kaleidohscopic

[kaleidohscopic]

SWEET — BBH

PAIRING: baekhyun x female reader SUMMARY: it's one thing to run into the guy you maybe, used to have a little bit of a thing for at your mutual friends' birthday party. it's another thing to find out he maybe, used to have a little bit of a thing for you too. GENRE: friends (ish) to lovers! au, romance, a hint of smut, some pining if you squint WARNINGS: swearing, alcohol consumption, jenkai (humour me) wayyyy too much sexual tension, it gets a little hot and heavy towards the end but nothing super explicit (bc idk how to write that stuff sorry!), general mature content and themes WORD COUNT: 4.4k NOTE: super self-indulgent w barely any plot or characterisation (basically four thousand something words of foreplay lol), i saw that video of baek at one of the lonsdaleite stops unbuttoning his shirt and it drove me a little loopy ngl...

The last time you had seen Byun Baekhyun was two years ago.

Graduation. Gowns. Bouquets. There was probably a photo of the two of you, along with the rest of your cohort, sitting around somewhere in the depths of your camera roll, fresh-faced and eager to take on the exciting new world outside of 3000-word essays and 9 am tutorials. Four years taking variations of the same courses and bitching about the same tutors meant you were far from strangers, but sadly, the friendship had dwindled once you’d left the classrooms for good — something you had been just a little gutted about. These days, his appearances in your life were rare, save for the times he’d come up in conversation with the friends you both shared back in the day, or his sporadic likes on your instagram posts.

Except now, of course, as you watched him climb up the stairs to the rooftop bar, gift bag in one hand and suit jacket in the other.

“Happy birthday!” he beamed, enveloping your best friend in a hug. The fabric of his shirt strained against the movement of his arms, and you caught a whiff of his delicious woody cologne as he approached. 

You had known there’d be a possibility he’d show up today. This year, Jennie had made the enlightened decision to throw a joint celebration with her boyfriend, and obviously that entailed inviting all of his friends — which honestly, wasn’t even that many extra heads since Jongin only ever spoke to the same eight people. You’d seen Baekhyun’s name on the guest list that you had helped her put together, and seen it again listed under the ‘going’ tab of the event, but having the real deal in front of you was another experience entirely.

Crisp white button down with the sleeves rolled up, fitted slacks, and just a glimpse of his toned chest peeking out from where the top few of his shirt buttons were undone.

He looked fucking good. 

Even better than he did two years ago.

Jennie squeezed him back with just as much fervour. “So glad you could make it! Jongin’s been stuck to my side all night with no one to talk to, he’s going to be so happy you’re here.”

He pulled back with a chuckle, and it was then that he finally laid eyes on you, seated next to the birthday girl, holding matching martinis, and doing your best not to look like you had been shamelessly checking him out for the entire 45 seconds since he had arrived. His eyes widened slightly with recognition as your name left his mouth.

“You haven’t forgotten each other, right?” Jennie laughed. The descent of his eyes down the length of you was quick, but not careless, and heat flared in your body all the same. When his gaze returned back to your face, the beginnings of an appreciative smile were shaping the curve of his mouth.

“Not yet, I hope,” he answered her, but his eyes were still on you. “Nice seeing you again. You look good.”

“So do you, Baekhyun,” you replied, because it was the truth. His smile only grew. 

Jennie tipped back the rest of her martini and bade the both of you a hasty farewell, saying something about fixing up the photo zone as she hurried towards the other end of the rooftop. A few of the girls, too excited about the open bar, had knocked the cushions onto the ground, and were doing a poor job of rearranging them back on the wooden swing.

He slid into her now-vacant seat, elbows resting on the bar counter, giving you an excellent view of the shape of his forearms and the veins that adorned it. 

“You’re not going to have that?” he asked, nodding at the sad little olive that sat all alone at the bottom of your empty glass. 

“Not a fan of the saltiness,” you answered, and offered it to him. You watched as he plucked the garnish stick out of your fingers and put the olive in his mouth with no hesitation, eyes lingering a little too long on the movement of his throat as he swallowed it. “I like sweet things better.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he chuckled. “You used to only ever drink vodka cranberries.”

Suddenly, you were twenty-one again, peering through the cafe window and getting a little too giddy at the thought of meeting up outside of the stuffy tutorial classroom to work on the project you had both been assigned to. You’d be lying through your teeth if you said that a crush on Baekhyun was something you never entertained throughout your four years of university together. And maybe it had been reciprocated, for the briefest of times, just after that joint presentation on data structures, where the thought of stepping over from friendly more-than-acquaintances into something more had crossed your mind enough times for you to lose count. There had been something there, or at the very least a hint of something, in the nights spent crammed into a tiny library booth meant only for one person, poring over stale and tedious papers on algorithm organisations in each other’s company.

But nothing had happened. He hadn’t made a move, and neither had you, laden with the fear of rejection that was so indicative of youth. And maybe that had been a huge misplay on your part, because a few weeks after wrapping up the project that had brought you together, he was at your faculty’s monthly pub crawl, introducing you to his new girlfriend, who had actually asked him out just the day before. 

Safe to say that had been the end of that. You were not the type to homewreck.

“How long has it been? I feel like I haven’t seen you since — god, it must have been graduation?” 

“Something like that,” you replied through a smile. “I still have the photos on my phone.”

“So do I,” he said, flashing you a boyish grin. Then, as if doubting the accuracy of his own words, he promptly pulled out his phone and began scrolling towards the top, brows furrowed with determination. It was a few seconds later that he found what he was looking for, turning the screen towards you with a triumphant noise. 

The picture had been taken outside the ceremony hall, set against the familiar sea of graduation gowns, but that was the only familiar thing about it. In the foreground stood just you and Baekhyun, not stiffly posing for the camera as you had been in all of the group shots that existed on your phone, but turned towards each other, faces bursting with elated smiles. Neither of you looked to be aware that there was even a camera on you. The you in the photo had your mouth half open in the tell-tale way it always did when you were about to laugh at the ridiculously corny jokes he loved to crack. His eyes were crinkled at the corners, partially from the glare of the sun overhead — the weather had been phenomenal for the usual gloominess of May — and partially in delight at your reaction, having cracked said joke. 

“I’ve never seen this one before. Did you forget to Airdrop this to me on the day?” you asked, a joking accusation colouring your voice. 

“My mum only sent it to me a whole month later. I didn’t even know she had taken these,” he said, zooming in to better see the expressions on your upturned faces. “We look so happy here,” he added, voice tinged with a hint of nostalgia.

“And young,” you agreed, but not without a sigh. The you of two years ago had yet to know the pains of having seven different bills to pay every month, and watching the money trickle out of your bank account like water from a leaking tap.

He gave you a gentle, teasing nudge with his elbow. “We’re not that old now. We could definitely still pass as twenty somethings.”

“That’s probably because we are still actually twenty somethings,” you countered with a laugh. 

There was an unprecedented ease with which you fell into conversation with Baekhyun. Despite the considerable gap of silence between now and the last time you had seen him, there was nothing in his demeanour or your own that indicated just how much time had passed. It was rather comforting to see a face from your university days, and even better that that face was still as gorgeous as ever.

You watched as he flicked through a few more photos from the day, mostly of him and his friends from university — one of whom was the other main event of tonight — until he landed on a picture of him with his girlfriend. You recognised the photo, seeing as you had been the one who offered to take it. He had an arm around her waist while she carried a huge bouquet with a teddy bear sitting atop the arrangement.

“Didn’t I help you order that thing?” you asked, pointing to the flowers in her hand. He hummed in agreement, but didn’t say much else, scrolling through to the next photos with his parents, which had also been taken by you. They stood on either side of him, beaming with pride, and then there were a few after that with his girlfriend as well, the four of them all standing together and looking picture-perfect. 

Perhaps the you of today would have chosen differently, found the balls to ask him out first — because what was the use in sitting and waiting around for the guy to make the first move? — and maybe you’d be the one in the photo instead, smiling up at the camera, an integral part of the family portrait. Maybe he’d be running his fingers across the inner curve of your wrist, instead of along the rim of the gin and tonic he had just ordered.

“She couldn’t make it today? Or was she not invited?” you asked, having not seen anyone walk in behind him. Although you hadn’t been paying much attention to anything else since he arrived, and if she had been here, you doubted she’d be all too pleased with how close your heads were, even if he was just showing you through his camera roll. With that in mind, you drew back slightly, just enough to catch the expression on his face twisted with an odd sort of surprise.

After a second or so, it melted into an easy-going grin.

“We broke up a while ago. A month or two after graduation, actually.”

Oh.

You and your big mouth.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know — I shouldn’t have —”

“Don’t be, it’s fine,” he reassured, waving off your clumsy apologies. “Things just didn’t work out and we weren’t right for each other. It was a pretty amicable break, all things considered. But now, I get to sleep however I want in my own bed, so I really can’t complain,” he added, fishing another laugh out of you.

“Nothing beats starfishing in your sleep after a long day,” you hummed in agreement. Wednesday nights in your bedroom after a full day of client meetings could attest to that.  

Baekhyun took a slow sip, pulling the drink into his mouth with a contemplative carefulness, and weighed up his words before he spoke again. 

“What about you? Still with Jinyoung?” he asked, tone light and regarding you with curious eyes. Without meaning to, you let out a groan, and his left eyebrow quirked with interest. 

“Don’t even go there,” you half-grimaced, reminded of the fling you had towards the end of fourth year with the business major. He was pretty, and had been nice enough, but by the fifth time he blew off spending time with you so that he could track the world stock indexes, it had become pretty clear that the two of you were on different paths in life. The sex was okay, but it had not been enough to warrant any more than a few late night rendezvous. For all you knew, he was probably now a very successful investment banker with 90 hour work weeks and making a shit-load of money you could only dream about having. 

You sighed, drumming your fingers against the counter. “Let’s just say, he was more interested in looking at his dividend yields than he was in me.”

Baekhyun’s gaze flickered over the rest of you again, taking in the ridges of your collarbone and the soft curve of your waist, the touch of his eyes hovering above your skin like a tangible thing. You tried your best to look unaffected, forcing yourself to remain still under the weight of his stare despite the way it was melting you down to your bones.

“He definitely did not have his priorities in order,” he said, once his eyes ended their journey and returned back to your face. “You’re much nicer to look at.”

His words settled beneath your skin, pulling a sweet warmth to your cheeks that slowly radiated through the rest of your body. You watched as his mouth curved around the rim of his glass again, and followed the path of the drink down the length of his throat. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were flirting with me.”

He rewarded you with a sly smile. 

“Then maybe you don’t know any better.”

Christ. Those were definitely bedroom eyes.

Your lips parted again, though you had little idea as to the words which were preparing to come out of them. Forming coherent and decent thoughts proved to be a great struggle when he looked like he was undressing you with his eyes. His tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip, and you swore you could have crumpled right then and there if it hadn’t been for the bar stool underneath you. 

“Baekhyun, you’re finally here,” said a giggly Jongin, suddenly appearing between the two of you with Jennie in tow.

The tension from seconds earlier dissipated as quickly as it had formed. 

Someone (the birthday boy) had evidently made good use of the open bar to shed the self-imposed shell that came with introversion before the arrival of his friend. “I’m so, so happy to see you. We need to do some shots right now,” he said, now all serious, leaning over to peer at the drinks menu that he himself had signed off on. 

Baekhyun was the first to break eye contact, turning to flash Jongin a fond smile. “Sounds like the best idea you’ve ever had,” he said, before downing the rest of his gin and tonic. 

The birthday girl requested tequila shots, and the bartender was quick to supply, lining up four glasses and filling them with the clear alcohol that was a recurring character in all your worst hangover episodes. You passed them around, but not before turning back around to the bar for one more thing. 

“And a vodka cranberry, please,” you added, catching the amused smile Baekhyun threw your way. 

“For old time’s sake.”

It was approaching the early hours of the morning when the remainder of the party retired to the hotel suite Jennie had booked for the night. One of her chill, moody, late-night R&B playlists had been queued up and was playing softly on the speaker system in the living room — she had a playlist for every conceivable mood and situation — and you could just make out the melody of a Daniel Caesar song, quiet and soothing against the nighttime.

“Okay, you win,” Baekhyun conceded with amusement, sitting up to grab the soju bottle from your outstretched hand. “I’ve never had someone throw up on me, at least not on the first date.” He settled back against the pillows, bringing the bottle to his lips to take a small, slow sip. 

“Thanks, but it’s a victory I’d rather not have. There’s no pride in knowing I’m the only person I know to have a guy spew all over my shoes within ten minutes of meeting me,” you said, leaning back and letting your hands sink into the plush comforter. 

Some thirty or so minutes ago, you had found yourself in one of the smaller rooms of the suite, sitting across from Baekhyun with nothing but a few inches of egyptian cotton separating you. All night, you had felt his presence, whether it was the light brush of his warm fingers across the bare skin of your shoulder to grab your attention, or the weight of his stare from across the rooftop bar while you posed for pictures with Jennie and the rest of the girls. He had infiltrated your senses, occupying his own little space in the corner of your consciousness. Right now, having the whole of him so unobstructed before you, being the sole focus of his attention within the four walls of this small room — it was obvious that the alcohol wasn’t the only thing bringing a heady warmth to your face.

He levelled you with a careful look, and instead of handing the bottle back to you as he had done for the last thirty minutes, he set it onto the nightstand beside the bed with a soft clink. You raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.

“I think you should probably slow down,” he said, catching the curious tilt of your head. “Wouldn’t want you to do something you regret.”

You let a coy smile turn the corners of your mouth upward, shifting your weight off your hands and leaning towards him ever so slightly. “Trust me, I know my limits,” you said, and moved to grab the bottle. 

The hand you placed on the top of his thigh to steady yourself as you reached over him was deliberate, and you failed to hide the deepening of your smile when you felt the muscles flex beneath your fingers. You also didn’t miss the dip of his eyes below the neckline of your dress as you hovered over him, only pulling back once the cool glass of the bottleneck was firmly in your grasp. The glimmer in his eyes, previously light and boyish, had darkened imperceptibly.

You were playing a dangerous game, and you both knew it.

Beyond the door, Jennie’s playlist had changed to something a little more sultry, Kehlani’s honeyed voice now floating among the sounds of the city from below. His gaze remained on you as you raised the bottle to your lips, tilting it back and letting the tartness of the grape soju fill your mouth. 

The song wasn’t the only thing that had changed. There was a palpable shift in the room, a simmering heat gradually seeping into the atmosphere, brought on by your brazen touch. Still, he kept a safe distance, giving you the reins and the freedom to dispel the tension you had created. 

Which you had absolutely no intention to. 

You pulled your bottom lip between your teeth, relishing in the way his eyes immediately left yours to track the movement. “You know,” you began, turning the bottle over in your hands, “I used to have a bit of a thing for you.”

His eyebrows raised with interest, but there was also a hint of surprise layered beneath.

“Third year, that data algorithms project. I thought a lot about asking you out, actually,” you continued, watching as his face slowly took on a smile at your words. A soft laugh escaped those pretty lips, as if he was enjoying some private joke that you weren’t in on. Without meaning to, you leaned in, drawn to the sound, wanting to understand the amusement behind it. 

“You wanna know something?” he asked, to which you weren’t sure if you had actually nodded, or if you had only imagined that you did, too preoccupied by the inviting curve of his mouth.

He was all too willing to comply with the unspoken request behind your curious eyes, moving forward at a languid pace, until his lips hovered just over the shell of your ear, not quite touching, but close enough that you could feel the fluttering pull of air with each of his inhales and exhales. You could smell him too, his cologne now infused with the scent of his skin over the course of the evening, smooth and sweet, and much too dizzying. 

His cheek brushed yours for a fraction of a second before you registered the conspiratorial whisper in your ear.

“So did I.”

You hadn’t even realised your own eyes had closed until they were fluttering open with his departure from your space. He pulled back, eyes gleaming with a furtive satisfaction like he had just let you in on some big, juicy, forbidden secret. It took a while for your chest to start pulling oxygen back into your lungs again. How he could render you so breathless when he had barely even touched you — you would’ve been embarrassed if not for the foggy warmth circling your head and radiating throughout the rest of your body, leaving you oblivious to everything but the sheer force of how much you wanted him.

He reached for the bottle, now almost empty, and you fought the flinch when you felt his fingers close around your hand. This time, you didn’t complain when he removed it from your grasp and set it back on the nightstand. The warmth of his hand did not leave yours, flipping it over to trail his fingers lightly across your knuckles. 

“These are pretty,” he murmured, thumbing at the rings decorating your fingers. You could only manage a noncommittal hum in response. His touch had stolen your voice right out of your chest, along with all the rationality usually contained inside your mind, leaving you with nothing but the feeling of your own blood thrumming in your veins, hot and fast beneath your skin. 

All night, you had danced around each other, stealing furtive glances and exchanging flirty smiles, carefully toeing around the edge of politeness and propriety. And maybe Baekhyun was just too polite, too respectful, letting you take the wheel and steer tonight in whichever direction you wanted, despite the want that was so clearly etched on his face. 

Surely, your face was a mirror of his own. Surely, he could tell.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked, looking up at you with heavy-lidded eyes, unfurling your fingers to lace his own through them. The press of his warm skin against yours had you light-headed and almost delirious, but you forced your gaze to stay steady on him while you tried to find your voice again.

“I’m thinking,” you began, low and breathy, “about how you’ve been eye-fucking me this whole night.” 

His sharp inhale was unmistakable above the quiet of the room. A meteor could have landed right outside the building and you wouldn’t even have noticed, held captive by his dangerous touch and the hunger flaring in his eyes. 

“And,” you continued, “how I’ve been waiting for you to do something about it ever since you shut that door.”

The second after the words left your mouth seemed to stretch across an eternity. You watched as he registered them, transfixed by how his whole body seemed to cloud over with desire, pushing out any remaining trace of restraint.

One moment you were sitting on the bed, revelling in the delicious tension you had created, and the next he had pulled you flush against him. His mouth was on yours, hot and needy, the self-control he had been so meticulously keeping to for the entire night disappearing the instant he felt your lips move against his own. You were no better, hands leaving his to fist desperately at the fabric of his shirt. An airy moan left your throat when his tongue brushed against yours, letting you taste the sweetness you had been imagining ever since you laid eyes on him on the rooftop. He swallowed the sound, the plump flesh of his bottom lip tightening into a pleased smile at your reaction.

Baekhyun pulled away first, lips leaving yours to trail across your cheek and down the side of your neck, where you felt the light graze of his teeth over the skin, and then the wetness of his tongue following the same path. His hands had snaked around you, fingers digging into the curve of your waist, keeping you in place while he nipped at you, drawing stilted gasps out of your parted mouth. When he pulled the flesh into the warmth of his mouth and sucked it to a nice, dark bruise, the heat coiling in the pit of your stomach flared, violent and hungry. 

You were going to lose your mind.

“You know, you could just try again,” you managed to get out between heaving breaths. “Ask me out.”

“Would you say yes?” he asked, and you felt his lips shape the words against your skin. They dragged back up the column of your throat, capturing your mouth again with another heated kiss that had your head spinning. He shifted, and your knees came to rest on either side of his leg, the firm muscles of his thigh pressing against the part of you that ached for his touch. In the haze of this moment, you didn’t know much, but you knew you would’ve said yes to absolutely anything to come out of that sweet, tempting mouth. 

Still, you played along, letting a devious smile pull the corners of your mouth upwards. “That depends on how tonight goes.”

He drew back slightly, fixing you with a wicked look that held promises he was nothing short of determined to fulfil. You could see yourself reflected in the darkness of his blown-out pupils, flushed and already wrecked just from the attention of his mouth. Anticipation and thrill jolted through you like lightning, zipping through every cell in your body as your mind drifted to what he might have in store behind those enticing eyes. 

You weren’t left wondering for long. His hands left your waist and moved to your calf, pushing up the silken fabric of your dress as they slowly crept upwards, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. The brush of his fingers against your inner thigh drew another shuddering breath out of you. 

His next words were not unlike an oath.

“Then I’d better make tonight fucking spectacular.”

#baekhyun #exo baekhyun #byun baekhyun #baekhyun x reader #baekhyun smut #exo x reader #baekhyun fanfic #exo smut #baekhyun au #baekhyun fluff #kaleidohscopic works baekhyun

[kaleidohscopic]

idealizations concerning real life relations | jjk (m)

>>pairing:jungkook x reader / fuckboy!jk x hopeless romantic!oc

>>genre:s2l, fwb, smut, angst

>>word count: 40.9k besties i am so sorry

>>warnings: jk is so sweet, but also so evil lmao, oc lives in her little noggin, angsty fwb, drug and alcohol use, tattoos, multiple smut scenes that include: oral (m/f), fingering (f), light face slapping (with hand and cock??), praise, degradation, marking, dirty talk, so many creampies yum, multiple orgasms, kissing :(, cumming in pants :), probably more but i cant think of it, ok other stuff now, manipulation, infidelity, oc thinks jk is made of stars :(, jk thinks she is so pretty :(, misunderstandings, some fluff if you squint, brunette jk, blonde jk, n blue jk,  1 mentions of: howls moving castle, too many mentions of: stars, the color pink

>>notes: bruv i do not have anything to say for myself EXCPET that i worked v hard on her and i really hope u like it <3 beta: @birbdae​ tysm for dealing with this, she is long lmao >>> soundtrack

this is split up by seasons, so if 40k is a lot for one sitting, you can read one season at a time if that is easier :)

>>summary: jungkook loves to be loved, but he doesn’t love in return.

Keep reading

#reread #hurts so bad but it’s so fucking good #probably the greatest thing i’ve ever read

[kaleidohscopic]

besties (gone sexual)

❝ c'mon, you know i’m better than all the guys you’ve slept with. ❞

PAIRING ▸ na jaemin x fem!reader

GENRES ▸ smut, fluff, angst, crack, college au, coming of age, best friends to lovers au

WARNINGS ▸ profanity, slowburn, alcohol consumption, lowkey fwb, hints of found family, jaemin has douchebag tendencies, love triangle ft. sunwoo from tbz, sex, fingering, oral (m. receiving), oral (f. receiving), dirty talk, commitment issues, jaemin’s a vet tech, mentions of throwing up, bitch hunter shenanigans 

SUMMARY ▸ na jaemin, resident playboy and serial heartbreaker on campus, thinks he might have a crush on you. this is concerning because he’s slept with your roommate before, who called him something along the lines of “a waste of a human.” another reason why this is concerning is because you happen to be jaemin’s best friend of seven years, and you know far too much about him to ever consider dating him.

PLAYLIST ▸ starboy by the weeknd • moondust by jaymes young • as it was by seungkwan • i like u by niki • to you by seventeen • rainbow by nct dream 

WORD COUNT ▸ 43,440 words

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ WOW it’s over ?? this feels kinda crazy omfg but i had a lot of fun writing this so i hope you guys enjoy it !! i will kiss you if you get through this behemoth of a fic omg :’) fourth installment of the bitch hunters series ♡

NA JAEMIN HAD A REPUTATION.

It wasn’t a great one, but it also wasn’t a downright terrible one. It was often the result of Jaemin engaging the girls that fell all over him at parties, and then once they figured out he was notorious for breaking hearts, he would hear them spreading rumors about him the very next day. Jaemin’s like this, Jaemin’s like that, and Jaemin could have easily shut them down, but he never did.

Why? Because they were half-true.

Keep reading

#reblog for rereading but just wow... #like i am in awe truly #i wish i had enough ideas in my head to get to a 43k word count #it didn't even feel that long at all though? #i think the characters needed all the time they were given to really grow and come to terms with their feelings #just so good #and such a wonderful ending to a wonderful series #tyonfs we fawking love you <3

[kaleidohscopic]

모기 / MOGI — [c.bg].

