Chanyeol has been waiting for fifteen minutes. He's trying not to get fidgety and impatient, but he can't help it -- not when Baekhyun isn't here and his face is still sore and his chest feels tight for no reason. 

from: ice prince baekhyun
running late! i'll be there in five! get changed into skates and be ready

That five minutes expired awhile ago, and now the tall boy is anxious over where Baekhyun is. Did he get in an accident on the way back? Did he suddenly realize he had something more important to do? Did he just want to play some kind of cruel trick on Chanyeol? 

Chanyeol sighs morosely, kicking at the carpeted ground with the toe of his skate. Maybe he should call, just in case? 

And then there's a noise, a breathy sort of groan, from the door, and Baekhyun is there. He's pushing the entrance open with a knee, flowers and stuffed animals piled in his arms.

"Sorry!" he wheezes out. 

Chanyeol is about to say it's okay, but then his eyes catch the black silky fabric that hugs every inch of Baekhyun, sees the small bow tied around his neck, notices the flowing sleeves and tight pants clinging to the shorter boy. Baekhyun's in his skating costume, and Chanyeol is struggling to breathe. 

The tall boy notices with a stuttering heart that Baekhyun's also in full makeup, a shimmery quality across his entire face.

His eyes are sharp and lined, red eyeshadow and glitter making him shine with every blink. Golden cheekbones dip into rose tinted cheeks, a light red settling over the bow of his lips. His black hair is styled, slightly curly, a little crunchy, but suave and elegant and -- Chanyeol feels weird thinking it -- hot.  

He looks otherworldly, like some sort of god sent down to earth, ready to command flowers to bloom, to turn the tide of the ocean.

The taller boy doesn't trust himself to say anything intelligent, so he opts to keep quiet and nod in greeting instead. 

"Crazy day," Baekhyun says in a tired voice. "I did a performance for kids who are interested in figure skating at the rec center two towns over. They made me go through it twice -- I'm so tired." 

Chanyeol didn't even know they had a rec center two towns over, much less an ice rink, but he can only imagine how intimidating and talented Baekhyun would look to a small child. Hell, Chanyeol is twenty-three and he's awestruck just watching Baekhyun stumble his way through the door.

"I guess their instructor thought it'd be cute, so they all brought me gifts. I couldn't say no, so I just rode the bus in full makeup and costume with --" Baekhyun gestures to the plushes and flowers placed on the bench next to him, "-- at least fifteen pounds of gifts. I bet I looked crazy." 

Chanyeol wants to say that he doubts anyone was worried about his looks, at least not when he looked like that, but he smiles in a friendly way instead, avoiding thinking about the way his chest is constricting at the moment. 

"Did you wait long?" Baekhyun finally slows down, searching for Chanyeol's eyes through his dark mop of hair.

Baekhyun notices that Chanyeol is avoiding looking directly at him and he frowns, suddenly worried that maybe the reality of being a figure skater is too much for Chanyeol to deal with. And he thought they were getting to be friends, Baekhyun regrets internally. 

"No, not very long!" Chanyeol remedies his actions through enthusiastic words, a natural smile spreading across his face.

"Oh, okay, good," Baekhyun smiles his big smile, dark-lined eyes crinkling in happiness, in a sort of relief he doesn't truly understand.

Chanyeol swallows the lump in his throat, ignores the way his mind can't focus on anything other than the way Baekhyun's slim wrists look in that shirt, at the curve of his hips into a lithe waist. He definitely isn't ogling the expanse of skin below the loose bow and the start of his silk shirt, the area where his collarbones meet strong muscles. 

Skating practice is especially hard that day, since Chanyeol can't focus and Baekhyun is as touchy as ever, all smiles and enchanting glances.

Chanyeol watches Baekhyun skate out in full costume, chokes for air as he does his exercises and watches Baekhyun stretch again, and openly ignores his instructions in favor of studying the details in Baekhyun's eyes and the slope of his nose. 

Even when Chanyeol finally gets to start learning how to skate backwards and how to stop when he's actually skating fast, his focus isn't there. He knows it's because of the sheen of sweat over Baekhyun's skin and the way his fingers wrap around Chanyeol's to demonstrate everything.

It's a rough practice, Chanyeol thinks, because all he can think of is how elegant Baekhyun is, how much he wants to trace his cheekbones with a finger and trace a hand around the bow on his neck. He's distracted and frustrated ten minutes into practice, to say the least. 

