CHINGUX 2014: breathless (with a hint of hysteria) (3/3) for EVERYONE
← PART 2
In hindsight, it wasn’t a great idea. Not really. Baekhyun catches Zitao just before he bounces on the floor after a three meters fall, hearing, more than seeing, Jongdae tackle Sehun to the ground. Kyungsoo is somewhere trying to catch Jongin, who’s spinning on the floor, jumping on furniture, and doing his best to show the other two children he can be twice as naughty as they are and still manage not to get caught. Chanyeol is passed out on the couch, and Kyungsoo is a breath away from leaving Jongin to his own destiny in order to nurse his almost-boyfriend back to health.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
“TaoTao, I’ll give you the last Pokemon game if you catch Jongin.”
Zitao’s eyes shine in excitement, while Sehun’s darken in rage. “Why him? I’m so much better at catching people!”
Obviously, if he can offer a game to Zitao then he must buy one to the other little monster, too. He’s lucky Jongdae decides to intervene.
“Don’t worry, Sehun-ah, I’ll give you mine too, and then you and Zitao can play together.”
Sehun looks ready to kneel at Jongdae’s feet and worship him, but before they can start the chase, they all hear Kyungsoo’s wrecked voice. “Jongin-ah, the other kids have put their hands on the last Pokemon game and if you don’t come out you’ll be the only one who doesn’t get any!”
He hasn’t finished talking that Jongin smashes against him. Kyungsoo is lucky he’s bulletproof, or his bonding night would’ve ended in blood and not with a girly little boy with ponytails climbing on his leg.
“Where’s my game?” he asks, and only a heart as cold as stone wouldn’t be moved by his pretty dark eyes, but Kyungsoo just seizes him up by his shirt collar and looks ready to dump the kid in the giant pool of Mrs. Oh’s garden.
They all fall breathless on the floor, while the kids curl up on the couch together with a pained Chanyeol. The bruise on his head, courtesy of a daring aerial manoeuvre that involved a toy airplane, a chandelier and three lively kids, is starting to swell, and Kyungsoo runs inside the kitchen to get a hold of some ice. Baekhyun resists the urge to mutter something that sounds a lot like wifey in his head, because as far as he knows, Chanyeol hasn’t talked to Kyungsoo yet. He doesn’t want to make it awkward for his best friend. Ok, maybe he doesn’t want Kyungsoo to wrap his scarf around Baekhyun’s neck and tighten until the end.
The tip of Jongdae’s fingers grace his wrist, and when he turns back to him, he’s rewarded with the sight of Jongdae’s body sprawled on white tiles. His shirt, Baekhyun’s shirt, this time it’s a Wonder Woman graphic tee that Chanyeol had given it to him for his sixteenth birthday, rises on his stomach as he stretches, and Baekhyun loses himself in the soft flex of skin and muscles.
It’s only when Jongdae speaks to him in a neutral voice that he realises that, while he was so intent on looking at his bellybutton, Jongdae has opened his eyes and he’s now staring at him.
“I didn’t think it would’ve been so hard,” he says, and Baekhyun laughs under his breath. “I mean, it wasn’t that bad, but I must confess I was more than a little baffled when Zitao started to spin the broom over his head like a little, angry copy of Jackie Chan.”
“Never as much as me the moment Jongin ripped his pink jacket to little bits and head butted Chanyeol’s dick.”
Baekhyun loves his best friend, but the memory of him falling down with his hands on his crotch and a worn-out moan on his lips in front of a wild Jongin, who looked just like a hunter in the savannah posing with a freshly shot down fiend, will forever be in his top five. Especially because, even on his knees and bent to cover his balls, Chanyeol towered over Jongin.
“I think Sehun took a photo with my smartphone, we may want to delete it, for Chanyeol’s sake.”
“Delete it?” he repeats, not believing his luck, “Why would we do something like that?”
“I can hear the both of you, fuckers. Jongdae, if you don’t delete that photo I will delete you, I swear.”
It’s highly improbable that Chanyeol will be able to do anything more than lie down and mourn his pain. “I can hear you laughing Kim Jongdae. I know Baekhyun is an ass, but you? I thought you were my best friend,” he complains, and both Baekhyun and Jongdae explode in a fit of giggles. Kyungsoo freezes them both with a glare, as he climbs on the armrest to put an ice pack to Chanyeol’s forehead, whispering low words near his ear.
For Baekhyun, only one casualty is way better than his first, catastrophic prediction. Because of a huge charity event downtown, they’ve received a lot of babysitting calls for the same night. In the end, they had decided to accept only three of them, the three kids they’ve come to like the most during the last three months. Also, the most unmanageable ones. There were so many variables, they didn’t even know if the children knew each other, but it came out that Zitao had met Jongin before, his ballet class being in the same building of Zitao’s martial arts lessons, and the two had bumped in each other two or three times. Also, Sehun and Jongin are neighbours and their parents are acquaintances, and Sehun attends the same elementary school as Zitao, only one class lower because of the age gap.
Still, one plus one plus one doesn’t make a three, not when any of the kids it’s less than a solid five in terms of uncontrolled chaos, and Baekhyun had been the first to predict that they would’ve been lucky to come out alive from such a night. Now he’s even more worried, because Zitao, Jongin and Sehun happen to like each other’s company, or maybe they only like the fact that, being more of them, they can do whatever they want with a higher chance to come out unscathed. Baekhyun only hopes their parents won’t want for this bonding thing to became an weekly appointment, because he’s more than ready to wash his hands like Pilate and leave the bloody murder to the rest of the gang.
But hey, at least he’s still alive and breathing and his private parts are intact and functioning properly. And Jongdae isn’t implying that he’ll lose his sexy voice in favour of becoming a soprano.
“I don’t know if Kyungsoo will want you now that you can higher notes than him, Chanyeol. You know how he is with the choir club and his grumpy fits to be the only main vocalist of the school.”
Kyungsoo chokes on air, and Jongdae laughs so hard he almost chokes too. When Chanyeol whines that Baekhyun and Jongdae are being mean, and they hinder his healing process, Kyungsoo throws them both out of the house, in the chill evening air.
“He’ll regret this,” sulks Jongdae, “the pests will grow bored of the game and he’ll be alone against them.”
“I hope Sehun won’t hit his dick too, Chanyeol can take it in his ass but at least one of them must be able to get it up or they’ll never have sex.”
“First Chanyeol will have to find the balls to confess, and since he got them crushed not long ago, I don’t know when it’ll be.”
Baekhyun smiles wide, but his smile falls upon hearing Jongdae’s next words.
“What about you, Baekhyun? When will you find the gut to talk with me?”
They stop in front of the pool, sitting on the bench. He takes a long breath, feeling winter visit his lungs, and he is able to perceive with annihilating precision the passage of cold oxygen inside is chest. Kyungsoo’s evil plan, getting rid of them and giving Baekhyun the chance he’s been trying to grasp for months, has worked.
When he exhales, a cloud of vapour takes shape mid-air in front of his lips. It’s November, and he and Jongdae have been holding their breath since June.
There is no enlightening explanation or excruciating misunderstanding. There is also no excuse, no drunken confusion leading to unwanted kisses, not on Jongdae’s part at least.
“Then why did you do it?”
“I don’t know,” Jongdae answers, and Baekhyun is way past the point of getting mad. He ran out of anger something like two weeks ago.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, hoping to get something, anything.
“I thought you didn’t know and I didn’t want you to know.”
If this is everything Jongdae has to say, then he could’ve spared himself the pain of waiting too much for Baekhyun to be ready. If that’s all he had to confess, this conversation might as well have never happened.
“I’ve always admired Joonmyeon, since elementary school. He was everything I wanted to be. When I met him at the party, he told me he liked me. I know I was with you, Baekhyun, and the thought of breaking up with you has never crossed my mind, not even for a second. But I guess, I’ve always had only you, Baekhyun, and I wanted to try…”
“Was I not enough?” he asks, and the words comes out of his mouth in white puffs. He regrets them the moment he speaks, and he wants to catch them and put them back in his chest, but his hand can’t catch sounds and feelings.
Guilt doesn’t suit Jongdae’s face. Naughtiness does, and Baekhyun is familiar with the telltale signs of it on Jongdae’s features, the Cheshire cat’s smile and a playful shimmer in his eyes. But he’s scarcely had the possibility to see the mask of guilt drawn on Jongdae’s sour smile. Maybe only once, when they had announced Chanyeol that they had started to go out together, maybe only then. He didn’t know, at that time, that Chanyeol had suffered because of them, that he had felt left out and abandoned and betrayed by his two best friends. But Baekhyun has never been the most attentive one. Jongdae was the one who caught all the details, pinning them down with his sharp eyes, exposing them with his sharper words. Jongdae probably knew what they were going to do to Chanyeol, and he still did it. For Baekhyun, because he loved Baekhyun.
