fall into step
title: fall into step
pairing/s: baekhyun/chanyeol
genre: romance, really idek
rating: pg
length: oneshot, 3,164wc
summary: “101 paper cranes, 25 red roses and me.”
an: written for jono bec chanyeol feels happened. (you poor bb, let baek love you)
an2: thanks to oolay, coolcatmeow and airplanewishes for putting up with crap orz
an3: HAPPY BAEKYEOL. i think. \o/
Baekhyun has seen it so many times before. This exact scene where Chanyeol is sitting alone on the cold metal steps of the fire escape just outside his bedroom window, hugging his knees and staring up at the night sky. It's dark but Baekhyun can see the familiar slump to his shoulders and the sadness in his eyes illuminated by the few stars that were kind enough to accompany him tonight.
Baekhyun looks at him from his own window, a floor above Chanyeol's apartment, to the left of the fire escape. It's the perfect place because he can clearly see Chanyeol from there; can see the emotions fleet across his best friend's face; can watch him but not be watched in return, hidden in the shadows afforded to him by the light coming from his bedroom. Here he feels safe to look at Chanyeol the way he wants to.
At nights like this, Baekhyun already knows what to say. He's had practice--almost four years’ worth of them.
"Another one, huh?" he calls out.
Chanyeol shifts his head and looks up at his direction, lips downturned at the corners. "You got it."
"So she didn't like the roses?" Chanyeol shrugs and returns to his perusal of the sky.
But how can anybody not like those 24 red roses? He and Chanyeol picked them out carefully, making sure that they could get the best out of what money they have pooled together. The taller boy told him he really liked this girl and he wanted to confess before anyone did so what was Baekhyun to do but help him out? He can always save up for that book he wanted for another time.
They had set out early this morning to get the flowers fresh from the florist downtown. It's Rose day and Chanyeol wanted to avoid the sure-to-be long line of buyers. Baekhyun thought the smile on Chanyeol's face when he was handed the prettily wrapped roses was enough to make up for the way his friend woke him up that morning-unceremoniously jumping on his bed and violently shaking him awake at 5AM.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything.
"Do you think if we got her three dozen, she'd have said yes?" Baekhyun teases. He wants to see those downturned corners quirk up.
"No." Chanyeol sighs. "I think it's just me she doesn't like."
Her loss, Baekhyun thinks. Park Chanyeol is the most likeable person in the world. Well, maybe not the whole world but in Byun Baekhyun's world at least. He's cute, he's funny, he's talented and he's a lot of things Baekhyun has always wanted for himself. He doesn't get why they always reject his friend. If Chanyeol will give him just a fraction of the attention he gives to those idiots who repeatedly break his heart, he'll snatch him in a heartbeat and never let go.
But, like one of the saddest clichés in the world, Baekhyun's just the boy who's in love with his best friend, who's always in love with somebody else. Still, it's okay.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything.
"Well, she's not worth moping around over. You'll see. By tomorrow you'll be wondering what the hell you saw in her and then bam! You’ll feel better already." Baekhyun injects a cheerfulness he doesn't really feel.
"You sure?" Chanyeol looks up at him again and smiles a little. Baekhyun sees the effort it takes him to push the loneliness away. Baekhyun knows Chanyeol does it for him. He falls in love with his best friend again.
"Of course! Don't you trust me?" he demands, sounding offended now.
"I trust you, Baek. I trust you with my life." Chanyeol lets out a deep sigh but Baekhyun knows as his breath pushes out from his soft lips, the taller boy is already on his way to feeling better. "Can you come down here with me for a little while?"
He wants to. He'd have gladly jumped from the window to Chanyeol's arms without another prodding. It's just Chanyeol looks so handsome tonight with his brown hair and cheeks kissed red by the wintry midnight breeze.
Baekhyun lives by one rule as Chanyeol's best friend: Fall in love with him only once a day.
He's already reached his quota. If he goes over he's afraid his heart will burst and where will he be?
"I think we should sleep. We still have classes tomorrow, you know."
"Come on, Baek. Just five minutes? Please?"