-- 

"So, you didn't really prove much about Baekhyun being nice," Sehun begins, popping the spoon full of yogurt into his mouth. Chanyeol notices the quirk on his lips, the hidden smile waiting to come out. 

"It was that 's fault, and you know it," Chanyeol responds grimly, suddenly annoyed. He doesn't know why this bothers him so much; Sehun should like Baekhyun, should know the way he makes Chanyeol's stomach churn. "Baekhyun just didn't want to get grabbed by random guys at a party." 

"That's understandable," Yixing says pointedly, glaring at Sehun. Chanyeol feels a gleam of hope in Yixing's answer, knows that at least one person recognizes that Baekhyun isn't some crazy jerk. 

"He likes grabbing you, though." 

Sehun says it with that wicked smile, as if he'd expected Chanyeol to explain Baekhyun that way. He'd fallen into the trap the younger had set, lead himself down the road of Baekhyun-relationship talks. After their last practice, Chanyeol isn't even sure what's happening with himself and he doesn't want to think about it, much less have a heart to heart about the issue with Sehun and Yixing.

"He doesn't!" Chanyeol sputters out, face suddenly too hot to deal with, cheeks burning with a fiery rage. He thinks of all the times Baekhyun had held his waist, had reached for a hand to drag him along during practice. 

"You said ice skating is touchy," Sehun explains further. "Isn't it weird for you? You're not normally down to spoon people you don't know." 

"Who said anything about spooning?" 

Sehun holds up a finger, prompting him to wait a second, and pulls up pictures on his phone rather quickly. Chanyeol studies each carefully, recognizing a common denominator within a second: Baekhyun. 

In one, Baekhyun has strong arms wrapped around a tiny blonde girl, holding her close on the ice. In another, she's high above him, spinning, and he's proudly waiting to catch her -- Baekhyun looks radiant, Chanyeol notices. These are evidently competition pictures, since the pair is equipped in full costume, crowd-pleasing smiles plastered on both of their faces.

Sehun swipes to the last one, a still of a boy with his hands positioned on Baekhyun's hips, holding the smaller in the air, obviously taken mid-throw during practice. Chanyeol admits that they do look close, almost intimate, but he doesn't let it bother him, despite the sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Where did you find all those pictures of Baekhyun? Creepy." 

Sehun bursts into laughter and shakes his head, turning to gauge Yixing's reaction. 

"Probably Google?" Yixing says in a matter of fact tone, as if it's widely known that it's easy to stalk someone just by googling their name. Chanyeol, in his defense, has never tried it before, so he wouldn't know. 

"I just looked Baekhyun up, and it lists all of his titles and has pictures of him in competition and practicing," Sehun informs the clueless tall boy and Yixing shrugs, obviously pleased with his correct answer.

Chanyeol files that information away for later purposes (not weird ones, he reasons, he just wants to see what Baekhyun's other competition costumes look like) and nods along, defeated. 

"Okay, okay, it's kind of intimate. But I can't do any of those tricks, I'm never going to hold Baekhyun like that --" 

Sehun and Yixing turn to look him in the eye so quickly that there's a collective whoosh at the table. Chanyeol is scared; what did he do? 

"I'm never going to hold Baekhyun like that," Sehun mimics, eyes wide and wide shoulders shaking with excitement. "Why do you sound so sad, lover boy?" 

"I don't!" Chanyeol's blushing again, he knows it, and he shakes his head violently, trying to dispel thoughts of what Sehun is implying. 

"Yeol, you sounded pitiful. You want to hold him like that, right?" 

Chanyeol ignores Yixing's question, suddenly extremely interested in the painting on the wall behind Sehun's annoying, dumb head. 

"Chanyeol," Sehun's voice comes out as a warning. "Chanyeol."

Chanyeol sighs loudly and nods slightly, finally admitting something to himself he hadn't been able to process earlier. He wants to lift Baekhyun and see him in that costume and hold his hand on the ice and maybe go out for dinner after and watch a movie and -- God, he needs to get a grip. He's acutely aware of how loudly his heart is thumping in his chest right now.

"He nodded!" yells out Yixing incredulously. A passerby would've thought they'd just won a gold medal from the way Sehun and Yixing clap their hands together in triumph, making loud screaming noises toward each other in joy. 

"So what? I want to be talented in ice skating. It's not directly about Baekhyun." 

"You said you wanted to hold him," Yixing points out in a matter-of-fact, -eating tone. Chanyeol sighs because what else could he do to explain it away? He can't even process why he's like this, he doesn't need his friends turning this on him.  

