(Coping 101 from a not break-up)
Baekyeol (3.5k)
In which Baekhyun gets a cat and totally doesn't name it after Chanyeol
a/n: once upon a time, jixxa was a shipster. and then she wrote baekyeol and had no regrets.
many thanks to cassissoda for beta-ing. she's awesome. ღ˘⌣˘ღ
Three years of cohabitation, a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink, and a stack of moving boxes by the door.
This is it, Baekhyun thinks.
And then he’s gone. No fanfare or dramatic farewells, just an empty space where the moving boxes once took up, and an even emptier room that Baekhyun is determined to cover top-to-bottom with his Soshi posters.
This sort of emptiness takes getting used to, only Baekhyun isn’t sure he ever will or want to.
There’s silence too; silence that never used to exist between Chanyeol’s raucous drum practices, their endless bickering, and their impromptu make-out sessions up against the walls of their now painfully empty apartment.
His, he corrects himself, not theirs anymore.
It stopped being ‘theirs’ the moment Chanyeol decided to get himself an actual boyfriend; picking up his entire life in cardboard boxes and dropping it off in a brand new apartment with a brand new roommate-slash-boyfriend to make out with, leaving Baekhyun with two sets of towels and two sets of Batman-themed mugs and dishes, and two sets of every fucking thing in the world for only himself.
It’s been an hour after his initial departure and Baekhyun still can’t bring himself to think of the extra bottle of shampoo that smells like Chanyeol still sitting in his shower. Or Chanyeol’s dumb electronic toothbrush that played his favorite Muse songs, sound drilling into Baekhyun’s head every hung-over morning for the past year.
He’s not sure why it’s still here and figures Chanyeol probably doesn’t want it anymore.
Just like how he probably doesn’t want his best friend anymore either.
He grabs the nearest pillow and launches it across the room, only to realize in dismay that the pillow he threw was their ‘strategically-placed’ pillow; positioned specifically to cover an unfortunate stain that he and Chanyeol had caused after a day of successful garage sale thrifting in which they had acquired said couch.
He groans, wondering if he’ll ever rid himself of Chanyeol and his dumb stuff, and his dumb habits, and his dumb, dumb smile from the back of his mind.
Next to him on the coffee table, his phone buzzes and Baekhyun takes one look at it before chucking it under the cushions. It makes a soft thud, lights muffled against the fabric, suffocating.
He spends the rest of the day curled onto the couch, eating everything in arm’s reach.
This is it.
---
Well, not exactly.
The thing is, Byun Baekhyun is many things. While most people will describe him as bright and a little strange (as opposed to Chanyeol’s strange and a little bright), Baekhyun’s closest friends all know that his best trait is his resourcefulness.
For starters, he’s expecting Chanyeol back within the next four days because he managed to stash his phone charger under the bed the day before he left. He also knows that Chanyeol’s phone will die within the next two days on account of his Tetris addiction, and that he will spend the third searching hopelessly through his moving boxes for it.
And on that fourth day, when he comes back for it, Baekhyun will be ready to prove to him that he’s completely past Chanyeol and is a fully functioning human being, capable of independent existence.
He’s not entirely sure how though, so he spends the first day vacuuming until his arms ache and the curly blonde hair on the bathroom floor is entirely gone. He throws out the trash and liberates the freezer from the abominations known as microwavable pizza dinners that were Chanyeol’s favorites.
It’s barely 3pm on a Saturday and Baekhyun has spent the whole day being immensely productive.
So of course he spends the rest of the day watching some terrible Korean drama where everyone dies of cancer, suffers amnesia of some sort, and are secretly related.
My life, he ponders numbly, watching the star protagonist commit suicide to cope with the loss of her lover, isn’t that bad.
He repeats that phrase like a mantra, trying not to think about how he was going to sort through their mix of clothes and boxers that are still sitting in the dryer.
---
On the second day, he gets a visit from Joonmyun, who acts like Baekhyun is a patient with delicate and special needs and it makes him want to scream. To be fair, Baekhyun doesn’t even let him in until his third attempt, but because Joonmyun is sensible and has stuck by Baekhyun since what seems like the dawn of time, Baekhyun figures he won’t make a big deal out of Chanyeol’s move and that they can just discuss other topics.
He’s wrong.
Talking to Joonmyun is an hour long session of treading on eggshells when all Baekhyun wants to do is smash them into smithereens. The first thing he does, after taking off his shoes, is hand Baekhyun an assortment of colored pamphlets.
