CHINGUX 2014: breathless (with a hint of hysteria) (2/3) for EVERYONE
← PART 1
Sometimes the entire thing just catches up to Baekhyun, and with the entire thing he means, really, the entire thing. It’s like this Wednesday, when he waltzes out of his Economics class to realise that his daily schedule is packed. He’s not exactly looking forward to the two hours of swimming practice that await him in the pool, but his teammates have been kind enough to move the rehearsals during the lunch break just for him, because he has too many things to do during the rest of the day. It wouldn’t exactly be responsible on his part to stand them up. Lu Han would be more than happy to strangle him with his goggles if he misses one time too many.
So he changes into his swimming trunks and drowns the angry voices in his head with lap after lap after lap, concentrating on keeping his breath steady and his limbs swift and precise to better fend the water, only asking himself in the darkest, more secluded corner of his mind, when even this became a chore to him. He used to like swimming so much, because it helped him keeping everything else at bay, it used to keep him sane.
He mindlessly beats Lu Han’s 150m free style record, and only half-heartedly listens to the upperclassman’s piercing screeches of how he intends to drown Baekhyun in the showers. He has to jump into his dried clothes as soon as he can, hoping he can reach the Student Council before the meeting starts.
“Hey, Lu Han-hyung,” he only answers, managing to muster one smirk of his own between putting on his shirt and shaking his head to dry his hair like a dog, spraying water all over a hissing Sungjong, “you really should’ve drowned me in the shower, because I don’t think you can catch up to me in the pool.”
He leaves as Sunggyu and Kikwang hold Lu Han back from head butting him, more worried about his duties as Class President than about Lu Han’s mammoth-sized ego. The meeting is just a breath short from starting when he breezes inside the room, gaining some disapproving glances from seniors who’s been there for five fucking minutes already because they probably have more free time in a day than he’s ever had in the last four years. Yixing, that kind soul, has saved him a seat, and as Kim Joonmyeon, of all people, opens the reunion, Baekhyun takes a moment to lean his head against Yixing’s shoulder and take a deep breath.
Joonmyeon corners him after the meeting, when everybody is packing up to go home and Baekhyun is observing his phone with yielding eyes. He’s supposed to meet Kyungsoo at Jongin’s house in less than twenty minutes, but his mind is caressing the possibility to call Chanyeol and ask him to cover his shift. He can make it up to his best friend by doing yet another whole afternoon with Jongdae, which would make everyone but him pleased, since Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had been all but discrete about their whole pushing Baekhyun with Jongdae thing. A whole five hours with Jongdae is the closest to hell for Baekhyun right now, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to go through this day without throwing up, or fainting, so he presses the dial key, and waits.
Chanyeol doesn’t answer, and in a fit of desperation he calls Kyungsoo, remembering after a few empty rings that the other student’s Home Economics class ended about five minutes ago, and Kyungsoo is probably running towards Jongin’s house, like Baekhyun should be doing too right now.
A tap on his shoulder interrupts a long, drawn-out sigh. He turns around, wishing he hadn’t done it when he faces a smiling Kim Joonmyeon, and his perfect, infuriating face.
“Hey Baekhyun, are you alright?” Always polite, always endearing, always ready to stab you in your back by kissing your boyfriend near the pool at the choir party. He forces a tight smile on himself, not knowing what else to do. It’s not like Joonmyeon knew about them, they had been keeping it a secret from everyone else except, well, Chanyeol.
“Yes, just a little out of it. I came right from practice and I’m,” he makes a show of checking the time on his phone, “already shamefully late for my part time job.”
It comes out like he wants to get rid of Joonmyeon, but it’s the truth. If he runs, he can still partially justify his lateness to Mrs. Kim. At least, he thinks, Kyungsoo will be there on time. He smiles apologetically at Joonmyeon, but the other boy stops him from leaving, blocking the way.
“Sorry, it’ll just take a second. I wanted to ask you if you’ve heard from Jongdae lately.”
Ah, there it comes, the knife on his back, again. “Jongdae?”
“Yes, Kim Jongdae, he’s still your best friend, right?”
He doesn’t know what to answer. No, thanks to you? Who are you talking about? Friend? What friend? That two-timing traitor? He stands there lost, for a moment, not knowing what to say. He’s never thought about it, because he’d always assumed that Joonmyeon somewhat knew about them, that Jongdae had at least bothered to tell him about his and Baekhyun’s past history. But Joonmyeon knows nothing. If the absent look on his face is anything to go by, Joonmyeon has heard from Jongdae even less than Baekhyun. Which is ridiculous, because Baekhyun has kept his Jongdae-related interactions at a minimum.
“Baekhyun, are you alright? You’re really pale.”
He shakes his head, murmuring a weak, “Don’t worry, I’m just…” He makes a vague gesture with his hands that could mean anything and nothing, “a little out of it,” he concludes. “I’m sorry, Joonmyeon-ssi, I haven’t heard from Jongdae lately.”
Joonmyeon looks even more dumbfounded, if possible. “Really? I thought… But Baekhyun, take care of yourself. I don’t think you should go to the part time job, right now. Or at least,” he bites his lip, “let me give you a lift. You look like you’re going to die on the streets if I let you go alone.”
Baekhyun’s first instinct is to refuse, driven by a sullen, instinctive and probably unmotivated hatred towards Joonmyeon. Instead he asks him to wait just a moment and he tries to call Chanyeol, again, to no avail. His second call to Kyungsoo also goes unnoticed, and Baekhyun knows they’ll give him shit for this later if he brings himself to Jongin’s house in this shape. He knows that Kyungsoo will hide his worry under the pretence of hollow death threats and Chanyeol will look at Baekhyun like he’s made of glass, ready to disappear at the slightest gust of wind. They’re his friends and they won’t care if he didn’t warn them, if you’re sick you’re sick, Byun Baekhyun, says a presumptuous voice that sounds a lot like Kyungsoo in his head, but he hasn’t it in his heart, to stood the junior up like this.
He could call Jongdae, but he won’t do it. He can’t do it, not with Joonmyeon looking at him expectantly.
“Ok,” he gives up, “can you drive me to this address?”
“You look like a dead man walking.”
Oh, Kyungsoo, little honest thing.
“Thank you Joonmyeon-hyung, you can go.”
“Take care.”
Kyungsoo is onto him as soon as he steps foot on the house, weaving his phone like a lethal weapon and mercilessly point to the three missed calls from Baekhyun. “So, you tried to call me to tell me you couldn’t come because you were shit,” he starts, but Baekhyun cuts him off as he enters the living room, looking around to greet Jongin but finding no one.
“I wasn’t going to tell you I couldn’t come, just warning you I would’ve been a little late,” he tries to defend himself, but Kyungsoo jabs at his chest, right where his heart is, with a short, cute, cruel finger.
“Shut up! I also called Chanyeol, and he says you called him too. But none of us answered, and you came here all the same even if you’re not feeling well.”
Baekhyun nods weakly. “Jongin?” he asks, in a vain and foolish attempt to distract Kyungsoo.
“Hiding, of course. He heard the car and thought it would’ve been fun to go MIA. That brat.”
Baekhyun snickers at Kyungsoo’s fuming face, “It’s because you suck at hide and seek. He needed me to come and save him from the boredom of a whole afternoon spent in your company.”
“Excuse me?”
“Admit it, Kyungie, you suck. And you cheat.”
It’s with great satisfaction that Baekhyun sees Kyungsoo finally caving in and massaging his forehead with nervous fingers. “Please don’t remind me again. When I got here he was still pouting about last week. I have the distinct impression he spent the whole week trying to figure it out a bomb-proof hiding place just to punish me because I tried to cheat last time.”
Do Kyungsoo. He’s able to inspire terror in the mightiest minds, sometimes even in Baekhyun’s mind, if he has to be completely honest with himself, but fails to tame Kim Jongin, princess extraordinaire.
“And that’s why you need me here,” he comments, triumphant, “you know, I’m a former hide-and-seek genius.” To emphasize his words, he shakes his head to the side and let his fringe, still fluffy and frizzy from chlorine and standard, cheap shampoo, fall over his face in what should be a diva move. Instead, the world spins around him like a colourful windmill at the mercy of a storm. Baekhyun sees the floor getting nearer and neared, and barely realises that he’s stranded on the couch instead, Kyungsoo’s hold on his wrist an anchor keeping him a breath away from shipwrecking.
“You stupid, stupid boy! Stay there,” he orders, actually growling when Baekhyun tries to get up only to be pushed on the couch again. “Stay. There.”
He comes back for a glass of water that Baekhyun accepts with a nod.
“What happens into your silly head, I would really like to know,” grumbles Kyungsoo, sweeping Baekhyun’s matted hair from his forehead to check if he has a fever. Colour drains from his face and his eyes widen even more than usual, pupil blown up in fear. “I’m calling Chanyeol,” he announces.
Baekhyun whines, “He won’t answer. Probably switched off the ringtone, the bastard.”
“He’ll answer to me,” snarls Kyungsoo, and Chanyeol really does. Sure, he’ll answer when it comes to his new master but not to his best friend. Baekhyun hears only fragments of their hushed conversation, Kyungsoo threatening Chanyeol to move his sorry ass and come here right now to pick up your sorry excuse of a best friend. It’s not difficult to imagine Chanyeol springing from the bed and jumping right into the car at the excruciating pain that Kyungsoo’s voice foreshadows.
“He’s coming,” Kyungsoo only states, as he puts away his phone and slides down on the couch next to Baekhyun’s head. “With Jongdae,” he adds, making Baekhyun shudder. Great, just what he needed.
“Why would he come too?” he inquires, trying not to sound too sharp and failing miserably. Everything is piercing and acuminate right now, and dealing with the emotional wreckage he’s learnt to associate with Kim Jongdae will just be the cherry on top in his current condition.
“He was with Chanyeol,” is the answer. Baekhyun jolts, but it’s not a surprise. Now that he and Jongdae are a mess, the two of them will have to hang out only when Baekhyun is not around. He misses their outings. He misses how things were before. He misses, between lots of other things, a past when Jongdae actually checked his schedule, forcing him to give up on unnecessary things when it was too packed. He misses a time when breathing was easier.
“You should make up with him, maybe.”
“We already talked about this and I thought we had agreed you should mind your own business.”
Kyungsoo gives him the face, the one who keeps especially for when Baekhyun is being impossible. The last face Baekhyun saw before he and Kyungsoo fell from the second floor in a waterfall of broken glass, yes, that face.
“It’s not that I’m worried about you, but I’m worried about you.”
“Oh, I’m flattered, I must look beyond terrible if even yo-”
“Jongdae is the only person who likes you,” Kyungsoo cuts him short, and Baekhyun’s eyes widen in a silly stupor. “No, wait, I mean… A lot of people like you, even though you’re obnoxious and annoying and it’ll forever be out of my reach how you’re still alive when you’re so good at making people mad. But very few people like like you. You’re kinda,” Kyungsoo looks around himself, desperately trying to grasp a word that won’t insult Baekhyun more than he already is and delivers his thoughts at the same time, “unattainable. You’re unattainable. You flirt with everyone, you exchange jokes with everyone, but at the same time I think I’ve never seen someone hugging you, or touching your hand, or…”
“I don’t like physical contact,” tries to explain Baekhyun, feeling frustrated. He doesn’t really get where Kyungsoo wants to end up. This whole conversation seems quite pointless to him.
