sonder (2/2) [for fallaciesoffate]

[beefnbubbletea]

part one



London is close to a second home with the rustling sound of its traffic outside Jongin’s windows, reminding him of the passing cars outside his apartment when the night shivers. There’s this silence that engulfs the room when they first walk into it, their footsteps becoming muted echoes against the covered walls. There’s this silence save for the guttural sound that he produces when Jongin moans into his mouth, guiding him to walk backward. Sehun’s stomach churns at the reminder, but professionalism is one thing that he’s learned to maintain. At least, at the end of the day, the way Jongin’s fingers dig into the skin of his hips would never resemble the specific touch that he’s desperately been trying to preserve in his mind.

(It’s rotting, fading, but Sehun can still tell the blatant differences.)

When Jongin turns off the lights, he flinches. This isn’t Jongin’s habit, but there’s no question asked for when Sehun is about to part his lips, Jongin has closed the gap between them and pushed him to the bed. Trapped between limbs that barely prop Jongin from resting his weight on Sehun’s torso, Sehun is breathless, the sharp reminders of someone else’s carbon dioxide painting the air between their philtrums dissolving like swallowed pills in his mind.

There’s a breath caught in his throat when Jongin deepens the kiss, his nails sinking deeper as his other hand fumbles through the darkness to rest on Sehun’s cheek, caressing the contours with a thumb. The way Jongin straddles him etches something akin to discomfort. Jongin is inarguably one of his loyal customers with the numbers of hire; reciting his habits is engraved as Sehun’s second nature.

Jongin has always, always been rather impatient, but he suppresses that trait for most of the time. Tonight, he lets it loose.

There will be bruises that will persevere in the morning to ensure that his skin witnesses Jongin’s outbreak. Sehun is more than sure about that as he arches his neck further, fingers tangling among the strands of Jongin’s hair. There are noises spilling from his mouth, measured in the right proportion as to not turn Jongin off, and he dares to act braver by brushing his thigh against Jongin’s groin.

When Jongin trades his typically enduring progress for a much hastened and insistent session, Sehun knows that this might be more than just Jongin being in the mood for something more aggressive.

“Do you... have someone?” The question reveals more than Sehun needs, tinged with a hint of acid. Sehun winces, but in the dark he doubts Jongin can see it. He presses his body closer against the side of Jongin’s frame, careful as to not agitate his aching spine.

The night grows weary and the traffic outside dies down to a long interval. For Sehun, the moment between a car and the other drags on, prolonged like the pause that wedges itself as Sehun ruminates over his choices.

There’s a line between his private and professional lives; one which many if not most of his customers fail to appreciate.

(Jongin might be the worst offender.)

He licks the seam of his lower lip before pressing the tiers together, hoping to find a string of words that will appease Jongin’s interest while remaining discreet about it. His head, however, has its own accord, and so does his tongue.

“Probably,” his voice sounds distant and doubtful. He expects Jongin to not catch the honesty that traces his tone, but he also knows best how intuitive Jongin is.

Jongin hums, as though accepting the answer, but when he wraps his arm tighter around Sehun’s shoulders and presses more kisses on Sehun’s face, he knows that Jongin’s well-kept jealousy is on the verge of spilling.

Jongin sends him to the airport before work in his sleek black Vanquish, ensuring that he spends his last moment with Sehun wisely. The unwritten work contract never states when his work would be over, but Sehun assumes that once he walks into the confines of the airport, that’s where he’s fulfilled his tasks. Everything before that is still within the discretion of his customers, and so when Jongin stops the car when they’re already drawing near to the airport, he doesn’t say anything.

However, it would be a lie if he said that there isn’t any urge to speak, to tell Jongin that it might be better for him to not indulge too much in their last meeting. Last, because Sehun cannot take the unrequited feelings anymore. It’s where he should cut the line when it comes to his customers.

