Departure of a boomerang

[berryboys]

Title: Departure of a boomerang
Pairing: Baekhyun/Jongin, very side Chanyeol/Sehun.
Word Count: 7.2k
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Half a month into Jongin’s absence, Baekhyun had only done one thing: surf. Sleep, eat, surf. Repeat. After two years, when Baekhyun has his life in order, Jongin comes back and crashes it all.
Notes: I just needed to get out this of my system at some point, and also write a bit of Kaibaek again. I still feel like I can write a million of words about this ship without getting bored; in fact, this was supposed to be around 2 or 3k, and ended this way. Betaed by shinealightrose! Who thought that Jongin was an actual ghost at first lol. After all, this is word vomit, but I hope you enjoy.



According to Baekhyun, there are two ways ghosts come back to haunt someone’s life.

Baekhyun had always thought that when Kim Jongin appeared again, he would fall into the first group of persons: the ones that scrape in slowly until they find a place for themselves, not those who arrive with an explosion and destroy everything in sight. The warning call would be first, an awkward conversation that would eventually lead to them meeting, even if Baekhyun would be reticent at first. Baekhyun isn’t sure how they would work from there, or if they would work at all.

However, Jongin has never fitted into Baekhyun’s suppositions, and although he has been away for two whole years, there are some things that never change. He comes on a Sunday in the form of a call, but it’s not from himself; it’s from Chanyeol, Baekhyun’s best friend.

“Jongin is in town.”

Those are all the words Chanyeol uses to greet him, as though he suspects beating around the bush in this situation is almost offensive. It’s only 7 a.m., but Baekhyun is already on the beach. There’s no one else, just him and his favorite surfboard, and that’s enough until the familiar name is forced into his brain.

Baekhyun breathes in, yet the oxygen doesn’t seem enough to release the pressure of his chest. “This is not funny, Chanyeol,” he whispers at last, the phone gripped between trembling fingers.

A wave crashes on the shore, and Baekhyun observes it almost in desperation. Jongin can’t be back. Not now when he has finally moved on and he has a boyfriend and a job; nothing related to Jongin, except a memory in the back of his head that tells him that it’s Jongin, and that’s what and who really matters. It terrifies him, because that thought doesn’t, shouldn’t belong to the present.

“I’m not kidding you, man,” Chanyeol insists, voice soft as he realizes his friend isn’t very talkative right now. “We ran into Sehun and him last night at Twenties.”

Baekhyun can’t quite ignore the details. Jongin is here, and he’s bringing Sehun with him; he had supposed - and he’d had a lot of time to think about it - that Sehun and Jongin would part along the way, both being young and rather wild. Contrary to expectations, they had stuck together, and they still frequent bars and clubs as if they hadn’t gotten any better since the last time Baekhyun saw them.

“Are you serious?” Baekhyun gets up and drags his surfboard to the little hut called ‘Surf Splash’ where he has been working for the last year. It isn’t his business, but Junmyeon’s, and also the reason why they started dating. It feels weird actually, entering his boyfriend’s shop as he discusses Jongin’s stuff through the phone. “Did you talk to him… to them?”

“Yeah, of course,” answers Chanyeol, sighing. He makes a long pause, in which he’s probably expecting to be told to shut up so that he doesn’t have to hurt Baekhyun. He’s not that lucky. “He did ask about you. He was shit-faced, though.”

It’s not a good sign how a breeze of comfort rocks him. He didn’t assume that Jongin would have forgotten about him or that he would have faded away from Jongin’s mind, but being certain that it isn’t that way, that Jongin remembers him makes him feel in a way that it shouldn’t. He can’t help the tornado of thoughts and, surrounded by the loneliness of the shop, he explodes. “God. Was he high? For how long has he been here? Did he mention something about seeing me? Or about what is he here for? Did-?”

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol interrupts him before he can spiral into something worse; it isn’t rare when it comes to Jongin. “Calm down, it’s okay. He probably doesn’t remember a thing about last night by now.”

There is something in the way Chanyeol mentions it, so subtle, so frightened, that Baekhyun extracts a handful of facts out of it. He sits in front of the counter, eyes fixed on nothing, and asks the question. “He was high, right?”

“I think so.”

That makes his will stop and turn around, change directions. He’s not happy Jongin still does drugs, whatever they are, but it’s Baekhyun’s excuse to reject any kind of reunification.

“I don’t want to meet him, okay?” he declares right away, sounding more confident than he really is. “I know you’re going to, at least because of Sehun, and please don’t pull me into this.”
Despite how easy is to fake indifference through a phone, Baekhyun can sense Chanyeol pitying him. He can hear his ‘don’t be impulsive’ or ‘you’re overreacting’ in the silence. Instead, Chanyeol tells him something completely different.