“Yes, you don’t. You also don’t like people getting close to you, even if you want to get closer to them. I don’t think you are able to realise on your own the exact moment you break someone else’s heart, Baekhyun, but you did it in the past, and you can still do it. You make people feel like they overstepped their boundaries when they get too close to you, and it’s ridiculous, because you’re the king of crossing other people’s lines in the most inappropriate way. Half of our class had a crush on you for the longest time, but they never tried anything because you seemed like the kind of boy who wouldn’t let them get past the first word of their confession before flat out refusing them.”
Baekhyun doesn’t even fight Kyungsoo’s accusations. It’s true, after all.
“I had a boyfriend,” he only admits, feeling the weight of Jongdae’s head on his shoulder, a memory of the long winter afternoons spent on Chanyeol’s bed doing their homework together, his legs intertwined with Chanyeol’s and his fingers laced with Jongdae’s. “And a best friend. It’s not that I didn’t want new friends, but there are reserved seats in my life. Do you think it’s childish?”
Kyungsoo shakes his head, and Baekhyun unconsciously slides closer to him. It’s strange being here, talking with Kyungsoo about things that matter. His life has always been about Jongdae and Chanyeol and he kind of missed the crucial moment when Kyungsoo entered the equation.
“When did we become friends, Kyungsoo?”
He hesitates to answer, like he isn’t sure how Baekhyun will react at his next words.
“I think… I’ve been friends with Chanyeol since day one, Baekhyun, but you’ve always been a mystery to me. But then, suddenly, when this year began, you were different. Unsure, clingier, you seemed another person.”
Baekhyun has never been good at dealing with serious chats, and this one is not different.
“Do you think I only let you be my friend because I missed Jongdae?” he asks, in a tiny voice, like a kid who doesn’t want to be reprimanded.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was a good thing. It was time for you to let go of Jongdae’s hand and start to broaden your horizons. You let me in because you needed someone, but Baekhyun, I’ll never be enough to fill the hole that Jongdae left. And you’re clearly not happy without him.”
Now, that’s the discover of the century, Baekhyun being unhappy without Jongdae. He wonders where Kyungsoo got this unbelievable idea from… Baekhyun has never been so miserable in his life. His dog knows, the teachers know, detestable Lu Han knows, even the stones know it by now. Thank you for the brilliant analysis, captain obvious, is what he wants to say, but Kyungsoo stops him before he can talk.
“No, let me finish,” he says, covering his mouth, his clammy fingers the only hint that he’s as nervous as Baekhyun, “you’re as pleasant as an axe in the back, ok? But at least when I met you there was, I don’t know, a spark. I even thought you were kinda cute, until you opened that big mouth of yours and ruined everything, but even when you were sticking salt into my wounds, you always managed to get away with it because of your puppy eyes, or your smile, or your silly laugh. But lately you’re all bitterness and no fun. Look, you’re so pathetic that even I’m feeling bad for you, do you get my point?”
Baekhyun finally, finally, wakes up from his torpor and bites Kyungsoo’s hand. He gets his hair pulled on in retaliation.
“What I meant to say is that whatever you had with Jongdae, better make it right, or I’ll dump your sorry ass on the ground and stomp on your kidney next time you feel sick during the job, alright?”
Ok, this is better, The almost nice Kyungsoo was starting to scare Baekhyun with his intense questions, the serious, big eyes and his lithe, solid body that smells like orange and Jongin’s milk tea for babies. He files Kyungsoo’s words away, promising himself to feel bad about it when he won’t feel bad about everything else.
“So, for a few moments you had a thing for me, right?”
He says it with a smirk, only wanting to lighten up the suffocating atmosphere with a silly joke, but Kyungsoo looks murderous and lost and his eyes are filled with some kind of raw emotion and Baekhyun doesn’t know what to do. Then, Kyungsoo scoots closer and hugs him ad time breaks, the pieces falling away from Baekhyun’s grasp.
“What?” he babbles, trying to get a grip on himself but he’s pinned on the spot by Kyungsoo’s warmth and his freaking orange and tea soap, and Kyungsoo is a bit like Chanyeol and Jongdae, the world can keep spinning but he’s here. He’s got Baekhyun.
Kyungsoo chuckles low in his throat, sticks his nose in Baekhyun’s hair with tenderness and talks right in his ear, “Oh, I was right! When I first met you, I totally thought you would’ve been cute and very huggable, if only you hadn’t been such an ass. But now that you’re too tired to let your painful personality emerge, you’re quite likeable.”
Likeable? Baekhyun can’t believe it! Where did his upper hand go? He’s the one who makes Kyungsoo flushed and bothered, not the opposite. This is why he hates physical contact, he thinks, as an inner alarm rings in his ear, telling him that something is wrong. Kyungsoo is already gone past his barriers, right inside his personal space, and Baekhyun can do little about it. He trashes, but it’s difficult to sneak out of Kyungsoo’s wrestler hold, even on his best days.
“I want back the grumpy Kyungsoo who hates me,” he cries, “let me go Kyungsoo, LETMEGO!”
He’s too weak to fight back, and when Kyungsoo realises his embarrassment he hugs even tighter. “It took me two years, but thank to this moment of weakness, I finally found out the most effective weapon against you: warm hugs.”
“Let me go!” Baekhyun squawks, kicking and flailing.
That’s when Chanyeol and Jongdae burst in, almost expecting the two of them to have died a painful death, judging by the shouts.
There’s this long moment of discomfort where Jongdae looks like he wants to choke Kyungsoo and Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun like he is the embodiment of treason. Baekhyun imagines how they must look like, with their faces red, sweaty and panting, Kyungsoo draped all over him with his surprisingly strong arms all tight around Baekhyun’s body…
“What are you waiting for?” he yelps, “SAVE ME!”
“I’m not sure I want to know what’s happening here,” comments Chanyeol, as he helps a weak Baekhyun to stand up after Kyungsoo’s amused eyes and the heavy frown of a very displeased Kim Jongdae.
Kyungsoo shrugs and pats Baekhyun’s hair fondly, ignoring the mild look of disgust on Baekhyun’s face. “Just me finally taking revenge for every inappropriate butt squeeze in the past two years.”
“Wait until I’m better, I’m gonna make that vein in your forehead explode, Do Kyungsoo.”
Kyungsoo promptly ignores Baekhyun’s warnings, turning towards Chanyeol with a heavy look on his face. “Bring him home. Make sure he drinks and he must rest. Tie him to the bed if necessary.”
“Tie me? That’s kinky, Soo.”
“Shut up Baek,” butts in Jongdae. He’s been silent until now, looking at Baekhyun with something akin to ache in his eyes. Jongdae used to be the person Baekhyun called when he was sick, the few times Jongdae himself had failed in avoiding Baekhyun getting sick. Jongdae used to be the exception to the no hugs rule, a rule that not even Chanyeol or Baekhyun’s brother were allowed to break. Sure, they did it anyway, but Jongdae’s hugs were the only ones Baekhyun didn’t welcome with a biting answer, and a more painful bite on any available appendage. Jongdae used to be the first on Baekhyun’s list, together with Chanyeol, but now there’s Kyungsoo too. Half of Baekhyun’s world crumbled away when the thing with Jongdae happened, but maybe, as Kyungsoo pointed out, losing one of his coordinates wasn’t so bad if he gave him the chance to find new ones.
As Chanyeol brings his backpack inside the car and Kyungsoo helps him to tie his coat, Baekhyun evades Jongdae’s eyes and excludes from his mind Kyungsoo’s tired complains about probably taking the next three hours to find Jongin’s new hiding spot. Only when he hears Jongdae’s name he snaps back into reality. Kyungsoo catches his sudden display of attention, and leers. “I was just saying that this is the first time I get to spend this much time alone with Jongdae. We’ve never been in the same babysitting turn.”
Jongdae doesn’t look too happy about it, who knows why. Baekhyun used to talk about Kyungsoo a lot back during his first year, and Jongdae used to be jealous. It’s almost funny, looking how things turned out, that Jongdae was jealous of Do Kyungsoo. Maybe the antipathy stayed, even if Baekhyun and Jongdae are not together anymore - the usual fit of pain in Baekhyun’s stomach greets the last thought - and he has close to no reason to hold a grudge on the shorter boy. Still, who knows what Kyungsoo could tell Jongdae in this two hours they have to spend together.
When Chanyeol opens the door for him, Baekhyun turns towards Kyungsoo and whispers, “Don’t be a busybody, Kyungsoo-yah.”
“I do what I want, Baek,” is the equally low answer, and he scoffs.
“The loft,” he answers, and he’s not surprised when Kyungsoo looks at him like he’s mad.
“Better bring him home now, Chanyeol, he’s starting to sound incoherent.”
“Where would you hide if you were Jongin? Little children can’t reach high places, so they always hide somewhere low, like under the bed, or behind the couch. But Jongin is a hide-and-seek master, so he’s probably hiding in some high place. Try the loft or the last shelves of the bedroom closets.”
“I suppose it makes sense.”
“It’s only because you stayed with me while I wasn’t feeling well. Tomorrow I’m still going to make you so angry you’ll auto-combust. And don’t say anything strange to Jongdae. Or I’ll have to punish you.”
Kyungsoo pats his back a little too strongly, laughing when Baekhyun wavers with the force. Of the strike. “If you’re able to attend school tomorrow, and I’m not so sure of it, especially if you keep being this careless, Byun. But wait, how would you know that thing about kids and hiding places?”
“Yes, how would he know?” says Jongdae, and there’s the shadow of a reluctant smile on his face. Chanyeol puts one of his long tentacles around Baekhyun’s shoulder. “Did you know, Soo? This kid here, he says, tightening his hold until it turns into a hug that makes Baekhyun squirm helplessly, “actually was a hide-and-seek genius, when we were young.”
“Drive me home and shut up, Yeol. AND LET ME GO!”
The ride back home is painfully silent and this too is a first for them. It was never unpleasant with Chanyeol, the way it never used to be unpleasant with Jongdae.
Chanyeol breaks the silence first. “You’re an idiot, Baek. Next time, even if we don’t answer, go back home. Your mom is gonna kill me if you die because I was too busy playing Halo with Jongdae to answer your calls.”
“Well, aren’t you going to ask?” he says, and Chanyeol drops the façade, halts at the stop and turns to take in all of Baekhyun’s pale complexion and shivering form. He has a wolfish scowl on his face, that kind that isn’t a mere scowl but a repressed growl, and Baekhyun has known Park Chanyeol long enough to be acutely aware of his poisonous anger.
“What was that little show with Soo?” he asks, and his fingers tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white and breathe itching.
“What do you think we were doing, Yeol? And why would it matter to you?” Chanyeol reddens, and Baekhyun knows he has the upper hand, again. “What’s your business with Soo?”
Chanyeol jolts at the use of the nickname, it’s the first time Baekhyun used it, after all, and if his best friend wasn’t so angry and lost, Baekhyun would laugh at him.
“You know what… You know, Soo. And I. The thing.”
“So there actually is a thing. And you didn’t tell me. Go on, Chanyeol, give me details, I need to work out a plan to make Kyungsoo explode tomorrow.”