"So?" Chanyeol tries to get the image of Baekhyun's shimmering eyelids and red lips out of his mind (he fails.)

"That's pretty gay, dude." 

Chanyeol makes firm eye contact with Sehun at the comment, suddenly realizing that maybe the younger boy was right for once. 

--

It's 8 p.m. and he feels guilty. Baekhyun didn't mean to cancel on Chanyeol last minute -- the pair had decided to meet at 7:30 p.m. this time, since they were both so busy during the day -- but he has a sudden, yet acute, case of stomach flu. He'd texted Chanyeol and sent Jongdae off partying for the night, completely resolved to sleep it all off.

Baekhyun sighs contently and lies back in bed, silently willing his stomach to calm down when he feels his phone vibrating against his side. Sighing, he lifts it to his ear, fully expecting a classmate to be whining about an assignment or their teacher. 

What he gets, though, is a frantic Chanyeol on the other line. 

"Are you okay?" 

Baekhyun almost yelps at the loud, deep voice in his ear, but he composes himself and manages a croaky, "Chanyeol?" 

"Yeah, it's me," Chanyeol sounds rushed and out of breath. "I got your text. You okay?" 

"It's just a stomach bug, I think," Baekhyun tries to explain away the anxiousness in Chanyeol's tone, tries to convince him that he's fine, even though the shorter isn't quite sure why Chanyeol is so distraught in the first place. "I'll be okay tomorrow, I think." 

"I'm outside. Can I come inside?" Baekhyun doesn't even have time to comprehend the question before he hears knocks on the door, loud and definitively Chanyeol. 

Baekhyun ends the call and struggles to his feet, quickly ridding the room of all his trash and dirty clothes. Which is actually quite difficult, since neither he nor Jongdae likes doing laundry, dishes, or vacuuming. They normally bet on who has to do it, but they'd gotten lazy recently and let no one take care of it for a few days. The result? Chaos, utter chaos. And Chanyeol was outside, upset and probably cold from his long walk. This was a nightmare, if Baekhyun had to classify it. 

, he thinks, this really wasn't supposed to happen. After a solid two minutes of cleaning, he concludes that the room is decent enough and he hobbles to the door to open it, Chanyeol's large eyes studying him from head to toe immediately.

Baekhyun is increasingly aware of how ugly he must look right now, but he tries to ignore the self-doubt creeping up -- self-doubt is his downfall, he reasons, and Chanyeol won't care what he looks like in the end. After all, Chanyeol is an athlete, and he's the coach, so there should be a boundary of judgment that the taller can't cross. 

"Did you throw up?" Chanyeol is inside now and, despite all the dorms being relatively the same size, Baekhyun feels as though he's too large for this small room, filled with posters and pictures and decorative pillows. 

"Uh, yeah," Baekhyun nods, covering his mouth. He brushed his teeth after, but now he's hyper conscious about it. Everything about Chanyeol, from his athlete status to his toothy smile to the way he's just so perfect, intimidates him and makes him question himself. 

"I brought soup, some ginger ale, and a movie," Chanyeol explains, producing a bag full of said items from nowhere. Baekhyun is astounded; he'd texted Chanyeol to cancel practice less than an hour ago, and here he was, ready to nurse his skating teacher back to health. 

"Y-you didn't have to," Baekhyun feels guilty that Chanyeol ran to the other side of the campus because he threw up once. It's not even that big of a deal, he laments, taking in the sight of Chanyeol in pajamas with messy curls every which way. Despite feeling bad for the trouble he caused, Baekhyun honestly also feels kind of special, a little cared for. 

"I wanted to," Chanyeol corrects, confident now in the reason behind his stomach churning and cheeks burning: he likes Baekhyun.

He's never liked a boy, never really even entertained the thought of it, but he knows that if the feeling Baekhyun gives him deep in his stomach is something to go off of, he should work his hardest to express his emotions. Chanyeol has always been transparent in his feelings and he doesn't think he can stop now, not with the way Baekhyun makes his entire mood flip, makes his thoughts go wild. He needs to stay close to Baekhyun, even if that's all he can do right now. 

"Oh. You wanted to," Baekhyun responds lamely, cheeks burning scarlet, almost as vibrant as the lip color he'd applied the week before, as red as the roses he'd carried. 

"Here, where should I put the soup?" Chanyeol walks around as if it was his dorm, as if he and Baekhyun have visited countless times before. "Is this table okay?" 