“You can’t run away from Jongin.”

Baekhyun hangs up.

When Jongin left two years ago, claiming he needed to get away from that town, Baekhyun hadn’t taken it well. First of all, because getting rid of the town also meant undoing ties with Baekhyun, even though those ties were weak and unspoken. They had searched each other out several times, at first just like friends, but soon Baekhyun had found himself in Jongin’s sheets day after day. Jongin would kiss him without asking first, and it didn’t matter if their non-updated friends were witnesses to it or not; Jongin would hold his hand at random times, like when Baekhyun was making a sandwich or cleaning his surfboard. The younger boy would halt him, take his hand as if that was the most important worry right then and smile brightly at him.

Half a month into Jongin’s absence, Baekhyun had only done one thing: surf. Sleep, eat, surf. Repeat. That had won him a couple of competitions, but he had never prided himself on them. He had been befuddled, and nothing had had enough meaning to push him into the reality. The medals and prizes hadn’t even seemed real, and they still don’t, lined up on the shelves of the living room.

By the time he met Junmyeon, Baekhyun had achieved second place in the Billabong Pipeline Masters. It was also the time he decided to give up competitions, a resolution that no one approved or shared. He liked surfing, but competing was a different thing: there were people who were made for it, but Baekhyun enjoyed the training more than he had ever enjoyed being judged. Besides, he would never stay to talk with other surfers after the prizes were given, and having into account he was in a strange, different place every time, he would go back to a rented and empty flat.

Junmyeon had moved with him into his town without a single complaint, and as Baekhyun faced the demands of his sponsor for breaking the deal, he supported them both with money. Junmyeon loved surfing too, but he had never gone beyond being a teacher, and in no time Baekhyun joined him at work, both of them settling the surfing shop and academy.

Sometimes, Baekhyun felt like he was cheating on Junmyeon. It didn’t happen too often, but when he watched him surfing, Baekhyun remembered Jongin. There were a ton of memories he grabbed onto in his brain, yet the ones on the shore were the most vivid ones. There had been something in the way Jongin took the waves, something in the way his skin shone because of the water and the sun that was utterly unique.

So now, when the two parts of Baekhyun’s life - the old one and the recent one, Jongin and Junmyeon - are about to clash, he can’t help but shrink back.

“Do you have a group later?” Junmyeon asks him as he enters the shop, two hours after Chanyeol’s call. He walks up to Baekhyun, gives him a peck on the lips and proceeds to get ready for his own session of surfing, oblivious to the other’s face.

Baekhyun smiles automatically, although it feels like a lie. It isn’t like he can talk to Junmyeon about Jongin. He already knows who he is, how affected his current boyfriend was and especially how it was him who picked up the pieces Baekhyun was broken into; he’s not going to be happy about him coming back.

“Yeah, are you up for it? There are some kids that would need a hand. Well, I need a hand.”

Junmyeon mischievously grins at him, and the other rolls his eyes at the insinuation. “I can always lend you a hand.”

Baekhyun finishes the class fifteen minutes before the established time, but no one notices his gloomy mood. Not even Junmyeon, when they nestle together on the bed and kiss each other goodnight, is able to tell something’s off with him, and a part of Baekhyun thinks that Jongin would realize. He used to, at least, just by stealing a glance at him.

It isn’t until a week later that Baekhyun has to confront the reality.

Chanyeol demands to have dinner together because apparently he has been spending too much time with Junmyeon, and Baekhyun, oblivious and naïve and trusting his friend’s kindness, complies. As soon as he gets into Chanyeol’s house though, he wants to yell his rage out.

The boy sitting on the couch turns to look at him, a trace of surprise and recognition crossing his features, and then he just stares. Baekhyun stares back in silence, and Chanyeol stands between them to give them the time they need.

Sehun gets up, and suddenly it’s noticeable how he is almost a head taller than before, all the child-like traits lost on him and eyes that aren’t as bright as Baekhyun was accustomed to. His body is wider, yet his smile is kind of weird, and Baekhyun wonders why a thousand times.

“Baekhyun?” he asks, eyes roaming up and down Baekhyun’s figure. He whistles softly, not in appreciation, more like in admiration. “God, is it you? You don’t look like you.”

Baekhyun knows. Just two days after dropping competitions, he had bleached his hair, got his eyebrows pierced, as well as two rings in his lips, and he had stayed the same since then. Junmyeon had laughed at him; on the other hand, now Sehun looks beyond shocked.

Baekhyun perceives the warning glare from Chanyeol, therefore he ignores it. After all, whatever happens tonight, it’s Chanyeol’s fault for setting up this trap.

“Why are you back?” Baekhyun asks with a neutral face, trying not to show what the real question is. He expects Sehun to catch it, though, as it’s quite easy to read what Baekhyun cares about and what he doesn’t.