SYNOPSIS. in which all of your life, you and beomgyu have been stuck together like glue whether you liked it or not. and as much as you want to change that, life seems to have different plans.

PAIRING. choi beomgyu x female! reader. GENRE. childhood friends to not quite friends (derogatory) to not quite friends (endearment), romance, humor, very light-barely there angst, pining idiots, college! au with flashes to high school, featuring an ensemble of 01z idols. WARNINGS. swearing, many many (fake) death threats, so much secondhand embarrassment, mentions of sex, mentions of blood and gore, the worldly problems of a teenager, mc has anger issues, gossip. WORD COUNT. 14k.

TAGLIST. @matcha-binz @bgomtori @lotties-posts @bearbeom @bbinwrld @beomies-world @baekberrie @20-cms @jenodreamer

NOTE. it is here! alternatively titled: all the reasons you don't like choi beomgyu (but maybe you do). this is just a v quick v fun read (i hope HAHHAHA). parts in past tense and within parenthesis are set in the past! hope you enjoy mosquito gyu and please let me know what you think! begging for crumbs of feedback plspls.

YOU DON’T LIKE CHOI BEOMGYU. He’s been a thorn in your side for as long as you can remember— a far too nimble mosquito for you to catch and swat away, constantly buzzing around your ears like a mild annoyance. Mild, but annoying all the same.

The problem is, you can’t get rid of him. Not when both your families have been friends before either of you were even born. Not when you’ve been half-living in his house for the better part of your life and he’s been half-living in yours. Not when you’ve always been magically assigned to the same class for twelve god damned years and somehow, you’re now even set out to go to the same university.

It’s like the world just wants to stick the both of you together.

“Hey, fuckface.”

“What do you want, dipshit?”

Unfortunately for the world, you don’t want the same thing.

“Remember when I hauled your ass to the emergency room after you broke your leg at the skatepark in 9th grade?”

Beomgyu lets out a grunt upon hearing your question at the same time as he drops down to the ground with a thunk on the playground seesaw. “Right. That happened.” It’s late at night, the streetlights are dimming, and it’s a week before high school graduation. Not the most appropriate time to be playing around the kid-sized rides tucked in the corner of your apartment complex, but things have been penting up, and there currently seems to be no better way to deal with your physical and emotional exhaustion than by being sprung up to the air, down, and back up again.

“You also said— whoa!” You glue your feet firmly to the chalky ground before dangling your legs up once more. “You also said you’d do anything I ask after saving your ass. I’m here to collect your debt.”

The next instance, you aren’t see’d or saw’d back up. Beomgyu stays grounded, looking at with an expression you can only describe as oozing of suspicion. It is weird, you have to admit, bringing up a spur of a moment promise he made three years ago, possibly under the influence of anesthetics. You’d be suspicious of yourself, too. “Alright,” he relents after a long moment of thought. Beomgyu leans forward, resting his arms over the seesaw handle and burying his chin into his sleeves. “Spit it out. What do you want? I’ll buy it for you.”

You press your lips together. “It’s not something you can buy.”

Now, that definitely doesn’t help your case. Your crypticness is causing his brows to furrow, and Beomgyu is deep in thought wondering what the hell kind of favor your fucked up head is thinking of (especially after the shrimp incident). You can save him from misery and just spit it out right then and there, but it’s not easy for you to pull out of your mouth either. Once this night is over, your throat will be littered with sores and cuts and it’ll all be self inflicted.

“Wait.” Beomgyu suddenly jolts up and sits straight, causing the seesaw to wobble a little. His ears are peeking out the mess of his hair. It’s already way past the school policy length— a privilege of a graduating student, he says. And despite the shadowed sky cloaking the playground lot, you can clearly see the tinge of red painting the thin skin. What is he thinking? you narrow your eyes at him. The blush has spread all over his neck. "You—you—you’re not trying to ask—”

“Beomgyu,” you cut him off, sparing him from an aneurysm. “We’re starting college next month, right?”

His expression tells you he’s completely missed the mark. “Yeah...?” he sounds out, confusion riddled in his tongue. You bite down yours— an early repentance before finally throwing it out in the air.

“Can you do me a favor?” you squeak out. “Can you pretend like you don’t know me?”

Quiet washes over. You preemptively wince, expecting the impending torrent of swear words from your friend, but he doesn’t say anything. He says nothing for a long while, filling the quiet with tension-filled agony before finally saying, “I don’t understand.”

You swallow down a lump in your throat.

“What are you saying?”

There are uneasy creaks on the hinges of the seesaw set, as if it’s unsure whether to go up or down. The scent of iron seeps into your palms with how tightly you’re holding the handle. “Please pretend like we aren’t friends when we enter university,” you inhale sharply. “Better yet, act like you don’t know me at all, okay? Treat me like I was a ghost and I’ll do the same with you.” 

You don’t have the guts to look Beomgyu in the eye. You train your eyes to the graveled ground and hold in your breath, listening as the creaks of the rusty hinges slowly come to a still. He’s not saying anything. He isn’t saying anything and you’re starting to grow scared.

The seesaw finally stops rocking, and you finally hear Beomgyu’s response—

“Fine.”

—all while your ass gets dropped to the ground with an even louder thunk when Beomgyu gets off the damned thing. You let out a yelp as your body gets jerked back by the sudden recoil. 

“Hey!” you yell out, stumbling to get off the seesaw in a panic because he’s starting to walk. “Choi Beomgyu— wait up!”

“What?” he snaps his head back, and you flinch. He doesn’t look great. He doesn’t look happy at all. Guilt overhauls your entire being with a single, ringing punch and your tongue is weighed down by sand and soot and it’s difficult to swallow without the threat of choking. “I thought you wanted me to pretend like I don’t know you?”

You frown. “I did, but I didn’t mean it to be—”

Words fail when he turns his back to you once again. You can’t say anything. You can’t bring it in you to justify yourself. You can’t even find the shame to call him back. So all you can do is watch as Beomgyu slowly disappears into the evening, leaving behind more things in the playground than just you.

It’s fine, you inhale sharply. You can give him some space tonight and just talk it out on the way to school tomorrow. And it’s not like you didn’t expect him to be mad at you. It just hurt a lot more than you thought it would.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” you yell at his disappearing figure.

It stings, sure. But still. It’s something you feel like you need to do, because you don’t like Choi Beomgyu, and all the things he’s cost you.

#1: YOU DON’T LIKE HIM FOR WASTING SO MUCH OF YOUR TIME. You’re pretty sure at least three years of your lifespan has wilted away into nothingness because of how long it takes for him to answer the door. It takes two rounds of incessant knocking and a yell of his name. Even then, his mom is more likely to answer than the fucker himself.

He’s been like that ever since. Though you can’t exactly pinpoint when that ever since begins— you can’t remember how you met him because his stupid face has always been present in all of your earliest memories.

(Knock, knock, knock!

“Choi Beomgyu!”

Knock, knock, knock!

“Open the door!”

Classes ended early today, and your teachers at the academy are having a seminar so you don’t have to go there today. This was a rare opportunity in your life as a middle schooler— where every day runs from waking up, to eating, to studying, to eating, to studying again, studying some more, and wanting to quit studying. Today you had free time, and you’re going to spend it wisely.

At least that was the plan. But then Beomgyu called your landline while you were watching TV, saying that he had “something super, duper, insanely cool to show you and you’ll regret it if you don’t come over.” 

It’s probably something lame.

You hurried over to the unit right across yours.

But like usual, it took a good five minutes until you heard Beomgyu’s hurried footsteps padding louder and closer and closer. He didn’t give you an opportunity to be annoyed by him— he quickly tugged you into his home and shut the door lock with a kick, running into and out of the living room like it was a racing track, and before you knew it, you were in his room and he was all giddy and excited and it served as a sign that he was up to no good.

“You’re being suspicious,” you leered at him as he dug through his school bag, already taking the liberty to plop down on his bed. “What’s that?”

There was a proud grin on his face when he pulled it out and showed it off to you. You weren’t as impressed. In fact, you were terrified. 

Specifically because of the 18+ label on the CD container he’s holding.

“Why do you have that?!” you screeched. “Holy crap. You idiot. Are you trying to get us into trouble?!”

“We won’t get in trouble as long as you stop freaking out like a little wuss,” he reasoned, already slotting the forbidden CD into his conveniently placed laptop right at the foot of the bed.

Your houses shared an internet line, and most websites have been blocked as per both your parents’ request so it “doesn’t get in the way of your studying,” they say. You thought it was crap. Beomgyu thought  it was crap. So you’d been trying to find ways to subvert that restriction by whatever means you can get your hands on (i.e. going to PC rooms and getting dragged back home by your parents).

But that didn’t mean you were fine with watching a movie you legally weren’t allowed to watch.

This was absurd.

“Yeonjun hyung lent it to me. Hey, stop overreacting. You said you wanted to watch this and wouldn’t quit whining about it the past two weeks. I’m doing you a favor!”

“We’re not allowed to watch this! If our parents find out, they’re gonna—” You made the mistake of letting your eyes wander to the laptop screen. It’s all blood and guts and gore from the very beginning. You were taken. “Whoa. Move over.”

Beomgyu was grinning at his success. The equally bloody CD container found itself tucked underneath his bed, and before you knew it you were both hiding under the blankets, sharing a pair of earphones because there’s too much screaming and squelching from the off-brand slasher film your friend smuggled from a sketchy high schooler. Maybe that was just the right amount of screaming. You wouldn’t know. You’ve never watched anything like this before.)

To be frank, you don’t remember much about the film. You do remember nearly pissing yourself in fear and screaming along to the cries of agony whenever someone was killed on screen. Beomgyu was unfazed though— that freak. How was he not pissing himself when a severed limb flew into the frame?

But he wasn’t as calm when his brother came home early, and your constant screams of terror elicited understandable concern. (“Shut up! You’re going to get us caught,” he hissed, trying to smack his palm over your mouth but you’re already burying your face into his comforter and blindly shoving him off).

Long story short, you both got caught and got grounded for a week.

So much for having free time.

“Congrats on finishing your last exam!”

You grunt, shoving past Heeseung as you exit the classroom, a stack of scratch papers pressed to your chest. He trails behind you with an evident bounce in his step. You’d be just as excited had you not been brutally murdered by midterms week. It’s only your third month of university and you’re already ready to drop out. Why is this normalized? This is structural, systemic violence.

“Jieun and the rest are planning a night out tomorrow,” he mentions. “You coming?”

“No. I’m going to sleep for forty-eight hours and die.”

He tells you you’re no fun and you flip him off. Three months have passed and you feel like you’ve aged thirty years, but Heeseung is still fucking energetic and you’re sure it’s because the girl from computer science he’d been flirting with for the past two weeks finally agreed to go on a date with him. The stupid grin on his face as he’s typing on his phone is annoying you to no end. “What?” he asks, looking up from his phone, still all smiley and irksome. 

“You’re insufferable,” you deadpan. His expression morphs into confusion, then realization, then pity, then circles back into being incredibly annoying again. 

“If you beg, I can set you up with one of my friends.”

“Eat ass.” 

You smack the top of his head with the stack of papers. He is unfazed. “I know a few guys! C’mon! Instead of being bitter, why don’t I help you out? I don’t do this for everyone, you know. I’m only offering because you’re my friend.”

Well, the past three months haven’t been entirely bad. Your freshman batch was fairly easy to get along with— Heeseung specifically, whom you hit off with during the orientation. You’ve also been doing pretty well with all of your classes despite the back-breaking workload. And now that midterms are over, your uni has this policy to cancel classes for a whole week after every major exam (for the students’ “mental health” they say), so now you have the chance to finally fucking rest.

“Beomgyu!”

You flinch upon hearing Heeseung yell out his name. You can’t get used to it.

The space next to you becomes empty as Heeseung excuses himself for a moment to join Beomgyu and the little group he’s appeared with. You take the opportunity to shove the scratch papers you have into your bag, taking a few glimpses here and there— regretting doing that when Beomgyu happens to meet your gaze at one point, and you quickly avert your eyes to the posters on bulletin boards stuck on the hallway wall. E-Sports Fest 2023. Sign up for your respective departments now! 

“Later,” Heeseung waves them off and runs back to you. “Hey. We’re fucked. Beomgyu’s playing in like half of the games next, next week. The ICT fuckers have practically won already. This is too much of a skill gap. This isn’t fair.”

You give him a look. “Okay?”

Heeseung pouts. “At least pretend like you’re interested. Jeongin said yes, but I still have to get Chenle onboard so we can at least get second place, but he says he doesn’t wanna waste our short break so— hey, are you listening?”

No, you’re not. Because you met eyes with Choi Beomgyu once more before he left with his friends, and even if it’s been three months since you’ve last talked to him, there’s still a weird feeling in your gut every time you happen to cross paths.

It’s been easy for him to keep his promise. The both of you have different majors, and though you two share a few mutual friends, Heeseung doesn’t know shit about your history, and nobody seems to suspect anything. 

Still. You can’t completely avoid him. Not when you two are literally still neighbors. 

The both of you moved out since your campus is a two hour commute from your homes, but you also moved into the same apartment building in the city as per your parents’ request. (“Now, I’m more at ease knowing you’re still living next to her, Beomgyu,” your mother remarked the day his dad drove you both to your new building). Your mom didn’t know how not at ease you are with him still floating around you with a seeming permanence, especially after what happened in the playground that night. 

“Anyway, I have to go,” Heeseung tells you, probably off to meet the compsci girl he refuses to tell you the name and identity of. You fear she may be one of your friends. “How about you?”

“Off to have lunch with Sungchan and Minjeong,” you hum. “Have fun. Don’t come crying to me when you eventually get your heart broken.”

“You’re just bitter. Don’t worry. I’ll get you a date to save you from your misery.”

“Go to hell.”

“See you.”

The both of you part ways, and you meet up with the aforementioned two at the campus cafeteria because fast food is outside of your budget after splurging all your allowance on caffeine and energy drinks this week. Your two friends seem to have also been hard fucked by midterms. Lunch was filled with quiet complaints and you immediately took the first bus home after eating.

“You stopped by?” you speak into your phone, wedging the device between your cheek and shoulder as you punch in the code to your unit’s door. “You should’ve told me. I could’ve come home earlier.”

“It’s alright. I just left you some side dishes for the week. They’re in the fridge. Who knows what kind of junk you’re putting into your body without me on the watch.”

“I am eating perfectly well!” you exclaim, shutting your door with a click. You love your mom and her food but she’s as protective as ever. “I just got home. I’ll send photo evidence of me enjoying your kimchi, madam.”

You hear her laugh a little at the end of the line, and you hum out a smile. “I’m hanging up. You must be tired so get some rest.”

“Yeah, alright.” Upon entering the living room, you can see the familiar, reusable blue shopping bag on the open kitchen counter, its unreasonably gigantic size taking up too much of the space. You narrow your eyes and walk towards it. When you take a peek inside, there are still full containers and tupperwares. The rolled omelets look particularly good. “I thought you put them in the fridge,” you say. Without waiting for your mother’s response, you’ve already produced a pair of chopsticks and have pried a box open, stuffing a roll inside your mouth.

“Oh, those are for Beomgyu.” 

The eggs suddenly taste like sand.

“He mentioned on call last time that he was missing some of my home cooked dishes. Why haven’t you been sharing with him? Greedy child. Anyway, drop them off at his place later when he gets back. He wasn’t around when I visited earlier. Okay?”

First of all, why does your mother keep calling Choi Beomgyu behind your back? Second of all, the guilt of eating what is supposed to be Beomgyu’s food shot your appetite back down into oblivion, so you quickly close the container and stuff it back into the bag in a zip. “Okay. I’ll do that.” You throw the chopsticks into the sink. He isn’t gonna notice that one omelet is missing, right?” “Bye.”

“Come back home during your break.”

Then again. Why do you have to waste this perfectly good food on a guy like him?

The line ends. You fall to the floor with an anguished cry. “Ugh,” you groan, forehead hitting the counter body a few too many times that a bruise could form. “The bastard might snitch on me if I don’t do it. Fuck. Fine.”

You feel like a reanimated corpse when you force yourself back on your feet, a series of grunts as you begrudgingly lug the large bag of side dishes that won’t even end up in your stomach. This is fine, you exhale. You can do this. You’re gonna knock on the door, throw the bag to his face, and say goodbye without talking. This is fine. This is easy. 

But with Beomgyu, it’s never easy. The simplicity of the act ends after you’ve left your unit. What came after was the short, dreadful walk across the hallway because shit— in the past three months you’ve moved here, you have never actually gone up to his door. 

Knock, knock, knock.

No answer.

Knock, knock, knock.

Still no answer. This bastard never fucking grows.

“Choi Beomgyu!” Your light knocks quickly transition to a heavy banging. “Choi Beomgyu, open up—”

There’s a click and a creak. Your knuckles don’t land on the familiar hardwood— they land on his chest because the momentum made you keep knocking even after he’d opened the door. “Oh,” he flatly starts. A brow raised and arms crossed, he leans against the door frame and looks at you like you’re an unwelcome guest. “What do we have here?”

He’s insufferable. He’s totally insufferable.

“Who are you again?”

“Cut the crap, Beomgyu,” you grunt, absolutely not in the mood for this. You know that it’s a pretty shitty thing for you to ask him to pretend to be strangers. You really do, so you didn’t hold it against him for being mad at you at first. He’s been doing his end, sure, but you don’t remember him acting like a big fucking bitch to you in private as a part of the deal. 

You thought his anger would subside after three days. It’s been three months and at this point you’re convinced that this relationship is now irreparable, and neither of you are making the effort to resuscitate it. “You’re the one who came to my door. Why are you swearing at me?” he huffs. You grit your teeth, shoving the bag to him and his act of arrogance falters from surprise. You don’t miss how his eyes widen and how his scrunched up brows suddenly disappear under the messy bangs he’s decided to grow out.

“Here. I’ll take back the containers next week. Make sure you’ve washed them by then. Goodbye.”

That, in fact, wasn’t a good bye because you stomp back into your unit without giving him a second look. 

Dammit, dammit, dammit it all. The door is cold against your back when you retreat inside. You hate him. You really do. This would’ve been easier if your lives weren’t so irrevocably tangled— messed up in all sorts of knots and ties that even a fucking boyscout can’t tear it apart. 

You left your phone on the counter when you left and you can see it buzzing and lighting up. There’s a few messages. Hi, dear. How have you been? It’s from his mother. There is no escape to this. Absolutely none.

#2: YOU DON’T LIKE HIM FOR FORCING YOU TO SWALLOW SO MUCH OF YOUR PRIDE. Somehow, he’s always there at the lowest points of your life— moments where you wouldn’t even want any of your family to see you, but he’s there. He always is, and you’d always wish to evaporate along with the rain. 

Maybe he has a signal whenever you’re on the verge of doing something stupid. Or losing face. Or being absolutely dumped. Or all of the above at the same time. Maybe he’s there on purpose so he can have one more thing on his belt of things to hold against you.

(“I like you.”

The words squeezed out of your throat like a choke, more than anything. Maybe it was because of the fact that you sounded so pathetic that Jiwoong couldn’t even reject you properly. Maybe if he were to be frank, he was afraid that you’d end up crying.

“Um, there’s...there’s somewhere I have to be for a moment. You don’t mind waiting for a bit, right?”

But it wasn’t you that ended up in tears. It was the sky. You weren’t sure how long you’d been waiting, frozen still in an abandoned corner behind the school where your pink-stained note had asked him to come— him, your desk partner for the semester that you’d been unfortunately struck by— but it was long enough for the afternoon sky to be inked by gray clouds. Long enough for it to start pouring in on your behalf.

You sniffled. Ah, shit. This is stupid. You said you weren’t going to cry but fuck, your eyes suddenly started to sting, and you’re looking up at the clouds because gravity might help in preventing them from falling, but all it did was pool saltwater in your tearducts and now they’ve overflown, mixing into the raindrops cascading down your face.

“Until when are you going to keep standing there like an idiot?”

Instead of the gray, pouring sky, your vision is cloaked by a jarring electric blue. It was the same obnoxious color as the umbrella Beomgyu brings around. Then again— that was just his voice, too. Your cheeks started burning. That was enough to bring you back to your senses. “Did—did you see—”

“Let’s go home.”

It was one thing to be caught crying by your friend-slash-neighbor-slash-annoyance. It was another thing to be caught getting rejected by him. That was double the shame and embarrassment soiled. But Beomgyu hasn’t made a mention of it throughout your walk back to the building, much to your relief and suspicion. This man would make fun of you to the ends of high hell just for keeping a plushie to bed until you were thirteen— you weren’t sure when he started developing the emotional intelligence to stay in the comfort of silence throughout your walk home.

Of course, you didn’t expect him to hold his tongue for too long. It was an empty road, and the rain was still pouring. Beomgyu held up his umbrella above your head, and started with a low voice, “Want me to beat him up?”

Your steps lagged, faltering a little in mild surprise. “You?” An invisible force started tugging on the corners of your lips. “With your lanky ass and noodle arms? Keep dreaming, loser.”

“Hey—” You had to hold back a snort when you saw his face, an evident look of unbridled offense taking over, and he stopped in his tracks just to passionately defend himself. “You take that back. I’m strong. I’m pretty sure I can lift you up with just one arm. I can beat the shit out of Jiwoong if I wanted to.”

“Sure,” you snickered. “That is if you want to end up in the hospital. You’re all skin and bones, Beomgyu. You’re weak as hell. Remember the last time we arm wrestled? I’m pretty sure it ended up with me as the winner, and you as the— eep!”

You yelped, eyes widening. Suddenly, the ground wasn’t touching your feet anymore, you could feel the rain on your skin, and the bright, blue umbrella was now on the ground. You can see nothing but the fabric of Beomgyu’s dark and drenched uniform blazer and glimpses of the upside down pavement. Your face started to heat up. You could feel his firm grip around your waist and legs.

“That was in sixth grade, doofus. Keep up,” he snorted. 

“What the hell? Put me down!” you let out a grunt and tried to wiggle yourself free, but he’s unyielding— continuing the walk back home while carrying you like a sack of potatoes. “If you don’t put me down, I am going to bite you.”

“Nuh-uh.” The bastard gave your body a rough shake as a warning, and you screamed. “Not until you take back what you said earlier.” You balled your hands into a fist and hit his back. “Wow, you’re so ungrateful. I’m giving you a free ride home yet you decide to assault me. Your mother will be so disappointed when she hears this.”

“Your mother will shave your head if she finds out your haircut received a warning this morning.”

“Oooo—kay. Down you go. Ride over.” The moment Beomgyu settled you back on the ground, you gave him the nastiest glare you could muster. He gave you a grin. “Your hair is a mess.”

“Whose fault is it?” you sneer.

“Jiwoong’s,” he answered, matting down the top of your head with his hands. You winced when his fingers got caught between the wet, tangled strands. Beomgyu’s lips pursed as he tried to unravel them, brows furrowed in concentration. “I’m uninviting him to our game night tomorrow. He can eat shit.”

“He’s gonna talk shit if you do that,” you replied.

“Who cares.” He was finished tinkering with your hair. It was still pouring. “Done. Let’s go home.” You didn’t know if he made it better or worse.

“Okay,” you replied, feeling the top of your head. “But your umbrella ran away. Idiot.”

“Does it matter?” his lips quirked. “We’re already drenched, anyway.”)

The ice in your service water has already melted. You are going to kill a man named Lee Heeseung.

