtone of your phone through the paper thin walls that separated his apartment from yours. And then silence. His phone was still ringing, but yours wasn’t, which meant you muted it.
Which also meant you were home.
Baekhyun hung up the phone, grabbed your mail off the nightstand and made his way to the front door of your apartment. He knocked lightly the first time, and every time after a little louder. “(Y/N), it’s Baekhyun… I have your mail.”
Silence.
He knocked again, but still no answer. He huffed, and placed your mail by the door, hoping if no one was around you would feel safe enough to retrieve it.
Baekhyun walked back to his apartment, bowing at the small herd of gossiping women that was gathering at the end of the hallway by the window. He could hear your name being spoken, surely nothing of praise following it.
Ever since you moved in, the fourth floor of building B hadn’t a day of silence. The hallway always echoed with you and your boyfriend’s boisterous laughter, and every morning you sang at the top of your lungs while you showered. No complaint could get you to stop, and after a while the neighbors just got used to it. Baekhyun had even begun relying on your terrible singing as his alarm clock, and thanks to you he always woke up on time.
That is until two months ago, when the fourth floor grew eerily silent again. One neighbor swore they had seen you and your boyfriend fighting in the parking lot, and another said they saw him get in a car with another woman, leaving you in tears. He didn’t know if the rumors held any truth to them, and how could he when the main source of information were the bored housewives of building B.
He slunk back into his bed, remembering he didn’t have to go to work today or tomorrow, or the rest of week for that matter, and he drifted into a deep and peaceful slumber.
The sound of glass breaking against the wall startled him awake. He propped himself up on his elbows, his ears trained on the wall adjacent to where his bed was positioned, the same wall that he happened to share with you. He could hear you crying, breaking anything and everything that could shatter against the ceramic tile. Baekhyun scurried to his feet, leaping over his coffee table as he ripped open his front door.
The neighbors were gathered around your apartment, listening and whispering amongst themselves. He pushed past them, earning him glares from the ladies who were clad in their bathrobes and fuzzy slippers, the coffee cups in their hands half empty as they murmured about what you could be doing in that apartment.
Baekhyun knocked on the door, begging you to let him in.
“Honey, it would be a miracle if she could hear anything over her own sobbing,” one lady said. The others laughed, sipping their cold coffee as they continued their gross ritual of gossiping.
He pulled out his phone and texted the landlady, his panicked fingers quickly recounting the situation that was unfolding on the fourth floor before asking her to bring herself and the master key.
He paced back and forth. Waiting. Listening to you hysterically cursing at what he could only assume was no one, considering the mail he’d left by your door remained untouched.
He put his hands in his pocket, then took them back out. He fiddled with his fingers, running them through his unkempt locks and pulling at the loose thread on the hem of his t-shirt. And when he saw the familiar head of winter-white curls slowly ascending the steel staircase, he released a breath of relief.
The landlady hobbled down the hallway, smacking the bystander’s ankles with her glossy wooden cane to clear herself a path. They clutched their feet in pain, unspoken curses lingering against their lips as they watched her make her way to where Baekhyun stood.
“My, what on earth could have upset her so much?” She inserted the key, the pins of the lock clicking into place like music to Baekhyun’s ears. He wasn’t sure what to expect, or even what to say when he would finally come face to face with you. Should I stay to help clean up? Should I ask about the rumors? What if they were true and asking you about it only made it worse? Baekhyun’s mind was jumbled, rushing to figure out the right course of actions to take. And when the door finally swung open, his mind went blank, the sight of you making his blood run cold.
You didn’t see the door open past your tears, past the glistening shards of glass that surrounded you like a bloodthirsty maze. You couldn’t even hear Baekhyun calling your name over your wails. You covered your face with your hands, trying to hide yourself away from the world, until you felt them being pulled away from you by your wrists. Your tears hadn’t stopped at the presence of your neighbor and your landlady, if anything you welcomed Baekhyun’s chest as a temporary safe place until you could get a hold of yourself.
The women in the hallway grew silent at the sight of your open door, and slowly padded over to peek at the mess that was surely your apartment.
“You stick your nose past that doorway, I’ll have no problem charging you gossip fees.” The landlady stood in front of them, obscuring their view of you. At five feet tall, she was a giant who nobody dared poke, not even the gossip queen herself.
The lady tightened her lips to keep the curse from slipping past her teeth and she huffed, spinning on her heels to slither away. The other women followed closely behind her, their focus still on the commotion in your apartment as they reluctantly descended to the lobby to refill their coffee cups.