“Hi, Sehun,” the younger one tells him instead, putting a hand on his chest as if the elder’s lack of enthusiasm was offensive. His imitation of Baekhyun’s voice is embarrassing, and maybe because he has always been a bit lame, the other two can’t stop the smiles on their faces. “Long time no see. How are you, man?”

Baekhyun passes a hand through his hair in irritation, but he doesn’t control the grin that comes next. Sehun raises a brow at him, and then smiles deeper and deeper, and Baekhyun scoffs. “Still stupid, I see.”

He has no time to dodge the asphyxiating hug. Sehun has long legs that allow him to approach Baekhyun within a second, and his corpulence leaves him without a chance to escape from his arms. Baekhyun hears Chanyeol dropping snide remarks in the background and wishes he could punch him in his perfect nose.

Anyways, the three of them have dinner together, between Sehun’s roundabouts and Baekhyun’s explanations of why he quit professional surfing. Much to his surprise, Sehun doesn’t judge him, high fives him instead with a ‘fuck sponsors they think they’re gods’.

Unconsciously, Baekhyun is almost anticipating the main topic to be brought up. Perhaps Chanyeol has threatened Sehun so that he doesn’t comment on it, yet a couple of drinks later, both Sehun and Baekhyun get loose tongues and no fear to discuss it.

“He’s looking for you,” Sehun begins, swallowing the liquid in one go. He smirks at Baekhyun, bats a hand dismissively at Chanyeol’s warning glance, and continues. “Like, probably right now, while we talk. I kind of feel bad for not telling him you would be here.”

Baekhyun needs to strangle Sehun out of the blue, because there’s no way in this world someone can be compassionate with Jongin.

“I bet he knows where he can find me,” Baekhyun shoots back, slightly sticking his lips in a pout. He doesn’t know why it upsets him so much, that Jongin should be able to find him so easily but he hasn’t succeeded yet. Maybe Sehun is lying.

It takes two seconds for Sehun to smack him square in the back of his head, and Baekhyun nearly chokes on his food as he squeals. Sehun has never been the respectful type, but he had totally forgotten about his tendency to violence.

“He can’t fucking put a foot on a beach,” grunts Sehun, condemnatory. They don’t need to make eye contact or, for that matter, to put their thoughts into words to understand what Sehun means. “Don’t be an asshole.”

Baekhyun softly furrows his eyebrows, pondering that if Jongin is still unable to be on a beach, then he shouldn’t have come back at all. “He’s an asshole.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Guys,” Chanyeol interrupts him, careful, as an attempt to halt the upcoming fight.

However, Sehun has already opened the box, and Baekhyun can’t bite his feelings or keep them hidden. He sets aside his fork as he talks to Sehun again. “What do you expect me to do? Introduce Jongin to my boyfriend and live the three together, happily ever after?”

The younger’s expression changes in a drastic way. If he was a bit angry before, now he looks like he has been stabbed in the back; like it’s Baekhyun who is holding the knife, his cold tone seeping through him.

“A boyfriend?” he repeats, doubtful. He glances at Chanyeol for a moment, as if he’s waiting for him to deny it, but Chanyeol just lowers his head in shame. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah, oh shit,” Baekhyun continues, his eyes shimmering in comprehension. He doesn’t need a confirmation to interpret Sehun’s reaction. “Not going to run to Jongin’s arms if that’s what he and you thought would happen.”

Sehun doesn’t reply immediately, since he seems disconcerted and misplaced. A part of Baekhyun intuits what the problem is, because judging how welcoming Chanyeol has been with Sehun, he surely hasn’t imagined his friend Jongin would face another situation. Probably Chanyeol and he have fucked at least a couple of times since he arrived, because Chanyeol still has a good heart even if years have passed. Baekhyun would have never agreed to hang out with him if he had been asked beforehand.

Much to his stupefaction, Sehun doesn’t say a word about Jongin for the rest of the night. And when it’s time for Baekhyun to leave, Sehun hugs him and walks away towards Chanyeol’s bedroom without trying to make him feel bad.

“Sehun is staying this time,” Chanyeol explains, almost excusing himself as though he’s aware of how much Baekhyun disapproves their fast adjustment.

But deep inside, Baekhyun just wants to have the same opportunity Chanyeol has. Just that he’s not ready to forgive.

Even after two years, Baekhyun still has the skill to recognize Jongin at first sight. He’s surfing a wave when he notices the solitary figure walking over the sand, chin raised to the sky; he catches just an ephemeral glimpse of him, yet a second later he’s slipping and sinking raw into the water. He forgets how he should fall and the crash hurts, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want to emerge anyway; he begs the water to swallow him like that time a rock hit his head and he blacked out; or that time that his own surfboard knocked him out and he woke up in a hospital.