The quiet persists as Jongin’s fingers catch Sehun’s chin, making him turn his face gently so that those full lips can meet Sehun’s. He still tastes like coffee and toast against Sehun’s mouth, and Sehun is glad that Jongin takes his coffee incredibly sweet. There’s only so much of a secondhand memento that he can take within these two days.

He involuntarily stiffens when Jongin’s lips travel to the underside of his jaw, ghostly breaths that sweep against his skin reminding him too much of that someone. Jongin frowns, pulling himself away with the new bruise half-formed on Sehun’s neck, but he doesn’t say anything as he returns his gaze to the road ahead of them.

The rest of the drive is smothered with stillness.

Sehun spends the rest of his time with Jongin mulling over his tacit mistake, wondering if an apology would be appropriate. He deems that there’s no place for it yet amidst the soft humming sound of the car engine, but when the car eventually comes to a stop at the airport’s parking lot, Jongin doesn’t really give him the opportunity to say it. He kills the engine and exits the car before Sehun does, opening the trunk to unload the single suitcase that Sehun always brings whenever he goes.

He lets the deafening emotions that Jongin emits sink into his bones before he opens the door and quits the vehicle. He follows Jongin as the younger male takes long strides towards the entrance, dragging Sehun’s suitcase with him.

Maybe Lu Han is right about the fact that Sehun is only famous in the industry for being a beautiful face. There’s no substance in him, no sweet nothings hanging on the tip of his tongue. His mouth is always numb from the weighting silence, stifling. Awkward pauses and stilted conversations are his forte no matter how much he’s improved within these years, and this instance is no exception.

There’s still no apology even after they arrive in front of the sliding doors. Jongin hands the suitcase over to the owner with a stiff smile sitting on his lips. The corners of Sehun’s lips haven’t gotten the chance to fully return the gesture when Jongin pulls him into an embrace, overwhelming Sehun in the suddenness of the action. It takes him some more seconds to lift his own arms and wrap them around Jongin’s frame, burying his nose against Jongin’s shoulder in an attempt for feigned intimacy.

When he looks up, a sliver of someone passes by. Déjà vu strikes his cords and Sehun nearly stumbles backward, but Jongin’s arms are still around him, almost too possessive for his liking. He gasps, hands resting on Jongin’s shoulders to wedge a gap between them as panic rises within. There’s a curl of an apologetic smile, but Sehun isn’t certain if there’s a smidgen of truth in the exhibited feelings.

Again, the figure has become nothing but a wisp of dust when he looks around.

“I’m... sorry,” he murmurs, pulling away completely from the obviously crestfallen customer. Jongin’s lips are pursed into a frown, but there’s no objection announced so Sehun assumes that he’s still safe. “I-I have to go. I’m running late.”

There’s still nothing said when Jongin presses a soft, lingering kiss on the corner of his lips, causing Sehun to stiffen. There’s still nothing said when Jongin breaks his hardened expression into that of a complacent smile, as though the burden that he just showed previously means nothing.

If it’s up to Sehun to decode that smile, he’d like to think that it’s because Jongin knows.

The restlessness persists and he spends his time in the airport looking around, almost too desperately, scanning the crowd for a waft of silver hair and rimmed eyes. There’s none; nothing until he’s in the toilet and someone pulls him into one of the stalls, caging him between arms. There’s a series of frenetic heartbeats knocking against his sternum. Half of Baekhyun’s face is covered by a black masker but Sehun spots the crinkles on his temples to tell that Baekhyun is smiling, and he anticipates nothing but questions regarding what Baekhyun saw outside the airport earlier this morning.

“Got time for me?” he asks, lilting.

Sehun doesn’t need to answer that to end up being pulled to the bed in a hotel room, straddling Baekhyun’s legs as a hand rests on the nape of his neck, pressing the kiss deeper despite the dire need for oxygen. His own hand stays on Baekhyun’s cheek, thumb caressing the prominent bone. It doesn’t take long for him to muster the courage to brush his pelvis against Baekhyun’s, soliciting friction from the contact despite the layers still attached in-between.

