His roommate was distracting, in more ways than one.

Chanyeol tried to focus on the page on the desk in front of him, tried to force his hand to write the rap that had been circling his mind all day. He’d been so excited about writing an original rap, possibly being allowed to record it if it was approved, but now… No matter how hard he tried to concentrate, he simply couldn’t ignore the other boy in the room.

His hyung was driving him crazy.

Baekhyun-hyung had been slowly dancing his way over to the thermostat for a while now. Chanyeol immediately knew what that meant: another uncomfortable night on the sofa. He was tired from hours of grueling practice and wanted nothing more than to sink into his mattress and pass out. If not for his need to document his rap before he forgot it, he would’ve gone to bed as soon as they’d arrived back at the dorm two hours ago.

Sighing mentally, he prepared himself for what was, unfortunately, becoming a nightly ritual.

“Hyung.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Baekhyun stop, cocking his hip sideways in a pose of affected casualness as he picked a book up off the shelf and flipped through it as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

“Hmm?”

“Not again,” Chanyeol beseeched. “Please.”

Baekhyun turned and gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence. “What do you mean?”

“Hyung…” Chanyeol sighed again, setting his pen on the table and stretching his aching back. “I can see you, you know. Peripheral vision and all that. I know you’re about to adjust the settings on the thermostat again and I’m asking you kindly not to.”

He could see on Baekhyun’s face that he’d briefly considered carrying on with the “I don’t know what you’re talking about” game but his innate straightforwardness won out in the end. Beating around the bush simply wasn’t his style.

He set the book aside. “I need it in order to sleep, Channie. It helps my vocal chords. As a singer, that is my most important tool. I’m sure that you can appreciate that.”

Chanyeol stood and turned to face his hyung, parking his on the edge of the table as they squared off.

“I can. Your voice is very valuable to us and I would do anything to help you protect it, which is why I would hope that you could understand where I’m coming from. I may not sing like you do but I dance every bit as hard and my body needs proper rest in a proper bed, not the sofa, which is like…three feet too short for me.”

“I don’t tell you to go sleep on the sofa. That’s your choice.”

“Hyung, the room gets too hot. It’s impossible to sleep when I’m roasting inside my skin.”

Baekhyun scoffed. “You’re just being dramatic now.”

Chanyeol ground his teeth. “No, I’m not. It seriously feels that way sometimes.”

Baekhyun frowned. “Well… I’m sorry but my blood is just a little bit colder than yours, I guess. It doesn’t bother me in the least and it really helps with my singing. I’ve gotten more than enough criticism about my lack of control and consistency while singing live. I don’t want to risk jeopardizing the one thing that actually seems to make it better.”

“There must be something else. Can’t you sleep with more blankets or something?”

“Can’t you sleep with less?” Baekhyun countered.

“I already do,” Chanyeol snapped. “I’m on the verge of sleeping buck . It doesn’t help. If it did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?”

Baekhyun placed his hands on his hips and started tapping one foot impatiently.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Channie. It is what it is. You’re gonna have to find a way to deal with it.”

He was furious, Chanyeol told himself. He had to remember that he was angry and irritated and not let the other reason why his hyung was distracting distract him from this conversation.

Alas, as his eyes slowly drifted downward, he realized that it was too late. His annoyance was already fading.

He sighed inwardly.

He hadn’t noticed it at first. He hadn’t really looked at his hyung as anything but a hyung, a member and brother-figure, so there was no reason he would have. But one day, one random day when his hyung had been walking like he did every day, his eyes had trailed over him and he’d had a thought. Or rather, more of an epiphany.

Baekhyun has…girlie hips?

They weren’t feminine per se, he supposed, but… They were more shapely than most guys’, curvy with a feminine slant. They looked good in a pair of jeans or leather pants or anything he put on them. They simply looked…different, and he couldn’t help noticing – or appreciating – them. The way his hyung walked and had a penchant for putting his hands on his hips, like now, repeatedly drew his attention to them. If he didn’t know better, he’d have been worried that he was even becoming mildly obsessed with them. That was just preposterous, though, and didn’t even bear consideration.

“Fine!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in defeat.

He stalked over to his bed and ripped his T-shirt off, flinging it onto his bed as he grabbed a pillow and his blanket.

With his back turned, he missed the appreciative look in the pair of dark eyes languidly roving over his toned, smooth, and shoulders.

Sleeping materials gathered, he turned around and spoke between clenched teeth. “Goodnight, hyung.”

He was as annoyed with himself for getting distracted as he was with Baekhyun for being a selfish and that was the only reason why he was retreating this time.

Or so he told himself.

By the next morning, Chanyeol’s irritation had faded – he could never stay mad at Baekhyun for long – and Baekhyun had even made him breakfast as a sort of token of peace or olive branch so by the time they arrived at the mall for the fansign event, he was in a pretty good mood.

The event flowed smoothly and he had a great time. There were even a few fun moments between him and Baekhyun that had made his heart flutter just a little. He didn’t think much of it, though. He loved his hyung, that’s all it was.