Why isn’t this motherfucker answering your calls? You let out a mental swear. It’s the second Saturday of your one-week break after midterms, and Heeseung organized a blind date for you and his friend today. The problem is, that said friend is nowhere to be seen. The customers next to your table have already changed thrice already. You’re not pathetic. You’re not gonna wait for him.

Right when you muster the willpower to get up, Heeseung finally answers your call. He’s quick to overtake your possible threats by immediately rambling, “Okay. Before you get mad—”

“You’re dead to me.”

“I’m sorry!” he screams-slash-pleads. “Eunseok canceled at the last minute because of this thing with his— nevermind. That’s not important. I’m gonna kick his ass the next time I see him, but please tell me you haven’t left the cafe yet.”

You bite your bottom lip. You want to lie. You want to tell him that you’ve already left thirty minutes ago and are now in your apartment with cozy pajamas and a cucumber face mask. “I’m around the area,” you reply. “Why?”

“Oh, good. Great.”

This is brow raising. The bell above the door entrance rings, catching your attention and you look up. “Why?”

“You’re still going on a date,” he tells you. “I promise you, your time definitely won’t be wasted—”

Heeseung’s voice disappears into the background. Entering the cafe is the person you want to see the least. He’s wearing the hooded sweater you got him for Christmas last year, and around his neck are the headphones you got him for his birthday.

“—so I called another friend. Don’t think of him as just a second option, okay?! I think he’s more your type anyway, and—”

He’s looking around. He still hasn’t noticed you. He’s standing in the middle of the shop and he pulls out his phone. 

“—and he’s headed there right— oh! He says he’s there already!”

Beomgyu has spotted you and you want to kill yourself. Your head drops down and you bite down a scream of agony and despair. “You’ve heard of Choi Beomgyu, right? From BSEMC? I’ve mentioned him a few times. Haha. Anyway. I hope you enjoy your da—”

“Heeseung told me his friend got stood up and needed a backup.” He’s now in front of you. He’s looking down at you from behind the opposite chair. “I didn’t expect that that friend would be you.”

You’re going to kill yourself after you kill Heeseung. Better yet, why not murder Beomgyu as well so you can all rot in bloody fucking hell? 

“Hello?”

“Shut up,” you grunt, trying your best to subtly hide the burning embarrassment on your face without making it obvious that your pride is now in perfectly tattered shambles. Of all people, why him? Why? For the love of god, why? “Just leave. I doubt you even want to be here. Let’s just spare each other the headache, alright?”

Beomgyu stifles a scoff. You watch as his knuckles flex while clutching the back of the chair. “I canceled a game for this.” He pulls it back and plops down on the seat like a petulant child. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Your face contorts into an unabashed grimace. You take your bag and stand up. “Okay. Then, I’m leaving.” 

“You could’ve left an hour ago.”

Pause. He looks up at you, arms crossed and confident. Your upper lip twitches. You sit back down. Heeseung has already died twice in your head.

“I guess even someone as heartless as you is desperate for a little romance,” he hums, leaning back against his seat and completely at ease— a stark contrast to your end of the table: hot and bothered for all the wrong, not very sexy reasons. You’re trying to feign calmness, but the sweat dripping down your forehead from the heat of shame is ratting you out. This is the worst. This is the absolute worst.

You’re only able to breathe again when Beomgyu gets up to order something. Maybe you should order something too because your throat is as dry as bone. He returns not long after with a tray in hand. He settles it down on the table, revealing two glasses of iced tea and a plate of matcha tiramisu.

“Quit sulking,” he says. “You’re ugly when you sulk.”

With one hand, you flip him off. With the other, you use to grab one of the forks and dig into the dessert. Beomgyu mirrors your actions (minus the middle finger part), and grimaces after a spoonful lands in his mouth. “How are you eating this?” You hover a hand over your lips, pressing down a laugh. “It tastes like grass. Are you a cow? Is that it?”

Offended, you pull the plate closer to you. “Then why did you buy matcha if you’re just gonna insult it?”

“Because you like it.” Beomgyu reaches an arm over to get another bite, gags, then continues to try again. “Your tastebuds are really fucking weird. You should get them checked. I think they’re broken.”

You settle with an eye roll before taking a sip from the iced tea. This is odd. This feels like you’ve been transported back into time prior to your three-month long cold war. Choi Beomgyu is sitting in front of you and tapping on his phone laid on the table, and you’re sitting in front of him enjoying a nice piece of dessert he bought. There’s an odd cacophony inside your stomach— like butterflies and glass shards fluttering and cracking in a single enclosed space. 

“I heard you’ll be playing for the E-Sports Fest next week,” you mention, trying to dig a deeper hole into this crack that managed to resurface. Beomgyu gives you a weird, insinuating look in response. “Shut your face. I just keep hearing your name being mentioned. Heeseung is obsessed with you, I think.”

“Why are you asking?” he snorts, passing you a napkin. “You want to cheer for me?”

“Ew. Why would I?” you reply, blindly wiping at the corner of your mouth. “We’re not even from the same department.”

Beomgyu’s eyebrows knit together, trained on the lower half of your face. “Tch. Then why even bring it up, you—”

Time stops. For some reason, Beomgyu has reached his arm over the table and is now touching your face, thumb pressed against the side of your lip with a napkin, the opposite side of where you were trying to wipe off. 

Your eyes meet. It gets warm.

“Sorry,” he coughs out, retracting his hand to wipe the green-dusted cream off his fingers. Now, you know all of Choi Beomgyu’s tells like the back of your hand— and he’s not hiding those blushing ears from anyone. You’ve caught him. You knew his son of a bitch act was gonna crumble at some point (no, you didn’t. You thought he was gonna stay mad at you forever so now your heart is racing in glee). “If you’re done, let’s go. Come pick up your mom’s containers from my place.”

“Oh,” you breathe out. “Right.”

“I washed them.”

“Congratulations.”

He sneers. “Get up. I’m leaving you.”

The one thing you regret about making the deal with Beomgyu is missing out the opportunity of taking advantage of him and the car his parents’ gifted for graduation. Seriously. Had you known he’d be driving a private vehicle to and from campus everyday, you might have never asked for that favor in the first place. Those three months worth of bus fares could’ve been spent on your daily doses of coffee instead.

“Seatbelt,” he reminds while pulling out of the driveway. You’re mildly impressed and your face isn’t hiding it, and neither is the bashful tint on the tips of his ears. “Quit staring, you weirdo.”

“You can be kind of cool after all.” You give him a thumbs up. He grunts, and now you’re on the road back to your apartment.

It’s a quiet drive— the hum of the engine filling the early evening silence. You steal a few glances here and there, sneaking a few peeks at a new side of your friend(?) that you’ve never witnessed before. Since when was he so good at driving? He’s got only one hand on the steering wheel. It’s weird, you think. You’ve known everything about him for as long as you can remember, and finding out something new for the first time in a while— and not being the first one to find out about it— is making odd twists and turns inside your gut.

When you reach the apartment building, it’s still quiet. And when you ride up the elevator all the way to your floor, walking up the space between both of your doors, silence still permeates the walls and it makes you wonder— has it ever been this quiet between you two? 

“I’ll go get the stuff. Stay here.”

You’re left behind with your messy thoughts in the hallway and before things can get even more tangled up, Beomgyu shows up again with the bright blue shopping bag you dropped off last week. “Tell the madam that her seasoned spinach is perfect as usual.” He returns the bag, a faint smile on his face.

“Go tell her that yourself,” you huff, retrieving it from him. “I’m pretty sure she calls you more often than she calls me.” The tupperwares and containers look clean. You should give him a treat for doing a good job.

“Your mother is constantly worried about her young, impressionable daughter taking her first steps of independence, but doesn’t want to be called overbearing by her only child, so she asks me about you instead.” Beomgyu’s tone is nagging. You shoot him a glare and he simply steps closer to jab a finger into your forehead. “You have no idea how hard it is to make up bullshit about what you’ve been up to. You owe me a lot, dipshit.”

You wince, smacking his hand away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

The corners of his mouth twitch. His eyes leer away for a moment, and he lets out a huff of air through his nose. “Why? Do I know you?”

Oh god. Here he goes again.

“Why do you keep—” You stop, squeezing your eyes and taking in a deep inhale because for a moment there, you were just about to yell again. “Okay,” you restart. You should do something about your temper. “Okay. I apologize for troubling you, and I’ll tell her to quit bothering you, so—”

It was going well. It was going so well. Only if you had missed the very subtle, very irritating roll of his eyes upon your remark. 

“—so you should quit being an absolute dickhead too, asshole!”

Then maybe you could’ve lived in happy ignorance, and all your progress today wouldn’t have to restart.

“Oh, so I’m the asshole?” he scoffs, incredulous. “You’re the one who told me to distance myself. You’re the one who asked. I’m just doing what you told me to do. Why am I in the wrong?” Your throat tightens, a familiar choke the moment you try to swallow. 

“I never asked you to stop being friends with me, Beomgyu! I just—”

Asked you to keep our friendship hidden because I’m selfish. Because I’m insecure. Because I hate you just as much as you mean the world to me. 

But you can’t tell him any of these things, can’t you?

His disappointment is clear from the look on his face. Beomgyu lets his fingers rake through his hair with a sigh. “Just go home. Thanks for the food.”

There’s something twisting inside your stomach, churning at an uncomfortable pace. It’s gnawing and grating. You’re only able to pinpoint it when Beomgyu turns back to his apartment, prompted by the resounding click of his door lock.

Ah, you realize amid the silence of the now empty hallway. It’s guilt.

#3: YOU DON’T LIKE HOW MUCH OF YOUR IDENTITY HE’S STRIPPED AWAY. You know it’s not on purpose. You know he doesn’t know. But it’s something that’s plagued you until your last few weeks of high school— the time for last chances, and final opportunities. It’s for this reason that you can’t stand him the most.

(“Hey!”

It was an unfamiliar voice that called out your name from behind you in the hallway, so you ignored it assuming that maybe they were calling someone else. It gets repeated, and you stop in front of your locker to retrieve your shoes, paying no mind to it. You’re going home alone today because Beomgyu’s out with his guy friends. “We’re having dinner together at my house later! Don’t forget!” was the last thing he yelled at you before running off. An unconscious smile crawls onto your face at the thought of it.

You felt a tap on your shoulder and heard the same voice that’d been repeating your name. You spin around, and are a little surprised to see the group standing behind you. “Hi!” 

It was Haena, one of your classmates, and she was joined with two more of the girls from your class, and one that you didn’t quite recognize. 

“Oh, sorry,” you bowed a little. “I didn’t know I was the one you were calling. I wasn’t trying to ignore you, sorry.” Your surprise stemmed from the fact that you weren’t really close with Haena or her friends. Not that you were on bad terms. You greeted each other from time to time, but your friend circle really just consisted of Choi Beomgyu, your deskmate Chaeryeong, and Ryunjin from the broadcasting club.

“It’s alright,” she smiled. “Do you…maybe have any plans today?”

You pulled out your shoes from the locker and closed it tightly. “No, not really.”

“Great! There’s a new cafe that opened near the school. Wanna join us?”

Well. This was unexpected. You didn’t have any other plans besides the joint family dinner you had with the Choi’s, so going on a cafe detour wouldn’t hurt. Beomgyu was also out with his other friends right now. Who says you couldn’t do the same? “Sure,” you replied. “I’ll join.”

It was a cute, cat-themed cafe with the only disappointment being that there were no actual cats— just the cat-shaped whipped cream on your strawberry drink, and the cat-shaped tiramisu on your plate. Cats weren’t usually green or pink, but you digress.

The girls were friendly. Conversation ranged from the universities you’ll all be attending, the classes you’re all about to finish, sprinkled with topics on shopping and clothes and the names of the rest of your classmates here and there. You’d started to zone out after a good while, stirring the contents of your half-empty drink as you stared at the glass windows, tinted orange by the sunset sky.

Haena cleared her throat. “So,” she started. You turned your attention back to your companions, and your eyes widened a little when you were met with all their eyes on you. Haena pronounced your name. “I’ve always been curious about something.”

You blinked. “About what?”

She leaned closer, a smile playing on her lips. “Are you and Beomgyu dating?”

You nearly choked on the sweet, strawberry drink. “What? No!” 

“Really?” Seohyun nudged herself closer next to you on the seat.

“Everyone thinks you’re dating him,” said Bora. “You’re always together.”

“Ah, that’s ridiculous! I’m really not dating him!” Your face has started to warm up. Gosh, what was this? What kind of situation was this? A few of them weren’t convinced, you could tell. You pressed your lips together before breathing out, “We’ve known each other since we were like toddlers. There’s no way in hell I’d be dating him. I don’t know where you're getting all these assumptions from.”

There was a glint in Haena’s eyes that you didn’t fail to notice.

“So, you don’t have any feelings for him?” This was getting weird.

“No. No, I don’t.” And even if you did, what the hell would they be interrogating you about it?

Haena visibly brightened. “Really? Then can you set me up with him?”

You were dumbfounded.

“I’m— I’m sorry?”

Things started to click. Senior high school was almost over, and your classmates whom you’ve barely even shared a conversation with for the past three years, were taking their last chance to start something with their crushes, or some shit, under the guise of half-hearted friendliness. You’ve understood now— and you’re nothing less than offended.

“Actually, I’ve liked Beomgyu for a while now,” Haena bashfully admitted. Seohyun inserted that her friend has had a crush on him since the beginning of the year. “I thought there was something going on between the two of you so I never acted on it. But I’m so happy to hear that you two are just friends!”

You shouldn’t be annoyed. But you were. You were very annoyed.

“You’ll help me right?”

Needless to say, you went home that day with your cat tiramisu in a paper box as takeout. The next morning, the three girls greeted your classroom entrance with unabashed glares. You paid no mind and headed over to your seat at the back, where an out of place box of chocolate milk was gingerly resting on the table.

You were mildly suspicious that Choi Beomgyu was the one who put that there, so you held it in your hands with caution, examining the box closer when you took a seat. 

The alleged perpetrator suddenly showed up from behind you. Your head felt heavier. Beomgyu was resting his arms on the top of your head, leaning down all of his weight onto you. “Oh wow,” he started. “Looks like someone has a secret admirer.”

You elbowed him and he let out a sharp yelp. You could see Haena giving you dirty looks from afar. “Go back to your seat,” you scolded him. “Class is starting soon.” Beomgyu listens to you well, but not after messing up your hair even further and greeting Seungmin who had just walked in.

“Are we still going after class?”

Choi Beomgyu was always surrounded by people. This was something you noticed a few months into your second year of middle school. He was like a lamp, flocked by so many buzzing insects in the night— just like right now, his face barely visible from inside the crowd at the middle of the classroom where his seat was. Even your seating assignments placed him at the center. That’s just where he’s meant to be.

“Hey, did you and Haena get into a fight?” 

You looked up to see Chaeryeong barely arriving in time before the bell, pulling her seat back and plopping down right next to you.

“Don’t mind it.” You sunk your face into your arms on the desk, elbow grazing the still unopened chocolate milk on the line dividing yours and your friend’s desk. “Hey,” you let your face peek out a little from your makeshift cocoon. “From an outsider’s perspective...do Beomgyu and I give the impression that we’re, um, dating?”

She snorted. “Haven’t your parents arranged your marriage, already?”

“This is a serious question!”

Honestly, this has never crossed your mind. Not until Haena mentioned it yesterday. It took a while for things to click inside your brain, but if this misunderstanding was really not singular, then that would really explain why you have never received any confession, any valentine’s day chocolate, or love letter, or anything for the past three years of highschool. It was all Beomgyu’s fault. He’s been unknowingly sabotaging your love life and if you end up sad and dying alone, it’s all on him.

Well, I guess it’s not completely ruined. Your cheeks pressed against your arms, looking at the milk carton on your desk. 

When you got up to your desk the next morning, there was another milk carton on your table.

“Hey.”

You looked up to see Seungmin hovering in front of your table. “What?”

“Not even a good morning? Beomgyu was right. You do have an attitude.” You rolled your eyes and stuffed the drink into your bag, and Seungmin decided to keep talking. “Anyway, where is he? You two usually arrive at the same time.”

“He slept through his alarm,” you replied. Then you furrowed your brows. “Why are you asking me? Couldn’t you just text him?”

“Well, it would be quicker to just ask you. Anyway, thanks.”

With that, he left. The bell rang, and your teacher arrived. You decide to save the drink until lunch time and when you got back to the classroom from the cafeteria, there was another snack on your table. For the next following days, you would find snacks suddenly spawning on your table. It was starting to get curious.

“Whoa. Holy crap. Someone might actually have a crush on you.”

It was now Friday, the end of the week, and you have accumulated a total of four milk boxes, three melon breads, and one pack of cookies all throughout. You and Beomgyu were staring down at the latest addition: a grape juice box and a packet of chocopie. He started muttering, “Does your admirer know that you snore when you—”

You gave him a kick. Beomgyu matched it with a harsh pull on your bag. He quickly ran away before you could retaliate, the rest of his body having already left, and his head peeking from the door to give you one last message.

“I’m going first! We have a raid in a while. What time is dinner later?”

“I’ll message you.”

“Alright,” he hummed. “See you. Text me if something comes up.”

This must be why people think you were dating. You were tired of it. When you were younger, people paid no mind to how much time and space you two were spending together— now that you’ve gotten a little older, maybe some things couldn’t be perceived as platonic forever.

But you don’t have any feelings for him, and neither does he for you. The only feeling you have for him is a penetrating sense of irritation. You mulled it over as you left the school building, clutching your bag straps as you walked. However, you paused upon seeing a familiar face standing at the edge of the entrance stairs. He looked like he was waiting for someone. 

“Oh! Um,” he suddenly exclaimed upon noticing your approaching presence. A cough stifled out from his throat, followed by a nervous smile. “Hi.”

It was Lim Jimin, one of your classmates and one of the boys that were usually rallying up every afternoon after class to the internet cafe with Beomgyu and Seungmin like a bunch of nerds. “Hey?” you greet back. “Didn’t you guys have a raid or something today? I think they already left.”

“No, I uh, I stayed behind,” he mumbled. “Can we talk for a bit?”

The chocolate milk carton he was holding had not gone unnoticed by you. Your narrowed eyes flitted over to his fidgeting fingers. His nerves were spilling right out. “Have you been the one leaving food on my desk?”

He flinched. “Yeah— well—” A smile curled on your lips. “Damn, this is a little embarrassing. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you hummed. “I enjoyed them. Thanks.”

There was a tinge of pink on his cheeks, a sheepish hand on the back of his neck and it looked as if he was running through a million thoughts in his head at once. “I’ve...I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he finally started after a moment’s silence. “Can you do me a favor?”

Your heart jumped. Holy shit. This is happening, this is actually happening. 

“Y—yeah?”

Your breath hitched inside your throat. Oh my god. You might actually end your curse of lovelessness today. Oh my fucking god.

“Can you convince Beomgyu to help me get to Platinum in League?”

What?

“I—I know this sounds dumb, and it’s kinda pathetic that I had to bribe you with snacks just to get to this— but he’s been refusing to help any of us because he leaves after like three games!” Jimin exclaimed, and, upon noticing the flat look on your face, quickly gathered himself back together. “Ahem. I thought…maybe you could convince him since you’re like, his girlfriend and all.”

Your brain was a loading screen. You blinked but saw nothing but red. Beomgyu goes home after three games because you guys eat dinner at six in the evening. Jimin was giving you food as a bribe. You were not getting a confession.

All at once, the blood rose to your face,

“W-wait— is that a yes? Are you gonna ask him—”

Your shame couldn’t keep you standing there like an idiot for any longer. Every hurried step you took was a testament of your misery, and you left behind in your wake a fucking wave of turmoil and embarrassment. Fuck, your cheeks were burning. Fuck, why did Beomgyu have to entertain that idea and muddled your brain.

“Oh, you’re home?” your mother greeted the moment you kicked open your apartment door and started stomping to your room. “Where’s Beomgyu? Why didn’t you come home toge—”

“Ugh!” you groaned. “Enough about him, please!”

Did you only exist as an extension of him? As a part of him? As Choi Beomgyu’s friend, girlfriend, whatever, as the girl who’s always been around him for the past seventeen years to the point where that was all you’re known for?

You were fucking sick of it.

Your mom was scolding you for yelling at her, but you were far into your emotions to stay behind and say sorry. Your bag was left on the living room floor, and you were once again stomping out of your apartment unit, only to bump your face into Choi Beomgyu. “Whoa,” he remarked, quickly grabbing onto your shoulders. “Where are you going?”

“Out.” You shoved yourself off him.

“Someone’s cranky,” he mused, trailing behind you as you continued bulldozing down the hallway, down the stairs, out the building and on the dim and chalky path towards the playground. Beomgyu kept chattering. “What’s up? Why are you mad? Did you leave something behind in the classroom? Okay, you aren’t talking to me. That’s fine. I was gonna ask you what flowers you wanted for our graduation ceremony, but I guess I’ll just pick and choose whatever I—”

Smack!

You’ve spun around. You’ve got his face smacked in between your palms, promptly shutting him up. His eyes flew open, mouth firmly and tightly closed. “Can you stop talking for a second?” you guttered out.

Beomgyu stared at you, eyes still wide, then nodded once, still sandwiched between your palms. You bit down your bottom lip. Your ribcage was starting to squeeze in on itself. “Sorry,” you mumbled, arms falling back to your sides and you resumed your march towards the playground. 

He stayed silent for the rest of the time, following you on the see-saws and the both of you exchanged ups and downs for a few moments— quiet moments— until you were the one to break it.

“Hey, fuckface,” you called out,

“What do you want, dipshit?” he replied.

“Remember when I hauled your ass to the emergency room after you broke your leg at the skatepark in 9th grade?”)

YOUR MORNING STARTED OFF NICELY. It’s the first day back to uni after your one week break. You woke up before your alarm and had the time to make a really stir-fried rice meal for breakfast (your first breakfast in a week, mind you). Your clothes are fresh from the dryer, mascara unclumpy, and you arrive at the bus stop at the same time as your bus to campus arrives, right on the dot. 

Today is going great. That is until Heeseung shows up at the library after sending you a text that he’s on the way, and ruins everything with one, single statement.

“Did you sleep with Beomgyu the other night?”

The orange juice you’re drinking nearly dribbles out of your mouth.

“What the fuck?”

Your voice is louder than you thought. Heeseung shushes you and sits and pulls out the seat next to yours, ready to explain. “The guys from the coding club blew up the GC last night. A few of them saw you come out of his car and enter his apartment building together last Saturday. I think there were pictures.” Your mouth is agape. You’re speechless. “I didn’t tell them anything! Some of the guys were just around the neighborhood and happened to see you.”

Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no no.

“But, I guess...the blind date went well?”

God, fuck no.

Your worst nightmare has finally come crashing into reality.

“We live in the same building, get your mind out of the gutter!” you hiss, pulling him by the collar. Heeseung is very visibly terrified. You never wanted him to find out about your living situation in the first place because you know that he’d force you to hang out with them whenever he’s crashing at Beomgyu’s. You’re starting to regret hitting up a conversation with him during the orientation. These men are the banes of your existence. “Who is it? Who the fuck is spreading that stupid fucking rumor?”

“Please let go of me,” he squeaks out. You grunt, releasing the fabric of his shirt. He takes in a breath and fixes his clothes. “I’m not a snitch. Sorry.”

Heeseung is avoiding your eyes. He’s twiddling with the top button of his button up, nervously pressing together his lips. You run through the members of their “coding club” (it’s just a cover so they can play games in a cushy campus office). It doesn’t take long for you to come up with a name.

“Yang Jeongin.” Your friend’s panic tells you that you’re on the nail. 