The landlady closed your door and replaced her cane with a wooden broom that stood taller than her, slowly but surely sweeping away the remnants of your anger. She only cleaned around the area where you and Baekhyun sat huddled together. It was all she could really do in her physical state, but something was better than nothing.
You felt the uncomfortable prickling crawling down your calf to your foot after half an hour of being nestled in Baekhyun’s arms. You attempted to reposition yourself but your cheek began to chafe against his tear-stained shirt. You groaned and lifted your head to soothe your irritated skin when you met his eyes for the first time since he entered your apartment.
“Feel better?” He asked. His eyes were wide and filled with worried, and you swore you felt your heart plummet into your stomach.
You pushed yourself off of him, breaking the stream of tears with the back of your hand as you examined the mess around you. “Oh god, I’m so…” Your voice was weak, your throat sore from all the crying and you couldn’t find the strength to continue your sentence.
Before you knew it, you were sobbing again. This time, Baekhyun helped you to your feet and led you to the couch, his arms still wrapped around you like a shield protecting you from the perverse world. You cried until your eyes stung. Until the sun switched shifts with the moon and left the two of you in the care of the obsidian sky. The landlady had left by now and gone back to manning the front desk, but not before urging Baekhyun to stop by her place for dinner when you felt better.
“I’m sorry,” You finally managed, leaning against the feathery cushions of your couch. “You probably had better things to do than be here.” Your eyes were red and dried, and they burned every time you blinked. You had stopped crying a few minutes ago, but you savoured the feeling of being in Baekhyun’s arms so you hadn’t let go. It reminded you of your boyfriend - now ex-boyfriend - and it filled the hole in your heart temporarily. You finally released your grip on his torso when his stomach involuntarily growled at you, begging you to let him eat something before it tried to eat itself.
Baekhyun shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, my schedule was pretty much cleared this morning.”
You smiled half-heartedly, pulling the colorful afghan off of the back of the couch and wrapped it around yourself tightly. God knows how terribly you longed to be in his arms again, to be held close to his chest as his heartbeat lulled you to sleep after a bad day at work. You longed for his smell, for his touch and the way he made you feel whenever you felt down about yourself. A blanket could never give you any of that, but it could give you a bit of warmth and that would just have to do.
“Are you hungry?” Baekhyun asked, gently patting his belly to shush the approaching rumble from his empty stomach.
“No,” you answered, glancing at him briefly before reverting your gaze back to the giant cardboard box in the corner of your living room.
“You should really eat something,” he urged.
You sighed, shaking your head. “I’m very not hungry.”
“Fine, but can you at least sit with me?” Baekhyun held his hand out, waiting for you to take it. “We don’t have to leave your apartment, I’ll make something here.”
Sitting with him wouldn’t be so bad, you thought. It would definitely distract you from the agonizing silence of your apartment for a while.
You nodded and took his hand, and the two of you walked toward the small kitchen table, carefully avoiding the pile of broken glass that had been swept to the side. You watched him as he cooked up a large pot of ramen, far too much for one sane person in your opinion. He said nothing and set the pot down in the middle of the table on top of the metal trivet, two sets of chopsticks in his hand.
Baekhyun kept all the utensils on his side, filling his respective bowl with the hot noodles as he slurped them with a satisfactory sigh. You watched him eat, your stomach doing backflips every time you caught a whiff of the savory smell of the soup.
So maybe you were hungry.
You licked your lips, and your stomach growled loud enough that you were sure the rest of the fourth floor heard it. Baekhyun chuckled and separated his bowl from another of the exact same color and size. He handed it to you along with the other pair of chopsticks, and you eagerly filled your bowl, and subsequently your stomach.
Once he was full, Baekhyun set his bowl to the side and quietly glanced around your apartment as he waited for you to finish the rest. He noticed the pictures that used to be on your walls were placed face-down on the coffee table, and your bookshelf was a lot emptier than the last time - granted he’d only been inside your apartment twice in the two years that you lived here. He thought back to what the old man had told him in the morning about your boyfriend, and he found himself wondering if perhaps the rumors were true.
You felt the comfortable silence that once chaperoned you and Baekhyun deteriorate into a silence that made you nervous. It was a silence you had grown accustomed to by now.
