CHINGUX 2014: clouds in my eye (1/1) for chocoyeol
Title: Clouds in my Eye
Author: bluedreaming
Recipient: chocoyeol
Pairing/Focus: Baekhyun/Kyungsoo
Rating: PG
Warnings: minor character death on a large scale
Length: ~3138 w.
Summary: Baekhyun doesn't realize how he feels about Kyungsoo until it's too late.
"We should let our worlds recollide..." - Say Lou Lou
•-•
The table has four chairs but only three of them are filled. Baekhyun points at the empty chair beside Chanyeol with an elbow because his hands are full of BLT.
"Where's Kyungsoo?" he asks, mouth full.
Chanyeol pauses mid-bite, a piece of lettuce dangling from his sandwich, and looks over at Jongdae, who shrugs at him resignedly before turning to face Baekhyun.
"I'm pretty sure he told you that he was going home."
Baekhyun nods, munching his bacon happily.
"Yup! He went back to his apartment."
Chanyeol glares at him over his toasted bread and Jongdae coughs. Awkwardly.
"Um, no," he says, stabbing a fork into a stray leaf of lettuce on his plate.
Baekhyun keeps eating, idly thinking about their friend.
"So he went to visit his old apartment?" he tries.
Chanyeol slams his sandwich down onto his plate, and Baekhyun looks over at him, startled by the sudden vehemence.
"He went home you idiot!" he exclaims, flexing his fingers in frustration.
Baekhyun tries the thought out. It feels strange; sits heavily on his tongue.
"He went...home?"
"Yes!" Chanyeol is almost shouting by now.
Baekhyun slowly sets down his half-demolished sandwich. The crispy bacon has turned to sand in his mouth.
"You know what?" he says, coughing. "I think my BLT is a little off. I'm going to get something else."
The sound of the chair legs scraping the tile floor grates his eardrums.
He's not looking at the disgusted faces of his friends.
•-•
They first began hanging out in first year. Bubbly Baekhyun, studious but mischievous Jongdae, cheerful but concientious Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo, the quiet one. Everyone was always so noisy, Baekhyun yelling because Jongdae had pranked him once again, Chanyeol shushing them loudly and getting glared at by the librarian for his trouble. Baekhyun happened to glance over at the black-haired boy and paused, mid-shout.
Kyungsoo was looking at him, and smiling, eyes crinkled fondly in the corners. Baekhyun's heart skipped a beat. The vandalized math notes he'd been waving around in the air slipped through his fingers and fell in a cascade of loose papers onto the table, slipping off to waterfall onto the floor.
Jongdae and Chanyeol both turned to see what the commotion was - Baekhyun covered up his embarrassment with a smirk.
"I'm tired of this," he yawned loudly. "Let's go hit Starbucks, I want a pumpkin spice latte before they're gone for the season."
They gathered up their books and things amidst animated chatter about coffee and pumpkins and Halloween and how witches and magicians weren't the same things at all.
As they left the library, Baekhyun chanced a peek over at Kyungsoo again. He was still smiling.
•-•
"I'm bored."
Baekhyun glares over at Jongdae and Chanyeol who are working excitedly on some summer engineering project. They ignore him as usual.
"Come on guys!" He throws himself at Chanyeol who only shrugs Baekhyun's arms off his shoulders and turns, annoyed.
"Go entertain yourself somewhere!" He turns back to the papers.
Baekhyun decides to try Jongdae next. Making his best sad pout, he tugs at his sleeve.
"Jongdae, I'm bored. Play with me?"
Jongdae rolls his eyes but keeps working. Baekhyun tries harder.
"Jongdae!" He pulls the sleeve so hard that Jongdae's arm slips off the table, causing him to spill his glass of water.
Chanyeol leaps out of his chair, shouting as water runs onto the floor. Jongdae frantically tries to clear papers out of the way of the spreading puddle.
"Baekhyun, go away!"
"But I'm so bored! And Kyungsoo isn't here to talk to..." His voice trails off as the notices the thunderous expressions on his friends' faces.
He slinks off to sulk on the sofa, picking at the fraying fabric. Kyungsoo isn't there to stop him.
•-•
They were working on a project, planning a hypothetical mission to Mars - "what a waste of time!" Jongdae grumbled and then winced as Chanyeol kicked him under the table. Baekhyun only rocked back and forth in his chair, pretending to be studying figures and graphs of rocket fuel whenever Jongdae glared his way.