His eyes are playful and Chanyeol lounges to hit him because he doesn’t like when Baekhyun doesn’t take him seriously. There’s relief in Chanyeol’s punch, disguised as childish jealousy, but maybe Chanyeol has forgotten that Baekhyun is still sick, and the blow make him bounce despite the seatbelt.
“Hey, careful with that!”
“Ohmygod, Baekhyun, I’m so sorry, are you alright?”
“You almost dislocated my shoulder. Geez, do you really believe I’d have something going on with Kyungsoo? You’re the only one who has something going on with Kyungsoo behind everyone’s back,” he states.
“We don’t have anything. Yet,” Chanyeol adds, “but I’m planning to, you know, be a brave man.”
Oh, Chanyeol will need more than bravery to deal with Kyungsoo. A great dose of sexual prowess, because heaven knows if that kid is repressed, lot of patience, puppy-like loyalty… Oh, yes, they’ll make it work. They’ll be perfect together.
“Suicide requires more than courage, Chanyeol. But you’ll forever be remembered as the boy who sacrificed himself to keep Kyungsoo’s evil paws far away from any other poor fellow who could happen to like him.”
Chanyeol raises his hand, threatening to hit him again, “Don’t be an ass, Byun Baekhyun.”
They arrive at home, and Chanyeol’s mom howls at her son for taking the car when she needed it, but she pales at the sight of Baekhyun. After a quick enquiry about his mom’s whereabouts, the boy is hushed inside Chanyeol’s room, and Mrs. Park only leaves after her son promises he’ll take care of Baekhyunnie like they’re true brothers.
They lie there, Baekhyun on the bed and Chanyeol on the floor, listening to low, soothing music from Chanyeol’s CDs collection, until Chanyeol takes his breath and his courage, and Baekhyun braces himself for the incoming storm.
“Baek?” asks Chanyeol, and Baekhyun merely turn towards him, waiting for Chanyeol to give a name to the lingering question hanging around them. “There’s really nothing between you and Kyungsoo, right?”
There is nothing. Right? Honestly, he doesn’t know.
“It’s only been the three of us, and I’ve never let anyone else in, but Kyungsoo… Kyungsoo made in into the group, I guess, and to be honest I don’t know whether it’s because I needed someone else after me and Jongdae, yeah, that… or if it’s just him. But you don’t have to worry, Chanyeol, there’s nothing between me and Kyungsoo.”
He thinks of Kyungsoo’s warmth around him, his fingers on Baekhyun’s sweaty forehead, Kyungsoo looking inside Baekhyun’s eyes without fear of what he could find inside them. He’s lying, there’s something between him and Do Kyungsoo, but maybe not what Chanyeol fears.
“When I knew him, Kyungsoo was…”
“Was what, Chanyeol?”
“Kyungsoo liked you,” says Chanyeol, and this time Baekhyun can’t avoid his eyes, boring holes in Baekhyun’s face in a quest for some universal truth. But Kyungsoo, liking him? Kyungsoo hated Baekhyun and his guts and every breath he took.
“When you were discarded from the hospital, I went to talk to him. he had just discovered you had someone else,” Jongdae, running through the hospital aisle to throw his limbs around Baekhyun’s neck and whisper sweet threats into his hair if he dared to do it again. Kyungsoo was there with him, looking out of the window, his jaw set and tense.
“He was so sad,” goes on Chanyeol. “I think Kyungsoo always liked you, but…”
“But I never let him in,” concludes Baekhyun, and for a moment he feels a dull throb in his chest. Regret, maybe. He was the one who threw himself at Kyungsoo, day after day after day, teasing him and sitting on his desk, initiating conversations, patting his butt and disregarding any attempt of pulling out from the other boy.
I don’t think you are able to realise on your own the exact moment you break someone else’s heart, Baekhyun, but you did it in the past, and you can still do it. You make people feel like they overstepped their boundaries when they get too close to you, and it’s ridiculous because you’re the king of crossing other people’s lines in the most inappropriate way.
“I just, you know me, Chanyeol. I had Jongdae. I could’ve never…”
“Yes,” Chanyeol’s voice is low, so low, “but now you don’t have Jongdae anymore and… I just, I don’t think you know how I felt, two years ago. It’s always been the three of us, Baekhyun, but suddenly one day it wasn’t and you and Jongdae had something else, something I wasn’t allowed to set foot in. You kinda stole my best friend from me, Baek. Now that thing you two used to have is falling apart, and I’m not even part of it, but you’ll still be going to drag me down with you, aren’t you?”
“Wait, you liked Jongdae?” he asks, and he doesn’t know why but it comes out as a squeal, choked and afraid, and something gets stuck in his throat. Chanyeol is at his side before he can gets up on his own, cradling him into his arms. Baekhyun doesn’t fight his grasp.
“Silly Baekhyun, you’re so silly,” he says, fingers caressing Baekhyun’s cheek, “I liked you both. Jongdae stole me from you as much as you stole him from me.”
“But we didn’t want, we…” he panics, trying to convey words that won’t come out of his chapped lips, trapped in his ribcage like fluttering, silent goldfinches.
“I know, I know. But Kyungsoo liked you and you and Jongdae are not together anymore, and I really, really like Kyungsoo, Baek.”
They’re so stupid, two kids trying to talk in half-assed, disconnected sentences, too afraid to set things straight because they’re threading on thin ice. Baekhyun has always been sure of two things in his life, Jongdae and Chanyeol. Now everything feels like it’s falling apart and he doesn’t know what to do.
“I like Kyungsoo,” he says, and Chanyeol freezes around him, his embrace turning too tight for a moment, “but he’s not Jongdae.”
They breathe in silence, again. There are no more songs in the CD, and Baekhyun wants to scream and rewind the times when everything was easier.
“What are you gonna do, then?” asks Chanyeol, a few minutes before Baekhyun falls asleep.
He pauses, shaking away the hands of sleep slowly pulling him in a dark pit long enough to open his eyes and look at the window of Jongdeok’s empty room, right in front of Chanyeol’s window. He’s careful not to let his eyes wander to the other window, so close and yet so far away, on the other side of the street. It’s been so long since he’s looked at Jongdae’s house without feeling empty. Four months without Jongdae, feels like an entire lifetime for Baekhyun.
“I think maybe it’s time to make up with Jongdae.”
Baekhyun received his first call to babysit little Huang Zitao during a Friday, his only free day from work. The mother in need was Mrs. Huang, a diplomatic working at the Chinese embassy, in a hurry because she had been called to fill in for a sick colleague at work during her free day. She had just picked up her little treasure from his martial arts weekly lesson when they had told her she was needed at a very important meeting. Hit by a sudden inspiration, she had called Baekhyun’s work number, assuring him that it was an emergency and she would’ve paid four times the ordinary fare. Ten minutes later, her shiny car stopped in Baekhyun’s driveway, and Zitao was left with Baekhyun.
Zitao, or Taozi, like Baekhyun calls him when he wants the kid to blush madly, is a cry-baby. He doesn’t speak good Korean, has very few friends in his class and almost everything scares him. Only child in a strict family, he lives his life between martial arts lessons, courtesy of his father, and private tutors paid by his mother, and maybe that’s why, the first time he visits, he falls in love with Baekhyun’s warm house and his majestic game post with six different consoles and the giant screen.
Zitao also falls in love with Baekhyun and his mischievous smile, and Baekhyun falls in love with Zitao’s broken Korean and his clinginess. They’re the perfect match.
That’s why, from that day onwards, Baekhyun welcomes Zitao in his house every Friday, de facto transforming his and Chanyeol’s gaming challenge Friday in his, Chanyeol’s and Zitao’s gaming challenge Friday.
“Left, left, left, go for it, go for it ge, gogogogo, victoryyyy!”
Chanyeol groans, dropping the controller on the floor while Zitao roars and Baekhyun complains, “Hey, be careful with that, my mom is not going to buy me another one if you break it! And neither is yours.”
“I don’t know why this little fellow keeps cheering for you when I’m obviously the cooler and better hyung, ouch!” he cries, when Zitao throws his own controller at him. he turns towards his best friend, “Why aren’t you scolding him too?”
Baekhyun laughs, ruffling Zitao’s hair until he purrs, like a kitty.
“Because his mom is willing to buy me another controller if he breaks it, unlike your mom would. And because he was defending my honour from your false and vile accusations!”
“Baekhyun-ge is the best,” nods Zitao, launching himself towards Baekhyun and stabbing him in the side with his nose. Baekhyun squawks and falls, managing to kick Chanyeol and frightening Cookie to death. The beagle dashes away howling.
“Ge, ge, sorry ge, I didn’t want to…”
Chanyeol and Baekhyun, still lying in a graceless pile of limbs on the floor, exchange a quick, alarmed look, and the taller boy quickly fills Zitao’s open mouth with a candy before the kid explodes in loud sobs. Zitao chokes a little around the sugary sweet, his eyes going wide, and flashes them a toothless, cheerful smile.
“Can I play with the car game?” he asks, and Baekhyun can almost count the stars in his hopeful eyes.
“Of course you can, kiddo. I’m going downstairs to make a sandwich for the three of us, don’t beat Chanyeol too hard, okay?”
Zitao beams and jumps on Chanyeol, who pretends to be smashed by an incredible weight. Baekhyun sends him a murderous glare and lowers to whisper in Chanyeol’s ear, “If you dare to win against him I’ll tell Kyungsoo of that time when you peeked at his junk in the bathroom and that you always think of his penis when you masturbate.”
Chanyeol’s reaction is gold, Baekhyun can even see his ears flapping in shame, “Byun Baekhyun, you wouldn’t dare…”
He runs away snickering before Chanyeol can snatch him back and squeeze his hips in retaliation.
When he comes back, Chanyeol has forgone the game to text someone, ninety-nine percent Kyungsoo, and Zitao is so concentrated on stealing cars for a mafia group that he doesn’t even look at the food. He eats mechanically, like a robot, shooting enemies between one bite and another.
“Do you think we should let him play GTA? Isn’t it a bit counter-educational?” wonders Chanyeol, “Maybe we should make him play games about world peace and plucking flowers and being nice to others…”
Baekhyun takes a generous bite of his sandwich, munching as he answers because he never cared about being polite with Chanyeol.
“First: I don’t have that kind of games, and you know it. Second: it’s Zitao we’re talking about, he doesn’t need any lessons on how to be a little princess, he’s already fabulous enough on his own.”
“Thanks, ge,” mumbles Zitao as he runs over a sniper with a yellow Camaro. Baekhyun takes the sandwich that, in the past few minutes, has been hitting Zitao’s nose, chin and cheeks from Zitao’s controller-free hand and stuffs it in his little mouth. The kid only opens wide and chews on the bread without detaching his eyes from the screen, not even when Baekhyun wipes his mouth with a tissue.
“Third,” concludes Baekhyun, thinking of his little Taozi, the baby brother he’s never had, always studying and training in martial arts in the big house that Baekhyun can only build in his mind through his own imagination and the aid of Zitao’s descriptions, “maybe it’s time to let this little fellow have some fun. Right, Taozi?”
Zitao nods and Baekhyun smiles at Chanyeol. He gets a punch in the shoulder and a friendly hug that makes him shiver in exchange. “I hate kids my ass, you really like this one.”
“Maybe I do,” he answers. “But Zitao likes me back too, and more than he likes you.”