That’s the only thing that matters, in the end. In their little kingdom of three kings, Jongdae would choose Baekhyun even over Chanyeol.
“I am sorry. I was a dick, and if you’re still angry with me I’ll wait as much time as it takes to get you back.”
It’s not necessary, and they both know it. Just the fact that Baekhyun is here, that he’s listening to Jongdae’s speech, that he’s not trying to throw him in the pool like he’s wanted to do for all the second part of this fucked up year, means that Baekhyun has already forgiven him.
A little, stubborn part of him still want to be hung upon everything that’s happened, but it’s so difficult to listen to his voice when Jongdae is right here. Baekhyun loves Jongdae’s voice, loves to sing with him in the soundproof room where Jongdae’s brother has learnt to play piano, where he’s tried to taught Jongdae how to play piano, where for the first time Baekhyun has fallen on Jongdae’s lap, disregarding social boundaries and personal space, and Jongdae has closed the distance between them with a kiss. Baekhyun is a little, obstinate, loud thing, but if there is something in the world able to shut out the worst part of himself, until every shout of his whimsical personality is just a whisper in the background, that’s Jongdae’s voice.
“Who says I will take you back?” he taunts, and Jongdae steps closer, leans down to blow his words in Baekhyun’s ear, to make sure that his words will shoot straight through his head.
“Oh, eventually you will. I may have been an idiot, but I’m still the most charming idiot you’ll ever have the luck to meet.”
And that’s it, he thinks, when Jongdae’s smile pulls so hard at the corner of his mouth that he has to smile back, that’s Jongdae’s magic. Baekhyun has tried so hard to cage his words of love in a little box, throwing away the key to never open it again, but Jongdae has always had all the keys.
“Is it all?” he asks, bewildered. “Just you saying you’re sorry and me accepting your apologies, and now what? Are we back together?”
Jongdae dares to put an arm on the small of his back, pulling him closer. “Only if you want to. As for me, I knew it from the start. You’re the only one I want, Baek.”
“Oh, really? That’s why you and Joonmyeon…”
“Like I said, he proposed to me, and I… I made a mistake, Byun Baekhyun. Not everyone has the same emotional stability as you.”
He squeezes Jongdae’s fingers, urging him to further elaborate. Baekhyun has never thought of himself as a steady person. On the contrary, he’s always felt too much prey of his own emotions. The entire way he dealt with this whole Jongdae mess has been incoherent and illogical from the start, and now Jongdae wants to make him believe that he’s always been the one in control of himself?
“I’m not saying you’re not as emotionally challenged as a twelve years old girl going through her first period-ouch! Ok, ok, I get to the point. It’s just, Baekhyun, you have everything figured it out. You know that Chanyeol and I are the most important people of your life and that’s ain’t gonna change. Even if the rest of the world disappeared, you’d be happy just with us. It’s flattering, you know? Knowing that whatever kind of fucked up shit I do, you’ll always going to put me before everything else. You’re always going to forgive, one day, no matter how much it takes. But I’m not like that, Baekhyun. I have doubts, I make mistakes, and I love you so much, but we’re high school students and not everyone can be as sure of their feelings as you.”
“So you cheated on me because you weren’t sure of your feelings?”
“Yes, oh wait no. I mean, yes, but not in the way you-”
“I’m going inside, it’s quite cold.”
He’s not running away, from the ashes of a maddening conversation or the quizzical answers of Jongdae. He’s just cold, and inside is very warm. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo are inside, and the kids are inside, and Kyungsoo will probably kill him if he can’t solve all this fucking tension between him and Jongdae after all the trouble he had to go through to give the both of them an opportunity to talk in private. Well, not his fault if Jongdae isn’t doing a very good job to beg for his forgiveness despite his good intentions.
“Wait, Baekhyun, don’t go. Why are you misunderstanding everything I say?”
“Because you cheated on me and made me suffer for stupid reasons, that’s why you have to work harder to get me back and I don’t have to make things easier for you. Let’s be honest Jongdae, we both know I’ve already forgiven you, I’d forgive you even if you destroyed my pop collection, eventually. After a few decades. But don’t give me the shit, ok?”
Jongdae sighs, “This conversation isn’t going as I had planned.”
“That’s because you’re a terrible planner. And it explains while I was usually the one who planned things between us. Now if you can’t tell me what’s wrong with your head…”
“I was jealous. Ok, I was damn jealous, because you had Do Kyungsoo hanging off your lips with every fucking word you said and throwing you out of windows, and you kept coming back to him, provoking him, dragging him close. Everyone knew he had a thing for you, Baek, everyone but you.”
Baekhyun explodes, “But I was your boyfriend, I was your boyfriend and Do Kyungsoo wasn’t even part of the equation until you did what you did, and now you have the guts to complain?”
He’s shouting, and Jongdae’s eyes widen and they both lowering his voice to whispers because this is a good neighbourhood.
“I told you, right? I made a mistake! I, Kim Jongdae, unlike Byun Baekhyun who’s a saint, had the audacity to make my own mistakes. You’re so good at dancing over the line between teasing and flirting and falling in love, because you have your priorities all sorted out and you’ll never ever sway, but I tried to do it and I messed up. Now can we get over the part where you forgive me and we make out?”
Is this how emotional speeches are supposed to do? Where are the violins? Where’s the sexual tension? Isn’t it supposed to be enlightening and decisive? He feels exactly like before Jongdae started to talk, but less nervous. He doesn’t know if he likes the feeling.
“That’s it?” he asks, and Jongdae actually tears at his hair in dismay.
“How were you expecting it to go?”
“I don’t know. You telling me that you had been drugged that time. Someone was blackmailing you. Or, I don’t know, proposing on your knees because you’re willing to do anything to win me back. A diamond ring?”
Jongdae splutters, “Pretentious, aren’t you?”
“I gave you five months to come up with a better excuse than this. Or a better apology. Where are my roses, Jongdae?”
Where’s the assurance you’re not going to do this again next time your brain trips on his neurons? Where’s the magic moment when everything goes back as it was before? Where’s the fucking end of this story? Ok, Baekhyun knows there’s not really an end, because this is just a moment of his life and everything’s connected and all that shit, and it’s not like things are just going to magically change from this to that in the span of a minute just because Jongdae tried to open his heart but the content was nothing new to Baekhyun.
But still, he expected at least some kind of closure. It doesn’t feel like drowning anymore, but the surface is so close, so close, just another stroke away… Why can’t he reach it?
He looks at Jongdae, who’s gasping and looking baffled and also very beautiful, and for a moment it’s the thirteenth of June again, alumni party of their middle school choir. He’s just seen his boyfriend kiss another boy in front of the pool, shattering his trust and putting a painful halt on their relationship for what feels like forever but, now he knows, it’ll only be five excruciating months.
The Baekhyun of the past had run away and cried his feelings on his pillow hugging a very puzzled Cookie. Then he had deleted Jongdae’s number from his phone, cleared his room from his things and avoided him as much as he could. That hadn’t been a good plan, in hindsight.
That’s why, this time, he steps closer to Jongdae, cornering him against the edge of the pool. He inches closer and summons up the most peaceful expression he can muster.
“Sorry Jongdae, but I need to find closure in order to put the word end to this story.”
Jongdae stares back at him and Baekhyun takes a heavy breath.
“What do you mean, Ba-”
He punches him, and as Jongdae flies inside the pool, the weight on his heart lifts, leaving him free.
“Justice,” he says, and fresh air finally feels his lungs as Jongdae resurfaces spluttering water and profanities at him while Chanyeol and Kyungsoo rush outside, followed by a little army of over-excited children, to see what’s happening. He looks at Kim Jongdae, floating heavily in the ass cold water and sending daggers at him, and sends him his sweetest smile. It’s a pity that Joonmyeon isn’t here, it would’ve been just perfect if there were the both of them. Nothing is perfect, of course, but he feels so much better now.
Chanyeol starts to laugh so hard that he almost falls in the pool himself, while Kyungsoo mutters something about people who aren’t capable to solve their issues without causing a ruckus. They have to keep the children from plunging into the pool, because it seems such a fun idea to them swimming in ice cold water in the middle of November, but in the end Kyungsoo manages to lock them inside the house while Chanyeol stops laughing long enough to help a soaked-to-the-bone Jongdae out of the pool. He is positively furious.
“You’re so fucking childish Byun Baekhyun, are you happy now? Have you forgiven me at least, or I had to dive into the fucking Arctic Sea just for your sick amusement?”