Kyungsoo, who was already done his project of course, was rustling about in the kitchen. Baekhyun was a little curious and a lot bored. He craned his neck sideways to try to see if he could spy what Kyungsoo was up to.
Crash!
Baekhyun lay on the ground, stars going around his head.
Chanyeol and Jongdae both looked to see what was going on, but as soon as they saw that there was no blood or anything, Baekhyun had only overbalanced his chair - "again..." Chanyeol sighed - they leaned back over their papers and scratching pencils.
Only Kyungsoo rushed out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel before patting Baekhyun's head, asking him if he was okay and helping him stand up.
"I made some croissants," he said, picking Baekhyun's chair up off the floor. "I was going to save them for tomorrow but you can have one now if you'd like."
Baekhyun nodded excitedly. He could feel Jongdae and Chanyeol glaring daggers at his back but he didn't care.
•-•
They're eating lunch in the university cafeteria, Jongdae and Chanyeol are bickering over how to best cut French fries - "curly!" "no, straight!" - while Baekhyun has circumvented the entire conversation and is simply stuffing them into his mouth with dainty fingers when a stray word from the television catches his ear.
"There has been a massive landslide in the area of F- and large portions of the town of D- have fallen into the sea. Casualties are rising and the number of confirmed deaths is expected to grow over the next number of days."
Chanyeol pauses mid-argument and snaps his head towards the television screen.
"That's where Kyungsoo lives," he says, voice flat.
Jongdae's eyes grow wide as he nods, and they both turn their heads back to look at Baekhyun; Baekhyun who wants to shout "why are you looking at me?" but his tongue is dried to the roof of his mouth.
His reflection is pale as a sheet in the mirrors that line the west side of the cafeteria.
"Are you okay?" Jongdae asks, because Baekhyun's knuckles are white around his death grasp on the edge of plastic tray.
Baekhyun doesn't answer. That's something that Kyungsoo should be asking.
•-•
They all went to visit Kyungsoo's hometown the summer of second year - Baekhyun had had other plans but the beach beat out his grandmother's house any day.
The sun was warm and the water was beautiful and Kyungsoo smiling in the sun - Baekhyun couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. Kyungsoo was so...brilliant here.
Jongdae went surfing and Chanyeol flirted with every single bikini-clad girl in the vicinity but Kyungsoo and Baekhyun walked along the shore, darting away from waves and examining tide pools.
"Baekhyun, look! It's a crab!"
And Baekhyun would rush over to coo excitedly over the silly thing scuttling backwards away from their sun-browned toes.
They collected seaweed and dumped it on Chanyeol, then escaped giggling to draw with markers all over Jongdae's surfboard until he came back from the drink stand and shouted at them.
There were fireworks that evening, sitting on the sand still warm from the day's sun, and Kyungsoo smiled at Baekhyun, dark hair set ablaze by the red and yellow flowers blossoming in the sky.
There were stars in Kyungsoo's eyes.
Baekhyun, fascinated, reached out his hand - to do what he didn't know - and Kyungsoo blushed, face aglow before gasping and turning away.
The next day some girls at the snack stand on the beach asked Baekhyun about Kyungsoo.
"He's my best friend!" Baekhyun beamed.
Kyungsoo, who had been sitting at the bar, sipping a virgin margarita, choked and Jongdae had to thump him on the back before he excused himself to go to the restroom.
Chanyeol spent the rest of the holiday glaring at Baekhyun, who was confused but chalked it up to an overload of sun and cute girls. He was more bewildered about Kyungsoo, who avoided him like the plague for the next day but then reverted back to his normal self, even if his smile did seem a little...stretched.
•-•
Jongdae, cool-headed in times of trouble, pulls out his phone to call Kyungsoo. Chanyeol and Baekhyun wait with bated breath - Ring. Ring. Ring.
Baekhyun has to stand up and walk around the table, never taking his eyes off Jongdae.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Chanyeol's face is twitching.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Baekhyun feels like if he stops moving time will stay suspended forever, the phone ringing and no one picking up -
"We're sorry. Your call cannot be connected. Please hang up and dial again."
Baekhyun breaths in a ragged breath. Jongdae redials.
"We're sorr-"
And redials.
"We-"
And redials.
"-"
Nothing.
Baekhyun's heart isn't beating and he doesn't understand why.