For a moment, the millisecond before he breathes oxygen again, he wonders if Jongin would get into the water for him. He has given up and visited the beach for him.

Baekhyun doesn’t stop surfing right away, and Jongin waits for him sitting on the sand around fifteen minutes. It ruins him, indeed, having Jongin’s eyes analyzing each little movement he does, as though he hasn’t seen someone surfing during all this time. Perhaps he hasn’t, and so Baekhyun gives him the show he has been missing, the one he could have enjoyed if he had stood by Baekhyun’s side.

However, Baekhyun knows that if he has to deal with Jongin, he must do it while the beach is free of people. If it’s intimacy what they need, Baekhyun can’t tell, but it’s what they’ll get.

He carries his surfboard under his arm as he comes out of the water, and Jongin stands up and starts walking towards him. He prays for a million things: that he doesn’t notice his surfboard is very alike to the one Jongin had when he was sixteen; that he doesn’t see Baekhyun’s legs shaking or the way he isn’t able to stare into his eyes; that he doesn’t realize Baekhyun wants him to kiss him and fight him in equal proportion. This is dangerous, because Junmyeon doesn’t cross his mind once, still Baekhyun wishes he could back away. It’s not about Junmyeon, it’s about Jongin.

The younger is different, but not too much. His jaw is a bit sharper, his skin is paler - the hours under the sun lost along with the loss of surfing - and he’s skinnier than before. He’s not as tall as Sehun, but he doesn’t need height to intimidate Baekhyun: each step towards him feels like he’s breaking the sand under him, like Baekhyun is going to slide through the fissures, and maybe Jongin is going to keep a grasp on him so that he doesn’t.

“You’ve changed.” Jongin doesn’t smile. He sounds like a man now, not like a kid; he gazes at Baekhyun as a man, not like the teenager that ran away from failure and love. His eyes don’t halt on the piercings or the hair, as if they weren’t there, because Jongin can see through the scenery and the façade. “Your surfing is even more beautiful. Better than I would have ever been.”

The elder blinks his tears away, but he can’t tear his eyes from Jongin. He’s aware it’s a mistake, because looking at those eyes was one of the reasons why he fell for Jongin the first time, and it seems terribly easy to press repeat and begin watching the show once more. This is worse than Baekhyun anticipated, because he spots the old Jongin behind the grown up one, untouched and alive.

He makes the decision before he considers it: gripping his board, he strides past Jongin without a single word. However, Jongin follows him.

“Baekhyun, don’t do this,” he begs behind him, not catching his rhythm on purpose. It doesn’t come out as a sincere plea, though, since both know that Baekhyun will surrender sooner or later if Jongin asks him to.

When Jongin broke his right knee at sixteen during a competition, nobody thought it was the end.

Baekhyun turns around and shouts at him. “Do what? Walking away? Exactly what you did?”

Nevertheless, it was. Jongin didn’t seem so mentally damaged at first, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. He accompanied Baekhyun to his trainings, advised and helped him, and showed all the support he could have ever asked for. The problem was that he was a liar, a liar through thick and thin, and Baekhyun was too in love to admit it.

Jongin appears startled for a moment, the consequences of his acts coming out into the light all of a sudden. “Yes,” he says at last, cautious. “I’m here now, Baek. I’m back to stay.”

Sixteen, and having an eighteen-year-old Baekhyun as best friend and lover, Jongin could tell his parents he was passing some nights with him. Sure he did some, but not all of them. He and Sehun had other ways to alleviate the pain, ways that ended with Jongin in the hospital on a 27th November day.

Baekhyun takes a step towards him, ignoring how close they have gotten, and puts the surfboard between them. “Disappear. I don’t need you.”

Before he even has the chance to move away, the younger is holding him by the wrist. That makes him release his board, groaning and trying to cut the contact, but he can’t. It doesn’t matter he’s only in his swim shorts, since it’s Jongin’s touch that really leaves him naked, warm fingers that are too familiar to disregard.

“I’m glad it still hurts,” Jongin whispers, and he does it so tenderly that Baekhyun can’t help but meet eyes with him. There’s nothing that shows Jongin is being cruel. Rather, he’s being honest, and Baekhyun understands, which doesn’t make Jongin less selfish. “For me it was another story. It didn’t hurt me until I was clean, because I had reached a point I couldn’t feel anything except hate. I wish I could have felt you. I wouldn’t have left.”

Jongin sounds like another person completely, and Baekhyun needs several seconds for the words to settle within him. After the overdose and the exposure of his secrets, Jongin had renounced surfing again. He had been scared, almost in panic, and thus he had escaped from all that before life won over him.