Hesitantly, Baekhyun lifts one up to read. He gets as far as the title, Self-help: Coping with los- before dropping them on the counter.
Why did you get me these?” he asks, nonplussed and entirely unamused, but Joonmyun is already lecturing him on some magical five step method on dealing with loss.
“It’s not like this is a break up or anything,” he says diplomatically, clearing the table and dumping Chanyeol’s stupid drum magazines into the trash, feeling the thud echo in his heart, “it’s not like we were a couple or anything.”
“Oh Baekhyun,” Joonmyun sighs, and for a terrible second Baekhyun is afraid that he’s going to give him a consolation hug of some sort.
“What?” he asks, feeling increasingly alarmed because Joonmyun looks like he’s about to cry.
“You both are so dumb,” he says and Baekhyun uses that as an excuse to finally kick him out.
---
He gets a visit from Jongdae next, who is infinitely better at consoling Baekhyun than Joonmyun. It’s barely been an hour and they’re both dead drunk on a Sunday night, swirling melted mint-chocolate ice cream that Jongdae had brought with him and planning to set Chanyeol’s remaining possessions on fire.
“You might want to reconsider this,” Jongdae reasons as Baekhyun moves from their table to the kitchen, swaying slightly.
“This was your idea though,” he argues back, pushing random buttons on his stove.
Jongdae’s hand covers his and deftly turns the stove off as Baekhyun moves to pre-heat the oven.
“Baekhyun,” he starts before Baekhyun cuts him off.
“Fine,” he says with a heavy sigh, placing the aerosol can in his hand back down on the counter, “it’s not worth burning my house down for, you’re right.”
“Do you want to go back and watch a movie?” Jongdae asks and Baekhyun sighs, wondering how far he’d fallen to the point that Jongdae of all people was stuck being the reasonable friend.
“Could we make out instead?” he suggests because he’s drunk and because Jongdae has always been a good friend and that one drunken threesome he and Chanyeol had convinced him into had been the best night of Baekhyun’s life.
The memory leaves a bitter taste in his mouth now.
“No,” he replies with a smile, and Baekhyun thinks for a terrible second that Jongdae has been sober this whole time, “I don’t think that’ll be any good for you right now.”
Instead he pulls him into a hug, and Baekhyun wonders briefly if he should start crying when the waterworks begin. He's still sobbing when the oven beeps and Jongdae pulls out a roll of cookie dough from out of nowhere.
The cookies end up mildly burnt and misshapen, but they eat them anyways with ice cream that’s gone all syrupy in the time Baekhyun had been crying.
They spend the night cuddled together on the couch- sharing a blanket because Baekhyun refuses to grab Chanyeol’s from the closet- watching grade-B horror films and Baekhyun cries again just because he can.
Sometime after midnight, just for the hell of it, they end up burning Joonmyun's colored self-help pamphlets.
He briefly wonders why he and Jongdae aren’t best friends when he remembers why he’s drunk and a sobbing mess and what having a best friend did to him in the first place.
---
On the third day, he wakes up long past noon with a sticky note taped onto his cheek.
Get it together, man.
I called in sick for you at work.
You owe me one a lot
-written in Jongdae’s barely legible scrawl.
He blinks numbly at the sticky note and curls back under his blanket in fetal position.
He’s halfway curled into himself, hung over and all, and thinks fuck it and gets a cat.
The cat is a gray tabby with angular green eyes, and the best part about it is there is absolutely nothing about it that reminds him of Chanyeol.
He signs the adoption papers with a flourish and spends the rest of the car ride home thinking of names.
They’re back home when Baekhyun finally settles on one that he’s fairly satisfied with.
He sets the carrier down letting the tabby sniff around at his new surroundings.
“I’m going to name you Kai,” he announces proudly when the cat runs itself into the door frame clumsily, so very much like Chanyeol used to every time they came home drunk, fumbling with each other’s belts.
He swallows hard, letting the memory fade.
The cat beside him mewls pitifully, running into the door frame again.
“Forget it,” he says, “I’ll name you later.”
---
The door bell rings on the fourth day like he predicted and Baekhyun smudges his eyeliner in the process. It makes it look as if he’s been crying- well more so than he already has been- and that’s the last impression he wants to give.
He sighs, wiping it all off before answering the door.
The first thing Chanyeol does, after walking in the door, is let out a huge sneeze and that’s when Baekhyun remembers that he’s allergic to cats.
“You replaced me with a cat?” Chanyeol says injecting as much fake hurt as possible into the last syllable.
“I got a cat,” he replies flatly, “there is no replace in this equation. You just happen to be moving out. On your own free will.”