•-•
He dreamt of the beach. Warm sand between his toes, a bright summer sky - running along the water's edge with head thrown back to drink in the summer.
Laughter.
He turned and there was Kyungsoo, laughing. Face cracked in a huge smile stretching from ear to ear.
The sun was reflected in his eyes.
Baekhyun ran back to take him by the hand and pull him along the beach, swinging arms, leaping and pulling and tripping through tide pools reflecting the sun eclipsed by their smiles.
It was only after a while that Baekhyun began to notice the sky growing dark.
He gestured to Kyungsoo who only shook his head, laughing. They frolicked around some more, throwing sand and splashing in the water.
The tide started rolling in.
Baekhyun began to feel worried.
He motioned to Kyungsoo - after all, the waves rushing in to the shore were really white-capping now and the wind had picked up, lifting the hair from his forehead and rustling over-familiar fingers of air through the strands.
Kyungsoo was still laughing, arm outstretched, when the blue covered him.
Blue water, blue air, blue in his mouth, blue in his chest. Baekhyun opened his eyes underwater.
Kyungsoo's eyes were reflected blue as he drifted away.
Crash!
Baekhyun woke with a start, eyes flying open and mouth gasping for air. He was lying on the sofa where he had fallen asleep the night before. He felt the weight of a blanket tucked over him - he didn't remember that part.
Kyungsoo peeked around the corner.
"I'm sorry!" he whispered apologetically. "I didn't mean to wake you!"
He was holding a handful of broken glass in one hand, the other closed around a white dishcloth.
A red dishcloth.
"Did you cut yourself!" Baekhyun felt an uncharacteristic tightening in his chest.
"Oh, I just dropped a glass." Kyungsoo looked embarrassed but Bakehyun darted over to look at the small gash and dragged him to the medicine box to dress the wound.
It was only later that he recognized the strange expression Kyungsoo had been wearing the entire time.
Hope.
•-•
Kyungsoo still isn't answering his phone and Baekhyun is going crazy and he doesn't even know why. Chanyeol and Jongdae are really worried too but - Baekhyun feels like his life has stopped and he's confused and needs to talk to Kyungsoo but Kyungsoo isn't there.
He watches the news and hears reports of missing and dead and chews his fingers.
Jongdae finally drags him away from the television.
"Stop it already," he says, his face creased with worry. Baekhyun muses idly that it doesn't look good on him.
"You look like an old orange," he says, laughing. The sound is off. Jongdae's furrows only deepen.
"I've had enough," Chanyeol says, walking through the doorway. Both Baekhyun and Jongdae turn to look at him, question marks dotting their eyes.
"Let's go."
Chanyeol grabs his backpack and jacket from the hook by the door, jamming a cap on his head.
"Go where?" Baekhyun is bewildered.
"Find him."
Baekhyun only stares as Jongdae drags him out the door.
•-•
"Have you ever liked anyone?"
They were sitting side by side on the bench outside the science building. Kyungsoo was working on his notes while they waited for Jongdae and Chanyeol to get out of class so they could meet up for lunch. Baekhyun, who knew he going to borrow Kyungsoo's notes later anyway, had already stuffed his mostly empty notebook away and was looking around the quad, bored and inquisitive.
Kyungsoo stopped writing, pencil frozen on the paper mid-word, but now that Baekhyun had the question on his mind he couldn't let it go easily.
"Like, have you ever had a crush on anyone?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a faint dusting of pink colour Kyungsoo's cheeks.
No longer bored but rather intensely curious for a reason he couldn't quite put into words, Baekhyun turned to look at the black-haired boy.
Kyungsoo nodded, embarrassed.
Baekhyun crowed.
"I knew it!" he laughed, giving Kyungsoo a friendly shove on the shoulder.
Kyungsoo smiled awkwardly but his eyes were sparkling. Baekhyun felt...strange, but he brushed the thought away.
"Is she really cute? Does she like to cook?"
He made the effort to smile at Kyungsoo, mind whirring, but was surprised to see his matching awkward grin disappear.
"It's not like...that..." he mumbled, turning away. His arm accidentally knocked the pencil off of his notebook and they both leaned down to pick it up, heads colliding.
Thump.
"Ouch!" Baekhyun exclaimed, rubbing his head. Kyungsoo, ignoring his own injury, leaned over to check.
"You're okay," he said, and the topic was dropped.
Baekhyun still felt weird.