Chanyeol’s giggles are so strong now that he’ll probably choke himself on his own hiccups if he goes on. Or he’ll falls and gain a twin bruise to the one on his head.
“Oh, you’re a dead man, Baek,” he guffaws, and Jongdae echoes him, “A dead man indeed,” and surging forward he wraps his arm around Baekhyun. If the neighbours hadn’t hear the fight before, they surely hear Baekhyun’s piercing yelp now. He tries to swap Jongdae’s hands away, but the other boy must have worked out in the last months, because he’s so much stronger than Baekhyun. Cold water seeps everywhere, his shirt, his pants, even his underwear, and they’ll be lucky if they don’t die of pneumonia by tomorrow morning.
Chanyeol only stops laughing to hug them both, Baekhyun still flailing and Jongdae snickering hysterically and trying to stick his cold nose against the warmth of Baekhyun’s pulse, making him squirm even more.
“Finally, this stupid feud lasted way too much” comments Chanyeol, squeezing harder and trying to raise both of them from the ground. They fall in a heap of limbs and shivers, Baekhyun’s teeth rattling so hard his entire body is shaking.
“It’s because they’re two idiots,” causally comments Kyungsoo, hands on his hips and looking at them without bothering to hide his disgust. “Now that you’ve stopped rolling on the ground like dogs for your stupid childhood friends bonding ceremony, can you come help me with the pests? Tao is hanging from the ceiling and I’m too short to reach him.”
“Wait, just a little while,” begs Chanyeol, “it’s been ages since the last time I’ve held both of them like this. I missed my best dummies.”
Kyungsoo scrunches his nose in a repulsed expression. “I consider myself lucky not to be part of your secret sleepover club, you’re sickening.”
“Oh, but you are part of it,” beams Baekhyun, and before anyone can react he’s hooking his hand around Kyungsoo’s ankle and bringing him down in the frosted grass. “Didn’t you say it? Now we’re friends, so friends bonding apply to you too!”
And as he moves to englobe Kyungsoo in their icy, wet group hug, ignoring his death threats, the kicks to his shins and Kyungsoo’s teeth pricking at the skin of his wrist, he feels Chanyeol’s arm tightening all around them and Jongdae’s voice in his ear, quaked by mirthful sniggers.
Everything is alright. He takes a deep breath.
When they come back home, all squashed in Chanyeol’s mom’s little car, it’s late. Jongdae doesn’t say anything, as he keeps the door of his house open, and Baekhyun doesn’t even look towards his own home before following Jongdae inside. Chanyeol bids them goodnight and drags the grumpiest Kyungsoo towards his house, on the other side of the street.
They’re not expecting anyone to be awake and that’s why Jongdae’s mom scares the hell out of them. Surprise crosses her features for a moment, but it takes a look at her son and Baekhyun’s joined hands for it to disappear, replaced by pure, utter delight. She’s probably musing that she’ll be the first one to tell Chanyeol’s and Baekhyun’s mom that “the Cold War”, as their family members called it, has finally come to an end.
“Baekhyunnie,” she greets him, “it’s been a while. I’m quite glad to have you here again. Unfortunately, you’ve come with such a short notice that I didn’t make your bed. Do you want me to prepare the guest room for you?”
He snickers, because in the past fifteen years, since he’s been able to walk on his own, Mrs. Park has seen Baekhyun coming and going out of her house countless times. He and Jongdae, together with Chanyeol, just like their brothers and Chanyeol’s sisters a few years before, have never bothered with invitations and formalities. Even the offer of a quest room is a joke, because Baekhyun has never slept in any other place than Jongdae’s room, alone with the other boy or with Chanyeol, the three of them packed in the single sized bed like the human, breathing version of a Tetris puzzle.
Jongdae doesn’t even let him greet his mother’s properly before he’s ushering him upstairs, closing the door behind their backs. His room hasn’t changed, unlike Baekhyun’s. While he’s tried to erase the signs of Jongdae’s presence, Jongdae chose to keep everything as it was. Their photos, pinned everywhere, Baekhyun’s clothes on the chair and in the laundry box, a stack of Baekhyun’s favourite CDs, left there for when he wanted to listen to music and even crossing the garden was too much of a hassle for a lazy ass like him.
He falls on the bed and suddenly it feels like time hasn’t passed at all. This is familiar, this is Baekhyun and Jongdae. His head spins. He spent so much time being breathless, that now the sudden amount of oxygen flowing in his veins is making his head float. That, or he missed Jongdae’s eyes more than he could’ve ever thought.
“So, are we back together?” asks Jongdae to break the silence.
“So it seems,” is Baekhyun’s answer, and he can’t hide a cocky grin when Jongdae’s gaze follows the rise and fall of his throat as he speaks.
“That means we can kiss, right?”
“Sounds good,” is what he wants to say, but Jongdae is already climbing over him on the bed, heads tilting down to cover Baekhyun’s words with his lips. Baekhyun lets Jongdae play with his tongue, bite at his lower lip and he even shifts on the bed to meet Jongdae’s body halfway. It’s heady, with Jongdae’s parents sleeping a couple of room away, but they’ve been apart for so long.
“Did you miss me?” asks Jongdae, looking down at him with his clean face and honest eyes, and Baekhyun lets out a little whimper, like the wail of a lost puppy, and opens his mouth again under Jongdae’s claim.
“We can’t be loud, Baek, you know,” he murmurs against Baekhyun’s cheek, his neck, his collarbones, and he kisses the laugh he receives in response from Baekhyun’s collarbone, where it’s difficult to understand if the little hiccups are from humour or pleasure.
“We’re both singers, Jongdae, we’re bound to be loud.”
“But Jongdeok’s piano room is far and cold and I quite like you here, on my bed,” he admits, sighing at the idea of having Baekhyun in a soundproof chamber. He scoots over to make space between their bodies, hands tearing at Baekhyun’s clothes.
“You’re a possessive little fuck, did you know?” he teases, patting away Jongdae’s trembling hand to untie the first buttons of his shirt, letting Jongdae do the rest and enjoying the look of utter confusion he gets in return when Jongdae lowers his eyes on Baekhyun’s chest.
“Y- you’re wearing one of my shirts,” stutters Jongdae, eyes fixated on the Iron Man print of one of his favourite tees, barely visible under the half-undone jeans shirt. “You took a fucking century to notice,” Baekhyun answers, as he pulls him down by the sleeve of his own tee, a little too tight on Jongdae’s arms.
“You, you little cunning fox… You wore my shirt, you were already planning to talk things out with me! Did you plan to punch me in the pool in advance?”
Ok, maybe Baekhyun had already decided to have The Talk with Jongdae, after Chanyeol,s countless pleas and Kyungsoo’s countless threats. He smirks, “No, that was the inspiration of the moment, you know, a flash of genius.”
“Baek, I can feel the cold in my bones. We’re lucky if we don’t wake up with a fever tomorrow.”
“A fever? It’s not my body that’s making you feel so hot?”
Jongdae pulls on the shirt, gracing Baekhyun’s nipple in retaliation, eliciting a shiver and a choked gasp masked as a giggle. Baekhyun hisses at him as he slides the shirt out of his head, the hair catching a little on the fabric and crackling with static electricity when he finally manages to untangle himself. His hands run on the curve of Jongdae’s back to rest on his nape, scratching and pulling the hair at the base of his neck until Jongdae’s mouth is on his shoulder, hot and demanding. Baekhyun forgets about dignity and Jongdae’s parents and moans low in his throat when he feels the skin breaking.
“You moan like a bitch, Baek, just like your dog when she’s in heat,” Jongdae mocks, and Baekhyun feels the sudden urge to smack him and make him sleep on the floor.
“You didn’t just compare me to my dog, right? Because, first, it’s such a turn-off; second, my dog totally owns your dog, like, he’s her little boytoy; third-”
“I wouldn’t mind being your boytoy, Byun Baekhyun.”
“That’s because you already are; and third, I said-”
“You mean you are my boytoy, you’re under me right now, in case you missed that.”
“Kim Jongdae, I’ve jerked off by myself for the last five months. I’m not past throwing you on the floor and doing it again,” he says, and he means it. Not giving Jongdae the satisfaction to be a smug shit it’s better than an orgasm, sometimes. Ok, maybe it’s a bluff. Maybe it’s been too long since the last time he and Jongdae did anything remotely funny like talking, pranking Choi Minho or having sex. Jongdae is totally seeing through his bluff, though.
“Are you sure? Because I’ve really missed you. And my little ChenChen totally missed you too and…”
He tried. Posterity will know that there was an attempt. He kicks Jongdae out of the bed, making sure to aim for his dick. If his parents were by some miracle still asleep, then their son’s wounded wail has changed it for good.
