[exo] throw away the key (to your heart) 2/2
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The second broken engagement, at least, wasn’t Baekhyun’s fault.
It had happened before the day of the ceremony, too, with enough time to call the caterers to cancel, and Baekhyun had spent what was supposed to be his wedding day at the office, trying to catch up on paperwork.
“I’m sorry, Baekhyun,” Jessica had said when she called the week before. “I just - It wasn’t you. I didn’t love you, and that wasn’t fair.”
In a way, though, it had been Baekhyun’s fault.
Baekhyun may not have been good at school or at business, but he’s always been good at charming people, and Jessica, who had looked sad one day when Baekhyun had run into her at a coffee shop, despite her usual cold facade, had been easy to charm.
She was too good for him, really, and Taeyeon had been too, but she laughed when he made jokes and liked having him around, and for Baekhyun, who only wanted to be wanted, it was enough.
He’d heard the rumors, muttered by the same people that had talked about why Taeyeon might have left, about whether Baekhyun’s preferences might have come between them. They said Jessica had had a boyfriend, a nobody from Brooklyn, and Jessica’s parents, who saw her bright future as a lawyer as just the gateway to her success, had given her an ultimatum.
It wasn’t Baekhyun’s fault that Jessica had already had her heart broken once, but it was his fault that he had wanted to love her, to give her what she deserved, but hadn’t been able to manage it.
Jessica’s voice had been apologetic when she explained, but not sad, and that was more than Baekhyun had been able to manage for her. “I thought if I found someone that wasn’t anything like him, then I’d be able to do it. They say love takes work to, you know.“ Baekhyun’s mother had told him that at his brother’s wedding and he had, unknowingly, taken it to heart. “But it also takes truly wanting to work in the first place. Without a will, there’s no way.”
They’d eloped, Jessica and her nobody-from-Brooklyn exboyfriend, and Jessica was only sorry she hadn’t told Baekhyun before. “He’s- Kris got drafted this year for the NBA, and I make more than enough with my work. We don’t need my parents help.” She’d sounded so happy that Baekhyun had smiled for her.
“I’m really glad for you,” he’d said, and meant it. “I only ever wanted you happy.”
“You too, Baekhyun.” Jessica’s voice had lost all of that ice princess hardness to it. “I hope you’ll find a way to be happy too.”
And when she’d hung up, Baekhyun hadn’t felt the crush of heartbreak, not with the one hidden away in deep inside his heart still pressing on him so heavily, even after years, but he had felt the failure, another try at happiness slipping through his fingers.
Going to an all-boy’s high school had probably warped all of Baekhyun’s classmates in some way, just like how the girls from their sister school either became more simpering or more ball-busting as they got closer to graduation, but as an outsider who had come in, Baekhyun ended up thinking of it as some kind of rich kid right of passage, a period of teenage hazing that they all understood and experienced but never discussed the consequences of.
Still, it was always strange to run into people from other schools, like Sehun’s older brother, who Baekhyun’s group of friends knew because they’d gone to middle school together and been attending the same sort of parties since they were young.
At some point, Sehun had been annexed to their little group, the youngest one that they all babied, and so it wasn’t all that weird for Sehun’s brother to stop by the table at the coffee shop where Baekhyun and his friends were gathered one day after school.
There were too many of them for the small table, Jongdae and Junmyeon smushed into one chair, and Sehun had been pressed right up next to Baekhyun so he could see everyone else, their shins knocking each time one of them moved.
Sehun’s brother and his friends had eyed them all with a curious look on their faces, Jongdae and Junmyeon in particular, with their arms linked so neither of them fell off their chair.
Touching like that wasn’t weird at Baekhyun’s school, but maybe it was to other people. There’d been an unsettling, sick feeling in Baekhyun’s stomach as the two groups of friends began to talk.
Next to him, Sehun was fiddling with the lollipop in his mouth, greeting his brother and then ducking his head back down to look at his phone, where Baekhyun knew Sehun was still trying to best Baekhyun’s score in Snake.