“He only sent the photo!” he quickly exclaims. “He never said that you two were hooking up or anything! Please, spare him, please—”

So much for a perfect morning. It’s not even nine and you’re already fucking drained.

You let out a groan, massaging your temples and balancing yourself with your elbows on the study table. Heeseung is spewing out a million apologies and you’re not taking shit. “You’re not gonna go to our clubroom and destroy our computers, right?”

“Thanks for the idea.”

“You’re a demon,” he grumbles. “What’s the big deal, anyway? You yourself said you and Beomgyu didn’t fuck. But you two went home together and you haven’t complained about him yet. That means your date went really, really—”

“Can you please just quit it?!” 

That’s it. You’ve had enough. You shoot up from your seat, quickly gathering your things before you actually start throwing punches. “I’m sick and tired of hearing his name!” Heeseung gulps. He quickly scoots away to evade your haphazardly swinging bag. “Why the fuck do you all keep mentioning that piece of shit? It’s like everyone’s obsessed with him, it’s like everyone wants a chance to ride on his di—”

The words get cut off. Because when you turned around to make your leave, Choi Beomgyu was right there, behind you, and you bump into him and his blank face of terror.

“Oh.”

Yang Jeongin is also there, looking mildly scared of you.

But you’re more horrified than anyone in this hall.

Hiccup!

Your face flushes, searing hot and visibly enflamed.

“I, uh—” hiccup! “I’m about to leave anyway so you guys can—” hiccup! “—shit, fuck, fucking hell—”

You quickly swerve away, head down, but an arm swooshes over to barricade your exit path. There’s a water bottle in front of your heated face. Your line of sight follows towards the owner of the arm. Beomgyu is looking at you straight in the eye.

“Drink some water first.”

Hiccup!

Fuck, this is so embarrassing.

“Whoa. She’s so fast.”

The three boys watch your speedily retreating figure, pausing once or twice because of a hiccup, but your pace is still abnormally fast as you escape from the premises. There is no trace of you, save for the orange juice container you’d been drinking since earlier.

“There’s this tension between the two of you, you know.” Beomgyu turns his head to Heeseung who made the observation, a single eyebrow raised. “Do you two really live in the same building, or is she just making up an excuse? Seriously. Tell me how it went with you two. I was the one who set you up. I think I have the right to know.”

Beomgyu holds back a snort. He leans closer to Heeseung, a subtle smile playing on his lips. “You wanna know?”

Heeseung’s eyes sparkle. “Dude, I’m dying of curiosi—”

Smack!

“That’s none of your business.”

Beomgyu swipes the juice box from the table and promptly leaves the library despite the protests of his two friends. Out in the hallway, he doubts he could catch up to you after running away like a white collar convict, but who knows? He might get lucky— just like last Saturday.

“Hey, dude, wait up!”

An arm is hooked around his neck, and he gets pulled down with a grunt. He might be unable to catch up to you, but his friends definitely can with him. Now all his chances are gone, slipping out of his fingers like the juice container that he drops when caught between Heeseung and Jeongin shoving each other around, and it’s now completely lost upon the arrival of the people from his major.

“Hey, classes are canceled.”

“What are we having for lunch?”

“Are we having a practice run later for the festival?”

“Wait, I have to update my story— hey, look at the camera!”

They talk, but it’s all white noise. He gets carried off by static for the rest of the day. He hopes to bump into you when he gets home, but Beomgyu doesn’t even know what time you usually get home.

All the years you’ve spent mastering the perfect bitch face have finally come to fruition when you visited the programming club during lunch to make sure none of the bullshit they’re speculated escapes their clubroom doors. They all apologized— apparently Beomgyu also told them to quit their gossiping. 

However not even fear can stop an inherently stupid man. Because the next day, Minjeong suddenly tells you, “hey, I didn’t know you and Choi Beomgyu were a thing!”

Now, which rat managed to slip through the door crack?

“No, we’re not,” you scrunch your nose. “Where did you get that from?”

From a friend of a friend of a friend, she says. Sungchan asked you the same thing earlier. So did some guy from one class whom you don’t even know the name of. Your head is hurting. Crap that blind date was a stupid fucking idea. Seriously, why does no one know how to mind their own business? What is it about Choi Beomgyu that people just can’t keep his name out of their mouths? He’s not even a celebrity. He’s just a freshman with a pretty face and the social skills of an annoyingly loud butterfly.

“I’m going home,” you tell her.

“Why? I thought we were having barbecue with the rest of the guys!”

Not when you’re sure you’re gonna be barraged by another slew of questions about your dumb childhood friend. You bid Minjeong goodbye and exit the campus, hopping on the bus back to your apartment with a dead set agenda in mind. You’re going to fix this. You’r gonna bring things back to normal once and for all. So when you arrive at your floor, you don’t make a left like you usually do— you turn to your right and make three hard knocks on the sturdy door.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Choi Beomgyu.”

Knock, knock, knock.

“Beomgyu, are you ho—”

It gets opened sooner than you’re used to.

“Listen. We need to talk,” you quickly start, ignoring the surprise on his face upon seeing you, ignoring the way he almost shuts the door again right into your face. You hold back a scoff, but a sneer manages to sneak out. “Things have gotten messy since last Saturday. You should’ve kept your clubmates in check. What’s the point of acting like we’re strangers when people I don’t know keep asking me if I’m your fucking girlfriend, and Lee Heeseung keeps badgering me about what’s going on between us, and— oh my fucking god. Heeseung is right there.”

Beomgyu’s body is shielding you from the view of his living room. It’s not doing a good job because Heeseung waves at you from inside. Jeongin is there too. You can’t do this anymore. You’re cursed. You’re cursed with a plague called Choi Beomgyu and his ten million friends.

Your shaking eyes flit over back to Beomgyu. He looks panicked. Your heart is threatening to jump out of your throat and shrivel up like a pathetic dried grape.

“Fuck.”

At this point, running away feels like muscle memory to you now.

“Wait, I— hold on. I’ll be back,” you hear him say right before the door clicks and there’s another pair of pattering footsteps down the hallway right behind yours. The rhythm is familiar— a lag by one step, catching up, then slowing down as if he doesn’t want to overtake you all while you bulldoze through the hallway until you reach the flight of stairs, down three floors, and you’re met with the cold wind of the outside.

It’s only now that you realize your lungs are shaking.

“Hey—”

You smack away his attempt to settle a hand on your shoulder, but you’re far too embarrassed to look up and look him in the eye. Your face is burning. It’s been burnt so many times within the span of two weeks and it’s a miracle it hasn’t been charred. “Go away. Go back upstairs,” you sniffle. All you can see is the cement ground and the worn out slippers on his feet.

He stifles out something sort of a sigh. “No.” There’s a tug on the hem of your shirt. You wobble forward. Beomgyu holds onto your arms. You finally snap your head up and see his face. “You said we needed to talk. Let’s talk.”

It’s a little pathetic how you’re so near to breaking into tears. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to.”

“Is that really what you should be saying after completely screwing yourself over?”

“Shut up.” All the strength you had in your legs has been stripped away. Beomgyu is tugging your limp body to your complex’s gazebo with ease. “How could I have known your friends would be there?” you drawl out, allowing yourself to be dragged under its overhead roof.

He settles you down onto the stairs. “Isn’t Heeseung your friend too?”

“Not anymore.” You plop down on the wood, shoulders slacked, legs outstretched. Beomgyu is standing before you with his arms crossed. “From now on, he is nothing to me.”

There’s a frown on his face. “You should’ve called before deciding to blow up like that. I did my best. You’re the one that ruined your whole stranger agenda.”

“Fuck off, I’m still trying to cope.”

You kick out your foot like a child throwing a tantrum, and Beomgyu definitely doesn’t look impressed. He walks up, signaling you to scoot over, and squeezes right next to you on the narrow stair step of the gazebo. 

Shoulders pressed together, he leans slightly forward, elbows on his lap, and all you can see is the side of his face as you incline backwards so you don’t suffocate from the sudden tightness of air. “Am I like, too lame for you, or something,” he suddenly says. You blink once, failing to comprehend his words the first time. When he cocks his head back, you see the look in his eyes— earnest and raw.

You can’t help but crack out a snort.

“I’m— I’m sorry,” you sputter out. Your plaster your hands over your face, trying to suppress your misplaced chimes. “I just didn’t think you could make that kind of face. Wow, you can be serious too, huh?”

“You’re laughing,” he deadpans. “I’m trying to be serious here and you’re laughing.”

“I said I was sorry! Okay, let’s try again, let’s try again.” You clear your throat, sitting up straight and patting your palms on your lap, but something keeps tugging on the corners of your mouth and it’s hard to sit still. “No, you are not ‘too lame’ for me, Beomgyu. Where did that even come from?”

His expression bitters, unconvinced. “Then are you ashamed of me?”

“No.”

“Did I do anything abhorrently wrong?”

“What? No—”

“Am I not cool enough to be considered your friend?”

“Beomgyu, what are you talking about?” It was funny the first time, but now you’re just concerned. “Would I have stuck around your ass for almost twenty years if I thought any of that? Things haven’t been the best between us lately, but I still think we’re friends, Beomgyu, I—”

There’s a crack in your voice. Your face flushes. He’s looking at you so intently that you instinctively drop your head down before prying out the words that’s been lingering in your throat for months overdue.

“I…I hope we still are,” you mutter. “I really do.”

“Then why did you want to act like we’re not?” 

There it is.

“I didn’t want to keep it up for a long time!” you reason. “I just— I just wanted to keep my distance until I’ve adjusted to uni and until I’ve made a few friends of my own because for most of my life, I’ve only been known as the girl who’s always around you and nothing else.”

It takes a gnaw at your pride to be finally saying this out loud. It’s a bitter taste on your tongue— ugly and unpalatable and you’re glad that you won’t ever have to swallow it ever again. 

When you look up, you see Beomgyu make another new face you never expected from him.

“I doubt you noticed how people would only approach me because of you, but I really don’t blame you for anything. It was an unreasonable request and you had every right to be mad. I might have taken it back had we stayed around on the playground for a little longer.” You take a pause. “But then you started acting like a dick to me so I decided to be a dick to you too.”

You expect him to bite back but he doesn’t and it worries you. Shit, maybe you’ve unhauled too much. Maybe this wasn’t the right time be all vulnerable and crap but Beomgyu isn’t telling you you’re a big fucking idiot, so maybe it’s fine.

Instead, he stays quiet for a little longer, your words simmering in the air. 

“I wasn’t just angry. I was hurt,” he finally says. “Like you said, you’ve been with me for all my life and you suddenly tell me to reverse all of that. How the fuck did you expect me to act like you’re nobody when we both know that at this point I can’t live without you.”

Oh.

“Shit.”

Beomgyu’s eyes widen.

“I didn’t mean— I didn’t want to say—” He’s covering the bottom half of his face with his fist. He’s turning his head away as much as he can but you can still see enough to notice. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to say that. Forget about it.”

You lean closer. “Beomgyu, are you crying?”

“No. Fuck off.”

His right shoulder is serving as his shield as you try to dig your nose further, completely turning away from you, but you don’t miss it. You can’t miss it. “Oh my god, you’re crying.” Beomgyu leers back at you ever the slightest. There’s red tinting his eyes. You expect him to scurry off back into the building after that— but, no. Instead, pulls you by the forearm, and lets his head fall onto your shoulder, his forehead pressed firmly down. 

“Eat shit and die,” he mutters in between sniffles. After your initial surprise, you lift up the arm he isn’t grabbing onto to give him a few pats on the back, circles over his shoulder blades, and you stay like that for a while, for maybe too long because the sky is now darker than when you first went outside.

“Beomgyu,” you start.

“What do you want?” he muffles, as if he isn’t still draped over you like an oversized rag.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was selfish and inconsiderate.”

You hear him sniffle again. Heeseung wouldn’t believe you if you tell him Choi Beomgyu is actually a big baby. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize the way other people were treating you,” he says. “I can’t help being such a cool guy that you get overshadowed, you know. So I’m not sorry for that— ow! Ow, what the heck!”

You pry him off by the hair. You’re sure a few strands got plucked off, but a realization you didn’t expect to glean from this was the fact that his stupid shaggy hair is actually really soft. “I think this is enough. We should head back.”

In spite of his complaining, Beomgyu trails behind you when you stand up and dust yourself before making your way back inside. It’s still quiet, save for the hisses and grunts and swears whenever Beomgyu would step on your shoes, whenever he’d bump into you and feign innocence, whenever he’d get on your nerves immediately after just reconciling with you. 

It’s annoying. It’s annoying and it’s better than everything that’s been these past three months.

“Are you twelve?” you shoot him a glare, ready to punch in your door code before you get the urge to punch him instead.

“Come inside,” he tells you, nosing at his side of the apartment. “Let’s watch a movie.”

You raise a brow and cross your arms. “All of a sudden?”

“Yeah.” He mimics your pose. “Got a problem with that?”

You roll your eyes, but somehow you’re now a few steps away from your front door, and are now a few steps closer to his. “I do have a problem with it. Your fucking friends are in there.”

“I’ll deal with them.”

“Wow,” you snort. “So reliable.”

Still, you follow. Beomgyu twists his door knob and you’re suddenly nervous for the possible bullshit Heeseung would barrage you about your relationship with Beomgyu, but that doesn’t happen. The moment Beomgyu cracks open the door, his voice bounces around the inside of his apartment’s walls. “Anyone who doesn’t leave after the count of five will be banned from my apartment forever. Five. Four—”

Holy crap. You’re more surprised to see it actually work because Heeseung and Jeongin who’d been laying on the floor and tinkering with their playstation controllers have suddenly catapulted from the ground. “Wait, what about her?!” Heeseung protests as he’s being shoved by Jeongin out the door.

“She’s exempted,” Beomgyu responds. “Three. Two—”

“Whatever’s going on between you two, I take credit! You better spill the beans tomorrow. I can’t stand—”

“One.” 

With that, the door is shut.

Quiet washes over. Beomgyu turns to face you. “Good?” he asks. You give him a pat on the head.

“Good.” He’s like a puppy, you think, and retract your arm before spinning around to look around his living space. “What are we watching?”

It’s your first time inside, and the first thing you notice is how freaking dark it is inside his apartment. The windows are covered by blackout curtains, the television’s blue light and the light bulb from the kitchen island being the only light sources inside. You take the liberty to plop down on the floor in front of the sofa, further welcoming yourself to turn off the game the two were playing to scroll through Netflix.

“Remember the movie we got in trouble for watching?” Beomgyu rouses. He’s in the kitchen and cracking open the cupboards. “It was in eighth grade, I think.”

“The one that our parents thought was porn?” you question. Anyone would have thought it was porn with the word Bodies and the 18+ label on the CD case. “I don’t really recall the plot.”

“Me neither. All I can remember were your pissbaby screams.” 

“I was fourteen!”

He throws you a bag of chips and settles down right next to you. “Yeah, and so was I. Gimme the remote, scaredy cat.”

This guy is a perpetual test on your patience, but you continue to let him test you anyway. Before long, the television is shrouded by the familiar graphic imagery that scared you shitless early into your teenhood, and Beomgyu’s warmth is seeping into your side. His face is outlined by the bright red douses onscreen, melting into the contours of his face. “What are you looking at?” he asks, eyes absentmindedly still on the screen, hand mechanically digging into the bag of chips resting on your lap. “Don’t tell me you’re still scared? Wow, what a baby.”

“Coming from you? Your eyes are still red, Beomgyu. Your big baby tears have stained my shirt.” You swat his hand away. A creak rips out from the speakers. “Maybe you’re the one acting all tough.” Suspenseful music builds up. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell your friends and fans that the great Choi Beomgyu is actually— eek!”

There’s a jumpscare. And Beomgyu is laughing his ass off as you unbury your face from his shoulders, ungripping the wrinkled fabric of his shirt with a sharp glare and flushed cheeks. “Not a single word from your whore mouth,” you warn. He’s grinning like crazy as he looks down at you. 

“You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Neither have you,” you sneer, trying to play off how you flinched at the sudden loud noise from the screen, but he’s probably noticed. How could he not notice every jitter from your bones when your legs are practically tangled together, when he keeps reaching out an arm over you to steal from the chip bag you keep nestled on your side away from him. 

The next moments are filled with nothing but the noise of guts ripping, limps splattering, and blood-curdling screams. 

“Can we watch something else?!”

“No way. Quit being lame and suck it up.”

Yet— in spite of the jumps and squirms and suppressed squeaks from your person— you haven’t felt this comfortable in months.

YOU DON’T LIKE CHOI BEOMGYU. You don’t like how much of your time he’s wasted. You don’t like how much of your pride he’s forced you to swallow. You don’t like how much of your identity he’s inadvertently stripped away.

You don’t like him for all those things, but here you are— dressed in his department’s colors, carrying a sign with his stupid face printed on, and waiting for the past thirty god damned minutes because he was supposed to be here ages ago for the stupid fucking E-Sports Fest that you’re not even remotely interested in.

If you don’t show up in five, I’m going home, you angrily mash on your phone. You’re risking it all here. If Heeseung sees you in this traitor outfit, he’s going to give you the silent treatment for a week. The bastard still owes you two more weeks of lunch to repent. You can’t lose the upper hand. You can’t lose your leverage.

Your phone buzzes. Had to piss. Be there in a bit, his reply says.

“I don’t need to be informed about your bladder activities, you freak,” you grumble to yourself. Your bright orange ensemble has been catching unwanted attention. That or his face on your sign. Any minute longer, you’re going to bury yourself alive.

“Excuse me.”

You feel a tap on your shoulder. You turn around and see an unfamiliar face. He’s wearing the same shirt color as you. “Are— are you friends with Choi Beomgyu?” he asks. The bastard has collected another fanboy. You feel a throb in the side of your head.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fucking friends with Choi Beomgyu. What about it? What do you want?”

“Whoa, there.” 

The said bastard swoops in and swings an arm over your shoulder and presses you to his side. “Sorry about that,” he tells the guy. Your sneer deepens. Beomgyu gives you a subtle pinch on the arm. “My friend is just grumpy because we lost a game to the engineering department earlier. Anyway, how can I help you?”

Orange number two wanted to ask for a picture with him because he was so cool in the Sudden Attack match earlier. Beomgyu excuses himself for a moment and they take a quick photo. “Tangerines are supposed to look pretty, you know,” your stupid friend announces once he gets back to you. You start making your way to the venue for his next match. It’s in a closed classroom. There’s a projector screen outside to livestream it. “Quit scowling. You’re scaring the kids.”

“That’s the plan,” you tell him. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

“If you keep acting like that, I might get the wrong idea,” he says. You look at him. There’s a subtle smile on his face and you don’t like it. “It’s like you only want me for yourse— ow! Joking! Joke— it was a joke! Jeez.”

“Go win, or whatever.” You shove him off seeing that you’ve arrived. It’s already pretty crowded. You’re scanning the area for a good spot to squeeze into.

“I better be hearing your cheers from inside the classroom.”

“Don’t bet on it,” you send him off with a smile. “If you lose, I’m unfriending you.”

“Not the first time you’d be doing it.”

“Fuck off. Good luck.”

He nods with a salute and an expression that mirrors yours before disappearing off into the classroom, and you’re left with two dozen bodies uncomfortably wedged in the hallway just to watch him play a game you don’t even know the god damned rules for. 

You don’t like Beomgyu. His face is something you’re sick of seeing after nearly twenty years of being stuck with him.

You don’t like him. Not even when he seems to always pick you despite having a million other options. Not even when he single-mindedly bulldozes straight into you despite having a whole army cheering for him on the sides after he’s won another game for his department, waiting for your praise and the usual swears you spit on his face with a bright smile.

“Congrats, fuckface,” you say, receiving him in your arms as he engulfs you in a tight hug. You give him a few pats on the back for good measure.

“You’re treating me to dinner, dipshit,” he grins, pulling away, but keeping a hold of your shoulders.

“Spoiled brat,” you sneer.

You don’t like him. He keeps buzzing around you like an immortal mosquito that just doesn’t die even after being swatted away tens of thousands of times. 

“Only to you,” he hums, looping an arm around your neck and starting dragging you along forward. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

You don’t like Choi Beomgyu. 

“Where do you wanna eat?”

You don’t. You really don’t.

모기 / MOGI. © hannie-dul-set, 2023.

#loved the call-out to the beginning halfway through #their dynamic is so nicely shown through the dialogue as well #where’s my childhood friends to acquaintances to friends again to lovers pipeline 😞

[kaleidohscopic]

You just wrote the best fic of summer!! Pls make more Baekhyun stories it’s amazing and Thank you for sharing with us 💞💕💕💕

thank you sm for reading!! hope you will be glad to hear i have one (1) singular bbh fic in the works rn. honestly not too sure how it'll turn out though, i feel like that first piece took so much out of me and now i have no creativity left 😔 but will do my best not to disappoint!! thank you for the support <3

#answered

[kaleidohscopic]

IN THE DYING SUMMER SUN — BBH

PAIRING: baekhyun x female reader SUMMARY: a weekend up at the beach house might just be enough to make you crack and come clean about your little (big, fat) crush. alternatively, park chanyeol is possibly the worst wingman ever. GENRE: friends to lovers! au, crush! baekhyun, romance, fluff, a pinch of angst, pining, humour WARNINGS: swearing, alcohol consumption, sexual tension!!, slightly suggestive, reader and baekhyun are both kind of clueless tbh WORD COUNT: 9.4k NOTE: happy birthday baekhyun!! thought it would be fitting to start off this blog with a fic for bbh on his birthday. this was supposed to be a 4-5k piece of fluff but somehow it ended up being double that and a lot more serious than i originally intended (oops?). kinda nervy posting such a long fic for the first time ever so feedback is most certainly welcome and i hope you enjoy!

“You definitely rigged this.”

Chanyeol only rewarded you with a shit-eating grin.

The scrap of paper couldn’t weigh more than a few grams, but in your hands, they felt like the barbell plates at the gym that he could never leave alone. Especially since a certain someone was also holding another scrap of paper with ‘ground floor twin room’ hastily scrawled across it.

You shook your head vehemently, fixing the tall boy with a dagger-like stare that he seemed completely unfazed by. “I demand a redraw.”

“Which is not going to happen,” was his gleeful response. “We all agreed — no take-backs before picking.” The hat that you had all drawn out of, now empty, was tossed on the coffee table as everyone else began to move their bags into their freshly chosen rooms. Somewhere down the hallway, Jongin tripped over the wheels of his suitcase, his pained groan and Kyungsoo’s laughter bouncing against the walls of the AirBnb.

“Besides,” Chanyeol continued, hand coming up to ruffle your hair, “if I had actually rigged it, you should be thanking me. I’d be doing you a favour.” He gestured towards Baekhyun, who was busying himself with packing his hoodie back into his duffle bag, hopefully oblivious to the fact that the two of you were conspiring about him less than three metres away. 

“Yeah, say it any louder, why don’t you. And no, that wasn’t an invitation,” you warned, catching the wicked glint in Chanyeol’s eyes. He opened his mouth, as if to make good on your request and let the whole house know, only to choke back a groan at the elbow you shoved into his side. Behave, said the glare that you shot at him. His replying smile was anything but reassuring, before he picked up his bag and headed upstairs.

That was what you got for getting a little too drunk at Jongdae’s housewarming get-together last month and accidentally slipping up about your big, fat, debilitating crush on Baekhyun after the third glass of pinot noir in one night. If it had been anyone else made aware of your juvenile secret, you would probably be feeling a little less uneasy — but it just had to be the one person who couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life. Not to mention Park Chanyeol was a terrible wingman, having heard about the ridiculous escapades he put Jongdae through before he finally cuffed his girlfriend. Lucky for you, you were now getting to experience it first-hand.