They forgot to turn on the heater and the spring air that permeates into the room causes Sehun to shudder once Baekhyun sheds the last of his clothing. Tremors run through his spine but he doesn’t have it in him to stop Baekhyun from nipping at the skin of his neck, inflicting bruises that remind him of the importance to turn the lights off. He tenses a little under Baekhyun’s touch, but masks it as a surprise from how Baekhyun sinks his teeth into his skin. Worries seep into him at the reminder of the blossoming inklings that Jongin has left, but he knows that it’s too late to ask Baekhyun to turn off the lights.

There’s no question asked, no comment spilled. Sehun assumes that it means safety.

He knows he’s missing his flight again when he’s on his knees with Baekhyun in his mouth, hot and heavy. Baekhyun’s hand is musing with his hair, guiding him to maintain the pace as he moves his head back and forth, ensuring that it’s not too slow yet not too fast. The same hand also leads his movement when he sinks into Baekhyun, languid at first to adjust Sehun into finding the pain pleasurable. Nobody has been as gentle with him for as long as he could remember, sessions hurried into a one-sided pleasure mill.

He knows he’s missed his flight again but he doesn’t bother ordering another ticket. Seoul doesn’t taste like home anymore when he’s missing this piece of his life.

(The definition of home is never, ever a place.)

When he presses his body against Baekhyun’s with his head lying on Baekhyun’s chest to indulge himself in the warm thud, thud, thud, slumber beckons but he doesn’t wish to fall asleep just yet. Not when Baekhyun is still awake, hand stroking Sehun’s arm.

“What are we?” Baekhyun’s voice eventually fissures the silence, quiet enough not to shatter it completely.

Sehun’s heart rate escalates at that, and he’s tempted to shift his position so that Baekhyun won’t be able to feel the drumming rhythm against his skin.

“I... don’t know,” he replies after a pause.

When Sehun looks up, Baekhyun is smiling a smile too cryptic to decipher.

“I like you.” There’s a skip of beat in Sehun’s chest. “I really like you.”

The hammering motion follows after the lapse, knocking against Sehun’s sternum. And it dawns on him, the feelings that rim his beating heart softly, the tender edges that overflow him with emotions. The emotions that make him feel so full he feels like being filled to the neck with liquid gentleness. He feels like choking from everything that’s good-everything that’s incredibly overwhelming that he thinks he’s on the verge of detonating.

Baekhyun’s eyes are on him when he looks up, almost too serene for someone who expects something in return. (Or maybe he doesn’t.)

There are words, waiting to be enunciated in return to the confession. There are words but he’s vacillating, not from the feelings, but from the certainty of them. He’s so sure he’s unsure that he can do the words justice, the feelings justice.

Instead, Sehun pushes himself upward, leveling his head with Baekhyun’s so that he can press butterfly kisses along the seam of Baekhyun’s lips until those lips curl into a smile.

“Are you going back to Seoul?”

A suitcase. A ticket between the pages of his passport. It’s all too familiar for Sehun that there are beads of annoyance, albeit miniscule, blossoming within. He doesn’t want to go, to shatter what little comfort that he’s gained from knowing that he’s in safe hands.

He smiles ruefully at Baekhyun, thumb rubbing circles around the back of Baekhyun’s hand. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Where are you going?”

“New York.” His reply is indifferent, and that hits Sehun. Maybe he’s overreacting, maybe he’s being childish-Sehun doesn’t know, doesn’t care. All that he understands is that it throbs painfully against his ribcage.

“Ah,” he hesitates for a moment but his hand has surpassed him, squeezing Baekhyun’s hand in a tacit plea. “Would it... Would you come with me? Just once. Or... I can come with you.”