“So you got a cat? Why not a dog?”
“There is no so,” he reasons back carefully keeping his voice devoid of emotion, “you moved out. I got a cat. I got a cat. You moved out. There’s no correlation and therefore no causation whatsoever.”
“If you say so,” Chanyeol replies, and Baekhyun wants to scream and tear his hair out with how easily he accepts it.
He keeps a stoic face though and even adds in a smile that Chanyeol can probably tell his forced, and Baekhyun hates him for it. He hands him the charger and tries to not linger on how warm Chanyeol’s hand feels.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” Chanyeol says as he puts his shoes back on, ready to exit the door before pausing.
“It’s really different living without you,” he says standing by the doorway, looking so hopeful that Baekhyun just wants to punch him.
“You should come visit me-“
Baekhyun takes that as an invitation to slam the door in his face.
---
He finally returns to work on Wednesday, wishing all the while that he didn't.
“You really shouldn’t have slammed the door in his face,” Jongin points out as they settle down for lunch.
“I would have slammed the door in his face,” Kyungsoo declares simultaneously.
Sehun only makes a point to nod and eat.
Baekhyun wishes for half a second, no more no less, that Joonmyun were here instead.
---
It's another three days after Chanyeol's visit, before Baekhyun digs his phone out from under the couch cushions and checks his inbox.
Baek? Beakie?
nvm
hello. it's mee.
Have you seen my phone charger?
i hate cats, but yours is actually ok. keke
i still think you should visit.
Hello? ru alive? am i still on your will?
ok that wasn't funny, but please text back?
hello?
hello?
Baekhyun reads through them all and turns his phone off without replying.
---
It’s after another two weeks of putting too much laundry detergent in the washing machine, and buying too many groceries, and just plain not knowing how to function, when Baekhyun breaks down and texts Jongdae for Chanyeol’s new address.
His phone buzzes back with the message:
ru sure?
He hesitates for a second, setting his phone down as no-Name the tabby cuddles up against him.
The thing is he isn't sure about this.
He’s not sure of a lot of things when it comes to dealing with Chanyeol right now because everything with him had always been so easy, their friendly-fire banter a daily occurrence.
It was always easy, their harmony a clean clash of static and noise; a constant back and forth of giving and taking.
Hell, Baekhyun’s not even sure at this point if he’s actually angry at him either.
Chanyeol is entitled to his own life and free-will, he reasons and even if they spent the past three years living together tied at the hip, going out on movie dates, doing each other’s laundry and making out all over the kitchen counters like a couple, it doesn’t mean that they actually were.
Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all.
But Baekhyun knows better.
It was easy to dismiss at first when they were just a couple of horny college freshmen, lonely and bored together. It was still easy to dismiss two years later when the logical decision of moving together meant that planning hook-ups and video game nights would be infinitely easier.
It’s a whole different thing five years later when they were still living together post-graduation and he finally realizes that his fuck-buddy, friends with benefits arrangement with Chanyeol is the longest lasting relationship either of them have ever had.
yes im sure,
he texts back and waits for the reply to seal his fate.
---
It’s not until he’s actually on Chanyeol’s new doorstep, does Baekhyun realize that this is a really terrible idea.
Well, Jongdae had made a point to text him back- this is a really terrible idea- along with the address, but by then Baekhyun had already made up his mind.
He knocks and kind of has a mild panic attack when it’s not Chanyeol that opens the door.
It’s Chanyeol’s tall, hot model boyfriend who looks kind of pissed naturally but even more so after seeing Baekhyun.
“Oh cool, it’s you,” he says in a sarcastic drawl, “perfect. I was just leaving anyways.”
He pushes Baekhyun aside and rushes off, muttering something about red socks, white shirts, and everything turning pink. And yeah, Baekhyun can totally sympathize.
He pushes the door open and tries not to feel pleased with the way Chanyeol instantly lights up.
“So you are alive,” he says with a chuckle, “would it kill you to answer my texts once in a while?”
“No,” Baekhyun replies, remembering that he was still supposed to be angry, “but would it have killed you to try a little harder pretending that you care?”
There’s a beat of incredibly awkward silence before Chanyeol starts whining.
“Baekhyun, not you too,” he sighs, “don’t do this to me. Moving has been hell, I still haven’t finished unpacking. Kris doesn’t even do the dishes, and he’s complaining about my drum practice. I can’t stand his sink hogging, and we’ve been fighting for the past few days nonstop about it.”
He pauses.
“I don’t think I can take this anymore.”
