Behind Blue Eyes; baekyeol [3/5]
Behind Blue Eyes; baekyeol (3/5)
<- part 2
The thing I realize is, that it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave.
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places
xvii. RECIDIVIST
(n) repeat offender
The driveway is frozen. It shines like silver and moonlight and cracks under Chanyeol’s shoes. The rose bushes, dark, scrawny and naked if not for a thin veil of ice, claw at the sleeves of his coat when he walks. They’re considerably bigger than the last time Chanyeol was here, a few months ago.
It was spring back then and the roses were in bloom. But now it’s winter and, with Baekhyun gone, no one has reminded Mrs. Kim to prune the roses in many long months. The plants have grown, swallowing the trees and the walls, trapping the house in a hug of vines and thorns.
One year ago, Baekhyun walked out of this house with one of the maids and didn’t come back. Until now.
One of the butlers opens the door for Baekbom, Baekhyun and Chanyeol. The head of the maids, Mrs. Lee - she looks older than Chanyeol remembered - serves them warm tea, but Baekbom refuses.
“Wait for me here,” he says before he leaves them alone. “I’ll speak with mother first.”
The house hasn’t changed. Being here still feels like stepping in another world, another time. Chanyeol had forgotten how difficult it was, how claustrophobic and heavy this house could be. He pinches his leg to remind himself he can leave any time he wants.
Out there, away from these thick walls and dark rooms, there’s a world of warmth, of bright city lights, stands of spicy street foods and the laughter of the high school students coming back from their hagwon late at night. That world is real and close, less than an hour of car away, but it seems so far away right now. And if it’s far for Chanyeol, who’s always lived in it, he wonders how Baekhyun must be feeling right now. For most of his life, his entire world was just this house, this gloomy, dusty house.
Chanyeol steps close to him, holds his hand and hides their intertwined fingers in the folds of his coat. They can both hear Baekbom’s voice, rising behind closed doors, and Mrs. Kim’s shrill, cold replies.
“You should’ve stayed in the car,” murmurs Baekhyun. “Mother won’t be happy to have you here.”
“The last time I’ve been here she slapped me. The time before too. Should I hide? I think she’ll slap me again.”
“When did that happen?” asks Baekhyun.
“The first time was before I kissed you and the second time after you ran away, when she summoned me here to ask me where you were.”
“I don’t know about the second time, but for the first time you deserved to be slapped. You kissed me and ran away. I deserved better.”
Chanyeol inches even closer and Baekhyun leans onto him, resting his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder.
“At least she slapped me before I kissed you. I don’t think I would still be here otherwise. No one is allowed to taint her perfect little son.”
Baekhyun suppresses a tight bitter sound at the back of his throat, a snicker gone wrong.
“I’m not perfect, nor little. But you have tainted me, I can give her that.”
Oh, but this is a surprise. This is... new.
“Did I?”
“Well, yes. It’s not like I’ve ever thought about sex until you arrived and I heard the maids talk about you and what they thought you could do.” He probably senses Chanyeol’s surprise at the sudden confession and clicks his tongue. “Didn’t you want to know? If I like you or not?”
Baekhyun drags him towards the couch. It’s been one year, but he still remembers where everything is so well, every piece of furniture and every corner. They’re clear in his mind, printed in white lines above the darkness of his eyes.
“I didn’t like you when I lived here,” he says, “My mother hired you because she wanted to give me a friend, but I never wanted a part-time job kind of friend. I kinda loathed you in the beginning.”
“For real?” He scoffs. “ I would’ve never realized. Your hostility went completely unnoticed.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t work inside this house, Park Chanyeol.”
“Sarcasm works everywhere, Byun Baekhyun.”
There’s a sudden scream, the sound of porcelain shattering coming from the other room. Baekhyun’s hold on his wrist tightens.
“Is everything alright?”
Baekhyun shakes his head. “I don’t want to be here. I shouldn’t have come back, but I thought I was ready and...”
Chanyeol wonders which ghosts Baekhyun is seeing in the darkness. Everything he tried to leave behind is here. All his fears, waiting for him at home.
“I’ve worked so much to change, to be better. But when I’m here, I feel...”
“Tell me. When did you start to like me?” he asks, hoping to distract Baekhyun.
“When you said we were friends, in the kitchen of your house. Maybe even earlier, when you brought me home and we ate tteokbokki in your kitchen. You let me sleep in your bed.”
One of Chanyeol’s hands is in Baekhyun’s lap, his fingers prisoner of Baekhyun’s hold, but he lets the other one curl possessively on Baekhyun’s shoulder, tucking him on his side.
“But I didn’t like you when you were here. I could tell that you didn’t like me or your job. You only wanted to get the money.”
“You never made things easy for-”
Baekhyun doesn’t let him finish. His nails clamp on Chanyeol’s wrist, tight but not enough to hurt. “I know! I know, ok? I still didn’t like you at all. I hoped you would leave soon but the more you stayed the more I hated it. Then I realized that playing with you was funny. I wanted to know how much were you willing to bend in front of me before you broke.”
“Then I left.”
“Then you left,” repeats Baekhyun, “and I felt lonely. I missed you. I was angry when you came back because you weren’t supposed to make me miss you. But I missed you too much to send you away again.” The grandfather clock ticks. Baekbom is still arguing with Baekhyun’s mother, but Baekhyun slumps a little against Chanyeol, relaxing his shoulders. “And then, one day, I heard the maids talking about you.”
“Very good things, I hope.”
There’s a curl at the edge Baekhyun’s lips, like the ghost of a smile. “They said you were very handsome and that you had a mouth... that could... do things.”
Chanyeol laughs and Baekhyun snarls like a cat and tries to get away from him, but Chanyeol wraps both his arms around Baekhyun, as if to shelter him against the darkness of the house, and pulls him against his chest.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I was just… very flattered?” He ignores Baekhyun’s low grumbling. “So you started to have dirty thoughts about me?”
“Not exactly. I… That came later, ok? I never thought about you in that way before.”
“Maybe you didn’t like me like that, but you were jealous. You were,” he says, stopping Baekhyun on the verge of vehement denial. “I know you, Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun refuses to answer but Chanyeol remember his outbursts every time one of Chanyeol’s friends from university was mentioned, or every time Sunyoung stopped to chat with Chanyeol on his way to Baekhyun’s room.
“I wasn’t jealous. I just... I knew you were paid and you didn’t really want to be my friend. We weren’t even friends but having you there made things a little better and I didn’t want you to leave me for other people.”
“That’s called jealousy, Baekhyun-ah.”
“I hated you. I hated you so much and I know you hated me too. But I still didn’t want you to leave and I hated you even more for that.”
Baekhyun won’t apologize, because it’s not in his nature to do so, but Chanyeol doesn’t care. He’s willing to compromise, to wait a little more. Not yet. For now, the most important thing is getting him out of this house. To take him home.
“Did you have dirty thoughts after our kiss?”
Baekhyun doesn’t answer but he uncrosses his legs and comes even closer, leaning his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder, encased in his warmth. He’s still tense, not used to be so close to someone else, but he also seems to be enjoying Chanyeol’s warmth. He squirms a little, trying to measure Chanyeol’s body. He doesn’t know where to put his hands and it’s a little awkward, not enough to make things uncomfortable for Chanyeol, but enough to make a spike of something hot-soft-overwhelming slash through his chest.
“Did you? Have dirty thoughts about me?” Baekhyun asks, completely unaware of the inner turmoil his closeness is causing. Oh, but this is a question Chanyeol is more than willing to answer.
“Since the first day.” What’s the point of lying about it? “You were the most annoying, pretty little shit I’ve ever seen. I wanted to put you back in your place.”
He said it to challenge Baekhyun, hoping to make him blush, but Baekhyun only laughs in his face. It’s a pretty laugh, loud and long and completely out of place in the house.
“Oh, yes, I figured that much when you kissed me. It was a very dick move, by the way.”
“You’re always a dick, you have no space to complain.” He ignores one last giggle. “But I’ve always wondered, where you aware of what you were doing to me? Because I’m quite sure you spent half of our time together purposefully teasing me.”
“You’ll never know,” says Baekhyun, and this time he does blush but he also laughs again, unrestrained, amused and oh so pretty. The butler waiting at the door even enters the room to see what is going on and leaves silently, wide eyed and surprised. It’s probably the first time he hears Baekhyun laugh. It’s a pity because, in Chanyeol’s humble opinion, Baekhyun’s laugh is beautiful.
“You never answered my question. Did you have dirty thoughts about me?”
Baekhyun bites his lips. “You’re so smug. I won’t fuel your ego, Park Chanyeol.”
It’s Chanyeol’s turn to laugh. He could tell Baekhyun, about all the times he dreamed to push him down, on his knees or on all four, and his imagination went wild. He’s sure Baekhyun’s fantasy wouldn’t be able to keep up with his own. He’s had three years to think about what he would like to do to Baekhyun, and a lot more experience in terms of visual aids. He briefly ponders how much Baekhyun could blush if he were to hear about it.
Or he could tell him other things. He could talk about the line of Baekhyun’s jaw, how much he wants to kiss and bite it. He could talk about Baekhyun’s lips, about the long night he spent imagining what color they could become after a kiss, or he could just kiss them and see it for himself. Lately Chanyeol doesn’t want to push Baekhyun down on his knees. He wants go down on his knees himself and he wants to make Baekhyun go mad with his hands and tongue. He wants to steal every moan, every breath, every cry from his lips. Slowly, sweetly and fondly.
“I would fuel yours, but your mother is talking to your brother on the other side of that door. Dirty talking is out of question.”
Baekhyun blinks and scrunches his nose.
“Where are you?” he asks. “Where is your face?” He finds it with his fingers, but he doesn’t longer too much, suddenly skittish. “One day I want to map your face with my hands, properly. Because I can’t picture in my mind how your face looks like.”
In the background, Baekbom and Mrs. Kim are arguing about Baekhyun’s rights - they won the case for his emancipation against her request to extend her parental rights over him - but their voices disappear at the back of Chanyeol’s mind. There’s only Baekhyun and the secret caught at the corner of his mouth, in the subtle curl of his lips, an almost smile.
He leans towards Chanyeol, all long lashes and pink lips, and whispers. “You’ve asked about dirty thoughts? I dreamed about your mouth on my cock so many times sometimes I think we’ve already done it and it’s a memory.”
Baekhyun lays his trap out in the open because he knows someone will walk on them. It’s inevitable, it’s destiny. And Chanyeol is just a man, not a child in a china shop holding crystal and glass. He’s a man and Baekhyun wants him and he wants Baekhyun. He doesn’t mind falling for this trap.
Baekhyun’s lips are already parted, ready for him, but he still tenses when Chanyeol kisses him. He freezes for a moment only to kiss back immediately, enthusiastic and clumsy and like he was waiting for this for the longest time. They both were.
That’s when the door opens and they hear a scream. Chanyeol only has the time to release Baekhyun’s lips before Mrs. Kim slaps him for the third, and hopefully last, time.
The hint of laughter still tucked at the corner of Baekhyun’s mouth, hidden behind his slightly red cheeks and in the way his eyelashes flutter softly, is totally worth the pain.
xviii. PAROXYSM
(n) sudden outburst of emotion
The roses are sleeping under the snow. Baekhyun shivers in his big coat and stuffs his hands inside the pockets to keep them warm. Chanyeol hugs him from behind, sneaking his hands inside Baekhyun’s pocket to seek the warmth nestled there.
“Will you miss this house?” he asks. He doesn’t ask whether Baekhyun will ever come back because he knows he won’t. He will make sure he never comes back.
“I will miss the garden, probably. I really liked coming here when I was a kid. And I liked it when you brought me here.”
He says it easily. He makes it look easy, but Chanyeol knows how difficult was - still is - for him to be honest about his feelings. Baekhyun is still so reserved, so secretive. So angry. It makes this sudden openness sound suspicious.
It must be the garden, he thinks. It makes Baekhyun feel at ease. It was the same in the past. Baekhyun was the most honest during their walks among the roses.
“You told me you liked roses before I left, do you remember? Queen Alexandra or something.”
“Or something,” says Baekhyun with a sigh. “There was one here, but when they told me I was going to become blind I had it removed. I didn’t want one if I couldn’t see it.”
“There’s a rose festival in Seoul in May. We could go together.”
Baekhyun tenses in Chanyeol’s arms so violently Chanyeol almost takes a step back, but his fingers are still intertwined with Baekhyun’s inside the pocket so they only wobble together.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, trying to free Baekhyun from his hold and take a step back before they both fall. Baekhyun’s hand finds one of Chanyeol’s sleeves and keeps him from stepping away.
“Do you really think we’ll still be together in five months?” he asks.
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
Baekhyun laughs, sour and cold, like the wind coming from the woods.
“Everyone leaves me.”
“I thought we were over this, Baekhyun.”
“You can be over it, Chanyeol, because you can leave... You can do whatever you want. But I can’t, and I will have to live with my useless self for the rest of my life, wondering when I’ll end up alone.”