Later that evening, back at the dorm, he logged onto UCC sites and searched for videos from the event. His English wasn’t that great but Kris-hyung had taught him how to adequately traverse English sites so he was quite a pro at it.

First, he sought out the group videos, or EXO-12 as fans liked to call them. He smiled as he looked at the twelve of them standing on stage together, basking in the residual warmth of being one again. The memories of their Disneyland trip and their first SMTown were still fresh in his mind and he knew that they would be for quite some time. Though he adored s and fully supported both EXO-K and EXO-M individually, there was just something magical about the twelve of them being together.

After viewing a few videos, he typed in the search term EXO couples and waited for the results to load. Unsurprisingly, the majority were Selu moments, or HunHan as international fans referred to them. He shook his head, grinning widely as he watched the maknae and his baby-faced, favorite hyung whisper to each other back and forth while Suho dutifully led the event. It could be considered rude, he supposed, but they were so adorable and everyone was so used to the way they got wrapped up in each other that it was hard to scold them for their seemingly inappropriate behaviour.

He scrolled through more couple videos – Kai and D.O, Kris and Tao, Xiumin and Luhan – until he saw a thumbnail with his and Baekhyun’s images. Smile widening further, he clicked play. He immediately laughed when he realized which moment it was. He’d tried to take Baekhyun’s accessory from him and his hyung had shot him a dirty look which, to be honest, he’d found completely adorable. He’d then tried to pacify the shorter boy by making a face. He watched himself lean down and speak into Baekhyun’s ear, unable to deny that, even to his eyes, it looked somewhat…suggestive. He supposed that was the word. In the moment, he hadn’t thought anything of it but now, seeing how it looked to everyone else, he couldn’t suppress the blush that tainted his cheeks. He scrolled through the comments beneath the video, thankful that he was on a Korean site, and saw his suspicions confirmed.

He clicked on another video, this one showing Baekhyun giving him another dirty look, glancing up and down his body as if to say “why are you so abnormally tall?”. He’d rectified that by going down a step and bending his knees so that he was at eye-level with his hyung, which Baekhyun had seemed to like, or at least found entertaining. He remembered finding his hyung particularly cute at that moment. His put-upon expressions were really, really endearing.

He scrolled through a few more videos before closing the browser and standing. He stretched and walked to his bed, noticing Baekhyun’s outfit on his own bed as he passed.

Probably in the shower, he thought.

He stopped and picked up the clothes, intending to add them to his, which the cordi noona would collect later, when the feel of the smooth, slick material of Baekhyun’s pants conjured up images of the way it had molded to his thighs. Naturally, given his fascination with them, even though he’d thoroughly enjoyed the event with s, he couldn’t not have noticed Baekhyun’s hips again. This particular pair of pants were one of his favorites. It just fit him amazingly.

You’re such a ert, a little voice teased.

Sighing, Chanyeol threw Baekhyun’s clothes on top of his own and strode out of the room. He needed to use the bathroom. It was only when he pushed open the door and heard the sound of the shower did he remember that it wasn’t empty.

“Sehun-ah? Is that you?” Baekhyun called, his voice distorted by the heavy fall of the water. “Hurry up and get in here before I use up all the hot water.”

Chanyeol stood frozen on the threshold, eyes glued to the shower curtain in front of him. It was thin but solidly cream-colored so though he could make out the vague outline of Baekhyun’s body, he couldn’t actually see him.

“Sehun-ah? Are you coming?”

Chanyeol gulped, stepping fully into the bathroom and closing the door firmly behind him.

What am I doing?, he asked himself as he began to strip. Baekhyun was expecting Sehun, the cute maknae who he played with, not his tall, awkward roommate who was becoming more and more infatuated with him with each passing day.

That didn’t seem to matter, however, since his body had taken on a mind of its own. He stepped out of his last article of clothing, took a deep breath and pushed the curtain aside just enough for him to step into the shower.

Baekhyun was lathered up from head to toe, standing beneath the waterfall with his back turned towards Chanyeol so he didn’t see who had joined him.

Chanyeol was temporarily frozen, his eyes traveling the length of his roommate’s body. His gaze feasted on the pale, smooth skin of his back and shoulders tapering off to his waist and the dip at the small of his back down to his nicely curved backside. But the most glorious moment was when his eyes settled on his hips. They were everything he had envisioned and so much more. They were indeed more flared than his own or any of the other members’, a nicely rounded pelvis with solid, firm thighs.

His hands itched to hold them and before he knew it, he was reaching out.

Baekhyun froze as soon as he felt hands brace his hips. He should have known that it wasn’t Sehun who had joined him in the bathroom. The maknae always chattered enthusiastically but whoever was behind him hadn’t said a word.

Not whoever, he corrected. You know who.

The hands were big and he didn’t need to glance down to know who they belonged to. A shiver ran down his spine. He wanted to say something, anything, to dispel the tension in the air but he didn’t know what. However, another part of him was freaking out. What the hell was Chanyeol doing in the shower with him? They had never showered together before. Ever.

