maybe i'm just in love 

when you wake me up

•••

7:12 am.

ghostly wisps of sunlight illuminated baekhyun's skin, his black hair was splayed around his pillow like a halo. his deep eyes rested shut, eyelashes feathering his cheeks lightly. this sight was what chanyeol woke up to. 

"oh my gosh," the taller gushed in a breathless haze, eyes wide as he soaked in baekhyun's grace and handsomeness. 

the two lay opposite, closer than 'just friends' lie, faces aligned. 

chanyeol watched as baekhyun's nose twitched and his eyes fluttered open, wincing at the sun's rays before landing on chanyeol. 

"this seems very familiar," baekhyun croaked, an innocent smile splayed on his lips. 

chanyeol broke into a sleepy smile, recalling the events of the same day three months prior. "yes, it is," 

"except that now we know eachother," baekhyun went on. "and we know eachother well enough for you to tell me where you went because i was too tired last night." 

the smaller grinned as chanyeol sighed. "baek-"

baekhyun raised his hand from his side and poked chanyeol's chest. 

"tell me!" 

"it's complicated, byu-" just as chanyeol was about to spew out countless excuses, baekhyun shouted ( 'shouted' as loud as one can minutes after awaking ) a loud, "chanyeol!", before grabbing the latter's shoulders and rattling the poor man back and forth, all still while they lay on their sides. chanyeol resembled a fish in baekhyun's hold. 

"baekhyun!" chanyeol mimicked, taking baekhyun's slight frame in his grasp and shaking him, albeit, he made sure that his hold wasn't too firm. 

baekhyun huffed, attitude drastically changing as he pushed his unruly hair out of his eyes, sitting up. he glanced down at chanyeol and had to discreetly smother the fond smile threatening to spill over his poker face façade. 

chanyeol lay on his back now, still dressed in the clothes he had arrived in the night before. he looked exhausted and unwell; deep grey blotches had formed beneath his eyes and his skin was dull and minutely scarred from acne (as well as the now-pink mark on his cheekbone, which didn't look like it was going anywhere), seemingly from years prior- faded purplish marks sat on his cheeks. baekhyun had noticed chanyeol's scars a few months back, and thought nothing of it, but now they were even more evident. 

he also took in how the taller seemed thinner than he remembered, but decided not to comment on his appearance at all. instead, baekhyun mumbled,

"do you want breakfast?" 

chanyeol's eyes closed slowly before reopening. he blinked a few times. 

"sure, yeah," 

baekhyun stood, gesturing for chanyeol to follow him, which he did. the two made their way to the kitchen, where, low and behold, sehun sat with his head in a text book, cereal split all over the worktop, and legs bouncing up and down on the tiled flooring. 

the younger didn't acknowledge baekhyun's entrance.  

"oh ," baekhyun felt like slapping himself. "i didn't think sehun would be awake."

chanyeol stifled a laugh at the scene. 

at this, sehun looked up, confused as to whom baekhyun was talking to, and as his eyes fell on chanyeol, a devilish grin replaced his confused expression. 

"what do we have here then?" sehun rose to his feet incredibly quickly, knocking over his bowl of cereal. "oh, ." 

chanyeol cracked up as baekhyun looked on in exasperation and awe at how clumsily stupid his best friend could be. 

"wait a minute so i can interrogate you," sehun mopped up the mess halfheartedly with a dirty dishcloth. 

the pair made a beeline past sehun, to the fridge. 

"no no!" sehun stuck his noodley leg out behind him to block the two's route. 

"sehun, what are you doing, you absolute egg!?" baekhyun laughed, subconsciously wrapping his slender fingers around chanyeol's forearm as sehun tried to coo chanyeol towards him and his soggy mess. 

"i want to know when chanyeol got here!" the youngest had somewhat cleared his disaster and span round to face chanyeol and baekhyun. 

"he got here last night," baekhyun answered quickly, his hold on chanyeol's arm tightening, remembering how he had almost begged for chanyeol's company. he felt his face grow rediculously hot in embarrassment. 

chanyeol turned to him for a moment, after noticing the grip on his arm turn into a vice. he searched baekhyun's face for discomfort. sehun sent chanyeol a suggestive wiggle of the eyebrows an went on,

"ooh! baekkie, you're blushing!" 

this sparked chanyeol's interest as he turned properly to watch baekhyun - who, indeed, was growing redder and redder under sehun's inquisitive gaze. he ducked his head, feeling a dust of a blush pepper his own cheeks. 