“I can ask Jongin to swap, if you really don’t want to room with me,” came a soft voice from your right. Baekhyun regarded you with an expectant, if somewhat hesitant expression. 

“No, it’s okay,” you replied, trying your best to mask the panic that was fighting its way into your voice. It would be just your luck, that he would think your reluctance to share a sleeping space with him was because you didn’t like him enough, and not that you liked him a little too much. The slight furrow in his brow seemed to melt away with your words. “I just wanted the big room with the queen bed, but somehow Chanyeol got it. I seriously think he did something to these,” you said, waving your slip of paper that matched the one he was holding.

Come to think of it, you and Baekhyun had also been the last ones to draw out of the hat, since Chanyeol had insisted on going counter-clockwise around the dining table. How he managed to game the room allocations was beyond you, but you were now almost certain that he did.

“It’s good that he’s by himself though. The snoring would drive anyone mad,” Baekhyun mused, and you had to chuckle in agreement. 

“That time he passed out at my place after Saturday drinks…I genuinely thought I’d end up with a murder charge that night.” you said, chest squeezing at the way his eyes crinkled into crescent moons at your words. You busied yourself with your own bag, hoping he wouldn’t see the dumb smile on your face, and be able to tell how pleased you were to have teased a laugh out of him. Laughter was not something he usually withheld — he gave it freely, if not a little too generously — but it always did a funny thing to your heart when you were the cause of it. 

“Definitely can’t have that. Pretty face like yours would not last a day in jail.” With one hand around his own duffle, he draped the free one around your shoulders, letting the warmth of his arm wrap around you as you headed down the corridor to the room you’d be sharing for the weekend.

Having a crush on Baekhyun was no big deal. Probably even normal, if his college days were anything to go by. But what made it so debilitating was things like this — the little comments he’d throw around that could easily be passed off as just friendly flirting if you were so inclined, though you sometimes let yourself imagine his intentions came more from the flirting than the friendly part. He was a generally touchy person too, never missing a chance to pat Kyungsoo’s ass when the opportunity arose, but sometimes the brush of his fingers against the inside of your wrist felt a little too affectionate for two people united solely through friendship, even if you were the only one who internally crossed that line a while ago. It was things like this that made you question, every once in a while, if your feelings were as one-sided as you believed. Most of the time though, you chalked it up to his disposition, his easy-going magnetism, and concluded that whatever signals you thought he was sending were merely due to your overactive imagination running wild with hopes that he felt the same way.

“Dibs left,” he said, plopping down on the twin bed closer to the window. His arms raised above his head in a long, yawning stretch, revealing a thin strip of skin at the waistband of his jeans. Just the sight of it was enough to control your blood, sending a rush of it to your face, and you internally cursed yourself for being so weak to such a small thing. It was obvious you had been alone for way too long. He was too comfortable to notice the flush on your cheeks, eyes shut and enjoying the tension leaving his body after the long drive up.

You sat yourself down carefully on the remaining bed, noting the gap between the two mattresses. Whether you wanted to push them together or against opposite walls of the room, you couldn’t be sure. It was hard to form coherent thoughts when he turned to you with a boyish playfulness that curled the corner of his mouth upwards.

“You’re not going to sleepwalk your way into my bed, are you?” he asked, chin in his hand, a teasing glint in his eyes. You tried hard to catch yourself from choking on your own saliva.

“I’ve been known to kick in my sleep,” was your reply, voice much more nonchalant than you thought you were capable of, given that he had just planted the seed of the two of you sharing a twin mattress that was definitely not big enough to lie down on without touching in at least three different places. The glint in his eyes faded immediately, giving way to thinly-veiled concern at the threat underlying your words.

“I was kidding,” you clarified when he sat up and started to back away from you. “At least, I haven’t done that for fifteen or so years. But you never know, it might come back again tonight, when you’ve finally fallen asleep, and then BAM! Foot to the face. You better sleep with your eyes open, Byun Baekhyun,” you warned, giggling at the realisation dawning over his face before his pretty features settled into mock annoyance.

“You just think you’re so funny, don’t you?” He was on all fours now, making his way towards you with a wolfish grin. In no time, he had crawled over the gap between your two beds and suddenly his fingers were prodding at your ribs. It was a well-planned tickle attack, and one you had no chance of escaping from, since his legs had caged you in and the rest of him was pinning you down. You were helpless against the ambush of his fingers, succumbing to them with gasping giggles, punctuated by desperate pleas for him to stop. He showed no intention of letting up, fingers digging even deeper into your waist.

If you were going to die like this, you thought, at least you’d be dying while lying under him.

“When you two are done canoodling, we’re going to go set up on the beach,” came a voice from the doorway. Baekhyun’s merciless fingers paused, and the two of you looked back to see Chanyeol’s amused face at the foot of your bed, smirking like he knew some big secret that neither of you were privy to. God, you were seriously regretting that third glass at Jongdae’s new apartment last month.

Baekhyun turned back to you, your noses almost touching, and you could feel the air from his exhales fanning against the skin of your cheek. There was a mole just above the corner of his mouth that you don’t think you had ever noticed before. Warmth from his jean-clad legs radiated into your hips and meandered up and down your spine, and suddenly the late summer air around you was becoming sticky and heavier than usual. 

As if just now noticing the proximity you were in, he slowly untangled himself from your limbs, making sure not to crush you in the process. You sat up, still breathless, having just calmed down enough for full inhales again, but so was he, you noted. Surely tickling wasn’t that exertive of an activity? Or maybe you’d put up a better fight than you had thought.

“Don’t forget your towels,” was the last thing Chanyeol said before he ducked out, yelling at Jongin to grab the beach umbrellas, not the rain ones. There were a few seconds just filled with the sounds of your slowing breathing.

“I’m going to go get changed,” Baekhyun said, turning around to dig through his bag for his swim shorts. You couldn’t see his expression, but you could hear the slight tremble in his voice that indicated he hadn’t quite recovered from whatever was afflicting him. “We’ll probably just be setting up the umbrellas, so no rush, just come down when you’re ready.” As he turned around to head towards the bathroom, he flashed you that familiar smile, the one that always resulted in one of your own to mirror his, and set you at ease again. 

“And make sure you bring your sunscreen,” he added, before disappearing down the hallway. You watched him go, throwing yourself back onto the bed with a frustrated groan once you were sure he was out of earshot. Two whole days and nights in this tiny room, in the languid death of summer, with his body just an arm’s length away from yours — you had no idea how much of this you could stomach and emerge with your sanity intact.

This was shaping up to be the longest weekend ever.

The afternoon sun was unforgiving when you emerged from the house. Though you had thrown on a cover up before leaving, you could feel the heat tingling on the surface of your skin through the thin cotton. From the top of the bushy path leading down to the beach, you could already hear the tell-tale signs of a competition brewing between the boys, even if you couldn’t quite see them yet. A few steps down and you could make out their figures, managing to catch the view of Chanyeol flipping backwards off the jetty before plunging into the water, where the rest of them were bobbing around. Baekhyun’s voice floated above the others the way it always did when he was teasing, liltingly distinguishable, though perhaps that was only because you were now so attuned to it that other voices naturally started to sound more foreign. 

It was hard to pinpoint exactly when he went from Baekhyun, your friend who tended to get a little too rowdy after half a can of beer, to Baekhyun, your friend who made your heart pick up a little faster when you thought of him. One day his hiccuping laugh was teetering on the edge of obnoxiousness, and then all of a sudden it became endearing to hear the raw joy in his voice. If you knew exactly when the switch flipped, maybe you’d be able to retrace your steps and stop yourself from ever setting off down this path to end up where you were now, watching the sunlight glisten against his wet face with an overwhelming affection, wondering what it would be like to be the private audience of his radiant smile everyday.

You set your things down on the sand next to the pile of clothes and towels that were already there, recognising Chanyeol’s hat somewhere in the mix. The beach umbrella that Jongin had set up was already beginning to lurch towards one side, the brim rather close to the ground. Fixing it back in place and digging it into the sand a little deeper, you let out a fond laugh — some things, like the way Jongin used his hands like they weren’t his own, would stand the test of time. 

You had hoped that your friendship with Baekhyun would be one of those things, but the more time you spent casting longing glances his way when he wasn’t looking, the more you weren’t sure if you could ever recover from his rejection if you ever did decide to be honest about your feelings towards him. So you did your best to bury them, content to enjoy his company in the way you were both familiar with, afraid that if they did surface, they’d taint your friendship with something unpleasant and irreversible. If you couldn’t own the sun, at least you could still revel in its warmth.

Satisfied with the position of your towel underneath the shade of the umbrella, you looked back at the water, returning Baekhyun’s sweeping wave with a small one of your own. It was just enough of a distraction for Chanyeol to turn around as well, and Baekhyun seized the opportunity to dunk him, gleefully howling as the taller boy’s head disappeared below the waves. Before Chanyeol could resurface and enact his retaliation, Baekhyun was already making his escape, swimming towards the shore with fearful determination. Chanyeol made to follow, but upon seeing you sitting on the beach with your eyes fixed on Baekhyun’s approaching figure, he thought better of it, turning back around to continue the diving evaluation as Jongin took his turn to leap off the jetty.

With an amused smile, you watched as Baekhyun hurried out of the ocean, wet hair flying in all directions and flicking droplets of seawater across the sand. The water trickled down the planes of his bare torso, and you tried to keep your eyes away from the firmness of his pec, or the flexing movements of his abdominals as he made his way over to you. One thing was for sure — the gym sessions with Chanyeol were paying off. 

When he finally reached you, Baekhyun slumped onto your towel, ignoring your protests for him to stay away, and proceeded to soak you in the remaining water that was still clinging to his body. The skin of his stomach was cool against your calf, and he giggled delightfully at your attempts to push him off to avoid getting more water onto your clothes.

“Stop trying to fight it, you’re going to get wet when you go in anyway,” he said, finally rolling off you.

“I wasn’t planning on going in. I’m scared you’ll try to drown me,” you huffed, lightly flicking some sand onto his shoulder with your toe. He turned back around, chin cradled in his left hand, and flashed you a boyish smile.

“I would never do that,” he said, though the glint in his eyes was anything but convincing. “Besides, what are you going to do at the beach if you’re not getting in the water?”

You picked up the book nestled in between your shoes and waved it at him. “Read, of course.” He regarded the worn paperback with amused disbelief, eyebrows slightly raised. It was only when you flipped the book open to the paperclip you’d been using as a bookmark that he realised you were serious, and let out a scoff that was laced with something akin to fondness.

“You are such a cliche. Pretty girl reading at the beach? Unbelievable, seriously,” he said, before wriggling his head into your stomach, relishing in your shocked squeals as your cover up began to dampen again. His mischief had left a few wet patches on the fabric that were beginning to stick to your body in the uncomfortable fashion of late summer. You reached for the hem, pulling it off not without some struggle, and immediately felt the sun kissing against your bare shoulders. Though you were mostly covered by the shade from the umbrella, the last thing you wanted was a blistering sunburn where the straps of your tote bag usually rested, so you grabbed the sunscreen you had so diligently packed and began applying it on the parts of your skin that were exposed.

Baekhyun had gone uncharacteristically quiet. If you had been paying attention to him instead of so attentively rubbing the cream into the underside of your knee, perhaps you would have noticed the way his eyes lingered on you for a little longer than would have been polite. They followed the path your hands took, from the expanse of skin below your neck, across your stomach, and down the length of your legs.

“Do you want me to do your back?” he blurted, his voice a little more strained than usual. He was wearing an odd expression on his face, something you couldn’t quite place, but it was different from the usual playful one you were most well acquainted with. Nevertheless, you agreed, passing him the tube and turning around so your back was facing him.

His fingers were still cold from the water, and you jumped when they first made contact with your skin. He only laughed, squeezing both hands around your shoulders to hold you still before he got back to work again.

The first graze of his hands across your shoulders was tentative. You could feel the heat of him behind your back, the smell of salt and sun clinging to the air around you. His breaths fanned the skin on the back of your neck, sending goosebumps down your arms and legs despite the thick heat of the afternoon. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. Slowly, his hands made their way down to your lower back, and it was then that you realised you might be in trouble. His hands pressed against the grooves of your spine, curving ever so slightly around your waist, and if you shivered, he pretended not to feel you tremble in his grasp. 

It was when his fingers slipped underneath the ties of your bikini top that the alarm bells began to go off in your head. His movements were hesitant, fingers stuttering in their dance across your skin before they gingerly pulled the strings aside to spread the sunscreen between the top and bottom halves of your back. It was too much, feeling his warmth, knowing there was only an inch of space between your bare torsos, having his hands on you doing such a thorough job with the task he had assigned to himself. When the tips of his fingers brushed the side of your ribs, just under the edge of the fabric, you couldn’t help the breathy noise that escaped your lips. 

“Actually, I think I left something back at the house,” you said suddenly, words hurriedly running into each other as they tripped over your tongue on the way out of your mouth. Twisting away from his dangerous touch, you bolted to a stand and hoped he’d attribute the pinkness of your cheeks to being outside in the brightness of the afternoon. Your words came out staggered, the slight tremble in your voice betraying the composure you were fighting so hard to maintain. 

Baekhyun’s gaze was careful, if not a little confused. The more his eyes ran over you, the more you were sure that the depth of your feelings towards him were beginning to surface on your face. Another second and he’d be able to tell, he’d figure out the little secret you’d been trying to conceal for the last couple of months. And then you wouldn’t be able to deny its existence anymore. 

So you fled, tossing a rushed promise to be right back over your shoulder before scurrying up the bushy path again. Away from the scrutiny of his eyes, away from the truth you did not want revealed to the world. The ghost of his touch lingered between your shoulder blades and along the ridges of your spine, your body already committing to memory the caress of his skin against yours. You realised then, that it would not be possible to continue living on as usual, now that you knew the taste of his closeness, as fleeting as it may have been.

“I think you should just go for it.”

Your fingers tightened around the glass at his words. Chanyeol’s tone was light and pragmatic, speaking as if the act of unfurling your heart were nothing more than a decision about whether to have steak or pork belly for dinner. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you scoffed, bringing the bottle to your lips.

“I’m serious though,” he continued, nudging your arm with the lip of his own beer. “I think you should just tell him, and see what he says. And stop expecting the worst. You’ll never know how things could turn out if you never do anything.”

You let your head fall back to lean on the doorframe you were both standing against, gazing out at the patio that had begun to darken following the sunset. Baekhyun and Jongin were placed at opposite ends of the ping pong table that had been wheeled out of the living room after dinner, neither seeming to mind the soft prick of grass at the underside of their bare feet. Whether the game was proceeding well was difficult to deduce, since both were sporting wide grins and rosy cheeks, courtesy of the glasses in their hands — but judging by the cluster of orange balls around Baekhyun’s feet, you had an inkling that victory would not be his. He didn’t seem to mind yet, laughing gleefully as Jongin swung his racquet too hard and launched a ball over the fence. 

“Not everyone is as good as you when it comes to talking about their feelings, you know,” you said, fixing Chanyeol with a knowing look that was halfway between admiration and resentment. If you only had his courage of expression, perhaps you would’ve put an end to your suffering a while ago. Ripped the band-aid off cleanly instead of peeling away at it, day by day, bit by bit, until it was hanging on by the last of its adhesive. You weren’t sure how much longer your resolve could last, if it would even survive this weekend without snapping under the force of your attraction.

He only shrugged. “You can’t get good without actually doing it.” You pondered his words in the short silence that settled while you both took another sip. He was right, of course, you knew that, but it didn’t make hearing it any easier.

“I think… I’m just scared,” you began slowly. Realising you were about to put his advice into action, Chanyeol turned to you with reassuring and patient eyes, waiting. You took a deep breath, swinging the contents of your bottle back and forth, and continued, “I’m scared that if I do tell him, it’s going to change our relationship and then I’ll lose him completely. At least if I don’t say anything, he’s still my friend, and I get to keep being in his life.”

He regarded you for a moment, brows furrowed thoughtfully, as he decided on his next words. It was no easy feat to try on honesty the way you just did, having so carefully avoided it for your entire life, and he was well aware of it. The slight tremble in your hands was a dead giveaway.

“And I think that’s completely understandable,” he finally said. “There’s always going to be a trade-off, no matter what you choose to do. But I guess you have to weigh up which one means more to you, and if you’re willing to take that risk on the chance that it does work out between you two. I’m only telling you what I think you should do. You’re the one who knows your own feelings the best.”

Another silence fell over the two of you again. Your bottle was nearly empty now, the beer inside already lukewarm from being out of the cooler for too long. Jongin let out a cheer as the ball sailed over his head, landing far behind him on the grass and ignoring Baekhyun’s flagrant attempts at contesting the point. Even under the patio lights, he was still so pretty, cheeks pink and glowy, the shape of his mouth so endearing as it settled into a pout. By now, you were used to the longing, and paid it no mind as it filled your chest with a bittersweet warmth.

“Aren’t you two best friends though?” you asked, the thought suddenly occurring to you. “You’re telling me you don’t know anything about how he feels about… whatever is going on?” The look you gave Chanyeol was suspicious, but he stood strong, resisting your prying eyes.

“I wouldn’t be much of a best friend if I went around blabbing to you about his feelings, would I?” was his response, accompanied by an elusive smile. There was something in his words that lingered in your mind, some important detail you felt as if you had overlooked, but his amused expression gave you nothing to hold onto. “You’re both so clueless,” he chuckled after a beat of your thoughtful silence, downing the rest of his drink.

Baekhyun was skipping over now, having officially lost 18-21 to Jongin, who was heartily celebrating his victory with a series of hoots and giggles. He headed straight for you, hair all messed up from running his hands through it during the game, and a rosy flush to his face, though you weren’t sure if that was from the game or the glass that he had left at the ping pong table. When he wrapped his arms around you and buried his head in your shoulder, you knew that it was probably the latter.

“I lost the game,” he whined, petulant and firm against you. His hair tickled your chin, and you could smell the faint scent of his shampoo from his shower after the beach.

“Are you drunk already?” you asked, trying to mask your breathlessness at his proximity with a few giggles. Baekhyun’s affinity for physical contact was the worst — or best, depending on how you looked at it — when he had alcohol in his system, and it didn’t take much to push him past the borders of sobriety. His ache for touch and affection was most often relieved on you, and you always obliged, gladly and readily letting him take whatever it was he wanted.

The tip of his nose brushed back and forth against your skin as he shook his head. “Just a little, tiny bit,” he said, voice muffled, and you felt the warmth of his breath through your t-shirt.

“Where’s the love for your best friend?” Chanyeol teased, the only one amused at the way Baekhyun had dived straight into your arms without even sparing him a glance. 

The boy in your arms didn’t even falter, only snuggling further into you. “You know it’s because she’s my favourite,” he murmured, lips skimming your collarbone ever so softly as he spoke. The panic onset was instantaneous, and you prayed he was too drunk to pick up on the sudden rapid thundering of your heartbeat inside your chest. You tried to look at Chanyeol for help, but he was setting off across the patio, taking up Jongin on his invitation for a match with the promise that he would wipe the floor with the younger boy.

Baekhyun only hummed contentedly, oblivious to the havoc he was wreaking inside you, tightening his hold around you when you made a half-hearted attempt to wriggle out of his arms. His pink lips set into another rounded pout, brows slightly creased as he pulled back to look at you.

“You know you’re my favourite, right?” he asked, trying to be convincing despite the slight slur to his words. You could only nod, letting a small smile twist the corners of your mouth upwards. Whether he realised or meant what he was saying, you weren’t all that concerned, simply happy to bask in the warmth of his full attention knowing it was probably just nonsensical babble brought on by the drink in his belly. It was so much easier to be close to him when he was like this, hazier, and sure to forget most of what he had said the morning afterwards. It didn’t hurt that you were also starting to feel a little blurrier around the edges, the beer from earlier making its way through your system and leaving behind a pleasant fuzziness that made it all the more tempting to come clean about your feelings. But you weren’t quite there yet, and you had no plans to get to that point tonight.

Seemingly satisfied with your answer, he curled back up into you. With your hands around his back, you could feel the steady rhythm of his heart, the comfortingly even beat of it through his rib cage. It was so easy to imagine this was the way it had always been, and would always be, so easy to slip into the fairytale you often found yourself fabricating when your one-sided longing became too much to contain. It would be so nice if you could live in this moment forever, you thought. But was this small pocket of peace worth risking your entire friendship?

“I wish you’d stop running away from me,” he murmured, or at least that’s what you thought he said. It was a little difficult to concentrate when his lips were grazing your skin again, lightly feathering across your neck as the words shaped his mouth on their way out of it. 

And then you felt it, the unmistakable and deliberate press of his lips against your collarbone, the gentle pressure and the slight moisture on your skin from it searing through you like a lit trail of gasoline. This time, he had to have heard the stilted gasp that escaped your mouth.

He lifted his head slowly to look at you again, searching your face with glassy eyes — for what, you weren’t quite sure. The only things you were sure of right now were the fiery burn in your cheeks, and the deafening pounding of your heart that echoed between your ears. 

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, though his expression was nowhere near as apologetic as his words would have you believe. If anything, his gaze on you was almost daring, waiting to see how you’d respond, if you’d shrink back into yourself like you always did when he got too close and crossed that invisible boundary you only danced around. If you’d run away from him the way he had just said he wished you wouldn’t. Or if you’d let him push you over too, just this once.

Seeing the hesitation in your face, he slowly extricated from you, retracting his limbs and warmth until they hung limply by his sides again. Scratched the back of his head. Let his eyes wander around the patio and settle on anything except for you. 

“I’m going to see if Kyungsoo needs any help with cleaning up,” he said quietly, not waiting for your response as he headed back into the house. The drink had made his gait unsteady, and you felt him sway against the doorframe as he brushed past you. A chilling unease began to settle in the pit of your stomach as you watched him go, the shape of his back getting smaller and smaller as he was swallowed by the light of the living room. 

Try as you might, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted, and that there was a possibility it had not been in the direction you had hoped for.

Perhaps the second glass of wine had been a little overambitious, you realised, staring up at the ceiling of your shared bedroom. Kyungsoo had been so excited about the 2012 Shiraz he had brought from home, pouring you a full glass with an enthusiasm he didn’t often display. You couldn’t say no, and you didn’t protest when he refilled it a short while later. If he noticed the faster-than-usual speed with which you drained its contents, he did not show it. Whilst alcohol tended to put people to sleep, it had the opposite effect on you, dangling sleep in front of you like a carrot you could never get a hold of easily, or for long. That second glass of wine was the reason you were lying in bed, not soundly asleep like you wished, but keenly aware of every breath and every movement from the other occupant of the room, only an arm’s length away from you.

Baekhyun had spent most of the night with Chanyeol out on the patio, drinking and laughing under the generous light of the moon. Even if he wasn’t purposely avoiding you, you felt his absence from your side sorely. He didn’t say much during the wind down for bed either, only asking if you wanted the curtains fully shut, to which you gave an affirmative. Still, a sliver of moonlight speared through the gap between them, illuminating the room just enough that if you turned your head to the side, you could make out the outline of his body beneath the covers and acquaint yourself with the familiar curve of his nose.

It was only fair that the wine, having taken your sleep, offered something in return to mark an honourable trade. That something manifested itself in the restlessness of your mouth, which battled against the remaining rationality of your mind. Loose-lipped and anxious, you dug your nails into the palm of your hand, willing the war inside your head to approach a ceasefire. You did not want to make a fool of yourself in the intimacy of this small room. 

