will you stay by me? 

will you promise me? 

if i touch you, i fear you will fly away 

and break.

will you stop time,

if this moment passes? 

•••

Baekhyun awoke to the extremely irritating alarm that was oh sehun. 

"WAKE UP!!!!" the lanky teen burst into baekhyuns' dimly lit room, wrenched up the blinds and stripped baekhyun of his duvet. "WE LITERALLY HAVE TEN MINUTES!" 

sehun was a sweet kid, they'd known each other for years, and baekhyun truly loved his company, but in moments like this, baekhyun wanted to strangle his friend and leave his body in a ditch. you know, simple things. 

"go away, noodle head," baekhyun huffed, but heaved out of bed regardless.

sehun left the room after muttering something about the "youth these days, always staying up too late," which baekhyun payed no attention to, since sehun was younger than him. 

he got dressed hastily, not wanting to be late two days in a row, stuffing school supplies in his bag before yelling at sehun to get a move on; his friend seemed to have forgotten that they were, infact, late. 

baekhyun and sehun stumbled out of their apartment and clumsily made their way to their separate lectures that, conveniently, were at the same time. 

an hour and twenty minutes dragged itself along, and as baekhyun bumbled out of the hall, along with the many other students taking his minor, his eyes grazed with another pair - a pair he had not expected to see. 

it was strange to see him in college, around other people, baekhyun thought. 

chanyeol's dulled expression lifted slightly when he saw baekhyun, and he caught himself feeling giddy. what was this feeling? chanyeol weaved through the crowd, looking slightly too big with his grand 6"2 and even grander guitar case. 

the two young men faced eachother with warm smiles, and baekhyun was a little too emersed in how chanyeol's skin seemed to glow like honey and how his eyes could hold the entire universe in such a tiny threshold, that he didn't hear chanyeol ask him,

"are you busy?" 

baekhyun saw the boys' lips move, and heard a mumble of noise over the chattering of his classmates, and his eyebrows knotted together in confusion, eyes meeting with chanyeol's for repetition. 

"i said, 'are you busy?', you really should learn to use your ears, baked bun," 

chanyeol chuckled once again, at the same lame joke he had taken a liking to. 

baekhyun could feel the heat smacking him in the cheeks, painting them his old favourite colour; crimson. 

"ah, hah, no.. i'm not," baekhyun rubbed the back of his neck, which chanyeol most definitely noticed, but what chanyeol didn't notice was the way baekhyuns eyes glanced up at him, full of something that baekhyun himself didn't understand. 

but maybe chanyeol didn't notice because he was too busy combatting the same fuzzy feeling blossoming from his heart, lungs, brain, veins; his entire being felt warm and sunshiney and good, despite the winter weather. 

they decided to venture up the large hill only five minutes away from campus. they both had the rest of the day free, anyway. 

baekhyun had never actually been up this hill, but he could see it from his apartment window. in the summer, it radiated bright green and smiles and picnics. in the winter, it looked eery, and abandoned, although he wasn't really sure how one could 'abandon' a hill, when nobody lived there. 

chanyeol, however, seemed to know this place like the back of his hand. 

"i come here a lot," he began, with an odd tone to his usually level voice. "i like to play guitar up here. the trees make it sound different." 

baekhyun smiled. 

"i mean, i don't really know how it sounds normally, or if that's how it's supposed to sound, or even if guitars are supposed to be played how i do it... agh, i dont know what I'm saying, im rambling, sorry," chanyeol ducked his head, a dust of a blush colouring his cheeks. 

they were silent for a while, as they made their way up the windswept hill, pushing themselves further as the climb got steeper, and as they reached the top, baekhyun stopped to take in a sharp breath. 

the wind whistled around his body, making his dark hair dance messily. he could see his apartment, and the hills and trees past it, as well as the grey scale city.

for baekhyun, a strong sense of... fulfillment caught him off guard. 

chanyeol watched as the strange boy he had met in the strangest of circumstances took in the landscape with wonder, which was even stranger to chanyeol, since he was long past the feeling of awe and magic of this place. now, it was just a place to vent. 

he watched as baekhyun breathed in the swirling air. he watched as he took in the hills and the city and the trees. 

he watched as baekhyun's pretty little eyes soaked up what was in front of him, printing it into his brain, and he watched as baekhyun turned to him, his pretty little face breaking out into a grin. 

to chanyeol, baekhyun looked like an adventure waiting to happen. 

to baekhyun, chanyeol looked like a doorway to something new and exciting and brilliant. 

and they stayed there all day, talking about the sky and the stars and the moon. and eachother. and how many instruments chanyeol could play, and baekhyun's favourite pudding, and anything, really. 

and as chanyeol gently strummed at the strings of his acoustic with his hair performing a dramatic show and his eyes closed, baekhyun felt himself fit into place with this man, like missing pieces of a puzzle, or a padlock and key, or something else entirely that clicks together perfectly.