It feels like déjà vu. They had a similar conversation a long time ago, right here, among the roses. But the sun was shining back then and the roses were in bloom, and Baekhyun was groomed and pale and perfect, his mouth soft and his tongue sharp. Now his hair is messy, his nose is red and his lips are cracked from the cold, but Chanyeol knows what they taste like and he’d never go back.
“Sometimes people will leave you, in order to live their lives. But the ones who really love you will always come back. Your brother came back. I came back.“
“You didn’t come back, I went to find you!” he says, childish and petulant, but Chanyeol shakes his head.
“But I’m here! Isn’t that what matters? You can find me again if I leave, or you could come with me the next time. Or you can keep me from leaving, because I know you can keep me from leaving... That’s what you’ve been doing since the first time we met.”
“It didn’t work so well,” whispers Baekhyun.
“I think it worked quite well, or I really wouldn’t be here.”
Baekhyun is angry, like he always is when he feels like he’s lost an argument and he doesn’t know how to turn the tables on Chanyeol. He leaves Chanyeol’s hand, turns his back to him and starts walking in a random direction, stomping on the snow as hard as he can. Chanyeol sighs and catches him before he can walk into a frozen bush.
“I’m not a wizard, Baekhyun. I can’t predict the future and tell you that... this thing between us will be amazing and that we’ll always be happy. I can’t even guarantee it’ll last,” - oh, but he’s ready to do his best to make it last - “but I can tell you what happens if you don’t believe in it, not even a little bit.”
“And what will happen?” asks Baekhyun.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We won’t break up because we’ll never have been together. I won’t leave you because I won’t have been yours, not even for a moment. No broken heart, no breakup. Nothing at all.”
He takes a step closer, traces Baekhyun’s lips with his fingers and feels them shake, maybe in cold, maybe in outrage. He tries his luck.
“What do you want, Baekhyun?”
“I want you to stay with me, always.”
What a kid, Byun Baekhyun. Chanyeol touches Baekhyun’s lips, a fleeting and light touch, and wonders how long it takes Baekhyun to realize it’s his fingers and not his mouth. He wonders whether Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol is going to kiss him, only to feel disappointed afterwards.
Baekhyun wants with the levity of a kid. He wants Chanyeol’s always, Chanyeol’s forever, Chanyeol’s everything. His love is intense as much as it’s naive. It would’ve been easy to fool him back then, it would be even easier now. Chanyeol is a good liar. But he can’t lie to Baekhyun.
“I won’t always be with you, I can’t promise that. But while we’re together, I’ll make it worth it. For every time I leave, every time we fight and every time I hurt you. I’ll give you the most of me, I’ll give you more than I’ve ever given everyone else. Is that enough?”
Baekhyun doesn’t know how to compromise. He wants everything and he always gets nothing, and his nothing is sharp and thin and dark and hurts him more than he can tell. No one has ever taken their time to teach him how to pick his battles and how to choose his victories, what to give up in order to gain something more important. But Chanyeol has been working for this. He could’ve had Baekhyun one year ago, and he would’ve had all of him, because Baekhyun wants everything but gives everything back. But Chanyeol doesn’t want everything. No one can own a person like a toy. If you want that, you’re only setting yourself up for failure and Chanyeol doesn’t fail. Chanyeol is a winner.
The sun is rising. It’s pale and shy. A cold winter morning. Baekhyun blinks. He can’t see colors and he can’t see shapes but he can see the light. He can’t see Chanyeol, but he can touch him, his hands on Chanyeol’s face, on his nose, his cheekbones, his lips. His hands on Chanyeol’s forehead, on the side of his face, his ears, his jaw. He finds Chanyeol’s dimple and smiles and Chanyeol has to drag him closer, one hand at the back of his head to tilt his face upwards, one hands curled around his hip to keep him there.
Baekhyun kisses Chanyeol, hesitant, unsure and insistent at the same time, his lips barely parted. He doesn’t say it’s enough, he doesn’t say he loves Chanyeol and he doesn’t say he wants to try this... whatever it is. But he kisses Chanyeol and sighs into the kiss and steps closer and Chanyeol doesn’t care if it’s not perfect, if it’s not everything. It’s still an answer. It’s a compromise he’s willing to accept.
xix. EPIGONE
(n) lesser imitator of a renowned artist
Park Chanyeol is smart. He’s always been smart, among many other things, since he was a kid. Aforementioned many other things may include being possessive and selfish (like children born in wealth often are), being controlling, being stubborn to a fault once he’s set on a goal and willing to bend, never break, until he’s crouching on the ground in order to reach it. Chanyeol has no pride, for pride is an obstacle, a wall between Chanyeol and something he wants. Pride is a weakness.
Pride is President Park’s capital sin, a weakness Chanyeol can’t forgive, not even in his father. When he was sixteen, Chanyeol ran away from home. He was caught six hours later by one of his father’s bodyguards, and the man asked him what his problem was.
“Do they mistreat you?”
“Not really,” young Chanyeol answered. “But I can’t do what I want.”
The man didn’t understand. It’s difficult to understand when you’re a slave of circumstances, when you can only wish in a better condition but you’d rather envy others than rise and do something about it. The man thought Chanyeol was just a spoiled kid who had everything and wanted even more, but Chanyeol didn’t want more. He wanted something different. He wanted to choose his own path, without his father interfering. He wanted to prove he could succeed on his own. He didn’t want to be a slave of circumstances, but to make his own destiny.
When he was nineteen, Chanyeol left his home, to show himself, his family and the world that he didn’t need any help. That he could be better, brighter, stronger, even on his own. He didn’t run away, he simply left. And made his own history.
“You really think you’re something else, don’t you Park Chanyeol?”
The door that leads to the roof is usually locked, but the concierge is extremely lenient towards Chanyeol. He finds really remarkable that a nice young man like him spends so much time looking out for a blind friend and he’s willing to give him the key when Chanyeol needs a gush of fresh air and a quiet, deserted place where he can smoke in peace and think about what to do with Baekhyun.
Apparently, he’s not the only one who gets the same privilege.
Byun Baekbom smokes cigars, not because he likes them but because they give him a more experienced look. They make him look sharper. Not the kind of sharpness Baekhyun owns, crystal thin and with razor edges, but the sharpness of a combat knife, solid and heavy.
“I am something else,” answers Chanyeol, simply. He takes his lighter out and lights Baekbom’s cigar. “How is he?”
“Officially sleeping. Unofficially praying I don’t throw you off this building. I don’t like when people play with what is mine.”
Chanyeol wishes he didn’t understand Baekbom so deeply, but he does. They’re the same, the both of them. Both brilliant, both precocious rascals, both left their home to find freedom somewhere else. Both fiercely jealous, very territorial, unwilling to share. Too similar. Only the heavens, and maybe Byun Baekhyun, know how they managed not to jump at each other’s throats in the last year.
“I’m not playing and Baekhyun isn’t yours.”
“He’s my brother. He was already mine before you were born. Don’t forget, Park Chanyeol, that I led you to my brother and I could drive him away from you if I wanted.”
“But you don’t want. If you did, you would’ve already done it.”
Baekbom’s nostrils flare and for a moment he looks young - for a moment he looks like Baekhyun - but it’s fleeting and gone before Chanyeol can make something out of it. What remains is the shark, the boy who left home to make a new and better destiny for himself, just like Chanyeol, the man who struggled to find his own place in the world without a name that felt like a chain around his neck, just like Chanyeol. The man who loves Baekhyun. Just like Chanyeol.
“We are similar, you and I,” says Chanyeol, as he takes a long drag.
“Do you think so?” Baekbom blows smoke towards the star. “To be honest, it might even be true, but there’s a big difference between us.”
“And in what, if I may ask, we are different?”
Byun Baekbom smiles, with many teeth ready to tear Chanyeol apart. He won’t do it, because he loves his little brother and his little brother loves Chanyeol. But that doesn’t mean he has to like it. (In that, too, they are similar.)
“I don’t need to tell you how much I’m going to make you suffer if something happens to him, right?” He doesn’t sound threatening at all but Chanyeol still feels a chill in his back.
“I have a faint idea,” he replies, trying to keep a cool tone.
“I don’t like you, Chanyeol. I don’t know if my brother has realized how sly you are. You pretended to be a good friend until now and turned the tables on him at the last moment, when you were sure he liked you enough not to run away. My brother can be exceptionally smart sometimes, but he’s also incredibly naive. I, on the other hand, have no problem with recognizing a snake when I see one.”
“It takes one to find another, after all.”
They smoke in silence, until Baekbom’s cigar is only a stub and Chanyeol is lighting is second cigarette.
“Don’t hurt my brother or I’ll hurt you,” he says. This time he does sound threatening.
“I won’t.”
It’s not an empty promise. Chanyeol likes Baekhyun. He’s spent an entire year seducing him. Hurting Baekhyun is the last thing he wants, especially now that Baekhyun has agreed to go out with him. And Baekbom knows, of course. He would have never let Baekhyun get close to Chanyeol if he had thought otherwise. He will never outright approve of Chanyeol, but the fact that he doesn’t disapprove either shows that, at least, he thinks Chanyeol can take care of his brother.
“Wasn’t this what you wanted? To make your brother happy?
For a moment, Chanyeol wonders whether Baekbom had planned this too. That all of this, even Chanyeol’s feelings, are only part of a more elaborate plan he has devised to make his brother happy. It sounds impossible, but also possible.
Baekbom snorts and turns around to leave first, without giving a clear answer. Chanyeol stops him before he can close the door.
“You never told me in what we are different,” he calls.
Byun Baekbom smiles.
“You’re good at this game, but I am way better than you.”
xx. HEBETUDE
(n) lethargy
Baekhyun’s lips are cold, his hands are even colder. He stuffs them in Chanyeol’s pockets, seeking warmth, and sighs in contentment when Chanyeol wraps him in a warm hug. The kettle whistles, but Baekhyun pouts and doesn’t let him go.
“The tea can wait,” he says, squirming closer to snuggle with Chanyeol.
“The tea would make you warm.”
Baekhyun shakes his head and adjusts the blanket around their bodies.
“It’s warm here, if you move it’ll be cold again.” He shivers at the thought.
“You don’t cope well with cold, do you?” asks Chanyeol, one part exasperated and two parts amused.
“Not really,” mumbles Baekhyun. “My hands and feet especially. In the other house I couldn’t spend more than ten minutes without socks.”
He’s not wearing socks right now and his naked feet are cold against Chanyeol’s leg. But this apartment is warmer than Mrs. Kim’s old colonial house at the foot of the mountain.
“Your feet are frozen. I will fetch the tea,” says Chanyeol. Disentangling himself from Baekhyun’s hug turns out to be pretty difficult.
“Stay here, I said!” hisses Baekhyun.
“Are you kidding me? Your brother will have my balls on a silver platter if I allow you to fall sick, I’m not-”
Baekhyun kisses him. Not to shut him up - it’s not like he would’ve listened to Chanyeol’s complaints anyway - but simply because he can and he wants to. It’s one of those gratuitous, spontaneous kisses that tell more about Baekhyun’s feelings than his words ever will.
“You can’t distract me forever,” says Chanyeol in the pauses between kisses.
Baekhyun laughs against his lips and when he licks them, he licks Chanyeol’s too.
“You’re a tiny wicked thing, you know that?” he says.
“Stay here, with me, and I’ll kiss you again,” replies the little tease.
Chanyeol scoffs. It’s not like he can’t kiss Baekhyun himself, and whenever he wants too, but there’s something terribly endearing in the way Baekhyun is slowly starting to take control when they’re together.
“Let me go get the tea and I’ll kiss you instead.”
Baekhyun pouts and hides his head in the crook of Chanyeol’s neck. Chanyeol stays because Baekhyun might be pushy and selfish, but he smiles the brightest when Chanyeol plays along with him. Chanyeol stays for the magic of being able to hold Baekhyun, to kiss him slowly, how much he wants, whenever he wants, as deeply as he wants.
The room is silent, the city is hidden under a veil of snow. Baekhyun’s feet are cold and his laugh is warm. His lips are sweet. He falls asleep on Chanyeol’s chest, holding him tight, and Chanyeol finds himself dozing off too, his fingers still carded in Baekhyun’s hair.
The screen of his phone lights up with an incoming message from Sunyoung saying she’ll come over after dinner. Chanyeol won’t be there to see her. He has a hweshik and he can’t bail out. The message piles under two mails from Baekhyun’s brother and one from Chanyeol’s father’s secretary.
Chanyeol sighs and disentangles himself from Baekhyun’s hold, trying not to wake up the sleeping boy. It’s useless. When he comes back, holding a mug of already lukewarm tea, Baekhyun is sitting on the couch, wrapped in the blanket and looking quite disgruntled.
“You have to leave already?”
“I can’t be late, I’m the rookie there. Gotta make myself a name.”
Baekhyun snorts. “Just make sure you don’t drink too much.”
