Kris sees him before anyone else. “Baekhyun!” he yells at the top of his voice. “Byun Baekhyun!”
A couple of yards away, walking away from him, Byun Baekhyun almost disappears into the crowded hallway.
“Baekhyun!”
A smaller girl bumps into Kris’ chest and he excuses himself, pushing past her and trying to make his way further down the hall. One of the tallest of his year, most of the other students come up to Kris’ collarbones and every day in the hallway feels like walking through low standing trees with clunky backpacks and books with hard edges.
Kris thinks he’s close now and if he just reaches forward a little bit he can touch the back of Baekhyun’s shirt and—
With a hard “wham!” Kris falls back, holding a hand to the front of his face.
“Oh shit!” yells Park Chanyeol, dropping his books and reaching his hands to Kris’ face. “Yo, are you okay? I didn’t see you there. What the hell were you doing—”
“Baekhyun…” says Kris a little sadly, wincing when he pulls his hand away from his face. A bruise is already forming between his Angry Bird Brows, as Chanyeol calls them.
Chanyeol laughs a little nervously, and closes the locker door Kris had bumped into. “You should really watch where you’re going,” says Chanyeol, not too unkindly. “Also, I think your not-crush on Byun Baekhyun might be a little out of control. I think it’s time to put on your big boy underwear and ask him out or something—”
“I don’t have a crush on him.” Kris discovers it’s very hard to be indignant when you think your face is about to fall apart at any second.
“Okay, okay,” says Chanyeol, smiling. He lies what he thinks to be a comforting hand on Kris’ shoulder; Kris only feels more pathetic.
“Nurse,” he says a little helplessly when he feels the blood drip from his nose.
Chanyeol flails again but then, after he’s gathered his books up, drags Kris to the nurse’s office, whoop-ing as if Kris is his horse and the other students are cattle he’s trying to lead. Kris is only a little embarrassed.
By the end of basketball practice that day, Kris is feeling a little better. Chanyeol hadn’t made any jokes about his “crush” and coach had been happy with Kris’ attentiveness. If Kris is honest with himself, he only wanted to work hard so practice can be over quicker and he can dash into the library and pretend to study a few tables away from Byun Baekhyun.
It’s not a “crush” or anything like that. Kris calls it a fascination. He’s fascinated by the way Baekhyun’s glasses sit on his nose and the fullness of his jaw and his thin lips and his nicely shaped hands and his— um, mind.
His mind is great, too. He’s intelligent, in all of the advanced classes Chanyeol is in, but Kris doesn’t see much of Baekhyun’s intelligence.
In fact, Kris thinks if he’s even more honest with himself, Baekhyun wants nothing to do with him. Though they know each other, Baekhyun never looks to see him. When Kris tries to awkwardly start a conversation about wow, nice weather we’re having or so school bites, huh, Baekhyun only looks at him, smiles and answers all of Kris’ questions with tight lipped politeness.
But Kris is too wrapped up into this budding relationship to recognize he’s unwanted. He doesn’t even know what he wants from Baekhyun—he knows it’s between chilling with him, playing video games, playing basketball or sucking his lips, his neck, down his chest, and maybe he’ll let Kris touch those shapely thighs and that ass—
But, yeah, Kris is totally not crushing on Byun Baekhyun.
He’s not.
He’s only fascinated. By his everything. It’s a normal occurrence for boys his age to be fascinated by…other people’s everything’s. It’s part of growing up, isn’t it? Obsessions and compulsions and staring at Byun Baekhyun’s fingers as they hold his pen and thinking what if Baekhyun pushed them into his mouth, what if Baekhyun pushed them into his—
It’s truly a miracle Kris doesn’t walk into lockers more often. Chanyeol is amazed. “There’s your crush,” he says as he walks Kris to the library, pointing with his chin to the boy studying by the window.
Kris stops mid-step. “I can’t do this,” he says.
“What? Walk?” asks Chanyeol, rather unhelpfully.
Kris glares at him.
“What?” Chanyeol smiles. “What are you doing? You’re just going to study next to him instead of giving in to your lesser desires to throw them across the table and stick your tongue down his—”
Kris elbows him in the gut and, taking a deep breath, walks forward through the library’s security gates. He nods a little to the head librarian, because he wants to stay on her good side, and takes a seat a table away from Baekhyun.
He only feels a little weird about staring. He doesn’t understand why he feels this way about someone he doesn’t know too well but Baekhyun’s unavailability might have something to do with it. Kris wants him more because Baekhyun doesn’t want him at all.
And it’s annoying because Kris, who pays very serious attention to his school work, hates working in the library but he can’t make himself leave, not when Byun Baekhyun is a few yards away, popping his pen in and out of his mouth.
He chews on the ends of his pens. It’s a little unsanitary and a lot gross, Kris thinks of the germs, but, he thinks a little stupidly, somehow Baekhyun makes the action not look as gross as it is. Still, Kris thinks he would rather have something else in his mouth—
His pen flies out of his hand, up over his desk, over a few more, and lands on Baekhyun’s before rolling off.
Baekhyun looks up, pen falling from his lips. “Um,” he looks around and then stops when he notices Kris staring at him, a bit shocked.
Kris comes to and stands up, fumbling off his chair. “Sorry,” he says and tries to smile a nice, friendly smile. Not the smile Chanyeol calls his “Shark Smile”; that one would probably scare Baekhyun off.
“Oh, Kris,” says Baekhyun, bending over to lift the pen off the ground and then holding it up to him. “Your pen?”
Kris nods, remembering to keep his smile toothless, and reaches for his pen.