It was a silly point of pride for Baekhyun that Sehun could run circles around him when tutoring him for math class, but couldn’t manage to beat Baekhyun at a phone game.
“Stop sucking on that thing and go get us some drinks. You’re never going to beat my score,” Baekhyun had said, ruffling Sehun’s hair and giving him some money.
Sehun’s brother had watched Sehun amble off to go stand in line, nose wrinkled. “What, are you dating my baby brother or something?”
“That’s so gay,” one of Sehun’s brother’s friends said, like it was the worst thing possible, and the sick feeling in Baekhyun’s gut had intensified.
“Who, Baekhyun? No way!” Jongdae had butted in before Baekhyun had a chance to say anything. “He’s got the hots for this college girl who’s totally out of his league.”
And it was true. Taeyeon the successful college student was beyond stunning, something out of Baekhyun’s early teenage wet dreams, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t also wondered if Sehun’s mouth would taste like the lollipop he’d been sucking on moments before, or thought about what Sehun would look like without a shirt on.
Those thoughts, which had only seemed to be passing ones before, suddenly felt dangerous. Something that needed to be kept a secret, shoved deep down, away from people’s prying eyes.
The conversation had drifted away from him once girls had been brought up, and if Baekhyun had sat a little further away from Sehun when he came back, holding two drinks, one of them Baekhyun’s favorite without him even having to ask, nobody mentioned it.
Preparations for the merger begin wrapping up a few weeks before the wedding, at the beginning of February, and the stacks of papers gradually begin to find their way off Baekhyun’s desk to their new homes in other people’s offices and filing cabinets.
Sehun’s become a regular fixture in the chair across from Baekhyun’s desk for the past several weeks, even if he’s really too tall for it, and he’s lounging there now, flushed with the success of their last day of work together.
Ever since their meeting at the suit shop, he and Seun hadn’t said much during their time together during the work day- Sehun probably because that was just what he was like, and Baekhyun because even if that wasn’t what he was like, the things he wanted to tell Sehun wasn’t the sort of stuff he could make himself say aloud.
With all the work out of the way, though, he feels like he needs to blow off some steam through meaningless conversation.
“It’s hard to believe I’ll be moving out of this office soon,” Baekhyun says, turning around to get a look at everything. There’s not much that he’ll miss, if he’s being honest.
Sehun leans his chair back until it’s balancing on only two of it’s legs. “I never really thought you’d go for the desk job thing, actually.”
“What’d you mean?”
“You’re more of a people person, not like,” he waves a hand at Baekhyun’s mostly clear desk, “a paper person.”
Baekhyun scoffs. “Clever.”
Sehun laughs, a stupid little hiccup that moves his shoulders and wrinkles up his face. It’s too endearing for a normal adult to manage, and makes Baekhyun smile.
“Seriously, though,” Sehun says, pressing without asking a real question in that way he’s always had. Baekhyun shrugs, leaning back against the front edge of his desk.
“I asked my dad for it. I thought maybe I could…” He scuffs his shoe at the dingy office carpet. “But it wasn’t for me, just like you said.”
“You should try advertising or something. PR work. You’d be good at that.” He says it like it’s something he’s put a lot of thought into, like he’d sat around thinking about what Baekhyun would be good for, instead of just what he’d failed at.
“You think so?” Baekhyun asks before he can stop himself, and he blinks hard, because his eyes are prickling.
The front feet of Sehun’s chair hit the ground again with a thump. “Sure,” he says, leaning forward to peer at Baekhyun’s face. “You’d be great.”
The space between the chair and the desk is small enough that Sehun’s knees knock Baekhyun’s as he fidgets, and Sehun reaches out to loosely circle his fingers around one of Baekhyun’s wrists.
“Look, Baekhyun,” he starts, eyes serious. The look in them reminds him of that night in the club, and if Baekhyun could back away, he would, but the desk is in the way, so he finds himself edging to the side, shaking off Sehun’s hand.