•-•
They can only take the train up to L- so they disembark at the silent platform. No one is travelling in this direction. Baekhyun's all for going on foot, there's a twitch in his left arm that he can't seem to be able to shrug off and there's an emptiness in his chest he doesn't understand at all.
Jongdae suggests they rent a car, and Chanyeol nods, relieved. They're both looking at Baekhyun with worried expressions and he'd be annoyed but he's too beside himself to care.
Everything looks like normal, Baekhyun thinks of going to visit Kyungsoo's hometown by train last summer, and then all of a sudden nothing is okay and everything is broken.
The houses are gone or in pieces and one side of the mountain is missing.
It's missing because it's covering the town.
Jongdae stops driving.
Chanyeol gets out his phone to try to call Kyungsoo again.
Baekhyun opens the car door and falls out.
His friends watch in silence as he crawls to the edge of the road overlooking the town - what used to be the town - and curls up into himself.
Kyungsoo is gone.
He's gone.
He's never coming back.
"I can't do this."
The only answer is the cry of a bird swooping overhead.
•-•
"I'm going home." Kyungsoo looked at Baekhyun with trepidation but Baekhyun was busy playing Titanfall and didn't notice.
"Okay," he nodded absentmindedly, swerving to miss an explosion.
Kyungsoo twisted his hands in his shirt before standing up from his seat at the table. Jongdae and Chanyeol were busy working on a project as usual, Baekhyun could hear them arguing in the kitchen about the density of something and it was interrupting his gameplay.
"I'm going now," he said, voice trailing off.
"See you later," Baekhyun mumbled.
Kyungsoo opened his mouth to say - but just then Baekhyun's titan exploded, buried in a landslide of mud and rocks and he started cursing the screen, the game controller, the game makers and the world in general.
Kyungsoo slipped quietly out the door.
Baekhyun restarted his game.
•-•
After twenty excruciating minutes Jongdae and Chanyeol drag Baekhyun back into the car. There's a frantically whispered conversation in the front seat and then they're off, driving somewhere.
Anywhere.
Baekhyun doesn't care about anything.
He's thinking about the last time he saw Kyungsoo and there's this ache in his chest that won't go away and only gets bigger and bigger and it feels like the sun should be dimming and fading from the sky but it's still there.
The car stops and he looks up. They're at the beach. Kyungsoo's aunt's summer restaurant. It's closed right now because it's cold and the beach is empty anyway.
There isn't anyone.
Jongdae's hopeful expression fades with the slowly setting sun.
Chanyeol pulls out his phone again, and dials the number. The smudges on his screen practically obscure the keys.
"Your call cannot be connected at this time."
Baekhyun's about to look back down at his hands that are slowly twisting the fabric of his shirt into knots when, at the last moment, he sees something out of the corner of one eye.
A flash of white and black.
Dark hair.
A familiar figure emerges from the summer restaurant.
His eyes haven't even focused yet and he's already throwing himself out of the car door, stumbling through sand and scraping his elbow against the car door but who cares about that anyway because -
Kyungsoo is standing in shock as Baekhyun wraps his arms around him and clings on for dear life.
Their heartbeats race and fall into sync.
"I thought you were..." Baekhyun's voice is muffled in Kyungsoo's shoulder.
Kyungsoo breathes in a rattling sigh that Bakhyun feels vibrate through his bones.
"I wasn't home but my..." He chokes back a sob.
Baekhyun's heart breaks but it still feels whole again. He leans back to look Kyungsoo in the eyes.
His eyes aren't brown, like usual, or blue, like in that dream he had so long ago. They're gold, reflecting the sunset. A tear rolls down one cheek as Baekhyun drinks his presence in.
Baekhyun feels the sudden need to kiss Kyungsoo's tears away, so he does, ignoring Kyungsoo's sudden intake of breath.
And as Kyungsoo starts to cry for real this time, Baekhyun holds him close.
He's not letting go this time.
•-•
The table has four chairs but only three of them are filled.
"Would you guys stop it!" Chanyeol is annoyed and Jongdae only glares in frustration at the repeat occurrence.
"We're trying to get some actual work done here."
Baekhyun emerges from Kyungsoo's mouth to stick out his tongue in Jongdae's general direction.
"Shut up," he smirks. "You're just jealous."
Kyungsoo has the decency to look embarrassed and starts to try to apologize but Baekhyun distracts him with another round.
Chanyeol only groans.
Baekhyun laughs and the happy sound fills the apartment.
