Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Water splashes against his wrist when he dunks his paintbrush. Baekhyun rinses it free of burnt orange and sandwiches it in a cloth, stroking it dry while his eyes wander his painting of a cityscape, wincing every time an error breaks the surface like weeds through the cracks of concrete. He is not one to put pressure on himself, usually he's quite patient, but this painting – it needs to be perfect. In a way, it's not just a painting. It's more than brush strokes and acrylic, more than bristles and linen. It's his life. Past, present, and hopefully future. It's Sehun.

Baekhyun pushes his glasses up his nose a little further, aware that they slid down during his work, and briefly checks his fingers when he pulls his hand back to make sure he hasn't just smeared paint across his face. He's known for doing that – handing over money at the till with rainbow hands, or literally having a green thumb when he does the gardening. It's comical, but mostly just dries out his skin.

A few paces around the room shows him his work from different perspectives, and he scrutinises every angle, every dab, every lick of paint. It needs to be perfect. At least he is on schedule, the canvas intended to be an anniversary gift next month to celebrate him and Sehun being together for one whole year. Sort of. Work gets in the way. Hell, the distance gets in the way. It's been two weeks since Baekhyun saw him last, and even then it was only for an afternoon. Sehun works in the city, Hapton, an hour long drive from here on a good day, while Baekhyun cosies up in the village known as Bybrook with his paint brushes and graphics tablet, churning out painting after painting to get by. Sehun works at an advertising agency, a good company that gave him a job after he worked there for his placement year at university. It takes up an excessive amount of Sehun’s time.

They met at a party of a mutual friend and have been together ever since – if together means talking through text messages and phone calls. It's not ideal, but when is anything ever ideal? They have each other, and it just means that every second they have in one another's company is all the more special. All the more treasured.

Baekhyun catches himself smiling, pressing his fingers to his lips as he beholds his painting and thinks about seeing Sehun later. Finally, they're going out. Unfortunately, that's not for another nine hours, and Baekhyun sighs as he approaches his painting one more time to see if inspiration strikes. A part of him feels like it's not special enough. Or, just enough in general. As he puts away his paints, picking up the squashed tubes, tightening the screw caps and carefully sliding them into his drawer, he starts to worry. The time they go without seeing each other is getting longer and longer, and the time they spend texting or talking over the phone is getting shorter day by day. It irks him, because he wants this to work. Yes, they live apart now, and may do so for the next however many years, but at some point they'll work things out. They will.

Baekhyun eats the rest of his breakfast before he showers, digging into half a grapefruit and two slices of buttered toast. He stares at his painting again when he gets dressed, damp hair air-drying as he slips into a pair of jeans and a plain shirt. He has no plans until Sehun picks him up, so he decides to take a walk to pass the time, heading up and out of the village, through the path in the woods, and back down the edges of the farmers' fields. He passes the bed and breakfast and the pub, Rose's corner shop and Mrs Parker's tea room, and greets everyone he runs into with a cheery good morning.

This is why he could never live in a city. In how many cities can you leave your home and personally know everyone you come across on your way to work, or the way to the gym? How can anyone ever choose car horns over birdsong? He doesn't understand people's fascination with concrete jungles, but he puts it down to a difference in preferences. He and Sehun seem to have a lot of those, although they say opposites attract.

His walk is mostly uneventful. He comes across some wild rabbits that scamper when he walks by, and sees Minseok on his quad bike over the hills, calling orders to his dogs that round up his flock. It's peaceful out here, the early summer sun basking in a blue sky, and Baekhyun stops to wonder why Sehun is so against this place. So against coming to live here with him. It would be the perfect life.

On his way back home, he passes Mrs Parker at the tea room again as she enthusiastically waves off a few hikers asking for directions. She's like a mum of sorts, sweet and gentle and invitingly warm. She gives good cuddles too, and manages to make them work no matter how tall or short you are.

"Afternoon, my dear," she calls when she sees him, and Baekhyun breaks out in a wide smile as he strides over.

"Afternoon, Mrs Parker. How is business today?"

She chuckles at him and heads back inside, her tea room a conservatory attached to the front of her house. Baekhyun holds the door for her and grins when she tsks at him for being such a gentleman, admiring her newly dyed hair from where it rests in a small blonde bun at the base of her head. She's a well put-together lady, wearing creams with pastels that complement her matching nail varnish – an accent that changes every week without fail. She likes to press her trousers, iron her shirts, and even knit her own jumpers from time to time. She's more than double Baekhyun's age but doesn't look a day older than thirty-five, and she puts it down to the expensive anti-ageing remedies she keeps buying off the shopping channels on TV.

"Don't you mind about my business. If I tell you one of my cakes has gone off before it's been sold, it'll be a game of Chinese whispers all through the village and suddenly someone'll think I'm closing down shop and leaving the country."

Baekhyun lets out a hearty laugh at that, resting his elbows down on the counter beside the till and watching as she services the coffee machine. "That's part of the fun!" he insists, though he knows full-well just how un-fun that can be. The villagers love their gossip and their rumours, and with most of them being retired, they have little else to do. That being said, they never go without a communal village event for long. Someone is always planning something, and if they're not, there are Kyungsoo's weekly pub quizzes down at The Lamb's Head. Not a single weekend is spared.

"Did you hear about the Mills, Baekhyun?" Mrs Parker asks, speaking in a loud whisper that everyone adopts when it's time for the exchanging hearsay.

"What do I need to hear?" His eyes roam the different types of teas she has along the back wall, all kept neatly in their boxes, and smiles when he sees that she owns a pair of oven mitts he painted the design for.

"Well," she starts, quickly wiping down her counter and nudging Baekhyun's forearms with the anti-bacterial spray bottle to get him to move. "Mr and Mrs Mills are going to be Mr and Mrs no longer."

Baekhyun gasps and straightens his posture. "You're joking!"

"Unfortunately not. Flora Dodds says she overheard them fighting last night through her open bedroom window. Apparently, there's another woman."

"No! That's awful!" Baekhyun breathes, looking around as if expecting to see the Mills for himself. "I can't believe that. I thought they got along really well. That's such a shame."

"Flora thinks their relationship has been failing for a while. I mean, how often do you ever see them together? And they each have their own groups of friends that don't interact. I feel sorry for the kids."

Baekhyun pulls a sorry face and chews on his bottom lip, not knowing what else to say.

"In other news," Mrs Parker changes tune, "I saw who moved into Harry's old house this morning."

"Oh?" Baekhyun perks up.

"Tall, dark, handsome. Young as well. He'll definitely be a hit with Aunt Agnes for sure."

"In that case," Baekhyun chuckles, "we'd better protect him."

"I think so too. You know what she can be like.”

Baekhyun shudders at the memory of his first village dance, a group of five people having to peel Agnes off his body where she had slung herself and begun to leave a sloppy lipstick mess all over one half of his face, with the intention to do the other half not long after. She’s known for drinking a little too much and then insisting she’s not drunk. And when she’s not drunk, she’s slightly cuckoo anyway.

“Any plans for today, Baekhyun?"

Baekhyun smiles at the mere thought of what he’ll be doing later. "I'm going out with Sehun," he says, excitement growing now that he’s said it aloud.

“You young love birds,” she teases t good-naturedly, always interested in his love life for some reason. It feels nice, though, to have someone who takes a genuine interest in what he’s up to. In a way, Mrs Parker is his village mother. “There are so many handsome young gentlemen in this village. Me and the girls wonder what we did to deserve such tempting eye candy.”

Cackling, Baekhyun reaches out for her bejewelled hand and tenderly brings her knuckles to his lips. “Me and the boys don’t know what we did to deserve being in the presence of such fine women.” He waggles his eyebrows and she chuckles at him, snatching her hand back and joking about how her husband will get jealous.

“Always the charmer, Baekhyun,” she sighs serenely once her laughter has calmed and bends down into her display of cakes, reaching for a jam tart. “For you, my dear, even though you’re sweet enough already.”

Baekhyun simpers and takes the pastry carefully in both hands. Anything Mrs Parker makes is a treasure. “I’ll paint you a portrait as thanks.”

She snorts, still unbelievably graceful, and slaps him playfully on the shoulder. “Oh no you won’t. I’ve had enough of looking at this face of mine.”

“I haven’t.” Baekhyun winks, leaving the tea room with pure and jittering joy swelling in his chest. How could he ever pass out on something like this for a city?

He heads home happy, checking his phone mid-pace to see if Sehun's texted him yet. His chest gives out a little when he sees that his inbox is empty, but figures that it's Friday and Sehun is probably busy with work, so he sends a quick message for him to open during his lunch break, telling him he's excited about later . That’s one thing Baekhyun wishes he could do – either make Sehun lunch to take with him or meet up with him in some hole-in-the-wall café that no one knows about. It’s a deflating feeling, knowing that he wishes for things beyond their limits. There’s so much he wants them to have that they can’t.

He concentrates on his painting for the remainder of the day, taking different sized brushes in a very light hand and blurring small specks of paint to act as little lights on the waters reflection. He has tried to make it look as much like Hapton as possible, with the tall capital building and the easily distinguishable old theatre on the river bank. The goal is to have Sehun understand what it means without having to ask, so Baekhyun is determined to do a good job – a perfect job – and for all of his sentiment to get across. It’s where they met, after all.

Time doesn’t seem to move fast enough. Baekhyun tires of painting just past two o’clock and moves onto household chores, washing the dishes and sorting through his laundry. It's mundane and uncomfortably quiet, and he finds himself longing to have someone to make conversation with. Sehun, would be ideal; his offhanded mutterings about things or people he finds annoying, his low, crawling laughter when he finds one of Baekhyun's jokes funny. It's always comfortable, their idle chatter. Baekhyun wishes they could relax like that more often, but whenever they see each other it feels like a rush to catch up, to get all the words out for things that happened while they were apart. Even then, when Baekhyun gets home he realises he forgot to tell Sehun something that he deliberately saved for when they were together. He always considers just texting or saying things on the phone, but he wants to see Sehun’s face and Sehun’s smile, be able to feel Sehun’s laughter. In the end, he just forgets again, and those thoughts fail to resurface.

Things are starting to feel incomplete for that very reason. Baekhyun feels like a part of him is missing when he's holed up here and Sehun is off in the city. He feels like he's missing out on things that a regular couple should probably do together, like heading to the gym to burn off extra energy or spontaneously getting fast food at three in the morning. Nothing they do is random. It's all planned, regimented, and – though Baekhyun rues himself for thinking it – it's starting to suffocate him. He doesn’t feel free to express his love in the way that he wants.

He takes a deep breath with his forearms submerged in dirty dishwater, trying to lose the cold flush that has washed over his chest. Everything will be fine, he tells himself, and dries off his hands so he can go back to working on his painting.

Sehun picks him up a little after seven, as planned. Baekhyun spent a good hour getting himself ready, grinning from ear to ear when he got a text from Sehun saying he was on his way. Another text tells him Sehun is outside, so he shoves his wallet in his back jeans pocket and heads out the front door. He's staying the night at Sehun's after they have a couple of drinks at their favourite pub in Edgebank, the town between Bybrook and Hapton. They call it their 'Halfway Pub', and Baekhyun likes the idea that the effort they put into their relationship is equal that way. Rarely does anything ever feel one-sided. Usually Baekhyun would taxi there, but today Sehun offered to drive the full distance.

Baekhyun slides into the passenger seat with ease and instinctively leans across the centre console to give Sehun a kiss. It lands on the corner of his mouth, more on his cheek than his lips, and Baekhyun greets him happily despite him feeling something off about Sehun's welcome – or lack thereof.

"Hey, babe," Sehun says plainly, reaching for Baekhyun's hand and flashing him a tight smile before he eases off the brake. "Good day?"

"Yeah. Got a bit more painting done," Baekhyun recounts as they pull out of the small lane his terraced house sits on, leaving behind the quaint cottage-like homes that stand proudly in a row. "Then I had to do the dishes. I didn't realise I'd left so many. Guess I'm just messy." He chuckles, looking across at Sehun and then their linked hands. He expects Sehun to say something, maybe make a joke or comment on his own dishes situation, but he doesn't.

Baekhyun is about to ask him about his day in return when his attention is captured by the sight of Mr Mills hauling suitcases into the boot of his car. Looks like he's moving out now that his marriage has collapsed. Baekhyun subconsciously holds a little tighter onto Sehun's hand. It is the worst thing, falling out of love with someone. Baekhyun is thankful that he won’t have to experience that anytime soon, hopefully never.

On the topic of suitcases, his chest fizzles with warmth that lightens his spirits. He doesn't have to bring an overnight bag with him when he stays at Sehun's, a good range of necessities already there in his apartment. He has a drawer in one of the nightstands beside Sehun's double bed, and a pot to put his own toothbrush in by the sink. It brings him comfort to know that he still has a presence in Sehun's life, even when he’s not physically there. It’s almost like he's marked his territory – and his toothbrush isn't moving out for anyone.

"The Mills are getting a divorce," Baekhyun gossips conversationally as they wind down a narrow country road, hedgerows on either side and a canopy of tree branches up above. Bybrook is practically in the middle of nowhere, only a web of small lanes surrounding it for miles that run in curly, winding lines. Sehun drives a little fast for Baekhyun’s liking, but he trusts him to keep them safe.

"Who's that?" Sehun asks, disinterested, and Baekhyun smiles despite himself.

"Just a couple from the village. We think he cheated on her, so I guess he's moving out now."

Sehun nods and says nothing else. It’s been a while since Sehun has stayed at his house. There’s always some excuse as to why Sehun needs to be at home in his own apartment, whether it be access to his computer or that he needs to be close to his office. Baekhyun can’t really hold not knowing the villagers’ names against him. It could just be a mistake on Baekhyun's part, but he swears Sehun winces. Maybe he feels guilty.

For the hour car ride it takes to reach Edgebank, they exchange minimal conversation. Baekhyun asks Sehun about his day, and he says it was tiring and boring, and then he asks Baekhyun about whether his yearly contracts with the greetings card company has been renewed yet, as it usually happens around this time of the year. Baekhyun is pleased that Sehun remembers, but finds himself deflating when he mentions Mrs Parker owning a set of his oven mitts and Sehun not knowing who he's talking about. He must have mentioned her about a hundred times. Still, Sehun did tell him when they first met that he’s terrible at names.

Nevertheless, it's more of the same once they've sat down in The Sweet Victoria and ordered themselves each a pint. Baekhyun asks questions and Sehun's answers barely surpass a length of five words. They're sat in a corner next to a fireplace, the coals not burning as it's the beginning of summer, Baekhyun continuously looking at where the fire used to be. It's still cosy and homely here though, and usually it makes Baekhyun feel at ease, but Sehun is sitting so rigidly in the most comfortable-looking auburn armchair that he's starting to get nervous.

"Is everything okay?" he finally asks Sehun, little by little becoming more afraid of the answer. He notices that Sehun hasn't touched his drink and instead keeps checking his watch, charging a time bomb in Baekhyun's head as he waits for the answer. He doesn't remember doing anything wrong, saying something out of line or being offensive in any way. It can't be him.

Sehun smiles curtly. "I... I have to leave soon." Baekhyun's stomach swoops a little, fingers clamping around his glass. "I have work tomorrow."

Baekhyun narrows his eyes out of confusion, but maybe a little out of exasperation as well. They've spent a little under an hour together so far and have hardly said more than a few sentences to each other. For each excuse he has made on Sehun’s behalf to justify his behaviour, Baekhyun has been feeling more and more uneasy with what it might mean. He's more than a little pissed. This is the only time they have had together in two weeks and it’s been planned for just as long. If Sehun was bombarded with work commitments this afternoon, they could have rescheduled or made different arrangements. Baekhyun wouldn’t have minded.

"On a Saturday?" His voice comes out low, words leaving his mouth with a tone of disbelief.

"Yeah," Sehun replies with a jerky nod. "Overtime."

Baekhyun waits for him to explain a little further, provide insight on the why, but Sehun goes back to checking his gadgets and picks up his phone to busy himself. Baekhyun tries to ignore how his fingers are slipping slightly on his glass, the sweat gathering in his palms enough to make him lose his grip. He feels cold but his face feels hot, and as he stares at Sehun, so indifferent, his heart starts to thump in a not so welcome way. He doesn’t know what this means.

"I'm still staying at yours tonight, right?" he asks, voice steady and deep. He considers drinking more beer to ease his nerves, though decides it'll be a clear giveaway of how he's feeling and opts to put it down on the paper coaster instead. He doesn’t think he can stomach anything now anyway, the knots of confrontation locking around his insides.

"Baekhyun..." Sehun starts and fails, and Baekhyun knows he is about to hear something that he doesn't want to hear.

The look on Sehun’s face tells it all – the sad, sorry smile, the arched eyebrows, the pitying eyes. Being a painter has its perks. Baekhyun can pick up on facial expressions quite well. At least it allows him to prepare himself a little.

"I just... I don't know if this is going to work anymore. Our relationship, I mean."

A rock falls into the pit of Baekhyun's stomach anyway, and though his eyes are intently trained on Sehun's he finds that his mind has wandered far off. Why exactly is this not going to work?

Sehun looks like he's about to be sick as he elaborates. "It's just, if you moved to Hapton then maybe it would work but—Baek we're just so far apart and I can't keep coming back here to see you. I have work and I'm aiming for a promotion, which means I have to do so much overtime to meet all my deadlines and impress my boss, as well as my boss' boss. I don't have two hours to spare driving to Bybrook to pick you up, and then another however many hours to spare when we're actually together. I don't think it's a good idea to keep doing this when our lives are so... separate. And if we're both too stubborn to move, well..."

Baekhyun blinks the room back into focus and stares at Sehun in nonchalant shock. "You're trying for a promotion?" he asks lightly, aware that Sehun hasn't mentioned anything about it to him. He starts to wonder what else Sehun hasn't told him. What else he thinks Baekhyun either doesn't need to know or doesn't deserve to know. It makes him a little nauseous to realise that while Sehun is the first person he tells important news to, it isn't the same the other way around. He feels alone in their relationship. Small. Maybe he’s been relying on Sehun too much.

Sehun's face crumples with guilt. "Baek—"

"Funny," Baekhyun cuts in, watching his fingers as they curl around the end of the chair arm, "how you're glued to your phone now but you can't spare ten seconds to send me a goodnight text. Or reply to me within twelve hours."

Sehun releases a sigh through flared nostrils. "Work takes a lot out of me. Besides, my inbox is full. It’s easy for me to miss messages every now and then. My job is my life now, and my job is in Hapton."

"So I'm not a part of your life?" The words come out sharp, full of bite, and Baekhyun stares at Sehun so intensely that he is starting to see the pulsing of the veins in his neck. His cheeks are colouring too, reddening with what Baekhyun believes to be a shame he hopes is so potent that he never gets over it.

"Baek, I didn't mean it like that."

Baekhyun tsks. "Then what did you mean?" A simple question, really. It's only the words that are hard. He gives Sehun a good amount of time to respond, providing him the chance to either get his thoughts together or come up with better reasoning. Not once does he divert his eyes, perhaps on purpose. An unnerved Sehun is often an honest Sehun, and Baekhyun will be incredibly pissed if he's lied to.

The gentle buzz of the pub permeates their awkward silence, the relaxed, social atmosphere unfitting of their conversation. Baekhyun has never felt so tense in a place he usually comes to to unwind. It’s a shame that it’s the company that’s sour when it’s supposed to be the highlight of his day. A shame that Sehun has decided to break his heart.

When it becomes apparent Sehun is lost for words, Baekhyun starts to get impatient. If Sehun wants to break up with him, he should have planned a whole damn speech detailing why. Now isn’t the time to stumble. "Huh?" he grunts unintelligibly, suddenly aware of how dry his mouth has become. His eyes linger on Sehun's before they fall to his beer, debating whether it will make things any better.

"You're making this difficult," is what Sehun comes out with. Baekhyun almost chokes on the spit he doesn't have. "I'm so sorry that I have to do this but I honestly think it's best for both of us. We don't see each other enough, we're both too tired to keep up conversations—"

"You're too tired."

"Baekhyun—"

"Don't sit there and act like I don't try," Baekhyun scoffs, rolling his eyes and trying to comprehend how he's being told what is best for him by someone who claims he isn't a part of his life anymore. "Who is the one that always ends up texting first? Or calling first? Who's the one who has to come up with all the damn plans because you can't be bothered? If anyone's not trying, it's you, Sehun, and you're not even trying now."

"I've been trying for months, Baekhyun!" Sehun cries, cringing and bowing his chin when a few people on nearby tables turn to look. Right, they’re in public. Baekhyun feels more embarrassed than ever when he remembers. "I've been trying so hard to make this work but it's making me so unhappy," he goes on in a quieter voice with words that fade off towards the end, teasing Baekhyun's ears.

In his mind, Baekhyun calls back to all they've done in the past few months. Every smile Sehun gave him when he picked him up in his car, every time they sat down for a TV dinner and Sehun threw his legs across his lap, every time they went to sleep curled up against one another not wanting to leave even the slightest gap between. They even had a weekend away a month and a half ago, a road trip to the coast where they walked for hours through nowhere to find the most secluded beaches away from the road. He laughed at Sehun when he went to piss in the sea and screamed when Sehun threw him into the water that he ended up swallowing from surprise. They took so many pictures with so many smiles. But Sehun wasn't happy for any of that. Everything feels like a lie.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Baekhyun's voice comes out small, poisoned with an insecurity he is usually a stranger to. He's usually confident, sure of himself, but now Sehun has made him doubt everything. He's not enough to make Sehun happy and he doesn’t understand why. All he knows if that he doesn’t want to feel this way, and he’s starting to resent Sehun for being the cause of it.

Sehun grimaces. "I didn't want to upset you."

"Well, you did a great job at that," Baekhyun mutters sourly, turning his face away so Sehun can't see how his eyes have started to water. He laughs then, hollow. "You even brought me out for a drink in public before you dumped me. Classy."

In the corner of his eye, he sees Sehun hanging his head, and takes the opportunity to wipe his eyes with a swift hand.

"I'm sorry," Sehun sighs dejectedly. "We should have stayed at your place, I wasn't thinking."

"Doesn't seem like you think about a lot, really," Baekhyun replies sharply. His initial shock is fading, leaving resentment and hatred in its wake. For the first time, he is truly angry at Sehun. In all the arguments they've had, about moving to the city, missing dates and even the time where Sehun didn't want to meet his parents, Baekhyun has never felt so irate and it’s because Sehun is giving up. He's giving up and Baekhyun doesn't even get a say, didn't get a chance to change his mind. Sehun has been thinking of this for months. There’s no way now that Baekhyun can help him think otherwise. See otherwise. It’s set in the concrete Sehun loves so much, and what can Baekhyun do against cement?

If Sehun doesn’t want to try, what can he do?

"I thought we were fine," Baekhyun murmurs, words coming out cross. "I thought—I don't know, I thought we were both serious about this. That in a few years we'd have stuff figured out. I didn't realise you weren't happy. I also didn't realise I wasn't a part of your life." He glares at Sehun and is conflicted when he shies away. On the one hand, he wants Sehun to be ashamed of himself, and on the other, he wants to apologise and pull him into a hug because he still loves him, and the thought of Sehun not loving him back anymore is the most terrifying thing that has ever crossed his mind.

"Who is a part of your life then?" he wonders, going back to watching his fingers on the chair arm. While his mind is racing through every moment they've spent together, it is also replaying the moment when he got in the car and Sehun deflected his kiss. It sends him down, and down, and down, and he's repeating the monotone, unenthusiastic 'Hey, babe' that Sehun sent his way instead of the glorious smile that he usually greets him with. He thinks of their awkward conversation, the way he believes Sehun winced at the mention of Mr Mills, and finds his eyes snapping to Sehun's sickening guilty expression and feels his heart swooping into the bottom of his gut.

"Is there someone else?" Baekhyun holds his breath. Sehun blanches, and the wobble in his mouth is telling. "Are you kidding me?" Baekhyun growls, alarm widening Sehun's eyes.

"I..." he stumbles over his tongue. "I might have feelings for someone else, yeah, but I haven't done anything with them! I wouldn't cheat on you, Baek."

Baekhyun wants to roll his eyes but he's too busy holding back tears. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he spits thickly, a large lump building in his throat as the insecurity comes tumbling back. He's not enough to make Sehun happy. He's not even enough to make Sehun stay.

"It's... something..." Sehun murmurs. "I don't know."

From the small amount of Sehun's friends Baekhyun has actually met, he tries to figure out who is gay. Who is it that has stolen his boyfriend from him? Who is enough? Who is better? Why do they get to be happy with his boyfriend and he doesn’t? Baekhyun boils with anger, wanting to scream and throw things. He wants this to end in an apology, or even just make-up sex, but everything feels so final. The way Sehun looks at him is like a goodbye. A guilt-ridden farewell.

"Who is it?"

Sehun sucks in a deep breath. "You don't know them."

Baekhyun takes a moment to mull over whether he actually wants to know who it is that caught the attention of his boyfriend. If he knew, would he wage a vendetta against them and hunt them down to get his revenge? Or would he retreat to his bed and never come out again because they are just so much better. The information, however controversial, is right in front of him at his fingertips, and Baekhyun decides that he would rather have Sehun tell him than for him to find out over Facebook, so he stares Sehun down until he cracks.

"Someone from work."

Not the response he was hoping for. "Brings a new meaning to the phrase 'work is my life now' I suppose," he says sourly, pulling a face. Even now, Sehun refuses to tell him the complete truth.

"It's only recent, Baek," he insists. "The last couple of weeks. It was never my intention to hurt you."

A part of him wishes Sehun would just be an asshole. Just come up to him, say he cheated and then leave him without letting him get a word in. He wants to hate him, so badly, but Sehun is defending himself so damn well that he is making it difficult for Baekhyun to feel wronged.

"You've been thinking about ending it for a while?"

"Honestly?" Sehun asks, Baekhyun giving him a small, stiff nod. "Yeah."

A punch knocks the air from his lungs and Baekhyun finally retires holding up his head. He rests it on his hand, elbow on the chair arm, and closes his eyes to try and look for signs in his memories, pointers that what they had wasn't going to last forever. Was every smile a lie, for his sake? When Sehun looked at him, was he thinking about breaking the truth instead of thinking about a future together? Humiliation starts to bleed from Baekhyun's chest. He must have looked like such an idiot.

"So that's it? We're over?" He has no emotion anymore. He can't cry and scream in here. He can't punch Sehun like he wants. He's been cornered into a place where he can't fight back, a cat without claws, where all he can do is use his words to either be or bid goodbye when he doesn't want to do either.

"I'm so sorry," Sehun breathes. Yet 'sorry' is starting to feel like just any other word, the same lack of meaning behind it as the many times Sehun said 'I love you'.

Baekhyun is left with an aching chasm in his chest.

"You can just throw away the stuff that's at your place," Baekhyun says, voice quiet as he talks into his knuckles, hand no longer supporting his forehead but his chin to better conceal his despair. "I don't want it."

Sehun sits up straight and pushes his hips to the back of the chair, running his hands up and down his thighs to wipe them of confrontation. "Are you sure?"

Baekhyun idly scratches his temple, trying to draw his attention away from his feelings with his nails. "I wouldn't want to inconvenience you, Sehun." He flashes him an overly sweet smile, where the corners of his mouth drag down. "We're so far apart. What's the point in driving two hours to bring me a toothbrush I don't need?" It's a petty blow, probably, but Baekhyun feels like he has to get the upper hand somehow. He refuses to lie down and play dead while he’s forced into a 180 degree turn in the wrong direction.

"Okay," Sehun says lightly, turning civil and irritatingly indifferent, "yeah."

Baekhyun watches him through his eyebrows as he sits there, tapping away on his phone before he takes a long look about the room. The only emotion he has shown so far is regret. Regret for upsetting Baekhyun later rather than sooner, but no upset of his own. There's no anger that things aren't working for them, no grief that they'll never share a bed again. There’s just what Baekhyun hopes he is wrong in identifying as relief. Sehun is looser now, shoulders not up around his ears. Maybe Baekhyun was the cannonball dragging him down.

"Are you okay, Baek?" Sehun must have read his dismay, so he shakes his head and picks himself up, straightening his spine and looking at his hands in his lap.

"I would have tried," he says, for all it's worth. "I would have been willing to... I don't know, live with you for a few days every week but... there's someone else now, so. Let's just leave it."

It hurts to know that what he's saying is true and he's only now come to realise it. He feels like a stagnant pool finally coming to flow into a river, and now he sees all the missed opportunities he could have taken to make things work. He should have been more accommodating, gone with the current. Sehun's work can't move but his can. Maybe he should have bought the motorbike he was considering a few months ago, so he could drive to Sehun's without him coming to pick him up or spending a fortune on a taxi. He should have tried harder.

"Baek, I didn't cheat on you," Sehun persists, as if he's saying it to double-check that Baekhyun doesn't think any different.

"So you keep saying." Baekhyun rolls his eyes.

"Baekhyun—"

"It doesn't make me feel any better, Sehun," he says plainly, quickly. "It doesn't change the fact that you like someone else, and that you would rather try with them than try with me like the past year means nothing." It doesn't change the fact that he loves Sehun a lot more than Sehun loves him.

"I'm just being honest," Sehun defends himself again with a shrug. "It would be unfair if I lied."

And he's right. Although it took months for Sehun to come to his senses and break the news, at least it's now rather than next month, or next year. At least Baekhyun doesn't have to look like a damn fool thinking they're both magically in love and going to get married because they'll work everything out and it will all be fine. His only regret is that the humiliation he feels will last for much, much longer than this conversation, but at least Sehun told him outside of his house. Here, his neighbours can't listen through the walls or open bedroom windows.

"It's fine," breathes Baekhyun, words void of meaning as he fights to take in breath to fill his compressed lungs. "You should go," he then says, before Sehun can say anything else to break his spirit. "You're working overtime tomorrow. Long drive back to the city and all." He plays with a loose thread on the chair arm, refusing to meet Sehun's eyes. There'll be no love in them anymore, no adoration, and Baekhyun can't bear the fact that it's over.

"Yeah. Yeah, I should. I— Be okay, Baek."

"Yeah," Baekhyun nods absently as Sehun stands from his seat, pressing down the creases in the expensive overcoat he never took off. "Drive safe."

The first thing Baekhyun does once Sehun has left is down his beer. He lets the alcohol fizz through his brain while he looks around the room, searching for any familiar faces or nosy strangers that may be scrutinising him for his public performance. He doesn't recognise anyone, thankfully, so the tale shouldn't spread back home, and while a few of the patrons quickly look away when he catches them watching, they don't appear to be talking about him. Baekhyun then notices Sehun's beer on the low coffee table between where he and Sehun had been sitting. A wet ring has marked the paper coaster, gluing it to the bottom of the glass when Baekhyun reaches for it, picks it up, and downs that one too.

He's just been broken up with. Sehun just left him. They're not together anymore.

Baekhyun needs more beer.

He remains in a trance as the night grows old, sipping away at his depressant while customers come and go. The diners filter out towards ten o'clock, and the drinkers take their place – big groups of rowdy men and cackling women descending upon the bar like legions of maggots to rotten meat. The lights dim around midnight, a haze in the air as people ignore the smoking ban and the pub owners don't seem to care. Baekhyun is on his ninth beer by one o'clock, having sat in the same chair and not moved – save for bathroom trips – for over four hours.

Maybe, he thinks pathetically, he's waiting for Sehun to come back. Sehun could change his mind or be playing a disgustingly twisted prank on him. He doesn’t understand why he doesn’t want to stay. They were fine. They were happy. They both had their flaws but that was okay.

Baekhyun is still lying to himself.

Kick-out time comes at half-past, and Baekhyun only realises just how drunk he is when he stands up and tries to walk in a straight line to the exit. The cold air that blows into his lungs makes it worse when it should bring him clarity. The squeaking of the hanging sign hinges above him echoes in his ears when it blows in the breeze, and as Baekhyun looks dumbly up and down the road with his vision constantly veering up towards the sky, he realises that there's no car here.

"Ah," he groans, placing a palm on the gritty brick wall behind him and using it as a walking stick to take him further into town. "Cheeky shit."

Of course there's no car. Sehun had the car, and Sehun left five hours ago.

"Wahhhhh," Baekhyun sighs dramatically, foot catching on an uneven paving stone and throwing him forwards. He laughs at himself once he's caught himself on his hands, then crawls a little across a drain grid before he stops to sit leaning against a drainpipe, wiping the dirt on his hands onto his jeans. There are small red cuts on his palms, nothing that his drunk mind worries about.

There aren't too many people around at this time. They'll all either be at home or on the high street where the clubs and bars are, partying it up with overpriced vodka-mixers and corrupted bass. For a moment, he considers joining them, mingling with the teenagers ten years his juniors and living it up for a night, waking up with regret tomorrow. If Sehun has someone else, why can't he? He's still somewhat attractive and has a semi-toned body from all the walking he does. He could appeal to students. He could be the sexy older guy.

Except, he doesn't want anyone else. He wants Sehun. And Sehun doesn't want him.

Baekhyun fists his hair none too gently and pulls, growling back the urge to cry and scream as he stamps a foot on the ground. Tears escape despite himself, and for a while he sits there and chokes on his own airways until some late pub leavers stop on their way past and uncertainly ask him if he's okay.

"Yeah," Baekhyun releases after a large gulp of air, rocking his head back too hard and smacking it against the wall. "I'm great."

"Are you being picked up, love?" the woman asks, not very sober herself as she clings onto a man who is probably her husband.

Baekhyun watches them, their arms around each other, and then imagines them scraping him off the pavement like the wretched mess he is if he tells them he’s stranded and they offer to help. He can't face being humiliated more, so he tells them that he's waiting for his boyfriend and starts crying again after they've disappeared around a corner.

For a long time, all he can hear is his own cries, snuffled and grumbling. He wipes snot on the back of his hand because he doesn't have a tissue and pulls out more hair to the point where it's all sticking to his fingers because of his tears. The reality is that no one is coming for him. He doesn't have a partner anymore, but more importantly, he doesn't have a way home.

He pulls his phone from his pocket and disables it for fifteen minutes when he repeatedly types in the wrong code, giving up on it completely and getting to his feet instead. He remembers once coming to Edgebank for dinner with Sehun at a posh restaurant on the high street. Not the poshest though, he remembers Sehun telling him, because he was saving it for a special occasion that now won’t ever happen. There's a taxi rank not far from it, so Baekhyun stumbles in the footsteps of the couple who probably could have given him more help than he can offer to himself. He soon finds himself in the midst of some screaming teenagers throwing traffic cones at one another from opposite sides of the road, clinging onto large bouquets of balloons they've stolen from outside the telephone shop. Just a typical night on the town.

His sober self would probably condemn them, but Drunk-Baekhyun thinks it's hilarious as he wobbles past, chuckling away while he watches the girls squawking and struggling to stand up in their spindly high heels. A part of him wishes he were that young again. Young enough to be stupid and make mistakes that feel like they have humungous consequences when, in reality, they don’t. He longs for someone spilling his drink at a party to be the worst of his worries instead of the prospect of being lonely for the rest of his life. And taxes.

At the end of the road he reaches a T-junction, greeted by the multi-coloured lights of clubs and a lively babble of party-goers queueing to get inside. He has the taxi rank in his sights, four black cars parked up on call with their engines running. He grins himself silly, simply because he gets first pick, and saunters towards them with a drunken spring in his step.

His mind is all wishy-washy and he doesn't realise he's walking in zig-zags, so when he gets to the first taxi he launches himself down at the open window with too much speed and smacks his head.

"Oh, fuck!" cries the driver in alarm, jumping up from his phone screen. "You alright?"

Baekhyun is strangely numbed to the pain and giggles as he leans back, rubbing his head where a sore spot is forming. "Yes, hello. I’m fine. I need to go to Bybrook.”

"Nah, sorry mate." He shakes his head, Baekhyun watching the light of his phone move across his face in some weird trance. "I'm not going out there now. Too far and too dark."

Baekhyun sighs, looking much more annoyed than he means too. "Fair enough," he slurs, smacking his hand against the open window frame. "Have a good one."

He traipses to the next one and lowers himself to the window with more caution, peering in at the dark face inside with an arguably creepy smile.

"Sup," Baekhyun drawls after a heavy 'hey', 'hello' or 'hi' debate. The man inside looks at him after pausing a YouTube video on his phone, the look on his face implying that he’s trying to assess how drunk Baekhyun is by eye. The multicoloured LED spotlights of the bar behind them give him a majestic, rainbow-y aura that Baekhyun gasps at in wonder, likening this man to an angel because it makes complete sense.

"Hey," says the guy, voice deep and almost indiscernible with the base booming from around them in jarring thuds; clubs and bars never bother with soundproof walls. "Where do you need to go?"

"Homeeee," Baekhyun drags out with word with a musical flare. "To my house."

“And where’s that?”

Baekhyun pouts. “Bybrook.”

The man smiles, Baekhyun relieved that he's finding his drunk antics funny as opposed to irritating. It’s a very beautiful smile, too. Baekhyun’s glad he’s been allowed to see it.

"I'm heading back that way myself," the driver says, locking his phone and slipping it into the centre pocket on the front of his hoodie. "Hop in."

Baekhyun falls into the passenger seat with little to no grace as his new friend wiggles the gear stick into first gear. "West Street," Baekhyun shares his address. "Number one."

"Near the manor house?"

"Yup. Junmyeon's my other nosy sort of neighbour."

He laughs, a low chuckle, and Baekhyun relaxes in his seat to the sound of it. This guy has a nice voice. And face. It’s a shame that the rainbow aura leaves when they pull out of the lay-by, but the image is imprinted on Baekhyun’s mind for safekeeping anyway. As they head towards the roundabout on the ring road surrounding the town, Baekhyun starts thinking about how this should be Sehun's car right now, how he shouldn't be this drunk. They should be in bed together, sleeping after some half decent sex, limbs all wrapped up. Baekhyun laughs at himself and where he's ended up.

"How much have you had to drink?" his driver asks, and Baekhyun looks down at his fingers half expecting them to already be holding up the number for him. Of course, they aren't, and when he thinks back to the pub he can't really remember how many times he went up to the bar and handed them his debit card.

"More than three," Baekhyun decides, definitely remembering drinking the beer Sehun left behind and then going up to get a refill. “But no more than fifteen.”

"Yeah? Three what?" the guy goes on, the ticking of his left indicator getting louder in Baekhyun's ears the longer they wait at a set of traffic lights.

"Beer." Baekhyun nods to himself. Break-up beer.

"Well, my name is Chanyeol. Just ask if you need anything."

"Oh I won't need anything," Baekhyun insists, focusing his eyes out the window and watching as the built up streets of the town centre make way for the large supermarket wedged on the side of a hill. The sudden dip in the road leads his stomach to rise, and Baekhyun lets out a minor groan of discomfort.

"Do you need to be sick?" the guy, Chanyeol, asks warily, eyes flitting over more than what would be considered normal for a taxi driver. Maybe he’s just car-proud and doesn’t want Baekhyun’s dinner on his dashboard. That would make sense, but only in a sober mind.

Baekhyun pulls a rotten face. "No! I most certainly do not need to be sick! And look at the road! You're the sober one. We have to drive responsibly, otherwise—"

Baekhyun loses his train of thought, then forgets that he lost it and goes back to staring out the window.

"Right," chuckles Chanyeol, and Baekhyun glares at him out of the corner of his eye. He spends a good amount of time watching Chanyeol's face, and after five minutes, sighs in relief. Luckily, nothing about him reminds him of Sehun; if it did, he might act upon his urge to strangle the life out of his ungrateful ex-boyfriend. Chanyeol has nice hair, full of life. It bounces with the bumps in the roads and Baekhyun gets the strongest urge to reach out and touch it, mostly because he feels like he hasn’t touched another man in months. Just this would do. Sehun never had bouncy hair.

"Were you out alone tonight?" Chanyeol asks, and Baekhyun notices that he always looks across at him when he speaks. It's odd for a stranger to be so intent in making eye contact.

"Hah. Alone," Baekhyun huffs, grimacing when he throws up a little bit in his mouth. It tastes like acidic beer, though he tries not to dwell on it else he might just exacerbate his nausea. "I didn't start out alone but... I was left alone." He chuckles deliriously. "I just sat by myself drinking beers because my boyfriend had to work so he—he left."

He said it again. Called Sehun his boyfriend. Baekhyun props his elbow up on the ledge at the bottom of the car window and presses his lips into his knuckles, trying to stop them from trembling. At one particularly loud sniff – to stop himself from snotting all over his fingers – Chanyeol's wide eyes look over once more.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

Baekhyun stares at himself in the wing mirror and pushes out his bottom lip when he sees that the whites of his eyes have gone pink.

"No," he then whines, releasing the tears he's been struggling to swallow. "He's not my boyfriend anymore."

"Oh?"

"He's such a damn idiot!" Baekhyun roars out of nowhere, smacking his hand against the window during his outburst. Chanyeol's leg jerks on the brakes in surprise and it messes with Baekhyun’s stomach. The car slows suddenly, then starts cruising down the main road again, the streetlamps like showers of light washing the car with fleeting clarity.

"Fucking—I'm not happy, well fuck him, you know! Fuck him! Fuck his ratty ass and his butthole mouth! I don't know what I ever saw in him, the fucker! Absolute fucking shit twig of a man."

Chanyeol repositions his grip on the steering wheel. "Shit twig, huh?"

"Fucking shit twig tree shit." Baekhyun thumps his fist against the car door, on purpose this time. "I wasn't happy either! I was really freaking dishappy but no! No that's not important. But you see Chanyeol, I try. I tried so fucking hard for that birdbrain and for what?" He bares his palms, staring at Chanyeol with wide, unnerving eyes and then slowly closing his hands. "For nothing," he whispers. "Our relationship: Poof!"

"It went poof?"

"Poof." Baekhyun nods sadly, back to clamping his mouth shut with his hand. "So many poofs," he mumbles out anyway. He can't seem to shut up. "And I never wanted a poof. But I got a poof anyway."

Chanyeol looks across at him sympathetically. There is the pity Baekhyun is afraid of. "Why did you get poofed?"

Baekhyun sulks and drops his gaze to his other hand where his fingertips are tingling. "'Cause he found someone else. An enough someone else."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

“And I’m not someone else so I’m not what he wants.”

The conversation lulls. Baekhyun focuses on the sound of the car engine and raps his nails against the car window, tapping out an aimless beat that spurs Chanyeol to ask if he’d like to have the radio on. He agrees, and is unforgivingly greeted with the sappiest love song known to man. A sob tears from his throat before he can swallow it down, and he watches Chanyeol in the reflection of the window as he starts poking the console buttons with frantic movements to try and find something better. Of course, at this time of night, radio stations are airing nothing but their mellowest, most romantic songs, but eventually Baekhyun finds himself quietly shedding a few tears to some bad dubstep and decides that he feels a little better.

“We were so incompatible,” Baekhyun says out of nowhere, and he thinks he catches Chanyeol bracing himself for more complaining. “I mean, definitely not compatible in the bedroom. I mean—honestly, just fuck him, you know? He’s so selfish and—and bossy and, and I never liked him anyways!” Guilt crushes his resolve. “I love him,” he whines, banging his head against the window and letting the cool glass try and calm down his raging temperature. “And he doesn’t love me back anymore. What am I going to do with myself? Why can’t the love go poof as well, huh?”

A new song comes on, irritatingly up tempo, and Baekhyun starts thumping his head against the car window with every thump of bass.

“Don’t you lose three brain cells every time you do this?” he wonders. “I bet I can lose more.” Determinedly, he starts jackhammering his head against the window, which convinces Chanyeol that it’s high time to remove it all together. Baekhyun watches the glass move before his eyes to an electrical hum, his reflection slowly sliding away until all he can see is dark hedges and trees that cut across the sky above them. The cold air is sobering, and he sits back in his seat properly to think about everything he’s said. He wishes he didn’t love Sehun anymore. Love just hurts people. To think he was so happy eight hours ago, and then an hour later everything went wrong.

“Forever alone,” Baekhyun murmurs, putting his face out the window and shivering at the air wafting against his tear tracks. He curls is fingers over the window frame and sighs emptily, starting to hiccup as he sings along to that one Akon song, utterly butchering the high note in the line ‘I have nobody for my own’. He continues to warble past his hiccups, and then he gags, the noise he forms making him feel even worse and sparking a sharp series of wretches that have Chanyeol pulling over and Baekhyun soon flopping out of the car.

He throws up on the side of the road for the first time in what must be eight years. In truth, he’s probably drunk more tonight than he has in the last five years combined, so he should have known he had it coming. He coughs it all out, throat raw as he stands there with his hands on his knees and his body keeling forward. For a while, all he sees is the peachy splatter of his dinner, bordered on either side by his nice going-out shoes that he thought Sehun might appreciate. A bottle of water appears out of nowhere, and Baekhyun grabs at it thinking that maybe the hay bale in front of him just had one spare, until he feels someone patting his back.

In silence, he washes his mouth out and spits on the floor again, then downs almost the whole thing to drink out the taste. He sighs, wondering whose field it is that he’s vomited right outside of, and then goes to pat the hay bale in apology for no reason in particular, other than the fact that he might have disrespected its home.

“You’re the best taxi driver ever,” Baekhyun says when they’re back in the car and on their away again, voice rough and hoarse even with regular sips of water.

“Thanks,” Chanyeol chuckles, and Baekhyun thinks the sound comforting. It’s not a mean chuckle, or a sarcastic chuckle. Just a nice chuckle. Cordial. “Are you feeling a little better now?”

Baekhyun nods, not really saying yes. “Physically, sure,” he replies, “but emotionally? Right now my heart, like, wants to punch something so bad. Or strangle someone. Just like, squeeze their throat so tight that their eyes pop out, and then they’ll roll into the road and get squashed like grapes. And maybe you can help me with that, you know? Do you want to drive over some eyes?” He looks at Chanyeol manically. “I know I would.”

“Let’s just…” Chanyeol’s voice falters, but Baekhyun isn’t really paying attention, “get you to bed.”

“Fuck. Fuck me, honestly, I have no love life. It’s like I’m walking down a cul-de-sac expecting to get to the sea when all I get to is—hic—the shitty house at the end. And there’s never anything good in that house at the end, let me tell you! We’ve all seen the movies! We know what happens! People die in those houses! Jennifer Lawrence knows so.” Baekhyun taps his nose, eyes wobbling. “I wish, I wish me and Sehun had watched a movie. We never watched one once.”

“Not even once?”

“Nope. Not once. Not even a TV movie. Or one of those short animated ones that get their own DVD for some reason. You know what our relationship was?” Baekhyun waits for an answer, and when he doesn’t get one, he turns to Chanyeol and speaks a little louder. “Chanyeol, do you know what our relationship was?” A ‘little louder’ accidentally gets lost in transmission and becomes a lot louder, but Chanyeol seems to be coping just fine. Baekhyun leans towards him, tipping over and lodging his chin against Chanyeol’s (hard) bicep. “It was like,” he holds up his hands to act it all out, “trying to put a video into a DVD player. It was like that. And I’m not using that as an oofu—a euphumision—a—”

“A euphemism?”

“Right. Not an unomission for sex, because he never let me anywhere near his ratty ass. Bet there was shit up there anyways.”

Chanyeol snorts. “Probably.” Baekhyun is distracted by the indicators for a while, sniggering because there’s no one else on the road to even care to look at his signals, but he supposes that it’s good practise. “Almost home,” Chanyeol says, and Baekhyun sulks, tuning into the radio once again and imagining that he’s back in Edgebank clubbing his night away.

Small dots that are street lamps come into view, and Baekhyun starts wishing they could drive around for longer. He really doesn’t want to be alone. But what difference does it make? Even when he and Sehun were together, they were never really together. Baekhyun sighs forlornly. Right. It’s time to start thinking of Sehun in the past tense.

“I’m not happy, Chanyeol,” he states matter-of-factly. “Very not happy, and I think it’s important you know that.” He points at him rudely. Chanyeol just smiles.

“I hope it’s not my service that caused this.”

Baekhyun points closer and rams his finger into Chanyeol shoulder. “Absolutely not, Chanyeol. You are top dollar. Of course, there are things a taxi man can’t fix, and the heart is one of them. Unless you charge me an arm for this ride, in which case I will be very more unhappy and I will let you know about it.”

The village appears outside the car windows as they cross the bridge to the river that runs along the southern border. It’s mostly dark besides the one or two streetlamps they actually have, but Baekhyun knows this place like the back of his hand. It’s home, yet where that once brought him comfort it now brings him dread. He’s sleeping alone tonight in a double bed that’s seen only one person for far too long. At this point, he’d rather stay in the taxi.

“I’m not going to charge you an arm, don’t worry,” Chanyeol laughs as he pulls onto Baekhyun’s road. “Are you going to be okay getting in?”

Baekhyun struggles to even take off his seatbelt but replies with a confident, “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m totally fine.” His voice shakes. “How—How much for the taxiness?”

“A twenty.”

Baekhyun makes a noise, neither of disapproval or approval, and goes rooting in his wallet. “You’re in luck!” he calls loudly as he brandishes a note, slapping it down in the palm of Chanyeol’s hand and grinning from ear to ear. “Sleep well, now. Don’t let the—Don’t let the isolation, heartbreak and loneliness bite you now will you, Chanyeol?” Baekhyun says as he starts climbing out the car.

“I won’t—”

“They have very long teeth,” he declares. “And rough tongues!”

“I’ll be extra careful!” Chanyeol waves as Baekhyun slumps against the car door and shuts it with the weight of his body. “Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

“Of course I am sure! I am a strong, independent man. I don’t need no man.” His corny accent has Chanyeol shaking his head. “Except myself. I’m a man. If I don’t have myself then I would just be a pancake.”

“Make sure you drink water!” Chanyeol calls through his open car window as Baekhyun fights with his garden gate. Somehow, he manages to unlock his door, and he waves one last time at Chanyeol before locking himself in.

He drags himself up the stairs on his hands and feet, not trusting himself enough on two legs, and flops against his bedroom door to swing it open. The first thing he lays eyes on is his painting. Hapton leers at him through the darkness, painted in his own strokes with his own money, and Baekhyun has never felt so enraged so quickly. Sehun has been a downright waste of fucking time, so Baekhyun charges at the thing with the growl of a chihuahua and wrenches it from his easel. He stamps on several paint tubes and barges his thigh straight into the corner of his desk, and although he feels like he just got shot he fights through the pain of everything and starts clawing at the canvas. He launches it across the room and vaults over his bed after it, kicking it against the radiator and thrashing his foot down again and again until the wooden frame snaps in one corner.

He shouts out obscenities without a care for his neighbours and ends the whole show by flinging his window open and thrusting the painting from Hell out onto the road. He spits on it for good measure (and it dribbles down his chin), then collapses in a heap and grovels against the carpet, sobbing into the edge of his duvet that he eventually pulls off the bed entirely and wraps himself up in on the floor. The last thing he remembers thinking before he goes asleep is that his bedroom window is open, and that the rumours will be out tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Baekhyun usually loves the sound of his doorbell ringing. It means a neighbour has decided to pop round, and it never fails to make him smile when he realises that people think of him without him being physically present. Sometimes it’ll be Mrs Mason who runs the bakery, sharing out her homemade cakes that are about to go out of date, and other times it’s a few neighbourhood ladies inviting themselves in for tea and biscuits. He has to admit, he fits in rather well with middle-aged women – he does love gossip after all – and always finds himself chuckling as they flip through their magazines, pointing out male underwear models that supposedly look like him.

This morning, though, the doorbell is akin to the ominous caw of a crow, its cutting beak dragging him from the sleep his body is desperately clinging to. He wills its incessance to end, scrunching his eyes closed to wait out the call of death before the knocking starts and someone calls his name.

Jongin.

Baekhyun peels his eyes open and finds himself staring at the dust clumps under his bed where a few forgotten canvases lie. He doesn’t remember ending up here, but he thanks his drunk self for sparing a thought to bring the duvet with him when he most likely collapsed on the floor in an emotional heap. He can feel a breeze blowing around the back of his neck, the window wide open and letting the birdsong flow through. When he uproots his face from the carpet, he winces at the puddle of drool he leaves behind and the funny texture it has left on his skin. He’s never been graceful in the mornings.

“Baekhyun?” Jongin knocks again, so Baekhyun latches his fingers onto whatever is nearest – the bed and the radiator – and forces himself unsteadily to his feet. He doesn’t feel sick yet, which is a feat in and of itself. The smell on his clothes indicates that he probably vomited somewhere, and although he’s not necessarily proud of himself for overdoing it by about five drinks, he’s glad that at least there’s less alcohol in his system for his trip downstairs.

He’s still wearing his shirt and jeans from yesterday, and he’s pretty sure the folds in the denim have cut off his circulation in everything from the waist down; on his way across the landing, he tries to dislodge a stubborn wedgie that would likely be painful if he wasn’t feeling worryingly numb down there, and he’s almost got it when Jongin knocks again and makes him jump. He clings onto the banister for life as he braves the stairs, fingers gripping onto the towel he slung there after his shower yesterday, and wonders when exactly it was that Jongin started being so loud.

The route downstairs is littered with obstacles, things he’s stacked on the edge of the steps intended for use upstairs that he never bothered moving. There’s a new supply of shampoo and conditioner on one step, then a camera charger he used the other week so he could grab some photos of the sunset. He almost falls at the last hurdle when he thinks there’s one less step than there actually is, confidently stepping out into mid-air and falling into his pile of shoes at the bottom. Only when he’s drunk or hungover does he realise how messy he is, and he would stop to tidy up if Jongin wasn’t now poking his fingers through his letterbox and yelling through it.

Without giving it much thought, he brushes their fingers together as a warning before he swings the door open. The daylight smacks him in the face, the ringing in his ears instant and deafening, but he just about hears the softly spoken murmur of his name and squints through black spots at Jongin cradling a few splintered pieces of wood held together with flimsy bits of torn paper. Baekhyun’s first thought is that it’s some kind of contemporary, minimalist baby mobile that one would dangle over a cot, and then Jongin holds it out in such a way that spreads the torn paper, or canvas, and realisation hits.

“Morning, Baek!” He tries to smile, at least. “I was just leaving the hotel on my way to town and…” His warm eyes drop to the deceased painting, letting the visuals explain the rest. “It was in the road,” he says gently, lower lip pouting as he juggles the stakes around and accidentally tears the linen a little more. Baekhyun watches the top of the capital building and its revolving restaurant tear in two. “I didn’t mean to run over it, it just kind of… happened.”

And suddenly, Baekhyun remembers last night. Granted, a lot of it is a blur. He remembers something about traffic cones and a Diana Ross song, and, for no reason in particular, his taxi driver’s huge, cartoon smile, but the rest is a mystery. The only thing he can really, truly remember is the weight of his chest being crushed and the words I don't know if this is going to work anymore. The rest of his and Sehun’s conversation doesn’t seem to have registered in his mind, very likely to be some kind of coping mechanism, but he remembers the gist of what was said. Baekhyun is stubborn. Sehun’s work is important. He doesn’t have time for Baekhyun. He’d rather be with someone else.

Baekhyun is never cold towards Jongin. In fact, he’s the complete opposite. He’s never met someone who’s more kind, genuine, and as much of a sweetheart until he moved here, soaking up the sunny smiles and contagious laughter that radiates from Jongin’s whole being whenever he finds something the remotest bit funny. Jongin was one of the first people to reach out to him, to extend a hand wrapped up in a mitten (it was winter at the time) and invite him to the weekly pub quiz, and later, to the youth club he runs down in the village hall.

But right now, Baekhyun feels, for the most part, empty. And if not empty, then filled with hurt. It’s like a monster sitting on his chest with its talons for fingers locked around his throat, turning him green and making him resent everything and everyone because they’re all so happy and he isn’t. He can’t even bring himself to offer a polite smile, and instead he glares at the painting, pointedly grumbles “Keep it” and slams the door shut – then feels guilty about it for the next hour and a half until he’s too exhausted to care anymore.

It’s after he’s made himself a cup of tea and sat down on his settee that he notices the silence. Impenetrable and all-consuming, it devours every corner of his mind until he has no other option but to replay that moment over and over again, trying to figure out if he could have woken up in Sehun’s bed this morning if he’d done something differently. It takes approximately two hours of doing word searches for him to come to terms with that the fact that he has never been this lost before. He has no idea how to feel.

Sehun was so clean, so careful, with the way he’d spoken, making the blame fall on Baekhyun’s shoulders whether it be right or not. He starts to question everything, and spends several days cooped up at home trying to come to answers that don’t want to come to him. Every memory plays back in his head like some kind of documentary, highlighting their pinnacle moments of progress and then their dire moments of decline.

Their first kiss happened after their second date. Sehun had never kissed anyone before so it was short and sweet, and Baekhyun was high off the knowledge that Sehun had deemed him special enough to receive one of his firsts. It was a casual date, a walk around the city park that had a traveling fairground in for the summer. He remembers their fingers getting sticky with candyfloss and them both getting covered in bruises from the rickety old roller coasters that literally hurled them around every corner without mercy. Baekhyun remembers feeling happy. He remembers looking forward to next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. It didn’t occur to him that at some point, there wouldn’t be a next anymore.

Sehun doesn’t text him in the days following. Baekhyun bites back a sob and presses his face more firmly into his pillow when he realises that Sehun has no reason to talk to him anymore. Why would he need to know if Baekhyun was okay? He’s probably well into courting his new guy by now, Baekhyun left coughing up dust in his tyre tracks. But he knows that Sehun wouldn’t do that. Sehun has always been a gentleman, kind and calm and thoughtful – most of the time. Sure, they had disagreements, but Sehun never held grudges or brought up past arguments in the new ones. Thinking along those lines fails to make Baekhyun feel better. Sehun was so great. He doesn’t deserve to be dragged down by anyone. Baekhyun hopes he can be happy with his new venture, and then starts throwing things around the room in a tantrum because he wants Sehun to be happy with him and no one else.

The villagers call his landline endlessly but he never picks up the phone. They’ll have heard rumours by now, from Jongin or the neighbours, whoever thinks they have an idea of what’s going on, and he doesn’t want to face the fact that everyone knows because it’s real. Everyone will look at him with pity. Even the cab driver did. And he can’t stand the thought of feeling so low, feeling so unwanted, when he’s supposed to be the happy chap who lives down the road.

He could always unplug the telephone, of course, save himself the migraines, but just when he’s got his fingers clamped around the wire he stops himself. Unplug the landline and they’ll start peering in through his windows, shouting through his letterbox, and he wants neither of those things to happen. He bangs his head against the wall until he manages to let go, and then he decides to brew himself another cup of tea to stop the churning of his empty stomach. Since Friday, he hasn’t really been eating that much, but it works in his favour. His food is lasting longer, so he can spend a greater amount of time hiding away and not slinking out through his doorway to the corner shop, bound to run into people on the way.

While he doesn’t eat, he does wash himself, if sitting in the bathtub for three hours under the meek stream of water that is his shower counts. All the fixtures and fittings are the same as they were when he first moved in five years ago, and still the same when his grandparents moved in before him, some forty years ago. He had the place rewired and replumbed last autumn when he sprung a leak and water came down through his kitchen ceiling, but couldn’t afford a shiny white toilet or a sink with glossy silver faucets, so his showerhead has the same circumference as his favourite Winnie the Pooh mug and half the nozzles don’t work. Perhaps he should invest. New me, new bathroom. Some retail therapy might do him good, except he hasn’t painted anything commercially in a while and his income is dropping. Baekhyun buries his head in his arms, warm water jetting against his back, and remembers how he used to want a set of His and His sinks for his future home.

Naturally, the villagers don’t stop at an unreturned telephone call. On Monday, the week following the incident, they start walking past his house and none so discreetly goggling through his living room window. One morning, he’s hunched up in the corner of his sofa staring at the sudoku book of puzzles he’s got in his lap when Old Joe comes hobbling past without the decency to even pretend that he’s looking at something else. Baekhyun lives at the end of a row of terraced houses. The only thing further down the lane is Junmyeon’s luxury hotel in the old manor house, and he’s fairly certain that Old Joe, Mrs Parker and Camilla Harvey aren’t popping down to play some golf with an overpriced pot of tea every three hours.

Eventually, he opens his fridge and cupboards to find them bare of the things he needs. No milk, bread, cheese, not even any pasta. There’s only a packet of crackers that went out of date last November and a box of powdered strawberry flavouring to make a milkshake with. Right.

Baekhyun reluctantly gets dressed. He lazily slides into a pair of old, bobbled joggers and a hoodie that he can hide inside, then waits by his front door until the coast is clear. He runs calculations in his head, noting that today is Wednesday and trying to figure out what time everyone will be too busy to be wandering around. The farmers will be up in the hills so there’s no need to worry about them, and judging by the time Old Joe should be watching daytime TV with Agnes. So long as he can avoid the big talkers he shouldn’t be cornered into a conversation.

The corner shop is thankfully empty, save for Rose who stands behind the till filling out what looks to be a stock sheet. He slopes around the shop figuring out what he can eat that won’t make him feel sick, the soft thrum of the fridges and freezers and the sound of Rose’s pencil marking ticks on her paper making him feel like less of a focal point. He accidentally catches her eye when he’s moving from the bread to the snacks, and he freezes in fear until she gives him a kind smile and returns to her work.

Rose is one of the kindest people Baekhyun knows. Her jokes are never at anyone’s expense, and she’s always one of the first in line to offer a helping hand where and when she can. She’s pretty too, Baekhyun can appreciate. Long, curly red hair that tumbles wildly over her shoulders, freckled pale skin and friendly brown eyes. If he was that way inclined, Baekhyun wouldn’t have any qualms about chasing her – the thought, unexpected in its appearance, leaves a bitter taste on his tongue. He immediately thinks of Sehun, who left him for someone else, and Yixing, Rose’s boyfriend who she’s oh-so in love with. Envy clenches around his heart and lungs and he feels rather faint, but Baekhyun puts it down to his lack of food over the past few days instead of emotional turmoil. It sucks, yet he feels like if he seems too bothered about the break-up, he’s letting Sehun win.

He pays without making eye contact and is glad that Rose says nothing to him other than “Is that everything?”, “Do you need help packing?” and “Cash or card?”. Baekhyun usually brings his token jute bag that says ‘Crafts are good!!!’ when shopping but from the current limited brain capacity he currently has, he forgot, and has to use his croaky voice to ask for a plastic replacement. Rose is nothing but thoughtful, packing his shop for him even though he would have been fine doing it himself and telling him to take care as she hands it over.

“I saw that Mrs Mason has a few reduced cakes on sale,” she says. “They need to be eaten by today.”

At the mention of cake, Baekhyun’s stomach betrays him. It growls, loud enough for Rose to hear, and he quickly hurries away from her eyes when they drop to his midriff. She’s not one to gossip, but the whispers can become distorted. Baekhyun hadn’t eaten anything all day when he came into my shop can easily turn into Rose said Baekhyun isn’t eating. Someone invite him over for dinner immediately!

The cake wins on his way back home, and he stops at Mrs Mason’s bakery to pick himself the fattest, unhealthiest one he can see. His smile is awkward when he returns the one she sends his way, and things grow even more awkward when he stands in front of the glass counter trying to decide what to have. He can’t think with Mrs Mason staring at him like he’s her next meal, so he ends up pointing at a red velvet cupcake and not saying anything when she mistakes his choice for a choux bun. It could have been worse, Baekhyun reasons, and hands over the cash when she tells him the cost.

She boxes it up for him so it won’t get crushed in his shopping bag, and smiles sweetly at him as she slides it across the countertop and asks, “Sehun no longer in the picture?”

Baekhyun’s hands go numb where he’s picking up the cake. He stills completely, staring blankly into the eyes of Mrs Mason who he knows didn’t mean any harm, but who has managed to destroy his confidence in a single line anyway. Everyone knows. Great.

Baekhyun shakes his head, unable to find his voice, and promptly makes an exit. He starts crying as soon as his front door is locked behind him, and he throws the cake box onto the floor in rebellion before he heads upstairs and buries himself in his duvet. The humiliation is strangling him. Sehun got out unscathed, left him because he wasn’t good enough, and Baekhyun doesn’t know how to cope with all the insecurities that have planted themselves in his mind and wound roots down into his thoughts. Will he ever be enough for someone? Will anyone want him for life? Baekhyun sniffles into his pillow, the fabric still damp from this morning, and somehow falls asleep to the thought of aging alone with fifty cats for company.

When he heads downstairs later on in the evening, the sun already set and the village quiet save for the wauling of Agnes’ cat, Baekhyun discovers that his cake is still tucked safely inside the box, albeit a little battered, and decides to eat it. He thinks of Mrs Mason again, chewing the pastry and swallowing it down a sore throat. The way he eats is messy, cream all over his face, and soon he finds himself mourning that there’s no one to clean it up for him anymore. Sehun would have taken the opportunity to make a move, to kiss the cream between his own lips and lick the rest of it up. Something pinches Baekhyun’s chest and his head droops forwards from the pain, eyes happening to fall upon his mobile phone discarded on the coffee table.

Sehun’s number is still at the top of his inbox, the last sent message from Friday appearing as a preview and trailing off with an ellipsis. Sehun is at the top of his contacts too, under ‘A…Sehun’, and is the first on speed dial. His gallery is full of pictures of them together, his music library stocked with songs Sehun had recommended or played in his car for one of their long drives between Bybrook and Hapton. He has dumb gaming apps installed that he saw Sehun playing, and still has tabs open on his browser that Sehun used to look things up when they were cooking or watching a TV show and couldn’t figure out where they’d seen an actor before. His house is no different. Sehun is everywhere.

It’s too tempting. Baekhyun scrolls up through their past messages and forgets for a moment that they’re not together anymore. He laughs at Sehun’s dry jokes, smiles fondly at all the plans they made, traverses back further still to the days when they used to text each other good night and good morning, and I love you.

[I miss you], he types slowly, then staring at the draft trying to figure out if this is the right thing to do or not. And though it may not be right, to disrupt Sehun’s new life with Mr Perfect, it is certainly true. Baekhyun has never missed anyone so much as he does Sehun, not even his parents when he moved away, or his grandparents when they died. So he sends it, and regrets it, and tries to bottle up the distress that comes from being left on read.

He wishes he could say he stopped after that. That he deleted Sehun’s number and maybe even threw out his phone after smashing it and setting it on fire. But his emotions get worse, his loneliness amplified with each passing day, and it feels like the part of himself he lost to Sehun is growing more and more in size the longer they spend apart. Will he have to live with this ache forever?

[You’re a selfish bastard], he texts to Sehun, a hundred percent sure in his mind that he is the only one suffering and that Sehun is off in the clouds having the time of his life. Faint is his memory of asking Sehun if there was someone else, but he sharply remembers the guilty expression that had been his gut reaction. Baekhyun swears he asked who it was as well, but he doesn’t recall getting an answer to that, and right now, with his mind running a mile a minute to try and picture what the new guy looks like, Baekhyun is overwhelmed by this all-consuming need to know.

First, he checks Facebook, and when he comes across nothing he realises that this is too respectable a site to be seen breaking up with your boyfriend and happening upon a new one two days later. Sehun is also friends with Baekhyun’s mother on Facebook, and Baekhyun cringes at how he is still ‘in a relationship’ and Sehun has himself down as ‘single’. Snapchat is a painful one, watching the stories of his old college friends pass by, a mixture of men his age on night’s out and men his age recording their babies wrapped up in blankets. It feels like everyone is doing something except for him. Everyone is successful, a long list of accomplishments under their belts, and him? Baekhyun is just a painter, a lonely painter, living out in the middle of nowhere with no future prospects of getting married, having kids, or making enough to do more than just get by.

Instagram is the one that does it. An icy rush sweeps through his chest and down to his fingertips, eyes absorbed by the picture of Sehun smiling with the side of his face pressed against the face of someone Baekhyun thinks he’s met before. They didn’t chat for long, but back in April at Sehun’s birthday party they’d been introduced and he’d seemed quiet, awkward, anxious. The exact opposite of Baekhyun in every way. And maybe the caption is the reason why.

Three months with this one! (*^▽^*)

That’s funny. Baekhyun remembers breaking up only a week ago.

It would make sense for him to be mad. Instead, he just feels numb. He is well aware that things always get worse before they get better, yet he was not aware of just how bad it could get. Like clockwork, he checks Sehun’s Instagram the minute he wakes up and the minute before he goes to sleep, hunting for pictures of him and his new man together for a reason he doesn’t even know yet. Does he want to learn more about this ‘Logan’ guy to see if he’s better than him? Or does his subconscious want to break through his lovesick delusion that Sehun might come back to him in the future?

In situations where he can’t help himself, he has a great number of neighbours he can count on. Vanessa Shaw next door is a great listener, and Martha and Maggie a few doors down have had a total of thirty broken relationships between them in the past ten years alone. They’ll have advice, good advice, but Baekhyun doesn’t want to be seen like this.

Of course, that doesn’t stop his neighbours from peering in through his front window whenever they walk by. Old Joe even stops and waves at him. The ghost of Baekhyun waves back.

Three weeks pass, and Baekhyun decides to start meditating. June turns to July, and while he avoids painting for as long as he can, he opens his email inbox to find that his contract with a popular greetings card manufacturer has been renewed. He still feels under the weather – so much so that he’s probably under the ground too – but he needs to focus on getting his life back together. The world won’t stop turning because Sehun left him, and while he’s been stuck in limbo, Sehun has been out and about with his new guy doing all the city things that they never could.

Baekhyun is bitter, so when he sits down to start planning his twenty new Christmas card designs, none of them come out very cheery. He’s pleased to have this opportunity again, as it distracts him from the empty canvases lined against his bedroom wall that mock him for being clueless and lost. He could paint out his feelings, but it would most likely make a mess. Paint is too expensive to waste on trivial things like his misery.

He’s only ventured outside a couple of times to buy food and alcohol, and occasionally he sits in his garden now that it’s T-shirt weather. He downs a whole bottle of wine one night, and proceeds to drunkenly text a set of three incorrectly spelled fuck yous to Sehun in the early hours of the morning. Sehun doesn’t reply because the messages don’t send, Baekhyun confused as to why throughout the remainder of his hangover. The instalment of new fibre optic cables in the area last year had been a big event, so it’s not like the Wi-Fi has broken. And then it hits him while he’s cooking dinner for one.

He’s been blocked.

Petty. That’s the only word that comes to mind. He forces himself to scoff, roll his eyes, and then stir the bolognese sauce that is burning to the bottom of the saucepan, doing his very best to rise above it and stop tearing open the wounds that heal weaker every time.

Baekhyun falls back into painting like he falls into bed, sketching out his first snowy scene on card and then scanning it into his computer. He has a pretty impressive and expensive set-up for his digital artwork, his graphics tablet costing a leg on its own, but he finds it much more convenient than painting by hand when he’s painting for a client. That way, if they want something changed, he can just erase the mistake without having to start all over again. Four days later, he sends the company a copy of his initial drafts to receive feedback and is just downing the rest of his tea when the landline rings.

The last time he physically spoke to someone was when Mrs Mason had rubbed salt in his wounds. Since then, he’s avoided all the villagers, and they’ve exchanged pleasantries or reassuring smiles that make Baekhyun feel guilty for being so miserable. He has a mini heart attack when he realises the caller could be his mother, who he’s only texted briefly for a total of six minutes in the past month. His steps are cautious as he approaches the phone, as if his mother is going to leap out of the receiver and yell “Surprise!” at the top of her voice.

When his eyes land on the number, he sighs with relief. It’s just Joe, and he answers.

“Blimey! Wasn’t expecting you to pick up!”

Baekhyun’s chuckle is stunted. “I’ve been busy with work and you caught me on a tea break.”

“Glad I caught you.” Joe sounds like he’s smiling. “I was just ringing to see if you’re going to come down to the pub later? We’ve got our weekly quiz again. Kyungsoo’s doing free pints for the winning team.”

Baekhyun’s chest clenches at the prospect of going to the pub. Admittedly, he’d forgotten the weekly quizzes, lost in a myriad of his own thoughts and feelings. His absence from such an event that he usually attends with ease was probably a glaring sign that something wasn’t quite right. Trouble is, everyone goes to the pub on quiz night and Baekhyun doesn’t know if he’s ready to be faced with the entire village all at once and simultaneously in the same room. On the other hand, they should be distracted by the quiz. Still, Baekhyun doesn’t want to take any chances. He doesn’t want anyone coming up to him with tentative steps or being incredibly obvious about dancing around the subject before they come in full throttle and ask him what’s been going on.

“The farmers’ll be there too for their roast, and you know how good of a team they are,” Joe tells with a dramatic flair. “I need me a free pint, Baekhyun!”

Baekhyun finds himself laughing at Joe’s insistence. Even still, words of decline are on the tip of his tongue. He’s afraid of what people will say, what they’ll think, and scolds himself for being so. Why should he care? Why does he care? He doesn’t have to say anything he doesn’t want to. He can avoid conversations with a smile and the quiz. Most of all, he cannot be responsible for the way others perceive him. If someone thinks he looks on the brink of death, so be it. As long as he doesn’t feel that way, he has nothing to worry about.

It’s Sehun who has caused this, threading doubt and insecurity and anxiety into his skin. Baekhyun refuses to let Sehun govern his life any longer, not that he’s even a part of it anymore, so he clips his tongue behind his teeth and charges his brain with wording an acceptance.

“You know what?” he asks lightly. “I’ll be there.”

Baekhyun stares at himself in the mirror, viewing his ash brown hair with his darker roots showing through, his dry skin that’s started to peel around his nose, the dark circles under his eyes that scream for sleep. He wonders how he’s going to fix it. Fix himself. He has concealer, moisturiser, even some left-over hair dye, but he knows deep down that he’d only be fixing things at face value. He still feels loss, loneliness. Still feels like ringing up the local pet shelter and adopting a cat or ten. But for now, he has the pub quiz to contend with, and he wants to look some semblance of happy and at peace to dissuade the villagers from picking him apart.

He does use the moisturiser and the concealer, and slips into clothes that whisper of the times he wore them around Sehun. He has to stop midway into his jeans to take several deep breaths, recalling how Sehun once ripped them off him in a frenzy on his sofa.

“Stop thinking about him,” he berates himself, and ends up washed with guilt. “Focus on the damn quiz, idiot.”

He’s probably a little rough around the edges where his quiz-mind is concerned. Joe will probably tell him to put on his ‘thinking cap’ later when he can’t come up with any of the answers, but Baekhyun reckons he should be alright. He’s been going to these quizzes for almost half a year now, since Kyungsoo made them a regular thing (probably his way of educating the village on the outside world without them knowing) and he’s been enjoying it rather a lot. It’s a good chance to socialise without the worry of keeping a dying conversation six feet from death, what with the healthy answer debates they often have because no one can decide who’s right and who’s wrong.

Despite his worries, he decides to head down to the pub a little earlier so he can eat some decent food. Recently he’s been surviving off crisps and crackers, things that’ll keep for an age, just so he can avoid going to the shop any more times than strictly necessary. A scampi and chips with mushy peas should perk him right up, or so Kyungsoo would say.

Baekhyun sits on the second-to-last step of his stairwell to tie his shoes, then checks himself one last time in the mirror before he heads out. The evening is peaceful, quiet, and there are birds singing in the trees – except for a pair of blackbirds who are squawking at each other. A break-up, probably. He walks down the lane, passing his neighbours’ house – the Shaws – and then Jongin’s. On his other side is a low stone wall, weathered and moss-ridden but still strong against the wind. Beyond that stands the church, built in the thirteenth century, the Vicar’s modest house sitting in the shadow of the clock tower and its singular spire. He sees a car up ahead, parked on the corner, and takes note of the company plaque on one of the back doors.

A taxi.

Instantly, Baekhyun feels like he’s seen a ghost. The car – a silver Volvo – is forebodingly familiar, and he creeps up to it apprehensively with half the mind to run back home. Of course, Baekhyun can’t resist knowing whether whoever it is sat in the driver’s seat is the same man who drove him home that night, so he awkwardly leans down to gawp in through the half-open passenger window to confirm his suspicions. While his memory of that night is fairly blurry, Baekhyun starkly remembers the curly black hair and the large, bright eyes, and doesn’t manage to scramble away in time to hide behind whatever shrub is big enough before the man inside the car is turning his eyes away from his phone to look at him.

Baekhyun blanches, but he doesn’t have an impolite bone in his body and his mouth automatically struggles up into some sort of a smile. “H-Hi there.” He cringes at his own voice, high and strung out, very blatantly nervous as hell. “I was—well—wondering if you remember me?” Baekhyun wants to eat his fist, and prays to himself that no, the driver does not remember him, because although Baekhyun has taken only one taxi journey in the past six months and is very likely to remember his driver’s face, this guy has probably driven around hundreds of passengers in the past week alone. Baekhyun’s face is by no means a memorable one.

“Oh, hi!” chirps the guy, opening the window all the way.

At least he sounds friendly, Baekhyun thinks, struggling to remember if he threw up in his car or said something obscenely inappropriate to him while he was incapacitated.

“Yeah, I remember you. You, uh—Yeah, not that easy to forget a journey like that.”

Baekhyun’s eyes bulge. A journey like that? What the hell does that mean? “Yeah, well, I’m glad I ran into you actually—” not true “—because I wanted to apologise for that night. I’d really drank too much and I probably drove you insane, so thanks for putting up with me and helping me get home okay.” He flashes a wary smile, one that the man returns, and finds himself settling into his embarrassment rather nicely. “I… I did pay you, right?”

“Oh, yeah! Yeah, you did!” The guy nods, every move animated and big. Baekhyun’s surprised he hasn’t hit his head on the roof yet. He looks pretty tall, almost too big for his car.

“Right.” Baekhyun nods, noting that the man is looking at him expectantly. “I’m Baekhyun, by the way.”

The guy grins, massively. “Chanyeol,” he says, leaning over the passenger seat and stretching his hand out the window for a shake that Baekhyun returns.

“Right, I remember.” Baekhyun smiles. “It’s not that common to have taxis parked up around here.” He leans more comfortably against the window now, crossing his forearms along the frame.

“Oh, yeah! I just got back from taking Mr Walker to the DIY store. His wife had the car and he needed a lift.”

“Ah, right. What was he buying?” Baekhyun really spends too much time around the old folk.

The guy, Chanyeol, chuckles lightly. “Lawnmower. Says his one’s packed in.”

“Right, that old thing,” Baekhyun says with recognition. “Are you from around here, then?”

Chanyeol nods eagerly. “Yeah. I just moved in up the road actually, about a month ago now.”

Oh. Baekhyun didn’t see that coming. His mouth pops open in a small gasp and he repositions his weight to his other foot, giving Chanyeol the once over to try and figure out how old he is. Places around here don’t come cheap, so it’s odd that Chanyeol, a taxi driver who looks to be no older than twenty-five, could afford a place all on his own. Mrs Parker only ever mentioned one person moving in so Chanyeol must have paid for it by himself, but he hasn’t spoken to her since before the break-up. Perhaps he’s been joined by five new housemates.

