[EXO] a former "most love only lasts for a while"

[feixing]

a former "most love only lasts for a while" | exo | baekhyun/chanyeol | pg-13 | 4600~ 
in which Chanyeol smiles too much, Baekhyun is a little bit of a cynic but they fall together anyway.



a former "most love only lasts for a while"

The new barista is terribly smiley; mouth stretched across his face in what Baekhyun thinks looks like a painful arc, teeth almost gleaming white under the fluorescent lights of the café. He’s tall too, with a head full of brown curls that makes his eyes look crazier than they already are. Baekhyun is extremely unnerved.

Baekhyun had walked in the café the same time he did every morning, 6:48am, fingers busy tapping on his phone. He had walked up to the counter without looking up, navigating the shop easily by the tiles on the floor, and asked for “the usual”. He looks up only when he is greeted by silence instead of the usual greeting by Wu Fan - call me Kris.

“Hi, I am new here!” he is instantly greeted with when he looks up, and his vision meets twin rows of white teeth. He blinks, trying to take it in.

“Where’s Wu - Kris,” he hears himself ask.

“I’m taking over his morning shift from now on,” the smiley barista replies, “I am Chanyeol!”

“Can I get a hazelnut latte, medium, lesser sugar, more syrup, soy milk with a shot of espresso please, take away,” Baekhyun rattles off. He gets the same thing every morning because he treats the cup as the indication of the start of a new day, and it helps to chase away the sleepiness that plagues his limbs and weighs down his eyelids.

Chanyeol returns with the latte, and Baekhyun hands him his card as he sips on the beverage. There’s something different about the way it tastes, “are you sure it is soy milk,” he squints at Chanyeol.

“Skim milk?” Chanyeol asks hopefully, ridiculous smile still plastered on his face.

“Soy,” Baekhyun replies, and his voice is a little on edge. Weird.

“I’ll make you a fresh cup,” Chanyeol replies, and he is still smiling. Baekhyun is really unnerved as hell because how does one person smile so much?

“It’s fine. Just get it right next time,” he manages to reply, before turning to leave. He looks at the time on his phone and 7:00am looks back at him. He had been in the café four minutes more than usual.

Baekhyun goes to the same café every morning, and gets the exact same thing. Sometimes, he wanders back there in the afternoon when he needs a place to finish an assignment or tidy up his notes, or just somewhere to sit and enjoy another cup of hazelnut latte. He might be a little addicted, but better be addicted to caffeine than anything else he supposed.

It isn’t that Baekhyun is exceptionally rich, so much that he can afford grossly overpriced flavoured coffee every morning; it is that Baekhyun has skills that he knows how to exploit. He has always had handwriting that was easy to read, a little too square for his own taste but easy on the eye. Furthermore, years of falling asleep during examinations and thus having to rush through his essays has honed his writing speed.

So he does the most logical thing anyone with his - talents - would do. He copies notes meticulously in lectures, neat rows of letters and words that are colour-coded and labeled with the necessary headers and bullet points. There are also highlights to indicate important content and arrows that connect information together.

He goes to the University slightly earlier every morning, reaching at exactly 7:30am, giving him 30 minutes to photocopy these notes, and for him to sell them for profit. It is an extremely profitable arrangement, and one that doesn’t even really consume his time at all. He even does “commissions”, mindmaps and tables for those who prefer their information in non-linear form. It gives him opportunity to look at the material properly, analyze it, and study while earning. Come to think of it, it is an amazing arrangement.

Jongdae is already at the photocopier machine outside the still-closed library when he arrives. He has his face buried into a book as usual, legs swinging as he reads. Jongdae is Baekhyun’s closest friend in his course, and the biggest bookworm Baekhyun has had the pleasure of meeting. He is always reading, everything from the most trashy of adult novels to the classics. Baekhyun remembers the month when Jongdae had been trying to get through Virginia Woolf’s entire collection. There had been a lot of frowning and silent mumbling. It hadn’t been a good week. Sometimes, Baekhyun wonders why Jongdae hadn’t just taken literature as his major instead of economics/business.