There's still sun in Kyungsoo's eyes.
Author: bluedreaming
Recipient: chocoyeol
Pairing/Focus: Baekhyun/Kyungsoo
Rating: PG
Warnings: minor character death on a large scale
Length: ~3138 w.
Summary: Baekhyun doesn't realize how he feels about Kyungsoo until it's too late.
"We should let our worlds recollide..." - Say Lou Lou
•-•
The table has four chairs but only three of them are filled. Baekhyun points at the empty chair beside Chanyeol with an elbow because his hands are full of BLT.
"Where's Kyungsoo?" he asks, mouth full.
Chanyeol pauses mid-bite, a piece of lettuce dangling from his sandwich, and looks over at Jongdae, who shrugs at him resignedly before turning to face Baekhyun.
"I'm pretty sure he told you that he was going home."
Baekhyun nods, munching his bacon happily.
"Yup! He went back to his apartment."
Chanyeol glares at him over his toasted bread and Jongdae coughs. Awkwardly.
"Um, no," he says, stabbing a fork into a stray leaf of lettuce on his plate.
Baekhyun keeps eating, idly thinking about their friend.
"So he went to visit his old apartment?" he tries.
Chanyeol slams his sandwich down onto his plate, and Baekhyun looks over at him, startled by the sudden vehemence.
"He went home you idiot!" he exclaims, flexing his fingers in frustration.
Baekhyun tries the thought out. It feels strange; sits heavily on his tongue.
"He went...home?"
"Yes!" Chanyeol is almost shouting by now.
Baekhyun slowly sets down his half-demolished sandwich. The crispy bacon has turned to sand in his mouth.
"You know what?" he says, coughing. "I think my BLT is a little off. I'm going to get something else."
The sound of the chair legs scraping the tile floor grates his eardrums.
He's not looking at the disgusted faces of his friends.
•-•
They first began hanging out in first year. Bubbly Baekhyun, studious but mischievous Jongdae, cheerful but concientious Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo, the quiet one. Everyone was always so noisy, Baekhyun yelling because Jongdae had pranked him once again, Chanyeol shushing them loudly and getting glared at by the librarian for his trouble. Baekhyun happened to glance over at the black-haired boy and paused, mid-shout.
Kyungsoo was looking at him, and smiling, eyes crinkled fondly in the corners. Baekhyun's heart skipped a beat. The vandalized math notes he'd been waving around in the air slipped through his fingers and fell in a cascade of loose papers onto the table, slipping off to waterfall onto the floor.
Jongdae and Chanyeol both turned to see what the commotion was - Baekhyun covered up his embarrassment with a smirk.
"I'm tired of this," he yawned loudly. "Let's go hit Starbucks, I want a pumpkin spice latte before they're gone for the season."
They gathered up their books and things amidst animated chatter about coffee and pumpkins and Halloween and how witches and magicians weren't the same things at all.
As they left the library, Baekhyun chanced a peek over at Kyungsoo again. He was still smiling.
•-•
"I'm bored."
Baekhyun glares over at Jongdae and Chanyeol who are working excitedly on some summer engineering project. They ignore him as usual.
"Come on guys!" He throws himself at Chanyeol who only shrugs Baekhyun's arms off his shoulders and turns, annoyed.
"Go entertain yourself somewhere!" He turns back to the papers.
Baekhyun decides to try Jongdae next. Making his best sad pout, he tugs at his sleeve.
"Jongdae, I'm bored. Play with me?"
Jongdae rolls his eyes but keeps working. Baekhyun tries harder.
"Jongdae!" He pulls the sleeve so hard that Jongdae's arm slips off the table, causing him to spill his glass of water.
Chanyeol leaps out of his chair, shouting as water runs onto the floor. Jongdae frantically tries to clear papers out of the way of the spreading puddle.
"Baekhyun, go away!"
"But I'm so bored! And Kyungsoo isn't here to talk to..." His voice trails off as the notices the thunderous expressions on his friends' faces.
He slinks off to sulk on the sofa, picking at the fraying fabric. Kyungsoo isn't there to stop him.
•-•
They were working on a project, planning a hypothetical mission to Mars - "what a waste of time!" Jongdae grumbled and then winced as Chanyeol kicked him under the table. Baekhyun only rocked back and forth in his chair, pretending to be studying figures and graphs of rocket fuel whenever Jongdae glared his way.