To his surprise, Baekhyun holds it closer to himself, looking up at Kris through his glasses. “You’re kind of scary from this height,” says Baekhyun, squinting as he looks up into Kris’ face. “I would think you wanted to eat me or something if it weren’t for your smile.”
Crap, did he accidentally show his Shark Smile again? Kris bites his lower lip. “No, I don’t want to eat you,” he lies. Baekhyun looks tasty. No, wait, he’s not allowed to show that on his face. He bites his lip again and tries for another smile.
Baekhyun rolls his eyes, as if he’s heard that before, and finally hands Kris his pen back.
“Thanks,” says Kris. He scrambles for something else to say, anything else, but not anything because he really doesn’t want to start a conversation about something stupid like how Baekhyun bowl cut makes him look like a cutest fucking thing Kris has ever seen again—
“Kris.”
Kris blinks, snapping out of his daze. “Huh?”
“You’re staring,” says Baekhyun, quite calmly.
Kris feels hot under his collar, “No, I wasn’t.” He knows he’s in deep when he can’t believe his own denial.
“If you say so,” and then Baekhyun turns back to his homework, effectively dismissing their conversation.
Kris wants to say something else to bring Baekhyun’s attention back to him but there’s nothing he can say that would catch Baekhyun’s attention without embarrassing himself in the process.
It’s only later, when he’s back at his desk, that he thinks about what he would’ve done if Baekhyun stuck his pen between his lips. He dumps the pen and fishes another one from the bottom of his backpack, still uncomfortably warm. Okay, so, he might have a tiny bit of a crush, so what?
The addition of the word “crush” changes much of Kris’ actions. He’s no stranger to infatuations and has had a girlfriend (and a secret boyfriend) few years ago, so he knows that things can either go one way or another.
Baekhyun either likes him or he doesn’t. They either go out or they don’t. It’s simple. It freaks Kris out.
He stays behind long after practice is over, going through his drills and hoping the monotony will drown out his loud thoughts. He thinks of Baekhyun’s smile and how soft his lips looked around the end of his pen; how he looked up at Kris and caught him staring (because he was staring, there is no doubt about it). He thinks of how small Baekhyun is and how he would fit tucked into Kris’ side and—
The ball hits the backboard and falls, bouncing pathetically.
Kris stares at the basket, noticing for the first time the sweat weighing down his clothes and the fire of exertion under his skin. It’s late. He has homework. Coach will kill him if he sucks tomorrow because he used up all his energy today. He doesn’t remember if he called his mother to tell her he’d be late. He has a crush on a guy who isn’t interested in him at all.
He is screwed.
“You’re not screwed,” says Chanyeol the next day, patting Kris’ back.
“Am too,” Kris mumbles into his water bottle, idly playing with it in the library.
Chanyeol is here with him today, probably studying for the first time in a week. Baekhyun sits a little bit away from them, pen again in his mouth. Kris has never wanted to be a pen before, but there’s a first time for everything.
“It’ll be creepy as hell if you walk up to him and ask him out,” whispers Chanyeol, who doesn’t come to the library often and thinks the whole “must only communicate through whispers” is a valid rule. Kris knows the librarian doesn’t mind soft conversation as long as no swear words are used. He doesn’t tell Chanyeol for the hell of it.
“Get to know him,” says Chanyeol. He makes it sound like the easiest thing in the world. Kris can only imagine how that conversation will turn out. Badly.
“I don’t know,” he says, looking down at his extra Korean homework. He’s lived in Korea for five years and he still isn’t sure of his proficiency. It’s an insecurity he hides in the confident set of his shoulders and the sharpness of his eyes.
“C’mon,” says Chanyeol lightly, smiling. “Mr. Tall, Handsome Chinese Man afraid of a little Korean boy who looks like a manhwa character? I think I’ve read the manhwa of your life before, too—”
“He does not,” Kris cuts in, glancing at Baekhyun.
Though his eyes are nicely shaped and he is small, with impossibly nice hands and nice clothes and—
“Creepy. I’m sure if you keep staring at him like you want to eat him, he’ll fall in love with you in no time.”
Kris shoves him so hard Chanyeol almost falls off his seat.
There is a very real ‘don’t ask’ policy surrounding sexuality in the school environment. That had been why Kris’ last boyfriend had been a “secret” boyfriend, one that most of his friend had known nothing of. Chanyeol, his closest friend, is the only one who knows about Kris’ sometimes very male preference and Kris trusts him to keep it to himself.
Most of the time.
Chanyeol is loud without meaning to, but it’s part of his charm.
If he’s honest with himself, Kris expects his crush on Baekhyun to go nowhere. Contrary to what Chanyeol thinks, he isn’t being self deprecating or selling himself short. He doesn’t know when there would ever be time for Baekhyun to get to know him, seeing as how they’re in different years, and the only time Kris really sees him is in the library. Libraries aren’t what Kris would call romantic.
The stupid, tiny, almost insignificant crush on Baekhyun will go away on its own, he knows. It’s good, though. Kris doesn’t know what he would do with Byun Baekhyun if he had him.
He frowns over his math notes. No. No, that’s a lie. He knows what he would do with Byun Baekhyun if he had him. They would go on stupid dates to the movies or to shopping districts, and Kris would watch on in amusement as Baekhyun pointed out things he thought were cool or wanted for his own.
They would walk pressed together, but not holding hands, and Kris, because he’s stupid and he’s never liked anyone this much before, would pull Baekhyun into private dressing rooms and kiss him up against cool mirrors.