“Don’t let it get to your head, he’s the only kid who’s ever liked you more than me. But I have to admit that I’m quite hurt, why won’t you like me, Taozi?”
“I only like Baekhyun-ge.”
Chanyeol’s disappointed face is epic, but the boy also pretends to be incredibly hurt, sighing and wiping invisible tears out of his eyes, until in the end Zitao gives in and lets out a muttered, “Ok, I like Chanyeol-ge too,” Chanyeol’s sign of victory doesn’t last for long, “but I like Baekhyun-ge the best!”
“Where is Cookie?” Chanyeol asks as he rolls on his stomach, careful not to wake Zitao from his light slumber. Baekhyun stops playing to cast a quick glance to the room.
“Don’t know… Cookie? Cookie? Come here baby!”
When he’s not rewarded by the smooth padding of his little beagle, he sighs.
“We scared her before. She probably went to Biscuit to get some canine comfort. I will have to tell mom to apologise to Mrs. Kim. Again.”
Chanyeol bites his lips, and Baekhyun prepares himself to the umpteenth rebuke. Biscuit is Jongdae’s beagle, and Cookie, Baekhyun’s beagle, is its best friends. Since the famous fight, more than four months ago now, the two dogs have been depressed and miserable, just like their two owners.
Chanyeol chooses his word carefully, eyes spying Baekhyun’s reaction as if he’s scared to trigger some kind of emotional outburst.
“Don’t you think this whole mess has lasted too much, Baekhyun? It’s been so long and everyone is unhappy. Jongdae’s mom is unhappy, your mom is unhappy, hell, even my mom is unhappy. You were both absent at the end of summer barbecue, and your brothers spent all the time complaining to my sister about how you two are some stubborn brats.”
Baekhyun is the only stubborn brat who refuses to listen, but Jongdae didn’t tell them that it was Baekhyun’s fault if they weren’t talking anymore. Jongdae didn’t rat on him.
“And look, even your dogs are gloomy because of these things. Biscuits howls at the moon because it can’t see Cookie and I can’t fucking sleep. And think of me, my best friends haven’t been on talking terms for months and no one wants to tell me what the fuck is happening…”
Baekhyun loses a life, and pauses the game to properly growl at Chanyeol, “I don’t care if you’re all upset. Our parents, the dog, even you, Chanyeol. I don’t care if it’s frustrating because it hardly is your business and-”
“But you’re upset too. You and Jongdae are the ones who’re suffering the most. And I don’t even know why, Baekhyun. Why do you despise him so much? What did he do, Jongdae, the kindest should of the world Kim Jongdae, what could he have ever done to make you so angry?”
He stubbornly chooses to eat the last sandwich, ignoring Chanyeol’s words.
“You said you wanted to make up with him, then why aren’t you doing anything?”
“Listen, Chanyeol, I-”
He doesn’t realise they’re shouting until he hears Zitao’s first sob. The child has just woken up and he’s looking at them with frightened eyes. Baekhyun feels the primal urge to throw Chanyeol out and never hear from him again until he kneels and beg for forgiveness for making Zitao cry. The doorbell rings, and with a warning glare towards Chanyeol, who’s already hugging Zitao to calm him, he jumps down the stairs, cracking a bone when he lands on the carpet, and limps through the hallway.
It’s Jongdae. His face is bright pink and his eyes are guilty. He brings with himself a recalcitrant Cookie and Baekhyun can hear Biscuit growling from Jongdae’s garden.
“She was hiding under my bed,” says Jongdae contritely, “and I didn’t want your mom to come and apologise, again.”
Baekhyun feels his face heating. He thought Jongdae was at his afternoon lesson, but turns out he had been in his room all the time. His window is right in front of Baekhyun’s, and if he was keeping it open… He knows he shouldn’t do it, but the temptation is too strong. He checks and, as expected, Jongdae’s window is open and Baekhyun’s window has been ajar all this time, and the chances that Jongdae didn’t hear Chanyeol’s and Baekhyun’s argument is close to zero. Also, he totally saw Baekhyun looking at his window and making two and two in front of his eyes, so Baekhyun can now be sure of one thing: Jongdae knows that Baekhyun knows that Jongdae has heard everything.
He also realises that Jongdae is still holding Cookie, and takes the dog in his arms, shivering at the electric zing of energy that runs through his skin when their hands meet halfway. Swallowing his own nervousness, he puts Cookie on the ground, but as soon as he lets her go, the beagle tries to run towards Jongdae’s house again and Baekhyun has to throw her inside. He closes the door on her pathetic wail, and that leaves him alone with Jongdae.
It’s always been easy between them, no scripts, no complex formalities, no clumsiness. Even when they first started dating or having sex, fumbling like the eager and confused teenagers they still are, things just happened to fall in the right place. The distracting curve of Jongdae’s affectionate smile has always been enough for Baekhyun. Now he can only watch powerless as Jongdae struggles to breath in his presence, unable to climb over the wall of silence he’s forced himself to build last summer.
Breath catches in his throat. “You’re wearing one of my shirts, again,” he accuses.
Jongdae lets out a weak, self-deprecatory laugh. “I have a lot of your shirts in my closet. Most of the shirts in my closet are yours, to be honest. Mine are all in those boxes in your garage.”
Right, the boxes. “I can take the key for you, if you want your stuff back. I told Chanyeol to tell you to come to take it anytime-”
“Thank you,” says Jongdae, the subtle hint of anger dirtying his voice putting Baekhyun on the edge, “but I’ll pass.”
Baekhyun knows he’s just taken a foul step and he’s on the verge of falling, but doesn’t understand why he’s so scared. He’s the one who’s angry, he’s been angry at Jongdae for more than one hundred and twenty days, which is more than he’s ever been angry with anyone in his life, but all this time Jongdae never showed any sign to be also angry at Baekhyun, until now.
“Why are you mad at me now? Do you even have any right?”
Jongdae scoffs, “Unbelievable, Baek, you’re really unbelievable.”
There’s something dangerous, a shadow in Jongdae’s eyes, and Baekhyun takes a step backward only to have Jongdae stepping forward, caging Baekhyun against the entrance of his own house.
“You’re the one who cut off all the contacts. You never answered my calls after I came back, you refused to see me or talk with me, you never gave me the possibility to give you a fucking explanation. And you’re hurting, everyone can see it. I can see it better than everyone else, and it hurts even more because you won’t give me the possibility to make things right and make you feel better.”
Yes, he’s hurting. He’s always been so used to run into Jongdae’s embrace for comfort whenever something bad happened, and now that he can’t he doesn’t how to cope. It hurts so much, but isn’t it Jongdae’s fault? What right does he have to step into Baekhyun’s life, despite any attempt from the latter to keep him away, and give him his good for nothing life lessons that no one asked for? All the good intentions, all the time spent wondering if it was time to eat his pride and go to beg for Jongdae’s attention, an explanation, anything, vanishes like smoke in Baekhyun’s fist. Shouldn’t this be easier to deal with now that is not sick? Or maybe he needs to be under heavy meds to be able to gather the courage to talk to Jongdae and not have a heart attack whilst doing it? For now, the instinct is to kick Jongdae so hard he’ll get permanent bruises.
“Chanyeol told me,” continues Jongdae, “that you’re always nervous, ready to snap for the tiniest things. He told me that you’ve been driving yourself mad with extra projects, and now with the babysitting club, and that you’ve not been eating properly. Everyone is worried for you.”
Break, Baekhyun is going to break. Ok, this may not be his best moment, he can admit it. But what else was Jongdae expecting? He fucking left for summer camp after that little show with Kim Joonmyeon and he didn’t even bother to tell Baekhyun anything about what had happened at the pool, and now he acts like he’s worried about him?
“Fuck you,” he answers, not even recognizing himself in the breathy, high pitched voice that pronounces the words, “Fuck you,” he repeats, realising only then that he’s about to burst in tears.
Jongdae hugs him.
The first reaction is surprise, but after the first moment, he throws himself back into Jongdae’s arms, against the familiar solidity of a body that Baekhyun has learnt to know since he was a toddler. He hears Cookie rasping against the door from inside, willing to get out, the loud sounds of shoots coming from the television upstairs and the engine of a car passing-by, so the world hasn’t stopped spinning, but why does it feel like it has? Jongdae holds tighter until Baekhyun can hide his head in his neck and sob, only once, and it’s Jongdae, you know? He has that thing that makes Baekhyun feel better just because he’s Jongdae.
He breathes one more time, Jongdae’s scent filling his lungs, and then he lets go.
“Okay,” he says, pushing his best friend turned boyfriend turned he-doesn’t-know-what-yet away. “Okay, I got this. Sorry, I got this. I’m alright.”
Jongdae steps back and bites his lips. His eyes are softer now, somewhat hesitant. There’s so much longing, like he wants Baekhyun back in his grasp. There’s also distress and pain, and Baekhyun feels an idiot because five minutes ago he wanted nothing more than to wound Jongdae, damage him the same way Baekhyun feels, and now he’s aching to comfort him.
Fuck Jongdae for coming here, fuck Jongdae for hugging him, fuck Jongdae for being everything Baekhyun still wants and needs. Fuck Jongdae for being able to break Baekhyun’s defences in five minutes of tongue-tied chat in the driveway of Baekhyun’s house, with Chanyeol ninety-five percent eavesdropping on them from the ajar window of Baekhyun’s bedroom.
“Do you want to talk about it?” asks Jongdae, and Baekhyun is still catching his breath and swallowing his pathetic, weak tears. His face must be so red.
“No,” he answers in the end. Jongdae’s face falls, and for a moment he looks really tiny in his snapback and Baekhyun’s red shirt.
“I want to talk with you,” he’s quick to assure, “but not now. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m still very mad at you, but you’re right. I haven’t been good the past few months, and I deserve an explanation as much as you deserve an opportunity to give me one.”
Jongdae nods, and Baekhyun nods, and they’re two self-conscious teenagers staring at each other.
Jongdae opens his mouth to say something else, but Baekhyun stops him.
“Go away, Kim Jongdae, I haven’t forgiven you yet.”
Jongdae scoffs and jumps over the fence right into his own garden. He doesn’t say goodbye, but Baekhyun doesn’t need to hear him saying it. After four months of struggling, it finally feels like the missing pieces of his life are finally starting to resurface from the deep waters. It’s not the end, but it feels closer to the air, he just needs another stroke or two to emerge. He really hopes Jongdae has a fucking flawless excuse for all the Kim Joonmyeon kiss shit he put Baekhyun through.
He gives a cookie to Cookie, pats her head when she wags her tail at the sight of the treat, and comes back in his bedroom.
Chanyeol’s ears are pink and he’s smiling so hard his face is going to break.
“So, were you trying to fabricate the handle or did you meet someone interesting in the garden?”
Zitao is eating chips, propped against the bed. When he meets Baekhyun’s eyes, he gesture to Chanyeol and then to his ears. Not that Baekhyun needed any confirmation to know that his best friend was snooping around.
“I was playing with Cookie,” he lies shamelessly, shrugging.
“Since when Cookie wears our old middle school choir camp shirt? You know, the red one you were looking for two weeks ago but you couldn’t find it and then you remembered then it probably was still at Jo-”
“Chanyeol?”
“Yes?”
He covers Zitao’s ears before he talks, making sure that the kid can’t hear his following words.