Kyungsoo, who was already done his project of course, was rustling about in the kitchen. Baekhyun was a little curious and a lot bored. He craned his neck sideways to try to see if he could spy what Kyungsoo was up to.
Crash!
Baekhyun lay on the ground, stars going around his head.
Chanyeol and Jongdae both looked to see what was going on, but as soon as they saw that there was no blood or anything, Baekhyun had only overbalanced his chair - "again..." Chanyeol sighed - they leaned back over their papers and scratching pencils.
Only Kyungsoo rushed out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel before patting Baekhyun's head, asking him if he was okay and helping him stand up.
"I made some croissants," he said, picking Baekhyun's chair up off the floor. "I was going to save them for tomorrow but you can have one now if you'd like."
Baekhyun nodded excitedly. He could feel Jongdae and Chanyeol glaring daggers at his back but he didn't care.
•-•
They're eating lunch in the university cafeteria, Jongdae and Chanyeol are bickering over how to best cut French fries - "curly!" "no, straight!" - while Baekhyun has circumvented the entire conversation and is simply stuffing them into his mouth with dainty fingers when a stray word from the television catches his ear.
"There has been a massive landslide in the area of F- and large portions of the town of D- have fallen into the sea. Casualties are rising and the number of confirmed deaths is expected to grow over the next number of days."
Chanyeol pauses mid-argument and snaps his head towards the television screen.
"That's where Kyungsoo lives," he says, voice flat.
Jongdae's eyes grow wide as he nods, and they both turn their heads back to look at Baekhyun; Baekhyun who wants to shout "why are you looking at me?" but his tongue is dried to the roof of his mouth.
His reflection is pale as a sheet in the mirrors that line the west side of the cafeteria.
"Are you okay?" Jongdae asks, because Baekhyun's knuckles are white around his death grasp on the edge of plastic tray.
Baekhyun doesn't answer. That's something that Kyungsoo should be asking.
•-•
They all went to visit Kyungsoo's hometown the summer of second year - Baekhyun had had other plans but the beach beat out his grandmother's house any day.
The sun was warm and the water was beautiful and Kyungsoo smiling in the sun - Baekhyun couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. Kyungsoo was so...brilliant here.
Jongdae went surfing and Chanyeol flirted with every single bikini-clad girl in the vicinity but Kyungsoo and Baekhyun walked along the shore, darting away from waves and examining tide pools.
"Baekhyun, look! It's a crab!"
And Baekhyun would rush over to coo excitedly over the silly thing scuttling backwards away from their sun-browned toes.
They collected seaweed and dumped it on Chanyeol, then escaped giggling to draw with markers all over Jongdae's surfboard until he came back from the drink stand and shouted at them.
There were fireworks that evening, sitting on the sand still warm from the day's sun, and Kyungsoo smiled at Baekhyun, dark hair set ablaze by the red and yellow flowers blossoming in the sky.
There were stars in Kyungsoo's eyes.
Baekhyun, fascinated, reached out his hand - to do what he didn't know - and Kyungsoo blushed, face aglow before gasping and turning away.
The next day some girls at the snack stand on the beach asked Baekhyun about Kyungsoo.
"He's my best friend!" Baekhyun beamed.
Kyungsoo, who had been sitting at the bar, sipping a virgin margarita, choked and Jongdae had to thump him on the back before he excused himself to go to the restroom.
Chanyeol spent the rest of the holiday glaring at Baekhyun, who was confused but chalked it up to an overload of sun and cute girls. He was more bewildered about Kyungsoo, who avoided him like the plague for the next day but then reverted back to his normal self, even if his smile did seem a little...stretched.
•-•
Jongdae, cool-headed in times of trouble, pulls out his phone to call Kyungsoo. Chanyeol and Baekhyun wait with bated breath - Ring. Ring. Ring.
Baekhyun has to stand up and walk around the table, never taking his eyes off Jongdae.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Chanyeol's face is twitching.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Baekhyun feels like if he stops moving time will stay suspended forever, the phone ringing and no one picking up -
"We're sorry. Your call cannot be connected. Please hang up and dial again."
Baekhyun breaths in a ragged breath. Jongdae redials.
"We're sorr-"
And redials.
"We-"
And redials.
"-"
Nothing.
Baekhyun's heart isn't beating and he doesn't understand why.
•-•
He dreamt of the beach. Warm sand between his toes, a bright summer sky - running along the water's edge with head thrown back to drink in the summer.
