Limits Approaching Infinity, For capturedhear_t
Title: Limits Approaching Infinity
For: capturedhear_t
Pairing: Kris/Baekhyun
Rating: NC-17
Length: 3900 words
Summary: Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and the mind more troubled.
“Kris sends e-mails,” Chanyeol reminds him for the third time in the last hour as he’s staring down his cell phone, attempting to will it to ring.
“Yeah,” Baekhyun bites back, “he sends emails to everyone.”
Chanyeol shrugs, giving that I don’t understand you and your strict rules for relationships look he’s started using more and more regularly. Baekhyun would be mad if it weren’t justified. He supposes he is, in fact, creating overly high standards and letting himself get too clingy, too fast. It’s not as if he has a reason to worry or to be suspicious: Kris has a plane ticket back, Kris has a strict set of guidelines set by the company, Kris has never been anything but reliable.
But Baekhyun knows that there are ties that go deeper than sex, certainly deeper than fragile relationships constructed, haphazard, over the course of months of disparate forms of contact: weeks around each other punctuated by long stretches of absence, hazes of long phone calls interrupted by hasty fucking between packed schedules. He sees the myriad ways he could be replaced, pushed aside for things more important, and it scares him. They’ve been dating for three months, although Baekhyun sort of believes that the five months of build-up to that ought to count for something. None of that’s a terribly long time, but it feels lengthy and intense, with enough happening between them to make deep feelings seem more reasonable than not.
As if on cue, Baekhyun’s phone vibrates once, pauses, and then vibrates again. Chanyeol’s goes off only once, the obnoxious melody he’d set weeks ago for e-mails in an attempt to piss off Jongin blaring too loudly for the small, quiet space of their dorm room. He glances over at Baekhyun as he picks up his phone and Baekhyun tries to shove the giddiness bubbling up through him back down where it belongs. By Chanyeol’s standards, everything he’s done with regards to Kris’s absence has been strange; he doesn’t need to actively prove it. He clicks his phone on, the screen coming to life and displaying previews of two new messages, both from Kris. He clicks through; one is a group message, sent to everyone in EXO, while the other is addressed just to him. He scans the former quickly: Kris details the last few places he’s been to, explains a couple of things that he’s done, complains about the fans’ discovering him. It’s not terribly interesting, and, Baekhyun thinks, painfully duizhang Kris-like. He reads the next email more carefully, even if it’s less than half as long.
Kris says he misses him several times. He promises he will call when he has time and when he’s sure he won’t be listened in on. He says he’ll be home in two weeks. Baekhyun hits reply, because the part of him that’s screaming don’t look so desperate is overpowered by the one going Kris is actually awake and around the internet right now maybe you can have a conversation.
When Baekhyun hits send, Chanyeol is watching him. He shakes his head. Baekhyun wants to stick his tongue out at him, but he only does that when he’s sure there’s no truth in Chanyeol’s jibes.
Kris comes back exactly when he’d said he would, on the same flight as the ticket he’d shown Baekhyun the day before he left had advertised. He looks good. His hair is cut short and the circles under his eyes are gone, rather than concealed with make-up. He greets everyone in turn, going around the group, Baekhyun’s hug and smile coming in the middle, entirely unceremonious. He tries not to be bothered by that-everyone knows about their relationship, because Baekhyun hadn’t wanted to keep it secret and Kris had felt that dishonesty was wrong given his role-but he can’t help it. It would, maybe, be a little a little out of character for Kris to kiss him in front of everyone, since he’s always been overly diplomatic, but he’s been gone for around two months and it seems ridiculous to Baekhyun that he needs to be concerned with equality and leadership roles right now. But Baekhyun doesn’t say anything, lets it sit between them as they settle onto the couch, side by side, the other members falling into place around them.
Kris doesn’t touch Baekhyun for a long time, but when he finally settles a hand on Baekhyun’s knee Baekhyun feels the jolt of it spread out from the point of contact, consuming his leg. He looks at Kris and Kris looks at him, smiles, right in the middle of some nonsense conversation neither of them are really focusing on anymore, everyone’s attention drifting in and out at odd moments, leading to out of place replies.
There’s a glint of something in Kris’s smile, something that sits between an apology and desire, and Baekhyun’s too happy to be ashamed of the way it rushes through his body, arousal starting in the pit of his stomach and radiating outward, light but insistent. Kris must notice something, because his smile shifts minutely, the apology still there but the desire darker and stronger.
Baekhyun snakes an arm behind him on the couch, placing his hand on his hip and leaving it there, Kris shifting into the touch. The grip on his knee tightens and Baekhyun tries to re-focus on the conversation. Chanyeol and Yixing are arguing about music software, and Baekhyun slips himself easily into the discussion. Kris stays back until they start talking about something he’s more familiar with, latest episodes of TV series. Their bodies stay snug against each other while members start peeling off to go to bed, managers popping out occasionally to warn them about their 8AM rehearsals the next day. Around eleven, Kris glances at Baekhyun, eyebrows raised, and Baekhyun nods, long-building anticipation rising through him.