He ignores Jongdae and inserts his photocopier card in the card slot, and heaves a sigh of relief when he realizes he has enough credit. He hums quietly as he scans the pages of his notes one by one.

“The school should really invest in one of those new photocopiers, those that you can just slot in a stack of paper for them to scan and photocopy instantly.”

Jongdae makes a small sound of approval, and the only sound in the air is the photocopier printing the notes, a loud noise.

“It’s rude to ignore someone when they are talking to you,” Baekhyun grumbles.

“Sorry, important scene. Besides, you didn’t say hello when you came,” Jongdae replies, before turning the page of his book.

Jongdae has a point, but that doesn’t stop Baekhyun from mumbling rude under his breath.

He returns to the café later that afternoon, as he has an essay due in the next seventy-two hours. Apparently he had lost track of time, or time had gone by faster, because he swears the due date for this essay was supposed to be a week later. He sighs as he dumps his belongings on to a table before going to the counter. He is surprised to see the barista - Chanyeol - from the morning.

“Where’s Kris?” he asks when it is his turn to be served.

Chanyeol smiles at him, still insanely bright, and Baekhyun has an urge to raise a hand to shield his eyes.

“You smile a lot,” and Baekhyun hadn’t intended for that to be verbalized, he opens his mouth to salvage the situation, but clamps it close again.

“Manager is off in a meeting, so I’m still here,” Chanyeol replies, “smiling is good.”

“Manager?”

“Yeah, he got promoted when the previous one left. That’s why I am here, they needed a new staff.”

“Manager,” Baekhyun repeats.

“Uhm, what can I get you,” Chanyeol says instead.

“The same thing as before,” and Baekhyun watches as Chanyeol stops smiling for once to chew on his bottom lip.

“I don’t remember.”

Baekhyun sighs, “Medium hazelnut latte, lesser sugar more syr -”

“- syrup with soy milk. Am I right?” and the smile is back on his face, possibly even brighter than before. Baekhyun still doesn’t get how someone smiles that much.

He settles into the seat with his coffee, and plugs in his earphones. When he glances up, Chanyeol notices and waves to him slightly.

Baekhyun feels himself smile back.

The next morning, he is surprised to see Wu Fan at the counter again. He likes the familiarity, of course, but he finds himself sort of already missing Chanyeol, misses the view of a face that seems permanently happy. Wu Fan’s face is constantly in a scowl. It isn’t his fault, no one chooses to be born like that, but it’s still there.

“Where’s the new kid,” Baekhyun asks as he approaches the counter.

“He has some presentation in his University today, needs to be there in the morning so I am taking over for a while,” Wu Fan replies, “and you really shouldn’t be calling him kid. He’s your age I think, same university.”

“Same university? Weird, never seen him around,” Baekhyun says to Wu Fan’s back, as the latter prepares his morning cup without question.

It must be some form of cosmic intervention or coincidence, because later on in school, Baekhyun - literally - bumps into Chanyeol, and his stack of neat, organized notes goes flying in the air before falling down in a poor imitation of snow. He sits on the floor, gaping uselessly at his notes.

Chanyeol is a flurry of action as he hastily gathers his notes for him, but Baekhyun can’t help but wince when Chanyeol grabs the edge of a piece of paper too tight and dents it.

“It’s okay, I can pick them up myself,” he says, one hand circling Chanyeol’s forearm to stop him.

“It’s my fault, I’ll - you are the customer from the café!”

“Baekhyun, my name is Baekhyun,” Baekhyun tells him, even as he tugs the stack of paper in Chanyeol’s hands away from him. They pick up the reminding notes in silence, and Chanyeol smiles a little when he passes his own stack to Baekhyun and Baekhyun can’t bring himself to chide Chanyeol for crumbling almost every piece he had picked up. Instead, he thanks him with a smile of his own, and is surprised to see Chanyeol’s eyes widen.

“I guess I’ll see you around,” Baekhyun says as a form of good bye, and Chanyeol nods at him before turning to leave.