It would be stupid, Kris decides, idly erasing a decimal point near his final answer. He would introduce Baekhyun to his mother and his mother, knowing him, would do her best to thoroughly embarrass him, and they would pick on Kris all afternoon.
Kris wouldn’t mind, holding Baekhyun’s hand under the table. He would—
“Hey,” says Chanyeol, taking a seat next to him. “You okay, there? You look like you’re about to cry.” He sets his backpack down on the table and Kris remembers he’s in the library, of all places.
Byun Baekhyun is, the last time Kris had looked, working on his homework a few tables away.
“I’m fine,” says Kris, scratching the back of his head with his pencil.
Chanyeol, with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head, frowns. “Hey,” he whispers. “Don’t… don’t turn around or anything.”
Kris freezes, his pencil eraser against his neck. “What?”
“He’s staring at you.” Chanyeol’s eyes flicker from Kris’ face to somewhere over Kris’ right shoulder and then back.
Kris gulps, “Who is?”
Chanyeol shows off why his ex called him “Teeth Rich.” “Who else, Romeo? Mr. Byun Baek. Turn around all slow and cool-like.”
Kris doesn’t think he knows how to turn around all “cool-like.” He swallows down the pressure in his throat, feeling like he’s about to barf, and slowly turns his head.
Baekhyun waves at him, all prim and proper in his nicely ironed school uniform. He smiles as he turns back to his work and Kris feels a little lightheaded.
“Look at you,” Chanyeol teases in a sotto voice, smiling as he pulls out his textbook. “Romancing a guy you don’t even know. That’s some talent.”
“I’m not…” Kris feels an itch on the back of his neck but forces himself to look forward.
Chanyeol laughs, “You know I can talk to him if you want, right? He’s in my class.”
“Don’t,” says Kris. He has horrible middle school memories of his friends playing telephone for him and his crush. It had been amazing how easily his emotions had been distorted. “I’ll…I’ll do something,” he promises, fiddling with his pencil.
Byun Baekhyun had been looking at him. Looking at him. Kris is too old to freak out.
So what if he’s felt this annoying attraction for almost six months now and it’s really pathetic how much he likes a bowl cut, really. Baekhyun’s bowl cut. Bowl cuts aren’t even cool.
There’s no basketball practice that afternoon so Kris finishes most of his homework in the library. He’s distracted. Chanyeol keeps poking him and letting him know when Baekhyun’s eyes have found themselves on their table again.
“This guy, really,” mumbles Chanyeol. “He’s annoying me. If he wants to be your friend already, he should just come and sit here. Kris, invite him over.”
“What?” Kris feigns normalcy and tries not to yell at Chanyeol out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m not inviting him over here. We don’t even know him.” “
You’re an idiot,” says Chanyeol. “You walk into lockers because of him. This is the perfect moment to just turn to him and say—Oh. Hey Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun? He stands by their table now, looking too cute with a pen behind his ear.
“Hi Chanyeol,” says Baekhyun and then his eyes move over to Kris.
Kris hopes he isn’t flushing, but he feels heat flood his chest and he hopes he isn’t being completely obvious.
Chanyeol swears under his breath.
Okay, so he might actually be totally obvious about this crush thing. Chanyeol’s not helping.
“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol suddenly says. “You should help me with our English homework. Sit with us.”
Kris looks at Chanyeol with something akin to horror on his face.
“Ah, actually I came over to borrow a pen,” he says. “This is a little…” He laughs a little, his cheeks turning a little pink. “I think I’ve lost mine. I can’t find it.”
Kris’ heart somersaults in his chest.
Chanyeol looks bewildered. “You’ve…” His eyes flicker to Baekhyun’s ear. “You’ve lost your pen?”
Baekhyun nods, “I was reading and I set it down somewhere, but now I can’t find it and—“
Before he can lose his nerve and puke all over the table, Kris stands. Baekhyun stops talking and looks up at Kris, eyes luminous. “Wow, you’re really tall,” he breathes.
Kris feels as though he’s missed a step while walking down stairs. He pulls Baekhyun’s pen out from behind his ear and holds it up to his face. “Your pen,” he says.
Baekhyun’s face floods pink, “Are you a magician?”
Chanyeol snorts, “Oh my god—“
“It…it was behind your ear,” Kris explains.
“Wow, I’m dumb,” says Baekhyun, plucking the pen from his fingers. “How embarrassing…”
God, Kris could just kiss him and never stop.
Still sitting by the table, Chanyeol dramatically falls on his notes and groans. Kris thinks he hears “stupid boys” dropping from his lips.
“I’ll let you get back to your work now,” says Baekhyun. His face is still pink.
“You can join us,” says Kris, though he doesn’t recognize his voice and he doesn’t know how he still has the coherency totalk to Baekhyun. He must be possessed.
Baekhyun smiles, “You wouldn’t mind?” The way he says “you” sends a shot of something dark and powerful through Kris’ body. He knows now it’s definitely a crush, possibly the biggest crush his stupid heart has ever had the misfortune to take up, and it doesn’t feel like he’s going to stop any time soon.
“I wouldn’t.”
There are a lot of things Kris wouldn’t mind doing with Baekhyun. He can admit to himself studying had never been in the forefront of his mind, but you have to start somewhere.
Chanyeol kicks him under the table when Baekhyun goes back to his table to move his books. “If you don’t make a move, I swear to god,” he threatens. “You two are the freakin’ dumbest people I have ever met. You deserve each other. God, Kris—“
“Okay,” says Kris. He holds back his smile. “Okay, I’ll do whatever you say.”
Not even Chanyeol believes he’s speaking as if it’s something he wouldn’t want to do.