Clean, he affirms now. Since the moment Jongin has showed up at the beach, Baekhyun has been dying to kiss him either way, to abandon himself to his arms, but he had the best excuse not to. He has just been deprived of it. Right then, Baekhyun forgives, and forgiveness doesn’t imply Baekhyun is weak. Jongin is what makes him utterly weak.

“Do you have tattoos, too?”

Baekhyun keeps Jongin a secret. Sometimes he assures Junmyeon he’s over at Chanyeol’s home, and sometimes it’s true, but most part of the time he’s in the flat that Sehun and Jongin share. Somehow he’s certain this is cheating, even though they don’t do anything besides eating, talking and watching movies, and a small voice in Baekhyun’s head reminds him that he has been cheating on Junmyeon all this time anyway.

He’s sure Jongin knows he has a boyfriend because Sehun must have told him, and for some bizarre reason he respects it. If Baekhyun was talking about the old Jongin though, he would have had his lips on his within the first two days.

Baekhyun laughs, and it has been so long since it was a sincere sound that he gets startled. Jongin pauses the movie and smiles back, as though he’s about to jump on him and discover if he has tattoos or not.

“What do you think?” Baekhyun retorts, raising a brow. “If I had any, you should have seen them on the beach.”

Jongin rolls his eyes, slapping a hand over Baekhyun’s outstretched legs. “I was too busy looking at your face, actually.”

“I see,” the older comments, amused, his eyes temporarily glancing at Jongin’s hands.

“Sehun didn’t warn me about your face and your hair,” adds Jongin, becoming serious as he inspects Baekhyun’s face meticulously. “Why did you do it?”

Baekhyun shrugs. “Why not? When I went to surf at crowded areas, there was always at least one person who recognized me. And of course, they would ask questions I didn’t want to answer.”

They let the conversation transform into silence, and seconds later Jongin plays the movie again. This time, however, he cuddles between Baekhyun’s legs and puts his head on his stomach, and the older sweetly strokes his hair. It’s soft, because Jongin doesn’t spend so many hours under the effects of the salt and the sun, just another small trait that shows Jongin isn’t the same person he was.

“I don’t blame them,” Jongin continues, eyes fixed on the tv although he doesn’t seem to pay attention to it. “You should see yourself. You kind of look like you could take over the world when you’re on your board.”

A shiver travels up Baekhyun’s body from where Jongin’s lips and words are to his chest, and for a moment he can’t breathe. He had forgotten how Jongin always talked, how he had always made him feel special, loved and one in a million.

“I saw the articles when you were competing for the Triple Crown,” the younger man confesses abruptly, raising his head a bit so that he can stare at Baekhyun. The other blinks at him, questioning, and Jongin plants a kiss under his sternum without any trail of restraint. “I was so jealous, felt like shit. I tortured myself every day thinking about what I was missing, not only because I had dropped surfing after my knee happened, like a spoiled kid and a coward, but because I had lost the chance of supporting you. I wanted so bad to be on the beach watching you take your medals, and I thought that maybe if I was there, you wouldn’t look so sad when you did.”

Once Jongin stops, Baekhyun is frozen enough not to reply. There’s no place to hide when Jongin talks so freely, for he can read Baekhyun’s thoughts even through the photo of an article. It’s not that Baekhyun doesn’t allow Jongin into his life again - though he shouldn’t, when Junmyeon is waiting for him at home- but it’s so scary to realize the boy can trap him just by closing his fist. Baekhyun never stopped being on his palm.

“It doesn’t matter anymore though,” Baekhyun mutters timidly.

However, Jongin doesn’t agree; he changes positions, moves up until he’s facing Baekhyun over him, and the older doesn’t push him away. Instead, his arms act on their own, surround Jongin’s waist and bring him against his body. Jongin gasps faintly, and his pupils sparkle when Baekhyun’s gaze settles on his lips. “Of course it matters.”

Jongin leans down and presses a kiss on the corner of his lips, as if he’s leaving Baekhyun the option to turn his head and convert it into a real kiss. The older, however, doesn’t accept the invitation.

“I still love you,” Baekhyun murmurs as he closes his eyes, and the revelation only hits him once it has materialized.

Soon, Baekhyun finds himself comprehending why Jongin acted like a coward back then. After all, he’s doing the same thing right now, too frightened to speak with Junmyeon and admit he has been meeting Jongin for the last month. It wouldn’t be easy, but he knows it wouldn’t be a point of no return for them. Junmyeon would be keen to forgive him if he didn’t cross any limits with Jongin, yet that’s not the problem. What really keeps Baekhyun shut is that when Junmyeon and he talked it through, it would be over for Jongin and him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Chanyeol defies him one morning, after catching Jongin and him on the beach. Baekhyun surfs every morning, and Jongin observes, and then they spend about an hour in the shop before Junmyeon arrives to work. “You have to tell him.”

