“Biggest room, please!”


The leftover groomsmen and a couple of bridesmaids yet to go home pile into the karaoke room with the two newlyweds, Kyungsoo nagging Chanyeol about why he would choose to go to a norebang after a "freaking wedding, Jesus Christ". But Chanyeol laughs and says he just wants everyone to have fun, as a way of thanks to all who have led him here to his wedding day. Baekhyun finds himself tagging along because Taeyeon begs and he doesn't know when he'll be able to meet up with everyone like this again anyway. The expanse of the room fills with ecstatic beats and shrilling voices as soon as they enter, mixing to mush before entering Baekhyun's ears and fogging his brain. Everything is so loud that his eardrums throb painful vibrations up his temples, but Baekhyun finds that his eyes work perfectly fine and all he can stare at is Dara shaking her head no when Chanyeol asks for cheap alcohol. They kiss when everybody is looking, but Baekhyun has no energy left to close his eyes. There is a low pounding in his gut that intensifies with each passing second.


Quickly, the area of skin between his eyes expands, and Baekhyun drifts away, one molecule at a time.

The end-of-the-year trip ends up taking place a mere two months later in the month of December due to an unbalance in budgets (it clashes with the senior graduation and the majority had voted the trip happen sooner rather than never), and the first night in, the boys sneak into the girl's room on Luhan's request because he can't take his eyes off of pretty, pretty Yoona. The girls wheedle Dara, the chaperone, to keep shut because they had been talking about Chanyeol just two minutes prior and were now loaded with information Dara really wanted to keep within the lady circle, and they all settle for a game of traditional Truth or Dare. Two hours in, questions are fired at Dara instead of at the students and Baekhyun notes the bright tint of red painted over her cheeks when they ask if she likes anyone. Yes, is her answer, and they all know who it is, but no one says another word. Chanyeol drapes his arms around Baekhyun's shoulder at this and asks if they can talk outside. The two step out to the balcony and Chanyeol looks over his shoulder to make sure the rest of them continue on with the game.

"Baekhyun, you need to help me."

Amidst the loud shouting and laughing of the crowd, Kyungsoo lifts his head and eyes the window.

"... Help you? Help you with what?"

Chanyeol fidgets with the words in his brain, shuffling and reshuffling them to find the right pattern. "I... I want to confess to Dara nuna."

No, Baekhyun wants to say, but he doesn't know how. Instead, he gives a nod.

 

"I would like to dedicate this song to my best bestfriend, Baekhyun."

The room cheers with loud claps and Baekhyun's chest splits open with scratches as their eyes lock into place. There is a parallel universe in those orbs, and Baekhyun wishes for a happy ending: if not for him, then for Chanyeol. He doesn't know why the tears only bubble inside of him when he wants them to pour out, and he blurs as he submerges into this other world. In there, Chanyeol is not singing this song to him; instead, he is singing it to Dara, who would have helped him confess to Baekhyun.

"Thanks for helping me get here, Baek," Chanyeol says into the mic, into his heart, more like. "I'll treasure Dara nuna, not only because I love her, but because I never would gotten here if it wasn't for your help. You really are my best friend."

Baekhyun doesn't even know what song Chanyeol is singing because his head feels unnaturally light, but there is a certain look on Chanyeol's face that tells him an unknown fiction, one he cannot come to read. Only Kyungsoo knows that Baekhyun is imagining this.

The group hike is tiring for a non-athletic person like Baekhyun, and he staggers to catch his breath throughout the whole Route 1 of the Jeju Olle Trail. Route 14 the next day is not any better, and Chanyeol stays with him and pushes the small of his back to urge him on. Baekhyun wonders how he can not fall for Chanyeol when he cares so much for him like this, when he knows all the right words to say, all the right things to do.

The eventful fourth night of their trip, Chanyeol gets all the boys together and comes up with a plan. He will confess, they decide, on the night of the talent show. They take out the soju they'd been hiding from the teachers, and everyone takes a bitter drink. By the time they assign roles, Chanyeol on the guitar and Baekhyun in charge of making placards, they are not in their right minds, half of them swaying dizzily as they fall asleep. Chanyeol is one of the last to slip away from consciousness with a dumb grin splayed across his face, and Baekhyun lays down next to him with hooded eyes.