Chanyeol kicks him again because he's a terrible friend.
Studying together in the library becomes a habit. Sometimes Chanyeol joins them, but it’s mostly Kris, Baekhyun, and the same table tucked away in the corner near the foreign language books. It’s easy and it’s nice.
Baekhyun is quiet as he goes over his notes and Kris, even if he wants to interrupt and have Baekhyun’s attention on him all of the time, keeps himself quiet.
But in between their comfortable silences, there are Moments. Kris doesn’t know if they’re the moments he’s been waiting for, the moments he thought they would never get to experience, but there’s something here.
He doesn’t know if Baekhyun’s only being friendly when he asks for Kris’ phone number and email address. For all Kris knows, Baekhyun can do the same for all of the people he meets in libraries.
The awkward looks they share over books, where Baekhyun smiles and Kris flushes because Baekhyun’s smiling at him, feel like they mean something. Going to the library after school on the one day he doesn’t have practice soon becomes a ritual. Every Friday he walks in to find Baekhyun already sitting at their table, a cute little wrinkle between his eyebrows.
It’s different knowing Baekhyun smiles a lot, to his teachers, his classmates, and his friends, and seeing the smile directed at him, like the way he does when Kris sits across from him one normal Friday.
Fridays are quickly becoming their days and sometimes, sometimes when he’s alone with his thoughts, Kris wishes they could have this every day. But he would never tell anyone that. Or admit it to himself in the daylight. Those are his Midnight-But-Can’t-Sleep thoughts.
Some of the Moments include the time Baekhyun told him there’s an eyelash on his cheek and he beckons Kris forward to wipe it off his cheek. It’s the first time Kris notices how long Baekhyun’s lashes are behind his glasses. How nice he smells and how soft his hands are on Kris’ face. He must moisturize.
Today, Kris thinks it’s only going to be the two of them and he’s not too beat up about it. Chanyeol, good friend as he is, hates being the third wheel and Kris doesn’t actively try to make him one.
“How have you not made a move yet?” Chanyeol had told him earlier that day. His left eye twitched. “Dude, you guys have study dates.”
“They’re not dates—“
Chanyeol had done his weird arm-flailing thing where he cut Kris off with a wave. “You guys sit across from each other, try not to make eye contact, smile a lot, and accidentally end up playing footsie. That sounds like every date I’ve ever been on.”
Kris had given him a look.
“Okay,” said Chanyeol, sighing. “Okay, those weren’t the best examples but—“ He whimpered. “Dude, this is killing me. He talks to me about you, you know? It’s annoying as hell.”
Kris does know, considering how Chanyeol had almost deafened him in one ear when he called to tell him. Baekhyun talks with Chanyeol about Kris. Kris should think this is a good sign, because it means he’s interested, but he doesn’t want to overthink this. Chanyeol thinks he’s an idiot and he wants Kris to hurry up and kiss him what the hell are you waiting for him to get kidnapped by pirates?
It’s obvious Chanyeol should stop reading manhwa.
Baekhyun makes the first move. “Hey,” he says one day, right before Kris drops his backpack beside their table.
“Yeah?” Kris looks him over. He’s dressed the same way he always is, immaculate uniform and carefully combed hair. The only difference today is he isn’t wearing his glasses. His eyelashes are just as long as Kris had thought.
“Do you… want to come help me find a book?” His textbooks are already on the table, along with his planner, a highlighter, and a pen. Kris doesn’t think he’s ever seen Baekhyun come into the library without already having the books he needs but—
Baekhyun squirms under his eyes. “Um.”
“Oh,” Kris realizes he’s been staring at him. Again. “Oh, sure. Let’s go. Do you know where the book is?”
At Kris’ acquiescence, Baekhyun stands and runs a quick hand through his hair, disturbing his bowl cut.
Following Baekhyun away from the table and to the library stacks, Kris stares at the cowlick atop Baekhyun’s head. It makes him look like a little sprouting plant.
“So,” Baekhyun says when they’re away from the rest of the students, deep within the bookshelves.
It’s dusty back here and Kris’ nose tickles but, to his credit, he doesn’t drop his eyes and watch Baekhyun’s behind in his uniform pants. He considers it progress, pats himself on the back, and stares at the call numbers of the books at his eyelevel.
“Do you know what the book’s number is?” He hears Baekhyun laugh, muffled, behind his hand.
“Kris,” he says slowly. “I didn’t… there is no book. I thought I had made it obvious.”
Kris pulls his eyes from the book spines.
Baekhyun stands a little more than arm’s length away from him, staring down at his hands. His cowlick droops now, falling forward. “Chanyeol… Chanyeol told me you had feelings for me,” he says. “Sometimes… sometimes I feel like I… see it. I feel it when you look at me but other times… other times I’m not so sure. It’s like… you don’t even see me and I don’t know what to think.”
Kris steps back. The shelves are closing in on him and any second now; they’ll fall down and crush him, suffocating him, but miraculously sparing Baekhyun.
Confessing had never been his intention and he remembers explicitly asking Chanyeol to never say anything because Kris knows—Kris knows he doesn’t know enough about anything to be Baekhyun’s boyfriend.
He thinks his Korean isn’t too great, he sweats in his sleep, and sometimes his body does this thing, like right now, where he can’t speak but he’s so hot. He wants to breathe fire or burst into flames or something to escape the terror clutching at his chest.
Baekhyun looks sad, “So… So do you? Do you like me?”
Baekhyun is confidence. Baekhyun is smiling at strangers, being more than friendly to classmates, and making Kris fall in love with every hidden giggle behind a science textbook. Kris has never seen him like this – vulnerable and looking down at his hands, acting as if he’s torn between wanting to know and choosing to live in ignorance.