“Shut the fuck up, asshole.”
→ PART 3
Sometimes the entire thing just catches up to Baekhyun, and with the entire thing he means, really, the entire thing. It’s like this Wednesday, when he waltzes out of his Economics class to realise that his daily schedule is packed. He’s not exactly looking forward to the two hours of swimming practice that await him in the pool, but his teammates have been kind enough to move the rehearsals during the lunch break just for him, because he has too many things to do during the rest of the day. It wouldn’t exactly be responsible on his part to stand them up. Lu Han would be more than happy to strangle him with his goggles if he misses one time too many.
So he changes into his swimming trunks and drowns the angry voices in his head with lap after lap after lap, concentrating on keeping his breath steady and his limbs swift and precise to better fend the water, only asking himself in the darkest, more secluded corner of his mind, when even this became a chore to him. He used to like swimming so much, because it helped him keeping everything else at bay, it used to keep him sane.
He mindlessly beats Lu Han’s 150m free style record, and only half-heartedly listens to the upperclassman’s piercing screeches of how he intends to drown Baekhyun in the showers. He has to jump into his dried clothes as soon as he can, hoping he can reach the Student Council before the meeting starts.
“Hey, Lu Han-hyung,” he only answers, managing to muster one smirk of his own between putting on his shirt and shaking his head to dry his hair like a dog, spraying water all over a hissing Sungjong, “you really should’ve drowned me in the shower, because I don’t think you can catch up to me in the pool.”
He leaves as Sunggyu and Kikwang hold Lu Han back from head butting him, more worried about his duties as Class President than about Lu Han’s mammoth-sized ego. The meeting is just a breath short from starting when he breezes inside the room, gaining some disapproving glances from seniors who’s been there for five fucking minutes already because they probably have more free time in a day than he’s ever had in the last four years. Yixing, that kind soul, has saved him a seat, and as Kim Joonmyeon, of all people, opens the reunion, Baekhyun takes a moment to lean his head against Yixing’s shoulder and take a deep breath.
Joonmyeon corners him after the meeting, when everybody is packing up to go home and Baekhyun is observing his phone with yielding eyes. He’s supposed to meet Kyungsoo at Jongin’s house in less than twenty minutes, but his mind is caressing the possibility to call Chanyeol and ask him to cover his shift. He can make it up to his best friend by doing yet another whole afternoon with Jongdae, which would make everyone but him pleased, since Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had been all but discrete about their whole pushing Baekhyun with Jongdae thing. A whole five hours with Jongdae is the closest to hell for Baekhyun right now, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to go through this day without throwing up, or fainting, so he presses the dial key, and waits.
Chanyeol doesn’t answer, and in a fit of desperation he calls Kyungsoo, remembering after a few empty rings that the other student’s Home Economics class ended about five minutes ago, and Kyungsoo is probably running towards Jongin’s house, like Baekhyun should be doing too right now.
A tap on his shoulder interrupts a long, drawn-out sigh. He turns around, wishing he hadn’t done it when he faces a smiling Kim Joonmyeon, and his perfect, infuriating face.
“Hey Baekhyun, are you alright?” Always polite, always endearing, always ready to stab you in your back by kissing your boyfriend near the pool at the choir party. He forces a tight smile on himself, not knowing what else to do. It’s not like Joonmyeon knew about them, they had been keeping it a secret from everyone else except, well, Chanyeol.
“Yes, just a little out of it. I came right from practice and I’m,” he makes a show of checking the time on his phone, “already shamefully late for my part time job.”
It comes out like he wants to get rid of Joonmyeon, but it’s the truth. If he runs, he can still partially justify his lateness to Mrs. Kim. At least, he thinks, Kyungsoo will be there on time. He smiles apologetically at Joonmyeon, but the other boy stops him from leaving, blocking the way.
“Sorry, it’ll just take a second. I wanted to ask you if you’ve heard from Jongdae lately.”
Ah, there it comes, the knife on his back, again. “Jongdae?”
“Yes, Kim Jongdae, he’s still your best friend, right?”
He doesn’t know what to answer. No, thanks to you? Who are you talking about? Friend? What friend? That two-timing traitor? He stands there lost, for a moment, not knowing what to say. He’s never thought about it, because he’d always assumed that Joonmyeon somewhat knew about them, that Jongdae had at least bothered to tell him about his and Baekhyun’s past history. But Joonmyeon knows nothing. If the absent look on his face is anything to go by, Joonmyeon has heard from Jongdae even less than Baekhyun. Which is ridiculous, because Baekhyun has kept his Jongdae-related interactions at a minimum.
“Baekhyun, are you alright? You’re really pale.”
He shakes his head, murmuring a weak, “Don’t worry, I’m just…” He makes a vague gesture with his hands that could mean anything and nothing, “a little out of it,” he concludes. “I’m sorry, Joonmyeon-ssi, I haven’t heard from Jongdae lately.”
Joonmyeon looks even more dumbfounded, if possible. “Really? I thought… But Baekhyun, take care of yourself. I don’t think you should go to the part time job, right now. Or at least,” he bites his lip, “let me give you a lift. You look like you’re going to die on the streets if I let you go alone.”
Baekhyun’s first instinct is to refuse, driven by a sullen, instinctive and probably unmotivated hatred towards Joonmyeon. Instead he asks him to wait just a moment and he tries to call Chanyeol, again, to no avail. His second call to Kyungsoo also goes unnoticed, and Baekhyun knows they’ll give him shit for this later if he brings himself to Jongin’s house in this shape. He knows that Kyungsoo will hide his worry under the pretence of hollow death threats and Chanyeol will look at Baekhyun like he’s made of glass, ready to disappear at the slightest gust of wind. They’re his friends and they won’t care if he didn’t warn them, if you’re sick you’re sick, Byun Baekhyun, says a presumptuous voice that sounds a lot like Kyungsoo in his head, but he hasn’t it in his heart, to stood the junior up like this.
He could call Jongdae, but he won’t do it. He can’t do it, not with Joonmyeon looking at him expectantly.
“Ok,” he gives up, “can you drive me to this address?”
“You look like a dead man walking.”
Oh, Kyungsoo, little honest thing.
“Thank you Joonmyeon-hyung, you can go.”
“Take care.”
Kyungsoo is onto him as soon as he steps foot on the house, weaving his phone like a lethal weapon and mercilessly point to the three missed calls from Baekhyun. “So, you tried to call me to tell me you couldn’t come because you were shit,” he starts, but Baekhyun cuts him off as he enters the living room, looking around to greet Jongin but finding no one.
“I wasn’t going to tell you I couldn’t come, just warning you I would’ve been a little late,” he tries to defend himself, but Kyungsoo jabs at his chest, right where his heart is, with a short, cute, cruel finger.
“Shut up! I also called Chanyeol, and he says you called him too. But none of us answered, and you came here all the same even if you’re not feeling well.”
Baekhyun nods weakly. “Jongin?” he asks, in a vain and foolish attempt to distract Kyungsoo.
“Hiding, of course. He heard the car and thought it would’ve been fun to go MIA. That brat.”
Baekhyun snickers at Kyungsoo’s fuming face, “It’s because you suck at hide and seek. He needed me to come and save him from the boredom of a whole afternoon spent in your company.”
“Excuse me?”
“Admit it, Kyungie, you suck. And you cheat.”
It’s with great satisfaction that Baekhyun sees Kyungsoo finally caving in and massaging his forehead with nervous fingers. “Please don’t remind me again. When I got here he was still pouting about last week. I have the distinct impression he spent the whole week trying to figure it out a bomb-proof hiding place just to punish me because I tried to cheat last time.”
Do Kyungsoo. He’s able to inspire terror in the mightiest minds, sometimes even in Baekhyun’s mind, if he has to be completely honest with himself, but fails to tame Kim Jongin, princess extraordinaire.
“And that’s why you need me here,” he comments, triumphant, “you know, I’m a former hide-and-seek genius.” To emphasize his words, he shakes his head to the side and let his fringe, still fluffy and frizzy from chlorine and standard, cheap shampoo, fall over his face in what should be a diva move. Instead, the world spins around him like a colourful windmill at the mercy of a storm. Baekhyun sees the floor getting nearer and neared, and barely realises that he’s stranded on the couch instead, Kyungsoo’s hold on his wrist an anchor keeping him a breath away from shipwrecking.
“You stupid, stupid boy! Stay there,” he orders, actually growling when Baekhyun tries to get up only to be pushed on the couch again. “Stay. There.”
He comes back for a glass of water that Baekhyun accepts with a nod.
“What happens into your silly head, I would really like to know,” grumbles Kyungsoo, sweeping Baekhyun’s matted hair from his forehead to check if he has a fever. Colour drains from his face and his eyes widen even more than usual, pupil blown up in fear. “I’m calling Chanyeol,” he announces.
Baekhyun whines, “He won’t answer. Probably switched off the ringtone, the bastard.”
“He’ll answer to me,” snarls Kyungsoo, and Chanyeol really does. Sure, he’ll answer when it comes to his new master but not to his best friend. Baekhyun hears only fragments of their hushed conversation, Kyungsoo threatening Chanyeol to move his sorry ass and come here right now to pick up your sorry excuse of a best friend. It’s not difficult to imagine Chanyeol springing from the bed and jumping right into the car at the excruciating pain that Kyungsoo’s voice foreshadows.
“He’s coming,” Kyungsoo only states, as he puts away his phone and slides down on the couch next to Baekhyun’s head. “With Jongdae,” he adds, making Baekhyun shudder. Great, just what he needed.
“Why would he come too?” he inquires, trying not to sound too sharp and failing miserably. Everything is piercing and acuminate right now, and dealing with the emotional wreckage he’s learnt to associate with Kim Jongdae will just be the cherry on top in his current condition.
“He was with Chanyeol,” is the answer. Baekhyun jolts, but it’s not a surprise. Now that he and Jongdae are a mess, the two of them will have to hang out only when Baekhyun is not around. He misses their outings. He misses how things were before. He misses, between lots of other things, a past when Jongdae actually checked his schedule, forcing him to give up on unnecessary things when it was too packed. He misses a time when breathing was easier.
“You should make up with him, maybe.”
“We already talked about this and I thought we had agreed you should mind your own business.”
Kyungsoo gives him the face, the one who keeps especially for when Baekhyun is being impossible. The last face Baekhyun saw before he and Kyungsoo fell from the second floor in a waterfall of broken glass, yes, that face.
“It’s not that I’m worried about you, but I’m worried about you.”
“Oh, I’m flattered, I must look beyond terrible if even yo-”
“Jongdae is the only person who likes you,” Kyungsoo cuts him short, and Baekhyun’s eyes widen in a silly stupor. “No, wait, I mean… A lot of people like you, even though you’re obnoxious and annoying and it’ll forever be out of my reach how you’re still alive when you’re so good at making people mad. But very few people like like you. You’re kinda,” Kyungsoo looks around himself, desperately trying to grasp a word that won’t insult Baekhyun more than he already is and delivers his thoughts at the same time, “unattainable. You’re unattainable. You flirt with everyone, you exchange jokes with everyone, but at the same time I think I’ve never seen someone hugging you, or touching your hand, or…”
“I don’t like physical contact,” tries to explain Baekhyun, feeling frustrated. He doesn’t really get where Kyungsoo wants to end up. This whole conversation seems quite pointless to him.