When he stares like this, quiet and uncaring, he finds a source of comfort. There are no pairs of eyes that tell him no, not a single person who says this is never going to happen. So he watches the soft curls of Chanyeol's eyelashes flutter in mini motion as a stream of continuous tears dribble down the corners of his eyes. Instead of pain, he feels a repeating lash of sorrow because there will never be enough paper cranes to fit the hole in his heart, never one big enough to hide both him and Chanyeol underneath its wings. This kind of silent longing pats Baekhyun gently to sleep, and he dreams without really dreaming.




By the second to last day on Jeju Island, they cover so many tourist attractions that Baekhyun cannot even list half of them without questioning whether he has named a particular place already or not. After all the waiting, it is when they get the chance to learn about pottery and spin some of their own that Chanyeol first holds hands with Dara. At first, it is to guide her unsteady fingers around the base of clay, but after, it becomes a conscious, shy dipping of limbs, eyes darting back and forth to ask for permission. The rest of the group walks ahead as the two lag behind, and Baekhyun feels a heavy weight at the back of his head, like his eyes constantly want to swivel around.

When night blackens, Baekhyun furiously folds paper cranes even after everyone has tucked themselves into their sleeping bags. He cannot close his eyes for some reason, and by the time the sun rises, he has filled another jar. Something murky comes over his mind for a short second, and his judgement is impaired as he slips on the thickest coat he had brought and a backpack to hold the cranes. He sets off to hike Route 12 without telling anyone so he can go set himself free.



(Baekhyun never gets to soar, though, isn't even given the chance to spread his dented wings. Instead, the snow so pure and white buries him in a blanket of darkness and the waves of fatigue finally shush him to sleep.)
 

The cold cement under Baekhyun's knees sends a surge of ice through his body. Winter winds beat mercilessly against him, and Baekhyun breaks down as he caves into himself, creating a tight ball on the floor in front of the norebang. There are ugly sobs being ripped out of him, a decade and more of bottled up cranes, slowly rotting feathers. His heart beats angry fists against his chest and he cries because he is hurting, because he will always be hurting. There is a sound of Kyungsoo running toward him and yelling a garbled mess of words, but all he can hear is the slow drowning of his heart.

"Baekhyun, look at me," Kyungsoo says, reaching beyond Baekhyun's arms to pry up his chin. "Are you okay?"

It's just one question but it's enough for Baekhyun to realize the scars of his youth, enough to tell him how far he has fallen into a black hole he has dug for himself. Baekhyun trembles and shakes in Kyungsoo's arms as the tears burn craters across his face, ears hot and red from all the pouring temperature. He finally faces the answer he had been so afraid to say.

"N-No, I'm not."

The shards of his broken being pierce his own veins and makes the life leak out of him.

"I'm n-not okay."

Kyungsoo holds him and whispers that it's okay not to be whole because everyone spends half their lifetime being incomplete anyway. He says that Baekhyun can get over this because he has come this far already, but Baekhyun shakes his head no and continues to let his tears paint black all over.

"I'm not okay."

"Baekhyun, you never were. But you're going to be okay from now on, do you hear me?"

He doesn't hear a single word, though, and Baekhyun rocks himself out of pain and straight into regret.

"Where is Baekhyun?"

The teachers have long sinced raced into panic at the missing student. Chanyeol's eyes are wide in fear as the staff bursts into all rooms of the facility to ask for his best friend.

"I-I don't know. He was here when I fell asleep."

"Do you know where he might be? Did he say anything?" Jongin asks with a lengthening crease across his forehead.

Kyungsoo rumages through Baekhyun's things and waves a hand to beckon them over.

"The only things missing are his coat and his map of Route 12. He might have gone there."

After a search party sets off to the trail, Chanyeol puts the readied placards away and says he will not confess anything to anyone without his best friend there. Hours later, they find Baekhyun unconscious at the top of Dangsanbong Peak, body cold as ice and lips turned blue. It turns out Baekhyun had had his phone with him although it is against school rules, and the rescue team had tracked it just in case to which they'd found signal. The ambulance transports Baekhyun's withered body away to the nearest hospital and forgets to bring the broken jar of paper cranes by his head. Chanyeol refuses to participate in any activity until he is allowed to call his mother for permission to go see Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo follows him to the hospital.