Chanyeol stays up late and has a bad habit of sleeping in places that aren’t his own room, falling asleep consistently in the living room, in Jongin and Kyungsoo’s room, even in the recording studio, so Baekhyun leads Kris to his room. Only about half the rest of the members are still in the living room, and Chanyeol yells “Get it!” loudly as the depart, Baekhyun raising his middle finger at him as he walks away.
Kris shuts the door behind him and turns to Baekhyun, pulling him into a hug and whispering “I missed you” before kissing him and walking them backwards. Baekhyun pulls them down when he knows his knees are about to hit the bed, bodies crashing beside one another, arms wrapping around shoulders and waists, fingers digging for patches of skin. Baekhyun climbs on top of Kris while they’re making out, frotting against him as he kisses down Kris’s neck, pulling the collar of his shirt aside to give him more space to mark.
When Kris reaches for the hem of his tee, Baekhyun takes over, yanking it up and over his head, tossing it aside before leaning down to pull Kris’s off, too. Kris’s body has always been a little soft, but it’s softer now and Baekhyun presses fingertips into his arms as he bites lightly down his chest. Kris’s tattoos aren’t the most artistic things Baekhyun’s seen, he thinks as he traces the scorpion with his hand while tonguing his nipple, Kris’s breath coming out in heavy, harsh puffs as he does, but he likes the concept of them, likes the way the dark ink cuts into his skin, contrasting against the roundness of his cheeks and his nearly undefined biceps. Baekhyun unzips Kris’s pants, hands sliding down his sides and coming round to settle at the buckle of his jeans, before reaching inside and stroking his dick slowly through his underwear. Kris isn’t loud during sex, never has been, but he moves a lot, hips jerking up as Baekhyun starts to strokes him off, fingers wrapped loosely around his dick, the outside of his fist rubbing against his own cock, too.
“Can I fuck you?” Kris asks against Baekhyun’s lips.
“Yes,” Baekhyun replies, and slides off both Kris and the bed.
Kris sits up to take his pants off, turning so his legs hang off the edge of the bed, Baekhyun shucking his own bottoms off after he grabs lube and a condom. Settling himself back over Kris, Baekhyun places one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his upper thigh as Kris lubes his fingers and slips one slowly into Baekhyun. He hasn’t had sex since a couple of days before Kris left, doesn’t really like fingering himself all that much, so the fit is tight, at first, but Kris slides in a second after a couple minutes, his body adjusting and the kisses he presses to Kris’s lips getting sloppier.
“Can I ride you?”
Kris nods and pulls back, reaching for the condom packet and rolling it on. Baekhyun takes his cock and positions himself over it, sitting slowly on it and letting it get most of the way in before pulling up again, hands settling on Kris’s chest. Kris jerks up to meet him as they fuck, movements swift and desperate, lips wet and mouths wide open against each other’s. Baekhyun moans when Kris wraps a hand around his cock and starts stroking, movements erratic, and Kris comes quicker than Baekhyun expects, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut, one hand stilling on Baekhyun’s dick and the other pressed tight into his side. Baekhyun pulls off of him and curls up against his body, sweaty and warm, trailing kisses along his jaw while Kris reaches between them to jerk him off. He digs his fingers into Kris’s chest and frots into his hand, coming hard onto his stomach, turning over onto his back as fast as he can so he doesn’t ruin his sheets.
“I missed you,” Kris says after they’ve brushed their teeth and shut off the lights, Chanyeol evidently resigned to his fate and conked out on the couch. Baekhyun nuzzles against Kris as he speaks, nose pressed against the side of his chest, one leg thrown over his.
“I missed you too,” he replies, expecting conversation to start from there. It doesn’t. Kris falls silent and then falls asleep, breathing even and slow, and Baekhyun snuggles closer to him, trying to absorb his warmth and convince himself that Kris is just tired, just jet-lagged, but it feels almost as if Baekhyun’s worries are, maybe, more grounded in reality than he had thought.
The whole group shifts into high gear following Kris’s return, focused entirely on preparations for their impending comeback, now set for the end of May. Their days are spent shuttling from rehearsal to event to rehearsal to rehearsal to dorm, grueling schedules punctuated by mind-numbing van rides and spotty patches of sleep.
Baekhyun finds himself chronically exhausted, prioritizing what little rest he can get over food, which the scale in their bathroom reminds him of daily. They move dorms a few weeks in, to one with fewer but larger rooms, Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s previously tiny bedroom expanding to include Minseok and Zitao. He doesn’t mind the change, mostly because it means that there’s a semi-constant hum in the room, Minseok video chatting with friends from home, Zitao listening to rap music just a little too loudly for the headphones he’s got on. It brings some normalcy and routine to the insanity of their schedule, and keeps Baekhyun’s mind from wandering as much as it often threatens to.