No, he can't afford to. "I'll do it tomorrow night. I'm so sleepy, Chanyeol. You woke me up so early today and it's almost midnight."
He sees the adorable pout even before it actually forms on Chanyeol's lips. "Baek--"
"Chanyeol, tomorrow. I'll sit with you until we freeze our butts off." He yawns. "I'll even hold your hand as we count the stars in the sky," he adds jokingly. Half-jokingly. Wistfully.
The other boy grins at him widely. "Fine. No backing out, you punk."
Baekhyun nods and straightens. He waves goodnight and closes the window. He promptly throws himself on his bed and congratulates himself for making his best friend feel better. He dreads the next time he'll have to do it all over again.
Job well done, Baekhyun. Hooray.
Chanyeol is a really sweet guy. You know those romantic confessions people only see in movies? He does them in real life. He has serenaded a girl from her balcony, confessed kneeling in the middle of the school corridors, and gave two dozen red roses during a quiz in Pre-Calc. They're all simple and cheesy (and even embarrassing) but to Chanyeol it's okay. He tells Baekhyun that if you like somebody, you have to give your all. You have to go that extra mile so that they will like you back.
It's sad though because Chanyeol always goes at least two extra miles but he can never seem to catch a break. He's somehow still getting left behind. Then there's Baekhyun, who's doing his best to keep up just so he can stay beside Chanyeol. It's difficult and tiring but it's okay.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything.
Then it happens. Chanyeol finally catches up. Baekhyun gets left behind.
She's really pretty, Baekhyun thinks. Pretty hair, pretty eyes, pretty lips. Pretty everything. She looks perfect beside his Chanyeol. No. No, Baekhyun he isn't yours.
For a while, he walks home together with them, following them a few steps behind. Baekhyun thinks he now understands the emptiness Chanyeol feels whenever he's rejected. It's lonely watching from the back.
Baekhyun stops running. He stops walking. He stays in place and curls into himself.
Baekhyun's new rule as Chanyeol's best friend: Let your heart break only once a day.
"Baekhyun!" He hears someone yell into his ear before he feels a warm, heavy object crash on top of him. "Baek, wake up!"
He tries to push his slug of a best friend away (of course, it's Chanyeol). It's too early on a Saturday morning for him to die of suffocation. He hasn't even had breakfast yet.
"Ugh, the hell, Chanyeol, get off!" He shoves him again. Thankfully, the oaf gets the hint and rolls off of him. He doesn't go far, though. Chanyeol settles his long limbs beside Baekhyun and slings his arm and leg over the smaller boy's petite frame, burying his face against his neck.
"Baekhyuuuuuun," Chanyeol sings into his ear. Baekhyun barely controls the shiver that runs through his body.
"What is it?" he asks irritably, hiding his true feelings with an ugly scowl. He can't breathe for an entirely different reason. Chanyeol's so close and it has been long since his best friend did this. He doesn't get to see him except in class. The fire escape's been empty for more than three months now. Chanyeol's always with her.
"I need you," Chanyeol says.
Baekhyun feels those tiny pinpricks behind his eyes and inside his chest. I need you, his best friend says. But not in the way Baekhyun needs him. He opens his eyes. It's really too early for a heartbreak, too.
"For what?"
"It's for our 100th day together and well, I want to give her something special."
Only one heartbreak a day, Baekhyun. Except, it's getting close to two.
"Ugh. You mean to tell me you disturbed my beauty sleep just so you can ask me about that? What do you need me for? Haven't you already mastered this shit?" Baekhyun attempts to slither away from Chanyeol, but his best friend holds onto him fast and pulls him even closer.
"Baekhyun. Baekhyun, please? Baekhyun, Baek--" Chanyeol goes on to say his name over and over and over, warm breath blowing against his ear, his neck.
"Shut up. Shut up. What the hell do you want me to do?"
His best friend smirks in victory and crushes him into a grateful embrace.
He completely gives in. He already knew he would the moment Chanyeol first said his name. It's okay.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything.
A hundred paper cranes. One for each day they've been together. One for each day Chanyeol has been apart from Baekhyun.