“You nag so much. One day, when I won’t be the last newcomer, I’ll make sure to bring you along and introduce you to the rest of the staff.”
Baekhyun’s lips curl and his shoulders stiffen, like every other time Chanyeol mentions the possibility of them being still together in a not so distant future.
“Me? I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. I can’t even eat on my own, let alone hold my ground at a hweshik.”
Chanyeol wants to protest, but his phone rings obnoxiously.
He taps Baekhyun’s shoulder to get his attention and leaves a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth.
“See you tomorrow,” says Baekhyun, before Chanyeol can close the door and leave.
“See you tomorrow.”
xxi. DEGUST
(v) taste something carefully to appreciate it fully
The city spreads its wings in the night like a swan. It has feathers made of light and dirt, of pollution and rain and shiny billboards where the latest hot trend actress or singer promotes makeup and jewels and cars. It throbs in colors and cries in traffic sounds and never ever sleeps. It breathes when it snows.
Chanyeol opens his mouth and tastes night and cold and the world shakes in multicolor around him, every sound reaching his ears as if it’s coming from the farthest distance. Someone says something about a cab and before Chanyeol can begin to process the words he’s being shoved inside one in a whirlwind of colors.
“We need an address, kid,” the driver says, looking back and forth between Chanyeol and someone outside.
“Park?”
Chanyeol blinks, focusing on the pretty face of Im Yoona from the Overseas Department. She snaps her pretty, long fingers in front of Chanyeol’s face to wake him up from his alcohol-induced haze. He takes out his wallet, not without a lot of effort, and produces a card from it. Im Yoona takes it and looks at the name, curious. “Are you sure? This is not your name,” she says, but Chanyeol just nods. His head is spinning so hard he can barely see her anymore
“Just get me there,” he says, making an effort to spell every word right from how much his head is spinning. She slams the car door shut and waves him off with a final giggle. “See you tomorrow at work, kid... If you’re not too hungover.”
The ride to Baekhyun’s place is not long enough for him to sober up and, when the cab finally stops, he’s still more wasted than coherent. His head feels lightheaded, but his body is so heavy and uncooperative. Snowflakes dance around him, swallowing every other sound.
When Baekhyun opens the door, Chanyeol literally crashes at his feet.
There’s a moment of silence as Baekhyun just stands there, unable to process what is happening. “I’m on the floor,” provides Chanyeol.
“Are you drunk?”
“No way, Sherlock, what gave me away?”
“You’re smelling like a liquor shop, you fell on my doormat and when you rang the bell and I asked who the fuck it was at this time of the night you said the man of your life. Pick one. Also, are you a stupid drunk?”
Chanyeol drags himself inside and closes the door. “I’m always stupid, not only when I’m drunk.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re aware.”
“You’re cute when you’re pretending you’re not worried about me.”
Baekhyun looks like he wants to kick him out of spite but in the end he just sighs and disappears, leaving Chanyeol alone at the entrance as he tries to get rid of his shoes and fails miserably. When Baekhyun comes back, there’s a mug of warm coffee in his hands. It’s cheap instant coffee, the kind people like Mrs. Kim or Chanyeol’s father have probably never tasted in their entire life, the only kind Baekhyun knows how to make, but it’s still coffee, and Chanyeol has never felt more grateful in his life.
Baekhyun sets the mug down, so that Chanyeol can pick it up himself. He sits on the pristine floor.
“So I guess the hweshik went well.”
“Of course it did! They all adore me,” mutters Chanyeol, taking a sip of the too warm beverage. The coffee burns his tongue and he sticks his out, not caring that he looks like a dog, Baekhyun can’t see him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Too hot!” he hisses, biting back a curse.
Baekhyun bites his bottom lip to hide his laugh but it doesn’t work. “How could they not? You’re really adorable.”
Chanyeol shakes his head and tries to get up to set the mug on the coffee table but he feels like he could throw up and he sits back, groaning.
“What is happening? Are you hurt?”
“I’m just drunk, don’t mind me. Nausea. Headache. Also eye-hand coordination is really lacking at the moment. If only the world would stop...”
He forgets how he wanted to end the sentence. He forgets how to speak altogether. When he opens his eyes, the world has already stopped. There’s only Baekhyun, kneeling in front of him, moving his hands on the floor slowly until he finds Chanyeol. Baekhyun and the snow falling against the glass door, melting against it slowly, leaving trails of frozen tears.
Baekhyun follows the outline of Chanyeol’s arm to his shoulder, his neck, until he reaches his face, like he always does when he wants to see Chanyeol. Feeling with his fingers is the closest he can get to watching Chanyeol’s expressions. Baekhyun wishes he could see so much, but sometimes Chanyeol is glad he can’t see what kind of stupid expression he’s making. Just one look, and Baekhyun would be able to see through the web of lies Chanyeol has constructed. Just one look and Baekhyun would realize how much Chanyeol is stupidly in love, how much he needs Baekhyun to need him, just like a fool who pretends he’s not interested but he’s dying for a drop of love.
When Baekhyun leans closer, Chanyeol stops breathing. His lips are parted and his brow furrowed. He looks focused, as if he’s trying to solve a riddle. He looks beautiful, the kind of beauty that hits you like an arrow, fast and precise and heartbreaking. The kind of beauty Chanyeol fell in love with.
Chanyeol wants to remember this moment tomorrow, the soft lines of Baekhyun’s face, the hair falling in front of his eyes, ruffled and messy, making him look so much younger. He can’t look for love in Baekhyun’s eyes, but he can read the telltale signs of it on his face. The way he bites the inside of his cheek, the bright red flushing his ears and the tiny, almost imperceptible tremor in his fingers as they touch Chanyeol’s thighs. Maybe he’s fooling himself, maybe he’s just seeing things through the hazy spectacles of booze, but sometimes he thinks Baekhyun might really love him. And it’s enough.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Baekhyun says, interrupting Chanyeol’s small revelation, his voice soft and choked. Chanyeol resists, just for a moment. His limbs are too heavy, but when Baekhyun pulls him up they feel weightless and he finds himself following the touch, crawling on his knees and then up on his feet.
He doesn’t realize what is happening until they collapse together on the bed, and only then reality catches up with him. He can feel it, in the way his skin tingles against Baekhyun’s, both numb and hyperaware of Baekhyun’s presence. Electric stimuli travel through his body, but the only thing that reaches his brain is the need to touch Baekhyun, to be all over him, to claim and claim and claim.
He gets up suddenly, ignoring the way his head pounds and Baekhyun’s surprised, soft gasp.
“I’m not...” he says. Baekhyun eyes him curiously and, again, he feels his breath itch in his throat. He tries again. “Maybe it’s better if I sleep on the floor. I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself.”
“Stay.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“You can barely walk straight, I can’t really picture you assaulting me while I sleep.”
No, Chanyeol would never. But he’s a man and he’s so drunk, there’s no way he’s going to keep his hands for himself, not when Baekhyun is so close, so warm and soft, so similar to the dream Chanyeol wakes up to almost every morning with a hand on his dick and one on his mouth, choking his moans against his fist.
“Yes, but… I don’t want to invade your personal space?”
It’s not like he doesn’t want to touch Baekhyun - oh, he wants to do that a little too much - but he has to be careful, he has to be patient. It took months of constant, careful touches to ease Baekhyun into accepting physical contact as something normal, until he stopped getting startled because of it. Now he welcomes Chanyeol’s touch instead of feeling threatened, but Chanyeol didn’t plan carefully, waited and bid his time and calculated every move only to fuck up during a single moment of weakness and have to start over again.
“Baekhyun, I’m not kidding, please...”
“I’m not kidding either. You’re my boyfriend. What’s wrong with sleeping together? I just want you to stay.”
Chanyeol feels rage bubble in his chest, annoying, inopportune and completely unmotivated. His control is already slipping and words he has thought about but never wanted to say pile up in his mouth, ready to run away. He’s going to regret this tomorrow, for sure.
“You can’t even imagine how difficult it is, to have everything you want at hand’s reach and not being able to touch it,” he says, before he can stop himself.
“Of course I can’t,” answers Baekhyun, his voice cold and acuminate like the tip of a needle, and Chanyeol realizes, now, through the veil of alcohol still blurring his mind, how much he’s just fucked up. “I can’t even imagine. It’s not like it doesn’t happen to me every day. I have everything I want at hand’s reach. I just have to extend my hand to take it, you know? But I can’t see it. I can’t see anything Chanyeol.”
Baekhyun scoots even closer, dangerously close.
“I can only turn towards your voice. I have to make up your face in my mind and draw expressions on you myself, because I can’t. I can’t see you, Chanyeol. I’ve never seen your face and I never will. I’ll never see the face of the person I love, how do you think that makes me feel?”
“Baekhyun, I’m sorry. I didn’t-”
“Are you really sorry? Because I am. I wish we could be just like any other normal couple. I wish you could take me to company dinners and introduce me to your coworkers someday. I wish I could hug you anytime I want instead of wondering hopelessly whether you’re really there or I’m just making you up in my mind. I know it’s my fault, it’s my disability and my burden, but I still wish you’d reach out for me when I can’t do it for you.”
Chanyeol feels awfully sobered up now. And cold. Baekhyun must be feeling cold too. He reaches for Baekhyun’s wrist and puts Baekhyun’s hand, his graceful, pretty hand, on his chest. Baekhyun slowly curls his fingers around the collar of Chanyeol’s shirt to pull him back down with him on the bed.
They wait, in silence. Chanyeol picks his words with all the care in the world, hoping it’ll be enough.
“It’s just... You can’t see me. You can’t see when I’m going to touch you. Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable?”
He regrets talking the moment the last word is out of his mouth. In his brain, all these worries made sense, but here in the open his words feel naked, too laid out and exposed. Baekhyun doesn’t like when his weaknesses are pointed out. He likes even less when people treat him differently because of them, and this... Chanyeol confessing something like this...
He keeps quiet, waiting for the explosion... That doesn’t happen. Or, better, it happens, but not in the way Chanyeol was expecting.
Baekhyun gets up, slowly walks towards the wall, and switches off the lights. He has no problem with coming back to the bed, even in total darkness.
Chanyeol hears the rustle of the covers, feels the bed dipping with Baekhyun’s added weight, he holds his breath.
Baekhyun doesn’t ask for permission. He finds his wrist, his arm, shoulder, his neck. His fingers find their way across Chanyeol’s face, his cheekbones, his jaw, they find their way home to his lips.
Baekhyun kisses like he lives, spoiled and selfish and terribly endearing. Baekhyun kisses like he lives, methodically and slowly, only apparently unsure. Baekhyun kisses like he lives, giving everything and asking everything back, challenging and angry and soft, but in his own biting way. Baekhyun leaves Chanyeol breathless and bare, but he bares himself for Chanyeol too. His kisses aren’t compromises, not like Chanyeol’s. Baekhyun’s kisses are instinctive and fearless.
When he lets go, the darkness swallows Chanyeol’s broken sigh. The darkness swallows the fire coursing through his veins. Baekhyun’s touch on his neck and wrist sings, Baekhyun’s taste on his lips is an echo of his laugh.
“Did it make you uncomfortable?” he asks, in a murmur.
“Not really.”
“Even if you couldn’t see me?”
“I see where you’re trying to go but...”
“No buts, Park Chanyeol. I have been following your rules. I am trying. To compromise, to grow up, to be the person you want me to be.”
And he is trying. Baekhyun is doing his best, Chanyeol can see it. He’s trying and succeeding and maybe Chanyeol was the blind one for never noticing it.
“I hate my condition. I hate having to rely on someone else in order to do everything. I hate that I can’t even live alone on my own and that I need someone to help me doing even the simplest tasks. There was a time I thought I would die without feeling normal again, not even once in my life.” His voice is thin, but firm. It doesn’t shake. “I want to feel normal. I want you to hug me. Someday, I want to have sex with you. I know you want it too, so stop treating me like I’d break if you so much as touched me. Aren’t we in a relationship?”
“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” he asks, with a groan.
“I can’t help but thinking about it every time. I feel like, if I let you do everything on your own, if I let you decide for me too, one day you’ll just get tired of me. I have to be proactive!”
Chanyeol can’t help but to feel a little childish right now. Tomorrow he will blame alcohol for this, but for tonight he can only admit he was a childish asshole and Baekhyun, probably for the first time in one of their arguments, was the better person.
“It was pretty insensitive of me, to say what I said.”
Baekhyun nods. “Yes, it was. We say many insensitive things, the both of us. But you don’t have to restrain yourself so much with me. I’m not a doll. I’m your boyfriend. And it’s not like I don’t have a strong personality. If I don’t like something you do, I will tell you. If you want to fight, I can fight back.”
Chanyeol snorts. Of course Baekhyun can fight back, he’s always known that. And he’s always clear enough in voicing his complaints, there’s no risk he’ll let Chanyeol manhandle him in way he doesn’t like.
