Baekyeol centric
Continuity: Right after the previous drabble

#36:Put a Ring on It

Chanyeol knew that when Baekhyun said he wanted a ring, he didn’t mean he really wanted anything tremendous. He wasn’t looking for the biggest diamond in the world, or the crown jewels of a lost Empire that had once ruled this world. The thing was, Chanyeol wanted to give him exactly that. Suho was floored when Chanyeol came up to him and said just that.

“I want to give Baekhyun the biggest diamond on this planet. The problem is I don’t know where to find it.”

Suho gaped. “First of all, you do know that where we come from the practice of giving jewelry when one becomes engaged is nonexistent, right?”

“But we’re not on our world anymore!” Chanyeol exclaimed. “And it’s tradition here, and Sehun and Lu Han have rings and Chen and Kai are going to have rings, and Baekhyun wants a ring when I propose to him!”

“I’m sure he was kidding,” Suho sighed.

“You don’t know Baekhyun,” Chanyeol deadpanned.

“Why do you want to give him such a big stone?” Kris asked, having overheard the whole thing. Chanyeol was very loud, and they were outside so his voice was carrying. That was why they were having this conversation while Baekhyun was off with Kai, Tao and Sehun.

“Don’t you remember?” Chanyeol asked. “He loved precious gems, he played with them all the time at the sanctuary. It lets him cast light in a thousand directions!”

“Oh yeah,” Kris and Suho chorused, and Chanyeol knew they were remembering how Baekhyun’s face would light up as he filtered light through the facets of a gem.

“And you remember how small those stones were, so imagine what he could do with a really big one!” Chanyeol cried excitedly, jumping up and down. “So I want to find him a really, really big gem!”

“But think logically!” Suho exclaimed. “Where would he put a huge thing like that?”

“In a bag,” Chanyeol answered as though it were obvious. “Or wear it.”

“He can’t wear it constantly,” Kris pointed out, “It would be too heavy.”

“I’ll get him two rings then,” Chanyeol decided. “One to wear forever and one to play around with.”

Suho threw his hands up. “Why do I bother?” He asked Kris. “Why do I even open my mouth? I swear I’m just wasting my breath…”

“So does that mean you’ll help me?” Chanyeol asked the pair of them.

“Help you what?” Kris asked.

Chanyeol rolled his eyes at him. “Find the ring of course! What you think I can find this huge stone all by myself?!”

Suho closed his eyes. “No,” he said flatly, turning around and walking away. “Nope, nope, nope. I will not be a part of—” He walked into a tree and fell backwards.

Chanyeol turned to Kris. “So will you help?”

Kris looked between Suho, rolling around on the ground clutching his head, and Chanyeol who was giving him a hopeful look. “I’ll think about it,” he said finally.

Kris came up to Chanyeol the day after, pulling him aside to go look for firewood and bringing Xiumin and Kyungsoo along. Kris had discussed the issue of Baekhyun’s engagement ring with the pair of them, and they had come to weigh in on the subject.

“The thing is,” Kris said when they had gone a safe enough distance from camp, “We don’t know if we can cut a gem on our own, so raw gems are out. That means that for you to get a gem of the high quality you want, you’d have to steal it.”

Chanyeol stared at them. “Steal it from who?” He asked.

“A museum,” Kyungsoo said. “Or a very rich house.”

“Nobody lives here but us,” Chanyeol pointed out. “How is it stealing?”

“Chanyeol,” Xiumin said patiently, “We’ve seen those gems in books, they are national treasures to the people who used to live here…”

“And if they left them behind, how important could they be?” Chanyeol argued. “It’s not like someone stealing my firestone you know,” he pointed out, touching the stone that hung around his neck. “I will always have this, it’s a personal treasure. Any gem that really mattered to these people got taken away on those ships. Look at all the engagement rings they left behind already, we technically stole those.”

“Not the same,” Xiumin interrupted, “They didn’t belong to anyone.”

“If it’s in a museum, it’s not personal property,” Kyungsoo said suddenly. “Right?”

“I thought you were playing devil’s advocate,” Kris said crossly.

“But Chanyeol has a point,” Kyungsoo shrugged.

Kris sighed and rolled his eyes. “Look Chanyeol, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go, I’ll help you find this gem, but in the end you’re the one who has to be okay with taking it.”

Chanyeol did feel a little guilty, because he knew his friends had a point. It kind of was stealing, but they had taken countless items from stores and homes already, what was one small theft from a museum at this point?

“Baekhyun is worth it,” he said happily.

