Chanyeol's POV

“Hey, look who showed up!” Jongin shouted playfully as Baekhyun and I walked through the door of Suho’s large apartment. Kyungsoo smacked him with a pillow for his comment. Kyungsoo never passed up a chance to smack any of us.

“We’re glad to see you two,” Kyungsoo said, smiling, but quickly turning to Jongin continuing to smack him with the pillow, causing me to laugh.

“Glad to see you too, Satansoo,” I replied, eliciting a death glare in my direction from Kyungsoo for the comment. I a little bit behind Baekhyun to shelter myself in case Kyungsoo tried to murder me but it was all good.

I dragged Baekhyun by the hand over to one of the couches and made him sit down with me. I was surprised he let me pull him by the arm, considering how little he liked to babied. I supposed he was just in a good mood today.

Our group of friends always got together at Suho’s place because it was the biggest, the nicest, and he always had the best snacks, thanks to the help of Sehun. Sehun didn’t really live with Suho but he spent most of his time at Suho’s place. We all wondered why Sehun didn’t just move in already.

Sehun always managed to look very noodly despite the endless snacks he kept on hand, always shoving food down his throat. Every time I saw Sehun he had a different food in his hands. He was the king of snacks. He was actually very willing to share his snacks, too. So, if you hung around Sehun, you couldn’t go hungry.

“Is everyone here?” Suho asked all of us.

“I think so,” Jongdae replies, mouth full of potato chips, Luhan swiping the bag of chips away from him.

“Hey!” shouted Jongdae, getting up to chase Luhan. But Luhan wasn’t in the mood to get up so Jongdae just jumped on top of him, crushing him, Luhan at Jongdae’s mercy. Jongdae just continued to sit on top of Luhan, shoving potato chips in his mouth and smiling while Luhan wiggled underneath him, struggling and punching Jongdae’s back. But he didn’t seem to notice the suffering Luhan underneath him. Jongdae let out an evil laugh.

“Ladies! Ladies! You’re both pretty!” Sehun said, failing to calm the atmosphere, but causing the rest of us to laugh. Minseok finally got up, and with minimal force, pushed Jongdae off of Luhan, claiming the chips for his own. Nobody fought him on this one. Minseok may be small, but he was definitely stronger than Luhan and Jongdae.

“Aren’t we here to watch a movie?” Yixing asked, looking confused. Then again, he a permanently confused expression on his face at all times.

“Yeah, what are we watching?” questioned Jongin. I noticed he was running his fingers through Kyungsoo’s hair and Kyungsoo was letting him. I guess Satansoo didn’t hate everyone.

“The Human Centipede!” Jongdae excitedly suggested.

“We most certainly do not have that movie,” Suho said, looking at Jongdae, hands on his hips, looking as if he was about to scold Jongdae. Jongdae just looked up at Suho with a smirk on his face.

“We can always find it on the internet,” Jongdae annoyed Suho further.

I quickly realized that at this rate, we would never pick a movie if someone didn’t take action.

“I’m gonna look through your movies,” I said, moving from my spot on the couch and opening up Suho’s tv cabinet, “Let’s see……how about Frozen?”

“I vote yes!” Luhan said almost too enthusiastically, everyone slightly jumping at his gleeful exclamation. He looked like a small child on Christmas. Minseok scooted away from him, looking frightened at Luhan’s very obvious love for Frozen.

“I am not listening to that snowman drone on for the next two hours,” Kyungsoo replied, looking as if he was about to kill the next person who mentioned the movie. I saw Luhan cross his arms, pouting. Who knew Luhan would be such a Frozen fan? No matter how much he wanted to deny it, he was more of a little girl than a manly man, not that any of us had a problem with it.

“Here, I’ll help,” Baekhyun spoke up for what I assumed was the first time since we got to Suho’s place. He crawled over to the tv cabinet and seated himself next to me, legs crossed, digging through the movie collection. As expected from Suho, the movies were perfectly organized. It gave me some evil joy to mess up his clean area.

“Oh. My. God.” I heard from Baekhyun only seconds letter. I looked at him curiously. He was holding up a movie, “You guys we have to watch it,” he said, very determined.