But he really doesn’t know where this Baekhyun is coming from. He spends most of his time with him and he still failed to notice Baekhyun was changing, though this sly little shit did everything right under his nose. It makes him feel a little annoyed. His right hand sneaks under the covers, to curl around Baekhyun’s hip, feeling the warmth through the fabric of his shirt, making him squirm.
“When did you grow up so much?” Chanyeol whine. Baekhyun snorts, all smug and satisfied, and Chanyeol does something he’s never done - because boundaries and personal space and Baekhyun being more sensitive than anyone else, but Baekhyun told him he could touch, didn’t he? He gathers his courage and pinches him. Hard. Baekhyun screams.
“What was that for?”
“For acting so wise with me!”
Baekhyun tries to push him away but they are too tangled between the covers and the sheets and he fails miserably. He still manages to elbow Chanyeol’s side.
“You’re not a stupid drunk, you’re a mean drunk!”
“I’m a horny drunk, and you still asked me to stay with you tonight. What does that make you?”
Baekhyun sighs. He rolls on his side, until his forehead is touching Chanyeol’s.
“You’re a chatty drunk. Go to sleep!”
Chanyeol will, in a few minutes. But now, since he has received official permission - although it sounded more like an official complaint - he wraps his arms around Baekhyun’s shoulders and draws him back until he’s nestled on his chest, his nose cold against Chanyeol’s collarbone.
“Is this the worst you can do?” whispers Baekhyun, the words wet and humid on Chanyeol’s chest.
Chanyeol pulls him even closer, until he’s sure Baekhyun can feel the hardness against his leg, unmistakable, blatant and bold. He can feel the itch in Baekhyun’s breath, the way he jolts, the way he tenses and relaxes and the way he starts to grow too, nestled between their bodies.
He curls one hand around Baekhyun’s neck, pulls his face upwards for a quick kiss on his nose. Baekhyun sighs at the sudden movement, hyperaware of their closeness, feeling the friction between them.
Chanyeol smiles sourly, hoping Baekhyun is feeling at least a little of the frustration he’s feeling. He really, really hopes he doesn’t end up humping Baekhyun in his sleep tomorrow morning.
“Goodnight, Baekhyun.”
xxii. ACEDIA
(n) laziness, indifference
It’s still too cold for snow in February. The streets are frozen and packed. The sky is grey with smoke and damp fog. The arrival of a new intern called Soojung signals the end of Chanyeol’s life as the rookie of the office. He parties with his coworkers to celebrate his new contract and his boss makes him drink so much he ends up throwing up at the side of the streets and sending Baekhyun drunken covers of his favorite pop songs when he comes back home.
Baekhyun knocks at his door the morning after, when Chanyeol is still sleeping. Jongdae opens the door for him and they sit together in the living room in front of sageuk drama reruns while they wait for Chanyeol to wake up. When he finally emerges from his room, ruffled and tired, with puffy eyes, blotched nose and the taste of garbage in his mouth, he finds them sitting together on the couch, talking in hushed tones about resilience in Korean architecture and listening to the dramatic violins of a fighting scene between the two main protagonists.
Chanyeol is happy Baekhyun can’t see him now, because he must be a mess if even Jongdae makes a vaguely disgusted face when he sees him appear.
“Your boyfriend,” he says to Baekhyun, “just entered this room in nothing but yesterday’s underwear and his ugly face.”
Baekhyun pouts. “Is he hot?”
Jongdae thinks about it, laughing at Chanyeol’s attempt to threaten him into saying yes. “Just so you know, he’s totally waving a knife at me to make me say yes.”
“It’s a fruit knife, it can’t cut anything. Answer the question!” calls Chanyeol from the kitchen.
Jongdae whispers something in Baekhyun’s ears, eliciting a fit of giggles. Chanyeol frowns.
“Traitors, all of you. Have you already eaten, Baekhyun?” At his negative answer, he starts collecting food from the fridge and cabinet. “Well then, kimchi spaghetti for two? What do you think, Jongdae? Are you one of us?”
“Sorry, I have to leave in like ten minutes. A date with Joohyun awaits me.” He ruffles Baekhyun’s hair. “See you later, kiddo. Bye, Yeol.”
The door closes behind him and Baekhyun slumps on the couch, spreading his arms and legs wide like a starfish.
“Do you think he knows we were actually born in the same year?” he muses.
“I think he just likes to patronize you because he thinks you’re cute.”
“Am I not?” Baekhyun pretends to do aegyo and it’s very cute. Chanyeol is never telling him how much he finds it cute.
“No, you’re a real menace.” He tastes the soup. “Oi, can you come here at the counter and taste the soup for me?”
Baekhyun gets close with hesitant steps, wary of the sound of the gas stove. Chanyeol keeps him still with a hand curled around his neck and puts the wooden spoon in his hand with the other, blowing over it to cool the sauce.
“How is it?” he says, after Baekhyun has had a taste. His mind is a little fuzzy, a fuzziness that has little to do with sleep and a lot to do with the way Baekhyun’s tongue darts outside his mouth to lick the sauce from the spoon.
“The spiciness is just fine,” says Baekhyun, and his voice is low and a little raspy. He tries to take a step back, hyperaware of Chanyeol’s closeness, but the hand around his neck keeps him there.
“Do you want to come back to bed?” asks Chanyeol.
“What about lunch?”
“I think spaghetti can wait. It’s cold and I’m still sleepy. The sauce is ready, we just have to add the pasta later,” he adds, hoping to convince Baekhyun.
Baekhyun scrunches his nose and finally gives up when Chanyeol lands a kiss on the tip of his nose.
“Come on, Baekhyun-ah,” he says, drawling the final syllable. Baekhyun eyes him warily.
It’s not like Chanyeol doesn’t have hidden agenda in bringing Baekhyun into his own bed. There’s a lot to fantasize about his boyfriend panting under him, on his bed, fisting his sheets while Chanyeol kisses him. But it’s morning and Baekhyun feels extremely skittish and self-conscious during the morning.
Sometimes, at night, when he’s feeling toasty warm, relaxed and careless after a few glasses of beer, not quite tipsy yet but loose and incredibly vocal, Baekhyun lets Chanyeol’s hands wander under his shirt and inside his pants. He cants his hips up with broken, staccato cries when Chanyeol’s mouth closes around a nipple and pulls Chanyeol down for a kiss when he feels he’s coming. They never went further than mutual handjobs, but Chanyeol cherishes any and every scrap of intimacy with Baekhyun he can get.
The morning after, Baekhyun is always cold and awkward, hyperaware of Chanyeol’s presence and overreacting at the slightest touch. Chanyeol has learnt when to take his chances and when to let it go, and this morning he definitely needs to let go before Baekhyun bites him like a kitten too tired of being coddled by a greedy child.
“I just want to sleep and cuddle in bed, I promise,” he says, and smiles wide when Baekhyun agrees to follow him into the bedroom, kicks his shoes and socks away and slips under the duvet to burrow his nose in Chanyeol’s throat, shivering in the cold of the lazy February morning.
Chanyeol could fall asleep again like this, his fingers in Baekhyun’s hair and Baekhyun’s hands on his chest, but Baekhyun doesn’t feel sleepy at all so they end up talking a lot. About the drama Jongdae was watching with Chanyeol, about Baekhyun’s school, about Chanyeol still being the rookie at work, about Jongdae’s new girlfriend and Baekbom’s last ex and Seohyun’s possible crush on Baekbom himself. (Chanyeol says it’s impossible, he would’ve noticed, Baekhyun just scoffs and dares him to dye his hair silver if he’s wrong. Chanyeol really hopes he’s not wrong, because he doesn’t know how to pull silver hair and avoid being fired.)
They talk about Baekhyun getting a guide dog in the future.
“If it’s female, you should call her Sandara.”
“I’m not going to call my guide dog like your celebrity crush. Chanyeol.” Baekhyun puffs his cheeks and spreads his arms on the bed, almost slapping Chanyeol. “I’m not even going to get a dog.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t really take good care of a dog. I can barely take care of myself. What if it starves because of me?”
“Seohyun is your maid, couldn’t she help you?”
“She’s terrified of dogs. And she already has to take care of me, how can I burden her even more?”
I could live with you. The words linger at the tip of Chanyeol’s tongue, on a knife edge. But it’s too soon. Their relationship is still fragile, like a winter cloud ready to disappear into a snowstorm, leaving behind a clear sky and a white veil covering everything. It’s still too soon, but...
“I’ve always wanted a dog,” says Chanyeol. “But this apartment is too small and Jongdae is allergic to dogs. But maybe in the future, when I’ll live in a bigger house, I’ll have enough space to raise one or two.”
He doesn’t say he wants a house big enough for him and Baekhyun because Baekhyun snorts against the pillow and rolls towards Chanyeol.
“I’d like to call my dog Mongryong,” he says. “For future reference.”
Communication, what a wonderful thing. Communicating with Baekhyun is difficult, like talking to someone in another planet. Chanyeol sends short messages and hopes they don’t get lost in deep space. He waits patiently for Baekhyun’s answer to come back. It’s slow and cumbersome, like many things in deep space are, but it’s the only way and he’ll take his chance. It’s worth it.
Now it’s Baekhyun’s turn to send a message. Chanyeol can feel something is off with him, so he waits and waits. Until Baekhyun stirs and mumbles softly.
“I’ve been offered a job. As a braille teacher. At the school.”
Chanyeol waits for him to elaborate.
“One of their instructors left and I know braille so they thought... It was nice of them. I mean, it’s not like I need money, but still. It was nice.”
“Do you want to accept it?”
Baekhyun rolls away from him, as if physical contact is suddenly impossible to endure. It’s his automatic reaction to a stressful situation and Chanyeol knows it’s normal, but it always hurts a bit when his boyfriend flees from his touch.
He resists the urge to pull him back and gives him space instead. I’m here, he wants to say. Don’t make this more difficult than it already is. But Baekhyun is already retiring in his faraway planet, in his private little space.
“I should, but I don’t want to,” he says in the end, low, like he’s ashamed.
“Why do you think you should?”
“Because it would be a good opportunity to talk to people, make new friends. Because then I wouldn’t have to feel so useless all the time. Everyone is doing something but I’m... I’m just useless.”
“Do you want to be useful?”
“Not really? It’s difficult to explain. I’ve never done something in my life. I don’t know how it feels to do something in my life. I don’t want to make that kind of effort. I don’t want to do anything, but I feel ashamed.”
Chanyeol touches Baekhyun’s neck, slowly, almost shyly. Baekhyun doesn’t push him away. He just scoots a little closer.
“I don’t have all the answers, Baekhyun. I don’t want to give you the wrong advice.”
“I don’t know if I want advices.” He turns and exposes more neck to Chanyeol’s hand, melting under his fingers.
“You don’t have to take a decision now,” he says, low like a whisper. “About the job, I mean.”
Chanyeol doesn’t have an answer for Baekhyun. His goals have always been clear for him, shining brightly in front of his eyes, close enough to touch. Chanyeol knows what he wants and he’s ready to do anything to get it. Baekhyun doesn’t know what he wants, doesn’t know how to get it. He doesn’t know how far he’d go to get it.
“Sometimes I miss the cage,” Baekhyun says. “It was a miserable life, but I didn’t have to make any choices.”
Chanyeol doesn’t understand how choices can be scary. How freedom could be scary. Both he and Baekhyun were able to leave their lives, their houses, their families, to chase this freedom, but then why is Baekhyun so afraid? What is he afraid of? The only limit is the sky, but he’s standing at the edge of the precipice, too afraid he’ll fall if he tries to jump, too scared to fly.
“Refusing to take a decision is in itself a decision,” he says, deciding he doesn’t care if Baekhyun will get mad.
“I told you I didn’t want advices.”
“I didn’t give you any. I just stated a truth.”
After that answer, they fight. Baekhyun storms away in a hurry after that. He calls the driver and slams the door in Chanyeol’s face when he tries to take him downstairs.
He’ll be angry for a while, probably, but Chanyeol can be patient. He knows Baekhyun will mull over what he said. He’ll chew every single word and he’ll digest them slowly. Chanyeol’s messages always take a long time to reach Baekhyun’s orbit and he takes even more time to answer. But Baekhyun will answer. He’s never been able to ignore Chanyeol.
They say patience is a virtue. It is. Chanyeol spent months waiting for Baekhyun to be ready for him, to be ready to fall in love with him. For some things, he’s still waiting. He can’t touch Baekhyun like he wants, he can’t say what he wants and he can’t shag him like he wants. But Chanyeol knows what he wants. And now he has Baekhyun, his own Byun Baekhyun, imperfect and human and Chanyeol’s boyfriend. Chanyeol couldn’t have wished for anything else.
Give him a little time, be patient, don’t lose sight of what you want. You want him and he’ll come back to you in the right time. Don’t ever give up.
part 4 ->
A/N: ty for everyone who commented chapter 2, you’re the reason I’m still writing this fic and I love you all ;;;;;;;;; thank you for giving me strength!
- no update next sunday bc i’ll be visiting a friend without my laptop so bye
- if you have sent me a message and i haven’t replied wait a little more i’m just really busy
- please leave a comment if you liked it, do it for me ;;
<- part 2
The thing I realize is, that it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave.