Laughter.
He turned and there was Kyungsoo, laughing. Face cracked in a huge smile stretching from ear to ear.
The sun was reflected in his eyes.
Baekhyun ran back to take him by the hand and pull him along the beach, swinging arms, leaping and pulling and tripping through tide pools reflecting the sun eclipsed by their smiles.
It was only after a while that Baekhyun began to notice the sky growing dark.
He gestured to Kyungsoo who only shook his head, laughing. They frolicked around some more, throwing sand and splashing in the water.
The tide started rolling in.
Baekhyun began to feel worried.
He motioned to Kyungsoo - after all, the waves rushing in to the shore were really white-capping now and the wind had picked up, lifting the hair from his forehead and rustling over-familiar fingers of air through the strands.
Kyungsoo was still laughing, arm outstretched, when the blue covered him.
Blue water, blue air, blue in his mouth, blue in his chest. Baekhyun opened his eyes underwater.
Kyungsoo's eyes were reflected blue as he drifted away.
Crash!
Baekhyun woke with a start, eyes flying open and mouth gasping for air. He was lying on the sofa where he had fallen asleep the night before. He felt the weight of a blanket tucked over him - he didn't remember that part.
Kyungsoo peeked around the corner.
"I'm sorry!" he whispered apologetically. "I didn't mean to wake you!"
He was holding a handful of broken glass in one hand, the other closed around a white dishcloth.
A red dishcloth.
"Did you cut yourself!" Baekhyun felt an uncharacteristic tightening in his chest.
"Oh, I just dropped a glass." Kyungsoo looked embarrassed but Bakehyun darted over to look at the small gash and dragged him to the medicine box to dress the wound.
It was only later that he recognized the strange expression Kyungsoo had been wearing the entire time.
Hope.
•-•
Kyungsoo still isn't answering his phone and Baekhyun is going crazy and he doesn't even know why. Chanyeol and Jongdae are really worried too but - Baekhyun feels like his life has stopped and he's confused and needs to talk to Kyungsoo but Kyungsoo isn't there.
He watches the news and hears reports of missing and dead and chews his fingers.
Jongdae finally drags him away from the television.
"Stop it already," he says, his face creased with worry. Baekhyun muses idly that it doesn't look good on him.
"You look like an old orange," he says, laughing. The sound is off. Jongdae's furrows only deepen.
"I've had enough," Chanyeol says, walking through the doorway. Both Baekhyun and Jongdae turn to look at him, question marks dotting their eyes.
"Let's go."
Chanyeol grabs his backpack and jacket from the hook by the door, jamming a cap on his head.
"Go where?" Baekhyun is bewildered.
"Find him."
Baekhyun only stares as Jongdae drags him out the door.
•-•
"Have you ever liked anyone?"
They were sitting side by side on the bench outside the science building. Kyungsoo was working on his notes while they waited for Jongdae and Chanyeol to get out of class so they could meet up for lunch. Baekhyun, who knew he going to borrow Kyungsoo's notes later anyway, had already stuffed his mostly empty notebook away and was looking around the quad, bored and inquisitive.
Kyungsoo stopped writing, pencil frozen on the paper mid-word, but now that Baekhyun had the question on his mind he couldn't let it go easily.
"Like, have you ever had a crush on anyone?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a faint dusting of pink colour Kyungsoo's cheeks.
No longer bored but rather intensely curious for a reason he couldn't quite put into words, Baekhyun turned to look at the black-haired boy.
Kyungsoo nodded, embarrassed.
Baekhyun crowed.
"I knew it!" he laughed, giving Kyungsoo a friendly shove on the shoulder.
Kyungsoo smiled awkwardly but his eyes were sparkling. Baekhyun felt...strange, but he brushed the thought away.
"Is she really cute? Does she like to cook?"
He made the effort to smile at Kyungsoo, mind whirring, but was surprised to see his matching awkward grin disappear.
"It's not like...that..." he mumbled, turning away. His arm accidentally knocked the pencil off of his notebook and they both leaned down to pick it up, heads colliding.
Thump.
"Ouch!" Baekhyun exclaimed, rubbing his head. Kyungsoo, ignoring his own injury, leaned over to check.
"You're okay," he said, and the topic was dropped.
Baekhyun still felt weird.