“Why would you do that?” asks an indignant Jongdae.
“So that now your friend ChenChen can go and keep company to his friend ChanChan in the disabled dicks department.”
Jongdae is in the middle of trying to find a biting enough answer through the fog of pain, Baekhyun can see the gearwheels moving in his head, when Jongdae’s smartphone rings. It’s Chanyeol.
“What does the fucker want now? Is this some exquisite form of cockblocking? Why is destiny so hard on me right now?”
Baekhyun ignores Jongdae’s cries about sad endings and bad karma and the bad pun about destiny and his dick both being hard, pressing the dial key to take the call. “I hope it’s important, Yeol, we were kinda trying to have sex.”
“No, you weren’t, you were just blueballing poor ChenChen. We can see you through the window, you left the curtains open by the way.”
He looks outside, and indeed, two smiling faces on the other side of the streets makes waving signs from the opposite house. Wait, two? Two smiling faces? And Chanyeol’s voice is too rough and low, deeper than usual, and…
“OH MY GOD YOU HAD SEX!”
He covers the phone with his hand, “Jongdae, Jongdae, they did it, hey wait a moment, Chanyeol, you evil fucker! Don’t think that just because you scored tonight and I didn’t do it yet, you’re allowed to call me and rub it in my face. First because it’s gross, second because Kyungsoo is smiling and I can feel the creepy from here and I don’t know how you’re sitting next to him and you’re not completely flipped out by the dark aura of danger, and third…”
Jongdae takes the phone out of his hands, putting an end to Kyungsoo’s pleased and somewhat demonic giggles and Chanyeol’s amused “I told you he would’ve reacted like that!” and slides the curtain closed. He pins Baekhyun to the bed, licks right inside his mouth, and whispers in his ear, rougher than Chanyeol, rougher than anyone else can speak, with that impossibly low note that Jongdae and only Jongdae in their entire choir group was able to reach, “Let’s see who’s limping more tomorrow, if you or Kyungsoo. I can do better than Chanyeol.”
Baekhyun closes his eyes, lets the wave of pleasure break against his body at the raw implication in Jongdae’s words.
“Let’s see if you can.”
As they catch their breaths, cocooned in wrinkled sheets and fluffy comforters that hold all the warmth of their bodies, they wait for the pale light of dawn. Baekhyun feels drowsy and ready to give up and call it a night, but every time the weight of sleep pulls his eyelids down, Jongdae runs his fingers against his naked chest, not to scratch but to tease, and Baekhyun falls back against him with a shiver and a startled pant.
“Don’t fall asleep,” comes the warning.
“Not my fault,” he slurs, “it’s so cosy in here.”
He wiggles against Jongdae’s body, and Jongdae laughs in his ear. Even his breath is searing hot against Baekhyun’s neck. “Not there,” he whimpers, “not the neck, please, I won’t fall asleep.”
“You better not, we must wait for the rise of the sun.”
“Yes, whatever, I know you want us to wait for the rise of your morning wood.”
He hopes he’ll be already asleep by the time Jongdae is hard again, because he’s not in for another round. He can barely move his arms. Jongdae can fuck his dead body if he wants to get off, Baekhyun is not going to stop him as long as no one wakes him up.
Their breathes mingle under the covers, as the sky outside change from a velvety blue to a pale indigo, and the first trims of pink and gold start to spill from the horizon.
Jongdae’s fingers find Baekhyun’s. The first time Baekhyun and Chanyeol were allowed to sleep over at Jongdae’s house, they didn’t sleep. They spent the entire night playing under the covers, pretending they were explorers and that the sheets pulled over their heads were their tent. They had a flashlight, it must still be somewhere under Jongdae’s bed, if Baekhyun remembers well, and every time Jongdae’s mom came to check if they were already sleeping, they would turn off the flashlight and play dead. Mrs. Kim was probably able to see through their act, but they felt extremely stealthy and subtle. They were children, after all. When the darkness of the night started to fade, they watched the dawn together, just like Baekhyun is doing with Jongdae today.
“Do you think Chanyeol is watching it too?” Baekhyun asks, so soft that he’s afraid Jongdae didn’t catch it. But Jongdae has always being able to catch Baekhyun.
“I don’t know. You know how he is. We always had to resort to violence to get him to wake up and watch the sunrise with us.”
Baekhyun bites his lips, as the sky turns rosy and a red, cold November sky starts to appear at the bottom of the hill. Their houses are in the best position to see the show, and now all the buildings in the lower town are flooded with red and gold.
“Who knows,” continues Jongdae, “maybe Kyungsoo will be the one who uses violence to get him to watch the dawn.”
“I don’t think so, Kyungsoo is even lazier than Chanyeol is.”
“That’s even better, we can break in Chanyeol’s house and kick them until they wake up, and then we can all watch the dawn together.”
“Sounds good,” hums Baekhyun, when he’s really thinking that Kyungsoo will feed them to Chanyeol’s ferret Wafer if they dare to disrupt his beauty sleep. Chanyeol wouldn’t help them, either. Maybe he’d save Baekhyun, but he’s not sure about Jongdae.
“Jongdae, can I ask you something?”
“About what?”
“About Chanyeol.”
“Go on,” replies Jongdae, and only the tightening of his arms around Baekhyun’s body shows the shift in their conversation.
Baekhyun takes his time, not even sure about what wants to ask. It’s easier to unveil his fear and ask thorny question when they’re like this, nothing to keep them apart, cuddling in their messy teenager room of a nest.
“When you kissed me and we started going out, we went to tell Chanyeol, together. I didn’t realise at that time, but recently he spilled the beans. He confessed that he was really hurt, that he felt like we were leaving him behind.”
He pauses, but Jongdae doesn’t talk, realising that Baekhyun has something else to say before he’s done. “You knew, though, right? You know how dense I am about these things, I really am hopeless, but you knew he was going to suffer because of us.”
Jongdae sighs, heavy, “Of course I knew. We really had a tight bond, me, you and Chanyeol, and it was inevitable that he’d end up hurt if we did something like that.”
“He told me that he felt like I was stealing you from him, and you were stealing him from me. I didn’t want to hurt him, Jongdae. I didn’t.”
“To be honest, I think I could’ve liked Chanyeol this way. Don’t you?” he asks, almost guilty at the thought of liking someone else than Baekhyun.
“Me too,” he answers.
“I was the greedy one. Chanyeol wanted nothing more than for us to stay as we were back then, so that he could love us both and we could love him in the same way. We could’ve been an equilateral triangle, you know? All equal and caught in a damn cool threesome. You probably would’ve been alright with that, because you don’t love me and him in the same way anymore, but you did. You were happy.”
“We were happy, Jongdae.”
“You probably want to know why I did what I did. Why did I kiss you, if we were that happy the way we were. Why did I have to hurt Chanyeol like that. Because that’s what I did, by kissing you and asking you to go out with me and changing our relationship for good. I broke his heart, and it’s only because he’s Chanyeol, our fantastic, amazing best friend Park Chanyeol, and he loved us that much, that he still puts up with us. I really hate myself for what I did to him that day, but I’d do it over and over again.”
“Why?”
“I wanted you. And I wanted Chanyeol too, but I wanted you more, and I was scared, that if I would’ve let my chance go, he could’ve asked you… And then I would’ve been the one left out. I couldn’t let that happen. Like I told you, I am greedy.”
If Jongdae is greedy what that makes Baekhyun? He wanted all of them, Jongdae’s love, Chanyeol’s friendship and even Kyungsoo’s attention, and in the end he’s gotten everything. He’s the greediest of them all, but he doesn’t care. Baekhyun is not perfect, and his life is not perfect either, but the things he wanted the most, now he has them, and he’s not letting go.
The sky is pale blue, a little cloudy. The first blade of sunlight has almost reached Jongdae’s window. Biscuit pads through the hole in the fence to visit Cookie, and Jongdae’s mom wakes up to make a breakfast they won’t eat until noon, when Chanyeol, and maybe Kyungsoo, will barge in the room to wake them up, sent in their reconnaissance mission by Mrs. Kim.
Baekhyun is so tired, but there’s no other place where he wishes to be.
“Thank you for being greedy, Jongdae.”
When Jongdae answers, he’s already fallen asleep, safely tucked in his boyfriend’s arms, his breath slow and even.
“You’re welcome, Baekhyun.”
a/n: I want to thank my beta P. for her absolute dedication to the cause despite the short notice; M. who was here when I started writing this fic and was always ready to give advice and cuddles; R. for the moral support and C. because she understands too much and she gave me a lot of strength. Thank you girls.