There are a million confession scenarios Kris never left himself think about – including a few on the basketball court with a question taped to one of the balls – but there’s only one thing Kris can think of doing.
He doesn’t know what to call these feelings. If there were a way to measure them, a way to pull them out of his body and into test tubes or beakers, then Kris would go through the procedure. Maybe then he would finally know how much he likes Baekhyun.
The first step, the first step hurts because his legs are trembling, threatening to give way.
Baekhyun hasn’t looked up, his hands fidgeting, and Kris curses his so-called best friend to hell for forcing this on them.
But Baekhyun’s not freaking out and Baekhyun’s not pushing him away. He’s waiting, squirming in place, for Kris’ answer and that, Kris thinks, erasing the distance between their bodies, has to count for something.
He likes Baekhyun and though fear has her claws in him, he’s not ashamed. He won’t apologize for how happy he is to know Baekhyun is alive, that Baekhyun is his friend.
And that Baekhyun smiles at him and Kris often thinks about kissing that smile, and he thinks he doesn’t need anything else. But if… if he could have more… if Baekhyun feels the same…
“Baekhyun.”
In the dreams Kris actively tries to forget, he says Baekhyun’s name over and over, until no other name falls as easily off his well-practiced tongue. In those dreams, Kris never stumbles over his Korean because Baekhyun speaks to him in Mandarin.
That one rainy Friday when he taught Baekhyun how to write and saw his name had been the most horrible and the best—
Slowly, his shiny brown hair glistening in the half, dusty light of the stacks, Baekhyun looks up. Pink lips parted, a little swollen – he’s been chewing on it – Baekhyun’s eyes seem to droop.
This is it, Kris thinks. Months of physically doing nothing and mentally doing everything have culminated in this dusty moment in the library stacks. This isn’t the ideal scenario, Kris wishes it would have happened on his terms, but it’s happening and this, this might be one of his only chances to finally tell Baekhyun how he feels.
“I like you,” says Kris. It feels less like a burden’s been released and more like a bomb’s been ignited.
Baekhyun stares at him with furrowed brows. “Wo… wo xi…huan…ni? Is that… is that what you said?”
Oh god, can he ever do anything right?
Kris shakes his head, “No but—“ Actually… He suddenly nods, sputtering. “Yes! Yes, that’s what I said…” His face burns – his words always sound a little bit more intimate in his mother tongue. “But I meant…”
Baekhyun looks like he understands, eyes wide and bright. “What,” Kris hears him swallow. “What did you mean? What does it mean?” His voice trembles, cracking.
“It means…” Summoning every ounce of courage, Kris cups Baekhyun’s chin in his hand and he tries to smile, keeping most of his teeth hidden. He feels like he’s going to puke.
“I like you.”
Johahaeyo.
And then there’s a sickening crack as an excited head clashes with a very sensitive nose.
Height differences are no joke.
Baekhyun’s confession comes later, whispered in his ear as the nurse tends to his nose with a gloved hand.
“I like you, too,” and Kris declines painkillers, unable to feel his nose over the sensation of Baekhyun’s hand in his.
After an unsuccessful first kiss results in an impromptu visit to nurse’s office, Kris strays away from too physical contact. He personally doesn't think they're moving too fast but since their last attempt hurt like a motherfucker, he is more cautious about where Baekhyun's head is in relation to his very soft facial features. He thinks of it as self-preservation.
Chanyeol tells him to stop being a little punk already and kiss Baekhyun the way he wants to. "You've made out with people before," Chanyeol reminds him as they walk home from school one day. "I was kinda there, and that was—"
Kris hisses, "I thought you promised never to speak of that ever again—"
"But, dude, you were, like, eating his face," Chanyeol grimaces and then laughs. "It was like that time in middle school they took us to the aquarium and they showed us how the blue ringed octopus ate its food--"
Kris pushes Chanyeol into traffic (for reminding him of the past make out and telling Baekhyun his feelings in the first place) and then pulls him back by his obnoxiously hard hoodie before he can get run over.
Chanyeol’s a prick, but he’s a well-meaning prick. He had given Kris the second deafening of his life when Kris texted him the good news (“we…like each other??”) and then talked to him for half an hour about nothing. They had both been content enough to babble on about anything and everything, while Kris posted a comment to one of Baekhyun’s new me2day uploads.
After that, Kris and Baekhyun are dating. Sort of.
Kris tries, in the mirror before school one morning, to convince himself that he and Baekhyun are really dating. They’ve been spending so much together and Baekhyun texts him a few times a night, usually unrelated harmless things but Kris' stomach buzzes with nervous energy when his phone pulses next to his arm on the desk.
They see each other before school, in between classes, during lunch, and after school on the day Kris doesn't have basketball practice and Baekhyun doesn't have extra vocal lessons.
So it's only on Fridays, again, that they meet up. Instead of studying in the library together, Kris and Baekhyun take turns walking each other to their apartment buildings. They often walk so closely Kris mistakenly pushes Baekhyun's smaller frame into other people because he underestimates their proximity. He’s still not quite used to the height difference.
Recently, though, Baekhyun has taken to linking their hands together ("So I don't fall," he clarifies with a little twinkle in his eyes) and Kris, who still doesn't understand what it is about Baekhyun that turns him into a worthless, babbling idiot, silently squeezes his hand.
Kris never remembers what they talk about on those walks home. It can be anything: the weather, the football game last night, Baekhyun's friend who is auditioning for some fancy shmancy entertainment agency, picking on Chanyeol and his three trillion teeth.