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places
xvii. RECIDIVIST
(n) repeat offender
The driveway is frozen. It shines like silver and moonlight and cracks under Chanyeol’s shoes. The rose bushes, dark, scrawny and naked if not for a thin veil of ice, claw at the sleeves of his coat when he walks. They’re considerably bigger than the last time Chanyeol was here, a few months ago.
It was spring back then and the roses were in bloom. But now it’s winter and, with Baekhyun gone, no one has reminded Mrs. Kim to prune the roses in many long months. The plants have grown, swallowing the trees and the walls, trapping the house in a hug of vines and thorns.
One year ago, Baekhyun walked out of this house with one of the maids and didn’t come back. Until now.
One of the butlers opens the door for Baekbom, Baekhyun and Chanyeol. The head of the maids, Mrs. Lee - she looks older than Chanyeol remembered - serves them warm tea, but Baekbom refuses.
“Wait for me here,” he says before he leaves them alone. “I’ll speak with mother first.”
The house hasn’t changed. Being here still feels like stepping in another world, another time. Chanyeol had forgotten how difficult it was, how claustrophobic and heavy this house could be. He pinches his leg to remind himself he can leave any time he wants.
Out there, away from these thick walls and dark rooms, there’s a world of warmth, of bright city lights, stands of spicy street foods and the laughter of the high school students coming back from their hagwon late at night. That world is real and close, less than an hour of car away, but it seems so far away right now. And if it’s far for Chanyeol, who’s always lived in it, he wonders how Baekhyun must be feeling right now. For most of his life, his entire world was just this house, this gloomy, dusty house.
Chanyeol steps close to him, holds his hand and hides their intertwined fingers in the folds of his coat. They can both hear Baekbom’s voice, rising behind closed doors, and Mrs. Kim’s shrill, cold replies.
“You should’ve stayed in the car,” murmurs Baekhyun. “Mother won’t be happy to have you here.”
“The last time I’ve been here she slapped me. The time before too. Should I hide? I think she’ll slap me again.”
“When did that happen?” asks Baekhyun.
“The first time was before I kissed you and the second time after you ran away, when she summoned me here to ask me where you were.”
“I don’t know about the second time, but for the first time you deserved to be slapped. You kissed me and ran away. I deserved better.”
Chanyeol inches even closer and Baekhyun leans onto him, resting his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder.
“At least she slapped me before I kissed you. I don’t think I would still be here otherwise. No one is allowed to taint her perfect little son.”
Baekhyun suppresses a tight bitter sound at the back of his throat, a snicker gone wrong.
“I’m not perfect, nor little. But you have tainted me, I can give her that.”
Oh, but this is a surprise. This is... new.
“Did I?”
“Well, yes. It’s not like I’ve ever thought about sex until you arrived and I heard the maids talk about you and what they thought you could do.” He probably senses Chanyeol’s surprise at the sudden confession and clicks his tongue. “Didn’t you want to know? If I like you or not?”
Baekhyun drags him towards the couch. It’s been one year, but he still remembers where everything is so well, every piece of furniture and every corner. They’re clear in his mind, printed in white lines above the darkness of his eyes.
“I didn’t like you when I lived here,” he says, “My mother hired you because she wanted to give me a friend, but I never wanted a part-time job kind of friend. I kinda loathed you in the beginning.”
“For real?” He scoffs. “ I would’ve never realized. Your hostility went completely unnoticed.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t work inside this house, Park Chanyeol.”
“Sarcasm works everywhere, Byun Baekhyun.”
There’s a sudden scream, the sound of porcelain shattering coming from the other room. Baekhyun’s hold on his wrist tightens.
“Is everything alright?”
Baekhyun shakes his head. “I don’t want to be here. I shouldn’t have come back, but I thought I was ready and...”
Chanyeol wonders which ghosts Baekhyun is seeing in the darkness. Everything he tried to leave behind is here. All his fears, waiting for him at home.
“I’ve worked so much to change, to be better. But when I’m here, I feel...”
“Tell me. When did you start to like me?” he asks, hoping to distract Baekhyun.
“When you said we were friends, in the kitchen of your house. Maybe even earlier, when you brought me home and we ate tteokbokki in your kitchen. You let me sleep in your bed.”
One of Chanyeol’s hands is in Baekhyun’s lap, his fingers prisoner of Baekhyun’s hold, but he lets the other one curl possessively on Baekhyun’s shoulder, tucking him on his side.
“But I didn’t like you when you were here. I could tell that you didn’t like me or your job. You only wanted to get the money.”
“You never made things easy for-”
Baekhyun doesn’t let him finish. His nails clamp on Chanyeol’s wrist, tight but not enough to hurt. “I know! I know, ok? I still didn’t like you at all. I hoped you would leave soon but the more you stayed the more I hated it. Then I realized that playing with you was funny. I wanted to know how much were you willing to bend in front of me before you broke.”
“Then I left.”
“Then you left,” repeats Baekhyun, “and I felt lonely. I missed you. I was angry when you came back because you weren’t supposed to make me miss you. But I missed you too much to send you away again.” The grandfather clock ticks. Baekbom is still arguing with Baekhyun’s mother, but Baekhyun slumps a little against Chanyeol, relaxing his shoulders. “And then, one day, I heard the maids talking about you.”
“Very good things, I hope.”
There’s a curl at the edge Baekhyun’s lips, like the ghost of a smile. “They said you were very handsome and that you had a mouth... that could... do things.”
Chanyeol laughs and Baekhyun snarls like a cat and tries to get away from him, but Chanyeol wraps both his arms around Baekhyun, as if to shelter him against the darkness of the house, and pulls him against his chest.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I was just… very flattered?” He ignores Baekhyun’s low grumbling. “So you started to have dirty thoughts about me?”
“Not exactly. I… That came later, ok? I never thought about you in that way before.”
“Maybe you didn’t like me like that, but you were jealous. You were,” he says, stopping Baekhyun on the verge of vehement denial. “I know you, Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun refuses to answer but Chanyeol remember his outbursts every time one of Chanyeol’s friends from university was mentioned, or every time Sunyoung stopped to chat with Chanyeol on his way to Baekhyun’s room.
“I wasn’t jealous. I just... I knew you were paid and you didn’t really want to be my friend. We weren’t even friends but having you there made things a little better and I didn’t want you to leave me for other people.”
“That’s called jealousy, Baekhyun-ah.”
“I hated you. I hated you so much and I know you hated me too. But I still didn’t want you to leave and I hated you even more for that.”
Baekhyun won’t apologize, because it’s not in his nature to do so, but Chanyeol doesn’t care. He’s willing to compromise, to wait a little more. Not yet. For now, the most important thing is getting him out of this house. To take him home.
“Did you have dirty thoughts after our kiss?”
Baekhyun doesn’t answer but he uncrosses his legs and comes even closer, leaning his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder, encased in his warmth. He’s still tense, not used to be so close to someone else, but he also seems to be enjoying Chanyeol’s warmth. He squirms a little, trying to measure Chanyeol’s body. He doesn’t know where to put his hands and it’s a little awkward, not enough to make things uncomfortable for Chanyeol, but enough to make a spike of something hot-soft-overwhelming slash through his chest.
“Did you? Have dirty thoughts about me?” Baekhyun asks, completely unaware of the inner turmoil his closeness is causing. Oh, but this is a question Chanyeol is more than willing to answer.
“Since the first day.” What’s the point of lying about it? “You were the most annoying, pretty little shit I’ve ever seen. I wanted to put you back in your place.”
He said it to challenge Baekhyun, hoping to make him blush, but Baekhyun only laughs in his face. It’s a pretty laugh, loud and long and completely out of place in the house.
“Oh, yes, I figured that much when you kissed me. It was a very dick move, by the way.”
“You’re always a dick, you have no space to complain.” He ignores one last giggle. “But I’ve always wondered, where you aware of what you were doing to me? Because I’m quite sure you spent half of our time together purposefully teasing me.”
“You’ll never know,” says Baekhyun, and this time he does blush but he also laughs again, unrestrained, amused and oh so pretty. The butler waiting at the door even enters the room to see what is going on and leaves silently, wide eyed and surprised. It’s probably the first time he hears Baekhyun laugh. It’s a pity because, in Chanyeol’s humble opinion, Baekhyun’s laugh is beautiful.
“You never answered my question. Did you have dirty thoughts about me?”
Baekhyun bites his lips. “You’re so smug. I won’t fuel your ego, Park Chanyeol.”
It’s Chanyeol’s turn to laugh. He could tell Baekhyun, about all the times he dreamed to push him down, on his knees or on all four, and his imagination went wild. He’s sure Baekhyun’s fantasy wouldn’t be able to keep up with his own. He’s had three years to think about what he would like to do to Baekhyun, and a lot more experience in terms of visual aids. He briefly ponders how much Baekhyun could blush if he were to hear about it.
Or he could tell him other things. He could talk about the line of Baekhyun’s jaw, how much he wants to kiss and bite it. He could talk about Baekhyun’s lips, about the long night he spent imagining what color they could become after a kiss, or he could just kiss them and see it for himself. Lately Chanyeol doesn’t want to push Baekhyun down on his knees. He wants go down on his knees himself and he wants to make Baekhyun go mad with his hands and tongue. He wants to steal every moan, every breath, every cry from his lips. Slowly, sweetly and fondly.
“I would fuel yours, but your mother is talking to your brother on the other side of that door. Dirty talking is out of question.”
Baekhyun blinks and scrunches his nose.
“Where are you?” he asks. “Where is your face?” He finds it with his fingers, but he doesn’t longer too much, suddenly skittish. “One day I want to map your face with my hands, properly. Because I can’t picture in my mind how your face looks like.”
In the background, Baekbom and Mrs. Kim are arguing about Baekhyun’s rights - they won the case for his emancipation against her request to extend her parental rights over him - but their voices disappear at the back of Chanyeol’s mind. There’s only Baekhyun and the secret caught at the corner of his mouth, in the subtle curl of his lips, an almost smile.
He leans towards Chanyeol, all long lashes and pink lips, and whispers. “You’ve asked about dirty thoughts? I dreamed about your mouth on my cock so many times sometimes I think we’ve already done it and it’s a memory.”
Baekhyun lays his trap out in the open because he knows someone will walk on them. It’s inevitable, it’s destiny. And Chanyeol is just a man, not a child in a china shop holding crystal and glass. He’s a man and Baekhyun wants him and he wants Baekhyun. He doesn’t mind falling for this trap.
Baekhyun’s lips are already parted, ready for him, but he still tenses when Chanyeol kisses him. He freezes for a moment only to kiss back immediately, enthusiastic and clumsy and like he was waiting for this for the longest time. They both were.
That’s when the door opens and they hear a scream. Chanyeol only has the time to release Baekhyun’s lips before Mrs. Kim slaps him for the third, and hopefully last, time.
The hint of laughter still tucked at the corner of Baekhyun’s mouth, hidden behind his slightly red cheeks and in the way his eyelashes flutter softly, is totally worth the pain.
xviii. PAROXYSM
(n) sudden outburst of emotion
The roses are sleeping under the snow. Baekhyun shivers in his big coat and stuffs his hands inside the pockets to keep them warm. Chanyeol hugs him from behind, sneaking his hands inside Baekhyun’s pocket to seek the warmth nestled there.
“Will you miss this house?” he asks. He doesn’t ask whether Baekhyun will ever come back because he knows he won’t. He will make sure he never comes back.
“I will miss the garden, probably. I really liked coming here when I was a kid. And I liked it when you brought me here.”
He says it easily. He makes it look easy, but Chanyeol knows how difficult was - still is - for him to be honest about his feelings. Baekhyun is still so reserved, so secretive. So angry. It makes this sudden openness sound suspicious.
It must be the garden, he thinks. It makes Baekhyun feel at ease. It was the same in the past. Baekhyun was the most honest during their walks among the roses.
“You told me you liked roses before I left, do you remember? Queen Alexandra or something.”
“Or something,” says Baekhyun with a sigh. “There was one here, but when they told me I was going to become blind I had it removed. I didn’t want one if I couldn’t see it.”
“There’s a rose festival in Seoul in May. We could go together.”
Baekhyun tenses in Chanyeol’s arms so violently Chanyeol almost takes a step back, but his fingers are still intertwined with Baekhyun’s inside the pocket so they only wobble together.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, trying to free Baekhyun from his hold and take a step back before they both fall. Baekhyun’s hand finds one of Chanyeol’s sleeves and keeps him from stepping away.
“Do you really think we’ll still be together in five months?” he asks.
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
Baekhyun laughs, sour and cold, like the wind coming from the woods.
“Everyone leaves me.”
“I thought we were over this, Baekhyun.”
“You can be over it, Chanyeol, because you can leave... You can do whatever you want. But I can’t, and I will have to live with my useless self for the rest of my life, wondering when I’ll end up alone.”