He doesn’t really have the time or energy to expend on worrying, but he somehow manages to find it anyway, every moment of quiet a cause for his brain to resort to thinking about Kris and the way Kris’s absence, even if he’s physically present again, hasn’t really stopped. Baekhyun knows it’s not really his fault: he’s even more overworked than the rest of them, with half as much time to try and bend his gawky limbs into shape to pull off the absurdities of their comeback choreography. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t figure out ways to spend time alone: eating a meal in Kris’s room instead of with the whole group, cuddling a little before the manager Kris shares his room with knocks on the door to come in and sleep or call his girlfriend, hanging out a little late in the studio, relaxing and making out lazily against the mirrors for half an hour. They’re all things they’ve resorted to in the past, they’re all straightforward and simple, but Kris stalks off, alone, once they’re done working in a group or eating, never offering anything.
The disconcerting thing, to Baekhyun, is that he’s not entirely unaffectionate. When they’re sitting side by side on the couch, Kris lets him snuggle in close, an arm resting loosely over his shoulders, a hand settled in his hair, maybe even pressing a kiss to his forehead every once in a while. Baekhyun clings to those moments, even if they’re far from private and far from enough for them to be terribly meaningful. At the same time, he detests them, because they tend to come just when he’s worrying the most, when he’s considering confronting Kris, and they lull him into complacency, into a sense of security he hopes isn’t entirely false. He thinks he sees, still, that glimmer of apology dance on Kris’s face, sometimes, when he reaches out for him, but it’s weak and rare, buffeted into reality only by the warmth of Kris’s fingers stroking his scalp or his knee pressed tight against his.
They get a day off late in April, between the last day of packed rehearsal schedules and the start of their album photo shoots. Everyone sleeps in, Kris the last to wake up at two in the afternoon, padding groggily into the kitchen while Chanyeol pokes fun at the fluffy slippers he’s wearing. Baekhyun giggles along partly because it’s funny and partly because he doesn’t want to be the odd one out here, doesn’t want to draw attention to his disappointment. The squeezing tension of anxiety and being let down swells up in him, like it tends to do whenever Kris is around, lately, and he tries to push it away but it stays there, heavy and constricting in his chest.
Kris makes himself a sandwich and joins the group of them who’re lounging in the living room, Baekhyun making room for him on the couch when he smiles, still tired, and makes a beeline for it. His anxiety recedes, a little, especially when Kris pulls him close, arm slung across his shoulders, and kisses his forehead. Chanyeol and Sehun are playing video games, Jongdae sprawled across the other couch, heckling them. Baekhyun had been bugging them, too, but Kris’s presence distracts him. Even if he tries to focus on everything else going on around him, he can’t dedicate all his attention to it, a significant portion of his mind refusing to pull away from Kris, from the warmth of his touches and the rise and fall of his chest, the way his throat constricts when he swallows bites of the sandwich he’s eating.
They sit like that for about an hour, Kris eating his sandwich slowly and occasionally offering Baekhyun bites of it. He knows they’re being kind of gross and cute, but no one’s complaining so Baekhyun doesn’t worry about it. What he does worry about is how uncomfortable he is. He’s calm and relaxed but there’s something off, something putting him on edge again. When Kris asks him if he wants to hang out somewhere else he acquiesces, but his stomach hurts a little and his hand doesn’t seem to fit as easily into Kris’s as it normally does.
They make out on Kris’s bed but Baekhyun pulls back more quickly than normal, dizzy and turned on but unhappy.
“What’s wrong?” Kris asks, the look in eyes so present, so unaware of anything prior to this moment that Baekhyun bolts up. He had expected that apology, that glimmer that he’d seen last time, but it’s not there, not at all, and that makes his throat squeeze tight and his mind suddenly focus.
“I can’t. I can’t do this,” Baekhyun replies, gesturing vaguely at the space between them. Kris doesn’t say anything, just looks confused, and Baekhyun can’t move. He doesn’t know why he opened his mouth, why he didn’t just let things happen and then confront Kris after, when they were both calm and happy. He supposes, though, that he wouldn’t have felt very well, then, that he would’ve been just as displeased and uncomfortable, that post-orgasm fatigue would’ve been nothing but a mask over the way he actually feels, the way he’s been feeling for longer than he cares to think about.
“Baekhyun?” Kris asks after a moment, “What’s wrong?”
Baekhyun shakes his head, still standing. “I just… you. You’re never around.”
Kris sighs. “You know just as well as anyone that I’ve got way too much on my plate right now. I would come see you more but I just… it’s hard to find time.”
“It wasn’t hard to find time before.”
“We weren’t preparing for a comeback I’m behind on before.”
“I think you just cared more before,” Baekhyun says, the words out of his mouth before he can regret them. “Being tired isn’t an excuse for not even trying.”