“So you’re the mystery guy who moved into Harry’s old place? Right. Not what I was expecting.” Baekhyun laughs good-naturedly, and luckily Chanyeol doesn’t seem offended when Baekhyun realises how rude his statement could have come across.

“Thanks?”

“Yeah, I just mean, you know, usually it’s retired folk who move in here,” he clarifies, thankful that he and Chanyeol seem to be on the same page. He’s been here for a month, then, for the entire time that Baekhyun has been hibernating. Baekhyun would’ve thought he might have run into him on one of his incognito food-shop missions, but then remembers how hard it can be for newcomers to properly feel at home in close-knit communities like these. Chanyeol needs an in, and Baekhyun, feeling chummy, decides to be that in.

“I’m actually just on my way to the pub to grab some food. It’s quiz night, so pretty much all the village will be there – half at the least. Do you want to come along? You can join my team.”

Chanyeol looks surprised at the invitation, checking the time on his phone and then the glitzy watch on his wrist before looking back at him. “What time does the quiz start?”

“Usually around half seven, so you’ve still got some time. Don’t worry if you can’t make it though. There are quizzes every week.” He flashes Chanyeol a friendly smile, one that widens when Chanyeol insists he’ll try and be there.

“No, I’ll do my best to make it! Thanks for the offer, that’s really kind of you.”

Baekhyun’s chest warms. “No problem. Hope I’ll see you there.”

“Me too!” Chanyeol says, just as his phone starts ringing.

Baekhyun stands up from the car window and waves briefly on his first few steps towards the pub. Digging his hands in his pockets, he looks up at the lilac sky and smiles. He forgot how good it could feel to actually talk with someone, especially someone who doesn’t want to know all of his secrets. He gives Chanyeol’s taxi one last glance before he rounds the corner and can’t see it anymore, crossing the main road that runs through the village to where Kyungsoo’s pub is cosied snugly between Rose’s corner shop and Mrs Mason’s bakery.

Baekhyun steps down through the main door and enters the dimly lit open space, the diamond leaded windows at the same height as the road outside. The ceiling sags a little in the middle, even with the new support columns Kyungsoo had put in a few months ago, and the floor is unlevel from a dodgy redecoration job done in the sixties. Despite that, the pub is weirdly comforting. There are three brick fireplaces, each out cold now due to the summer, but which roar in winter when the snow gathers on the window sills, and many an antique painting or sketch framed on blank sections of wall. Baekhyun even painted the pub a few years ago, his painting hung safely behind the bar between the glasses and the alcohol, outside the reach of children’s sticky fingers.

A deep breath in tells Baekhyun that food is underway, the smell of the fryer wafting through the air alongside the sound of Old Joe’s laughter. The quiz tables are to the left, out the way of the bar and the other seating area where people are able to sit, eat and not be disturbed by Kyungsoo asking people about Scottish trivia and Jupiter’s moons. Baekhyun heads up to the bar to place an order, smiling kindly at Vick Harvey behind the till, a high schooler who works here part-time on weekends.

With pint in hand, Baekhyun braves the descent as the stained checked carpet slopes down with the foundations, drawing out his chair to a chorus of his fellow quiz teammates shouting their greetings.

“He lives!” cries Andy Walker, Baekhyun’s next-door-but-one neighbour. Baekhyun rolls his eyes and asks him about his new lawnmower to turn the conversation away from himself.

They talk about general things, like how Andy is going to redesign his garden over the summer with the help of his sons who’ll be returning from university, and how Joe is busy turning a guitar into a ukulele by doing something with the fifth fret. There’s also gossip too, plenty of it, and it takes them easily into the time when their food arrives and Baekhyun can dip his chips in ketchup. He always shudders when he sees how much salt Joe puts on his food, and then warns him about all the health problems he’s going to have in a couple of years.

It’s light-hearted and, for the most part, it feels like Baekhyun has never been away. His quiz mates fill him in effortlessly on what’s been transpiring in regards to their upcoming village events and issues down at the hotel, and soon it’s time to start the quiz itself. Around them, the other tables have filled out. Vick is busy behind the bar serving drinks to Baekhyun’s opponents – or arch nemeses, as Joe says – and there’s a huge roar when the farmers all strut in, wearing their haggard walking boots and dirt-smeared t-shirts. Agnes, now sat at one the tables towards the back of the room, does her best to wolf whistle, and, like every week, tries to persuade Jongdae to join her team.

“You’ll never be underappreciated here!” she cries, laughing loudly afterwards, a bit like a witch’s cackle. Baekhyun snorts as Jongdae turns shy and timidly lowers himself into a seat beside Minseok and his wife who’s trying to control their two young children. Jongdae used to be scared of Agnes, so being shy is an improvement. “Suit yourself!” Agnes squawks across the room, inspiring Old Joe to offer himself up instead. She sneers at that.

The quiz starts without a hitch, except Chanyeol isn’t here. Baekhyun’s eyes flicker to the door more often than not, finding that he’s probably more disappointed than he really ought to be considering he doesn’t know Chanyeol and he has no obligation to even show up. In a twisted way, Baekhyun feels like he’s being rejected all over again. The squeaking of Kyungsoo’s cheap microphone through the speakers brings him out of his mind, just in time to hear a question that he thinks he knows the answer to.

“What is the only capital city in the world that begins with an I?”

His team all huddle around the scrap piece of paper they’re writing their answers on to discuss.

“I think it’s Istanbul,” David Shaw, Baekhyun’s actual neighbour says, to which Andy scoffs and tells him that that’s a country – which is still wrong.

“I think it’s Iowa,” Joe bluffs loudly, trying to throw the other teams off course while Baekhyun grabs hold of the pencil and scribbles down Islamabad. “Oh, that looks like it might be it.” Joe brims with excitement when he sees the paper.

A few more questions pass before Baekhyun hears the pub door opening again, and this time when he looks up, it’s actually Chanyeol. He really shouldn’t be this excited at the sight of him, but Baekhyun really doesn’t care. At the moment, he doesn’t have a lot of things to look forward to anymore and introducing Chanyeol to the rest of the villagers has, for some reason, become one of those rarities. Kind of like a project.

“Chanyeol! Over here!” Baekhyun stands abruptly and calls, waving him over for a second before he gets distracted hunting for a chair. Chanyeol has to stoop on his way down the stairs so he can fit below the beams that crisscross across the ceiling, unless he fancies hitting his head, and while Baekhyun is busy offering his new acquaintance a chair, he’s momentarily stunned at how tall he is. He supposes that sitting hunched in a car all day would make anyone look small, but it’s like Chanyeol’s come out of a cocoon and spread his wings.

“Glad you could make it,” Baekhyun says honestly as he sinks back down into his seat.

“Sorry for being late.” Chanyeol sounds nervous, wide, rabbit-in-headlights eyes doing a lap of the group to familiarise himself with everyone sat there.

“Everyone, this is Chanyeol,” Baekhyun introduces. “Chanyeol, this is David, Andy and Old Joe.” He refers to each person with a hand so Chanyeol can match names to faces, and grins at the crease in his brow at the word old. “It’s so he doesn’t forget his age,” Baekhyun provides, laughing when Chanyeol looks even more confused.

They all shake hands with Chanyeol, which Baekhyun deems good progress, and there’s a little small talk while Kyungsoo is busy compiling his next set of questions. While Joe interrogates Chanyeol on what he does, and Andy interrupts by saying he went to get the lawnmower with him, Baekhyun watches Kyungsoo get tangled in the microphone wire and almost lose his footing.

“You’ve only missed a few questions,” Baekhyun assures Chanyeol once the small talk has died out, and then Kyungsoo’s back at it with his withering stares and impossible questions, like he’s mad that people don’t know the answers. Baekhyun finds it hilarious.

Throughout the rest of the quiz, Baekhyun wonders if he’s overcompensating. Their quiz team has been the same for months, and the fast-paced, back and forth bickering they partake in has a peculiar, almost impenetrable structure. Mainly, Baekhyun doesn’t want Chanyeol to feel left out, and at every question where he sees their regular chuntering of little use, he very obviously says “Chanyeol, do you have any ideas?” and he can’t work out if he’s making things worse for him or not. Sometimes it does work in his favour because Chanyeol actually knows the right answer, so that gives Baekhyun peace of mind.

Eventually, after ten rounds with ten questions each, Kyungsoo disappears off to mark all the answer sheets. There’s a small break in the conversation, and naturally, things turn towards him.

“So what’ve you been up to these past few weeks, eh?” David wonders, giving him a gentle nudge with his elbow.

“Oh, uh, painting mainly. Just finishing up a few projects.” He doesn’t really want to say anything more than that, so Joe saves him the trouble. Of course, ten minutes later they’re all sipping on victory, their winning free pints in hand as they cheer and slander their competitors in good faith. The quiz teams dissolve, people switch tables, and Baekhyun watches with a slight smile on his face as Chanyeol is descended upon by a group of ladies who are very interested in what he does for a living.

“Hey.” Jongin pops out of nowhere, a hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder. He drops into the seat Joe vacated a while ago and flashes him a smile. Baekhyun knows that The Talk is coming, so mentally prepares himself to feel like his thoughts are being invaded. “What’s been happening with you?”

Baekhyun deadpans at that, turning his eyes to his beer. “Don’t you already know?”

Jongin sighs. “Baek, you know I don’t believe half the stuff people say around here. It all gets twisted in some way or another. I just want to know you’re okay.”

Baekhyun remains stiff, eyes flitting across the room to where Mrs Mason has a hand on Chanyeol’s knee, chuckling about something. “Mrs Mason knows,” he utters quietly, just in case she might hear, and that seems to answer Jongin’s question.

“I’m so sorry, Baek. When I saw the painting I thought maybe you’d just fallen out, I didn’t think…” Suddenly, Jongin is launching forwards and trying to hug him, and although it feels weird, Baekhyun allows himself to be comforted for a moment. The touch of Jongin’s hands on his back makes goosebumps rise along his flesh; it’s been so long since someone else touched him, even just like this.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jongin asks as he pulls back and settles in the chair again.

This time, Baekhyun sighs, and although he shakes his head, he starts muttering anyway. He’d rather someone hear it straight rather than have the rumours speak for him. “He just said he doesn’t want to come back for me anymore. His life is in the city and—and there’s someone else.”

“He cheated?!” Jongin hisses, so loud that Baekhyun swears he sees a few people look over. Baekhyun wants so badly to say ‘no’ just as loudly, so everyone knows that no, he wasn’t replaced and no, there wasn’t someone better, but he can’t. After Sehun told him that he wanted to break up before anything happened, and then Baekhyun found out he’d been with his new guy for three months, he doesn’t really know what the truth is and he hasn’t the heart to punish himself with solving it.

“I… It’s complicated. I don’t really know what happened, except that he wanted someone who wasn’t me. He thought about someone else when we were together – I don’t know. I just feel angry, and when I’m not angry I don’t know how to feel. I’ve never been through this before. I’m just trying to figure stuff out, I guess.” Figure himself out, more like.

Jongin looks at him with sympathy, so Baekhyun reaches for his beer. “I’m always here if you need anything. Just a stone’s throw away.” He cracks a smile and adds, “Like everyone else, I suppose, but who would you rather talk to, eh?”

“Thanks, Jongin.” Baekhyun kicks him lightly with his foot, grinning. He drinks a little more, until the memories of what happened last time he drank beer resurface. The ache in his chest is back, and at this point he’s pretty much certain that it’s never going to go away. As he pays for his last pint of the night, he turns to look at his neighbours all jolly and carefree. Yixing and Rose are whispering to each other in a corner booth, and Minseok is trying to round up his children as they’ll be leaving soon, finding his three year old son hiding behind Old Joe who insists he isn’t there. And though the older ladies of the village are flirting outrageously with Jongin, Jongdae and even Chanyeol now, Baekhyun is well aware that they love their husbands just as much as they did in the beginning, and he finds himself wondering how everyone else is lucky enough to have someone, and he isn’t. It seems his luck ran out when he secured the job of his dreams. A portable job, too.

It’s not long before he finds his mood dropping again. This always happens at some point during the day, when he’ll remember all over again that he can’t tell Sehun he ran out of teabags so had to go out in his pyjamas, or boast about how he got a really difficult question right in the pub quiz and brought victory to his team. He has his parents he can ring – and he probably should sometime soon – but it’s not the same. He wants someone he can tell these things to, someone who’ll be interested and pay attention and then respond with their own menial nothings. He’s lost that.

Agnes’ cackle distracts him, and when he glances over with a glum expression he realises that she has her hands on Chanyeol’s face, demanding to know whether his grandfather is single and if she stands a chance. Time for Baekhyun to swoop into the rescue.

“I think it’s time we were heading off,” he says with a voice a little weaker than he would have liked. The confident hand he places on Agnes’ shoulder prompts her to retreat.

“Must be past your boys’ bedtime now I’d imagine,” she teases them, Chanyeol wasting no time in getting up off the chair he was imprisoned on.

“Exactly.” Baekhyun winks, leaning down to press a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Agnes swells, holding onto Baekhyun’s hand as he starts to back away. “You’re a darling, you are. Come and join me for tea tomorrow.”

“Give me a ring and I’ll find some time,” he says, and briefly wonders whether he’ll regret agreeing to that later. Right now, his mood swings from left to right like a pendulum, except the rhythm is temperamental and he never knows when it’ll switch. One minute he feels up for taking on the world, and the next, he doesn’t want to leave his bed. In all honesty, tea with Agnes could either be lovely or a complete disaster and a sizeable part of Baekhyun doesn’t want to risk it.

“That was a much more intense quiz than I was expecting,” Chanyeol huffs out with a small laugh once they’ve left the pub, squeezing his large hands into the front pockets of his greying black jeans.

Baekhyun smiles and looks at the sky, well past nine o’clock but still bright in the distance. At the moment, they’re just standing on the road, recovering from all the action they’ve been a part of for two hours. Baekhyun decides to walk Chanyeol home so they can talk a little and begins to follow him up the bank, away from the heart of the village to where the trees grow thicker. “Yeah, Kyungsoo takes these things pretty seriously. Even on the themed nights when we all dress up.”

Chanyeol’s round eyes goggle at him. “You do that? Dress up, I mean?”

“Yup,” Baekhyun nods, “we do. We have to keep things interesting around here. There’s always something going on.” Chanyeol gasps and looks ahead, and Baekhyun smiles faintly. He remembers being completely overwhelmed when he first moved in, even though he used to visit his grandparents here when they lived in what is now his house. “There’s an end of school barbecue happening in a few weeks. Kids summer holidays and all. We do it every year on the village green outside the hall. Do you know where that is?”

“Oh, uh,” Chanyeol frowns in thought, “yeah? It’s down near the bakery, right? Behind some houses?”

“Yeah! You’re more than welcome to come. I’m sure Agnes would appreciate it,” he teases, and is thankful that Chanyeol doesn’t seem too terrified of her (yet). He laughs softly, drawing to a stop at the end of a narrow dirt road that was recently covered with tarmac for a smooth driveway. There’s tall hedgerows on either side, trees sandwiched between, and at the end of the small lane is what used to be Harry’s house, a generous bungalow that he built himself to live out his retirement in. Baekhyun’s never been inside, but he heard it was pretty fancy.

“She’s definitely friendly,” Chanyeol says with a grimace that melts into a smile. It’s good, Baekhyun thinks, that he’s not taking things too seriously. There have been relatives of his neighbours who have come to visit and been completely appalled at the way some of the old folk have acted around them. That’s just city people for you though. Sehun was one of them. He could never take a joke, unless he was the one making it.

Baekhyun’s heart twists, and though he tries not to show the pain on his face, he knows some of it bleeds through.

“I really enjoyed the quiz though. Do you go to the pub quiz every week?” Chanyeol asks, seemingly not wanting to end the conversation even though he’s technically home already. Baekhyun doesn’t know how he’d feel about taking Chanyeol directly to his front door, so this is as close as he’s willing to get. Maybe he can explore the bungalow another day.

“They are on every week but sometimes I get caught up with work so I can’t go. Deadlines to meet and everything. But I make an effort to go as often as I can,” he smiles, then adds, “usually” on the end for good measure. He senses a little disappointment in Chanyeol’s expression, and figures that it’s probably from nerves. Baekhyun doesn’t blame him for not wanting to go without a friendly face there. He’d probably get devoured by Agnes if he went without backup.

“Here.” Baekhyun slides his hand into his back pocket and pulls out his phone. “If we have each other’s numbers I can let you know if I’m going or not. I know it can be hard to face everyone by yourself at first.”

Chanyeol smiles while he taps his number into Baekhyun’s contacts. “They can be a little intimidating when they’re all together, yeah, but I’m sure I’ll settle in. They all seem like really nice people.”

“They are, they are,” Baekhyun agrees, taking his phone back and shooting Chanyeol a text so that his number pops up. “And they all have some pretty great stories too. Anyway, I’ll let you get on. I’ll see you around.” He smiles, waves, and watches as Chanyeol treks up his driveway after chiming a “You too!”

Baekhyun decides to walk the long way home, tootling down the public footpath that runs along the edge of Minseok’s fields on one side and the woods behind the village houses on the other. It’s going dark, but out here there’s no light pollution so he can see well enough, making it home just as the stars start to wake up and the owls have come out to hunt.

He feels energised when he stands in his hallway and toes off his shoes. Talking to others has done him some good, and he’s actually quite proud of himself for not being a hermit today. As a reward, he decides to run a bath. He goes a little overboard on the bubbles but his skin feels soft as he rubs them into his arms and legs, and he allows himself to properly relax in the warm water that softens the tense muscles he’s been sporting for weeks. Perhaps he should make this a thing, have a long bath every weekend and buy scented candles and bath bombs to go with it. It can be his own little pocket of heaven.

Chapter Text

A deer nosing at a frozen woodland pond. A red-breasted robin perched on a berried branch. Three crimson stockings hanging over a roaring fire. Baekhyun thinks his Christmas cards are coming along rather well. He’s even running ahead of schedule. He finishes adding the golden glow to the fireplace on his third one so far, hand sweeping across his graphics tablet with the pen poised between his thumb and fingers. His contractors approved his sketches a couple of days ago, the first real good news he’s had in a while.

Since the quiz, he’s been venturing outside a lot more. He’s no longer surviving off rubbish and is frequently buying himself fresh meat and pasta, and he did go to Agnes’ for tea. He ended up spending his whole day there, completely by accident and by no means against his will. She was telling him about her theatre days and the sugar daddy she almost had, which was equal parts enlightening and off-putting.

Baekhyun sighs and gulps down some water, contemplating what his picture is missing while he reaches for his phone. He keeps doing this, expecting to see a notification from Sehun or… Well, just Sehun. It always hurts to see his lock screen empty, but he has to remind himself that a lot of the people he talks to on a daily basis ring him on the landline instead. They don’t blow up his phone with cringy snapchat pictures, which, in retrospect, he’s thankful for. They’re annoying and obnoxious. Sehun used to like the dog filter the best because it slimmed down his face, not that it needed slimming.

Baekhyun has to stop himself from doing it again. Thinking about him. Remembering how things used to be. He doesn’t want you anymore, he tells himself, and succeeds in souring his mood. With his work saved, he abandons his computer and flops back on his bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling his grandparents thought was a good idea. He really needs to renovate, or maybe just find a way to hide all the things he doesn’t like. Baekhyun snorts and lets out a self-deprecating laugh. If only he could cover up Sehun as easily as the crack in the pane of his bedroom window.

Unless he wants to subject himself to greasy pub food every night, there’s nothing else Baekhyun can do in his evenings now that they’re void of a phone call to Hapton. He tries to find a new TV series to invest in but can’t find anything that tickles his fancy, so he sleeps early and wakes up before eight the next morning, unable to doze off again. Mornings always last much longer than afternoons, Baekhyun finds, as he mopes about his bathroom and kitchen trying to kill as much time as possible. He spends an extra half an hour in the shower and air-dries afterwards, then drinks his tea in the tiniest sips possible while staring out his kitchen window at his back garden. Please, he begs, let something interesting happen, and it comes in the form of a walking cloud.

Well, it’s a sheep, but Baekhyun thinks that calling them ‘walking clouds’ is much cuter and much, much more artistic.

At the end of his garden is a weak wooden fence only half Baekhyun’s height, with a gate that flew off during the last storm they had that he never bothered to put back on. He’s noticing a lot of shortcomings in his property now that he has a lot of time on his hands, things he wouldn’t have given a second thought to a few months ago. His mind mocks him. Blinded by love. Blinded by an insensitive asshole feels more appropriate.

He doesn’t hurry out to commence lock down on the sheep. Baekhyun remains stood by his kitchen sink, sipping his tea, and allowing it to nibble away at the forest of weeds he has growing amongst the long grass he never cuts down at the bottom. Hopefully it’ll munch through all his dandelions and yarrow by the time its owner comes looking for it, that owner highly likely to be Minseok, if the large red number forty-seven that’s spray painted onto its torso is any indication.

After finishing his tea and slipping into some walking boots that he doesn’t tie the laces of, Baekhyun slowly paces through his garden, maintaining a respectable distance between himself and the sheep as he moves around it to get to the gate. He’s not sure how high sheep can jump, or if they can jump at all, so all Baekhyun can do is fill the gap in his fence and hope for the best while he waits for the sheep to be collected.

He licks his thumb and flips through the address book on his dresser he has in his hallway, hunting down Minseok’s telephone number so he can ring and say he’s picked up a stray. This type of thing happens every so often around here, waking up to random, uninvited livestock in your garden. Baekhyun finds it unfittingly charming, the small notes his nanna made by Minseok’s name equally so.

New farmer in town. Lovely smile. Pretty wife. Helped me down the pub stairs, the darling. Tea together next Monday!

It used to be his grandparents’ address book when they lived here, and his grandfather left it in his care when he moved out to go and live the rest of his days with Baekhyun’s uncle. He holds off calling Minseok so he can browse other comments his nanna has made, all of them being her first impressions of the new villagers as she was very methodical in getting their contact details. She’s called Agnes a compulsive liar and Bill and Mable old fogeys, but in some cases she’s scribbled out her initial thoughts and amended them with compliments galore.

Minseok ends up not being home, so Baekhyun busies himself with lunch and studies the movement of the sheep in his garden while he chews on a sandwich. Must be a hungry sheep, he thinks, because it’s uncovered several plant pots stacked against his fence that he’s never seen before, previously hidden behind the grass he fails to upkeep. His thumb twitches absently, a sudden urge to garden and cultivate taking Baekhyun over, and he suddenly decides that he needs to love his home a little more – and with his little helper doing the boring bit (weeding), Baekhyun is even more inclined.

Of course, being a farmer as he is, Minseok isn’t home to pick up the phone all day. His wife, Emily, will be just as busy, but luck strikes later on when he walks into the corner shop to pick up some milk and finds Minseok scanning the crisps aisle while squinting at his shopping list. Baekhyun glances at it briefly from over his shoulder and pulls a face at the weird choice of goods: BBQ crisps, sweet chili sauce, whipped cream and gherkins. Baekhyun can only hope Minseok won’t be eating those all at once.

“Guess what I found in my garden this morning,” Baekhyun says as greeting, voice bold and theatrical and snatching Minseok’s attention away from the selection of flavours on offer. He looks startled for a second before he breaks out in the smile Baekhyun’s nanna said was lovely, and Baekhyun grins at him as he reveals his findings. “Number forty-seven!”

Minseok gasps. “Flo!”

Naturally, Minseok names all his sheep, but at least he doesn’t paint smiley faces on them like Jongdae does with his.

“She’s been helping me out in the garden all morning,” Baekhyun jokes, switching the cool carton of milk he’s holding into his other hand before it goes numb. “Doing a spot of weeding.”

Minseok laughs and rolls his eyes, turning back to the shelves and finding what he’s looking for at the very bottom. “I’ve been wondering where she got off to. I’ve been looking for her all day,” he says as he moves towards the counter, Rose smiling at both of them and starting to scan through Minseok’s basket. “I knew there was one missing when I counted only 217 this morning. Then realised it was Flo when I didn’t get my regular morning head-butt.”

Baekhyun chuckles and shakes his head, casting his eyes to Rose when she says “With Yixing, they all just run away.”

“Ah, see, that’s because Yixing doesn’t have the touch,” Minseok teases, winking as he hands over a couple of notes. “Bet he doesn’t sing for his sheep, does he?”

Baekhyun and Rose exchange a worried but amused look. “No,” she admits. “Come to think of it, he doesn’t.”

Laughing, Baekhyun hands over the pocket change for his milk and crumples the receipt in his back pocket. They get talking about how it’s time to wean the lambs and separate them from their mothers in a different pasture, and of how Jongdae has only just started shearing his sheep when ideally he should have done so a month ago. Minseok complains about the low price of sheep wool nowadays, so Rose pitches in and talks of how she saves some wool for crafts, making miniature sheep toys that sell online for a higher price. It’s all interesting, and though Baekhyun can’t really join in all that much, he enjoys the back and forth.

He helps Minseok lead Flo into the back of his truck once they’ve left the store, leading her out of Baekhyun’s house and into the village centre. Baekhyun does suggest just letting her into Minseok’s bottom field, but Minseok says that some of his fence posts have come loose which is probably how Flo managed to get out in the first place.

“Fancy joining us for dinner, Baek? Em’s cooking,” he asks, leaning out of his truck window with one hand on the wheel.

“Only if we’re not eating gherkins,” he laughs, climbing up into the passenger seat and belting himself in. Flo bleats from behind them, licking her lips.

Dinner is crazily domestic. Two-year-old Sam is wriggling about in his high chair, and four-year-old Lucas is having to be fed with aeroplane noises to get him to open his mouth. Baekhyun accepts wine instantly when Minseok offers him some, and narrows his eyes just a little when he spies him not pouring his wife a glass alongside his own.

“Sorry for the mess, Baekhyun,” Emily says, wiping her sticky hands on a piece of kitchen roll after she’s wiped up Sam’s mouth.

“Oh, don’t worry about it at all! I’m not a big minder of mess.” He gives her a reassuring smile that she returns happily, until she sees Sam dribbling gravy down his chin again, gargling nonsense in such a serious way that he looks like he’s scolding his mother.

The main part of their house is old and cramped, with a new, joining extension out back that gives them much more space. Baekhyun doesn’t know how people do it—parenting. Watching Minseok and Emily fighting to get their children to eat something while their own food goes cold has Baekhyun feeling terrified of the idea of being responsible for a little human, so he downs some more wine.

Emily apologises when she excuses herself to change Sam’s nappy. Minseok says they’ve only just started potty training him and it’s not going so well, and they share a laugh when they hear Emily’s exasperated sigh of “How did you manage to eat and poo at the same time?”

“Did you hear about the Shaws moving out, Baek?” Minseok asks when he’s finally able to eat, having excused Lucas to go and do his preschool homework. They both hear the TV turn on in the other room, but Minseok doesn’t seem to have the energy to get up and tell Lucas off for procrastinating.

Baekhyun sets his cutlery down instantly. “The Shaws? As in my neighbours the Shaws?” he gasps, completely taken aback.

“Kyungsoo overheard them picking a realtor in the pub a few nights ago. They’re probably moving to the city for when the baby comes.”

“Oh.” Baekhyun deflates, pushing out his lower lip. “That’s a shame.”

Baekhyun shouldn’t be this sullen about it. The voice in the back of his head tells him that they’re only his neighbours, yet he still feels like everyone is leaving him all of a sudden. Who will be next? Jongin? Old Joe? Mr and Mrs Parker? The word ‘neighbour’ has a different definition in this village. To everyone else it just means the person next door, but here, your neighbours are everyone. They’re a part of you, and the Shaws were the first people to welcome Baekhyun when he first moved in. They helped him sort out his grandparents’ old things, they invited him over for dinner just because they wanted him there, and they sometimes banter through their shared wall by blasting songs with titles they can use to form a conversation. In a way, the community here is a jigsaw. Whenever someone leaves, a piece goes missing.

He also feels weird at the fact that everyone seems to know about it before him. Well, maybe not everyone, but it hurts to be told he wasn’t one of the first to know, considering he lives directly beside them. Who will he play badminton with over the garden fence now?

Minseok offers to drive him home but it’s bath time for his kids, the manic pitter-patter of little feet scampering about the bedrooms and landing telling that not all is going to plan and Emily needs an extra pair of hands. Baekhyun walks home in the dark, keeping to the very edge of the narrow country roads that house no street lamps or pavement. Every time he hears a car coming he has to squash himself into the bushes (and thistles), and he curses out whoever comes by at more than twenty miles an hour in these conditions.

It’s too late to disturb the Shaws now, even though he can see them watching TV through their living room window. The LED screen reflects different coloured lights on their face, and as he dawdles past he manages to catch their attention and offers a cheery wave. Baekhyun wonders when they were planning on telling everyone officially that they were leaving. Nothing is ever a secret here; even if you only ever think it, it’ll leak out somehow. Mable from up the road does have a lot of peculiar crystals and cards. Maybe she’s a clairvoyant.

He struggles to sleep that night, mind too busy and body too anxious. His phone screen blinds him in the darkness when he opens up Instagram, his chest physically sinking into his mattress when his eyes land on Sehun’s latest post.

Late night walk. Everything I want right here ♥（ﾉ´∀`）

It’s a picture of his new guy looking out over the river, all the lights reflected on its surface. Baekhyun bitterly remembers the landscape he was painting for their anniversary and wonders why he even bothered. His heart gives a lurch when he recalls that it would have been a year, and when his eyes lock onto the date he lets out the most pathetic noise he thinks he’s ever made. Tears flood his eyes before he can stop them and his nose clogs up to the point where he has to gasp for breath. It was today. Today they would have been together for a year. And to think he almost made it through the day unscathed.

When he wakes up, he doesn’t get up, and he hates himself for it. He loathes the routine of lying in bed and feeling like there’s no point in moving, because all he is is a failure that can’t make anyone happy and nobody wants. He wishes time would freeze so that he can just stop for a moment. Stop and deal with all this shit that has landed on his shoulders without losing another month. But it won’t. And it can’t. And it sucks.

He does manage to move around midday after lying numbly in his bed for nigh on two hours. His stomach is grumbling like mad, so he knows he’s still alive and functioning and Sehun hasn’t slaughtered his appetite like he did before. After one slice of toast, Baekhyun curls up in his bath and sits under the jet of the shower, shivering until the steam from the scalding water spreads far enough to fight the cold.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Baekhyun,” he murmurs, drawing circles on one of his knee caps and feeling like his voice isn’t really his own. Like it belongs to someone else who’s just as disappointed with him as Sehun was. Guilt, shame and distress wrap around his throat and chest out of nowhere, but Baekhyun doesn’t cry. Instead, he rests his head back on the garish tiles his nanna was ecstatic with and internally coaches himself through his worries. It works, for the most part, but Baekhyun still feels like there’s a new weight on his chest when he stands to turn off the water.

Only Vanessa Shaw is in when he pops round to his neighbours in the mid-afternoon, busy ironing and hanging David’s shirts on a hanger stand in the middle of the kitchen. Their houses are pretty much identical layout-wise, as are most on their street, except for the conservatory they added at the back several years ago that looks out into the garden (which is in a much better state than Baekhyun’s is). Both their stories on how they came to live here are also similar, as David was left the property in his late uncle’s will and Vanessa came to live with him after they got married. More young people to the village, Baekhyun’s nanna had said down the phone when she rang for a gossip session, telling all she knew of her new neighbours.

“Baekhyun! Babes!” Nessa beams brightly when she opens the door, waving down her hallway and stepping to the side to let him pass. She’s just coming up on five months pregnant now, her loose t-shirt hiding the majority of what Baekhyun knows to be a fairly large baby bump. He kisses her on the cheek in greeting as he steps in and rubs his feet on the doormat, immediately offered tea and fruit scones at the round table in the kitchen.

“Word has it you’re leaving me!” Baekhyun calls from the porch as he unlaces his shoes, hearing Vanessa gasp and wondering whether he ought to tone it down on the surprises and playful accusations in case he causes a mood swing or some form of shock.

“How do you know about that?” she demands, scandalised, and comes to stand in the kitchen doorway with her hands on her hips. “Was it David?” Her tone lowers with her chin and she glares at Baekhyun, who finds that he’s actually quite afraid of her when she looks at him like that.

In just his socks, he pads towards her across the cream carpet, their house an array of calming beiges and pastels, and sits down opposite her at the table. “I think you’ll find it was Kyungsoo spreading this around. Apparently, he heard the two of you talking about selling your house the other night.”

“He heard that?!” she cries, burying her face in her hands. “Holy sh—sugar! Is nowhere safe?!”

Baekhyun cracks a grin. “Depends what you want to be safe from.”

Nessa rolls her eyes and relents to a smile. “We were going to tell everyone soon, I promise,” she says, reaching across the table for one of Baekhyun’s hands. “You first of all.” That sentiment is enough to quell the minor abandonment he’s been feeling, albeit he still curls his fingers tighter around her hand, admiring how her golden wedding ring complements her dark skin.

“I’ve actually been begging Dave to leave this place for months, even before I was pregnant,” she admits next, making Baekhyun’s smile waver ever so slightly. “It’s nothing to do with any of you. Everyone here is lovely and I’d stay if I could but with the baby coming, this place just seems more and more impractical every day, you know? We’re half an hour away from the doctors, and pretty much two hours away from a decent hospital. There are no schools around here and we only have one car, and Dave leaves the house two hours before it would be time to drop Baby off for the start of the day. It just,” she sighs, smiling sadly and slouching back in her chair, “won’t work.”

Baekhyun pouts. “When are you thinking of moving out?”

“Definitely before the baby comes.” Her tone is resolute as she retrieves her hand from Baekhyun’s hold and gets to cutting a scone in half from the cake stand she has in the centre of the table, buttering up the inner sides of it before taking a big mouthful. “Oh, help yourself,” she says around her food, Baekhyun sniggering as he does as she insists. “I know people always say that moving is one of the most stressful things and doing it while I’m pregnant is probably pushing my luck but I feel super chill about it right now.”

“Right now,” Baekhyun repeats for emphasis. Nessa deadpans.

“Come back to me when you’re a medical professional, Baekhyun,” she jokes as she makes to get up from her chair. The kettle has just finished boiling, a plume of steam funnelling up from the spout and blowing out around the bottom of the kitchen cupboards. Baekhyun touches her arm to get her attention, then gets up to make the tea himself.

“Does this mean I’ll never get to see the baby?”

“We’re not moving to the other side of the world,” she laughs, twisting around on her chair to face him. “We’re going to have a house-warming party that everyone’ll be invited to. And a baby shower, and I expect you to be there for that one. We can get down on non-alcoholic wine and stuff.”

Baekhyun smiles, despite knowing that he probably wouldn’t be able to make it to either event. Without a car, he’s pretty much stranded here.

“Shiznits, I just realised that this is probably why Jen isn’t talking to me.”

He stops midway through pouring the boiling water into the teapot. He’d forgotten about the Mills’ divorce, wrapped up in all his own mini disasters.

“I’ve tried to ring her four times, you know. The first time she picked up and put the receiver down again when she realised it was me. Then, went into the pub last night, went over to say hi and got completely ignored! I understand she’s in a bad place right now but it’s no excuse. I’ve done nothing but be there for her this past month.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Baekhyun hums as he brings the teapot and two mugs to the table, setting them down on the bamboo placemat to the side of the scones. “People think and do weird things when they’re stressed out like that.” He quickly fetches the milk from the fridge before he sits down again, meeting her near-black eyes and realising he’s just opened up a door.

“Speaking of, how’re you doing?”

His first instinct is to say ‘fine’, but just as he starts to, his voice cuts itself off like a scratch mark on a CD and he changes his mind. No, he’s not fine. It’s just he doesn’t want to admit it.

“Talking about it will help, you know,” Nessa encourages. “I know it’s hard but I promise you, it will.”

Baekhyun allows her deep, soothing voice to lull him into a sense of calm. He looks across at her, defeated, and starts to shake his head.

“We were just meeting up like normal, after two weeks,” he begins, struggling around the lump that has made a home in his throat. “He picked me up and we went to a pub in Edgebank, then the plan was that I’d be staying the weekend at his, maybe even some time into the week after.” He vaguely notices that Nessa has started pouring the tea, steaming brown liquid diffusing amongst the milk she’s poured in the bottom of the mugs. It reminds Baekhyun of mixing paint.

“I think I could tell something was off but I didn’t want to overthink it. Sehun didn’t speak during the car journey and usually he does, and when I went to kiss him he turned away. Then, at the pub he just looked so… uncomfortable. And that made me uncomfortable.” He can’t help the shiver that shoots down his spine. Saying it all now, aloud and out of his head, makes him realise how obvious it was – a bad omen in Sehun’s silence. Back then, he made excuses. Tired. Busy. Stressed. He hadn’t been expecting Sehun to be unhappy, resentful or leaving.

“So I asked him what was wrong and he just came out with ‘it’s not going to work anymore’. And, to be honest, I really can’t remember much of our conversation after that,” he confesses, wrapping his hands around his mug of tea and feeling the warmth seep through his palms. Nessa is pulling the face they all pull, which he refuses to bear the brunt of – seeing her from the corner of his eye is enough to send him tumbling over the edge. “All I remember is feeling my heart in my chest and going all cold, and somewhere in it all Sehun told me he’d found someone else he’d rather be with.”

“He cheated on you?!” Nessa cries, making Baekhyun jump a little. He looks up now that she’s angry instead of looking at him like he’s one of those abandoned puppies found in a car park, and watches as she bares her teeth in a feline-like hiss. “Asshole.”

“I—It’s complicated.”

Vanessa glares at him. “Complicated? Babes, you just told me that Sehun had someone else he’d rather be with, how is that not cheating?”

She’s making it sound so simple. Baekhyun doesn’t know how to feel about that, because if all of this is so painstakingly straight forward, why has it been driving him insane?

“He told me that he liked someone else, but he told me that he hadn’t done anything with them,” he says meekly. “And then,” his voice cuts off and he can feel the tears swelling behind his eyes. She reaches out for his hand again and he clings onto it like a buoy. “A week after, I went on Instagram.” Just that alone has Nessa clenching her hand around his. She knows what’s coming is bad. “And there was a picture of him with some guy and—it was to celebrate their three-month anniversary.”

Nessa scoffs and glares at the ceiling.

“But I don’t know what that means,” Baekhyun exclaims. “Three months, when he said he hadn’t done anything with them? Does that mean he didn’t—they never—”

“Baek, if they’ve been together for three months, it’s highly likely they’ve been doing stuff together.”

Baekhyun shrinks as if he’s been scolded by a teacher, staring down at the tea he hasn’t touched with a pitiful sigh. He actually can’t believe himself. He was sticking up for Sehun, even after everything. Even when he was probably sleeping with someone else while they were still together.

“And, to be honest, I don’t care what Sehun said. Dick was probably lying anyways. In my book, if you even flirt with someone else, that’s cheating. But let me tell you something, Baek. Sehun ain’t shit. Okay? He’s an asshole, a dirty scumbag and a selfish fucking liar, and if he decides to go after someone else, that’s his fault, not yours. I remember seeing him way back when you guys were at the pub, and I knew in that moment, I knew, that he wasn’t good enough for you.”

Baekhyun laughs airily, dropping his eyes to the table.

“No, babes, I’m serious. You deserve better than that prick. Only a total idiot would leave you, Baek. You’re going to find someone a million times better than him and you’re gonna be really happy with them, I promise.”

“I don’t know about that,” Baekhyun murmurs. It’s what he truly thinks. He lives in a village surrounded by young families and the retired elderly. He doesn’t have to leave his home for work and has no plans on moving or going back to university. And if the long-distance set up doesn’t work either… How is he ever going to meet anyone new? Anyone – to put it bluntly – gay?

“Baek, honestly, you could have anyone you wanted! I mean, there’s Junmyeon down at the hotel, he’s not a bad guy.”

“Junmyeon’s straight,” Baekhyun replies flatly, further proving his theory into the forever alone.

Nessa doesn’t seem to want to hear any of that. “Babes, the whole village is in agreement that you turn every guy a little bit gay. They’ve all got a thing for you, even David.”

Baekhyun isn’t very sure what he wants to do with that information, feeling a little odd that Vanessa has just hold him her husband is a fraction gay for him, so he does nothing with it and hopes he’ll forget it before he goes to sleep tonight. It’ll keep him awake otherwise.

“So,” she slurps down some tea, “I want you to delete Sehun from your life. Like, delete even from the recycle bin kind of delete. Wipe him out completely. Delete his phone number, throw away his stuff, take down the pictures of you and him together online. Start again.”

“What if he wants his stuff back?” Admittedly, there aren’t many of Sehun’s belongings lying around his house, testimony to the fact that Sehun hardly ever stayed because his own place was ‘more convenient’. “I still have stuff at his place too.”

Her hand clamps down on his. “Baek, burn it to ashes. Move on from him. He’s not coming back, and even if he does, you are not getting back with him. You’re going to show him what a good thing he lost and make him realise what a dumbass mistake he made. And if my baby comes out with a foul mouth after all the swearing I’ve just done, that’s gonna be Sehun’s god damn fault too.”

A deep breath later has Baekhyun thinking too much. Maybe he has been hoping Sehun will come back to him all this time... Who is he kidding? Of course that’s what he’s been hoping. Believe or not, a small part of him still wants to see Sehun’s car parked outside his house, or Sehun’s picture on an incoming phone call. He still loves Sehun, even if it hurts.

“This is why you’re not allowed to leave,” Baekhyun mumbles, sulking into his cup as he finally picks up his tea and takes a sip. “I bet the people who’ll move in will be stuffy, uptight old people who don’t know how to have a laugh. They’re not going to be my age or call me babes or repeatedly insult my ex-boyfriends to help me get over them.”

Nessa smiles beautifully, and Baekhyun fights to blink away the tears in his eyes before they can form into drops. “It’s all gonna be fine,” she insists, stretching her arms above her head and taking her mane of curly black hair with her. “Things are never as bad as you think they’re going to be, that’s what my mum always said.”

Her hands drop to caress her baby bump, and Baekhyun smiles thoughtfully. “That’s one lucky baby.”

“She better be grateful when she comes out,” she says quietly with a cheeky grin, spiralling her fingertips over the swell of her stomach. “I don’t sit around reading children’s books every night for no reason. Dave says I’m glowing but I think he just wants to be cliché, although I have noticed that my hair feels pretty healthy lately. Oh, and my nails, Baek, look,” she gushes, holding out her hands to show him. “Look how long they’ve got without breaking! I don’t know if it’s because of the hormones or because I’m making David do the housework but sugar, you could get some hella nice nail art on there.”

Baekhyun grins. Nessa stares at him.

“Wait a minute.” She starts to smirk. “You’re a painter…” Trailing off like that lets Baekhyun fill in the blanks, so he playfully rolls his eyes and stands up, wondering if he has brushes fine enough to paint on that small of a scale.

He ends up nipping home and returning with five brushes, sitting down at the dining table which has now been remodelled into a nail salon (but with scones and tea). He does warn her that he probably won’t be very good, but she manages to coerce him into painting small poppies anyway. The varnish is much trickier to manage than normal paint, but a few failed attempts later sees him finally getting the hang of it. That’s what David comes home to, and he promises to reimburse Baekhyun with dinner at the weekend for Vanessa using up his time.

It’s like an adrenaline rush – talking to people. Nessa was right. Letting it all out did help, a lot, and his shoulders feel lighter as he heads home after suggesting that the end of school barbecue can be Vanessa and David’s leaving celebration. He tires of working on his Christmas cards after half an hour and sits in the quiet for a moment before he reaches for his phone. Sehun’s name is there as it always is, a punch to the gut and a thorn in his side every time.

So, he deletes it.

And Sehun is gone from his phone, just like that.

It almost feels too underwhelming a moment for a small victory such as that, so Baekhyun takes a deep, healing breath and forces himself to smile it out. Staring at where Sehun used to be in his contacts list already has his head feeling clearer, and it’s then that he notices a name just a little further down on the list. Chanyeol. They haven’t texted each other yet as it’s only been half a week since the last quiz, but just as ever, Baekhyun is determined to help Chanyeol feel at home. A little well-known gossip shouldn’t hurt to get him into the swing of things.

Chanyeol

13th July

[Did you hear that the Shaws are moving out?] 17:26

He puts his phone down immediately after, not expecting a quick reply, and opts to massage the tight muscles in the back of his neck while he contemplates dinner. His phone vibrating takes him by surprise, and when he leans over to examine the screen it’s Chanyeol’s name that’s lighting it up. He must not be working, Baekhyun thinks, and unlocks his phone to read what he says.

[Not sure who they are…] 17:27

Baekhyun snorts, smiling to himself.

[Dave from the quiz team! He lives next door with his wife Vanessa] 17:27

[Ooohhh Dave! Right! Why are they moving? ] 17:28

[Better life in the city. Same old, same old. Don’t know why people glorify that place] 17:28

Something pinches at Baekhyun’s heart and he flinches, staring at the words better life in the city and feeling threatened.

[Me neither] 17:29

It makes Baekhyun’s limp frown turn up into a smile. That’s an oddity – someone agreeing with him on the consistent city romanticism.

[Hey do you fancy meeting up for dinner? I have nothing in] 17:30

Baekhyun blinks at his screen for a second, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. He wasn’t expecting that – a bold invitation out to dinner – but why not? In Baekhyun’s case, it’s not a chore to get to know someone, and if he is to help Chanyeol settle in then he ought to know where he’s come from, where he’s going and what he likes. That’s clearly what Chanyeol is doing too, trying to make friends.

[Sure why not!] 17:33

Chewing on his lip, Baekhyun wonders whether the exclamation mark was too much.

[Meet at the pub in five? ] 17:33

Five minutes is definitely not enough time for Baekhyun to get ready, but Chanyeol seems eager and he is pretty hungry himself, so he doesn’t bother postponing. It’s not like he’s trying to impress Chanyeol anyway. He has nothing to prove and no one to attract. He’s fine being a bit plain and a bit smelly, no one will judge him around here.

[Yep] 17:34

There’s no backing out now.

Chanyeol is already sitting down and waiting by the time Baekhyun gets there. He’s a couple of minutes late, and they may or may not be because he was trying to volumize his hair. Chanyeol doesn’t seem to mind. He lights up when he sees Baekhyun coming, the smile Baekhyun sends back easy and almost without thought.

“Hey, sorry I’m a bit late,” he says as greeting, sliding into a chair across from Chanyeol at their table for two.

“No, don’t worry.” Chanyeol waves it off, eagerly taking the menus from the small wooden stand and handing one over for Baekhyun to peruse. “I haven’t been waiting long. I got held up with work for a second.”

Baekhyun watches him curiously from over the top of his menu, inviting pictures of burgers dripping with melted cheese in the corner of his eye making his stomach twist. “Oh, with your taxi?”

Chanyeol grins. “Actually, cabbing is just something I do on the side. I know that’s weird and probably a little impractical too, but I actually work in digital marketing.”

“Come again?” Baekhyun laughs, mood brightened by Chanyeol’s crazy reveal. Who ever heard of being a taxi driver in your spare time? How is there even a profit to be made? Chanyeol laughs along, setting the menu down on the table with his finger tapping at the BBQ chicken.

“Yeah, I work for a company that does digital marketing. I help build websites, sometimes I design ads. It’s a small firm right now though so there’s not a whole lot of work to do and I just got one hell of a mortgage I need to pay off from buying my place.”

“Huh,” Baekhyun hums, eyes dropping to the menu again and being sucked in by that cheeseburger. Looks like his stomach has made its mind up. “Don’t you have to take tests to be a taxi driver, though? Seems like an odd part-time job.”

“It’s a long story,” Chanyeol chuckles, coming off as shy. “Are you ready to order?”

“Oh! Yep!” chirps Baekhyun, and they both make their way to the bar where Kyungsoo is currently prodding the buttons on the till to punch in Vicar Alec Jones’ dinner. Baekhyun makes small talk while they’re there, learning that the church’s roof has sprung a leak and that Alec can’t do anything about it by himself because it’s a listed building. Baekhyun jokes that he can borrow one of his buckets and gets a sardonic “Lord have mercy on you” in response.

“So, tell me about that long story.” Baekhyun grins once he and Chanyeol are back at their table, carefully placing a pint of lemonade on the paper coaster that advertises beer. Chanyeol seems surprised at the suggestion, and breaks out into that small, shy smile again that Baekhyun is finding ridiculously cute.

“I got my car as soon as I passed my driving test in college because I needed it to drive to my part-time job, but when I went to uni I didn’t really have a use for it anymore. I just left it at home. Anyway, the insurance was costing me money I couldn’t really afford to spare and I figured that I should either sell the car or try and use it to make money, so I researched how to become a taxi driver and applied online.

“I met all the criteria and did the tests on geography and basic medical training. My licence was clean and I have no criminal record so I was all good to go. I get to pick my own hours which is the main thing. Essentially, I’m my own boss, but I don’t want to be a taxi driver forever. The company I work for has some big contract deals in the works so I’m hoping I’ll get a pay rise sometime soon and I can ditch the whole taxi thing.”

Baekhyun laughs along with him, mulling over all the information while he swills his drink around his mouth, bubbles popping against his teeth and tickling his tongue. He’s gone off beer lately. Too many bad memories. Poppy lemonade it is.

“Which university was it that you went to?” Baekhyun wonders, relaxing back into his chair and trying to ignore how much this looks like a date, even just a friendly one. Here they are, sat across from each other, a private dinner in an area of the pub where no one else has decided to sit, about to tell each other their entire life stories for the past five years – except for the bad stuff.

“Just Hapton Uni, marketing. Graduated four years ago now.”

Baekhyun tries to add up the numbers in his head. “So you’re… twenty-six?”

“Yeah.” Chanyeol smiles and it’s huge. It’s weird, because if anyone else had a smile that large, that bright, Baekhyun would probably think they looked crazy. On Chanyeol though, it looks pretty decent. “Twenty-seven on November twenty-seventh.”

“That’s a date for the diary,” Baekhyun teases, and goes on to ask Chanyeol about why he moved here. It’s rare that a lonely bachelor appears on their own. While Jongin is also what you could call an unlikely resident, Baekhyun knows that he’s here because it was his sister’s old place, much like how Baekhyun took over the house after his grandparents left. For Chanyeol to appear out of the blue like he did is very unexpected. The villagers were having a right old jolly taking bets on who they thought would move in after the sold sign appeared at the end of the driveway. If Baekhyun remembers correctly, Joe must have lost fifty quid. He thought it would be one of those rich couples who retire early and wear jumpers tied around their necks even in summer. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Well, after I graduated I had to job hunt for a little bit. I ended up living in an apartment on my own because my previous housemates went back home or took jobs in other cities, and because of the type of job I landed I never had to go out and sit in an office all day. All I really do is sit at home and code. Of course, I have a skype meeting every day, and then a meeting in person every Friday down at HQ, but other than that, I realised I was never really going to meet any of my co-workers or, yeah, never make any friends. It got really lonely for a while so my mum suggested I just move home. Technically, I didn’t really need to live in Hapton anymore if I was only needed there once a week, but I also didn’t want to lose my independence.

“I did some research, house hunting, whatever, and found this place. The other places I found were in the suburbs but none had as many community projects as this one does—” Baekhyun smiles at that “—and I thought, well, this will give me a reason to leave my house. It was kind of like flipping a coin, moving in here. I knew it could either go really well or really wrong, depending on if people end up liking me or not, but I decided to take the risk.”

“How do you think it’s going so far?” Baekhyun wonders, pleased when Chanyeol nods and flashes him a thumbs up with his mouth full of coke, cheeks blown out. “I understand what you mean about it being a flip of a coin, but usually it just takes them a little time for everyone to warm up to new blood. I remember when I first moved in, it took me a good month and a half to get greeted ‘good morning’ on the regular by everyone. A few of them knew me from before though, like Mrs Parker and Joe. My grandparents used to own my house so I would visit over the summer when I was younger. I think that worked in my favour when I made the permanent move.”

Baekhyun finds it strange that Chanyeol is so interested in what he’s saying. It’s been a long time since he actually spoke of his life with someone other than his parents; usually, he just talks about what’s happening in that moment, not one for sharing life stories at every given chance. His mind instantly replays the last time he tried to tell someone one of his favourite childhood moments and they’d hardly been listening. Of course, Sehun was too busy replying to work emails to listen to how Baekhyun got the small scar in his eyebrow where hair has never regrown.

Chanyeol also makes a lot of direct eye contact, which is both unsettling and admirable. Baekhyun isn’t used to being watched so openly for such a long period of time without a break, but he does find Chanyeol’s large eyes quite entertaining in that they never keep still. His eyelids are always twitching and every time it’s his turn to talk, they’ll flit about the room as if he’s reliving whatever he’s saying and can see it all right in front of him. He’s a very animated character, perhaps a bit eccentric, and it probably comes from being cooped up either in a car all day or in front of a computer screen. When someone gives him the chance, he’ll expel his energy all at once – and there’s a lot of it.

“My parents wanted me to do law,” Baekhyun tells him later on in the evening when they’re halfway through their food. The trade has picked up in the pub and Kyungsoo’s started playing a relaxing set of songs through the speakers in the ceiling. It’s still light outside even though it’s late, the sun golden and warming the locally sourced stone used to build the village brick by brick. The hanging baskets and wall climbers sway in a light breeze, like something out of a fairy tale, whenever Baekhyun glances out the window.

“And I’m guessing you didn’t?” Chanyeol asks, cutting into his last bite of chicken. He’s very easy to talk to, very attentive, and Baekhyun is occasionally taken aback by his quick-witted jokes or teasing remarks. It’s definitely a conversation style to be reckoned with.

“No,” Baekhyun declares, snorting. He sits looser in his chair, tension having left his shoulders after the first twenty minutes of light and engaging conversation. Chanyeol has such presence that Baekhyun rarely ever looks at anything else, save for when he is the one speaking and has to pause a moment for thought, when he looks out the window instead of Chanyeol’s saucer eyes.

“And I even told them, you know?” he goes on. “I told them I wanted to be a painter, an artist, whatever you want to call it, but they said it wasn’t a reliable enough career.”

“You do pretty well now, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but only after nine years of non-stop hard work. I dropped out of uni Christmas of my first year. I just couldn’t stand being there, and to be honest, I found the whole dorm thing to be way overhyped. My flatmates were constantly having loud pre-drinks in the kitchen and someone never cleaned out their food from the fridge when it went mouldy. Why should I pay through the roof to live with inconsiderate strangers?”

“How did your parents take it?” Chanyeol sits his cutlery down with an accomplished sigh, lacing his hands over his stomach like he’s pregnant.

Baekhyun pulls a face as he remembers how his mother shrieked at him. He hadn’t had the guts to tell them in person, or even over the phone. He just sent a text that read I’m leaving uni and coming home and ignored the next four phone calls his mum tried to make in the minutes that followed.

“They were really unhappy at first, but they came around after a couple months of moping. Mainly because I always made a point to tell them when I’d sold a print. When they actually took notice of what my work was like and how much I was improving they started telling all their friends and they began to buy prints too.” He smiles at the idiocy of it all. “Maybe you could help me with my online store,” he adds to lighten the mood, and gladly accepts Chanyeol’s thrown back laugh.

Somehow, their conversation winds well into the night. He learns that Chanyeol was an anime fanboy back in high school who liked to write romantic poems, and as they switch from soft drinks to alcoholic – Baekhyun sipping on a gin and lemonade – he learns that Chanyeol went through a phase of cutting his own hair and then bleaching it over his own bathtub so he could dye it purple.

“Oh, we’ve all been there, believe me,” Baekhyun groans as he downs the rest of his drink, ice cubes smashing into his mouth when he tips up his glass.

“Okay, tell me all about your hair don’ts. I’m listening.”

“In college I thought it would be cool to have the sides of my head shaved so I took my dad’s razor and did it by myself,” he explains. Chanyeol facepalms before he’s even had chance to finish his story. “The first side went okay at first, believe me! And then I got to the back and I couldn’t see what I was doing, and I ended up accidentally hitting my elbow on the bathroom mirror when I was trying to get my hand into the right position which meant I shaved off a massive strip of my hair from the middle. And when I did the other side they weren’t even symmetrical, so I just gave up and decided the only they were going to be symmetrical after that is if I shaved my head completely so I left it as it was and endured weeks of bullying from my friends.”

“Tell me you have pictures!” Chanyeol cries, leaning forwards over the table in a fit of laughter.

“Um, absolutely not!” Baekhyun lies shrilly, denying Chanyeol the satisfaction of seeing the disaster that was his hair back when he was seventeen.

They end up getting dessert two hours after they’ve finished their main meal, a buzz in Baekhyun’s fingertips as he hands Kyungsoo some cash for a warm chocolate brownie and ice cream. Chanyeol gets a raspberry sundae and sulks when he can’t get his spoon to reach what’s at the very bottom of the glass. Baekhyun is telling him about how he was once commissioned to paint someone’s wife naked when Chanyeol decides he wants another pudding.

“There is no shame in a second dessert,” he reasons, and asks Baekhyun if he wants anything while he’s up there. He smiles fondly as he watches Chanyeol order again, Kyungsoo chuckling at him from behind the bar as he taps in his order. He’s overly considerate, Baekhyun thinks, because he waited until Baekhyun had finished speaking before he decided to get up and walk away.

Eventually, Kyungsoo has to come over to their table to say that he’s closing. Baekhyun hadn’t realised it was that time already, so absorbed in Chanyeol’s university stories that he never once thought to look at the clock and keep tabs on how long they’d been there.

As Baekhyun walks Chanyeol home again, just to the end of his driveway, he brings up the barbecue they’re having on Saturday and tells him he should come. “Remember it’s on the village green,” he says, smiling brightly in the hopes that Chanyeol can just about see it through the darkness.

“Yep, I remember! It doesn’t take long to make a mental map of this place, to be honest,” he teases, sniggering into the back of his hand before he runs it through his hair. “Are you going to the quiz on Sunday?”

“Probably, yes. Unless something drastic happens between now and then,” he chuckles, tucking his hands into his pockets as the air around them cools. “I’ll probably see you before Saturday anyway.”

“Yeah! See you soon.” Chanyeol waves and leaves Baekhyun with a charming smile. The gin has definitely gone to his head and his heart thumps warmly on the way back home, laughing all over again at how serious Chanyeol was about getting two desserts and not being ashamed.

He struggles to fall asleep when he gets into bed, still high off the evening conversation and Chanyeol’s company. They got on really well, is all he can think, lips forming a smile when he recounts every time Chanyeol acted something out with his hands and made sound effects with his mouth. A firecracker. That’s what he is. Unadulterated flame and an abundance of gunpowder. Baekhyun gets a tingling in his fingers as his mind conjures images of bright bursts of colour spewing into a night sky. He can’t paint now, all his stuff intricately packed away in its proper place, so instead he reaches for his sketchbook via his bedside lamp and takes his pastels from his nightstand drawer.

It hits him, once he’s grabbed a dark blue pastel and flipped to one of the black pages at the back. Inspiration has never been this forthcoming before.

For once, he draws for fun, spending a couple of hours creating dazzling flowers of fire that transform from colour to colour mid-burst. He gets pastels all over his fingers that transfer onto his bed sheets, but he feels unexpectedly accomplished when he completes his picture. Naturally, he stares at it for a while, his mind’s instinct to spy out the flaws and scold himself for them, but he focuses on the good stuff too. On the shading and the gradients and the tiny sparks he was able to make with the white. If he scans it into his computer, he might be able to sell a couple prints, and speaking of prints, maybe he should start taking orders again. His eyes drift across to the large printer he has in the corner of the room, trying to remember how to use it when all that comes to mind is the figure he paid to acquire it. It shouldn’t be left dormant, though, and out of nowhere Baekhyun gets an insane urge to become overly productive, like he wants to make up for lost time. Instead, he decides to sleep on it. He knows he’s being impulsive and it won’t be good for him to make rash decisions now, only to regret them later.

He contemplates his options for the next couple of days, familiarising himself with his equipment again and checking up on his website to make sure it’s all running smoothly. He has a noticeboard where people are able to talk to him directly and post pictures of his artwork in their homes, and he quickly scrolls through the ones he hasn’t seen with a warm smile on his face. There are some requests for him to start printing again as well, but Baekhyun’s still wary. The Christmas cards need to come first and he can only work for so many hours a day before he gets burned out. Overloading himself won’t help anyone.

On Friday afternoon he decides to visit Mrs Parker for some tea, stepping up to her counter and ringing the small service bell beside the till for the fun of it. She shoots him a glare that melts with laughter, looking up from the coffee machine where she’s cleaning the milk spout.

“You menace,” she says as greeting, reaching across the countertop to pinch Baekhyun’s cheek. “You haven’t visited me all week.”

“Sorry about that. I was caught up with other things.” Baekhyun smiles apologetically, taking out his wallet ready to pay for tea and perhaps a cream cake as well when she swats his hand away.

“I’ve been waiting to treat you for over a month, Baekhyun,” she says as she leans down into her display cabinet and takes out what she knows to be Baekhyun’s favourite. A mammoth jam tart. Baekhyun grins childishly at the sight of it. Mrs Parker slips it on a plate and hands it across. “I didn’t want to encroach on your space, dear, but I was so worried about you, you know.”

With a muted smile, Baekhyun tells her he’s sorry. Those weeks after the break-up feel like a blur. A hazy memory that he always almost remembers but never can. He can’t remember what he did, what he felt (other than numb), who he actually contacted. All he really remembers is struggling to get out of bed and somehow surviving off rations.

“I’m fine now,” he assures her, though it’s not completely true. Then again, when are the words I’m fine ever true at all?

“You know you can talk to me, don’t you, dear?” Her expression, concerned and fretful, makes Baekhyun feel guilty. He manages a nod, then nods again when she offers him tea.

Mrs Parker gets back to working when he sits down by the glass wall that looks out onto the street. Amongst the potted plants and the sunshine that pours in through the conservatory roof, he attempts to find calm and clarity, overthinking and overanalysing where to take his career next. Does he continue to sell prints online or does he make his paintings exclusive to one buyer? Does he stop doing his own work altogether and only seek work contracts from large companies for a reliable income? He should probably make a mind map of all his options, that’s what one of his school teachers always used to advise him to do.

Through the window, the familiar figure of Chanyeol walks by. For no reason at all, Baekhyun starts smiling, and waits eagerly for the moment Chanyeol turns around so he can catch his eye and wave. He’s not against Chanyeol joining him for tea at all. In fact, he’d rather enjoy it. He hasn’t had a good natter with someone like he had with Chanyeol for years.

When he turns on the spot, Baekhyun realises he’s on the phone. From Chanyeol’s happy smile and wide, excited eyes, it looks to be going well, whatever it is, and Baekhyun wonders whether Chanyeol will tell him about it when they next meet up. His eyes drop from the window when he reminds himself that Chanyeol doesn’t have to tell him anything. In actuality, they’re only really acquaintances. He hopes to become more than that, though. He would really like to be friends.

“I heard you and Chanyeol were in the pub for five hours the other night,” Mrs Parker calls across the room and Baekhyun closes his eyes. They weren’t exactly discreet when they had their meal, or discreet at all for that matter. It’s no wonder everyone knows where they were and for how long, probably even what they were talking about too. It’s just Baekhyun is slightly worried over what rumours might be circulating because of it.

“What exactly did you hear?” he asks in return, trying to sound unbothered as he sips on his tea in an indifferent manner.

Mrs Parker smirks over her shoulder as she squirts her display glass with cleaner. “That the two of you seemed very friendly and both went back to Chanyeol’s house.”

“I was just walking him home.”

“How gentlemanly of you.” She winks.

Baekhyun huffs out a laugh that isn’t really all there. “That’s not… It’s not—”

“Don’t worry about what people say, sweetheart.” She winds her way over through the tables and chairs and places a hand on his shoulder. Baekhyun briefly admires her pastel blue nails before his eyes find hers, his neck having to crane all the way back. “You know the truth of whatever’s going on, in anything, for that matter. Let that be enough, hm?”

He thinks about that for the rest of the day. Then thinks about why he hadn’t thought of it before. As he relaxes down in another candlelit bath to spoil himself, he contemplates things like appearance and reputation and wonders why sometimes he’s so bothered about his own. Sure, he can look someone in the face and tell them he doesn’t care what anyone thinks, but maybe he’s gotten so used to saying it that he doesn’t realise he’s lying anymore. He does care. If he didn’t, humiliation wouldn’t have forced him into hibernation for a month.

It brings back memories again, ones he has done his best to bury after Nessa’s advice, and he slowly slides further into the water until his ears are covered and its licking at his temples. If only he could slide away completely. And forget.

Chapter Text

The end-of-school barbecue is in full swing by the time Baekhyun gets there, the only cloud in the sky being the smoke from the grill currently being manned by Sarah Dalton and her children. A white gazebo stands in front of the village hall, shading its large, open double doors and the plastic chairs and tables where people can sit to eat. Mrs Mason is arranging her cakes for dessert and a few other ladies are taking the cling film off bowls of salad and nacho dip, pouring chips onto large serving plates and then babbling in discussion on how to get the chocolate fountain working.

To his left is Kyungsoo’s patio, where his pub opens out onto the village green at the back with recently installed bifold doors. He’s got plastic boxes full of ice and bottled beer, as well as many other beverages, and jugs of juice for the children that they can pour into cups by themselves. Minseok’s children are getting the blackcurrant squash everywhere.

He spots Nessa immediately, the centre of a crowd over near where Yixing is playing songs from his laptop through some expensive-looking speakers, a whole DJ booth set up for him with a karaoke machine and all. Vanessa’s baby bump is a point of interest, everyone asking permission to feel the baby with careful hands while her husband David has his arms around her waist. A constant stream of hugs suggests that the goodbyes have started. Baekhyun must have missed them officially breaking the news.

As his eyes roam the chattering crowd, he comes across Jongin playing tag with the children, the Walkers trying to tame their slobbering great dane who’s lost it at the sight of Agnes’ cat, and Chanyeol surrounded by a group of ladies looking very much like he’s being interrogated. He’s all big smiles and bright eyes again but he keeps shyly messing with his hair, combing the curls this way and that until it’s gone all static. Nevertheless, he doesn’t seem to need saving (yet), so Baekhyun heads over to Kyungsoo at his little pop-up bar and offers him a cheery smile.

“Hey, Baek,” he says in return. “Beer?”

“Please.”

Baekhyun pops a bottle open and leans back against the low stone wall that borders the pub’s outdoor seating area, eyes cast out at all his neighbours bobbing back and forth to talk to each other. Usually there’s some sort of row going on from general disputes but today everyone seems peaceful. No one has stolen someone else’s wheelie bin or cut down a part of their shared hedge between their gardens. Everyone is in good spirit – a good thing where Chanyeol’s concerned, if he plans to befriend them all.

“How are you doing?” Kyungsoo wonders as he mirrors Baekhyun’s posture again the wall, beer in his hand.

“Yeah, not bad,” Baekhyun replies after a sip, tipping his head back.

“I’m sorry about what happened.”

Perhaps the villagers will actually stop saying that in a year or so. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just… trying to learn from it and move on stronger.”

Kyungsoo nods and says nothing else, until Jongin comes striding into view and he gets up to offer him a beer.

“Hi guys! Not joining in the action?” He struggles comically with the bottle opener.

“By action do you mean running around with the kids or being probed for secrets?” Kyungsoo asks dryly behind the spout of his bottle, rousing a laugh from Jongin that’s endearingly genuine.

“Both, I suppose.” He shrugs, admitting defeat and thrusting his beer into Baekhyun’s hands so he can open it for him. Baekhyun quickly rests his own bottle on the wall beside his hip to do so. “Heard you hung out with the new guy for five hours the other day, Baek.”

Baekhyun glares at Kyungsoo. “I blame you for this.”

“Hey! I didn’t force you to stay until closing time, did I?”

“Wow! Closing time? What exactly were you guys talking about?” Jongin grins from ear to ear as he reaches for his drink back, Baekhyun deliberately holding it out of reach to taunt him. “That’s not fair.” Jongin pouts like a baby and Baekhyun almost gives in. Almost.

“Yeah? Well neither is you all turning nothing into something. That’s not fair either.”

Kyungsoo smirks. “Defensive, are we?”

“You’re the antichrist,” seethes Baekhyun.

“Oh, who’s the antichrist?”

Baekhyun blanches at Chanyeol. How can someone so tall just pop up out of nowhere like that? His arm loses its height and Jongin snatches his beer back, Baekhyun blinking himself into the present while Chanyeol thoughtfully introduces himself to Kyungsoo and Jongin with a formal handshake.

Jongin and Chanyeol’s smiles combined are blinding as they look at each other. “Nice to finally meet you! I live on West Street, just a few doors up from Baekhyun,” Jongin tells, and Kyungsoo pitches in with “I live above the pub.”

“Right! You’re the owner! Awesome place,” Chanyeol compliments with an enthusiastic, if not over the top, nod.

“Beer?” Kyungsoo smiles, handing out another bottle dripping with melted ice.

“Oh, thanks!” Chanyeol holds it with the sleeves of his hoodie brought down past his palms so his hands don’t get wet. Baekhyun stares a little too long at the way his fingertips peek out.

“How are you finding it here?” Kyungsoo asks, somehow making Baekhyun nervous. For some reason, it feels like it’ll be his fault if Chanyeol is finding things unsatisfactory.

Chanyeol nods eagerly, quickly swallowing what beer is in his mouth before he lets out an enthusiastic “Yeah, it’s really great here!” His eyes find Baekhyun’s. “And you were right! Everyone does have some pretty amazing stories to tell.”

“I never lie.” Baekhyun shrugs with a smirk, ignoring the side eyes he gets from Jongin.

“I was just talking to Mrs Parker and a couple of others. They were after my phone number and,” he laughs shyly midway through his sentence, “they got confused when I gave them more than six numbers and started asking me if you can make phone calls from landlines to mobile phones.”

They laugh, though it’s not the first time Baekhyun has heard of the elderly folk being sweetly incompetent with technology. He remembers Old Joe ringing him up and asking him why there was no picture when he put a CD into his DVD player. They begin exchanging stories of the like, Jongin mentioning how he was once cornered by Bill who was shocked that phones had cameras, until they’re disrupted by Kyungsoo saying Junmyeon’s name in surprise.

“Junmyeon! I didn’t know you were coming,” Kyungsoo exclaims. “Beer?”

“No, thanks.” Junmyeon looks smug, holding up the wine bottle he’s got under his arm. “I brought champagne. Anyone want a glass?”

“Kyungsoo’s got us all set on the beer, mate,” Jongin says, to which Junmyeon looks relieved.

“Good. I was only asking to be polite. I brought this bottle for myself.”

His dry humour really cracks Baekhyun up, and he chuckles behind his beer bottle as he watches Chanyeol introduce himself.

“I’m Junmyeon,” the man himself says in return. “I run the hotel at the end of Baekhyun’s road, in the old manor house.”

“He doesn’t mingle with the common folk too often,” Kyungsoo interjects, and they start bickering back and forth about how Junmyeon never comes to the pub quizzes, despite Kyungsoo personally inviting him over the phone at least once a month.

“The hotel keeps me busy,” he protests, and politely answers Jongin’s courteous question on how business is going. He’s experiencing a staff shortage, apparently. Though his establishment is held in high regard, on the precipice of reaching five stars, it’s excessively out of the way of civilisation. Their village, to put it bluntly, is smack bang in the middle of nowhere. The only reason they even have a telephone signal is because Junmyeon himself launched a petition against the local council. People who are willing to drive hours to work every morning down a maze of old country roads are frustratingly hard to come by.

“Oh my god, why did no one tell me Sam was back this weekend?” Jongin gasps, jarringly frozen on his spot before he whirls around to face the wall and starts messing with his hair. Baekhyun casts his eyes out across the field while Kyungsoo says he didn’t know, and finds Samantha Bradley, the daughter of the chemist down the road, stood in a light, floral summer dress with her parents and Mrs Parker. She must be back from university for the summer, Baekhyun reckons, admiring how her long blonde hair catches scenically on the wind when it blows by. Jongin is mad about her, and it’s not hard to see why.

“Jeez—do I look okay?” Jongin panics, staring madly at each member of their group while waiting for confirmation.

“Stop flapping,” Junmyeon mutters with a roll of his eyes. “You look fine. Just go and ask her out, everyone knows you want to.”

“What?! I—No I don’t.”

“Jongin, you’re not discreet at all.” Kyungsoo’s voice flatlines.

Jongin leaves, scathed, and they all exchange knowing glances as he strides directly up to Sam and strikes a conversation. He can’t even look her in the eye, bowing his head, rubbing the back of his neck, shoving his hands in his pockets. She’ll probably misinterpret his advances but she doesn’t look like she hates it, so there’s that.

“So obvious,” Baekhyun and Kyungsoo remark at the same time, sharing a grin.

“So, how long do these things normally last for?” Chanyeol asks, pulling up his sweater sleeve to glance at the large watch wrapped around his wrist. Baekhyun swears he sees some tattoo lines peeking out from under his hoodie, but it could just be a trick of the light.

“Bored already?” Junmyeon quips and Chanyeol’s eyes pop out of his head.

“Oh! No! No! I just want to make sure I have time to talk to everyone, that’s all.” He laughs nervously, cheeks pinking, and Baekhyun comes to his rescue.

“It’ll probably last until around nine-ish. Kids’ bedtime,” he shares, and Chanyeol flashes him a smile that Baekhyun finds contagious. He’s such a friendly guy, wanting to talk to everyone. Baekhyun really admires his social skills.

“Right. In that case, I have more networking to do.” Chanyeol makes quick work of the rest of his beer, stalling for a second because he doesn’t know how to dispose of the empty bottle. Kyungsoo takes it from him with the advice to stay away from Agnes. “Oh,” Chanyeol wraps his arms around himself, “yeah I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting her.”

“I’ll come with you,” Junmyeon decides, trusting Kyungsoo to keep his precious champagne safe behind the wall. “I can introduce you to a few people. Some can be a bit awkward with introductions.”

“Oh, thanks! That sounds great! I’ll meet up with you guys later.”

Baekhyun suppresses the weird feeling that settles across his chest. Identifying it isn’t difficult. Junmyeon is showing Chanyeol around, and for some reason Baekhyun thinks he should be in Junmyeon’s place. But Baekhyun was only ever a way into the village circle. Chanyeol has no obligation to stay tucked under his wing.

He downs the rest of his beer and sets it on the wall beside him, pressing his palms against his elbows in a sort of half-hug. The Vicar comes by and they politely say hello, and as the hour grows later Yixing has to give up his role as DJ so that Old Joe can sing a few songs on his guitar. The kids are still running about, now playing stuck-in-the-mud instead of tag, and Nessa had wormed her way over for a bit to catch a break from the heavy farewells.

“Jen’s been giving me the filthiest looks all evening,” she mutters, pouring herself an orange juice into a small plastic cup. Baekhyun is glad to see that his nail art is holding up well. She’s got a paper plate of typical party food in one hand, balancing the cocktail sausages proving to be a challenge as they keep rolling around, and once she’s downed her juice she starts devouring the cheese and pineapple sticks – of which, there are many.

“I heard from Camilla that she thinks I’m leaving on purpose, and I’m not having any of it. Honestly,” she looks up at both Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, cheeks stuffed like a hamster’s, and talks through a full mouth, “I don’t need the stress.”

“I heard Mike wants custody of the kids,” Kyungsoo points out, which stops Nessa in her tracks.

“Oh god,” she whines, “now I feel awful.”

Baekhyun senses the mood swing a mile off and reaches out to put his arm around her. She leans into him easily, as they’re about the same height, and Baekhyun decides to compliment her on her shampoo to take her mind off things.

“I’ve always been jealous of your hair,” he says calmly, watching as her thick black curls dance in a particularly hard gust of wind. “It’s so long and glossy.”

“I know,” she sniffles.

The three of them talk quietly to each other for a while, enjoying inside jokes and then laughing at Jongin’s expense when they catch him trying to make a move.

“At least Sam doesn’t look disturbed,” Kyungsoo hums, offering Baekhyun another beer shortly after. In reality, Sam looks everything but disturbed. She’s smiling at Jongin and offering him sips of her cider, and even does a twirl when Jongin appears to ask so he can appreciate her dress from all angles. They’re getting on just fine, Jongin growing with confidence the more they interact.

After a while, Baekhyun wanders over to the barbecue and asks for a hotdog that he then drowns in ketchup. He mingles with a few groups of people, subconsciously working his way over to Chanyeol while trying not to look obvious. Chanyeol has his hands wrapped around a cheeseburger in a napkin when he finds him, discussing coding with Junmyeon who says that the hotel’s website needs updating.

“I thought you were a taxi driver, dear,” Agnes asks, putting a hand to her chest in mock shock and clumsily lifting a glass of champagne to her lips. Junmyeon shoots Baekhyun an unhappy stare.

“Oh! Yesterday I got a call from my boss and all our new contracts have gone through, which means more hours and better pay, so I don’t need to be a taxi driver anymore. I just handed in my notice so I’ll be taxi-ing for the next couple of weeks, and then I guess I’ll just be the village taxi for all you guys.”

“You sweet boy,” Agnes fawns, patting his shoulder with a heavily bejewelled hand.

“But how will we know where everyone’s going now?” Camilla, a woman with short blonde hair and a wardrobe full of three-quarter length trousers, asks with a gasp. “It was so useful to know what everyone was getting up to outside of Bybrook.”

Baekhyun smirks when Chanyeol blushes. Sounds like he’s a natural gossip.

“I can still give everyone lifts! A bit of petrol money is always appreciated but not necessary. It’s the least I can do, considering how expensive taxis are. And don’t worry, I’ll keep everyone informed of people’s happenings.” Chanyeol taps his nose to a reception of laughter, and Baekhyun belatedly realises that, yeah, he doesn’t need an in anymore. He seems to have everyone in the palm of his hand already. Baekhyun included.

“Tell you what I heard, though.” Agnes smirks, leaning in towards the middle of their little group as if about to dish out some serious scandal. “Our dear Emily Kim might be pregnant with her’s and Minseok’s third child.”

“Come to think of it, she didn’t have any alcohol when I went up for dinner the other week,” Baekhyun interjects, providing clues so they can better connect all the dots. “And when I ran into Minseok in Rose’s shop he had the weirdest shopping list.”

Everyone seems impressed with his knowledge, and the group reach a consensus that they’ll all keep an eye out. Then again, knowing Agnes she’ll drink one too many at the pub quiz and blurt it out in front of everyone. That’s what happened with Minseok and Emily’s second child.

Just as Baekhyun had predicted, the evening draws to a close around nine o’clock.

“Did you manage to talk to everyone then?” he asks Chanyeol as they prepare to leave, waving goodbye to those already departing the green and heading for home.

“I did, actually!” Chanyeol looks pleased. “I even met Agnes’ cat.”

Baekhyun snorts. “Do you know why he’s called Dugly?”

“No, why?”

“Because he’s damn ugly.”

Chanyeol stops his lazy pace, gawping at Baekhyun. “Are you serious?”