He watches his friend fold another piece of colored paper. Chanyeol's doing it wrong. His cranes look like angry mutated ducks. He looks down at the thirty perfect cranes on his side of the table. He thinks he'll be happy to receive even one of those angry ducks. Baekhyun shakes his head and continues folding.
A few more and maybe by tomorrow they'll be done.
Chanyeol looks up suddenly. "Hey, what if I wrote I love you in one of them? In the biggest one?"
Crack. Splinter. Break.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything. Except this time, it kind of doesn't.
Baekhyun's torn. He's sitting on his window ledge. Chanyeol's back brooding on the fire escape and he doesn't know if he's happy or miserable about it. It's freezing outside. The first snow is almost upon them but Chanyeol's just wearing a thin shirt and a threadbare pajama bottoms but the boy doesn't seem like he minds.
They were in their third afternoon of folding and in their 70th paper crane-duck when she called and broke up with Chanyeol. A day before their 100th day. Baekhyun had watched his friend stare at his phone screen for a long, long time before Chanyeol moved to pick up a piece of blue-colored paper. He started folding it.
"Chanyeol?"
"She broke up with me," the boy had said quietly, eyes focused on the paper.
"I'm sorry."
"Baek, can I--I'd like to be alone for a while."
Baekhyun has been worried about Chanyeol all day. So he's partly relieved to see him sitting there, even in this weather.
"I finished it. A hundred cranes in all."
What for? he wants to ask but he doesn't. "Maybe, she heard you were doing them for her and she prefers roses and chocolates," he jokes.
"She couldn't have known about it," Chanyeol answers seriously. "You're the only one who knows."
The mood is too heavy. Baekhyun hates it. "So you went out for three months and she just realizes she doesn't like you?"
Chanyeol laughs and it sounds so hollow, Baekhyun's heart breaks. Quota reached.
"What the fuck? Then why did she break up with you?" Stupid, stupid girl.
Chanyeol sobers up. "I put them in a jar and placed them on top of mom's baby piano in the living room. They look nice. Or at least half of them do. The ones I made look like bats or something."
Ducks. They look like angry, mutated ducks, Chanyeol, but that wasn't what I was asking you about.
Chanyeol leans his head wearily against the metal railing and the action is so sad, Baekhyun lets himself risk breaking his own rule. Only for tonight. "Hang on."
He goes out of his room and into his brother's. The older Byun boy is already fast asleep. Baekhyun tiptoes across the carpeted floor and makes his way out of the windows onto the fire escape. He quietly runs the rest of the way down until he's sitting beside his best friend.
He wonders how Chanyeol can endure the icy air. He's not even a second there but his ass is already numb.
He nudges Chanyeol's shoulder with his. "You count the stars. I can hold your hand."
He reaches for Chanyeol's hand but to his surprise, the boy snatches it away. It hurts. Yet he understands. He turns to his well-practiced lines.
"Well, she's not worth you moping around over. You'll see. By tomorrow you'll be wondering what the hell you saw in her and then bam! You’ll feel better already."
There. Superbly delivered.
"I won't, Baek. I don't think--I won't feel better." Chanyeol buries his face in his hands.
"You loved her that much?"
Three. Three heartbreaks in one night. Pull back. Abort mission. This won't end up with a hooray.
"All this time, it was my fault. They keep on rejecting me because I don't deserve to be loved."
Now, Baekhyun's angry. Livid. "What the fuck are you talking about?! They're the ones who are too blind to see how wonderful you are! It's not your fault every one of them is stupid!"
Chanyeol glances at him in surprise. But Baekhyun's not done yet.
"You're handsome, you're funny, and you make everything come to life! You laugh like a lunatic, you're clumsy and you're loud but it's okay because when you smile, it makes up for everything."
"You deserve to be serenaded, to be confessed to in front of the whole school. You deserve 25 red roses and 101 paper cranes. And me. Because I love you and with me you won't have to go that extra mile. I'll always be in step with you!"
Baekhyun's eyes widen. He just confessed to Chanyeol. He sees the moment the taller boy absorbs what he said.
"Baekhyun?"
Baekhyun said he'll always be in step with Chanyeol but right now there's nothing he can do but run.
