He forgets.

They aren’t dating, as he tries to explain to Jongin on multiple occasions. They see each other, they hang out, they’re friends – with benefits, maybe, but he doesn’t like calling it that – but they aren’t dating. That implies something that isn’t there, a commitment neither of them feel, a connection beyond…

Beyond trying desperately to forget a touch they won’t ever feel or can’t have.

Kyungsoo nods quietly at his rushed, broken explanation and says that if Sehun’s a friend, Baekhyun should invite him to spend time with all of them. Baekhyun insists that Sehun has his own friends, his own life, he doesn’t need or want to be pulled that far into Baekhyun’s.

But then he starts noticing that isn’t exactly true.

It’s so nice – so much easier – to have someone else to focus on, to have someone else’s heart to worry about. Sehun is bratty and sarcastic and demanding and Baekhyun thinks that’s cute, he’s charming in his own little ways. But then he runs into Sehun in the university cafeteria and he isn’t any of those things. At first he doesn’t want to interrupt, because the boy with the delicate features across from Sehun is talking animatedly, but then he sees the look on Sehun’s face, the way he hangs on every word, quiet and reserved and so painfully adoring, and he wonders if he looks at Chanyeol like that.

“Is this seat taken?” Baekhyun asks, trying to sound light and unconcerned, grinning reassuringly down at Sehun’s confused blinking. The boy across from him looks a little put out.

Sehun shakes his head a little, slowly. “No, go ahead…”

Baekhyun pulls on his best smile and sits, setting his lunch on the table, and turns his attention to this person who he’s only heard about vaguely, if at all – he’s sure though, absolutely sure that this is the one Sehun’s pining after. “I’m Baekhyun,” he says sweetly, “you must be Luhan. Sehun’s told me about you.”

He feels a tiny swell of triumph when Luhan’s face morphs for a moment into confusion and unhappiness. Sehun hasn’t told Luhan about him.

He forgets, and he starts inviting Sehun to hang out with them. A dinner with Kyungsoo and Jongin, a night out drinking with everyone, and somewhere along the way Sehun becomes part of their group – he’s informal and a little rude but he’s so happy around them, and despite Jongin’s early ire the two of them get along famously. Chanyeol is his usual happy, overenthusiastic self and after their first meeting Sehun laughingly tells him that he knew the moment he saw Chanyeol walk in the bar that it would be him, and Baekhyun doesn’t know how to respond, except to kiss him until his laughter fades away.

---

“Do you think I could bring a friend?” Sehun asks, and Kyungsoo frowns a little because even by now, they know Sehun rarely asks permission first.

“Of course you can, what do we care?”

Sehun shrinks a little, and Jongin starts to frown too, regretting his sharp tone.

“I’m sure we’d all like to meet your friend,” Baekhyun says placatingly, and Chanyeol nods in fervent agreement until Sehun’s lips quirk up in a little smile.

Sehun never asks again after that, and Baekhyun finds it strange how easily Luhan becomes a part of their little group as well. He finds he doesn’t mind, for the most part – but there are moments that he hates, early mornings listening to Sehun cry over the phone because Luhan’s new boyfriend has broken up with him, quiet weekends where Sehun never leaves Baekhyun’s apartment because the urge to just give in and give up is too much. He’s so small and broken, and Baekhyun doesn’t know how to fix that, not any more than he could fix himself. He hopes though, that if they hold each other together strongly enough, they could heal on their own.

And he forgets, because months have gone by, and more days pass like grains of sand slipping through his fingers. He forgets, even though deep down that’s the last thing he’s ever wanted to do. 

---

“Are they dating?”

Luhan frowns, creases between his eyebrows, looks up from his statistics textbook like he hasn’t understood what Chanyeol’s asking. “Of course they aren’t,” he says, but he doesn’t sound sure.

Part of Chanyeol hoped he’d sound sure.

“I just mean, if they aren’t dating, then what—”

“They’re not dating,” Luhan cuts him off, and Chanyeol’s never heard him sound mad before, but he certainly sounds like it now. He still doesn’t sound like he believes what he’s saying, though, and that’s the key, even though Chanyeol isn’t sure why he needs that validation so badly.

He shuts his physics book when Luhan gets up, muttering something about getting coffee, and tries to think.

But he can’t. He tries to think about Baekhyun and Sehun dating – about them really liking each other – and he can’t imagine it. He thinks about the way they look at each other and it’s not special. Baekhyun looks at Sehun the way he looks at Jongin and Kyungsoo and—

Not like he looks at Chanyeol. Not at all like that.

Is he jealous, though? He wonders if that’s it, if he’s just angry because Sehun’s taking Baekhyun’s attention away. But he’s not Baekhyun’s closest friend, he doesn’t have any right to be jealous about that. He’s just some guy Baekhyun met in his shop, and Sehun’s some guy he met in a club. They don’t know him, do they?

He thinks about Sehun having claim to him, Sehun holding Baekhyun’s hand under the table at dinner or sitting and studying quietly with him in the student lounge or all the weekends where Baekhyun’s said sorry I can’t and skipped out on lunch because Sehun was there in his apartment, taking up his time and his attention and all his smiles.