Kris falls silent again, and Baekhyun doesn’t look at him. He’s probably angry, probably trying to calm himself down enough to tell Baekhyun off in the reserved manner he always uses, his emotions forcefully covered up and controlled. He doesn’t speak for a long time, just sits on his bed while Baekhyun stands across from him, fists pressed tight into his legs, eyes boring a hole through the wall next to Kris’s bed, where there’s a picture of Kris in high school, goofing off with a bunch of boys in matching uniforms.
“I’m sorry,” Kris says, voice quiet, “I didn’t realize it bothered you so much. I figured you were tired and busy, too.”
Baekhyun wants to feel relieved, wants to accept that, but he can’t bring himself to. The more he thinks, the more he feels like Kris is making excuses, relying on something convenient to avoid confronting him, the way he’s been doing, the way he’s determined to stop doing.
“How did you not realize?”
Kris looks taken aback when Baekhyun lets his gaze travel back to him. “I… I don’t see you much. You seem okay usually.”
And that hurts, that hurts Baekhyun more than anything he’s heard Kris say, maybe ever. He takes a deep breath, says softly, “OK,” the anger controlled in his voice, and walks out, straight to the door of their apartment, where he yanks on a sweatshirt he thinks is his and pulls on his shoes.
He goes to a convenience store to buy cigarettes and a lighter then keeps walking, make-up-less face and hoodie-covered hair blending easily into the crowds of people making their way through Seoul. He used to smoke, before he was a trainee and they forbid him, for image control and for his voice, but he hasn’t done it in ages, and the first hit of nicotine rushes through him, fast and relaxing, his body unfurling into the sensation, pace slowing as he exhales, a thin stream of smoke blowing up into the air above him. He wanders through the streets of the city, no particular purpose or destination in mind. He thinks that maybe he just wants to feel better, wants to burn off the tension and unhappiness in cigarette smoke and the squeak of his sneakers on asphalt. It works, to a degree: by the time he’s hungry for dinner and he’s sure he’s got a lot of unanswered texts waiting for him on the phone he left sitting in his room, he does feel better. Not a hundred percent, not even close, but the rush of anger is gone, and so is the tension of dishonesty, replaced instead with a vague sort of sadness that’s somehow more manageable, more understandable, because at least now he knows where it’s coming from.
He and Kris avoid each other for a week and a half. Chanyeol sort of tries to ask him about it, but he’s characteristically incoherent when he does, never having been one for talking about feelings, and Baekhyun manages to weasel his way out of saying anything in particular. He’s trying, mostly, to figure out what he wants to do: break up? Confront him again and try and talk things through and make up? Hope that Kris has learned his lesson and is going to change, going to carve out little spaces of time for him? The last is the easiest, he knows, and he’s tempted to take it, but he refuses to let himself because he doesn’t quite trust Kris just now, knows that, if he’s as hell bent on ignoring him as he seems to be, he might not understand what’s wrong with his behavior, how much it really, really bothers Baekhyun.
It takes another week of mulling to work himself up to it, but several days before their music video drops, Baekhyun pulls Kris aside after rehearsal and they sit down, side by side, in one of the empty practice rooms, a small one that won’t be used after ten at night, intended only for one on one vocal instruction.
“So,” Baekhyun says before Kris can start talking and make him change his mind, “I was really hurt by… everything that’s happened the last few months. Like I know you had family stuff to deal with and that’s fine, you had to deal with that and I understand. I think that was the time when I was overreacting, but then you came back and it was like you hadn’t, like you were still 16 time zones away. And that… I can’t date someone who can’t tell I’m unhappy and who thinks it’s ok to not talk about how we’re going to approach problems.”
Kris nods, slowly. He looks about ready to apologize, but he catches Baekhyun’s eye and holds back. “I… I understand. I’ve been thinking about it, the last three weeks.”
Kris is staring at his hands now, folding and unfolding them. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to do that, but it doesn’t change that I did. I care about you a lot, and I’ve been really caught up in a lot of things lately. But that doesn’t mean I can… ignore you.”
“I’m not asking for us to go on fancy dates all the time. Just, you know, sit around and talk for half an hour after practice. Do this, just not about… bad stuff. You know. You remember what we did when we were busy before you left.”
Kris nods again, and Baekhyun pulls him into a hug. He’d told himself he wouldn’t forgive Kris easily, but the remorse is almost radiating off him, dripping from every word and every gesture, and Baekhyun can’t help himself. He wants him to feel better, to know that yes, he screwed up, but that Baekhyun’s willing to give second chances to those who deserve them, that Kris certainly deserves one. He’ll have to work to earn his trust back, but he’s ready to let him try, ready to have him back in his life.
They leave the practice room together, smile bright on Baekhyun’s face, fingers wrapped tight around Kris’s arm. The manager Kris shares his room with has a night off, so they head there immediately, tumbling into Kris’s bed, hands roaming, warm and desperate, thanks yous and whispered between them with every silent touch, every heaving breath, every smile.