Baekhyun runs and runs.
A month. He manages to dodge Chanyeol for nearly a month. A miracle in itself because they live in the same apartment building, go to the same school, and are friends with the same people. It has been hard. Baekhyun misses his best friend dearly, but he's just a boy, who confessed to his best friend, who keeps being rejected by someone else.
He stops looking out the window, afraid that he'll see Chanyeol out there on the fire escape waiting for him. He's also afraid that he'll not see Chanyeol there for that means he doesn't care. Baekhyun wants to graduate from being a dumb teenager soon because he doesn't know what to do. Maybe if he's an adult, he won't have this dumb longing, this dumb ache, this dumb love for Park Chanyeol.
He opens the door to his room--walks in and stops in his tracks. On his bed is a big jar of paper crane-ducks. He doesn't have to count to know there are a hundred of them. Baekhyun's hurt. Is this Chanyeol's pity present? Then he doesn't want them.
He wants them. He doesn't want them. He wants them.
He wants Park Chanyeol.
He falls in love and his heart breaks at the same time. A new record.
Baekhyun's butt is literally frozen in place. The metal step of the fire escape is hard and cold and wet. They just had the first snowfall of the winter and he's alone. The time he finally gets the courage to face Chanyeol and of course the idiot is nowhere to be found.
The glass jar is chilly against his hands. Baekhyun looks at the folded papers inside it to pass the time. He can easily identify which ones he made and which ones are Chanyeol's. The sizes of the cranes are mostly the same except for a big blue crane-duck sitting majestically atop them.
"Hey, what if I wrote I love you in one of them? In the biggest one?"
Did Chanyeol do it? Genuinely curious, Baekhyun takes off the lid and reaches for it. He secures the jar in between his thighs and opens the folded paper carefully.
The jar almost falls and shatters.
I love you, Baekhyun.
Chanyeol knows he's messing up with this paper crane folding thing. He sees Baekhyun's beautiful fingers work magic on the yellow patterned paper and a few moments more a perfect crane is born, ready to take its flight. But he pushes on. Sometimes he forgets why they are doing this. He forgets her and only thinks of how it feels nice to watch Baekhyun's brow knot as he performs his enchantment on the plain paper. He thinks Baekhyun makes everything beautiful.
He loves this. He loves this feeling. He loves.
He looks up and sees Baekhyun's bangs fall across his forehead. "Hey, What if I wrote I love you in one of them? In the biggest one?" he suddenly blurts out.
And he turns nervous because his brain catches his slip. That crucial phrase.
What if I love you?
What if he does?
Love Baekhyun?
What if?
No.
"Chanyeol, I'm breaking up with you," he hears his girlfriend say on the phone. And it's bad because, instead of feeling hurt, he feels relieved.
"Okay."
"I like you but you don't feel the same. Maybe it's time you tell him. It's him you want."
The phone call ends. He's reeling from what she said. Who's him?
He stares and stares at his phone because maybe he'll get the answer there. He doesn't. He gets it from the boy sitting across from him.
"Chanyeol?"
I love you, Baekhyun, he writes inside the biggest paper bat he made.
"All this time, it was my fault. They keep on rejecting me because I don't deserve to be loved," he says.
Everyone knew. Everyone saw. He has loved Baekhyun all this time. No one wants to be second best and Chanyeol realizes that, to him, everyone will always be second best to Byun Baekhyun.
Good job, Chanyeol. Hooray.
Chanyeol tries to find Baekhyun. He runs and runs. His best friend said that he won't have to go the extra mile for him. But he wants to. He wants to make him happy. The last time he saw Baekhyun, there were tears and fear in his eyes. Chanyeol wants to make him smile again.
When Baekhyun smiles, everything is beautiful.
They're sitting on that perpetually cold metal step. Chanyeol's holding Baekhyun's hand in one of his. The other curls around the smaller boy's nape as he plies Baekhyun's soft mouth with long, deep and languid kisses.
Finally, there's no more running.
Baekhyun lives by one rule as Chanyeol's boyfriend: Fall in love with him as many times as he wants.