“Course not.” Baekhyun simpers. “But we do call Joe ‘Old Joe’ because he’s old like I told you, that’s a village thing. He told me might go back to his playboy days if he’s not frequently reminded of his age.

Apparently his mind is only twenty-one.”

“Playboy days?”

“Don’t ask.”

After what Mrs Parker said yesterday, Baekhyun finds himself hesitant to walk Chanyeol home again. People are still milling about the village centre, some filing into the pub, others further down the road playing in the river that runs under the main road. People will see them, and they’ll talk, and they’ll theorize, and Baekhyun realises how much of a damned hypocrite he is for not wanting people to make rumours about him when he’s helping build one about Minseok and Emily. Still, he has a particular affection for newborn babies and can’t wait to help babysit on date nights.

“I was wondering,” Chanyeol starts, veering up towards his home. Baekhyun has no choice but to follow. “Do you fancy having dinner again at some point?”

Don’t look too far into it. “Sure! That’d be great!”

Baekhyun stares long and hard at the canvas he’s chosen to paint next. He’s sanded it down to make it smooth and has positioned it securely on his easel. All that’s left to do is wring his brain for ideas and inspiration. He contemplated opening up commissions for a while, then decided against it. Reason being, he can’t trust himself to create someone else’s vision and do it perfectly. He has opened up his shop again, though, and had a trickle of orders come through. It’s less than he was hoping for but he’s been out of the loop for a while in regards to social media. More teasers on Tumblr and some new advertisements on Twitter should do the trick, and Baekhyun even spares a few minutes updating his LinkedIn profile that’s gathering dust and covered in ivy by now. He was never one for the corporate world.

The phone rings downstairs but he can’t take his eyes off the blankness in front of him for a while. He tries to imagine lines and strokes of colour, waiting for an image of some kind to materialise in his head. It doesn’t prove to be successful, so he hurries downstairs to pick up the phone before it’s last ring and finds Mrs Parker on the other end of the line.

“Baekhyun, dear! I thought you’d gone out.”

“Nope, still here,” he chuckles.

He hears her laugh gently and smiles. “Well, me and the rest of the village council were thinking of doing a film screening out on the village green. The weather looks like it’s going to be good! It’ll be the hottest day of the year tomorrow so far, as the weather lady put it. Anyway, we decided on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, something kid-friendly that we can all enjoy too. Joseph says he has a projector we can use but I don’t particularly have high hopes for that.”

“That sounds lovely! I’ll be there.”

“Great! It’s happening tomorrow at seven. And will you let Chanyeol know for me?”

Baekhyun’s stomach flips. “Of course! No problem at all.”

“Alright then! I’ll speak to you soon! And come down for tea this afternoon, dear. You need a break.”

Grabbing his sketchbook on the way out of the door, he heads to the tea room straight away.

The film screening itself is much more civilised than the barbecue; the children hiss at the adults every time they talk over the movie so there’s no time to gossip as they normally would. They all gather on the grass on a wide array of blankets – Baekhyun brought his favourite tartan one that he decides to share with Chanyeol – with drinks and snacks around their feet. Chanyeol brought beer and popcorn, which Baekhyun gladly shares.

They pause midway through the film for a toilet break, the line out the door as everyone heads for Kyungsoo’s pub toilets specifically. It allows Baekhyun to have some breathing room – or talking room – and he is finally able to turn to Rose sitting beside him and ask her how she’s doing. She and Yixing are leaning into each other, arms wrapped around waists and shoulders and random kisses placed impulsively on whatever skin is closest. Baekhyun’s heart is struck with hot jealousy, so he tries to ignore the way Yixing nuzzles into her neck while they’re talking. He feels like he’s interrupting.

“Jongdae has a new conquest, you know.” Rose grins, easing Yixing off her side with such grace that it doesn’t come across as rude. “The girl from the farm that shares the same border with his.”

“Oh?”

“Jongdae says she was looking for some missing sheep and he suggested that she come and check his flock. When they still couldn’t find them, he helped her search all day.”

“Did they find them?” Chanyeol asks, leaning towards the conversation with great interest.

Rose nods, sipping her J2O from the bottle through a straw. “Someone had left the gate open on her land. The sheep got out that way and apparently a fox did the rest.”

“They’re a pain in the ass,” Yixing grumbles. “I lost seven sheep to them last year alone.”

“Something good came out of it though,” Rose smiles, leaning back on her palms. “Jongdae’s got a date.”

Jongdae himself is sitting nearest to the screen with Minseok, Minseok’s children repeatedly standing up to get closer to the chocolate whenever it appears on screen and blocking the projection for everyone else.

“I’m glad he’s found someone,” Baekhyun says softly. “It’s about time,” he adds.

“He’s only twenty-nine!” Rose cries. “Besides, we should all be meeting her soon. Minseok’s told him to invite her to the Sunday roast.”

For the remainder of the movie, they lapse back into silence. They laugh when it’s funny, breathe shakily when it’s sad, and smile with understanding when Emily has to leave because Lucas won’t stop squawking. Baekhyun puts his palms back and rests on them, raking the movie for inspiration and getting sucked into the story when he feels something against his hand.

He jolts away instantly, snapping his head to the side to find a surprised Chanyeol peering back at him.

“Sorry,” Chanyeol whispers, inching away slightly so that their hands won’t touch by accident again.

Though Baekhyun smiles and tells him that it’s fine, he can’t shake the weird feeling that’s pressing down on his chest. He repositions himself to sit with his legs crossed and puts his hands in his lap like he’s back in primary school and wonders why he feels so uncomfortable all of a sudden. His skin feels tingly and strangely numb, and a cold flush has swept across his cheeks and down his neck. Chanyeol didn’t mean to touch him. It was an accident. But Baekhyun gets entombed in his own head all the same.

He doesn’t walk Chanyeol home after, even though he can tell he feels really guilty without really needing to. That makes Baekhyun feel worse, so he heads home and throws himself back into his work for the next couple of days. He deals with the prints that have been ordered, slipping them into envelopes and then writing names and addresses on the front in marker pen. He’ll have to get some postage stamps from Rose tomorrow so he can send them off in time.

He’ll occasionally get a phone call from someone looking for an outlet. Mrs Mason tells him all about a man Martha had over last night. Sarah Daulton, Martha’s neighbour, could hear everything through the wall. “And that’s the adjoining wall to her seven-year old’s bedroom!”

Samantha and Jongin have also been sighted – as if they’re wanted criminals – in the pub. Kyungsoo took pictures for blackmail and Joe marched through the door with a violin demanding to know where the lovebirds were. It makes Baekhyun sad that he’s missing all of this. He can blame it on work all he wants but he knows deep down that he’s deliberately isolating himself. Ever since Chanyeol touched his hand he’s been struggling to look at him in the same way. It’s unsettling, both because he doesn’t know what it means and because it probably doesn’t mean anything. He’s blowing this way out of proportion.

He just feels so tense. So uptight. Not even a scented bubble bath manages to unwind him like it normally does. While lying idle in the water, he remembers the bottle of wine he never opened that he received as a gift at his first (and only) gallery show. Swift strokes of the towel have him dry enough not to drip all over his carpet, and he heads downstairs in his birthday suit, figuring that drinking wine naked might somehow be liberating.

Actually, it’s just cold.

He continues with his Christmas cards the next day, roughly completing the first drafts of four more. There’s something missing from them though, no matter how hard he tries to translate joy into his designs. His chest feels relatively hollow and he fills a hot water bottle and lies with it against his collar bones, hoping that the warmth will revitalise the cowering happiness that has scampered so far away inside himself that he can’t find it anymore. He doesn’t feel like eating dinner, so instead he pours himself another glass of wine and then heads out to take a short evening walk around the edges of Minseok’s fields.

Drinking on an empty stomach is never a good idea, especially not with his low alcohol tolerance, but it makes him feel lighter. The tree roots do prove to be a little tricky here and there, and he laughs as he scares rabbits into their burrows when he comes bounding through the ferns. The feeling doesn’t last though, and by the time he’s back in the village he feels the same as he did before. Hollow. Empty. Numb in parts.

For a start, he should probably eat some proper food, so he nips back home to pick up his wallet and makes way for the pub, stopping at the side of the road to let Yixing rumble past in a tractor with tyres the height of Baekhyun’s shoulders.

“Hey, Baek!” Yixing calls down, slowing to a stop in the middle of the fork where Baekhyun’s road joins the main road.

“Hey, Yixing.”

“Have you eaten yet? Rose is making ham pasta.”

Baekhyun smiles faintly, something coming back to life in his spirit, and then he awkwardly hauls himself up to sit beside Yixing in the tractor, grimacing when he hears a pointed rip and suddenly the cool metal of the seat is touching his inner thigh.

“Dammit,” he mutters, attracting Yixing’s attention. “They were on their last legs anyways.” It was one large step for Baekhyun-kind getting up here, but that didn’t mean his jeans had to flake on him and rip in one of the worst places possible.

“Rose’ll patch them up for you.” Yixing nudges him jovially, and his engine splutters back to life.

It’s a pleasant evening, just with slightly raunchier conversation than he’s used to. Once Yixing cracks out the beer, Baekhyun is done for, and he cries several drinks in when he realises that he’s probably going to throw up the delicious meal Rose cooked for them all. He stays the night in the end, set up on the futon in the spare room with a bright yellow duvet set.

When he wakes up, he can hear something cooking in the kitchen, but stops himself in the doorway at the sight of them back hugging and exchanging sweet kisses over the frying pan. Jealousy stings in his eyes and his heart trembles ‘til it’s cold; he loathes himself for his inability to be happy for other people when it comes to things like this.

At the root of everything, despite all the villagers and all the activities they get up to, he thinks loneliness has something to do with it. It’s not like Sehun was ever here when they were together. They never cooked breakfast together or laughed about their funny sex stories at dinner with friends – Baekhyun had tried not to be concerned last night when Rose said she hurt her head and went faint from trying to get it on with Yixing in the tractor, the very same they drove up in.

In hindsight, he and Sehun never did what a typical couple would do. Or, dare he think it, a real couple. They probably never would have either. With two hours and hundreds of miles between them, they would never have been able to kiss each other every morning before work or get frisky without forward planning and scheduling. And… that’s not what Baekhyun wants. He wants what Rose and Yixing have. What Minseok and Emily have and what Mr and Mrs Parker have. So maybe things are better this way.

He starts walking more, enjoying the peace and quiet and, surprisingly, being by himself. One morning, he even gets carried away and walks a longer route than normal, cutting across one of Minseok’s fields and treading uphill to where he shares a wall with Yixing’s lower paddock. He stops for a moment to feed the horses long pieces of grass that he pulls from the ground, tucking his thumb beneath his palm like his grandparents always taught him to in case the horse bites it off. He smiles and waves the flies off their eyelids, before he walks further over the crest of the hill and has to dodge sheep poo on his way back.

Mrs Parker welcomes him warmly when he steps in for some lunch, ordering himself a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea that comes in its own teapot. He smiles at the design printed on the side, one of his own paintings that he did of Bybrook from the top of Yixing’s farm.

“Are you a fan, Mrs Parker?” he calls, voice carrying across the tearoom and through the archway that leads into the kitchen, the same archway that her head pops around a few seconds later. She’s cleaning the frying pan she’s just used, a tea cloth in her hand that she holds up to the light to show off another one of Baekhyun’s contractual works.

“I’m your number one fan, my dear. Don’t underestimate me.”

He leaves a little before lunchtime to head home and get some work done, about to head down his road when he sees Chanyeol walking into Old Joe’s house further up the lane. For some reason, his feet stop moving, and he stands there looking at where Chanyeol was before he walked through Joe’s front door like he’s in some kind of a trance. It’s only been a few days since he last saw him and spoke to him, but Baekhyun might have forgotten what he looked like. Just a little.

Or rather, forgot how good he looked.

The van that’s parked outside Joe’s house is from the supermarket, his food delivery being ferried into his kitchen by Chanyeol and the driver in large branded crates. His eyes latch onto Chanyeol’s bare forearms when he catches dark lines, and upon closer inspection (as he ambles towards them), he realises they’re tattoos.

It feels like a fish is flopping around in his stomach, somewhat. Baekhyun can’t understand why, but it gets worse when Chanyeol spots his approach and flashes him a smile.

“Need a hand?” Baekhyun asks, and proceeds to help Joe store his food away in his kitchen. The fridge feels colder than normal when he gets to putting the milk inside. Chanyeol always wears large hoodies and jumpers. Baekhyun didn’t expect him to be so sculpted underneath, with his t-shirt showing it off for all to see.

Joe is happy to see him, claps an arm around his shoulders and calls him a ‘good lad’. He puts the kettle on just as Baekhyun and Chanyeol are finishing up, and suggests they play card games for the rest of the afternoon until the pub quiz starts later. Things fall into an easy rhythm. Joe makes jokes, Chanyeol laughs or furthers the joke, Baekhyun sometimes shoots down the joke with sarcasm.

What strikes him is that he doesn’t feel uncomfortable at all. His hand still tingles when Chanyeol gets too close, picking a card from the deck at the same time as him or taking a card from his hand, but it’s not in a foreboding way. It’s actually… nice. Just nice. And just nice is more than okay.

Joe spoils them with biscuits: hobnobs and jammy dodgers and custard creams. They’re not even hungry when they get to the pub later, but Kyungsoo’s wacky questions on the American states has them all building up an appetite so Chanyeol gets three desserts.

Baekhyun wants to apologise for avoiding him, and subsequently avoiding everyone, for the past few days or so, but Chanyeol isn’t acting like anything is wrong. Perhaps it’s all just been in his head – looking too far into things and overanalysing what’s not even there.

They win the quiz, and Chanyeol giving him a high five is the highlight of his day.

Chanyeol

30th July

[Dinner tonight?] 15:14

Baekhyun’s drawn out of work by the pinging of his phone and two sharp vibrations running through his desk. He’s cooped up by his computer, eyes sore behind his glasses from staring at the screen for so long. The curtains are drawn across the windows behind his set-up, the sunlight that was coming in obscuring his view of what he was doing. He rubs at his tear ducts before he reaches for his phone, staring at the message notification blankly before he registers who it’s from.

Right. He agreed to have dinner with Chanyeol again when they were at the barbecue. He’s on a roll with his work though, having surfed through four new cards today alone, and he doesn’t want to disrupt the flow when he’s finally into it.

The way Chanyeol worded it throws him off centre. It’s so casual, like this is a regular thing and they can just meet up on a whim because they want to. He’s surprised that Chanyeol hadn’t forgotten, like he himself did, and wonders whether Chanyeol was looking forward to seeing him again. Just the two of them.

“Stop,” he hisses chidingly, unlocking his phone and trying to push all thoughts from his head. Pushing his hair back with his hand, Baekhyun relaxes into his chair and swivels in a circle, figuring out how he should reply. Does he want to have dinner with Chanyeol? Yes. Probably too much. But his stomach is swirling and he can’t figure out why.

[Don’t worry if it’s not a good time!] 15:20

Baekhyun jolts at a new text coming through, nibbling on his lip as he reads it and wonders how he could possibly turn Chanyeol down when he’s—

[Is tomorrow better?] 15:22

He can imagine Chanyeol hunched over his phone, worrying if he’s said something wrong, so Baekhyun pulls his finger out his ass and actually replies.

[Today works for me! Can we go later than normal tho? I’m making good progress with work!] 15:24

[Around seven? Half seven? Whatever’s best for you :) ] 15:25

[Half seven sounds great! I’ll meet you in the pub] 15:26

[See you then!] 15:28

[Ok! :D] 15:31

Was that face too much? Baekhyun groans.

Baekhyun arrives first on this occasion, despite him being the one insistent on pushing back the time. It’s 7:25 p.m. when he walks through the door wearing a loose fitting t-shirt to accommodate for the warm weather. As always, sunshine struggles to pass through the pub’s windows, and seeing how nice it is this evening Baekhyun chooses to head out to the patio to get a table outside, briefly saying hello to the Bradley family sat at one of the tables closest to the wall on his way past. He shoots Chanyeol a text, letting him know where he is, and sits down to wait for his arrival.

Jongin appears on the village green twenty minutes later, after Chanyeol has arrived and he and Baekhyun have ordered at the bar and sat down with their drinks.

“He runs the youth club around here,” Baekhyun tells Chanyeol while they watch all the village children spreading out a parachute ready to play cat and mouse.

“Is that his full-time job?” Chanyeol wonders, seated across from Baekhyun in a red checked shirt with the top three buttons undone.

Baekhyun thinks on that for a moment. “It’s more of a hobby, I think? I don’t know exactly what Jongin does but he’s some kind of YouTuber. Something like that.”

“Oh, no way!” Chanyeol gasps, looking over at Jongin again as Jongin calls for everyone to start waving the parachute up and down so that the cat, who crawls around on top of it, can’t find the mouse who’s sneaking around underneath it. “That’s pretty cool, actually.”

“I heard he has a big following but I’ve never really looked into it,” Baekhyun admits, shifting in his chair and wincing at the sound of the metal legs screeching against the stone patio. “Anyway, how are your last days of taxi-ing going?”

Chanyeol lights up at the question, effortlessly giving Baekhyun his undivided attention. “I’ve cut down my hours a lot now and I’m just doing calls, so I’m not hanging around in taxi booths.” Baekhyun cringes. “I tend to do my coding at night into the early morning, so I usually sleep ‘til noon or later.”

“Sometimes I forget that you were my driver that night.” Baekhyun laughs with little strength behind it. “Tell me I didn’t say anything too embarrassing?”

Chanyeol smiles at him candidly. “You were more entertaining than embarrassing, if that helps you feel any better?” he says with a teasing lilt. Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “But you made a pretty cool metaphor about wanting to get to the sea when you’re walking towards a dead end. And there was something about DVD and video players but I can’t remember the context of that exactly.”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun sighs, “I… I’m not a very good drunk really. I never grew out of that freshman lightweight phase.” He chuckles, turning his glass of lemonade in its spot.

“Bet you have some good stories to tell.”

Baekhyun meets his eyes. He knows that’s an invitation and takes the bait.

They get talking again, like they’ve been friends for years, and Baekhyun feels calm. People come and go around them, the scuffling of chairs and waves from neighbours hardly a distraction to whatever Chanyeol is saying in that moment. His expressions are huge but trumped by his presence, Baekhyun absorbed in his eyes and his smile and his laughter as he tells of the time he skinny dipped in the university pool and ended up all over Facebook.

“So you were that kind of guy in uni?” Baekhyun grins, thoroughly amused.

“Yeah I was a bit of an idiot back then but it was a dare and I couldn’t back down. Believe me, I got my own back. I’m sure you’ve done something like that, haven’t you?” He impishly kicks Baekhyun lightly under the table. “For a dare.”

“Oh, nothing like that!” Baekhyun cries. “I was a very well behaved student,” he insists, as Kyungsoo appears through the patio door to take their empty plates and light the tealight in the centre of the table.

“Would you like the dessert menu?” Kyungsoo asks unnecessarily, Chanyeol looking like a dog about to get a treat.

“Yeah, that would be great!”

Baekhyun smiles at Chanyeol’s enthusiasm, and then he’s back to probing Baekhyun for information. “Come on. I struggle to believe you did nothing crazy in your three months at uni.”

Baekhyun takes a sip of his drink. “What kind of person do you take me for?”

“Just something. Anything.”

“So you can tell everyone?” Baekhyun challenges.

“So there is something!”

Baekhyun deadpans, saved by the menu as Kyungsoo reappears. They’re the only people out here now, but Kyungsoo moves to light the candles on each of the other tables anyway. Jongin and the youth club have long since left the green, couples and families now taking an evening stroll through the woods at the back with their dogs running free without leads. Baekhyun couldn’t paint a better scene if he tried.

“Not really.” Baekhyun takes up his menu, desserts listed on only one side of card, and contemplates what he’s going to have. “Once I went out with some people from my flat and they dared me to go and dance against someone. Sober-Baekhyun would have had none of it but Drunk-Baekhyun thought it was a great idea. Anyway, the guy liked it and asked for my number, and then we dated for a couple of months until I dropped out and moved away. That’s all there is to know.”

When he looks up from his menu, Chanyeol’s smile is muted for a split second before he’s back again, almost like he was buffering. “I’m sure Joe will love to hear this.” Baekhyun scoffs and puts the menu down, which prompts Chanyeol to ask “Do you know what you’re having?”

“Yeah,” he says, pushing his chair back and reaching for his wallet. “I feel like some sticky toffee pudding.”

“I’ll get it!” Chanyeol jumps up from his chair before Baekhyun can stand. He grins bashfully, stroking a hand through his hair. “I’ll—I’ll be right back.” And then he disappears inside the pub to order their food and… pay.

He’s paying for dessert.

Baekhyun drops back in his chair, a little winded, and wonders what the hell just happened. The funny feeling he keeps getting in his stomach returns unwanted and Baekhyun clamps his sweaty palms around the end of the chair arms. It feels wrong to have Chanyeol paying. Feels like something too intimate. They’re just friends. They’ve only known each other for two months. Chanyeol shouldn’t be (literally) jumping at the chance to turn everything into a date.

Maybe he isn’t. Chanyeol could just be saying thank you to Baekhyun for helping him settle into his new life here.

It’s all exhausting to think about, Baekhyun itching to blow out the tealight on the table so that there’s one less thing on his mind. It’s too… Baekhyun can’t describe it. Except for saying that it’s too much—he’s resolute on that.

Chanyeol reappears and breaks Baekhyun out of his trance, speaking of how he didn’t know if Baekhyun wanted custard so he told Kyungsoo to bring it in a jug on the side instead of poured all over the pudding.

Baekhyun nods wanly, curling his fingernails into his palms when he sees concern flicker in Chanyeol’s eyes.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” he replies immediately, pushing his hips to the back of his chair to sit up straight. “It’s just getting a little chilly out here.” Thank god Chanyeol doesn’t have a jacket. He’d probably insist on hanging it over Baekhyun’s shoulders.

“Yeah, it is. It’s a lovely evening though.” Chanyeol looks out across the green. “Don’t you think it’s weird that the sky can be so many colours?”

It’s lilac – the sky. The sun persists in shining even from below the horizon, what trees are near all turned to shadows amidst its dying rays. Baekhyun would take a picture on his phone if the camera was half decent.

“Sometimes, yeah,” murmurs Baekhyun, following Chanyeol’s eyeline and releasing a deep breath. He feels guilty for making Chanyeol worry for no reason. Especially when it’s only his interpretation of things that’s causing it. “I used to paint skies to practise my gradients,” he adds to lighten the tone, gifting Chanyeol a smile that’s a tad apologetic. “Back in college. I had to get a part-time job just so I could afford the paint.”

“Where’d you work?” Chanyeol wonders, appearing more relaxed – unless Baekhyun is just imagining it.

“I was a waiter for a family restaurant. Not a well-known branch or anything like that. Surprisingly not the most stressful job I’ve ever had.”

“What was?”

Baekhyun leans forward to rest his elbows on the table, then holding his chin up with his palm. “This,” he laughs. “Being my own boss. Doing my own taxes. Finding income out of nowhere. When I first started, all I really had was a Tumblr account to post my work on and build awareness. I did fanart to get noticed in the hopes it would lead to commissions, but a lot of people reposted my work without permission or credit and because I didn’t watermark it no one knew it was mine. It was enough to make me quit, honestly. The only reason I kept going was because someone asked if I did commissions and they were willing to pay for it. It was better than nothing.”

Chanyeol purses his lips and looks at him with sympathy. “That sounds really difficult. I had no idea.”

“There have been some major bumps in the road, believe me. But it’s all paid off. For now, at least,” he chuckles, looking down at the glass table and watching his feet below. “I’ve had some really good deals, though, and I’m very grateful for each opportunity I’ve had. I just have to keep working to stay relevant but I can allow myself more free time than I used to be able to have.”

“You deserve those opportunities,” Chanyeol says confidently. “I think what you’ve achieved is really admirable.”

Baekhyun’s stomach dances, and then his heart jerks when he looks up to find Chanyeol much closer than before. He was slouched back in his chair last time he checked, and now he’s mirroring Baekhyun with his elbows on the table. Out of nowhere his heart starts racing and his blood runs hot, so as casually as possible, he retreats. Thankfully, that’s when Kyungsoo appears with pudding.

“Are you two going to stay until closing time again?” His voice is smug. Baekhyun would smack the smirk off his face if he was with anyone other than Chanyeol.

“Depends how many desserts I want,” Chanyeol replies, somehow rescuing Baekhyun from a horde of rumours. Or, trying to, at least.

The conversation isn’t constant as they dive into pudding, Chanyeol having decided on the chocolate brownie Baekhyun had last time. They just exchange off-handed remarks about this and that, like who Chanyeol drove in his taxi and where he took them, and then Baekhyun revealing that he keeps forgetting to phone his parents. It should be relaxing, but Baekhyun’s heart is running a mile and minute and he can’t figure out why. He can’t figure anything out apparently.

“We should do this more often,” Chanyeol suggests once his plate is empty, a childlike hope in his eyes that sucks Baekhyun in until he’s bound by whatever words he speaks. “Make it a weekly thing.”

“Pub grub,” Baekhyun jokes. “I wouldn’t be against it.”

“Great! I want to try everything on the menu so we’ll have to come here a minimum of twenty times.”

“Twenty? That’ll be cheap.” Baekhyun shakes with laughter, resting his palms on the table and leaning to peer at the menu Chanyeol’s holding.

“And then there’s a soup of the day so I need to try all of those. And the specials too.”

“I hope your pay rise can afford you all this.”

Chanyeol slots the menu back in its holder and spreads his palms on the table. “I’ll just cut down on grocery shopping.”

His face is splitting. “And only eat here?”

“I don’t see why not. This is a very well run establishment. Plus,” the fingers of Chanyeol’s left hand worm into Baekhyun’s right, “I’ll have good company.”

He’s still smiling from a few moments ago, but it’s merely a ghost until he revives it, politely and apologetically as he eases his hand away. Either Chanyeol really likes hand holding or he’s getting at something else, and now Baekhyun has reason to believe that him touching his hand at the movie screening wasn’t an accident either. But Chanyeol knows. He knows about Sehun and he knows about what happened, and he knows when it was as well. Why is he doing this? Being so forward and familiar and—suffocating.

Baekhyun has to watch a little of the happiness in Chanyeol’s eyes die, and belatedly figures out the word which describes the whole evening.

Romantic.

It’s too romantic.

And Baekhyun feels cornered.

“It’s late,” he forces out thickly. “Can’t have Kyungsoo kicking us out again. The villagers had a field day coming up with rumours the last time.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Chanyeol smiles, but it’s so watered down compared to his usual ones that it hardly counts. It doesn’t mean anything. “I had a good time tonight.”

“Me too,” Baekhyun says, and he’s not lying.

When Baekhyun gets home and turns on his hallway light, he realises how dark it is outside. They spent almost four hours together. Baekhyun enjoyed every minute, but he hated it as well.

He buries his face in his palms and lets out a pitiful sob, house keys still looped on one of his fingers and his boots laced up around his ankles. He just wants to cry. When did everything become so complicated? Confusing? Sehun left him. And now the taxi driver who saw him at his lowest point is a compulsive hand holder with lovey-dovey stares and tattoos and a toned body and bright smiles, with a passion for direct eye contact to boot. What does that mean? What does any of it mean? Is he trying to comfort him? Take pity on him? Help rebuild his confidence because yes, someone will want him eventually? And why does his own stomach get all floppy? Why does he randomly get chills or a hot flush when Chanyeol does something or looks at him and catches him by surprise? Why—Why is he always obsessed with what Chanyeol looks like?

Two months. That’s how long it’s been since he broke up with Sehun. He’s not ready for this. He’s not ready for anything. He just wants to work until his arms have fallen off and he’s bought up all the paint there is. After what Sehun did to him, he just wants peace. He wants to fall asleep knowing that no one is cheating on him and go out every day knowing he has no one to impress or live up to the expectations of. He wants to be Baekhyun for a while. Just Baekhyun. Not Baekhyun and Sehun. Not Baekhyun and Chanyeol.

But Chanyeol is so sweet. And he’s lively and he’s thoughtful and he’s funny and he lives here. He’s two minutes away, not two hours, and despite the minor hiccups they’ve had Baekhyun has been enjoying his company a hell of a lot lately. It’s just that everything still feels unresolved with him and Sehun. He feels like he reached the climax of a murder mystery and found out who the killer was but not how they did it. He has so many things he wants to ask Sehun, and at the same time, he never wants to speak to him again. Even just thinking of him brings Baekhyun to a boil. But it’s not because he lost Sehun. And definitely not because he wants him back. It’s because Sehun treated him like shit and Baekhyun wants him to know it.

It goes against his entire moral code to want Sehun to suffer, against his very being to want to see him in pain. The betrayal and heartless insult he feels are irrevocable, and though he tries not to cry, he fails. He fails just like all the past relationships he’s had, and here he stands, the ‘better’ he deserves only a few minutes up the road and yet he’s sabotaging any chances they have.

He loses himself again. It doesn’t take much.

He makes himself a cup of tea to keep his mind busy before he heads upstairs, shying away from getting into bed straight away because he has a gut feeling he’ll just be lying awake with his thoughts on full volume. His tea tastes slightly salty as he stands dumbly in the bedroom, not knowing what to do with himself. He should change. Wash his hands. And then, maybe he can paint. Paint away the pain so that it’s locked in a canvas and can never touch him again.

That sounds good enough for him.

He talks it all out to Nessa the next morning, her emptied house and the large amount of boxes tearing him apart even more. She looks surprised when he talks about Chanyeol, the two of them sitting on the sofa with untouched tea on the coffee table. Her hand is warm when she grabs onto his, and she nods with understanding and reassurance while Baekhyun vents about everything he’s been feeling.

“You like him,” she says, “but you’re not letting yourself like him.” And Baekhyun cannot help but see the truth. “Please don’t tell me you’re still hung up on that dung beetle.”

Baekhyun laughs despite himself, shaking his head. “It’s not that.”

“Tell me.”

Baekhyun looks at her nervously. “It just feels too soon. I feel like things aren’t properly finished with Sehun and I’m starting a new book without reading the ending to the previous one.”

“Sometimes endings and goodbyes are quick, and that’s all you’re going to get,” she says softly. “And, in this case, we know that the ending doesn’t live up to what we hoped it would be, so why bother reading it anyway? Put the book down. It mistreated you and it led you on. It doesn’t deserve your attention anymore. I know it’s hard to drop it without finishing it, but there’ll be better books that’ll make you forget all about this one.”

Baekhyun laughs through his tears. “This is so lame.”

“Hey, you’re the one who started it.” She smiles lovingly at him, then looks at the coffee table like she’s remembering something. “I’ll go and microwave the tea. You stay here, babes. We’re going to watch Harry Potter.”

A while later, “You won’t tell anyone, right?”

Nessa cackles with her mouth closed. “I promise I won’t do so knowingly.” And that’s the best he’s going to get.

Several weeks pass. Nothing eventful happens. Baekhyun suspects it has something to do with the upcoming scarecrow festival, the village council so hellbent on planning it down to a tee that they haven’t left room for anything else. That’s the truth about this place and why there’s so much going on all the time: If there was nothing, if they all stayed inside their homes without ever talking to the neighbours or meeting the new arrivals, they’d probably all go stir crazy.

Of course, in the absence of their regular get togethers there’s always the pub quizzes. Baekhyun and his team are on a winning streak, to the point where it’s getting suspicious and Kyungsoo makes them all put their phones in a box before they can start. They still win, so Minseok starts messing around searching Baekhyun’s pockets and combing through his hair to check he’s not hiding flashcards anywhere.

“I swear, I’m not cheating!” he bawls with laughter, swatting Minseok’s hands away until he stops.

“Come to think of it, you’ve only started winning since Chanyeol moved in.” Minseok’s eyes are on Chanyeol in seconds, and the pub roars with laughter when he gets Chanyeol in a headlock and starts tickling his neck. Baekhyun didn’t realise they were on that level of friends yet, but he doesn’t feel jealous. In jealousy’s place sits pride, no matter how warranted it is. Even with the current ridge between them.

Chanyeol is quieter around him now, which makes Baekhyun feel worse than he usually does. The guilt is eating him alive despite having come to several conclusions with Nessa’s help. Yes, he might like Chanyeol. Yes, Chanyeol probably likes him back. But no, he’s not ready for that. In book terms, he’s still trying to shelve Sehun with both hands; he hasn’t got a third hand free for a whole new novel. Still, it doesn’t look like Chanyeol needs him anymore. He’s getting along with everyone just fine, and Baekhyun is honestly glad.

Talk turns to scarecrows after they’ve all had another drink. Chanyeol left to start work and those with children have disappeared out the door, so now it’s just Baekhyun, Old Joe, Agnes and the ladies and the Shaws.

“Wait—Are you leaving before the festival?” Baekhyun asks Nessa in a hurry, twisted in his chair so he can look at the table behind him where she’s sitting.

“Yeah,” she says. Old Joe boos at her. “But we’re still making a scarecrow! We’re going to put it by the church. David’s made it this year so it’s not my fault if it’s terrible.”

“Just wait ‘til you see the finished product!” David declares across from Baekhyun, pointing at his wife with a childish grin.

“I’ve had mine in the works for months,” Joe says proudly, turning to Baekhyun. “What’re you planning this year, Baek? Give us a clue.”

Baekhyun smiles and sits back in his chair properly, eyes on the opposite wall. “I hadn’t thought about it,” he murmurs, wondering how he could possibly forget about what is arguably the biggest event of the year.

He starts brainstorming when he gets home, after staring at his latest Christmas card attempt with disdain. Not only does it feel criminal to be thinking about Christmas so much in August, but he’s also bored as hell of painting snow and stockings and presents by the fire. This is what happens when he takes on commercial work. He’s paid to paint things that are mundane by his standards, things that neither excite him nor even interest him. Once he was asked to paint flowers for a premium garden centre. Over a hundred there were. He should have been entitled to compensation for emotional damages after that fiasco.

Anyway, scarecrow. What’s easy and quick and will go down well with the kids? Baekhyun makes an omelette for dinner, purely by chance, and stares at the cracked eggshells scattered across his counter.

“Humpty Dumpty,” he murmurs, deep in thought, then he’s grinning in triumph.

He enjoys dinner before he goes hunting through his wardrobe for things he can use. He finds an old flesh coloured t-shirt buried at the very bottom that he thinks might actually belong to his ex-ex-boyfriend, and then grabs some old denim shorts he hasn’t worn in a couple of years that he can cut up into dungarees. As any true artist would, he spends a short while browsing the internet for reference photos and then searches for sewing tips for people without a sewing machine. All he has by the way of thread and needles is his nanna’s old sewing kit that’s tucked in the under stairs cupboard with the chess pieces and ironing board that he never uses, but it should do the trick.

He starts by stitching up the holes in the t-shirt, leaving the neck hole free to add the stuffing. There’s no way it’s going to turn out to be a perfect egg shape, but hopefully the dungarees will hide the bad form pretty decently. Stuffing is the next obstacle, and without cutting up his ratty spare duvet that he uses for extra warmth during winter, Baekhyun’s not sure what he can use. He looks out the window for inspiration, tutting when he sees how long his grass has gotten.

It’s still light outside when he curls up in bed. Strangely enough, it makes him feel more relaxed, just knowing how well rested he’ll feel in the morning. He scrolls through some timelines on his phone as he lies there, arm outstretched across the next pillow across to make up the emptiness of the other half of the bed. Seeing Sehun’s latest Facebook status is a bitter pill to swallow, but Baekhyun doesn’t break down like he might have done before.

Happy five months babe <3 is the caption to a photo of his new guy sat across from him in a fancy-looking restaurant. His name is Logan, if Baekhyun remembers correctly. Mr Perfect. Mr Somebody Else. What a joke.

Sehun becomes the first person Baekhyun blocks on Facebook, and then he goes and blocks him on everything else. He doesn’t need to see Sehun on his feed anymore. The memories of him are reminder enough of what a mistake he made. And to think he was once serious about him, believing that they’d go all the way. Ridiculous. Baekhyun is much happier as he is now, single and without distractions.

“Yeah,” he laughs emptily, letting his phone fall face-down on the mattress and tracing his hand across the pillow that’s always cold. “Really happy.”

The morning that follows is dedicated to gardening. He goes rummaging in his granddad’s shed and squeals like a baby when he walks face first into a cobweb. He returns with protective gear (a scarf wrapped around his head in case something lands on him that tickles and thick winter gloves) to heave the lawnmower out from its resting place into the light of day. It’s packed so tightly in that Baekhyun can hardly budge it, the wheels catching on old flower pots while his own feet get tangled in a garden hose he never knew he had. Naturally, after all that, the bloody thing won’t start, so Baekhyun trudges up the road to Andy Walker’s house to ask if he can borrow his.

It’s plain sailing from there. Baekhyun cuts the grass, fixes his garden gate and then starts weeding out one of his bare flower beds. He should probably head down to a garden centre and invest in some pansies or primroses, then thinks about food costs and electricity bills and accepts that it isn’t a necessity.

Just after lunch time, Baekhyun calls it a day. He has a quick bite to eat and then brings his scarecrow things out to the garden, wrestling with the lawnmower so he can get to the grass cuttings and use them as stuffing. All he can think of is how lucky he is to not have hay fever.

He doesn’t take the lawnmower back straight away. Andy expresses no great need for it anyway. Baekhyun focuses more on his scarecrow, cutting and sewing the dungarees as best he can and finding some old buttons at the bottom of the sewing box that he uses to add detail. When he remembers that Humpty Dumpty has arms and legs, he almost smacks his head against the wall. Instead, he goes back to mowing to get more stuffing.

He wheels the mower back to Andy in the evening, then asking his wife Jess if she has any flesh coloured tights she doesn’t want anymore. She looks at him funny, eyes flickering down to his legs and back up again, and Baekhyun almost combusts in his hurry to explain what he needs them for.

A moving van has arrived outside Nessa’s house when he walks back, two pairs of old tights in his hands that Jess assured him were clean. David Shaw is handing a box up to the movers standing in the back compartment when Baekhyun reaches him, productivity stalled to make way for grief.

They’re really leaving.

“Hey, Baek,” David grins, bright and shining, teeth luminescent against his skin. “What’s with the tights?”

“What’s with the boxes?” Baekhyun replies sullenly. Dave claps him on the shoulder and Baekhyun’s expression sours further when he realises it’ll be the last time he does that. The van is pretty full, the for-sale sign has popped up in their front garden, and through their (soon to be old) living room window, Baekhyun can see that only the sofa remains. Once they’re gone, it’ll be like they were never here.

“Thanks, Chanyeol,” David says while Baekhyun’s distracted. He jerks his eyes up to find Chanyeol bringing three boxes to the van at once and suddenly he’s lost for words. “Is this the last of them?”

“Yep,” Chanyeol says. Baekhyun can only just see the top of his head over the load he’s carrying. What he can see, though, are the tattooed forearms and square hands that are doing the lifting, prominent veins running from the backs of his palms up to his elbows. “Oh, hey.”

Crap, he was staring. Chanyeol just said hey. “H-Hi.” Baekhyun winces, grateful for the reprieve when Chanyeol turns his back to him as he offloads.

“What’s with the tights?” Chanyeol dusts his hands off on his jeans.

“Oh, uh…” Baekhyun holds them up and looks at them dumbly. He’s drawing a blank. Chanyeol shouldn’t be allowed to wear t-shirts. “Humpty Dumpty.” Chanyeol looks at him like he’s lost it. “I mean—they’re for my scarecrow. I’m making Humpty Dumpty. For the festival.”

“Festival? What?” Chanyeol slides his hands into his pockets.

“It’s—we do it every year. Just something fun that brings in tourists. Junmyeon does a special offer on afternoon tea at the hotel too. Everyone makes a scarecrow if they can, and there’s competitions for best dressed and most funny. Stuff like that.”

Chanyeol nods, brow pressed in thought. “So, like a school fair? With scarecrows.”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun chuckles, “kinda.”

“We’re all done here, Chanyeol,” David says as he comes back out the front door. Baekhyun didn’t realise he’d left. “Thanks for all your help.”

“Oh, not at all! I’m glad I could help.”

“I would invite you guys in for a drink but the pregnancy mood swings are kicking in and Nessa’s locked herself in the bathroom because I packed away some stuff I apparently wasn’t supposed to.” He says pregnancy mood swings in a stage whisper and Baekhyun snorts.

“Don’t worry about it,” Baekhyun chuckles, “just go make sure she’s okay.”

And then it’s just the two of them. David shuts the front door behind him and the movers drive away, heading down towards the hotel so they can turn around in the car park and come back facing the right direction. Baekhyun isn’t sure what to say, but he has to think of something. They’re both standing there waiting for something to happen and the tension is killing him.

“Uh—”

“I—”

Chanyeol goes red. “Sorry. You go first.”

Baekhyun wipes the back of his neck, inwardly surprised to find it clammy. “I just wondered if you wanted to go for a walk or something?”

“Oh,” Chanyeol says, and Baekhyun starts to fret over whether he was supposed to say something else. Chanyeol’s delayed response is enough to persuade him that an invitation for a walk is not what he was expected to come out with. But then, what was he supposed to say? “Sure! That’d be nice.”

Baekhyun leads him down the short route, up through the village towards Chanyeol’s house and then down the public footpath that runs along the edge of Minseok’s fields. It’s quiet and neither of them are saying much. Baekhyun wishes he didn’t find this so awkward, especially seeing as he was the one who suggested it, but his tongue feels like lead and his thoughts are all jumbled. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, and even if he did he wouldn’t know how to say it.

Luckily, it’s Chanyeol who goes first.

“Listen, about the other week in the pub, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything.”

Baekhyun takes a deep breath and sighs it out in a huff. “I’m sorry too. I feel like I made things really awkward when they didn’t need to be. You just caught me off guard.”

“Still. I had no right to just reach out and touch you like that. I am really sorry about it.”

Baekhyun stops pacing to look at Chanyeol, wondering how such a decent man came to live so nearby. “Really, let’s just pretend it never happened. It’s not a big deal anyways,” he waves it off with a smile, performing a much-needed change in subject. “How about your scarecrow then? Any ideas?”

“How long do I have to make it?” he groans.

They get walking again, the path not really wide enough for two people abreast so Baekhyun walks over tree roots and up ledges of turf. At one point, he even becomes the same height as Chanyeol with the help of a tree stump.

“The festival is this weekend, but it’s only Monday so you’ve got time. It’s on for two days too. I’m sorry I never told you about it. It completely slipped my mind.”

“Nah, it’s not your responsibility to fill me in on everything, don’t worry.” Chanyeol shrugs. “Besides, five days is enough time, right? How long does it usually take to make a scarecrow?”

Baekhyun laughs. “Depends how complicated it is.” He looks up at him, his side profile lined by sunlight, and gets an unexpected rush through his stomach. “You could come over for dinner if you want? Talk out some ideas so you can finish in time.”

“Will you show me Humpty Dumpty or is it top secret?”

Baekhyun snorts, oddly relieved that Chanyeol accepted.

He makes dinner while in constant communication with Chanyeol, throwing words over his shoulders to where Chanyeol sits at the dining table making bullet point lists and mind maps. They’ve gone through every kind of character imaginable – a drunkard, a golfer, a fisherman – and come up with nothing solid, so Baekhyun cracks out the wine to get the creative juices flowing.

They eat and talk, drink and talk, and in the back of Baekhyun’s mind he realises how intimate this looks. He made Chanyeol dinner, he gave him wine, their feet keep accidentally brushing under the table whenever their legs get numb in their current positions. He should be pulling back, except he isn’t and he can’t figure out why.

Baekhyun unveils his half-finished Humpty Dumpty when they’re done, plates in the sink and being washed by Chanyeol upon his insistence.

“Ta da!” Baekhyun cheers, holding up what effectively looks like a sack with some denim pieces stuck to it. “I mean, he’s not finished,” he defends when Chanyeol starts cackling. “You’re hurting his feelings.”

Chanyeol wheezes, sloshing soapy dish water all over his countertop and down the front of his cupboards. “Sorry—No it—He looks really good, I swear.”

Baekhyun narrows his eyes. “You can’t dig your way out of his one, Chanyeol,” he mock threatens, going into the lounge to sit Humpty on his sofa where he can be comfortable and out of judging eyes.

“What about a taxi driver scarecrow?” Chanyeol calls from the kitchen while Baekhyun rushes a spot of last-minute tidying in case they come in here to sit down. He pauses where he stands, folding the scrunched blankets and throwing them on his armchair, and feels a smile creeping onto his lips.

“Sounds good to me!” he calls back, savouring the sound of someone else knocking about his kitchen.

After an evening of mostly idle chatter (Baekhyun is making little progress with his dungarees) they somehow end up agreeing to help one another out and meet up every day before the festival.

It’s plain sailing for the first day. Baekhyun finishes up Humpty’s clothes and starts painting on some facial features, going for large, cartoon eyes (that remind him of Chanyeol) and some smiley red lips. Chanyeol sits at Baekhyun’s dining table drawing pictures of what he wants his scarecrow to look like, defining its clothes, accessories and hair, but nothing important like materials or proportions. It looks like it was drawn by a four year old, but Baekhyun doesn’t tell him that.

Baekhyun has moved onto stuffing the tights to turn them into arms and legs. His lack of resources has meant that he’s had to sacrifice an old jumper, but it was one of those he kept just in case he needed it for something and never ended up wearing, so it’s not all bad. It doesn’t make for terrible stuffing either.

It’s at this point in the scarecrow process where Chanyeol rests his head on the table and groans in frustration.

“This is impossible! I only have four days and all I’ve got so far is a drawing. And a shit drawing at that.”

Grinning, Baekhyun reaches across to pat him on the shoulder. “Chin up,” he says. “I’ll be finished with Humpty by tonight and then I’ll be free to help you out.”

Chanyeol sighs pitifully. Then, “Do you want to go to the pub for dinner?” His face reappears from where it was pressed against the table, his chin now planted on his forearms. He looks a bit like a sulking toddler. The whites of his eyes shine when he glances up at Baekhyun, and Baekhyun stills at the look.

“Sure,” he answers after a pause. “Yeah, sure.”

Chanyeol leaves for home to shower before they eat dinner, and Baekhyun tells him to have a root around for some old clothes they can use. Something inspires him to put Chanyeol’s drawing on the fridge, sticking it up with an emoji magnet that he got in a Christmas cracker last year when his parents came to stay – the one with the heart eyes.

Baekhyun is feeling pretty confident despite their lack of direction, until he ducks into the pub and sees Kyungsoo’s creation already on show. He’s made a drinker, a scarecrow that he’s sat on one of his bar stools with the limp glove on the end of its arm pressed against an empty beer bottle held down with blue tac. Baekhyun marvels at it, approaching it reverently like it’s a celestial being, admiring the craftsmanship and the genius gone into making it. It’s wearing a large overcoat, a black shirt and a pair of black trousers. Kyungsoo has even glued felt onto its face to give the illusion of a beard. Baekhyun hates to be so defeatist, but Humpty has nothing on this guy.

As expected, Chanyeol’s face also falls open in an awed gasp when he arrives, and then he turns his frantic eyes to Baekhyun seeking help.

They then decide to only make a top half for Chanyeol’s scarecrow to save time and better the quality of their work. It’s a taxi driver, so if he puts it in his car no one will be able to see the legs anyway. They’ll just have it resting an arm on the window frame and leaning its face out for everyone to see. That should do the trick. All plans are made over dinner, and then the following morning they’re put into action.

Baekhyun has finished Humpty but doesn’t put him on show just yet. For one, he’s not sure where to put him, and two, if he leaves it a couple of days he might come up with ways to make him more impressive, and he’s pretty certain that the winner of the best-looking scarecrow category wins fifty quid.

It becomes a routine: Baekhyun will head over to Chanyeol’s in the late morning with whatever materials he’s informed Chanyeol needs via text, and then he’ll stay there for pretty much the whole day helping Chanyeol cut, glue and draw until they have a head made from papier-mâché and a wig made from wool.

Chanyeol yawns for the first three hours, having woken up much earlier than he’s accustomed to in order to head out to Edgebank and hunt down a craft store. Baekhyun makes him cups of tea to keep him awake and energised, finding that every time he turns the kettle on to do so he knows his way better around Chanyeol’s kitchen than before.

“I found these old gloves,” Chanyeol announces as he returns from digging in his wardrobe. “We can use them for hands. Fill them with rice and sew them shut or something?”

Baekhyun nods in approval. It’s different, being in Chanyeol’s house. He’s never been inside before, of course, and he was pleasantly surprised when he first came through the front door. The hallways are wide and directly to the right is a neat shoe rack and set of hooks. There aren’t any doors either, only archways that lead from room to room with the bedroom at the back and the kitchen at the front. He takes note of the many grab rails and mobility handles drilled into the walls and archways, Chanyeol briefly commenting that he hasn’t had time to take them off yet. Harry, the man who used to live here, had to use a wheelchair during his last few months in the property. His balance had badly deteriorated, to the degree where he had to move out and live with his son instead.

It’s not as fancy as he was expecting though. Sure, the kitchen is nice and the bath suite is expensive looking (with a shower that’s four times the size of a standard one), but the walls are bland and the light fixtures, plain. He notices that Chanyeol’s put up posters in his bedroom when he walks past the entryway while going to the bathroom, and that’s when he sees the huge computer he has set up on a desk, with three monitors and one of those keyboards that light up in colours of the rainbow. There’s also dirty clothes on the floor. Baekhyun looks past that.

He returns from the bathroom to find Chanyeol sucking on his fingers.

“I can’t sew,” he groans, gesturing with a hand to the shirt he’s trying to attach to the scarecrow’s torso. He keeps pricking himself with the needle, his reactions exuberant and exaggerated and hilarious.

Baekhyun takes over, it is his nanna’s needle after all, and starts making good progress. “Should we leave a few buttons open at the top of the shirt?” he wonders as he sews down the shoulders, not really caring how messy the stitching is so long as there’s no chance of the shirt coming off.

“Give him chest hair?” Chanyeol tags on, scooting closer on his chair and watching Baekhyun intently.

Baekhyun makes a noise of distaste.

“What? You don’t like chest hair?” Chanyeol asks, grinning at him.

“I—” Baekhyun flushes. “I guess it depends whose chest hair it is?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out as a question but it does. He can’t quite figure out whether Chanyeol is just teasing him or fishing for his preferences. But why would Chanyeol care? It’s not like—

“You’re really good at that.” Chanyeol’s voice is softer, and right next to his ear. It sends tingles down his neck and arms, his needle-holding hand shuddering against the fabric. Chanyeol is less than an inch away from having his head resting on Baekhyun’s shoulder, cheek to cheek, and Baekhyun blanches. His heart starts to pound in his ears with Chanyeol so close, mind racing and failing him when he needs it. He stares at the needle and thread having completely forgotten what he was doing and decides that he needs to get away.

“H-Here,” he says, disguising his move out of Chanyeol’s reach as him merely turning around. “You give it a go. You’ll never get better if you don’t practise.”

Chanyeol looks at him with what Baekhyun thinks is a hint of disappointment.

It makes him feel sick.

He escapes three hours before he’s due to leave, not that they have a set time for their scarecrow workshops. He skips out on dinner with Chanyeol and heads home to knock his head against a wall, sitting in the bath for an hour until the water is cold and then standing naked in his room, staring at the canvas he painted the last time he had a breakdown over Chanyeol holding his hand in the pub of how everything is making him feel.

Dark colours bleed across the linen from angry whips of his brush, lashings of black and red and green scarring the innocence his canvas once possessed. He’s not sure what it is, or what it was supposed to be, but he interprets it to be a forest. One that he’s lost in. Eyes behind every tree.

He’s being ridiculous.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

What Chanyeol is doing probably means nothing.

“It probably means nothing.”

The only one at fault here is himself.

“Stop being such a prat.”

Chanyeol is just being his friend. Maybe he’s trying to bring him comfort, because he knows what happened with Sehun and he knew how upset he was. At the end of the day, it’s not even safe to assume that Chanyeol is even capable of swinging his way. To think that Chanyeol has a crush on him when he is probably straight is ludicrous.

Baekhyun drags his palm down his face, letting out a displeased grumble.

It’s too late for rational thinking now. Baekhyun can identify some of his… symptoms. He’s felt them before with his exes, and he’ll feel them again with his crushes. Things are just getting from bad to worse.

He gets a phone call in the evening, once again reminded that he needs to ring his parents. When he picks up, he finds the Vicar on the other end, telling him about the recent village council meeting concerning the festival at the weekend.

“We were wondering if you’d be okay with running a face painting stand?” he asks politely, to which Baekhyun agrees. He doesn’t realise until after he’s put the phone down that he doesn’t have any face paint, but for some reason he’s not as bothered about it as he thinks he should be. He has a few days to get everything together, and he can take the village taxi to the craft store. No trouble at all.

Chapter Text

Chanyeol is pretty observant. Baekhyun can tell. He sounds surprised to hear from Baekhyun so soon, implying that he must be well aware of the emotions behind Baekhyun’s abrupt departure last night. Saying that, Baekhyun isn’t the most discreet person to walk the earth. He probably looked like he was about to be sick when he told Chanyeol he had to get back to work and ran from the man’s house. It doesn’t excuse the repeats, though. This is the third time Chanyeol has pulled a stunt like this. Not only is he observant but he’s persistent too, and it’s definitely passed any kind of friend-only level. If Chanyeol knows how Baekhyun feels with his advances, why keep… advancing?

He ponders it all while he waits for Chanyeol to pick him up. He doesn’t completely hate it. It’s nice to feel wanted by someone for a change. Misleading Chanyeol or using him, though, is something he desperately wants to avoid.

He gets a strange sense of déjà vu when he happens a glance through his bedroom window and sees a car parked outside his house. He remembers the many times Sehun would come to pick him up for their dates, and immediately checks his phone to see if Chanyeol has texted to let him know he’s outside.

The doorbell rings instead.

Believe it or not, things aren’t awkward in the car. They don’t talk constantly but do so enough to have a pleasant conversation with a couple of laughs. Baekhyun is focused on the road ahead of them, albeit not so much that he doesn’t repeatedly catch Chanyeol stealing glances. Today he’s wearing a humongous t-shirt, a pair of branded tracksuit bottoms and a pair of those trainers that Baekhyun always turns his nose up at but thinks look rather nice on him. He’s wearing a cap too, and his huge watch, and there’s a pair of sunglasses hooked on his collar. Tattoos are on show.

Baekhyun opens the car window and blows out a shaky breath.

It’s hot today, so Baekhyun decides to leave his denim jacket in the car, shrugging it off and leaving it on the passenger seat. They’ve come to the retail park on the other side of Edgebank, out the way of the city centre where there’s a better selection of large stores.

“What was it you needed again?” Chanyeol asks as he locks up and saunters around the car to stand beside him.

“Face paint. Cheap sponges and brushes too, I guess,” Baekhyun says as he slips his wallet into his back pocket, keeping his phone in his hand.

They head to a craft store and start perusing the aisles. Baekhyun doesn’t expect Chanyeol to follow him all around the shop but he seems pretty insistent on sticking by Baekhyun’s side, give or take a few occasions. Chanyeol jokes with him frequently, hissing “Think fast” and pretending to throw things at him, and taking small pieces of furniture from the doll’s house aisle and telling him that he’s just the right size for it. Baekhyun gets his own back, finding pictures of old ladies on the front of sewing kits and likening them to Chanyeol, even hoisting up a picture frame and using it to tell Chanyeol what a sad picture he makes. They get a dirty look from a shop assistant so Baekhyun decides to actually locate what he’s looking for and get buying.

“I never knew face paint was so expensive.” Baekhyun grimaces at the price tags. Sure, he’s looking at the special effects stuff, but it’s either get that or go for the Halloween dress-up kits that’ll be impossible to work with and plainly not enough.

“Maybe the council will pay you back? If they’re for the festival and stuff,” Chanyeol interjects, folding his arms.

Baekhyun hums, distracted by the lines of a guitar that runs from Chanyeol’s wrist to his elbow. He has several tattoos randomly assigned across his skin, including a set of numbers across his wrist, cursive writing along the inner side of his arm and then a picture of a monkey sitting on the tanned side. Baekhyun gulps and has to tear his eyes away.

“They might do,” he agrees. “But three pounds a colour is definitely going to add up. I should probably get an idea book as well. Damn, I should have picked up a basket by the entrance.” He looks around, sizing up the quickest route back to the main door, when Chanyeol chirps “I’ll go get one!” and disappears before Baekhyun can say otherwise.

He starts picking colours while he waits for Chanyeol to come back, going for almost every colour of the rainbow with a few exceptions. They’re water-based paints so he won’t be able to mix them, but he thinks he can skip on the gold and the silver, and maybe he can just get one blue instead of two, seeing as he’ll need more than one of every colour. He drops them all into the basket with a clatter when Chanyeol returns, throwing in one of the inspiration books on top before grabbing a handful of different sized paint brushes and sponges meant for kids.

“That should be everything,” he sighs, dusting off his hands. His wallet feels lighter already, even though he’ll be paying on card. “Did you need to get anything?”

“Uhh…” Chanyeol looks at him blankly. “I think we’ve got everything for the scarecrow. I think?”

Baekhyun thinks in fifth gear, trying to recall if there is anything they’re short on or were planning to get. In an ideal world, Chanyeol would have written a list, but they’ve both been so busy that he can’t blame him for not thinking of it.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Baekhyun waves it off, wondering whether he should free Chanyeol of the basket to carry it himself or just let him keep it. “Is there anywhere else you wanted to go? This is me done.”

Chanyeol hums as they leave the aisle and start heading to the front of the store where the tills are. There’s only one open, so they queue up behind a couple of other people to wait their turn.

“Not really,” Chanyeol says. “But we could always get tea?”

Baekhyun’s heart skips a beat, palpitating in his chest. Still, he clings onto his composure and gives Chanyeol a confident nod. “Okay. And cake too.”

Sitting across from Chanyeol at tables for two feels like it’s starting to become a regular thing. Chanyeol looking so painfully boyfriend isn’t helping much either. He does occasionally look at his phone instead of Baekhyun, but only when it lights up with a notification that must be important. Baekhyun feels a little jealous, then inwardly slaps himself.

They don’t talk a whole lot, just nattering about whatever comes to mind. In reality, they’ve spent almost all their waking hours together this week preparing for the festival, so the pool of conversation topics has dried up somewhat. Baekhyun also suspects that the barista thinks they’re a couple. She keeps looking over, trying to be discreet, probably waiting for them to hold hands or kiss or start fucking on the table – whatever it is teenage girls think about nowadays. And maybe a small part of Baekhyun does want Chanyeol to reach out and hold his hand. He’s done it twice already – even if the first time was an accident, it still counts. But Baekhyun knows he doesn’t want it for the right reasons. He just wants to show people that someone wants him. That he’s desirable. He doesn’t want it because he’s proud of being with Chanyeol and would hold his hand even if no one was watching. He could, though. In the future. He doesn’t think he’d mind.

The car windows are rolled down on the way home and Chanyeol blasts the radio. They’re playing summer anthems from over the years, total classics that they both know all the words to, and it feels like one of those scenes from an American movie where the two main characters are going on a road trip to somewhere sunny. Chanyeol looks good when he drives, even though all he’s doing is sitting there.

A few hours after teatime is when Chanyeol’s scarecrow is completed. He’s not a looker per se, but he looks relatively… human-esque. Chanyeol whips out a six pack of beer to celebrate, and two bottles in, he starts begging Baekhyun to paint his face.

“As practise! When was the last time you painted on a face?” he cries, the alcohol having loosened a few screws.

That’s true. Baekhyun has never actually painted someone’s face before. Not even a toddler’s. On one hand, it would be good practise. On the other, he has to get up close and personal with Chanyeol’s face and stare at it for ten minutes plus. He considers turning him down on the grounds that the paint technically isn’t his (if the council reimburse it for him, of course) but Chanyeol has whipped out the big guns (puppy eyes) and Baekhyun finds his vocal chords locking up.

“It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant,” Chanyeol adds. “It would be cool to see you paint, though. The master at work.”

Baekhyun drops his eyes as he laughs, looking at the bag of paints lying on Chanyeol’s dining table and sucking his teeth. “Fine,” he gives in. “But it has to be something simple, okay?”

“I want a white tiger!”

Baekhyun facepalms. Still, every cloud has a silver lining. The only colours he’ll need are black and white, and maybe a little pink for the nose, so he promptly sets up a painting station with a glass of water Chanyeol provides and has him sit down on one of the dining chairs.

“I’m just going to make this up as I go along so don’t expect anything amazing, okay?” he forewarns, Chanyeol grinning like a three-year old.

“The famous Baekhyun Byun is painting my face,” he marvels. Baekhyun pokes him with the end of his paintbrush before switching it out for a sponge.

He starts with the base, dabbing a damp sponge coated in white paint all over Chanyeol’s skin. With Chanyeol’s track record, Baekhyun should have expected him to stare into his soul but it still catches him off guard.

“You should put some music on,” he suggests, feeling like his face is being scrutinised.

Chanyeol becomes busy with his phone, opening an app and putting one of his playlists on shuffle.

“Phil Collins, huh?” Baekhyun teases at the start of the first song, laughing when Chanyeol gets defensive.

He does two thin layers of white so that it doesn’t take too long to dry before he grabs a thin brush and swirls it in the black. “How many stripes should I give you?” he thinks aloud, starting with some patterns on Chanyeol’s forehead.

“However many you think I need,” Chanyeol says back quietly, looking relaxed. The cool swipe of the wet paintbrush must be therapeutic. Baekhyun is envious of how laid back Chanyeol looks right now, eyes on the floor so that his lids are on show.

He works quietly, save for when he hums along to the songs he knows. Sometimes Chanyeol will skip a track only a couple of seconds in, and if it’s one that Baekhyun recognises he makes a pointed noise of distaste that spurs him to hit the back button.

Chanyeol actually has a really nice bone structure. All his facial features are well proportioned, his jaw is sharp and his forehead is the perfect size. He notices a few tiny moles and awry eyebrow hairs while painting, proceeding to examine the different depths of colour in Chanyeol’s eyes without realising Chanyeol can see him. He continues painting lines, the black standing out so prominently against the white background that Baekhyun only really needs his peripheral vision to see what he’s doing. Chanyeol’s eyes are blinking innocently up at him while his paintbrush roams his face, feathering the illusion of fur on his cheeks, temples and chin.

It’s weird, but Baekhyun swears Chanyeol has been flirting with him all day. He’s not even been discreet. Baekhyun thinks back to yesterday when Chanyeol was a hair’s breadth from leaning on his shoulder, from entering space that is beyond personal. He wonders if Chanyeol would have felt warm, or grounding, or comfortable. He wonders why he reacted the way he did, getting nauseous and spending the next hour or so wondering how he could leave. He wonders why Chanyeol hasn’t apologised, because Baekhyun is well aware that he probably failed to school his expression as well as he thought he did. Chanyeol must have seen. Or, at the least, guessed that something was wrong. But today he’s taken things to a whole new level and Baekhyun is breathless.

He sounded surprised on the phone this morning when Baekhyun rang to ask for a lift, pretending as though nothing had happened. And maybe that’s why. Baekhyun didn’t avoid him like he has done in the past, so Chanyeol could have interpreted that as you did nothing wrong. I liked it.

Has he actually just handed Chanyeol an invitation to flirt with him?!

Baekhyun gasps, painting hand halting. He’s been staring at Chanyeol this entire time, belatedly comprehending Chanyeol’s insistent returning gaze. Then he looks at where his paintbrush is, resting amongst dark smudges of paint he has taken across Chanyeol’s bottom lip, lips parted to make room.

Shit.

Chanyeol looks like he’s going to kiss him. Chanyeol looks like he’s going to wrap his arms around Baekhyun neck and suck the air from his lungs.

And, Baekhyun? He’s not completely against it. But he’s not completely for it either.

He clears his throat, takes a small step back, and comes to see with his new perspective that during his trance he finished painting the stripes.

“Uh—J-Just the nose now,” he says, coughing again afterwards as he turns away.

Chanyeol slumps back in his seat as Baekhyun taps at his nose with another brush, no longer meeting his eyes or staring at him with intensity.

“Done!” Baekhyun chimes, dropping the brush into the glass of water and doing his best not to sound afraid. “Go look in a mirror.”

It only takes Chanyeol a couple of seconds to recover. He has to go to the bathroom to see himself properly, and his glorious cry of “I love it!” resonates through the whole house.

Baekhyun grins giddily, butterflies in his stomach, and he shakes his head as Chanyeol’s fascination with a substandard paint job as he dries his used brushes off on a piece of kitchen roll.

“If this is simple, I can’t wait to see complicated,” Chanyeol declares, utterly impressed.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Baekhyun claps back, and believes Chanyeol would be blushing if he wasn’t now a cat. “Pub for dinner?”

It’s almost natural to ask that question now. Baekhyun is putting on weight. But in good company.

Chanyeol has to leave for Hapton the next day for a meeting with his boss. Baekhyun empathises with his distaste as they talk over the phone at breakfast, both in their own homes but not feeling lonely. It’s two hours there and two hours back, or thereabouts, and Chanyeol’s meeting starts at one in the afternoon without a set end time. It happens every Friday, not that Baekhyun has noticed, but he definitely feels Chanyeol’s absence when he spends the day in front of his computer with no one to call or text or meet up in the pub with. Of course, there’s Jongin and Mrs Parker and Joe but… Baekhyun snorts at himself. He only wants to hang out with Chanyeol.

The day drags on. Baekhyun feels burnt out with his digital art and flips absently through the face paint magazine he bought from the craft shop. There are a variety of different animals and butterfly patterns, and towards the back there’s a page dedicated to superheroes. For the more mature children (and adults), there’s a selection of simple cheek art with glitter, and damn, Baekhyun didn’t buy any glitter. After a few texts back and forth, Chanyeol fixes that.

Baekhyun takes a walk in the evening, returning home just as Nessa and David pack their last belongings into the boot of their car. He hugs them both, choked up, and has to watch them drive away with the knowledge that they’re never coming back. Everything becomes unnaturally silent once he can’t hear their car engine anymore. He looks around and sees no life and kind of wants to scream. There’s a huge chunk missing from the community with their departure, but hopefully the festival will help bridge the gap.

The festival begins at 10.a.m., the weather warm and dry and perfect for this sort of thing. Junmyeon opens the hotel car park for visitors, and then the overflow when things get busy just after lunchtime. Stalls have been erected all through the centre of the village. Mable is doing fortune telling on one of Mrs Parker’s outdoor tables; Rose has filled a large glass jar with sweets to see who can guess the closest amount; Jongin is in charge of the treasure hunt, disarming everyone he meets with his smiles and his manners as he hands the children a sheet with the first clue. Baekhyun is desperate to have a go but he’s busy manning his face painting stall outside the church. The Vicar set it up for him before he got here – a high, director-style chair, a few handheld mirrors and a table for his things. He also handed Baekhyun a fifty pound note on behalf of the village council, more than enough to cover for the supplies he bought.

There’s live music provided by Joe and his banjolele, a few of the village kids who have learned how to play instruments in school performing alongside him. Camilla Harvey and her daughter, Vick, are running the tombola, while Martha and Maggie are winding through the crowds getting people to buy raffle tickets. It kind of reminds Baekhyun of a page in Where’s Wally, where there’s so much going on that it’s hard to find what you’re looking for. Though that doesn’t mean to say he’s lost tabs on Chanyeol.

In between painting, while he’s waiting for the kids (and sometimes the parents) to skim the catalogue and decide what they want, he looks for Chanyeol. For most of the morning Chanyeol has been helping Mrs Parker serve customers in the tea room, but now that it’s getting into the late afternoon he’s started helping out Kyungsoo in the pub instead, collecting glasses and even delivering food if there’s no one else to do it. His car is parked in front of the church as well, the scarecrow they created together on full display to the delight of everyone. Baekhyun’s keeping an eye on it, just in case anything suspicious happens.

Chanyeol is so… dazzling. Baekhyun gets distracted by his smile numerous times, watching as he serves customers and asks them about how their day is going so far. He diligently fills in for anyone who needs a break on their stall, even manning the bouncy castle at one point when the operator needs to use the loo. Baekhyun feels proud. Awed.

“What’ll it be then?” he asks the young girl he’s about to paint, her shy smile adorable as her mother lifts her onto the chair.

She’s wriggling with excitement as she cries “Ladybird!”

“Good choice!” Baekhyun beams, turning to his little paint station and grabbing the right colours.

He’s painted over fifty faces by now, surely, his money jar slowly filling and gaining weight. Even Yixing and Rose came over at one point, and he turned them both into sheep.

He takes a break in the mid-afternoon, Chanyeol delivering him a cup of tea from Mrs Parker and a hot dog from Andy’s barbecue as a late lunch.

“How’s everything going?” Chanyeol asks, eyes raking over the mess that is Baekhyun’s supplies. He’s never been a tidy painter, as the abundance of used and unwashed brushes shows. Without being asked, Chanyeol starts to organise things.

“It’s going well!” Baekhyun says from around his food, wiping ketchup off his top lip afterwards. “People seem to be pretty impressed.”

Chanyeol grins at him over his shoulder. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

Baekhyun smiles, then his heart skips a beat when he remembers painting Chanyeol’s face the other day. He can still see where he painted the lines, though Chanyeol has washed his face since. The feeling is still there, too, in the pit of his stomach. How unexpectedly exhilarating it was to be so close to him, how quickly he got lost in his eyes. It’s also crazy, just maybe not in a bad way. Is there such a thing as good-crazy?

He gets back to work soon after, a long line of excited children (including Minseok) queueing up to be transformed. Baekhyun paints Iron Man and pirates and puppies. He paints Minseok as a kitten and gives Old Joe a small red heart on his cheek. He’s close to hitting the pan of his black by the end of the day, thanking himself for having thought ahead and purchasing more than one. He tries not to be a perfectionist either, though he still wants to rub off every line he draws with a shaky hand or too much pressure. It’s only him that can see the flaws, as is often the case; the smiles he gets when the children look in the mirror are enough to make him forget anyway.

Bunting flaps in the wind with the evening breeze, a beautiful golden sunset approaching. The air smells like grilled meat and Baekhyun can hear the gentle buzz of chatter coming from the pub and the picnic benches further down the road. There’s a puppet show scheduled for six o’clock on the village green, the time when Baekhyun closes up shop, and he watches with a grin on his face as all the children run excitedly towards the grass to see what Jongin has come up with.

“Time for one more?”

Baekhyun stops where he stands, drying the ends of his brushes off on a towel that’s marked with an array of different coloured smudges. A smile breaks his face, and he looks over his shoulder at Chanyeol looking all smug and settling into the chair.

“It’ll cost you,” Baekhyun says, picking up his money jar and waving it in front of Chanyeol’s face. He’s only teasing, but to his surprise, Chanyeol drops three pound coins through the slit and smiles triumphantly at him. Baekhyun’s chest feels like it’s about to burst from that, heart racing and stomach clenching. He almost forgets to speak.

“What would you like?” he wonders, setting the jar down and switching it for the idea book. “I can turn you into a puppy?” Baekhyun thinks that would look quite sweet. Chanyeol does resemble a puppy sometimes, with his wide eyes and the way he gets so excited that he can’t sit still – not that he can ever sit still. It’s adorable.

“How about a white tiger again?” Chanyeol suggests. “But complicated.” With that, he drops more money into the jar, Baekhyun too stunned to interfere and stop him. “I’m a paying customer.”

Chanyeol is smirking at him. Baekhyun is having a heart attack.

“Well, seeing as you paid extra…” he trails off, feigning indifference, and then pulls out his phone to google a reference image.

He starts painting just as the puppet show begins. They can hear it from here, all the kids laughing, cheering the good guys and booing the bad guys. It’s a mixture of fairy tales that Jongin has put together, including Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Cinderella, to name a few.

“You’re missing the puppet show,” Baekhyun says quietly as he dabs at the contours of Chanyeol’s face with a light grey.

Chanyeol hums. “So are you.”

They’re not the only ones absent from the village green. Others are packing up their stalls too, and Martha and Maggie are getting their prizes ready for when they announce the raffle winners. They are out of the way of everyone else though, as the only people by the church. It feels strangely private, despite being outside where anyone can see them.

“No one tried to break into my car then?” Chanyeol laughs, the apples of his cheeks swelling under Baekhyun’s hands and hiding his cheekbones from him.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Baekhyun smiles down at him, taking his sponge up to Chanyeol’s temples. “And I did try to keep an eye on it all day.”

Chanyeol looks up at him. “Thanks, Baek.”

Baekhyun disguises a gasp as a deep breath. “No problem.”

He paints more, Chanyeol’s styled hair obscuring his forehead. “You’re going to have to wear my headband,” Baekhyun decides, picking up the ring of elasticated fabric and showing it off to Chanyeol with a grin.

“You’re going to ruin my hair.” Chanyeol pouts, but Baekhyun ignores him, managing to tackle him into the headband without smudging too much of the work he’s already done.

“Boohoo.” Baekhyun grins playfully, getting back to work. “My feet ache, you know. I’ve been stood out here for eight hours.”

“Treat yourself to a bath when you get home.”

“Oh, I will,” Baekhyun groans eagerly, snickering at himself afterwards. “I noticed you’ve been helpful today.”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol perks up, “I just lent a hand when things got busy for people. I also helped people with the treasure hunt if they were stuck. There’s some really cool scarecrows around! Puts mine to shame,” he chuckles.

Baekhyun takes a step back to let his white base dry. “We’re all pretty experienced here when it comes to scarecrow making.”

“Humpty was popular, you know,” Chanyeol says, picking up a mirror to see the progress made so far. “It was a good idea to put him on the bridge over the river.”

Baekhyun preens. “Woah. I’m having a proud dad moment.”

Baekhyun hasn’t felt this at peace in a while, and all it is is him and Chanyeol talking to each other about nothing of real importance. They discuss the scarecrows everyone made, Junmyeon having done a set of three playing golf outside the church door, and some were placed in the shallow bit of the river playing with wooden boats with newspaper sails. Chanyeol also reveals that he checked out the treasure hunt and it was pretty impressive. Baekhyun laments not having time to try it out.

“How did your meeting go yesterday?” Baekhyun asks as he’s working on the stripes. Where other people’s faces took five to ten minutes to paint, he’s now been doing Chanyeol’s for a little over half an hour.

Chanyeol’s eyes flicker upwards and hold Baekhyun’s gaze. “It was… Well, meetings are never very exciting. We just talked about new clients, I presented what I’d been working on this past week, and then we all set targets. I don’t know why we can’t just do it over skype.”

“I thought you wanted to meet your co-workers?”

Chanyeol makes a noise and shrugs. “I don’t know. They all live in Hapton. My life is here now, I guess.”

Baekhyun pauses and stares at him. His stomach swoops and his breath gets caught in his throat, and for a second Chanyeol looks so inexplicably perfect. He’s gorgeous and kind and polite and well-built. He’s captivating and funny, always smiling and joyful. And he wants to be here. Live here. Maybe even stay here.

But Baekhyun is getting carried away. He drops his eyes from Chanyeol’s and looks at the end of his paintbrush, darkening his greys until he can complete the stripes. It’s still too soon for him to try a relationship again, even if it is with someone incredible like Chanyeol. What would people think of him? What if he’s just treating Chanyeol like a rebound? He will never use anyone like that, and he doesn’t want to half-ass a relationship either. The only way he can do this is if he has fully put Sehun behind him, and right now, he doesn’t believe that he has.

“Will you do the treasure hunt with me after this?” Baekhyun asks shyly, referring to the image on his phone again.

Chanyeol smiles, eyes soft. “Of course.”

Baekhyun feels like he’s back in college, the same innocent attraction building for this boyfriend at the time. Yes, he likes Chanyeol, but he’ll just wait a little longer to make sure it’s for the right reasons. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he used him as a way to get revenge or fix his own insecurities – not that he would do so knowingly. But there is dark in him, as there is dark in everyone. He gets jealous and angry and sometimes does stupid things that someone ten years his junior would do. It’s better to be safe than break someone’s heart, even his own.

The festival is a huge success, raising just over a thousand pounds that can be put towards more community projects. The village dance will be happening in a few weeks, just before the kids go back to school again, but for now everyone mooches around enjoying the August heat.

Baekhyun catches Jongin wooing Samantha more than once and Yixing loses his dog, Sparks, only to find him drinking from the water bowl outside Kyungsoo’s pub. Baekhyun works hard on his Christmas cards in the mornings, then heads out into the village in the afternoon to see what everyone else is doing. Well, to see if Chanyeol is doing anything.

It’s like his heart lights up whenever he spots Chanyeol helping someone out, shopping in Rose’s corner shop or enjoying tea with Mrs Parker. Then his legs switch to autopilot and he’s marching over to join him. Chanyeol has also become his favourite person to gossip with. They text on and off in the day and sometimes call each other in the evening while Baekhyun is eating dinner and Chanyeol is taking a break from work, unless they’re already hanging out at each other’s houses. Baekhyun usually texts him when he’s bored of drawing and wants to complain, and Chanyeol will distract him with random funny stories – and sometimes a meme.

It’s nice. Really nice. And Baekhyun can feel more caterpillars evolving.

Prospective buyers come and go, viewing the house next door to Baekhyun’s to see if they’re interested in moving in. Baekhyun watches them all from his window if he happens to catch them, wondering what kind of people they are and if they’d fit in. If they did move in, Baekhyun doesn’t think he’d be compelled to help them out as much as he was with Chanyeol, which he has to stop and think about for a couple of minutes. Chanyeol, being the gem that he is, talks to one couple he runs into viewing the house on his way over, and Baekhyun can hear him through his bedroom window talking about what a great community there is here. Chanyeol sounds like he’s in love with this place, and Baekhyun feels warm because of it.

On the last day of August, Chanyeol is lounging on Baekhyun’s bed reading a book he borrowed from the library in Edgebank. Baekhyun is dealing with this Christmas cards again, only the last few to go, when they hear screaming outside. Upon first hearing it, Baekhyun can’t tell if it’s a scream of laughter or a genuine scream of fear, but Chanyeol has read his mind and is already shuffling across the bed towards the window to have a look.

“What’s going on?” Baekhyun asks, setting down his graphics tablet from where he had it resting on his lap. He stretches his arms above his head, hears the faint clicking of his shoulders, and turns around on his chair to monitor Chanyeol’s reaction.

Chanyeol has his elbows on the window sill, peering out. It’s a high-set window, the bottom of it the same height as Baekhyun’s hips, so it frames Chanyeol perfectly. Baekhyun feels compelled to take a picture but catches himself. That’d be weird.

“There’s a water fight,” Chanyeol replies. “The kids.”

Baekhyun smiles.

“Oh, no wait,” Chanyeol says, leaning further into the window trying to see more. “Old Joe is there too.”

“Old Joe?”

“Yeah,” laughs Chanyeol. “He’s got some kind of Super Soaker.”

