“You love too much, Chanyeol,” a friend had warned him once, rubbing circles over the younger one’s back in an attempt to soothe him.
That had been back in college, Chanyeol curled over his bed and nursing his first ever broken heart. Sohee had been his entire world. His high school sweetheart, the muse and inspiration to his first (published!) book, and who Chanyeol swore would be the mother to his children. They had talked about marriage, deciding they would wait after graduation to get engaged and look into their future.
“I just don’t feel the same way about you anymore. Let’s break up.”
When she broke up with him, Chanyeol cried for two straight days before his friends had dragged him out his dorm and gotten him drunk at some party. They made sure to keep him drunk at nights and sober for school, until they got tired of babying him.
Chanyeol meets Lu Han. But he never really loved Lu Han.
Chanyeol loves love. He loves falling in love, loves the idea of first dates and hand holding. Dreams about getting married and sharing his life with a significant other until eternity. And as hard as he tried to love Lu Han, he never actually did. He cared immensely over him, was heartbroken when he found out the other had been cheating on him, but his period of grieving another lost love lasts perhaps a week. His anger takes over and is placed on vengeance and the publishing of another book. His friend reprimand him, but are mostly relieved for quick healing.
With Woobin everything is different.
He cries for one week straight. His friends become concerned, taking turns visiting him, making sure he’s sleeping, eating, showering and just generally being a functional human being. Chanyeol loses weight considerably, becomes paler and sadder all together, and manages to worry enough people to get even his parents to call him. He just loses himself during that week, honestly thinking he’s going to die from how much it hurts.
He holes himself in his house and swears he’s never going to fall in love again.
Alcohol makes the ache in his body bearable though, and drinking becomes both a habit and a sport. His friends take him out to bars, to clubs, take his cellphone away when he starts crying about Woobin, and tuck him in after dropping him home. His agent is kind enough to cancel whatever he had for the rest of the month, being able to sacrifice a few things at the sight of the miserable writer. They become concerned about his amount of drinking, but no one actually tries to stop him.
After two weeks, to everyone’s relief, he seems to be getting better. He starts talking more, starts going out, shows up to work after enough angry emails, and actively tries to move on. He keeps getting drunk, keeps drowning bottles of alcohol until he loses conscious, but his periods of soberness increase in lengths.
It’s funny how it only takes a single text from Woobin for a drunken Chanyeol to lose all sense of dignity. He doesn’t remember much, but he remembers enough parts to know that he poured his pitiful heart to the other with anger and resentment. He also knows he made a fool of himself by crying to Woobin about how much he loves and misses him.
“He thought I was stupid before, but now he probably hates me,” he sniffles to a friend, as they both lay on his bed and pig out on ice cream. “He probably thinks I’m pathetic, too. He stayed quiet the entire time and kept hanging up. He had said how much he disliked how immature I was, and now I ruined my only chance to make him think differently of me! Ugh, I hate myself.”
Chanyeol really hates himself.
Chanyeol thought he couldn’t get any more pitiful, any more pathetic, but as he sits in the cell of the police station, ice pressed to a bloody nose while sporting a busted lip, he know he’s reached an ultimate low.
Fighting at a bar is something he’s never done, but alcohol makes him do silly things, like, for example, calling Woobin. Or the alternate, getting arrested for getting into a fight with a stranger.
He’s looking up at the ceiling to stop his running nose when his enemy (whoever the hell the guy is) get bailed quickly and allowed freedom. Chanyeol groans from where he sits, leaning against the wall as he makes peace with the idea of having to wait until morning to be let out. His agent is going to kill him, knows at least some people recorded the whole thing on video to be uploaded online, but he’ll apologize once he’s freed and slept.
“Park Chanyeol,” an officer calls for him, and the younger moves to look at him. “You’ve been bailed out.”
“What..?” He says dumbly, already getting to his feet as the officer takes out his keys to lock him out the cell. “Who?”
The officer doesn’t grace him with an answer, giving him a bored look as another figure steps behind him. Chanyeol cranes his neck to look over before his heart stops and plummets to his feet.