“High School Musical 2?” I asked, “Isn’t that for, like, 12 year old girls? Also, why 2?”

“Yes, High School Musical 2! Have you never seen this?” He said a bit defensively.

I was a bit confused, “No, I haven’t seen it. Wait, Suho, why do you have this movie?” I asked.

Suho was about to reply before Sehun spoke for him, “Uuummmm, do you not have this movie? It’s the best High School Musical Movie, obviously!” Sehun explained, and I quickly realized I may have been the only one in our group of friends who wasn’t absolutely in love with this dumb Disney Channel movie.

Before I had time to reply to Sehun’s cries of delight for High School Musical 2, Baekhyun spoke up, “All for watching High School Musical 2 raise your hands.”  Everyone raised their hands, even Kyungsoo, except for me because I had no idea what the big deal was about High School Musical 2.

I gave Kyungsoo a look of even you? but he just shrugged back at me, leaving me alone in this crowd of High School Musical fanboys.

Sehun snatched the movie out of Baekhyun’s hand and put it into the DVD player while Baekhyun and I reclaimed our spots on Suho’s couch.

As the movie played, I quickly realized what I had been missing. Everyone was singing along to Sharpay’s ‘Fabulous’ and caught up in Zac Efron’s cheezily dramatic performance of ‘Bet On It’. Even Baekhyun was singing and laughing as loud and obnoxiously as his heart allowed. This movie was a terribly amazing piece of film. Why hadn’t I seen this before? I’m was disappointed in everyone I had ever met before in my life for not showing me this movie.

So enthralled in the movie, I had barely noticed that Baekhyun and I had gotten closer. I was on the end of the couch, leaning in the armrest, his head on my lap, my hand running through his blonde hair, as soft as ever. My other hand was intertwined with his. It felt like electricity. In a room full of people, it was too dark for anyone to notice how close we were, but even if they did notice, it wouldn’t have mattered, it felt so natural to be this close to Baekhyun.

As Suho had gotten up to turn the lights on after the movie was over, I realized Baekhyun had fallen asleep on me. He always fell asleep to easily. He looked beautiful when he was sleeping, mouth slightly parted, cheeks tinged with red, eyelashes long and slightly brushing his cheek. I his cheek with my thumb, noticing a few faint freckles on the top of his cheeks. How was it possible for this boy to look so perfect?

I checked the time on my phone. 10:02 p.m.

“Well, Baekhyun and I better get going,” I announced, waking Baekhyun up by gently shaking his shoulders and poking his cheeks.

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The drive home was quiet. Me glancing at Baekhyun, Baekhyun glancing me. He looked away when I noticed him staring. When he noticed my glances at him, I just kept staring. I didn’t really care if he knew that I was staring. He was so beautiful and I wanted him to know it. After about the fifth time he had caught me staring at him his had resulted in just a constant stare out of the window on his side, his eyes shutting for too long sometimes, but never letting himself fall asleep.

I should have been focusing on the road but my eyes traveled to him, focused on the way his jaw line connected effortlessly to his ear. What I wouldn’t give....but I didn’t let myself finish the thought. I focused my eyes on the road, impossibly trying to free my thoughts from Baekhyun.

I hadn’t ever fallen in love with anyone in my life. But what I had with Baekhyun had to be love. I loved him. Even if he didn’t feel the same, I still loved him. In his case, it was platonic as far as I knew.  In my case, I wanted to kiss Baekhyun, feel his soft lips on my own, and run my hand through his hair. It was hard to live with him and not let my feelings show. But sometimes, when he slept close to me, when he let me link my fingers with his, when his gaze lingered with mine for just a little longer, I thought that maybe, just maybe, he could feel the same way about me that I so desperately felt about him.

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I fished out my key from my pocket, unlocking my apartment and allowing Baekhyun to go inside before me.

He seemed different at the moment. Even though he hadn’t talked much at the party, he didn’t seem upset at all.  In fact, from my eyes, he looked a little happy. Color was back to his cheeks from laughter. His laughter had sounded like nothing ever could to me. The frown was gone from his face, not exactly a smile, but his lips were slightly curled up. I wanted to see Baekhyun laugh and smile like he had earlier more often.