Baekhyun’s lips part almost right away, but he closes them again, as though swallowing the words that have been on the tip of his tongue. “You can’t,” he shakes his head, regrets lining his tone. “And I can’t come with you. It’s... this relationship... would be better off being kept in this place for now.”

It’s a simple stab with a solid twist in Sehun’s chest, and he can’t help having the emotions bleed all across his features. Baekhyun is quick to try salvaging the situation, resting his hand on Sehun’s cheek with an apologetic look donned, but that doesn’t appease Sehun much.

“Are you... ashamed of me?” he asks, voice almost swallowed by the deluge of voices around them.

“Ashamed?” Baekhyun sounds almost too surprised. “Sehun, no, no. Not at all.” His thumb rubs across Sehun’s cheekbone. Sehun could almost spot hurt flashed over the normally composed demeanor. “It’s just... Things are more complicated on my end. I’ll... call you, all right? We’ll exchange numbers. I’ll explain when things get better. I’m sorry.”

Sehun presses his lips into a thin line. He knows he has no other choice but to nod.

When he walks through the gate without Baekhyun, he feels emptier than he has ever been within the past months-the kind of empty that can’t be satiated regardless of how many cigarettes he would smoke under the garish street lights.

There’s no phone call for two days, and the number written on Sehun’s phone remains inactive until his screen lights up with a notification of an incoming call that evening, when he’s on his third cigarette of the day. He hurriedly stubs the remainder on the ashtray, apartment still smelling like carcinogen as he paces back into his room to receive the call.

“Sehun,” the distant voice sighs in relief, the sound of traffic clear behind Baekhyun.

“Hyung,” and he’s certain that the hints of despair have seeped into his tone. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been good. How about you? Are you in Seoul?”

“I’ve been good too, and yes, I’m in Seoul. Where are you?”

“Paris,” he chuckles tersely. “We’ve never really been in the same place, have we?”

Sehun hums in agreement, edge of bitterness flitting through the sound.

At the end of their first phone call, no explanation is given, still.

His meeting with Lu Han this time is unprecedented and without any occasion; one minute he receives a text and the next minute he’s already sitting in the usual café, waiting for Lu Han to show up. When the man finally does, he’s appearing as pristine as normal in the wrap of designer clothes, taking off his sunglasses once he settles himself on the seat across Sehun. Sehun doesn’t waste time before he throws Lu Han a questioning look.

Lu Han gives him a smile, before wringing his fingers together atop the table. “It’s been a long time, Sehun. You look... well.”

“Do I?” There’s a crook of a smile hanging on an edge of his lips, knowing.

Lu Han only nods in answer. There’s an unsettling silence that hums in-between, and when Lu Han breaks it, Sehun stiffens. “You’ve... grown. As an escort, I mean,” he starts. “Kim Seungjun. Heard of that name?”

“He’s my newest client,” Sehun’s reply is almost too quiet for his own ears.

Lu Han watches him with disclosed interests, as though Sehun was someone new who had caught his attention. “Of course,” he says after clacking his tongue against the palate of his mouth. “Of course he is.”

“Hyung? What’s wrong with him?”

“Just... be careful, all right? That man isn’t your average client.” Lu Han’s warning is soaked with mysteries, ones that Sehun isn’t certain if he wants to discover.

He parts his lips, about to inquire further, but Lu Han has looked down to scan the menu instead, indicating that the topic is closed.

The static drizzle that pelted the full-length windows of the hotel room is the only thing that he remembered before falling into the lull of slumber, and when he awakens, his bones sore with the reminders of the night that he has passed between Kim Seungjun’s fingers. Sheets tangled between his legs, he sighs against the man’s skin and presses a single kiss on the man’s chest to convey the feigned adoration that he’s learned to don with professionalism. He traces idle patterns across the tanned skin as the man stirs from slumber, humming when the same fingers muse with his hair, tugging the strands lightly.