END;
- AHAAHAHAHAHAHAHHA WHAT
pairing/s: baekhyun/chanyeol
genre: romance, really idek
rating: pg
length: oneshot, 3,164wc
summary: “101 paper cranes, 25 red roses and me.”
an: written for jono bec chanyeol feels happened. (you poor bb, let baek love you)
an2: thanks to oolay, coolcatmeow and airplanewishes for putting up with crap orz
an3: HAPPY BAEKYEOL. i think. \o/
Baekhyun has seen it so many times before. This exact scene where Chanyeol is sitting alone on the cold metal steps of the fire escape just outside his bedroom window, hugging his knees and staring up at the night sky. It's dark but Baekhyun can see the familiar slump to his shoulders and the sadness in his eyes illuminated by the few stars that were kind enough to accompany him tonight.
Baekhyun looks at him from his own window, a floor above Chanyeol's apartment, to the left of the fire escape. It's the perfect place because he can clearly see Chanyeol from there; can see the emotions fleet across his best friend's face; can watch him but not be watched in return, hidden in the shadows afforded to him by the light coming from his bedroom. Here he feels safe to look at Chanyeol the way he wants to.
At nights like this, Baekhyun already knows what to say. He's had practice--almost four years’ worth of them.
"Another one, huh?" he calls out.
Chanyeol shifts his head and looks up at his direction, lips downturned at the corners. "You got it."
"So she didn't like the roses?" Chanyeol shrugs and returns to his perusal of the sky.
But how can anybody not like those 24 red roses? He and Chanyeol picked them out carefully, making sure that they could get the best out of what money they have pooled together. The taller boy told him he really liked this girl and he wanted to confess before anyone did so what was Baekhyun to do but help him out? He can always save up for that book he wanted for another time.
They had set out early this morning to get the flowers fresh from the florist downtown. It's Rose day and Chanyeol wanted to avoid the sure-to-be long line of buyers. Baekhyun thought the smile on Chanyeol's face when he was handed the prettily wrapped roses was enough to make up for the way his friend woke him up that morning-unceremoniously jumping on his bed and violently shaking him awake at 5AM.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything.
"Do you think if we got her three dozen, she'd have said yes?" Baekhyun teases. He wants to see those downturned corners quirk up.
"No." Chanyeol sighs. "I think it's just me she doesn't like."
Her loss, Baekhyun thinks. Park Chanyeol is the most likeable person in the world. Well, maybe not the whole world but in Byun Baekhyun's world at least. He's cute, he's funny, he's talented and he's a lot of things Baekhyun has always wanted for himself. He doesn't get why they always reject his friend. If Chanyeol will give him just a fraction of the attention he gives to those idiots who repeatedly break his heart, he'll snatch him in a heartbeat and never let go.
But, like one of the saddest clichés in the world, Baekhyun's just the boy who's in love with his best friend, who's always in love with somebody else. Still, it's okay.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything.
"Well, she's not worth moping around over. You'll see. By tomorrow you'll be wondering what the hell you saw in her and then bam! You’ll feel better already." Baekhyun injects a cheerfulness he doesn't really feel.
"You sure?" Chanyeol looks up at him again and smiles a little. Baekhyun sees the effort it takes him to push the loneliness away. Baekhyun knows Chanyeol does it for him. He falls in love with his best friend again.
"Of course! Don't you trust me?" he demands, sounding offended now.
"I trust you, Baek. I trust you with my life." Chanyeol lets out a deep sigh but Baekhyun knows as his breath pushes out from his soft lips, the taller boy is already on his way to feeling better. "Can you come down here with me for a little while?"
He wants to. He'd have gladly jumped from the window to Chanyeol's arms without another prodding. It's just Chanyeol looks so handsome tonight with his brown hair and cheeks kissed red by the wintry midnight breeze.
Baekhyun lives by one rule as Chanyeol's best friend: Fall in love with him only once a day.
He's already reached his quota. If he goes over he's afraid his heart will burst and where will he be?
"I think we should sleep. We still have classes tomorrow, you know."
"Come on, Baek. Just five minutes? Please?"
No, he can't afford to. "I'll do it tomorrow night. I'm so sleepy, Chanyeol. You woke me up so early today and it's almost midnight."