It feels like déjà vu. They had a similar conversation a long time ago, right here, among the roses. But the sun was shining back then and the roses were in bloom, and Baekhyun was groomed and pale and perfect, his mouth soft and his tongue sharp. Now his hair is messy, his nose is red and his lips are cracked from the cold, but Chanyeol knows what they taste like and he’d never go back.
“Sometimes people will leave you, in order to live their lives. But the ones who really love you will always come back. Your brother came back. I came back.“
“You didn’t come back, I went to find you!” he says, childish and petulant, but Chanyeol shakes his head.
“But I’m here! Isn’t that what matters? You can find me again if I leave, or you could come with me the next time. Or you can keep me from leaving, because I know you can keep me from leaving... That’s what you’ve been doing since the first time we met.”
“It didn’t work so well,” whispers Baekhyun.
“I think it worked quite well, or I really wouldn’t be here.”
Baekhyun is angry, like he always is when he feels like he’s lost an argument and he doesn’t know how to turn the tables on Chanyeol. He leaves Chanyeol’s hand, turns his back to him and starts walking in a random direction, stomping on the snow as hard as he can. Chanyeol sighs and catches him before he can walk into a frozen bush.
“I’m not a wizard, Baekhyun. I can’t predict the future and tell you that... this thing between us will be amazing and that we’ll always be happy. I can’t even guarantee it’ll last,” - oh, but he’s ready to do his best to make it last - “but I can tell you what happens if you don’t believe in it, not even a little bit.”
“And what will happen?” asks Baekhyun.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We won’t break up because we’ll never have been together. I won’t leave you because I won’t have been yours, not even for a moment. No broken heart, no breakup. Nothing at all.”
He takes a step closer, traces Baekhyun’s lips with his fingers and feels them shake, maybe in cold, maybe in outrage. He tries his luck.
“What do you want, Baekhyun?”
“I want you to stay with me, always.”
What a kid, Byun Baekhyun. Chanyeol touches Baekhyun’s lips, a fleeting and light touch, and wonders how long it takes Baekhyun to realize it’s his fingers and not his mouth. He wonders whether Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol is going to kiss him, only to feel disappointed afterwards.
Baekhyun wants with the levity of a kid. He wants Chanyeol’s always, Chanyeol’s forever, Chanyeol’s everything. His love is intense as much as it’s naive. It would’ve been easy to fool him back then, it would be even easier now. Chanyeol is a good liar. But he can’t lie to Baekhyun.
“I won’t always be with you, I can’t promise that. But while we’re together, I’ll make it worth it. For every time I leave, every time we fight and every time I hurt you. I’ll give you the most of me, I’ll give you more than I’ve ever given everyone else. Is that enough?”
Baekhyun doesn’t know how to compromise. He wants everything and he always gets nothing, and his nothing is sharp and thin and dark and hurts him more than he can tell. No one has ever taken their time to teach him how to pick his battles and how to choose his victories, what to give up in order to gain something more important. But Chanyeol has been working for this. He could’ve had Baekhyun one year ago, and he would’ve had all of him, because Baekhyun wants everything but gives everything back. But Chanyeol doesn’t want everything. No one can own a person like a toy. If you want that, you’re only setting yourself up for failure and Chanyeol doesn’t fail. Chanyeol is a winner.
The sun is rising. It’s pale and shy. A cold winter morning. Baekhyun blinks. He can’t see colors and he can’t see shapes but he can see the light. He can’t see Chanyeol, but he can touch him, his hands on Chanyeol’s face, on his nose, his cheekbones, his lips. His hands on Chanyeol’s forehead, on the side of his face, his ears, his jaw. He finds Chanyeol’s dimple and smiles and Chanyeol has to drag him closer, one hand at the back of his head to tilt his face upwards, one hands curled around his hip to keep him there.
Baekhyun kisses Chanyeol, hesitant, unsure and insistent at the same time, his lips barely parted. He doesn’t say it’s enough, he doesn’t say he loves Chanyeol and he doesn’t say he wants to try this... whatever it is. But he kisses Chanyeol and sighs into the kiss and steps closer and Chanyeol doesn’t care if it’s not perfect, if it’s not everything. It’s still an answer. It’s a compromise he’s willing to accept.
xix. EPIGONE
(n) lesser imitator of a renowned artist
Park Chanyeol is smart. He’s always been smart, among many other things, since he was a kid. Aforementioned many other things may include being possessive and selfish (like children born in wealth often are), being controlling, being stubborn to a fault once he’s set on a goal and willing to bend, never break, until he’s crouching on the ground in order to reach it. Chanyeol has no pride, for pride is an obstacle, a wall between Chanyeol and something he wants. Pride is a weakness.
Pride is President Park’s capital sin, a weakness Chanyeol can’t forgive, not even in his father. When he was sixteen, Chanyeol ran away from home. He was caught six hours later by one of his father’s bodyguards, and the man asked him what his problem was.
“Do they mistreat you?”
“Not really,” young Chanyeol answered. “But I can’t do what I want.”
The man didn’t understand. It’s difficult to understand when you’re a slave of circumstances, when you can only wish in a better condition but you’d rather envy others than rise and do something about it. The man thought Chanyeol was just a spoiled kid who had everything and wanted even more, but Chanyeol didn’t want more. He wanted something different. He wanted to choose his own path, without his father interfering. He wanted to prove he could succeed on his own. He didn’t want to be a slave of circumstances, but to make his own destiny.
When he was nineteen, Chanyeol left his home, to show himself, his family and the world that he didn’t need any help. That he could be better, brighter, stronger, even on his own. He didn’t run away, he simply left. And made his own history.
“You really think you’re something else, don’t you Park Chanyeol?”
The door that leads to the roof is usually locked, but the concierge is extremely lenient towards Chanyeol. He finds really remarkable that a nice young man like him spends so much time looking out for a blind friend and he’s willing to give him the key when Chanyeol needs a gush of fresh air and a quiet, deserted place where he can smoke in peace and think about what to do with Baekhyun.
Apparently, he’s not the only one who gets the same privilege.
Byun Baekbom smokes cigars, not because he likes them but because they give him a more experienced look. They make him look sharper. Not the kind of sharpness Baekhyun owns, crystal thin and with razor edges, but the sharpness of a combat knife, solid and heavy.
“I am something else,” answers Chanyeol, simply. He takes his lighter out and lights Baekbom’s cigar. “How is he?”
“Officially sleeping. Unofficially praying I don’t throw you off this building. I don’t like when people play with what is mine.”
Chanyeol wishes he didn’t understand Baekbom so deeply, but he does. They’re the same, the both of them. Both brilliant, both precocious rascals, both left their home to find freedom somewhere else. Both fiercely jealous, very territorial, unwilling to share. Too similar. Only the heavens, and maybe Byun Baekhyun, know how they managed not to jump at each other’s throats in the last year.
“I’m not playing and Baekhyun isn’t yours.”
“He’s my brother. He was already mine before you were born. Don’t forget, Park Chanyeol, that I led you to my brother and I could drive him away from you if I wanted.”
“But you don’t want. If you did, you would’ve already done it.”
Baekbom’s nostrils flare and for a moment he looks young - for a moment he looks like Baekhyun - but it’s fleeting and gone before Chanyeol can make something out of it. What remains is the shark, the boy who left home to make a new and better destiny for himself, just like Chanyeol, the man who struggled to find his own place in the world without a name that felt like a chain around his neck, just like Chanyeol. The man who loves Baekhyun. Just like Chanyeol.
“We are similar, you and I,” says Chanyeol, as he takes a long drag.
“Do you think so?” Baekbom blows smoke towards the star. “To be honest, it might even be true, but there’s a big difference between us.”
“And in what, if I may ask, we are different?”
Byun Baekbom smiles, with many teeth ready to tear Chanyeol apart. He won’t do it, because he loves his little brother and his little brother loves Chanyeol. But that doesn’t mean he has to like it. (In that, too, they are similar.)
“I don’t need to tell you how much I’m going to make you suffer if something happens to him, right?” He doesn’t sound threatening at all but Chanyeol still feels a chill in his back.
“I have a faint idea,” he replies, trying to keep a cool tone.
“I don’t like you, Chanyeol. I don’t know if my brother has realized how sly you are. You pretended to be a good friend until now and turned the tables on him at the last moment, when you were sure he liked you enough not to run away. My brother can be exceptionally smart sometimes, but he’s also incredibly naive. I, on the other hand, have no problem with recognizing a snake when I see one.”
“It takes one to find another, after all.”
They smoke in silence, until Baekbom’s cigar is only a stub and Chanyeol is lighting is second cigarette.
“Don’t hurt my brother or I’ll hurt you,” he says. This time he does sound threatening.
“I won’t.”
It’s not an empty promise. Chanyeol likes Baekhyun. He’s spent an entire year seducing him. Hurting Baekhyun is the last thing he wants, especially now that Baekhyun has agreed to go out with him. And Baekbom knows, of course. He would have never let Baekhyun get close to Chanyeol if he had thought otherwise. He will never outright approve of Chanyeol, but the fact that he doesn’t disapprove either shows that, at least, he thinks Chanyeol can take care of his brother.
“Wasn’t this what you wanted? To make your brother happy?
For a moment, Chanyeol wonders whether Baekbom had planned this too. That all of this, even Chanyeol’s feelings, are only part of a more elaborate plan he has devised to make his brother happy. It sounds impossible, but also possible.
Baekbom snorts and turns around to leave first, without giving a clear answer. Chanyeol stops him before he can close the door.
“You never told me in what we are different,” he calls.
Byun Baekbom smiles.
“You’re good at this game, but I am way better than you.”
xx. HEBETUDE
(n) lethargy
Baekhyun’s lips are cold, his hands are even colder. He stuffs them in Chanyeol’s pockets, seeking warmth, and sighs in contentment when Chanyeol wraps him in a warm hug. The kettle whistles, but Baekhyun pouts and doesn’t let him go.
“The tea can wait,” he says, squirming closer to snuggle with Chanyeol.
“The tea would make you warm.”
Baekhyun shakes his head and adjusts the blanket around their bodies.
“It’s warm here, if you move it’ll be cold again.” He shivers at the thought.
“You don’t cope well with cold, do you?” asks Chanyeol, one part exasperated and two parts amused.
“Not really,” mumbles Baekhyun. “My hands and feet especially. In the other house I couldn’t spend more than ten minutes without socks.”
He’s not wearing socks right now and his naked feet are cold against Chanyeol’s leg. But this apartment is warmer than Mrs. Kim’s old colonial house at the foot of the mountain.
“Your feet are frozen. I will fetch the tea,” says Chanyeol. Disentangling himself from Baekhyun’s hug turns out to be pretty difficult.
“Stay here, I said!” hisses Baekhyun.
“Are you kidding me? Your brother will have my balls on a silver platter if I allow you to fall sick, I’m not-”
Baekhyun kisses him. Not to shut him up - it’s not like he would’ve listened to Chanyeol’s complaints anyway - but simply because he can and he wants to. It’s one of those gratuitous, spontaneous kisses that tell more about Baekhyun’s feelings than his words ever will.
“You can’t distract me forever,” says Chanyeol in the pauses between kisses.
Baekhyun laughs against his lips and when he licks them, he licks Chanyeol’s too.
“You’re a tiny wicked thing, you know that?” he says.
“Stay here, with me, and I’ll kiss you again,” replies the little tease.
Chanyeol scoffs. It’s not like he can’t kiss Baekhyun himself, and whenever he wants too, but there’s something terribly endearing in the way Baekhyun is slowly starting to take control when they’re together.
“Let me go get the tea and I’ll kiss you instead.”
Baekhyun pouts and hides his head in the crook of Chanyeol’s neck. Chanyeol stays because Baekhyun might be pushy and selfish, but he smiles the brightest when Chanyeol plays along with him. Chanyeol stays for the magic of being able to hold Baekhyun, to kiss him slowly, how much he wants, whenever he wants, as deeply as he wants.
The room is silent, the city is hidden under a veil of snow. Baekhyun’s feet are cold and his laugh is warm. His lips are sweet. He falls asleep on Chanyeol’s chest, holding him tight, and Chanyeol finds himself dozing off too, his fingers still carded in Baekhyun’s hair.
The screen of his phone lights up with an incoming message from Sunyoung saying she’ll come over after dinner. Chanyeol won’t be there to see her. He has a hweshik and he can’t bail out. The message piles under two mails from Baekhyun’s brother and one from Chanyeol’s father’s secretary.
Chanyeol sighs and disentangles himself from Baekhyun’s hold, trying not to wake up the sleeping boy. It’s useless. When he comes back, holding a mug of already lukewarm tea, Baekhyun is sitting on the couch, wrapped in the blanket and looking quite disgruntled.
“You have to leave already?”
“I can’t be late, I’m the rookie there. Gotta make myself a name.”
Baekhyun snorts. “Just make sure you don’t drink too much.”
“You nag so much. One day, when I won’t be the last newcomer, I’ll make sure to bring you along and introduce you to the rest of the staff.”