However, your resolve could not last for long, corroded by the hours spent without his presence, without the familiar warmth of his touch, without his little comments meant only for you as he pointed out something silly or poked fun at Jongin’s whining. Barely above a whisper, you called out his name, letting your voice permeate the darkness. It was loud enough that he’d hear it above the silence, but soft enough that he could ignore it if he so wished, and you’d attribute his ignorance to the deepness of sleep.

There was a second of silence, which he followed with an answering hum and a shuffle of his legs on the mattress. He was awake, and he was waiting for you to speak.

“Are you mad at me?” you asked the ceiling. 

“No, I’m not mad at you,” was his reply, accompanied by a quiet sigh. He was conversing with the ceiling too, just as reluctant to face you.

Your hands twisted the sheets in dissatisfaction. The even tone of his voice indicated truth, but his answer didn’t explain why he had spent the whole night outside without calling for you even once, when he usually couldn’t last half an hour without pressing into your side and tickling your shoulder to grab your attention. 

“Then what?” you probed, cringing at the whiny edge to your voice. 

He was quiet for a while, letting your words hang in the air, that for a moment you thought he wouldn’t speak, that your brief conversation had already come to an end, and you’d be left with unanswered questions as bedside companions for the night. There was another rustling from his side of the room as he settled himself under the covers.

“Sometimes, I think I want too much from you,” he finally said. He was quiet, but you heard every word with the clarity as if they had been projected through a stereo system. “And you can’t give me everything I want, but that’s not your fault. It’s an indication of my own greed and selfishness more than anything else.”

You kicked around at your sheets to signal your unrest at his words. “I don’t think you are greedy or selfish. At all. At least not with me.” If anything, you were the selfish one, wanting all his smiles and touches for yourself, wanting the entire spectrum of his existence to only ever be shown to you. Your generosity only ever came to light when it was in service of him, gladly letting him take your attention, your time, allocating space in your mind for him and him only. 

Baekhyun only laughed a soft and short laugh at your reply, the sound so different from the usual one filled with boisterous joy that you had grown the most used to. You heard him turn over in his bed to face you. In the quiet darkness of the room, the focus of his gaze flooded over you, and the intensity of it was so blinding you didn’t dare to look away from the smoothness of the ceiling, fearing you’d smoulder into ash the moment you locked eyes with him.

“You know that you are a really important person to me. You know that, right?” he asked, eyes searing into you with the force of a thousand suns. “I mean, everyone else is also important because they’re my friends, but you’re different — you are a special person to me. I don’t see you the way I see Chanyeol, or Jongin, or anyone else.” 

His words were still tinged with the slight slur of the beer from out on the patio, but you could feel the delicate care with which they were chosen and spoken. Something was different about tonight. You could taste it in the thick air between the two of you, feel it in the wire-taut tension stretching across the gap between your two twin beds. Your fingers dug into the comforter, willing the turbulence in your chest to subside.

He paused and took a deep breath, as if bracing himself against something devastating. “I don’t want the same things with them as I do with you.”

You held your breath until you felt the pain of deprivation in your chest.

“But I’ve made peace with the fact that what I want from you, and the way I feel about you, are things I’ll have to carry with me. They’re things I have to bear the weight of alone. I don’t — I would never want you to be uncomfortable, or see me differently.” There was a slight catch in his voice at the end.

You didn’t even know if your lungs were still working while you listened to him speak. There was a surrealness to the night, as if everything had been covered in a blanket of haze and everything that was transpiring was the product of a fever-induced dream, existing on an alternate timeline.

Baekhyun… it didn’t even feel right thinking it.

Baekhyun had feelings for you? And he had convinced himself it was one-sided?

“It’s pretty selfish, isn’t it? Asking you to act like things between us won’t change after everything I just said,” he laughed, but there was little humour in the sound. You finally turned your head to look at him, the wry curve of his mouth catching the moonlight as he gazed at you. He was smiling, the shape of it meant to comfort you, but he could not hide the sadness weaved into the downturn of his eyes. He had always been braver than you, perhaps not in the aspect of riding roller-coasters, but certainly in his ability to be honest and open about his emotions, regardless of whether they were good or bad. 

It was your turn to be brave now, and shed your own fear to meet him where he stood.

“I’ve been seeing you differently for a while now,” you admitted, turning under the sheets to fully face him. You were grateful for the darkness, hoping that it would conceal the heat creeping up your neck and face, painting your cheeks with a hot blush that accompanied the start of your confession. His brows furrowed slightly as he tried to process your words, confusion settling in the crease between them. You held yourself back from reaching out to smooth them over.

“What do you mean?”

“What makes you think you’re the only one who feels this way?” you asked instead, leaving his question unanswered. There was a tremble in your voice as you spoke, and you were sure he heard it above the quiet of your bedroom. It was the closest you could get to telling him without actually telling him about the silent battle that had been raging in your head for the last few months. 

This was it, you thought. He had to know now.

“Am I not?”

The weight of his stare pressed against you, drawing you to him with the tangible pull of gravity. The eyes that roamed your face had replaced their previous confusion with questioning, and a glimmer of something akin to hope. He had never looked more beautiful and devastating than he did right now. You felt the light of dawn breaking over your skin, a promise of something new and good sure to follow. Its warmth simmered within you, staving off the chill of the late summer night with a heat that had you pushing off your covers in a hurried frenzy and rising to sit on the edge of your bed, toes just grazing the floorboards beneath you. Would you still have had the same nerve to face him in the daylight, rough and exposed without the lulling comfort of darkness? Would he still look at you, unpolished and flawed in the clarity of the sun, the same way, with the reverence of man at the sight of an angel? 

Baekhyun mirrored you and sat up on his own bed, slowly, as if not wanting to spook you, fearing you’d run off and retreat back into the confined familiarity of your own head. His knees knocked against yours in the small space between your two mattresses. You jolted at the feeling of his skin on yours, having gone without it for so long that the mere touch was like the first drop of water after emerging from the desert. He made to move away, trying to shuffle across the length of the bed, but stilled at the hand you placed just over his knee, willing him to stay put. Surely, he could feel the beat of your heart thrumming through your fingertips.

It was your turn to be brave now.

Fueled by the second glass of Shiraz and the muted encouragement of darkness, before you could second guess yourself and overthink every possible negative outcome of what you were about to do, you closed your eyes and leant towards him. Slowly, inch by inch, until your journey ended with the soft, tentative press of your lips against his. It was short and chaste, nothing more than a gentle pressure, and you pulled back when you felt his lips part in surprise.

“Does that answer your question?” you whispered, heart in your throat. 

There it was. You had gone and done it. 

His eyes were closed, and in the dim moonlight peeking through the curtain, you could almost make out each of his eyelashes, fluttering dark and soft against the smooth skin of his cheek. For a few seconds, the room was filled only with the sounds of your breathing as you waited for his reaction, for the consequences of your actions and what that meant for your friendship with him. 

Then you heard it — his soft laugh, coloured with appreciative disbelief, and felt the air of it caress your face. The corners of his mouth curved upwards into a small, pleased smile. His eyes blinked open slowly, taking you in with a hunger that had desire curling in the pit of your stomach.

“You are just so…” he began, but you never found out just exactly what you were. He was already pulling you back into him, slotting his mouth against yours like they were always made to fit perfectly together. This time, the kiss was anything but chaste, the sheer force of it enough to scorch your insides down to your bones. His arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush towards him, and your knees parted around his thighs to adjust to the new position. Your own hands found purchase in the softness of the hair at the nape of his neck, desperate for something to anchor yourself to, in fear that the realisation of this moment would somehow make it slip away.

This was what it felt like to stand unafraid and bare in the light of unbridled wanting, to consume and be consumed by a ravenous appetite with no propensity for satiety. When his hands slipped past the hem of your sleep tank, fingertips grazing across the skin of your lower back, you were sure you could erupt into flames. He swallowed the breathy noise that escaped your lips, tongue brushing against yours as he claimed your mouth with his own. 

This was what it felt like to hold the sun in the palm of your hand.

When you broke apart to catch your breaths, his eyes were bright, lips plump and swollen, chest heaving beneath your hands. Somehow, you had ended up back on his bed, his head against the pillows, hands under your shirt and keeping you close to him with an unforgiving hold. He was gazing up at you with a devotion that made your heart swell even more than it did pulling oxygen back into your lungs.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a really long time,” he admitted, hiding his head into the crook of your shoulder. You felt his abashed smile against your skin and wondered how it could be possible that you had contained all of this, the longing, the yearning, inside you for so long.

“How long?” you asked, hearing the smile in your own voice.

“Since Chanyeol’s birthday, when you wore that brown sweater with the little bow on the back.”

Last year, Chanyeol had gotten everyone together at his place for a nice dinner and wine followed by a binge watch of all the Iron Man movies in one sitting. It was all going according to plan until a quarter of the way into the third one, when he began snoring at his own birthday gathering. The bowl of popcorn was sliding out of his hands and sure to make a buttery mess all over the rug, and that’s when the rest of you decided to turn the television off and call it a night. Sehun and Jongin tasked themselves with getting the birthday boy into bed, and likely collapsed onto it with him immediately after, while Baekhyun had offered you the couch, assuring you he’d be fine with the blankets on the floor. At the time, you hadn’t thought much of it. As chaotic as he could be, Baekhyun was nothing if not kind, and you had been grateful that his kindness had always extended to you over the three years you had known each other.

“But that was more than half a year ago. Why didn’t you say something sooner?” 

His fingers prodded into your sides, eliciting a few choked giggles from you. “I didn’t know how you’d react. You know you’re not the most expressive person on the planet,” he said dryly. “Or the most observant. I literally frenched your collarbone and you’re telling me you didn’t realise I liked you more than as a friend?”

“Okay, well when you put it like that,” you huffed, feeling the vibrations of his laugh through his chest. “But you really didn’t know I had feelings for you? Chanyeol never said anything?”

His movements stilled, leaning back into the pillows so he could lock eyes with you again. “You talk to Chanyeol about me?” he asked, to which you nodded sheepishly. “Since when?”

“Last month, Jongdae’s housewarming. He fished it out of me after dinner,” you sighed, picturing his smug grin under the lights of Jongdae’s fancy new kitchen when you realised that you had slipped up and let him in on your little secret. 

“But I talk to him about you.”

You looked at each other for another beat, realisation breaking over the both of you, before dissolving into another fit of disbelieving giggles. Maybe Park Chanyeol did know how to keep his mouth shut after all.

“So he’s a terrible wingman, is what I’m getting out of this whole thing,” Baekhyun chuckled, rolling you over so you were now lying on your side, face to face with him. He planted a slow, sweet kiss on your lips, taking his time to acquaint himself with the shape and taste of your mouth, and you felt the contentment of his smile against you. “I can’t believe we could have gotten together a month ago. Some best friend he is.”

“Gotten together?” you echoed, one eyebrow raised in feigned dispute, delighting in the way his sweet mouth settled into the pout that you adored.

“You mean to tell me that you don’t want to be with me after your tongue was all up in my mouth?”

You pushed his face away, groaning, “Gross, don’t say it like that.” He, however, had different plans, hooking a calf behind your knees and tugging you back into him, before weaving the other leg in between your own.

“You know you like it,” he murmured into your neck, squeezing his arms around you just in case you’d disappear if he didn’t hold on tight enough. One hand traced absent-minded circles over the grooves of your spine as he breathed you in, warm and familiar against your chest. 

Yes, you thought, you’d risk any and everything for this exact moment. It was worth all the doubt and heartache, all the time spent replaying those moments in your head, unsure of the meaning behind his actions. You could be sure of it now.

“I do,” you agreed, threading your fingers through the softness of his hair. “I probably more than like you,” you added, tilting his face upwards to steal another kiss, giddy and chest swelling with affection. Perhaps you weren’t quite yet ready for that other four letter word, but you had no doubt you would be one day, and soon. He was all too willing to comply, letting his mouth mould against yours with the poise and patience of a saint. 

“I probably more than like you too,” he replied, punctuating his confession with one final kiss to the tip of your nose. It was enough for the serene smile on your face to persist, even past the arrival of sleep.

“I knew it.”

You cracked one eye open, trying to adjust to the light flooding in through the open door to your room. Chanyeol stood at the foot of your bed, grinning from ear to ear with what could only be described as a look of triumph as he took in the scene before him. The boy next to you stirred lightly, digging his face deeper into the pillow, reluctant to leave the realm of the sleeping. Chanyeol was not in the least sympathetic to his friend’s struggles, striding over to the window and pulling back the curtains with a clang. You winced as the full force of the morning sun barged in, and Baekhyun let out a soft noise of displeasure at the intrusion.

“I fucking knew it,” Chanyeol said again, quickly bringing you to your senses as you registered the weight of another body on top of your own. You made to remove yourself from him, fighting the flush creeping up your neck and face, but it was an effort which proved futile as he only tightened the arm around your waist, loath to let you go. 

“Can you be quiet? You’re going to wake the whole house,” you hushed, finally succeeding in untangling your legs from Baekhyun’s, feeling the loss of his warmth immediately.

“They’re already up. I came to call you for breakfast,” Chanyeol replied, the grin seemingly stuck to his face. “Which actually reminds me,” he began, before sticking his head out of the doorway to holler, “You better pay up, Jongin. And you too, Kyungsoo!”

“You bet on us?” came the groggy voice from the pillows behind you.

“What the hell, Chanyeol? I thought you said you didn’t go around blabbing about his feelings!” you exclaimed, indignant.

“To you. I never said anything about telling anyone else,” was his reply, smug and victorious at having outsmarted you.

Kyungsoo appeared in the doorway, donning a flour-covered apron, as if to confirm for himself that he was in fact a debtor to the taller boy. “Even if he didn’t say anything, it wasn’t all that hard to figure out,” he said lightly, surveying the room with curiosity and paying no mind to the shock painted on your face. How had everybody known about your now not-so-secret crush on Baekhyun except for the man himself? “Anyways, I only said that it would be unlikely to happen over this weekend, not that it was impossible. So Jongin is the only loser. Now come for pancakes.” And with that, he headed back towards his bowl of batter on the kitchen counter, chuckling at the sound of Jongin’s complaints against fulfilling his end of the wager.

Baekhyun, having somewhat freed himself from the clutches of sleep, rose to a sitting position and shot a drowsy scowl at his friend. “You’re kind of an asshole, you know that right?”

But even the expletive could not put a damper on Chanyeol’s mood, his smile never slipping. “You two should honestly be thanking me,” he said, to which you also shot him a glare. “Also, I’m happy for you and everything, but can you please keep the PDA to a minimum in front of the rest of us? I will lock you out of the house if you don’t.”

Baekhyun turned to you, the creases of the frown on his face slowly but surely smoothing out as he took you in, cheeks puffy and hair a mess from having just woken up. He had seen you in worse states, and definitely in better states, but none of that seemed to matter as he regarded you with nothing but fondness in his eyes. You were sure that your expression mirrored his, affection spreading throughout your entire body, reaching even the tips of your fingers and toes, at the sight of his tousled bed head, the sleepy droop of his eyes, the sweet pinkness of his lips. 

The sun was yours. There was no feasible way to stop the smile from blooming across your entire face.

“No promises.”

#tysm for the reblog and feedback 😖 #im so happy you enjoyed this!!! #honestly was super shocked when i saw this in my activity #i adoreeee your college sehun fic #receiving praise from the author of one of my favourite fics is surreal omg...

[kaleidohscopic]

I loved in the dying summer sun so much 😭 I can't believe that was your first long fic and that you were nervous to post such a masterpiece!!! Seriously a beautiful piece

hiii! thank you so so much for the kind words and i am so glad you enjoyed it!! always a little daunting to put something out there for the first time ever which is why i rlly appreciate this sm, brings me comfort knowing that people do actually like it hehe 😌 thank u again for the sweet ask, you made my day!! <3

#first ask woo!!! #answered

[kaleidohscopic]

IN THE DYING SUMMER SUN — BBH

PAIRING: baekhyun x female reader SUMMARY: a weekend up at the beach house might just be enough to make you crack and come clean about your little (big, fat) crush. alternatively, park chanyeol is possibly the worst wingman ever. GENRE: friends to lovers! au, crush! baekhyun, romance, fluff, a pinch of angst, pining, humour WARNINGS: swearing, alcohol consumption, sexual tension!!, slightly suggestive, reader and baekhyun are both kind of clueless tbh WORD COUNT: 9.4k NOTE: happy birthday baekhyun!! thought it would be fitting to start off this blog with a fic for bbh on his birthday. this was supposed to be a 4-5k piece of fluff but somehow it ended up being double that and a lot more serious than i originally intended (oops?). kinda nervy posting such a long fic for the first time ever so feedback is most certainly welcome and i hope you enjoy!

“You definitely rigged this.”

Chanyeol only rewarded you with a shit-eating grin.

The scrap of paper couldn’t weigh more than a few grams, but in your hands, they felt like the barbell plates at the gym that he could never leave alone. Especially since a certain someone was also holding another scrap of paper with ‘ground floor twin room’ hastily scrawled across it.

You shook your head vehemently, fixing the tall boy with a dagger-like stare that he seemed completely unfazed by. “I demand a redraw.”

“Which is not going to happen,” was his gleeful response. “We all agreed — no take-backs before picking.” The hat that you had all drawn out of, now empty, was tossed on the coffee table as everyone else began to move their bags into their freshly chosen rooms. Somewhere down the hallway, Jongin tripped over the wheels of his suitcase, his pained groan and Kyungsoo’s laughter bouncing against the walls of the AirBnb.

“Besides,” Chanyeol continued, hand coming up to ruffle your hair, “if I had actually rigged it, you should be thanking me. I’d be doing you a favour.” He gestured towards Baekhyun, who was busying himself with packing his hoodie back into his duffle bag, hopefully oblivious to the fact that the two of you were conspiring about him less than three metres away. 

“Yeah, say it any louder, why don’t you. And no, that wasn’t an invitation,” you warned, catching the wicked glint in Chanyeol’s eyes. He opened his mouth, as if to make good on your request and let the whole house know, only to choke back a groan at the elbow you shoved into his side. Behave, said the glare that you shot at him. His replying smile was anything but reassuring, before he picked up his bag and headed upstairs.

That was what you got for getting a little too drunk at Jongdae’s housewarming get-together last month and accidentally slipping up about your big, fat, debilitating crush on Baekhyun after the third glass of pinot noir in one night. If it had been anyone else made aware of your juvenile secret, you would probably be feeling a little less uneasy — but it just had to be the one person who couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life. Not to mention Park Chanyeol was a terrible wingman, having heard about the ridiculous escapades he put Jongdae through before he finally cuffed his girlfriend. Lucky for you, you were now getting to experience it first-hand.

“I can ask Jongin to swap, if you really don’t want to room with me,” came a soft voice from your right. Baekhyun regarded you with an expectant, if somewhat hesitant expression. 

“No, it’s okay,” you replied, trying your best to mask the panic that was fighting its way into your voice. It would be just your luck, that he would think your reluctance to share a sleeping space with him was because you didn’t like him enough, and not that you liked him a little too much. The slight furrow in his brow seemed to melt away with your words. “I just wanted the big room with the queen bed, but somehow Chanyeol got it. I seriously think he did something to these,” you said, waving your slip of paper that matched the one he was holding.

Come to think of it, you and Baekhyun had also been the last ones to draw out of the hat, since Chanyeol had insisted on going counter-clockwise around the dining table. How he managed to game the room allocations was beyond you, but you were now almost certain that he did.

“It’s good that he’s by himself though. The snoring would drive anyone mad,” Baekhyun mused, and you had to chuckle in agreement. 

“That time he passed out at my place after Saturday drinks…I genuinely thought I’d end up with a murder charge that night.” you said, chest squeezing at the way his eyes crinkled into crescent moons at your words. You busied yourself with your own bag, hoping he wouldn’t see the dumb smile on your face, and be able to tell how pleased you were to have teased a laugh out of him. Laughter was not something he usually withheld — he gave it freely, if not a little too generously — but it always did a funny thing to your heart when you were the cause of it. 

“Definitely can’t have that. Pretty face like yours would not last a day in jail.” With one hand around his own duffle, he draped the free one around your shoulders, letting the warmth of his arm wrap around you as you headed down the corridor to the room you’d be sharing for the weekend.

Having a crush on Baekhyun was no big deal. Probably even normal, if his college days were anything to go by. But what made it so debilitating was things like this — the little comments he’d throw around that could easily be passed off as just friendly flirting if you were so inclined, though you sometimes let yourself imagine his intentions came more from the flirting than the friendly part. He was a generally touchy person too, never missing a chance to pat Kyungsoo’s ass when the opportunity arose, but sometimes the brush of his fingers against the inside of your wrist felt a little too affectionate for two people united solely through friendship, even if you were the only one who internally crossed that line a while ago. It was things like this that made you question, every once in a while, if your feelings were as one-sided as you believed. Most of the time though, you chalked it up to his disposition, his easy-going magnetism, and concluded that whatever signals you thought he was sending were merely due to your overactive imagination running wild with hopes that he felt the same way.

“Dibs left,” he said, plopping down on the twin bed closer to the window. His arms raised above his head in a long, yawning stretch, revealing a thin strip of skin at the waistband of his jeans. Just the sight of it was enough to control your blood, sending a rush of it to your face, and you internally cursed yourself for being so weak to such a small thing. It was obvious you had been alone for way too long. He was too comfortable to notice the flush on your cheeks, eyes shut and enjoying the tension leaving his body after the long drive up.

You sat yourself down carefully on the remaining bed, noting the gap between the two mattresses. Whether you wanted to push them together or against opposite walls of the room, you couldn’t be sure. It was hard to form coherent thoughts when he turned to you with a boyish playfulness that curled the corner of his mouth upwards.

“You’re not going to sleepwalk your way into my bed, are you?” he asked, chin in his hand, a teasing glint in his eyes. You tried hard to catch yourself from choking on your own saliva.

“I’ve been known to kick in my sleep,” was your reply, voice much more nonchalant than you thought you were capable of, given that he had just planted the seed of the two of you sharing a twin mattress that was definitely not big enough to lie down on without touching in at least three different places. The glint in his eyes faded immediately, giving way to thinly-veiled concern at the threat underlying your words.

“I was kidding,” you clarified when he sat up and started to back away from you. “At least, I haven’t done that for fifteen or so years. But you never know, it might come back again tonight, when you’ve finally fallen asleep, and then BAM! Foot to the face. You better sleep with your eyes open, Byun Baekhyun,” you warned, giggling at the realisation dawning over his face before his pretty features settled into mock annoyance.

“You just think you’re so funny, don’t you?” He was on all fours now, making his way towards you with a wolfish grin. In no time, he had crawled over the gap between your two beds and suddenly his fingers were prodding at your ribs. It was a well-planned tickle attack, and one you had no chance of escaping from, since his legs had caged you in and the rest of him was pinning you down. You were helpless against the ambush of his fingers, succumbing to them with gasping giggles, punctuated by desperate pleas for him to stop. He showed no intention of letting up, fingers digging even deeper into your waist.

If you were going to die like this, you thought, at least you’d be dying while lying under him.

“When you two are done canoodling, we’re going to go set up on the beach,” came a voice from the doorway. Baekhyun’s merciless fingers paused, and the two of you looked back to see Chanyeol’s amused face at the foot of your bed, smirking like he knew some big secret that neither of you were privy to. God, you were seriously regretting that third glass at Jongdae’s new apartment last month.

Baekhyun turned back to you, your noses almost touching, and you could feel the air from his exhales fanning against the skin of your cheek. There was a mole just above the corner of his mouth that you don’t think you had ever noticed before. Warmth from his jean-clad legs radiated into your hips and meandered up and down your spine, and suddenly the late summer air around you was becoming sticky and heavier than usual. 