To my recipient: thank you for the nice prompts, I did my best and I hope you enjoy the fic!
In hindsight, it wasn’t a great idea. Not really. Baekhyun catches Zitao just before he bounces on the floor after a three meters fall, hearing, more than seeing, Jongdae tackle Sehun to the ground. Kyungsoo is somewhere trying to catch Jongin, who’s spinning on the floor, jumping on furniture, and doing his best to show the other two children he can be twice as naughty as they are and still manage not to get caught. Chanyeol is passed out on the couch, and Kyungsoo is a breath away from leaving Jongin to his own destiny in order to nurse his almost-boyfriend back to health.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
“TaoTao, I’ll give you the last Pokemon game if you catch Jongin.”
Zitao’s eyes shine in excitement, while Sehun’s darken in rage. “Why him? I’m so much better at catching people!”
Obviously, if he can offer a game to Zitao then he must buy one to the other little monster, too. He’s lucky Jongdae decides to intervene.
“Don’t worry, Sehun-ah, I’ll give you mine too, and then you and Zitao can play together.”
Sehun looks ready to kneel at Jongdae’s feet and worship him, but before they can start the chase, they all hear Kyungsoo’s wrecked voice. “Jongin-ah, the other kids have put their hands on the last Pokemon game and if you don’t come out you’ll be the only one who doesn’t get any!”
He hasn’t finished talking that Jongin smashes against him. Kyungsoo is lucky he’s bulletproof, or his bonding night would’ve ended in blood and not with a girly little boy with ponytails climbing on his leg.
“Where’s my game?” he asks, and only a heart as cold as stone wouldn’t be moved by his pretty dark eyes, but Kyungsoo just seizes him up by his shirt collar and looks ready to dump the kid in the giant pool of Mrs. Oh’s garden.
They all fall breathless on the floor, while the kids curl up on the couch together with a pained Chanyeol. The bruise on his head, courtesy of a daring aerial manoeuvre that involved a toy airplane, a chandelier and three lively kids, is starting to swell, and Kyungsoo runs inside the kitchen to get a hold of some ice. Baekhyun resists the urge to mutter something that sounds a lot like wifey in his head, because as far as he knows, Chanyeol hasn’t talked to Kyungsoo yet. He doesn’t want to make it awkward for his best friend. Ok, maybe he doesn’t want Kyungsoo to wrap his scarf around Baekhyun’s neck and tighten until the end.
The tip of Jongdae’s fingers grace his wrist, and when he turns back to him, he’s rewarded with the sight of Jongdae’s body sprawled on white tiles. His shirt, Baekhyun’s shirt, this time it’s a Wonder Woman graphic tee that Chanyeol had given it to him for his sixteenth birthday, rises on his stomach as he stretches, and Baekhyun loses himself in the soft flex of skin and muscles.
It’s only when Jongdae speaks to him in a neutral voice that he realises that, while he was so intent on looking at his bellybutton, Jongdae has opened his eyes and he’s now staring at him.
“I didn’t think it would’ve been so hard,” he says, and Baekhyun laughs under his breath. “I mean, it wasn’t that bad, but I must confess I was more than a little baffled when Zitao started to spin the broom over his head like a little, angry copy of Jackie Chan.”
“Never as much as me the moment Jongin ripped his pink jacket to little bits and head butted Chanyeol’s dick.”
Baekhyun loves his best friend, but the memory of him falling down with his hands on his crotch and a worn-out moan on his lips in front of a wild Jongin, who looked just like a hunter in the savannah posing with a freshly shot down fiend, will forever be in his top five. Especially because, even on his knees and bent to cover his balls, Chanyeol towered over Jongin.
“I think Sehun took a photo with my smartphone, we may want to delete it, for Chanyeol’s sake.”
“Delete it?” he repeats, not believing his luck, “Why would we do something like that?”
“I can hear the both of you, fuckers. Jongdae, if you don’t delete that photo I will delete you, I swear.”
It’s highly improbable that Chanyeol will be able to do anything more than lie down and mourn his pain. “I can hear you laughing Kim Jongdae. I know Baekhyun is an ass, but you? I thought you were my best friend,” he complains, and both Baekhyun and Jongdae explode in a fit of giggles. Kyungsoo freezes them both with a glare, as he climbs on the armrest to put an ice pack to Chanyeol’s forehead, whispering low words near his ear.
For Baekhyun, only one casualty is way better than his first, catastrophic prediction. Because of a huge charity event downtown, they’ve received a lot of babysitting calls for the same night. In the end, they had decided to accept only three of them, the three kids they’ve come to like the most during the last three months. Also, the most unmanageable ones. There were so many variables, they didn’t even know if the children knew each other, but it came out that Zitao had met Jongin before, his ballet class being in the same building of Zitao’s martial arts lessons, and the two had bumped in each other two or three times. Also, Sehun and Jongin are neighbours and their parents are acquaintances, and Sehun attends the same elementary school as Zitao, only one class lower because of the age gap.
Still, one plus one plus one doesn’t make a three, not when any of the kids it’s less than a solid five in terms of uncontrolled chaos, and Baekhyun had been the first to predict that they would’ve been lucky to come out alive from such a night. Now he’s even more worried, because Zitao, Jongin and Sehun happen to like each other’s company, or maybe they only like the fact that, being more of them, they can do whatever they want with a higher chance to come out unscathed. Baekhyun only hopes their parents won’t want for this bonding thing to became an weekly appointment, because he’s more than ready to wash his hands like Pilate and leave the bloody murder to the rest of the gang.
But hey, at least he’s still alive and breathing and his private parts are intact and functioning properly. And Jongdae isn’t implying that he’ll lose his sexy voice in favour of becoming a soprano.
“I don’t know if Kyungsoo will want you now that you can higher notes than him, Chanyeol. You know how he is with the choir club and his grumpy fits to be the only main vocalist of the school.”
Kyungsoo chokes on air, and Jongdae laughs so hard he almost chokes too. When Chanyeol whines that Baekhyun and Jongdae are being mean, and they hinder his healing process, Kyungsoo throws them both out of the house, in the chill evening air.
“He’ll regret this,” sulks Jongdae, “the pests will grow bored of the game and he’ll be alone against them.”
“I hope Sehun won’t hit his dick too, Chanyeol can take it in his ass but at least one of them must be able to get it up or they’ll never have sex.”
“First Chanyeol will have to find the balls to confess, and since he got them crushed not long ago, I don’t know when it’ll be.”
Baekhyun smiles wide, but his smile falls upon hearing Jongdae’s next words.
“What about you, Baekhyun? When will you find the gut to talk with me?”
They stop in front of the pool, sitting on the bench. He takes a long breath, feeling winter visit his lungs, and he is able to perceive with annihilating precision the passage of cold oxygen inside is chest. Kyungsoo’s evil plan, getting rid of them and giving Baekhyun the chance he’s been trying to grasp for months, has worked.
When he exhales, a cloud of vapour takes shape mid-air in front of his lips. It’s November, and he and Jongdae have been holding their breath since June.
There is no enlightening explanation or excruciating misunderstanding. There is also no excuse, no drunken confusion leading to unwanted kisses, not on Jongdae’s part at least.
“Then why did you do it?”
“I don’t know,” Jongdae answers, and Baekhyun is way past the point of getting mad. He ran out of anger something like two weeks ago.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, hoping to get something, anything.
“I thought you didn’t know and I didn’t want you to know.”
If this is everything Jongdae has to say, then he could’ve spared himself the pain of waiting too much for Baekhyun to be ready. If that’s all he had to confess, this conversation might as well have never happened.
“I’ve always admired Joonmyeon, since elementary school. He was everything I wanted to be. When I met him at the party, he told me he liked me. I know I was with you, Baekhyun, and the thought of breaking up with you has never crossed my mind, not even for a second. But I guess, I’ve always had only you, Baekhyun, and I wanted to try…”
“Was I not enough?” he asks, and the words comes out of his mouth in white puffs. He regrets them the moment he speaks, and he wants to catch them and put them back in his chest, but his hand can’t catch sounds and feelings.
Guilt doesn’t suit Jongdae’s face. Naughtiness does, and Baekhyun is familiar with the telltale signs of it on Jongdae’s features, the Cheshire cat’s smile and a playful shimmer in his eyes. But he’s scarcely had the possibility to see the mask of guilt drawn on Jongdae’s sour smile. Maybe only once, when they had announced Chanyeol that they had started to go out together, maybe only then. He didn’t know, at that time, that Chanyeol had suffered because of them, that he had felt left out and abandoned and betrayed by his two best friends. But Baekhyun has never been the most attentive one. Jongdae was the one who caught all the details, pinning them down with his sharp eyes, exposing them with his sharper words. Jongdae probably knew what they were going to do to Chanyeol, and he still did it. For Baekhyun, because he loved Baekhyun.