Baekhyun needs to see this, so he races out of his chair and squashes in beside Chanyeol at the window. True enough, Old Joe is there striding down the middle of the road, looking around for the children Baekhyun has spotted hiding behind his own front garden wall. He doesn’t mind, of course. Instead, he breaks with laughter as he watches them distribute water balloons to each other, and then they jump up and drench Joe from head to toe. Yixing pops out from behind the church and catches them all in the act, aiming water at them as they all squeal and rush off towards the hotel.

“What is this? Adults versus kids?” Baekhyun laughs, glancing at Chanyeol and losing his breath at the sight of his smile.

“Should we join?”

They share a look that reads hell yes, Baekhyun meaning it in more ways than one.

As they join in the fight, running into Rose who thrusts a packet of water balloons into their hands and demand they fill them up straight away, Baekhyun thinks how lucky he is to live in a place like this. Where he can leave his house but still be at home and have friends in every neighbour. Where he can join in someone’s conversation because there’s always an invite hanging in the air and people greet him without a second thought, asking him over for tea or dinner or drinks. Where else will he wake up to a sheep in his garden? Or look out the window to find the whole neighbourhood having a water fight? He wouldn’t move anywhere else even if someone paid him. But now, he’s extra lucky, because as he and Chanyeol fall about laughing trying to fill up the water balloons without bursting them, he realises that he gets to share all of this. With him.

That feeling only blossoms as the days go by until Baekhyun can’t control it anymore. It becomes so big that it refuses to be ignored, smothering Baekhyun’s airways and inflating him with helium at the same time. The sun shines on everything Chanyeol does.

Chanyeol quickly becomes the person he looks at when he laughs. He becomes the first person he calls and texts and the first (only) person he invites to join him on his walks. Chanyeol is always so composed despite being eccentric at times, and Baekhyun finds himself beaming at the pub quiz when Chanyeol excels at a particular round of questions – on Disney movies, of all things.

Despite that, they lose the quiz that week, and Old Joe jokes that they’ll have to kick Baekhyun out of the team now that he’s lost his touch. In all fairness, Baekhyun did find it hard to concentrate.

The winning team – the farmers – all get their free pints and talk soon turns to the village dance happening soon. The profits made from the scarecrow festival have been invested into new sound equipment for the hall, Yixing rubbing his palms together when he reassures everyone he’s going to make a playlist that people of all ages will love.

“Are any of our young people going to bring dates?” Mrs Parker asks with a sweet grin, eyeing Jongin and Samantha and then turning to Chanyeol. “Chanyeol?” She looks knowing, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, and Baekhyun looks between them like a lost toddler.

Is Chanyeol bringing someone?

Something drops in his stomach. Baekhyun doesn’t understand why it hurts when he doesn’t even understand what’s going on, but for some reason, the possibility of Chanyeol bringing another person for potential romantic interest makes him feel sour. There’s nothing to justify him feeling this way outside of his own feelings, of course. He and Chanyeol haven’t done any more than stare at each other with what he thought was the intent to kiss. They’re not together. They’ve made no plans to be together, never talked about it. Chanyeol is free to take whoever he wants to the village dance. It wouldn’t be a very classy place for a date considering they usually play all the cringy old disco songs and there will be kids of all ages running around arguing over balloons, but Chanyeol has the right to do whatever he wants.

Even if that means Chanyeol doesn’t like him anymore.

Baekhyun sinks down in his chair, staring at his beer.

He left it too long.

Still, he carries on as if nothing is wrong. Leading up the dance, he still talks with Chanyeol both in person and over the phone, though there is never any mention of a date. Baekhyun would ask him outright but he’s afraid of the answer. If Chanyeol does have someone he wants to make his girlfriend (or even boyfriend), Baekhyun would rather not know. He’ll just pretend that nothing ever happened between them, pull his hand back from the bookshelf, and look for another novel instead.

He remembers Nessa telling him that he made every guy a little bit gay. It makes him smile, bitterly, as he sits in a bath that’s supposed to bring him tranquillity. His mind is turbulent, thoughts astray from positive happenings and possibilities. He adds another bath bomb to try and cheer himself up, watching the colour pink fizzle across the surface of the water. All it does is get glitter stuck everywhere that he has to spend half an hour cleaning up afterwards.

The dance creeps up on him and soon, Baekhyun is staring at the contents of his wardrobe trying to decide on what to wear. He wants to look good, make an effort, show everyone that he’s still got it. Tight black trousers should do the trick, and maybe a black shirt too. Maybe he can go all black and make himself look slimmer; he has been putting on a little weight recently, mainly around his hips and stomach. Baekhyun likes to pretend he’s just bloated but it does put him down a little that he doesn’t look as fit as he used to. The anxiety he didn’t know he had likes to strike at moments like these, where he’s noticing his standards slipping. He has a certain asshole to thank for that.

But he wants to look good for Chanyeol. And any date that Chanyeol brings. Just in case.

It’s not a formal affair at all, so Baekhyun forgoes a suit jacket and makes a statement with his shoes instead – his going-out shoes. The village dance is more of a jolly to celebrate the end of summer. A last hurrah before school and the drag of dark autumn days. The September sun is still burning when Baekhyun leaves his house in the evening, already a little tipsy. He fumbles with his front door key and drops it a couple of times, cursing himself aloud with little thought of anyone who might be around him.

It probably wasn’t a great idea to start drinking before he actually got there, but if he has to stomach the sight of Chanyeol with another person, he would rather be anything but sober when it happens. He takes a deep breath of crisp air and lets his forehead thud against the door. His thoughts are spiralling down and down and down, hands going cold and shaking around his jingling house keys. He tries to convince himself that it doesn’t matter. That Chanyeol doesn’t matter. That no, he doesn’t like Chanyeol and he doesn’t want to be with him because it’s not the right time.

Did he think Chanyeol would wait for him? Wait, when Baekhyun has given him no indication that he might just like him back? That he also wants to be with him in that way? Did he think he was worth waiting for?

“No,” Baekhyun growls at himself. He’s not going there again. He’s not thinking like that anymore. It won’t do him any good to feel sorry for himself or think the world is against him. It is what it is, and “It’s probably nothing.”

In true village dance style, there are balloons and streamers everywhere. Baekhyun hasn’t seen streamers since his seventh birthday party back home, so the striped coils of colourful paper prove as a distraction when he walks in, deliberately taking his eye off all the people already present in case he sees Chanyeol straight away.

He finds refuge in Mrs Parker, stood with a group of other village ladies, and admires her purple V-neck dress that flows to just below her knees. “Looking beautiful as ever,” he says with a sincere smile, slipping an arm around her waist and kissing her on the cheek as greeting.

“Oh, you.” She hits him playfully. Baekhyun would hide his face in her neck and hug the life out of her if they weren’t surrounded by so many people. She’ll make his problems go away. She’ll stroke his hair and rub his back until he starts crying and stops again. If she ever moved out of Bybrook, Baekhyun doesn’t know how he’d cope.

“You look very handsome, dear,” Mrs Parker tells him.

“Your makeup is lovely today,” replies Baekhyun, admiring her shimmering eyelids, blushing cheeks and rouge lips.

She rolls her eyes at him, letting his arm drop from around her waist. “Mr Parker will get jealous if he hears you. But thank you for noticing.”

“Can I get you a drink at all?”

“Just juice will be fine. Thank you, dear.”

Baekhyun finally scopes the room for a certain someone and breathes a sigh of relief when he can’t find him. There’s a buffet table set up at the side of the hall covered with finger food and small sandwiches, and further along there are small desserts and drinks. Kyungsoo is being a wallflower, protecting the beer and wine bottles from teenagers, and he greets Baekhyun politely as he gets himself a drink.

“Having a good time?” Kyungsoo asks.

“I’ve only been here two minutes.”

“You mean to say you haven’t been wowed yet?” Kyungsoo puts on a show of gasping before he relaxes back against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest.

Baekhyun chuckles, opening a beer and downing half of it in one go.

“Steady on,” he hears Kyungsoo say. “Drink like that and you’ll end up like Agnes.”

Kyungsoo nods to his right, Baekhyun turning to his left to see Agnes leaning against Yixing’s DJ booth with stroking a hand up and down his arm. Off to the side, Rose is sniggering into her hand and recording the whole thing on her phone.

“Plastered already,” Baekhyun tsks but laughs, as Agnes leans up into Yixing’s face and chokes him with her perfume. “At least she’s enjoying herself?” He phrases it like a question.

Kyungsoo scoffs. “The drunk people always do. It’s the sober ones that have to clean up the mess. Do you plan on getting hammered tonight?”

Baekhyun shrugs and chugs down the rest of the bottle, Kyungsoo’s eyes widening in response. “Depends if Chanyeol brings someone,” slips out of his mouth before Baekhyun has run it through his head. He shrugs it off because it’s not exactly a lie and lying is bad for your health, so he takes up another two beer bottles, grabs Mrs Parker’s juice and presents Kyungsoo with a sloppy wink before he leaves.

The overhead lights go out at seven and the disco lights turn on, roaming circles of bright neon colours sweeping over the crowd. Mostly everyone is here now, kids running in circles, adults stood in large groups having rowdy, loose conversations with enormous laughter. Baekhyun isn’t sure what to do, where to place himself, but in the end Jongin comes over and saves him from his solitude, talking to him about plans for the youth club and even some videos he’s thinking of making for YouTube.

“What kind of videos do you do?” Baekhyun’s voice is just loud enough to be heard over Yixing’s bass.

“I do fitness and dance videos!” Jongin beams. “So, workouts and tutorials! It’s really fun!”

Baekhyun nods along, smirking because he can tell that Jongin is buzzed already. “You must have abs then,” he says seriously.

Jongin guffaws, smacking him. “They come and go!”

Samantha appears then, saying hi to Baekhyun while simultaneously slipping her hand into Jongin’s. It’s been almost two months since the barbecue, when Jongin first approached her and sparked up a proper conversation. They’ve been inseparable all summer, and Baekhyun can’t help but be envious of how easy it was for them to decide to be together and pass all those initial milestones. What happens when Samantha goes back to university? Baekhyun doesn’t want to know, but he’s well aware that being a YouTuber is a job he can pick up and take anywhere. Jongin might leave him next.

Someone cheers across the hall and Baekhyun looks over, heart stopping in his chest when he sees Old Joe welcoming Chanyeol with wide open arms. He’s alone. No date. No girlfriend. No boyfriend. Baekhyun wants to cry with relief.

His heart clenches in his chest, all else but Chanyeol fading from his view. Baekhyun whines in the back of his throat as he takes in what Chanyeol’s wearing – a navy shirt rolled up around his elbows and unbuttoned at the top, a pair of tight black jeans that cling to all his delicious lines, and a pair of polished shoes not dissimilar to the ones Baekhyun himself is wearing. He doesn’t know if Chanyeol is just that mesmerising or if the alcohol has finally caught up with him, but Baekhyun whines again at how freaking good Chanyeol looks and is blissfully unaware of Jongin and Samantha watching his every move. Baekhyun forgets that they’re there, actually, so walks off without saying goodbye.

“Hi, Chanyeol!” he calls, still quite a way away from him. “I like your outfit!”

He hears people laughing but doesn’t associate it with what he’s saying, marching up to Chanyeol and grinning at him from ear to ear.

“Thanks,” Chanyeol laughs, giving him a look up and down, “you too.”

Baekhyun feels his face heat up – the alcohol again. “Do you want a drink?”

“Oh, sure!”

“Drink responsibly,” Joe warns with a shake of his finger before he leaves them to it.

Baekhyun takes Chanyeol towards Kyungsoo and the buffet table and forces a beer into his hand. It turns out to be the first of many. Too many. Baekhyun has it stapled to his mind that he needs to be much, much drunker before he can dance to the macarena, and with Yixing pumping out all these old disco tunes with the cringy choreography, Baekhyun throws himself face first into the beer table and drinks the place dry (with Chanyeol’s help, of course). They do the YMCA and the hokey cokey, laughing between themselves at every move until Baekhyun thinks his face is splitting.

They are in no way drinking responsibly. It’s not even nine o’clock yet and they’re already past tipsy. A lack of refills helps to sober him up a little when it becomes apparent Kyungsoo didn’t supply them with enough beers, granted he’s been sharing them all with Chanyeol. Still, they’re squiffy enough that they’re kept away from the children for fear they might scare them, and they’re also not allowed near any electrical equipment. Kyungsoo also confiscates their phones. It’s probably for the best.

The children leave when the clock strikes nine and the real fun begins. Kyungsoo pulls out the drinking games and they all move to sit in a circle, some on chairs and some on the floor (which Baekhyun is now sprawled across). Vodka mixers are poured into plastic cups for those who want to drink, then Kyungsoo cracks out the orange juice for those who drinking is not a good idea for. Agnes has the most difficulty resisting her wine where she sits slobbering all over Andy Walker.

Kyungsoo starts them off with a simple game called Most Likely, where he reads out cards and they all have to point to whoever they think would be most likely to do what he’s said. The one with the most votes drinks, which is unfortunate, seeing as it’s mainly Joe and Agnes who get voted and they’re on the orange juice.

They’re mundane initially. Who is the most likely to fall asleep at work? Joe. Who is most likely to lie about their natural hair colour? Mrs Parker, who grimaces when she tastes the vodka in her drink. As the night wears on, however, and those of an older disposition start to leave for bed, Kyungsoo, who is considerably more drunk than he was earlier, starts asking more personal questions.

“Who is most likely to get a tattoo on their genitals?”

Everyone screams. Baekhyun, not really in his right mind, shouts “CHANYEOL!” at the top of his voice. That goes down a treat.

Baekhyun gets voted as the most likely to seduce a police officer, and then he votes Yixing as the most likely to have sex in a car – and he then tells everyone of how Yixing and Rose tried to ‘fuck in a tractor’. Thankfully, they’re not too bothered about Baekhyun oversharing on their behalf. That will most likely change if they remember in the morning.

It’s when Baekhyun starts blabbering about his own (past) sex life that he feels a huge clap on his back and Chanyeol slurring in his ear. “We should probaloly go.”

Baekhyun looks at him and giggles at how gone Chanyeol looks, his whole body swaying and his tongue hanging over the edge of his bottom lip. Something in Baekhyun possesses him to reach up and poke Chanyeol’s tongue back in his mouth, which shocks the both of them.

“It’s wet,” Baekhyun whispers, entranced in the end of his finger where it shines with Chanyeol’s spit. “And cold.”

“Maybe because it’s watery?” Chanyeol suggests with the intonation of a child, words bouncing all over the place in tandem with his eyes. “Or… vodkary?”

Baekhyun sucks the end of his finger into his mouth and frowns. It doesn’t taste like vodka. But anyway, they’re leaving now.

“Bye everyone!” he hollers as he and Chanyeol help each other stand. They’re a mess of limbs and none of them can find their balance without some kind of support, but that’s all hilarious to Baekhyun and not unconventional at all. He blows Mrs Parker a big, sloppy kiss when he catches her smiling fondly at him, spitting all over his palm and then wiping it on his trousers before he pushes Chanyeol towards the door and stumbles after him. Everyone shouts at them to be careful and go straight home, yet Baekhyun has other plans.

“Let’s go on a walk, Chanyeol,” he declares, pushing out his chest and taking a large gulp of cool night air.

“I think we drank too much,” Chanyeol groans, falling in Baekhyun’s steps as he sidles up the road in zigzags. “I might be sick.”

“We can,” Baekhyun giggles again, “get sober with a walkies, Chanyeol. Walky time! Not that—being sober is silly but I think it’s what we really need right now. We need to be sober and have water and fresh air. It’s good for the soul.”

Chanyeol whines and slumps himself over Baekhyun’s back. They walk like that for a while, heading up through the village towards Chanyeol’s house and bypassing it to take the footpath along the fields. They come trampling through the bushes like a harvester to a field of grain, Chanyeol dropping all of his weight onto Baekhyun’s shoulders when he trips on a tree root and soars forwards.

“If—If I was an owl I would turn my head around so I could look at you,” Baekhyun says seriously, clinging onto a tree for moment when he feels himself going dizzy.

“That’s too weird,” Chanyeol retorts, pushing himself away from Baekhyun (and shoving Baekhyun into the tree while he’s at it) and tumbling precariously close to Minseok’s barbed wire fence.

“Chanyeol, don’t!” Baekhyun cries, outstretching an arm and pointing at him with a strict finger. “You know that’s bad, Chanyeol. The wire will cut you and then you won’t be able to use your rainbow anymore.”

“My rainbow?” Chanyeol gasps, whirling on the spot and stopping his legs before his torso, the force knocking him down.

It makes sense in Baekhyun’s head. If Chanyeol cuts his palms on the barbed wire, he can’t type on his keyboard anymore. And because it makes sense in Baekhyun’s head, that means it absolutely, undoubtedly, most definitely must make sense in Chanyeol’s head too.

“Don’t disturb the walking clouds!” he hisses, leaving Chanyeol on the ground where he’s trying to pick himself up.

By the time they’re back in the village, Baekhyun has a couple more lucid thoughts swimming around in his head. His balance is still all off and he can’t really put thoughts into words – or filter those thoughts, for that matter – but he has the care to make sure Chanyeol gets home and locks his door behind him.

“Let’s meet up for breakfast tomorrow!” His legs buckle from under him when he crouches, pushing his fingers through Chanyeol’s letterbox so they can still talk even though the door is shut between them. “The tea room!”

“Okay!”

Baekhyun feels Chanyeol tapping his fingers and laughs, then loses his balance and falls on his ass again on Chanyeol’s porch. “No!” he gasps in terror. “My peach!”

Baekhyun groans, digging his face further into his pillow. The smell of his own sweat and the alcohol in his clothes suffocates him when he brings his duvet up and over his head to block out the sunlight. His smart trousers are cutting into his dick and he has one sock on, one sock off. There’s a damp patch beneath his face where he must have drooled in the night, but he counts his blessings and is thankful it isn’t vomit. Speaking of, he winces at how unsettled his stomach is. His head is on fire and he feels like every deep breath toes the line between gag-free and gag-everywhere. Not to mention how thirsty he is.

Just then, his alarm goes off, and the disorienting experience that is throwing himself towards his phone to shut it up provokes his stomach to empty. He gags, burps, and cups his hands over his mouth as he races across the landing into the bathroom. Cold and shaking, he throws up whatever alcohol has been sitting like lead in his insides and vows to never, ever, drink alcohol again.

He should have drunk a litre of water before going to bed, but seeing as he’s still in his dress shirt and trousers he just collapsed on his mattress after giving up undressing halfway through taking off his socks. He makes up for it as best as he can, heading down to the kitchen when he feels stable enough and gulping down several glasses of water between painkillers to relieve him of his headache. He nibbles on a few ginger biscuits he has stored in his cupboard as he shoots a text to Chanyeol, asking him if he’s awake.

While waiting for a response, he showers in room temperature water and puts on the baggiest clothes he has so he can refrain from putting pressure on his stomach. It’s almost midday, so the breakfast he faintly remembers organising with Chanyeol will become lunch at this rate. Not that it matters, so long as he gets to see him.

Chanyeol

10th September

[Chanyeol] 11:47

[Are you awake?] 11:47

[Chanyeeeeolll] 11:48

[We’re having breakfast ?] 11:49

[Hey] 11:49

[Hey] 11:50

[Hey] 11:50

[Hey] 11:50

“Still fast asleep, huh?” Baekhyun breathes to himself, absently scrolling up and down their messages and rereading a couple of things. He takes pity on him and lets him have another half an hour sleep, and at half past twelve he tries texting again. Then he rings, and the groan that greets him on the other end of the line has Baekhyun’s stomach clenching.

“What?”

Baekhyun hasn’t heard Chanyeol’s just-woken-up voice before, and fuck. It’s deep and husky, and it rumbles like distant thunder. Baekhyun discreetly repositions himself in his trousers, even though he’s not being watched.

“Hey,” he says softly down the phone, wary of talking too loud. “Do you still want to meet up for breakfast? Or, lunch now?”

“Oh, right,” Chanyeol grunts, something scraping against the microphone. “You woke me up. I forgot to set an alarm but I’ll be there! Just give me twenty minutes.”

Baekhyun smiles. “It’s okay if you just want to sleep, I don’t mind. We can always meet up later?”

“Nah, I’m already awake,” Chanyeol mutters, exhaling deeply. “Twenty minutes is all I need. We will have our lunch.”

“Alright then. I’ll see you in a bit.”

He stares at his phone screen long after the call is over, admiring Chanyeol’s profile in his contacts. The plans they have to meet up for breakfast were made in a drunken haste. If Chanyeol so wanted, he could pull out and not show at all, remaining in bed to sleep off the hangover that is undoubtedly tormenting him. Instead, he’s dragging himself out of bed, and Baekhyun secretly hopes that it’s because Chanyeol wants to see him, not just because he’s hungry.

Despite the inebriated night that most people had, the village centre is still full of life. Baekhyun can spot tourists a mile off, always decked out with the same three things – a map, a camera, and sunglasses. They look like hikers, probably retired, so Baekhyun smiles at them warmly despite his haggard appearance. They get a lot of these kinds of people towards the end of summer, as they prefer to take holidays and do recreational activities when children and teenagers are back in school.

There are several other people in the tea room when Baekhyun pushes the door open, greeted by smells that turn his stomach over a little. Thankfully, he’s already been sick this morning, but that won’t stop bile from coming up if the stench of coffee tickles his taste buds too much. For the first time in a long while, Baekhyun has to wait in line before he orders, standing behind a gentle old fellow who takes his time counting out the exact change from his wallet. Mrs Parker shoots him a smirk without her customer knowing, and Baekhyun feels marginally better.

“Good afternoon, my dear,” she says when he finally steps up to the counter, placing his palms down to steady himself. The white noise of other patrons sounds somewhat fuzzy in his ears and Mrs Parker’s voice arguably a little too loud, but he smiles through a grimace. “Isn’t it a bit early for you?” she teases, still dropping all the previous customer’s coins into the right compartments of the till – which resembles nails on a chalkboard to Baekhyun in his current state. “What can I get for you?”

“Tea,” he sighs, “definitely tea, and I’m not sure about food.”

She rings it through the till, Baekhyun briefly focusing on the small black screen with the green digital numbers. “I can whip you up some soup, if you like? It’s not on the menu but I have what I need in the kitchen.”

Her thoughtfulness strums his heartstrings. “No,” he refuses gently, “I couldn’t ask that of you. I don’t want to be a bother.”

“You’re never a bother to me, my dear,” she assures him, the sudden sentiment robbing Baekhyun of his breath. “I remember you and a certain someone leaving the dance together last night.” She grins pertly, starting work on his tea by taking a mug from behind her and dropping a bag into it.

“I think we went a little overboard if I’m honest,” Baekhyun bashfully admits, scratching at his temple. “One minute I was sober and the next I couldn’t see straight.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she hushes him, putting the kettle on to boil and then taking both his hands in hers. She’s warm, save for the coolness of her rings, and Baekhyun leans into her touch as much as he can. “We all found you very entertaining. You’re quite the storyteller, you know?”

Baekhyun flushes.

“Besides, you and Chanyeol look good together.”

“What?” He snaps his eyes up to meet hers, taking them away from where their hands are hugging. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugs, smirking and giving his knuckles a pat just as the kettle lever clicks up. “I’m just saying,” she promises innocently, tipping hot water into the mug in her hand. “I mean, you know I set Yixing and Rose up and look at how great they’re getting on.”

Baekhyun gasps, standing up straight and crossing his arms over his chest. “Mrs—Mrs Parker! What are you trying to imply?!”

Mischievously, she taps her nose twice and goes for the milk jug in front of her, eyes drifting to something over Baekhyun’s shoulder where he can hear the door opening. A glance shows Chanyeol making his way in, looking like death warmed up, wearing a pair of sunglasses, an Adidas cap and the largest hoodie Baekhyun thinks he’s ever seen.

“Morning,” he grunts, sliding onto the counter beside Baekhyun. The entirety of their sides are touching, Baekhyun realises with a thumping heart, and he knows that Mrs Parker has seen.

“It’s afternoon now, dear,” she teases, returning with Baekhyun’s tea and smiling down at Chanyeol affectionately where he rests on his elbows, completely informally.

“Afternoon,” he amends, voice crumbly from underuse and dehydration.

“Did you two plan to come here for lunch then?” Her eyes behold the both of them and Baekhyun lets out a long suffering sigh.

“It was supposed to be breakfast but Chanyeol didn’t set an alarm,” Baekhyun explains, trying to ignore how Mrs Parker looks like she wants to squash his cheeks and coo at him.

Chanyeol hides his face in the palm of his left hand and groans “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Mrs Parker turns expectantly to Baekhyun. “Two soups, then?”

With a sigh, Baekhyun reaches for his wallet. “Two soups.”

Compared to what their dinners are like, they eat lunch in mostly silence. They both struggle to keep even the soup down, every mouthful taunting and teasing, but Baekhyun can’t deny that it’s delicious and does his best to drink it all for Mrs Parker who went out of her way to make it. He starts eating it out of obligation and ends up eating it because it’s the best soup he’s ever had.

Chanyeol perks up after an hour or so, the two them slouched back in their chairs with their legs stretched out under the table (after great co-ordination and a couple of bruises). Through the conservatory windows they watch people walk past with dogs and drive past on tractors. Jongin and Samantha go by hand in hand at one point, so Chanyeol wolf whistles; neither hear it, and Baekhyun realises a little later that maybe Chanyeol did it just to make him laugh. He succeeded.

He looks good in the natural light, Baekhyun thinks. Peaceful and inviting and warm. Even though Chanyeol has the wildest bed hair with curls all over the place, the worst eye bags that are the darkest shade of plum, and a face shining with oil because he hasn’t yet washed it, he is the most gorgeous man that Baekhyun has ever seen.

“Do you want to come back to mine?” he asks quietly, confident that Chanyeol will hear him despite the background noise. “We can just relax.”

So that’s where they end up. Chanyeol lounges on Baekhyun’s bed at the latter’s insistence, while Baekhyun sits at his computer and goes through his emails. There’s one sent with high importance from a homeware company that want to request some floral patterns for their new line of baking equipment. Baekhyun doesn’t reply straight away, he wants to let his mind ponder it, so he opens up his excel spreadsheet and starts listing down his expenses from a huge pile of receipts instead. One day, he hopes he won’t have to live by a budget.

Chanyeol shows him funny videos or pictures he finds online, then starts watching YouTube videos that Baekhyun sometimes tunes his hearing into. From the sounds of it, it’s a very angry man playing a very violent video game, and though it’s distracting as hell, the cute smiles that sit on Chanyeol’s face from the guy’s dry humour has Baekhyun too endeared to deny him anything.

His feelings for Chanyeol get nothing but stronger as time progresses. And yes, feelings, that is what they are. Baekhyun still has doubts and worries, like any person does, but they are focused on himself and he struggles to move past them. They sit on his left shoulder while his attraction sits on his right, a devil and an angel bickering in an ear each, both at the same time.

It’s the small things that give him faith. Like Chanyeol looking at him when he laughs to make sure he’s laughing too, and when Chanyeol tells him little snippets about his work life that he never shares with anyone else. He even asks for Baekhyun’s advice on what to do with a co-worker who tried to ask him out at their weekly meeting, and though Baekhyun is severely agitated by it, he gets his revenge by orchestrating exactly how Chanyeol turns them down.

He does some more gardening before the weather goes cold, October not too far away. All he does for now is uproot weeds and trim back the bushes, and he wonders whether it might be worth buying some daffodil bulbs to plant for next spring. His garden is entirely brown and green, nothing else, so a dash of colour wouldn’t hurt.

A new couple is shown around the house next door a few days later, so Baekhyun spies on them from his bedroom window while on the phone to Chanyeol, describing exactly what is happening and what they look like.

“I don’t think they like it,” Baekhyun deduces, narrowing his eyes at the way the woman’s smile falls from her face when the estate agent isn’t looking. “Oh, no, they definitely don’t like it. Or at least she doesn’t.”

Chanyeol sniggers. “It’s too hard to please women nowadays.”

“Oh?” Baekhyun bites his lip. “And what do you know about pleasing women?” His heart stops. That came out a lot more suggestive than intended.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Luckily, Chanyeol doesn’t seem to think anything of it.

As per usual, their conversation ends with “Pub for dinner?” and carries on in person over the twelfth dish Chanyeol is trying for the first time.

“I watched the weather news today, out of interest,” Chanyeol says as he mashes as much onto the prongs of his fork as it can hold. “Apparently, there’s a storm coming early next week.”

Baekhyun chews the last of his mouthful and wipes the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “What kind of a storm?”

“Rain, hail, thunder, lightning.” Chanyeol lists them off on the fingers of one hand, saving the thumb for “Gusts of up to eighty miles an hour.”

“Good grief,” Baekhyun mutters. “Storms are a pain in the neck when you live here.”

“Why’s that?”

Baekhyun sighs. “The power goes out. We get flooding. Trees fall on our access roads. Pretty much everything that could go wrong, goes wrong.”

Chanyeol nods, deep in thought. “Damn.”

Over the next couple of days, everyone spends their free time preparing for potential floods and strong winds. They all have sandbags to hand in their sheds, seeing as they live at the foot of mountainous hills, and he and Chanyeol head over to Edgebank one day to buy enough twine for the whole village so they can tie things down that are likely to be blown away. Baekhyun also marches up to his garden gate with a threatening glower, drilling extra screws in through the hinges to make sure there’s no chance of it coming off again.

Typically, though, the storm arrives several days early. It catches Baekhyun by surprise, because the only way he ever checks the weather is by sticking his arm out the window and sensing how hot or cold it is. With rain battering against his windows and the wind whistling through his roof, Baekhyun doesn’t need to sacrifice a limb to know that it’s pissing it down. From the window above the kitchen sink, he watches his garden gate wobble on its catch, then casts his eyes upwards to where the trees behind his house are dangerously swaying.

“Jongin up the road has chickens at the bottom of his garden. If one of those trees falls over…” Baekhyun trails off, no need to finish his sentence. Chanyeol joins him at the sink, putting his empty mug in the basin and folding his arms.

“I’ve watched some of his videos on YouTube, you know,” pipes Chanyeol. “His chickens are superstars.”

Baekhyun doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Wow,” he breathes with a shake of his head. “That’s right up there with Minseok naming his sheep and Jongdae labelling his with emojis.”

Chanyeol snorts, making the most pig-like noise Baekhyun has ever heard a human make, and he’d be downright lying if he said he didn’t find it the least bit hot. Chanyeol turns and heads back towards the lounge, leaving a lingering touch on Baekhyun’s waist that has Baekhyun going almost entirely numb. He stays at the sink for a little longer to get his breath back and calm his heart, then he joins Chanyeol on the sofa and presses play on the remote controller, resuming their movie.

They manage to cook and eat dinner before the electric goes off. The time on the cooker is no longer present and the small red standby light on the TV is gone. Baekhyun heads to the circuit box just in case it’s tripped, flicking the switch back and forth just for the sake of trying. It’s worth a shot, but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that the storm is the cause of it. Looks like everyone else is out too.

“Is it not coming back on?” Chanyeol calls from down the hallway, Baekhyun stuck with the top half of his body in the under-stairs cupboard using the torch on his phone to see what he’s doing. He gives the switch one last try for good luck, loses his balance and tramples all over the box of Scrabble that’s lying on the floor; disgruntled, Baekhyun gives up.

“No!” he replies and switches off his torch, fetching the battery powered lantern he has in the cupboard under the sink. “A tree probably fell on some wires somewhere,” Baekhyun explains as he returns to Chanyeol in the front room. “That’s what it tends to be, unless they were struck by lightning. Either way, it won’t be fixed until morning.”

Baekhyun’s eyes start adjusting to the dark as he gingerly navigates himself to the sofa and puts the lantern on the coffee table, heart jumping up into his throat when Chanyeol sighs and says “I should probably go home.”

“What?!” he cries, voice so loud that he scares the both of them, gawping at Chanyeol in disbelief. “I’m not letting you go out there in that!” To emphasise, he throws his hand towards the window where the rain is crashing against his double glazing. Someone’s wheelie bin even goes hurtling down the road. “You can just stay the night.” The back of his neck crawls with heat for fear of overstepping their boundaries. It’s only logical though. “I have a spare toothbrush and everything. It’s not a problem.”

“Are you sure?” Chanyeol asks with wide eyes, and Baekhyun hurries to erase his uncertainty.

“Of course, I’m sure! I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t.”

Chanyeol’s wearing all black today, looking like a dark shadow huddled in the corner of his sofa. Even so, his smile gleams larger than life and Baekhyun is sucked into its uncontested appeal. The rain roars and thunder rumbles, then lightning splits the sky, flashing Chanyeol in white light so that Baekhyun can properly see and appreciate the way his black curls fall into his eyes and the way his cheeks puff up whenever he smiles cutely like that. He looks soft and like everything Baekhyun wants to wrap up in his arms, and he stares entranced, until another bolt of lightning flashes in the corner of his eye and steals both their attention.

“That was pretty close by,” Chanyeol whistles. “I hope everyone’s gonna be okay.”

Baekhyun’s heart purrs at everything Chanyeol. “We’re pretty used to this around here,” he says quietly, bringing his legs up on the couch and hugging his knees to his chest. Absently, he pulls up his sock that has slipped off his heel and his elbow brushes against Chanyeol’s. Baekhyun thinks they have their own kind of lightning. “We know the drill by now.”

“That’s good,” Chanyeol sighs, nodding. Their arms are still pressed together; Chanyeol doesn’t move away. It puts Baekhyun on high alert. Whenever he looks at Chanyeol, all his feelings punch him in the gut and he wants to throw himself at him, smother him in… something. Baekhyun doesn’t know what he wants to do. He just wants to do something.

“We can watch another movie if you want? I have a laptop upstairs. It should be fully charged.”

Chanyeol lights up. “Sure!”

Baekhyun warns him about the shoes at the bottom of the stairs as they head up to his room, then letting him know about the canvases he has stacked outside his bathroom and the full laundry basket he’s deliberately put in the middle of the landing to encourage himself to actually sort it out. He tries to shove it to the side with his knee but it’s too heavy to move, so he leaves it and trusts that Chanyeol can pinpoint the general dark from the darker dark.

He doesn’t use his laptop that often, not with the huge desktop get-up he’s got going on, so he facepalms from embarrassment when the desktop wallpaper comes into view. Chanyeol sniggers at him from over his shoulder and Baekhyun snatches the screen out of sight, hiding the picture of a topless, oiled-up man with an eight pack from view.

“This is—It’s from a long time ago.” His voice shakes as Chanyeol flops on the bed next to him, laughing his head off behind his hand.

“I’m sorry. That’s just too funny,” Chanyeol snorts, his whole upper body moving in sync with the bursts of his laughter.

Baekhyun rolls his eyes and sits back against the headboard, a cushion squashed between his spine and the wood. He opens up his files, sure that he has some movies saved on here somewhere, and goes hunting for something good while Chanyeol bleeds out the last of his laughter.

“Is he your ideal type?” he teases. Baekhyun smacks him.

“No.” Then, they start watching Legally Blonde.

Baekhyun is obsessing over how close they’re sitting when Chanyeol moves to get more comfortable about fifteen minutes in. No longer can he hear whatever’s going on on the screen. All he can focus on is Chanyeol’s breathing, the sound of Chanyeol’s voice when he clears his throat, the noises his stomach makes when it digests the food they ate together. Chanyeol always hits his stomach when it does that, like he’s telling it off for drawing attention to itself.

All the colours of the screen reflect on Chanyeol’s face and it makes Baekhyun so eager to paint his skin. To cover him in patterns of blue and gold and flowers of green and pink. To make Chanyeol his first living, breathing canvas that he can cover in his finest art, and watch it wash away when he gets Chanyeol in the shower and pushes him back against the tiles.

Baekhyun concentrates on the wall opposite him, the brightness of the screen making everything else pretty much invisible. He focuses on shadows and how his mind is tricking him into thinking they’re moving, and tries to expel all thoughts of a dripping, wet, naked Chanyeol from his mind. It doesn’t feel right to think about him that way. Baekhyun sort of feels like he’s violating him, because Chanyeol hasn’t given him permission to think about him without clothes on. And then—has Chanyeol ever thought about him without clothes on?

“Oh, damn,” Chanyeol groans, and Baekhyun snaps his head around so fast to look at him that he smacks it against the wood behind him. “Woah, are you okay?” Chanyeol is on him in an instant, sitting up, ready to run for the first aid kit, ready to run for help, even leaning down over him in a way that makes Baekhyun even more light-headed than before.

“Y-Yeah, sorry,” he laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head and pushing his hips back to sit up. “What’s going on?”

“Low battery warning,” Chanyeol supplies, turning back to the laptop and thank heavens. Baekhyun was afraid he’d said something out loud by accident.

“O-Oh.” Baekhyun’s heartbeat breaks up his voice. “We can just watch until it runs out and then we can find something else to do. It’s only just coming up to ten so it’s still pretty early.”

“But how will I know how it ends?” Chanyeol moans, taking Baekhyun by surprise.

“What? You haven’t seen this before?”

“Nope.” Chanyeol puffs out his lower lip and sulks. “We can finish it another day though, right?” he asks hopefully. Baekhyun indulges him.

“What a total liar,” Chanyeol is cursing at the laptop ten minutes later. “It just died and it said it had thirteen percent left!”

Baekhyun laughs through his nose. “It’s an old thing. I’m surprised it even lasted this long.” He reaches forwards to lower the lid, Chanyeol’s despair making it feel like Baekhyun is shutting his laptop’s one eyelid so it can look like it’s sleeping.

Chanyeol sighs morosely. Baekhyun’s heart croons.

“How about we play a board game? They don’t need batteries,” Baekhyun suggests, already standing up and stretching out his arms. “I found Scrabble under the stairs when I was checking the electrics.”

Chanyeol groans and stretches on Baekhyun’s bed like he’s just woken up from a nap, legs elongating until the tips of his toes are hanging off the end and he’s lying flat on his back. He looks a whole foot taller than Baekhyun when he does that. Baekhyun’s mouth waters.

“I’m useless at Scrabble,” Chanyeol complains, turning his head to look at Baekhyun, his hair falling against the pillow that Baekhyun sleeps with his face pushed against every night.

“There should be some other stuff too,” Baekhyun replies, head going a little light after his stretch. The room is dark again now that they don’t have the light from the laptop, but Baekhyun still has enough vision to admire what’s laid out before him. “It was all left behind when my grandparents moved out.”

“Mmmm,” Chanyeol hums – an entirely inappropriate noise – before he sits up. “Let’s check it out.”

They head back downstairs, Baekhyun warning Chanyeol again of the laundry basket that’s a complete breach of health and safety, and soon they’re both stuffing themselves into the under-stairs cupboard trying to figure out what to play. Baekhyun is leaning in on an angle with only one shoulder through the door frame, Chanyeol pressed up uncomfortably close against his back and he is very, very warm. Again, he uses his phone as a torch and shines it on all the boxes he has piled up, trying to read their faded and crumbled branding.

“What is a Yahtzee?” Chanyeol grunts, shuffling his weight. Baekhyun’s body pulses.

“It’s boring, I think,” Baekhyun replies, laughing afterwards. He moves the torch around and comes across a green box with a red snake on the front. “Snakes and Ladders?”

“We could give it a go.” Chanyeol shrugs, an action that there’s not enough room for with them both compressed in a doorway. “What about Monopoly too?”

“Where’s that?” Baekhyun asks eagerly, moving his phone around until he finds a hint of the Monopoly logo on a box hidden underneath an old dust sheet. “Oh! I didn’t know I had Monopoly!” Baekhyun is excited already, handing his phone to Chanyeol who takes it without question and bending down to pick up their two choices.

They set up the Monopoly board on the living room floor, the both of them sitting cross-legged either side of it. Baekhyun hasn’t played in years, but he remembers being quite successful as a child and intends to propel that success into adulthood. If he remembers correctly, he always collected the blues, pinks and yellows, so that’s what he’ll aim for during their game.

He puts the battery powered lantern in the middle of the board to light the area, then puts the chance and community chest cards in place for when they land on the corresponding squares. Chanyeol is in control of counting out the money while Baekhyun checks that all the property cards are there, and he stops just past Bow Street when he thinks about how well he and Chanyeol work together. It’s like they hardly have to ask each other anything anymore when it comes to organising things or offering things. When Baekhyun makes himself a cup of tea, he’ll always make Chanyeol one too. When he’s struggling to find something, Chanyeol will lend a hand, and when he cooks, Chanyeol will start doing the dishes as they go along to reduce clean-up time afterwards.

He’s attentive, thoughtful, both things which have crossed Baekhyun’s mind countless times before. Awed, is perhaps what he is. Awed that Chanyeol is so considerate and so kind and actually wants to spend time with him. Awed, that maybe things don’t have to end in loneliness for Baekhyun. That maybe someone does want him, and he wants that someone back.

“I’m the boat,” Chanyeol says as he slides Baekhyun his Monopoly money over and takes the small boat figurine from the box.

Baekhyun breathes sharply. “But I’m always the boat!”

“You can be the car.”

“I don’t want to be the car.”

Chanyeol narrows his eyes at him, overexaggerated and dramatic, and makes a show of indignantly picking up the top hat.

The game starts off slowly. With only the two of them playing, it takes a while before they own any properties they’re after, and it’ll take them even longer to get full sets so they can build houses and hotels. A lot of the first half an hour is just going around and around in squares, passing go and collecting money, then giving each other pocket change for the lonely, single streets they end up renting.

Chanyeol buys up all the train stations pretty quickly, and, like the fool he is, buys Mayfair next. Baekhyun, on the other hand manages to score two of the light blue streets and a couple of the others, but he doesn’t yet have a full set.

It’s Chanyeol who starts building his property empire first, bagging all the pinks in a stroke of luck and building himself two houses on each.

“Risky move,” Baekhyun says as a way to psych him out, currently spending the round in jail after picking up an unlucky chance card.

“I think I’ll take my chances.” Chanyeol winks back.

Eventually, Baekhyun gets the satisfaction of robbing Chanyeol of four-hundred Monopoly dollars when he starts building on the reds, and now that they’ve both got developing land, things start getting interesting. Chanyeol spends all his money on new properties and building houses, so when he lands on one of Baekhyun’s squares and owes him money he doesn’t have, he claims that he’s allowed to take a loan from the bank and repay it later.

“Since when has that been a rule?” Baekhyun cries, the both of them pacing themselves with a single bottle of beer to help push them along.

“It’s always been a rule!” Chanyeol declares, helping himself to the pink notes from the game box and then noting it down on the jotter pad Baekhyun has on his coffee table. “That’s how I’ve always played it with my family anyway.”

Baekhyun glares at him suspiciously, pursing his lips and surveying the board. He’s doing well but he hasn’t won yet, albeit he has properties on almost every side of the board now. Where the light blues are concerned, he already has Euston Road and The Angel Islington. All he needs is Pentonville Road and he has yet to land on it. He will soon. He has hope, and thrusts more of his money into investments to intimidate Chanyeol with his death strip of houses.

“You do not scare me,” Chanyeol claims, speaking like an eccentric movie villain.

Baekhyun cackles at him, watching with light eyes and a lighter chest as Chanyeol rolls a six and slowly moves himself along the board.

To Pentonville Road.

The gasp that tears through Baekhyun’s throat is Oscar-worthy. Chanyeol cannot buy Pentonville Road. Baekhyun needs it to complete his set. Unfortunately, Chanyeol knows that. Chanyeol knows and he’s smirking he’s licking the tips of his finger and thumb so he can count through his paper money.

“I’d like to buy Pentonville Road, please,” Chanyeol says sweetly, holding the money out for Baekhyun, the banker, to take.

Baekhyun quickly sifts through the property card to find the one he’s looking for and holds it close. “I’m sorry,” he says, tone clipped. “Pentonville is not for sale.”

Chanyeol’s smirk grows. Baekhyun’s heart dies. “No one owns it though.”

“It’s reserved,” Baekhyun refutes, only a small voice in the back of his mind wondering if he’s taking this a little too seriously. Then again, his pride is at stake. His whole Monopoly career is in jeopardy. He will not fail.

“You can’t reserve squares, Baek.”

Baekhyun grins. “You can. That’s how I always used to play it.”

Chanyeol growls at him, all his teeth on show in a dangerous smile. “Baekhyun, take my money and give me the card.”

“I’m sorry, Chanyeol. Your credit card was declined.”

“I’m paying with cash.”

“We don’t accept cash here.”

“What kind of a bank are you?”

“We’re cashless. It’s the future.”

Chanyeol is suddenly getting up off his ass and onto his knees, planting a hand just shy of The Strand and leaning over the entire board to push the money into Baekhyun’s hand. “Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun instantly holds the property card out of reach, tucking his whole arm behind his back where Chanyeol can neither see it nor get to it.

“You’ve got my money, Baekhyun.”

“I don’t want your filthy money!” he cries desperately, playing it up.

Chanyeol bites his lip and Baekhyun gasps at the sight of it. He’s getting closer and closer, narrowing down the inches until Baekhyun feels like he has to hold his breath in case it smells bad. Then Chanyeol’s face is suddenly upon him, something soft and warm smacking against where his cheek becomes his lips and the property card is ripped from his hands.

He blinks, and Chanyeol is sat at his side of the board like nothing happened, but Baekhyun swears—

“Did you just—” He can’t even speak. Can’t ask. But he knows his answer. His fingers slowly raise to trace the area of skin that’s now tingling on his face, feeling a little spit that definitely isn’t his. “You just—” Chanyeol smirks and raises his eyebrows, clearly enjoying the view. And Baekhyun knows. “You—”

Chanyeol kissed him.

To beat him at fucking Monopoly.

“You give me that back!” Baekhyun roars, jumping off the floor and leaping over the board like a prancing stag, chasing Chanyeol who’s already out the door and thundering up the stairs like an elephant running from a snake. “Chanyeol Park!” Baekhyun bellows, finding Chanyeol standing on the middle of his bed with the card held tightly in his hand.

Baekhyun stops in his doorway, panting for breath while he plans his attack. “We can either do this like adults or like children. Which one will it be?”

Chanyeol lowers chin and licks his lips, daring Baekhyun to come closer and give him a try. So Baekhyun launches at him, throwing himself onto the bed and landing on his knees just as Chanyeol jumps off and escapes the room. Baekhyun isn’t too far behind. He doesn’t do all that walking for nothing. With his blood pumping through his ears and his laughter choking him of breath, he hurls himself at Chanyeol’s back just as Chanyeol runs straight into the laundry basket in the middle of the landing and goes toppling over.

Baekhyun can feel bruises forming the second he lands but the adrenalin puts him off wallowing and he climbs Chanyeol’s body like a tree and clamps him to the floor. They’re both breathing heavily, a moment of peace for them, which Baekhyun spends staring at Chanyeol’s fluffy hair, his double chin and his parted lips. Those lips were on him a moment ago, and Baekhyun keens to feel them again. He’d do anything. He’d do anything for Chanyeol to kiss him just because he wanted to.

He leans down, eyes on Chanyeol’s lips, heart flickering when he notices Chanyeol watching his mouth with intent as he gets lower and lower, descending to meet him—and then Baekhyun snatches the card right from his hand and lets out a triumphant cheer. It’s semi-embarrassing how far he’ll go to win, but it’s not so much about losing as it is about putting up a good fight. He intends to give it everything he’s got before he declares bankruptcy, hands over his liquid cash and mortgages his assets.

Nevertheless, he’s daydreaming, staring at Chanyeol while he conjures up images of him winning the game in his head, and it gives Chanyeol the perfect opportunity to take the card right back.

“You snooze, you lose,” he taunts, and Baekhyun immediately makes to grab it back. A petty fight follows, where Baekhyun cannot dislodge the card from Chanyeol’s iron grip even with two hands, so he lands a sloppy kiss on Chanyeol’s forehead to distract him and manages to rip it loose.

“You were saying?”

Chanyeol grins at him. Baekhyun feels hands on his waist and legs shuffling between his thighs, belatedly realising that the position he’s in is nothing less than obscene. He gulps, looks down at how Chanyeol’s body is sprawled out on the floor beneath him, and ends up losing the card again.

It’s the last time, though.

Baekhyun looks up at Chanyeol and sees everything he wants staring back at him.

He kisses Chanyeol on the mouth, cradling his face in both hands with no intention of getting the card back again. He kisses Chanyeol to feel him close, to feel his breath against his face and the warmth of his lips. He kisses him to summarise all the feelings that are inside him, whatever they may be, because he doesn’t want to hide them anymore. Though his doubts are still present in the way he doesn’t grind against Chanyeol’s body or take it further with tongue, he’s tired of running away. Tired of making Chanyeol feel uncomfortable and guilty for liking him. Tired of waiting for his feelings to sort themselves out when he knows that it won’t happen any time soon. Chanyeol is in the present. He won’t wait forever. Letting him slip away is the last thing Baekhyun wants to do.

Chanyeol has hugged him to his body, the human contact savoured in every fibre of Baekhyun’s being. He sighs into Chanyeol’s mouth, only feeling his lips for now, and breaks them apart slowly once his heart rate has settled and he’s sure he can speak without shaking and breathe without hyperventilating.

He doesn’t know what to say, so Baekhyun just smiles, and Chanyeol smiles back.

That’s all they do. Once they stand up and Baekhyun comprehends what just happened, his mind starts eating at him. You’re not ready for this. Don’t make him the rebound guy. You still have unfinished business with Sehun. The worst part is that Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol can see it in his eyes – the way he stops looking at him, the obvious troubled expression he tries to mask.

“We should probably sleep,” Chanyeol suggests to save him from having to say it instead. “I’ll take the sofa, if that’s okay?”

Baekhyun smiles at him breathlessly. “No, you’re my guest. You can take my bed and I’ll take the sofa.”

“Please, Baek.”

Baekhyun gives in.

Chanyeol heads to the bathroom to do his necessities while Baekhyun tries to find a blanket he can give him. He finds an old throw at the bottom of his cupboard and pairs it with one of the pillows on his bed, taking it downstairs to set it all up on the sofa for when Chanyeol comes down. He plumps the cushions and flattens out the blanket, pulling it back at one of the top corners like he’s always done.

Their Monopoly game sits there on the floor, mostly forgotten, and Baekhyun smiles giddily when he remembers how it all started. He wants this, he realises. Badly.

“Thanks,” Chanyeol says as he enters the room, seeing the bedding. “You’re really great for doing this.”

Baekhyun fails to believe that that’s just about the spare toothbrush and towel he provided, so he rolls his eyes at Chanyeol and fights a smile.

“I warned you about that washing basket,” he chides as he backs away towards the door. Chanyeol laughs, a homely sound, and smiles at him like he’s something special.

“Night, Baek.”

Baekhyun smiles in earnest. “Goodnight, Chanyeol.” And he reluctantly leaves the room.

Chapter Text

A set of noises from downstairs pull Baekhyun from his sleep. His eyes blink open and he’s greeted with his pillow, hissing in a deep breath through his nose as he tries to figure out what he can hear. There’s something clicking, some sighing and moaning, and Baekhyun’s heart smarts before he remembers last night. Right. Chanyeol is here. And he kissed him.

Baekhyun whines and his eyes fall closed. What was he thinking? He rubs the sleep from his eyelashes with one hand and flops onto his back, glaring at the popcorn ceiling with contempt. What was he thinking? Baekhyun facepalms. He was thinking about how much he wanted Chanyeol. How much he likes him. What’s the point in denying it anymore? That doesn’t put him in the clear, though. He doesn’t know if he’s ready for where this is going, for what it means. Chanyeol deserves to know.

He washes his face and brushes his teeth before he heads downstairs, taking the steps slowly so Chanyeol won’t hear him coming. The under stairs cupboard is ajar, evidence of Chanyeol’s attempts to awaken the circuit. That was probably what he heard when he was waking up, the groaning implying that they’re still without electricity. Hopefully it’ll be fixed in a couple of hours. Baekhyun can’t work without it.

Chanyeol is in the kitchen now, face buried in the fridge with sparse shelves and souring food. Baekhyun watches him from the hallway as he takes out the milk and finds a glass from the cupboard, baggy t-shirt sleeves hanging loosely around his upper arms and letting Baekhyun ogle at his tattoos. There’s no real order to their placement, kind of like a patchwork design, and he wonders whether Chanyeol plans on filling in all the gaps. Chanyeol with sleeves is definitely something Baekhyun can get on board with.

Chanyeol must sense that he’s being stared at because he looks up and immediately finds Baekhyun’s wondered eyes. He looks fresh in his just-woken-phase, something Baekhyun greatly envies. Baekhyun has crease marks from his pillow imprinted on his cheek and grease in his hair that he hasn’t had chance to wash yet. Chanyeol, on the other hand, somehow looks like he’s just come out the shower.

“Hey,” Chanyeol says, grinning from ear to ear. “Milk?”

He guesses they’re having milk because tea is a no-go. “Sure,” Baekhyun breathes as he pushes himself off the wall he was leaning on, heading into the kitchen past the lounge doorway and taking a seat at the dining table. “Is the power not back on yet?”

“No, it’s not,” Chanyeol replies, not looking at Baekhyun but quirking his head to help project his voice over his shoulder. He finishes up pouring the milk and crosses the kitchen to deliver it.

“Thanks,” Baekhyun smiles. “I should have some cereal somewhere,” he adds quickly. “The cupboard by the fridge, I think. Seeing as we can’t cook anything.”

Chanyeol gathers everything and brings it all to the table. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure what to do about what’s in your fridge. It might start to go bad if the power doesn’t come back on soon.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Baekhyun shrugs, helping himself to one of the bowls Chanyeol brought over and pouring some cereal into it. “It should be able to last a little longer.”

The dining chair doesn’t scrape against the floor when Chanyeol pulls it out to sit down. Baekhyun sees everyday how mindful he is and likes him all the more for it.

“We should talk,” Baekhyun says softly, not pouring milk into his bowl just yet.

Chanyeol stops mid-gesture, cereal box tipped up in his hand, and looks across at him with wide eyes. He looks hesitant, like maybe he was hoping to have a trouble-free breakfast. Though Baekhyun knows that if he doesn’t say things now, he’ll convince himself to talk to Chanyeol later and then the moment won’t be right and he’ll delay even more. It’s a bad circle, so the sooner the better.

Chanyeol nods, sets everything down, and gives Baekhyun his full attention. “We should.”

Baekhyun runs his hands along his thighs to wipe them of the cold sweat that’s gathering there. He doesn’t really know how to start, which is novel seeing as he’s the one who suggested talking in the first place. He knows he should be direct and clear, even at the expense of a couple of nerves. This is his life and his wellbeing they are talking about. He’s going to take it seriously.

“So, yesterday was… uh…” His initial word to use is ‘unexpected’, but as he runs the sentence over in his head he realises that it wasn’t really unexpected at all. His pause causes Chanyeol to hang his head, and Baekhyun panics trying to find a word to fit. Enjoyable? Surprising?

“Okay,” he eventually sighs, “let me start again.” Chanyeol leans back on the chair and meets his eyes again, looking on with a hint of fear. “I wasn’t really anticipating what happened last night to happen.” Shit. That didn’t make sense. “I—I was surprised.” He winces. “I—Chanyeol, I don’t really understand what it means. Not fully, anyway. I can only guess at how you feel and it’s confusing the hell out of me. But more than that, I don’t know how I feel. I believe I do like you. I think you’re amazing, frankly. It’s just, I don’t trust myself to… to not fuck it up. At the moment.”

Chanyeol stares at him blankly, and Baekhyun shrivels under the attention. “How would you fuck it up?”

Baekhyun has never heard Chanyeol swear before, the way his deep voice cuts into the syllable. Imagine him making that noise in bed— “What I’m trying to say,” Baekhyun says a little too loudly, trying to drown out his thoughts, “is that I’m not sure if I’m ready for this. For another relationship. If that’s what you want. And it’s going to be really awkward if you don’t want that because now you know I’ve been thinking about it and—”

“Baek, it’s okay.”

Baekhyun inhales suddenly and looks up, Chanyeol smiling at him with understanding. “It’s not, Chanyeol. I’ve been so unfair to you. I must have made you so uncomfortable all those times I freaked out.”

“Okay, I’ll put my hand up and admit that you confused me quite a bit. Or a lot,” he chuckles, making Baekhyun feels simultaneously worse and better. Yes, he hurt Chanyeol, but at least he’s taking it on the chin. “I will also,” he takes a deep breath, dropping his eyes for a moment before he returns to gazing full-force, “put my hand up and say that I like you. It didn’t happen straight away, but it kind of happened over time and the feelings never went away. They just got stronger.”

Speechless, Baekhyun gawks at him. What the hell does he say to that?

“I…” Baekhyun stares at his trembling hands. “Chanyeol, I don’t want to commit to anything when I don’t know if I’m completely over my ex yet.” Chanyeol deflates. “It’s not that I want him back, Chanyeol. He cheated on me.”

“He cheated on you?!”

Baekhyun smiles wanly. “When we broke up, he told me it was partly because he wanted to be with someone else. And me, like the idiot I am, went on his social media a week later and found him celebrating a three-month anniversary. So…”

He can’t look at Chanyeol’s face anymore. There’s pity, concern. Baekhyun doesn’t want to relive everything he’s tried so hard to put behind him. It is reassuring, however, that Chanyeol has said he didn’t catch feelings straight away. They’re not pity feelings, in that case.

“I don’t think I would be half as affected if he just—”

“Treated you with respect, maybe?” Chanyeol finishes his sentence for him and Baekhyun turns to him in surprise. “Sorry,” he then chuckles self-consciously and wipes the nape of his neck. “I don’t want to pressure you, Baekhyun. Not if you don’t feel ready.”

Baekhyun stares at Chanyeol’s tattoos, following lines until he’s calmed down. “I want to try this,” he admits quietly. “But I can’t guarantee that I’ll be a hundred percent there. And I don’t expect you to wait for me at all. That would just be cruel.”

Chanyeol presses his elbows against the table and leans over. “Baekhyun, I’ll be fine with whatever you decide.” He sounds so sincere.

“You’re just saying that.”

He cracks a genuine smile. “Maybe a little bit, but I can promise I won’t be angry or hold a grudge or anything. We can just stay as friends if that’s what you want.”

Stay as friends? How can they go back to being just friends after they kissed and Baekhyun’s heart jumped ship? He releases an anguished breath and looks at Chanyeol squarely. To some degree, Chanyeol is everything Baekhyun looks for in a man. He’s listed the reasons why in his head time and time again, but for once, the list only has one thing on it. One, single, lonesome bullet point that speaks decibels above the rest. Why is Chanyeol everything Baekhyun looks for in a man?

Because he’s Chanyeol.

He feels ridiculous, maybe a bit naïve too, but he can confidently tell that he’s not lying. This is what he wants. He may never be ready. The time is now. Baekhyun cringes, but sucks in another breath and smiles across at Chanyeol.

“Maybe if we take things slowly, I’ll be okay.”

Chanyeol grins from ear to ear. “You mean that?”

He takes Chanyeol’s hand in a bold move and squeezes his palm. “I do.”

“And this?” Chanyeol raises their joint hands. “This is okay? I can hold your hand and everything?”

Baekhyun stops to think, no words coming to mind with Chanyeol’s thumb brushing against his fingers. “Yeah, boundaries,” he murmurs. “So,” his eyes flicker back to Chanyeol’s, “hand holding is okay. And kissing. Cuddling too, I guess?” It’s embarrassing saying it out loud; it feels like they’re young teenagers in their first relationship with their parents breathing down their necks. But Baekhyun just wants to be sure. He can’t rush himself into something he’s still up in the air about.

There will always be doubt in his relationships now. Is he good enough to keep someone? Will they want to stay after the first hurdle? Is he worth the rough patches and the fights? He wants to believe that Chanyeol is different. That Chanyeol would never do what Sehun did. But Baekhyun used to think that about Sehun as well. He never saw their relationship ending. Granted, he couldn’t see where it was going either, but he never thought it would implode in the way it did. Baekhyun wants to be prepared for anything. Confirming their mutual feelings for one another comes before jumping into bed without clothes on. Baekhyun won’t be hurt a second time for the same reason.

“That’s fine with me.” Chanyeol squeezes his hand.

And suddenly, Chanyeol is his boyfriend.

Wow.

Chanyeol snorts, and Baekhyun’s face flames when he realises he said that out loud.

“It’s probably a good idea not to tell everyone yet,” Baekhyun says after clearing his throat. “You know how they can be.”

Chanyeol nods in understanding, continuing to beam at him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Baekhyun shies away, turning his face away to the kitchen before focusing on his cereal and finally pouring the milk into his bowl.

“Just thinking,” Chanyeol teases, squeezing his hand a final time before he too starts eating his cereal. “Do you think the power will be back on soon?”

Baekhyun wonders whether his crunching is too loud when he eats, spooning cereal into his mouth and struggling to chew it down to answer Chanyeol’s question in time. “It’ll probably be a while yet.”

“Want to continue our Monopoly game?” Chanyeol asks suggestively, poking Baekhyun’s ankles under the table with his toes.

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “Sure, but I want to do a walk of the village first. Just to make sure everyone’s alright.”

“No problem.” Chanyeol nods along and reaches out for his hand again.

Hopefully, things will be okay.

Nothing really changes after that. They continue to spend almost all day together like they’ve been doing for the past few weeks and cook for each other more often than not. Chanyeol is the better chef out of the two of them, probably because he spent so many years cooking for himself in university. Baekhyun loves watching him work over the stove. The way he chops vegetables is unfoundedly attractive. The steady movement of his tattooed arms, the way his hand holds firmly onto the knife. It’s alluring.

Out of the regular, one thing does change. Baekhyun can kiss Chanyeol whenever he wants to, sometimes causing dinner delays and distracting him from work. It’s nothing short of perfect.

It only took Baekhyun a few days to feel like kissing Chanyeol was normal. It was weird at first, sort of awkward and uncertain, like their boundaries were still undefined and they weren’t sure what was okay. But it soon became natural – mainly because once the dam broke, Baekhyun realised he’d been wanting to kiss Chanyeol for a very, very long time.

In the next week or so, Baekhyun finally finishes all twenty of his Christmas cards. He reviews them, tweaks them, then adds his finishing touches, and just as he’s exporting them all ready for emailing, his front door opens downstairs. In a neighbourhood like theirs, it’s safe to leave the front door unlocked, so Baekhyun doesn’t bother with his key when he’s home.

“Baek?” calls Chanyeol, an immediate smile creeping across Baekhyun’s face.

“Up here!”

His heart thumps in anticipation as Chanyeol ascends the stairs. His mind counts the sounds of his footsteps from one to thirteen, each step building the anticipation that’s making his heart rocket into lightspeed. Chanyeol appears in his doorway ruffling his wet hair, the rain outside perfect weather for both painting and appreciating a wet Chanyeol, who kind of resembles a poodle that’s been splashing in one too many puddles.

“Hey,” Chanyeol says airily as he comes in, taking his phone from his jeans pocket and tossing it onto Baekhyun’s bed.

“Hey.” Baekhyun spins on his chair to face Chanyeol, wanting him to lean down and kiss him in greeting; it’s something they’re not doing yet, another one of the things they’re unsure about. Their supposed boundaries have made them cautious of one another, Chanyeol’s immense respect for Baekhyun’s personal space arguably a tad overkill. It feels good to be respected so consistently, but it would feel even better for Chanyeol to kiss him hello and goodbye. Seeing as they pretty much act like a married couple already (not including the separate living spaces) it wouldn’t be too outrageous.

“What are you working on?” Chanyeol asks as he comes over. Baekhyun reluctantly swivels back around to face his monitor, just as Chanyeol plants one hand on the back of his chair and the other on the desk by his keyboard. He smells good today. And he’s within kissing distance.

“I actually just finished!” Baekhyun cheers, shifting tabs and allowing Chanyeol to get a good look at one of his designs.

“Woah,” he gasps, leaning closer until his chest is pressing against Baekhyun’s shoulder and Baekhyun has fluffy black curls in his face. “You really are amazing!”

Baekhyun grins broadly and gazes softly into Chanyeol’s eyes when he looks around. He’s practically screaming kiss me with every molecule of his being. Every breath gets lighter with suspense, and he stares down at Chanyeol’s mouth just to prove it. Thankfully, Baekhyun doesn’t actually have to scream at Chanyeol for him to get the hint. They kiss and it makes him feel content, to the point where he runs a hand through Chanyeol’s hair just to stop him from pulling away – it’s a little gross though, as his hair is still wet from the rain. Although, the rain itself smells good on Chanyeol. The angle of their kiss is a little off, seeing as Chanyeol’s head is tilted, but despite that, it still feels good. Everything with Chanyeol feels good.

“Shall I show you the rest?” Baekhyun asks once he’s put a centimetre between them, and Chanyeol is eager to agree. He pulls up Baekhyun’s painting stool and perches beside him, his chin sending tingles down Baekhyun’s arm because it’s so close to touching his shoulder. “Okay, so this is the first one I made…” He shows Chanyeol the one of the deer by the frozen woodland pond, the one of the robin and the one with the stockings over the fire. There are ice skaters, carol singers, both set in the Victorian era as they’re popular with the public, then there are dripping candles, one of children building a snowman and holly leaves. There are others, ten others, and Baekhyun shows them all to Chanyeol proudly as he gasps and praises each one.

That’s one thing he’s noticed about Chanyeol – among the many other great qualities he possesses. He’s always genuine. He doesn’t compliment people just to make them like him. He compliments them because he means it. And the approval, irrelevant to how easy Chanyeol may be to please, makes Baekhyun’s heart sing.

“You’re so talented,” Chanyeol breathes in amazement, eyes only leaving the screen for a moment to show Baekhyun his astonished expression.

“Which one is your favourite?”

“Hmmm,” Chanyeol takes the question very seriously, “the one with the sleigh, definitely. The way you did the frost and the snow is really… Wow…”

Baekhyun bites his lip to stop himself from smiling too much. “It’s easier on Photoshop than on a canvas,” he replies modestly. Chanyeol shoves him a little and finally rests his chin on Baekhyun’s shoulder.

“Don’t play yourself down,” he says quietly, still admiring the pictures on the screen.

They decide to make dinner together later, working in tandem in the kitchen. By no means are they attempting something gourmet level with their basic cooking skills. Spaghetti bolognese is just fine. Chanyeol chops the peppers while Baekhyun stirs the mincemeat in the bottom of the pan, watching it sizzle from a dark pink to a light brown. Chanyeol is telling him about who he’s been giving car rides to as they cook, divulging Baekhyun with tales of Maggie’s suspicious rendezvous with a younger man.

“She asked if I could hang around Edgebank while they went back to his place so that I could drive her home as well. She was only there for about an hour and a half. Makes you wonder.”

Baekhyun snorts as he sprinkles some herbs in their food. “Must have good stamina then, her guy.”

Chanyeol smirks at him and Baekhyun smiles through his embarrassment. He can’t believe he just said that.

“I’ll be back in a second. Just going to the loo,” he tells Chanyeol, flashing him a smile as he walks past and jogs up the stairs.

What is Chanyeol going to think of his suggestive comments? He shouldn’t have made a remark like that. Talking about a dick. And not even Chanyeol’s dick either. He groans, facepalming, and quickly pees while scrolling through the news on his phone, tucking himself away while skimming an article about rising sea levels and the threat of plastic. There’s a message notification on his top bar, a little sealed envelope, so he taps over to his inbox and frowns at what he sees.

Unknown Number

27th September

[Hey] 14:53

“Okay?” he murmurs, typing out a reply as he idly steps towards the sink.

[Who is this?] 17:33

He shrugs, about to pocket his phone when it vibrates in his hand.

[You deleted my number? Wow.] 17:34

Baekhyun’s heart jolts, stalling on its next beat. He throws a hand out blindly to grab the sink basin for support, afraid that the cold flush which has swept across his chest might be enough to make him pass out. Like he’s been burned, he throws his phone onto the counter and winces as it clatters backwards against the wall like a skipping stone. He can hear Sehun’s voice in his head, reading the text out loud. It has to be him. Sehun. He hasn’t deleted anyone else’s number from his phone in years, and he doubts the ex-boyfriends he had in college and university still have his contact information. Why would they even bother? Why would Sehun even bother now that he has Mr Perfect?

“Baek! Dinner’s ready!”

Baekhyun chokes and looks towards the door, afraid that Chanyeol will barge in and see what’s going on. He can’t let Chanyeol see. What will he think?

“Calm down,” he whispers to himself.

“I’m serving up, Baek!” Chanyeol calls again, his voice still far away.

“Shit,” he hisses, checking his appearance in the mirror and finding a trembling man staring back at him. It fills him with rage that Sehun would even dare to contact him again after what happened, especially in that tone, as if it’s Baekhyun who has made all the mistakes. He almost texts back, asks him what he wants, but he refuses to open a door. He’s not letting Sehun back into his life again. Sehun can cry on his doorstep for all he cares, he’s never letting him inside.

He almost blocks his number – though he’d have to search how to first – but he stops himself. Maybe Sehun just wants his stuff back? Maybe Sehun wants to invite him to his bloody wedding? Baekhyun decides to be an adult. Responsible. He’ll see what Sehun has to say, if anything, and if it’s of no significance, he’ll block his number then. If there’s one thing he’s certain about, it’s that he has no feelings for Sehun whatsoever anymore. Except, maybe disgust. It’s a welcome revelation.

He flushes the toilet and washes his hands quickly, returning downstairs to Chanyeol sitting at the dining table with two steaming plates. “Looks good,” Baekhyun says, trying a smile.

“Everything okay?” he asks as Baekhyun slides into a chair, looking worried and not starting his food.

Baekhyun doesn’t know what to say. Instead, he reaches out for Chanyeol’s hand and tells him everything is fine, refusing to let go and watching as Chanyeol struggles to eat with a fork in his right hand. Watching Chanyeol slurp up spaghetti takes his mind off things -- he’s still attractive even with the sauce all around his mouth. How on earth is that possible?

They watch TV afterwards, settling back into the sofa with some wine Chanyeol brought along. It’s a quiz show they’re watching, and they have a good time shouting out the answers and bickering amongst themselves when they disagree – then finding out that they’re both wrong. Baekhyun stops caring about the text he received. Sehun won’t ever ruin this. Baekhyun won’t let him. It might have been just Baekhyun a few weeks ago, but now it’s Baekhyun and Chanyeol and he refuses to give it up.

It’s dark when he walks Chanyeol home. The days are getting shorter, the sun lower, and around them the leaves are yellowing on the trees and browning on the roads. He goes up Chanyeol’s driveway this time, taking him all the way to his front door and then kissing him on his porch under the censor floodlight. Chanyeol is a good kisser, completely different to anyone else Baekhyun has had. He likes sucking, maybe a bit too much, but Baekhyun doesn’t mind it. If anything, it instills reassurance that Chanyeol does actually want to kiss him, for which Baekhyun is profusely grateful.

He misses him as soon as Chanyeol’s front door is closed. He doesn’t want to appear strange, but he stands there for a few minutes as the lights come on in different windows, until he catches Chanyeol walking down the hall into his bedroom. It’s too quiet on the walk home with only his breathing and no one complaining about all the raking they’ve had to do to keep their driveway clear – apparently it took Chanyeol three hours to take care of it all. He enjoys their dumb and meaningless conversations. They’re one of his favourite things.

He’s just leaving the main road when Jongin comes whizzing past on his bike with a brrring of his bell, hitting the breaks so he can stop and say hello. His hair is windswept and there’s a healthy flush to his cheeks. A distressed denim jacket fitted nicely around his shoulders.

Baekhyun looks around at him in surprise, not having expected to run into anyone at this time. By late evening everyone is usually at home preparing for bed or cooped up in the pub growing rowdy with banter. It is a pleasant hour, despite how quiet it is, lights through windows illuminating the roads in the absence of streetlamps. Each time Baekhyun walks past someone’s house he catches a glimpse of their life, whether that be because the curtains aren’t drawn or because the walls are too thin. He wonders what people see or hear when they pass his house, whether they take the silence as loneliness or the lack of life as misery. A few weeks ago, that analysis wouldn’t have been inaccurate at all.

“Baekhyun! Just the person I wanted to see!” Jongin exclaims joyously, unsaddling and removing his helmet to hang it on the handlebars.

“Jongin!” Baekhyun flashes him a smile. “How are you?”

“Good, thanks! I’m just on my way back from Yixing’s. We’ve started watching the new drama on channel one together and it’s really good, Baek. Definitely worth a watch.”

They stop outside Jongin’s house only a few doors up from Baekhyun’s, carrying on their chat as Jongin rests his bike against his garden wall. It’s late, so Baekhyun doesn’t expect to be invited inside. Besides, it’s a nice evening.

“I’ll look it up. No spoilers in the meantime, though.”

Jongin beams gloriously at him, hands busy removing his gloves. “Course not! Anyway, I was wondering if you’d be able to do a night of painting at the youth club! Help the kids make something fridge-worthy. Or, maybe even mantelpiece-worthy. I’ve been running low on ideas recently and seeing as the weather is going cold we can’t do as many outdoor things now. I thought painting would be nice seeing as we have an expert in our midst.”

Baekhyun laughs at the word expert. “Sure, sure. But yeah, that’d be lovely! I’d love to come and do some painting with everyone.”

“Great!” Jongin claps his hands together, face aglow with all the possibilities. “They’re all really well-behaved kids, as you know. Oh, they’ll be so excited now! I can’t wait to tell them! Thanks a lot, Baek! Only problem is we don’t currently have enough paint for everyone.”

“Don’t worry about that. I can go and get whatever we need.”

Jongin looks at him with worry. “Are you sure? You don’t have to! I have a truck so it’s easier for me to head out of town.”

“Nah, it’s alright! Besides, I need to figure out what we’re all painting first. I’ll get everything, don’t worry.”

“Okay, awesome!” Jongin punches the air. “And the council will pay you back for everything as well. Just try not to spend too much.”

Baekhyun chuckles, wowed by Jongin’s enthusiasm. He thinks it’s great that there’s someone so invested in entertaining the kids around here. There’s not a lot for them to do outside of the village events, and even some of those they either can’t go to or find boring. Jongin was the one who first started the youth club when he first moved here, and it’s performing so well that it’s not only the kids that go but the occasional parent as well.

“It’s no trouble at all!” he assures Jongin. “Just let me know when.”

“Alright! No problem!”

“Okey dokey! Have a good night, Baek!” He waves Baekhyun off before he takes both hands to his bike and guides it through his garden gate to stand it by his front door. Jongin is a fan of growing things in multi-coloured plant pots, the last of his summer marigolds fading on his windowsill.

“See you later,” Baekhyun replies with a high wave as he picks up the pace towards his house. Before he’s even got inside he’s already on the phone to Chanyeol asking if he can take the village taxi to Edgebank to get supplies. He explains the paint and the youth club, talks out a few of his ideas, and is somewhat awed when Chanyeol replies with just as much enthusiasm even though he doesn’t really have anything to do with it. Chanyeol is always like that. Baekhyun supposes the word might be ‘supportive’ but it feels like more. Something stronger.

“Let me take you out to dinner as well,” Chanyeol insists, voice close to the microphone and thus, closer to Baekhyun’s ear. It sends shivers down his neck that ripple with the need to be next to him. “Somewhere nice.”

Baekhyun has to stop what he’s doing – toeing his shoes off – just to get his breath back. The way Chanyeol words things makes Baekhyun feel like all Chanyeol sees is him. It’s not we should do something but let me do something for you, and Baekhyun has never wanted to thank and spoil someone so much in his life.

“Sure,” he says quietly, cheeks hurting from his smile, voice reverent. “That’d be great.”

Unknown Number

30th September

[I want to see you] 13:15

Baekhyun thinks it’s Chanyeol texting him, picking up his phone without a moment’s doubt. They’re heading to Edgebank later for an afternoon of shopping and then dinner, Baekhyun having a crack at looking his best in a subtle sort of fashion without coming across as trying too hard. He’s put wax in his hair and moisturised his face. Even splashed out on the aftershave so that he smells good in case Chanyeol gets close (and Baekhyun wants him to get close). Close enough for all his air to smell like Chanyeol.

Chanyeol hasn’t revealed the destination of their meal later today either. He just told Baekhyun to dress smart-casual, which really doesn’t mean anything at all, but he’s interpreted it as clean and tidy and suitable for a golf club. Smart-casual pretty much eliminates the fast-food options though, not that Baekhyun would be against having a double cheeseburger and a coke in a sticky booth surrounded by teenagers.

But there are good surprises and there are bad surprises. Sehun texting him again is one of the latter, and Baekhyun sullenly locks his phone so he doesn’t have to stare at the words anymore. He can hear Sehun’s voice when he reads them, that sick, droning tone that Baekhyun used to find sexy and now finds repulsive. Why wouldn’t he, when it’s the same voice Sehun used to break up with him? The one he used to lie.

He’s waiting for Sehun to redeem himself. Explain the true reason why he’s texting. He’s waiting for the I want to give you your stuff back or the I’m sorry about what I did. An apology would be greatly appreciated. It’s just a shame that it’s not likely.

He’s lacing up his boots when the doorbell rings, forsaking one to let Chanyeol into his hallway briefly so he’s not stood outside waiting by himself. When he stands up straight after tying his second shoe, Baekhyun swears Chanyeol’s been looking at his ass. He seems pretty dazed.

Now that the weather is cooler, Baekhyun doesn’t get the pleasure of Chanyeol wearing short sleeves outdoors. He misses the tattoos, the veins, even the arm hairs, but enjoys the view of Chanyeol in a hoodie just as much. Autumn Chanyeol is cuddlier and cosier, whereas Summer Chanyeol is walking temptation. Baekhyun’s sure he’s not the only one who thinks so.

Their drive to Edgebank is calming. They don’t talk all the time, just enjoying the ride and humming along to the radio, appreciating the scenery that surrounds them – the road, in Chanyeol’s case. He’s a very aware driver, Baekhyun has noticed, though he supposes you have to be to drive a taxi. He always indicates, keeps two hands on the wheel, checks all his mirrors without fail; completely unlike Sehun who used to speed and slouch, one hand barely gripping the bottom of the steering wheel while the other was nursing a coffee or a bag of crisps. There were a few occasions where he had to tell Sehun to slow down and even warn him of things coming up in the road. Sometimes, Baekhyun counted themselves lucky that the endless coffee kept Sehun alert.

Baekhyun is doing that a lot. Not exactly comparing Chanyeol and Sehun but noticing things that they do differently. Dissimilar opinions and polar-opposite personalities. It shines Chanyeol in a very good light compared to the dark cloud that Baekhyun’s memories of Sehun have taken on. Not only does it make him like Chanyeol more, it also brings him up to speed with how much Baekhyun was kidding himself with the ‘opposites attract’ trope. The way he feels with Chanyeol is completely different to the way he felt with Sehun, and it’s good.

They head to the same craft store as last time, Baekhyun comforted by the familiarity and Chanyeol holding his hand as they cross the car park. Baekhyun sniggers when he recognises the shop assistant who glared at them the last time they came here, only because she’s giving them the stink-eye again. Clearly, they made an impression. He points it out to Chanyeol who smirks, but they both decide not to be a nuisance to society today and swiftly get the things they need.