Something tightens in his chest and he’s standing in the cold again, watching Baekhyun’s pale cheeks burn red in the low light as he hands over Chanyeol’s phone, biting his lips against a sharp intake of breath when their fingers touch; he’s in the coffee shop as Baekhyun talks happily about social psych and lights up with happiness every time Chanyeol laughs; he’s standing on the corner outside Baekhyun’s apartment, waving up at his open window to ask if he wants to go to that good Thai place for lunch.

He’s watching Baekhyun smile and blush for someone else, and he wants those smiles back.

---

Spending more time around Luhan turns out to not be so very difficult, after all. He’s fairly talkative, enough to give Chanyeol a run for his money sometimes, although not nearly as loud. And despite the fact that it seems like every other week he’s telling their little group about this boy or that girl, he doesn’t seem to spend time with anyone really, besides Sehun – who’s always busy lately, Luhan tells Chanyeol, voice edging on a whine. Chanyeol remembers being lonely, remembers having no one to talk to, and doesn’t mind so much that Luhan only talks about how attractive this girl was they saw in the cafeteria, and how Sehun’s not returning his texts, and how the boy he’s dating won’t kiss him on the lips, and how he and Sehun plan on going to the movies next week.

Besides, the longer he hangs out with Luhan the more he thinks he might understand what’s going on. Luhan doesn’t even notice that Chanyeol starts shifting the conversation to Sehun – and, by extension, to Baekhyun – more and more.

By the time Kyungsoo announces – and Jongin forces them to agree to attend – the Christmas party, Chanyeol is pretty sure he has it all figured out. And by the time he overhears both Luhan and Sehun ask Kyungsoo, at separate times, when they think they’re being sneaky, if the other agreed to come to the party – if Luhan asked to bring someone else, if Sehun and Baekhyun mentioned they were going together – the last piece clicks into place.

He doesn’t, honestly, remember much about the party. Kyungsoo and Jongin have a surprising number of other friends, and while Chanyeol likes meeting new people very much, he could have hoped more for a quieter night, if only so it wouldn’t be so hard to find Baekhyun. He doesn’t try to take up too much of his time, though – when they sit together, Baekhyun sipping a glass of wine and giggling over some pointless joke Chanyeol told, the shorter boy’s eyes keep drifting away, sifting over the little crowd like he’s searching for something.

Chanyeol takes off his thick-framed glasses, experimentally, and Baekhyun stops looking over at him altogether.

So he doesn’t stay near Baekhyun long. He lets their conversation end, gets up to get a drink and watches Baekhyun’s pretty smile attract someone else to sit in his seat – someone short, he thinks rather unkindly, frowning at the muscular boy that came to the party with Jongin’s dancer friend.

He’s pretty sure he spends the rest of the party in a back corner, sulking, while Luhan rambles vaguely about things being different and therefore not to his liking. They both run out of beer but neither wants to get more, so Luhan complains about that, too – and then they see Sehun dancing with someone Chanyeol distantly remembers being introduced as Joonmyun, Sehun’s slim hips rolling obscenely, and he thinks Luhan’s eyes might catch fire from how angry he looks.

“You know,” he starts, and Luhan’s ire turns towards him, so he hesitates.

After a moment, Luhan’s patience wanes. He looks a bit less like he wants to rip someone’s head off, too, which is definitely a plus in Chanyeol’s book. “I know what?” he asks, sounding exasperated.

“Just, you know, if you care about him that much—”

“He’s my best friend,” Luhan interrupts, starting to look pissed again, “of course I care about him.”

Chanyeol shakes his head, gesturing in Sehun’s direction with his empty beer bottle. “Not that. You care about that. You care about… about him smiling at other people, telling his secrets to other people, about someone else taking him home and making him theirs. That’s not… best friends. You’re… lying to yourself, and I haven’t figured out why.”

“I’m not,” Luhan says, but he’s frowning at his own bottle, and he doesn’t look certain. This time, Chanyeol doesn’t want him to be certain.

“He’s not always gonna be there,” he whispers, and Luhan’s wide eyes lock on him like he’s spelling out his doom. “He’s gonna move on, gonna find… find someone, not like how he’s been with Baekhyun, I mean like he’ll really find someone and they’ll date and be together and stuff because… because you won’t do it. You’re all he wants, and you keep… walking away. He won’t let that happen forever. He’ll find someone to love him like he should be loved, and where will you be? Just… just you and…”

He loses his train of thought, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Luhan’s staring at Sehun now, not watching the curve of his hips or the way his hands grip at Joonmyun’s waist, but watching Sehun’s face, the way his eyes are closed, the way his lips part, wondering who he’s thinking of.

Chanyeol doesn’t remember a lot about the party, but he remembers accomplishing at least one of his goals.

---

“Just because you’re playing this bull I-don’t-need-a-boyfriend game doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” Jongin says mildly at breakfast three days after the party, and Baekhyun almost spits out his coffee.

“What are you talking about?” he murmurs hurriedly, look around – Chanyeol isn’t at the restaurant with them, but that means nothing, in Baekhyun’s opinion.