•-•
They can only take the train up to L- so they disembark at the silent platform. No one is travelling in this direction. Baekhyun's all for going on foot, there's a twitch in his left arm that he can't seem to be able to shrug off and there's an emptiness in his chest he doesn't understand at all.
Jongdae suggests they rent a car, and Chanyeol nods, relieved. They're both looking at Baekhyun with worried expressions and he'd be annoyed but he's too beside himself to care.
Everything looks like normal, Baekhyun thinks of going to visit Kyungsoo's hometown by train last summer, and then all of a sudden nothing is okay and everything is broken.
The houses are gone or in pieces and one side of the mountain is missing.
It's missing because it's covering the town.
Jongdae stops driving.
Chanyeol gets out his phone to try to call Kyungsoo again.
Baekhyun opens the car door and falls out.
His friends watch in silence as he crawls to the edge of the road overlooking the town - what used to be the town - and curls up into himself.
Kyungsoo is gone.
He's gone.
He's never coming back.
"I can't do this."
The only answer is the cry of a bird swooping overhead.
•-•
"I'm going home." Kyungsoo looked at Baekhyun with trepidation but Baekhyun was busy playing Titanfall and didn't notice.
"Okay," he nodded absentmindedly, swerving to miss an explosion.
Kyungsoo twisted his hands in his shirt before standing up from his seat at the table. Jongdae and Chanyeol were busy working on a project as usual, Baekhyun could hear them arguing in the kitchen about the density of something and it was interrupting his gameplay.
"I'm going now," he said, voice trailing off.
"See you later," Baekhyun mumbled.
Kyungsoo opened his mouth to say - but just then Baekhyun's titan exploded, buried in a landslide of mud and rocks and he started cursing the screen, the game controller, the game makers and the world in general.
Kyungsoo slipped quietly out the door.
Baekhyun restarted his game.
•-•
After twenty excruciating minutes Jongdae and Chanyeol drag Baekhyun back into the car. There's a frantically whispered conversation in the front seat and then they're off, driving somewhere.
Anywhere.
Baekhyun doesn't care about anything.
He's thinking about the last time he saw Kyungsoo and there's this ache in his chest that won't go away and only gets bigger and bigger and it feels like the sun should be dimming and fading from the sky but it's still there.
The car stops and he looks up. They're at the beach. Kyungsoo's aunt's summer restaurant. It's closed right now because it's cold and the beach is empty anyway.
There isn't anyone.
Jongdae's hopeful expression fades with the slowly setting sun.
Chanyeol pulls out his phone again, and dials the number. The smudges on his screen practically obscure the keys.
"Your call cannot be connected at this time."
Baekhyun's about to look back down at his hands that are slowly twisting the fabric of his shirt into knots when, at the last moment, he sees something out of the corner of one eye.
A flash of white and black.
Dark hair.
A familiar figure emerges from the summer restaurant.
His eyes haven't even focused yet and he's already throwing himself out of the car door, stumbling through sand and scraping his elbow against the car door but who cares about that anyway because -
Kyungsoo is standing in shock as Baekhyun wraps his arms around him and clings on for dear life.
Their heartbeats race and fall into sync.
"I thought you were..." Baekhyun's voice is muffled in Kyungsoo's shoulder.
Kyungsoo breathes in a rattling sigh that Bakhyun feels vibrate through his bones.
"I wasn't home but my..." He chokes back a sob.
Baekhyun's heart breaks but it still feels whole again. He leans back to look Kyungsoo in the eyes.
His eyes aren't brown, like usual, or blue, like in that dream he had so long ago. They're gold, reflecting the sunset. A tear rolls down one cheek as Baekhyun drinks his presence in.
Baekhyun feels the sudden need to kiss Kyungsoo's tears away, so he does, ignoring Kyungsoo's sudden intake of breath.
And as Kyungsoo starts to cry for real this time, Baekhyun holds him close.
He's not letting go this time.
•-•
The table has four chairs but only three of them are filled.
"Would you guys stop it!" Chanyeol is annoyed and Jongdae only glares in frustration at the repeat occurrence.
"We're trying to get some actual work done here."
Baekhyun emerges from Kyungsoo's mouth to stick out his tongue in Jongdae's general direction.
"Shut up," he smirks. "You're just jealous."
Kyungsoo has the decency to look embarrassed and starts to try to apologize but Baekhyun distracts him with another round.
Chanyeol only groans.
Baekhyun laughs and the happy sound fills the apartment.
There's still sun in Kyungsoo's eyes.