“Yes, you don’t. You also don’t like people getting close to you, even if you want to get closer to them. I don’t think you are able to realise on your own the exact moment you break someone else’s heart, Baekhyun, but you did it in the past, and you can still do it. You make people feel like they overstepped their boundaries when they get too close to you, and it’s ridiculous, because you’re the king of crossing other people’s lines in the most inappropriate way. Half of our class had a crush on you for the longest time, but they never tried anything because you seemed like the kind of boy who wouldn’t let them get past the first word of their confession before flat out refusing them.”
Baekhyun doesn’t even fight Kyungsoo’s accusations. It’s true, after all.
“I had a boyfriend,” he only admits, feeling the weight of Jongdae’s head on his shoulder, a memory of the long winter afternoons spent on Chanyeol’s bed doing their homework together, his legs intertwined with Chanyeol’s and his fingers laced with Jongdae’s. “And a best friend. It’s not that I didn’t want new friends, but there are reserved seats in my life. Do you think it’s childish?”
Kyungsoo shakes his head, and Baekhyun unconsciously slides closer to him. It’s strange being here, talking with Kyungsoo about things that matter. His life has always been about Jongdae and Chanyeol and he kind of missed the crucial moment when Kyungsoo entered the equation.
“When did we become friends, Kyungsoo?”
He hesitates to answer, like he isn’t sure how Baekhyun will react at his next words.
“I think… I’ve been friends with Chanyeol since day one, Baekhyun, but you’ve always been a mystery to me. But then, suddenly, when this year began, you were different. Unsure, clingier, you seemed another person.”
Baekhyun has never been good at dealing with serious chats, and this one is not different.
“Do you think I only let you be my friend because I missed Jongdae?” he asks, in a tiny voice, like a kid who doesn’t want to be reprimanded.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was a good thing. It was time for you to let go of Jongdae’s hand and start to broaden your horizons. You let me in because you needed someone, but Baekhyun, I’ll never be enough to fill the hole that Jongdae left. And you’re clearly not happy without him.”
Now, that’s the discover of the century, Baekhyun being unhappy without Jongdae. He wonders where Kyungsoo got this unbelievable idea from… Baekhyun has never been so miserable in his life. His dog knows, the teachers know, detestable Lu Han knows, even the stones know it by now. Thank you for the brilliant analysis, captain obvious, is what he wants to say, but Kyungsoo stops him before he can talk.
“No, let me finish,” he says, covering his mouth, his clammy fingers the only hint that he’s as nervous as Baekhyun, “you’re as pleasant as an axe in the back, ok? But at least when I met you there was, I don’t know, a spark. I even thought you were kinda cute, until you opened that big mouth of yours and ruined everything, but even when you were sticking salt into my wounds, you always managed to get away with it because of your puppy eyes, or your smile, or your silly laugh. But lately you’re all bitterness and no fun. Look, you’re so pathetic that even I’m feeling bad for you, do you get my point?”
Baekhyun finally, finally, wakes up from his torpor and bites Kyungsoo’s hand. He gets his hair pulled on in retaliation.
“What I meant to say is that whatever you had with Jongdae, better make it right, or I’ll dump your sorry ass on the ground and stomp on your kidney next time you feel sick during the job, alright?”
Ok, this is better, The almost nice Kyungsoo was starting to scare Baekhyun with his intense questions, the serious, big eyes and his lithe, solid body that smells like orange and Jongin’s milk tea for babies. He files Kyungsoo’s words away, promising himself to feel bad about it when he won’t feel bad about everything else.
“So, for a few moments you had a thing for me, right?”
He says it with a smirk, only wanting to lighten up the suffocating atmosphere with a silly joke, but Kyungsoo looks murderous and lost and his eyes are filled with some kind of raw emotion and Baekhyun doesn’t know what to do. Then, Kyungsoo scoots closer and hugs him ad time breaks, the pieces falling away from Baekhyun’s grasp.
“What?” he babbles, trying to get a grip on himself but he’s pinned on the spot by Kyungsoo’s warmth and his freaking orange and tea soap, and Kyungsoo is a bit like Chanyeol and Jongdae, the world can keep spinning but he’s here. He’s got Baekhyun.
Kyungsoo chuckles low in his throat, sticks his nose in Baekhyun’s hair with tenderness and talks right in his ear, “Oh, I was right! When I first met you, I totally thought you would’ve been cute and very huggable, if only you hadn’t been such an ass. But now that you’re too tired to let your painful personality emerge, you’re quite likeable.”
Likeable? Baekhyun can’t believe it! Where did his upper hand go? He’s the one who makes Kyungsoo flushed and bothered, not the opposite. This is why he hates physical contact, he thinks, as an inner alarm rings in his ear, telling him that something is wrong. Kyungsoo is already gone past his barriers, right inside his personal space, and Baekhyun can do little about it. He trashes, but it’s difficult to sneak out of Kyungsoo’s wrestler hold, even on his best days.
“I want back the grumpy Kyungsoo who hates me,” he cries, “let me go Kyungsoo, LETMEGO!”
He’s too weak to fight back, and when Kyungsoo realises his embarrassment he hugs even tighter. “It took me two years, but thank to this moment of weakness, I finally found out the most effective weapon against you: warm hugs.”
“Let me go!” Baekhyun squawks, kicking and flailing.
That’s when Chanyeol and Jongdae burst in, almost expecting the two of them to have died a painful death, judging by the shouts.
There’s this long moment of discomfort where Jongdae looks like he wants to choke Kyungsoo and Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun like he is the embodiment of treason. Baekhyun imagines how they must look like, with their faces red, sweaty and panting, Kyungsoo draped all over him with his surprisingly strong arms all tight around Baekhyun’s body…
“What are you waiting for?” he yelps, “SAVE ME!”
“I’m not sure I want to know what’s happening here,” comments Chanyeol, as he helps a weak Baekhyun to stand up after Kyungsoo’s amused eyes and the heavy frown of a very displeased Kim Jongdae.
Kyungsoo shrugs and pats Baekhyun’s hair fondly, ignoring the mild look of disgust on Baekhyun’s face. “Just me finally taking revenge for every inappropriate butt squeeze in the past two years.”
“Wait until I’m better, I’m gonna make that vein in your forehead explode, Do Kyungsoo.”
Kyungsoo promptly ignores Baekhyun’s warnings, turning towards Chanyeol with a heavy look on his face. “Bring him home. Make sure he drinks and he must rest. Tie him to the bed if necessary.”
“Tie me? That’s kinky, Soo.”
“Shut up Baek,” butts in Jongdae. He’s been silent until now, looking at Baekhyun with something akin to ache in his eyes. Jongdae used to be the person Baekhyun called when he was sick, the few times Jongdae himself had failed in avoiding Baekhyun getting sick. Jongdae used to be the exception to the no hugs rule, a rule that not even Chanyeol or Baekhyun’s brother were allowed to break. Sure, they did it anyway, but Jongdae’s hugs were the only ones Baekhyun didn’t welcome with a biting answer, and a more painful bite on any available appendage. Jongdae used to be the first on Baekhyun’s list, together with Chanyeol, but now there’s Kyungsoo too. Half of Baekhyun’s world crumbled away when the thing with Jongdae happened, but maybe, as Kyungsoo pointed out, losing one of his coordinates wasn’t so bad if he gave him the chance to find new ones.
As Chanyeol brings his backpack inside the car and Kyungsoo helps him to tie his coat, Baekhyun evades Jongdae’s eyes and excludes from his mind Kyungsoo’s tired complains about probably taking the next three hours to find Jongin’s new hiding spot. Only when he hears Jongdae’s name he snaps back into reality. Kyungsoo catches his sudden display of attention, and leers. “I was just saying that this is the first time I get to spend this much time alone with Jongdae. We’ve never been in the same babysitting turn.”
Jongdae doesn’t look too happy about it, who knows why. Baekhyun used to talk about Kyungsoo a lot back during his first year, and Jongdae used to be jealous. It’s almost funny, looking how things turned out, that Jongdae was jealous of Do Kyungsoo. Maybe the antipathy stayed, even if Baekhyun and Jongdae are not together anymore - the usual fit of pain in Baekhyun’s stomach greets the last thought - and he has close to no reason to hold a grudge on the shorter boy. Still, who knows what Kyungsoo could tell Jongdae in this two hours they have to spend together.
When Chanyeol opens the door for him, Baekhyun turns towards Kyungsoo and whispers, “Don’t be a busybody, Kyungsoo-yah.”
“I do what I want, Baek,” is the equally low answer, and he scoffs.
“The loft,” he answers, and he’s not surprised when Kyungsoo looks at him like he’s mad.
“Better bring him home now, Chanyeol, he’s starting to sound incoherent.”
“Where would you hide if you were Jongin? Little children can’t reach high places, so they always hide somewhere low, like under the bed, or behind the couch. But Jongin is a hide-and-seek master, so he’s probably hiding in some high place. Try the loft or the last shelves of the bedroom closets.”
“I suppose it makes sense.”
“It’s only because you stayed with me while I wasn’t feeling well. Tomorrow I’m still going to make you so angry you’ll auto-combust. And don’t say anything strange to Jongdae. Or I’ll have to punish you.”
Kyungsoo pats his back a little too strongly, laughing when Baekhyun wavers with the force. Of the strike. “If you’re able to attend school tomorrow, and I’m not so sure of it, especially if you keep being this careless, Byun. But wait, how would you know that thing about kids and hiding places?”
“Yes, how would he know?” says Jongdae, and there’s the shadow of a reluctant smile on his face. Chanyeol puts one of his long tentacles around Baekhyun’s shoulder. “Did you know, Soo? This kid here, he says, tightening his hold until it turns into a hug that makes Baekhyun squirm helplessly, “actually was a hide-and-seek genius, when we were young.”
“Drive me home and shut up, Yeol. AND LET ME GO!”
The ride back home is painfully silent and this too is a first for them. It was never unpleasant with Chanyeol, the way it never used to be unpleasant with Jongdae.
Chanyeol breaks the silence first. “You’re an idiot, Baek. Next time, even if we don’t answer, go back home. Your mom is gonna kill me if you die because I was too busy playing Halo with Jongdae to answer your calls.”
“Well, aren’t you going to ask?” he says, and Chanyeol drops the façade, halts at the stop and turns to take in all of Baekhyun’s pale complexion and shivering form. He has a wolfish scowl on his face, that kind that isn’t a mere scowl but a repressed growl, and Baekhyun has known Park Chanyeol long enough to be acutely aware of his poisonous anger.
“What was that little show with Soo?” he asks, and his fingers tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white and breathe itching.
“What do you think we were doing, Yeol? And why would it matter to you?” Chanyeol reddens, and Baekhyun knows he has the upper hand, again. “What’s your business with Soo?”
Chanyeol jolts at the use of the nickname, it’s the first time Baekhyun used it, after all, and if his best friend wasn’t so angry and lost, Baekhyun would laugh at him.
“You know what… You know, Soo. And I. The thing.”
“So there actually is a thing. And you didn’t tell me. Go on, Chanyeol, give me details, I need to work out a plan to make Kyungsoo explode tomorrow.”