Baekhyun’s lips curl and his shoulders stiffen, like every other time Chanyeol mentions the possibility of them being still together in a not so distant future.
“Me? I wouldn’t want to embarrass you. I can’t even eat on my own, let alone hold my ground at a hweshik.”
Chanyeol wants to protest, but his phone rings obnoxiously.
He taps Baekhyun’s shoulder to get his attention and leaves a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth.
“See you tomorrow,” says Baekhyun, before Chanyeol can close the door and leave.
“See you tomorrow.”
xxi. DEGUST
(v) taste something carefully to appreciate it fully
The city spreads its wings in the night like a swan. It has feathers made of light and dirt, of pollution and rain and shiny billboards where the latest hot trend actress or singer promotes makeup and jewels and cars. It throbs in colors and cries in traffic sounds and never ever sleeps. It breathes when it snows.
Chanyeol opens his mouth and tastes night and cold and the world shakes in multicolor around him, every sound reaching his ears as if it’s coming from the farthest distance. Someone says something about a cab and before Chanyeol can begin to process the words he’s being shoved inside one in a whirlwind of colors.
“We need an address, kid,” the driver says, looking back and forth between Chanyeol and someone outside.
“Park?”
Chanyeol blinks, focusing on the pretty face of Im Yoona from the Overseas Department. She snaps her pretty, long fingers in front of Chanyeol’s face to wake him up from his alcohol-induced haze. He takes out his wallet, not without a lot of effort, and produces a card from it. Im Yoona takes it and looks at the name, curious. “Are you sure? This is not your name,” she says, but Chanyeol just nods. His head is spinning so hard he can barely see her anymore
“Just get me there,” he says, making an effort to spell every word right from how much his head is spinning. She slams the car door shut and waves him off with a final giggle. “See you tomorrow at work, kid... If you’re not too hungover.”
The ride to Baekhyun’s place is not long enough for him to sober up and, when the cab finally stops, he’s still more wasted than coherent. His head feels lightheaded, but his body is so heavy and uncooperative. Snowflakes dance around him, swallowing every other sound.
When Baekhyun opens the door, Chanyeol literally crashes at his feet.
There’s a moment of silence as Baekhyun just stands there, unable to process what is happening. “I’m on the floor,” provides Chanyeol.
“Are you drunk?”
“No way, Sherlock, what gave me away?”
“You’re smelling like a liquor shop, you fell on my doormat and when you rang the bell and I asked who the fuck it was at this time of the night you said the man of your life. Pick one. Also, are you a stupid drunk?”
Chanyeol drags himself inside and closes the door. “I’m always stupid, not only when I’m drunk.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re aware.”
“You’re cute when you’re pretending you’re not worried about me.”
Baekhyun looks like he wants to kick him out of spite but in the end he just sighs and disappears, leaving Chanyeol alone at the entrance as he tries to get rid of his shoes and fails miserably. When Baekhyun comes back, there’s a mug of warm coffee in his hands. It’s cheap instant coffee, the kind people like Mrs. Kim or Chanyeol’s father have probably never tasted in their entire life, the only kind Baekhyun knows how to make, but it’s still coffee, and Chanyeol has never felt more grateful in his life.
Baekhyun sets the mug down, so that Chanyeol can pick it up himself. He sits on the pristine floor.
“So I guess the hweshik went well.”
“Of course it did! They all adore me,” mutters Chanyeol, taking a sip of the too warm beverage. The coffee burns his tongue and he sticks his out, not caring that he looks like a dog, Baekhyun can’t see him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Too hot!” he hisses, biting back a curse.
Baekhyun bites his bottom lip to hide his laugh but it doesn’t work. “How could they not? You’re really adorable.”
Chanyeol shakes his head and tries to get up to set the mug on the coffee table but he feels like he could throw up and he sits back, groaning.
“What is happening? Are you hurt?”
“I’m just drunk, don’t mind me. Nausea. Headache. Also eye-hand coordination is really lacking at the moment. If only the world would stop...”
He forgets how he wanted to end the sentence. He forgets how to speak altogether. When he opens his eyes, the world has already stopped. There’s only Baekhyun, kneeling in front of him, moving his hands on the floor slowly until he finds Chanyeol. Baekhyun and the snow falling against the glass door, melting against it slowly, leaving trails of frozen tears.
Baekhyun follows the outline of Chanyeol’s arm to his shoulder, his neck, until he reaches his face, like he always does when he wants to see Chanyeol. Feeling with his fingers is the closest he can get to watching Chanyeol’s expressions. Baekhyun wishes he could see so much, but sometimes Chanyeol is glad he can’t see what kind of stupid expression he’s making. Just one look, and Baekhyun would be able to see through the web of lies Chanyeol has constructed. Just one look and Baekhyun would realize how much Chanyeol is stupidly in love, how much he needs Baekhyun to need him, just like a fool who pretends he’s not interested but he’s dying for a drop of love.
When Baekhyun leans closer, Chanyeol stops breathing. His lips are parted and his brow furrowed. He looks focused, as if he’s trying to solve a riddle. He looks beautiful, the kind of beauty that hits you like an arrow, fast and precise and heartbreaking. The kind of beauty Chanyeol fell in love with.
Chanyeol wants to remember this moment tomorrow, the soft lines of Baekhyun’s face, the hair falling in front of his eyes, ruffled and messy, making him look so much younger. He can’t look for love in Baekhyun’s eyes, but he can read the telltale signs of it on his face. The way he bites the inside of his cheek, the bright red flushing his ears and the tiny, almost imperceptible tremor in his fingers as they touch Chanyeol’s thighs. Maybe he’s fooling himself, maybe he’s just seeing things through the hazy spectacles of booze, but sometimes he thinks Baekhyun might really love him. And it’s enough.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Baekhyun says, interrupting Chanyeol’s small revelation, his voice soft and choked. Chanyeol resists, just for a moment. His limbs are too heavy, but when Baekhyun pulls him up they feel weightless and he finds himself following the touch, crawling on his knees and then up on his feet.
He doesn’t realize what is happening until they collapse together on the bed, and only then reality catches up with him. He can feel it, in the way his skin tingles against Baekhyun’s, both numb and hyperaware of Baekhyun’s presence. Electric stimuli travel through his body, but the only thing that reaches his brain is the need to touch Baekhyun, to be all over him, to claim and claim and claim.
He gets up suddenly, ignoring the way his head pounds and Baekhyun’s surprised, soft gasp.
“I’m not...” he says. Baekhyun eyes him curiously and, again, he feels his breath itch in his throat. He tries again. “Maybe it’s better if I sleep on the floor. I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself.”
“Stay.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“You can barely walk straight, I can’t really picture you assaulting me while I sleep.”
No, Chanyeol would never. But he’s a man and he’s so drunk, there’s no way he’s going to keep his hands for himself, not when Baekhyun is so close, so warm and soft, so similar to the dream Chanyeol wakes up to almost every morning with a hand on his dick and one on his mouth, choking his moans against his fist.
“Yes, but… I don’t want to invade your personal space?”
It’s not like he doesn’t want to touch Baekhyun - oh, he wants to do that a little too much - but he has to be careful, he has to be patient. It took months of constant, careful touches to ease Baekhyun into accepting physical contact as something normal, until he stopped getting startled because of it. Now he welcomes Chanyeol’s touch instead of feeling threatened, but Chanyeol didn’t plan carefully, waited and bid his time and calculated every move only to fuck up during a single moment of weakness and have to start over again.
“Baekhyun, I’m not kidding, please...”
“I’m not kidding either. You’re my boyfriend. What’s wrong with sleeping together? I just want you to stay.”
Chanyeol feels rage bubble in his chest, annoying, inopportune and completely unmotivated. His control is already slipping and words he has thought about but never wanted to say pile up in his mouth, ready to run away. He’s going to regret this tomorrow, for sure.
“You can’t even imagine how difficult it is, to have everything you want at hand’s reach and not being able to touch it,” he says, before he can stop himself.
“Of course I can’t,” answers Baekhyun, his voice cold and acuminate like the tip of a needle, and Chanyeol realizes, now, through the veil of alcohol still blurring his mind, how much he’s just fucked up. “I can’t even imagine. It’s not like it doesn’t happen to me every day. I have everything I want at hand’s reach. I just have to extend my hand to take it, you know? But I can’t see it. I can’t see anything Chanyeol.”
Baekhyun scoots even closer, dangerously close.
“I can only turn towards your voice. I have to make up your face in my mind and draw expressions on you myself, because I can’t. I can’t see you, Chanyeol. I’ve never seen your face and I never will. I’ll never see the face of the person I love, how do you think that makes me feel?”
“Baekhyun, I’m sorry. I didn’t-”
“Are you really sorry? Because I am. I wish we could be just like any other normal couple. I wish you could take me to company dinners and introduce me to your coworkers someday. I wish I could hug you anytime I want instead of wondering hopelessly whether you’re really there or I’m just making you up in my mind. I know it’s my fault, it’s my disability and my burden, but I still wish you’d reach out for me when I can’t do it for you.”
Chanyeol feels awfully sobered up now. And cold. Baekhyun must be feeling cold too. He reaches for Baekhyun’s wrist and puts Baekhyun’s hand, his graceful, pretty hand, on his chest. Baekhyun slowly curls his fingers around the collar of Chanyeol’s shirt to pull him back down with him on the bed.
They wait, in silence. Chanyeol picks his words with all the care in the world, hoping it’ll be enough.
“It’s just... You can’t see me. You can’t see when I’m going to touch you. Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable?”
He regrets talking the moment the last word is out of his mouth. In his brain, all these worries made sense, but here in the open his words feel naked, too laid out and exposed. Baekhyun doesn’t like when his weaknesses are pointed out. He likes even less when people treat him differently because of them, and this... Chanyeol confessing something like this...
He keeps quiet, waiting for the explosion... That doesn’t happen. Or, better, it happens, but not in the way Chanyeol was expecting.
Baekhyun gets up, slowly walks towards the wall, and switches off the lights. He has no problem with coming back to the bed, even in total darkness.
Chanyeol hears the rustle of the covers, feels the bed dipping with Baekhyun’s added weight, he holds his breath.
Baekhyun doesn’t ask for permission. He finds his wrist, his arm, shoulder, his neck. His fingers find their way across Chanyeol’s face, his cheekbones, his jaw, they find their way home to his lips.
Baekhyun kisses like he lives, spoiled and selfish and terribly endearing. Baekhyun kisses like he lives, methodically and slowly, only apparently unsure. Baekhyun kisses like he lives, giving everything and asking everything back, challenging and angry and soft, but in his own biting way. Baekhyun leaves Chanyeol breathless and bare, but he bares himself for Chanyeol too. His kisses aren’t compromises, not like Chanyeol’s. Baekhyun’s kisses are instinctive and fearless.
When he lets go, the darkness swallows Chanyeol’s broken sigh. The darkness swallows the fire coursing through his veins. Baekhyun’s touch on his neck and wrist sings, Baekhyun’s taste on his lips is an echo of his laugh.
“Did it make you uncomfortable?” he asks, in a murmur.
“Not really.”
“Even if you couldn’t see me?”
“I see where you’re trying to go but...”
“No buts, Park Chanyeol. I have been following your rules. I am trying. To compromise, to grow up, to be the person you want me to be.”
And he is trying. Baekhyun is doing his best, Chanyeol can see it. He’s trying and succeeding and maybe Chanyeol was the blind one for never noticing it.
“I hate my condition. I hate having to rely on someone else in order to do everything. I hate that I can’t even live alone on my own and that I need someone to help me doing even the simplest tasks. There was a time I thought I would die without feeling normal again, not even once in my life.” His voice is thin, but firm. It doesn’t shake. “I want to feel normal. I want you to hug me. Someday, I want to have sex with you. I know you want it too, so stop treating me like I’d break if you so much as touched me. Aren’t we in a relationship?”
“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” he asks, with a groan.
“I can’t help but thinking about it every time. I feel like, if I let you do everything on your own, if I let you decide for me too, one day you’ll just get tired of me. I have to be proactive!”
Chanyeol can’t help but to feel a little childish right now. Tomorrow he will blame alcohol for this, but for tonight he can only admit he was a childish asshole and Baekhyun, probably for the first time in one of their arguments, was the better person.
“It was pretty insensitive of me, to say what I said.”
Baekhyun nods. “Yes, it was. We say many insensitive things, the both of us. But you don’t have to restrain yourself so much with me. I’m not a doll. I’m your boyfriend. And it’s not like I don’t have a strong personality. If I don’t like something you do, I will tell you. If you want to fight, I can fight back.”
Chanyeol snorts. Of course Baekhyun can fight back, he’s always known that. And he’s always clear enough in voicing his complaints, there’s no risk he’ll let Chanyeol manhandle him in way he doesn’t like.
But he really doesn’t know where this Baekhyun is coming from. He spends most of his time with him and he still failed to notice Baekhyun was changing, though this sly little shit did everything right under his nose. It makes him feel a little annoyed. His right hand sneaks under the covers, to curl around Baekhyun’s hip, feeling the warmth through the fabric of his shirt, making him squirm.