Baekhyun just stares back, feeling something in him snap.
“So, now that you two are done, you’re trying to run back to me?” he demands, “is that all this is? Some sick replacement game?”
Chanyeol looks horrified and completely offended, and Baekhyun gives him credit for keeping his temper, “Just listen to me, ok?”
Baekhyun isn’t in the mood to listen though and he makes his point clear by knocking Chanyeol’s shoddy Ikea chair over.
“You moved out first! You don’t get to just comeback whenever you want!”
Chanyeol flips the tiny coffee table up on its side in retaliation and screams back at him.
“Don’t take things out on my furniture!”
Baekhyun tips another chair over, completely ignoring the irony of Chanyeol’s outburst, and somehow this, this screaming and throwing and being eternally frustrated thing works for them.
Chanyeol must feel it too because in the next instant, they both break down laughing; like there’s something innately hilarious about the way they want to kill each other half the time.
Baekhyun is still wheezing by the time Chanyeol picks himself off the floor, wiping tears from his eyes.
“I’ve missed you, you know?” Chanyeol says, the 'i miss this, missed us’ left unsaid.
Baekhyun isn’t sure he’s ready for whatever direction they’re heading blindly into; even if he’s spent the past few weeks moping around the house like a homebody wishing for it.
I’ve missed you too. A lot. Enough for me to get a cat that still has no name because I don’t want to name him after you because then it would prove how much I fucking missed you is what he wants to say.
But none of it ever actually makes it out of his mouth.
Instead he bends down silently to pick up the chairs he knocked over earlier.
He doesn’t miss the way that Chanyeol’s face falls when he leaves without even saying goodbye.
---
He hears about the break-up from Jongdae another week later and promptly drops cat litter all over the kitchen floor.
Beside him on the counter, not-Chanyeol mewls in concern.
So?
he texts back, ignoring the rapid fluttering in his stomach.
he’s wondering when u2 can meetup. to talk.
He pauses for a second, ignoring all self-preservation alarms going off in his head, before answering.
i’ll call him.
He thinks about how much he’s put Jongdae through the past few weeks and keeps typing:
thanks for telling me. thanks for everything.
Baekhyun sets his phone down to sweep up the mess of litter, when it buzzes again startling not-Chanyeol.
go get 'im tiger. but just so we're clear, im not buying you icecream again.
---
They end up meeting at the Starbucks on the corner, and Baekhyun chooses a table outside just in case things get really dramatic and there’s a repeat of table-flipping and more screaming.
Chanyeol arrives a little late and neither of them gets anything to drink.
“So,” he prompts, awkwardly dragging out the vowel.
“I’ve moved out,” Chanyeol blurts out, “and we broke up. Well, Kris and I broke up first, and then I moved out.”
“Do you need a place to stay?” Baekhyun asks, voice sinking, “is this what this is about?”
“No, I’ve found a place already,” Chanyeol replies quickly, "we broke up about a week ago."
“Oh.”
Baekhyun isn’t sure if he feels relieved or disappointed.
“It’s umm, across the street from where we used to live actually,” Chanyeol adds, stealing a glance at Baekhyun like he’s asking for approval.
They can be neighbors that way, he thinks. It’s a small step, but a step nonetheless.
“The apartment is a bit bigger than we’re used to, but...” he trails off and that’s when Baekhyun realizes.
“We?”
“I went ahead and bought a double, because I thought-,” he stops.
"Thought what?" Baekhyun prompts, heart racing even though he can guess what Chanyeol is going to ask.
“There’s an empty room I’ve been keeping,” Chanyeol breathes voice small, sounding so unsure and different from the Chanyeol Baekhyun is used to arguing with all the time, “will you move in with me?”
Baekhyun lets the question hang in the air, but only for a heartbeat before he looks up at Chanyeol and knows his answer instantly.
“Yes,” he says, but the first time comes out strangled-sounding and cracked, “yes. yesyesyes.”
Chanyeol moves like he’s thinking of picking him up and Baekhyun bats at him half-heartedly.
“What about my cat though?” Baekhyun asks laughing slightly at the way Chanyeol’s eyes widen.
“I’m allergic to them,” he exclaims and Baekhyun picks that moment to kiss him.
“So what, I’m allergic to you too,” he says back teasingly as Chanyeol presses a kiss onto his forehead.
“I’ll guess I’ll learn to live with it, but only if you-,” Chanyeol bargains trying to sound stern when Baekhyun cuts him off with another kiss.
Warmth rolls through him in waves because all Baekhyun really hears is live with and you pressed up against his lips.