“I’ve got to go,” Baekhyun says suddenly, once he’s free. He nearly stumbles on his way towards his jacket and Sehun catches him, stopping him from falling to the floor. When he lets go, he’s standing up, so very tall and and so much more real than the Sehun that’s lived in Baekyun’s memory for the past six years.
“Wait,” he says, “will you just- “
The serious look on Sehun’s face has changed into something half concerned, half angry, and Baekhyun scrambles back. “I just remembered something I have to do,” he pants.
All those secrets in his chest are so heavy he can’t breathe.
Sehun steps between him and door, reaching out a hand to stop him when he goes for the doorknob.
“No,” he says fiercely, “you wouldn’t listen to me then, when I tried to tell you that I liked you before I left for the other side of the country, but you’re going to listen to me now.” He’s got a handful of Baekhyun’s shirt, holding him way too close, and Baekhyun’s chest his heaving, sternum brushing Sehun’s fisted fingers. “Maybe the reason you can’t marry any of these girls is because no matter how much you’ve tried or how much they deserve it, you don’t want them. And maybe you don’t want me either, not like how I want you, but at some point you’re going to have to stop running and being so afraid, and trying to do what you think other people want you to and just deal with it.”
He loosens his grip Baekhyun’s shirt and Baekhyun can see his fingers trembling, but all he can hear is his own heartbeat in his ears.
Sehun’s cheeks are pink and he can’t seem to take his eyes off Baekhyun’s face, and Baekhyun wants- he doesn’t know what he wants, but there’s something waiting to burst out of him, if he could just figure it out.
The silence must drag out a beat too long, because Sehun takes a step back, scrubbing a hand through his hair and sighing. “I guess I’ll just,” he puts a hand on the doorknob, eyes on the floor. “I’ll see you at the wedding.”
Baekhyun’s still too out of breath to reply and when the door closes again, he slumps against it. Out the window, he can see the last of the day’s sunlight reflected in the windowpanes across the street, another day almost gone for good. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and wonders why his palms come away wet.
Baekhyun’s first disappointment wasn’t really being left by Taeyeon at the altar, it was before that. It was the crest of a hill that his life has been declining from ever since.
The lights in the club were just dim enough that Baekhyun could see his friends dancing (or, for most of them, at least attempting to) and he’d nearly snorted his drink up his nose laughing at them from the edge of the dance floor.
“You’re not going to dance?” Sehun had asked, coming up beside him. He’d been tall enough to at least try and pass as legal at the club door, but Baekhyun knew that the owner was one of Junmyeon’s friends, and he’d let Sehun and Jongin in as long as they promised not to drink. Sure enough, Sehun had a soda in his hands, licking out to catch the straw out of the air with his tongue so he could take a sip.
For the sake of his friends, Baekhyun had named himself DW (designated walker) because Yixing had managed to wheedle Junmyeon into shots, and someone was going to have to make sure they all got home okay.
Baekhyun had patted Sehun on the shoulder with a smile. “It’s your going away party, you should be the one dancing.”
Eyeing the rest of their friends out on the dance floor, Sehun had wrinkled his nose. Chanyeol had gotten Jongdae to join him in doing some kind of dance that involved flapping their arms like birds, and Junmyeon was yowling at them both, caught in between them with no way to escape while Jongin laughed, hanging over Yixing’s shoulders.
“Well,” Baekhyun had said. “Maybe not. For your own safety.”
They had decided to go out, because Sehun heading off to college seemed like the end of an era, all of them out of high school and onto bigger and better things. Or, well, college, at least. But Baekhyun was still managing to scrape by in his classes (somehow) and he’d scored an actual dinner date with Taeyeon where she’d let him hold her hand, so in his book, things had been going pretty well.
Sehun had nudged his shoulder. “Actually, I’ve, um, been wanting to talk to you about something.”