The first thing they had to do was track down a stone big enough to fit Chanyeol’s demands. They went into a lot of ring stores, having to do it secretly since Chanyeol wanted his proposal to be a total surprise. Kai and Chen were picking out their own rings, choosing to do it together and try to find ones that matched. Chanyeol would surreptitiously scour the cases of rings himself, and he never found a diamond, sapphire or any other stone big enough. The conclusion was that the only way to get what Chanyeol was looking for was to track down the Smithsonian collection of gems.

“Now what the crap is that?” Chanyeol asked when Kris brought it up.

Kris held up a very tattered travel guide of Asia, the one he’d been carrying around for ages. “It went on tour in China just before the first disease epidemic hit. Of course the guide doesn’t mention that, but it was published the year before the world started to end, so I assume it’s still there. From what you’ve described to me, these people weren’t exactly keen on preserving their historical artifacts. Trust me when you see it, you’ll be impressed.”

They were pretty darn close to where one of the known stops on the collection’s tour was, so under the guise of wanting to go to a museum in general, the group made their way east until they finally made it to the museum. It was eerie, walking into the place and seeing old statues and paintings, and hearing their every word echo around the room.

“Ugh,” Tao mumbled, rubbing his arms. “This place is creepy.”

Chanyeol disagreed. “Wow look at that!” He hollered, running over to an old vase. “Look at the color, the shape! It’s incredible, it’s—”

Baekhyun came over and whacked him on the shoulder. “Keep your voice down,” he hissed. “There’s no need to shout in here, we’re two feet away from you.”

Chanyeol immediately fell silent, clasping his hands behind his back and skipping around, humming happily. He was (hopefully) going to find Baekhyun an engagement ring! How could he be anything but happy?

After about an hour, they came upon a dimly lit section of the museum with an old sign that Kris read as “Special exhibition.” They made their way in carefully so they didn’t trip, and everyone gasped.

“Wow,” Sehun blurted. “This is…”

Tao whistled, Kris dropped his book and Chanyeol knew his eyes were about to fall out of his head. He’d never seen so many huge gems before in his life.

Baekhyun immediately took off running. “This is so cool,” he squealed, running all around. “Look at how the light bounces off these stones! Oh wow, hang on I’m going to shed some light on this place…”

Baekhyun spent a good hour playing around with the gems, holding his hand up to the protective glass and shining light onto the stones, creating rainbows and flashy beams of light. it was perfect because he was not paying attention to Chanyeol at all.

“How about that one,” he whispered, gesturing towards a large diamond in the center.

Kris checked his book and then shook his head. “That’s the Hope Diamond, it’s supposed to be cursed. You don’t want to give your husband a cursed stone.”

Chanyeol gulped and nodded. He walked around, mentally crossing off most of the stones. The largest diamonds seemed to be set in tiaras or necklaces, things he wouldn’t give Baekhyun, but finally he literally stumbled on the perfect stone. He tripped over a rip in the carpet and nearly fell head-first into a display case, catching himself just in time but still winding up with his face pressed against the glass, and that was when he saw it.

“Hello, beautiful,” Chanyeol slurred, his face still stuck to the glass. He unstuck himself and gestured for Kris.

“How about this one?”

Kris checked his book. “That’s the Chalk Emerald. It doesn’t seem to be cursed or anything, but I thought you wanted a diamond…?”

Chanyeol flapped his hands. “But look at it! It’s set in a ring, it’s huge, and it does have diamonds…I’ll never find another ring perfect enough for him!” He looked over his shoulder to make sure that Baekhyun was distracted, and then he reached for the glass, testing how thick it was. He realized he couldn’t break it with his hands, not even after all this time had passed. He huffed in frustration—he’d need to break the glass, but how was he to do that without getting Baekhyun’s attention?

Chanyeol grabbed Suho. “Distract him for me,” he muttered, and then he took off running, dashing through the museum like a man possessed until he made it back to a hallway he’d seen earlier. He snatched up an artifact and then ran back, smacking into Yixing along the way.

“Ouch!” They both cried, falling to the floor.

Chanyeol got up first. “Why were you following me?”

“To make sure you didn’t get lost!” Yixing cried, holding his hand out for Chanyeol to help him up. Chanyeol accidentally held out the hand he had the artifact in and Yixing gasped.

“What the heck is that?!”

Chanyeol grinned and held it up. “It’s for breakin’ things!” And then he left Yixing on the floor as he continued back, laughing all the way.

Kris nearly had a heart attack when he saw what Chanyeol had brought back. “Are you completely insane?” He hissed, trying to grab the thing. “That is a millions of years old relic, it’s a dinosaur bone, you can’t use it to—”

Chanyeol was stronger than Kris though, and he retained hold of the bone. “It’s survived this long,” he fired back, “I think it can break some glass.”