In which Baekhyun gets a cat and totally doesn't name it after Chanyeol
a/n: once upon a time, jixxa was a shipster. and then she wrote baekyeol and had no regrets.
many thanks to cassissoda for beta-ing. she's awesome. ღ˘⌣˘ღ
Three years of cohabitation, a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink, and a stack of moving boxes by the door.
This is it, Baekhyun thinks.
And then he’s gone. No fanfare or dramatic farewells, just an empty space where the moving boxes once took up, and an even emptier room that Baekhyun is determined to cover top-to-bottom with his Soshi posters.
This sort of emptiness takes getting used to, only Baekhyun isn’t sure he ever will or want to.
There’s silence too; silence that never used to exist between Chanyeol’s raucous drum practices, their endless bickering, and their impromptu make-out sessions up against the walls of their now painfully empty apartment.
His, he corrects himself, not theirs anymore.
It stopped being ‘theirs’ the moment Chanyeol decided to get himself an actual boyfriend; picking up his entire life in cardboard boxes and dropping it off in a brand new apartment with a brand new roommate-slash-boyfriend to make out with, leaving Baekhyun with two sets of towels and two sets of Batman-themed mugs and dishes, and two sets of every fucking thing in the world for only himself.
It’s been an hour after his initial departure and Baekhyun still can’t bring himself to think of the extra bottle of shampoo that smells like Chanyeol still sitting in his shower. Or Chanyeol’s dumb electronic toothbrush that played his favorite Muse songs, sound drilling into Baekhyun’s head every hung-over morning for the past year.
He’s not sure why it’s still here and figures Chanyeol probably doesn’t want it anymore.
Just like how he probably doesn’t want his best friend anymore either.
He grabs the nearest pillow and launches it across the room, only to realize in dismay that the pillow he threw was their ‘strategically-placed’ pillow; positioned specifically to cover an unfortunate stain that he and Chanyeol had caused after a day of successful garage sale thrifting in which they had acquired said couch.
He groans, wondering if he’ll ever rid himself of Chanyeol and his dumb stuff, and his dumb habits, and his dumb, dumb smile from the back of his mind.
Next to him on the coffee table, his phone buzzes and Baekhyun takes one look at it before chucking it under the cushions. It makes a soft thud, lights muffled against the fabric, suffocating.
He spends the rest of the day curled onto the couch, eating everything in arm’s reach.
This is it.
---
Well, not exactly.
The thing is, Byun Baekhyun is many things. While most people will describe him as bright and a little strange (as opposed to Chanyeol’s strange and a little bright), Baekhyun’s closest friends all know that his best trait is his resourcefulness.
For starters, he’s expecting Chanyeol back within the next four days because he managed to stash his phone charger under the bed the day before he left. He also knows that Chanyeol’s phone will die within the next two days on account of his Tetris addiction, and that he will spend the third searching hopelessly through his moving boxes for it.
And on that fourth day, when he comes back for it, Baekhyun will be ready to prove to him that he’s completely past Chanyeol and is a fully functioning human being, capable of independent existence.
He’s not entirely sure how though, so he spends the first day vacuuming until his arms ache and the curly blonde hair on the bathroom floor is entirely gone. He throws out the trash and liberates the freezer from the abominations known as microwavable pizza dinners that were Chanyeol’s favorites.
It’s barely 3pm on a Saturday and Baekhyun has spent the whole day being immensely productive.
So of course he spends the rest of the day watching some terrible Korean drama where everyone dies of cancer, suffers amnesia of some sort, and are secretly related.
My life, he ponders numbly, watching the star protagonist commit suicide to cope with the loss of her lover, isn’t that bad.
He repeats that phrase like a mantra, trying not to think about how he was going to sort through their mix of clothes and boxers that are still sitting in the dryer.
---
On the second day, he gets a visit from Joonmyun, who acts like Baekhyun is a patient with delicate and special needs and it makes him want to scream. To be fair, Baekhyun doesn’t even let him in until his third attempt, but because Joonmyun is sensible and has stuck by Baekhyun since what seems like the dawn of time, Baekhyun figures he won’t make a big deal out of Chanyeol’s move and that they can just discuss other topics.
He’s wrong.
Talking to Joonmyun is an hour long session of treading on eggshells when all Baekhyun wants to do is smash them into smithereens. The first thing he does, after taking off his shoes, is hand Baekhyun an assortment of colored pamphlets.
Hesitantly, Baekhyun lifts one up to read. He gets as far as the title, Self-help: Coping with los- before dropping them on the counter.
