you can't fall (unless you climb)
you can't fall (unless you climb)
Baekhyun is afraid of heights; Chanyeol lives in the clouds. When they meet, it's like the north and south poles of a magnet colliding. Quite literally. Baekhyun is walking home from school, all but admiring the blooming cherry blossom trees, and instead concerning himself with the task of avoiding the floating petals so he doesn't choke on one like he did last week. But when Park Chanyeol is around, breathing isn't an option, regardless of the cause. To clarify, Baekhyun isn't sure if it's the weight of another teenage boy on top of him or the appearance of said boy that takes his breath away, but either way, Chanyeol ends up falling from a tree branch and landing right on top of Baekhyun, causing a tornado of pink flowers to fly around them like the leaves do in autumn when children pounce on piles of them in the park.
"You scream like a girl." Are the very appropriate for a first meeting words that come from Chanyeol's lips.
They hit Baekhyun like the spring breeze that he hates because it messes up his hair, and he just stares at the giant human being that is lying on top of him, probably crushing his tiny rib cage. It becomes a staring contest, a very amused sparkle in Chanyeol's eyes, and confusion and bewilderment swimming in Baekhyun's.
In, out
One, two
Inhale, exhale
"Am I hurting you?" The giant finally asks, the amusement in his eyes now hiding beneath a thin layer of concern.
"Yeah." Baekhyun manages to grunt out, realizing that the boy really is hurting him, and his ability to take in oxygen normally is decreasing with each second that passes.
The other quickly scrambles to his feet and offers a hand out for Baekhyun. "Sorry." Baekhyun stares at his hand, large and calloused, just as he had stared at this boy's face before eventually taking it and being hoisted up with just a bit too much strength. "I guess that wasn't a very good first impression." The boy smiles wide, and Baekhyun thinks that there may be something wrong with him when his right eye starts to scrunch up and twitches slightly.
But that first impression was just about as accurate as it possibly could be, Baekhyun comes to find out. (As is the awkward walk they take to school together afterwards.) Chanyeol is a mess of auburn hair, big hands that clap when he laughs, and overly large t-shirts paired with backward snapbacks, and Baekhyun is mesmerized by this boy for some reason that even he can't figure out.
For the next few weeks, Chanyeol sticks to Baekhyun like a lost puppy. Baekhyun can't say he minds; it's sort of nice having an endless supply of happy and smiles throughout his long, boring days at school. Whenever Chanyeol smiles, so does he. And it's not just because the mirror neurons in his brain are functioning properly.
"Baekhyunnie, do you want to go somewhere after school today?" Chanyeol asks, bumping shoulders with the smaller boy as they walk to school together (it's become a routine).
Baekhyun has learned to live with his new nickname and to disregard the fact that there's no "hyung" attached to it. "Sure. Where do you want to go?" Baekhyun asks, just like he always does. Chanyeol always picks the best places to go to. Last week they went to this hole-in-the-wall ramen shop that gave Baekhyun a queasy stomach even before tasting the food, but it ended up being the best ramen he had ever eaten (besides Kyungsoo's of course).
Chanyeol puffs up his cheeks and Baekhyun maybe wants to reach up and poke the air right out of them. "I always pick where we go. Where do you want to go?" And he pulls that blinding smile, so bright that Baekhyun has compared to it to Junmyeon hyung's on occasion.
Baekhyun thinks for a moment. "I don't know. You pick the best places, Yeol, so you can decide." Baekhyun lets the nickname slip past his lips and he can see Chanyeol's smile grow wider -- if that's even possible. Baekhyun chalks it up to the fact that Chanyeol always insists on it, and it's just engrained in his mind now, so it comes out naturally.
"Oh oh, I know!" The overgrown puppy of a teenager bounces on feet as he walks. "How about your house?" He turns his bright brown eyes on Baekhyun, the excitement practically radiating from his body.
"Okay." The elder agrees without even thinking about it. It won't be that bad. He reasons as they continue their walk, trying to keep up with Chanyeol's chatter about what they're going to do at his house and how much fun it will be.
When they arrive, Baekhyun quickly tells his parents that he's brought a friend home but that there's no immediate need for them to meet him. Baekhyun thinks that if they met Chanyeol this early, his parents might not ever let him see the boy again. They head up to Baekhyun's room after dumping their books and shoes at the door, and Baekhyun has already prepared himself for the way that Chanyeol is marveling at his room.
"Wow, it's so clean! Oh, are these your CD's? You like pop music? Do you like to sing, Baek? You look like you'd be a good singer." The tall boy goes on and on, question after question like he's never going to stop.