For: capturedhear_t
Pairing: Kris/Baekhyun
Rating: NC-17
Length: 3900 words
Summary: Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and the mind more troubled.
“Kris sends e-mails,” Chanyeol reminds him for the third time in the last hour as he’s staring down his cell phone, attempting to will it to ring.
“Yeah,” Baekhyun bites back, “he sends emails to everyone.”
Chanyeol shrugs, giving that I don’t understand you and your strict rules for relationships look he’s started using more and more regularly. Baekhyun would be mad if it weren’t justified. He supposes he is, in fact, creating overly high standards and letting himself get too clingy, too fast. It’s not as if he has a reason to worry or to be suspicious: Kris has a plane ticket back, Kris has a strict set of guidelines set by the company, Kris has never been anything but reliable.
But Baekhyun knows that there are ties that go deeper than sex, certainly deeper than fragile relationships constructed, haphazard, over the course of months of disparate forms of contact: weeks around each other punctuated by long stretches of absence, hazes of long phone calls interrupted by hasty fucking between packed schedules. He sees the myriad ways he could be replaced, pushed aside for things more important, and it scares him. They’ve been dating for three months, although Baekhyun sort of believes that the five months of build-up to that ought to count for something. None of that’s a terribly long time, but it feels lengthy and intense, with enough happening between them to make deep feelings seem more reasonable than not.
As if on cue, Baekhyun’s phone vibrates once, pauses, and then vibrates again. Chanyeol’s goes off only once, the obnoxious melody he’d set weeks ago for e-mails in an attempt to piss off Jongin blaring too loudly for the small, quiet space of their dorm room. He glances over at Baekhyun as he picks up his phone and Baekhyun tries to shove the giddiness bubbling up through him back down where it belongs. By Chanyeol’s standards, everything he’s done with regards to Kris’s absence has been strange; he doesn’t need to actively prove it. He clicks his phone on, the screen coming to life and displaying previews of two new messages, both from Kris. He clicks through; one is a group message, sent to everyone in EXO, while the other is addressed just to him. He scans the former quickly: Kris details the last few places he’s been to, explains a couple of things that he’s done, complains about the fans’ discovering him. It’s not terribly interesting, and, Baekhyun thinks, painfully duizhang Kris-like. He reads the next email more carefully, even if it’s less than half as long.
Kris says he misses him several times. He promises he will call when he has time and when he’s sure he won’t be listened in on. He says he’ll be home in two weeks. Baekhyun hits reply, because the part of him that’s screaming don’t look so desperate is overpowered by the one going Kris is actually awake and around the internet right now maybe you can have a conversation.
When Baekhyun hits send, Chanyeol is watching him. He shakes his head. Baekhyun wants to stick his tongue out at him, but he only does that when he’s sure there’s no truth in Chanyeol’s jibes.
Kris comes back exactly when he’d said he would, on the same flight as the ticket he’d shown Baekhyun the day before he left had advertised. He looks good. His hair is cut short and the circles under his eyes are gone, rather than concealed with make-up. He greets everyone in turn, going around the group, Baekhyun’s hug and smile coming in the middle, entirely unceremonious. He tries not to be bothered by that-everyone knows about their relationship, because Baekhyun hadn’t wanted to keep it secret and Kris had felt that dishonesty was wrong given his role-but he can’t help it. It would, maybe, be a little a little out of character for Kris to kiss him in front of everyone, since he’s always been overly diplomatic, but he’s been gone for around two months and it seems ridiculous to Baekhyun that he needs to be concerned with equality and leadership roles right now. But Baekhyun doesn’t say anything, lets it sit between them as they settle onto the couch, side by side, the other members falling into place around them.
Kris doesn’t touch Baekhyun for a long time, but when he finally settles a hand on Baekhyun’s knee Baekhyun feels the jolt of it spread out from the point of contact, consuming his leg. He looks at Kris and Kris looks at him, smiles, right in the middle of some nonsense conversation neither of them are really focusing on anymore, everyone’s attention drifting in and out at odd moments, leading to out of place replies.
There’s a glint of something in Kris’s smile, something that sits between an apology and desire, and Baekhyun’s too happy to be ashamed of the way it rushes through his body, arousal starting in the pit of his stomach and radiating outward, light but insistent. Kris must notice something, because his smile shifts minutely, the apology still there but the desire darker and stronger.
Baekhyun snakes an arm behind him on the couch, placing his hand on his hip and leaving it there, Kris shifting into the touch. The grip on his knee tightens and Baekhyun tries to re-focus on the conversation. Chanyeol and Yixing are arguing about music software, and Baekhyun slips himself easily into the discussion. Kris stays back until they start talking about something he’s more familiar with, latest episodes of TV series. Their bodies stay snug against each other while members start peeling off to go to bed, managers popping out occasionally to warn them about their 8AM rehearsals the next day. Around eleven, Kris glances at Baekhyun, eyebrows raised, and Baekhyun nods, long-building anticipation rising through him.