You set your bowl down, your chopsticks clanking against the ceramic, and you stared at the empty pot in front of you. You didn’t have to look at Baekhyun to know what he was thinking, you could sense the questions beginning to form in mind. Everyone always asked the same thing and they all had the same reactions, so why would Baekhyun be any different? “He didn’t leave me because he got someone else pregnant,” you said, breaking the silence.
“What?”
“That is the latest gossip of the fourth floor, isn’t it?” Baekhyun blinked absentmindedly, struggling for the right words to say, and you chuckled. “Thin walls… plus Mrs. Lee and them don’t speak as quietly as they think.”
Baekhyun hummed, strumming his fingers against the surface of the table in discomfort. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
You nodded, resting your head against the palm of your hand as you brought the blanket around your shoulders closer to you. There was a faint smell on it that reminded you of him, and you could feel your eyes welling up again. You blinked them away and rubbed your irritated eyes with your shirt roughly, the stinging sensation making you curl your toes in pain.
You stood and trudged to the cabinet, pulling out the first bottle of dark liquor you saw. You grabbed two shot glasses on your way back and placed one in front of Baekhyun. Divulging your secrets was always easier when you were in a bar with strangers. You could tell them all your problems, vent to them your worries, and you’d never see them again after that. But Baekhyun wasn’t a stranger and this wasn’t a bar, however alcohol was all the same no matter where you were.
You took a shot of the liquor to warm you up, the burn on your tongue making you recoil. Tequila. You sighed loudly, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand and began pondering what page in the story of your life to flip to first. “He left me… that much is true.”
Baekhyun said nothing. He refilled your shot glass and you quickly downed it, ignoring the sting as it crawled down your throat. He filled his shot glass halfway and circled the pad of his index finger around the brim of the glass, listening to you and watching as the expressions on your face went from confused to hurt in a matter of seconds. He had no intention of getting drunk tonight, not when it was your every intention to try to forget what is like to be a person who had feelings.
You laughed, “I don’t even know where the whole pregnancy thing came from.”
“Mrs. Lee.”
You pointed your finger at him, and held your thumb in the air. “Right you are. That dumb broad can’t keep her nose out of other people’s business even if it meant saving her life.” You lifted the bottle of tequila and refilled your glass, your slowed reflex skills causing you to overfill before you could pull away. You shrugged and licked the side of the glass, taking the shot in one big gulp. Baekhyun quickly wiped down the table with a washcloth before the animal in you decided to sip the spilled alcohol as well, and he quietly braced himself for a long night.
You set the glass down in front of Baekhyun, motioning with your eyes for him to refill it for you. He tightened his lips and set the bottle behind him on the kitchen counter, instead filling your glass with water. You drank it without looking and groaned.
“You drank three shots in less than five minutes, I doubt you’ll even know your own name in an hour,” he explained, turning over your shot glass and placing a pitcher of water in front of you.
You huffed, holding your bobbing head in place with your arm. “How else will I tell you everything without breaking down again?”
Baekhyun nodded and ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s the point. You won’t be able to get over it unless you let yourself completely feel it. So, tell me now.”
You tightened your lips. Just the idea of coming face to face with your bottled emotions paralyzed you. For the past two months you ignored everything. You neglected your friends and your family without any explanations, and refused to leave your apartment for fear that you’d run into him in public. You were afraid if he saw you he would see that his absence was breaking you when the last thing you told him was that you didn’t need him to survive.
“I’m so tired of crying, but ever since he left I feel like I can’t breathe,” you said. Baekhyun held your hand across the table, his fingers squeezing yours like it was the only thing keeping you from breaking down all the way. “My entire life I was never apart from him. We grew up together and in high school everyone always said if soulmates were real, it would be me and Chen.”
Saying his name for the first time in a while left a bitter taste in your mouth, and it was the final shot to send you from tipsy to drunk. Your words were slurred, and your eyes heavy. “I’ll never forgive myself for not seeing that he was never in love with me the way I was with him… and I’ll never forgive him for letting me believe it.”
Baekhyun had moved closer to you, rubbing your back as you fought to hold your head straight, but even your muscles were lovedrunk. “Did he say why?” He asked, his voice soft in your ear.
“He told me after we got together senior year, everyone told him we were destined to be together so he never questioned it.” You laughed, your throat making a gross sound as you sniffled to keep your nose from watering. “He stayed with me because he felt like it was what he had to do… and then he got a new job and new co-worker.” You gathered the last of your sobriety and strength, and held your head up to look at Baekhyun to watch his reaction. “He told me that he never understood what I meant when I said I was in love him until he met her.”