Why did you get me these?” he asks, nonplussed and entirely unamused, but Joonmyun is already lecturing him on some magical five step method on dealing with loss.
“It’s not like this is a break up or anything,” he says diplomatically, clearing the table and dumping Chanyeol’s stupid drum magazines into the trash, feeling the thud echo in his heart, “it’s not like we were a couple or anything.”
“Oh Baekhyun,” Joonmyun sighs, and for a terrible second Baekhyun is afraid that he’s going to give him a consolation hug of some sort.
“What?” he asks, feeling increasingly alarmed because Joonmyun looks like he’s about to cry.
“You both are so dumb,” he says and Baekhyun uses that as an excuse to finally kick him out.
---
He gets a visit from Jongdae next, who is infinitely better at consoling Baekhyun than Joonmyun. It’s barely been an hour and they’re both dead drunk on a Sunday night, swirling melted mint-chocolate ice cream that Jongdae had brought with him and planning to set Chanyeol’s remaining possessions on fire.
“You might want to reconsider this,” Jongdae reasons as Baekhyun moves from their table to the kitchen, swaying slightly.
“This was your idea though,” he argues back, pushing random buttons on his stove.
Jongdae’s hand covers his and deftly turns the stove off as Baekhyun moves to pre-heat the oven.
“Baekhyun,” he starts before Baekhyun cuts him off.
“Fine,” he says with a heavy sigh, placing the aerosol can in his hand back down on the counter, “it’s not worth burning my house down for, you’re right.”
“Do you want to go back and watch a movie?” Jongdae asks and Baekhyun sighs, wondering how far he’d fallen to the point that Jongdae of all people was stuck being the reasonable friend.
“Could we make out instead?” he suggests because he’s drunk and because Jongdae has always been a good friend and that one drunken threesome he and Chanyeol had convinced him into had been the best night of Baekhyun’s life.
The memory leaves a bitter taste in his mouth now.
“No,” he replies with a smile, and Baekhyun thinks for a terrible second that Jongdae has been sober this whole time, “I don’t think that’ll be any good for you right now.”
Instead he pulls him into a hug, and Baekhyun wonders briefly if he should start crying when the waterworks begin. He's still sobbing when the oven beeps and Jongdae pulls out a roll of cookie dough from out of nowhere.
The cookies end up mildly burnt and misshapen, but they eat them anyways with ice cream that’s gone all syrupy in the time Baekhyun had been crying.
They spend the night cuddled together on the couch- sharing a blanket because Baekhyun refuses to grab Chanyeol’s from the closet- watching grade-B horror films and Baekhyun cries again just because he can.
Sometime after midnight, just for the hell of it, they end up burning Joonmyun's colored self-help pamphlets.
He briefly wonders why he and Jongdae aren’t best friends when he remembers why he’s drunk and a sobbing mess and what having a best friend did to him in the first place.
---
On the third day, he wakes up long past noon with a sticky note taped onto his cheek.
Get it together, man.
I called in sick for you at work.
You owe me one a lot
-written in Jongdae’s barely legible scrawl.
He blinks numbly at the sticky note and curls back under his blanket in fetal position.
He’s halfway curled into himself, hung over and all, and thinks fuck it and gets a cat.
The cat is a gray tabby with angular green eyes, and the best part about it is there is absolutely nothing about it that reminds him of Chanyeol.
He signs the adoption papers with a flourish and spends the rest of the car ride home thinking of names.
They’re back home when Baekhyun finally settles on one that he’s fairly satisfied with.
He sets the carrier down letting the tabby sniff around at his new surroundings.
“I’m going to name you Kai,” he announces proudly when the cat runs itself into the door frame clumsily, so very much like Chanyeol used to every time they came home drunk, fumbling with each other’s belts.
He swallows hard, letting the memory fade.
The cat beside him mewls pitifully, running into the door frame again.
“Forget it,” he says, “I’ll name you later.”
---
The door bell rings on the fourth day like he predicted and Baekhyun smudges his eyeliner in the process. It makes it look as if he’s been crying- well more so than he already has been- and that’s the last impression he wants to give.
He sighs, wiping it all off before answering the door.
The first thing Chanyeol does, after walking in the door, is let out a huge sneeze and that’s when Baekhyun remembers that he’s allergic to cats.
“You replaced me with a cat?” Chanyeol says injecting as much fake hurt as possible into the last syllable.
“I got a cat,” he replies flatly, “there is no replace in this equation. You just happen to be moving out. On your own free will.”