Curious, Baekhyun had turned towards him. “Sure, what’s up?”
The club had had these blue tinged strobes that had perfectly shown against Sehun’s skin to make him look almost silver, the cut of his cheekbones and chin just shadows. He’d had his lower lip pulled into his mouth, chewing on it like he was nervous.
“I’m not,” he stuttered, and Baekhyun had moved closer to be able to hear what he was saying. “I wanted to tell you before I left, and I know that you and Taeyeon are sort of…” He’d shifted his glass between his hands, his lips pink even in the darkness from being bitten and Baekhyun had put a free hand on Sehun’s arm, concerned.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” Sehun had looked him then, eyes strangely bright, and moved forward a little. “Yeah, I just, I think I might…”
He’d ducked his head, and at first Baekhyun had thought that Sehun might be trying to lay his head on Baekhyun’s shoulder or something, but Sehun’s eyes had been so focused on his mouth-
Baekhyun’s heart had jumped into his throat and he’d flinched away without thinking, moving out of Sehun’s reach. Even in the light of the club, Baekhyun had seen Sehun’s face go pale.
He’d wanted to laugh it off, to make it like nothing had happened, but there had been that sick feeling in his stomach again, the one from when Sehun’s brother had given him that disgusted look, and his friend had said that’s so gay like it was the worst thing someone could be, and he’d just backed away without another word, leaving Sehun behind.
“Everything okay?” Chanyeol had asked later, after Baekhyun had gone into the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face and then made is way back out onto the dance floor. Sehun was over with Jongin and Yixing, but Baekhyun could only see his back. “For a second, I thought Sehun was going to kiss you or something.”
Baekhyun had forced a laugh, glad the music was loud enough to drown out how fake it had sounded. “What? That would never happen. You must be really drunk.”
Chanyeol had looked like he hadn’t really believed him, but he’d never mentioned it again, and Baekhyun had bound the whole thing up, letting it rest deep inside like a stone in his chest, and had tried to forget.
Baekhyun’s finished tux arrives a full week before the wedding, the currier handing over the black garment bag with very little fuss for something that was so expensive and so much trouble.
Without any office work to fill his time, Baekhyun has tried to get more involved with the wedding, running errands with Jinri and answering all of the wedding planner’s awful questions, but he’s… distracted.
Jinri notices.
“Everything okay over there?”
Baekhyun blinks. They’re in a cab, coming back from… something. Baekhyun’s been inattentive all day, hardly noticing where they were going, and he can tell it’s starting to wear on her last nerve.
“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “Sorry, it’s weird not to be at the office.”
She nods and out of the corner of his eye, Baekhyun can see her twisting her engagement ring around her finger. “Do you know what you want to do yet?”
“I’ve been thinking about PR,” Baekhyun says absently. “Or maybe talking to my father about the company’s advertising.”
Jinri looks really pretty today, her coat a deep cobalt wool, and her hair pulled back under a beret to keep it from getting tangled in the wind. She wearing the earrings Baekhyun got her for Christmas, and her cheeks are pink from the cold.
She looks beautiful, really, and she’s got a great personality, enough to even give Baekhyun a run for his money, and she’s determined and so many other things, but when he digs deep enough, he doesn’t really feel much about it.
Which doesn’t seem right, for someone about to get married, and it makes Baekhyun wonder about himself, really wonder what he wants, for the first time in years.
It wouldn’t be a big deal, really. Baekhyun lives in New York, and his parents already have one son married, with a grandkid probably on the way in the next couple of years.
And Baekhyun likes women. He liked Taeyeon’s soft mouth and the way her breasts had felt pressed up against his chest and how the flutter of her eyelashes against his cheek changed depending on whether or not she was wearing makeup. He thinks Jinri is beautiful, with a smile like a spotlight. He’d thought Jessica had a great pair of legs and it’s just-
It’s easier.