Baekhyun hadn’t much of a reaction to what you said, and you let your head fall against your kitchen table. When you told your mother what happened she blamed you for not paying attention, and when you told your friends, they immediately made a plan to get back at him for breaking your heart. Neither reaction made you feel any better, but Baekhyun’s stoic refusal to show you his true feelings gave you comfort - for some odd reason.
“He cheated on you?”
You shook your head, and closed your eyes. “No, at least not physically. He said he didn’t want to start anything with her until he told me… but you know what I said? I said I was relieved because I wanted out of the relationship a long time ago... and he then left.” And just like that, you were a sobbing mess again. “But I lied, Baekhyun!” You wailed.
“I know,” he said, caressing your head soothingly. He helped you to your feet and took you to your bedroom, laying you against the covers gently as he watched you cry yourself to sleep. He pulled the afghan over your body before moving back to the kitchen to clean up the mess of dishes and broken glass. When he was done, he made a small bed out of the spare blankets in the basket by the couch, your snoring from the other room lulling him to sleep.
Over the next few months, Baekhyun hardly left your side. You had begun looking forward to seeing him everyday, so much that getting out of bed wasn’t so hard anymore and in return for his patience with you, you helped him look for a new job.
“Today is the day,” Baekhyun announced, shutting your front door with his foot. He shuffled over to where you sat on the couch, handing you a giant cup of coffee.
“For what? Did you finally get a job interview?” You asked, taking the warm cup in your hands. You noticed the old unfamiliar coffee pot in Baekhyun’s other hand, and you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. “It that from the lobby?”
“Huh?” Baekhyun looked at his hand, and laughed. “Oh, yeah. Mrs. Lee was taking shit again, so I took her only source of fuel. And no, apparently my old boss is friends with that guy from the recording studio and she told him I was habitually late,” He said, using his fingers to make air quotes.
You sighed and sipped the bitter drink and placed the cup on the side table next to the couch, watching as Baekhyun got comfortable opposite to you. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep looking. My manager said he’d give me a raise by the end of the month, so we should be fine for a while. But anyway, why are we excited about today?”
“Ah! Because today is the day we get rid of the box.”
“The box?”
“The box.”
You rolled your eyes and picked up your TV remote to flip through the channels. “I don’t feel like it.”
“No-” Baekhyun tore the remote from your hands, and you looked at him in surprise. “If not today then when? Let’s just get it over with, so you can finally close that chapter of your life.”
You blinked, mentally making a list of everything you would have to look for and pack up. Too many things, almost an entire day’s worth of cleaning to get everything. You tightened your lips in refusal, but Baekhyun pulled you along anyways, forcing you to your feet as he dragged the cardboard box to the middle of the living room.
“No more putting it off. You can do this,” Baekhyun cheered. You groaned, watching as Baekhyun began tossing things into a pile on the carpet. Why is he always so energetic, you asked yourself. You sat down and lazily looked through the mess, picking and choosing the things you wanted to keep or get rid of.
You picked up a black shirt, and your eyes glossed over as if a projector screen had lit against the soft fabric. You remembered the days that you and Chen slept in until noon, his shirt - this shirt - pulling up as he stretched his arms. You remembered his sleepy eyes and adorable bed head, and how even in his worst state he was still the most beautiful person you’d ever met. You remembered how he made you laugh so hard that you started crying, or how he’d whisper something cheeky in your ear and the passionate sex that soon followed. You missed how he’d stumble over his sentences because he couldn’t stop laughing at what he was about to say, or how he’d hug you from behind and wouldn’t let go after a long day at work.
It was the small things that you missed. The true moments when you were yourself. No mask. No embarrassment. Just yourself.
“And that’s why I think you should get rid of this,” Baekhyun said, holding the dinosaur plushie in front of you. He was sitting on the other side of the box, and you wondered how long he’d been there. You quickly came back to your senses and you realized the giant mess in the middle of the living room had transformed into a neat organized pile and the cardboard box was full to the top.
“Huh?”
Baekhyun smacked his lips, his shoulders slouching forward in annoyance. “You didn’t hear anything I just said?”
You smiled shamelessly and shook your head. “Not really, no.”
He held the plushie up again, this time speaking in short to-the-point sentences. “No good memories. Bad for you. Get rid of it.” You furrowed your eyebrows, but before you could say anything, the doorbell rang.
“You get it,” you told him.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re closer!”
