Muscle to muscle and toe to toe
The fear has gripped me, but here I go
My heart sinks as I jump up
Your hand grips hand as my eyes shut

—Alt-J : Breezeblocks

For once, Chanyeol woke up with warmth embracing him—he felt cosy and comfortable, sinking pleasantly into the bed with the warm sunrays filtering in gently through the slightly parted curtains—and he, for once, had someone to hold while he slept; a beautiful angel, snuggled up against his chest, softly breathing in and out of his parted lips, his mousy hair tousled—and the marks left on his neck: either a dark contrast of purple, already yellowing or clear red teeth marks, marring across his porcelain skin…

Chanyeol smiled and hummed to himself, holding the side of Baekhyun’s sleeping, pretty face, his cheek with his thumb. His head leaned in and softly kissed his temple—butterfly pecks across his nose, his two cheeks, under his eyes and the pair of sweet, soft lips, highly addictive— dangerously addictive.

“Mnn, golden boy, stop it.” The boy mumbled in his arms, sleepily pushing away his offers of affection. Chanyeol’s full-force pout fell onto closed eyes that didn’t see them, but it didn’t stop the taller male from kissing his face.

“Payback for waking me up with cold- snow yesterday.” Chanyeol chuckled, continuously pecking his face. Baekhyun swatted him away and turned around to face the other size of the bed.

“I hate you.” He could hear Baekhyun incoherently mumble.
“But you don’t mean that. You love me, you love me, you love me, and I know that you do.” Chanyeol said with a triumphant smirk, spooning the other male and kissing the spot behind his ear.

“Unf! Fine. I do love you.” Baekhyun gave up to his corny golden-boy, turning around to face him. Though Baekhyun did not smile, his hone eyes twinkled positively brightly, and Chanyeol knew that he was smiling, somewhere, deep inside his heart.

Baekhyun gave a cute, lion-like yawn, stretching his limbs like a cat and purposefully shoving Chanyeol’s face away, but he kissed him all the same. He rolled off the bed and stood up, the blanket slowly sliding off his body. Throwing last night’s bottle of lubricant at Chanyeol’s face, he stretched once more and basked a few seconds in the morning rays, before haughtily trotting off.

“Come on, boyfriend, we’ll be late for breakfast.” Baekhyun yawned lazily.

Chanyeol threw off the blankets, before he blinked and paused, staring at Baekhyun absent-mindedly whilst his body was exposed to the air. He scratched and tilted his head.

“… Boyfriend?”
“Well, if you want it to be like that.” Baekhyun quirked an eyebrow.
“Oh—really? Well then—“

Chanyeol gave him a cheesy smile. “Well—let’s go, then, boyfriend.”

Baekhyun gave a loud snort, shaking his head, mumbling something that sounded like “I can’t believe I’m dating the corniest person in the whole goddamn world.” But Chanyeol realised, as he watched Baekhyun’s beautiful, scarred, bruised body walk away in soft, padded footsteps—that the label sounded so sweetly to wrap around their otherworldly relationship; a boy forsaken by the world who wanted to jump, and a foolhardy angel without wings who wanted to fly.

“Why, you messy little boy—“ Tao sighed, though he didn’t yap over Baekhyun’s terrible clothes of a black sweater (with nothing underneath) and shorts too short for the good of his seemingly delicious thighs (shut up, Chanyeol). The former didn’t look too great either: his usually neat hair was all tousled up. One of his ears were missing a piercing and, like Baekhyun, his neck looked like it was attacked by an angry buzz of hornets—a gift from Kris, Chanyeol assumed.

“Good morning, Baekhyun, Chanyeol. Had a lovely night?” Kris spoke from the couch, holding a glass of wine with his trademark smirk plastered on his pleasant face. “Zitao and I certainly did—didn’t we, love?”

“You shut that smack of yours and drink your wine, .” Tao sputtered, but his face went alarmingly red, slapping the side of his neck that had the most hickeys. From the looks of it, Kris certainly did him a good go: Tao had to limp and whine when he walked, and refused to sit down at breakfast—Baekhyun let out a few mewls of pain when he sat down, but Chanyeol supposed that he was probably used to the feeling.