As if just now noticing the proximity you were in, he slowly untangled himself from your limbs, making sure not to crush you in the process. You sat up, still breathless, having just calmed down enough for full inhales again, but so was he, you noted. Surely tickling wasn’t that exertive of an activity? Or maybe you’d put up a better fight than you had thought.

“Don’t forget your towels,” was the last thing Chanyeol said before he ducked out, yelling at Jongin to grab the beach umbrellas, not the rain ones. There were a few seconds just filled with the sounds of your slowing breathing.

“I’m going to go get changed,” Baekhyun said, turning around to dig through his bag for his swim shorts. You couldn’t see his expression, but you could hear the slight tremble in his voice that indicated he hadn’t quite recovered from whatever was afflicting him. “We’ll probably just be setting up the umbrellas, so no rush, just come down when you’re ready.” As he turned around to head towards the bathroom, he flashed you that familiar smile, the one that always resulted in one of your own to mirror his, and set you at ease again. 

“And make sure you bring your sunscreen,” he added, before disappearing down the hallway. You watched him go, throwing yourself back onto the bed with a frustrated groan once you were sure he was out of earshot. Two whole days and nights in this tiny room, in the languid death of summer, with his body just an arm’s length away from yours — you had no idea how much of this you could stomach and emerge with your sanity intact.

This was shaping up to be the longest weekend ever.

The afternoon sun was unforgiving when you emerged from the house. Though you had thrown on a cover up before leaving, you could feel the heat tingling on the surface of your skin through the thin cotton. From the top of the bushy path leading down to the beach, you could already hear the tell-tale signs of a competition brewing between the boys, even if you couldn’t quite see them yet. A few steps down and you could make out their figures, managing to catch the view of Chanyeol flipping backwards off the jetty before plunging into the water, where the rest of them were bobbing around. Baekhyun’s voice floated above the others the way it always did when he was teasing, liltingly distinguishable, though perhaps that was only because you were now so attuned to it that other voices naturally started to sound more foreign. 

It was hard to pinpoint exactly when he went from Baekhyun, your friend who tended to get a little too rowdy after half a can of beer, to Baekhyun, your friend who made your heart pick up a little faster when you thought of him. One day his hiccuping laugh was teetering on the edge of obnoxiousness, and then all of a sudden it became endearing to hear the raw joy in his voice. If you knew exactly when the switch flipped, maybe you’d be able to retrace your steps and stop yourself from ever setting off down this path to end up where you were now, watching the sunlight glisten against his wet face with an overwhelming affection, wondering what it would be like to be the private audience of his radiant smile everyday.

You set your things down on the sand next to the pile of clothes and towels that were already there, recognising Chanyeol’s hat somewhere in the mix. The beach umbrella that Jongin had set up was already beginning to lurch towards one side, the brim rather close to the ground. Fixing it back in place and digging it into the sand a little deeper, you let out a fond laugh — some things, like the way Jongin used his hands like they weren’t his own, would stand the test of time. 

You had hoped that your friendship with Baekhyun would be one of those things, but the more time you spent casting longing glances his way when he wasn’t looking, the more you weren’t sure if you could ever recover from his rejection if you ever did decide to be honest about your feelings towards him. So you did your best to bury them, content to enjoy his company in the way you were both familiar with, afraid that if they did surface, they’d taint your friendship with something unpleasant and irreversible. If you couldn’t own the sun, at least you could still revel in its warmth.

Satisfied with the position of your towel underneath the shade of the umbrella, you looked back at the water, returning Baekhyun’s sweeping wave with a small one of your own. It was just enough of a distraction for Chanyeol to turn around as well, and Baekhyun seized the opportunity to dunk him, gleefully howling as the taller boy’s head disappeared below the waves. Before Chanyeol could resurface and enact his retaliation, Baekhyun was already making his escape, swimming towards the shore with fearful determination. Chanyeol made to follow, but upon seeing you sitting on the beach with your eyes fixed on Baekhyun’s approaching figure, he thought better of it, turning back around to continue the diving evaluation as Jongin took his turn to leap off the jetty.

With an amused smile, you watched as Baekhyun hurried out of the ocean, wet hair flying in all directions and flicking droplets of seawater across the sand. The water trickled down the planes of his bare torso, and you tried to keep your eyes away from the firmness of his pec, or the flexing movements of his abdominals as he made his way over to you. One thing was for sure — the gym sessions with Chanyeol were paying off. 

When he finally reached you, Baekhyun slumped onto your towel, ignoring your protests for him to stay away, and proceeded to soak you in the remaining water that was still clinging to his body. The skin of his stomach was cool against your calf, and he giggled delightfully at your attempts to push him off to avoid getting more water onto your clothes.

“Stop trying to fight it, you’re going to get wet when you go in anyway,” he said, finally rolling off you.

“I wasn’t planning on going in. I’m scared you’ll try to drown me,” you huffed, lightly flicking some sand onto his shoulder with your toe. He turned back around, chin cradled in his left hand, and flashed you a boyish smile.

“I would never do that,” he said, though the glint in his eyes was anything but convincing. “Besides, what are you going to do at the beach if you’re not getting in the water?”

You picked up the book nestled in between your shoes and waved it at him. “Read, of course.” He regarded the worn paperback with amused disbelief, eyebrows slightly raised. It was only when you flipped the book open to the paperclip you’d been using as a bookmark that he realised you were serious, and let out a scoff that was laced with something akin to fondness.

“You are such a cliche. Pretty girl reading at the beach? Unbelievable, seriously,” he said, before wriggling his head into your stomach, relishing in your shocked squeals as your cover up began to dampen again. His mischief had left a few wet patches on the fabric that were beginning to stick to your body in the uncomfortable fashion of late summer. You reached for the hem, pulling it off not without some struggle, and immediately felt the sun kissing against your bare shoulders. Though you were mostly covered by the shade from the umbrella, the last thing you wanted was a blistering sunburn where the straps of your tote bag usually rested, so you grabbed the sunscreen you had so diligently packed and began applying it on the parts of your skin that were exposed.

Baekhyun had gone uncharacteristically quiet. If you had been paying attention to him instead of so attentively rubbing the cream into the underside of your knee, perhaps you would have noticed the way his eyes lingered on you for a little longer than would have been polite. They followed the path your hands took, from the expanse of skin below your neck, across your stomach, and down the length of your legs.

“Do you want me to do your back?” he blurted, his voice a little more strained than usual. He was wearing an odd expression on his face, something you couldn’t quite place, but it was different from the usual playful one you were most well acquainted with. Nevertheless, you agreed, passing him the tube and turning around so your back was facing him.

His fingers were still cold from the water, and you jumped when they first made contact with your skin. He only laughed, squeezing both hands around your shoulders to hold you still before he got back to work again.

The first graze of his hands across your shoulders was tentative. You could feel the heat of him behind your back, the smell of salt and sun clinging to the air around you. His breaths fanned the skin on the back of your neck, sending goosebumps down your arms and legs despite the thick heat of the afternoon. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. Slowly, his hands made their way down to your lower back, and it was then that you realised you might be in trouble. His hands pressed against the grooves of your spine, curving ever so slightly around your waist, and if you shivered, he pretended not to feel you tremble in his grasp. 

It was when his fingers slipped underneath the ties of your bikini top that the alarm bells began to go off in your head. His movements were hesitant, fingers stuttering in their dance across your skin before they gingerly pulled the strings aside to spread the sunscreen between the top and bottom halves of your back. It was too much, feeling his warmth, knowing there was only an inch of space between your bare torsos, having his hands on you doing such a thorough job with the task he had assigned to himself. When the tips of his fingers brushed the side of your ribs, just under the edge of the fabric, you couldn’t help the breathy noise that escaped your lips. 

“Actually, I think I left something back at the house,” you said suddenly, words hurriedly running into each other as they tripped over your tongue on the way out of your mouth. Twisting away from his dangerous touch, you bolted to a stand and hoped he’d attribute the pinkness of your cheeks to being outside in the brightness of the afternoon. Your words came out staggered, the slight tremble in your voice betraying the composure you were fighting so hard to maintain. 

Baekhyun’s gaze was careful, if not a little confused. The more his eyes ran over you, the more you were sure that the depth of your feelings towards him were beginning to surface on your face. Another second and he’d be able to tell, he’d figure out the little secret you’d been trying to conceal for the last couple of months. And then you wouldn’t be able to deny its existence anymore. 

So you fled, tossing a rushed promise to be right back over your shoulder before scurrying up the bushy path again. Away from the scrutiny of his eyes, away from the truth you did not want revealed to the world. The ghost of his touch lingered between your shoulder blades and along the ridges of your spine, your body already committing to memory the caress of his skin against yours. You realised then, that it would not be possible to continue living on as usual, now that you knew the taste of his closeness, as fleeting as it may have been.

“I think you should just go for it.”

Your fingers tightened around the glass at his words. Chanyeol’s tone was light and pragmatic, speaking as if the act of unfurling your heart were nothing more than a decision about whether to have steak or pork belly for dinner. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you scoffed, bringing the bottle to your lips.

“I’m serious though,” he continued, nudging your arm with the lip of his own beer. “I think you should just tell him, and see what he says. And stop expecting the worst. You’ll never know how things could turn out if you never do anything.”

You let your head fall back to lean on the doorframe you were both standing against, gazing out at the patio that had begun to darken following the sunset. Baekhyun and Jongin were placed at opposite ends of the ping pong table that had been wheeled out of the living room after dinner, neither seeming to mind the soft prick of grass at the underside of their bare feet. Whether the game was proceeding well was difficult to deduce, since both were sporting wide grins and rosy cheeks, courtesy of the glasses in their hands — but judging by the cluster of orange balls around Baekhyun’s feet, you had an inkling that victory would not be his. He didn’t seem to mind yet, laughing gleefully as Jongin swung his racquet too hard and launched a ball over the fence. 

“Not everyone is as good as you when it comes to talking about their feelings, you know,” you said, fixing Chanyeol with a knowing look that was halfway between admiration and resentment. If you only had his courage of expression, perhaps you would’ve put an end to your suffering a while ago. Ripped the band-aid off cleanly instead of peeling away at it, day by day, bit by bit, until it was hanging on by the last of its adhesive. You weren’t sure how much longer your resolve could last, if it would even survive this weekend without snapping under the force of your attraction.

He only shrugged. “You can’t get good without actually doing it.” You pondered his words in the short silence that settled while you both took another sip. He was right, of course, you knew that, but it didn’t make hearing it any easier.

“I think… I’m just scared,” you began slowly. Realising you were about to put his advice into action, Chanyeol turned to you with reassuring and patient eyes, waiting. You took a deep breath, swinging the contents of your bottle back and forth, and continued, “I’m scared that if I do tell him, it’s going to change our relationship and then I’ll lose him completely. At least if I don’t say anything, he’s still my friend, and I get to keep being in his life.”

He regarded you for a moment, brows furrowed thoughtfully, as he decided on his next words. It was no easy feat to try on honesty the way you just did, having so carefully avoided it for your entire life, and he was well aware of it. The slight tremble in your hands was a dead giveaway.

“And I think that’s completely understandable,” he finally said. “There’s always going to be a trade-off, no matter what you choose to do. But I guess you have to weigh up which one means more to you, and if you’re willing to take that risk on the chance that it does work out between you two. I’m only telling you what I think you should do. You’re the one who knows your own feelings the best.”

Another silence fell over the two of you again. Your bottle was nearly empty now, the beer inside already lukewarm from being out of the cooler for too long. Jongin let out a cheer as the ball sailed over his head, landing far behind him on the grass and ignoring Baekhyun’s flagrant attempts at contesting the point. Even under the patio lights, he was still so pretty, cheeks pink and glowy, the shape of his mouth so endearing as it settled into a pout. By now, you were used to the longing, and paid it no mind as it filled your chest with a bittersweet warmth.

“Aren’t you two best friends though?” you asked, the thought suddenly occurring to you. “You’re telling me you don’t know anything about how he feels about… whatever is going on?” The look you gave Chanyeol was suspicious, but he stood strong, resisting your prying eyes.

“I wouldn’t be much of a best friend if I went around blabbing to you about his feelings, would I?” was his response, accompanied by an elusive smile. There was something in his words that lingered in your mind, some important detail you felt as if you had overlooked, but his amused expression gave you nothing to hold onto. “You’re both so clueless,” he chuckled after a beat of your thoughtful silence, downing the rest of his drink.

Baekhyun was skipping over now, having officially lost 18-21 to Jongin, who was heartily celebrating his victory with a series of hoots and giggles. He headed straight for you, hair all messed up from running his hands through it during the game, and a rosy flush to his face, though you weren’t sure if that was from the game or the glass that he had left at the ping pong table. When he wrapped his arms around you and buried his head in your shoulder, you knew that it was probably the latter.

“I lost the game,” he whined, petulant and firm against you. His hair tickled your chin, and you could smell the faint scent of his shampoo from his shower after the beach.

“Are you drunk already?” you asked, trying to mask your breathlessness at his proximity with a few giggles. Baekhyun’s affinity for physical contact was the worst — or best, depending on how you looked at it — when he had alcohol in his system, and it didn’t take much to push him past the borders of sobriety. His ache for touch and affection was most often relieved on you, and you always obliged, gladly and readily letting him take whatever it was he wanted.

The tip of his nose brushed back and forth against your skin as he shook his head. “Just a little, tiny bit,” he said, voice muffled, and you felt the warmth of his breath through your t-shirt.

“Where’s the love for your best friend?” Chanyeol teased, the only one amused at the way Baekhyun had dived straight into your arms without even sparing him a glance. 

The boy in your arms didn’t even falter, only snuggling further into you. “You know it’s because she’s my favourite,” he murmured, lips skimming your collarbone ever so softly as he spoke. The panic onset was instantaneous, and you prayed he was too drunk to pick up on the sudden rapid thundering of your heartbeat inside your chest. You tried to look at Chanyeol for help, but he was setting off across the patio, taking up Jongin on his invitation for a match with the promise that he would wipe the floor with the younger boy.

Baekhyun only hummed contentedly, oblivious to the havoc he was wreaking inside you, tightening his hold around you when you made a half-hearted attempt to wriggle out of his arms. His pink lips set into another rounded pout, brows slightly creased as he pulled back to look at you.

“You know you’re my favourite, right?” he asked, trying to be convincing despite the slight slur to his words. You could only nod, letting a small smile twist the corners of your mouth upwards. Whether he realised or meant what he was saying, you weren’t all that concerned, simply happy to bask in the warmth of his full attention knowing it was probably just nonsensical babble brought on by the drink in his belly. It was so much easier to be close to him when he was like this, hazier, and sure to forget most of what he had said the morning afterwards. It didn’t hurt that you were also starting to feel a little blurrier around the edges, the beer from earlier making its way through your system and leaving behind a pleasant fuzziness that made it all the more tempting to come clean about your feelings. But you weren’t quite there yet, and you had no plans to get to that point tonight.

Seemingly satisfied with your answer, he curled back up into you. With your hands around his back, you could feel the steady rhythm of his heart, the comfortingly even beat of it through his rib cage. It was so easy to imagine this was the way it had always been, and would always be, so easy to slip into the fairytale you often found yourself fabricating when your one-sided longing became too much to contain. It would be so nice if you could live in this moment forever, you thought. But was this small pocket of peace worth risking your entire friendship?

“I wish you’d stop running away from me,” he murmured, or at least that’s what you thought he said. It was a little difficult to concentrate when his lips were grazing your skin again, lightly feathering across your neck as the words shaped his mouth on their way out of it. 

And then you felt it, the unmistakable and deliberate press of his lips against your collarbone, the gentle pressure and the slight moisture on your skin from it searing through you like a lit trail of gasoline. This time, he had to have heard the stilted gasp that escaped your mouth.

He lifted his head slowly to look at you again, searching your face with glassy eyes — for what, you weren’t quite sure. The only things you were sure of right now were the fiery burn in your cheeks, and the deafening pounding of your heart that echoed between your ears. 

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, though his expression was nowhere near as apologetic as his words would have you believe. If anything, his gaze on you was almost daring, waiting to see how you’d respond, if you’d shrink back into yourself like you always did when he got too close and crossed that invisible boundary you only danced around. If you’d run away from him the way he had just said he wished you wouldn’t. Or if you’d let him push you over too, just this once.

Seeing the hesitation in your face, he slowly extricated from you, retracting his limbs and warmth until they hung limply by his sides again. Scratched the back of his head. Let his eyes wander around the patio and settle on anything except for you. 

“I’m going to see if Kyungsoo needs any help with cleaning up,” he said quietly, not waiting for your response as he headed back into the house. The drink had made his gait unsteady, and you felt him sway against the doorframe as he brushed past you. A chilling unease began to settle in the pit of your stomach as you watched him go, the shape of his back getting smaller and smaller as he was swallowed by the light of the living room. 

Try as you might, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted, and that there was a possibility it had not been in the direction you had hoped for.

Perhaps the second glass of wine had been a little overambitious, you realised, staring up at the ceiling of your shared bedroom. Kyungsoo had been so excited about the 2012 Shiraz he had brought from home, pouring you a full glass with an enthusiasm he didn’t often display. You couldn’t say no, and you didn’t protest when he refilled it a short while later. If he noticed the faster-than-usual speed with which you drained its contents, he did not show it. Whilst alcohol tended to put people to sleep, it had the opposite effect on you, dangling sleep in front of you like a carrot you could never get a hold of easily, or for long. That second glass of wine was the reason you were lying in bed, not soundly asleep like you wished, but keenly aware of every breath and every movement from the other occupant of the room, only an arm’s length away from you.

Baekhyun had spent most of the night with Chanyeol out on the patio, drinking and laughing under the generous light of the moon. Even if he wasn’t purposely avoiding you, you felt his absence from your side sorely. He didn’t say much during the wind down for bed either, only asking if you wanted the curtains fully shut, to which you gave an affirmative. Still, a sliver of moonlight speared through the gap between them, illuminating the room just enough that if you turned your head to the side, you could make out the outline of his body beneath the covers and acquaint yourself with the familiar curve of his nose.

It was only fair that the wine, having taken your sleep, offered something in return to mark an honourable trade. That something manifested itself in the restlessness of your mouth, which battled against the remaining rationality of your mind. Loose-lipped and anxious, you dug your nails into the palm of your hand, willing the war inside your head to approach a ceasefire. You did not want to make a fool of yourself in the intimacy of this small room. 

However, your resolve could not last for long, corroded by the hours spent without his presence, without the familiar warmth of his touch, without his little comments meant only for you as he pointed out something silly or poked fun at Jongin’s whining. Barely above a whisper, you called out his name, letting your voice permeate the darkness. It was loud enough that he’d hear it above the silence, but soft enough that he could ignore it if he so wished, and you’d attribute his ignorance to the deepness of sleep.

There was a second of silence, which he followed with an answering hum and a shuffle of his legs on the mattress. He was awake, and he was waiting for you to speak.

“Are you mad at me?” you asked the ceiling. 

“No, I’m not mad at you,” was his reply, accompanied by a quiet sigh. He was conversing with the ceiling too, just as reluctant to face you.

Your hands twisted the sheets in dissatisfaction. The even tone of his voice indicated truth, but his answer didn’t explain why he had spent the whole night outside without calling for you even once, when he usually couldn’t last half an hour without pressing into your side and tickling your shoulder to grab your attention. 

“Then what?” you probed, cringing at the whiny edge to your voice. 

He was quiet for a while, letting your words hang in the air, that for a moment you thought he wouldn’t speak, that your brief conversation had already come to an end, and you’d be left with unanswered questions as bedside companions for the night. There was another rustling from his side of the room as he settled himself under the covers.

“Sometimes, I think I want too much from you,” he finally said. He was quiet, but you heard every word with the clarity as if they had been projected through a stereo system. “And you can’t give me everything I want, but that’s not your fault. It’s an indication of my own greed and selfishness more than anything else.”

You kicked around at your sheets to signal your unrest at his words. “I don’t think you are greedy or selfish. At all. At least not with me.” If anything, you were the selfish one, wanting all his smiles and touches for yourself, wanting the entire spectrum of his existence to only ever be shown to you. Your generosity only ever came to light when it was in service of him, gladly letting him take your attention, your time, allocating space in your mind for him and him only. 

Baekhyun only laughed a soft and short laugh at your reply, the sound so different from the usual one filled with boisterous joy that you had grown the most used to. You heard him turn over in his bed to face you. In the quiet darkness of the room, the focus of his gaze flooded over you, and the intensity of it was so blinding you didn’t dare to look away from the smoothness of the ceiling, fearing you’d smoulder into ash the moment you locked eyes with him.

“You know that you are a really important person to me. You know that, right?” he asked, eyes searing into you with the force of a thousand suns. “I mean, everyone else is also important because they’re my friends, but you’re different — you are a special person to me. I don’t see you the way I see Chanyeol, or Jongin, or anyone else.” 

His words were still tinged with the slight slur of the beer from out on the patio, but you could feel the delicate care with which they were chosen and spoken. Something was different about tonight. You could taste it in the thick air between the two of you, feel it in the wire-taut tension stretching across the gap between your two twin beds. Your fingers dug into the comforter, willing the turbulence in your chest to subside.

He paused and took a deep breath, as if bracing himself against something devastating. “I don’t want the same things with them as I do with you.”

You held your breath until you felt the pain of deprivation in your chest.

“But I’ve made peace with the fact that what I want from you, and the way I feel about you, are things I’ll have to carry with me. They’re things I have to bear the weight of alone. I don’t — I would never want you to be uncomfortable, or see me differently.” There was a slight catch in his voice at the end.

You didn’t even know if your lungs were still working while you listened to him speak. There was a surrealness to the night, as if everything had been covered in a blanket of haze and everything that was transpiring was the product of a fever-induced dream, existing on an alternate timeline.

Baekhyun… it didn’t even feel right thinking it.

Baekhyun had feelings for you? And he had convinced himself it was one-sided?

“It’s pretty selfish, isn’t it? Asking you to act like things between us won’t change after everything I just said,” he laughed, but there was little humour in the sound. You finally turned your head to look at him, the wry curve of his mouth catching the moonlight as he gazed at you. He was smiling, the shape of it meant to comfort you, but he could not hide the sadness weaved into the downturn of his eyes. He had always been braver than you, perhaps not in the aspect of riding roller-coasters, but certainly in his ability to be honest and open about his emotions, regardless of whether they were good or bad. 

It was your turn to be brave now, and shed your own fear to meet him where he stood.

“I’ve been seeing you differently for a while now,” you admitted, turning under the sheets to fully face him. You were grateful for the darkness, hoping that it would conceal the heat creeping up your neck and face, painting your cheeks with a hot blush that accompanied the start of your confession. His brows furrowed slightly as he tried to process your words, confusion settling in the crease between them. You held yourself back from reaching out to smooth them over.

“What do you mean?”

“What makes you think you’re the only one who feels this way?” you asked instead, leaving his question unanswered. There was a tremble in your voice as you spoke, and you were sure he heard it above the quiet of your bedroom. It was the closest you could get to telling him without actually telling him about the silent battle that had been raging in your head for the last few months. 

This was it, you thought. He had to know now.

“Am I not?”

