Baekhyun's second and two-point-five dilemmas arose the next day.

It wasn't a problem with him per say.

But it was extremely confusing, to the point it became a problem.

Baekhyun ate his cereal slowly at the breakfast table, staring at the member next to him.

As was everyone else.

There was nothing wrong with him.

He didn't have any tentacles suddenly coming out of him. There were no alien antennas on his head. No claws. He didn't wake to have eight eyes or six legs.

Chanyeol was ... simply Chanyeol.

Only, he was holding Baekhyun's hand.

At the table.

A table that for the first time ever, held a vase with fresh flowers in it.

A table on which all of them always had breakfast together.

"Baek, can you pass me the cereal?" He asked as he was looking down, reading an article on his phone on the table.

Baekhyun looked around at s for help.

They shrugged or kept staring as they ate at a turtle pace to watch the train wreck unfold.

Baekhyun cleared his throat, "M-Maybe... You can? If you let go? It's right in front of us, Yeol"

Chanyeol looked up to see the box standing tall right across from their joined hands.

"I don't want to let you go," he said calmly as he took it with his free article-scrolling and spoon hand.

Everyone watched him shake the cereal box, pouring out more for himself before setting it down and continuing to eat and read with the same hand.

Never letting Baekhyun's hand go until he put his bowl and spoon away and changed the flowers' water.
 

If breakfast was out of the ordinary, the rest of the day was even stranger.

Chanyeol took finding himself to heart, letting his normal, Chanyeol-level determination to stop at nothing - unashamed.

In the afternoon, Baekhyun found himself with a lap full of Chanyeol.

He sat quietly as Baekhyun was cross-legged on a table, reading his lines to host another music show.

Baekhyun stared at him with raised arms, not touching the foreign man in his lap.

Chanyeol swung his legs as if he were sitting on a pier, testing the waters.

He reached around without looking, taking Baekhyun's arms and holding them around his waist.

Chanyeol looked around as he snuggled himself into Baekhyun's chest and arms.

Baekhyun gulped nervously.

"Uh... Chanyeolie?"

Chanyeol decided then to hop down from his lap to stand and face Baekhyun, sharing his experiment's results eye to eye.

"I don't think I'm a bottom. That's what you call it, right? It didn't feel right being cuddled. I like hugging instead of being hugged. Plus, I think the fans are right, it's - cute - our height difference. I joke about your height a lot, but I never noticed just how much smaller you are. I can learn to be top - if that's okay. Is that okay with you?"

Baekhyun nodded slowly, still getting over the shock and still highly lost.

Chanyeol then wrapped his arms around Baekhyun and squeezed him, nuzzling his face against his before walking away, pocketing a hand as he handsomely waved at other idols like nothing happened.

"...What just happened?" Baekhyun whispered.

"I think hyung, you just became the bottom in this ... relationship?" Sehun said, scrunching his eyebrows, also confused by his usually put-together hyung and how he felt about his experiments with Baekhyun.

Suho joined the fray, watching Chanyeol speak normally to Kyungsoo. He was laughing and hitting him like normal.

"Did Chanyeol just sit in your lap?" Suho asked.

Baekhyun nodded.

The both of them went back to reading their script, begging for some sort of normalcy.

Sehun crossed his arms and read Baekhyun's, also needing a distraction - anything that made more sense.
 

Having some free time for themselves, EXO went about their day separately to relax and unwind.

Some traveled.

Others hung out with old friends.

Some cleaned.

Others read.

Baekhyun sat on the couch, playing League of Legends loudly with a headset until Chanyeol sat next to him with his arm wrapped around his shoulders

Baekhyun nearly dropped his laptop as Chanyeol held out a single rose.

From water dripping off the end, he assumed Chanyeol had just plucked it from his new batch of flowers on the kitchen table.

"Will you go on a date with me?"

Baekhyun sputtered and quickly shut his laptop and removed his headphones as his idol friends were hooting and hollering in his headset to say yes.

"Date?" He exclaimed.

Chanyeol grinned, "Today."

"What?"

"Baekhyun, will you go on a date with me?"

He stared at him.

"...What?"
 

Baekhyun nervously continued to stare at Chanyeol as if he was about to be murdered by an imposter Chanyeol.

He checked to make sure as they walked in a park, hand in hand.

Just a safety precaution.

"...Am I going to die?"

Chanyeol swung their hands in the air and laughed, smiling at Baekhyun with dazzling eyes and perfect teeth with a look that suggested Baekhyun was something so precious and innocent to him.

"No, but I might if you keep being so cute. You look great today."

Baekhyun deadpanned as Chanyeol poked his cheek with the remark.

He paused their trek up a path in the reserved part of the park.

"Who... Who are you and where is Chanyeol?"

Chanyeol didn't falter but his smile softened as his eyes pointed down to look at his feet shyly. "I'm trying, Baekhyun... I- ...I really want to make you as happy as I was when you told me you liked me. I'm really nervous..."

"You didn't seem happy..." Baekhyun grumbled as he recalled the blank stare Chanyeol gave him.

"I was shocked. All at once, I asked what I wanted - if I wanted to stay friends or try to have more with you. I was thinking what I could do for you... How not to hurt you. I've never been in a situation like this - confessed to by someone important to me. How would you feel if I told you I loved you out of the blue, right in front of our friends and it was the first time someone ever told you without it being about you in EXO?"

Baekhyun felt guilty then.

Chanyeol was not only trying to figure out his own feelings and himself, he was doing his best to learn how to date and even how to be with Baekhyun.

Baekhyun giggled out of happiness then, grinning widely.

"I like you being you, that's your first lesson. So, you don't have to touch my cheek," he fake gag