"no i'm not, off," baekhyun stared at the ground, making his face boil. 

"you... you kind of are..." chanyeol mumbled quietly. 

a hyena's cackle bounced off the walls, belonging to sehun, and baekhyun locked eyes with chanyeol. 

"well so are you." the smaller fired back, and it wasnt really a lie - chanyeol was showcasing a lovely shade of pink, and the tips of his ears screamed crimson. 

"oh my god, you two are so cute," sehun giggled as he whipped his phone out and dialled kyungsoo. 

the pair weren't paying attention to sehun as they stared eachother down, eyes big and wide to take in the other's flustered state as they mumbled empty threats of, "i'll shove ice down your shirt, maybe then you'll stop blushing" and, "if you did that i would rip your foot off", just to name a few. 

"kyungsoooo-" sehun cooed into the phone. "soo, they're having a moment."

he put it on speaker to catch the pair's attention, which it did. 

"who?" 

"chanyeol and baekhyun. chanyeol stayed the night," sehun eyed the two in question, who watched him silently. 

"i thought chanyeol had left?" 

"nah, he always comes back," another voice emerged - jongin. 

"jognog?" chanyeol spoke finally, ignoring the strange looks he got for the nickname he had created three years ago from a typo which, admittedly, was hilarious at the time. 

"chan? my boy, what are you doing? i didn't know you were one for so early on in a relationship?" jongin joked, and baekhyun sputtered on the cereal bar he'd quietly began to knaw on. 

 two blushed a horrifically obvious red. 

" you, jongin,"

"shouldn't you be doing that to baekhyun?" 

a slap could be heard from the other side of the line along with a whine from jongin and kyungsoo's voice was audible again. 

"never mind all that," 

baekhyun had had enough of the conversation, and scooped up a handful of cereal bars, carrying them in his tee shirt. his hand was tight on chanyeol's forearm again as he pulled the taller away from their y friends. 

"baekhyun come back!" sehun called, but made no effort to pursue them. 

the pair flopped onto baekhyun's sofa and there was a moment of silence in which baekhyun passed chanyeol a cereal bar, their hands bumped, and they averted eye contact to the floor, in chanyeol's case, and his hands, in baekhyun's case. 

"uhm," baekhyun rubbed the back of his neck, and chanyeol watched as his hand traced the tiny bumps of his spine, calming himself enough to coax a coherent sentence from his lips. "i'm sorry i was so needy last night, i didn't really think that you could've had things to do, and i was really clingy, which might've freaked you out and-" 

chanyeol shook his head, a ghost of a smile gracing his features. "it's okay, i'm actually quite grateful that you called me." 

baekhyun glanced over, taking a bite of his cereal bar, nodding, to let chanyeol know that he was listening. 

"i was feeling really down, and... i was doubting where i... i guess where i stand with people, and when you called me, i felt relieved, i suppose. nobody had contacted me while i was gone, which i'm used to, but it felt different this time, you know?" 

baekhyun didn't know, but he nodded along, listening to chanyeol's deep voice iron out the creases until everything made sense. 

chanyeol continued. "it felt... i felt different because, well, i suppose i've developed new relationships recently, and then i left all of you for a month, and i'm guessing jongin told you that it'd be okay, but i felt like an idiot, leaving like that... i mean, i didn't feel like an idiot while i was gone," chanyeol stumbled over his words and baekhyun watched in silence as the taller searched his brain for the right words to speak. "i felt... okay while i was gone. but when you called me last night, you made me realise that maybe people actually wanted to see me; i realised that i wasn't... i wasn't really okay," 

baekhyun watched chanyeol's eyes that were usually b with stardust and nebulas dim into a muted version of the night sky. it didn't look right. 

the pair sat in silence, an ocean enveloped them and muffled every sound; every breath, every shift in position was quietened as the deep blue swirled into every single crevice, and baekhyun let himself relax into the arms of the deathly quiet, before chanyeol spoke again. 

"so, thankyou.." 

baekhyun glanced at chanyeol, whose eyes were cautious and unsure. 

"you don't have to thank me, yeol," the nickname slipped off his tongue and he tested it, watching chanyeol's reaction, which appeared indifferent to his new name. "i wanted you here." 

baekhyun smiled warmly and unwrapped a third cereal bar, passing it to chanyeol before noticing that he hadn't started the first one he gave him. 

chanyeol took it, however, and ate it with a small smile on his lips and a prodigious smile in his heart.