“Do you know what you’re going to paint yet?” Chanyeol asks, holding the basket out for Baekhyun to drop all his shades of brown into.

“A teddy bear,” he replies, taking up five acrylics of the same colours. “I’m going to have them stippling. Something easy that has a small chance of going wrong. Jongin wanted it to be mantelpiece-worthy.”

“Mantelpiece-worthy?”

“You know,” Baekhyun grins, “good enough to display at home. Put it on the mantelpiece over the fireplace so everyone can see it.”

“Oh,” Chanyeol nods, acting like Baekhyun has just taught him something very impressive. “Well, seeing as you’re the teacher I don’t think it’ll be difficult.”

Baekhyun smiles shyly at him, then shakes his head and goes back to picking up paint. He’s starting to think Chanyeol has a rule where it’s imperative he compliment him at least once a day. It’s so simply charming, maybe a bit old fashioned, and it has Baekhyun’s heart swooning at alarming rates, to the point where it might eventually give out.

Despite being a grown man who even books his own appointments at the doctors, Baekhyun is a little timid still when it comes to giving Chanyeol compliments in return. Not because there’s nothing he wants to praise, because there’s a lot, but because he doesn’t want to seem too forward. He may be holding himself back from some points of view, hindering their progress, yet slow sailing is what they need to be sure that Baekhyun’s heart and mind are in the right place.

Once they’ve paid and left the store, they drive to a car park near the town centre and leave their purchases in the boot with Chanyeol’s spare tyre and his ‘emergency’ gas cylinder. They mill about the high street without a destination, mainly window shopping and pointing at things through store fronts that interest them from a distance but not from up close. Sometimes they head into stores where the shop assistants stare into their souls, begging them to buy something, which ends up working as more of a purchase deterrent than having the desired effect.

They browse a few clothing stores, and Baekhyun teases Chanyeol by asking him if he’s going to buy yet another black hoodie. It’s true that all his hoodies are the same colour. Baekhyun thinks he’d look nice in yellow or pale blue and definitely red. Perhaps for his birthday Baekhyun can get him something.

“At least I don’t wear the same denim jacket every day,” Chanyeol retaliates from halfway across the store, tall enough that Baekhyun can see him over all the displays. The both of them have the height advantage when it comes to shopping – they can never lose one another, unless one of them leaves the store entirely. It’ll come in useful if they ever go to a festival.

Baekhyun’s jaw drops at Chanyeol’s unforgivable insult. “It’s branded, thank you very much,” he snaps with a pout and leaves Chanyeol to browse on his own. Nevertheless, he is wearing his denim jacket today, which just gives Chanyeol more satisfaction than warranted. It’s part of his smart-casual get-up. Black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt layered with his jacket, then a pair of boots. Denim jackets are very versatile pieces, good for every occasion. Besides, it’s not like Chanyeol is taking him anywhere too high-end.

Baekhyun is wrong.

After an afternoon of squabbling back and forth, suggesting women’s clothes to one another (Baekhyun told Chanyeol he’d look good in a pencil skirt, so Chanyeol pushed him into a clothes rail), Chanyeol tells him that they need to head over to the restaurant for their reservation. Baekhyun tries not to look excessively wowed at the fact that Chanyeol thought ahead and reserved them a table, but it all fails when they stop outside of the poshest restaurant in the town. The Cappello Lounge, an Italian place that Baekhyun has never been to before.

They’re shown to their table by a smartly dressed waitress in a white shirt and black apron, walking through a collection of expensive looking diners and even more expensive looking fixtures and fittings. There’s even a fountain in the centre of the room where people occasionally stop to throw a penny in, making wishes, and plants the size of trees lined along the walls in equal succession, all covered with fairy lights.

The table is dressed in an expensive looking cloth with leather placemats and gleaming cutlery. Their napkins are rolled up inside rings, not just the paper ones you get from the supermarket but full-on linen, and there’s a small red candle in a glass jar in the centre, its little flame glowing brightly.

Baekhyun immediately pulls Chanyeol’s chair out for him, looking up when he doesn’t sit down to find Chanyeol doing the exact same thing. The waitress laughs at them discreetly behind the menus she’s holding, Baekhyun blushing as he and Chanyeol swap places and finally take seats opposite one another. Menus are carefully placed in front of them to avoid collision with the wine glasses already set up, and the waitress asks them if they’d like any drinks while they make their food selections.

“I’ll have a glass of prosecco, please,” Chanyeol smiles at her. Baekhyun orders the same, not knowing whether having a beer is posh enough for this place.

“I had no idea you were going to bring me here,” Baekhyun whispers, eyes flitting down the menu where all the prices jump out at him with jarring siren sound effects. He physically balks at how expensive some things are, going as far as ruling out a good seventy-five percent of the menu and considering getting a starter as a main because it’s the cheapest option there is.

Chanyeol smiles mischievously at him. “I wanted to try this place,” he says. “It had good reviews online and I like Italian food. Who better to come here with than you?”

Baekhyun is struggling to cope with all these compliments. He would shoot one back but his mind is obsessing over how much this is going to cost, so instead he asks “Can we at least split the bill?”

“Sure,” Chanyeol smiles, taking Baekhyun’s hand across the table and looking at only him. He likes doing that – touching Baekhyun whenever he can. It’s only innocent, like hand holding, an arm over his shoulders, his head against Baekhyun’s side, but it makes Baekhyun feel things. Chanyeol is warm and relaxing and understanding. What is there not to like? He must enjoy physical contact, the heat of another person’s skin. Baekhyun can’t wait to find out what he’s like in bed.

Baekhyun abruptly chokes on his own spit and splutters into his fist. His eyes water as he tries to clear away the tickle in his throat, thinking he’s got it and being shot back to square one every time he breathes in.

“Are you okay?” Chanyeol asks with an undertone of panic, their hands still linked, Baekhyun’s turned to a claw and gripping hard. “Should I order some water?”

Baekhyun vehemently shakes his head and smiles, trying to show Chanyeol that he’s fine once the coughing has, for the most part, died down. “Sorry,” he croaks, rubbing his throat and squeezing Chanyeol’s hand. “I had a tickle.”

Chanyeol just beams at him. “I’ll ask for water when someone walks by,” he says, and Baekhyun smiles breathlessly, thanking him sincerely.

They decide to order for each other to make their main course a surprise, so Baekhyun spends a whole five minutes trying to translate the menu from Italian and pick something that Chanyeol might not have tried before. He shies away from pizzas and the typical pasta dishes they often eat and selects one of the orecchiette options, which he points out to the waitress so he doesn’t spoil the surprise (or butcher the pronunciation). Chanyeol looks unnervingly smug when he orders for Baekhyun, so Baekhyun glowers at him.

“I hope you haven’t just ruined my day,” he threatens.

“Likewise.”

They both sip their wine at the same time, waiting for the other to break first. Of course it’s Chanyeol. Being the great big ball of sunshine that he is, the laughter naturally tears out of him and sets Baekhyun off too, attracting a few displeased glances from the surrounding patrons.

“Stop! People are staring at us,” Baekhyun hisses, muting his sniggers in his wine glass. Chanyeol ruffles his hair with both hands, smiling from ear to ear and slouching back into his chair.

“In all seriousness, I think you’ll really like what I chose for you,” he says with a confident nod, playing with the handle of his wine glass and slowly pushing it around in circles.

“Me too,” Baekhyun smirks, then suggests they toast to it.

They get talking about work for a while, discussing current targets that are keeping them occupied. Conversation turns to holidays ten minutes in, Baekhyun revealing that he hasn’t been on a proper holiday since before university. He couldn’t afford it with all the bills he had to pay without anyone else to support him. The small income that intermittently drizzled into his bank account hardly allowed for a full week of food.

Chanyeol has been luckier in that respect, with his student loans and part time jobs. Apparently he went on a lads’ holiday to Ibiza after graduation and spent the entirety of it either drunk or hungover. Baekhyun asks him about his friends and notes down all of their names, delighted when Chanyeol says he should meet them.

“We’re all going out for my birthday, I think,” Chanyeol tells him excitedly. “You can meet them all then if you like.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” Baekhyun can’t fight the smile on his face.

After a few more stories and a handful of jokes, their food arrives. The waitress eases the steaming plates in front of their watering mouths and asks if there’s anything else they need. Chanyeol orders a whole bottle of prosecco, seeing as they’re running out, but Baekhyun can’t think of any condiments that might go well with what’s in front of him. He’s faced with a thick, spiralled sausage sizzling on his plate.

Across from him, Chanyeol lets out an excited noise and eagerly reaches for his cutlery. His pasta dish looks delectable (as does Chanyeol himself), and Baekhyun secretly hopes he likes it even though he didn’t cook it himself.

“Is this pork?” Baekhyun asks, prodding his sausage with his fork.

Chanyeol nods at him. “It’s a Zampina.”

It looks delicious, so Baekhyun, now having identified what sits on his plate, starts to tuck in. Of course, it tastes exceptional as well, the frugal part of his mind remarking that it had better taste damn good for the price is probably costs. They have another glass of prosecco each, toasting to a wonderful dinner together, and Baekhyun anticipates doing more of this in the future – having sophisticated dates with great conversation.

Next time, he’ll take Chanyeol out, spoil him with quality food or a great attraction. They could go to an aquarium or a theme park, the cinema or the theatre. Everything Baekhyun wants to do, he now wants to do with Chanyeol. He’s had these urges with his exes, but looking back, he’s never felt this strongly about someone so early on. Chanyeol makes it easy to fall in like with him.

Probably to keep up appearances and avoid funny stares, Chanyeol only orders one dessert. When it arrives, they eat off each other’s plates anyway, sharing tiramisu and a creamy jelly-like thing that Baekhyun can’t pronounce the name of. Baekhyun feeds Chanyeol the raspberry off his place, holding out his spoon for Chanyeol to take it. With the late hour, diners from surrounding tables have left for home and given them the privacy Baekhyun craves to dote on Chanyeol without interruption.

“Tastes good?” he asks once he’s successfully fed Chanyeol his raspberry and considers giving him the blueberries as well.

“Mmm, try this,” Chanyeol says, scooping up a bit of each layer from his tiramisu and hovering in front of Baekhyun’s mouth with it. Baekhyun’s heart races as he leans forwards and wraps his mouth around the spoon, laughing when he gets cream on his face because Chanyeol overloaded it and he can’t fit it all in. Chanyeol grins cheekily as Baekhyun manages to sweep the spoon clean, tasting the dessert and nodding in approval.

“We should make this at home,” he suggests, wiping his mouth with his fingertips in case he still has cream hiding somewhere.

“Agreed.”

When it comes to pay, they split the bill half and half. Even then, it’s still a ridiculously large amount of money. Their stroll back to the car is unhurried and soothing, the two of them meandering about the quiet streets of the town centre with their fingers laced together. Baekhyun never knew how much he liked holding hands until Chanyeol showed him just how nice it is – the feeling of belonging. The prosecco in him makes him twirl into Chanyeol’s chest and back out again, humming to a tune he’s making up on the spot that fits whatever great dance move he wants to realise next.

The streetlamps blink on as they walk, sensing that the sun has set below the horizon. There’s hardly anyone else around, and it feels like the town is theirs. The world is theirs. And Chanyeol is his.

Baekhyun kisses Chanyeol across the centre console of his car once they’re sitting down, measured and slow after grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him over. He doesn’t think he’s ever liked someone so much so quickly, then realises that he’s been suppressing his feelings for Chanyeol for approximately two months and kisses him harder. A hand in his hair, one of his lips between the both of his. Baekhyun savours the taste of prosecco stained on Chanyeol’s teeth and shivers when a hand comes to cup his cheek.

Chanyeol sucks on his lips and Baekhyun groans low in his throat, dropping his hand from Chanyeol’s hair to his waist and subtly drawing him closer. With Chanyeol demobilising his mouth, Baekhyun finds it hard to kiss back, so he gently pulls away a little until he’s let go and smiles at Chanyeol’s slow blinking before he leans in to kiss him softly. Just softly, lips pressed together, tingling and swollen (in Baekhyun’s case, at least).

If he could, he’d stay kissing Chanyeol like this for hours, familiarising himself with every inch of his mouth until he knows to a tee the way Chanyeol likes to be kissed. Where he likes Baekhyun’s hands to be and what he wants them to be doing. But the console is digging into his ribs and his tight jeans are cutting painfully into his bloated stomach, so Baekhyun ends up pulling away and just breathing into Chanyeol’s air for a moment while he gathers his bearings.

Chanyeol seems somewhat dazed, nuzzling their noses together in the aftermath, silently telling Baekhyun he wants to go again. He looks thoroughly kissed with his rosy cheeks and reddened lips, a real sight for Baekhyun’s restraint to behold. Trouble is, if they go again Baekhyun won’t be able to stop. The car park would be padlocked shut with them still stationary on the wrong side of the gate. He’d rather make out with Chanyeol at home anyway, on a bed with less clothes on. But that’s for another time, he decides, and gives Chanyeol one last peck before he retreats in earnest.

Chanyeol laces their hands together after he’s moved the gear stick into first. He kisses Baekhyun’s knuckles before he has to let him go, betraying him for the steering wheel, and starts sniggering at seemingly nothing until he says “That sausage tasted pretty good.”

“That’s actually disgusting,” Baekhyun laughs, scandalised, and turns on the radio so that Chanyeol can’t tell him more stories about what his mouth tastes like.

It’s a dark drive home, no street lamps on the country roads. Baekhyun is thankful that Chanyeol lowers his speed as a precaution, even though it does take twenty minutes longer than usual to reach Bybrook that way. Cars have a tendency for jumping out of nowhere from around corners, their drivers thinking that the road is clear because it’s so late and no one will mind if they go at eighty miles an hour. With the roads being generally quiet it’s not much of an issue, but crashes have been known to happen.

They pull into Chanyeol’s driveway and are bathed in the floodlight that comes on with a censor at the end, Chanyeol nervously asking Baekhyun if he wants to come inside for a bit. ‘A bit’ turns out to mean all night, not that Baekhyun is complaining. Chanyeol has several spare toothbrushes as he bought in bulk before he moved, and also has plenty of oversized pyjamas that Baekhyun drapes over his body and continually has to reposition when they slip off one shoulder or come loose around his hips.

Chanyeol gets busy working. He’s told Baekhyun before that he works in the late hours of the night into the early hours of the morning, and Baekhyun honestly doesn’t mind. He’s an adult and is all too familiar with restricting deadlines and unforgiving bosses, so he entertains himself on his phone, intending to stay up and wait for Chanyeol to join him in bed. They’ve agreed to sleep top-to-tail instead of one of them taking the couch. It makes things slightly less intimate, but Baekhyun isn’t sure he’s ready for that kind of closeness just yet, despite the way his thoughts are going. Besides, he’s pretty sure he looks terrible when he sleeps, mouth open, drooling. He doesn’t want Chanyeol to change his mind.

The constant clacking on the keyboard is pacifying, Baekhyun’s eyes starting to slip closed hours before he wants them to. Just to distract himself, he messes about with his camera, taking a picture of Chanyeol for no particular reason other than because it’s Chanyeol, admiring it for a little while as he lies against the pillows feeling cosy and content. He manages to stay awake a little longer, then gradually starts to doze off, falling asleep to another person breathing for the first time in what feels like years.

Waking up is a completely different story. He has Chanyeol’s feet in his face. His mind is still too sleepy to register smell, that is, if they do smell, but Chanyeol quickly redeems himself without even doing anything. He’s wearing a pair of fluffy blue socks, irregular but surprisingly functional, and Baekhyun chuckles silently as he rolls over onto his other side and decides to dream a little longer.

His time for painting at the youth club comes in the first week of October. The kids squeal with excitement when he walks into the village hall with a giant bag, weighed down by paints and brushes. He counts thirteen little painters in total, spotting a few faces he doesn’t recognise who must be the friends of the ones he knows. Their ages typically range from five to sixteen, but in reality, anyone is welcome. Even people as old as Joe. It would have been nice if Chanyeol came along, albeit he would have been distracting.

Jongin is overjoyed to have him here and sits down to take instructions like the rest of the kids, all of them ranging on the excitement scale from bouncing in their seat to beaming at him like he’s their celebrity crush. He hands out the brushes first, the tips round and angled, and squirts the colours needed onto paper plates that they can all share. Then, he starts to guide them through painting a teddy bear.

“Just tap lightly with your brushes, okay everyone?” he says, demonstrating what to do on one of the pieces of black card he has provided everyone with. He starts by dabbing out a body shape with a darker brown, the lighter shades coming into play where the head, arms and legs are concerned. “The lighter you tap, the fluffier your teddy bear will be!”

He doesn’t talk the whole time; the kids fill in the silence. They’re all natural gossipers, journalists in the making, and Baekhyun finds himself smiling as he hears all the village news from their perspective. There’s a stark innocence to it, in the way that if someone moans through the wall, it’s because they’re in pain and not having the shagging of their life, or if there’s persistent banging next door, it’s because someone is hammering nails into the wall and not a bed frame. Baekhyun feels tainted.

“I went to buy chocolate yesterday,” Jemimah Mitchell, a nine-year old girl, says, “and I saw Yixing and Rose kissing in the shop.”

All the children immediately reply with wailing “eeeeewwwww”s and Baekhyun turns to Jongin to share a smirk.

“That might be you one day,” he then teases Jemimah, who pretends to throw up all over her painting.

The final dab of paint comes an hour or so later, when Baekhyun gives them all a different type of brush to outline the eyes, nose and mouth. “You need a steady hand for this, okay?” he tells them all. “If you’re worried about making a mistake, Jongin and I are here to help you.”

Next comes the white pencil crayons, and he tells all the children that they can sign their paintings in the bottom corner if they want.

“Might be worth millions when you’re older,” Jongin jokes, trying not to laugh when some of the younger children take him seriously and determinedly write their names down in deep concentration.

“Mantelpiece-worthy?” Baekhyun turns to Jongin, who nods and conclusively confirms, yes, “Mantelpiece-worthy.”

Parents start filtering in through the door for collection, and Baekhyun feels whole as some of the children run to them, rushing to show off what they’ve made. Jongin pats him on the back as he heads past, getting tied up with neighbours and gushing about how well the kids have behaved. A few call across to Baekhyun, wishing him a pleasant evening and saying that they’ll have to catch up soon, and he waves them off as he starts packing away the paints. Jongin joins him a moment later with a bin bag and starts to drop the paper plates and tissues into it, while Baekhyun heads over to the trough sink at the side of the hall next to the fire exit. He washes the brushes clean under numbing cold water, chatting to Jongin about their successful night.

“You’ll have to come in again, if you’re not too busy,” Jongin says as he starts folding up the protective newspaper they covered the tables with. “Maybe we could paint one of the walls.”

Baekhyun takes a few paper towels from the dispenser and wipes his hands clean, turning around to smile at Jongin and nod. “Sounds like a cool idea. You’d have to get the council’s permission though.”

“Eh,” Jongin shrugs, making a noise to suggest he’s not too bothered about that, “I don’t see why they wouldn’t let us.”

Baekhyun pats the brush tips dry on another set of paper towels as he heads back towards the centre of the hall where the table is. “Is Samantha back for the weekend?”

Jongin grins at him. “She is. I’m actually taking her out in—” he checks his watch “—oh! Five minutes. I didn’t realise that was the time.”

“You go ahead,” Baekhyun chuckles, sliding the brushes into a pot handle-first. “I’ll clean up here. You can’t go to your hot date looking like that,” he teases.

Jongin looks like he wants to refuse, but with a glance down at his paint-covered hands and sleeves, he gives Baekhyun a breathless thank you and speed walks out the door. Baekhyun watches him go with a smile, knowing exactly how that feels, and notices then that Jemimah has left her coat behind. He’ll finish cleaning up first, though, then drop the coat off. Their house is only a few doors down the road.

He moves around the table, smiling at the teddy bear he created as a demonstration, collecting up the tubes of paint and dropping them into an open plastic container. Arms wrap around his waist and he gasps, not registering what they are straight away and wondering what the hell is going on. He tries to turn around but he’s locked back into a firm chest, a cheeky grin peering down over his shoulder and dark, black curls tickling his temple.

“You scared me,” he deadpans at Chanyeol who chuckles something silly.

“Sorry,” he pouts, the corners of his lips curling up with a feline quality. “Did everything go to plan?”

Baekhyun mourns the loss of Chanyeol’s arms as he steps up closer to the table, taking Baekhyun’s example painting in his hands and giving it an impressed once-over.

“Yeah, everyone seemed happy,” replies Baekhyun, about to take the paints and the brushes to the store cupboard when Chanyeol pouts at him.

“Can I paint a teddy bear?”

Baekhyun looks at him, wondering if he’s serious. “You couldn’t have been here ten minutes earlier?” he laughs lightly, continuing to pack everything up for future use.

“There’s always next time, right?” Chanyeol grins, approaching Baekhyun and intentionally guiding him back against the table.

“Of course,” Baekhyun agrees, resting his hands on Chanyeol’s shoulders and looking up at him with a smile. “Jongin thinks it would be nice to paint one of the walls.”

“Does he now?” Chanyeol murmurs, getting close and nosing around Baekhyun’s face, setting off all his nerve endings. He doesn’t really seem interested in painting the wall, distracted by Baekhyun’s face and focusing on that instead. Baekhyun’s eyes fall closed when Chanyeol kisses him lightly on the cheek, and when he opens them, happening a glance down, he stops and stares for a moment at Chanyeol’s half-covered legs.

“Why are you wearing shorts in October?”

Chanyeol snorts, wrapping his arms around Baekhyun’s waist and pulling his head back to flash him a smile, the lack of distance giving him a double chin. “I thought maybe you could warm me up.”

Baekhyun wants to roll his eyes but manages to catch himself. Chanyeol is a giant wad of cheese sometimes. He’ll just have to humour him, and meeting Chanyeol halfway when he starts leaning down. Chanyeol insistently claims his mouth, Baekhyun relenting control and allowing himself to be lead through a kiss that shoots sparks in his stomach and tremors through his legs. The table behind him groans a little under their combined weights when Baekhyun starts to lean back for support. All that pub food, he supposes.

“Did you just come here to kiss me?” Baekhyun breathes when he pulls back for a millisecond, dragging his hands down and up Chanyeol’s arms until he’s got them cradling the sides of his neck again. Chanyeol’s skin is warm and pulsing under his palms. Baekhyun can feel his heartbeat running through his fingers.

“Might have done,” Chanyeol hums back, latching onto Baekhyun’s bottom lip and lewdly sucking it back from Baekhyun’s mouth. Chanyeol is really testing his limits. If he wasn’t wearing shorts, Baekhyun might even be aroused right now. Though that doesn’t mean to say that he’s not hard in his mind, because Chanyeol is seriously starting to tempt him in ways that no man has ever done before. It could be the tattoos, the persevering kindness, the sunshine smiles, but truly, deep down, it is probably just Chanyeol and has been this whole time.

“This is slightly inappropriate,” Baekhyun pants, tipping his chin down so their mouths no longer align. Chanyeol noses at his face, something that Baekhyun is starting to notice he does whenever they stop kissing, and proceeds to tickle all the fine hairs on his cheeks and chin. It’s like Chanyeol sealing the deed, savouring it before it’s over. Either way, it makes Baekhyun all sensitive and tingly. “Come over?”

Chanyeol smiles, his cheeks filling up so much that they now press against Baekhyun’s own. “Sure.”

“Okay,” Baekhyun takes a deep breath, planting hands on Chanyeol’s (hard) chest and easing him backwards. “I just need to put these in the store cupboard and then I need to drop Jemimah’s coat—” Except when Baekhyun turns around, the coat isn’t there anymore. Chanyeol takes the paints and brushes to the store cupboard while Baekhyun investigates the benches, looking behind them and under them in case her coat has slipped anywhere and he just can’t see it anymore. He could have sworn it was there. He saw it with his own eyes.

“Did you pick up a coat on the way in?” he asks Chanyeol over his shoulder, who obviously has no idea what he’s talking about. “Maybe Jongin picked it up then,” he hums. “But he didn’t say anything.”

“Maybe it sprouted legs and walked home?”

Baekhyun chuckles, all worries forgotten. “Ah, that must be it.” He grins and leans cleanly into Chanyeol as he approaches, smacking their lips together before he takes the key off the hook by the door and locks up from the outside.

The key is a little rusted and the lock a little stiff, but Baekhyun wrenches it around until the mechanism turns and the hall is secure. He’ll hand this to Joe when he next sees him, slipping it into his jeans pocket and turning around to see a group of parents and children across the road having a mothers’ meeting about nothing of consequence. Jemimah is there, skipping about in her bright yellow coat, so Baekhyun must have imagined seeing it lying forgotten on the bench. Unless…

When the group realises Baekhyun has come out of the hall, they all fall silent. Heads turn, eyes trace between him and Chanyeol and back again, and then they all start smiling. Jemimah giggles, beaming at Baekhyun with a pinkish face, and that’s when Baekhyun realises he didn’t hallucinate at all. The coat was on the bench. Jemimah came back for it. While he was being kissed against the table.

“You all saw it coming anyway,” Baekhyun sighs and rolls his eyes, smiling as they laugh and shoo them on.

“Take care, dears!” one woman coos, Baekhyun turning away out of embarrassment. They start walking up the road, past a couple of boys playing football outside the church and Mrs Mason closing her bakery for the day.

“Caught in the act, eh?” Chanyeol jokes, reaching for Baekhyun’s hand and swinging it livelily between them.

“I suppose I have you to thank for that.” Baekhyun side-eyes him with a smirk. “Everyone will know in about twenty minutes.”

Chanyeol’s smugness slips away and he drops his eyes for a moment, turning shy. “Do you mind? Them knowing, I mean.”

They turn down Baekhyun’s road, hands still threaded, and he decides “No”, he doesn’t mind. On the one hand, it’s nice for everyone to know. For everyone to see. He’d proud, and he’s happy, and he gets to kiss Chanyeol whenever he wants. It’s just the cherry on top that he gets to share that will all of his best friends at once. On the other hand, he worries about what their expectations of them are, if they have any.

Cooking together is nothing new, but Baekhyun has a feeling it won’t ever get old. When they get home, Chanyeol pulls up a recipe on his phone that he saw on one of those viral online videos and suggests they make it, taking the reins and being head chef for the evening while Baekhyun happily follows orders and cleans up after him. They eat on the sofa in front of the TV, watching a dramality show where there’s too much drama and not enough reality, before they head upstairs.

Chanyeol showers first while Baekhyun checks over his emails, reading through the feedback he received on his Christmas cards and noting down everything he needs to tweak. There are only minor changes he needs to make. To his relief, the majority of the review is positive, and the company is pleased that they can get things done ahead of schedule, maybe even get a one-up on their competitors by being early this year. Baekhyun feels pleased, and so does his bank account, and he starts to contemplate where he could take Chanyeol on a date. Somewhere fun. Somewhere exciting. He just doesn’t know where.

He’s googling ideas when Chanyeol flops down on his bed, retaking the baggy t-shirt Baekhyun may or may not have stolen from him the last time he slept over. Aside from that, he’s only wearing his boxers, leaving his long, lean, hairy legs on show. Baekhyun would be lying if he said he isn’t staring. Chanyeol has an ankle tattoo it seems, three pointed black stars, the next bigger than the last, that curl around his bone at the end of his shin. Baekhyun paints canvases and Chanyeol paints his skin, it seems, an artistic kind of parallel. Baekhyun wants to find the others, if there are others. Map his way around Chanyeol’s body until he knows every line and every flick off by heart. Maybe draw on a few of his own.

The thoughts don’t leave him. They may be sleeping top-to-tail again but Baekhyun is no longer sure he wants to be. He wants to press against Chanyeol’s back and feel the warmth of his body through his clothes. He wants to bury his nose in his hair and smell his conditioner, breathe down across his nape. He wants to wrap his arm around Chanyeol’s waist, feeling Chanyeol’s hand layered over his own, and slip a leg through his thighs so they’re less likely to fall apart in their sleep.

All he can look at right now is the lump of Chanyeol’s feet under the duvet beside his head. He would reach out and touch, but he doesn’t know if that’s okay. Chanyeol respects his boundaries with the greatest strength. Baekhyun intends to reciprocate just as intensely.

His phone vibrates on the bedside table behind him and Baekhyun closes his eyes, wishing he were sleeping. There’s only a few people that it could be, and one of them is lying right beside him. His parents won’t be awake and his old college friends don’t bother texting him anymore, so at least Baekhyun feels somewhat prepared when he rolls over, unplugs his phone from its charger and finds the unknown number appearing on his screen.

Unknown Number

5th October

[I need to see you] 00:33

Baekhyun aborts a scoff at the back of his throat.

[Please reply] 00:34

He feels sick just looking at it, knowing that they’re Sehun’s words, that he’s sending them specifically to him. What was he expecting? For Sehun to suddenly become the good man again that he once thought him to be? This asshole cheated on him. Whatever good he had either never existed or died the day he started to lie.

[Stop ignoring me] 00:37

Baekhyun can’t contain his noise of reproach at that, and immediately heads to the setting menu above Sehun’s number with the intention to block. Surprise, surprise. Sehun isn’t going to say sorry for anything. Baekhyun should have known better.

[I need help] 00:40

His fingertip hesitates over the block button, eyes blinking emotionlessly at the new text that has come through. It stops him completely in his tracks and concern takes over. Scenarios run through his head, ones of Sehun being about to do something dangerous and Baekhyun being the only person he’s contacted. Baekhyun can’t trust Sehun anymore to either tell the truth or do the right thing, so seeing that he’s asking for help unsettles him. He decides to ask why, like any other human being would do, and waits impatiently for a response, fearing the worst.

[Why do you need help?] 00:44

[You replied! ] 00:45

[Will you talk to me now? ] 00:46

[I miss you] 00:46

Baekhyun’s breath stutters, dumbfounded, and he immediately puts his phone on silent and places it face-down on the nightstand where he won’t have to look at it anymore. The audacity of some people astounds him. He thought he knew Sehun but he sounds like a stranger. Feels like a stranger. He’s taking advantage of Baekhyun’s kindness and Baekhyun knows it, and yet deep down he still worries.

He is afraid that Sehun will hurt himself, do something ridiculous, put his life in Baekhyun’s hands, and Baekhyun can’t sit by and ignore him, just block Sehun’s number and pretend he doesn’t exist anymore when he might be the only one who can offer help. It grates on his nerves. His fingertips. Brings tears of frustration to his eyes.

He can’t stand Sehun, yet he still feels concern for him. Nevertheless, he goes to sleep with complete certainty that he would feel the same anxiety for anyone else, even if it was his worst enemy of any other of his ex-boyfriends. Sehun isn’t special. He’s human; and despite the monster Sehun is, Baekhyun will continue to treat him like one.

Chapter Text

“No, no, don’t worry about it! Just give me twenty minutes, alright? Okay, I’ll see you then.”

Baekhyun exhales into his pillow, mouth dry and tongue rough. He can hear Chanyeol shuffling about the room trying to be as quiet as possible, but with the silence that engulfs them it is the only sound Baekhyun can focus on and he can tell exactly where he is. Sounds like he’s tugging on some jeans, the creasing of denim and tinkling of a belt telling. Baekhyun groans and rolls onto his back, feeling heavy and smelly and very unattractive.

On the bedside table is a glass of water that he gulps down, smiling at Chanyeol when he catches him doing up his belt and showing off a little of his lower stomach. Baekhyun’s gut twinges.

“I have to take Agnes to a doctor’s appointment,” he says softly, smiling down at Baekhyun with a mellow expression.

“Everything okay?” Baekhyun croaks, sitting up on his elbows and trying to reposition his head in a way that will disguise the double chin he’s sure to have. He probably looks like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards and smells like he’s lived in a bin for a week, so he’ll go to any length to try and look presentable.

“Yeah, think so.” Chanyeol slips into his hoodie, flashing his abdomen again. Baekhyun thinks he might have seen another tattoo peeking out from beneath the waistband of his boxers but he can’t be sure. “It’s a routine thing for her medication. She said she was meant to ask me if I could drive her there a few days ago but she forgot.”

Baekhyun chuckles, climbing out bed and throwing the duvet back into place behind him. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen,” he says as he heads past Chanyeol to the bathroom, sliding his hand down Chanyeol’s arm as he goes. Once inside, he uses the toilet and brushes his teeth, rinses his face with a little water and then tries to tame his hair. His skin is oily and feels grimy, but at least he smells okay now that he’s covered himself in deodorant.

Downstairs, Chanyeol is multitasking, nibbling on toast while trying to lace up his shoes. Baekhyun lends him a hand, kneeling down beside Chanyeol’s feet and making quick work of tying bows in double knots. “Cup of tea?” he asks as he stands himself back up, crossing the kitchen to the cupboards and rooting around for the right sized mug.

“Please, thanks.”

The boiling of the kettle accompanies Chanyeol’s manic rush to get ready. He runs up and down the stairs twice, once to brush his teeth and second because he’s forgotten his phone, then he can’t remember where he put his keys until he bends down to check under the coffee table and Baekhyun notices something lumpy and pointed in his back pocket. He doesn’t really think before he slides his hand in to pull them out, Chanyeol’s flushed expression when he turns around only then making Baekhyun aware that Chanyeol probably thought he was just feeling up his ass.

“Oh, sorry! Keys.”

Peace comes when they have their tea, leaning against the kitchen cupboards, admiring Baekhyun’s work-in-progress garden through the window. He tells Chanyeol that he wants to plant daffodils and laughs when Chanyeol promises to lend a hand.

“Right,” huffs Chanyeol a moment later, downing the rest of his tea and leaving the mug in the sink, “I’d better get going.”

“Have you got everything? Keys, wallet, phone?”

Chanyeol pats down his own pockets before giving Baekhyun an affirmative nod. “Yep.”

Baekhyun walks with Chanyeol down the hall, squinting when he opens the door and the cool autumn light floods in. “Be careful,” Baekhyun says, though he knows Chanyeol is the safest driver on the planet.

“I will be,” he replies, stopping on the doormat and turning to give Baekhyun a smile. Baekhyun loses his breath. “I’ll keep you updated on what’s happening. See you later?”

“Okay,” Baekhyun replies, blinking and almost missing Chanyeol swooping in for a cheek kiss that he turns his head into just in time. He softly grasps Chanyeol’s chin between his hooked finger and his thumb, keeping him against his lips so he can kiss him a little longer. Baekhyun wants this to be a thing – kissing Chanyeol when he leaves home and kissing Chanyeol when he returns home. He breaks out into a huge smile when Chanyeol noses around his face again, like always, and looks up into his eyes wondering when Chanyeol became so incredible.

“Don’t let Agnes kiss you or anything,” Baekhyun jokes, breathing in the minty laugh Chanyeol bubbles with.

“I won’t.” He pecks Baekhyun on the corner of the mouth, then navigates himself out of the door.

Baekhyun thinks about their kiss for the majority of the morning as he lazes around procrastinating. Chanyeol sends him regular texts, letting Baekhyun know that he’s arrived at the medical practise safely, that they’re sat in the waiting room and then when Agnes goes in for her appointment. It seems to take a while, Agnes still in her appointment while Baekhyun has lunch and heads upstairs to work on his computer. When he hears a car outside, he wonders whether Chanyeol just forgot to text him that he was on his way back, but when he looks out the window, Baekhyun finds a young family he hasn’t seen before being greeted by a real estate agent and realises once again that he is in for new neighbours.

Sometimes he forgets that Vanessa isn’t next door anymore. But where once would be a sinking feeling, Baekhyun feels hopeful when he looks at the family stood on the road. It’s a young couple, both with blonde hair and happy smiles, and a toddler currently clutching to a small soft penguin toy. Baekhyun can’t hear what they’re saying, yet they’re just loud enough for him to make out the pace of their speech and the tone of their words, and they sound pretty impressed by the huge wows that Baekhyun can just about identify.

They seem friendly and genuine, sincerely excited to get inside and have a look around, so Baekhyun mentally decides on their behalf that yes, they’ll take the property. Grabbing his phone, he quickly replies to Chanyeol’s new text that reads [Still waiting] with an [I’ll buy you cake when you get home] and decides to ring Jongin to gossip.

“Hey, Baek!” he chirps down the phone. “What’s up? I’m just recording a video right now.”

“Jongin!” Baekhyun gushes, pressing his forehead against the glass of his window to watch as the couple start heading into the house. “There’s a new family checking out the Shaws’ place.”

“Oh?” Jongin gasps. Baekhyun swears he hears him falling over something. “I can’t see them!”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “They just went inside, but, cute couple, young toddler who likes penguins. They seem alright! I’ve decided they’re moving in.”

Jongin laughs at him, then shouts, “They’re in the garden! I see them!” Baekhyun rushes to his other window. “Wow,” Jongin sighs. “She’s got three-quarter length trousers. I reckon she’s a teacher.”

“And him?” Baekhyun snorts.

“Definitely some kind of IT guy with a sweater-shirt combo like that! He can help us with all our computer stuff!”

Smirking, Baekhyun watches as the toddler throws their penguin across the grass. She’s a little girl in a sweet pinafore dress and thick tights, surprisingly well-styled.

“I have Chanyeol for IT stuff,” Baekhyun says smugly, hearing Jongin squawk on the other end of the line and laughing.

“Yeah! Thanks for telling me about that, Baek! Holy—I mean, we all knew it was coming but you could have told a guy! How’d it happen anyway?”

Baekhyun sighs, then worries that he sounded too dreamy. “He just kissed me out of nowhere, and then I kissed him, and then we had a talk.”

“So mature of you! Anyways, I think love is in the air around here. Must be something in the water.”

“What do you mean?” Baekhyun grins.

“Wait! Do you not know?”

“Know what?”

“Did not one tell you?!”

“Tell me what?”

“About Yixing and Rose? Minseok told me.”

Baekhyun leans his elbows onto the window sill and takes his eyes off the toddler throwing her penguin again to his own abandoned flower beds. “No. What about Yixing and Rose?”

“They’re getting married!”

Baekhyun gasps, hand flying to his mouth. “Are you having me on?”

“No! I swear! Minseok told me he overheard them talking about when they should tell everyone, and then Minseok told Mrs Mason and Mrs Mason told me, then I told Joe and Camilla and now I’m telling you, so really everyone already knows but isn’t it amazing?!”

Baekhyun facepalms, sides stitching. “That’s so lovely! I think I might cry, oh gosh. The wedding will be so beautiful.”

“It really will. I’m so excited! I want to be a bridesmaid.”

Baekhyun laughs loudly, stepping back from the window in case the potential neighbours hear him. “I’m sure Rose will choose you as a bridesmaid,” he humours him with a fond smile. “Anyway, I’ll let you get on with your video.”

“Going to call Chanyeol?” Jongin drawls suggestively.

Baekhyun finds himself laughing again. “Maybe. I’ll speak to you later!”

Of course, maybe means definitely. Baekhyun calls Chanyeol as soon as he’s hung up on Jongin, whisper-shouting to him down the phone as Chanyeol tells him that calls aren’t allowed in the waiting room, trying to be as quiet as possible so Chanyeol doesn’t get kicked out. He’s gushing though, speaking so fast that Chanyeol can’t really tell what he’s saying, and Chanyeol ends up leaving the waiting room anyway just to get a straight sentence.

“Yixing and Rose are getting married!” Baekhyun squeals, doing a little dance.

“Oh, wow! That’s great!” Chanyeol cries. “I’ll be sure to tell Agnes!”

“Yes! Let Agnes know!” Baekhyun agrees completely. “Oh! But remember to act surprised when Yixing and Rose announce it themselves, okay? So they don’t suspect anything.”

“Got it.”

Such a time comes at the pub quiz. The farmers are down for their roast, Yixing and Rose looking particularly cosy on a table of their own, and Chanyeol is trying his thirteenth new dish from the menu – the steak and ale pie. Baekhyun is on a chair beside him, one of Chanyeol’s feet nestled between his own and occasionally giving him a push. Showing up at the pub together caused quite a stir. Everyone looked at them so intently that Baekhyun thought he forgot to wear trousers, and then the praise came, and over Mrs Parker’s shoulder as she congratulated the two of them, Baekhyun saw Old Joe get handed a fifty-pound note from Minseok. Typical.

They win the quiz as usual, and once they’ve all been gifted their prize pint and been accused of cheating by multiple different teams, Yixing and Rose stand up and claim Kyungsoo’s microphone. A hush falls across the room. Everyone turns to one another, exchanging knowing glances partnered with smirks, and when Yixing and Rose announce the news together, hand in hand, everyone’s reaction is, perhaps, a little over the top.

Everyone suddenly shouts in cheer. Old Joe stands up and roars, the farmers all start applauding shouting “Good show! Good show!” and Mrs Mason makes out that she’s crying. Jongin whips out a few party poppers which are disastrously suspicious while Kyungsoo grabs a bag of confetti and starts throwing it over the couple, cheering “Yay! Yay! Yay!”. Chanyeol’s face is the funniest thing, to Baekhyun at least. His eyes are popping, his jaw is on the ground, his hand is over his mouth, and it just looks so terribly fake that Baekhyun bursts out laughing and claps his hand down on Chanyeol’s thigh because he can’t contain it.

Yixing and Rose look completely stunned, then Minseok is in a headlock and Yixing is demanding to know how he found out and why he told everyone. It’s hilarious. Chanyeol is on the floor, Mrs Mason is really crying, and Baekhyun feels about to burst. He topples off his chair just as Minseok scrambles free and starts running about the pub, falling into a heap beside Chanyeol who’s laughing so hard he looks like he’s in pain. Baekhyun tries to ask him if he’s okay but he can’t speak, then gets hiccups for trying. And this is what happiness looks like. Chanyeol looking constipated on the dingy pub floor, rolling from side to side atop the chips and peas that fell from his dinner plate without a care in the world. Baekhyun wouldn’t mind staying on the floor all night.

Baekhyun doesn’t want this moment to end. He’s surrounded by the people he loves and they’re all so happy. He’s happy. And he wants it to be like this forever.

That night is the first night where they don’t sleep top-to-tail. They head back to Chanyeol’s place and Baekhyun lounges in the bath for an hour while Chanyeol is busy at his computer. He stares at the shower for a while, marvelling at its size, and imagines himself using it with company. As he stares down at his own naked body, his rounded tummy and his slightly chubby thighs, he realises that he hasn’t seen Chanyeol naked yet. In fact, all he’s really seen of Chanyeol is his legs, arms, and a little bit of his middle. What’s hiding underneath his clothes? Baekhyun’s dick wants to know.

That’s all he can think about for a while. Whenever he sees Chanyeol, he imagines taking his clothes off, kissing his body, doing things, and it feels entirely wrong because they haven’t discussed this and Chanyeol hasn’t given him permission to think about him like that. Baekhyun can’t help it though. Sometimes Chanyeol walks around in boxers and Baekhyun finds himself staring at his ass, flatteringly round considering how many hours he spends sitting at a computer screen or behind a steering wheel.

Baekhyun kisses out his frustrations instead. He wants to wait, wants to be one-hundred percent certain before they do anything so that he doesn’t mess Chanyeol around. It suffices for a while, licking into Chanyeol’s mouth and sometimes even travelling down his neck. His skin is so warm and soft there, especially around his pulse point, and Baekhyun gets frustrated when Chanyeol tells him he can’t leave marks because he has meetings in the morning. It’s October, perfect turtle-neck weather, but Baekhyun respects his wishes and lets the fire burn out, until he’s just nuzzling into embers and pecking Chanyeol’s nose.

He finds himself wanting to spend every second of the day with Chanyeol. As soon as he’s out the door, he misses him and wants to call him back, but he understands that Chanyeol has to work too. That’s the snag with their jobs. They can’t do them in the same room. Chanyeol has his huge computer set-up and Baekhyun has his; they’re not easy to move for a spontaneous four-hour work-athon. However, there’s always Skype.

They don’t talk to each other that much while they Skype, though. Baekhyun is busy touching up his Christmas cards and Chanyeol is coding – or whatever it is that he does exactly. But they keep each other on call so that when they’re feeling down or in need of motivation, all they need to do is look at the corner of the screen and see the other working hard to feel better. Chanyeol also groans with frustration a lot, the noises melting in the pit of Baekhyun’s stomach. Baekhyun is really starting to have trouble holding himself back. His body has definitely given up, it’s only his mind that’s fighting.

One of the things that he and Chanyeol don’t have in common is that Baekhyun is an early riser and Chanyeol practically sleeps all day. It’s sad when Baekhyun has to work alone in the mornings, but he looks on the bright side and is thankful that he won’t develop problems – hard problems – which are problematic to get rid of. His Christmas cards have all been approved and he ends communication with his contractors, and suddenly he’s free to paint what he wants again, unless there’s another proposition lurking in his inbox somewhere.

Thankfully, there isn’t. Baekhyun takes this time to focus on himself and his own paintings, deciding to scan the canvas he painted of a dark forest into his computer so he can make it available for print, if anyone is interested, that is. It’s only then, after he’s updated his website, replied to emails and checked his orders, that Baekhyun realises he hasn’t painted anything for a while. Besides his gig at the youth club, the last time he painted was August. He sits in shock for a moment before he jumps up to pick out a new canvas. He suddenly has this incessant need to paint, even just to splatter random marks and shapes across a page, but he knows that he needs a project. Making a mess on an expensive canvas is only a twenty-minute job, and he needs something that will last him weeks. But what?

Baekhyun has no idea.

He scrolls up and down his social media, checks Pinterest, even looks out the window, and still can’t come up with anything. He decides to call his number one source of inspiration and asks Chanyeol what he’s currently doing. He ends up heading over and cooking Chanyeol dinner while he’s working. He’s battling with a lasagne, seeing as Chanyeol had ready-made pasta sheets in his cupboard and a boat load of mincemeat in his fridge. He’s only ever made lasagne a couple of times before on his own, but he used to help his dad make it when he still lived with his parents so they’re not total strangers.

He decides it’ll go nicely with some roasted sweet potato and quickly drowns in the calming rhythm of his knife clacking against the chopping board as he cuts them into little pieces. He imagines Chanyeol’s hands doing this, his warm and square palm curled around the handle and his fingers roughly folded. The ends of his fingers are quite flat, Baekhyun has noticed, probably from all his typing, and Baekhyun wants to feel them between—

“Argh!” Baekhyun hisses, just nicking the end of his finger with the knife. “Damn.” He quickly sucks the bead of blood into his mouth and assess the damage, seeing a small and shallow cut just below the nail bed of his middle finger. He heads straight to the bathroom to get the plasters he knows are in Chanyeol’s cupboard and wraps himself up tightly before getting back to work. Once he’s put the potatoes in the oven, he stops to facepalm and laugh at himself. He got so distracted by the thought of Chanyeol’s hands that he completely lost sight of what he was doing. Perhaps his patience has expired.

Dinner is a success after that – the cutting his finger part was more of a revelation than an accomplishment, Baekhyun thinks. His béchamel sauce goes down a treat and Chanyeol steals most of his sweet potato because apparently, they’re glorious, and only when Chanyeol reaches across to take his hand does he notice the plaster on his finger.

“What happened here?” he asks, eyebrows knitting with concern as he lightly traces his thumb back and forth over the spot.

“Poor knife handling,” Baekhyun reveals with a smile, basking in Chanyeol’s attention.

Chanyeol steals his breath when he lifts Baekhyun’s hand to his lips to kiss his minor scratch better. All Baekhyun can think about is throwing himself on him and smothering him with love, so much so that he actually jumps in his seat a little bit before the logical part of his mind tells him that launching himself across the table and trashing the lasagne he just spent hours making is not a sensible idea.

They do the dishes side by side, Chanyeol washing and Baekhyun drying. There is a dishwasher but Chanyeol explains that he doesn’t use it.

“It’s kind of wasteful if you’re just putting in dishes for only one person. Unless I waited a whole week before washing my dishes, which is gross.”

Baekhyun chuckles, elbowing him gently to get his attention before standing on his tiptoes for a kiss. “Let’s watch a movie?” he suggests, unexpectedly eager to snuggle with Chanyeol on the sofa in the dark and put on a lame movie they can laugh at.

“I haven’t met my target for today yet,” Chanyeol replies glumly.

Baekhyun winds an arm around his waist to cheer him up. “That’s okay,” he says, though admits he’s a little disappointed. His mind was running off with ideas and scenarios and it’s mad now that none of them will play out. “Next time?”

Chanyeol pouts, sulking as he hands Baekhyun the last of the cutlery for drying. “Nah, I’ll just catch up tomorrow.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Did you have a movie in mind?”

“Hey,” Baekhyun stops, putting his tea towel down on the drainer and turning to face him, “it’s okay if you have stuff you need to do, alright? I don’t want you to fall behind because of me.” His hands slip into Chanyeol’s without him needing to look, and though they’re wet with dirty dishwater it’s not all that disgusting.

“It’s fine,” Chanyeol assures him with a cute smile. “I set my own targets, and I’m actually not that far off completing my target today, so if the movie isn’t like, three hours or something, I should be able to meet it afterwards while you’re getting ready for bed and everything.”

“Alright then,” Baekhyun nods softly, “If you’re sure. I’ll go pick a movie.”

Before he leaves the kitchen, he gives Chanyeol a long, tender kiss that’s much too innocent and contrasted to the way his thoughts have been behaving lately. Still, it feels nice to be reminded that Chanyeol’s mouth is only for him and he can kiss it whenever he wants, so he leaves the kitchen with a chirpy bounce in his step and kneels down before Chanyeol’s bookcase to scan through all his DVDs. It’s safe to assume that Chanyeol has watched all of these before, probably more than once, leading Baekhyun to pick one that he’s also seen in case they get distracted.

He slides the disc for The Terminator into the DVD player and settles on the sofa just as Chanyeol comes to join him, laying a blanket over Baekhyun’s knees that he also snuggles himself under. An arm wraps around Baekhyun’s shoulder, slotting there easily, while Baekhyun rests his head against the side of Chanyeol’s chest and presses play on the remote.

“I haven’t watched this in forever,” Chanyeol says, voice vibrating through his chest and sending shivers across Baekhyun’s ribcage. “It used to scare me when I was younger.”

“Same,” Baekhyun laughs, digging himself further into Chanyeol’s side and tucking his knees up closer to his body.

“We should watch the whole series.”

Grinning, Baekhyun cranes and twists his neck to look up at him. “All in one night.”

“Exactly.” Chanyeol lowers his head to align their lips, and somewhere in all the fairly innocent touches and gasps for breath, they miss the first fifteen minutes of the movie – exactly why Baekhyun chose a film he’s seen a million times before.

All it does is make him more excited. He trembles in Chanyeol’s hands when they touch his face and his neck. Everything in him is screaming to go further and show Chanyeol just how much he means to him, but Baekhyun understands that they should probably talk about it first. Outline boundaries, if any, so that they’re both aware of and comfortable with what’s going on. It’s the right thing to do, if not the easiest, so as they watch the rest of the movie, Baekhyun plans out what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say it.

The movie is a laugh once they start paying attention. They’re dying by the end from how bad the special effects are and have a huge debate on whether people from the eighties actually thought they looked real, guffawing all the way through the credits and several reruns of the menu screen.

Chanyeol leaves first, disappearing into the shower, so Baekhyun distracts himself on his phone for a while until a wet and dripping Chanyeol appears in the doorway wearing only a towel and tells him that the bathroom is free. Baekhyun chokes on air and is frozen in place, absolutely stunned by Chanyeol’s naked chest and the tattoos his mind blearily remembers seeing on his hips and pectorals. He wishes he was paying more attention so he could log everything more accurately, but one thing is for certain, Chanyeol is hot, and Baekhyun doesn’t seem to be able to compute or store this information without malfunctioning.

In the shower, he rehearses his lines like he’s about to perform the main role in a school play. He tries to guess Chanyeol’s reactions, even the negative ones, and discovers that imagining Chanyeol getting upset physically hurts. He needs to be careful about this. He needs to let Chanyeol know that the door is open without forcing him through the door or guilt tripping him through the door, then everything will be okay and Baekhyun will have succeeded.

He starts to wonder whether Chanyeol showed up in a towel deliberately to tease him. They’ve been together officially for almost a month now. Perhaps Chanyeol is ready to go further. It’s weird to think that they’ve only been like this for four weeks. It feels like a lot longer, somewhere around two months longer, and Baekhyun regrets being so worried, so hesitant and so timid before. He starved himself of Chanyeol’s happiness for no real good reason and he can’t quite comprehend his own stupidity.

Chanyeol’s previous confidence of strutting around half naked succeeds in making Baekhyun feel brave. He leaves the shower and dries himself off, then secures his towel around his hips and gathers the clothes he stripped off in his arms. He has a bit of a lasagne-tum, with his stomach being a bit more rounded than usual, but he’s not ashamed of it in the least. He can be squishy enough for the both of them, as Chanyeol is certainly not squishy at all.

When he enters the bedroom, Chanyeol looks up at him and freezes. Baekhyun instantly feels something shoot through his chest, fretting over if this was a mistake, but then Chanyeol’s eyes glaze over, his lids fall to half mast, and he’s staring. Openly. Like it’s Baekhyun on the menu for dinner.

Baekhyun pretends he hasn’t noticed. He walks straight to the bed, drops his clothes, and then opens Chanyeol’s wardrobe to find something to wear. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, either from paranoia or because Chanyeol is still watching, so just in case he is, Baekhyun grabs one of Chanyeol’s long t-shirts with a hole in the armpit and slips into it gracefully, purposefully dropping his towel before the shirt has covered is ass.

Chanyeol clears his throat, and then he starts typing again. The absence of silence makes Baekhyun realise that Chanyeol hasn’t been typing the whole time. He has been watching, Baekhyun thinks smugly, turning around as if nothing happened and going to hang his towel up in the bathroom.

“Do you mind if I nab some underwear?” Baekhyun asks as he enters the bedroom again, doing just that when Chanyeol nods and shuts down his computer.

“I didn’t quite meet my goal but I’ll just do it tomorrow,” he says through a yawn, turning around in his chair to face Baekhyun as he stretches his arms up into the air.

Baekhyun leisurely slides into the underwear and snaps the waistband against his skin, finding Chanyeol pretty much engrossed in his actions. “Can I talk to you about something?” Baekhyun asks, forcing the words out between reluctant lips. The time is now and he won’t back down, even if he’s suddenly scared of all those images of Chanyeol getting upset coming to life.

“Sure.” Chanyeol doesn’t seem worried as they both slip into bed beside one another. Only the lamp on his side of the bed is on, Baekhyun making the split-second decision to turn it off before he lies down and faces Chanyeol, trying to make this as less intimidating as possible.

“What is it?” Chanyeol’s voice is just above a whisper, so maybe he is worried. Baekhyun’s nerves get the better of him at that, and he takes too long to respond. Chanyeol starts to fidget, and now that Baekhyun’s eyes have adjusted to the dark he can see him biting his lip. He scolds himself for delaying, then drives words from his mouth just to get himself talking, mind completely blank and sentences nothing like what he just practised in the shower.

“I—Lately, I’ve been thinking some—thinking about us.” Baekhyun’s face burns with embarrassment. He takes a deep breath to calm down his pounding heart and tries to start again. “Okay, I’ve been thinking about us. Our relationship. What we’re like with one another.”

“Okay,” Chanyeol says, holding his breath.

“I just—Ah, I’m trying to figure out a way to say this without it sounding awkward,” he laughs at himself, but Chanyeol looks down in defeat and Baekhyun realises how his words can be interpreted, rushing to amend them. “Basically,” he starts impulsively, not really thinking about anything other than cheering Chanyeol up and making him smile again. “I’m in a place now where I feel we’ve been together long enough to… move forward. So, what I’m trying to say is that I’m ready, for that kind of stuff, whenever you’re ready too.”

Chanyeol lets out the biggest breath and Baekhyun chews on his lip, wondering the extent of the anxiety he’s inflicted.

“You mean sex?” Chanyeol asks bluntly and Baekhyun, somewhat out of place, tears into laughter. “Why are you laughing?” Chanyeol chuckles, finally seeming okay again, propping himself up on an elbow and looking down at Baekhyun from his vantage point.

“You just said it so bluntly and here I am tripping over my own tongue.”

Chanyeol shrugs. “I don’t know,” he chuckles. “That’s… That’s what you mean, right?”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun sighs to collect himself, absently stroking the side of his face, “that’s what I mean.”

Chanyeol adopts a little smile, looking shy but pleased. “Okay. I’m ready for that too.”

Baekhyun gulps. It’s happening. “G-Great,” he breathes in wonder, then catching himself and toning it down a little. “And, uh, I just want to clarify that sex for me isn’t just anal,” Baekhyun hums, caressing Chanyeol’s cheek because it’s so smooth from his recent shave. “I mean, I know it’s a hassle and everything and sometimes it doesn’t even feel good, and you might not even be interested in that and that’s really okay, so I just want you to know that I’m perfectly happy with other kinds of sex. It’s not anal or nothing.”

Baekhyun smiles through the bluntness of his last line, but it seems to bring comfort to Chanyeol who relaxes against the pillow, the duvet sagging with his body. Baekhyun’s hand follows him, remaining cupped against the side of his face that’s only a little way away from his own.

“That’s really considerate of you.” Chanyeol reaches out to hold his hand under the duvet and Baekhyun subconsciously edges closer still. “I actually do enjoy it. I don’t do it too often though because of how long it can take to be ready but it does feel good. I’m actually good either way, to be honest. Anal or no anal. Giving or receiving. Whatever suits you.”

“Yeah?” Baekhyun asks shyly, so close now that he can knock the tip of Chanyeol’s nose with his own. The air is minty and warm between them, Chanyeol smelling of toothpaste and deodorant, and Baekhyun takes his hand out of Chanyeol’s so that he can wrap it around Chanyeol’s waist instead, his other still against his face now thumbing at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah.” Chanyeol kisses him briefly just because he’s there, setting Baekhyun off in a daze. “What about you?”

“I…” Baekhyun slides his hand from Chanyeol’s waist to his ass, daring to plant his palm on one of his cheeks and curl his fingers into uncharted territory. “If you’re good either way then I think we’ll be more than okay.”

Chanyeol bites his lip and smiles. “I thought so.”

It doesn’t happen straight away, albeit they do talk about it more. They both get tested at the medical practice in Edgebank, then Baekhyun braves the dark side of Amazon to find lube and other necessities that they can’t buy locally. There’s no rush, though. Baekhyun’s patience has come back to him now that his wants and needs are out in the open and Chanyeol has both addressed them and accepted them. They’re waiting for it to happen naturally, when the moment feels right. Baekhyun’s just excited to get a look at Chanyeol’s tattoos. He is anticipating it though. Hungrily. He’s not sure whether he should make the first move or if Chanyeol is planning something, and, unfortunately for Baekhyun, he can’t read minds.

A week of bitter cold sweeps across the village, arguably untimely for mid-October. Baekhyun cleans the ash pan in the fireplace and readies it for a coal fire, thinking it will help to relax him after the new contract he’s just agreed to enter with an author wanting several concept arts for her work. Baekhyun doesn’t particularly like painting without reference images but he does love a challenge, and he hasn’t done something like this in a while either. It’ll be nice to paint something out of the ordinary.

Just as Baekhyun is placing coal over and around his burning log, he hears Chanyeol open and close his front door and kick off his shoes with a loud “Brrrrr.”

“Cold still?” Baekhyun calls over his shoulder as Chanyeol pops up in his doorway.

“Colder unfortunately.” He shudders on his way over, hands stuffed in the pockets of his body warmer. Baekhyun ignores the fire for a moment to raise himself on his knees, meeting Chanyeol halfway for a hello-kiss and smiling against his cool, dry lips.

“There’s Vaseline in the bathroom,” he teases, getting poked in the thigh by Chanyeol’s toes as he scoffs and leaves the room.

“I’ll make a start on dinner,” Chanyeol announces from the next room over, Baekhyun hearing the fridge opening and Chanyeol rooting through the drawers. “Ooo, chicken!”

Baekhyun chuckles to himself, dropping the blackened tongs in his coal bucket and standing up to position the fireguard in place. There’s a substantial amount of heat coming from the fire already and with enough luck, the room should warm up quite nicely without the need for central heating.

Baekhyun has been budgeting again this afternoon, his gas bills proving to be unnecessarily high as he went through his expenses. He suspects that it’s because the house is old. There are small cracks and gaps in the walls that let in the cool air, and his thermostats are inefficiently placed right next to the drafts that waft in. It’s a cost he needs to cut down on if he wants to remain financially stable.

“What are you planning on making?” he asks Chanyeol as he crosses the kitchen to the sink, quickly washing his hands and drying them off on a towel before pretending to dry them on Chanyeol’s jumper.

“Hey!” Chanyeol immediately squirms away, smacking Baekhyun on the arm pettily before going back to searching the cupboards. Baekhyun laughs happily at his reaction. “I figured maybe some kind of pasta bake thing. How’s that sound?”

Baekhyun nods in agreement and wraps his arms around Chanyeol’s middle. He presses his nose against Chanyeol’s spine, soaking up the warmth of his body, and releases a contented, dreamy sigh. Chanyeol is all his to squish. “Thanks for making dinner.”

“Well,” Chanyeol struggles to turn around. Eventually, Baekhyun lets him, keeping him in the loop of his arms, “you’re going to be my little helper, right?”

One of Baekhyun’s eyebrows raise and he stares up at Chanyeol in contest. “Little?”

Chanyeol mouth pops open and he goes red.

“What part of me is little, Chanyeol?”

“It’s just a saying!” Chanyeol cries, pouting and slipping his arms around Baekhyun’s neck as if to appease him.

Baekhyun just smirks, tugging him closer. “I have wider shoulders than you,” he starts his list, voice quiet and private as he narrows down the distance between them.

“I love your shoulders.” Chanyeol interrupts his list in the Chanyeol-est way possible. With compliments. “And your hips, I love those too. They’re also wider than mine.”

“Mhmm? Keep going.” Baekhyun bites his lip, keening under the attention and crowding into Chanyeol’s personal space. He mouths lightly at the underside of Chanyeol’s jaw, a tickling touch that makes Chanyeol’s skin tremor beneath his lips. He loves doing this to him, building the strength behind his kisses until Chanyeol is breathless and pliable in his hands. He has a feeling Chanyeol likes to be teased. Baekhyun likes teasing.

“And your thighs.”

Baekhyun stops for a second, nosing at the space where he’s just kissed. “You like my thighs, huh?” he whispers, pulling back to look into Chanyeol’s eyes, ignoring the dry skin around the nostrils of his nose from the swipes of too many rough tissues.

Chanyeol smirks, letting his arms slip a little before cupping both sides of Baekhyun’s neck in his hands, his elbows now in the space between them. “Why wouldn’t I like your thighs?”

“I—” Baekhyun catches himself, dropping his head so that he doesn’t have to look at Chanyeol’s eyes anymore. “All the pub food,” he chuckles self-deprecatingly. “I don’t know. I just think they’re a little fat. Sorry, I—I ruined the moment.” He looks up at Chanyeol apologetically while retracting his arms, intent on going to hide in the bathroom for a good ten minutes because he’s an idiot who can’t keep his mouth shut.

“Nope, you’re not getting away.” Chanyeol’s arms wrap around his waist in an instant and Baekhyun is cornered between the kitchen counter and the sink. “The pub food hasn’t been going easy on me either,” he says. “Just look at this double chin.” He forces his head back against his neck to emphasis what little fat is there, and Baekhyun appreciates Chanyeol’s attempt to cheer him up. “Besides, all I eat goes straight to my ass.”

“You say that likes it’s a bad thing,” Baekhyun snorts, eyes instinctively shooting down to examine what he can see before he realises that Chanyeol is staring right at him.

“Exactly.” Chanyeol looks pleased with himself. “I’ll let you into a little secret,” he whispers, bearing down on Baekhyun until his head is tipped backwards and he’s subject to Chanyeol’s lustful gaze. “I’m a thighs kind of guy.”

Baekhyun’s lips part in a huge grin as he slides his hands up Chanyeol’s chest and rests them on his shoulders. “I’m actually an ass kind of guy.”

“Then I think this is what you call a win-win situation, right?”

“Right.”

Chanyeol steals a kiss, then Baekhyun reels him in for more. He runs his hands through Chanyeol’s hair and coaxes his tongue out of his mouth, sucking on it for a fleeting moment before Chanyeol takes over and won’t let his top lip go. Chanyeol’s hands slip up and down his lower back, teasing at the waistline of his jeans, and Baekhyun rocks forward into the body directly in front of him, wanting to feel Chanyeol everywhere he moves.

Dinner gets delayed by about ten minutes. Baekhyun never thought that making out against the kitchen sink would be this erotic, but of course, it comes with problems, like when he puts his hand back into the leftover suds on the drainer and the stagnant water on the counter sinks into the back of his jumper. It’s all worth it though. Baekhyun gets to taste Chanyeol and have hands roaming his body, and he gets to play with Chanyeol’s sucking habit and completely mess up his hair.

When they break apart, dinner is the last thing on their minds. Baekhyun kind of wants to throw Chanyeol down on a dining chair and climb into his lap. But then Chanyeol’s stomach rumbles and he laughs like a little kid caught red-handed stealing chocolate from the kitchen cupboard, and Baekhyun can only kiss him with fondness from then on, smooching Chanyeol’s lips repeatedly as they laugh and amble back towards their cooking stations.

Baekhyun can sense something in the air while they make dinner. His anticipation has grown and it’s like static zips between them. Each time they brush hands or stand side-by-side, Baekhyun finds himself biting his lip. Something is going to happen, he thinks, and it does.

They head over to Chanyeol’s after they’ve cleaned up their dinner dishes and wiped away the mess Chanyeol made with the cheese sauce. Baekhyun’s work hours are over but Chanyeol’s are just beginning, and Baekhyun busies himself in the bath while Chanyeol starts tapping away at his computer keyboard, completely wired in with loud rock music blasting through his headphones.

Baekhyun loves Chanyeol’s bath. It’s almost long enough for him to lie completely flat in, there are handles on both sides that he sometimes pretends are the rows of a boat, and Chanyeol has a fun bath mat featuring whales and goldfish – something that must be new, since it wasn’t here last time. It’s strangely Chanyeol, even if it shouldn’t make sense for a man his age. Baekhyun can see Chanyeol as the type of guy to have a favourite rubber duck that he talks to on the toilet, and laughs to himself about it while mentally planning to buy him one for his birthday. That’s next month – Chanyeol’s birthday. He can’t just get him a rubber duck though. Baekhyun sniggers again, deciding that he can buy Chanyeol a wide array of different bath toys to go with it.

A knock on the door has him sitting up, the hot, soapy water sloshing around him. “Baek, do you mind if I use the toilet?”

Baekhyun heart skims a beat. “Yeah, sure! Just let me get my towel.” Baekhyun reaches for the plug, stopped then by Chanyeol’s words.

“You can stay in if you want. I won’t look. I’ll only be two seconds.”

He pauses, considering, and figures that that does make things easier. He settles back in the water, shuddering as it laps over his shoulders again and rises goosebumps on his skin. “Yeah, okay,” he calls back, watching eagerly as the door handle lowers and Chanyeol pops his hand through the slight crack to wave in warning.

“I’m coming in!”

Baekhyun laughs. “I know.”

A cool draught follows Chanyeol through the door, not that Baekhyun notices with how much he’s laughing at Chanyeol fashioning himself horse blinkers from his hands. He watches him scurry all the way to the toilet and lift up the lid, not having looked in his direction once.

“You can look, you know,” Baekhyun says just to tease, and immediately Chanyeol whips his head around to meet his eyes. Baekhyun smiles softly, tucked away against the side of the bath where Chanyeol can’t really see anything anyway. That doesn’t stop Chanyeol’s eyes from attempting to wander though. Baekhyun licks his lips when he catches him.

“Do you like my new bath mat?” Chanyeol asks conversationally, turning around all casual and knocking down his joggers a little.

Out of respect, Baekhyun turns away, sitting up with his knees against his chest and using his hands to move bubbles off the surface of the water so he can see the mat beneath. “I’m loving it,” he replies. “Very artsy.”

Chanyeol starts peeing, so Baekhyun presses his lips into his knee to stop himself from laughing. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about really, considering they both use urinals at the pub and when they go out. Then again, Baekhyun isn’t naked in the bath when that happens. He looks up when he hears the toilet flush, Chanyeol already washing his hands in the sink. He spritzes Baekhyun with cold water, his reflection in the mirror victoriously smirking.

“Low blow,” he warns, making Chanyeol grin. “How’s work coming along?” Baekhyun rests his forearms on the side of the tub, smiling as Chanyeol leans his back against the sink just so he can hang around a little longer and carry on their conversation. This is a nice moment. Just the two of them. Baekhyun wouldn’t mind it if Chanyeol joined him in the bath. It’s definitely big enough for the both of them.

“It’s going good.” Chanyeol nods, wiping his hands off on a small towel. “How’s your bath?”

“So much better than the one at my place,” Baekhyun sighs calmly, resting his chin down on his arm. He’s not sure what to say next, or rather, not sure what’s appropriate to say. To be honest, he would like Chanyeol to join him in the bath. While it’s nice and relaxing, it feels lonely when Baekhyun thinks about who he could be sharing it with. He also wants Chanyeol to look at him. See him. But perhaps now isn’t the right moment.

“Stay in for as long as you want. I’ll probably be finishing up in another couple of hours,” Chanyeol tells him as he pushes off the sink, staring obviously at the wall above Baekhyun’s head, spurring laughter out of him again.

“You’ll see it all at some point,” Baekhyun says smugly, smirking up at Chanyeol who’s gone a delightful shade of pink. Chanyeol laughs it off, coming to crouch by the side of the bath and hooking his fingers over the edge. Baekhyun cranes his neck to kiss him on the cheek, letting his knees drop into the water as he turns himself around to face Chanyeol more directly.

“I can’t wait to see you,” Chanyeol whispers heatedly out of nowhere, completely changing the tone of their conversation. His eyes are bold, that passion for eye contact pinning Baekhyun in a freeze-frame all over again. Baekhyun is only just formulating a reply, something like you don’t have to wait anymore, when Chanyeol pecks him on the lips and says, “But I have to get back to work.”

“You tease,” Baekhyun scoffs as Chanyeol exits the bathroom, only half-joking, but smiling at his boyfriend’s laughter as it gets quieter down the hallway.

Baekhyun decides to be civilised about it. Once he’s pruning badly, he lets the cooling water drain through the plug and quickly towels himself off. His hair is damp from the steam that rose from the water, so he ruffes it against his towel a few times on his way to the bedroom, trying to return to it the volume that it’s lost. He slings the towel over his shoulder when he gets to the wardrobe, pulling out the t-shirt and shorts he left here a few nights ago. They smell of laundry detergent and feel softer to the touch; Chanyeol must have washed them for him.

He dresses, sprays on deodorant, then heads back to the bathroom to brush his teeth. The kitchen is his next stop, where he grabs himself and Chanyeol both a glass of water and delivers it to him at his desk, service with a smile. Chanyeol kisses him as thank you, then spends the next fifteen minutes trying to explain to Baekhyun what he’s doing on his computer, his arms wrapped around Chanyeol’s neck and his head resting on his shoulder. Baekhyun stares blankly at the words and symbols that go into creating a website. He’s seeing a lot of brackets, slashes and ampersands next to words like ‘margin’, ‘border’ and ‘background’, and has no idea what any of it means.

“It looks great though!” Baekhyun insists when Chanyeol laughs at Baekhyun’s dumb face. “Really complex.” He nods approvingly. “I’m very impressed.”

Chanyeol, wreathed in smiles, pushes him off his shoulder and sets his hands back on the keyboard. Baekhyun chuckles, having an inkling that he’s made Chanyeol go shy with the compliments, and kisses his hair with a loud mwah before he flops down on the bed and reaches for the sketchbook he brought with him from home.

It’s another two and a half hours before Chanyeol announces that he’s met his goal. In that time, Baekhyun has filled three pages of his book with useless doodles, namely ducks doing and wearing various different things. His personal favourite is the disco duck, who has lightning bolt sunglasses.

Chanyeol yawns massively on his way over to the bed, plugging his phone into its charger on the nightstand and then stripping of his hoodie. The motion drags up the fabric of his t-shirt underneath, Baekhyun able to get a good look at his torso once again before Chanyeol is throwing his hoodie across the room and his hair is all fluffed up. He stops to kiss Baekhyun briefly, laying a hand on Baekhyun’s stomach, before he says he’ll be right back.

He goes to shower, taking half an hour in the bathroom, and drops into bed beside Baekhyun, watching him sketch without saying anything for a while. They just breathe. Baekhyun’s pencil whispers against his paper, the clock in the hallway ticks and the wind blows a little against the windows. In the warm lamplight, all feels cosy. Homey. Snug.

“Did my bath mat inspire this?” Chanyeol’s voice is deep when he speaks, probably from underuse, and Baekhyun stops where he’s shading in a pirate themed duck’s eyepatch.

“I did say it was artsy.”

Chanyeol chuckles, the sound husky, and then he turns off the lamp on his side of the bed. Baekhyun takes that as his cue to leave the duck trope alone and folds his stuff on the nightstand before engulfing them both in the dark. He is pretty tired, but he’s also been starved of Chanyeol while he was working and refuses to fall asleep before they’ve had a chance to chat.

When he lies down, he shuffles closer to where Chanyeol is, until their legs are touching and he can feel the air against his face when he breathes.

“Work okay?” he asks quietly, searching for one of Chanyeol’s hands under the duvet. Chanyeol has decided to hide his hands behind his back, however, so Baekhyun scoffs at him through Chanyeol’s childlike laughter and rests his hand on Chanyeol’s hip instead.

“Yeah. It does get repetitive though. Especially when I’m designing something plain. It can get really boring.”

Baekhyun sighs, stroking up and down Chanyeol’s side, maybe bunching up his t-shirt a little on the way. “It’s kind of like another language,” he ponders, “knowing all that stuff. I look at it and just see gibberish, to be honest.”

Chanyeol laughs breathily, warm. “It took years to learn, but it was something I wanted to be good at so it didn’t seem all that bad back then. It’s nothing like what you can do, though. You make magic come out of your hands.”

“Magic?” Baekhyun exhales through his nose, a quiet laugh that fuels Chanyeol’s following smile. “But you can’t compare the two. You just have a different kind of magic, is all.”

Chanyeol hums in thought, a hand revealing itself and drawing spirals on the pulse of Baekhyun’s wrist where his arm lies flat against the mattress. Baekhyun has the heat of Chanyeol’s bare waist under his hand now, caressing back and forth with his thumb. He feels relaxed, drowsy, but not all because he’s tired.

“I can’t believe I peed in front of you earlier.”

“You’ve done it before,” Baekhyun chuckles, sliding his hand down to Chanyeol’s spine and using his hold to pull himself closer. “It’s not like I’m going to be grossed out by you peeing.”

“I guess,” Chanyeol murmurs, other hand appearing and drawing shapes on Baekhyun’s stomach. “I wanted to join you in the bath so bad.”

Baekhyun hums in approval. “Me too. At home I use bath bombs, you know. It helps me relax.”

“Ah,” Chanyeol breathes. “We should make our first bath together explosive, you’re right.”

Baekhyun bursts out laughing, completely breaking the silence they’re wrapped up in. His hands come around Chanyeol’s face and he presses their foreheads together, continuing to share his joy with Chanyeol who smiles broadly after licking his lips. He watches Chanyeol blink, his eyelashes so long that he thinks he can feel them against his cheeks. Neither of them says anything, if their smiles don’t count. He continues to appreciate the dip of Chanyeol’s waist and the hint of fat at his hips, then the sleek line of his spine. He wants to tell Chanyeol how much he loves this, how much being with him makes him happy, but he can’t find the right words to express it.

“What are you thinking about?” Chanyeol whispers, one of his arms hugging Baekhyun towards him. Baekhyun doesn’t think he’s ever been so close to someone before, so immediate that it feels like their bodies are merging into one. He’d love to disappear in Chanyeol. He’d love to never leave his side.

“Just you,” he murmurs thoughtfully.

That answer seems to please Chanyeol, who kisses him tenderly on the mouth. Baekhyun doesn’t let him stop. He draws Chanyeol in for kisses, leaving small breaks in between to consider where he wants this to go. His heart has already made up his mind, as have his hands, and he worries over what Chanyeol is thinking when he starts grazing his knuckles down the length of his chest.

He presses his tongue against the seam of Chanyeol’s lips until he opens, then he’s drawn in by Chanyeol’s zest and skill and loses himself in a kiss that has his body heating up and his mind falling into disarray. The need to touch Chanyeol grows so strong that he can barely hold back when he gets to the waistband of his boxers.

“Is this okay?” he asks quickly.

A palm comes to cup his cheek and Baekhyun kisses it just because it’s there, opening his eyes to meet Chanyeol’s while he does so. Chanyeol’s heady watch has his arousal growing tenfold faster than it was before. He nods, letting Baekhyun’s hand pass beneath his clothes, and he moves forwards only the tiniest bit to reclaim his mouth.

He feels Chanyeol against his hand, the light brush making him gasp. With the boxers in the way, Baekhyun struggles to take him in his palm at an angle where he can move, hesitantly pulling back the waistband and easing his underwear to a lower height. Chanyeol lends a hand when he realises what Baekhyun is trying to do, nudging his underwear off his hips so that they slide freely down his legs and all the way to his ankles.

He’s heavy in his hand when Baekhyun finally gets to feel him, hard between his fingers and even wet towards the tip. He nudges Chanyeol onto his back where his legs spill open, kissing him down against the pillow from the height he has gained from resting on his elbow.

Chanyeol gasps into his mouth when he starts moving, his hands stroking all of Baekhyun they can find on their way around his waist. Baekhyun wraps Chanyeol in a tight ring and drags back and forth, having him thrust into the curl of his fingers, his thumb occasionally sweeping over his head. He kisses Chanyeol through his gasps and hisses and inhales, kisses him through the light, almost inaudible moans that grace the air. It feels wholesome. Natural. Not forced or awkward or uncomfortable. Pleasant in the way that Baekhyun is able to spoil Chanyeol like he’s been wanting to for a long time since they decided to try.

He picks up on little things, signs and quirks that express what Chanyeol doesn’t say. When it feels good, he’ll forget how to kiss for a moment, mind blank in bliss, but when it doesn’t feel so good after a change of position, he’ll start focusing more on Baekhyun, running his hands down his back and squeezing into his ass, thighs and hips. Baekhyun remembers the way he touches Chanyeol when his jaw goes slack and his tongue falls still, changing the tightness of his grip and the stretch of length he pleasures.

Chanyeol is sucking on his throat when he gasps, hands clamping down on Baekhyun’s waist. Beneath the duvet, his stomach clenches, drawing back away from Baekhyun’s hand as he pulls Chanyeol through his release. He jerks, shudders, and lets out the breath of air he was holding before his head drops back against the pillow. Baekhyun keeps going, running his palm over Chanyeol’s shaft before softly tracing lines on the underside.

This is different to how Baekhyun’s previous first encounters have gone. There have been times when he stripped down to nothing and got straight to the fucking; times when he wanted to show off and drive the other person mad with lust; even times where he was quick and rough because he was frustrated with foreplay and couldn’t wait any longer.