Baekhyun groaned and stood to open the door. “Fine, but now you really have to get rid of that,” he said, throwing the dinosaur plushie to you. You caught it your hands, smiling at the pink cartoon rendition of a t-rex as you traced the stitched smile on its face with your finger.
Baekhyun looked through the peephole, the head of light brown hair unfamiliar to him. He’d never met any of your other friends, and he wondered if one of them had decided to drop by. He tore the door open, ready to greet with his sincerest smile, but when the five-foot eight man turned, his mouth fell open in shock.
Chen was just as taken aback when his eyes met with Baekhyun’s. His first thought was he had knocked on the wrong apartment, and he quickly double-checked the number on the front door. 415B. Nope, this was definitely your apartment, so what was the next-door neighbor doing here and why was he answering your door?
“Mm… is (Y/N) here?” He asked.
Baekhyun’s lips stretched into a disgusted smirk, and he looked over his shoulder to make sure you hadn’t noticed that your ex-boyfriend was at the front door. You were sat in the same place where he had left you, flipping through an old book. He quickly pushed Chen aside, stepping out into the hallway and closing the door. “She is, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see her.”
“I’m not asking for your permission. Who are you anyways, her bodyguard?”
He scoffed, eyeing Chen up and down before settling on his glowering gaze. Baekhyun’s breaths were quiet yet angry, and his hands were balled into fists. He hadn’t realized just how important you had become to him over the past four months until this moment, when your happiness was being threatened again. “No,” he answered. “Just her friend.”
Chen nodded, gesturing to the door. “Well, that’s great, but I really need to talk to her.”
“Yah! What part of it’s not a good idea did you not understand? She’s just barely getting over the shit you put her through after you left her and seeing you will just cause her more pain.”
“I only left because she told me to.”
“Well, when she told you to leave, you should have stayed to help keep her from falling apart. You owed her at least that much after you strung her along for years.”
Chen stayed silent, watching as Baekhyun’s face turned crimson from the anger. He never imagined in all his years of knowing you that it would be himself that would end up hurting you in the end. He did love you, just not the way you did him, and he would have done everything to protect you, just as Baekhyun was doing for you now. A part of him hated seeing a complete stranger taking his place as your best friend before his very eyes, but how could he ask to stay in your life after the hurt he caused?
“What is taking you so long?” You called to Baekhyun. You swung the door open and the smile on your face was immediately snatched away by the sight of Chen. Your lungs were filling with anxiety and you found it hard to catch your breath.
Baekhyun grabbed your wrist, your skin cold to the touch and he stood in front of you, shielding you from Chen’s gaze.
It was like you were paralyzed. You imagined this moment ever since he left, and you had even practiced what you were going to say to him with Baekhyun. But all the things you wanted to say, the curses you saved just for him and the questions you so desperately needed the answers to, disappeared. Your mind was empty and useless, and you hopelessly wished for Baekhyun to save you from this situation.
But then you remembered something he had told you four months ago. You won’t be able to get over it unless you let yourself completely feel it. You lived by those words ever since, and you had made a silent promise to yourself that you would try your hardest to keep the box of unwanted emotions in your mind as empty as you could manage.
You patted Baekhyun’s shoulder, nodding for him to let Chen in. The hard expression on his face softened and he released your hand. “If you need me, just yell. I’ll be here as fast as I can.”
You nodded, watching as he made his way back to his apartment. You looked at Chen for a second, then led him to the kitchen table, the two of you sitting on opposite ends.
Chen looked around the apartment. It had been six months since he left, and everything was completely different. There were no more photos on the walls and bookshelf where all of his favorite novels were kept was completely empty. He noticed the empty space beside the fridge where your favorite lamp used to be, and he wondered what had happened to it. “Where’s the lamp?”
Your lip twitched at the memory. “I couldn’t figure out how to stop it from flickering… so I broke it.”
“Oh-”
“I also broke the plates because they reminded me that you forgot to fix the dishwasher before you left. Hiring someone to fix it would have cost me almost three hundred, but I needed to pay the rent, so...”
Chen’s lips parted in surprise, and he wasn’t exactly sure what to say. He wasn’t necessarily expecting a welcome back party in his honor, but he also wasn’t expecting you to be this brusque to him.
“You’re angry with me, I know,” was all he could come up with.
You raised your eyebrows, nodding at his keenness. The face that you once begged to see just one more time, and the hands you wished to hold in yours again, fueled you with pity for your past self. You wondered why you wasted so many tears on someone who didn’t even miss you, on someone who lied to you for most of your life, letting you believe your life was perfect only to tear it away from you himself.