The car ride there is filled with a frenzy of finger activity, and Chanyeol finally realizes the sort of anxiety that had lied in Baekhyun during their first year together. He buys himself a box of colorful paper at the gift shop downstairs, and as he waits in the hallway outside, he learns how to fold them.



When Baekhyun regains conscious, the first angry person who greets him is his mother. She rants for half an hour about how careless he had been to set off to such a place on his own, why he hadn't bothered to tell anyone where he was going, why he had gone in the first place. Baekhyun half-heartedly apologizes as the red in his mother's face subsides, and, upset, she leaves the room. As Baekhyun stares at the smooth wall of the hospital room, he begins to hate himself for every reason he can think of. They all make sense when he stretches them far enough, and by the time Kyungsoo steps in to join him, Baekhyun has already bruised himself dirty with purples and greens.

"Have you gone crazy?" Kyungsoo starts, voice anything but stable. "You're mad, aren't you? You've gone completely nuts!"

Baekhyun nods tiredly because he knows how idiotic he had been, how idiotic he still is.

"You... You son of a ! First, you refuse to sleep all night, then you decide to go hiking without a single bottle of water and absolutely no one to guide you. Do you know how absurd this is? What the hell is wrong with you?!" There are tears in Kyungsoo's eyes and Baekhyun learns that he truly cares.

"I..."

"Why the hell are you crying? You aren't the one who had to be stuck outside waiting in worry. You're not the one who..."

Baekhyun's eyes blur with the hint of pooling saltwater.

"You are such an idiot, you know? What the hell were you doing up at the peak anyway? And with what, those stupid ing cranes of yours?!"

"I..." Baekhyun's shoulders shake uncontrollably as he quietly lets the sobs sweep over him. "I just... wanted to see them... fly."

"... Fly?" Kyungsoo looks at him tiredly, eyes puffy and voice exasperated. "...See what fly?" he whispers.

Baekhyun is sincerely apologetic to every soul his existence comes by. He wishes he had never had to feel something like this.

"The paper cranes. I wanted to see them..."

There is a hole in Baekhyun's chest.

"I wanted to see them fly."

 

When the clock has struck two hours before midnight, the party disperses with many called taxi cabs and rushed pick-ups. Chanyeol is thoroughly pleased, lips dangling off the corners of his ears as he hugs everyone goodbye, and he thanks everyone for coming again and again. It sounds kind of like a repeated phrasing of truth that the events a few hours ago have really occurred; Baekhyun cannot deny reality any longer, but he thinks that this is how things should be.

"Baekhyun, want to come check our house out? I know it's a little late, but you and Taeyeon-ssi should really give us advice on how to decorate our interior and all. Your wife tells me how beautiful your house is! Let's have a last cup of tea to celebrate today, yeah?"

Kyungsoo warily eyes the half-shell of the older and purses his lips. "You... don't look too well, Baekhyun. Chanyeol, I think another time would be better."

"Oh, are you tired?" asks the giant, and he lays a hand on Baekhyun's shoulder. "Yeah, it's been a long day, I'm pretty beat, too. That's okay, we can just invite you guys over another time. You should come too, Kyungsoo."

"Yeah," he replies.

"So - goodbye for today?" Chanyeol stares down at Baekhyun, wondering why this shade of silence is back in Baekhyun's eyes again. Without a word, Baekhyun nods.

They say their set of goodbyes, the hugs a little longer than usual, and when Baekhyun dwarves himself in Chanyeol's embrace, he feels like he is crumbling. The icy wind bites at his skin but his breath is trapped against Chanyeol's chest, warming them both. Baekhyun wants to leave a stain of trailed tears there.

When Taeyeon intertwines their fingers together and turns to leave and drive home, Baekhyun hears faintly the voice of Kyungsoo.

"Chanyeol, can we... talk? I think there's something you need to know."

Baekhyun is too tired to even protest. He does not care anymore, because he doesn't plan on seeing Chanyeol ever again.
 