“It doesn’t work like that!” Kris told him, and suddenly Tao rushed up.

“Guys, Baekhyun’s wondering where you are…”

Chanyeol straightened up. “Can you like, cover his ears while I break this thing open?”

Tao’s eyes widened. “Um…no.”

Chanyeol huffed again. “He’ll hear the glass shattering…I need a distraction.”

“Wait,” Kris said suddenly, “How did you get this? Didn’t an alarm go off?”

“No,” Yixing piped up as he made his reappearance, rubbing his and glaring at Chanyeol. “I think when we disabled the security at the front door, we disabled it around the whole building.”

“Well then,” Chanyeol said brightly, “No point in standing around…” He drew the bone back and Tao grabbed his arm.

“Let me do it,” he said quietly. “I’ll freeze time and then break the glass, Baekhyun won’t hear anything.”

Chanyeol’s face fell. “I want to do it…” he whined. “He’s my future husband!”

Tao patted his arm. “I’ll let you pick the ring up, how does that sound?”

Chanyeol considered it for a moment, then handed his glass breaking tool over. He didn’t even see Tao take it, the next thing he knew the glass was broken and Tao was smiling at him. “It’s all yours.”

Chanyeol looked back at the display case and his breath caught in his throat. Now that he was seeing the ring without a barrier it looked even more beautiful. He reached in, careful of the jagged glass, and scooped it up. It was really heavy and he was glad he had the foresight to get Baekhyun a smaller ring.

“Alright,” Kris said nervously, “Let’s get going.”

They ran into the rest of the group as they left the hallway. Baekhyun gave Chanyeol a suspicious look.

“What took you so long?” He demanded.

Chanyeol grinned as he thought of the ring, wrapped up in his spare shirt and tucked away safely in his backpack. His grin widened as he looked his boyfriend over, taking in his adorably confused expression, thinking about how even though he wasn’t smiling at the moment, his smile could change his whole face and light up a room. Baekhyun didn’t know it but his smile was infectious and made his eyes shine brighter than any light he could make or fire Chanyeol could produce. Baekhyun thought he was cold and dark but Chanyeol knew better. Baekhyun was the brightest light of his life, and he always would be.

Baekhyun gasped as Chanyeol grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him in, kissing him soundly for several long moments. When he pulled back Baekhyun’s face was flushed, his eyes were bright and they were both breathing heavily.

“Wow,” Baekhyun gasped. “I have no idea what I did to deserve that, but can it happen more often?”

Chanyeol laughed and hugged Baekhyun so tightly he lifted him off his feet. “Yes,” he chuckled, nuzzling Baekhyun’s neck. “We can do that any time we want to.”

A week after the trip to the museum Chanyeol hadn’t given Baekhyun the ring yet. He was suddenly shy, wondering if Baekhyun would like it, if he should have gone for a diamond. Chanyeol didn’t think it would matter, but he wanted to know that Baekhyun would love the ring that he was going to give him. He agonized every night over how best to present the ring to his soon-to-be husband and came up blank.

Then at the end of the week, Chen and Kai said they had something to show everyone. The group was staying in a large apartment, and they made the announcement right after breakfast while everyone was still gathered together.

“What’s up?” Suho asked, leaning forward.

They grinned at each other and held out their hands, and there was a collective gasp.

“They’re beautiful!” Lu Han cried, seizing Chen’s hand at once (seeing as Chen was closer to him). “Oh how adorable, they match!”

“In a strange, not matching at all kind of way,” Sehun laughed, grunting when Lu Han elbowed him.

They both had rings with three larger stones in the center and smaller ones dotting the band of the ring half-way around. For Kai’s ring the center stone was blue, as were the small stones on the band. The two other large stones were white. Chen’s ring was the reverse.

“Are those blue diamonds?” Kyungsoo asked. “Where’d you find those?”

“They were in the ring store in the center of the city,” Kai explained. “Pretty well hidden in the back of a drawer, we almost missed them.”

“You went to a ring store yesterday?” Chanyeol asked, trying to remember when the two of them left the apartment. It must have been when he was taking a nap, having not slept well lately.

“Yes,” Kai said. “And we took Baekhyun with us.”

Baekhyun startled and almost choked on his own spit. “Kai!” He gasped.

“What?” Kai demanded. “You both have rings for each other you know, now you just need to give them to each other!”

Baekhyun turned to Chanyeol with wide eyes. “You got me a ring?”

Chanyeol gulped. “One second,” he mumbled, and he stood up and dashed into his room, retrieving the rings with shaking hands. On the way back to the dining room he was keenly aware that there were eleven pairs of eyes on him (thirteen counting the dogs) and he almost tripped out of embarrassment, which was only made worse when Tao snorted.