His eyes are playful and Chanyeol lounges to hit him because he doesn’t like when Baekhyun doesn’t take him seriously. There’s relief in Chanyeol’s punch, disguised as childish jealousy, but maybe Chanyeol has forgotten that Baekhyun is still sick, and the blow make him bounce despite the seatbelt.
“Hey, careful with that!”
“Ohmygod, Baekhyun, I’m so sorry, are you alright?”
“You almost dislocated my shoulder. Geez, do you really believe I’d have something going on with Kyungsoo? You’re the only one who has something going on with Kyungsoo behind everyone’s back,” he states.
“We don’t have anything. Yet,” Chanyeol adds, “but I’m planning to, you know, be a brave man.”
Oh, Chanyeol will need more than bravery to deal with Kyungsoo. A great dose of sexual prowess, because heaven knows if that kid is repressed, lot of patience, puppy-like loyalty… Oh, yes, they’ll make it work. They’ll be perfect together.
“Suicide requires more than courage, Chanyeol. But you’ll forever be remembered as the boy who sacrificed himself to keep Kyungsoo’s evil paws far away from any other poor fellow who could happen to like him.”
Chanyeol raises his hand, threatening to hit him again, “Don’t be an ass, Byun Baekhyun.”
They arrive at home, and Chanyeol’s mom howls at her son for taking the car when she needed it, but she pales at the sight of Baekhyun. After a quick enquiry about his mom’s whereabouts, the boy is hushed inside Chanyeol’s room, and Mrs. Park only leaves after her son promises he’ll take care of Baekhyunnie like they’re true brothers.
They lie there, Baekhyun on the bed and Chanyeol on the floor, listening to low, soothing music from Chanyeol’s CDs collection, until Chanyeol takes his breath and his courage, and Baekhyun braces himself for the incoming storm.
“Baek?” asks Chanyeol, and Baekhyun merely turn towards him, waiting for Chanyeol to give a name to the lingering question hanging around them. “There’s really nothing between you and Kyungsoo, right?”
There is nothing. Right? Honestly, he doesn’t know.
“It’s only been the three of us, and I’ve never let anyone else in, but Kyungsoo… Kyungsoo made in into the group, I guess, and to be honest I don’t know whether it’s because I needed someone else after me and Jongdae, yeah, that… or if it’s just him. But you don’t have to worry, Chanyeol, there’s nothing between me and Kyungsoo.”
He thinks of Kyungsoo’s warmth around him, his fingers on Baekhyun’s sweaty forehead, Kyungsoo looking inside Baekhyun’s eyes without fear of what he could find inside them. He’s lying, there’s something between him and Do Kyungsoo, but maybe not what Chanyeol fears.
“When I knew him, Kyungsoo was…”
“Was what, Chanyeol?”
“Kyungsoo liked you,” says Chanyeol, and this time Baekhyun can’t avoid his eyes, boring holes in Baekhyun’s face in a quest for some universal truth. But Kyungsoo, liking him? Kyungsoo hated Baekhyun and his guts and every breath he took.
“When you were discarded from the hospital, I went to talk to him. he had just discovered you had someone else,” Jongdae, running through the hospital aisle to throw his limbs around Baekhyun’s neck and whisper sweet threats into his hair if he dared to do it again. Kyungsoo was there with him, looking out of the window, his jaw set and tense.
“He was so sad,” goes on Chanyeol. “I think Kyungsoo always liked you, but…”
“But I never let him in,” concludes Baekhyun, and for a moment he feels a dull throb in his chest. Regret, maybe. He was the one who threw himself at Kyungsoo, day after day after day, teasing him and sitting on his desk, initiating conversations, patting his butt and disregarding any attempt of pulling out from the other boy.
I don’t think you are able to realise on your own the exact moment you break someone else’s heart, Baekhyun, but you did it in the past, and you can still do it. You make people feel like they overstepped their boundaries when they get too close to you, and it’s ridiculous because you’re the king of crossing other people’s lines in the most inappropriate way.
“I just, you know me, Chanyeol. I had Jongdae. I could’ve never…”
“Yes,” Chanyeol’s voice is low, so low, “but now you don’t have Jongdae anymore and… I just, I don’t think you know how I felt, two years ago. It’s always been the three of us, Baekhyun, but suddenly one day it wasn’t and you and Jongdae had something else, something I wasn’t allowed to set foot in. You kinda stole my best friend from me, Baek. Now that thing you two used to have is falling apart, and I’m not even part of it, but you’ll still be going to drag me down with you, aren’t you?”
“Wait, you liked Jongdae?” he asks, and he doesn’t know why but it comes out as a squeal, choked and afraid, and something gets stuck in his throat. Chanyeol is at his side before he can gets up on his own, cradling him into his arms. Baekhyun doesn’t fight his grasp.
“Silly Baekhyun, you’re so silly,” he says, fingers caressing Baekhyun’s cheek, “I liked you both. Jongdae stole me from you as much as you stole him from me.”
“But we didn’t want, we…” he panics, trying to convey words that won’t come out of his chapped lips, trapped in his ribcage like fluttering, silent goldfinches.
“I know, I know. But Kyungsoo liked you and you and Jongdae are not together anymore, and I really, really like Kyungsoo, Baek.”
They’re so stupid, two kids trying to talk in half-assed, disconnected sentences, too afraid to set things straight because they’re threading on thin ice. Baekhyun has always been sure of two things in his life, Jongdae and Chanyeol. Now everything feels like it’s falling apart and he doesn’t know what to do.
“I like Kyungsoo,” he says, and Chanyeol freezes around him, his embrace turning too tight for a moment, “but he’s not Jongdae.”
They breathe in silence, again. There are no more songs in the CD, and Baekhyun wants to scream and rewind the times when everything was easier.
“What are you gonna do, then?” asks Chanyeol, a few minutes before Baekhyun falls asleep.
He pauses, shaking away the hands of sleep slowly pulling him in a dark pit long enough to open his eyes and look at the window of Jongdeok’s empty room, right in front of Chanyeol’s window. He’s careful not to let his eyes wander to the other window, so close and yet so far away, on the other side of the street. It’s been so long since he’s looked at Jongdae’s house without feeling empty. Four months without Jongdae, feels like an entire lifetime for Baekhyun.
“I think maybe it’s time to make up with Jongdae.”
Baekhyun received his first call to babysit little Huang Zitao during a Friday, his only free day from work. The mother in need was Mrs. Huang, a diplomatic working at the Chinese embassy, in a hurry because she had been called to fill in for a sick colleague at work during her free day. She had just picked up her little treasure from his martial arts weekly lesson when they had told her she was needed at a very important meeting. Hit by a sudden inspiration, she had called Baekhyun’s work number, assuring him that it was an emergency and she would’ve paid four times the ordinary fare. Ten minutes later, her shiny car stopped in Baekhyun’s driveway, and Zitao was left with Baekhyun.
Zitao, or Taozi, like Baekhyun calls him when he wants the kid to blush madly, is a cry-baby. He doesn’t speak good Korean, has very few friends in his class and almost everything scares him. Only child in a strict family, he lives his life between martial arts lessons, courtesy of his father, and private tutors paid by his mother, and maybe that’s why, the first time he visits, he falls in love with Baekhyun’s warm house and his majestic game post with six different consoles and the giant screen.
Zitao also falls in love with Baekhyun and his mischievous smile, and Baekhyun falls in love with Zitao’s broken Korean and his clinginess. They’re the perfect match.
That’s why, from that day onwards, Baekhyun welcomes Zitao in his house every Friday, de facto transforming his and Chanyeol’s gaming challenge Friday in his, Chanyeol’s and Zitao’s gaming challenge Friday.
“Left, left, left, go for it, go for it ge, gogogogo, victoryyyy!”
Chanyeol groans, dropping the controller on the floor while Zitao roars and Baekhyun complains, “Hey, be careful with that, my mom is not going to buy me another one if you break it! And neither is yours.”
“I don’t know why this little fellow keeps cheering for you when I’m obviously the cooler and better hyung, ouch!” he cries, when Zitao throws his own controller at him. he turns towards his best friend, “Why aren’t you scolding him too?”
Baekhyun laughs, ruffling Zitao’s hair until he purrs, like a kitty.
“Because his mom is willing to buy me another controller if he breaks it, unlike your mom would. And because he was defending my honour from your false and vile accusations!”
“Baekhyun-ge is the best,” nods Zitao, launching himself towards Baekhyun and stabbing him in the side with his nose. Baekhyun squawks and falls, managing to kick Chanyeol and frightening Cookie to death. The beagle dashes away howling.
“Ge, ge, sorry ge, I didn’t want to…”
Chanyeol and Baekhyun, still lying in a graceless pile of limbs on the floor, exchange a quick, alarmed look, and the taller boy quickly fills Zitao’s open mouth with a candy before the kid explodes in loud sobs. Zitao chokes a little around the sugary sweet, his eyes going wide, and flashes them a toothless, cheerful smile.
“Can I play with the car game?” he asks, and Baekhyun can almost count the stars in his hopeful eyes.
“Of course you can, kiddo. I’m going downstairs to make a sandwich for the three of us, don’t beat Chanyeol too hard, okay?”
Zitao beams and jumps on Chanyeol, who pretends to be smashed by an incredible weight. Baekhyun sends him a murderous glare and lowers to whisper in Chanyeol’s ear, “If you dare to win against him I’ll tell Kyungsoo of that time when you peeked at his junk in the bathroom and that you always think of his penis when you masturbate.”
Chanyeol’s reaction is gold, Baekhyun can even see his ears flapping in shame, “Byun Baekhyun, you wouldn’t dare…”
He runs away snickering before Chanyeol can snatch him back and squeeze his hips in retaliation.
When he comes back, Chanyeol has forgone the game to text someone, ninety-nine percent Kyungsoo, and Zitao is so concentrated on stealing cars for a mafia group that he doesn’t even look at the food. He eats mechanically, like a robot, shooting enemies between one bite and another.
“Do you think we should let him play GTA? Isn’t it a bit counter-educational?” wonders Chanyeol, “Maybe we should make him play games about world peace and plucking flowers and being nice to others…”
Baekhyun takes a generous bite of his sandwich, munching as he answers because he never cared about being polite with Chanyeol.
“First: I don’t have that kind of games, and you know it. Second: it’s Zitao we’re talking about, he doesn’t need any lessons on how to be a little princess, he’s already fabulous enough on his own.”
“Thanks, ge,” mumbles Zitao as he runs over a sniper with a yellow Camaro. Baekhyun takes the sandwich that, in the past few minutes, has been hitting Zitao’s nose, chin and cheeks from Zitao’s controller-free hand and stuffs it in his little mouth. The kid only opens wide and chews on the bread without detaching his eyes from the screen, not even when Baekhyun wipes his mouth with a tissue.
“Third,” concludes Baekhyun, thinking of his little Taozi, the baby brother he’s never had, always studying and training in martial arts in the big house that Baekhyun can only build in his mind through his own imagination and the aid of Zitao’s descriptions, “maybe it’s time to let this little fellow have some fun. Right, Taozi?”
Zitao nods and Baekhyun smiles at Chanyeol. He gets a punch in the shoulder and a friendly hug that makes him shiver in exchange. “I hate kids my ass, you really like this one.”
“Maybe I do,” he answers. “But Zitao likes me back too, and more than he likes you.”