When Baekhyun wakes a second time, it is late afternoon. The fogging machine by the bedside cabinet emits a sort of misty steam into the air, cool dots of water vapor sprinkling through the atmosphere. Chanyeol is sleeping by his side, eyebrows furrowed in worry as he breathes uncomfortably into the sheets. Their hands are intertwined, but Baekhyun's heart does not race at the closeness. This is all he had ever wanted, for Chanyeol to hold him preciously like this, to be the point of focus in Chanyeol's wandering eyes, but when he lets the third wave of fatigue conquer him, it hurts more than anything else. As sleep takes him away once more, he realizes that he cannot even feel Chanyeol's fingers on his own anymore.



The last time he wakes up, Chanyeol is watching him with slanted eyes, filled with concern as the dim light of the lamp paints shadows across the pale contours of his face.

"You're still here," Baekhyun says more than asks, and Chanyeol nods as he runs a hand through his unkempt hair.

"Yeah, I... I was worried."

Baekhyun blinks slowly, eyes still heavy with lethargy. When he finally comes to focus, he sees a line of paper cranes on the edge of the cabinet beside the bed, glowing softly under the light.

"You... I..."

Baekhyun grows horrified for a second because the paper cranes look just like his own and if Chanyeol has access to his paper cranes, that means he has access to the words written in them and Chanyeol really can't... really can't see those--

"I learned how to fold them while I was waiting for you."

Baekhyun looks up and meets with Chanyeol's wavering gaze and feels himself relax. They both look thoroughly tired.

"What about... Dara nuna? The confession? The talent show? Don't tell me you didn't get to confess... please."

Chanyeol lowers his head and lets out a tiny sigh. "I came straight to the hospital after I found out, Baek. I couldn't just leave you alone like this."

"Leave me alone? I have other people here to care for me, Chanyeol. Not that I even need any caring for in the first place. Why did you let me ruin this chance for you?!"

Baekhyun has no idea why he is so furious.

"Baek, calm down - I... Look, I wouldn't have been able to confess to her anyway, alright? I'm chicken. I'm always too afraid to tell her how I feel."

"You would have tried."

Maybe it is because Baekhyun is looking at a mirror image of himself. It makes the words come out easier when he thinks this way, so he continues to scold him.

"Baekhyun, you don't understand. I was going to... Baek, I was going to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her. But I don't know how." Chanyeol's eyes are furrowed so deep that it looks as if the creases will stay there forever. Instead, they remain engraved for eternity on Baekhyun's own face.

"... You want to know?"

Chanyeol looks up. "What?"

"I'll tell you. I'll tell you how to ing kiss someone." Baekhyun pushes the covers off of his lap and gets up, standing face to face with Chanyeol. He grips the giant's hair because he is so frustrated, tears blurring half his vision for the millionth time as he looks into those eyes. The only difference is that this time, Chanyeol actually gets to see the hot pain.

"You do it like this, ," Baekhyun says through choked lumps in his throat, tiptoeing as he he tugs the said giant down by his neck. "Like this." Their lips almost brush against each other, but the air still shifts between them. Chanyeol's breath hitches in surprise as Baekhyun looks right into his eyes, water filling the brims and threatening to leap precipice.

Baekhyun wants to lean closer. He wants to finally feel those lips on his own, to run his fingers all over Chanyeol’s chest and close the remaining distance between them, but he’s so far. Chanyeol is so far from him, so far from his version of reality, and Baekhyun swallows the rocks in his throat as he shoves his friend away.

“You’re a ing coward, you know that?” he spits, turning away to leave. He makes it a few steps forward until a hand stops his wrist. Blood pounds in his ears, and he wants it to stop. His temples feel hot from all the tears rushing down his hidden face.

"Baekhyun, what the is wrong with you these days?” Chanyeol asks, voice exasperated and tired as his spirits fall. Baekhyun pulls his arm away harshly.

“I don’t know, what the is wrong with me?” he asks back, bitter and sharp. He honestly doesn’t know either. Chanyeol is doing to every fiber of his being, and he doesn’t ing know why. He walks away with Chanyeol gripping his hair in apprehension behind him. He hasn’t felt anything. He hasn’t felt the pounding in his chest that Baekhyun had felt, hasn’t felt the weakness in his legs or even the silent whisper Baekhyun had screamed in his head.

“I like you, Chanyeol. I need your arms, too.”