“When did you grow up so much?” Chanyeol whine. Baekhyun snorts, all smug and satisfied, and Chanyeol does something he’s never done - because boundaries and personal space and Baekhyun being more sensitive than anyone else, but Baekhyun told him he could touch, didn’t he? He gathers his courage and pinches him. Hard. Baekhyun screams.
“What was that for?”
“For acting so wise with me!”
Baekhyun tries to push him away but they are too tangled between the covers and the sheets and he fails miserably. He still manages to elbow Chanyeol’s side.
“You’re not a stupid drunk, you’re a mean drunk!”
“I’m a horny drunk, and you still asked me to stay with you tonight. What does that make you?”
Baekhyun sighs. He rolls on his side, until his forehead is touching Chanyeol’s.
“You’re a chatty drunk. Go to sleep!”
Chanyeol will, in a few minutes. But now, since he has received official permission - although it sounded more like an official complaint - he wraps his arms around Baekhyun’s shoulders and draws him back until he’s nestled on his chest, his nose cold against Chanyeol’s collarbone.
“Is this the worst you can do?” whispers Baekhyun, the words wet and humid on Chanyeol’s chest.
Chanyeol pulls him even closer, until he’s sure Baekhyun can feel the hardness against his leg, unmistakable, blatant and bold. He can feel the itch in Baekhyun’s breath, the way he jolts, the way he tenses and relaxes and the way he starts to grow too, nestled between their bodies.
He curls one hand around Baekhyun’s neck, pulls his face upwards for a quick kiss on his nose. Baekhyun sighs at the sudden movement, hyperaware of their closeness, feeling the friction between them.
Chanyeol smiles sourly, hoping Baekhyun is feeling at least a little of the frustration he’s feeling. He really, really hopes he doesn’t end up humping Baekhyun in his sleep tomorrow morning.
“Goodnight, Baekhyun.”
xxii. ACEDIA
(n) laziness, indifference
It’s still too cold for snow in February. The streets are frozen and packed. The sky is grey with smoke and damp fog. The arrival of a new intern called Soojung signals the end of Chanyeol’s life as the rookie of the office. He parties with his coworkers to celebrate his new contract and his boss makes him drink so much he ends up throwing up at the side of the streets and sending Baekhyun drunken covers of his favorite pop songs when he comes back home.
Baekhyun knocks at his door the morning after, when Chanyeol is still sleeping. Jongdae opens the door for him and they sit together in the living room in front of sageuk drama reruns while they wait for Chanyeol to wake up. When he finally emerges from his room, ruffled and tired, with puffy eyes, blotched nose and the taste of garbage in his mouth, he finds them sitting together on the couch, talking in hushed tones about resilience in Korean architecture and listening to the dramatic violins of a fighting scene between the two main protagonists.
Chanyeol is happy Baekhyun can’t see him now, because he must be a mess if even Jongdae makes a vaguely disgusted face when he sees him appear.
“Your boyfriend,” he says to Baekhyun, “just entered this room in nothing but yesterday’s underwear and his ugly face.”
Baekhyun pouts. “Is he hot?”
Jongdae thinks about it, laughing at Chanyeol’s attempt to threaten him into saying yes. “Just so you know, he’s totally waving a knife at me to make me say yes.”
“It’s a fruit knife, it can’t cut anything. Answer the question!” calls Chanyeol from the kitchen.
Jongdae whispers something in Baekhyun’s ears, eliciting a fit of giggles. Chanyeol frowns.
“Traitors, all of you. Have you already eaten, Baekhyun?” At his negative answer, he starts collecting food from the fridge and cabinet. “Well then, kimchi spaghetti for two? What do you think, Jongdae? Are you one of us?”
“Sorry, I have to leave in like ten minutes. A date with Joohyun awaits me.” He ruffles Baekhyun’s hair. “See you later, kiddo. Bye, Yeol.”
The door closes behind him and Baekhyun slumps on the couch, spreading his arms and legs wide like a starfish.
“Do you think he knows we were actually born in the same year?” he muses.
“I think he just likes to patronize you because he thinks you’re cute.”
“Am I not?” Baekhyun pretends to do aegyo and it’s very cute. Chanyeol is never telling him how much he finds it cute.
“No, you’re a real menace.” He tastes the soup. “Oi, can you come here at the counter and taste the soup for me?”
Baekhyun gets close with hesitant steps, wary of the sound of the gas stove. Chanyeol keeps him still with a hand curled around his neck and puts the wooden spoon in his hand with the other, blowing over it to cool the sauce.
“How is it?” he says, after Baekhyun has had a taste. His mind is a little fuzzy, a fuzziness that has little to do with sleep and a lot to do with the way Baekhyun’s tongue darts outside his mouth to lick the sauce from the spoon.
“The spiciness is just fine,” says Baekhyun, and his voice is low and a little raspy. He tries to take a step back, hyperaware of Chanyeol’s closeness, but the hand around his neck keeps him there.
“Do you want to come back to bed?” asks Chanyeol.
“What about lunch?”
“I think spaghetti can wait. It’s cold and I’m still sleepy. The sauce is ready, we just have to add the pasta later,” he adds, hoping to convince Baekhyun.
Baekhyun scrunches his nose and finally gives up when Chanyeol lands a kiss on the tip of his nose.
“Come on, Baekhyun-ah,” he says, drawling the final syllable. Baekhyun eyes him warily.
It’s not like Chanyeol doesn’t have hidden agenda in bringing Baekhyun into his own bed. There’s a lot to fantasize about his boyfriend panting under him, on his bed, fisting his sheets while Chanyeol kisses him. But it’s morning and Baekhyun feels extremely skittish and self-conscious during the morning.
Sometimes, at night, when he’s feeling toasty warm, relaxed and careless after a few glasses of beer, not quite tipsy yet but loose and incredibly vocal, Baekhyun lets Chanyeol’s hands wander under his shirt and inside his pants. He cants his hips up with broken, staccato cries when Chanyeol’s mouth closes around a nipple and pulls Chanyeol down for a kiss when he feels he’s coming. They never went further than mutual handjobs, but Chanyeol cherishes any and every scrap of intimacy with Baekhyun he can get.
The morning after, Baekhyun is always cold and awkward, hyperaware of Chanyeol’s presence and overreacting at the slightest touch. Chanyeol has learnt when to take his chances and when to let it go, and this morning he definitely needs to let go before Baekhyun bites him like a kitten too tired of being coddled by a greedy child.
“I just want to sleep and cuddle in bed, I promise,” he says, and smiles wide when Baekhyun agrees to follow him into the bedroom, kicks his shoes and socks away and slips under the duvet to burrow his nose in Chanyeol’s throat, shivering in the cold of the lazy February morning.
Chanyeol could fall asleep again like this, his fingers in Baekhyun’s hair and Baekhyun’s hands on his chest, but Baekhyun doesn’t feel sleepy at all so they end up talking a lot. About the drama Jongdae was watching with Chanyeol, about Baekhyun’s school, about Chanyeol still being the rookie at work, about Jongdae’s new girlfriend and Baekbom’s last ex and Seohyun’s possible crush on Baekbom himself. (Chanyeol says it’s impossible, he would’ve noticed, Baekhyun just scoffs and dares him to dye his hair silver if he’s wrong. Chanyeol really hopes he’s not wrong, because he doesn’t know how to pull silver hair and avoid being fired.)
They talk about Baekhyun getting a guide dog in the future.
“If it’s female, you should call her Sandara.”
“I’m not going to call my guide dog like your celebrity crush. Chanyeol.” Baekhyun puffs his cheeks and spreads his arms on the bed, almost slapping Chanyeol. “I’m not even going to get a dog.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t really take good care of a dog. I can barely take care of myself. What if it starves because of me?”
“Seohyun is your maid, couldn’t she help you?”
“She’s terrified of dogs. And she already has to take care of me, how can I burden her even more?”
I could live with you. The words linger at the tip of Chanyeol’s tongue, on a knife edge. But it’s too soon. Their relationship is still fragile, like a winter cloud ready to disappear into a snowstorm, leaving behind a clear sky and a white veil covering everything. It’s still too soon, but...
“I’ve always wanted a dog,” says Chanyeol. “But this apartment is too small and Jongdae is allergic to dogs. But maybe in the future, when I’ll live in a bigger house, I’ll have enough space to raise one or two.”
He doesn’t say he wants a house big enough for him and Baekhyun because Baekhyun snorts against the pillow and rolls towards Chanyeol.
“I’d like to call my dog Mongryong,” he says. “For future reference.”
Communication, what a wonderful thing. Communicating with Baekhyun is difficult, like talking to someone in another planet. Chanyeol sends short messages and hopes they don’t get lost in deep space. He waits patiently for Baekhyun’s answer to come back. It’s slow and cumbersome, like many things in deep space are, but it’s the only way and he’ll take his chance. It’s worth it.
Now it’s Baekhyun’s turn to send a message. Chanyeol can feel something is off with him, so he waits and waits. Until Baekhyun stirs and mumbles softly.
“I’ve been offered a job. As a braille teacher. At the school.”
Chanyeol waits for him to elaborate.
“One of their instructors left and I know braille so they thought... It was nice of them. I mean, it’s not like I need money, but still. It was nice.”
“Do you want to accept it?”
Baekhyun rolls away from him, as if physical contact is suddenly impossible to endure. It’s his automatic reaction to a stressful situation and Chanyeol knows it’s normal, but it always hurts a bit when his boyfriend flees from his touch.
He resists the urge to pull him back and gives him space instead. I’m here, he wants to say. Don’t make this more difficult than it already is. But Baekhyun is already retiring in his faraway planet, in his private little space.
“I should, but I don’t want to,” he says in the end, low, like he’s ashamed.
“Why do you think you should?”
“Because it would be a good opportunity to talk to people, make new friends. Because then I wouldn’t have to feel so useless all the time. Everyone is doing something but I’m... I’m just useless.”
“Do you want to be useful?”
“Not really? It’s difficult to explain. I’ve never done something in my life. I don’t know how it feels to do something in my life. I don’t want to make that kind of effort. I don’t want to do anything, but I feel ashamed.”
Chanyeol touches Baekhyun’s neck, slowly, almost shyly. Baekhyun doesn’t push him away. He just scoots a little closer.
“I don’t have all the answers, Baekhyun. I don’t want to give you the wrong advice.”
“I don’t know if I want advices.” He turns and exposes more neck to Chanyeol’s hand, melting under his fingers.
“You don’t have to take a decision now,” he says, low like a whisper. “About the job, I mean.”
Chanyeol doesn’t have an answer for Baekhyun. His goals have always been clear for him, shining brightly in front of his eyes, close enough to touch. Chanyeol knows what he wants and he’s ready to do anything to get it. Baekhyun doesn’t know what he wants, doesn’t know how to get it. He doesn’t know how far he’d go to get it.
“Sometimes I miss the cage,” Baekhyun says. “It was a miserable life, but I didn’t have to make any choices.”
Chanyeol doesn’t understand how choices can be scary. How freedom could be scary. Both he and Baekhyun were able to leave their lives, their houses, their families, to chase this freedom, but then why is Baekhyun so afraid? What is he afraid of? The only limit is the sky, but he’s standing at the edge of the precipice, too afraid he’ll fall if he tries to jump, too scared to fly.
“Refusing to take a decision is in itself a decision,” he says, deciding he doesn’t care if Baekhyun will get mad.
“I told you I didn’t want advices.”
“I didn’t give you any. I just stated a truth.”
After that answer, they fight. Baekhyun storms away in a hurry after that. He calls the driver and slams the door in Chanyeol’s face when he tries to take him downstairs.
He’ll be angry for a while, probably, but Chanyeol can be patient. He knows Baekhyun will mull over what he said. He’ll chew every single word and he’ll digest them slowly. Chanyeol’s messages always take a long time to reach Baekhyun’s orbit and he takes even more time to answer. But Baekhyun will answer. He’s never been able to ignore Chanyeol.
They say patience is a virtue. It is. Chanyeol spent months waiting for Baekhyun to be ready for him, to be ready to fall in love with him. For some things, he’s still waiting. He can’t touch Baekhyun like he wants, he can’t say what he wants and he can’t shag him like he wants. But Chanyeol knows what he wants. And now he has Baekhyun, his own Byun Baekhyun, imperfect and human and Chanyeol’s boyfriend. Chanyeol couldn’t have wished for anything else.
Give him a little time, be patient, don’t lose sight of what you want. You want him and he’ll come back to you in the right time. Don’t ever give up.
part 4 ->
A/N: ty for everyone who commented chapter 2, you’re the reason I’m still writing this fic and I love you all ;;;;;;;;; thank you for giving me strength!
- no update next sunday bc i’ll be visiting a friend without my laptop so bye
- if you have sent me a message and i haven’t replied wait a little more i’m just really busy
- please leave a comment if you liked it, do it for me ;;