"By the time school started, I didn't see him anymore. He went missing for a whole week."
Wow, way to go at getting people's attention, Byun Baekhyun. Chanyeol thinks to himself as he rolls his eyes, taking this only partly seriously. He probs did that to get back at Chen or something.
"It caused a racket around the whole school. I was so afraid for him. Police called me over and over again, asking me if when was the last time I had talked to him, or if I detected any suspicious act. Of course I didn't tell the truth that he wanted to tell me something, because screw it I was still feeling so prideful and hurt from our fight that I refused to tell the police what actually happened. They caught me, telling me they received Baekhyun's calls to my house and my mobile, but still my stubbornness was strong, so in the end they gave up. I told them I didn't detect any unusual behaviour, mostly because I didn't want to seem desperate such that I noticed every single move he made. In the end, I didn't help the police at all.
"They told me they found him a week later, but they refused to tell me what happened. He didn't go to school for a whole month, but really, what did I care? He's found, and he's okay, and that's all that matters. I refused to visit him at the hospital even though I was dying to talk to him. I remember Jongin called me that night after escaping from his mother's strict ways of always forcing him to do homework and study. He was a little angry that we stopped contacting him, asked how Baekhyun was, and was dying to talk to him, but I told him Baekhyun had gone on a school trip, told him we had so much school work at age fifteen that we didn't even have time to see each other. I couldn't break him, he was only thirteen, you know? And if it hurt me to see Baekhyun cut off our relationship, then it would break him.
"A month passed, and when Baekhyun came back, it was ... he had completely changed."
If Chanyeol was any more insensitive, he would've asked Did he become more of an ? But Chanyeol is a kind person (or so he thinks), and he knows he should shut up at this time.
"He came completely up to me, apologising to me and asking for forgiveness. In a way, he had reverted back to his old self, the one that I loved dearly as a friend and had wished for every night during my fourteen years... except there was something different - his eyes looked empty.
"Maybe it was just me, but when he came to me, all grins and light-heartedness, reaching a hand towards me and saying 'I'm really sorry for being a jerk to you, Jongdae. Can we start over?', I was so afraid. I remembered feeling so tempted to scream, 'Just who the heck took Baekhyun and replaced him with this fraud?', because it was horrifying looking into those lifeless eyes that used to brim with energy.
"But I didn't, because other than those eyes, he was the same. Almost the exact same. So I took his hand and forgave him. Back then I didn't know I was the one that needed to be forgiven.
"Baekhyun used to be so innocent. I remember I had my first kiss when I was 9, and when I told him, all he said was 'Wow, Jongdae, you never learn to appreciate the firsts in everything'. He was a romantic even though his family is broken to the point that no one even tries to fix it anymore, besides Baekhyun himself. Usually, divorces would force people to stop believing in love, but if anything, Baekhyun seems to be more fired up. He used to tell me 'My parents weren't right for each other, is all. When I marry, I'm going to make sure she's the right one for me, and I'm going to promise her to love her forever. I'm going to make sure she's my first kiss, and the only person that I'm going to hold my hand with.' But after his disappearance, he came back giving his body to anyone who wanted it. Like it was nothing.
"During school days, he would work hard and study, of course, because after all his dream of going college is still a pretty large dream, but between classes and break times he would disappear somewhere. I used to never pry, thinking it's not my business, but one day I caught him ... I caught him giving a to some random man. To say I was shocked is an understatement - hell, I'm still shocked even now. How can someone, who used to be the most innocent (even compared to a boy two years younger), do this in school? The next time I caught him was when he was making out with someone behind a closet. The last time I caught him was when he was ... oh god this is disgusting ... being ed by some old teacher ... I just ... Where did my best friend go?