The weight of his stare pressed against you, drawing you to him with the tangible pull of gravity. The eyes that roamed your face had replaced their previous confusion with questioning, and a glimmer of something akin to hope. He had never looked more beautiful and devastating than he did right now. You felt the light of dawn breaking over your skin, a promise of something new and good sure to follow. Its warmth simmered within you, staving off the chill of the late summer night with a heat that had you pushing off your covers in a hurried frenzy and rising to sit on the edge of your bed, toes just grazing the floorboards beneath you. Would you still have had the same nerve to face him in the daylight, rough and exposed without the lulling comfort of darkness? Would he still look at you, unpolished and flawed in the clarity of the sun, the same way, with the reverence of man at the sight of an angel? 

Baekhyun mirrored you and sat up on his own bed, slowly, as if not wanting to spook you, fearing you’d run off and retreat back into the confined familiarity of your own head. His knees knocked against yours in the small space between your two mattresses. You jolted at the feeling of his skin on yours, having gone without it for so long that the mere touch was like the first drop of water after emerging from the desert. He made to move away, trying to shuffle across the length of the bed, but stilled at the hand you placed just over his knee, willing him to stay put. Surely, he could feel the beat of your heart thrumming through your fingertips.

It was your turn to be brave now.

Fueled by the second glass of Shiraz and the muted encouragement of darkness, before you could second guess yourself and overthink every possible negative outcome of what you were about to do, you closed your eyes and leant towards him. Slowly, inch by inch, until your journey ended with the soft, tentative press of your lips against his. It was short and chaste, nothing more than a gentle pressure, and you pulled back when you felt his lips part in surprise.

“Does that answer your question?” you whispered, heart in your throat. 

There it was. You had gone and done it. 

His eyes were closed, and in the dim moonlight peeking through the curtain, you could almost make out each of his eyelashes, fluttering dark and soft against the smooth skin of his cheek. For a few seconds, the room was filled only with the sounds of your breathing as you waited for his reaction, for the consequences of your actions and what that meant for your friendship with him. 

Then you heard it — his soft laugh, coloured with appreciative disbelief, and felt the air of it caress your face. The corners of his mouth curved upwards into a small, pleased smile. His eyes blinked open slowly, taking you in with a hunger that had desire curling in the pit of your stomach.

“You are just so…” he began, but you never found out just exactly what you were. He was already pulling you back into him, slotting his mouth against yours like they were always made to fit perfectly together. This time, the kiss was anything but chaste, the sheer force of it enough to scorch your insides down to your bones. His arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush towards him, and your knees parted around his thighs to adjust to the new position. Your own hands found purchase in the softness of the hair at the nape of his neck, desperate for something to anchor yourself to, in fear that the realisation of this moment would somehow make it slip away.

This was what it felt like to stand unafraid and bare in the light of unbridled wanting, to consume and be consumed by a ravenous appetite with no propensity for satiety. When his hands slipped past the hem of your sleep tank, fingertips grazing across the skin of your lower back, you were sure you could erupt into flames. He swallowed the breathy noise that escaped your lips, tongue brushing against yours as he claimed your mouth with his own. 

This was what it felt like to hold the sun in the palm of your hand.

When you broke apart to catch your breaths, his eyes were bright, lips plump and swollen, chest heaving beneath your hands. Somehow, you had ended up back on his bed, his head against the pillows, hands under your shirt and keeping you close to him with an unforgiving hold. He was gazing up at you with a devotion that made your heart swell even more than it did pulling oxygen back into your lungs.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a really long time,” he admitted, hiding his head into the crook of your shoulder. You felt his abashed smile against your skin and wondered how it could be possible that you had contained all of this, the longing, the yearning, inside you for so long.

“How long?” you asked, hearing the smile in your own voice.

“Since Chanyeol’s birthday, when you wore that brown sweater with the little bow on the back.”

Last year, Chanyeol had gotten everyone together at his place for a nice dinner and wine followed by a binge watch of all the Iron Man movies in one sitting. It was all going according to plan until a quarter of the way into the third one, when he began snoring at his own birthday gathering. The bowl of popcorn was sliding out of his hands and sure to make a buttery mess all over the rug, and that’s when the rest of you decided to turn the television off and call it a night. Sehun and Jongin tasked themselves with getting the birthday boy into bed, and likely collapsed onto it with him immediately after, while Baekhyun had offered you the couch, assuring you he’d be fine with the blankets on the floor. At the time, you hadn’t thought much of it. As chaotic as he could be, Baekhyun was nothing if not kind, and you had been grateful that his kindness had always extended to you over the three years you had known each other.

“But that was more than half a year ago. Why didn’t you say something sooner?” 

His fingers prodded into your sides, eliciting a few choked giggles from you. “I didn’t know how you’d react. You know you’re not the most expressive person on the planet,” he said dryly. “Or the most observant. I literally frenched your collarbone and you’re telling me you didn’t realise I liked you more than as a friend?”

“Okay, well when you put it like that,” you huffed, feeling the vibrations of his laugh through his chest. “But you really didn’t know I had feelings for you? Chanyeol never said anything?”

His movements stilled, leaning back into the pillows so he could lock eyes with you again. “You talk to Chanyeol about me?” he asked, to which you nodded sheepishly. “Since when?”

“Last month, Jongdae’s housewarming. He fished it out of me after dinner,” you sighed, picturing his smug grin under the lights of Jongdae’s fancy new kitchen when you realised that you had slipped up and let him in on your little secret. 

“But I talk to him about you.”

You looked at each other for another beat, realisation breaking over the both of you, before dissolving into another fit of disbelieving giggles. Maybe Park Chanyeol did know how to keep his mouth shut after all.

“So he’s a terrible wingman, is what I’m getting out of this whole thing,” Baekhyun chuckled, rolling you over so you were now lying on your side, face to face with him. He planted a slow, sweet kiss on your lips, taking his time to acquaint himself with the shape and taste of your mouth, and you felt the contentment of his smile against you. “I can’t believe we could have gotten together a month ago. Some best friend he is.”

“Gotten together?” you echoed, one eyebrow raised in feigned dispute, delighting in the way his sweet mouth settled into the pout that you adored.

“You mean to tell me that you don’t want to be with me after your tongue was all up in my mouth?”

You pushed his face away, groaning, “Gross, don’t say it like that.” He, however, had different plans, hooking a calf behind your knees and tugging you back into him, before weaving the other leg in between your own.

“You know you like it,” he murmured into your neck, squeezing his arms around you just in case you’d disappear if he didn’t hold on tight enough. One hand traced absent-minded circles over the grooves of your spine as he breathed you in, warm and familiar against your chest. 

Yes, you thought, you’d risk any and everything for this exact moment. It was worth all the doubt and heartache, all the time spent replaying those moments in your head, unsure of the meaning behind his actions. You could be sure of it now.

“I do,” you agreed, threading your fingers through the softness of his hair. “I probably more than like you,” you added, tilting his face upwards to steal another kiss, giddy and chest swelling with affection. Perhaps you weren’t quite yet ready for that other four letter word, but you had no doubt you would be one day, and soon. He was all too willing to comply, letting his mouth mould against yours with the poise and patience of a saint. 

“I probably more than like you too,” he replied, punctuating his confession with one final kiss to the tip of your nose. It was enough for the serene smile on your face to persist, even past the arrival of sleep.

“I knew it.”

You cracked one eye open, trying to adjust to the light flooding in through the open door to your room. Chanyeol stood at the foot of your bed, grinning from ear to ear with what could only be described as a look of triumph as he took in the scene before him. The boy next to you stirred lightly, digging his face deeper into the pillow, reluctant to leave the realm of the sleeping. Chanyeol was not in the least sympathetic to his friend’s struggles, striding over to the window and pulling back the curtains with a clang. You winced as the full force of the morning sun barged in, and Baekhyun let out a soft noise of displeasure at the intrusion.

“I fucking knew it,” Chanyeol said again, quickly bringing you to your senses as you registered the weight of another body on top of your own. You made to remove yourself from him, fighting the flush creeping up your neck and face, but it was an effort which proved futile as he only tightened the arm around your waist, loath to let you go. 

“Can you be quiet? You’re going to wake the whole house,” you hushed, finally succeeding in untangling your legs from Baekhyun’s, feeling the loss of his warmth immediately.

“They’re already up. I came to call you for breakfast,” Chanyeol replied, the grin seemingly stuck to his face. “Which actually reminds me,” he began, before sticking his head out of the doorway to holler, “You better pay up, Jongin. And you too, Kyungsoo!”

“You bet on us?” came the groggy voice from the pillows behind you.

“What the hell, Chanyeol? I thought you said you didn’t go around blabbing about his feelings!” you exclaimed, indignant.

“To you. I never said anything about telling anyone else,” was his reply, smug and victorious at having outsmarted you.

Kyungsoo appeared in the doorway, donning a flour-covered apron, as if to confirm for himself that he was in fact a debtor to the taller boy. “Even if he didn’t say anything, it wasn’t all that hard to figure out,” he said lightly, surveying the room with curiosity and paying no mind to the shock painted on your face. How had everybody known about your now not-so-secret crush on Baekhyun except for the man himself? “Anyways, I only said that it would be unlikely to happen over this weekend, not that it was impossible. So Jongin is the only loser. Now come for pancakes.” And with that, he headed back towards his bowl of batter on the kitchen counter, chuckling at the sound of Jongin’s complaints against fulfilling his end of the wager.

Baekhyun, having somewhat freed himself from the clutches of sleep, rose to a sitting position and shot a drowsy scowl at his friend. “You’re kind of an asshole, you know that right?”

But even the expletive could not put a damper on Chanyeol’s mood, his smile never slipping. “You two should honestly be thanking me,” he said, to which you also shot him a glare. “Also, I’m happy for you and everything, but can you please keep the PDA to a minimum in front of the rest of us? I will lock you out of the house if you don’t.”

Baekhyun turned to you, the creases of the frown on his face slowly but surely smoothing out as he took you in, cheeks puffy and hair a mess from having just woken up. He had seen you in worse states, and definitely in better states, but none of that seemed to matter as he regarded you with nothing but fondness in his eyes. You were sure that your expression mirrored his, affection spreading throughout your entire body, reaching even the tips of your fingers and toes, at the sight of his tousled bed head, the sleepy droop of his eyes, the sweet pinkness of his lips. 

The sun was yours. There was no feasible way to stop the smile from blooming across your entire face.

“No promises.”

#baekhyun #exo baekhyun #byun baekhyun #baekhyun x reader #exo x reader #baekhyun fanfic #baekhyun fluff #baekhyun au #exo au #exo fluff #kaleidohscopic works baekhyun

[kaleidohscopic]

hi there!

hello tumblr, i'm finally typing out my first real post on this blog that i've had sitting around for a decade! i'm hoping to use this as a writing blog to dump the idea mess that exists in my brain.

i will be writing for exo and nct. don't really have a plan as to updates or schedules since this is more of an outlet for me, so please don't expect consistency!

hope you enjoy :)

#hello world #new blog #about #exo scenarios #nct scenarios

[kaleidohscopic]

The Edge of Summer

Author’s Note: happy birthday @kyungseokie​ !! this has been sitting in my wips since january when i attempted to write this for his birthday. and that…came and went like a lightning bolt so here we are. im finally tossing this into the wild! wanted this up an entire hour ago but my internet died so T~T HAPPY BIRTHDAY I LUV U! Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader (oc; female) Universe: this is an installment to the Did You See universe however Kyungsoo does not have a full story. this will be the only story centering on him | you do not need to read the other stories to understand, enjoy, or appreciate this one Genre: friends to lovers; fluff; romance; angst; au Summary: As summer comes to a close, your friends make the annual trek to the lake house for one last hurrah. You’ve done this before - countless times, but this year Baekhyun brings his new girlfriend along with him and this, of course, means some plans have to change. You just have no idea how much will change by the end of the trip.  Rating: PG-13 Warnings: some strong language; a lot of lust; baekhyun being the worst wingman to exist; it gets pretty spicy by the end but like..only if you squint? just playing it safe yall Word Count: 13.1K

It is only when Kyungsoo’s hand falls delicately into his lap, fingers grazing your thigh with the aimless of touch of nonchalance that you decide:

If you make it out alive, you are going to kill Baekhyun.

Keep reading

[kaleidohscopic]

Pink (A Sehun One-Shot)

Genre: Humor / Fluff / Smut (18+) / Neighbor!AU

Pairing: Sehun x You

Description: You run into your attractive neighbor in an unexpected place.

Word Count: 11.4K

A/N: This story is a Secret Santa gift for Alba @messyscriptorium , I was so excited to receive Alba for the gift exchange as part of @kpoptrashnetwork ’s Secret Santa Project / Holiday Haul, because I actually know her and because she’s an amazing human being whom I adore. Alba provided a few of her biases and Oh Sehun happened to be the very last one… I picked him because I’m feeling pretty fucking noodly lately and Alba, I hope you enjoy this story that I wrote just for you. :D I used Pink since the color pallet you provided included pastels and Neighbor!AU seemed doable to me as a one shot.

Also thank you to @dancinghell666 for coming up with the location for the opening scene of this story. :D it was perfect! 

It wasn’t your scene. The neon lights and bright colors when you walked through the door and that smell, what was that smell? Like a layer of industrial cleaner over something flowery and just below that was something else. Something dirty and biological maybe. Most definitely. You eyed the rows of red curtain covered doorways that lined the back wall with the sign at the top that read, in an innocuous font, a simple and nowhere near as explanatory as it should have been, “viewing rooms.” Your mind flashed to the sign on the front door with the scary message.

‘Absolutely no persons under the age of 18 allowed to enter.’

You wanted to leave.

Well, you kinda wanted to leave.

Keep reading

[kaleidohscopic]

And Onward

photocreds to whoever that watermark belongs to; its too small to see aaah!

Themes: fluff, college AU (based on american college tropes because that’s all i know, sorry), classmates-to-friends-to-lovers, romance, slice-of-life, feminist!sehun because he it just came out that way, new beginnings, his mom ships you, finding the right person after trial and error, personal growth sort of, endless tomorrows 

Pairing: jock!Sehun x fem!Reader

Description: Our life experiences change us in many ways – sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, but most of the time simply for the future. 

Word Count: ~almost 11k

A/N: This stems from a dream I had, not really about LMR!Sehun, but about the kind of love that is pure and unflinching, even if it is timid to start. While it’s long, it’s not a complex fic – it is straightforward, simple, and linear on purpose, to highlight how time lapses and people progress. There’s much more to Sehun/MC’s relationship than is written here – use your own experiences and perspectives to fill in the blanks. People change and develop in different ways and under different circumstances, and not all memories are as sharp as others, so the ambiguity in this fic’s pacing is intended for you to experience in your own mind. 

Consider this a love letter to any uni students doing their best during a pandemic. You are doing wonderfully, and I am so deeply apologetic that a tricky global situation has robbed you of some of your formative years. Please let this piece be a source of comfort for you and a reminder that things will return to normal and that life will continue to be lived in the not-too-distant future.   

As usual, unedited. It’s also been a while since I’ve written a oneshot (or any fiction for that matter), so please bear with stylistic foibles.

Keep reading

[kaleidohscopic]

CAN’T HANDLE THIS — N.JM.

SUMMARY. how are you supposed to explain that you and na jaemin started dating just to prove each other wrong and ended up catching feelings.

PAIRING.na jaemin x female! reader GENRE. strangers to lovers, college! au, matchmaking! au, yet another richkid! au, jaemin is an asshole again, romance, humor. WARNINGS.excessive swearing, a near death experience, drinking and smoking, more than a handful of illegal shit, mentions of vomit, blood, violence, too much sexual tension it’s unhealthy, again jaemin is kind of a dick but he’s an attractive dick, jaemin also likes it when you tell him his personality is trash. WORD COUNT. 16k TAGLIST. @alwayswithjaemin @carelessshootanonymous @sundamariis @nominsgirl @shentingz @jvjsssnaa @neozws @urfavtallgirl @dakneeee @wonforgyu @fullsunbabe @luv4jeno @rxnexxi @argooose @jaemsushi​ @stopeatread​ @lovesuhng​ @jaehyunicrecream @byunbaekcult​ @haedgaf​ @sehunniepot​ @lebrookestore​ @ghouerry​ @lanadreamie @rum-gone-why​ @ririlovesrenjun​

NOTE. upon posting the preview, this was already set out to be a one-dimensional word vomit on my most favorite guilty pleasure— jaemin being a weirdo and an asshole— but as i kept writing, i accidentally gave it a little more depth and development and oopsies. there’s 6k more words than the estimation. but this is still essentially plotless, mindless, and self-indulgent. 

hope you enjoy this characterization of jaemin because i do. way too much. this is the first long fic i’ll be posting after a year of inactivity so feedback would be appreciated haha i’m so fucking nervous to publish this hope u all like it.

“Do I really have to go with you?”

You see, when your parents told you you were going to have dinner together with the family of your dad’s friend— explicitly mentioning that their son, who just happened to be the same age as you, would be joining— you already knew that this isn’t going to be an innocent dinner.

They think they’re slick. They act like they haven’t already done this five times before. You’re getting sick and tired, and you express your dissent once more while entering your dad’s car, pretending like you have a choice on the matter as if you hadn’t already prettied yourself up as per your mother’s request.

Keep reading

[kaleidohscopic]

pussy blocked.

Y/N’s unofficial guide on how to be a heartbreaker:

1. have fun. 2. never stay the night. 3. always be the first one to leave. 4. never hook up with the same person twice. 5. don’t fall in love with boys like lee jeno.

pairing :: lee jeno x reader genre :: angst, comedy, fluff ⋮ fuckboy/girl + college au word count :: 31,360 words warnings :: y/n has a breakdown at one point, dick jokes, sexual innuendos, implied sex but it’s like a romcom movie where we skip to the morning after because i don’t write about places where the sun doesn’t shine, and of course it’s not a luvdsc fic without a whole bunch of mutual pining playlist :: break my heart (hey violet) ⋆ lowkey (niki) ⋆ pancakes (lany) ⋆ i left a party for you (pilar victoria) ⋆ blurry (jp saxe) ⋆ slow (shy martin) ⋆ we’re fucked, it’s fine (jeremy zucker) ⋆ happiness (taylor swift) ⋆ this is how you fall in love (jeremy zucker & chelsea cutler) + extended playlist here. author’s note :: this is me putting my biggest fears on blast :’) ty to ti @m88n, steph @aqiaquas, tk god @eggyukhei, and lana @choerrypuffs for being my biggest cheerleaders !!! and especially to @wincore​ thank you for listening to all my incoherent ramblings and ideas and accepting it all within an hour of us starting to talk LOL ily moon ♡

i. the devil wears leather jackets.

“Thoughts on leather jackets?”

Yeeun hoists herself onto the scratched counter of the tiny bathroom, cheap neon strips of flashing lights pasted around the edges of the ceiling and the booming bass of the music barely muffled by the closed door. She swings her legs, the heels of her boots banging lightly against the cabinet beneath her.

“They’re cute. Why? Don’t you already have like, three of them?” Your fingers curl around the lip gloss your best friend offers to you. You thank her before you lean forward, uncapping the makeup and spreading an even, glossy coat over your lips.

“Not on me!” She taps her manicured fingers against her thigh rhythmically. “Actually, maybe on me. There’s a really good sale going on at Madewell right now. Maybe I’ll get one.”

“Another night of drunk retail therapy?” You pucker your lips, angling your face slightly to check that you had applied enough of the shimmery gloss. You quickly adjust the satin white crop top you have on that makes your boobs look phenomenal. Perfect. It’s the first party of your final year at university, and you would very much like to start it off with a bang and leave with a cute guy tonight.

“Sober me will thank me tomorrow.” She waves her hand dismissively before taking back the gloss from you and shoving it unceremoniously into her bra (because one hand holding a purse means one less hand holding a drink) before pushing herself off from her counter perch. “Anyway, you’re missing the point! What do you think of boys in leather jackets?”

You narrow your eyes at her, scrutinizing her fidgeting figure through the mirror. “Alright, spill it. Who’s this about?”

“I overheard Mark telling Yukhei that Jeno was asking about you.”

You temporarily pause in place, horror flashbacks already playing like a montage at the mention of him, before facing your friend, who’s already looking at you expectantly. “Did he say why?”

“Who knows? He started throwing up on Yukhei’s shoes, so I had to move away from the target zone.”

You wince at that. Poor Mark was always a lightweight and yet, he always accepts whatever drink Donghyuck hands him. And the latter always mixes concoctions with cheap vodka making up at least 40% of the contents.

“Isn’t this exciting though? The Lee Jeno is interested in you,” she squeals, grabbing onto your arm excitedly.

“I’ve been there. Freshman year, two minutes and beard burn. Literally, the worst experience of my life. Zero out of ten, no stars on Yelp, would swipe left on Tinder, maybe even report him to save other people from the horror.”

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[kaleidohscopic]

winter bird (M)

pairing: Jaehyun (NCT) + you (reader)

genre: exes sharing a room; angst melts to fluff in the end; smut

word count: 17.3k (i tried to keep it a decent length)

summary: The time has come for your family’s annual vacation. You’ve convinced Jaehyun to accompany you, though you broke up months ago, and pretend to be a happy couple to appease your overbearing mother. But things take a turn when you and Jaehyun are the first and only ones to arrive at the retreat.

warnings: some language; brief mentions of near death experience; explicit sexual content

a/n: listening to winter bird by aurora; this is a one-shot, there will be no sequels; check the masterlist in my description for other one-shots in this collection; happy reading!

Keep reading

[kaleidohscopic]

smashing the six | nct series (M)

there’s a notorious tradition at nct university - hookup with a player from each of the six athletic programs. bonus points awarded if you get any of them to fall in love with you. but don’t forget about neonet, nctu’s infamous social media app, where rumors get passed around like candy and no one is safe from having their business aired out for all to see.

notes: do not read if you are uncomfortable with rated scenarios. this series is for adults only. each chapter contains strong language, alcohol or marijuana use, and explicit sexual content.

disclaimer: the members are just my muses. I don’t know any of them personally and would never say that they would actually act or behave in the ways portrayed in this story.

⚾ the short stop (M)

stats: jeno lee; #23; freshman; engineering major

neonet says: given that he’s new to the area and has yet to make friends, this mystery boy seems to spend most of his time either in class or practicing on the field, but he is always on his phone.

⚽ the center forward (M)

stats: yuta nakamoto; #10; senior; kinesiology major

neonet says: rarely will you find this grade A fuck boy in class, but you are almost always guaranteed to find him vaping behind the library or hooking up with a cheerleader in the locker room.

🏐 the middle blocker (M)

stats: johnny suh; #00; senior; business major

neonet says: fresh off a very bitter breakup from a long-term relationship, you will probably find this lover boy blowing off frustration in the gym or chatting up girls at the plaza, looking for a rebound.

🏒 the left wing (M)

stats: mark lee; #02; sophomore; journalism major

neonet says: the mama’s boy can always be found in his natural habitat, doing exactly what he’s supposed to do and never stepping out of line, but he will follow the girl he loves into danger without hesitation.

🏈 the tight end (M)

stats: jaehyun jeong; #14; junior; education major

neonet says: the golden boy is typically found in his dorm room, listening to melodramatic music and getting buzzed off wine, but occasionally he comes out of hibernation to let loose like everyone else.

🏀 the point guard (M)

stats: haechan lee; #66; freshman; psychology major

neonet says: this pain in the ass can usually be found hanging around the food court, because his two favorite things in life are spicy rice cakes and being up in everybody’s business.

hey if you enjoyed this story please consider leaving me a tip or buying me a coffee so I can keep writing. my venmo is leighwashere. thank you :)

copyright 2020 - 2022 © yutaholic (formerly zenyukhei) all rights reserved do not copy or translate without my permission!

[kaleidohscopic]

if you ever get a lil sad just remember your parents didn’t call you conchobar and you’ll feel great again i promise

#conchobar #louis tomlinson #one direction