Baekhyun lets a small smile past his lips. "Chanyeol." He says, and the younger stops suddenly, one of Baekhyun's SNSD albums brushing his fingers. "Do you want to watch a movie?"
Chanyeol agrees of course, and Baekhyun tells him that, when his parents leave for their late shift jobs, they can use the living room downstairs and watch whatever movie Chanyeol wants. They eat snacks first, junk food of course, and talk about school, sports, their hobbies; just stuff that friends talk about. But it's never awkward, Baekhyun notices, and there's always something he can talk about with Chanyeol.
He tells Chanyeol that he does indeed like singing, but regrets it immediately when Chanyeol bounces up and down from his place on Baekhyun's bed and begs Baekhyun to "Please sing me something, I want to hear your voice. Pleeeeaaase, Baekhyunnie."
Baekhyun caves at the quite realistic puppy dog eyes. He sings "Even Though My Heart Hurts," one of his favorite songs and one that he's fairly confident in.
Chanyeol just stares; stares at the way that Baekhyun's lips move with every new word, the way his neck seems to vibrate with every octave, the way he closes his eyes with every powerful note. And he's captivated. Captivated, just like when Baekhyun watches Chanyeol do homework. It might not look like anything special, but it's enough to keep Baekhyun from doing his own. Chanyeol's eyebrows furrow and his forehead crinkles when he doesn't understand a question, and occasionally his tongue will peek out from his pink lips while he chews on the end of his pencil (if it weren't Chanyeol, Baekhyun would find that utterly disgusting). It's like he can see the gears turning inside of Chanyeol's brain, behind his endlessly deep brown eyes.
Baekhyun finishes singing, and, with Chanyeol as his only audience member, never feels happier with the sound of clapping that fills the room.
They end up watching a Disney movie; Mulan. Baekhyun wonders how in the world that ended up in his DVD collection, but then remembers that "game night" he had with Jongin and Sehun last weekend, and figures that Sehun must have left his precious DVD behind. Baekhyun doesn't know why Chanyeol picks that, but he doesn't mind. He wasn't in the mood for an English movie anyway; the subtitles hurt his eyes.
Just before the movie starts, Chanyeol pulls Baekhyun impossibly close to his side, and Baekhyun blames the heat that crawls up his neck on the fleece blanket that they're both trapped under.
Baekhyun learns very quickly that Park Chanyeol doesn't know the meaning of personal space. He's always glued to Baekhyun's side, quite literally. If they're studying in the library, Chanyeol is right beside Baekhyun, sharing a book with him and letting his hair tickle the back of Baekhyun's neck. If they're just walking around the city, Chanyeol's fingers are linked with his as he swings their arms back and forth like a child holding his parents' hands. If they're eating at a restaurant, Chanyeol sits on the same side of the booth that Baekhyun does and insists that it's easier to share their pot of ramen that way. Chanyeol's always there, and Baekhyun finds it hard to breathe.
In, out
One, two
Inhale, exhale
No matter what he tells himself, he finds his throat dry and tongue useless. His whole body shivers despite the heat pooling in his stomach. Baekhyun doesn't know what it is, what this feeling is. (Is it even a feeling?) He's never felt it, experienced it, or whatever-ed it. He doesn't know what to do and the only person he can think of to ask is the person causing it.
They're at Baekhyun's house again, this time just sitting on the elder's bed, sharing a box of (very unhealthy) strawberry pocky. Chanyeol is twirling a stick in between his perfectly white front teeth when Baekhyun manages to find words. Maybe not the right ones, but any words are better than none.
"Yeol..."
"Hmm?" Chanyeol hums, concentrating on eating all of the strawberry cream before he even bites into the biscuit.
Baekhyun decides to not take another stick. "Do you ever get this feeling, like," He sighs, exasperated, trying to find words that will make some sense. "like you enjoy being around someone, you like hanging out with them and being their friend." He stops, looking for a reaction from the other.
Chanyeol is staring now, his eyebrows knitting together slowly like they always do when he's thinking hard about something. He nods.
Baekhyun continues. "And you don't know what it is, but you just like that person. You like being around them more than anyone else, and they make you feel uncomfortable, but it's a good kind of uncomfortable, like... it's still comfortable." Baekhyun almost smacks himself. That was nothing but word vomit and he's surprised that Chanyeol hasn't jumped out the window because Baekhyun is being so difficult and confusing. He would have.
Chanyeol nods again, his facial features growing softer. "Yeah, I get it."
Baekhyun sighs. "Good."
"Who are you talking about, though?"
"No one. Just a friend." Baekhyun doesn't even believe his own words.