Baekhyun doesn’t know what to say, so he opts for, “I’m not cheating on him.”

However, Chanyeol sends him a significant look before making sure Jongin isn’t listening, too occupied with inspecting the surfboards from the end of the shop.

“You haven’t fucked Jongin, great. You haven’t kissed him, fantastic!” he sarcastically says, gesturing. “For god’s sake, Baekhyun, you’ve told him you love him.”

Baekhyun feels lost all the time, except when Jongin smiles at him.

Nevertheless, the universe has never worked in Baekhyun’s favor. It has always kicked him from the right path and expelled far away the people he loved, and perhaps a month is too much time of Baekhyun’s happiness for the universe to handle.

He goes back home at 2 a.m., smelling of Jongin’s fabric softener and thinking about the way he laughs when Baekhyun says something silly, to find the contrary of happiness behind the door. Junmyeon is waiting for him in the hall, arms crossed as to protect himself - although his tears leave him fully exposed - and he just lifts his head when his boyfriend closes the door quietly.

Baekhyun’s heart stops functioning right then, spotting the huge suitcase - his - that is between the two.

“Someone robbed the shop!” Junmyeon screams at him, exploding.

“Wha-?”

“And you didn’t pick up your fucking phone, so I called Chanyeol! Because you told me you would be with him!” he interrupts, not allowing Baekhyun to ask anything. It’s not like he knows what to say, not when he interprets the situation perfectly well. “But it slipped from… from him that you were with Jongin. With Jongin, Baekhyun, your missing ex-boyfriend that you have been seeing for a whole month!”

Baekhyun steps back, but he knows he can’t just fade away and abandon Junmyeon like this. He doesn’t have an explanation for his behavior either, for he knows it’s horrible and one of the worst things he has ever done. He wants to hug Junmyeon and rock him in his arms, yet that’s nothing compared to how much he yearns to be by Jongin’s side right now.

“Don’t you dare cry,” Junmyeon spits at him, and it’s just then when Baekhyun realizes his face is wet too. “You don’t even have the right to.”

Baekhyun stands silently, pathetically before his boyfriend, not sure if an apology will change something. Not even sure if he wants something to change. “I d-didn’t-“

Before he ends the sentence, Junmyeon picks up the suitcase with both arms, approaches him and pushes it against his chest. Baekhyun doesn’t fight back as Junmyeon presses the suitcase until he’s suffocating between the door and the object, and the force is enough to make him unable to breath.

“You didn’t sleep with him?” Junmyeon smiles bitterly at him. He hasn’t stopped crying, and Baekhyun whimpers, not wanting to witness the pain on his face. However, he’s too close to ignore, and Junmyeon’s hurtful expression hits him right in the guts. “Well, I guess you can do it now.”

“Junmyeon…”

“Don’t fucking come back,” he warns him, letting go. “Not to my house, not to my shop. Ever.”

Baekhyun is not heartless, not made of stone, and not ready to say goodbye to the person who has kept him breathing for a whole year. He doesn’t resort to Jongin, going to Chanyeol’s house instead, but he’s aware of his friend’s voice in the middle of the night, muttering the news through his phone either to Sehun or Jongin.

They share the bed that night, and when the sunrise starts to bloom, Baekhyun isn’t sure if he has been crying or sleeping all the time. He and Chanyeol lay on the bed, awake for an hour until Chanyeol forces him out the bed, but the conversation is almost nonexistent.

“Are you going to look for a job?” his friend questions him during breakfast, staring at him as though he’s anticipating the moment Baekhyun will break into cries again.

Until Chanyeol’s question stirs him up, Baekhyun doesn’t realize he’s also jobless. It’s the last thing that worries him, because he doesn’t have a house either or literally anywhere to go. Of course, Chanyeol won’t kick him out immediately, but that doesn’t mean he can take advantage of his good heart without deadlines.

“What am I going to do?” Baekhyun sighs, staring at his breakfast without appetite. “Junmyeon is literally my whole life.”

Chanyeol scrunches his nose at the lament, disapproving.

“Your life went away the moment Jongin did,” he says, and Baekhyun looks at him in shock. They don’t talk about this, ever, because it has always been taboo between them. Chanyeol wasn’t hurt when Sehun disappeared, even though they had been having more than a mere friendship, because Sehun had never promised him anything. “He’s back now, Baek, and he would have never returned if you hadn’t been here.”

Baekhyun pushes his breakfast aside, a severe gaze that contrasts with his red, puffy eyes. “I’m glad you have such a skill to forgive Sehun, but…”

“You’ve already forgiven Jongin,” Chanyeol cuts in, not letting him speak another word about Sehun. “You’re just waiting for him to kneel and beg, and that’s not going to happen. The fact that he had the guts to come here, and talk to you while you were with Junmyeon… I just don’t know how you don’t pick up the signals.”