He stops when Seungjun tilts his chin up for a kiss, and what he expects would be a transient kind of kiss deepens into that of a heated one. There’s something about the way Seungjun presses his lips against Sehun’s that renders it effortless for him to ease into a deeper gesture.

The crack, crack, crack sound jerks Sehun awake from the haze of the kiss, and by the time he turns around to face the window, it’s already webbed with fissures.

It takes another split of a second for the window to turn into shards, littered on the floor, and another for someone to land atop the shards. Sehun gapes, trying to digest what’s happening but the masked man already lifts his gun, pointing it straight at him.

He thinks he’s dead.

He isn’t, for when the bullet travels within milliseconds and the silencer is smoking, he still stares. There’s a quiet gasp and a splatter of warmth on his side. Red drips from his temple to join the blossoming vermilion on the bed sheet.

When Sehun’s mind is swirled with vague explanations, the man is already gone from his sight.

This is when the monsters are no longer hiding under his bed. They come to play in his head at nights, toying with the loose threads that the masked man has left bare.

Some nights he would dream of Seungjun, tilting his chin up for a kiss. He would lose himself in the making out, lips locked with the man’s until he tastes less like saliva and more like rust, and by the time he detaches his lips, Seungjun has become nothing more than a corpse with a hole in his head-lips blue and gaping, eyes like reflecting glass.

Some nights he would dream of the masked man, the muzzle of his gun producing tendrils of smoke, and on Sehun’s shirt is a blotch of oxblood that doesn’t stop spreading. He sees himself through the reflection in the glasses attached to the man’s mask. His skin feels cold and he’s choking, the taste of dying pungent on the tip of his tongue. He’s losing more and more of his life, fractions of it dribbling away from the oozing wounds planted on his torso, and everything would become dark before he awakens.

There is copper tinting his tasting buds when he wakes up, the stark ceiling of his apartment feels less and less like home and more like a purgatory.

Some days he would like to think that it wasn’t real, that murder didn’t take place before his eyes and corrupt his mind with plaguing nightmares, but the slim scar on his temple says otherwise.

This is when he needs Baekhyun most, and when the man isn’t present at all. Another week has gone with unanswered calls, and Sehun remembers sitting in the bathroom at three in the morning, leaning against the toilet with the side of his head pressed against the porcelain, muttering, “Please, please, answer the call.”

There’s still no answer.

Lu Han is the only one who keeps him in check, ensuring that he still eats despite irregularly, that even though his sleeping pattern is wrecked from the nightmares he still gets some rest during the day. He spends the remainder of his hours trying to recuperate from the terror, texting frantic messages to someone who won’t reply along with the dying phone calls.

This is the ninth day since the tragedy in Osaka. His doorbell rings and he thinks Lu Han is playing tricks on him-he’s given the other male the duplicate to his apartment with the increased frequency of the male’s visits. He drags himself lazily out of bed, groaning. Feet sluggish, eyes still canopied with the weight of fatigue.

He doesn’t bother peeping through the hole.

When the door swings open, a familiar face swims into his vision, and he has to rub his eyes with the back of his hand to convince himself that this isn’t another dream with a chance of turning grotesque.

Baekhyun looks weary, shoulders sagged with the imposed burdens, and he looks as surprised as Sehun. Before Sehun could part his lips to ask the crucial question of where have you been, Baekhyun has already pushed him into the room in a hurry, expression doused in subtle panic.

The door is slammed shut with a resolute thud behind Baekhyun and Sehun winces, unsure of how to process the entire situation. Baekhyun doesn’t provide him any chance for questioning, however, immediately seizing him in a hug. There are Baekhyun’s steady yet paced breaths, tickling his neck as the older male buries his nose against the side of it. Sehun’s arms are limp on his sides. It takes him a while to move them to hug Baekhyun in return.

Baekhyun’s breathing turns into panting, and against Sehun’s chest, his drumming heartbeats knock.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Baekhyun whispers, voice erratic.