It’s been easier not to think about that sick feeling pinching at his stomach, and the revulsion- what, are you dating my baby brother? that’s so gay.
And Jinri deserves better, not because she can’t choose well enough for herself, but because she should be with someone who has the will to make a relationship work, just the same as she has.
But Baekhyun… Baekhyun can’t. He’s got nothing to offer but a bag of secrets where his heart should be, because the biggest secret is that he’s already given it away.
He says suddenly, “you know I think you’re amazing, right?” She frowns at him, like she doesn’t understand what he’s getting at. Baekhyun can feel himself trembling in his winter coat. “Jinri, I can’t marry you.”
Their cab driver is staring at them so intently in his rearview mirror that he almost rear-ends the car in front of him. Jinri’s mouth drops open. “What?”
“You don’t love me,” Baekhyun says, “and I don’t love you, and I really think we should just- stop.”
Jinri’s face is thunderous. Baekhyun had been afraid of this, of her infamous temper, but it’s his own fault. “Stop the cab,” she says, voice icy and furious, and the car screeches to a stop right in the middle of an intersection. “If anyone asks, I was the one that dumped you,” she snarls. “Now get out.”
Baekhyun takes his chance and ducks out of the cab. The door slams shut behind him the moment his feet hit the pavement, and Baekhyun takes a moment to feel sorry for the cab driver before the honking of the other cars on the street has him making his way to the sidewalk.
The sun is out, but the breeze is enough to hurt Baekhyun’s ears as he walks down the street. The window displays he passes are all pink and white for Valentine’s Day later that week, and he’s caught in the usual late afternoon crush of people out on the streets for one reason or another, but for the first time in years, Baekhyun feels like he can finally breathe.
He and Jinri were supposed to go to family dinner at his parents that night, but when he shows up alone, his mother doesn’t look surprised.
“She already called?”
“Her mother did, to tell me Jinri is still taking your honeymoon in Dubai next week.”
Baekhyun slips off his shoes. “That’s good. She deserves a vacation after all this.”
His mother cups his chin with her hand so she can look at him, and his eyes are prickling again. This time, he can’t really stop it. “I don’t want to get married, mom,” he says, throat thick and she smiles at him. He can see his father watching them from the doorway, but he doesn’t look angry.
“Okay,” his mother says, pulling him into a hug, and he burrows his face into her shoulder. “Okay.”
Kyungsoo is already waiting for Baekhyun when he gets to his office, a large stack of papers in hand.
“You’re late,” Kyungsoo says, and Baekhyun waggles his cup of coffee at him as he opens the door.
“I’m like a car, I need fuel to run!”
Kyungsoo isn’t amused. “I think that’s what breakfast is for.”
“Have you been talking to my mother or something?” Baekhyun says, and holds out his hand for the Kyungsoo’s papers. “Sales figures?”
Kyungsoo nods and Baekhyun looks at the rows of numbers, squinting. “I think I need my eyes checked or something. I’m tired of having to squint all the time.”
“That sounds like a personal problem.” Unlike Baekhyun, Kyungsoo is one of those humorless people that works in PR to keep the fun, creative ones (like Baekhyun) on schedule. “Anyway, we’re up from last quarter.”
“Ah, so thats why Minseok had looked so happy in when I saw him in the elevator this morning.” It had been nice to see Minseok smile at him even though he had a Death Cab tshirt on underneath his jacket. “Anyway, we’ll be wanting to send out a press release about that this week, since we’re near the end of the quarter.”
There’s a knock on his open door and Lu Han sticks his head in. “Can I talk to you? One of our people over in China sent me the craziest email this morning and I just…”
Baekhyun takes a sip of his coffee and waves him in.
He never thought he’d ever say that he liked office work, but it’s different here, in a job that he actually feels like he can do, where he’s not swimming in numbers and paperwork, and no one is standing around the water cooler talking about what a failure he is.