The cranes burn in low fire that night when he is released, one charred wing after another dripping into ashes and tears under Baekhyun’s singed fingers. Blood stains his shirt from the shattered glass on the floor he’s cut himself on and it hurts, stings, borderline stabs. Baekhyun’s tears make them burn even more as the salt rushes into the deep wounds, and the words hidden under the cranes’ plumes all look the same in the flames, black and burned and gone. His phone rings with Chanyeol’s number and then two unknown ones, but Baekhyun turns it off because he knows the other set of digits are from Chanyeol as well. He gets suspended for a whole week as a punishment, but Baekhyun welcomes the distance.

 

"Didn't you ever notice something strange about the way Baekhyun looked at you?"

"...No, not really? Why?"

"He..."

There is no kind way to say this.

"Chanyeol, Baekhyun liked you. All throughout high school to be honest. And he still... maybe he still does."

And it's only now that Chanyeol realizes why Baekhyun's smile doesn't quite reach his eyes when he's with Taeyeon. He is a believer, one that percieves things the way they are told to him, and he doesn't know how to look inside through the layers.

He doesn't know who to blame.

 

The end of their story is here with a rough intersection, because some endings are meant to be missing in forever's clutch and because Baekhyun does not want to know the final words. Instead, he rewrites their past and lives in them because he does not know how to face a world with an ending he does not want.

In this story, Baekhyun does not go abroad to study and he does not meet Taeyeon in the library on the day she fails the exam. He does not fold paper cranes and he does not watch them fail flight. In this story, Baekhyun does not say "I love you" to Chanyeol on his birthday because friends can say they love each other but not that they like each other, and he does not give Chanyeol advice on what he should wear on his first date with Dara. In this story, Baekhyun is at least a little happy, and it starts a little something like this:

"Chanyeol's not here yet?"

It begins with this question because Chanyeol is Chanyeol and he will always be fifteen minutes late to all events.

"No, not yet."

"There's only ten minutes left until the movie starts! Where is that bastard?"

And the person who says this line will be Jongdae, because he is a man who likes to keep schedule.

"He said he's on his way."

Baekhyun knows this because he is the only person Chanyeol texts regularly when they are not together at school.

"Still? Dammit, why is he always so late to everything?"

"You guys go first, I'll wait for him here."

"You sure?"

And Baekhyun will never be more sure of anything else in his life.

"Yeah, hurry and go in so you can save us good seats."

"Okay then, if he doesn't show up in five minutes, just come in, okay?"

"Yeah, don't worry."

Jongdae runs inside and Baekhyun stands alone in front of the movie theater, fanning himself as the scorching summer sun beats down on his back. His shirt sticks to his back annoyingly so he grabs the collar and flaps it up and down. Cold air pumps in and out, fleeting by his skinny chest and pale tummy. The breeze is welcoming.

He waits and waits and waits but he does not grow tired because he knows Chanyeol will eventually show up. True to his word, exactly a quarter hour later, a voice calls loudly out to him.

"Baekhyun!"

Baekhyun squints and sees a tall giant with short, black hair running towards him. Baekhyun puts a hand over his forehead, slick with sweat, to shade his eyes to confirm that it is Chanyeol. He glances down at his phone clock and notes that yes, Chanyeol is 15 minutes late as guessed per usual.

"Sorry, I'm late, aren't I?"

Baekhyun eyes Chanyeol's arms, which are bare because the taller is wearing a muscle tank.

"Yeah, kind of. Not really. I mean... it's okay," Baekhyun struggles out, and Chanyeol smiles down at him.

"... What?" he laughs.

"Never mind, let's... let's go in. The others are waiting," Baekhyun replies, face growing hot with embarrassment. He turns to go into the theater, but a hand swivels his body around and traps him in a sticky hug. The lips come slowly, fluttering brushes against his own as Chanyeol kisses him hello, and when they break apart, Baekhyun blushes with all shades of red on the color spectrum.

"Thanks for waiting," Chanyeol says, and to Baekhyun who knows a world other than this one, it holds more meaning than one. But yet there is no perfect ending to this story either, and Baekhyun finds himself clambering to the surface again.

This is a story of magnets.

This is a story of twists.

There is no beginning, no end, but just middles.

Baekhyun is the author, and his story flows backwards.




Everything lies in an endless, fading circle.