But this is gentle, careful. Baekhyun doesn’t spare a thought for himself or his needs right now, and that wasn’t one of his reasons in getting to this point either. The only thing he’s wanted for the past few weeks is to make Chanyeol feel good, to look after him and let him know just how much he means to him now that this is what they’ve become. He’s not even thinking about Chanyeol returning the favour, mind too preoccupied remembering the way Chanyeol breathed when he came, the way he shuddered and twitched against his palm, when he feels a hand on his inner thigh, slowly creeping upwards.

Chanyeol is staring at him, waiting, and Baekhyun wants to laugh about how he doesn’t even need to ask because Baekhyun would let Chanyeol do anything. Still, he nods, even breathes out a faint “Yes” before he kisses Chanyeol and runs his fingers through his hair. There’s probably come stuck to the wrong side of the duvet as they haven’t bothered to clean up, but for now it doesn’t matter. He spreads his legs at Chanyeol’s touch and allows himself to be taken care of, only now aware of how hard he is and how long it’s been since he’s felt this way, how long he’s wanted someone like this.

He’s glad, maybe even relieved, that he gets to do this with Chanyeol, a man so different from all the other people Baekhyun has been with before. Maybe every wrong turn was secretly taking him down the right path, and Baekhyun comes quickly with a soft exhale to the thought of Chanyeol being his final destination.

Chapter Text

Baekhyun wakes alone in bed the next morning. His arm stretches out and grasps around nothing, prompting his eyes to open and scan the room. Chanyeol is standing by the wardrobe, looking at himself in the mirror on the back of one of the open doors as he buttons up a white shirt. Baekhyun pauses, just watching, as Chanyeol then pulls out his tie hanger and chooses which one to wear.

Lazily, Baekhyun scratches at his stomach, reminiscing about last night and the touches Chanyeol laid on his skin. It makes him sigh, fulfilled, though he laments not getting to wake up to Chanyeol beside him. Looking over him now, in a shirt and a pair of smart, black trousers, Baekhyun can still only imagine what he looks like fully naked. But now he knows what he feels like, and he feels amazing.

“Morning.”

Baekhyun blinks and tears his eyes away from Chanyeol’s ass to his reflection the mirror, blushing. He didn’t realise he was staring. “Morning,” he croaks, clearing his throat after and sitting up slightly in bed. “Why are you up so early?” he asks, briefly checking the bedside clock and seeing that it’s only just gone past ten. Chanyeol isn’t supposed to get out of bed until noon or later. Why are they missing out on cuddle time?

Meanwhile, Chanyeol picks out a tie and slots the hanger back on the rack, turning to Baekhyun and approaching the bed as he slips it around his neck. “It’s Friday so I have my weekly meeting in Hapton.”

Baekhyun feels dumb for not remembering. “Oh, right. I remember you saying.” Still, he mourns what should have been a nice morning snuggle, despite the fact that Chanyeol looks illegal right now as he gets ready for work. His shirt hugs his broad shoulders and his trousers cup his ass in just the right way. It’s not fair that he only ever wears jeans and hoodies around him when he looks this good all dressed up.

“Do you dress up like this every week?” Baekhyun asks, genuinely confused. “Where have I been? Why am I missing this?”

Snorting, Chanyeol finishes tying his tie and perches on the edge of the bed, flattening down his collar. “Yeah, every week. I don’t really like it though so as soon as I get home I tend to change.”

Baekhyun’s eyes drop down Chanyeol’s body and back up again. Wow. “I can help with that later,” he murmurs without thinking, imagining undressing Chanyeol and getting carried away. His eyes shoot up in panic when he realises what he just said. “I-If you want.”

“That would be interesting.” Chanyeol smirks and shrugs, twisting his torso around and planting a hand down on the other side of Baekhyun’s hip. He’s leaning directly over Baekhyun’s pelvis and it’s making Baekhyun feel things. “Do I get a smelly good morning kiss?”

Baekhyun’s heart flutters and he smiles stupidly. “Not a smelly one,” he insists, sitting up and throwing the duvet to the side. “I’ll brush my teeth first.”

“Cup of tea?” Chanyeol asks as Baekhyun stretches and starts heading to the bathroom. Chanyeol’s touch lingers on his waist for a moment, the two of them walking single file as Baekhyun tries to touch the ceiling and fails.

“Yes, please.” He grins happily over his shoulder as he leaves the room, his stomach flipping when Chanyeol smiles back. A good morning kiss paired with a sexy man in a suit is more than enough to fluster Baekhyun and make his cheeks burn. Believe it or not, he’s been deprived of suit wearing men for most of his life, save for family members who definitely don’t count. His first two boyfriends never really made an effort and Sehun was more the turtle-neck type, so Baekhyun has never had the pleasure of pulling on someone’s tie to lead them to the bedroom or the joy of teasing shirt buttons undone one by one with his teeth.

Baekhyun stares himself down in the bathroom mirror, hands clamped on the edges of the sink. Chanyeol in crisp white cotton and a silk neck piece is forcing him to come to terms with an unanticipated businessman fetish, and he’s not sure how to feel about that other than turned on. Really turned on.

Later, he tells himself, getting to brushing his teeth so he can give Chanyeol the good morning kiss he politely requested. Baekhyun smiles and accidentally dribbles toothpaste over himself, the mint burning his chin before it dollops onto the shirt he wore to bed. He tries to wipe it clean to no avail and prays that Chanyeol won’t notice.

“Been drooling?” is obviously the first thing that comes out of his boyfriend’s mouth when he steps into the kitchen.

Baekhyun groans, rolling his eyes and immediately pulling Chanyeol against his chest when he’s in reach. “I have good reason to be drooling,” he says lowly, bringing back a hand to wrap around the black tie dangling from Chanyeol’s throat.

“You like the suit?”

Baekhyun feels hands on his hips and tries to stifle a shiver. “I more than just like it.” He reaches up to give Chanyeol his kiss, the zest of his tongue perhaps too much for such an early hour, and then he’s cockblocked by the kettle coming to a boil.

“Minty,” Chanyeol comments, wiggling his eyebrows as he slips away to pour hot water into two mugs. Baekhyun watches him go, paying particular attention to the silver cufflinks at the ends of his sleeves, and starts to wonder whether Chanyeol has a thing for flavoured kisses. Come to think of it, that would actually be a fun game.

“What time will you be back later?” he asks, fetching the milk from the fridge.

“I’m usually back between five and six. Depends how long the meeting lasts and then on traffic which can be pretty bad around Hapton. I’ll keep you updated, though. Tell you when I leave.”

Baekhyun’s smile spreads behind his mug as he has a sip of (minty) tea. “Alright. I’ll probably just be working all day. Make a start on the concept art I have to do.”

“What exactly do you have to draw?” Chanyeol grabs the bread from the cupboard and pops two slices in the toaster, moving around the kitchen without a single clumsy bone in his body.

Baekhyun quickly finds two plates and the margarine from the fridge, laying it out in the counter while he replies. “I can’t tell you. It’s top secret.”

“You’re having me on.”

“I’m not!” Baekhyun laughs, headbutting Chanyeol’s arm and then swivelling him around so they’re facing each other. His hands instinctually latch onto Chanyeol’s waist. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy. I can’t tell you her name or her book title, and I can’t show you my drawings either. It’s a highly anticipated book. If information leaks through me, I’m done for.”

“You don’t trust me?” Chanyeol pouts, puffing out his bottom lip and arching his eyebrows upwards.

“I’d rather not take the risk.” Baekhyun smiles warmly as he pokes Chanyeol’s mouth to get it to return to normal.

Their toast pops up behind them and they drop the conversation. “We could go to the pub for dinner? We haven’t been in a while.”

Baekhyun considers it. “We went last week.”

“Exactly! So long ago.”

“Sure,” Baekhyun shrugs, absently tucking Chanyeol’s shirt in more neatly beneath his belt, “sounds nice.” His skin is warm, Baekhyun notes, and as Chanyeol butters their toast, he lets his fingers linger beneath the waistline of his trousers, digging his nose into Chanyeol’s back between his shoulder blades and laughing when Chanyeol seems tickled. “I’ve found a weak spot,” Baekhyun announces with a grin, pressing his forehead against Chanyeol’s back for a moment before he retreats and leads him to the dining table. They eat in relative peace, albeit Chanyeol threatens him with finding all his sensitive spots later and torturing him with them. Baekhyun can’t wait.

He kisses Chanyeol out the door once he’s put his suit jacket on, telling him to “Drive safe” as he ducks into the driver’s seat and shuts the door. Baekhyun is dressed now, walking down Chanyeol’s driveway ready to go home and work all day, slave in front of a computer screen and skype call his client. He still doesn’t have an exact vision for what he’s going to do, but if it turns out well he could end up being the book cover; his wallet dances at all the potential royalty payments he could get.

A loud horn makes Baekhyun jump. He almost twists his ankle on landing, catching himself at the last second, and he turns around to glower at Chanyeol cackling in his car that has creeped up behind him.

“You think you’re so funny!” Baekhyun shouts, feigning upset before standing completely still and blocking Chanyeol’s path. The sound of Chanyeol’s window sliding down is followed by a wolf whistle. Baekhyun can clearly see the way his eyes roam his body and he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it. Still, he’s responsible enough to know that Chanyeol needs to get a move on and he’s delaying his journey, so he steps to the side of the driveway to let him pass and meets his wave with a blown kiss before he leaves.

As expected, Baekhyun spends a good three hours on skype with his author, asking her about her mythical concepts for man and beasts because he hasn’t read any of the previous novels in her series; by the end, Baekhyun is thinking that perhaps he should. He stares down at the minutes he noted and tries to decipher both what he’s actually written and then what it actually means. In one corner he’s scribbled something that looks like blood tiara loop and spends a good hour or so decoding what he’s got and organising it into lists.

Time passes by quite quickly considering how frustrated Baekhyun is with this project already. He accepted it under the pretence that he loved a challenge, but now he’s starting to think that was his subconscious’ way of tricking him into thinking it wasn’t for the money. Everything is about money. There are hundreds of places and people that he would love to paint but they just wouldn’t be profitable. It’s a painful trade-off that he’s had to come to terms with, and luckily it has left him with a smidge more free time than he used to have seeing as he’s been working himself into the ground for almost nine years running.

Lunchtime is lonely and he breaks up the afternoon with a bubble bath, throwing an orange bath bomb into the water and watching it fizzle for a good couple of minutes before he moves to get in. A lot of the ones he has have crumbled during their delivery, so he saves those for last and treats them as though he gets multiple bombs in one.

True enough, Chanyeol texts him throughout the day, Baekhyun grinning at his phone the same as he would if he were watching cute kitten videos on his social media feed.

Chanyeol

16th October

[Arrived] 11:26

[The co-worker that I hate is here ¬_¬] 11:34

[okay I don’t hate her she’s just annoying] 11:35

[About to start the meeting! I’ll text you when it’s done x] 11:54

Baekhyun stares at that kiss for a stupidly long time after he’s opened up all the messages.

[Have fun! x] he replies with great enthusiasm, knowing that Chanyeol probably won’t see it until afterwards.

Afterwards turns out to be almost four hours later. Baekhyun assumes that all that time can’t have just been the meeting, but seeing as Chanyeol only has one physical meeting a week it very well could be.

[Meeting over. I’ll text you when I leave x] 15:43

[Leaving the office now. ETA 5.15] 16:06

[Unless traffic is bad :((( ] 16:07

It’s not a large gesture. It only takes two seconds to send a text. And yet Baekhyun feels high off of it. Not only does he know what Chanyeol is doing and that he’s safe, but Chanyeol is thinking of him when he’s not even there, something that others have failed to do on so many occasions. He starts to feel bad for not texting back as much, wishing he’d given Chanyeol updates too, but realises that I’m eating lunch and I am now cleaning myself aren’t really that substantial as far as importance goes.

[Drive safe <3] 16:10

When they meet each other in the pub just past six, Baekhyun is still not accustomed to seeing Chanyeol in a suit. If anything, it makes him realise how bereft he’s been all day. They eat and drink beer with good conversation, and then they’re heading back to Chanyeol place and Baekhyun is tugging on Chanyeol’s tie, leading him to the bedroom with it just like he’s always wanted to do.

They can barely keep their hands off each other after that. They walk the village hand in hand, take cheesy selfies together and random pictures of one another even when people are looking. They even head to the movies one night in Edgebank per Baekhyun’s suggestion. It’s another sweet evening in a long line of bliss and Baekhyun couldn’t be happier. Everything with Chanyeol is fun and exciting and brand new, and though Baekhyun knows that eventually they’ll start running short on first experiences, he’s determined to cherish them while they last.

Over the next few days, they have dinner with Minseok’s family, visit Vanessa for her baby shower (she was scandalised at their linked hands) and visit Mrs Parker for breakfast in the tea room to shamelessly flirt with her a little about her newly dyed hair. She starts referring to them as ‘my boys’ and all Baekhyun can do is blush and grin at him and Chanyeol being recognised as a unit.

“Oh!” Baekhyun jumps one night, eyes wide at his phone screen where a banner advertisement is showing the silhouette of a girl swinging through alphabet letters. “Chanyeol, do you like musicals?”

Chanyeol looks up from his computer, swivelling around in his desk chair to behold Baekhyun sprawled messily across his bed. “I guess so? I haven’t really been to one before. Why’d you ask?” He starts wheeling himself across the floor until he’s at the edge of the bed, only a few inches from Baekhyun’s face as he’s lying on his stomach in the wrong direction.

“Matilda is touring and they’re doing a few shows in Hapton. I’ve been wanting to see it for ages.”

“Are there still tickets left?”

“I think so.” He looks up at Chanyeol hopefully, finding his boyfriend’s eyes glued to his phone screen watching the ad play over and over. “Can we go?”

Chanyeol sighs, stretching his arms above his head before he folds himself over and presses his elbows into the covers, chin resting in his palms. “What are you going to do for me?” he teases, and Baekhyun smirks, grabbing him by the collar of his hoodie.

They book the theatre for the following weekend, just managing to snag two seats in the stalls towards the back. Tucked beneath the balcony and conveniently close to the toilets – and without any freakishly tall people in front of them – Baekhyun allows himself to be excited, taking his seat on the Saturday night with his newly purchased programme clutched in his hands.

“Musicals are where they sing, right?” Chanyeol asks, currently holding two strawberry slushes and waiting for Baekhyun to unfold his seat so he can sit down.

“Yes.” Baekhyun doesn’t know whether Chanyeol is pulling his leg or not. “But they talk too. It’s not one of those musicals where they literally sing everything.”

“Oh good,” Chanyeol chirps. “Those are so annoying. Here.” He hands Baekhyun his slush and then leans over his shoulder to get a good nosy at the program, Baekhyun flipping through the cast headshots printed in black and white. “Look at all those happy smiley people,” Chanyeol remarks, shivering when he drinks.

“Yup. The children are really talented, though. They’re really something.”

The lights dim and the opening chords play, Baekhyun gasping as the stage starts to come to life.

“Enjoy the show, Baek,” Chanyeol whispers in his ear, sneaking in a kiss on the cheek that rapidly breaks Baekhyun’s concentration.

“You too,” he says and kisses him back, wrapping their hands together.

The show, in short, is incredible. It’s heartfelt and powerful and magical, rebellious too, but what Baekhyun loves the most is Chanyeol trying to sing the songs on the way back to the car. Baekhyun hates Hapton; there’s no nature, no fresh air, no peace and quiet. Surprisingly Chanyeol makes it bearable. He creates a game of hopscotch on the pavement tiles and window shops through metal shutters. He looks enchanting under the glow of neon lights and LED advertisement screens several storeys high, and Baekhyun sees shops and cafes that he’d like to try where he can pick out clothes for Chanyeol and enjoy tea with him in the company of cats or old books.

He suggests they stop quickly at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop to make sure they’re properly awake for the drive home, and Baekhyun enjoys being surrounded by all the grandeur. He doesn’t feel lost or insignificant. With Chanyeol, he feels like he has a place anywhere and everywhere. But Baekhyun could never give up home.

Across from him, Chanyeol chugs down a coffee with a look of disgust. Baekhyun, on the other hand, is picking the marshmallows from the top of his hot chocolate and laughing at Chanyeol’s misery.

“Bitter?”

“Just disgusting.” Chanyeol shudders. He hates coffee but recognised it as the most caffeinated item on the menu. Sacrifices must be made to stay awake.

They continue their walk back to the car, the roads and pavements around them unnervingly busy for this time of night. He sticks close to Chanyeol’s side as they head past a large gang of men, even more so when they round a corner and find people doing drugs. There will always be this side of the city, Baekhyun realises, and what admiration he had for it is now diminished again. If Chanyeol ever has to move here for work, Baekhyun doesn’t know what he’ll do.

Chanyeol slips his arm around Baekhyun’s waist for the rest of the walk, and then they’re strapping themselves into the car seats and Chanyeol is turning on the engine. They have the radio on low and the heating on high, talking about the musical once more to highlight which parts they did and didn’t like.

“Miss Trunchbull though! She was scary as hell! How much makeup did that actress need to look like that?” Chanyeol exclaims, eyes wide but never leaving the road. They’ve just passed Edgebank and are leaving streetlamps behind, entering the looming darkness of narrow country roads with the beamer headlights on.

“You think that was a woman?!” Baekhyun cries, bursting out laughing. “Miss Trunchbull is played by a man you know! No woman can look like that! Doesn’t matter how much makeup there is.”

“You’re kidding me! I hope you’ve still got that program because I want a look at it when we get home.”

“I have it right here with the walnuts you bought to look healthy and never ate,” Baekhyun says, waving the program in the air before he puts it back on his lap again. He decides to open Chanyeol’s abandoned packet of walnuts and eat them for himself. They’re not actually that bad considering Baekhyun doesn’t usually like the flavour.

“I was just so absorbed in the musical, alright?” Chanyeol chuckles, glancing at him for a split-second. “My jaw was on the floor the whole time anyway, I couldn’t eat.”

“Of course,” snorts Baekhyun. “That’s why you stole half my ice cream.”

“I did not steal half! One, you offered it to me, and two, it’s not my fault the tub was so small! And they’re really charging a fiver for that! It’s daylight robbery.”

Sighing, Baekhyun rests back in his chair and focuses on the dark road again. “It really is,” he says. “A bottle of water was three pounds alone.”

“Exactly!” chimes Chanyeol, repositioning his grip on the steering wheel before glancing at the heating and turning the dial down a little. “If I was desperate, I would have just waited for it to start raining.”

Baekhyun laughs loudly, resting his elbow on the car window and wiping his eyes with his hand. “Or you could take your own water bottle with you?”

Chanyeol freezes, mouth suspended half open. “Oh. I didn’t think of that! See, this is why I need you, you think of everything.”

Baekhyun fizzles, shaking his head and smiling into his fingers. “And I need you to protect me from gangs and alcoholics.”

“Nah, you don’t need protecting. You’re my strong man. But, I will protect your ice cream.”

“Yeah?” Baekhyun chuckles, looking over at him while popping another walnut in his mouth. “Will you hide it somewhere I’ll never be able to find it?” Baekhyun itches to tickle Chanyeol’s tummy but doesn’t want to distract him. He’ll just save that for later.

“You betcha,” Chanyeol quips. “No one – not even me – will ever see it aga—”

Chanyeol slams on the breaks. Gears crunch, the car jerks to a dead stop. The seat belt cuts into his body as he’s forced forwards, Baekhyun blinded by sudden headlights beaming over the bonnet directly towards them. He’s disorientated and shocked, can still feel the throw of his stomach and the belt slicing through the skin on his neck. In a way, he still feels like there’s a force trying to hurl him forwards, though they’ve completely stopped and are frozen in place, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

“Are you okay?”

Baekhyun blinks, blank, and gapes at Chanyeol who looks insanely worried in the driver’s seat.

“Baek, are you hurt anywhere?”

Eventually, after the car in front of them reduce to their regular headlights, Baekhyun finds his bearings and rediscovers his voice. “N-No, I’m fine. What just happened?” His heart is racing and his hands feel shaky, confused more than anything about why there is a car in front of them and where it came from. It’s only a foot or so away from the end of their bonnet. It would have come crashing straight into them if it weren’t for Chanyeol’s quick reaction.

“Idiots driving like maniacs,” Chanyeol mutters disdainfully, repositioning his grip on the steering wheel and leaving sweat marks behind.

“Are you okay, Chanyeol?” Baekhyun finally gets around to asking, sitting up straight in his seat and reaching a hand over to touch his shoulder. Chanyeol seems to relax beneath his hand but he still appears shaken, face ghostly white and shining with panicked perspiration.

“I’m fine. I’m good to drive. I’m mostly just angry.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Baekhyun attempts to placate him, stroking the nape of his neck and speaking softly to calm the anxiety in the air. “Let’s just get home.”

“Yeah, okay.” Chanyeol nods rapidly, looking like he’s gearing himself up to drive again.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive? I can call someone to come and get us if we need to. Jongdae lives around here. We’d both fit in his truck.”

Chanyeol shakes his head as fast as he’d nodded. “No, I should be fine. I’ll just go really slow for the rest of the way if that’s alright.”

“Of course that’s alright,” Baekhyun says earnestly, giving his arm a squeeze as the other car starts to reverse out of the way. “Do what you can and if you don’t want to drive anymore, we can call someone. It’s okay.”

Chanyeol nods then restarts the engine. Slowly, they creep around the offending car once it has reversed into a passing place at the side of the road, and from then on they maintain a speed of only twenty miles an hour just to be safe. Baekhyun doesn’t mind the delay to their journey. He’d rather be safe than go through the windscreen, and by the time they reach home, all he wants to do is cuddle up with Chanyeol in bed and make sure he’s okay.

“Thank god I drank that coffee,” is the first thing Chanyeol says when he kills the engine.

Baekhyun looks at him, worried because he’s worried, and quickly takes up his palm to kiss the back of his hand. “Come on, let’s get inside.” He immediately puts the kettle on when they enter the kitchen, more to help soothe Chanyeol’s nerves than deliver him more caffeine.

“I’m gonna go shower,” Chanyeol says once he’s finished locking the front door, and Baekhyun doesn’t see him again until ten minutes later when he creeps back into the kitchen barefoot wearing a black, fluffy dressing gown. His hair is wet and `, and when he pushes it back from his forehead it rebelliously flops forwards again. Once Baekhyun has handed him his tea, he reaches up to part his hair in such a way that it’ll stay out of his eyes, smiling when Chanyeol closes his eyes momentarily under his touch.

“You okay?” he asks again quietly, running his hands up and down Chanyeol’s arms and smiling encouragingly up at him.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol reaches behind him to place his mug down on the counter, “I’m just glad you’re okay, to be honest.” He runs his hands from Baekhyun’s face to his shoulders to his waist, as if checking for scratches and bruises. There aren’t any, thanks to Chanyeol.

“I’m okay as long as you’re okay. Let’s go sit down, yeah?” Baekhyun’s worried about him, verging on wrapping him up in his arms and protecting him from the world for at least three days straight. Highly impractical but greatly needed.

Chanyeol takes a deep breath, picking up his tea again. They turn off the lights in the kitchen and the hallway, heading down to the bedroom where Baekhyun changes his clothes and they settle down under the duvet, deciding to watch a few inconsequential YouTube videos to cheer themselves up.

Baekhyun is trying not to think about what could have happened, if they were driving a little faster or Chanyeol hit the brakes a little later, but it still crops up in his mind anyhow. He buries his face in Chanyeol’s neck, smiling every time he hears him slurp up his tea and then swallow it down, and slips a hand beneath his robe to lay over his heart. It’s still beating, they’re alive, but he still clings onto Chanyeol like he’s afraid he’ll lose him, like this is nought but a dream that will disappear too soon.

Chanyeol puts on another gaming video and lets out a few laughs at the player’s expense. Baekhyun isn’t watching, but from the significant amount of swearing that’s playing through the room he reckons that this guy is either dying or terrified of something awful. Baekhyun wonders how Chanyeol can be so amused, and watches Chanyeol’s face in place of his phone screen, smiling whenever he smiles, grinning whenever he laughs, kissing his jaw whenever he sighs. Chanyeol looks at him, so Baekhyun kisses his lips.

Where his hand is still against Chanyeol’s skin, Baekhyun curls his fingers in to scratch, chasing down a nipple that he starts to rub in circles with his thumb. The remnants of adrenaline pump through his system, a high from what he supposes was a near-death experience, and he intends to direct that energy towards Chanyeol. Slowly, he begins to peel back his robe.

Once Baekhyun is in Chanyeol’s lap, YouTube video discarded somewhere on the mattress, he’s able to undress Chanyeol’s top half completely. There’s a line of cursive inked on his left breastbone, Chanyeol watching him intently as he reads it, a finger underlining the script that says ‘In here you’ll stay’. Baekhyun kisses the words gently, wondering what or who they could be referring to, then sinks lower to take Chanyeol’s nipple into his mouth.

Already, there’s a hand clasping his hair, a gasp breaking the silence. Baekhyun lathers Chanyeol with his tongue, switching to the other nipple when he has it hardened and wet. There are other tattoos further down that Baekhyun touches with his hands: a soundwave under his ribcage, a flowering daffodil on his hip, the stem of which winds into the word ‘again’. Two sparrows lie in flight beneath his belly button and Baekhyun is thoroughly awed by whoever it was that inked Chanyeol’s skin with such splendid art.

“Someday, I want you to explain these to me,” Baekhyun whispers, fingers falling down Chanyeol’s chest until they catch on the robe tie and pull it loose.

Chanyeol kisses him, planting hands on Baekhyun’s hips and massaging circles into his skin. They breathe in the same air and share the same space, until Baekhyun is topless and has Chanyeol’s mouth on his chest, sucking skin between his teeth to make his own form of art. Baekhyun grinds against him, rocking his hips down on Chanyeol’s to get the friction he yearns for.

This is the first time Baekhyun has seen Chanyeol’s body all at once. Admittedly, he would have liked more clothes to tease off him. A pair of jeans with a zipper, a t-shirt he can slowly push up. But being able to slowly pull the robe apart, revealing Chanyeol’s flesh inch by inch, is something Baekhyun never knew he wanted to do. He follows the path the robe has made for him, kissing down Chanyeol’s body between the two sides of the fabric, even using his hands to drag Chanyeol’s hips forwards so he is lying down more than sitting up, and he spends some time turning the skin around his tattoos pink.

Chanyeol is panting heavily by the time Baekhyun takes him in his mouth, after spending a few moments innocently kissing his tip, watching him intently, before sliding his tongue down the shaft and swallowing him in the process. His hands are busy easing Chanyeol’s thighs apart, his dressing gown misshapen on his body, the material spilling without modesty or care and hiding nothing it was made to hide. His soft skin smells of the soap he just used, though his flesh is rough in places where his kempt hairs lie beneath his navel.

From their increasingly frequent pleasures before this, Baekhyun has come to realise that neither of them makes a great deal of noise. Their breaths tell all – the inhales, the exhales, the sighs and the gasps. So when Chanyeol moans, just lightly, as Baekhyun aims his mouth lower and lower, Baekhyun swells with pride and determination. It feels good to make Chanyeol feel good, his actions backed by an intense fervour he’s never felt before.

His tongue continues down, until Chanyeol’s thighs are pushed all the way back and Baekhyun is free to nibble at his skin and lick around where he waxes. Chanyeol brought it up when Baekhyun found his wax strips in the bathroom, hunting for a plaster to cover the blister on his foot. It makes him feel cleaner to wax down there, he explained, and Baekhyun has nothing against it. If anything, it turns him on even more.

With Chanyeol freshly showered, Baekhyun has no reason to hold back. He swipes his tongue up and over the bud that twitches and clenches beneath him, tasting only soap and skin, perhaps a little sweat too. He teases the quivering flesh by clamping down on it with his mouth and hollowing his cheeks, hinting at pushing inside just to hear Chanyeol gasp in surprise. His hand blindly tries to locate Chanyeol’s arousal and finds that he’s already touching himself, so he retreats and uses both his hands to hold Chanyeol’s cheeks open while his eyes stare him down from the other side of Chanyeol’s working wrist.

“Is this good?” Baekhyun whispers, lips brushing against Chanyeol’s sensitive skin when he speaks.

Chanyeol laughs airily, smile sublime. He’s still working himself but it feels like the motion is in the background. Baekhyun sees past Chanyeol’s wrist and his cock and drowns in his eyes, reaching down to kiss the inside of his thigh when Chanyeol admits that it feels amazing and he doesn’t want him to stop.

“I won’t stop,” Baekhyun replies with a grin, sucking hickeys into the juncture where his legs end and his ass begins. Chanyeol hums, long and drawn out, in appreciation, and Baekhyun does his best to keep that sound going when he returns between Chanyeol’s cheeks and starts spiralling his tongue. He can feel Chanyeol watching him, can feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickling, and looks up just in time to see Chanyeol’s expression melt.

When he comes, his whole body quakes. Baekhyun can see the muscles in his abdomen pulling taut and his back bending like a bow, hand stuttering along the length of his cock as he pumps himself dry. It’s a breathtaking sight, one that Baekhyun feels honoured to have permission to behold, and he spends the duration of Chanyeol’s peak landing little kisses to his lower stomach and the hand he holds himself in.

Chanyeol releases a hot sigh, sinking back into the mattress with his eyes closed, spent. Baekhyun kisses his way back up his body, following ink with his tongue, before he veers off at the shoulder and spends a moment drinking some water and gathering tissues to wipe off the white on Chanyeol’s stomach. Chanyeol watches him in silence as he cleans up and throws the tissues in the bin across the room.

“Nice shot,” he grins, and Baekhyun hits him lightly on the chest.

“What can I say?” Baekhyun smirks, placing his hands on either side of Chanyeol’s head and straddling his hips. “I was the best at throwing discus in high school.”

Chanyeol bites his lip and grips onto his waist. “A man of many talents,” he says, then switches their positions. Baekhyun whirls around and lands on a pillow, taken aback by the hungry expression currently settled on Chanyeol’s handsome features.

The way Chanyeol looks at him takes his breath away. It’s like he’s something special, someone who ought to be treasured, and he marvels at how Chanyeol seems to have picked up on a lot of the things he likes already. Chanyeol knows he likes to have his neck kissed, his chest licked, his hips marked, and he knows that nothing does it more for him than seeing Chanyeol’s tongue while it happens.

His boxers finally come off, the seam between his thigh and hip then attacked and stained. His legs try to come up and shield him from Chanyeol’s mouth, the sensitivity so great that it tickles, yet Chanyeol ushers his thighs down and holds them there while he continues dotting flowers.

“I’m not letting you kick me in the face,” is Chanyeol’s excuse, but Baekhyun suspects that he might just secretly enjoy being in control like this.

“Don’t tickle me then,” Baekhyun complains, laughing afterwards when Chanyeol does exactly that, then wailing because he can’t get away. Chanyeol chuckles deviously, then swiftly dips his head down on Baekhyun’s cock, taking him in his mouth and blinking up at him with large, innocent eyes that do nothing but fuel the fire already roaring in Baekhyun’s lower stomach.

Chanyeol splays his palms on his hips to keep Baekhyun against the bed, working his mouth up and down with a great deal of enthusiasm. Baekhyun strokes through his hair and caresses his face, until the pleasure takes over and all he can really do is gape at him with his mouth hanging open. Chanyeol is good at this. Really good at this. Hurling Baekhyun closer and closer towards the edge. He moans loudly and loses the strength to keep his head up, hands clenched in Chanyeol’s hair while his hips writhe under his tongue.

“Oh fuck,” he hisses desperately, breath catching in his throat as his eyes fall closed and he loses track of everything else. Chanyeol hums and it sends lashings of pleasure through Baekhyun’s groin, his body going rigid on the precipice of a hard fall as Chanyeol pops his mouth off and grips him in his fist.

He comes on an upward stroke, emptying across his stomach with a low growl he didn’t know he was capable of making. Chanyeol’s hand milks him through, until he’s shivering from the stimulation and gathers the strength to roll away onto his side should Chanyeol try anything else. Chanyeol laves at his hip bone on his way up, biting gently into his flesh and nosing at the mark he leaves behind. He encloses Baekhyun within his body and eggs his head around for a kiss, instantly sucking Baekhyun’s bottom lip into his mouth and tenderly cupping the side of his face. Baekhyun’s arms sew themselves around Chanyeol’s neck, keeping him exactly where he is so they can kiss for longer. He tastes delicious, is delicious, and Baekhyun licks into his mouth with insistence to feel all he can.

Chanyeol laughs as he pulls away, telling Baekhyun that he needs to get tissues before the come he’s covered in dries up. Baekhyun puts his hands behind his head while Chanyeol swipes away at his tummy, snorting when he misses a throw to the bin and has to get out of bed to reclaim the tissues and drop them in the bin from directly above.

“Don’t judge me,” Chanyeol warns as he drops back into bed, shuffling under the covers until their bodies are pressed together and he can smooch Baekhyun on the cheek.

“I wasn’t judging you at all,” Baekhyun murmurs, rolling onto his side so their faces are aligned. They slip into a few more kisses before he starts growing sleepy, pulling back to simply gaze at Chanyeol instead, feeling the warmth of his breath and body. Chanyeol looks beautiful, to the point where Baekhyun wishes he had a sketchbook and pencil with him, but then Chanyeol farts and his entire face scrunches up in frenzied laughter, eyes nothing more than creases as his mouth splits open. Baekhyun is about to scream at him when the movement of the duvet lets the smell rip and it’s toxic.

“Oh my god! What did you eat? What did you eat, Chanyeol?!” Baekhyun shrieks, wrapping both hands over his nose and struggling to breathe through his hysterical laughter. Chanyeol is worse, smacking the mattress until Baekhyun has to literally save him from falling off the bed. He drags him back by his arm and lies down on his chest, laughing into his skin with one of Chanyeol’s hands in his hair, the other holding up the end of the duvet to let the stench diffuse.

“At least it didn’t happen earlier, okay?” Chanyeol chuckles, turning it into a cackle when Baekhyun glares at him.

“I would have suffocated.”

“I’d resuscitate you.” Chanyeol makes a kissy face.

“It would be too late,” Baekhyun snickers, pecking Chanyeol’s pout before he settles down against his chest again. “Let’s make an agreement, okay? If either of us feels a fart coming, we warn the other person.”

“Deal.” They seal it with a high five.

Chapter Text

In the last week of October, Chanyeol gets increasingly busy with work. They see each other less during the day and more in the evenings, but even then Baekhyun has to entertain himself while Chanyeol sits at his computer. In the end, sometimes it feels more productive of him to go home and continue with his concept art instead of mess around on YouTube. That’s where Skype comes in handy, and they video call through their working hours to feel less isolated and distant, although Chanyeol still has to leave for his daily Skype meetings.

Baekhyun finishes his first draft of three concept art pieces, displaying an elf, a forest nymph, and a strange creature that he’s 100 percent sure he’s drawn completely wrong. He emails them off to the author and itches to do something else, so he scrolls through his phone camera roll hunting for inspiration for a physical canvas painting. It feels like it’s been an age since he last picked up a brush and dipped it in paint, excluding his night at the youth club. Plus, his last paintings haven’t been all that successful. There was the dark forest he did, which has sold practically no copies on his website, and then there was the one he threw out the window that got run over. Is he cursed? Or is he just picking the wrong subject matter?

His thumb stops over a picture he’d forgotten about. It’s not a grand photograph, nothing exceptional or mind boggling, but it’s loud in terms of the emotions it sets off. It’s just Chanyeol working at his computer, wearing a huge hoodie and comfortable pyjamas. That was the day of their first proper date away from the village, when they went to that Italian place and Chanyeol ordered him a sausage (perhaps hinting at something in the process). It’s a fond memory, one Baekhyun loves and that brings a smile to his face. Why not paint it? His phone picture quality isn’t so bad and there’s enough light, yet he can reimagine Chanyeol from memory anyway if he needs to improvise or fill in the blanks.

Just after lunch, he begins his initial sketch. He’s playing beach and ocean sounds through his speakers, pretending that it’s warm and past the trees at the bottom of his garden there are crystal waves lapping at a sandy shore. Drawing Chanyeol is somewhat like therapy. His mind is filled with happy thoughts that remind him of how much he misses Chanyeol when he’s busy. Maybe later he can make an art station next to Chanyeol’s desk and they can work side by side. When Chanyeol is tapping away on his keyboard with his headphones blasting music, he’s impossible to distract.

His phone buzzes, the vibration running loudly through his desk, and Baekhyun reaches for it eagerly expecting it to be a message from Chanyeol whining about having no food or stubbing his toe (which keeps happening apparently). When Baekhyun sees that it’s from an unknown number instead, his stomach immediately swoops to the ground and he doesn’t dare open it. What does he want now? Baekhyun can’t not know.

Unknown Number

25th October

[I miss you so much] 14:17

He stares at the message, feeling physically sick, when another comes through. And another. And another.

[Baek, please babe.. ] 14:18

[I need you] 14:18

[I can’t live without you] 14:19

[Why are you ignoring me?] 14:20

And Baekhyun snaps. As much as he hates to admit it, he knows Sehun painfully well. He’s hot-headed, stubborn, temperamental, and when he wants something that he cannot get for himself, he demands it straight off the bat. If he needed help, really needed help, he would have elaborated as to why by now, and as more messages come through along the same line of bullshit as before, Baekhyun realises that Sehun knows him too. Sehun is manipulating him, and Baekhyun has had enough.

He blocks his number, indefinitely, and double-checks that he’s still blocked on all social media too. If Sehun tries to contact him again, he’ll give him a furious piece of his mind. Or call the police.

His mood is ruined, trashed. He looks down at his sketch of Chanyeol and feels guilty, but a deep sobering breath reassures him that Sehun cannot get to him anymore. He heals himself with a long, hot bubble bath that he accidentally naps in, and then with Chanyeol’s company, ringing him in the late afternoon to ask if he can go over to do some work. He doesn’t want Chanyeol to see what he’s planning as it’s a surprise, so he decides to take his laptop and sort through his online orders, as well as his dreaded tax returns.

Chanyeol kisses him on his doorstep when he gets there, already offering him a cup of tea he made in preparation for his arrival. He feels better already in Chanyeol’s home, where it smells so much like him and happiness that he never wants to leave. In his presence, Baekhyun feels more productive, and finishes up just in time for a late dinner where they begin discussing plans for Halloween.

Baekhyun knows that the villagers are planning a film screening in the village hall. He’s also ninety-nine percent sure that it’s going to be a movie suitable for kids, possibly The Addams Family. He usually wouldn’t have a problem with it, but seeing as Chanyeol loves horror movies just as much as he does, Baekhyun thinks it would be a great chance to curl up and watch one together.

Over dinner, they determine their outfits, keeping the children in mind. Baekhyun points out that they’ll have to buy sweets too as the young families enjoy trick-or-treating, and that they can’t be dressed up too scarily for answering the door. Baekhyun is a vampire every year, though he’ll have to get his costume out of the loft, and Chanyeol shrugs and says he’ll be a school teacher because that’s pretty frightening.

They go off on a tangent about their school days then, discussing teacher pranks and school trips.

“I was a pro at running in high school,” Chanyeol declares confidently. “I used to go to junior athletics championships and all that. I have some old medals if you want to see.” And while Chanyeol shows off his numerous gold medals, Baekhyun reminisces about being the boy who hated sports and never tried – except in the discus throw, of course.

Eventually, they get back to work once Baekhyun has run his horror movie idea by Chanyeol and he’s agreed. He goes through his emails and cleans out his inbox until he runs out of things to do, so he decides to browse Chanyeol’s DVD collection to kill a few hours while Chanyeol finishes up. He ends up joining him towards the end of the movie by nose-diving onto the sofa beside him, groaning about sore eyes and how he can’t feel his bum anymore. Baekhyun combs through his hair in consolation and somehow ends up with Chanyeol’s head in his lap, Chanyeol’s direct staring a little distracting considering he’s trying to focus solely on the film. He bops him on the nose to tell him off, then Chanyeol says “Shower with me” and Baekhyun forgets all about what’s happening on TV.

They figure out Chanyeol’s real Halloween costume in the shower, opting to both be vampires so they can match. Baekhyun finds it cheesy but Chanyeol seems excited to be a pair, Baekhyun busy washing his back and reading the tattoo between the dimples at the base of his spine.

“Happiness, delight,” he murmurs, tracing the words idly with a finger before lathering them in soap.

“That’s to remind me to be happy,” says Chanyeol, glancing over his shoulder for a second before returning to washing conditioner out of his hair.

Baekhyun kisses between his shoulder blades as a reply, saying nothing. There’s still a lot of history they haven’t shared with one another, Chanyeol’s tattoo origins and meanings being one of the main subjects Baekhyun is intrigued about. One day he’ll map Chanyeol’s body in the quiet and contemplate his designs, without slipping over from bubbles on the floor.

When Halloween comes, they’ve finally settled on two movies they want to watch back-to-back once the trick-or-treating dies down. They’re classics from before the millennium, highly likely to have terrible special effects and no strong female lead, or even a side character, but the reviews were good online and in the right setting – seeing as it’s Halloween and all – they might just be at least jumpy.

Throughout the course of the evening, there are frequent knocks on Baekhyun’s door. He and Chanyeol aren’t really doing much, just lounging around in the living room and kitchen sipping beers and prematurely munching on popcorn, so it’s not a disturbance. Baekhyun enjoys seeing all the kids dressed up, and sometimes the adults make an effort too.

Vick from the pub comes around with her younger siblings, dressed as dead school children. Jen Mills even resurfaces to usher her children around the village, who are dressed as Frankenstein and a witch.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol hand out sweets generously as they won’t be getting a vast number of visitors, and always end up prolonging the process by dragging each of their guests into conversation about mundane, non-Halloween things that frustrate the kids and make them impatient.

Old Joe appears on Baekhyun’s doorstep a few moments before the movie screening is scheduled to begin, surrounded by a group of five other people including Jemimah Mitchell and both her parents. Joe is artistically dressed up as a large orange pumpkin, the exact opposite of terrifying, and Baekhyun manages to communicate how cute he thinks he is in between sharp breaths of laughter.

“I’ll have you know I spent hours on this outfit,” Joe huffs as he dips his hand into the sweet bowl.

Baekhyun chuckles, warning him of his high blood sugar levels as he turns to leave. Chanyeol nudges him in the arm and points to the criminal supermarket label on the back of Joe’s pumpkin costume, prompting Baekhyun to call “I thought you made the outfit yourself?”

Joe cackles at him. “I never said that! Just said I spent hours on it, which I did! Chanyeol drove me to the supermarket and back which took an hour and a half. And then we had a tea date.”

Baekhyun’s lips coil into a smile as he looks up at Chanyeol, stood beside him with his ghostly white face and red paint dripping from the corners of his mouth, and thinks of how sweet it is that he’s stayed true to his word of being the village taxi; he continues to offer lifts and free rides to those who ask and even those who don’t, sometimes denying their petrol money and getting up early in the morning to take them somewhere when he usually sleeps in until noon. Baekhyun swells with something, maybe pride, and takes Chanyeol’s hand delicately to lead him from the doorstep back into the lounge.

The villagers will have congregated in the hall by now, so they’re free to sit down, relax and enjoy their movie in peace. Baekhyun stretches his legs out on the sofa, his back leaning into Chanyeol’s side where he’s encased in strong arms. Chanyeol’s wearing an old shirt as part of his outfit, and for the majority of the movie Baekhyun sits there stroking the material it’s made from, feeling how smooth it is before he does the same to one of Chanyeol’s hands – the other one periodically feeding him popcorn.

“How was your tea date with Joe then?” Baekhyun murmurs during a slow moment of the movie. It’s general consensus – at least in Baekhyun’s book – that horror movies are safe when it’s day time in the story. Right now, the two protagonists who have moved into a haunted house are arguing about things that are going missing – not spooky enough for Baekhyun’s tastes.

Chanyeol did tell him that he was taking Joe to the supermarket. In fact, Chanyeol frequently runs shopping trips for some of the more elderly villagers who don’t have their own cars or internet for online delivery. Baekhyun strokes his arms again while Chanyeol replies, enjoying the warmth of his skin and the feel of his muscles through his shirt.

“It was nice. We just told each other stories.”

“We should have a tea date,” Baekhyun hums in thought, tipping his head back so he can meet Chanyeol’s eyes. It’s a bit of a funny angle, only uncomfortable until Chanyeol presses a hand into his hair to support his head. He twists his body around a little better, coming face to face with Chanyeol to press a hand to his cheek. “Like a tea tasting thing. We could just spend an afternoon shopping for all the different flavours we can find and then drink them.”

“That sounds perfectly lame, I love it.” Chanyeol grins, kissing Baekhyun before Baekhyun can kiss him first, probably to take his mind off the subtle dig at his idea. “You taste like popcorn,” Chanyeol whispers softly when their lips part of a second, Baekhyun struggling to hold back a laugh as he slides comfortably into Chanyeol’s lap and sandwiches his face in his hands.

Chanyeol starts squeezing his thighs, moving back to grip at his hips before he slides lower and encourages Baekhyun to swing against him. They’re still kissing, tongues touching fleetingly as Baekhyun’s way of teasing before Chanyeol loses patience. He drops his hands down Chanyeol’s chest, unbuttoning his top two shirt buttons with the intent to do the rest when there’s a loud bang on his living room window.

Baekhyun jerks back, his head whipping over his shoulder in fear of what he’ll see, only to remember that he shut the curtains before he started the movie.

“What was that?” Chanyeol whispers, arms winding around Baekhyun’s waist to calm his nerves.

“I have no idea,” Baekhyun whispers back, untangling himself from Chanyeol and confidently crossing the room to the window. For some reason, his palms have gone sweaty and he feels a little cold, but Baekhyun shakes off the idea that it might be fear. No way is he scared. Besides, he needs to protect Chanyeol. It’s his duty as his boyfriend.

With one hand, he reaches for the split in the curtains with his heart pumping loudly in his chest. His rational mind is telling him that it was a lost pigeon, something blowing in the wind or his wheelie bin lid opening and closing, and there’s another part of his mind telling him it’s the demon from the movie they just watched that they mocked and laughed at because of the awful CGI. It may well have come for its revenge, to silence them forever, to mock them in return. Baekhyun pulls back the curtain and—

He screams. Like a child. Stumbling back a few paces and banging his calves into the coffee table.

Stood there, outside his front window, is Joe in his stupid pumpkin costume with a torch under his chin.

“Are you kidding me?!” Baekhyun shrieks, his senses returning from the dead now that he’s had the shock of his life and realising that both Joe and Chanyeol are laughing their socks off at him. “What the hell just happened?!”

“Ahh,” Chanyeol sounds like he’s crying as he stands up and pats his pockets. “Where’s my wallet?”

And to Baekhyun’s horror, Chanyeol opens his window and hands Joe a sizeable sum of money.

“What are you two doing?” he cries, completely lost, staring between Joe chuckling and Chanyeol smirking.

“Chanyeol didn’t think you’d be scared.” Joe smirks, waving the notes in his hand at him before tucking them safely into his belt bag.

Baekhyun crosses his arms, outraged. “You guys planned this!”

“Night fellas!” Joe waves goodbye and Baekhyun watches with wide eyes as the pumpkin skips away down the street. He whips the curtains shut, suspicious that they might have something else in store, and turns to glare at Chanyeol. Not only has he just let out the most embarrassing screech of his entire life, but it was right in front of Joe, who will tell everyone, and Chanyeol who is never, ever, ever, going to let him live it down.

“You just lost me money.” Chanyeol has the audacity to pout.

“Oh, that’s not the only thing you’re going to lose.” Baekhyun shoves him back on the sofa and drops to his knees.

A while later, when they’re tucked up in bed exhausted and warm, Baekhyun finally gets to ask Chanyeol about what his tattoos mean.

“This one,” he murmurs, drawing a line across his breastbone. “In here you’ll stay. Who is it for?” He lays kisses to rest on Chanyeol’s skin, appreciating the artwork while Chanyeol explains his reasons of why he got them.

“For my grandparents, after they died,” he says.

“And this?” Baekhyun shifts himself on top of Chanyeol and moves down, licking a stripe along the soundwave beneath his ribs. He gets distracted, dropping kisses and small flicks of his tongue everywhere, while Chanyeol tells him that it’s his mother’s voice saying “I love you.”

Baekhyun follows the ink everywhere, to the daffodil which symbolises Chanyeol’s new beginning – the most recent tattoo he had done, and the monkey on the outside of his forearm that is in remembrance of his childhood nickname ‘little monkey’.

“Not little anymore are you?” Baekhyun smirks, gazing up at Chanyeol from his lower stomach and licking a fat, wet stripe up to his belly button. Chanyeol blushes and grins, a hand aiming for Baekhyun’s hair when Baekhyun catches it and sucks the number sequence on his wrist. “This?”

“My dad’s birthday. Guess which movie that one is from,” he says, referencing the cursive dancing up towards his elbow.

“Look inside yourself and recognise that change starts with you,” Baekhyun reads aloud, squinting his eyes in thought and pursing his lips. “I don’t know…” He tries to think of Chanyeol’s favourite movie but nothing comes to mind, so he shrugs and says “Um, Lord of the Rings?”

“What?!” Chanyeol cries. “No! You don’t know my favourite movie of all time? Of all time?!”

Baekhyun grins, guilty, and presses his cheek into Chanyeol’s arm to show he’s sorry, rubbing his face into it like a cat. “Tell me what it is.”

Chanyeol pouts. “Zootopia.”

Baekhyun drops his head into Chanyeol’s stomach, defeated. “Zootopia?” he deadpans, crawling back up Chanyeol’s body and supporting himself over his head.

“Mhmm.”

“You have a quote from Zootopia on your arm,” Baekhyun whispers, awed, as he sucks Chanyeol into a kiss. “You blow me away every day,” he hums against his lips, locking them together again.

“Nah,” Chanyeol exhales, his hands on Baekhyun’s elbows keeping him in place. “I just blow you every day.”

Baekhyun’s lips blossom into a smile and he closes his eyes from frustration. “Stop making me laugh, I’m trying to kiss you.”

“But I love making you laugh. When you smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while.”

“Is that going to be your next tattoo?” Baekhyun asks, their mouths so close that their lips brush together with every syllable. “Bruno Mars lyrics?”

“Yup.” Chanyeol smiles triumphantly.

Baekhyun just wants to make love to him again.

“Oh, by the way, I’m not going to be able to make it to the pub quiz this week,” Chanyeol says, arm caressing Baekhyun’s shoulder and then his neck. At the change in conversation, Baekhyun settles himself down again, appreciating the layer of fat over Chanyeol’s breastbone as he uses it for a pillow. He’s resting on the words ‘in here you’ll stay’, and he hopes they’ll ring true, even though they weren’t written for him.

“How come?” Baekhyun responds, sliding his palm over Chanyeol’s stomach and hooking it around his waist.

“It’s my dad’s birthday on Sunday so I’m going to go down to spend it with him. I’ll probably be back late.”

Baekhyun shifts, trying to reposition the arm he’s lying on in such a way that it won’t either be crushed or go numb. “How late is late?” he asks, angling his head up and tucking his face beneath Chanyeol’s chin. It would be nice if Chanyeol had a small tattoo here, an x marks the spot kind of tattoo that Baekhyun can kiss when he’s bored.

“I don’t know… Maybe nine-ish?”

“Hmm,” Baekhyun kisses the skin beneath him, “if it’s too late it might be a good idea to stay over at your parents’ house. I don’t like the idea of you driving alone at night.”

“I’ll let you know what’s happening on the day, alright?” Chanyeol draws him in closer and kisses his hair. “My parents really want to meet you,” he adds, taking Baekhyun by surprise.

“You told them about me?”

Chanyeol looks at him funny. “Course I did. I ring them every week to tell them how I’m doing and it just kinda slipped out, but I would have told them anyways if I didn’t tell them by accident.”

Baekhyun drops his eyes, feeling guilty for multiple reasons. “I actually haven’t spoken to my parents since my birthday.” He keeps meaning to call but it’s always I’ll call later instead of I’ll call now. To be honest, he doesn’t even know if they’re aware he broke up with Sehun unless they caught on through Facebook.

“Are you guys not on good terms or…?” Chanyeol sounds a mixture of intrigue and uncertainty, face a picture of concern.

“I…” Baekhyun doesn’t really want to talk about it, or, at least in great detail, so he shrugs and drops his head down against Chanyeol’s chest again, closing his eyes when he feels a hand combing through his hair. “It’s not that. We all still get on just… not as well as we used to. It mainly stemmed from the whole university drop-out thing. I don’t think they ever really forgave me for that.”

His pillow hums. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” Chanyeol coos into his hair, squashing Baekhyun against him with a long, cuddly arm.

“I’m sure I’ll blab to you about it at some point, but right now I just want this. ‘This’ being cuddles.”

“Fine by me.” Chanyeol rolls onto his side and wraps his other arm around him, Baekhyun feeling safe and warm against his body until he falls asleep, midway through a joke about the tattoo Chanyeol should get next.

The pub quiz isn’t until a few days later, on a day when Baekhyun is woken up at six o’clock by Chanyeol rushing to get ready to leave in time. He lazily sits up in bed, dragging a hand through his disgustingly greasy hair, and roams like a zombie around Chanyeol’s bungalow trying to help him find his shoes, keys, portable phone charger and then his phone (which is in his back pocket the whole time). He’s still half asleep when Chanyeol is packing a few things into his boot, namely his father’s birthday present, which Chanyeol tells him is a new power washer for his dad’s driveway, and the cupcakes they both baked (and ruined) last night after they raided Rose’s corner shop for ingredients.

He gets to kiss him out the door again, only this time he clings on a little longer. His arms wrap around Chanyeol’s neck, holding him down against his mouth while his legs bounce, yearning to jump and latch onto Chanyeol’s waist. It would be perfect right now, wall sex, and Baekhyun thinks he just might be getting Chanyeol in the right place with his sharp breaths and wandering hands when the man himself pulls back and says “I have something for you.”

Baekhyun blinks up at him kind of dumbly, mind still thoroughly locked in I’m about to have sex mode. He manages an intelligible grunt that makes Chanyeol chuckle at him, then he’s holding up a key.

“I want you to have this.”

Baekhyun stares at it, not really sure what he’s looking at. Is it a house key? A car key? A shed key? He’s still spaced out, sleep deprived and horny in the dark, cold morning with suggestively low lighting supplied by the lamp beside the door. The key has nothing to do with either of those things. Or so it seems.

“A house key. My front door key, exactly,” Chanyeol says shyly, dropping his gaze for a moment. “I figured someone responsible should take care of the spare. Seeing as you pretty much live here anyways I thought it would be useful on mornings where I have to leave and I end up kicking you out of bed. And you look really cute when you’re sleeping, by the way, just in case no one’s told you that before.”

Baekhyun immediately blushes, struggling to comprehend how Chanyeol finds his knotted limbs, snuffling snores and drooling mouth to be cute. He takes the compliment nonetheless, at the same time as he takes the key.

“So you can go back to bed for a bit if you like.”

Smiling, Baekhyun kisses him again. Chanyeol is giving him a key, and how much trust does that take? Baekhyun is floored. “I promise I won’t steal your TV and put it on eBay.”

“Oh thanks,” sniggers Chanyeol, drawing Baekhyun in by his ass.

As soon as Chanyeol starts pulling away in his car, Baekhyun misses him. He leans against the door, watching him go until he’s out of sight, before he stares at the key on his way to the kitchen once the door is locked. There’s a certain emotion running through him that he can’t name. A feeling. It’s got his stomach flopping and his chest expanding, until he’s too happy and hyper to go back to sleep. It sucks though, because Chanyeol isn’t here to be happy and hyper with him.

He makes himself a small breakfast, navigating the kitchen as if it were his own, and eats it in front of the TV. The early hour means he can either watch the news or the teleshopping channel, neither of which are that appealing, so he scrolls through the guide until he happens upon a few kid’s shows airing for the early risers and he sits watching those instead.

By the time the pub quiz is starting, Baekhyun has bathed, worked, and accepted two new job opportunities from excitedly-worded emails, one of which he’s greatly excited for; he gets to paint a portrait of someone’s dog, and it is one hell of a cute dog.

“Where’s your other half?” Joe calls across the pub when he spots Baekhyun walking in alone, hands in his pockets to protect them from the cold outside. His face starts to thaw and his nose begins to run, solved when he swipes up a few napkins from the dispenser on his way to their team table.

“It’s Chanyeol’s dad’s birthday today so he’s away visiting his family,” he explains, distracted immediately after by all the hellos he’s getting from his other neighbours.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” Jongin says, walking over with a bottle of beer in his hand.

“Too busy with his new flame,” Andy Walker, the other member of his team, sighs dramatically while shaking his head.

Baekhyun’s about to reply with something witty and sarcastic when Kyungsoo’s microphone squeals through the speakers and he clears his throat. “The quiz is starting now,” he announces, voice disappearing towards the end when he leans down to answer Jemimah’s question. Baekhyun smiles at the exchange, Kyungsoo handing her a straw for her orange squash, and then he repositions himself with the mike.

“Can everyone hear me?” he asks, getting a general yes in response. “Agnes, can you hear me?” Agnes says nothing, not even looking in Kyungsoo’s general direction but at the food menu. Baekhyun’s teammates snigger. “Can someone turn up Agnes’ hearing aid so we can start?”

“I’m feeling lucky tonight,” Joe says, drumming his fingers on the table with a cheeky grin.

“You’ve jinxed it now.” Andy rolls his eyes.

“Yes! I can hear you!” Agnes screams suddenly, to which Kyungsoo makes a motion of turning Agnes’ hearing aid up a little more so they’re not subjected to the powers of her diaphragm all evening. Mrs Parker carefully completes the task, Agnes now speaking at a normal indoor volume that won’t burst their eardrums.

And with that, Kyungsoo begins his quiz. “What was Michael Jackson’s first number one song?”

There’s a shared pause for thought, then the teams get cracking with the answer.

“That’s after my time,” Joe declares, putting his hands up in surrender. “Andy it’s up to you.”

“I have no idea!”

Baekhyun takes the answer paper and writes down the earliest Michael Jackson song he can remember, hoping for the best. He thinks he’s picked a good one, maybe even the right one, but he’s proven wrong at the end of the quiz when they place in the remarkable last position. Agnes and the other ladies are cheering in delight where Joe is booing and hissing across the room. Baekhyun on the other hand is looking at a text from Chanyeol saying that he’s just got home. The time is only coming up to nine o’clock now, Baekhyun wasn’t expecting him for another hour at least. With the revelation, he’s itching to jump out of his seat and leave, already thinking up what he can say as a goodbye while Andy reminds Joe that he jinxed their chances from the very beginning.

“How about a game of cards lads?” Joe suggests, rubbing his palms together. “I need to win something tonight otherwise I won’t sleep.”

“Yeah, I’m up for that!” Andy agrees. Then eyes are on Baekhyun.

“Oh, actually I, uh…” He glances at his phone and accidently gives the game away.

Joe eyes him with a smirk. “Oh, I see.”

Baekhyun deadpans at him. “Joe,” he sighs, “I’d love to stay and play cards but I’ve hardly seen him all day. Another time, okay?” he appeases him with a genuine smile, trying to focus solely on Joe but getting distracted repeatedly by his phone, even though Chanyeol hasn’t texted anything new.

“Don’t worry about it,” Joe assures him. “We understand how young love is, don’t we Andy?”

“Are you calling me old?” Andy snips.

“We made bets, you know,” Joe winks at Baekhyun suggestively. “Although, I’m only just about breaking even with how unpredictable you’re turning out to be.”

Baekhyun narrows his eyes, clasping his hands together on the table top with the air of a job interviewer. “What have you been up to, Joe?”

“I’m just trying to win some easy money. You’re making it difficult for me. First bet I made was if you’d get together, which I won thirty quid from. Thank you for that. Then I made a bet that you’d probably keep it a secret, which earned me a twenty. Bets I’ve lost though,” he sighs forlornly. “I have to count them on two hands.”

Baekhyun doesn’t think he wants to know what kind of bets Joe has been making in detail. Joe isn’t afraid to delve into personal matters with a hint too much familiarity. Baekhyun doesn’t hesitate to think that the occasional bet has been a strong invasion of their privacy, but even then, how would he get the information needed to either claim or part with his cash?

“If these bets are about Chanyeol and myself, how do you even know if you’ve won or lost?” Baekhyun challenges, raising his eyebrows.

Joe giggles. “Chanyeol’s very talkative during car journeys. But don’t go blaming the poor kid. He lets things slip by accident. He told me he sometimes gets carried away with conversations when he sees he’s being listened to.”

Baekhyun looks at Joe curiously. That’s news, something Chanyeol hasn’t mentioned to him before. It works in Joe’s favour too, because Baekhyun’s mind is momentarily wiped of all knowledge concerning bets and how ‘unpredictable’ he seems to be. “What do you mean by that?”

Joe shoots a look at Andy before replying, either because everyone knows and Baekhyun doesn’t, or Joe doesn’t particularly want to share what he’s about to say in front of others. Baekhyun doesn’t care. He just wants to know, even if it’s nothing serious.

“He just told me he used to feel ignored a lot when he was younger, so he can get excitable when someone shows an interest.”

Baekhyun can’t quite place why, but his heart starts to sink. “Oh,” is all he can think to say, dropping his eyes to his phone to think of Chanyeol without distractions. He wants to know why, although more than anything right now he just wants to see Chanyeol again. There is probably a perfectly logical explanation as to why Chanyeol would feel that way; he’ll ask him about it later, once he’s kissed Chanyeol’s lips dry and ridded him of his clothing.

“Go on then, Baek.” Joe pinches his arm. “Go to our Chanyeol. Tell him I say hello.”

Baekhyun smiles, though the worry inches through a little. He does a quick round of goodbyes, patting Jongin on the shoulder, kissing Mrs Parker on the cheek, and then walks hurriedly up the road and down Chanyeol’s driveway. It’s cold and dark, but the lights are on in Chanyeol’s home and he races towards it with this heartbeat in his ears. With the door left unlocked, he lets himself in and calls Chanyeol’s name.

“In here!” he calls from what sounds like the bathroom, so Baekhyun busies himself taking off his jacket and shoes and trying to jiggle the cold from his bones while he waits. Everything will probably frost over tonight, so Baekhyun is one-hundred percent ready to snuggle in bed with blankets galore.

The first thing he does when Chanyeol emerges from the bathroom with hands smelling like peaches is kiss him, laughing when Chanyeol slurs an extra sexy hello into his mouth and grabs onto his ass without inhibition.

“I missed you a stupid amount,” Baekhyun laughs at himself, hands cradling Chanyeol’s face while he reciprocates the nuzzling Chanyeol loves.

“Same here,” Chanyeol says softly, his nose warm and soft against Baekhyun’s cheek. “I should have invited you to come with me, to be honest. I think I’m the stupid one.”

Baekhyun pulls back so he knows Chanyeol can see his answering smile. “There’s always next time,” he reminds him, tucking a black curl behind Chanyeol’s ear. He welcomes Chanyeol’s tongue for a moment, feeling it slide against his, before he’s smiling and physically can’t kiss anymore.

“I don’t have to work tonight,” Chanyeol singsongs, planting his hands on Baekhyun’s waist and making him sway from side to side with him.

“Are we dancing instead?” Baekhyun wonders, the corners of his mouth pulled up in what he can only describe as pure, unadulterated joy.

Chanyeol carries on making him swing his hips, until Baekhyun is doing it of his own volition and matching his movements so they’re moving in tandem. “We gonna dance the night away,” Chanyeol says surely, resting his forehead against Baekhyun’s and starting to hum a song.

Baekhyun isn’t thinking about how weird this is. He’s thinking about how much this is making him happy – dancing in the hallway, lying in bed with Chanyeol when he farts, using the bathroom at the same time. It’s a level of closeness that he’s always wanted to achieve with someone special, and as Baekhyun carefully kisses Chanyeol again, he realises he has another accomplishment under his belt.

“Though I probably should check my emails,” Chanyeol murmurs, his thumb reverently caressing Baekhyun’s bottom lip. He kisses the pad of it, flicks his tongue out to taste, and smiles when Chanyeol flashes his teeth.

“That’s fine,” Baekhyun replies in reference to the emails, and then they dance themselves down the hall to the bedroom where Chanyeol sits down at his computer and Baekhyun changes into his pyjamas. For a while, he watches Chanyeol work from over his shoulder, arms hugging Chanyeol’s neck with his chin resting atop his collarbone. The position puts strain on his back after a while, so he gives Chanyeol a kiss and flops into bed with his phone to entertain himself with an e-book.

He struggles to concentrate on the words when he recalls what Joe told him, the information causing his mind to run in circles and read the same paragraph about six times until he can fully comprehend what it’s saying. Eventually, he gives up trying. It’s not that great of a book anyway.

He watches Chanyeol working for a moment, assessing whether he’s close to finishing or not, and finally gains the courage to speak when Chanyeol starts closing down all his tabs.

“Can I ask you about something?”

Chanyeol turns around looking like a deer caught in headlights. “Sure.”

Baekhyun plays with the case on his phone, pulling it off in one corner and popping it back on again. “Joe was telling me about all the bets he’s been making.” Baekhyun smiles, relieved when Chanyeol relaxes. “Apparently you’ve been indulging him with critical win-or-lose information.”

Chanyeol grins naughtily, standing up from his chair and stretching on his way over to the bed. He’s already dressed in sweats, looking extra squishy, so he falls straight down onto the mattress and burrows his way under the covers.

“I might have accidentally said a few things here and there,” he admits with a lilting voice, laughter threatening to burst through his smile.

Baekhyun hates that what he’s about to say will probably rob Chanyeol of that smile. He doesn’t want to touch a nerve or ruin the moment, but if Chanyeol feels comfortable enough to tell Joe, hopefully he’s okay for him to know too.

“Joe said something that I’m curious about,” he says, admiring Chanyeol where he’s laid out on the bed beside him, head resting calmly on the pillow. Baekhyun is still sitting against the headboard, and debates whether joining Chanyeol down there would make him feel safer or make him feel crowded once they get into it.

“What’s he been saying about me?” Chanyeol wonders. “All good things, right?”

Baekhyun laughs, starting to stroke through Chanyeol’s hair. “Of course, of course. Although I am curious to know what kind of information you’ve been sharing with him about our private lives.”

“It’s nothing bad,” Chanyeol promises. “I have no complaints anyway.”

He’s so sweet, Baekhyun thinks instantly, gently thumbing at his temple. “I have no complaints either,” he reassures him, feeling his heart flutter at the soft smile that rounds Chanyeol’s cheeks. “Joe told me that when you were younger you felt ignored sometimes, and I was just wondering about that. The why and the who and the when. If you’re okay with telling me. There’s no rush and no pressure.” He smiles, despite Chanyeol’s eyes turning away. Interpretation fails him, unless it’s the worst-case scenario, and Baekhyun’s heart gradually gets louder in his ears while he waits for a response, if any, to show whether he’s said the wrong thing or not.

“I was just a weird kid,” Chanyeol starts, smiling up at Baekhyun in a surprisingly intimate way. Baekhyun slides his hips down the bed a little so they’re closer together, holding his arm up in waiting when he sees Chanyeol shuffling over towards him. Chanyeol slots perfectly against his side, head on his chest and arm thrown across his middle. He feels caged in a grand way. “Weird to the point where people wanted to avoid me sometimes. You know, the one that got on with all the teachers at school and all that.”

“That’s so cute,” Baekhyun whispers into his hair, making Chanyeol chuckle.

“I was such a chatty kid but half the time I didn’t have anyone to talk to, so sometimes I talked to myself or I kind of… bombarded anyone who looked at me with a whole speech. It’s kind of like adrenalin? When people talk to me I get really upbeat and then can’t shut up.” He laughs at his own expense, so Baekhyun comforts him by wrapping a leg around him too.

“When I got to university and started working out, you know, taking care of my appearance, a lot of people were more open to talking to me – which is grossly shallow, now that I think about it – so I basically became the extrovert of all extroverts.”

“I can imagine that,” Baekhyun hums, picturing Chanyeol being the life of a crazy flat party while drunk off his face.

Chanyeol snorts. “Yeah, so,” he sighs, “I had my first relationship then. Or what I thought was a relationship. I don’t know. It was all one-sided and I wrongly assumed we were both on the same page – which we weren’t. I thought we were a thing, he felt I was just temporary. I found that out when he said we had to stop because he had a crush on someone else, so then the whole reason why I talk a lot changed. I wasn’t weird anymore, or I hoped I wasn’t weird,” he chuckles, “I was insecure. So I talked because I was afraid I was boring and because I was uncomfortable with silence. I felt like I wasn’t good enough for anyone so I kept them with me by talking and… yeah, that’s it. The end. Although it’s different now. I think I’m just weird again sometimes and I’m happy with that. With Joe though, we’re both just chatterboxes and don’t know when to stop. I don’t know if I explained that very well but hopefully you get the picture.”

Baekhyun digests all that information for a moment, continuing to stroke Chanyeol’s hair to let him know he’s still mentally present. “Well,” he sighs, “I really like weird.” He looks down at Chanyeol as he says it, watching the way his eyelashes sweep with each blink. “I also don’t see this as temporary at all. But I never really noticed it before – the chatting thing. Or am I just dumb?” he laughs, smiling affectionately at Chanyeol when he tips his head back to look at him.

“You were different,” he says. “I felt comfortable around you from the moment we met. Or, the second time we met. The first time was a bit strange.”

Baekhyun cringes with embarrassment.

“You were considerate, though. You included me and gave me people to talk to. It was just with a few other people I was worried. Sometimes I did find it hard to make conversation and I’d just start talking about something random they don’t care about, but, you know, at least I’m trying. If the conversation fails, it’s because they’re not putting in the effort, and then I think, why am I wasting my time here when I could be flirting with Baekhyun right now? I’m sure you know the feeling.”

Baekhyun ripples with laughter, lowering his head to align their faces. “I flirt with myself all the time,” he whispers jokingly, making Chanyeol snort and then snot, Baekhyun crying as he flings himself away and grabs him a tissue from the nightstand.

“Why is it only me who does the gross stuff?” Chanyeol whines while he wipes up his nose, so Baekhyun deliberately lets out a burp that doesn’t humour Chanyeol at all. “That was voluntary, it doesn’t count. Although you do fart in your sleep sometimes.”

“That’s just me releasing a new fragrance,” shrugs Baekhyun, gladly accepting Chanyeol back into his arms.

“Free samples,” Chanyeol snickers, laughing his way up to Baekhyun’s mouth before kissing him. “Is it your turn now? What makes Baekhyun Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun hums, thinking hard about it by staring at the ceiling and trying to pinpoint something he can share. “Okay, well… I had three boyfriends before you, all of them for less than a year. I’ve mentioned some a few times I think. Anyway, I had a college-convenience boyfriend, a drunk-dare boyfriend and then a dump-me-at-midnight-with-no-ride-home boyfriend. I was genuinely starting to think I was going to be one of those guys that would be single forever. I do worry about ending up alone. Especially after my last relationship. That was really rough, actually. I’d never felt so bad about myself before. My first relationship in nine years and it ended because I couldn’t make him happy. It was horrible.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Chanyeol whispers, holding onto his tighter. “Guy sounds like a prick.”

“Yeah, he was. I don’t know why I never realised when we were together. I guess the fear of being lonely was making excuses on his behalf.”

Chanyeol sighs, manoeuvring himself a little until he’s on an elbow and can look Baekhyun in the face, only a few inches apart. “I can’t understand how no one snatched you up before I could meet you. You’re so amazing! If I didn’t meet you in my car and just met you at some village event, I probably would have assumed you had a serious boyfriend from university.”

“Why would you assume that?” Baekhyun laughs, twirling one of Chanyeol’s curls around his finger and watching it spring loose.

“You look at yourself in the mirror every day, don’t you? You’re bloody gorgeous, Baek.”

Baekhyun kind of wants to cry at that, just a little bit. “You’re so sweet,” he intends to say, but it comes out whistle-y and breathy because the sudden emotion that has welled up behind his eyes has robbed him of his voice. And all he can think is thank god. Thank god Chanyeol moved in up the road and decided he was what he wanted.

“You deserve it,” Chanyeol hums with a smile, rubbing his lips together before he puckers them for a quick peck. “Anyways, I’m glad your taste in men has changed.”

Baekhyun laughs nasally, holding Chanyeol’s face in his hands and committing to memory the feel of his skin. “Me too.”

“I still remember that night. You called your ex a shit twig, then made some pretty deep metaphors about your relationship, I told you them before if you remember. I was sort of impressed by those and thought that you were either a writer or just really, really drunk.”

Baekhyun hides his face behind one of his hands, letting the other fall behind Chanyeol’s head to splay on his upper back. “Why do you have to continuously remind me of this?”

Chanyeol revels in his embarrassment. “Because it was amazing. I had to stop the car so you could throw up and then you apologised to a hay bale. Fantastic!”

Baekhyun lets out a pained wail and brings up his other hand to hide his face. “I’m never getting drunk again. I’m becoming teetotal.”

“If that’s what you want, I support you,” Chanyeol teases, kissing the side of his neck. “Although I think tipsy sex with you would be quite funny. I bet you have some crazy synonyms for dick in your subconscious vocabulary.”

“Let me live, please,” Baekhyun begs, Chanyeol relenting and squashing him in a hug.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding like he’s smiling from ear to ear. He yawns then, and it encourages Baekhyun to do the same.

“You need to sleep. You’ve been up since early in the morning,” Baekhyun says, stroking Chanyeol’s hair out of his eyes. “Did your dad have a good birthday?”

Chanyeol smiles sleepily. “Yeah, he did. We went out for lunch and then gave him his presents, and instead of relaxing with us for the afternoon he decided to use his power washer straight away. I also showed my parents a picture of you and now they want to meet you even more. I found some of your oven mitts in my kitchen, you know. My mum was fangirling.”

“I can’t wait to meet your parents either,” Baekhyun replies, starting to get sleepy. “I also want to do something for you. Something special.”

“Special?” Chanyeol’s eyes light up.

“Mm. I’ll make you dinner. Is Friday okay?”

“Sounds great,” Chanyeol agrees, pecking him on the corner of the mouth. “Would you mind turning the lamp off on your side?”

Baekhyun grunts and does so, then falls asleep pretty quickly with Chanyeol’s breath fanning over his shoulder.

Baekhyun has allowed himself four hours to make dinner. He doesn’t want to rush, burn or undercook something, or even cut himself along with his vegetables. He just wants to sip wine and be relaxed through food therapy and the great smells he hopes to create. Chanyeol is due over at seven at Baekhyun’s insistence, even though he wanted to come over as soon as he got back from his Hapton meeting. Baekhyun had told him what he was cooking was a surprise and Chanyeol had complained, expressing his desire to lend a hand with the cooking or in the least, the dishes. Baekhyun had used flattery to distract him from that conversation, and then he used his body.

He’s planning a three-course meal, with stuffed peppers for starters, homemade pizza for the main, and what Baekhyun knows is going to turn out to be a catastrophe of a red velvet cake for pudding. He also has wine, candles and a nice shirt he’s going to wear, and he’s very excited to spoil Chanyeol and watch him eat, hopefully without setting anything on fire.

The anticipation makes him sweat harder over his stove, albeit he tries to calm himself down with “It’s okay if something goes wrong, just don’t burn anything” and “Chanyeol won’t mind so long as you don’t poison him”. He can’t say for sure that his pep talk works.

Naturally, he’s going to be insanely bitter if he tastes what he’s made and doesn’t like it after all the effort he’s put in. If Chanyeol doesn’t like it either, Baekhyun will probably (definitely) cry. There’s always the pub, though, seeing as they can’t order a takeaway or a delivery pizza to fill the void Baekhyun’s terrible cooking may leave behind. Kyungsoo has wine and candles too, so it won’t be too different if push comes to shove.

To Baekhyun’s genuine amazement, things seem to be going rather well. Still, he reminds himself not to be overconfident, especially when moving things in and out of the oven. One slip could ruin an entire course and the rest of the ship will go down with it.

By the end, he doesn’t think it went that badly. The cake sunk a little in the middle and the peppers are crispier around the edges than he would have liked, but the pizza looks decent and his kitchen smells phenomenal. Now all he needs to do is keep the food warm, decorate the cake, change his clothes and set up the dining table.

His heart is sprinting with excitement. He hasn’t seen Chanyeol all day and he can’t wait to witness his reaction when he walks in because there should be joy before he realises it tastes terrible later on. More than anything, he hopes Chanyeol will like it, even just one mouthful from one course. After hours of hard work, Baekhyun wants to reap the benefits of his labour and watch Chanyeol happily eating. He looks so adorable when he eats.

He changes quickly, styling his hair a little and using a smidge of cologne, then he jogs downstairs to start setting up the table, whipping out place mats and cutlery and finally, an old candelabra that he pierces five red candles onto and sets the wicks alight. He also grabs the fire extinguisher from under the stairs and puts it on one of the seats at the table that won’t be occupied, just in case. Then, he ices the cake with buttercream and covers the top in chocolate flakes that fall everywhere and melt all over his countertop. He’s just wiping them up when he hears the front door open, and like the curtains opening to a stage, Baekhyun thinks it’s time.

Baekhyun dusts off his hands and strides towards Chanyeol who’s currently wiping his shoes off on the welcome mat and saying “Oh my god, it smells amazing in here!”

Baekhyun grins broadly in response, helping Chanyeol out of his coat and pecking him on the lips when he gets the chance. “I’m just hoping it tastes as good as it smells,” he admits, hanging up his jacket and locking the door before meeting Chanyeol in the kitchen. He’s gaping at the wine glasses and the candles and the napkins Baekhyun folded to look like swans while he ate breakfast, before he pivots around and scoops Baekhyun up by the waist and squashes the air from his lungs.

“You did this for me?”

“Yep,” Baekhyun smiles, biting his lip, as his hands roam over Chanyeol’s stubbled jawline. “Someone needs a shave,” he teases, getting squashed extra hard for a moment.

“Don’t change the subject. This is incredible.”

“This is what I meant by special.”

“Oh, it qualifies. Definitely qualifies,” Chanyeol gushes, looking around Baekhyun’s kitchen again in awe. “There’s even prosecco.”

Baekhyun laughs, patting Chanyeol’s chest so he can be set free and going to pull his chair out for him. “We’re too posh for beer today,” he says playfully, grabbing the wine bottle and winding off the wire casing around the cork.

Chanyeol watches him as he opens the bottle, eyes hooded, and when it pops off Chanyeol declares “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen” and pinches Baekhyun on the bum. Flinching away, Baekhyun sloshes prosecco down his arm and glares at Chanyeol before pouring his glass, revelling in Chanyeol’s guilty smile and placating kissy faces that he always seems to resort to when he’s been teasing and he’s trying to get back into Baekhyun’s good books.

“Okay,” Baekhyun claps his hands together and heads to the oven where he’s keeping their food warm, “time for the starters.”