The walks are too short. They’re still new at this relationship, with its blurred lines and tiny Baekhyun reaching up to pull him down for hugs. They haven’t talked about dating or “boyfriends.” The most they’ve said to each other about their feelings are the short confessions in the library and in the nurse’s office.
Normally, Kris wouldn’t bother. He doesn’t understand many things about emotions and relationships, but he likes where they are and he hopes Baekhyun wants him closer. It's on the tip of Kris' tongue whenever they go out. When Baekhyun looks at him from across a crowded hallway, waves and smiles, and it feels like being hit in the face with the locker all over again, except this time the locker's on fire.
When they video chat, in those rare moments where Baekhyun claims insomnia and pressures Kris as his "new friend" to stay up with him, and Kris gets to see the Baekhyun he never sees in school.
His glasses his off and his face looks soft, a bit naked. His meticulously styled hair falls into his eyes and when he yawns, Kris has a hard time pretending his eyes aren't straying to his mouth. They've only video-chatted three times but each time, around two am, Baekhyun starts to droop, his head cushioned into his hands on his own desk. Kris can't pull his eyes away for a second or even speak because he doesn't want to wake him up.
Or when Kris is slaving through his physics homework and he wants to give up on life all together because he doesn't understand even though he's sure they already covered it in class so he should get it, and then his phone vibrates. Most of the time, he deludes himself into thinking it's Chanyeol, so, if it isn't Baekhyun, he doesn't get his hopes up.
But most of the time it really is Baekhyun. Usually, it's something along the lines of "save me from my homework~~~~" or "should I go blond?" or "I'm bored" and it's nothing, it should mean nothing, but Kris’s heavier confession feels like it presses down on his fingertips and he wants to call him and just tell him because these little nothings mean everything to him and he just—
Kris thinks it's mutual. Chanyeol tells him it is, but Chanyeol is one of his closest friends. He's supposed to cushion Kris a little even if, Kris admits, Chanyeol doesn't really coddle him as much as he does other people. He trusts Kris with the truth. But Kris is in so deep; he doesn't want to trust Chanyeol. He likes Baekhyun a lot but, at the same time, he's a little unsettled by how strong these feelings are.
Baekhyun isn't perfect. He chews on the ends of his pencils. He always misses a spot of toothpaste on his face in the morning after he brushes his teeth. When he’s excited, his voice dissolves into a high pitched chirping noise, Kris, who already has a hard time keeping up with his normal Korean, has no idea how to respond.
He talks a lot, about any topic, to anyone about anything, not at all the reclusive person Kris had first pegged him to be. He talks so much, Kris often gives up his side of the conversation and tries hard not to look down at their clasped hands, as if to check if they’re still together.
It’s stupid because Kris isn’t new to confessing or boyfriends. In the past, it had been easy to tell someone his feelings but, now, he keeps waiting for the right moment. He thought he had found it that night Baekhyun had almost killed his face. But Kris, in all seventeen years, doesn’t think he’s ever liked someone as much as he likes Baekhyun and as happy as it makes him, it’s fucking terrifying.
His palms sweat, his pulse jumps, and his uniform shirt feels too tight. He looks across the hall to Baekhyun and already sees him staring back. Baekhyun smiles and waves, and Kris’ entire body hums like a plucked guitar string.
One Friday, Kris waits for Baekhyun by the school entrance. He tries to look as if he’s not waiting and nods a little to some of the other guys on the basketball team. He avoids Chanyeol’s face when he wiggles his eyebrows and makes an obnoxious kissing noise. Kris wishes he had a basketball just so he could chuck it at Chanyeol’s stupid face. Baekhyun comes out a minute or two later, hands deep into the pockets of his blazer.
At this distance, Kris remembers how small Baekhyun really is – he’s dwarfed by Chanyeol, who recognizes him and smiles wide, greeting him a boisterous voice. Seeing Chanyeol interact so easily with Baekhyun feels nice. It almost feels as if this can work—
“How scary.” Baekhyun pulls on the end of Kris’ blazer. “Who is your glare for? I hope it isn’t for me.”
And Kris has to remember that breathing is very important. In fact, it is vital to his continued lifespan and he does it, in through his nose and out through his mouth. He feels silly, acting like this, but there’s no time to chastise himself. A second later, Baekhyun slips his hand into his, fitting their hands together, and they start up their trip for home.
They’re going to Baekhyun’s door this time. Baekhyun lives a little farther from the school than Kris does, over a Chinese-Korean fusion restaurant his parents own. He once made a joke about how well Chinese and Korean things went together and Kris had forced a laugh because he hadn’t wanted his mind to wander down the path of a mixture of Chinese and Korean sex noises.
“Hey.”
Kris startles and looks over to Baekhyun.
Baekhyun looks up to him, eyes comically wide behind his glasses. “Are you listening to me? What did I just say?”
Kris draws a blank and tries to smile his way out of the situation. It doesn’t work. Baekhyun elbows him in the side. “What were you thinking about, then?”
“What did you say before?” Kris asks instead. In his mind, his question is safer.
Baekhyun smiles a little. “Oh. I just...asked you if you wanted to come over. My parents are out of the night. Visiting relatives or something. I got out of it.”
Kris breaks their handholding to dodge a lost looking elementary school student who stumbles between them and almost shoves Baekhyun to the ground. After Baekhyun has sidestepped him with a nervous smile, he walks to where Kris is standing, looking at the ground. Baekhyun has never invited him over before. This is something more, isn’t it?