A second of lapse before he replies with a tentative, “Hyung?”

“I’m so sorry, Sehun,” he continues. “It was... I shouldn’t have done it. Not in front of you. I’m sorry.”

Their secrets eventually overlapped.

Sehun doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but there’s no patching up when it comes to his scarred psyche.

They’re sitting in Sehun’s living room, on the floor and across each other, each nursing a cup of coffee. There’s a long and unyielding silence that persists in the company of the traffic outside, until Baekhyun clears his throat.

“You shouldn’t... stay here, you know,” he speaks with his gaze fixed on his cup, voice hoarse as though from disuse although there were only minutes between now and his apologies. “The syndicate I work for, they have this strict policy on sparing no eyewitness. The police kept your identity safe but they knew there was an eyewitness.”

Another period of silence. It’s glaring, but Sehun needs his time to think. His eyes are trained on Baekhyun, on the way his blonde fringe falls and covers his face from Sehun’s view.

“So... are you... here to end me?”

His carefully arranged words lead Baekhyun to lift his gaze and stare straight at him for long seconds, before he sets his mug down to cup Sehun’s face with his hands, thumbs caressing the cheekbones.

“Sehun, when I said I really liked you, maybe what I truly meant was,” he swallows, “that I loved you.”

The words are ghosts to Sehun’s tongue. He stares back into Baekhyun’s eyes, trying to find any traces of lies, but there’s nothing but truth and sincerity.

If Baekhyun wanted to end him, Sehun figures that he wouldn’t have waited.

“I tried erasing your traces,” he sighs. “Deleted the footages. Deleted the data of your recent records abroad. But it’s about time that the syndicate catches up with us, so would you... trust me on this one?”

This is Sehun’s turn to swallow thickly, the saliva a lump in his parched throat.

“Please, Sehun. I don’t want to lose you.”

The definition of running for Baekhyun is far from crude. Sehun finds himself in an entirely new appearance, hair bleached in a dark shade that he hadn’t seen on him for months, sporting a face mask in the airport to ensure that nobody recognizes him. The name on his passport is Lee Minjun with US citizenship, and the name on Baekhyun’s passport is a blur that he barely remembers. Baekhyun himself is a stranger with the absence of kohl lining his eyes under the sweep of his dark red hair. Without the lines, Baekhyun’s eyes look tired.

The first night passes with his fingers threaded with Baekhyun’s, sleeping on a red eye flight with the side of his head pressed against Baekhyun’s shoulder. He stirs several times when he feels Baekhyun pressing his lips against the top of his forehead, but he pretends to remain asleep.

Their stop is a place in the US that Sehun has never visited before. He’s still hazed from the long flight when Baekhyun hauls their luggage from the conveyor belt and drags Sehun out of the airport via tugging at his wrist.

Scent of spring invades his senses when he exits the establishment, but Baekhyun doesn’t let him linger for too long, already heading towards where the car they’ve rented is. Baekhyun’s hold around his wrist is steel, fingers almost too cold for Sehun’s liking, but there’s no time to inquire regarding small details like that.

The drive is a long one, and there’s stifling silence that paints the atmosphere between them in the company of muted trepidation. Sehun keeps his hands to himself for a span of time, until he longs for that warmth again, fingers sneaking under the sweater to feel the skin of Baekhyun’s hip. A smile splinters Baekhyun’s lips, small but apparent, and it’s contagious. He places his hand there for as long as he can manage, caressing the expanse and rubbing his thumb across the contour.

Their destination is an apartment in an idyllic neighborhood block instead of what Sehun thought would be a hotel. When Baekhyun is unloading his clothes in the only bedroom, Sehun stands on the doorstep and throws him a questioning look that Baekhyun answers with a knowing smile.

“We’re starting a new life. Maybe just for a while, but it’s... don’t think of it as running, okay? We’ll make it through.”