That’s the only thing that matters, in the end. In their little kingdom of three kings, Jongdae would choose Baekhyun even over Chanyeol.
“I am sorry. I was a dick, and if you’re still angry with me I’ll wait as much time as it takes to get you back.”
It’s not necessary, and they both know it. Just the fact that Baekhyun is here, that he’s listening to Jongdae’s speech, that he’s not trying to throw him in the pool like he’s wanted to do for all the second part of this fucked up year, means that Baekhyun has already forgiven him.
A little, stubborn part of him still want to be hung upon everything that’s happened, but it’s so difficult to listen to his voice when Jongdae is right here. Baekhyun loves Jongdae’s voice, loves to sing with him in the soundproof room where Jongdae’s brother has learnt to play piano, where he’s tried to taught Jongdae how to play piano, where for the first time Baekhyun has fallen on Jongdae’s lap, disregarding social boundaries and personal space, and Jongdae has closed the distance between them with a kiss. Baekhyun is a little, obstinate, loud thing, but if there is something in the world able to shut out the worst part of himself, until every shout of his whimsical personality is just a whisper in the background, that’s Jongdae’s voice.
“Who says I will take you back?” he taunts, and Jongdae steps closer, leans down to blow his words in Baekhyun’s ear, to make sure that his words will shoot straight through his head.
“Oh, eventually you will. I may have been an idiot, but I’m still the most charming idiot you’ll ever have the luck to meet.”
And that’s it, he thinks, when Jongdae’s smile pulls so hard at the corner of his mouth that he has to smile back, that’s Jongdae’s magic. Baekhyun has tried so hard to cage his words of love in a little box, throwing away the key to never open it again, but Jongdae has always had all the keys.
“Is it all?” he asks, bewildered. “Just you saying you’re sorry and me accepting your apologies, and now what? Are we back together?”
Jongdae dares to put an arm on the small of his back, pulling him closer. “Only if you want to. As for me, I knew it from the start. You’re the only one I want, Baek.”
“Oh, really? That’s why you and Joonmyeon…”
“Like I said, he proposed to me, and I… I made a mistake, Byun Baekhyun. Not everyone has the same emotional stability as you.”
He squeezes Jongdae’s fingers, urging him to further elaborate. Baekhyun has never thought of himself as a steady person. On the contrary, he’s always felt too much prey of his own emotions. The entire way he dealt with this whole Jongdae mess has been incoherent and illogical from the start, and now Jongdae wants to make him believe that he’s always been the one in control of himself?
“I’m not saying you’re not as emotionally challenged as a twelve years old girl going through her first period-ouch! Ok, ok, I get to the point. It’s just, Baekhyun, you have everything figured it out. You know that Chanyeol and I are the most important people of your life and that’s ain’t gonna change. Even if the rest of the world disappeared, you’d be happy just with us. It’s flattering, you know? Knowing that whatever kind of fucked up shit I do, you’ll always going to put me before everything else. You’re always going to forgive, one day, no matter how much it takes. But I’m not like that, Baekhyun. I have doubts, I make mistakes, and I love you so much, but we’re high school students and not everyone can be as sure of their feelings as you.”
“So you cheated on me because you weren’t sure of your feelings?”
“Yes, oh wait no. I mean, yes, but not in the way you-”
“I’m going inside, it’s quite cold.”
He’s not running away, from the ashes of a maddening conversation or the quizzical answers of Jongdae. He’s just cold, and inside is very warm. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo are inside, and the kids are inside, and Kyungsoo will probably kill him if he can’t solve all this fucking tension between him and Jongdae after all the trouble he had to go through to give the both of them an opportunity to talk in private. Well, not his fault if Jongdae isn’t doing a very good job to beg for his forgiveness despite his good intentions.
“Wait, Baekhyun, don’t go. Why are you misunderstanding everything I say?”
“Because you cheated on me and made me suffer for stupid reasons, that’s why you have to work harder to get me back and I don’t have to make things easier for you. Let’s be honest Jongdae, we both know I’ve already forgiven you, I’d forgive you even if you destroyed my pop collection, eventually. After a few decades. But don’t give me the shit, ok?”
Jongdae sighs, “This conversation isn’t going as I had planned.”
“That’s because you’re a terrible planner. And it explains while I was usually the one who planned things between us. Now if you can’t tell me what’s wrong with your head…”
“I was jealous. Ok, I was damn jealous, because you had Do Kyungsoo hanging off your lips with every fucking word you said and throwing you out of windows, and you kept coming back to him, provoking him, dragging him close. Everyone knew he had a thing for you, Baek, everyone but you.”
Baekhyun explodes, “But I was your boyfriend, I was your boyfriend and Do Kyungsoo wasn’t even part of the equation until you did what you did, and now you have the guts to complain?”
He’s shouting, and Jongdae’s eyes widen and they both lowering his voice to whispers because this is a good neighbourhood.
“I told you, right? I made a mistake! I, Kim Jongdae, unlike Byun Baekhyun who’s a saint, had the audacity to make my own mistakes. You’re so good at dancing over the line between teasing and flirting and falling in love, because you have your priorities all sorted out and you’ll never ever sway, but I tried to do it and I messed up. Now can we get over the part where you forgive me and we make out?”
Is this how emotional speeches are supposed to do? Where are the violins? Where’s the sexual tension? Isn’t it supposed to be enlightening and decisive? He feels exactly like before Jongdae started to talk, but less nervous. He doesn’t know if he likes the feeling.
“That’s it?” he asks, and Jongdae actually tears at his hair in dismay.
“How were you expecting it to go?”
“I don’t know. You telling me that you had been drugged that time. Someone was blackmailing you. Or, I don’t know, proposing on your knees because you’re willing to do anything to win me back. A diamond ring?”
Jongdae splutters, “Pretentious, aren’t you?”
“I gave you five months to come up with a better excuse than this. Or a better apology. Where are my roses, Jongdae?”
Where’s the assurance you’re not going to do this again next time your brain trips on his neurons? Where’s the magic moment when everything goes back as it was before? Where’s the fucking end of this story? Ok, Baekhyun knows there’s not really an end, because this is just a moment of his life and everything’s connected and all that shit, and it’s not like things are just going to magically change from this to that in the span of a minute just because Jongdae tried to open his heart but the content was nothing new to Baekhyun.
But still, he expected at least some kind of closure. It doesn’t feel like drowning anymore, but the surface is so close, so close, just another stroke away… Why can’t he reach it?
He looks at Jongdae, who’s gasping and looking baffled and also very beautiful, and for a moment it’s the thirteenth of June again, alumni party of their middle school choir. He’s just seen his boyfriend kiss another boy in front of the pool, shattering his trust and putting a painful halt on their relationship for what feels like forever but, now he knows, it’ll only be five excruciating months.
The Baekhyun of the past had run away and cried his feelings on his pillow hugging a very puzzled Cookie. Then he had deleted Jongdae’s number from his phone, cleared his room from his things and avoided him as much as he could. That hadn’t been a good plan, in hindsight.
That’s why, this time, he steps closer to Jongdae, cornering him against the edge of the pool. He inches closer and summons up the most peaceful expression he can muster.
“Sorry Jongdae, but I need to find closure in order to put the word end to this story.”
Jongdae stares back at him and Baekhyun takes a heavy breath.
“What do you mean, Ba-”
He punches him, and as Jongdae flies inside the pool, the weight on his heart lifts, leaving him free.
“Justice,” he says, and fresh air finally feels his lungs as Jongdae resurfaces spluttering water and profanities at him while Chanyeol and Kyungsoo rush outside, followed by a little army of over-excited children, to see what’s happening. He looks at Kim Jongdae, floating heavily in the ass cold water and sending daggers at him, and sends him his sweetest smile. It’s a pity that Joonmyeon isn’t here, it would’ve been just perfect if there were the both of them. Nothing is perfect, of course, but he feels so much better now.
Chanyeol starts to laugh so hard that he almost falls in the pool himself, while Kyungsoo mutters something about people who aren’t capable to solve their issues without causing a ruckus. They have to keep the children from plunging into the pool, because it seems such a fun idea to them swimming in ice cold water in the middle of November, but in the end Kyungsoo manages to lock them inside the house while Chanyeol stops laughing long enough to help a soaked-to-the-bone Jongdae out of the pool. He is positively furious.
“You’re so fucking childish Byun Baekhyun, are you happy now? Have you forgiven me at least, or I had to dive into the fucking Arctic Sea just for your sick amusement?”