Chanyeol gasps. “Starters? Woah. You really went full out!”

His eyes never lose sight of his plate as Baekhyun settles it down beneath his nose, the stuffed peppers steaming with heat and smelling delicious. They clink their glasses together and take a sip of wine before they start eating, and Baekhyun learns that Chanyeol is much more vocal when eating good food than he is during sex – and proceeds to joke with him about it, only mildly offended.

“Okay, for one, food won’t laugh at you when you make stupid noises, and two, if I gasp when I’m eating, I’ll choke and die. That doesn’t happen during sex.”

Baekhyun smirks behind his wine glass. “Are you saying I don’t feed you well?”

Chanyeol starts choking.

It’s heaven, eating with Chanyeol in the comfort of his own home. Baekhyun almost wishes he had more courses to bring out so that this moment would last forever, but his stomach is rapidly starting to fill up and once they’ve got to dessert, the both of them are nursing food babies and talking about what their names are.

“Mine’s definitely a Janet, I can feel it,” Chanyeol says seriously, caressing his stomach.

“Mine’s a Bridget,” Baekhyun decides afterwards, the two of them sharing a thoughtful nod before peeling with laughter. “My grandma was called Bridget,” Baekhyun says conversationally on his way to retrieve the cake from the counter.

“The one who used to live here?”

“Yep. She used to make the best Victoria sponge cakes, you have no idea. I’m pretty sure she gave Mrs Mason her recipe but I have to say, she can’t make them as well as my grandma used to.”

Chanyeol smiles fondly. “Does baking run in the family?” he asks when Baekhyun places the cake in the centre of the table.

He laughs in an oh god no kind of way. “I don’t think so. Beneath this buttercream is a crater.”

“Yeah, same. I’ve always been hopeless at making desserts, even flapjacks. My dad’s pretty good, though! He makes scones every week and leaves giant messes in the kitchen after he tries out new recipes.”

“That sounds awesome!” Baekhyun says, enamoured, as he cuts the cake into small pieces. “You can have as much cake as you want, by the way.”

“Oooh,” Chanyeol rubs his palms together, “yummy.”

It doesn’t turn out to be that bad, but Baekhyun has a suspicion that he overbaked it by just a couple of minutes. The outside is drier than the middle, which Chanyeol guffaws at when he sees just how low the middle has sagged.

“Looks like my hopes and dreams,” he jokes dramatically, urging Baekhyun to poke him under the table.

“It still tastes the same.”

“And it tastes lovely,” Chanyeol compliments earnestly, making Baekhyun smile and feel a rewarding sense of accomplishment. Dinner wasn’t a disaster and that means he’s insanely happy. Mission successful.

“I thought we could watch a movie or something after,” Baekhyun suggests after he downs the rest of his wine. “I ordered some new releases online for us to choose from.”

Chanyeol smiles across the table at him, his eyes twinkling from the candlelight, and Baekhyun doesn’t expect to be as arrested as he is. In his defence, Chanyeol is looking at him with an expression that looks a lot like love, eyes so soft and tender that Baekhyun’s heart tremors in his chest.

Chanyeol drops his gaze after a moment, shy, and Baekhyun stands up to start taking the dishes to the sink. He’s just washing his hands off when Chanyeol slips in behind him and kisses the back of his neck, peppering a trail of them around to the side and up to his temple. Baekhyun shudders, every nerve ending becoming overly sensitive to Chanyeol’s touch. Chanyeol knows that Baekhyun’s neck is ticklish, abusing that information, but Baekhyun would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it.

“What movies did you get?”

The charge drops, and Baekhyun looks back to Chanyeol smirking at him. He was so ready to strip off Chanyeol’s jeans and get on the floor that now he feels cheated, huffing and flicking water in his face on the way to the living room. Chanyeol cackles because he knows the effect he has on him, Baekhyun only letting the teasing slide once they’re lying on the sofa with a movie playing on the TV.

Baekhyun makes a comment about the good special effects and Chanyeol flinches dramatically every time there’s an alien jump scare, but all in all Baekhyun doesn’t find the film to be that stimulating. It gets worse when Chanyeol leaves him for the toilet, insisting he doesn’t need to pause it while he’s gone, now left to be tortured alone by the lacklustre plot and unrelatable characters.

He’s been sitting through a whole space battle and an interrogation scene when he starts to seriously wonder why Chanyeol hasn’t come back yet. He looks through the open doorway to the stairs as if hoping to see something that’ll explain what he’s doing, fretting that maybe he did poison Chanyeol with his cooking after all. He hasn’t heard the toilet flush or the water go yet. Perhaps he’s constipated? If he is, Baekhyun doesn’t want to draw attention to it in case Chanyeol gets embarrassed, so he carries on watching the film for another five gruelling minutes.

Now he’s starting to worry. Did Chanyeol faint? Is he being sick? Is he having a family emergency and taking a private phone call? Does he need constipation medicine? Baekhyun is frantically watching the stairwell more than the TV, arguing with himself about whether to go up there and ask him if he’s okay or not. He feels unexpectedly nauseous at the idea of Chanyeol not being okay and at that, he’s had enough. He’s about to jump off the sofa and charge up the stairs when the toilet flushes and he hears the bathroom door open. At least Chanyeol is conscious, Baekhyun thinks to calm himself down, pushing himself back against the cushions to look as unbothered as possible. Chanyeol would probably laugh at him if he saw how much he was freaking out just then.

Chanyeol looks a bit red in the face when he enters the room, carefully sitting down and throwing his arms over the back of the sofa so Baekhyun can retake his position against his side.

“Everything okay?” Baekhyun asks, still worried but trying not to make a big deal.

“Yeah, yeah. Did I miss anything important?” Chanyeol points the TV and Baekhyun draws a blank. To be honest, he hasn’t been paying attention at all.

“Um, no, not really.”

The movie is boring and proving to be a waste of his money, so Baekhyun starts entertaining himself with other things, like Chanyeol’s hoodie sleeve, then Chanyeol’s hand, then his neck. It takes longer than expected to break Chanyeol’s devout concentration to the movie but he gets there when he starts sucking on his skin. Baekhyun would love to leave a mark behind, a nice purple bruise, but he won’t do so without asking first. Still, there’s an entire week before Chanyeol has to go to a meeting again and it is perfect scarf weather, so he asks, breathless, and Chanyeol says yes.

He climbs into Chanyeol’s lap and straddles his thighs, latching onto Chanyeol’s neck with his hands and mouth to leave a mark that he wants to watch bruise and fade over the coming days. He’s overcome with lust to the point where he can’t help but gyrate against Chanyeol’s pelvis, grinding on him with a glazed-over look that Chanyeol kisses from his face.

“Do you know why I spent so long in the bathroom?” Chanyeol breathes airily, panting already as he digs his fingers into Baekhyun’s waist and helps him move.

“I don’t know, I thought you were constipated,” Baekhyun says without thinking, the subject of his words doing nothing to douse the intense want he feels currently growing between his legs.

Chanyeol laughs and it’s gorgeous, so Baekhyun swallows it and runs hands through his hair, desperate to feel all of him all at once.

“I was prepping,” Chanyeol whispers, his words loud in the sudden silence. Baekhyun stares at him in wonder, hands slowly coming to cup his cheeks as it sinks in.

“Prepping as in—?”

“Yeah.” Chanyeol smiles timidly.

Baekhyun pecks him lightly on the mouth, feeling the softness of his lips and the warmth of his breath. “Come to bed,” he says, and leads Chanyeol up the stairs.

“Yes, kind sir. I shall come to your bed chamber.”

“What the hell?” Baekhyun laughs, looking down at Chanyeol over his shoulder, halfway up the stairwell.

Chanyeol chuckles mischievously. “Just the way you said it. All old fashioned and everything.”

Baekhyun pulls him across the landing with his other hand, walking backwards so he can face Chanyeol as he steps through the doorway. “Are you calling me old fashioned?” he purrs, taking Chanyeol by his belt loops and yanking him forwards until their hips knock together. Their bulges touch first, Baekhyun gasping as he leans up and teasingly flicks his tongue across Chanyeol’s reddened bottom lip.

“Are you kink shaming me?” Chanyeol hooks his hands under the bottom of Baekhyun’s shirt and removes it without preamble.

Baekhyun can’t help but let his head fall back with an amused chortle, his hands sliding up and over Chanyeol’s chest. “Baby, I don’t kink shame.”

He shivers when Chanyeol’s hands make contact with his bare skin, breath hitching when his nipples come under thumbs and Chanyeol fondles him all the way back towards the edge of the bed.

They kiss with extreme ardour, Baekhyun running his tongue behind Chanyeol’s lips in front of his teeth and losing it when he smiles. His hands drop to the button on Chanyeol’s trousers, deftly popping it open and dragging down the zipper so he can squeeze himself inside and start palming Chanyeol through his underwear. Chanyeol hisses, mouth latching onto Baekhyun’s shoulder while Baekhyun runs his fingers up and down the outline of his cock. He feels dizzy with desire and drunk on lust, and consequently turns Chanyeol around and pushes him back to sit on the end of the mattress.

Chanyeol accepts him between his legs, wrapping Baekhyun up in his arms and holding his stomach as a prisoner to his mouth. “Have I ever told you how hot you are?” Chanyeol enthuses between raspy breaths, sucking onto the spot he knows is sensitive just a few inches south of Baekhyun’s underarm.

Baekhyun rakes his hands through Chanyeol’s hair, choosing to wait until he has enough breath to respond, only he never gets it back. In place, he groans out a lazy “Uhuh” and hopes Chanyeol gets the message. He’s so hard that he can’t think straight.

Chanyeol doesn’t wait long in taking care of that.

Baekhyun watches on, combing Chanyeol’s hair away from his face as he eases Baekhyun’s trousers down his legs. There are wet kisses landing all over his body, their lasting effects making Baekhyun feel like it’s happening over and over in a million places at once. They tingle and sizzle across his skin like little sparks trapped within his body, focusing down on where Chanyeol has sprung his dick free and is stroking it dangerously close to his mouth. Impatiently, Baekhyun almost tells Chanyeol to suck it, biting his tongue at the last second and rocking his head back when Chanyeol hums and kisses the tip.

His black curls tickle Baekhyun’s stomach as Chanyeol bobs his head, his mouth locking Baekhyun in a slick, wet heat, drowning him in pleasure. Warm hands are on his hips and waist as Chanyeol gets a feel for his skin, circling them further back to dig his nails into Baekhyun’s ass and use it as a force to propel his dick further down his throat.

“Oh my god.” Baekhyun’s voice is strained and strung out, his hands vice-like in their grip but feeling so weak as he clutches onto Chanyeol’s head and tugs shakily on his silken hair. “Chanyeol, oh my god.”

Chanyeol sucks to the end and finishes with a flourish of his tongue, blinking up at Baekhyun with a scorching gaze that has his heart pounding and his breath quickening. Chanyeol leaves Baekhyun trapped in his boxers while Baekhyun lurches to remove Chanyeol’s shirt, moving so abruptly that his foot somehow slips and he topples forwards into Chanyeol’s lap, knocking the both of them back against the bed.

“Ah, so graceful,” Chanyeol groans, nursing a spot on his chest that Baekhyun felt his elbow connect with.

“I’m so sorry,” Baekhyun laughs breathily, sitting down with his legs spread on the bed and pulling Chanyeol back by his armpits to lie against his chest. “Shall I rub it better?” He smirks, reaching both hands down to glide Chanyeol’s t-shirt up over his pale skin and then strip him of it completely. The first thing he does is latch his mouth onto Chanyeol’s neck, laving along the veins that run beneath his skin and nipping directly over where each pulse is a punch. Hot hands descend on Chanyeol’s chest, devoting time to playing with his nipples until Chanyeol is writhing beneath him and touching himself with abandon.

When Baekhyun leans down to take over, wrapping him in his hand and starting to pump him in his fist, Chanyeol looks up at him with a stare that burns, eyes hooded and oozing with a desire so potent Baekhyun thinks he can smell it. His mouth is hanging open, sultry breaths landing like wet steam against Baekhyun’s throat before he captures them in his mouth and traces Chanyeol’s teeth with his tongue.

“I think you should take off your jeans for me,” he murmurs, grazing his lips across Chanyeol’s cheek to his temple before tugging on his earlobe with his teeth.

“Shall I do a strip tease?” Chanyeol grins, lips bitten and swollen with the lower one trapped beneath his gleaming smile.

Baekhyun laps at the corner of Chanyeol’s mouth, so lost in his arousal that he can’t control his actions anymore. “Do you want me to come early?”

Chanyeol sits up, twisting his body around until he’s lying on his hip and his face is directly in front of Baekhyun’s, shiny and rosy in colour, hair a soft shambles that frames his eyes so delicately with artistic precision. “Am I that enticing?” Chanyeol husks, bumping their noses together and briefly sucking on Baekhyun’s cupid’s bow.

“No, you’re just really turning me on,” Baekhyun growls bluntly, taking Chanyeol by the nape of his neck and massaging their tongues together while his hand is busy between his legs. “Tell me what you like,” he breathes quickly before diving back in, pressing Chanyeol against the bed covers and hungrily grinding against his hip.

“What I like?” Chanyeol gasps, a hand clawing into Baekhyun’s hair a tad too tight while his other one slips beneath Baekhyun’s boxers and squeezes. “I don’t know, just—I can’t think right now, please don’t ask me questions, Baek.”

Baekhyun grins wickedly, mapping his way down Chanyeol’s chest, nipping at his tattoos and pausing sinfully close to his dick. “Shall I take them off for you?” he asks, referencing to the jeans that are still hugging Chanyeol’s legs.

Chanyeol stares at him blankly.

“Crap, sorry,” Baekhyun chuckles, burrowing his face into Chanyeol’s hipbone to hide his mirth. “It’s an important question though. You wanna get naked?” He looks up and winks and watches gleefully as Chanyeol falls about laughing.

“I’m kind of sad I’m not naked already, to be honest.”

“Oh no,” Baekhyun clucks his tongue and shakes his head, securing his hands around Chanyeol’s jeans and teasing them off his hips. “We can’t have that.”

“We absolutely cannot have that,” Chanyeol agrees, raising his pelvis off the bed to help Baekhyun unclothe him completely. Baekhyun can’t breathe with how hard he’s smiling, inwardly commenting on how flexible Chanyeol is when he stretches his naked legs into the air and points his toes. Baekhyun wraps his hands around Chanyeol’s thighs and parts them to peep through at his face, laughing at Chanyeol’s reaction before he turns to kiss the inside of one knee.

“You okay?” Baekhyun asks at a whisper, just to be sure. Chanyeol’s legs lower to frame his hips as Baekhyun crawls over him again, pecking him lightly on the lips and shuddering at how soft they are.

Chanyeol smiles. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more okay,” he says with a long, languid caress of Baekhyun’s body that sends tremors down Baekhyun’s spine. Chanyeol really is just all-around lovely and for a moment, Baekhyun presses their foreheads together so he can comprehend how lucky he is. “Are you okay?” Chanyeol then wonders, kissing the corner of his mouth while his tongue rests over his teeth.

Baekhyun hums and nods faintly, eyes roaming Chanyeol’s face and recognising for the hundredth time how beautiful he is. He goes all coquettish as he nudges down Baekhyun’s boxers, licking his lips and fluttering his eyelashes with a guise of innocence.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Baekhyun groans, cradling Chanyeol’s bottom lip between his teeth and pulling it back until it breaks free.

“Like what?” Chanyeol raises an eyebrow, grabbing himself two handfuls of ass and making Baekhyun’s knees buckle. Their hips bang together and a moan tears from Baekhyun’s throat when his length rubs against Chanyeol’s, the friction unexpectedly sending sparks through his gut that foster the flame setting his nerve endings alight.

“I don’t know,” Baekhyun smiles lovingly as he holds himself up and makes a detour to the bedside table. “Looking all cute and innocent, trying to trick me.”

“You think I’m cute?” Chanyeol drinks it all in, crossing his arms behind his head like he’s relaxing on a beach somewhere as Baekhyun grabs a bottle of lube and a condom.

Baekhyun considers it for a moment as he swings his knee over Chanyeol’s hips so he isn’t on top of him anymore. He’s about to roll the condom on when Chanyeol’s hand takes hold of him and squeezes a bead of precome from his tip, swiping it with his thumb and using it to slicken the stroke all the way down.

Baekhyun hums, pushing his hips towards Chanyeol’s hand while his own plant firmly against the mattress to keep him upright. He could really, really get used to this. Chanyeol looks dizzyingly good right now, hair tousled, lips glistening, throat marked. Baekhyun almost can’t believe what he’s seeing, so enamoured and so in awe that he holds a palm to his forehead and groans with his head tilted back because he feels like he’s about to burst.

“Oh my god.” Baekhyun runs his palm down his face. “Stop, stop.”

Chanyeol smiles with his tongue between his teeth. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Baekhyun kisses the cheeky expression straight from his face, dropping a hand to feel in between Chanyeol’s legs where the flared base of his plug is nestled.

“What position do you like the best?” he asks, getting his answer when Chanyeol rolls himself onto his stomach and raises his hips into the air.

Baekhyun’s mouth waters at the curve of his ass. He’s somewhere near gobsmacked as he shuffles on his knees towards it, mesmerised by its almost perfectly round build and the shadow it casts down the backs of his thighs. He’s trying to find a word that does Chanyeol justice, a word that encompasses his beauty, his excellence, his vulnerability. No other words but compliments wish to leave his lips, but all fall short when Baekhyun ponders how Chanyeol exceeds their definitions.

A soft laugh reaches his ears, then there’s a hand gripping into the ass Baekhyun is steadfast in staring at and he watches as it wiggles.

“Your face,” Chanyeol whispers, commenting on the dumbfounded expression Baekhyun is probably sporting right now because he’s in the presence of such a fine, handsome specimen.

He narrows his eyes, grinning and grabbing Chanyeol’s ass with both hands, a sharp lance of arousal striking through his dick when he feels how firm it is. “Because this,” he squeezes, “is incredible.” Fat spills out around his fingers and it’s exquisite; Baekhyun smacks down a kiss just to prove how much.

Chanyeol smiles smugly, hands either side of his head as he looks down at Baekhyun slipping on the condom and squeezing lube into his hands. “It’s only incredible because you kept agreeing to come to the pub with me.”

“I’m sure you would’ve found someone else to go with,” he says with a smirk, dipping down to swirl his tongue around the butt plug currently stretching Chanyeol open. Chanyeol intakes sharply, lips parting and eyes glazing over. He extends a hand back to help hold his cheeks open as Baekhyun slides lube behind the base.

“True,” Chanyeol shrugs. “But I don’t want to go with anyone else. Ah, this is making me hungry.”

Baekhyun chuckles darkly. “For me?” It’s a terrible joke, really, but it makes Chanyeol laugh.

“Oh yeah. Hungry for dick. Mhmm.”

Baekhyun stifles a howl in the small of Chanyeol’s back, trying not to laugh too much seeing as he’s light of breath already. He’s gasping for air and his eyes are watering by the time the joke has passed, and he leaves a wet patch on Chanyeol’s skin where his mouth was when he sits up behind him again and prepares himself to get going.

“Right, right.” Baekhyun takes a deep breath. “I’ll go slow, okay?” he says, voice light, hand in position ready to move. “Tell me if you need me to stop.”

Chanyeol nods, closing his fingers around the duvet and moving his head around a little as he relaxes. Baekhyun watches him as he eases the plug from his body, reading his expression for signs of pain or discomfort, or both, until they’re past the bulb and Chanyeol closes up around the tapered body.

“Tissue,” Baekhyun says, kneading Chanyeol’s hip while he waits. Chanyeol follows his request swiftly, and Baekhyun wraps up the toy to be washed later.

“Will you finger me a little?” Chanyeol asks, humming at the touch of Baekhyun’s fingertips coating him with lube.

Baekhyun suppresses a shudder and swears he can feel himself leaking. “Yes, baby,” tumbles from his mouth before he can stop it, and then he’s delving two digits into Chanyeol’s wetness, slicking him up as he goes.

It feels like he’s having a revelation as he watches his fingers sink inside Chanyeol’s body, curling them down towards the nerves nestled within. It could just be his erection thinking for him, but Baekhyun wants to be a part of Chanyeol forever. He wants it to only be him who gets to see him this way from this moment on. Only him who Chanyeol shares his splendid self with. And Baekhyun, fumbling from bliss, thinks he knows the feeling that has repeatedly crossed his mind and claimed land on his heart. It doesn’t scare him like he thought it would.

His hand runs down Chanyeol’s spine, blood buzzing in his ears. Chanyeol rolls his hips back onto his hand and god, Baekhyun hasn’t seen anything as hot as that in his life. “You ready?” he rasps, his gut rippling as Chanyeol’s body tries to suck his fingers back in when he gently drags them out.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol breathes, finger and thumb playing with his bottom lip.

“Want to guide me in?” Baekhyun flashes him a smile as he gathers lube on the end of his dick, biting his lip and groaning as he lines himself up, Chanyeol’s svelte fingers taking hold of his head to set him on the correct path. “Tell me if it hurts.”

Chanyeol sighs, already pulling Baekhyun closer and beginning to open up around him. “I will,” he whispers, fixing his gaze on Baekhyun’s eyes and pinning him there.

Baekhyun’s jaw goes slack the further inside Chanyeol he presses, mind numbed from arousal as he clamps his tingling hands onto Chanyeol’s hips and refrains from thrusting all the way in. He’s devoured by the pressure and the warmth and Chanyeol’s taut clenching, utterly consumed by Chanyeol’s sonorous grunts as they bleed into the heady air.

It’s like there’s a fog, a haze around Baekhyun’s mind. He can’t see where he is so he lays touches on Chanyeol’s body, navigating it and swelling with emotion when he realises he knows his way around. For a moment, it feels like his first time again. Like everything is new and he doesn’t know what to do next. It’s been so long, ridiculously long, since he’s been with someone like this. But even if it hadn’t been years, even if it was just months, Baekhyun is completely sure it would feel just as new, just as incredible, just as tender. It’s Chanyeol, and with Chanyeol, everything is enrapturing.

“To there,” Chanyeol sighs, relaxing against the bed and then clenching, trying Baekhyun out for size. He’s stopped Baekhyun before he can be fully seated, but going in further doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to feel better. “You’re big.” Chanyeol lets out an airy laugh and Baekhyun’s heart stutters.

He layers himself over Chanyeol’s body, his chest brushing against Chanyeol’s back on his way down to whisper in his ear. “We’re the same size,” he says, softly kissing Chanyeol’s shoulder and then his mouth when he turns his head enough.

“Okay,” Chanyeol laughs quietly against his lips, breath rushing down Baekhyun’s airways. “You’re the biggest I’ve had then.”

“Mm, you know the way to my heart, don’t you?” he murmurs playfully, rolling his tongue over Chanyeol’s, their teeth clicking when he goes in with too much enthusiasm.

“I hope so,” Chanyeol replies, languidly kissing him back as Baekhyun starts to move.

His thrusts start out light, shallow, testing the waters to see how Chanyeol will respond. He ushers him down to lie flat, intently returning the carnal stare Chanyeol has adopted as he succumbs to pleasure and want. Chanyeol is tight and he’s wet and he’s warm, and Baekhyun slides his tongue into his mouth at the same pace as his hips undulate, his back arching like a bow with every drive forwards.

Chanyeol mewls and moans the first syllable of Baekhyun’s name, needily entwining their hands and clenching down on Baekhyun’s fingers as his thrusts grow deeper and faster, drowning in the pressure of Chanyeol’s body enveloping him in a burning glove.

Chanyeol feels heavenly; a paradise entombed in his soul that Baekhyun is lucky enough to have uncovered. “You feel amazing,” he chokes, stopping to gyrate his hips and he gasps when Chanyeol clenches around him out of nowhere. “There?” he asks, aiming to hit the same spot over and over, trembling as his skin prickles with the wanton need to make them both feel good.

“Right there,” Chanyeol says brokenly, mouth hanging open and hands tightening their grip. “Oh fuck.”

That’s all the encouragement Baekhyun needs to forgo his inhibitions and start making love to Chanyeol without holding back. He loses himself in his own impulses, panting across Chanyeol’s sweat-soaked skin and watching as he shivers. Chanyeol is covered in a healthy flush, his voice raggedly reacting to every one of Baekhyun’s movements as he swings his hips forward and back.

“Feels really good,” Chanyeol utters softly, lustful eyes opening to behold Baekhyun quaking from exertion and pleasure. He swells with confidence and pride, and he lands a kiss on Chanyeol’s shoulder before he takes his mouth and refuses to abandon it.

He keeps Chanyeol safely enclosed in his body, tasting his tongue and capturing the moans he lets loose when the pleasure sharpens. It strikes them both in the gut, blunt, almost ruthless in its consumption. He drives into Chanyeol and makes him keen, grunting lowly in his ear and watching him squirm from the tingles it sends crashing down his side.

Sitting up allows him to run his hands across Chanyeol’s back, a front seat view of the lewd place they connect with a slap and a squelch. Stifling air drapes across his neck and shoulders like a cloak, his breathing frantic and teeming with the sounds he eventually sets free, sighs that develop into whines and then growls of passion and want.

He adds more lube, moaning softly when it slickens the slide and it’s easier for him to pick up the pace. Chanyeol clutches desperately onto a pillow, breathlessly whining into the material to a beat that Baekhyun matches his thrusts to. He looks sinful like that. Then again, he’s looked sinful all night. Panting through kiss-bruised lips, hungry, glazed over eyes that melt Baekhyun whenever he looks at him, body bouncing every time their skin smacks together. It’s all Baekhyun can do to compliment him, blurt obscenities with loving praise and grumble “You look so fucking good right now.” He would never shut up if he had enough breath.

He can feel it coming. A rush. Tiny tremors that conjoin into one giant shockwave.

“Chanyeol,” he breathes, pitching forwards and possessively retaking Chanyeol’s hands. “Oh my god.” He tenses up, losing his rhythm and sporadically jutting his hips forward into Chanyeol’s tight heat. His heart pounds through his skin and time seems to slow, until his whole being stumbles and a sharp cry pierces the air, his own voice coming from far away. The release is like waves of lightning that make him only see white.

Everything stops. Toes curling, thighs cramping. Baekhyun collapses against Chanyeol’s back, wheezing into his skin before he remembers where he is and starts peppering kisses everywhere he has the energy to reach.

Left utterly spent, he goes limp, so close to falling asleep that he doesn’t register Chanyeol wriggling underneath him.

“Are you alive?” Chanyeol laughs airily, Baekhyun successful with a grin despite every other muscle being lifeless.

“Mmmm,” he hums. Even that makes him breathless. “Turn over.”

He peels himself from Chanyeol’s body, boiling, and watches with hungry eyes as Chanyeol flops onto his back and stretches like a cat. He’s still hard, so Baekhyun takes him firmly in his hand and starts to pump him towards the end. Chanyeol seems much more interested in stroking Baekhyun’s face, cradling it softly while his eyes search every corner.

“I can’t feel my legs,” he says randomly, and Baekhyun smirks, taking that as a challenge.

“Can you feel this?” he asks, shuffling down the bed and licking a spiral on Chanyeol’s upper thigh.

Chanyeol sighs, throwing his arms above his head and closing his eyes with a peaceful smile. “Do it again. I’m not sure.”

Pressing a smile into Chanyeol’s skin, Baekhyun carries on, licking shapes and permanent kisses over Chanyeol’s thighs while his right hand ushers him to his high. It arrives, almost endearing, and Baekhyun is overwhelmed by contentment. Every moment with Chanyeol is a moment he doesn’t want to end. But then if it never ended he would be starving himself of all this, of everything new. He resembles each day to a leap of faith, always falling. Falling for him with no intent to stop.

Chanyeol lets out a pleased hum and pulls Baekhyun from his reverie, awakening an untameable craving for kisses and cuddles. He indulges himself – more like indulges the both of them – before he takes on cleaning duties, allowing Chanyeol to remain soft and comfortable in bed while he wipes up their bodies and then changes the duvet cover.

“You should walk around naked more.”

Baekhyun laughs on his way back from his trip to the washing basket, crawling onto the bed and hovering directly over Chanyeol. “You’d enjoy it too much.”

Chanyeol’s hands graze up his sides. “Probably. You have a really great body.”

“This old thing?” Baekhyun jokes, trying to kiss Chanyeol while he’s laughing.

“Shhhh. I find you super sexy.”

No one has ever complimented him like that before, Baekhyun’s emotions stirred until he’s nothing but besotted with everything Chanyeol is. It’s easy to kiss him now, when they’re both eager. Against his lips, Baekhyun tells Chanyeol he’s beautiful, and forsakes breath until he falls asleep.

Later, there’s buzzing. In Baekhyun’s dream it’s a wasp, but when he wakes up he realises it’s his phone. He’s drowsy and confused, unwilling to break his cuddle with Chanyeol, and waits the call out thinking it’s probably either a wrong number or a cold call from a different time zone. In the silence that follows, his eyes fall closed and he drifts off, but whoever it is rings again.

Baekhyun pulls his arms from around Chanyeol and leans over the bed to grab his phone with an accusatory stare. He doesn’t recognise the number as it’s not one of his contacts – a relief, actually – but it turns out to be the same person who rang before. Still, two times is enough to give up ringing, Baekhyun thinks, and hesitantly puts his phone down on the mattress to mute any vibrations he dares it to make.

His jaw clenches when his dark screen lights up for the third time, so Baekhyun silently slips out of bed and paces across the landing to the bathroom. Turning the light on blinds him but he’s already accepted the call, pressing the phone against his ear and quietly croaking “Who is this?”

“Baek.”

Baekhyun’s eyes burst open, the bathroom light stabbing through his pupils along with the flare of anger that has sparked in his gut. Is Sehun seriously doing this? And at this time?

“I missed the sound of your voice so much,” Sehun whines.

Upon first inspection, it sounds like he’s crying, but Baekhyun has the suspicion that he’s just drunk and lonely and wants to ruin his perfectly good night.

“I’m hanging up,” he snaps, voice quiet yet piercing. Clearly, Sehun didn’t get the hint. He blocked his phone number. He blocked him on everything. And still Sehun has to go and use a different phone to torment him.

“No! Baek, wait!”

Baekhyun grits his teeth together and takes a deep breath through his nose. He doesn’t say anything, knowing that he’s giving Sehun what he wants if he talks. His stomach starts to revolt, churning into knots simply because he has heard Sehun’s voice for the first time in months and it’s disgusting to the extent that he might be physically sick.

“I’m in trouble.”

Baekhyun says nothing.

“I need help.”

“Why?” hisses Baekhyun, tone clipped.

“You never reply to me,” Sehun starts complaining, loudly swallowing something on his end of the line. “You still love me, don’t you?”

Shaky and cold, Baekhyun leans on the sink for support. “Why do you need help?”

“Because I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of doing something I’ll regret.”

Baekhyun’s heart starts to hammer in his chest and he stares at his naked reflection in the mirror, wondering what the hell he’s doing humouring his drunk ex on the phone at two in the morning. Every inch of his being is telling him to curse Sehun to hell, to scream at him and inflict upon him every ounce of pain that he mercilessly delivered when he lied and broke up with him. Baekhyun wants him to hurt.

Yet a small voice in the back of his mind starts asking him questions. What if Baekhyun is the only one Sehun has to talk to? What if Sehun is about to do something insanely and ridiculously stupid?

“What do you mean?”

“Baek, I miss you so much.” Sehun replies within a beat of his question, Baekhyun unnerved by how fast he can spit bullshit and breathe lies.

“I’m hanging up.”

“Baekhyun, no!”

“No, Sehun. I am hanging up. If you need someone to talk to, ring your mum. I’m not responsible for you anymore.”

Sehun hiccups and cries a little, blubbering out “Baekhyun I can’t live without you” with an added wail at the end.

Baekhyun wants to tell him how pathetic he sounds, though that would just drag the conversation on further and give Sehun more ammunition. Instead, he says nothing. For a moment, he listens to Sehun whine once more about missing him, feeling numb, if not angry, and finally feels like his voice will be stable enough to speak.

“Sehun.”

“Yes?”

“Call your mother.”

And he ends the call and blocks the number, hands trembling and heart raging, overcome with the force to cry. His knees weaken underneath his weight so he lowers to a crouch, hands curled around the edge of the sink so he can press his face into his forearms and spare a few frustrated tears. He wants to hit something. Someone. He wants Sehun to move to the other side of the world, for all memory of him to be wiped from his mind.

The pain that came from the end of their relationship is one he’s not sure he’ll forget that easily. The months of feeling underwater that followed made him doubt everything he was. But everything that he felt was undeserved. Sehun didn’t deserve his tears or his grovelling, his sleepless nights or his self-loathing, and he definitely didn’t deserve his smiles and his time, his body and his love either. Sehun is nothing to him now but an ex who taught him something very valuable but obvious.

Don’t put up with pricks.

He should tell Chanyeol. He’d want to know. And yet a part of him now truly believes that Sehun won’t call him again. He can’t continuously borrow friends’ mobiles or hunt for new payphones. Eventually, Baekhyun will have blocked all his ways through. The problem is resolved, somewhat, so Baekhyun stands up, wipes his eyes and flushes the toilet just in case Chanyeol’s happens to be awake. It’s a shady move, pretending to be peeing, but Baekhyun really doesn’t want to have this conversation right now if Chanyeol gets suspicious.

Turns out that he is awake, his head lifting off the pillow when Baekhyun walks back in the room, eyes still adjusting to the dark.

“Where’d you go?” he murmurs, shifting onto his back and watching Baekhyun as he returns properly to bed.

“Toilet,” he says, guilt massacring him from the inside out as he lies.

Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrow for a second and Baekhyun’s stomach writhes. “Thought I heard talking?”

“I was just scrolling through the news and autoplay was on,” Baekhyun whispers shakily, the rockiness of his voice blameable on him moving about the bed getting back into his previous position.

That seems to quell Chanyeol’s questions. For now.

“Be my big spoon,” Chanyeol whispers sleepily, turning his back of him. Baekhyun moves speedily into place and holds him like he’ll lose him.

Chapter Text

Baekhyun peeks through the blinds of his bedroom window, paint drying on his palms and wrists in splashes of peach and blue. There’s a moving van outside, those who are moving helping to unload its contents into the house next door. It’s the young family with the toddler; Baekhyun knew they seemed like the right type for Bybrook.

He smiles, watching them for a moment under the sun before he returns to his easel and retakes his paint brush. His painting of Chanyeol is coming along nicely, though he keeps having to stop each time his heart flutters at a memory. He’s so unequivocally happy, pressing his fingers to his smile to stop it from stretching too far. His happiness has made Chanyeol his muse, and his muse has blossomed into undying motivation. The canvas is of a fair size, and yet Baekhyun has already painted all the base colours and begun on the shading and it’s only just gone past noon.

When Chanyeol texts, Baekhyun is blessed by the picture of him he set as his lock screen and hears his heart singing. He’d stare at it all day if he could.

Chanyeol

2nd November

[Do I spy new neighbours? ] 12:12

Baekhyun smiles.

[You do indeed] 12:13

A skype call follows, and Baekhyun props his phone up against his monitor so he can continue to paint while they natter.

“What are you working on?” Chanyeol asks, currently typing away on his keyboard looking incredibly focused (and sexy).

Baekhyun smirks. “Something.” He skillfully evades Chanyeol’s questions from thereon after, distracting him with gossip and random thoughts that come to mind. “Old Joe’s birthday is coming up,” he thinks aloud, smiling at Chanyeol on his phone screen where he’s scowling at his computer. Occasionally, Chanyeol gets confused with his work and pulls the most adorable faces. “We’re having a party in the village hall I think, like an old school disco.”

“Sounds awesome! I should get him something. He likes red wine, right?”

“Yep! And speaking of birthdays, yours is soon.” Baekhyun smiles mischievously, wondering what he should plan for Chanyeol’s birthday. “Do you have any family plans?”

Chanyeol starts swivelling left and right on his chair, slouching back and cracking his knuckles; the noise crackles through Baekhyun’s phone. “I’m staying with my parents for the weekend after and on the Friday of that week I’m meeting up with my university friends, but on the day itself I’m going to be pretty busy with my boyfriend so…” He grins so lovably, and Baekhyun suddenly feels too far away from him.

Right. They’re boyfriends. Sometimes he’s so happy that he forgets what Chanyeol is to him now, besides being his ball of sunshine and little spoon.

“I’ll plan something,” Baekhyun decides, already wondering what he could do.

“If we go to the pub on my birthday then I will have successfully tried everything on the menu,” Chanyeol cheers joyously, clapping his hands for emphasis.

“I’ll just have my scampi.”

“Like always.”

Baekhyun chuckles, wiping off his paintbrush and dipping it into a different colour on his palette. He’s painting Chanyeol’s keyboard, trying his best to leave space to detail in the rainbow lights beneath the letters. It resurfaces the memory of when his eyes first landed on Chanyeol. The lights from the bars behind him made him look like he was encompassed in an ever-changing multi-coloured aura. Baekhyun should have known at that point that Chanyeol was someone special.

“Are you coming over later?” Chanyeol asks, the different tabs on his computer screen lighting up his face in different colours whenever he minimizes. “I want to do something.”

“Do something?” Baekhyun waggles his eyebrows, laughing at himself afterwards while nodding. “Of course I’ll come over, probably after I introduce myself to my new neighbours.”

“You’re so excited about them, aren’t you?” Chanyeol chuckles, eyes sparkling.

Baekhyun taps his chin with the end of his paintbrush handle. “I think it’s just bittersweet. I wish Vanessa could have stayed but I’m glad she made the decision to move. She wasn’t happy living here at all and I can understand why. She’s been a city girl since she was born. Plus, I now get to meet new people and maybe even babysit their adorable child. Bonus points if they have a pet.”

“Are you a cat person or a dog person? This is a deal breaker.”

“Dog person, all the way.”

Chanyeol puts a hand on his chest and breathes a sigh of relief. “Good. For a second I was worried.”

Scoffing, Baekhyun tells him not to be so dramatic and gets back to painting. They work in relative silence after that, until Baekhyun has completed all his shading and now needs to kill several hours while the paint dries. He tells Chanyeol that he’s going to go and cheesily blows him a kiss just before he hangs up the call.

The first thing he does is shower and make himself look presentable, then he puts on his best friendly face and heads outside. To his relief, his neighbours are some of the loveliest people he’s ever met. They spend the whole afternoon talking and unpacking, sharing where they’re from, why they decided to move here and yes, if they have any pets. Two cats. Baekhyun is thrilled. He helps carry the large furniture through doorways and up the stairs, and helps the dad of the family – Gareth – put the bed together before moving onto the wardrobe.

Baekhyun fills them in on everything they need to know about Bybrook: its people, its places, Junmyeon and his posh hotel down the road. He tells them about the pub quizzes and the barbecues, and lets them know about the firework show coming up on the fifth and Old Joe’s birthday party on the thirteenth. The mum, Alice, makes a comment about how there’s so much going on, and Baekhyun can only laugh and tell them that he’s only shared the half of it.

He gets to meet their two-year-old too, who is a beautiful girl named Daisy. Her favourite colour is yellow and her favourite animals are penguins, and for some reason Baekhyun can’t understand, she really, really likes him. She plants herself on his lap and introduces him to all of her dolls, then her monster trucks, and thankfully he manages to stop her before she can rope him into setting up her train set by offering to take the family on a village tour.

It’s cold outside so they wrap up warm, Baekhyun then showing them all the sights before he drops them off in Kyungsoo’s capable hands at the pub. He manages to persuade Kyungsoo to give him two takeaway portions of chips that he can carry with him to Chanyeol’s, and he’s letting himself into Chanyeol’s house with his key while they’re still steaming hot.

“I brought chips!” he calls excitedly, sniggering when Chanyeol gasps “My hero!” from the other room.

They watch bad television while they eat, dipping the chips into a spicy soup that Chanyeol quickly blasted on the hob. “What was it you wanted to do?” Baekhyun asks with a mouth full of food, Chanyeol telling him he’s disgusting when he happens to glance over. “Disgustingly amazing,” Baekhyun claps back.

“And you’ll find out later.”

Baekhyun’s eyes drop to Chanyeol’s hips.

“Not that,” Chanyeol sniggers, jumping up. “Come see.”

“I thought you said later?”

“Later is now.”

Baekhyun allows himself to be led down the hallway and stood in front of the bathroom door. Chanyeol moves behind him, hands holding him on either side of his waist and urging him forwards. His initial thoughts run along the lines of Chanyeol buying a shower curtain to match his bath mat, or being completely over the top and buying a waterslide of some kind. He doesn’t expect it to be something romantic, which it very much turns out to be. He opens the door, confused at how the room is glowing, until the door swings the rest of the way back and reveals candles scattered over every surface, lit and warm and incredibly touching. The bath is full with steaming water, infused with something that has turned it pink.

“That’s a lot of candles,” he whispers in awe, stepping cautiously over the threshold, quickly mapping out walkways with his eyes. “When did you do all of this?” He looks back at Chanyeol whose skin has bronzed under the light.

“Earlier today, but I ordered the candles a few days ago. I wanted to try live up to that dinner you made and this was all I could think of with my time constraints.”

Baekhyun just wants to hold Chanyeol and never let go. “Thank you.” He kisses him softly, savouring the touch of Chanyeol’s hands on his face even though they are a little sticky from the food. They undress in the bedroom to keep the candles undisturbed, Baekhyun feeling enlighteningly free as he strides naked through Chanyeol’s house with an equally naked Chanyeol on his tail.

Settling into the bath isn’t a walk in the park, as they have to navigate their limbs and slot them in places where their bones aren’t digging into anything and they’re not likely to go numb. Chanyeol has the simple job, sitting down first and leaving his legs and arms open for Baekhyun to fit himself between, definitely easier said than done.

Finally, he can relax, laying back against Chanyeol’s chest with the hot water melting his muscles. The candles make him feel like he’s surrounded by starlight, maybe even the warmth of Chanyeol’s love, and for a while he can’t stop kissing him. Their hair dampens from the steam, flattening against their skulls. It’s so warm that Baekhyun has to breathe through his mouth, extra breathless when Chanyeol occupies it.

“No one has never done something like this for me,” Baekhyun admits, voice small. He’s reminded of the past, his poor and lacklustre relationships, and is struck by a sensation that wants to burst out of his chest. It’s kind of like wanting to scream, only scream at Chanyeol, but he has no idea how to put it into words.

Chanyeol holds him tighter, the cool press of his nose tickling Baekhyun’s shoulder. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mmm.” Normally, Baekhyun would be wary of that question, afraid he’d be pressed into spilling something private, yet with Chanyeol, he can’t name a single thing he wouldn’t share. He doesn’t want to dwell on it, but if Chanyeol asked, Baekhyun would even tell him about Sehun.

“This is gonna sound really random, but have you ever bottomed before?”

Baekhyun registers that his eyes have slipped closed when they open in surprise. “Why’d you ask?” he enquires, twisting his neck around so he can meet Chanyeol’s eyes.

“I’m just curious. I’ve been wondering it for a while. I mean, you’re a really great top so I thought maybe you’ve bottomed before and know more about what to do? I don’t know… Am I barking up the complete wrong tree?”

Baekhyun grins dotingly. “I’d be concerned if you were barking at anything, to be honest.”

“Even a dog?”

Baekhyun narrows his eyes. “So witty,” he whispers, pressing a kiss at the corner of Chanyeol’s mouth. “I have bottomed before,” he says, resting his head back and closing his eyes. Chanyeol slides his arms around his body, washing water up to his neck that makes him shiver. “Once, with my first boyfriend. He actually told me I looked like a bottom and I really had no idea what that meant so I just went along with it. Long story short, he went off what he saw in porn and it ended up really, really hurting. We broke up a few weeks after that. We were both avoiding each other because we were so embarrassed. Looking back, it’s kind of funny but at the time it was so awkward. I topped in my second relationship and in my third we didn’t do any kind of penetration, so I haven’t bottomed since.”

“What the hell does a bottom look like?” Chanyeol snorts, his smile pressed into Baekhyun’s skin.

“You tell me, I have no idea.” He sighs, running his hands along Chanyeol’s inked forearms before he can lace their fingers together. “You top too, don’t you?”

“I’m not fussed,” Chanyeol is quick to say. “But I do like it, yeah.”

Baekhyun spares a moment to think, to consider. “Maybe I could try it again. You seem to know what you’re doing and I trust you.”

“I don’t want to pressure you into trying anything,” Chanyeol utters sincerely, prompting Baekhyun to sit up and turn around to face him.

“It’s okay,” Baekhyun smiles, sliding forwards and trying to get close to Chanyeol despite both their legs being in the way. “I want to try again.”

“You’d look really good riding me.” Chanyeol licks his lips, his timing impeccable as he says that at the exact moment Baekhyun manages to sit in his lap.

“Is that what you think about?” Baekhyun teases, smiling into Chanyeol’s neck before littering it with kisses.

“Sometimes. Don’t try and deny it, though. You would look amazing.”

Baekhyun wraps his arms around Chanyeol’s neck and smiles at him. “I think the same about you.”

“Me riding you?”

“Mhmm.”

Chanyeol bites his lip, containing a grin that breaks out anyway. “Coming to a bedroom near you,” he exclaims in a typical movie trailer voice, Baekhyun laughing all the way to his mouth.

Every moment is like that – a fight between smiles and kisses. Baekhyun hasn’t been paying attention to how much he’s smiling lately, but one morning when Chanyeol’s in the shower and Baekhyun is washing his hands at the sink, he wipes the condensation from the mirror and sees how deep his smile lines have become. Chanyeol is pure happiness, and Baekhyun delights in him like he’s the sun.

They go shopping together a few days later, hunting for Joe’s birthday present on the day of the party. Chanyeol buys him a bottle of red as planned, whereas Baekhyun goes for a sweet bobble hat and a pair of warm slippers for the winter. Edgebank is bustling with the town market when they walk down the high street hand in hand, stopping briefly in a café before heading back to the car and catching each other when they slip on the icy pavements.

Baekhyun hears back from his author during the car ride home, reading through her response to his drafts that list a great number of things that need to be changed. He doesn’t want to let it dampen his mood but it does, and he starts internally telling himself off for taking a job he knows he’s not good at. Chanyeol notices his quiet and asks him if he’s alright, to which Baekhyun explains and is then cheered up by Chanyeol butchering songs on the radio.

He gets a proper comforting at home. Chanyeol makes him hot chocolate with whipped cream and little marshmallows and tells him that he shouldn’t be disheartened, the two of them almost sitting on top of each other on Chanyeol’s sofa while they watch an old TV soap episode.

“I’m going to be so behind schedule with my other projects now,” Baekhyun murmurs, already feeling the stress clumping knots in his shoulders.

“Everything will work out, okay? And I’m always here to lend a hand if you need one. Or even two, because I have two hands.”

Baekhyun smiles, looking up at him and waiting for a kiss that doesn’t disappoint when it arrives.

“Let’s relax for the rest of today and enjoy Joe’s birthday. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” Baekhyun agrees, kissing him again. “I can think of several ways we can relax.”

Chanyeol smiles against his mouth and gently removes the mug from Baekhyun’s hand to place it safely on the coffee table. “Lie down,” he whispers, and it’s the most erotic thing Baekhyun has ever heard.

They part ways after a shared dinner so Baekhyun can dress up in his nice clothes at home. He makes an effort to look good, strategically planning his outfit to hide the bruises Chanyeol left at the base of his neck. A turtle neck sounds good, but he ruins his hair getting it on. It doesn’t seem like Chanyeol’s having much luck either, as Baekhyun receives a text that reads [Wardrobe malfunction D: I’m gonna be late, meet you there? ] two minutes before they’re about to head over.

He smiles and shakes his head, locking up his house after slipping his phone into his back pocket. Briefly, he glances through the front windows of the house beside his to see if his neighbours are up to anything, finding the two of them assembling a coffee table with and not noticing as Daisy walks off with the screwdriver. He hopes they weren’t overlooked when word was going around about Joe’s party, but the villagers have always been cold towards newcomers. Slowing his pace, Baekhyun debates knocking on or leaving them to set up their house, eventually landing on the former and treading their garden path.

“Baekhyun! What a lovely surprise!” Alice bursts happily when she opens the door. “How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks! I hope everything is going well with the move.”

“Yeah, it’s not so bad,” she shrugs with a glance back into the house. “We can’t find half the stuff we need right now but we’re coming up with great alternatives for things.”

Baekhyun smiles. “I was just wondering actually if you’ve met Joe yet? It’s his birthday today and we’re having a party in the village hall. You’re more than welcome to come if you have the time! It’ll be a good chance to meet the rest of the neighbours, and between you and me, their mouths are slacker when they’ve had a drink or two.”

“Oh, really? We didn’t know about that! We haven’t really gotten around to introducing ourselves to everyone yet because we’re trying to set up everything, but thanks for letting us know, Baekhyun! We might be able to pop in a little later.”

“That would be great,” Baekhyun cheers. “I’ll look out for you there, but if you can’t make it in the end, don’t worry about it all. I appreciate that you guys are busy. If you ever need help with anything, just knock on.”

Alice beams at him. “We will! Thanks, Baekhyun. Have a good night if we don’t see you.”

“You too!” He waves as he steps away from their doorway, heading over to the village hall. He can hear the music from halfway down the street, an old rock song that Joe likes to replicate on his acoustic guitar whenever he gets the chance. Inside feels like home.

He sees Mrs Parker looking after Minseok’s children, Kyungsoo trying to explain to Jemimah why she can’t have a beer and Joe joining in with a game of musical chairs that Jongin is currently DJing. There are balloons and streamers and a buffet table with a three tier cake in the centre, and there’s old plastic disco balls spinning spots of colour onto the walls and people’s faces. Yixing and Rose are chatting with Jongdae and a girl Baekhyun hasn’t seen before, presumably Sophie, his mystery crush, while Agnes is shouting at the Lee family for burning their rubbish in their back garden beside hers.

“You’re going to suffocate my guinea pigs!” she cries, Mrs Mason trying to calm her down by suggesting they go and get sandwiches.

Even Junmyeon has showed up, standing by a large cool box that’s filled with ice and champagne he probably carried all the way from the hotel. Baekhyun is offered a drink by him before he can even say hello, and is told all about how old the wine is and where it’s from before he can ask Junmyeon how he’s been doing.

“We’re preparing our Christmas decorations at the moment. We’re fully booked on Christmas day and boxing day now. Business always perks back up in December. How about you?”

“I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew with a few projects but I’m sure it’ll all work out,” he shrugs, adopting Chanyeol’s positive stance. He probably would have been miserable for the entire day if it weren’t for Chanyeol talking him out of it, then doing other things with his mouth. Baekhyun has to stop himself from replaying the memory of Chanyeol going down on him, at least while he’s in a public setting that feels like a family gathering. It’s a delicious memory, though. Chanyeol is painfully talented with his tongue.

“Ah, that’s good to hear,” Junmyeon rejoices and claps him on the back. “You know, we recently had an accident at the hotel and one of our large art pieces was damaged. The bare spot on the wall would look splendid with one of your landscapes if you’re selling any.”

Baekhyun’s face becomes a picture of surprise. “Wow, that’s—Yeah I should have some. You’ll have to come over and take a look.”

“No problem. It’s a win-win.” Junmyeon winks at him, proposing that they deliver champagne to the rest of the room and heading for Mrs Parker and Minseok first. “What are you folks gossiping about?”

“The new neighbours,” Mrs Parker replies, fixing her silver necklace. She looks amazing, as usual, and Baekhyun tells her so when there’s a lull in the conversation a few minutes later when their new neighbours actually walk in. The gossipers grow afraid of being overheard, so they talk with pointed stares instead. “You’re too kind, Baekhyun, really,” she sighs, shaking her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Don’t get drunk like last time,” Minseok warns him. “I was told horror stories from the village dance.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t believe what anyone’s said about me, Minseok. You know what these people are like,” he teases, laughing at the indignant cries that follow. “Oh, and everyone, please can we make an effort with the newcomers? Please?”

Emily, Minseok’s wife, is quick to agree. “I’ll go and talk to them now. Minseok, you’re coming too.”

“I guess I’ll see you guys later on,” Minseok says as he leaves, Mrs Parker following in their footsteps after squeezing Baekhyun’s hand.

When Chanyeol arrives, things naturally become more entertaining. The two of them go to give Joe his presents together and are crushed in a long three-way hug, then they talk over a beer or two, minding their own business but joining in with a few games here and there. Joe is still a kid at heart, so they play pass the parcel, musical statues and grandma’s footsteps throughout the night, Chanyeol being terrible at all of them and Baekhyun winning a prize for ‘best effort’ in musical statues.

Around nine, the kids start to leave. Baekhyun is battling Chanyeol in a serious game of don’t let the balloon touch the floor, albeit they’re five drinks in and can’t even keep themselves off the floor, let alone anything else. They’re tipsy, and for once Baekhyun feels like he’s getting drunk slow enough to assess his levels and the appropriate time to stop, so he vows he won’t drink anymore just when Kyungsoo spikes his orange squash with vodka and he doesn’t even notice.

The music gets louder, Jongin entertaining Samantha at his DJ booth, and Baekhyun forces Chanyeol to dance with him despite everyone else standing still and talking like civilised, very sober, people. Thankfully, Baekhyun is past the point of caring what people think of his dance moves and suggestive advances towards Chanyeol who’s looking delicious in a black shirt and a pair of ripped jeans. At some point, Mrs Parker gives them both water in plastic cups and tells him to drink. Chanyeol knocks it back like it’s a shot and splashes it all over his face, so he goes off in the direction of the toilet while Baekhyun starts scoffing up the leftovers on the buffet table.

They already cut the birthday cake and handed it around, singing a loud and cheesy rendition of the happy birthday song to Joe who took five tries to blow out all his candles. He said that today was his seventh birthday, but really Mrs Mason just couldn’t fit seventy candles onto the icing without it becoming a fire hazard.

His phone vibrates and Baekhyun whips it out, laughing because it’s probably Chanyeol stuck in a toilet cubicle or complaining about peeing down his leg. Only, it’s an unknown number again, and Baekhyun stares at the text not really figuring out who it’s from.

Unknown Number

13th November

[It’s me] 21:54

[I need to see you] 21:55

Baekhyun scoffs and stares at the messages that have come through, wondering how Sehun has the nerve to try and contact him again. Well, he’ll show him.

[Why don’t you go and see your someone else?] 21:57

[I only want you] 21:58

[I don’t want you anymore] 22:00

[I got new ass] 22:01

[How many times do I ave to block you before you fuk off] 22:03

[Twat] 22:03

It takes a great amount of brain power to type the first few texts without spelling errors, albeit by the end he doesn’t care. He blocks Sehun again and wonders when it’ll be the last time.

“Guess what I did earlier.” Chanyeol is suddenly draped across his back and Baekhyun screams, throwing his head back against Chanyeol’s shoulder to look at him. He’s vaguely aware of people watching them, Baekhyun sure he looks absolutely gone by now. But Chanyeol is pretty and that’s all that matters, his hands feeling just how pretty he is as he drags them all over Chanyeol’s face and accidentally pokes him in places that aren’t nice to be poked in.

“What did you do earlier?”

Chanyeol grins dopily, aiming to kiss Baekhyun’s cheek and slobbering over it instead. “I prepped.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun groans, already picturing the two of them when they get home, “fuck me.”

“No it’s the other way around,” Chanyeol giggles at him, arms latching around Baekhyun’s waist to keep him upright. Baekhyun’s legs have turned to jelly, they’re that horny.

“Your lance of love, give it to me,” Baekhyun declares, and the two of them scuffle quickly from the party.

Baekhyun can’t remember what happens next, he can only feel it when he wakes up in Chanyeol’s bed with a headache and a giant bruise on his left pectoral. Moving unsettles his stomach so he tries to keep as still as possible, wincing until the nausea fades and he’ll be free to change into a position that doesn’t involve his face being squashed into Chanyeol’s hairy armpit. He wishes there was water on his bedside but there isn’t. There aren’t even painkillers. And Baekhyun is starting to realise that he can’t take drunk-him anywhere.

The both of them, once Chanyeol wakes up, move very slowly throughout the bungalow. They take a cold shower sitting opposite each other on the tiled floor, Chanyeol coming up with the idea of eating breakfast in there so that if they throw up it won’t make a mess. Baekhyun agrees.

Chanyeol’s shower is ginormous so getting water in their food isn’t a problem, and it turns out to be a nice experience save for Baekhyun’s gag reflex.

They go back to sleep again once they’re dry, nestled against one another with sick bowls and glasses of water not too far away. It would be a perfect lazy day if they both didn’t feel so ill, but by teatime they’re feeling somewhat better and sit down to eat a meal in front of the TV in content silence. They haven’t spoken much at all today, their throats raw (Baekhyun wonders why) and their energy levels at an all time low, and it hasn’t been strange at all. Baekhyun has been able to monitor Chanyeol’s movements and his mannerisms, and sometimes things feel more intimate when they don’t talk.

Sleeping that night comes easy, and they wake to watch the sunrise through the windows, Baekhyun disturbed from his sleep by Chanyeol tenderly stroking the side of his face. Baekhyun would like to stay here, where it feels like time stands still, yet the real world is calling and today he needs to catch up on all the work he’s been neglecting. He segments his tasks over breakfast, creating a list and a timetable that he’s certain he won’t stick to before he heads home and gets a move on.

He works on his corrections and talks with the dog owner about portrait specifications. Junmyeon nips in just after lunch and Baekhyun shows him all the canvases he has stored behind his computer desk. They’re mainly ones he’s done as practise or ones that didn’t sell at his one and only gallery show, so for Junmyeon to come along and pay handsomely for not one, but two of his pieces is a real mood lifter. He tells Chanyeol straight away even though he’s out of the village at the moment for work and can’t reply, then paints Chanyeol for the rest of the afternoon. He’s at the detailing stage, making sure to include everything it is he loves about Chanyeol so that his feelings can emote off the linen.

It gets him thinking about the other night and their conversation in the bath, and Baekhyun remembers the things he bought online at the start of their relationship that he mostly hasn’t touched yet. He is nervous to try bottoming again, afraid that it’ll hurt and even that he might disappoint Chanyeol, but he’s curious and intrigued so he grabs his prepping kit and heads to the bathroom.

All in all, it’s not that great of an experience. He struggles immensely in the beginning getting past one finger, and then finding a position to lie or sit in that doesn’t make him feel queasy is another challenge that’s near impossible to overcome. For his breaks in between stages, he compares the width of his finger to the plugs he’s going to attempt to use and almost wants to give up entirely. There’s no way that that is going to fit up there, not when Baekhyun can’t even get two fingers in at the same time. Still, he carries on. It’s an arduous process, one he definitely won’t repeat if it doesn’t pay off in the end, and by the time he’s got to a plug size that’s relatively similar to the width of Chanyeol’s dick, it’s been almost an hour.

He doesn’t even know if Chanyeol will be up for this later, which makes him panic for a second until he coaches himself to understand that this was good practise and experience and it will definitely come in handy in the future. Chanyeol shoots him a text just then, telling him he’ll be back in just under an hour, and Baekhyun’s heart starts thumping with anticipation for what might happen tonight.

When the doorbell rings, he quickly picks himself off the bathroom floor and pulls up his joggers, wondering if it’s his new neighbours needing help with something around the house. He’s really enjoying having them around, even though he can hear Daisy’s temper tantrums through the walls sometimes.

Baekhyun makes sure to thoroughly wash his hand before he jogs downstairs, turning the key that’s already in the lock and opening the door to see the bane of his existence on the other side. His heart comes up in his throat, no use when it shrinks to a tenth of its normal size, and Baekhyun stands there feeling like he’s been thrown back in time. It happens so suddenly and so unwelcomely that he almost lets himself be taken back. Like Chanyeol was nothing but a drunken dream after he guzzled too much in the pub with Sehun and passed out in his armchair.

Sehun looks exactly the same, which doesn’t help. Turtle neck, overcoat, hair hardened from gel in its side part. He is just as pale and sharp too, his temperament probably just as cold, and Baekhyun stands there looking into his lifeless black eyes feeling like his very soul is being sucked out of him. Sehun on his doorstep is alien. Behind him, Sehun’s parked car feels just as foreign. Nothing about him fits in here. He’s too dark and sleek and expensive. But he’s here anyway, like a stain Baekhyun can’t wash out.

Baekhyun places both palms on the door and shoves, his strength not a match for all of Sehun’s body weight concentrated in the foot he’s forcibly stamped on his welcome mat. An icy fist grips Baekhyun’s chest and refuses to let go. He eyes Sehun’s polished shoe and then glares at Sehun’s stern expression, itching to smack him across the face and kick him where it’ll hurt. How dare Sehun think he has a right to come here.

“What are you doing here?” Baekhyun growls, hands trembling behind the door where Sehun can’t see; it’s the rage and the frustration that’s doing it, but Baekhyun also wants to collapse and cry, just a little. Sehun is nought but painful memories for him now. That can’t be changed.

“I just want to talk,” Sehun says, holding up his hands in surrender and lifting his foot back to put it on the garden path. Baekhyun doesn’t want him standing there either, his path just as bad as his hallway. He wants Sehun long gone, miles away in the city he dumped him for.

It’s a joke, really, how Sehun seems completely fine. Baekhyun can’t speak for what’s happening inside his head and he’d never try to, but he’s sure that if Sehun really was in trouble, needed help and was afraid, he wouldn’t be looking so complacent and self-assured right now, completely at home in a place where he doesn’t belong and never did.

Baekhyun doesn’t believe for a second that Sehun just wants to talk. Especially not if he lets him inside his house again. Yet here he is, right in front of him, and Baekhyun had once prayed for this moment, for a chance to let Sehun know the pain and the heartache, and for once, Baekhyun allows himself to be selfish. He won’t give Sehun the time to moan or wallow, and even if he can’t help giving him the chance to speak, he won’t listen. This time is for him and him alone, to express his grief, his regret and his disgust.

“Fine,” he says curtly. “But not here.”

Sehun steps back so Baekhyun can lock his front door. In truth, he has no idea where they should go. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to let Sehun sit on his couch or at his dining table, and he doesn’t want it to be just the two of them in case he tries anything. His mind is racing as he strides up the road, Sehun following him looking lost. He’s trying to figure out what he can say that will summarise all his feelings in the shortest way possible. The last thing he wants to do is give Sehun his entire afternoon, but it’s hard to encompass months of pent up hatred into only a couple of sentences

.

He ends up walking to the tea room, cowering away from Mrs Parker’s frozen smile when she looks up and sees who he’s with. He tries not to obsess over what she could possibly be thinking, but he tries to comfort himself in believing that Mrs Parker knows he would never go back to someone who kicked him to the curb when someone supposedly ‘better’ came along.

“Do you want a coffee?” Sehun asks him, pulling out his black leather wallet and flashing all of his credit cards. They glint in the light obscenely, pieces of plastic that Baekhyun guarantees Sehun has used to lure people into being with him. Baekhyun was never one of those people. Maybe that’s why they didn’t work. He wasn’t wowed when Sehun spent money, wasn’t thrilled when Sehun bought things that neither of them needed, wasn’t impressed when Sehun blew it all on a new car and a new phone and a new watch, when his existing ones worked just fine. Sehun might have even hated him for it, but Baekhyun’s hate for greed is stronger.

He almost laughs at Sehun’s question, scathing and sardonic. He’s never liked coffee. One of their first dates was even at a coffee shop and Sehun bore witness to Baekhyun spitting it back in his cup when he’d given it a chance. He never remembered anything Baekhyun felt was important, even after Baekhyun expressed how downcast it made him feel.

He ignores Sehun, heading straight to a table and sitting down. Sehun stares after him in mild shock, then clears his throat and goes up to order from a civil Mrs Parker. He hands over pocket change for his drink, Baekhyun surprised that he even bothers to carry coins around when all his purchases usually cost an arm and a leg, even for something as mundane as a sandwich, and watches as Sehun clumsily picks out the coins and places them on the counter.

Sehun is busy dropping his penny change back in his wallet when Mrs Parker looks out across the room. Baekhyun doesn’t want to meet her eyes, afraid of what he’ll see there, but he does so anyway. She’s concerned, nibbling just a little on her bottom lip as she crosses to the coffee machine and places a mug under the central spout.

“Should I leave?” she mouths at Baekhyun when Sehun isn’t looking, and Baekhyun quickly shakes his head, not wanting to be left alone. He needs someone here in case Sehun overwhelms him and he can’t get him to back down. On one of their later dates, Sehun went crazy on a waiter who said their table had accidentally been double booked. Baekhyun was mortified.

He sees the coffee on the table before he sees Sehun, watching the bitter, black liquid steam into the air. It smells better than it tastes, much like the way Sehun always looked better than he acted. He has to tuck his legs under his chair when Sehun sits down and takes up all the room underneath the table.

“How have you been?”

Baekhyun stares at him, wondering what the best way to approach this would be. He could either be polite and calmly tell Sehun that he’s an asshole, or he could be rude and shout at Sehun that he’s an asshole. With Sehun starting off their conversation like this is something normal and happens all the time, Baekhyun is leaning more steadily towards the latter. At least that way the message might actually get through his thick skull.

“What do you want to talk about?” asks Baekhyun, stiffly. He has little patience and no time for small talk. Best make Sehun cut to the chase and save both of them time.

Sehun sighs, hands wrapped around his coffee mug. “Okay,” he starts, “I’ve been terrible these past months. I didn’t think it was possible to miss someone so much, but I guess it is.” He smiles at Baekhyun, sweetly. “I… I made a terrible, terrible mistake in letting you go. I don’t know what I was thinking. Everyone else has nothing on you, Baek. And I mean that. I want you back.” He turns bashful. “I still love you.”

Baekhyun feels nothing listening to that, except maybe rage that Sehun has the audacity to say something like that, acting as if he has the right to come crawling back and mend all the hurt he caused with a plaster a hundred times too small. “Would it kill you to be honest?”

Reproach mars Sehun’s face. He’s not used to him talking back like that, Baekhyun realises. He let him get away with far too much.

“You think I’m lying?”

“Yes,” Baekhyun cuts back, no pause between. “You left me for someone else, lied about cheating on me, and now you’re back here telling me you still love me with some kind of hero complex because I’m guessing your new fling didn’t work out and you’re scared to be alone.”

Sehun looks like he wants to say something. Baekhyun can see the gears turning in his head and his tongue fighting to keep still. He wonders what his response will be, but even if it’s silence, Baekhyun will go on. The majority of their relationship felt like he was talking to a wall anyway.

“Baek,” Sehun says steadily, pressing his palms on the table, “please. I’m so sorry about what I did. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made and if I could take it back, I would in a heartbeat. You have no idea how painful it’s been. I’ve been trying to contact you and you’ve been ignoring me. It was the worst feeling in the world. And I’m sorry. I should have been completely honest with you back then, I have no excuse for it. I just didn’t want to hurt you. Can you blame me? I love you, Baekhyun. Still. Even after those unhappy months and the recent times you’ve avoided me. I still want you. Don’t you still want me? I know you still love me, Baekhyun.”

“I think you should stop talking.” Baekhyun glares at him. “I’ll be honest, for the both of us. I felt humiliated and ashamed when you broke up with me. I hated myself for weeks. I blamed myself for longer. But in hindsight, Sehun, you were never worth my time. You implied I was boring, you said I was stubborn and inconvenient, you treated me like a child by not telling me the truth, and then you played on my kindness by having me think you were in trouble and, I don’t know, maybe even suicidal, but it was all a ploy to get my attention. Take a step back and look at yourself. Really look. And when you see how pathetic your behaviour is, then you’ll know you’ve finally opened your eyes.”

Sehun’s jaw clenches and his face burns red. “Do you just want to hurt me?” he asks, voice wobbling in the middle, and Baekhyun rolls his eyes with a huff of laughter.

“It’s not nice, is it?” he asks rhetorically, though the answer is all over Sehun’s face. “It’s not nice being hurt, almost beyond repair, by someone you love and thought loved you back. All that time we spent together when you were unhappy was such a waste of my life, Sehun. The second that you felt things were turning sour, you should have said something. You should have spoken to me and saved me from months of lies and grief. You should have told me yourself that you went to sleep with someone else when we were together, instead of inviting me and your new fuck toy to your birthday party and having us meet.

“Imagine if that was you in my shoes, Sehun. How would you feel, looking into the face of the person who was secretly shagging me behind your back and you had no idea? Do you think that would hurt? Do you think that would make your chest ache for weeks upon weeks because you must have looked so stupid, thinking everything was fine, when in fact you were being cheated on because your boyfriend is a lying twat who’s scared to feel like no one wants him.

“Grow up, Sehun. You’re an adult now. You can’t just drop hints here and there and expect me to pick up on feelings you wouldn’t share with me. As much as I thought I knew you, I could never read your mind, and you made it seem like that was my fault. You should have opened your mouth and spoken to me, not gone swanning off to someone else to gain a sympathy vote. Either way, I’m glad we’re over. I’m glad I don’t have to put up with you anymore. And I hope you never, ever text anyone else like you have been texting me.”

“It’s because you have a boyfriend now, don’t you?” Sehun shakes his head, smiling smugly. “That’s why you won’t get back together with me.” His hand shoots out and grabs onto Baekhyun’s, thumb brushing over his knuckles the way it used to in the beginning. Baekhyun feels burned by the touch but he’s too stunned to move. “Baekhyun, I love you more than him. I can give you a better life. Please, don’t feel bad for him. Just leave him. Come back to me.”

Baekhyun gapes at him in utter disbelief, struggling to even register the physical contact until Sehun gives him a squeeze that leaves searing imprints on his mind. “The fact that you think I won’t come back to you just because I’m with someone else is ridiculous. I wouldn’t get back with you if I was single, miserable and lonely. I wouldn’t even get back with you if you were the last person on earth. Whether I may or may not be seeing someone at the moment has nothing to do with it. I haven’t been hung up on you for the last five months. I got over you a long time ago. You should too.”

Sehun drums the fingers of his rejected hand on the table, leaning back in his chair and watching Baekhyun with a baleful gaze. “You can stop fighting me now, Baek. You’ve made your points, I’ve apologised. Now you’re taking it too far. I’m here and willing to give us another chance. It took a lot of courage to come here, to see you in person, to say these things. You’re being unfair and you’re acting like a dick.”

Baekhyun smiles, dropping his eyes and pushing his chair out. He wants to be as far away from Sehun as physically possible. He doesn’t even want to see him in the corner of his eye, in his dreams or in his memories. He never wants to see him or feel him ever again.

“You’re being unreasonable. I almost hate you for the pain you caused me, but I’m thankful for every experience I’ve had with you. Good and bad. I’ve learned a lot.”

It’s quiet. It would be silent if Mrs Parker wasn’t stacking her dishes in the cupboard. It takes a while for Baekhyun to realise that the other sound he can hear is Sehun’s breath, looking up to find his nostrils flared and his eyes glistening just a little. He has no remorse for the things he’s said. The truth can hurt but it feels good to have it out of his system. His chest feels lighter, freer, like the last of Sehun’s handprints have faded from his skin. He’s said all he needs to say, even though he’ll probably think of more things to add later when Sehun is long gone. For now, this is it.

“We were never meant to be anything more than we were,” Baekhyun breathes thoughtfully. “I’m sure you’ll find someone who will make you very happy, Sehun. In the meantime, please stop trying to contact me, and don’t come here again.”

“Why can’t you be the one to make me happy?” Sehun looks small, eyes glassy and mouth turned down at the corners. Baekhyun wonders if he’s finally broken the hard shell, too little too late, and smiles, bittersweet, at the face of the real Sehun inside.

“I don’t want us anymore.”

Sehun hangs his head when Baekhyun’s says that, staring at the coffee he hasn’t touched and discreetly wiping his eyes. Tears do fall over Sehun’s splotchy cheeks, Baekhyun minimally sad at their first ever appearance. It was hard, to feel so inadequate compared to Sehun who portrayed himself as perfect all the time. Baekhyun is glad he doesn’t have to put up with it.

“Maybe in a few years—?"

“No, Sehun. It’s not going to happen.” Baekhyun refuses to apologise, keeping his mouth tight on purpose. “You should go. You have a long way to drive.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs blankly, not meeting Baekhyun’s eyes. And then he stands up and leaves, walking away like a man lost in a place he thought he knew.

Finally, it feels over.

When he tries to stand, his body feels weak. He stumbles back into his chair and stares emptily at the opposite wall, processing what he said and what Sehun said back. It was like talking to a stranger. A stranger who knew him in the most intimate way. And for a second his skin starts to crawl. He breathes deeply to calm down, focusing on keeping his heart rate low and sucking air into his lungs, wondering whether he should laugh or cry or cheer or scream. What is the appropriate reaction to something like this? How is he supposed to feel? Accomplished? Free? Instead he’s becoming overwhelmed with guilt and painful memories, hearing Sehun’s differing tones in his head all over again, from snarling to talking through tears.

A hand slides across his back and Baekhyun rests his head against Mrs Parker’s stomach, holding it all in for as long as he can last. She’s warm and comfortable, and when she speaks her voice is easy on his ears, silvery and kind.

“Are you alright, dear?” she asks as she cradles his head against her body and protects him from the world.

Baekhyun doesn’t know. “I used to love him,” he says, fighting tears by squashing his face against her light blue jumper and inhaling a deep breath of her perfume. She smells like flowers and he thinks he can faintly hear her heart beating, finding peace in her arms away from everything that bothers him.

“Shhh, it’s alright,” she hushes him, rubbing his back and stroking his head. “It’s alright now, sweetheart.”

He does his best to believe her and takes a moment just to think, to empty his mind. He misses the Sehun from their first few months together. In a way, it feels like he’s lost an old friend that he’ll never see again, and he runs through their memories of the good times and the bad, at long last putting them to rest.

He’s sure there are several things Mrs Parker would love to say, so he’s grateful to her for choosing silence instead. She holds him until he calms down, and when he pulls away from her body he realises his tears have left damp patches on her jumper.

“Chanyeol walked by, dear,” she says, hand closing over his nape. “He saw the two of you talking.”

Closing his eyes in defeat, Baekhyun allows nothingness to consume him for a moment. He thinks of Vanessa and her book analogy, of how he’s finally finished the last chapter of the one before and lost his current book as consequence. What is Chanyeol going to think, seeing them together? What is he going to do?

“He doesn’t—” he’s cut off by a sharp breath, “he doesn’t know it’s Sehun. It’ll be okay.” He doesn’t sound very convincing, but he’s trying to delude himself into believing that he hasn’t just royally fucked everything up. It’s easier that way. For a second, he just wants to pretend that everything is fine and not going wrong all at once.

“He knew, dear. I could tell.”

Baekhyun crumples with tears, overcome with the fear of Chanyeol not understanding him, not forgiving him, leaving him. He needs to make him understand, but he’s been withholding this from Chanyeol for two months. How will he explain that? He did it because he didn’t want to hurt him.

Parallels are cruel.

The truth is always better. Sehun taught him that.

All Baekhyun can think is Chanyeol’s going to hate me and it hurts a thousand times more than what Sehun put him through. The image of Chanyeol crying in his head is so strong that it tears his heart to pieces, so vivid and potent that Baekhyun feels paralysed with guilt and regret. He is so sorry. He is so, so sorry. But there’s no use whining it in his head when Chanyeol is out there thinking who knows what about himself and their relationship.

“I need to see him,” Baekhyun snuffles with conviction, sitting back and letting Mrs Parker help him stand. He hugs her, partly because he’s gone lightheaded but mostly because he feels indebted. “Thank you for staying,” he whispers, clinging on tight and breathing in her perfume like it’s an antidote.

“It’s no trouble at all,” she reassures him. “All will be fine. I’m always here.”

Baekhyun is squeezed dry of tears when he smiles brokenly at her. “I’ll be... back,” he whispers, though he’s not sure if he will be, and slowly leaves the tea room readying himself to face Chanyeol and tell him the truth.

Chapter Text

He feels like he’s walking into a battlefield as he walks up the road. His nerves bring him to a stop at the bottom of Chanyeol’s driveway, too many thoughts berating him for being secretive and unfair. For being hypocritical. It seems he can think of a million reasons why Chanyeol would end everything. Baekhyun betrayed his trust when he has been preaching and preaching about open communication since they got together. He lied to Chanyeol about his run-in with Sehun on the phone even though they both agreed to be honest with one another. And above all, Baekhyun has ruined his credibility. No matter what he says, Chanyeol has no reason to believe him.

Remorseful, Baekhyun starts treading Chanyeol’s driveway. He’s planning another speech in his head, entirely different to the one half an hour prior, but very much the same in that he has no idea what to say. He doesn’t even know how Chanyeol interpreted what he saw. He doesn’t even know which part of the conversation he walked by on. Did he see the glares or the disgust? Did he mistake Baekhyun laughing at Sehun’s behaviour as laughing at a joke? What if he saw Sehun holding his hand?

He’s trying so hard not to lose it all. To let his mind scatter and fall in on itself for an hour or two. Chanyeol’s pain is now and Baekhyun wants to stop the confusion and the speculation as soon as possible, only Chanyeol’s car isn’t parked on the driveway.

Baekhyun stares in upmost defeat at the empty space in front of him, wondering rapidly where Chanyeol is and if he’s safe and if he’s hurt. He reaches for his phone to ring him and finds that he doesn’t have it with him, and without the spare key he can’t let himself in either, not that feels welcome at the moment. He could go home and collect his things but he doesn’t want to miss Chanyeol coming back, so he sinks to the ground on Chanyeol’s porch and decides to wait, consumed by darkness as the sun disappears in the late afternoon.

It grows cold and breezy, but at least there’s no rain. Baekhyun has to hug himself to keep from shivering. He always feels the cold much more than the heat. That’s why his gas bill is so high. But this cold seems deeper. A cold that has crossed into his mind and intruded every thought, like an unwelcome shadow breathing down his neck. It gets darker and darker, and the bats come out to flap between the trees surrounding Chanyeol’s house. The sky is navy, sprinkled with stars, and the wind whips the tears straight from his lashes as Baekhyun looks up and wonders whether they’d be admiring it together right now if it weren’t for his mistakes.

Each time he hears a car, he sits up and dusts off his hands. It’s foolish hope, expecting Chanyeol to come back, for it seems like he’s intending to stay away for hours, possibly even the whole night. Baekhyun has no idea where he could have gone, maybe to his old university friends or his parents? He worries about Chanyeol driving at night, his trust in other road users severely lacking. If Chanyeol’s upset, he might not be paying as much attention as he should. He could end up hurting himself. Baekhyun can’t imagine anything worse, except maybe this.

He hugs his knees and rests his head on his forearms, taking deep breaths in his pocket of pitch to regather his unravelled mind. His head has never been so awake at a time when his body wants to collapse from exhaustion. It’s only the stress that’s keeping him going, gnawing at his nails and siding his hands through his hair.

Streaks of light burst through the gap between his legs and he looks up, momentarily blinded, by Chanyeol’s car purring in front of him. The engine growls as it stops, headlights blinking off while the inside lights stay on, showcasing Chanyeol looking distraught and unsure. Chanyeol sees him on the porch and Baekhyun watches as he takes in a sudden breath, clearly wondering what the hell he’s doing here.