Sehun doesn’t think of it as running when he’s lying in the bed with Baekhyun’s heartbeat pressed against his ear. He thinks of it as coming home.

Nightmares still grip at his reality. Smoking end of a rifle and a bloodied wound on Baekhyun’s chest-the unknown men have managed to catch up with them. Sometime during the dead hour of the night, he wakes up, panting. The only difference is how there’s now a pair of arms to pull him into an embrace, pushing his head against someone’s clavicle to calm his ragged breaths.

The Baekhyun he knew through the airport encounters feels like a stranger compared to the four-dimensional assassin who chose to stain his fingertips with red in exchange for survival.

With his fingers carding through Sehun’s hair and lips pressed against the peak of Sehun’s forehead occasionally, he’d tell his tales about a baby who was left for death in a hidden crook of Seoul, who spent his childhood and adolescence in an orphanage where he was bullied until he learned to defend himself, standing on a pair of puny and staggering feet. The boy found his home in the wrong hands, teaching himself to bathe himself in the touch of oxblood and love the smell of carnage to survive. He’d tell Sehun about his first smoke, his first kiss. Sex at the back of an alley, shoplifting with his release still staining partner’s teeth.

In return, Sehun would spill the citation of his memories; of scribbles on the juncture where the floorboards and walls met, of a comparison of heights between two brothers. Of Taeil running away from home when Sehun was barely twelve. Of father dying, of mother working herself to death. He would revisit his meeting with a pretty boy who offered to change his life around, to make use of his good looks to make money. Sex that tasted more like brambles pinpricking his spine than a bout of pleasure, sitting in the bathroom at three in the morning questioning his life choices with release still fresh in his mouth.

Sehun starts getting to know Baekhyun through how he folds his clothes neatly, parting their wardrobe into two separate spaces even though he would wear Sehun’s t-shirts instead of his. He starts getting to know Baekhyun through the way Baekhyun would loiter around the apartment only with a towel wrapped around his waist until an hour after shower. He starts getting to know Baekhyun through how Baekhyun would hug him from behind as Sehun makes coffee for two, arms sneaking underneath Sehun’s top to coil around Sehun’s naked stomach.

He starts getting to know Baekhyun through the I love you’s spelled underneath the safety of their blanket.

Sometimes in Sehun’s slumber, Baekhyun is still a man behind the balaclava, his gun dreaming of Sehun’s death.

Two weeks, and Sehun has gotten used to finding his nose against the crook of Baekhyun’s neck in the morning, inhaling the scent of the older male’s skin in the company of the smell of home.

Baekhyun is home.

Sehun doesn’t smoke anymore.

He slithers out of bed in silence on their sixteenth day in the apartment, the hues of morning filtering through the gaps of the blinds but Baekhyun is still lost in his sleep. He stifles a yawn as he pads across the small room and towards the door, heading to their kitchen to find that they’re running out of bread. He sighs, ruffling his already disheveled hair before turning the percolator on. The redolence of coffee is familiar, homey.

He’s stirring the milk in his coffee when the creak of the door tells him that Baekhyun is awake, followed by lazy and nearly noiseless footfalls across the kitchen. “Morning,” he hums against Sehun’s neck after pressing a lingering kiss on the nape, arms seizing Sehun’s torso in an embrace.

“Morning.” Sehun’s lips are a thin smile before he sips his coffee.

When his morning ends in the bed again, he isn’t entirely surprised. Baekhyun is sluggish at first as Sehun lies on the jumbled bed sheets, gentle fingers placed on Sehun’s hips. As the pace increases, Sehun finds Baekhyun’s name blossoming in his mouth and filling it to the brim, the noises he makes a bouquet of adoration for the older male.

His early afternoon is spent with him tracing idle patterns on Baekhyun’s chest with a finger.

Late afternoon, he’s out to buy some bread at the nearest convenience store.

He comes home to blood bruising the floor of his kitchen, and the cold mouth of a gun against his temple.