“I am,” you said. “You know I stopped crying myself to sleep? Yeah, I finally got over you… or at least I thought I did. You showing up here unannounced just reminded me of how much you hurt me, and how much I hurt you.”
Chen furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“I did. I made you feel so much sympathy and pity for me that you decided it was best to stay even though you knew it wasn’t what you wanted. You gave up a lot to be with me, and I never even asked if you if you were truly happy. For that, I will never forgive myself.”
You chuckled, biting the broken skin on your bottom lip out of uneasiness. “So yeah, I am mad. I have no other choice than to be mad, because if I’m not then I’d just be crying and begging for you to give me another chance.”
You stood for a brief moment to drag the cardboard box to the kitchen by one of the ears and then sat back down. “These are the things you left. You don’t have to keep them, you can throw them away if you want.”
Chen looked at the neatly arranged things inside of the box, and he his cheeks grew warm with resentment. “Did the neighbor help you with this?”
You smacked your lips, glaring at him. “Six months, Jongdae. You left me alone to pick up the pieces by myself for six months.”
He sighed, regretting the jealous question all together. “I thought having to see me after everything would have been hard for you.”
“We were practically joined at the hip our entire lives! We never did anything without each other, so how could you think being left on my own out of the blue would have been easier?”
Chen swallowed hard. He knew the feeling all too well; to have something be a part of you for so long that you had to learn to live without it once it was gone. The past six months were miserable for him, not knowing if you were okay or if you needed something. He asked around your shared group of friends, but no one knew anything about you.
But his leaving served its purpose, even if it was unbearably painful. He found love and you learned that you could survive just fine on your own.
He knew that and so did you.
“Just between you and me,” you started. “I haven’t stopped loving you, and I don’t think I ever will, but if it wasn’t for Baekhyun I would’ve never stopped crying over you. He didn’t save me, and he didn’t replace you. He just made it easier to deal with everything... he forced me to learn to live on my own.”
What else was there to say? You couldn’t tell him that you forgive him, because you didn’t. You didn’t want to tell him that you could be friends again, because ignoring a ten year relationship was near impossible.
There was truly nothing left to say, other than your farewells.
“…are you going to be okay?”
You nodded, “Eventually.”
Chen ran his fingers through his hair and stood, picking up the box with both hands. You walked him to the front door, staring at each other in silence for a moment. It was uncanny how the two of you could read each other’s minds, the unspoken words that you were afraid to speak never going unheard. Maybe it was all those years the two of you had spent together in each other’s company.
Whatever it was, you were certain this kind of connection only ever happened once in a lifetime. And your once was coming to an end right in front of you, but you didn’t resent it. You told yourself the end of something meant the start of something new, and your new was yourself.
You quietly watched as Chen walked down the hallway before finally disappearing past the staircase. You weren’t sure when you’d ever see him again, and the feeling of it was bittersweet.
You closed your door, shaking the last of his presence from your aura and a small smile creeped on your lips. You tiptoed to the kitchen, pressing your ear against the wall where you were absolutely certain Baekhyun was trying to eavesdrop, and smacked your palm against it. Your smile turned into a mischievous laugh when you heard a cry of pain from the other side and you ran to knock on Baekhyun’s door.
“Why did you do that!?”
You lightly punched his arm and pointed your finger at him. “Why were you trying to listen to our conversation?”
He rubbed his arm in faux pain, letting out a small chuckle before finally relaxing. He admired the serene look on your face, and he had the sudden urge to hug you into oblivion. “I wanted to make sure you were ok, but by the looks of it, you seem like you’re doing fine.”
You nodded, “I am. I thought if I saw him again, it would be like that first night you came to my apartment, but then… I don’t know, something in me clicked when I saw him, because I knew he was struggling to get on without me, just as I was with him… but he also seemed happier, you know. He had this light in eye that I’d never seen before, and then I thought that maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.”
You huffed and wrapped your arms around Baekhyun torso, and he immediately embraced you into the tightest hug. “I just want to thank you for putting up with me these past few months. I don’t know how to repay it.”
“Hm… well, you can start by buying me lunch,” He suggested, and you chuckled.
“Deal.”
“Good, let’s go.”
“Ah, now? But I haven’t showered and I’m still in my pajamas… I haven’t even brushed my teeth, at least let me do that!”
Baekhyun shook his head, and pushed you along down the hallway, “You look beautiful just like that. Now let’s go, all this caring made me hungry.”