Chanyeol’s giggles are so strong now that he’ll probably choke himself on his own hiccups if he goes on. Or he’ll falls and gain a twin bruise to the one on his head.
“Oh, you’re a dead man, Baek,” he guffaws, and Jongdae echoes him, “A dead man indeed,” and surging forward he wraps his arm around Baekhyun. If the neighbours hadn’t hear the fight before, they surely hear Baekhyun’s piercing yelp now. He tries to swap Jongdae’s hands away, but the other boy must have worked out in the last months, because he’s so much stronger than Baekhyun. Cold water seeps everywhere, his shirt, his pants, even his underwear, and they’ll be lucky if they don’t die of pneumonia by tomorrow morning.
Chanyeol only stops laughing to hug them both, Baekhyun still flailing and Jongdae snickering hysterically and trying to stick his cold nose against the warmth of Baekhyun’s pulse, making him squirm even more.
“Finally, this stupid feud lasted way too much” comments Chanyeol, squeezing harder and trying to raise both of them from the ground. They fall in a heap of limbs and shivers, Baekhyun’s teeth rattling so hard his entire body is shaking.
“It’s because they’re two idiots,” causally comments Kyungsoo, hands on his hips and looking at them without bothering to hide his disgust. “Now that you’ve stopped rolling on the ground like dogs for your stupid childhood friends bonding ceremony, can you come help me with the pests? Tao is hanging from the ceiling and I’m too short to reach him.”
“Wait, just a little while,” begs Chanyeol, “it’s been ages since the last time I’ve held both of them like this. I missed my best dummies.”
Kyungsoo scrunches his nose in a repulsed expression. “I consider myself lucky not to be part of your secret sleepover club, you’re sickening.”
“Oh, but you are part of it,” beams Baekhyun, and before anyone can react he’s hooking his hand around Kyungsoo’s ankle and bringing him down in the frosted grass. “Didn’t you say it? Now we’re friends, so friends bonding apply to you too!”
And as he moves to englobe Kyungsoo in their icy, wet group hug, ignoring his death threats, the kicks to his shins and Kyungsoo’s teeth pricking at the skin of his wrist, he feels Chanyeol’s arm tightening all around them and Jongdae’s voice in his ear, quaked by mirthful sniggers.
Everything is alright. He takes a deep breath.
When they come back home, all squashed in Chanyeol’s mom’s little car, it’s late. Jongdae doesn’t say anything, as he keeps the door of his house open, and Baekhyun doesn’t even look towards his own home before following Jongdae inside. Chanyeol bids them goodnight and drags the grumpiest Kyungsoo towards his house, on the other side of the street.
They’re not expecting anyone to be awake and that’s why Jongdae’s mom scares the hell out of them. Surprise crosses her features for a moment, but it takes a look at her son and Baekhyun’s joined hands for it to disappear, replaced by pure, utter delight. She’s probably musing that she’ll be the first one to tell Chanyeol’s and Baekhyun’s mom that “the Cold War”, as their family members called it, has finally come to an end.
“Baekhyunnie,” she greets him, “it’s been a while. I’m quite glad to have you here again. Unfortunately, you’ve come with such a short notice that I didn’t make your bed. Do you want me to prepare the guest room for you?”
He snickers, because in the past fifteen years, since he’s been able to walk on his own, Mrs. Park has seen Baekhyun coming and going out of her house countless times. He and Jongdae, together with Chanyeol, just like their brothers and Chanyeol’s sisters a few years before, have never bothered with invitations and formalities. Even the offer of a quest room is a joke, because Baekhyun has never slept in any other place than Jongdae’s room, alone with the other boy or with Chanyeol, the three of them packed in the single sized bed like the human, breathing version of a Tetris puzzle.
Jongdae doesn’t even let him greet his mother’s properly before he’s ushering him upstairs, closing the door behind their backs. His room hasn’t changed, unlike Baekhyun’s. While he’s tried to erase the signs of Jongdae’s presence, Jongdae chose to keep everything as it was. Their photos, pinned everywhere, Baekhyun’s clothes on the chair and in the laundry box, a stack of Baekhyun’s favourite CDs, left there for when he wanted to listen to music and even crossing the garden was too much of a hassle for a lazy ass like him.
He falls on the bed and suddenly it feels like time hasn’t passed at all. This is familiar, this is Baekhyun and Jongdae. His head spins. He spent so much time being breathless, that now the sudden amount of oxygen flowing in his veins is making his head float. That, or he missed Jongdae’s eyes more than he could’ve ever thought.
“So, are we back together?” asks Jongdae to break the silence.
“So it seems,” is Baekhyun’s answer, and he can’t hide a cocky grin when Jongdae’s gaze follows the rise and fall of his throat as he speaks.
“That means we can kiss, right?”
“Sounds good,” is what he wants to say, but Jongdae is already climbing over him on the bed, heads tilting down to cover Baekhyun’s words with his lips. Baekhyun lets Jongdae play with his tongue, bite at his lower lip and he even shifts on the bed to meet Jongdae’s body halfway. It’s heady, with Jongdae’s parents sleeping a couple of room away, but they’ve been apart for so long.
“Did you miss me?” asks Jongdae, looking down at him with his clean face and honest eyes, and Baekhyun lets out a little whimper, like the wail of a lost puppy, and opens his mouth again under Jongdae’s claim.
“We can’t be loud, Baek, you know,” he murmurs against Baekhyun’s cheek, his neck, his collarbones, and he kisses the laugh he receives in response from Baekhyun’s collarbone, where it’s difficult to understand if the little hiccups are from humour or pleasure.
“We’re both singers, Jongdae, we’re bound to be loud.”
“But Jongdeok’s piano room is far and cold and I quite like you here, on my bed,” he admits, sighing at the idea of having Baekhyun in a soundproof chamber. He scoots over to make space between their bodies, hands tearing at Baekhyun’s clothes.
“You’re a possessive little fuck, did you know?” he teases, patting away Jongdae’s trembling hand to untie the first buttons of his shirt, letting Jongdae do the rest and enjoying the look of utter confusion he gets in return when Jongdae lowers his eyes on Baekhyun’s chest.
“Y- you’re wearing one of my shirts,” stutters Jongdae, eyes fixated on the Iron Man print of one of his favourite tees, barely visible under the half-undone jeans shirt. “You took a fucking century to notice,” Baekhyun answers, as he pulls him down by the sleeve of his own tee, a little too tight on Jongdae’s arms.
“You, you little cunning fox… You wore my shirt, you were already planning to talk things out with me! Did you plan to punch me in the pool in advance?”
Ok, maybe Baekhyun had already decided to have The Talk with Jongdae, after Chanyeol,s countless pleas and Kyungsoo’s countless threats. He smirks, “No, that was the inspiration of the moment, you know, a flash of genius.”
“Baek, I can feel the cold in my bones. We’re lucky if we don’t wake up with a fever tomorrow.”
“A fever? It’s not my body that’s making you feel so hot?”
Jongdae pulls on the shirt, gracing Baekhyun’s nipple in retaliation, eliciting a shiver and a choked gasp masked as a giggle. Baekhyun hisses at him as he slides the shirt out of his head, the hair catching a little on the fabric and crackling with static electricity when he finally manages to untangle himself. His hands run on the curve of Jongdae’s back to rest on his nape, scratching and pulling the hair at the base of his neck until Jongdae’s mouth is on his shoulder, hot and demanding. Baekhyun forgets about dignity and Jongdae’s parents and moans low in his throat when he feels the skin breaking.
“You moan like a bitch, Baek, just like your dog when she’s in heat,” Jongdae mocks, and Baekhyun feels the sudden urge to smack him and make him sleep on the floor.
“You didn’t just compare me to my dog, right? Because, first, it’s such a turn-off; second, my dog totally owns your dog, like, he’s her little boytoy; third-”
“I wouldn’t mind being your boytoy, Byun Baekhyun.”
“That’s because you already are; and third, I said-”
“You mean you are my boytoy, you’re under me right now, in case you missed that.”
“Kim Jongdae, I’ve jerked off by myself for the last five months. I’m not past throwing you on the floor and doing it again,” he says, and he means it. Not giving Jongdae the satisfaction to be a smug shit it’s better than an orgasm, sometimes. Ok, maybe it’s a bluff. Maybe it’s been too long since the last time he and Jongdae did anything remotely funny like talking, pranking Choi Minho or having sex. Jongdae is totally seeing through his bluff, though.
“Are you sure? Because I’ve really missed you. And my little ChenChen totally missed you too and…”
He tried. Posterity will know that there was an attempt. He kicks Jongdae out of the bed, making sure to aim for his dick. If his parents were by some miracle still asleep, then their son’s wounded wail has changed it for good.