“So you got a cat? Why not a dog?”
“There is no so,” he reasons back carefully keeping his voice devoid of emotion, “you moved out. I got a cat. I got a cat. You moved out. There’s no correlation and therefore no causation whatsoever.”
“If you say so,” Chanyeol replies, and Baekhyun wants to scream and tear his hair out with how easily he accepts it.
He keeps a stoic face though and even adds in a smile that Chanyeol can probably tell his forced, and Baekhyun hates him for it. He hands him the charger and tries to not linger on how warm Chanyeol’s hand feels.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” Chanyeol says as he puts his shoes back on, ready to exit the door before pausing.
“It’s really different living without you,” he says standing by the doorway, looking so hopeful that Baekhyun just wants to punch him.
“You should come visit me-“
Baekhyun takes that as an invitation to slam the door in his face.
---
He finally returns to work on Wednesday, wishing all the while that he didn't.
“You really shouldn’t have slammed the door in his face,” Jongin points out as they settle down for lunch.
“I would have slammed the door in his face,” Kyungsoo declares simultaneously.
Sehun only makes a point to nod and eat.
Baekhyun wishes for half a second, no more no less, that Joonmyun were here instead.
---
It's another three days after Chanyeol's visit, before Baekhyun digs his phone out from under the couch cushions and checks his inbox.
Baek? Beakie?
nvm
hello. it's mee.
Have you seen my phone charger?
i hate cats, but yours is actually ok. keke
i still think you should visit.
Hello? ru alive? am i still on your will?
ok that wasn't funny, but please text back?
hello?
hello?
Baekhyun reads through them all and turns his phone off without replying.
---
It’s after another two weeks of putting too much laundry detergent in the washing machine, and buying too many groceries, and just plain not knowing how to function, when Baekhyun breaks down and texts Jongdae for Chanyeol’s new address.
His phone buzzes back with the message:
ru sure?
He hesitates for a second, setting his phone down as no-Name the tabby cuddles up against him.
The thing is he isn't sure about this.
He’s not sure of a lot of things when it comes to dealing with Chanyeol right now because everything with him had always been so easy, their friendly-fire banter a daily occurrence.
It was always easy, their harmony a clean clash of static and noise; a constant back and forth of giving and taking.
Hell, Baekhyun’s not even sure at this point if he’s actually angry at him either.
Chanyeol is entitled to his own life and free-will, he reasons and even if they spent the past three years living together tied at the hip, going out on movie dates, doing each other’s laundry and making out all over the kitchen counters like a couple, it doesn’t mean that they actually were.
Maybe it didn’t mean anything at all.
But Baekhyun knows better.
It was easy to dismiss at first when they were just a couple of horny college freshmen, lonely and bored together. It was still easy to dismiss two years later when the logical decision of moving together meant that planning hook-ups and video game nights would be infinitely easier.
It’s a whole different thing five years later when they were still living together post-graduation and he finally realizes that his fuck-buddy, friends with benefits arrangement with Chanyeol is the longest lasting relationship either of them have ever had.
yes im sure,
he texts back and waits for the reply to seal his fate.
---
It’s not until he’s actually on Chanyeol’s new doorstep, does Baekhyun realize that this is a really terrible idea.
Well, Jongdae had made a point to text him back- this is a really terrible idea- along with the address, but by then Baekhyun had already made up his mind.
He knocks and kind of has a mild panic attack when it’s not Chanyeol that opens the door.
It’s Chanyeol’s tall, hot model boyfriend who looks kind of pissed naturally but even more so after seeing Baekhyun.
“Oh cool, it’s you,” he says in a sarcastic drawl, “perfect. I was just leaving anyways.”
He pushes Baekhyun aside and rushes off, muttering something about red socks, white shirts, and everything turning pink. And yeah, Baekhyun can totally sympathize.
He pushes the door open and tries not to feel pleased with the way Chanyeol instantly lights up.
“So you are alive,” he says with a chuckle, “would it kill you to answer my texts once in a while?”
“No,” Baekhyun replies, remembering that he was still supposed to be angry, “but would it have killed you to try a little harder pretending that you care?”
There’s a beat of incredibly awkward silence before Chanyeol starts whining.
“Baekhyun, not you too,” he sighs, “don’t do this to me. Moving has been hell, I still haven’t finished unpacking. Kris doesn’t even do the dishes, and he’s complaining about my drum practice. I can’t stand his sink hogging, and we’ve been fighting for the past few days nonstop about it.”
He pauses.
“I don’t think I can take this anymore.”