“Chanyeol…” Baekhyun starts, about to give him a hundred reasons why he’s wrong.

“Don’t try to bullshit me,” he replies as he cleans away Baekhyun’s bowl, realizing his friend isn’t going to eat more. “In just three days you were lying to Junmyeon to be with Jongin. Fuck, man, I understand. I almost had a heart attack when I saw Sehun in the club. I thought someone had dropped something into my drink.”

After the confession, both friends stare at each other in a pregnant pause, and within a second Baekhyun’s lips are curled up in a smirk. Chanyeol should be content he has managed to make his friend smile, yet he’s too occupied blushing to notice. “So that’s what you hallucinate when you’re high? Sehun dirty dancing in a club?”

“Shut up,” Chanyeol retorts, narrowing his eyes at him. “Now I have better images to think about.”

“Gross.”

Sehun happens to be a very distracting topic for the rest of the morning, at least until he crosses Chanyeol’s door and Baekhyun realizes he has too much information about his sexual life to look directly at him. Luckily, Jongin walks behind him, and he’s suddenly torn between having a serious talk or converse about Sehun’s manhood.

However, Jongin decides for him. Baekhyun figured out that the younger would be satisfied after the break-up, but he’s far from it. He looks like he hasn’t gotten a minute of sleep either, and the first thing he does is to approach the older in silence. Sehun and Chanyeol chat, unaware, as Jongin surrounds Baekhyun’s body into the warmth of his body. It only takes him a sigh to hide his face against Jongin’s neck and cry, although the younger might have been expecting it, because he doesn’t show any surprise.

Baekhyun forgets the pain as soon as he’s pressed against Jongin, because this is what was supposed to happen. He’s certain right now that it wouldn’t have mattered if Baekhyun had a boyfriend, or was married or had kids; he’s a boomerang that returns to Jongin every time he’s around.

“We’re going to leave you alone,” Sehun announces then, even though he already sounds far away. “Call us when you’re done.”

Baekhyun isn’t sure how they end up on Chanyeol’s bed. It doesn’t feel wrong, however; Jongin doesn’t ever dare to cross any limits, patient, and holds him close as Baekhyun regains the composure. It’s strange though, when the silence comes back and Baekhyun finds Jongin’s fingers stroking his hair and his face, tracing the piercings and his shut eyelids, brushing the leftover tears.

“Do you want to kiss me?” Baekhyun asks him, opening his lips when Jongin’s thumb caresses the lower one.

Jongin releases a soft, shaky laugh, but Baekhyun, still closed-eyed, can’t see his expression. “Only when you’re ready.”

“Am I?”

“No,” Jongin answers without a hint of doubt. He shifts on the bed, presses a soft kiss against the frown on Baekhyun’s face. “You still think I’ll leave again, sooner or later.”

At last, Baekhyun welcomes the image of the younger in front of him, and senses something that seems to be a smile flourishing. The other’s gaze is so intense that it burns every little insecurity of his. “Won’t you, Jongin?”

“If you come with me,” he murmurs.

The insinuation doesn’t surface again, yet Baekhyun can’t stop thinking about it. Sometimes, he catches Jongin staring at him, rigid eyes on him even when the older sends him a questioning glance, and he’s aware of it as Jongin tries to decipher what’s on his mind. Baekhyun doesn’t talk much, unlike his old self that used to be loquacious and a bit annoying, and therefore Jongin must be confused. If he’s bothered or uncomfortable with this new Baekhyun, he doesn’t express it, and the truth is he doesn’t want Jongin’s opinion if it’s going to be hurtful.

Then, before Baekhyun adapts to the change of having his ex-boyfriend around, Jongin becomes the same person he was two years ago. The four of them start going out again, long nights in bars and early mornings on the beach, even if Jongin never surfs and Sehun is still unable to stand on a board for more than two seconds. It doesn’t matter though, because once they’re off the beach, they head to sleep either in Chanyeol’s house or in the younger ones’, and the day before is long forgotten.

Needless to say, Chanyeol and Sehun choose the same bed; what is extraordinary is that Baekhyun allows Jongin to sleep with him too. They progress slowly, bit by bit until they reach a point in which everything seems frozen. However, Baekhyun finds happiness in it, in sleeping between Jongin’s arms and sensing kisses on the back of his neck when Jongin thinks he’s asleep; in Jongin making him laugh just two seconds after he’s woken up, or in his legs being trapped between the younger’s thighs, and in the warmness and in all those kisses that never happen.

“Why not a tattoo?” Jongin asks one afternoon, honest curiosity in his tone.