Kyungsoo raises his eyebrows, his expression distractingly mild. “You and Jongin had a deal, didn’t you?”

Baekhyun thinks maybe he’s swallowed his own tongue. Jongin smirks, flicks his hair casually out of his eyes, and waggles his eyebrows.

“No, we didn’t have a deal. Not at all,” he says, trying to sound firm and uncaring. His voice wavers.

“At least you’ve got a week, yeah?” Jongin murmurs, “but I’m asking him at the party.”

Baekhyun frowns. “What party? There’s no party, we just had a party, what are you—”

Kyungsoo laughs, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “Don’t you remember?” he asks, laughing harder when Baekhyun shakes his head. “Come on, Chanyeol invited us all to the super-secret party destination to ring in the New Year and you don’t even remember?”

He does remember, as Kyungsoo says it, because he remembers wondering what the hell Chanyeol was talking about, and where he was going to take them. He remembers thinking he’d rather curl up in bed with a book and pretend he didn’t exist, because then maybe he wouldn’t still be painfully, heartrendingly in love with the way Chanyeol smiles when he’s excited and the way his voice gets louder when he’s embarrassed.

“Oh,” he whispers intelligently, and Jongin snorts.

“Man, if you ditch, I’m asking him in front of everyone.”

Baekhyun narrows his eyes. “Luhan and Sehun are the only other people he invited, smartass,” he hisses across the table, but Jongin still looks smug.

He doesn’t know what to do, now. He had forgotten, but forgetting isn’t an option anymore, and he doesn’t have a clue what do, not at all.

---

Chanyeol’s super-secret party destination turns out to be a bar out on the pier, with a spectacular view of the fireworks. Baekhyun doesn’t know how he got reservations for them all, but it’s amazing, and he doesn’t think to ask. The place is packed, and everyone’s more than a little drunk, but Baekhyun remembers getting touchy-feely with some pretty guy at the Christmas party after one too many glasses of wine and decides against it. He’ll have champagne to ring in the new year – Chanyeol ordered them a bottle of something expensive, even when they all protested, and Baekhyun thinks back to a thousand moments – Chanyeol mentioning his parents were in the Maldives, that his father had wanted him to take some expensive-sounding car instead of riding the train back to school from his weekend home, that Christmas made him nervous because he was never sure what was too much to spend on a present.

He thinks of Chanyeol’s Christmas present for him, hidden in his closet unopened, and decides to drown the twist in his gut with a glass of wine after all.

It’s not long at all before they’re all back at their table, Chanyeol pouring out glasses while the countdown starts, and Baekhyun thinks his hands start shaking when Jongin smirks over at him. He has to look away – finds Sehun in Luhan’s lap, looking more than a little startled – and then there’s a glass pressed into his hand, warm fingers brushing his, a warmer smile facing him when he looks up, and Chanyeol sits next to him, their thighs almost touching. Baekhyun’s never felt so warm in all his life, not even when Chanyeol’s arms were around him, what feels like years ago.

Chanyeol’s arm rests squarely across his shoulders and Baekhyun almost drops his glass, eyes widening in what he’s sure is a comical manner, but no one’s paying attention to him. They’re looking at the television counting down, staring up at the sky in anticipation of the burst of fireworks, and only Baekhyun is staring at the tabletop, cheeks burning red and body too hot, much too hot, from just the comfortable weight of Chanyeol’s arm. He shouldn’t care, he shouldn’t notice, they’re friends and friends touch like this and it means nothing.

Except Chanyeol never, ever touches him.

The countdown on the television hits zero, and the lights in the bar go out, the whole place lit only by the sudden, shimmering flashes of fireworks in the sky.

Baekhyun’s been kissed before, many times, but it’s never felt like this. He thinks he’s crying a little, because Chanyeol’s lips are as soft and warm as he imagined they would be, and Chanyeol’s glasses are pressed between them awkwardly, and he’s gripping Baekhyun’s shoulder tightly – how long are his arms, anyway, to wrap all the way around his shoulders like that? – and he makes a noise that’s suspiciously close to a moan when Baekhyun’s lips part so easily for him.

Everything is fireworks, explosions of light behind his eyes, except his eyes are open now, and Chanyeol’s smiling, chuckling a little as he pulls off his glasses, and Baekhyun feels his cheeks heat up.

Chanyeol hesitates halfway, lips poised bare inches from claiming Baekhyun’s again, and he doesn’t want him to hesitate, he wants to be kissed, now, because it feels like he’s waited his whole life to feel like he does right now.

“You know I,” he starts, stops, smiles nervously, and Baekhyun wants to kiss the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “I like you so much, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol whispers, and the boom and crack of the fireworks almost drowns him out – almost, almost, not quite.

Baekhyun thinks he’s drowning in the deep dark of Chanyeol’s eyes, he’s addicted to the sweet press of his lips and the low calm of his voice, and he’ll never get better. He never wants to get better.

“I love you,” he says, unabashed, and Chanyeol’s face splits into the widest grin he’s ever seen. Baekhyun leans up, because he can, he’s allowed, and when their lips meet they’re both smiling so hard it almost hurts.

“I love you too.”

[end.]