Chanyeol stays up late and has a bad habit of sleeping in places that aren’t his own room, falling asleep consistently in the living room, in Jongin and Kyungsoo’s room, even in the recording studio, so Baekhyun leads Kris to his room. Only about half the rest of the members are still in the living room, and Chanyeol yells “Get it!” loudly as the depart, Baekhyun raising his middle finger at him as he walks away.
Kris shuts the door behind him and turns to Baekhyun, pulling him into a hug and whispering “I missed you” before kissing him and walking them backwards. Baekhyun pulls them down when he knows his knees are about to hit the bed, bodies crashing beside one another, arms wrapping around shoulders and waists, fingers digging for patches of skin. Baekhyun climbs on top of Kris while they’re making out, frotting against him as he kisses down Kris’s neck, pulling the collar of his shirt aside to give him more space to mark.
When Kris reaches for the hem of his tee, Baekhyun takes over, yanking it up and over his head, tossing it aside before leaning down to pull Kris’s off, too. Kris’s body has always been a little soft, but it’s softer now and Baekhyun presses fingertips into his arms as he bites lightly down his chest. Kris’s tattoos aren’t the most artistic things Baekhyun’s seen, he thinks as he traces the scorpion with his hand while tonguing his nipple, Kris’s breath coming out in heavy, harsh puffs as he does, but he likes the concept of them, likes the way the dark ink cuts into his skin, contrasting against the roundness of his cheeks and his nearly undefined biceps. Baekhyun unzips Kris’s pants, hands sliding down his sides and coming round to settle at the buckle of his jeans, before reaching inside and stroking his dick slowly through his underwear. Kris isn’t loud during sex, never has been, but he moves a lot, hips jerking up as Baekhyun starts to strokes him off, fingers wrapped loosely around his dick, the outside of his fist rubbing against his own cock, too.
“Can I fuck you?” Kris asks against Baekhyun’s lips.
“Yes,” Baekhyun replies, and slides off both Kris and the bed.
Kris sits up to take his pants off, turning so his legs hang off the edge of the bed, Baekhyun shucking his own bottoms off after he grabs lube and a condom. Settling himself back over Kris, Baekhyun places one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his upper thigh as Kris lubes his fingers and slips one slowly into Baekhyun. He hasn’t had sex since a couple of days before Kris left, doesn’t really like fingering himself all that much, so the fit is tight, at first, but Kris slides in a second after a couple minutes, his body adjusting and the kisses he presses to Kris’s lips getting sloppier.
“Can I ride you?”
Kris nods and pulls back, reaching for the condom packet and rolling it on. Baekhyun takes his cock and positions himself over it, sitting slowly on it and letting it get most of the way in before pulling up again, hands settling on Kris’s chest. Kris jerks up to meet him as they fuck, movements swift and desperate, lips wet and mouths wide open against each other’s. Baekhyun moans when Kris wraps a hand around his cock and starts stroking, movements erratic, and Kris comes quicker than Baekhyun expects, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut, one hand stilling on Baekhyun’s dick and the other pressed tight into his side. Baekhyun pulls off of him and curls up against his body, sweaty and warm, trailing kisses along his jaw while Kris reaches between them to jerk him off. He digs his fingers into Kris’s chest and frots into his hand, coming hard onto his stomach, turning over onto his back as fast as he can so he doesn’t ruin his sheets.
“I missed you,” Kris says after they’ve brushed their teeth and shut off the lights, Chanyeol evidently resigned to his fate and conked out on the couch. Baekhyun nuzzles against Kris as he speaks, nose pressed against the side of his chest, one leg thrown over his.
“I missed you too,” he replies, expecting conversation to start from there. It doesn’t. Kris falls silent and then falls asleep, breathing even and slow, and Baekhyun snuggles closer to him, trying to absorb his warmth and convince himself that Kris is just tired, just jet-lagged, but it feels almost as if Baekhyun’s worries are, maybe, more grounded in reality than he had thought.
The whole group shifts into high gear following Kris’s return, focused entirely on preparations for their impending comeback, now set for the end of May. Their days are spent shuttling from rehearsal to event to rehearsal to rehearsal to dorm, grueling schedules punctuated by mind-numbing van rides and spotty patches of sleep.
Baekhyun finds himself chronically exhausted, prioritizing what little rest he can get over food, which the scale in their bathroom reminds him of daily. They move dorms a few weeks in, to one with fewer but larger rooms, Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s previously tiny bedroom expanding to include Minseok and Zitao. He doesn’t mind the change, mostly because it means that there’s a semi-constant hum in the room, Minseok video chatting with friends from home, Zitao listening to rap music just a little too loudly for the headphones he’s got on. It brings some normalcy and routine to the insanity of their schedule, and keeps Baekhyun’s mind from wandering as much as it often threatens to.