Of course, his third broken engagement last February had given people more than enough to talk about, but by the beginning of summer the gossip had died down, moving onto bigger and better things, like Jessica and Kris’s newborn baby or some new society scandal, and he’d been left alone.
Baekhyun is… happy. It surprised him sometimes, how much lighter he feels, even just walking around the city.
Once, he’d run into Jinri while he was out grabbing dinner, and while it was obvious she wasn’t really excited to see him, she had said hi and introduced him to her date, who had been looking at Jinri with stars in his eyes. It was nice to be able to look at her and know he had done something right and that she didn’t hate him.
The tux is still sitting in his closet, somewhere deep in the back. Baekhyun knows he should probably donate it or something, but he keeps hoping that he’ll have a reason to wear it, a black tie party or something. It’s okay to hold onto things sometimes, when they don’t weigh too heavily on you.
Still, sometimes Baekhyun wishes… well, he’d figured a lot out, but some of it, not quite soon enough, and there’s still one or two secrets he’s got hidden away, without the right person to tell.
When Baekhyun leaves work that evening, it’s pouring out, which is totally perfect, because he’d left his umbrella at home. There’s a cab waiting at the curb, by some miracle, and he rushes for it, his hair already soaked by the time he reaches the car. He reaches out for the handle, but another hand has gotten there first, already opening it.
“Oh.”
He looks up, and Sehun blinks down at him owlishly through the rain. “Oh.”
He’d obviously forgone a jacket that day because of the warm weather, powder blue dress shirt starting to stick to his skin, and he’s just standing there, looking at Baekhyun with his mouth open.
“I didn’t get married,” Baekhyun blurts and Sehun laughs, like it’s been surprised out of him.
“I know,” he says, having to raise his voice to be heard over the rain and splashing cars, “I heard. But when you never came by I thought…”
Baekhyun reaches up to push his wet hair out of his eyes. “I didn’t really think you’d want to see me.”
“Are you serious? Baekhyun, I- “
It’s really pouring now, and Baekhyun’s phone is probably getting waterlogged in his jeans pocket, but Sehun is staring at him, mouth opening and closing like he can’t decide what to say.
Baekhyun decides to say it for him, probably talking too fast, but he can’t stop himself. “It’s just that I ran away from you twice and even if I did want you, I was sure you wouldn’t want to hear it after that so I just…” He runs out of steam, licking his lips and tasting rainwater. “Yeah.”
“You are so stupid,” Sehun says, leaving the cab door open so he can pull Baekhyun in and kiss him on the mouth. Baekhyun makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat and Sehun pulls back, breath hot on Baekhyun’s cheeks compared to the cold rain. “Did you miss the part where I’m in love with you?”
Baekhyun would sputter, in fact, he starts to, but Sehun kisses him again, pulling him in with hand on the back of his neck and there’s nothing but his warm mouth against Baekhyun’s lips, Sehun’s fingers combing his hair back from his face.
There’s a loud honk that startles Baekhyun so much he nearly cuts his lip on Sehun’s teeth, and the cab driver’s yelling at them through the open door. “Hey, lovebirds,” he says, like it’s not weird at all that there are two guys making out on the sidewalk- which is probably true, considering. “Are you in or out?”
Baekhyun takes one look at Sehun, who actually seems kind of dazed even though he was the one who started the kissing, and drags him into the car. They’re wet enough that their clothes will probably leave a mark on the seats and their shoes slosh loudly on the cab floor. Baekhyun threads his fingers through Sehun’s, leans up to whisper in his ear, “Me too.”
Sehun looks confused for a moment, before catching sight of Baekhyun’s smile, a grin of his own nearly splitting his face in two.
“So, where to?” the cab driver asks, chomping loudly on his gum and looking at them in the rearview mirror. The rain still hasn’t let up, and they should really change their clothes sometime soon.
“Let’s go to my place,” Baekhyun says to Sehun, giving the cabbie his address. Watching the buildings go by, he settles into Sehun’s side, soaked to the bone, but feeling lighter than air.