Baekhyun hurries to his feet, watching Chanyeol take the keys from the ignition and pick up his phone from the passenger seat. He swings the car door open and steps out onto his driveway, the headlights blinking twice when the car locks.

Chanyeol is walking up to him then, wearing a t-shirt and a bomber jacket and a pair of ripped jeans. Baekhyun panics and says the first thing that comes to mind, trying to get Chanyeol to look up at him from the floor with the feeblest and most pathetic “H-Hi.”

Chanyeol must take pity on him; he does he look up at Baekhyun, eyes glistening, and forces out a subdued attempt at a smile. He says nothing, maybe because he has no voice, and carries on past Baekhyun towards the front door that he unlocks with shaking hands. Baekhyun has to rub his chest to distract himself from the ache that has rooted itself there, then he nervously follows Chanyeol into his house just as he flicks on the hallway light.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

Baekhyun startles at the question, Chanyeol already heading into the kitchen and filling the kettle up at the sink. “Yeah, if you’re making one, please,” he says dumbly.

He wants to ask Chanyeol a million things at once. Where did he go? What did he see? Will he forgive him? Instead, he watches Chanyeol making tea, boiling the kettle and dropping tea bags into mugs while he waits.

“Chanyeol—”

“Can we just wait a second?” Chanyeol interrupts hastily, holding his palms out to silence Baekhyun and sew his mouth shut. He looks physically shaken, fraught with distress, closing the fridge with too much force. Baekhyun’s afraid Chanyeol will pour boiling water on himself if he doesn’t intervene, but he keeps his distance. Chanyeol really doesn’t look like he wants to talk to him right now, and he has every right to feel that way. The tea, perhaps, is supposed to keep him quiet for longer.

Baekhyun drops his gaze to the floor and tries not to feel like a part of the furniture. His heart can’t find its footing and his breath can’t seem to keep up, and he feels so lonely knowing that Chanyeol is barely three feet from him but so far away. He might have lost the right to touch him, or even talk to him for that matter. Baekhyun feels too ashamed to look him in the eye after what he’s done.

When the kettle finishes boiling, the silence is stark. Near impenetrable. There’s the tinkling of the teaspoon on the circumference of the mug, Chanyeol stirring in the milk, and nothing else; when that ends, it’s only their breathing that Baekhyun can hear, and Chanyeol sounds breathless. They should be talking right now. They should be kissing and holding one another. It’s been weeks since the last time Baekhyun hasn’t at least pecked Chanyeol on the lips within minutes of seeing him and it feels like he’s missing a part of himself.

He’s handed his tea and eventually follows Chanyeol into the lounge, gingerly sitting beside him on the sofa, not knowing how to coordinate his limbs. A sip of his drink brings his revolting stomach to his attention, so Baekhyun places his mug on the side table and anxiously wrings his hands, wondering what he ought to do with himself. He has an idea of what to say but not how to start, trying to order apologies and explanations in his head depending on which his conscience thinks he should say first.

As much as he hates to admit it, he doesn’t know this side of Chanyeol at all. He doesn’t know whether Chanyeol is angry or upset, about to scream at him or cry at him, and as such, Baekhyun has no idea how to tackle their conflict in order to cause the least pain possible. Does Chanyeol want a hug? Does he want him to leave? But then, if he wanted him gone, why would he make them both tea? Nevertheless, a hug still doesn’t seem appropriate. In fact, it looks like Chanyeol has squashed himself against the opposite arm of the sofa to be as far away from him as possible.

He wants to ask. Tell me what to do. Tell me what I should say. But Baekhyun is drawing a hopeless blank. There’s nothing of value in his head. Nothing concise or direct. It’s just a ton of indecipherable babble that will talk Chanyeol’s ear off until he can’t stand him anymore.

In comparison, however, Baekhyun thinks the silence might be worse.

“Mrs Parker said you walked past,” he says lowly, shame like a punch in the gut.

Chanyeol nods, taking a deep breath and staring at the wall, the ceiling, anywhere but Baekhyun. “I was on my way down to you. I always look in the tea room and wave to Mrs Parker and then I saw you there holding hands with some guy. Who was he? An ex?”

Baekhyun’s bottom lip trembles. “Yeah. He’s my ex.”

“Right.” Chanyeol nods again to himself, the corners of his mouth weighed down by bad news. “I get it,” he says, smiling without really smiling. “He’s attractive. Looks expensive. He’s the one who cheated on you, right?”

Baekhyun swallows past the lump in his throat and hums in acknowledgement. “Yeah,” he says softly, glancing down at where he’s picking at a hangnail he’s just found. “He—Uh, he’s been texting me.”

Chanyeol freezes, tea halfway to his mouth. Baekhyun watches with watery eyes as Chanyeol puts his mug down altogether. But then he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, playing with the end of his t-shirt, the zipper on his jacket, clasping them on his lap. His body has come to life in the worst way – with anxiety.

“He told me that he was in trouble, that he needed help, that he was scared. I was worried for him. I thought there was something seriously wrong and maybe I was the only person he could talk to. But that wasn’t the case. He was just saying that as a way to get at me. Make me talk to him. When I realised, I blocked his number, but he just used other phones to get through.”

He lets that rest in the air before he carries on. “He rang me once as well.”

“Was it that night?” Chanyeol asks, voice only a third of what it usually is, raspy and hoarse. “When you went to the bathroom and told me you were looking at the news?”

Baekhyun looks at him and Chanyeol immediately turns away. It crushes his chest like he’s stuck beneath an anchor, an entire fleet of regret looming over his head. “Yeah,” he whispers, not having the strength to speak. There’s guilt and there’s repentance, both oars that splinter and crack against the raging waves of his own self-disgust. Chanyeol refuses to look at him and it’s making him feel horrendous. Someone he holds so deeply can’t bear to look at his face anymore and it cuts, deep.

Chanyeol’s breath rattles down his throat like a snake, sudden and sharp, and Baekhyun doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s crying. You made him cry circles in his head. You did that to him. His fingers curl into his palms and his nails stab into his skin, knuckles turning white from the strength he puts behind his own penance. This is only the beginning.

“That was weeks ago,” Chanyeol cries out with a pointed crack in the middle. He almost looks at Baekhyun. Almost. Swinging his head around as if to glare and thinking better of it before he goes the full way. “How long have you been doing this?”

Baekhyun blinks and there are tears, and he knows that they’ll be the first of many. “It started in September.”

“Oh god,” Chanyeol grunts, pressing his mouth into his palm and angling himself as far away from Baekhyun as he can.

“I’m so sorry, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun pleads, subject to watching Chanyeol’s shoulders shake as he silently cries on the other end of the sofa. “I should have told you as soon as it started.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Baekhyun shrivels at his accusatory tone. He deserves it. “I don’t know, Chanyeol. I don’t know.” He holds his head in his hands and struggles to carry on. “Every time he spoke to me I thought it was the last time. I was so focused on being happy with you that I think I wanted to pretend like Sehun didn’t exist. Like it wasn’t happening.”

When Chanyeol turns back around, his face is a lot redder than before. He brings his legs up onto the sofa and crosses them in front of him, laying his hands in his lap and fiddling with his socks while he regulates his breathing through his mouth. “Did you know he was coming today?”

“No.” Baekhyun adamantly shakes his head, quickly wiping his eyes and then drying his hands on his trousers. “Chanyeol, I had no idea. I was just—” He freezes, a cold flush sweeping across his shoulders when he remembers the moment before he found Sehun on his doorstep. “Oh god,” he hisses, leaning his forehead in his palm and swallowing through the sudden sickness that has bloomed in his stomach.

“What?”

Baekhyun looks up, pretending he’s okay even though he’s broken out into a cold sweat and can’t really stop shaking. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” Chanyeol’s expression crumples and Baekhyun rapidly becomes panic-stricken. “It’s not nothing, I’m sorry, I just—I thought it was my neighbours at the door but it was him and he came out of nowhere. He asked to talk and I thought that maybe talking would be good for me. We went to the tea room because I didn’t want to invite him inside my house.”

“What did you talk you about?” Chanyeol asks after a loud sniff. Baekhyun gets him a tissue from the box on the table beside him, heart shattering when Chanyeol almost doesn’t take it.

“We, um,” Baekhyun starts, a mess. His head is pounding. “He wanted to get back together.”

The air forces itself from Chanyeol’s lungs and he nods in defeat, like he expected this to happen.

“But I made it very clear that that wasn’t going to happen. And when I told him so, he got angry. That’s why I wanted Mrs Parker there.”

“Did he hurt you?” Chanyeol asks sternly, his question important enough to stop him from wiping his nose for a second.

Hope rekindles, just a small flame, but Baekhyun doesn’t dwell on it; it could be blown out with a single sentence. “No, no, he just… He said some things that weren’t very nice. And he grabbed my hand without my permission. That’s—That’s what you saw.”

Chanyeol doesn’t give any reaction to that. His breaths are steady and he’s concentrating on the carpet, then he asks, “If I hadn’t seen you, would you have told me he was here? That you spoke to him?”

Baekhyun releases a despairing breath.

Would he have told Chanyeol? Even he doesn’t know. He feels ashamed of himself when a small voice tells him that he would have kept it all a secret, continued to pretend like Sehun wasn’t happening and wasn’t ruining his happy life. It would have been easier to simply never speak of it.

But then there are the villagers. Mrs Parker wouldn’t have let anything slip, but Chanyeol probably wasn’t the only one to walk by the tea room and peer in through the conservatory windows. The rumours and the lies some of them are capable of manifesting can be more than damaging, even devastating. In which case, Baekhyun thinks he would have told Chanyeol, just so he could hear the straight truth, before someone else got to him first.

“Yes,” he replies after a long pause, a hair’s breadth away from being completely certain.

Chanyeol breathes out an empty laugh. “Long delay,” he remarks, curling away again and going silent, save for the tears.

Detest for himself bleeds into Baekhyun’s mind. What kind of a person is he, to withhold something like this from the one he said he would never lie to? What reason does Chanyeol have to believe anything that comes out of his mouth?

“When I saw you and him, I felt sick,” Chanyeol says, voice distressingly intermittent. “I looked at him, at the kind of person you could have, and I felt so small compared to that. Like I was nothing.”

“Chanyeol, no—”

“I felt like the rebound guy. I started—”

He can’t finish his sentence. Crying gets in the way.

Baekhyun quivers with guilt, shuffling closer to Chanyeol with the urge to do something to make the pain go away, to stop letting him tear himself down when it’s Baekhyun who did all the wrong. It’s a risky move, slipping his hand into one of Chanyeol’s, warm and clammy as it slowly clings onto him for life.

“You can tell me, Chanyeol,” he whispers, staring at Chanyeol through blurry eyes, watching him weep, feeling like he’s dying. “I won’t be upset. I won’t be angry. You can be honest with me,” he promises, squeezing Chanyeol’s hand back just as tight.

“I don’t know,” Chanyeol says, wiping his nose on the back of his hand and turning around so they can somewhat face each other. Baekhyun hasn’t ever seen Chanyeol cry before. It has his heart breaking and his stomach winding into knots that he can’t shift. Knowing that he’s the cause of it makes him feel even worse.

“I kind of felt like it was my fault,” Chanyeol carries on. “You told me that you didn’t know if you were over him completely yet. I guess I just didn’t take that seriously. I felt… like maybe you were just taking pity on me. Maybe you were lonely. I—I felt used, a little bit. But when I saw you two I couldn’t think straight, so that’s where all this stuff came from. I was hurt and then I was angry and I got really, really insecure.

“It was like history was repeating itself. I thought we were one thing and I felt you thought we were another. I was panicking thinking that maybe I was just entertainment while you waited for him to come back. And then I was mad at you for me thinking that you would take him back because you don’t deserve to be cheated on, Baek. Ever.” Chanyeol looks at him with teary eyes, face swollen. “I would never do that to you. But I was comparing myself to him and feeling so insignificant.”

It’s hard to hear – Chanyeol thinking so little of himself, and then thinking the worst of him. It has Baekhyun stripped of air and gagging on each breath, snot dribbling down across his cupids bow before he gets a tissue he can sob into. Even then, his face is so wet that it disintegrates the tissue before he can properly use it.

“Please don’t think that,” he rushes out, eyes blown up and sore as he looks up at Chanyeol, beseeching him to think of anything but that. “You have no idea how happy you make me. No idea. I’m so sorry, Chanyeol.”

Is that enough? His words feel so empty despite how much he means them, like he’s shouting but Chanyeol can’t hear him. Maybe Chanyeol needs time. Maybe the both of them need time. But time makes way for rumours and rumours pave the path to conflict, and Baekhyun doesn’t want them to be driven apart by what other people might say – ether to their faces or behind their backs.

“I can go, if you need space.” He doesn’t want to leave, but he really can’t think of any other solution. Chanyeol won’t look at him and Baekhyun is tired of feeling hopeless. At least in his own home he won’t be an eyesore.

Chanyeol clutches his hand, reminding Baekhyun that they’re touching. “I don’t want you to go, just…”

“What?” Baekhyun asks. “What can I do?”

When Chanyeol inhales through his nose he snuffles, opening his mouth to breath in the rest of the way. Baekhyun quickly fetches him another tissue and hands it across, insides trembling when their fingers brush together as Chanyeol takes it and rests his head against Baekhyun’s shoulder.

“A hug?” Baekhyun clarifies, his arms responding with great enthusiasm to the idea of wrapping Chanyeol in a cocoon and keeping him safe.

“Yeah,” Chanyeol breathes, voice masked a little by the tissue and a lot by how tired he seems.

Hugs. Baekhyun can do hugs.

At some point, his heart rate finally settles. Chanyeol points out to him that his tea is going cold and Baekhyun spends the new few minutes sipping his cup dry. He didn’t realise how dehydrated he was until now. The tears he had no idea he was capable of have exhausted him mentally and physically and left him with a chugging headache. He’d love a few painkillers.

“How long were you waiting outside?”

Baekhyun presses his face into Chanyeol’s hair, taking a deep breath before he talks. “Half an hour. Maybe a little more,” he says softly.

“It was cold today, Baek. You should have gone home.”

“I didn’t want to miss you coming back,” he protests, slightly offended that his presence on Chanyeol’s porch failed to communicate just how unbelievably desperate he was to see him. “I had no idea where you were or even if you were coming back. You know I don’t like it when you drive around at night. I was afraid something happened.”

“Baek, it goes dark by four o’clock in winter. I can’t avoid it.”

Baekhyun bites his tongue. Chanyeol’s right. “I’m sorry,” he sighs, feeling all the more guilty. “I was just really, really worried. Where did you even go?”

Chanyeol shifts a little, becoming a dead weight against Baekhyun’s side and nuzzling his face into his neck. It tickles, his skin slightly cool and damp from his crying, hair fanning across Baekhyun’s cheek in curls that smell of peaches.

“I drove up the road a little and parked on a layby. Then I walked into some woods and I screamed.”

A pause. “You screamed?”

“Yeah. I felt like I was going to burst otherwise.”

Baekhyun knows that feeling, holding Chanyeol closer. “I’m sorry I made you feel like that,” he murmurs, downcast. If Chanyeol experienced anything like the emotions Baekhyun did after his breakup with Sehun, he’s not sure he can forgive himself. In the past couple of hours, he’s put Chanyeol through hell and back. How does he make up for something like that?

“It wasn’t just you. It’s me as well,” Chanyeol replies, his lips accidentally brushing against Baekhyun’s throat. The touch sets Baekhyun alight and he disguises a shudder as a deep breath, yearning for Chanyeol’s mouth to touch him again, just in a different place. “Maybe I’m not over what happened before either, with my ex. The insecurities are still there, even though it’s been years. I don’t want to freak out like this every time we have a misunderstanding.”

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun breathes his name, breaking their hug so he can take Chanyeol’s face in his hands instead. “I don’t want to give you any reason to doubt us.”

Chanyeol lowers his head, an apology on his lips. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh,” Baekhyun hushes gently, tipping his chin back up and sliding a hand across his cheek. “Listen, okay? I really, really like you. You’ve made me happier than anyone has before, and I want you more than anything. I’m serious about us, alright? I want us to go on for months, years. I want as much of you as I can get. And if I’m ever unhappy, I will tell you. From this moment on, I will never hide anything from you or lie to you, unless I’m buying you a birthday present or booking you a surprise holiday to Disneyland.”

The smile Chanyeol breaks out in is magnificent, so much so that Baekhyun starts tearing up again. He’s so god damn beautiful and Baekhyun fears he hasn’t the slightest idea. “I can be mad at you and still want you. We can be arguing and I will still want you. I could be talking to any other guy, fuck, even a celebrity crush, and I will still want you. I’d still want you even if you ruined one of my paintings or ate the food I was looking forward to. You are enough. You are beautiful to me. The reason I shook off your advances for so long in the beginning is because I didn’t want to use you and I didn’t want you to be the rebound guy.

“You give me so much strength to keep going, to do well in my work. You give me a reason to be happy every day and honestly, talking to you is my favourite thing. You are my favourite thing, and there’s a stupidly high probability that I am already in love with you, because I fell for you the moment I saw you and I didn’t even know it. I am so, so sorry.”

Tears stream down Chanyeol’s face for a completely different reason, Baekhyun panting to regain his breath after his speech tore out of him like a battle cry.

“That’s—You—"

“And because I have promised I won’t keep anything from you anymore,” Baekhyun says with a wince, “I have to let you know that I have had a butt plug in this entire time and I’d really like to take it out soon.”

Chanyeol freezes, mouth agape around aborted words. “You are absolutely mental,” he cries, then pulls him in by his collar for a long and heated kiss.

Baekhyun feels complete in that moment. Like there’s nothing else he could ever need but Chanyeol pressing a million smiley kisses against his lips. His hands card through Chanyeol’s hair, and he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, doing the same with his tongue, desperation quaking in his hands and hunger coursing through his motions.

If he had it his way, he would lay Chanyeol back against the sofa and make it up to him with his hands, mouth, body. Except, Chanyeol slows them down. He rests his hands on either side of Baekhyun’s face and holds him still, gazing timidly at him before he makes it so only their lips are touching, just the lightest amount.

Baekhyun tries to chase him, attempting to press forwards and make the kiss something more. He can’t get closer, though, not with Chanyeol firmly holding him in place. But that’s just it – it doesn’t need to be anything more. The intensity is different yet just as strong. Each move is deliberate, each brush planned and calculated, like Chanyeol is tasting him and can’t get enough of the flavour.

It makes Baekhyun breathless, until he has to part his lips just to dispel the light-headedness. Chanyeol’s hands relent only slightly, his fingertips now cradling Baekhyun’s jaw while his thumbs support his chin. Each kiss is electric, sending jolts that zap through Baekhyun’s chest and down into his groin. His desire is building, heating up between his legs, and Baekhyun blushes when he senses himself hardening. All they’re doing is kissing, not even with tongue, and Baekhyun is reacting to it like a hormonal teenager, starved of sex.

Baekhyun sneakily pushes his tongue forwards, anticipating where Chanyeol’s lips will fall next. When Chanyeol kisses him there by accident, he smiles and slowly opens his eyes. He looks at Chanyeol and he can’t breathe, and it feels good.

“I’ve wanted to do that for ages,” Chanyeol whispers, nuzzling their noses together.

“What?” Baekhyun asks because he’s not sure, and he flushes at the answer even though it’s nothing to be shy about.

“Just kiss you like that. I don’t know. Feel you, I guess?”

Baekhyun presses his lips to the corner of Chanyeol’s mouth. “Like body worship?”

Chanyeol’s laughter is breathy and warm – the oxygen Baekhyun takes in on his next inhale. “Are you kink shaming me again?”

“Course not,” Baekhyun replies mirthfully, grinning into a kiss and taking both of Chanyeol’s hands in his. “I’m really sorry, for earlier.”

“It’s okay. Well,” Chanyeol casts his eyes down, chuckling a little, “it’s okay now. I just want you to be honest with me. Rely on me. Feel like you can tell me these things.” He starts playing with Baekhyun’s fingers, tracing squiggly lines over his knuckles and the backs of his palms that are so feather-light they tickle. “I might not always be able to offer a solution but I’ll always be able to listen, and I’ll do my best to cheer you up if it’s something sad.”

Baekhyun laces their fingers together, needing to be nearer. “Thank you. Me too, okay?”

Chanyeol smiles, dimple showing, and finally kisses him properly. They settle against the back of the sofa, Chanyeol’s hands on Baekhyun’s waist and Baekhyun’s arms around Chanyeol’s neck. Despite how long their limbs are and how hard it can be to slot them together sometimes, Baekhyun feels as though they’ve come together like two pieces of a puzzle, Chanyeol filling in all his empty spaces and vice versa.

“Will you be needing a hand?”

Baekhyun grunts unintelligibly and goes straight back to kissing, hands squeezing Chanyeol’s cheeks and reeling him in. Chanyeol’s chuckle buzzes against his mouth and Baekhyun shivers, melting further into Chanyeol than he had before.

“Stop laughing. You always do this,” Baekhyun complains, his lips pressing mainly against Chanyeol’s teeth. “What would I need a hand with?” he adds, only just remembering that Chanyeol asked him a question.

Chanyeol bites Baekhyun’s lip and oh, that changes everything. “Getting that plug out of your ass,” he husks crudely, and Baekhyun freezes in shock. “Did you forget it was there?”

“Yeah.” His face burns and he shies away from Chanyeol’s rousing stare. “It’s pretty comfortable actually.”

“It’s not good to leave it in for more than a couple of hours.”

Everything about Chanyeol becomes stiflingly hot – his kisses, his hands, his breath. Baekhyun blazes right in front of him like a wildfire ripping through a forest and all he can think about now is having Chanyeol’s bare hands on his body, replicating that pleasures Baekhyun provides him when they’ve made love before.

“Guess we’d better take it out then,” Baekhyun whispers, descending on Chanyeol like a man starved. He grabs at the open wings of Chanyeol’s jacket and yanks him closer, licking into his mouth without inhibition and tasting the tea stained on his gums.

It isn’t long before he grows nervous. The last time he did this was almost torturous, and although he’s older and more experienced, and Chanyeol is the complete opposite of his first boyfriend, Baekhyun cannot help but be consumed by worry. What if it hurts as much as last time? What if he doesn’t like it and he has to stop and he lets Chanyeol down? Baekhyun has withdrawn so far into his mind that he doesn’t realise he’s stopped moving. Stopped kissing. Stopped touching.

He’s embarrassed, when Chanyeol knocks lightly against his nose and brings him back into the room. Embarrassed because he’s afraid when he was so confident two minutes ago, because he’s scared he won’t satisfy Chanyeol in the way that he wants.

“We don’t have to,” Chanyeol says, and it makes Baekhyun feel worse. He wants to. He wants to know what it feels like when it’s good and with someone he adores. He wants to know what makes Chanyeol pull those faces and let out those noises when they’re sharing themselves with only gazes for conversation. He knows it’ll be better, even just a little bit, but he’s still hesitant. Hesitantly curious in a way that makes every one of his emotions volatile and unpredictable.

“I want to,” he assures Chanyeol, holding onto him for support. “I’m just…”

Chanyeol kisses him slowly. “Scared?”

Baekhyun takes in a deep, shaky breath and can’t find his voice to say yes. Chanyeol wasn’t like this when they first gave it a try. Chanyeol was confident and gorgeous and brave, everything Baekhyun feels he can’t be. He feels guilty, making a promise only to renege on it a few seconds later. He should be better than this.

“Baekhyun, we really don’t have to. It’s okay. It’s okay to be scared. Being scared doesn’t mean you don’t trust me, right? I’m not going to be mad or disappointed if you want to stop, at any point. It’s up to you if you want to do this. I’m fine either way.”

Baekhyun looks at him, really looks at him, and kind of wants to cry. How can one person be filled with so much good? He’s considerate, thoughtful, appreciative. What in the world does Chanyeol see in him?

“No, I want to. It’s just nerves,” he admits sheepishly, dropping his eyes to Chanyeol’s lips and kissing him briefly – Chanyeol’s are so pretty when they pucker.

“Then we’ll go slowly, okay? You can back out any time and I’ll just eat you out. It’s totally cool.”

Baekhyun bursts out laughing, a happy and healthy sound that lightens his spirits and dries his watering eyes. “Oh, I don’t know now. You haven’t eaten me out before. This is a tough one.”

“I’ll eat you out whenever you like.” Chanyeol smirks, steadily guiding Baekhyun to lie back against this sofa, Baekhyun’s head just shy of the arm rest and between Chanyeol’s hands. “You only have to ask.”

That goes straight to his dick.

Baekhyun hisses through his teeth when Chanyeol rolls his hips, slotting his thigh between his legs and grinding it upwards. Baekhyun arches and bumps into Chanyeol’s chest, rubbing up against him as he lets Chanyeol’s tongue slip into his mouth and lick the inside of his top lip.

“Eat me out?” he rasps wantonly into Chanyeol’s kisses, his hands tearing the bomber jacket from Chanyeol’s shoulders and going for his t-shirt next, nails leaving red lines against his back as he pulls it over his head.

“The plug has to come out first,” Chanyeol says mid-stripping, sitting up a little and giving Baekhyun a glorious view of his naked torso, arms flexed above his head as he throws his shirt to the ground. Baekhyun’s hands instantly come up to feel him, sliding over his ink and pausing at his nipples, watching as the left one faintly pulses with every heartbeat. “I love it when you do that,” Chanyeol groans against his neck once he’s come back down again, teasing the bulge in Baekhyun’s trousers and nipping his way across his throat.

Baekhyun shivers at the heat of Chanyeol’s breath when it catches the wet kisses he’s scattered down to his collarbone, bumping up against Chanyeol’s thigh and moaning when he’s swarmed with rich, heavy waves of ecstasy.

“Did you finger yourself earlier?” Chanyeol asks, sucking a nipple through Baekhyun’s t-shirt before he bunches the material under Baekhyun’s armpits and repeats the action directly. Baekhyun’s whole body convulses and he clutches his hand in Chanyeol’s thick curls, back leaving the sofa once again.

“Yes,” he gasps, hips trembling. Pleasure flutters like the beat of butterfly wings through his legs and his abdomen. He thinks about having Chanyeol inside him, being a part of him, and it splinters through his body like the rush of a stampede, left breathless and pliable and downright horny.

Chanyeol teases the skin beneath his belly button, the touch so taunting that Baekhyun’s muscles clench to get away. “Did it feel good?”

Baekhyun breathes sharply as Chanyeol licks lower, fat, wet stripes glistening across his skin all the way to his fly. “Sometimes,” he says, gaping at Chanyeol who is swirling his tongue over his happy trail. He has a serious thing for Chanyeol’s tongue no matter what it’s doing, the sight ripping whines from the back of his throat where his breath is currently hitched. He loves the hollows of Chanyeol’s collarbones when his shoulders are hunched; the folds of skin beneath his chin when he opens his mouth. Chanyeol is stunning and nothing will ever change that.

Hands slide up the outside of Baekhyun’s thighs and his hips buck on their own, Chanyeol grinning when he’s bumped in the chin by Baekhyun’s hard-on through his jeans. As a result, Chanyeol pops open the button and undoes his fly, tugging the denim down just a little until the waistband is under the curve of Baekhyun’s ass, squeezing his legs together. Baekhyun shuffles and pouts, so Chanyeol rolls his eyes and takes his clothes down the rest of the way, deciding not to trap him.

He’s naked now, bare skin grazing against the fabric of the sofa cushions. With his heartbeat in his ears, he lets Chanyeol part his thighs and push them back towards his chest, almost folding him in half so he can see what sits between his legs. Chanyeol licks his lips and Baekhyun’s heart gives out, drumming against his ribcage and imploding with each hit.

“I should go get lube,” Chanyeol whispers, kissing the tender skin of Baekhyun’s thigh while gazing up at him, not once breaking eye contact.

“You could just spit on it for now?” Baekhyun suggests, blushing at how needy he sounds. He just really wants Chanyeol’s mouth on him and his heart might fail if it doesn’t happen fast.

Chanyeol chuckles at him darkly, nosing around his balls in a way that shouldn’t be legal. Baekhyun tenses and twitches and unwittingly grinds against Chanyeol’s face, completely unashamed of expressing his carnal need to have Chanyeol do something.

“I’m not really a spit kind of guy,” Chanyeol says after some consideration, licking a line with his pointed tongue all the way up Baekhyun’s dick. Baekhyun feels his toes curling, noticing how they’re framing Chanyeol’s head.

“You swallow then?” Baekhyun smirks, watching as Chanyeol’s face tints with crimson. “Go get lube,” he says with a grin, poking Chanyeol on the shoulder with his big toe. “I’ll be here.”

Chanyeol drops a kiss on the tip of his cock. “Or,” he hums, working his way back up Baekhyun’s body and nudging his face with his nose. “I could carry you to the lube?”

Baekhyun winds his arms around Chanyeol’s neck and lifts his head a little to reach Chanyeol’s mouth. “Oh. Now that’s an idea.”

He howls when Chanyeol clamps his hands on the underside of his thighs and tells him to hold on tight. He locks his arms around Chanyeol’s neck as he becomes airborne, the world swaying for just a moment before it settles again on Chanyeol’s adoring smile. Baekhyun hooks his ankles together on the small of Chanyeol’s back and rests his forehead down against his, biting his lip at the feeling of Chanyeol’s hands squeezing into his flesh, holding him so securely even though he probably wouldn’t care if they fell flat on their asses.

From what Baekhyun can remember, the last time he was carried by anyone was some time before his seventh birthday. Chanyeol’s biceps are bulging and he’s insistently kissing Baekhyun’s neck so he can at least be kissing something as he navigates the way to the bedroom. Baekhyun has never been more turned on in his life at the way Chanyeol picked him up (with only a small groan) and whisked him away, literally sweeping him off his feet and taking him to bed like they’re the stars of a cheesy romance comedy.

“I’ve decided you need to carry me everywhere,” he jokes as Chanyeol carefully lowers him back on the bed, handling him like he’s something sacred.

“That’s one way to work out,” Chanyeol supposes, dropping a kiss on Baekhyun’s cheek before he quickly retrieves the lube from the bedside drawer. “Your plug is gorgeous, by the way,” he says as he squeezes a favourable dollop onto his hand. Baekhyun hooks his fingers behind his knees to pull his legs back, letting Chanyeol get to work.

“It’s the plainest plug ever,” he laughs, biting his lip when Chanyeol pulls ever so slightly on the base and runs the lube underneath it. It’s a glass plug, clear and colourless, bought for its slippery qualities. With a bit of help, it should come out fairly easily, and maybe it wasn’t the best thing to prepare with considering Chanyeol’s dick is definitely not made of glass.

“It’s sexy,” compliments Chanyeol, who waggles his eyebrows and kisses Baekhyun’s shin as he starts to ease his arm back by the elbow, taking the plug with him.

“You wouldn’t prefer one that was bright pink with a fake diamond on the end?” Baekhyun wonders with an eyebrow raised, finding the retrieval of the plug to be fairly tolerable. There are a lot of reassuring thoughts going around in his head, reminding him that he’s clean so it won’t be stained, and no, he won’t fart or… worse, when it comes out. He works hard to distance this from anything bathroom related; if he spends the whole night comparing penetrative sex to pooping, there is no way he’s going to stay hard, let alone come at the end.

The banter helps to calm his nerves, and he’s glad Chanyeol will talk to him like this, having a laugh, making light. It eases a pressure from Baekhyun’s chest that he didn’t even know was there until Chanyeol took it away, effortlessly to boot. A lot of things with Chanyeol are easy, natural, innate. Maybe Chanyeol is who he was born to be with.

“Oh no, I’d much prefer one with a tail.” Chanyeol winks, and Baekhyun accidentally pushes the plug out the rest of the way when he bursts out laughing. “That got you excited.”

“Shut up,” Baekhyun kicks him playfully, struggling to contain his smile as he watches Chanyeol wrap the plug in a tissue and leave it on the bedside table. “And take your trousers off.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Chanyeol puts on a deep voice, layering himself over Baekhyun’s body and melting into his mouth.

Baekhyun’s hands leave his knees and run up the length of Chanyeol’s back, where they tangle in the hair at the base of his skull. “It needs to happen,” he says, moaning halfway through when Chanyeol latches his mouth onto a soft spot under his jaw.

“If you insist.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes, taking a deep breath as Chanyeol rolls off him and clumsily discards his jeans. They get stuck on one of his feet and Baekhyun chortles at Chanyeol struggling, welcoming him back into his arms when he’s successful and kissing the pout from his lips. “What’s the plan then?” he asks, and Chanyeol smirks, travelling lower, and lower, and lower, until he’s set up camp between his legs and is holding Baekhyun’s thighs apart.

Baekhyun only has a couple of seconds to prepare himself for Chanyeol’s mouth, choking on air when a hot tongue suddenly laps at his pulsing bud and slips its way inside. “Fuck,” Baekhyun hisses, grabbing onto the pillow either side of his head and almost tearing it in two. This is something completely new, spears of arousal shooting like stars through his body, causing him to squirm where they burst and bang. Chanyeol blows and it sends a jolt up Baekhyun’s spine, glossy fingers tracing where his tongue has just been.

In his dazed mind, Baekhyun realises he’s excited. He wants to know how this feels and he wants to know now. Everything happening to him is nothing short of incredible, and if the main course is as good as the starter, they might have to do this more often. Or all the time.

Chanyeol glides a finger in and it’s strange. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but it’s also not the bolt of pleasure Baekhyun thought it would be. With only one finger inside, Baekhyun can’t really feel it unless he clenches, and that’s when he realises he’s not relaxing. A deep breath and a mental pep talk later, Baekhyun tries to let his muscles go lax, just as Chanyeol pulls out, his finger catching on his rim. It’s different to when he was preparing himself earlier. The feeling of his own fingers inside him was pale in comparison to how much his fingertips themselves were experiencing, so this seems unfamiliar, though not inherently bad.

“You’ve gone quiet,” Chanyeol observes.

Baekhyun blinks and finds himself staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. He looks down at Chanyeol who seems nervous, and gifts him a reassuring smile. “I’m just getting used to it,” he says, tone hushed.

“If you want me to stop, I give you permission to kick me.”

Baekhyun laughs quietly, eyes cast to the ceiling again. “You’re too kind.”

“I’m serious,” Chanyeol chuckles, kissing the start of his thigh and then slipping his finger back in, this time with a friend. “I refuse to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. Talk to me, okay?”

Baekhyun holds his breath until Chanyeol’s fingers stop moving, then he exhales and briefly touches himself, afraid he’s going soft. “Okay,” he says to Chanyeol, showing him a brave smile and biting his lip when Chanyeol comes up for a languid kiss. His tongue explores his mouth, Baekhyun purring against his body as he wraps all limbs around Chanyeol’s broad frame. There’s biting and sucking, and Baekhyun grinds impatiently against Chanyeol’s lower stomach when his tongue is taken captive.

Together, they work their way up from two fingers to three, rotating, twisting, hooking them inside. Baekhyun pants against Chanyeol’s ear as Chanyeol engulfs one of his nipples, suctioning it into his mouth with such force that Baekhyun’s back lifts off the bed. Blunt pleasure ripples through his body in white hot bursts and he moans ridiculously, clamping down on his lip afterwards in absolute shock.

When his nipple goes cold, Baekhyun’s hooded eyes find Chanyeol grinning at him with bingo written all over his face. From then on, Chanyeol’s fingers only take him closer to heaven, until Baekhyun feels like he’s floating and his vision fades every time the waves come crashing in. In all his life, Baekhyun has fooled himself into thinking this pleasure wasn’t possible, that it was something he could always give but never receive. Now his eyes have been opened, and he’s damn well sure he’s going to be compensating for lost time. It’s making him moan like he doesn’t usually moan, embarrassed by how loud and loose his voice is, mouth hanging open.

“Do you feel okay?” Chanyeol asks, to which Baekhyun frantically nods, head tipped back against the pillow with his forearm on his forehead. He’s gasping and groaning like he’s never been touched before, and in a way, he hasn’t. Not like this. Not by Chanyeol. Not by someone he can’t picture himself without.

He’s hot and he’s breathless, and when he runs a hand down his chest it slides with sweat all the way to his dick. Chanyeol feasts on his thighs, marking stains that flower like ink blots on paper. When is he supposed to know that it’s enough? That he’s sufficiently stretched to accommodate something more? How is anyone supposed to make that decision in this condition, brainless and wheezing?

“Chanyeol.”

“Mhmm?” Chanyeol grunts, swollen lips latched onto the base of Baekhyun’s dick. His thighs brace around Chanyeol’s head from the sensitivity, eyes absorbed in Chanyeol’s hollowed cheeks and his glassy eyes as he strikes lashings of fire through his loins. He can’t think of anything but the word wow as he lies there, squirming against the covers with his hands in Chanyeol’s hair. It feels so good, Chanyeol’s hands and his mouth smothering his senses in molten rock, suffocating.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun shamelessly mewls, trembling but going stiff and accidentally trapping Chanyeol in a headlock. “Oh my god.” He swears he’s going to come just from looking at him.

Chanyeol looks irritatingly smug as his mouth pops off newly bruised skin with an obscene smacking sound. Square hands wrap around Baekhyun’s thighs and they are pried out of their vice, Chanyeol sitting up and efficiently rolling on a condom. Baekhyun feels boneless, spread like starfish and feeling like he’s just participated in a cross-country run. Being so spoiled is uncharted territory but delving into the unknown has never felt so good.

“How’d you want to do it?” Chanyeol asks. He smiles fondly at him, utterly unbefitting of a man fondling his own flushed dick. He cards a hand through Baekhyun’s hair when Baekhyun reaches out a hand to stroke him through the latex, the glide easy and smooth. He doesn’t feel too different to the plug, but he’s bigger and he’s longer and he’ll be moving around. Baekhyun unknowingly licks his lips. “Baek?”

“Oh,” Baekhyun jumps, “um… I don’t know. What’s the best position?”

Chanyeol lies down beside him and reels their bodies together, chest to chest, nose to nose. “I like lying on my front,” he says, kissing him softly. “We can try that if you want?”

“Yeah, okay,” he breathes shakily, moving to lie on his stomach and shivering when Chanyeol lays his palm across his ass, fingers curled in the cleft stimulating his nerve endings. Chanyeol swills his tongue over Baekhyun’s bottom lip before he sucks it into his mouth, Baekhyun watching him with distant, dreaming eyes. He’s so wonderful, Baekhyun thinks, feeling his heart flutter. His breath gets stuck as he kisses Chanyeol slowly, almost lazily, foregoing closing his lips for feeling only Chanyeol’s tongue instead. It makes him feel raw, stripped back, exposed, but it also makes him feel wanted, safe, and maybe even loved. If Chanyeol is okay to do this with him when he’s not even a ‘spit kind of guy’, he must like him a lot.

When Chanyeol moves on top of him, straddling the backs of his thighs, Baekhyun moans at being pushed down into the mattress. Silken fingers dip inside of him again and his hips lurch up to meet them, hands clenching around the pillow as he grits his teeth and frees a sinfully low rumble. Chanyeol is heavy and he’s solid, but he doesn’t feel trapped. Chanyeol’s body is his shield, encasing him in a haven where he’s protected and cared for. Baekhyun wishes he had the strength to extend a hand back and caress his skin, feel the heartbeat in his veins, only he’s too droopy to do anything but breathe.

“We’ll have to save the tail for next time,” Chanyeol whispers suddenly in his ear, and Baekhyun chokes through a bout of laughter.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Baekhyun exclaims, turning his head only a little to glare at Chanyeol who is directly behind him, his extra layer of skin. Chanyeol chuckles and it’s delicious, and then there’s pressure between Baekhyun’s cheeks, something stiff yet sleek trying to ease its way inside. “Oh,” he breathes, completely deflating and closing his eyes, humming at each one of Chanyeol’s little kisses laid across the backs of his shoulders and over the nape of his neck.

“Wow,” Baekhyun says, lost for another word he can use to describe the sensation. The head passes through and it’s weird, his mind telling him he needs to push back while his dick says let it happen. In every way, this is the last thing Baekhyun expected it to feel like. There’s no burning, no tearing, no pain. He doesn’t feel cold, at risk or powerless. Somehow, it’s more than just Chanyeol rolling his dick inside for some fun. It’s Chanyeol becoming a part of him, filling him, reaching out with a loving hand to hold his soul, and it brings Baekhyun more pleasure than he could ever have imagined.

“Hold me,” he whispers, trembling as Chanyeol halts past the head to let him get used to it. Chanyeol closes his arms around him instantly, sliding one beneath his chest and securing Baekhyun’s hand in another. He’s warm and he’s thick and he’s everywhere, the air overpowered with desire as Baekhyun relents without fight to the feeling of being compressed and sheltered.

“Okay so far?”

Baekhyun moans something that sounds like a yes and rolls his hips, jerking when he guides Chanyeol in a little further by accident. He feels open, body and mind spread out like a book with a magnifying glass hovering over his narrative. There’s nothing left he can hide. Chanyeol has seen everything. Touched everything. Most likely kissed everything too. It chokes him, and he glances back to find Chanyeol gazing at him, face flushed, hair disheveled, lips bitten and pink. There’s nothing else like the vulnerability he feels in that moment, candidly laying everything out bare for Chanyeol to contemplate and judge. He wonders if he looks silly, wonders if he feels good; the look in Chanyeol’s eyes says everything but.

When Chanyeol starts to move, Baekhyun ceases to think. He embeds himself in more than just Baekhyun’s body, leaving a Chanyeol-shaped imprint on his heart and roses the size of his mouth like stepping stones down his spine. He sits up and kneads into Baekhyun’s hips, his fiery touch crackling and spitting and making the friction against the bed feel so lusciously fine.

Baekhyun moans enough for the both of them, stunned when that spot is sparked and he’s seized by an electric charge. It’s all he can focus on as it builds and it builds, a river trapped behind a quaking dam. Chanyeol tells him how amazing he feels, how hot he looks, how great he sounds, and it’s all Baekhyun can do when he claws him into some semblance of a hug, gripping onto Chanyeol’s arms when they move to sheathe his ribcage.

Their pace isn’t hurried, though each snap of Chanyeol’s hips still pounds the air from Baekhyun’s lungs. Desperately, he touches himself, parting his legs and giving himself the height he needs to wind an arm down between his torso and the bed. It changes the angle of Chanyeol’s thrusts to something less direct, Baekhyun gyrating his hips to get it back again. A cry leaps from his throat when he’s successful.

It’s not going to take him long to meet his end, slowly but surely being hurled towards the edge of euphoria. The drag against his rim is dulled by the drives against his nerves, Chanyeol’s length plunging into him with thoughtful, exhilarating precision. It’s so like his personality – the way he makes love. Considerate yet playful. Careful and engaging. And so, so magnificent.

Baekhyun watches him, sweat gathered in his hairline, a sultry concentration in his eyes, the sharp lines of his body as his muscles tighten. He watches Chanyeol and he’s floored, head over heels, swept off his feet, every cheesy metaphor under the sun. His heart bursts and he wants to scream, so full of Chanyeol, teeming with exaltation and dying to let him know.

A whimper lodges in his throat and Baekhyun stills.

The world stops turning. His eyes roll back and he writhes through a full-bodied shudder, knees trying to tuck themselves beneath his chest and shoulders hunching up around his ears. Hot and dizzy, Baekhyun gasps, having forgotten how to breathe, everything so intense that it stripped his mind away and left only one thought in his head.

I love him.

There’s warmth by his ear, dry and then wet, Chanyeol teasing the lobe between his teeth. It shepherds him back into the room, the bright white Baekhyun was lost in fading when he opens his eyes. He notices that it’s raining, water hammering against the glass, and Baekhyun bends an arm to tangle in the curls on the back of Chanyeol’s head as he reminisces their first kiss.

“Baekhyun.” Chanyeol nuzzles against his face.

“Hey.” It’s the first response that comes to mind, his thoughts in complete disarray trying to compute everything that just happened.

Chanyeol chuckles breathily against his cheek. “Hey yourself.”

Baekhyun moans, feeling somewhat like he’s just woken up from an eight-hour sleep. “C’mere,” he murmurs, manoeuvring onto his back with only a little difficulty and resting his hands on Chanyeol’s hips. For now, he pays no mind to the cool, sticky feeling of his come on his back, and instead focuses on Chanyeol who straddles him, knees either side of his waist with his arousal hard between his legs. Baekhyun hooks his fingers around the rib of the condom and slowly guides it off, grip slipping and grin widening when Chanyeol has to lend him a hand. By the looks of things, they used a crap ton of lube.

“Come here,” Baekhyun says again with more clarity, rashly throwing the condom on the floor and pulling Chanyeol towards his face by the backs of his thighs. He bites his lip as Chanyeol shuffles towards him, length hanging heavily in the air between them, swinging when he stumbles. “Is this what it would be like to get a lap dance from you?” Baekhyun wonders, grazing his nails down Chanyeol’s sides and teasing below his navel.

“Oh, I can assure you, it doesn’t get sexier than this.” Chanyeol winks, Baekhyun finally letting him come to stop where the tip of his dick reaches his mouth. “Or this,” Chanyeol amends, jaw slackening when Baekhyun kisses his head and dips his tongue into the slit. “Yeah, this is much sexier.”

Baekhyun almost gags when he laughs, his puckered lips curving into a smile as he retreats for a moment and pumps Chanyeol with his hand. “So,” Baekhyun hums, taking him in his mouth again and sucking hard, forcing back a smirk when Chanyeol’s hips buck forwards. “You’re not into spit, right?” It’s a joke, and he laughs when Chanyeol deliberately bangs his forehead on the wall above them, resting one hand on the bed board and lacing the other in Baekhyun’s hair.

“Please don’t make a habit of bringing that up,” he pleads. “And no, I don’t expect you to swallow.”

Baekhyun purrs and cranes his neck to drive Chanyeol’s length further down his throat, stroking what he can’t take between his fingers as his tongue illustrates tantalising spirals over the end. He gazes up at him seductively, humming around Chanyeol’s dick until he can’t breathe properly.

“Baek,” Chanyeol murmurs, eyes closing, stomach clenching, and Baekhyun sloppily pulls off just in time for ribbons of white to burst from the tip, landing unceremoniously across his face. “Fuck,” Chanyeol groans, panting, and then, “Oh my god, it’s in your eye!”

“Yes, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun laughs loudly. “It is in my eye.”

Chanyeol dabs at his face with a tissue, softly apologising for not giving enough warning. He’s attentively light of hand, doing his best to clean Baekhyun’s face so he can open his left eye again. When he does, Baekhyun smiles broadly, warmth flowing through his veins like a cosy tartan blanket in the winter. He crosses his arms behind Chanyeol’s neck and kisses him, passionately, hooking a leg around his waist to keep him there.

“We made a terrible mess,” Chanyeol whispers.

Baekhyun shrugs it off. “We’ll clean it up later. I just want to lie here for a bit.”

“You okay?” Chanyeol asks, bringing one of Baekhyun’s hands to his lips and gently kissing each finger. It takes Baekhyun’s breath away.

“Yeah. Sore, but a good sore. Like an I-just-had-really-great-sex kind of sore.”

Chanyeol lies himself along Baekhyun’s side and noses his face into his neck, index finger drawing pictures on Baekhyun’s breastbone. It’s quiet. Comfortable. Baekhyun watches Chanyeol entertain himself connecting the small freckles on his chest while he runs his fingers through Chanyeol’s curls and remembers the fall out they had before all of this.

“I really am sorry, Chanyeol,” he says lightly, shying away when Chanyeol blinks up at him.

“Hey.” Chanyeol hoists himself up, resting one elbow by Baekhyun’s ear and laying his other forearm across Baekhyun’s chest. “I haven’t said this yet, but I forgive you. So long as we don’t keep secrets anymore. Unless it’s Disneyland.”

Baekhyun lets out the breath he was holding, flooded with relief. “Disneyland,” he agrees, and kisses Chanyeol one last time before they get out of bed to start tidying up.

“You said something earlier,” Chanyeol announces as he strips the duvet of its cover, gathering it into a loose ball and dropping it in the corner of the room to deal with tomorrow. “About a high probability.”

Baekhyun is wrestling with the fitted sheet, yanking it off the mattress corners with great difficulty. He looks up at Chanyeol’s words, not paying attention to where he’s going and accidentally putting his knee in something sticky. His eyes shoot down instantly, a grimace contorting his features. Chanyeol sniggers at him as Baekhyun continues undressing the mattress, trying to keep his knee away from anything that they aren’t planning on washing.

“High probability?” he asks, retracing his thoughts and feeling his heart miss a beat when he remembers what he said. “Oh, right.”

Chanyeol smiles uncertainly, busying himself in the wardrobe finding new bedding as Baekhyun crosses the room to put the sheet in the same pile as the cover. Nervously, he bites his lip, wondering why Chanyeol has suddenly become distant. He sidles up behind him and kisses the space between his shoulder blades, one of his palms resting on the daffodil inked on Chanyeol’s hip and the other just above his belly button. He feels Chanyeol stop moving, his arms coming down from rooting around the top shelf and layering over Baekhyun’s own.

“Chanyeol,” he whispers into his skin, allowing him leeway to turn around. Chanyeol’s eyes roam Baekhyun’s body and surroundings before his face, his lips parted before he sucks on his lower one. Baekhyun secures his arms around Chanyeol’s waist and looks up at him with a faint, fond smile. “It’s not a probability anymore. It hasn’t really been one for a while.”

Chanyeol gulps. “What is it then?”

“It’s a definite I love you,” Baekhyun declares, screaming when Chanyeol hoists him up with a grin and carries him all the way to the shower.

Chapter Text

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Joes says smugly down the telephone, his voice loud and clear through the speaker. “We’ve done more in less time on previous occasions.”

“Great,” Baekhyun sighs with relief, swivelling left and right in his office chair. “I’ll pay for everything, don’t worry. And make sure you invite everyone! Even the newcomers. Just keep it a secret, okay? I don’t want anyone doing anything suspicious or smirking at him funny. I know it’s hard for everyone to wrap their heads around the concept of a surprise but please, just this once, let it actually be a surprise.”

“Eh! I’ll have you know we’re all very well behaved! Very well behaved indeed! I’ll get Mable to bring her fortune cards, shall I? Oh, and I’ll bring my banjolele! And I’ll let Mrs Mason know that she needs to make a cake. Chocolate?”

Baekhyun considers it, then nods. “Yeah, chocolate sounds good. We don’t need a buffet, though. I’m planning on taking him to the pub before.”

“Don’t need a buffet?” Joe gasps in horror. “You’re not taking me to the pub beforehand! When am I going to have dinner?”

“Okay fine, we can have a buffet!” Baekhyun replies, letting loose a laugh. “I don’t want to be any more trouble than I’m already being though,” he says sincerely, eyes landing on the canvas that sits on his easel. He inhales deeply and puts his hand against his chest, trying not to overthink. “Just do what you can, alright? Don’t go out of your way. I’ll try and make some time to come down and help everyone later.”

“Don’t worry about it, Baekhyun. You just focus on getting yourself sorted. We retired folk have a lot of time on our hands. Is Chanyeol out of town today?”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun sulks, staring glumly at his feet. “An emergency meeting. We were disturbed by his boss during breakfast.” It’s typical, Baekhyun thinks. His first birthday with Chanyeol and work comes along and ruins everything. He’ll he having words with Chanyeol’s boss if it ever happens again.

“Ah, that’s a shame. Bet you two made plans, didn’t you?”

Baekhyun sighs again. “We did, but I think this will make up for it. We can always go and ride roller coasters another day anyway, it’s not a big deal.”

“That’s the spirit!” Joe cheers. “Anyway, I’ll ring you if we encounter any difficulties or Agnes problems.”

Baekhyun snorts at Agnes problems. “You leave her alone,” he sniggers, shaking his head.

“Did you hear what happened? Those bloody guinea pigs of hers escaped! She’s inconsolable, Baekhyun. I’ve made a few bets as to whether she’ll find them or not. I voted no,” he giggles guiltily and Baekhyun rolls his eyes.

“Well, on this occasion, I’m hope you’re wrong,” he chuckles, glancing at the time on his computer desktop and sitting up from his slouch. “I’d better go. I’ll speak to you soon!”

“Alright, Baekhyun. See you later!”

Baekhyun hangs up and stretches his arms above his head, trying to eliminate the kinks in his spine before he tucks himself back in at his desk. It feels like all he’s done for the past few days is work, work and work, and he’ll be glad to have a little break later on, even though it’s not the break he was hoping for. They planned to head to a theme park today. Baekhyun was going to win Chanyeol a stupidly oversized cuddly toy from one of the sideshows and buy him a refillable slush even though it’s winter. And there was going to be fried chicken.

Nevertheless, it’s not the end of the world despite how wistful he feels. For now, he has emails to contend with, and spends the next half an hour organising his inbox until only the important messages are left.

He redid the concept art last week for his author client, following all her suggestions and critiques to create something that looked nothing like what he’d done before. Her email sits there unopened, pinned at the top of his inbox with a red flag that puts him off clicking on it. Baekhyun takes a deep breath before he opens it, then deflates when he starts reading. She loves them – his pieces, and Baekhyun gets to read about how ‘great’ he is from a true dictionary mastermind. It’s the most artistic, poetic and rhythmic praise he’s ever gotten, and he thinks he might put it on a t-shirt.

He's been liaising with a few other potential customers over the past few days too, as well as talking back and forth with the owner of the dog he’s going to paint, still waiting on a professional photographer to capture Baekhyun some good reference photos. A couple of orders have also come through, probably early Christmas presents, and Baekhyun writes down everything he needs to print and everywhere he needs to mail them to, compiling a list that takes up two pages of A5 and brings a cheery smile to his face.

In the early afternoon, he finally gets around to wrapping up Chanyeol’s portrait. He’s sealed it and glossed it and left it to dry for twenty-four hours, and when he looks at it, it’s the strangest thing; maybe he’s getting cocky or maybe it’s because it’s a painting of Chanyeol, but he can’t see a single flaw. There’s nothing wrong with it, no mistakes, nothing he itches to change. There are only hints of wobbly strokes where Baekhyun’s arm shook from a happy memory; accidental blobs of the wrong paint colour where he got distracted by Chanyeol’s texts or his calls; blotches of wet paint smeared together from when Chanyeol came over and he was in a rush to hide it. They are anything but errors.

As a joke, he bought the most childlike wrapping paper he could find, a garish neon blue colour with ‘Birthday Boy!’ printed all over it, surrounded by cartoon rockets. It’s obviously intended for kids under the age of ten, and apparently only boys can like outer space, but Baekhyun thought it would be funny and hopefully make Chanyeol smile, even though he’s turning twenty-seven and not eight.

To be completely over the top, he covers the whole thing in silver and gold gift bows and spells out Chanyeol’s name with the rainbow stickers he bought, fulfilling his crazy ‘arts and crafts’ vision he was having. He’s thinking about Friday, when Chanyeol is going to introduce him to his friends from university. From what he’s heard off Chanyeol, they’re an eclectic bunch that melded together through many trials and tribulations, and he’s been assured that he’ll fit right in.

Chanyeol also invited him to spend the weekend at his parents’ house for the family celebrations, and though he has neither accepted or declined just yet, he’s still a little nervous (even with his mum being a ‘fangirl’). It makes him wonder what his own parents are up to, and the fact that he doesn’t know makes him feel terrible. He hasn’t seen them since December and hasn’t spoken to them since May. So much has changed since then, so much that they don’t know about, and will never know about unless Baekhyun has the decency to call.

In truth, he doesn’t know why he hasn’t called. Is it his way of getting his own back for the months of wallowing they did when he allegedly threw his future away? And then the years of them looking down their noses at him as he tried to make art his career? Is he trying to make a statement? Or has he just wasted the last eight years of his life neglecting the people who raised him because he felt betrayed when all they did was care?

Chanyeol and his parents are peas in a pod, making sure to ring each other at least once a week. They even have a Facebook group chat where they send each other interesting articles and pictures, even memes. From Baekhyun’s perspective, it’s idyllic. He might not know about the arguments that happen or the disagreements they have, but he does know that they never hold grudges and it doesn’t take them long to revert back to normal. And Baekhyun misses that. He wants that. So he reaches for his phone.

The dial tone seems to get louder with every ring, an impending doom, and then he hears his mother’s voice on the end of the line.

“Baekhyun?”

“Mum, hi!” he greets, mouth forming the words with a painful twinge of unfamiliarity.

The pause that follows suggests she’s nonplussed, but she manages to stammer out a “Hello” in return. “Is there something the matter?”

“No, no.” Baekhyun shakes his head even though she can’t see him.

“Then, why are you calling?” she asks, tone one of genuine confusion and not repulsion.

It hurts to realise that his mother believes he’ll only call when he wants something and not just to check in. It hurts ever more to know that she thinks he’ll only ring when something’s wrong. He has himself to blame for that. “Just… How are you? How is everything? How’s Dad?”

It takes her a moment before she remembers how to speak, then Baekhyun is moving to sit back on his bed to get comfortable. He almost forgot what a chatterbox she is, and in small doses, he loves it.

“Your dad’s been doing my head in,” she grumbles, and starts complaining about how they’re having the patio redone.

They talk for half an hour before the questions are reversed, before she asks about his life and what’s happening with work. He tells her about some of his recent projects and promises to send her pictures (though not of his concept art, with it being top secret). Then, he breaks the news.

“I’m actually seeing someone new. It’s his birthday today. We’re all celebrating. He’s really great.” He blushes. “I think you’ll really like him.” He almost tags he went to university on the end, but thinks better of it. He’ll have to face her at some point, tell her how he still feels about the whole ordeal, and seeing as they’re coming up to spend Christmas here like usual, he thinks he’ll wait to say it to her face.

When they hang up an hour or so later, Baekhyun spends a couple of minutes letting everything absorb. Apparently, his parents have had a conservatory installed, adopted a rescue dog and re-roofed the house. His mum also has a new car and joined a yoga class where a woman called Janice can’t stand her. With Dad retiring soon, they’ve booked a celebratory cruise around the Caribbean for spring time next year and are looking to buy a holiday cottage somewhere near the coast. It’s a lot to process, especially at the speed his mum talks, but it feels good. He feels included, and he can just imagine the look on his dad’s face when Mum says they’ve been talking.

His phone buzzing in his hand pulls Baekhyun from his thoughts and he looks down to see a text from Chanyeol lighting up his lock screen.

Chanyeol

27th November

[Leaving hell. Be home by 6 x] 16:44

Of course, Chanyeol compares Hapton to hell, and Baekhyun laughs fondly at him until it clicks that the text means he only has an hour to get ready. Then, he panics. He still has to shower and pick an outfit and find his nice going-out shoes, and then he needs to style his hair, shave his stubble and write Chanyeol’s birthday card.

Baekhyun cracks his knuckles and sprints to the bathroom.

He has just about managed everything on his list when the doorbell rings. He’s still half naked and trying to pull jeans up his moderately damp legs, a hard task even when he’s completely dry, and has no idea which shirt he’s going to wear because he hasn’t had the chance to look yet.

The doorbell rings again and Baekhyun lets out a noise of frustration, running to his wardrobe and pulling out the first thing he sees, forcing it on as he jogs down the stairs, risking his life with how much clutter the steps are covered in. He only achieves doing up three buttons by the time he gets to the door, but he’s sure Chanyeol won’t mind a little peek at his chest.

He pulls the door open and smiles at Chanyeol standing there, delicious in a suit that makes Baekhyun look hideously underdressed (as well as undressed).

“Taxi for Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun deadpans, trying to smother his smirk because Chanyeol is cheesy as hell and doesn’t deserve to be encouraged in any way. Chanyeol looks very pleased with himself at his joke, his cheeky expression too adorable for Baekhyun to maintain his straight face.

“Get in here,” he laughs, waving Chanyeol inside and kissing him on his doormat.

“Why are you half naked? Are we about to get down and dirty?” Chanyeol teases, pulling on Baekhyun’s gaping shirt for emphasis and exposing a nipple.

Baekhyun smiles against his mouth and bumps their noses. “No, that’s happening later. We’re going to the pub for dinner. I’m starving.”

“Ah, my twentieth dish,” Chanyeol sighs dramatically. “It’s been a long journey but I’m glad I’ve finally got to this point.”

“It’s the end of an era,” Baekhyun plays along as he shuts his front door and finally buttons up the rest of his shirt, heart jumping when Chanyeol decides to help. “Kyungsoo will have to change his menu.”

“He will indeed. Whatever will I eat now?”

“Nothing, clearly,” Baekhyun snorts, briefly glancing at himself in the hallway mirror and fixing his hair. Afterwards, he turns to face the pile of shoes at the bottom of his stairs with a determined expression and starts to search for buried treasure.

“I’m buying you a shoe rack,” Chanyeol decides, entertaining himself on his phone while he waits. Baekhyun is about to tell him that he doesn’t need a shoe rack because he knows exactly where everything is, except he is only able to uncover one of his shoes and can’t find the matching pair. “Definitely buying you a shoe rack,” Chanyeol amends when he sees Baekhyun’s state. “You could wear trainers?”

Baekhyun gives him a look. “I can’t wear trainers on your birthday. The other shoe has to be around here somewhere.”

Chanyeol hums in thought. “Why don’t we wear nothing and not leave the house?” He presses against Baekhyun’s back, already kissing his neck, and Baekhyun forgets all about shoes and birthdays and surprises for a second. Staying here sounds like a really great idea, and he finds himself almost being convinced when he realises Chanyeol is unbuttoning his shirt again and he snaps out of it.

“Chanyeol, we have to go out for dinner,” he protests meekly, whirling around to face him and patting his chest. “I already told Mrs Parker we were going, so now everyone knows.”

Chanyeol releases a breath and smiles at him, pecking him gently. “Alright. But we can do this later, right?”

“We can do it all night if you want,” Baekhyun suggests, tugging on Chanyeol’s purple tie and laughing when his eyes literally light up.

Eventually, he finds his lost shoe under the coffee table and his outfit is completed. He makes a quick trip upstairs to get Chanyeol his birthday present, growing secretive when Chanyeol demands to know what it is, and then he’s locking up and shoving his keys in his pocket, meandering with Chanyeol up the street towards the pub.

“What is it you haven’t tried yet?” he wonders, the chill of the evening sneaking up under his shirt. It’s dark already, the stars out, and Baekhyun appreciates the moon as they walk, large and gleaming.

“The beef chili, I think. I’ve been fantasizing about it for a while.”

Baekhyun laughs, walking into Chanyeol’s side and slipping an arm around his waist. “Have you been thinking about the chili more than me?”

Chanyeol dramatically closes his eyes and shakes his head. “It’s not what it looks like, I promise.”

Baekhyun elbows him, chortling, and leads him the rest of the way to the pub, Chanyeol ducking down so he doesn’t hit his head on the ceiling when they enter. It’s warm inside, a muted orange glow emanating from the fires that roar with fresh wood in three separate hearths. The carpet sticks to the soles of Baekhyun’s shoes in places as they walk around to find a table, which isn’t exactly difficult seeing as there is literally no one else here. Kyungsoo is behind the bar, bottles clinking as he sorts through his fridges, and Baekhyun wants to facepalm. The pub is never empty at this time, even on a weekday. They’re making it really obvious.

“Where is everyone? Thought they knew we were coming?” Chanyeol wonders, patting down his pockets to retrieve his phone and wallet before he sits down to make sure he doesn’t squash anything. He’s picked a table beside one of the fires, tucked away in the back corner between an indoor plant and some grotesque curtains that frame the window.

“Um, not sure.” Baekhyun throws a glare over his shoulder at Kyungsoo even though he isn’t looking, still standing beside table. “Hey Kyungsoo!” he quickly calls in greeting to guide the conversation somewhere else, and Baekhyun stares at him when Kyungsoo pops up from behind the bar looking like he’s been caught red handed.

“Hi guys,” he says awkwardly, waving. “Didn’t hear you come in. Happy birthday, Chanyeol!”

“Oh thanks!” Chanyeol beams, looking much too cute for the get-up he’s wearing. Baekhyun would absolutely be obsessing over his shirt and his tie if he wasn’t stressing about keeping everything a secret. He’d probably also be thinking about taking it off.

“What can I get you?” Kyungsoo steps up to the till and taps a few keys to log on, looking at them expectantly before Baekhyun has chance to browse the menu.

“Can I have the beef chili, Kyungsoo? And a beer, please,” Chanyeol calls, not even needing to look at the menu. Always so polite, Baekhyun thinks, smiling at him until Chanyeol realises he’s staring. “What are you looking at? Chanyeol narrows his eyes and Baekhyun laughs, standing Chanyeol’s birthday present against the table leg and putting the card in the menu holder so he has a hand free. “You’re thirsting over the suit, aren’t you?”

Baekhyun’s eyes drop to Chanyeol’s shoes, raking a hungry gaze up the length of his body before he raises an eyebrow. “I’m gagging over the suit.”

Chanyeol laughs, commenting on his wit as Baekhyun picks up the menu and gives it a quick scan.

“Kyungsoo, I’ll have scampi and chips. And a coke!” Baekhyun unfolds his wallet, taking out his card and jumping when Chanyeol reaches out to stop him from approaching the bar.

“Baek, let’s split it,” he suggests, large eyes entrancing. Baekhyun would fall for his expression if he weren’t so hellbent on spoiling him today. And every day.

Baekhyun smiles complacently. “Nope. You’re not paying for anything and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He kisses the pout on Chanyeol’s face, hoping Kyungsoo wasn’t looking, and whispers, “I might even get you three desserts.”

Chanyeol gasps. “I’ll be on my best behaviour,” he promises with a coquettish grin, biting his bottom lip.

Kyungsoo is largely indiscreet when Baekhyun pays for their order, whispering about how everything in the hall is ready and he was just packing the last of the drinks to take over. There’s a crate on the floor behind his feet filled with cans of cider and bottles of J2O, and judging by how barren the beer fridge is, that must have been raided already.

“Where is everyone?” Baekhyun asks, taking his receipt from a grimacing Kyungsoo. “The pub’s never empty.”

“Well,” Kyungsoo says, making a start on their drinks and pulling back the pump for Baekhyun’s coke. “The party kind of already started so everyone’s already there. It’s just so that when you guys walk in, there’s a great atmosphere and everyone is ready to shout ‘surprise’!”

Of course, they’re shouting surprise. Everyone seems to have this undying need to be impractically over the top around here. Baekhyun wonders how he fits in sometimes.

“Okay, that’s great,” he smiles, taking their filled glasses in his hands when Kyungsoo slides them onto the counter. “I really appreciate everyone’s help. Thank you, Kyungsoo,” he says earnestly, a tremor in his chest making him unexpectedly emotional.

“It’s no problem at all, Baek.” Kyungsoo smiles at him, eyes shining as he wipes away the wet rings on the bar. “Food will be ready in about twenty minutes. I’ll see if can find some people to come in and make the place less empty.”

Baekhyun chuckles. “Thank you.”

Chanyeol is busy examining his birthday present when Baekhyun returns to the table. “You can open it if you want,” he says, setting their glasses down on the paper coasters.

“Card first,” Chanyeol says excitedly, carefully open the envelope as Baekhyun sits down, revealing the card inside. “To my wonderful boyfriend,” Chanyeol reads, cheeks going a little rosy, “happy birthday, love from Baekhyun. This is a key to my…” Chanyeol’s eyes snap up in shock, and Baekhyun chooses that moment to reach out for his hand. “House,” Chanyeol finishes, lowering the card to lie flat against the table, displaying the silver key Baekhyun taped on the inside. “You gave me a key to your house,” Chanyeol breathes, almost disbelievingly.

“Well, I needed someone sensible to keep the spare, so.” Baekhyun shrugs, messing around and laughing when Chanyeol rolls his eyes, peeling the key from the card and slotting it in his wallet for now. “I want you to have it,” he says sincerely, relishing the winsome smile Chanyeol gifts in reply.

“Thank you,” Chanyeol says, standing the card up between them and smirking at the two penguins holding hands on the cover, surrounded by the words ‘You don’t get older, you just get better’. “This is definitely mantlepiece-worthy.” Chanyeol points at it and Baekhyun snorts.

“Open your present,” he urges, laughing into his hand when Chanyeol frowns at the wrapping paper.

“Okay, just wait ‘til your birthday, Baekhyun,” he warns. “Just you wait.”

Baekhyun cackles and rests his chin in his palms, eagerly awaiting Chanyeol’s response to the painting he’s spent weeks poring over. “Just open it!” he impatiently cries when Chanyeol takes to carefully peeling back the paper along the lines of tape, just so he doesn’t rip anything.

“I want to save the paper. And the bows. And the rainbow stickers. I’m going to frame it on my wall. Hallway-worthy.”

Baekhyun lets out a sigh and shakes his head, chewing on his lip as the wrapping paper comes loose and Chanyeol turns the canvas over in his hands to see the front. The gasp is instantaneous. Astonishment, even awe, rushes across Chanyeol’s face, his hands delicately cradling the frame as his eyes hunt down every detail in every millimetre in every brush stroke of every corner.

“Baek…”

“Do you like it?” Baekhyun asks softly, quickly, trying not let his nerves show. He’s anxious, sitting there waiting for a verbal reaction. He shouldn’t be, what with Chanyeol’s look of absolute, undeniable and irrevocable fascination, but words are always good too.

“I knew you were magical,” Chanyeol breathes, completely serious, and looks up at Baekhyun with tears contorting his face. “You painted me, oh my god. You painted me. I’m—I’m honoured, I—I can’t find any words to describe how good this is, Baek, oh my god. I love it. I really, really love it. Thank you so much!” Chanyeol jumps from his seat and swamps Baekhyun in a snuggly hug, squeezing him extra tight and burying his face in Baekhyun’s neck.

“You’re welcome,” Baekhyun says through a smile, his hands rubbing up and down Chanyeol’s back. Baekhyun could actually fall asleep like this, right here. “I’d glad you like it.”

“Wait ‘til my mum sees. She’s going to freak out,” Chanyeol laughs, pulling away and standing back at full height, one hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder blade and the other tilting his chin upwards. “You’re just—amazing. And I’m going to tell you every day.”

Baekhyun blushes. “You don’t need to tell me every day.”

“Once a week?”

“Well, maybe every couple of days?” Baekhyun smirks, too busy smiling to kiss Chanyeol back when he leans in, just as the pub door opens and voices permeate the air.

It’s the Lee family, most likely Kyungsoo’s actor volunteers, and they share a few happy pleasantries before their food arrives, the plates leaving a trail of steam across the room. They settle into their routine after that, dishing gossip, telling stories and complaining about work. Baekhyun demands to hear the ‘Chanyeol: Birthday Edition’ set of tales and is entertained for the remainder of the meal by Chanyeol recounting every one of his birthday parties in detail.

When he was six, he had a superhero party and dressed up as Batman, where apparently he refused to say anything other than “I’m Batman” for the whole afternoon; so true to his character. When he was seven, he went to a water park with a few of his school friends and they ended up losing a member of their group in the river rapids so they had to tell a lifeguard. They weren’t friends after that. When he was seventeen, Chanyeol wanted a grownup party and held it at his house late into the night. He pretended to put vodka in the punch and watched all his classmates falling around thinking they were drunk, filming the whole thing and sharing it all over Facebook the next morning.

“Speaking of drinking,” Baekhyun interrupts with a thought, “I don’t think we should have more than one or two drinks tonight. I think it would be nice to spend your birthday sober.”

“Oh, you might be asking too much of me there.” Chanyeol gawks at him, sipping on his beer. “Guess I’ll make this last,” he says, making a melancholy toast.

“Come on,” Baekhyun chuckles, eating his last mouthful and placing his cutlery down the centre of his plate. “We don’t need to have alcohol to have a good time. Three drinks maximum, okay? Is that fair?”

Chanyeol shrugs. “I mean, you’re drunk after your first mouthful but I guess three drinks won’t be too much.”

Baekhyun narrows his eyes, scathed. “I’m not that much of a lightweight and you know it.”

“One drink in and your inner philosopher comes out, it’s really something.”

Baekhyun kicks him under the table to get him to stop, a giant smile on his face as he distracts Chanyeol with the dessert menu and upholds his promise of ordering him three.

“Was the beef chili everything you thought it would be?” he asks as they wait on Chanyeol’s raspberry cheesecake, caramel apple crumble and black cherry waffle. Baekhyun just ordered two scoops of mango sorbet and was heckled by Chanyeol from the other side of the room for being ‘boring’.

“It was everything I wanted and more,” Chanyeol sighs serenely, breaking out into laughter. “It’s weird, being twenty-seven now,” he decides, leaning forwards and resting his elbows on the table. Baekhyun mirrors his position, leaving only a few inches between their faces. With a stretch, they could kiss if they wanted, but now they have company and Baekhyun doesn’t want to make a spectacle of themselves. “Halfway to fifty.”

Baekhyun smiles, lacing their hands together and soaking up the warmth of Chanyeol’s skin. He hopes this will be the first of many birthdays. That they can continue to come here and eat in this pub until they’re old and decrepit, white-haired and wrinkly. Baekhyun always daydreamed about spending his entire life with someone. Just one person who would complete him in places where he’s lacking. He doesn’t want to get ahead of himself, but Chanyeol is very much like the man he had in mind.

Baekhyun ponders it all the way through pudding, watching Chanyeol take a spoonful from each of his desserts one after the other in rounds of three. The pub might change hands, the menu might be updated, the whole place could be redecorated, but this would still be the same – the two of them indulging in things they haven’t the means to exercise off.

“I don’t think I have ever been fuller in my entire life,” Chanyeol groans as they step out onto the street, the cold air immediately going to Baekhyun’s head and freezing his thoughts for a second. Chanyeol has rewrapped his present to keep it safe and he cuddles it tightly against his chest with one arm, the hand of the other entwined with Baekhyun’s as they pause outside the pub. “Do you hear that?”

Baekhyun looks up at him in the dark, ears slowly tuning in to a dreadfully old disco beat that’s echoing from down the road. “Yeah, I can,” he murmurs, flashing Chanyeol a smirk and starting to lead him towards it. “Let’s go investigate.”

Chanyeol follows him obediently. “Sounds like someone is having a party,” he chuckles, then he stops. He looks at Baekhyun, feet planting firmly on the ground, and says, “You didn’t.”

Baekhyun turns to him with a guilty smile. “I did.”

“Baekhyun Byun you did not!” he cries, racing off towards the village hall without him, legs whizzing back and forth. Baekhyun’s laughter ricochets off the buildings as he trails in Chanyeol’s footsteps, jogging up behind him so he can be there when Chanyeol rips the doors open and everyone yell “Surprise!”

Chanyeol is pulled into a million hugs as soon as he’s over the threshold, swamped with gifts and showered with smiles. An awful pop song is blasting through the speakers and all the kids are running around playing tag, shooting across the centre of the room where Joe is dancing with the Walkers. There are balloons and streamers and those tacky disco lights they had out two weeks ago, and while the buffet table looks to have been looted already, the principle remains and Baekhyun finds himself short of breath.

He is always baffled when the community comes together to organise events and birthday parties, but it’s a completely different story when they are doing it for him. The time it must have taken, the resources it required, the disruption to everyone’s schedules. He’s probably (definitely) caused more problems than he’s solved today, and yet everyone has been so willing to help, to lend him a hand in a time of need.

As he mulls over his time living here, he feels like his sense of belonging has never been this strong. One look at the room and he realises he loves everyone in it. He loves Yixing and Jongin who are bickering over what songs to play next at their DJ booth; loves Agnes even when she’s drunk and can’t stand on her own, wailing about how her guinea pigs still haven’t come home; loves Mrs Parker and the rest of the ladies gossiping in a circle with hurried whispers and wide eyes. Everyone who matters to him is within arm’s length – and only a phone call away.

“Get in here, Baek! No use partying in the doorway!” Joe shouts, waving him in and thrusting a bottle of beer into his hand. “It turned out well, didn’t it?” he asks, surveying the room with a proud smile. “And the buffet was lovely, thank you for giving it the green light.”

Baekhyun laughs, still a little stunned by his sudden sentiment. “Yeah. Yeah, it turned out really nice. I really can’t thank you all enough, this is just—” His voice falters and he shakes his head. “I’m really thankful.”

“Aw, don’t go soft on me now, Baekhyun,” he chuckles, drinking his orange squash through a straw. “We still need to boogie.”

“Boogie, right.” Baekhyun nods, laughing and averting his gaze as soon as he senses Chanyeol approaching.

“You did all this for me?” Chanyeol gasps, his arms coming around Baekhyun’s waist and holding him against his chest as Joe quietly slips away.

Baekhyun looks up at Chanyeol with eyes full of love, hugging him back and struggling to smile through his sudden urge to cry. “I didn’t do this. They did all this,” he says gently, voice only loud enough for Chanyeol’s ears. “I just asked them. They love you, Chanyeol.”

Tears form on Chanyeol’s lower lashes and hang there until he dips his head forwards. He laughs sheepishly, rubbing at his own eyes until they’re dry but pink. Behind him, Jongdae does an electric slide across the floor and accidentally pops four balloons.

“What is it?” Baekhyun asks, losing sight of everything but Chanyeol’s face. He can’t hear Minseok and Emily arguing about who has to change their two-year-old’s nappy, or Reverend Alec Jones being coerced into having champagne by Junmyeon who is going on and on about the bottle’s age and country of origin.

“I’m just really glad I found this place.” Chanyeol’s voice wobbles as he says it, and Baekhyun reaches up to cup his cheeks, swiping away the few tears that have started falling down his face, careless of whether other people are watching or not. “It really feels like home here. I mean, everyone is home, you are home. Even this building is home and it’s not even my home.”

Baekhyun swallows when he feels himself welling up. This is the last place he wants to break down and bawl about how happy he is. It’s Chanyeol’s birthday and they’re at his surprise birthday party, and Baekhyun just wants to celebrate with him until he can’t keep his eyes open.

“Baekhyun?”

“Mm?” Baekhyun blinks through the glaze that settled across his eyes, lips parting when he sees that Chanyeol’s gotten closer.

“I love you.”

Baekhyun breathes in sharply, the air hitting his lungs too soon and leaving him winded. There’s a brief pause, a moment where he doesn’t breathe at all and simply floats, heart so light and spirits so high that it’s a wonder he doesn’t end up on the ceiling. Surrounded by the chaos of a village party, where Kyungsoo is prying red wine out of Agnes’ hands and the kids are all shuffling across the floor on their bottoms, conveniently collecting the dust, Chanyeol looks beautiful.

Then again, he’s always been beautiful.

“So,” Baekhyun says, voice accidentally sharp from the lump in his throat, “is that a probability or a definite statement?”

Chanyeol looks at him like he wants to strangle him. “Wow. That was the dad joke of the century,” he grumbles, then kisses him like no one’s watching.

Only, there are people watching, and the current song stops abruptly to make way for George Michael’s Careless Whisper. Baekhyun feels his heart come up in his throat, then he charges at Yixing and Jongin sniggering behind the DJ booth, clearly having the time of their lives.