He’d seen the looks his friend had been giving him lately and he really had no idea how to interpret them. They were very intense and they made him feel uncomfortable but also…shy, nervous somehow. Had Chanyeol noticed his own interest in the boy? He had long admired Chanyeol’s physique – it was impossible not to when it was the exact opposite of his own – and he knew that sometimes he could get caught up in staring at him. He really hadn’t thought that Chanyeol had noticed but perhaps he had. But if he had, this certainly was not the reaction he’d expected. A question, perhaps a “misunderstood” accusation but not…this.

“Let me scrub your back for you, hyung,” Chanyeol finally said.

His deep voice was even lower, husky, and the sound set Baekhyun’s nerve-endings a-tingle.

Chanyeol took the bath sponge out of Baekhyun’s limp fingers and gently worked it over his shoulders and arms, slowly moving downward. His free hand did not leave Baekhyun’s hip, though.

As Chanyeol’s hand moved down his lower back, it gradually drifted around to his stomach, making lazy circles on his sensitive skin. Baekhyun’s breath caught in his throat and a blush stole over his face when he felt himself begin to respond down below. He was thankful that Chanyeol couldn’t see what he was doing to him: he was ashamed at his reaction to begin with. Chanyeol would be mortified if he knew that his roommate was being affected by his touch, he was sure.

When the sponge finally reached his buttocks and hip, Baekhyun couldn’t take it anymore. He reached for the end of the shower curtain closest to him and pushed it aside, grabbing his towel off the rack and fleeing the bathroom, leaving a trail of water in his wake.

Chanyeol watched him go, horror gripping him as he realized what he’d done. He pulled the shower curtain back into place and leaned his forehead against the wall. How was he ever going to face Baekhyun again? His body didn’t seem to care though, as was evidenced by his hardness jutting out proudly between his legs. He glared at it disgustingly but that had no effect on it whatsoever. When he thought about how it had gotten to be that way, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for it.

The damage to his relationship with Baekhyun was done, he decided logically. There was absolutely no reason to waste a good .

Baekhyun was in bed when Chanyeol eventually returned to their room, his back turned towards Chanyeol’s bed.

Chanyeol didn’t think that he was sleeping but he didn’t want to embarrass either one of them by discussing what had happened so he climbed into bed, pulled the covers up and stared at the ceiling.

Still, he couldn’t sleep without saying anything at all.

“Hyung,” he whispered into the darkness. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t know if Baekhyun heard him but he hoped he had. No matter what his own feelings for the boy might be, and they were becoming more complex each and every day, he did not want to ruin their friendship. If that meant keeping his strange infatuation in check then so be it.

Chanyeol was driving him crazy.

Baekhyun admitted to himself that after the incident in the bathroom, he had avoided Chanyeol for a couple of days. He still didn’t know why Chanyeol had joined him in the shower but it was his own reaction to the boy that he was ashamed of, not anything that Chanyeol himself had done. He’d seen the hurt in the boy’s eyes, however, and after having a stern talk with himself, he’d decided to pretend it had never happened and try to return to their usual easy-going relationship.

However, it seemed that he’d taken too long to come to that conclusion because now, Chanyeol was avoiding him. He wondered, horrified, if Chanyeol had finally noticed the not-so-platonic feelings he had for him. Baekhyun wasn’t gay, he liked girls a lot, but he also had indescribable, more-than-friendly feelings for his roommate that he’d been trying to suppress for quite some time now. Chanyeol was his best friend and he should be able to talk to his best friend about it but since his best friend was the object of his unrequited affections, that was a definite no-no. Not to mention that Chanyeol was as straight as a pencil.

Some pencils bend, his inner optimist pointed out.

Chanyeol was a traditional, conservative pencil then, he clarified mentally.

“Oh my God, I’m nuts,” he muttered to himself.

“Hyung…are you okay?”

Baekhyun looked up to see the other members watching him strangely. He’d forgotten that they were in the middle of dinner at the dorm, seated around their small dining table.

“Uh…yeah,” he stammered. He set his chopsticks down and stood abruptly. “I’m not very hungry. I think I’ll go lie down for a bit.” Without a backward glance, he hurried off to his room.

Chanyeol watched him go, worry for his hyung spoiling his appetite. Truthfully, he didn’t have much of one and hadn’t since that night. He missed his friend but he was doing what he thought was best for Baekhyun, for their friendship. He didn’t want Baekhyun to be reminded of what he’d done every time he looked at him, didn’t want to see fear in his eyes if they were alone together or disgust if he touched him. It had been a hard week and he wasn’t sleeping well, had taken to spending most nights on the sofa so that Baekhyun could sleep comfortably without worrying that he might pounce on him in the middle of the night. Most nights he lay on the sofa thinking of Baekhyun, his voice, his smile, his laugh, and his hips of course, just missing him overall, and by the time he’d fall asleep, it would be time to wake up again to go to practice or a fansign or whatever.

He didn’t know how much more he could take.

A/N: This was supposed to just be a one-shot but I decided to post this separately before the crazy and -fest in the next part.