06/05/17

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Baekhyun

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For my seventeenth birthday, I’m thrown a party. It has streamers and balloons and food and gifts and everything that a teenager would wish for. Yet, the cold feeling in my chest lingers. Because the party is not for me, it is for attention. It is for publicity, for all the rich companies to flock to my family and beg for funding and the favour of my parents. It is supposed to be a party for me, but it feels like another opportunity for my parents to flaunt their wealthiness.

Guests glide around in long dresses and elegant suits, and ever so faintly, I make out the tinkling of the overhanging chandeliers, soft over the overlapping chatter and clinking of champagne flutes.

I can hear some peoples’ voices better than others; the deeper ones heard clearer than the ones of higher frequencies. I follow the previous instructions of my parents and sit still, hands clasped my lap and head bowed politely. Everything feels suffocating, the ballroom music echoing through the hall, the pitying gazes that they think I can’t feel, the unspoken warning of don’t mess this up or you’ll regret it.

I wear a long suit with a high collared shirt to hide the purpling bruises that cover the expanse of my neck and chest, some new and some fading. It’s inevitable, I guess. I’m tempted to pull the sleeves over my hands, a nervous habit that I’ve acquired over the last few years, but I remind myself that the suit is a Desmond Merrion, and my parents won’t be pleased if I wrinkle it. I feel stifled. I feel sick.

I sit like that for what feels like hours, maybe it is. Then there’s the soft screech of a chair being pulled beside me. Maybe it’s one of the guests, I think. Maybe it’s a new and hopeful person that hasn’t gotten the memo; don’t speak to the Byun kid, he doesn’t return the favour.

But instead, a warm and familiar hand slips into mine, and there’s a comforting thumb brushing across my knuckles.

‘Hey, you.’ he signs, and I feel a grin spreading across my cheeks slowly, dipping my head lower to mask it.

‘Chanyeol.’

It’s not a question, it’s a statement. A statement of disbelief, of wonder, of thank god you’re here.

‘How are you feeling, kid?’

I bite my lip to hide the still-growing beam, and half-shrug.

‘I’m okay.’

I can feel the soft thrum of his chuckle, echoing through the chair and my body.

‘So you’re seventeen, now?’

I can feel the chatter fading away slightly, muted to me. It feels less closed in now, the crowd of guests distant from me. There’s only Chanyeol. I respond to his question with three soft taps against his palm.

‘You look beautiful tonight, Baekhyun.’

He signs it casually, hand clear and movements precise, but it send my heart into a frenzy, thumping madly in my chest, and my heads bows impossibly low to hide the blush that creeps rapidly across my cheeks. I don’t respond to him, because I’ve never really been told that by anyone before, never known how to take a compliment like that.

‘Has anyone told you that yet tonight, Baek? You really do look gorgeous today.’

I can’t hold back the breathy giggle that escapes my lips, and he chuckles along with me again, the vibrations reverberating through my fingertips pleasantly.

‘Thanks, I guess.’

‘Is that a blush I see on your cheeks, Baekhyun?’

I snort softly, ducking my head so he can’t see my face, and he pokes me in the ribs gently, drawing a soft squeal from my lips, the grin spreading across my face freely now.

He’s in the midst of signing another sentence to me when I hear another voice, and his hand stills.

The person is asking him something, and he pauses before speaking back. His voice is deeper than the new person, and I can understand it a tiny bit clearer.

I’m a friend of his, he says to the person, and I don’t bother fighting back the warmth that spreads from the tips of my fingers to my toes at the words, because I had been bracing myself for the expected I’m his therapist, and he still hasn’t let go of my hand as he says it.

Sometimes I think that it’s not healthy, to feel this warm and happy and content around Chanyeol. He’s my therapist, he’s my doctor, he’s so much older than I am. But he’s my friend.

The word rings clear in my head.

Friend.

So much more than I ever wished for, but somehow, still not enough.

As Chanyeol speaks to the person casually, hand still clutching mine under the table, I feel myself becoming aware of the people around me again, and suddenly the walls are closing in on me once more. My collar is tight around my neck and my throat is dry. Panic sets into me, and suddenly there’s an overwhelming need for me to leave, to get out of the room. People are watching me, I remember. They’re watching the stupid little deaf-blind boy who doesn’t speak, watching for some weakness. And I just have so much of that.

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