What a perplexing character, Baekhyun thinks to himself, as he settles on to a nearby bench to sort out his notes. He will probably need to recopy a few of these pieces, especially the ones that are crumbled at the edge due to Chanyeol.

Baekhyun has lunch with Chanyeol at school three days later. He isn’t sure why they ended up eating together, but apparently, Chanyeol and Jongdae belonged to the same book club and somehow they had ended up talking about him and Jongdae had conveniently invited Chanyeol to lunch with them.

He sits around listlessly, pushing at the food on his plate while they talk about the merits of rhymes in poetry. Lunchtime is supposed to be the time where Jongdae and he discuss about economic theories, or anything else, and not times where he eats quietly as he listens to a conversation he is not involved in.

“Chanyeol majors in literature, isn’t that so cool,” Jongdae practically sighs the last two words out, wistful. Baekhyun thinks Jongdae should really have taken up literature. Chanyeol flails his (too long) arms uselessly and denies being cool, and all Baekhyun registers is how much like an octopus he looks, all flaily limbs.

“You look like an octopus,” he blurts out, and he hears Jongdae groan beside him even as Chanyeol laughs nervously at his comment.

“Don’t mind him. I don’t think he processes half the things he says,” Jongdae says, as he clams a hand around Baekhyun’s mouth.

Baekhyun pushes him away and scowls at him, “says the person who once told a crush that her ass was nice. With a song.”

“I was 14, you’re just being unfair and picking at the past,” Jongdae’s face is painted a bright red.

“No it’s okay, really,” Chanyeol piques up and there is a smile playing on his face, “I get that sometimes. Too tall, too long, octopus.”

There’s something in Chanyeol’s eyes that doesn’t quite match the way his mouth is arched so high. Baekhyun doesn’t know what it is, but it looks like the polar opposite of happiness.

Before he can stop himself, and Baekhyun thinks he really should, because whatever is going to trip out of his mouth now sounds entirely ridiculous -

“You have really nice eyes, like an elf. They’re really pretty.”

Said eyes are looking at him, wide. Chanyeol’s mouth is opened, as if he wants to say something, a shaky thank you perhaps? But before he can do anything, Jongdae is laughing, hand in a fist banging against the table. Baekhyun doesn’t think it’s that funny.

“Who’s the one who doesn’t process what they say now?”

Baekhyun hits him on his head.

Things between Chanyeol and Baekhyun, thankfully, do not become awkward after that encounter. In fact, it seemed to have only brought them closer, or at least, allowed them to become friends. They start to do their assignments together at the café during the evenings when Chanyeol does not have a shift. They always sit at the same spot, a small table tucked in a corner of the café that’s isolated enough while still accessible.

They chat sometimes; work forgotten on the table, about everything and absolutely nothing. Chanyeol is easy to talk to, albeit a little too eager sometimes; and he gives Baekhyun opportunities to just talk and complain about things.

The table they use to study at is decidedly small, but so is every table at the café. Chanyeol really does have legs that go on forever, and Baekhyun gets used to the way Chanyeol’s feet always bump into his under the table, tip of his shoe brushing against Baekhyun’s shin when he shifts. There are times when Baekhyun has an insane urge to reach out with his own legs and tangle them with Chanyeol’s under the table, but it sounds really weird even in his own head so he doesn’t go forward with that urge.

Chanyeol also has a really bad (cute) habit of doodling on his notes. He scribbles song lyrics at every spare inch of blank paper he sees, or little heart shapes that are lopsided and look more like distorted ‘B’s than actual shapes. Once, he had drawn a smiley face on the top of Baekhyun’s notes, and Baekhyun had glared at him until he erased it away, crumbling the piece of paper with his overzealous erasing.

It is also completely unfair that Chanyeol gets free drinks just because he is a staff. Chanyeol has afternoon classes, so when he arrives, Baekhyun is usually already hunched over his too-thick files, squinting as he reads something he doesn’t quite understand. Chanyeol puts his bag down on the seat opposite Baekhyun, smiles at him as a form of hello, and casually waltzes behind the counter and prepares his own coffee as Zitao, the guy responsible for the evening shift, attends to customers.