He sees the adorable pout even before it actually forms on Chanyeol's lips. "Baek--"
"Chanyeol, tomorrow. I'll sit with you until we freeze our butts off." He yawns. "I'll even hold your hand as we count the stars in the sky," he adds jokingly. Half-jokingly. Wistfully.
The other boy grins at him widely. "Fine. No backing out, you punk."
Baekhyun nods and straightens. He waves goodnight and closes the window. He promptly throws himself on his bed and congratulates himself for making his best friend feel better. He dreads the next time he'll have to do it all over again.
Job well done, Baekhyun. Hooray.
Chanyeol is a really sweet guy. You know those romantic confessions people only see in movies? He does them in real life. He has serenaded a girl from her balcony, confessed kneeling in the middle of the school corridors, and gave two dozen red roses during a quiz in Pre-Calc. They're all simple and cheesy (and even embarrassing) but to Chanyeol it's okay. He tells Baekhyun that if you like somebody, you have to give your all. You have to go that extra mile so that they will like you back.
It's sad though because Chanyeol always goes at least two extra miles but he can never seem to catch a break. He's somehow still getting left behind. Then there's Baekhyun, who's doing his best to keep up just so he can stay beside Chanyeol. It's difficult and tiring but it's okay.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything.
Then it happens. Chanyeol finally catches up. Baekhyun gets left behind.
She's really pretty, Baekhyun thinks. Pretty hair, pretty eyes, pretty lips. Pretty everything. She looks perfect beside his Chanyeol. No. No, Baekhyun he isn't yours.
For a while, he walks home together with them, following them a few steps behind. Baekhyun thinks he now understands the emptiness Chanyeol feels whenever he's rejected. It's lonely watching from the back.
Baekhyun stops running. He stops walking. He stays in place and curls into himself.
Baekhyun's new rule as Chanyeol's best friend: Let your heart break only once a day.
"Baekhyun!" He hears someone yell into his ear before he feels a warm, heavy object crash on top of him. "Baek, wake up!"
He tries to push his slug of a best friend away (of course, it's Chanyeol). It's too early on a Saturday morning for him to die of suffocation. He hasn't even had breakfast yet.
"Ugh, the hell, Chanyeol, get off!" He shoves him again. Thankfully, the oaf gets the hint and rolls off of him. He doesn't go far, though. Chanyeol settles his long limbs beside Baekhyun and slings his arm and leg over the smaller boy's petite frame, burying his face against his neck.
"Baekhyuuuuuun," Chanyeol sings into his ear. Baekhyun barely controls the shiver that runs through his body.
"What is it?" he asks irritably, hiding his true feelings with an ugly scowl. He can't breathe for an entirely different reason. Chanyeol's so close and it has been long since his best friend did this. He doesn't get to see him except in class. The fire escape's been empty for more than three months now. Chanyeol's always with her.
"I need you," Chanyeol says.
Baekhyun feels those tiny pinpricks behind his eyes and inside his chest. I need you, his best friend says. But not in the way Baekhyun needs him. He opens his eyes. It's really too early for a heartbreak, too.
"For what?"
"It's for our 100th day together and well, I want to give her something special."
Only one heartbreak a day, Baekhyun. Except, it's getting close to two.
"Ugh. You mean to tell me you disturbed my beauty sleep just so you can ask me about that? What do you need me for? Haven't you already mastered this shit?" Baekhyun attempts to slither away from Chanyeol, but his best friend holds onto him fast and pulls him even closer.
"Baekhyun. Baekhyun, please? Baekhyun, Baek--" Chanyeol goes on to say his name over and over and over, warm breath blowing against his ear, his neck.
"Shut up. Shut up. What the hell do you want me to do?"
His best friend smirks in victory and crushes him into a grateful embrace.
He completely gives in. He already knew he would the moment Chanyeol first said his name. It's okay.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything.
A hundred paper cranes. One for each day they've been together. One for each day Chanyeol has been apart from Baekhyun.