Baekhyun just stares back, feeling something in him snap.
“So, now that you two are done, you’re trying to run back to me?” he demands, “is that all this is? Some sick replacement game?”
Chanyeol looks horrified and completely offended, and Baekhyun gives him credit for keeping his temper, “Just listen to me, ok?”
Baekhyun isn’t in the mood to listen though and he makes his point clear by knocking Chanyeol’s shoddy Ikea chair over.
“You moved out first! You don’t get to just comeback whenever you want!”
Chanyeol flips the tiny coffee table up on its side in retaliation and screams back at him.
“Don’t take things out on my furniture!”
Baekhyun tips another chair over, completely ignoring the irony of Chanyeol’s outburst, and somehow this, this screaming and throwing and being eternally frustrated thing works for them.
Chanyeol must feel it too because in the next instant, they both break down laughing; like there’s something innately hilarious about the way they want to kill each other half the time.
Baekhyun is still wheezing by the time Chanyeol picks himself off the floor, wiping tears from his eyes.
“I’ve missed you, you know?” Chanyeol says, the 'i miss this, missed us’ left unsaid.
Baekhyun isn’t sure he’s ready for whatever direction they’re heading blindly into; even if he’s spent the past few weeks moping around the house like a homebody wishing for it.
I’ve missed you too. A lot. Enough for me to get a cat that still has no name because I don’t want to name him after you because then it would prove how much I fucking missed you is what he wants to say.
But none of it ever actually makes it out of his mouth.
Instead he bends down silently to pick up the chairs he knocked over earlier.
He doesn’t miss the way that Chanyeol’s face falls when he leaves without even saying goodbye.
---
He hears about the break-up from Jongdae another week later and promptly drops cat litter all over the kitchen floor.
Beside him on the counter, not-Chanyeol mewls in concern.
So?
he texts back, ignoring the rapid fluttering in his stomach.
he’s wondering when u2 can meetup. to talk.
He pauses for a second, ignoring all self-preservation alarms going off in his head, before answering.
i’ll call him.
He thinks about how much he’s put Jongdae through the past few weeks and keeps typing:
thanks for telling me. thanks for everything.
Baekhyun sets his phone down to sweep up the mess of litter, when it buzzes again startling not-Chanyeol.
go get 'im tiger. but just so we're clear, im not buying you icecream again.
---
They end up meeting at the Starbucks on the corner, and Baekhyun chooses a table outside just in case things get really dramatic and there’s a repeat of table-flipping and more screaming.
Chanyeol arrives a little late and neither of them gets anything to drink.
“So,” he prompts, awkwardly dragging out the vowel.
“I’ve moved out,” Chanyeol blurts out, “and we broke up. Well, Kris and I broke up first, and then I moved out.”
“Do you need a place to stay?” Baekhyun asks, voice sinking, “is this what this is about?”
“No, I’ve found a place already,” Chanyeol replies quickly, "we broke up about a week ago."
“Oh.”
Baekhyun isn’t sure if he feels relieved or disappointed.
“It’s umm, across the street from where we used to live actually,” Chanyeol adds, stealing a glance at Baekhyun like he’s asking for approval.
They can be neighbors that way, he thinks. It’s a small step, but a step nonetheless.
“The apartment is a bit bigger than we’re used to, but...” he trails off and that’s when Baekhyun realizes.
“We?”
“I went ahead and bought a double, because I thought-,” he stops.
"Thought what?" Baekhyun prompts, heart racing even though he can guess what Chanyeol is going to ask.
“There’s an empty room I’ve been keeping,” Chanyeol breathes voice small, sounding so unsure and different from the Chanyeol Baekhyun is used to arguing with all the time, “will you move in with me?”
Baekhyun lets the question hang in the air, but only for a heartbeat before he looks up at Chanyeol and knows his answer instantly.
“Yes,” he says, but the first time comes out strangled-sounding and cracked, “yes. yesyesyes.”
Chanyeol moves like he’s thinking of picking him up and Baekhyun bats at him half-heartedly.
“What about my cat though?” Baekhyun asks laughing slightly at the way Chanyeol’s eyes widen.
“I’m allergic to them,” he exclaims and Baekhyun picks that moment to kiss him.
“So what, I’m allergic to you too,” he says back teasingly as Chanyeol presses a kiss onto his forehead.
“I’ll guess I’ll learn to live with it, but only if you-,” Chanyeol bargains trying to sound stern when Baekhyun cuts him off with another kiss.
Warmth rolls through him in waves because all Baekhyun really hears is live with and you pressed up against his lips.