Pain in the . (Shut up, Chanyeol.)

 “We’ll probably drive you back home around lunch. You two want to go around until then? Baekhyun, you can show Chanyeol the butterfly garden nearby—pretty sure he hasn’t been.”

“Okay, mom.” Baekhyun shoved eggs and sausages in his mouth, piling up his plate with more bacon (Bacon—Baekhyun, haha—Shut up, shut up, shut up, Chanyeol). Chanyeol watched his boyfriend eat—it was good that he had such a healthy appetite, but had he any table manners in the slightest?

Chanyeol got dressed—simple shirt and trousers with a longcoat, though awfully neat that Baekhyun scoffed at him. Nevertheless, their fingers soon entwined and they walked through the fields and out of the estate, going through lonely morning roads.

Though there was still an awful lot of snow, they managed to find a clear grass field where they could walk without slipping, quietly trotting on the hard earth, holding hands, and breathing out ghosts in the chilly mid-morning.

“Aren’t you cold?” Chanyeol frowned, staring disdainfully at Baekhyun’s lack of defence for the biting winds; even Chanyeol, who had his coat on, still felt cold under his layers of clothing. Baekhyun was practically walking bare-legged, with only once piece of attire covering the top of his body; yet he showed no signs of being bitten by the mean cold—except a slightly runny nose.

“I’m fine.” He mumbled, inching his steps closer to Chanyeol. “I have heating right beside me, anyways…”

Then he sneezed.

“See? You’ll catch a fever.” Chanyeol sighed. He took off his coat and wrapped it round the protesting Baekhyun—the cold took a bite on his skin at once, but he preferred it than seeing his new-made lover freezing his off. Baekhyun grumbled for a long while after that, but he finally gave up, walking like a teeny little duck with an oversized coat hanging on the shoulders that failed to fill Chanyeol’s broad sleeves.

At last, after three slips on the wet grass and one angry duckling (Baekhyun), they reached their destination: it did not seem much. It looked like a very large greenhouse, with plants and odd flying things inside. Baekhyun lead Chanyeol through two plastic doors before they were welcomed by a lovely rush of warmth—and things flapping on Chanyeol’s face.

“W-What the hell are those?!” Chanyeol began to yap his arms around, but Baekhyun tugged his sleeves and hushed him.

“Stay still.” He hushed him.

And Chanyeol did.

Instead of things fluttering around his face, Chanyeol saw it: it was beautiful—fluttering wings of molten oranges and warm blues, whites and beiges of all different sizes flew around him like clockworks—surrounding him as if to welcome them both. Chanyeol’s vision was intensified; all he saw was now kaleidoscopes of beauty, the beat of their wings one with the beat of their hearts. There was one minute—one minute where they all fluttered around them both, as if curious of who they were, their tiny, needle-like legs landing on their skins and on their clothes and on their faces; Chanyeol’s eyes become half-lidded, overcome with a dizzying explosion of calm and serendipity, before they all fluttered at once—an outburst of simplistic yet dazzling complexions; and Chanyeol’s eyelids fluttered open, as if he was once re-awakened again that morning from an animated trance.

And when Chanyeol parted his lips to speak, all that came out was a breathless gasp.

. . .

“Things of beauty, they are.”—Baekhyun’s whisper was the first to break the silence. His eyes were closed—but when he opened them, sparks of life emitted from his eyes.

“Butterflies cannot see their wings—they cannot see how beautiful they are.” The smaller male held out his arm, and pulled back his sleeve—angry blotches of scars marred his arm. The butterflies look frightened—so terribly frightened at first; but they fluttered by him closely, and, one by one, the butterflies’ wings blocked the sight of every scar—as if healing it, even though Chanyeol knew that scars such as those could never, ever heal.

“They can only see others’ beautiful wings—and, of course, unable to see their own beauty, they ask themselves—‘am I as beautiful like that?’. And of course, in such curious agony—they crane their nec