He doesn’t really have the time or energy to expend on worrying, but he somehow manages to find it anyway, every moment of quiet a cause for his brain to resort to thinking about Kris and the way Kris’s absence, even if he’s physically present again, hasn’t really stopped. Baekhyun knows it’s not really his fault: he’s even more overworked than the rest of them, with half as much time to try and bend his gawky limbs into shape to pull off the absurdities of their comeback choreography. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t figure out ways to spend time alone: eating a meal in Kris’s room instead of with the whole group, cuddling a little before the manager Kris shares his room with knocks on the door to come in and sleep or call his girlfriend, hanging out a little late in the studio, relaxing and making out lazily against the mirrors for half an hour. They’re all things they’ve resorted to in the past, they’re all straightforward and simple, but Kris stalks off, alone, once they’re done working in a group or eating, never offering anything.
The disconcerting thing, to Baekhyun, is that he’s not entirely unaffectionate. When they’re sitting side by side on the couch, Kris lets him snuggle in close, an arm resting loosely over his shoulders, a hand settled in his hair, maybe even pressing a kiss to his forehead every once in a while. Baekhyun clings to those moments, even if they’re far from private and far from enough for them to be terribly meaningful. At the same time, he detests them, because they tend to come just when he’s worrying the most, when he’s considering confronting Kris, and they lull him into complacency, into a sense of security he hopes isn’t entirely false. He thinks he sees, still, that glimmer of apology dance on Kris’s face, sometimes, when he reaches out for him, but it’s weak and rare, buffeted into reality only by the warmth of Kris’s fingers stroking his scalp or his knee pressed tight against his.
They get a day off late in April, between the last day of packed rehearsal schedules and the start of their album photo shoots. Everyone sleeps in, Kris the last to wake up at two in the afternoon, padding groggily into the kitchen while Chanyeol pokes fun at the fluffy slippers he’s wearing. Baekhyun giggles along partly because it’s funny and partly because he doesn’t want to be the odd one out here, doesn’t want to draw attention to his disappointment. The squeezing tension of anxiety and being let down swells up in him, like it tends to do whenever Kris is around, lately, and he tries to push it away but it stays there, heavy and constricting in his chest.
Kris makes himself a sandwich and joins the group of them who’re lounging in the living room, Baekhyun making room for him on the couch when he smiles, still tired, and makes a beeline for it. His anxiety recedes, a little, especially when Kris pulls him close, arm slung across his shoulders, and kisses his forehead. Chanyeol and Sehun are playing video games, Jongdae sprawled across the other couch, heckling them. Baekhyun had been bugging them, too, but Kris’s presence distracts him. Even if he tries to focus on everything else going on around him, he can’t dedicate all his attention to it, a significant portion of his mind refusing to pull away from Kris, from the warmth of his touches and the rise and fall of his chest, the way his throat constricts when he swallows bites of the sandwich he’s eating.
They sit like that for about an hour, Kris eating his sandwich slowly and occasionally offering Baekhyun bites of it. He knows they’re being kind of gross and cute, but no one’s complaining so Baekhyun doesn’t worry about it. What he does worry about is how uncomfortable he is. He’s calm and relaxed but there’s something off, something putting him on edge again. When Kris asks him if he wants to hang out somewhere else he acquiesces, but his stomach hurts a little and his hand doesn’t seem to fit as easily into Kris’s as it normally does.
They make out on Kris’s bed but Baekhyun pulls back more quickly than normal, dizzy and turned on but unhappy.
“What’s wrong?” Kris asks, the look in eyes so present, so unaware of anything prior to this moment that Baekhyun bolts up. He had expected that apology, that glimmer that he’d seen last time, but it’s not there, not at all, and that makes his throat squeeze tight and his mind suddenly focus.
“I can’t. I can’t do this,” Baekhyun replies, gesturing vaguely at the space between them. Kris doesn’t say anything, just looks confused, and Baekhyun can’t move. He doesn’t know why he opened his mouth, why he didn’t just let things happen and then confront Kris after, when they were both calm and happy. He supposes, though, that he wouldn’t have felt very well, then, that he would’ve been just as displeased and uncomfortable, that post-orgasm fatigue would’ve been nothing but a mask over the way he actually feels, the way he’s been feeling for longer than he cares to think about.
“Baekhyun?” Kris asks after a moment, “What’s wrong?”
Baekhyun shakes his head, still standing. “I just… you. You’re never around.”
Kris sighs. “You know just as well as anyone that I’ve got way too much on my plate right now. I would come see you more but I just… it’s hard to find time.”
“It wasn’t hard to find time before.”
“We weren’t preparing for a comeback I’m behind on before.”
“I think you just cared more before,” Baekhyun says, the words out of his mouth before he can regret them. “Being tired isn’t an excuse for not even trying.”