“Why would you do that?” asks an indignant Jongdae.
“So that now your friend ChenChen can go and keep company to his friend ChanChan in the disabled dicks department.”
Jongdae is in the middle of trying to find a biting enough answer through the fog of pain, Baekhyun can see the gearwheels moving in his head, when Jongdae’s smartphone rings. It’s Chanyeol.
“What does the fucker want now? Is this some exquisite form of cockblocking? Why is destiny so hard on me right now?”
Baekhyun ignores Jongdae’s cries about sad endings and bad karma and the bad pun about destiny and his dick both being hard, pressing the dial key to take the call. “I hope it’s important, Yeol, we were kinda trying to have sex.”
“No, you weren’t, you were just blueballing poor ChenChen. We can see you through the window, you left the curtains open by the way.”
He looks outside, and indeed, two smiling faces on the other side of the streets makes waving signs from the opposite house. Wait, two? Two smiling faces? And Chanyeol’s voice is too rough and low, deeper than usual, and…
“OH MY GOD YOU HAD SEX!”
He covers the phone with his hand, “Jongdae, Jongdae, they did it, hey wait a moment, Chanyeol, you evil fucker! Don’t think that just because you scored tonight and I didn’t do it yet, you’re allowed to call me and rub it in my face. First because it’s gross, second because Kyungsoo is smiling and I can feel the creepy from here and I don’t know how you’re sitting next to him and you’re not completely flipped out by the dark aura of danger, and third…”
Jongdae takes the phone out of his hands, putting an end to Kyungsoo’s pleased and somewhat demonic giggles and Chanyeol’s amused “I told you he would’ve reacted like that!” and slides the curtain closed. He pins Baekhyun to the bed, licks right inside his mouth, and whispers in his ear, rougher than Chanyeol, rougher than anyone else can speak, with that impossibly low note that Jongdae and only Jongdae in their entire choir group was able to reach, “Let’s see who’s limping more tomorrow, if you or Kyungsoo. I can do better than Chanyeol.”
Baekhyun closes his eyes, lets the wave of pleasure break against his body at the raw implication in Jongdae’s words.
“Let’s see if you can.”
As they catch their breaths, cocooned in wrinkled sheets and fluffy comforters that hold all the warmth of their bodies, they wait for the pale light of dawn. Baekhyun feels drowsy and ready to give up and call it a night, but every time the weight of sleep pulls his eyelids down, Jongdae runs his fingers against his naked chest, not to scratch but to tease, and Baekhyun falls back against him with a shiver and a startled pant.
“Don’t fall asleep,” comes the warning.
“Not my fault,” he slurs, “it’s so cosy in here.”
He wiggles against Jongdae’s body, and Jongdae laughs in his ear. Even his breath is searing hot against Baekhyun’s neck. “Not there,” he whimpers, “not the neck, please, I won’t fall asleep.”
“You better not, we must wait for the rise of the sun.”
“Yes, whatever, I know you want us to wait for the rise of your morning wood.”
He hopes he’ll be already asleep by the time Jongdae is hard again, because he’s not in for another round. He can barely move his arms. Jongdae can fuck his dead body if he wants to get off, Baekhyun is not going to stop him as long as no one wakes him up.
Their breathes mingle under the covers, as the sky outside change from a velvety blue to a pale indigo, and the first trims of pink and gold start to spill from the horizon.
Jongdae’s fingers find Baekhyun’s. The first time Baekhyun and Chanyeol were allowed to sleep over at Jongdae’s house, they didn’t sleep. They spent the entire night playing under the covers, pretending they were explorers and that the sheets pulled over their heads were their tent. They had a flashlight, it must still be somewhere under Jongdae’s bed, if Baekhyun remembers well, and every time Jongdae’s mom came to check if they were already sleeping, they would turn off the flashlight and play dead. Mrs. Kim was probably able to see through their act, but they felt extremely stealthy and subtle. They were children, after all. When the darkness of the night started to fade, they watched the dawn together, just like Baekhyun is doing with Jongdae today.
“Do you think Chanyeol is watching it too?” Baekhyun asks, so soft that he’s afraid Jongdae didn’t catch it. But Jongdae has always being able to catch Baekhyun.
“I don’t know. You know how he is. We always had to resort to violence to get him to wake up and watch the sunrise with us.”
Baekhyun bites his lips, as the sky turns rosy and a red, cold November sky starts to appear at the bottom of the hill. Their houses are in the best position to see the show, and now all the buildings in the lower town are flooded with red and gold.
“Who knows,” continues Jongdae, “maybe Kyungsoo will be the one who uses violence to get him to watch the dawn.”
“I don’t think so, Kyungsoo is even lazier than Chanyeol is.”
“That’s even better, we can break in Chanyeol’s house and kick them until they wake up, and then we can all watch the dawn together.”
“Sounds good,” hums Baekhyun, when he’s really thinking that Kyungsoo will feed them to Chanyeol’s ferret Wafer if they dare to disrupt his beauty sleep. Chanyeol wouldn’t help them, either. Maybe he’d save Baekhyun, but he’s not sure about Jongdae.
“Jongdae, can I ask you something?”
“About what?”
“About Chanyeol.”
“Go on,” replies Jongdae, and only the tightening of his arms around Baekhyun’s body shows the shift in their conversation.
Baekhyun takes his time, not even sure about what wants to ask. It’s easier to unveil his fear and ask thorny question when they’re like this, nothing to keep them apart, cuddling in their messy teenager room of a nest.
“When you kissed me and we started going out, we went to tell Chanyeol, together. I didn’t realise at that time, but recently he spilled the beans. He confessed that he was really hurt, that he felt like we were leaving him behind.”
He pauses, but Jongdae doesn’t talk, realising that Baekhyun has something else to say before he’s done. “You knew, though, right? You know how dense I am about these things, I really am hopeless, but you knew he was going to suffer because of us.”
Jongdae sighs, heavy, “Of course I knew. We really had a tight bond, me, you and Chanyeol, and it was inevitable that he’d end up hurt if we did something like that.”
“He told me that he felt like I was stealing you from him, and you were stealing him from me. I didn’t want to hurt him, Jongdae. I didn’t.”
“To be honest, I think I could’ve liked Chanyeol this way. Don’t you?” he asks, almost guilty at the thought of liking someone else than Baekhyun.
“Me too,” he answers.
“I was the greedy one. Chanyeol wanted nothing more than for us to stay as we were back then, so that he could love us both and we could love him in the same way. We could’ve been an equilateral triangle, you know? All equal and caught in a damn cool threesome. You probably would’ve been alright with that, because you don’t love me and him in the same way anymore, but you did. You were happy.”
“We were happy, Jongdae.”
“You probably want to know why I did what I did. Why did I kiss you, if we were that happy the way we were. Why did I have to hurt Chanyeol like that. Because that’s what I did, by kissing you and asking you to go out with me and changing our relationship for good. I broke his heart, and it’s only because he’s Chanyeol, our fantastic, amazing best friend Park Chanyeol, and he loved us that much, that he still puts up with us. I really hate myself for what I did to him that day, but I’d do it over and over again.”
“Why?”
“I wanted you. And I wanted Chanyeol too, but I wanted you more, and I was scared, that if I would’ve let my chance go, he could’ve asked you… And then I would’ve been the one left out. I couldn’t let that happen. Like I told you, I am greedy.”
If Jongdae is greedy what that makes Baekhyun? He wanted all of them, Jongdae’s love, Chanyeol’s friendship and even Kyungsoo’s attention, and in the end he’s gotten everything. He’s the greediest of them all, but he doesn’t care. Baekhyun is not perfect, and his life is not perfect either, but the things he wanted the most, now he has them, and he’s not letting go.
The sky is pale blue, a little cloudy. The first blade of sunlight has almost reached Jongdae’s window. Biscuit pads through the hole in the fence to visit Cookie, and Jongdae’s mom wakes up to make a breakfast they won’t eat until noon, when Chanyeol, and maybe Kyungsoo, will barge in the room to wake them up, sent in their reconnaissance mission by Mrs. Kim.
Baekhyun is so tired, but there’s no other place where he wishes to be.
“Thank you for being greedy, Jongdae.”
When Jongdae answers, he’s already fallen asleep, safely tucked in his boyfriend’s arms, his breath slow and even.
“You’re welcome, Baekhyun.”
a/n: I want to thank my beta P. for her absolute dedication to the cause despite the short notice; M. who was here when I started writing this fic and was always ready to give advice and cuddles; R. for the moral support and C. because she understands too much and she gave me a lot of strength. Thank you girls.
To my recipient: thank you for the nice prompts, I did my best and I hope you enjoy the fic!