Much to my surprise, as soon as he walked into the door, he went straight to the kitchen, a place I hadn’t recently seen him dare travel to. His hand reached for the cabinet doors, opening it and grabbing a bag of popcorn. I wanted to comment, to say something about how I was happy he was eating. but I knew it was better to leave it alone, to show him it was normal to eat, because that’s what he needed. He needed to see the normality of eating food when he wanted to eat food.

It was late and I figured he would want to go to bed but he sat on the couch instead. I plopped down next to him. I was tired and I knew he was tired, too.

“Netflix?” he asked me, turning my way, putting some popcorn in his mouth. His eyes seemed wider, brighter than usual, a sight I quite enjoyed. We had just watched a movie at Suho’s house but it wasn’t that late and it was always a good time for Netflix. Any time spent near Baekhyun was time I was very willing to spend.

“Yeah, of course,” I replied. I let him pick the show. He picked something that I didn’t know the name of. I honestly didn’t care what we watched, so long as our bodies were close.

Not long into the first episode, I felt Baekhyun’s head rest on my shoulder. My heart skipped just a little bit as I rested my head on his, feeling his soft hair against my cheek, feeling very comfortable lying here like this.

I saw his eyes close and felt his breathing slow, his calming sleep lulling me to fall asleep, too. Sleep felt more peaceful with Baekhyun by my side.

I woke up at about one in the morning, feeling a shiver of cold without Baekhyun’s presence near me, his head gone from my shoulder.

I got up and heard a few noises coming from the kitchen. He must’ve gotten up to get water, something he did often. He wasn’t really someone to sleep all the way through the night.  I walked to the kitchen, too, catching sight of him by the sink, a glass of water in his hand, sipping some water every few seconds.

“You going to bed in your room?” I asked him. Though, I shouldn’t have asked. I should’ve led him back to the couch. I wanted to sleep with him by my side.

“Yeah,” he replied, setting his glass down. His hair was messier than ever, sticking up straight in the back and fuzzy strands going the wrong way. His shirt was wrinkled, a baggy cardigan over the top. His cheeks were red, creases on the left side of his face from sleeping on my shirt.

“You look tired,” I said, walking towards him, close enough to him that our bodies were almost touching.

“Mhm,” he said. He looked tense. I felt tense. It’s not like we weren’t ever this close before but this time it felt different.

My eyes moved to his lips. His mouth was slightly parted. My breathing grew quicker. I tried to make it not noticeable. I gulped and took a deep breath. It was now or never.

I put my arm around his waist, looking into his eyes as he looked into mine, not saying anything. I couldn’t read his face.

My hand reached to touch his right cheek and I leaned in, my lips brushing his, kissing him softly. His lips were soft and they tasted like cotton candy, innocent and sweet. My left hand brushed the back of his hair, as he kissed me back, so gentle I could barely feel it. The moment was pure and alive. I wanted to keep it forever, to hold him forever in my arms, never letting him go.

But the moment ended too quickly.

Baekhyun pulled away, allowing my arms to leave him and fall to my sides, both our lips swollen, missing his touch as soon as it left mine. He was looking down, avoiding my gaze. I grew nervous with each coming second, wanting him to look me in the eyes.

“Say something,” I said, barely a whisper. He turned away, “Baek?” I said, even quieter, worried.

“Chanyeol….” he said, his head turning towards me but turning away before I could read his expression.

I stepped towards him, reaching for his hand, wanting to wrap my hand in his, but he pulled away, leaving me with an empty feeling.

“Chanyeol…. I- I can’t. We’re only friends….” and he walked away down the unlit hallway leading to his room, leaving me to fall apart under the lights of the dimly lit kitchen.

Author's Note 

So this is kind of short but I have been really busy. I will be able to write more hopefully next week. Yay!

I feel really evil for writing that ending to this chapter but I had a lot of fun writing the scene. Mwahahahahah. I love being evil. I feel that writing sad is the only real think I know how to write. 

Anyways, I love feeback so it would be awesome if you left comments to tell me what you thought!