It’s almost time to have dinner, but they have only been awake for fifteen minutes, staying in bed as they hear Chanyeol and Sehun laughing from the living room. In fact, time isn’t important anymore, since both of them are jobless and without anything to do. Baekhyun’s sure Jongin is still getting money from his parents, but he doesn’t want to ask.

“Why are you so obsessed with tattoos?” Baekhyun replies, swinging his head to look at Jongin.

The other’s gazing at Baekhyun’s lips intently though, and he doesn’t dare smile just in case Jongin is about to finally kiss him. However, as soon as Jongin’s eyes travel up again, he realizes it’s not the moment either.

“Not with tattoos in general, just you with them.” Jongin smiles evilly at him, and Baekhyun nearly blushes at the sincerity. It’s not a rare comment having into account it comes from Jongin, but Baekhyun doesn’t get accustomed to the innuendos.

The older rolls on the bed so that he’s completely facing Jongin, and glancing at him through his eyelashes, tells him, “I’ll get a tattoo if you get a piercing.”

Without a second of hesitation, Jongin grins at him with a very cheeky shine in his eyes. “Where do you want my piercing?”

Judging his face when Baekhyun pulls him into Jongdae’s shop next day, he isn’t ready to be perforated anywhere. However, he doesn’t try to stop what’s going to happen, as if he’s sacrificing himself just to get a tattooed Baekhyun as a recompense.

“You really look like you’re going to puke,” Baekhyun observes, teasing, as Jongdae deals with another customer. Instead of complaining, Jongin allows him to make fun of him; he doesn’t seem able to utter a simple word anyways. “You don’t have to get pierced just because I said so, you know that?”

Jongin simply nods, not wanting to give in, and waits impatiently for Jongdae to attend to them. Baekhyun has known him for a long time, thus the man is quite excited when he’s told that finally, he’s going to have the chance of tattooing Baekhyun. Since there are other customers in the shop and Jongdae is currently alone, he asks them to wait in the room until he manages to get rid of everyone. Jongin glances through a book of samples as Baekhyun leans his head on his shoulder, bored, and the younger makes him smile with his commentaries about the catalogue.

“You should go with something soft,” advises Baekhyun after Jongin is scarred because there’s a photo of a girl with piercings all over her neck.

“Like?”

Without thinking twice, Baekhyun’s hand shoots up to mark the place where he should get pierced, and Jongin is astonished at the display of intimacy, the palm of his hand over his cheek. “In the nose. It won’t hurt too much, you’ll like it.”

The younger considers it, staring first at him as to discover hidden intentions and then at the catalogue, and merely nods again. Baekhyun is on the verge of laughing though when Jongin flips a page and nonchalantly says, “Babe, look at this.”

It wrecks him, and within a second he’s letting go of Jongin and the younger is completely pale. Baekhyun forgets to breathe, but that’s nothing compared to the way the other reacts, the catalogue slipping from his hands and falling onto the floor. It’s clear that Jongin hasn’t called him by his pet name on purpose; he’s as startled as Baekhyun himself, as if he knows he has set foot in dangerous, forbidden territory.

Baekhyun is oblivious at the way his own body trembles, but for some reason he notices Jongin’s unstable hands. He stares at him, wide-eyed, and he’s certain Jongin could break into tears right now if he wasn’t before him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…” he begins, strained voice. “I wasn’t thinking, it just-”

If there’s something Baekhyun can’t deal with, it’s Jongin drowning into his fragility. It brings bad memories of him breaking his knee, crying because in the moment he had fallen from his board, he had known it was over for him. It hadn’t been the pain that provoked the tears, and Baekhyun had wished it would have been.

Before he’s aware of his own decision, Baekhyun leans forwards and traps Jongin’s lips with his. He barely moves, just smoothes Jongin’s mouth for a fleeting moment, and pulls away very slowly, and suddenly there’s nothing else around him except the boy in front of him, eyes closed and chest petrified.

Baekhyun tries to contain his own panic, because the other doesn’t react and maybe he shouldn’t have kissed him. Maybe he wasn’t ready. Maybe it was Jongin who has better judgment to decide.

“Give me a second,” Jongin whispers then, still not opening his eyes.

Baekhyun doesn’t, but this time Jongin kisses back.

***

They don’t get as far as the drive to Jongin’s house. Baekhyun suddenly remembers there’s a decent hotel in the zone, and the younger doesn’t even blink before obeying. They almost don’t reach the room either, for Baekhyun isn’t able to remove his hands from him and Jongin doesn’t even want to stop kissing to open the door; it’s obvious he finds the lip piercings rather alluring.

And when Jongin has him pressed against the mattress, face sunk in the pillows and ass up, he barely feels Jongin’s lips between his shoulder blades. “A kiss tattoo here,” he murmurs, and Baekhyun can only moan in agreement.