“It’s terribly rude of you to flaunt your large free coffee in front of me,” Baekhyun starts when Chanyeol is taking his seat, “why don’t you make me one?”

“Company policy,” Chanyeol replies easily, mock toasting the cup towards Baekhyun’s general direction. After weeks of knowing each other, Chanyeol has started to open up to Baekhyun, and his not-as-nice and snarky as fuck side has started to show itself. He’s still smiley, but Baekhyun is able to tell the difference between his smiles now, know if it is genuine happiness or stark sarcasm. At the moment, the smile that graces Chanyeol’s face is one of faint mockery tinted with teasing. Baekhyun frowns at him for a split second before returning to squinting at his notes. Maybe if he read between the lines enough the information would pop out in front of him. Probably not, but he guess it couldn’t hurt to try.

“…are you angry?” Chanyeol asks, tentative, and it is moments like this that Baekhyun wants to reach out both hands and cuddle Chanyeol close to him, because Chanyeol is too open to people sometimes, lets them affect him too much and too easily. Baekhyun doesn’t know how he does it, he is sure he wouldn’t be able to handle a life where mere words can make him feel like he is at the bottom of the world.

“I would think that your ability to derive meaning from seemingly nothing would let you know that I am not angry at you,” Baekhyun sighs.

“What.”

“You know… the whole literature thing.”

Chanyeol gasps out loud in shock and Baekhyun has to try his hardest to hold back laughter because he didn’t know people actually gasp out loud. It had always seemed like one of those actions that worked on paper and not in real life for him. Apparently he was wrong.

“Literature is not nothing,” Chanyeol says, “It contains so much, Baekhyun.”

And they fall into an easy banter as usual, and Baekhyun feels something sigh in relief in him.

Baekhyun is not someone who believes in love. Or more specifically, Baekhyun guesses he believes in love, but he doesn’t believe in “forever after”. He is sure that this notion called love is something temporary, something that people hold on to for a while, sometimes for a long while, but will end up letting go at the end.

“Have you ever wondered if you not believing love will last is why all your relationships end?” someone had asked him once, when he had very politely requested for a break up.

It had taken him by surprise, the question, and he was unable to form an answer even as he watched the retreating figure of his ex-girlfriend.

It is a little disconcerting to look up expecting to see Chanyeol in one of his many printed tees, or even one of those ugly plaid shirts, but instead Baekhyun is greeted by the sight of Chanyeol in a suit, tie loose around his neck.

“Uhm,” Baekhyun manages to say or at least sound out. He is aware that he is staring, but there’s dryness in his mouth that he doesn’t quite understand.

“I had an interview,” Chanyeol explains, even as his hand plays at the neck of his tie, tugging it down further. Baekhyun feels himself swallow, “these suits are really uncomfortable, I don’t know how people wear them daily.”

Baekhyun doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he nods instead.

“I’m going to go change into something more casual. I think I have something stored in the backroom,” and Chanyeol turns to leave, but Baekhyun hears himself call Chanyeol’s name and he cringes a little because what is going to come out of his mouth is going to be stupid and inappropriate and he has always had an issue with this -

“Your hair looks sexy pushed back,” and he wants to crawl into hole. Baekhyun hears Zitao snort all the way from the counter and Chanyeol laughs nervously at him.

“Are you aware you just quoted Mean Girls,” Chanyeol replies instead, his voice light and teasing. Baekhyun bangs his head against the table in front of him, “I am going to go change for real, unless you want to tell me that my shirt would look nice pushed back too.”

“Fuck off,” Baekhyun manages to groan out, and Chanyeol ruffles his hair good-naturedly before heading for the backroom.

Something continues to churn in Baekhyun’s stomach, and he has to clamp down the desire to follow Chanyeol to the backroom and shove him against the wall.

“What is love?” Baekhyun blurts out over lunch with Jongdae, a lunch where Chanyeol isn’t around because he has a lesson.

Jongdae blinks at him blankly, before gesturing to himself, “was that an actual question or a rhetorical one?”