Chanyeol quickly got down on one knee in front of Baekhyun, who seemed rooted to his chair in shock. Chanyeol looked up into Baekhyun’s face and realized that this would tie him to Baekhyun forever—this was a promise that they would always be together, not matter how much they fought or how unworthy they thought they were of the other’s love. This was him promising to Baekhyun that they loved each other for real and forever. He took out the first box and handed it to Baekhyun, too shy to open it himself.

“I just want you to know,” he said, never taking his eyes away from Baekhyun’s face, “That I’ll always love you and I’ll always be here for you.”

Baekhyun’s hands were shaking worse than Chanyeol’s were. He practically shrieked when he finally got the box open, nearly dropping it in surprise.

“I hope that’s good,” Chanyeol blurted, and Baekhyun laughed.

“It is,” he assured, “I…it’s a good scream.”

Chanyeol laughed and took the ring out, slipping it onto Baekhyun’s finger. It hadn’t been easy to find the perfect ring for Baekhyun, but finally he had gotten one that he thought was perfect. The band was wide, with three stripes of diamonds circling halfway around the band. Two of those stripes were brown diamonds, Chocolate diamonds, Kris had said. The large center diamond was surrounded by a square of smaller ones.

“This is going to sound cheesy,” Chanyeol mumbled, “But…I picked it because it’s almost as bright as you are.”

Baekhyun actually sobbed and he flung himself off his chair, Chanyeol barely managed to catch him. “It’s not cheesy…” he managed to say. “It’s perfect, you’re perfect…I love you so much, I…” He pulled back and gave Chanyeol a wide-eyed look. “I need to give you your ring!”

“Got you covered,” Kai called, tossing Baekhyun a box. Baekhyun caught it and then, just as shyly as Chanyeol had, handed it over.

“I really hope you like it,” he mumbled.

‘Like’ was an understatement. “Whoa!” Chanyeol cried, nearly dropping the box in shock. “Are those…it looks like…!”

“They’re rubies,” Baekhyun said, taking the ring out and putting on Chanyeol. “And yeah, they reminded me of fire.”

Chanyeol felt himself tearing up, so touched by how carefully Baekhyun must have planned this, picking a ring that matched Chanyeol’s beloved firestone. Chanyeol cleared his throat. “I love it,” he promised, “And actually…I have one more surprise for you.” And he handed Baekhyun the second box.

“BY THE TREE,” Baekhyun shrieked as he opened the box, and this time he really did drop the box. Chanyeol expected it and managed to grab it as Baekhyun’s hands flew to his mouth. His eyes had gone impossibly wide and they darted between Chanyeol and the massive emerald.

“How…but…when…was that…?!”

Chanyeol rushed to explain. “I thought you could use it for your gift, see how you could use it to your advantage, and yes it was at the museum, I took it when you went ahead—Tao helped actually,” he added, “And I did it because you deserve it.”

Baekhyun was shaking. “I…wow,” he managed as Chanyeol placed the ring in his hand. “You are something else, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol grinned. “So does that mean you like it?”

Baekhyun couldn’t stop smiling, not even as he pulled Chanyeol in for a kiss. “I love it, but hard as it is to believe, not even half as much as I love you.”

Chanyeol thought that must have been a whole lot of love.

Kai’s ring : http://www.kay.com/images/products/9908/990883201_MV_ZM.jpg

Chen’s ring - http://www.kay.com/en/kaystore/engagement---wedding/blue-diamond-ring-1-carat-tw-princess-cut-14k-white-gold/100006/100006.100007.100010

Baekhyun’s engagement ring - http://www.kay.com/en/kaystore/engagement---wedding/chocolate-diamonds--1-3-8-ct-tw-ring-14k-vanilla-gold/100006/100006.100007.100010

Chanyeol’s ring - http://www.zales.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11217889

Women’s rings have a lot more variety than men’s, have you ever noticed that?

Chalk emerald - (1) http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/images/6_0_0_GeoGallery/specimen4083_1.jpg (2) http://famousdiamonds.tripod.com/chalkemerald.jpg

THANKS TO BEYONCÉ FOR THAT AWESOME TITLE!!

~~~~If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it~~~~ Good thing Chanyeol and Baekhyun had the sense to put a ring on it XDDD

AS OF 11:45 PM WHERE I AM THE WOLF MV ISN'T OUT YET. DAMN IT SM WHAT 'CHU WAITING ON??? BAEKYEOL'S FOR REAL ENGAGEMENT, PERHAPS?

Edit:As of 5/30 8:56 AM YES THE MV IS OUT BUT MY SISTER IS SLEEPING AND I CAN'T WATCH WITHOUT HER!!