"Huh? Oh, yeah, that's fine," Baekhyun answers flippantly, not even bothering to check which table Chanyeol pointed to.

He doesn't even know if he could throw up anymore at this point. The pure shock of this situation is settling his stomach, making his sickness feel like a thing of the past since his mind is so stressed about the lanky boy in his room. 

"I brought my laptop, too. I wasn't sure if yours had a dvd player, so . . ." Chanyeol shrugs, bright smile gleaming like sunshine. Baekhyun nods in thanks and moves to settle on his bed, leaving a Chanyeol-sized spaced next to him and the wall, just in case the tall boy wanted it. 

"I'll eat the soup later," Baekhyun explains, taking a swig out of the bottle of ginger ale. "Thank you so much, Chanyeol. You really didn't have to do this." 

Chanyeol takes the empty seat next to him, shoulders grazing for a split second, and shakes his head again, clearly communicating that this care was completely voluntary. 

"I got an ice skating movie, that way we didn't really miss practice," Chanyeol's reasoning is off, but Baekhyun thinks the way he says is funny, so he laughs and nods along, ready to watch whatever catastrophe Chanyeol brought along. 

They spend an excruciatingly long 108 minutes watching a movie about a blind figure skater who regains her passion and aims for the Olympics -- something which Baekhyun tears apart, pointing out every flaw in the skating, judging, and acting aspects of the movie. Chanyeol cries at one part, but he masks it with a fit of coughing, though they both know that Chanyeol just wants her to win the goddamn Olympics. 

Baekhyun smiles at him softly, offers a tissue, and from then on they sit in a sort of awkward cuddling position, shoulders completely touching but never moving.

It's a delicate balancing act, since any movement could make it apparent to the pair that they're touching -- something that had been glossed over the entire night -- and both want to avoid that realization at any cost. The fear of pulling away is more than the fear of the main character not getting into the Olympics, of Baekhyun throwing up again, of any negative possibility at the moment.

Chanyeol likes the feeling of Baekhyun against him, even though he's scared he might get sick from the smaller boy, and Baekhyun thinks it's nice to hear the rumble of laughter and thuds of a heartbeat through a different chest than his own. 

It's only after the movie ends that they slowly move towards their respective sides of the bed and reality seems to set in: Chanyeol is in Baekhyun's room at 10 p.m., and they'd just cuddled for almost two hours. 

Chanyeol notices the air change first and, being too scared to screw anything up between them, he feigns a yawn and decides to go home. He doesn't want to do anything to make Baekhyun uncomfortable, doesn't want to scare him or make him think he's violent and vulgar and awful. So, he packs up his laptop and gives sleepy, sick Baekhyun a big smile before he turns off the lights and exits, locking the door behind him. 

Baekhyun feels warm from the inside out, watching the door shut on a familiar head of black hair, and he tries his best to sleep through the stomach pain, ignoring the similar pangs in his heart. 

Chanyeol walks home in the cold, thankful for the bitterness of the weather, since it wakes himself up. As much as he'd wanted to stay and talk to Baekhyun, to thread fingers through his hair and watch another movie and sleep there, he can't bring himself to force anything on the smaller boy.

He'd never been told directly, but he'd noticed Baekhyun's aversion to males and Baekhyun's fear of him that one day in the cafe. He knew that something must've happened in the past in order for Jongdae to seek him out personally to keep the shorter boy safe. He'd pieced it together when he saw Baekhyun freeze at the party, came to the realization that Baekhyun had been hit before, that he wasn't going to fight back, that he'd been conditioned to getting hurt. 

Chanyeol jumped in but couldn't do anything violent, not with Baekhyun shaking like that behind him, not with the new knowledge of what must've happened to him earlier on in his life. Chanyeol can't bring himself to do anything to hurt Baekhyun mentally or physically, and so he jogs his way home, heart flipping at the thought of Baekhyun's soft lips smiling up at him as he'd left. 

--

ok i took a little hiatus bc of personal stuff but ? im back!!!! homework is better, the olympics are inspiring me, and my personal life is doing ok. also i had a bday in the middle of all this mess, so yay! thanks for anyone who continues reading even after me being a ty writer lmao

i hope you guys like this? it's been awhile, i know! developments, developments, developments! 

comment, subscribe, upvote, etc!!!! it means so much to me if you do <3333 ok goodnight i love you all thank you so much! 

((((((OH and p.s. bbh's skating outfit is a combo of the bow from the one and only performances and the black shirt from the white noise performances lmao... if anyone wants references!!!!))))))