“An actual one I guess,” Baekhyun sighs. He knows what love. Love is a reaction of chemicals, it is purely biologicial in nature. Love makes your palms sweat and your heart work in overdrive because your body chemicals are going fucking nuts. Yet it doesn’t explain the way he wants to make Chanyeol happy, wants to see Chanyeol’s smile be one directed at him, filled to the brim with an intense happiness. It doesn’t explain why he wants to hug Chanyeol, bury his head into the crook of his neck and just inhale his scent.

Or maybe it does. Maybe the chemical reaction fucks with your head and you start to want the impossible.

Jongdae is digging through his bag when Baekhyun brings his focus back to reality, and he watches as Jongdae flips open a thin book, looking for a particular page.

“How is this supposed to hel -” “Love is a big game hunter and you are the game.”

Baekhyun frowns at Jongdae, who doesn’t seem to take notice, “Love makes the world go round. Love is blind. All you need is love.”

“…Jongdae,” and Jongdae looks up from the book to look at him, eyes foggy.

“Isn’t that so pretty? I love her writing so much, Baekhyun. It gives me feels,” Jongdae is clutching the book to his chest now.

“You’re really no help at all; I wonder why I asked you.”

“I am sorry you can’t understand the wisdom of Jeanette Winterson,” Jongdae replies, and Baekhyun suddenly feels like he is the one at fault, even though it had been Jongdae that had totally ignored his question and instead quoted something from some stupid book.

“What is love?” Baekhyun asks Wu Fan as the latter prepares his coffee. Wu Fan pauses to turn and look at him, eyebrows raised. They look comical.

“Are you in love, Baekhyun?” Wu Fan asks, back once again facing Baekhyun.

“Yes. No. Maybe. I guess so,” and Baekhyun’s heart is beating too hard for it to be normal, and it is like he has achieved an epiphany because yes he just might, might be a little in love with Chanyeol, might just be a little addicted to trying to figure out what his smiles means and might just be a little enthralled by Chanyeol in general.

“I don’t believe in love, Wu - Kris,” Baekhyun says, and he knows he should believe this, used to believe in it strongly, but his words now sound hollow and empty, and incredibly plastic.

Wu Fan places his coffee in front of him and there’s a look on his face that Baekhyun has never seen. He looks soft, almost apologetic.

“Are you in love with Chanyeol?” Wu Fan asks, voice barely above a whisper, and Baekhyun’s eyes widen at that question. It is hard to deny it when it is verbalized, laid out in front of him in tangible words and letters.

“I -” he starts but is cut off by the ringing of bells indicating that someone had entered the shop. He turns to see Zitao walking in.

“What are you guys talking about,” he asks casually as he slips on his apron.

“Love,” Wu Fan supplies, and Baekhyun can’t help but feel colour rise to his cheeks.

“Love. Isn’t love just what feels right?”

Baekhyun picks up the courage to ask Chanyeol out for a date; or more like he invites Chanyeol out to watch this new action movie with him because he couldn’t find anyone else. Chanyeol accepts the invitation readily, especially since he has wanted to watch The Avengers for a while.

“The Thor-Loki dynamics were amazing,” Chanyeol repeats for the nth time as they have dinner at a fast food joint nearby. His burger is held suspended in midair by his fingers, and his eyes are wide as he says those words with his mouth full.

“You’ve said that multiple times.”

“I know, but there’s so much love and pain and it’s just so amazing.”

Baekhyun feels something in his chest jump at the word “love”, and he decides that this is ridiculous because he isn’t in love with Chanyeol, or at least, he doesn’t want to admit it. He is in love with the idea of being in love with Chanyeol, because Chanyeol is fun and easy to talk to, and he makes Baekhyun’s heart seize and his mouth go dry sometimes and Chanyeol is a bundle of sunshine and rain that Baekhyun wants to tangle his fingers into and never let go.