He watches his friend fold another piece of colored paper. Chanyeol's doing it wrong. His cranes look like angry mutated ducks. He looks down at the thirty perfect cranes on his side of the table. He thinks he'll be happy to receive even one of those angry ducks. Baekhyun shakes his head and continues folding.
A few more and maybe by tomorrow they'll be done.
Chanyeol looks up suddenly. "Hey, what if I wrote I love you in one of them? In the biggest one?"
Crack. Splinter. Break.
When Chanyeol smiles, it makes up for everything. Except this time, it kind of doesn't.
Baekhyun's torn. He's sitting on his window ledge. Chanyeol's back brooding on the fire escape and he doesn't know if he's happy or miserable about it. It's freezing outside. The first snow is almost upon them but Chanyeol's just wearing a thin shirt and a threadbare pajama bottoms but the boy doesn't seem like he minds.
They were in their third afternoon of folding and in their 70th paper crane-duck when she called and broke up with Chanyeol. A day before their 100th day. Baekhyun had watched his friend stare at his phone screen for a long, long time before Chanyeol moved to pick up a piece of blue-colored paper. He started folding it.
"Chanyeol?"
"She broke up with me," the boy had said quietly, eyes focused on the paper.
"I'm sorry."
"Baek, can I--I'd like to be alone for a while."
Baekhyun has been worried about Chanyeol all day. So he's partly relieved to see him sitting there, even in this weather.
"I finished it. A hundred cranes in all."
What for? he wants to ask but he doesn't. "Maybe, she heard you were doing them for her and she prefers roses and chocolates," he jokes.
"She couldn't have known about it," Chanyeol answers seriously. "You're the only one who knows."
The mood is too heavy. Baekhyun hates it. "So you went out for three months and she just realizes she doesn't like you?"
Chanyeol laughs and it sounds so hollow, Baekhyun's heart breaks. Quota reached.
"What the fuck? Then why did she break up with you?" Stupid, stupid girl.
Chanyeol sobers up. "I put them in a jar and placed them on top of mom's baby piano in the living room. They look nice. Or at least half of them do. The ones I made look like bats or something."
Ducks. They look like angry, mutated ducks, Chanyeol, but that wasn't what I was asking you about.
Chanyeol leans his head wearily against the metal railing and the action is so sad, Baekhyun lets himself risk breaking his own rule. Only for tonight. "Hang on."
He goes out of his room and into his brother's. The older Byun boy is already fast asleep. Baekhyun tiptoes across the carpeted floor and makes his way out of the windows onto the fire escape. He quietly runs the rest of the way down until he's sitting beside his best friend.
He wonders how Chanyeol can endure the icy air. He's not even a second there but his ass is already numb.
He nudges Chanyeol's shoulder with his. "You count the stars. I can hold your hand."
He reaches for Chanyeol's hand but to his surprise, the boy snatches it away. It hurts. Yet he understands. He turns to his well-practiced lines.
"Well, she's not worth you moping around over. You'll see. By tomorrow you'll be wondering what the hell you saw in her and then bam! You’ll feel better already."
There. Superbly delivered.
"I won't, Baek. I don't think--I won't feel better." Chanyeol buries his face in his hands.
"You loved her that much?"
Three. Three heartbreaks in one night. Pull back. Abort mission. This won't end up with a hooray.
"All this time, it was my fault. They keep on rejecting me because I don't deserve to be loved."
Now, Baekhyun's angry. Livid. "What the fuck are you talking about?! They're the ones who are too blind to see how wonderful you are! It's not your fault every one of them is stupid!"
Chanyeol glances at him in surprise. But Baekhyun's not done yet.
"You're handsome, you're funny, and you make everything come to life! You laugh like a lunatic, you're clumsy and you're loud but it's okay because when you smile, it makes up for everything."
"You deserve to be serenaded, to be confessed to in front of the whole school. You deserve 25 red roses and 101 paper cranes. And me. Because I love you and with me you won't have to go that extra mile. I'll always be in step with you!"
Baekhyun's eyes widen. He just confessed to Chanyeol. He sees the moment the taller boy absorbs what he said.
"Baekhyun?"
Baekhyun said he'll always be in step with Chanyeol but right now there's nothing he can do but run.