Baekhyun can't say he's surprised when he hears a shout from the tree above him on his way to school. It's Chanyeol.
Baekhyun has to bring a hand over his eyes so he can see past the sun. "What are you doing?" He asks flatly, and thinks that maybe Sehun is rubbing off on him just a bit much.
"Climbing." Chanyeol replies, and his smile even outshines the sun that's blinding Baekhyun.
"And why would you do that? You could get hurt."
Chanyeol laughs, and Baekhyun can't help but smile. "I love climbing. Come up here with me!" He waves Baekhyun over, his long legs dangling off the tree branch that is too far above ground level for Baekhyun's liking.
"I don't want to. I'm not good at climbing." He settles on saying. He isn't going to come right out and declare his fear of heights just yet, even if Chanyeol is his best friend.
"You don't have to be good at climbing, Baek." Chanyeol laughs again, and Baekhyun doesn't have to see his face to know that his right eye is acting up and twitching in that weird way that Baekhyun has come to find endearing over the past few months.
Baekhyun sighs. He figures that he might as well tell him. "I'm afraid of heights, though."
"You'll be okay. I won't let you fall." Those words mean more than Baekhyun could ever imagine at the moment.
"You can't fall if you don't climb." Baekhyun says, staring up at the boy from his safe spot on the ground below.
"Yeah, but there's no joy in living your whole life on the ground." Chanyeol flashes Baekhyun a blinding smile, one that puts any fireworks show to shame as he hops down from the branch, landing right in front of Baekhyun. "So, are you going to climb with me?"
Midnight, and they're both at the library again. They have a chemistry final tomorrow, and then it's Christmas break. The air outside is cold, and they were glad to retreat from the biting winter chill and take their heavy scarves off inside, laying them over the backs of their chairs to be forgotten again until it's time to leave.
"Yeol, I don't understand this formula." Baekhyun pokes Chanyeol's cheek with his pencil's eraser, trying to wake the younger without startling him too much.
He does, but the way Chanyeol looks when he's just waking up startles Baekhyun instead. His long, dark eyelashes flutter against perfectly tinted cheekbones, and the unruly hair that falls in his eyes doesn't even look messy to Baekhyun. "Hmm?"
In, out
One, two
Inhale, exhale
Baekhyun catches his breath and then repeats his question. "I don't understand this one." He points to the problem in the book and, like usual, Chanyeol is invading his personal space again, not caring that his breath smells like the coffee they just had and that it's distracting Baekhyun, and that the feeling of Chanyeol's hair against his neck is causing Baekhyun's sensory receptors go into overload.
Chanyeol explains how to do the equation, but Baekhyun has no idea what he just said. He didn't hear one word. "Thanks." He says anyway, not really in the mood for confessing any sort of... well, Baekhyun doesn't know what they are, but he doesn't feel like talking about them at the moment.
"No problem." Chanyeol replies, and offers a sleepy smile before he dozes off again, using Baekhyun's scarf as a pillow against the hard wood of the desk. It'll smell like him later.
Baekhyun knows that Chanyeol doesn't have to be here; he knows everything that there is to chemistry (he plans on majoring in it in college). But Baekhyun doesn't, so Chanyeol stays behind to help his best friend study.
Yeah, best friend.
They're sitting together, side by side, not caring if people hear them or not. Chanyeol's laugh is too contagious anyway, Baekhyun thinks, as he laughs along with the younger, watching people walk by and wonder where in the world that acorn just came from. The older businessmen get mad when they see two teenagers cackling in a tree above them, about to fall off the branch because of how the laughter shakes their bodies.
Jongin and Sehun just throw the acorns back, less than amused.
Baekhyun steals glances, and Chanyeol steals kisses. They could spend forever up there. Baekhyun knows he's safe with Chanyeol, and that if they did fall, they'd fall together. But he doesn't think about falling. He thinks about how much he enjoys being on top of the world, above everyone else, able to see what's going around all around him instead of just what he can see directly in front of him. If that's all he saw, he never would have seen Chanyeol. And Baekhyun really doesn't like to think about that.
Baekhyun is no longer afraid of heights; Chanyeol still lives in the clouds.
But they live together in the trees.
/cries
what is this
I'M SORRY I FINISHED THIS AT LIKE 1 AM BECAUSE I HAVE A DEADLINE /SOBS
it's cheesy. i'm sorry. and not good. but oh well.
feedback would be great ;w;
oh and if you want to hear baekhyun sing the song i mentioned, here you go~
p.s. i know the last sentence makes them sound like monkeys but try to be sentimental for a sec ok ヽ(￣д￣;)ノ
Comments