But it doesn’t matter because this won’t last, because Baekhyun knows that one day he could grow sick of the way all of Chanyeol’s smiles mean different things and the way Chanyeol is too tall and too long everywhere. One day he might start to resent the way Chanyeol ruffles his hair or the way Chanyeol likes to drink his coffee with full-cream milk and -

It hits him like a freight train, a sudden realization that comes to him in the middle of a fast food joint that is filled with the smell of stale oil and burnt meat, that maybe it isn’t that he doesn’t believe in love, maybe it is that he doesn’t trust himself to love forever because he has always been a little wishy-washy and indecisive, and maybe what his ex-girlfriend had said was right, that because he doesn’t believe it will last, it doesn’t last, and maybe instead of being just intense attraction, love is the slow cultivation of feelings that has to be nurtured and grown and Baekhyun has just been wrong about everything all along.

Chanyeol jumps back a little when he slams his fist hard on to the table, but Baekhyun is on a roll and he leans close to Chanyeol, as close as the table in between them allows and says out loud for both of them to hear.

“I love you,” Chanyeol leans back against his seat and his face is starting to tint with bright pink. He opens his mouth to say something but Baekhyun had already stood up and bolted out of the place.

“So you confessed to him and then ran out of the place?” Wu Fan says, and Baekhyun can’t help but wince because it sounds exceptionally bad coming out of someone else’s mouth. He nods grimly before burying his head in his hands again.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this stupid in my life,” Baekhyun groans, and Wu Fan pats him lightly on the shoulder.

“It’s okay. He probably won’t come and study with you for a while, so you can use this time to - hi Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun snaps his head up and there’s Chanyeol right in front of him, dressed in one of his many tees, this particular one being one that Baekhyun really liked.

“Hi,” he manages to force out of his throat, and his voice is pitched entirely too high.

“Can we talk? Somewhere quiet?”

“You can use the backroom if you want! You can lock the door and everything,” Wu Fan offers, and Baekhyun feels him heart plummet. Great. A locked room with a guy he confessed to and then ran away from.

He follows Chanyeol wordlessly into the room, and stands around awkwardly as the latter locks the door behind him. He opens his mouth to say something, to apologize firstly, but suddenly there is pressure on his back and his mouth.

Chanyeol is kissing him. Chanyeol has shoved him into a wall and assaulted him with his mouth, mouth that is currently warm and moving against his own. There are firm hands holding his shoulders, almost a little too tight, but Baekhyun’s concentration is centered on the way Chanyeol is tugging on his bottom lip. He opens his mouth a little to accommodate Chanyeol, and Chanyeol’s tongue is his mouth, tracing the ridges of his teeth and Baekhyun reaches out to grab at Chanyeol’s waist so he can lean a little higher.

“Oh my god I can’t believe I just did that,” Chanyeol says when they part, and the tips of his ears are bright red. His eyes are wide as he catches his breath, and Baekhyun feels literal butterflies in his stomach.

“I like you. That was what I was trying to convey. I don’t know about love. Love just seems to hold so much more meaning and weight behind it. But I like you. A lot. And I would like to go out on multiple dates with you, where we just hang out and maybe make out a little and -”

“Okay,” Baekhyun says and there’s a smile (one that is filled with happiness) twitching at the corner of Chanyeol’s mouth.

“Okay what,” he asks tentatively.

“Okay I will go on multiple dates with you and hang out and maybe make out a little.”

Chanyeol kisses him again.

Baekhyun cannot guarantee they will last. They might break up in weeks, months or even years. But when Chanyeol smiles at him, that one smile that Baekhyun now recognizes as his smile, Baekhyun is willing to try his hardest to keep this going.

Hopefully forever.

- jfc this is the longest thing i very ever written.
- it is also highly gross and incoherent i am terribly sorry but baekyeol gives me the worst fluffy feels.
- jongdae quotes "Written on the Body" by Jeanette Winterson in reference to the love part.
- i think it is quite evident i am a huge fan of Jeanette Winterson's writing.
- jongdae's frowning over Virginia Woolf is basically a mirror of me when i tried to read through Mrs Dalloway. never again.
- zitao is a man of wisdom.
- title taken from he is we's everything you do
- thank you honey_x_flavor for helping me proofread this for typo, i owe you the world.
- any mistakes are mine and mine alone.