Kris falls silent again, and Baekhyun doesn’t look at him. He’s probably angry, probably trying to calm himself down enough to tell Baekhyun off in the reserved manner he always uses, his emotions forcefully covered up and controlled. He doesn’t speak for a long time, just sits on his bed while Baekhyun stands across from him, fists pressed tight into his legs, eyes boring a hole through the wall next to Kris’s bed, where there’s a picture of Kris in high school, goofing off with a bunch of boys in matching uniforms.
“I’m sorry,” Kris says, voice quiet, “I didn’t realize it bothered you so much. I figured you were tired and busy, too.”
Baekhyun wants to feel relieved, wants to accept that, but he can’t bring himself to. The more he thinks, the more he feels like Kris is making excuses, relying on something convenient to avoid confronting him, the way he’s been doing, the way he’s determined to stop doing.
“How did you not realize?”
Kris looks taken aback when Baekhyun lets his gaze travel back to him. “I… I don’t see you much. You seem okay usually.”
And that hurts, that hurts Baekhyun more than anything he’s heard Kris say, maybe ever. He takes a deep breath, says softly, “OK,” the anger controlled in his voice, and walks out, straight to the door of their apartment, where he yanks on a sweatshirt he thinks is his and pulls on his shoes.
He goes to a convenience store to buy cigarettes and a lighter then keeps walking, make-up-less face and hoodie-covered hair blending easily into the crowds of people making their way through Seoul. He used to smoke, before he was a trainee and they forbid him, for image control and for his voice, but he hasn’t done it in ages, and the first hit of nicotine rushes through him, fast and relaxing, his body unfurling into the sensation, pace slowing as he exhales, a thin stream of smoke blowing up into the air above him. He wanders through the streets of the city, no particular purpose or destination in mind. He thinks that maybe he just wants to feel better, wants to burn off the tension and unhappiness in cigarette smoke and the squeak of his sneakers on asphalt. It works, to a degree: by the time he’s hungry for dinner and he’s sure he’s got a lot of unanswered texts waiting for him on the phone he left sitting in his room, he does feel better. Not a hundred percent, not even close, but the rush of anger is gone, and so is the tension of dishonesty, replaced instead with a vague sort of sadness that’s somehow more manageable, more understandable, because at least now he knows where it’s coming from.
He and Kris avoid each other for a week and a half. Chanyeol sort of tries to ask him about it, but he’s characteristically incoherent when he does, never having been one for talking about feelings, and Baekhyun manages to weasel his way out of saying anything in particular. He’s trying, mostly, to figure out what he wants to do: break up? Confront him again and try and talk things through and make up? Hope that Kris has learned his lesson and is going to change, going to carve out little spaces of time for him? The last is the easiest, he knows, and he’s tempted to take it, but he refuses to let himself because he doesn’t quite trust Kris just now, knows that, if he’s as hell bent on ignoring him as he seems to be, he might not understand what’s wrong with his behavior, how much it really, really bothers Baekhyun.
It takes another week of mulling to work himself up to it, but several days before their music video drops, Baekhyun pulls Kris aside after rehearsal and they sit down, side by side, in one of the empty practice rooms, a small one that won’t be used after ten at night, intended only for one on one vocal instruction.
“So,” Baekhyun says before Kris can start talking and make him change his mind, “I was really hurt by… everything that’s happened the last few months. Like I know you had family stuff to deal with and that’s fine, you had to deal with that and I understand. I think that was the time when I was overreacting, but then you came back and it was like you hadn’t, like you were still 16 time zones away. And that… I can’t date someone who can’t tell I’m unhappy and who thinks it’s ok to not talk about how we’re going to approach problems.”
Kris nods, slowly. He looks about ready to apologize, but he catches Baekhyun’s eye and holds back. “I… I understand. I’ve been thinking about it, the last three weeks.”
Kris is staring at his hands now, folding and unfolding them. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to do that, but it doesn’t change that I did. I care about you a lot, and I’ve been really caught up in a lot of things lately. But that doesn’t mean I can… ignore you.”
“I’m not asking for us to go on fancy dates all the time. Just, you know, sit around and talk for half an hour after practice. Do this, just not about… bad stuff. You know. You remember what we did when we were busy before you left.”
Kris nods again, and Baekhyun pulls him into a hug. He’d told himself he wouldn’t forgive Kris easily, but the remorse is almost radiating off him, dripping from every word and every gesture, and Baekhyun can’t help himself. He wants him to feel better, to know that yes, he screwed up, but that Baekhyun’s willing to give second chances to those who deserve them, that Kris certainly deserves one. He’ll have to work to earn his trust back, but he’s ready to let him try, ready to have him back in his life.
They leave the practice room together, smile bright on Baekhyun’s face, fingers wrapped tight around Kris’s arm. The manager Kris shares his room with has a night off, so they head there immediately, tumbling into Kris’s bed, hands roaming, warm and desperate, thanks yous and whispered between them with every silent touch, every heaving breath, every smile.