“Don’t let it get to your head, he’s the only kid who’s ever liked you more than me. But I have to admit that I’m quite hurt, why won’t you like me, Taozi?”
“I only like Baekhyun-ge.”
Chanyeol’s disappointed face is epic, but the boy also pretends to be incredibly hurt, sighing and wiping invisible tears out of his eyes, until in the end Zitao gives in and lets out a muttered, “Ok, I like Chanyeol-ge too,” Chanyeol’s sign of victory doesn’t last for long, “but I like Baekhyun-ge the best!”
“Where is Cookie?” Chanyeol asks as he rolls on his stomach, careful not to wake Zitao from his light slumber. Baekhyun stops playing to cast a quick glance to the room.
“Don’t know… Cookie? Cookie? Come here baby!”
When he’s not rewarded by the smooth padding of his little beagle, he sighs.
“We scared her before. She probably went to Biscuit to get some canine comfort. I will have to tell mom to apologise to Mrs. Kim. Again.”
Chanyeol bites his lips, and Baekhyun prepares himself to the umpteenth rebuke. Biscuit is Jongdae’s beagle, and Cookie, Baekhyun’s beagle, is its best friends. Since the famous fight, more than four months ago now, the two dogs have been depressed and miserable, just like their two owners.
Chanyeol chooses his word carefully, eyes spying Baekhyun’s reaction as if he’s scared to trigger some kind of emotional outburst.
“Don’t you think this whole mess has lasted too much, Baekhyun? It’s been so long and everyone is unhappy. Jongdae’s mom is unhappy, your mom is unhappy, hell, even my mom is unhappy. You were both absent at the end of summer barbecue, and your brothers spent all the time complaining to my sister about how you two are some stubborn brats.”
Baekhyun is the only stubborn brat who refuses to listen, but Jongdae didn’t tell them that it was Baekhyun’s fault if they weren’t talking anymore. Jongdae didn’t rat on him.
“And look, even your dogs are gloomy because of these things. Biscuits howls at the moon because it can’t see Cookie and I can’t fucking sleep. And think of me, my best friends haven’t been on talking terms for months and no one wants to tell me what the fuck is happening…”
Baekhyun loses a life, and pauses the game to properly growl at Chanyeol, “I don’t care if you’re all upset. Our parents, the dog, even you, Chanyeol. I don’t care if it’s frustrating because it hardly is your business and-”
“But you’re upset too. You and Jongdae are the ones who’re suffering the most. And I don’t even know why, Baekhyun. Why do you despise him so much? What did he do, Jongdae, the kindest should of the world Kim Jongdae, what could he have ever done to make you so angry?”
He stubbornly chooses to eat the last sandwich, ignoring Chanyeol’s words.
“You said you wanted to make up with him, then why aren’t you doing anything?”
“Listen, Chanyeol, I-”
He doesn’t realise they’re shouting until he hears Zitao’s first sob. The child has just woken up and he’s looking at them with frightened eyes. Baekhyun feels the primal urge to throw Chanyeol out and never hear from him again until he kneels and beg for forgiveness for making Zitao cry. The doorbell rings, and with a warning glare towards Chanyeol, who’s already hugging Zitao to calm him, he jumps down the stairs, cracking a bone when he lands on the carpet, and limps through the hallway.
It’s Jongdae. His face is bright pink and his eyes are guilty. He brings with himself a recalcitrant Cookie and Baekhyun can hear Biscuit growling from Jongdae’s garden.
“She was hiding under my bed,” says Jongdae contritely, “and I didn’t want your mom to come and apologise, again.”
Baekhyun feels his face heating. He thought Jongdae was at his afternoon lesson, but turns out he had been in his room all the time. His window is right in front of Baekhyun’s, and if he was keeping it open… He knows he shouldn’t do it, but the temptation is too strong. He checks and, as expected, Jongdae’s window is open and Baekhyun’s window has been ajar all this time, and the chances that Jongdae didn’t hear Chanyeol’s and Baekhyun’s argument is close to zero. Also, he totally saw Baekhyun looking at his window and making two and two in front of his eyes, so Baekhyun can now be sure of one thing: Jongdae knows that Baekhyun knows that Jongdae has heard everything.
He also realises that Jongdae is still holding Cookie, and takes the dog in his arms, shivering at the electric zing of energy that runs through his skin when their hands meet halfway. Swallowing his own nervousness, he puts Cookie on the ground, but as soon as he lets her go, the beagle tries to run towards Jongdae’s house again and Baekhyun has to throw her inside. He closes the door on her pathetic wail, and that leaves him alone with Jongdae.
It’s always been easy between them, no scripts, no complex formalities, no clumsiness. Even when they first started dating or having sex, fumbling like the eager and confused teenagers they still are, things just happened to fall in the right place. The distracting curve of Jongdae’s affectionate smile has always been enough for Baekhyun. Now he can only watch powerless as Jongdae struggles to breath in his presence, unable to climb over the wall of silence he’s forced himself to build last summer.
Breath catches in his throat. “You’re wearing one of my shirts, again,” he accuses.
Jongdae lets out a weak, self-deprecatory laugh. “I have a lot of your shirts in my closet. Most of the shirts in my closet are yours, to be honest. Mine are all in those boxes in your garage.”
Right, the boxes. “I can take the key for you, if you want your stuff back. I told Chanyeol to tell you to come to take it anytime-”
“Thank you,” says Jongdae, the subtle hint of anger dirtying his voice putting Baekhyun on the edge, “but I’ll pass.”
Baekhyun knows he’s just taken a foul step and he’s on the verge of falling, but doesn’t understand why he’s so scared. He’s the one who’s angry, he’s been angry at Jongdae for more than one hundred and twenty days, which is more than he’s ever been angry with anyone in his life, but all this time Jongdae never showed any sign to be also angry at Baekhyun, until now.
“Why are you mad at me now? Do you even have any right?”
Jongdae scoffs, “Unbelievable, Baek, you’re really unbelievable.”
There’s something dangerous, a shadow in Jongdae’s eyes, and Baekhyun takes a step backward only to have Jongdae stepping forward, caging Baekhyun against the entrance of his own house.
“You’re the one who cut off all the contacts. You never answered my calls after I came back, you refused to see me or talk with me, you never gave me the possibility to give you a fucking explanation. And you’re hurting, everyone can see it. I can see it better than everyone else, and it hurts even more because you won’t give me the possibility to make things right and make you feel better.”
Yes, he’s hurting. He’s always been so used to run into Jongdae’s embrace for comfort whenever something bad happened, and now that he can’t he doesn’t how to cope. It hurts so much, but isn’t it Jongdae’s fault? What right does he have to step into Baekhyun’s life, despite any attempt from the latter to keep him away, and give him his good for nothing life lessons that no one asked for? All the good intentions, all the time spent wondering if it was time to eat his pride and go to beg for Jongdae’s attention, an explanation, anything, vanishes like smoke in Baekhyun’s fist. Shouldn’t this be easier to deal with now that is not sick? Or maybe he needs to be under heavy meds to be able to gather the courage to talk to Jongdae and not have a heart attack whilst doing it? For now, the instinct is to kick Jongdae so hard he’ll get permanent bruises.
“Chanyeol told me,” continues Jongdae, “that you’re always nervous, ready to snap for the tiniest things. He told me that you’ve been driving yourself mad with extra projects, and now with the babysitting club, and that you’ve not been eating properly. Everyone is worried for you.”
Break, Baekhyun is going to break. Ok, this may not be his best moment, he can admit it. But what else was Jongdae expecting? He fucking left for summer camp after that little show with Kim Joonmyeon and he didn’t even bother to tell Baekhyun anything about what had happened at the pool, and now he acts like he’s worried about him?
“Fuck you,” he answers, not even recognizing himself in the breathy, high pitched voice that pronounces the words, “Fuck you,” he repeats, realising only then that he’s about to burst in tears.
Jongdae hugs him.
The first reaction is surprise, but after the first moment, he throws himself back into Jongdae’s arms, against the familiar solidity of a body that Baekhyun has learnt to know since he was a toddler. He hears Cookie rasping against the door from inside, willing to get out, the loud sounds of shoots coming from the television upstairs and the engine of a car passing-by, so the world hasn’t stopped spinning, but why does it feel like it has? Jongdae holds tighter until Baekhyun can hide his head in his neck and sob, only once, and it’s Jongdae, you know? He has that thing that makes Baekhyun feel better just because he’s Jongdae.
He breathes one more time, Jongdae’s scent filling his lungs, and then he lets go.
“Okay,” he says, pushing his best friend turned boyfriend turned he-doesn’t-know-what-yet away. “Okay, I got this. Sorry, I got this. I’m alright.”
Jongdae steps back and bites his lips. His eyes are softer now, somewhat hesitant. There’s so much longing, like he wants Baekhyun back in his grasp. There’s also distress and pain, and Baekhyun feels an idiot because five minutes ago he wanted nothing more than to wound Jongdae, damage him the same way Baekhyun feels, and now he’s aching to comfort him.
Fuck Jongdae for coming here, fuck Jongdae for hugging him, fuck Jongdae for being everything Baekhyun still wants and needs. Fuck Jongdae for being able to break Baekhyun’s defences in five minutes of tongue-tied chat in the driveway of Baekhyun’s house, with Chanyeol ninety-five percent eavesdropping on them from the ajar window of Baekhyun’s bedroom.
“Do you want to talk about it?” asks Jongdae, and Baekhyun is still catching his breath and swallowing his pathetic, weak tears. His face must be so red.
“No,” he answers in the end. Jongdae’s face falls, and for a moment he looks really tiny in his snapback and Baekhyun’s red shirt.
“I want to talk with you,” he’s quick to assure, “but not now. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m still very mad at you, but you’re right. I haven’t been good the past few months, and I deserve an explanation as much as you deserve an opportunity to give me one.”
Jongdae nods, and Baekhyun nods, and they’re two self-conscious teenagers staring at each other.
Jongdae opens his mouth to say something else, but Baekhyun stops him.
“Go away, Kim Jongdae, I haven’t forgiven you yet.”
Jongdae scoffs and jumps over the fence right into his own garden. He doesn’t say goodbye, but Baekhyun doesn’t need to hear him saying it. After four months of struggling, it finally feels like the missing pieces of his life are finally starting to resurface from the deep waters. It’s not the end, but it feels closer to the air, he just needs another stroke or two to emerge. He really hopes Jongdae has a fucking flawless excuse for all the Kim Joonmyeon kiss shit he put Baekhyun through.
He gives a cookie to Cookie, pats her head when she wags her tail at the sight of the treat, and comes back in his bedroom.
Chanyeol’s ears are pink and he’s smiling so hard his face is going to break.
“So, were you trying to fabricate the handle or did you meet someone interesting in the garden?”
Zitao is eating chips, propped against the bed. When he meets Baekhyun’s eyes, he gesture to Chanyeol and then to his ears. Not that Baekhyun needed any confirmation to know that his best friend was snooping around.
“I was playing with Cookie,” he lies shamelessly, shrugging.
“Since when Cookie wears our old middle school choir camp shirt? You know, the red one you were looking for two weeks ago but you couldn’t find it and then you remembered then it probably was still at Jo-”
“Chanyeol?”
“Yes?”
He covers Zitao’s ears before he talks, making sure that the kid can’t hear his following words.
“Shut the fuck up, asshole.”
→ PART 3