Baekhyun runs and runs.
A month. He manages to dodge Chanyeol for nearly a month. A miracle in itself because they live in the same apartment building, go to the same school, and are friends with the same people. It has been hard. Baekhyun misses his best friend dearly, but he's just a boy, who confessed to his best friend, who keeps being rejected by someone else.
He stops looking out the window, afraid that he'll see Chanyeol out there on the fire escape waiting for him. He's also afraid that he'll not see Chanyeol there for that means he doesn't care. Baekhyun wants to graduate from being a dumb teenager soon because he doesn't know what to do. Maybe if he's an adult, he won't have this dumb longing, this dumb ache, this dumb love for Park Chanyeol.
He opens the door to his room--walks in and stops in his tracks. On his bed is a big jar of paper crane-ducks. He doesn't have to count to know there are a hundred of them. Baekhyun's hurt. Is this Chanyeol's pity present? Then he doesn't want them.
He wants them. He doesn't want them. He wants them.
He wants Park Chanyeol.
He falls in love and his heart breaks at the same time. A new record.
Baekhyun's butt is literally frozen in place. The metal step of the fire escape is hard and cold and wet. They just had the first snowfall of the winter and he's alone. The time he finally gets the courage to face Chanyeol and of course the idiot is nowhere to be found.
The glass jar is chilly against his hands. Baekhyun looks at the folded papers inside it to pass the time. He can easily identify which ones he made and which ones are Chanyeol's. The sizes of the cranes are mostly the same except for a big blue crane-duck sitting majestically atop them.
"Hey, what if I wrote I love you in one of them? In the biggest one?"
Did Chanyeol do it? Genuinely curious, Baekhyun takes off the lid and reaches for it. He secures the jar in between his thighs and opens the folded paper carefully.
The jar almost falls and shatters.
I love you, Baekhyun.
Chanyeol knows he's messing up with this paper crane folding thing. He sees Baekhyun's beautiful fingers work magic on the yellow patterned paper and a few moments more a perfect crane is born, ready to take its flight. But he pushes on. Sometimes he forgets why they are doing this. He forgets her and only thinks of how it feels nice to watch Baekhyun's brow knot as he performs his enchantment on the plain paper. He thinks Baekhyun makes everything beautiful.
He loves this. He loves this feeling. He loves.
He looks up and sees Baekhyun's bangs fall across his forehead. "Hey, What if I wrote I love you in one of them? In the biggest one?" he suddenly blurts out.
And he turns nervous because his brain catches his slip. That crucial phrase.
What if I love you?
What if he does?
Love Baekhyun?
What if?
No.
"Chanyeol, I'm breaking up with you," he hears his girlfriend say on the phone. And it's bad because, instead of feeling hurt, he feels relieved.
"Okay."
"I like you but you don't feel the same. Maybe it's time you tell him. It's him you want."
The phone call ends. He's reeling from what she said. Who's him?
He stares and stares at his phone because maybe he'll get the answer there. He doesn't. He gets it from the boy sitting across from him.
"Chanyeol?"
I love you, Baekhyun, he writes inside the biggest paper bat he made.
"All this time, it was my fault. They keep on rejecting me because I don't deserve to be loved," he says.
Everyone knew. Everyone saw. He has loved Baekhyun all this time. No one wants to be second best and Chanyeol realizes that, to him, everyone will always be second best to Byun Baekhyun.
Good job, Chanyeol. Hooray.
Chanyeol tries to find Baekhyun. He runs and runs. His best friend said that he won't have to go the extra mile for him. But he wants to. He wants to make him happy. The last time he saw Baekhyun, there were tears and fear in his eyes. Chanyeol wants to make him smile again.
When Baekhyun smiles, everything is beautiful.
They're sitting on that perpetually cold metal step. Chanyeol's holding Baekhyun's hand in one of his. The other curls around the smaller boy's nape as he plies Baekhyun's soft mouth with long, deep and languid kisses.
Finally, there's no more running.
Baekhyun lives by one rule as Chanyeol's boyfriend: Fall in love with him as many times as he wants.
END;
- AHAAHAHAHAHAHAHHA WHAT