“Are you...” Baekhyun waves his free hand in front of Kris’ face. Kris shakes his head and looks to him. Baekhyun seems to shrink into himself. “If...” He bites his lower lip. “If you don’t want to go up, it’s fine. I won’t be offended. It’s nothing to look at, anyway—”
“No,” Kris grabs his other hand, holding them both now. He sighs to calm the harsh beating of his heart. Breathing. Breathing is important. “No. I want to go. I do.”
And, somehow by admitting this aloud, Kris makes this awkward for himself. It almost feels as if he’s just said he wants more than to visit Baekhyun’s home. But he keeps quiet and listens to Baekhyun, occasionally chirping in with short replies.
The Chinese-Korean fusion restaurant is in full evening rush by the time Baekhyun pokes his head in to wave at the servers and then jangles his keys for the front door. The unmistakable smell of spicy pork and scallions waters Kris’ mouth and he almost trips up the stairs when Baekhyun pulls him in, closing the door behind them. There’s only a staircase here to the apartment upstairs and the stairs creak when Baekhyun ascends them first, chattering about this or that.
Kris has no idea and with good reason – he has a face full of Baekhyun’s behind in his uniform pants.
The same uniform pants that fit him incredibly snug around the hips and thighs and then sort of loosen up to fall around his thin legs. Along with an excited tongue and an impressive intellect, Byun Baekhyun has a wonderful ass. As he walks behind Baekhyun, Kris can’t help but think of how it would feel in his lap, right against him, and then, maybe, Kris can kiss him where the back of his shirt collar meets the soft skin of his neck.
Predictably, he trips up the stairs.
Baekhyun turns, thinking Kris’ clumsiness has finally killed him, and groans good naturedly when he sees Kris has caught himself on a higher step. “Careful,” he says. “It’s pretty dark, but we’re almost there.”
Kris wishes the hall were brighter, but probably not for the reason Baekhyun is thinking. Luckily, he makes it to Baekhyun’s door without another tripping incident.
“Sorry it’s not much...” Baekhyun opens the door and toes off his shoes. Kris follows closely behind. He pauses in the hallway, watching as Baekhyun ducks into the kitchen. It’s a modest apartment, with soft painted walls, plush, leather furniture and, though not surprisingly, pictures of Baekhyun.
The front hall and the rest of the walls leading to the living room are covered in baby pictures and Kris feels as if he’s walking through the history of Baekhyun’s life, seeing him grow up from a chubby baby to a curly haired toddler babbling into a spoon as if it were a microphone to a boy with a wide smile and soft-looking fingers.
“Wow,” says Kris, stopping by a picture of kid Baekhyun covered in birthday cake, cheerily smiling into the camera.
“That,” Baekhyun laughs a little, scratching the back of his neck. “My parents really liked to take pictures of me. I’m their only child so...” He shrugs, as if the behavior of his parents can’t be helped.
Kris, also an only child but who had been spared this documentation of his life (at least to this extent), sympathizes only because Baekhyun looks a little uncomfortable.
He thinks the safest thing for both of them to do would be their homework (and not each other, as his libido suggests.)
It doesn't help Baekhyun is in his natural element and, even if Kris still notices the shine of bb cream on his face, his posture is infinitely more relaxed at home than it is at school. They're alone, too, in this big apartment, with Baekhyun's socks making soft noises on the hardwood floor.
Kris knows this visit is meant to be completely innocent, but nerves claw at the walls of his stomach. It feels as if he isn't supposed to be here, in Baekhyun's home, feeling a little swell in his chest when Baekhyun pops out of the kitchen and offers him a water bottle. He takes it, if only to have his mouth occupied so he doesn't say something stupid.
Baekhyun lets him take the couch while he stretches out on the floor with his English books and they work.
Well, Kris tries to work, but he's terribly distracted. Baekhyun has stepped out of his uniform shirt and the back of his under shirt lifts just a little over the small of his back. Kris wants to press his hands into the dimples here and, maybe, if Baekhyun is up for it, slide his arms around Baekhyun, pull him back into his lap, and then—
He coughs.
Baekhyun tilts his head up, "What?" His glasses are slipping off his nose.
Kris is struck by an all-consuming urge to kiss him. He shakes his head and turns back to his history notes. Coming over had been a horrible idea. What had he been thinking? With thoughts like he has, no doubt things would be awkward.
He's a little surprised when Baekhyun huffs air between his lips and drops his book to the ground. He rolls on the floor, onto his back, and sighs. "I can't concentrate," he says, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "Want to play StarCraft or something? I have the new one that just came out."
Kris shrugs, still silent.
Baekhyun looks at him, "Are you okay? You haven't said anything since we came in. Is something bothering you?"
I want to kiss you.
"Um," Kris coughs and lowers his voice. "I'm fine. Don't worry." He smiles, still a little shaky.
"Oh," says Baekhyun. He stands and Kris thinks he's coming in for a hug, or a pat on the head, or some other kind of platonic touch, but. Baekhyun brushes his lips over Kris’ cheek. Just like that.
Kris' jaw drops.
Baekhyun freezes. "No," he says in a little voice, slowing back away and looking quite stunned by own his actions. "N-No, I... I was going to... That wasn't..."
It's time to try again. Before Baekhyun can get too far, Kris winds a large hand around his wrist and gently coaxes Baekhyun a little closer. He shivers, his sides trembling, and Baekhyun's eyes are comically large behind his glasses. His mouth looks as soft and warm as ever.
They try again, softer this time, with none of the fire and painful passion of their previous first kiss.
When their lips touch without the slightest hint of pain, Kris considers this a success. Baekhyun's lips are warm and just a little chapped, but their texture is all new and Kris slowly, carefully, opens his mouth under Baekhyun's. Baekhyun's kissed people before, there's no doubt about it.
His hands flutter near Kris' head before coming down on his shoulders as he slants his mouth, cute little tongue running along the inside of Kris' lips.
Without too much thought, Kris lowers Baekhyun into his lap so he's straddling him with his knees on either side of his thighs. His hands, of their own volition, wander to that little space of Baekhyun's lower back he had fixated on before and Baekhyun moans, momentarily rubbing their bellies together when Kris rubs down on the spot. Kris thinks he feels him under his pants, but he refuses to think about it.
He's not sure how far Baekhyun wants this to go, even if Kris has been thinking of licking up into his thighs from the first day he saw Baekhyun in his uniform pants. Baekhyun's cock will be just as cute and pink as the rest of him, and the thought of one day having this knowledge churns deliciously in the pit of Kris' gut.
When he needs to take a breath, he lets Baekhyun break their kiss, but Baekhyun continues on, covering the side of Kris' face in kisses and slowly working down his neck, unbuttoning his collar and loosening his tie.
Kris holds him by his hips, hands itching to take palmfuls of his ass, and he tests the waters a little, lowering his hand for a second to brush Baekhyun's behind.
With a short gasp, muffled by Kris' now pinking collarbone, Baekhyun pushes back into Kris' hand, and Kris' cock jumps in his pants, trapped under the head of Baekhyun's body.
"Is," Baekhyun pants, resting his forehead against Kris' neck. "Is this too much? Because.... because I didn't bring you here for this... not.... not that I don't like this or have never thought of this—"
Kris cups a hand under Baekhyun's chin, just as he had done that afternoon in the library. He takes in his now flushed cheeks, the shining eyes, and how he's trying to shift his hands down his body to cover the line his arousal makes in his uniform pants.
His heart is so full it’s going to burst. It's getting harder to look Baekhyun in the eyes. He kisses him again, and it feels as little like dunking a ball or sliding into home plate, something familiar. He's already grown accustomed to Baekhyun's mouth, but he hasn't had his fill just yet.
Kris' tie disappears from around his neck and Baekhyun pops his shirt open with a patience Kris doesn't have with his own clothes. Baekhyun's glasses go next, placed on top of one of Baekhyun's English books, and he opens Kris' shirt all the way. He runs his hands down Kris' sides, staring at how the fabric of his undershirt sticks to his tight form, and Kris shivers, a little too warm at the scrutiny.
"Basketball players," says Baekhyun with a hint of wonder in his voice, nodding.
Kris would roll his eyes if he could somehow get them away from Baekhyun's mouth. They kiss more, and Baekhyun encourages Kris to wiggle his hands under his shirt and touch him. It's something Kris appreciates and he would like nothing more than to leave a kiss on Baekhyun's hip, but it's too close to the place Kris really wants to be and he wants to savor the taste of Baekhyun's mouth a little bit more.
Because of a few too soft touches, Baekhyun momentarily giggles, looking to Kris with smiling eyes, and Kris hopes his shortness of breath is from excessive kissing and not because his heart has grown so hard it's impeding his lung function.
"Sorry," says Baekhyun, cheeks still pink.
Compelled, Kris kisses them both in turn and Baekhyun sighs, hands clenched in the hem of Kris' undershirt.
Baekhyun's dark nipples are visible through the thinness of his undershirt and Kris wants, he wants a little bit of everything Baekhyun is. He knows if he's given it all in one gulp, he surely won't survive.
"We should get back to work," says Kris, quite aware his mouth and brain are betraying him when he has Byun Baekhyun in his fucking lap, the marks his mouth made still persist along Baekhyun's neck.
And Kris is oh so eager to return to dry 16th century Korean history.
Baekhyun stills. "Was it too much?" he asks, bringing his hands away from Kris' body. "I'm sorry, I—"
"No," says Kris, shaking his head. "No, I..."
There's that need to kiss him again. Baekhyun bites into his lower lip, worry starting to cloud his eyes.
Kris drops his head. "I want....” and doesn't know if he's talking about saving Baekhyun's name in his phone under some cheesy nickname or kissing down his sternum, past his belly, leaving cute marks along trembling skin.
"You...can have. You can have anything you want," Baekhyun insists, his hands returning to Kris' shoulders. He kisses him once. "You can have whatever you want," he continues, puffing along Kris' lips. "Just ask." He sounds confident, but he's trembling and they're so close Kris can feel the trembles against his own chest.
"Okay," says Kris, and then he takes a deep breath. "I want..."
Baekhyun averts his eyes, nosing one the marks he had left on Kris' collarbones.
"I want...” to study with you until the library closes. For you to go to my basketball games and cheer me on. I want to introduce you to my mother, I want you to tease me with her, I want you to be better friends with Chanyeol, I want to take you out on stupid dates to the movies and kiss you when you taste like popcorn. I want you to write your name all over my notebooks. I want to know I have you. I want you to tell me what you’re thinking about what you look at me and smile, but most of all... The thing I want most of all is…“I want you.” All of you. Everything.
Baekhyun almost breaks his nose again with his new found exuberance and then, when Kris moves out of the way just in time because he's learned how to avoid these calamities, he laughs and kisses the side of Kris' face.
"I’m yours," he whispers deep into Kris' ear, as if not even wanting the walls to know their little secret.
Kris hides his too wide smile in Baekhyun's lips and, for the first time, he feels as if he really has him.
New SNS!
From: Tiny Prince
ok but what if I really dye my hair blond? you better still like me!! ㅋ_ㅋ
