If you asked Baekhyun this morning what he’d end up doing tonight, he would never in a million years have thought he’d be stalking Kai through a maze of endless unfamiliar streets. And yet here he is. He knows Kai knows he’s following him, but so far they haven’t spoken. He walks slightly behind and to the right of the visibly distraught former dancer, and without touching or communicating in any way, they walk and walk, board a subway car, sit together, exit and continue walking.

Maybe that’s all Kai needs right now, to walk and let off some steam, but since he hasn’t indicated that Baekhyun is bothering him in any way, he must be somewhat okay with this arrangement.  Baekhyun thinks he needs a body to follow him. Sehun wasn’t going to do it, stuck as he was with the confused Yixing. Kyungsoo looked a bit too stunned, and from what he could tell, the roommates didn’t appear all that close anyways. Baekhyun was the odd man out, but he was also the only person there specifically for Kai. He understood that much at least from the way Kai gravitated only towards Baekhyun, all night side by side, until he walked away.

The neighborhood becomes more recognizable, but he doesn’t know where Kai is taking them. Would they go back to Kai’s apartment, wherever that is? Somehow he thinks the boy doesn’t want to go home. It turns out he’s right when Kai hesitates for a moment outside an all-night café and bakery. Baekhyun follows him inside and watches the boy angle for a corner booth, sit, and mope silently. Instead of joining him, he walks to the counter where the solo night staffer waits sleepily.

“Coffee, please. Uhm, two actually, with cream and sugar.”

The cashier lazily rings up his purchase and Baekhyun pulls out a few bills whilst checking behind him for any signs of change in Kai. There aren’t any as he sits down across from him, and for the first time since they started walking, Kai looks him in the eye, his own face devoid of expression.

“You didn’t have to follow me, you know.”

“I know.”

Kai swallows heavily. His head tips back on the booth so that his chin juts out, eyes on the ceiling. “I seem sad and pathetic right now, don’t I?”

“No.” Baekhyun allows a small silence to follow that up. “I just had a feeling you didn’t want to be wandering alone right now.”

Kai huffs, eyes closed. He crosses his arms on his chest and levels his head to meet Baekhyun’s again.  “I look pathetic to you. You know what’s funny? I don’t even have a sad, pathetic story to tell you.  Maybe I should make up some crap. I have cancer, okay? I have six months left to live, and that’s why I can’t dance anymore.” He laughs starkly, not even amused with his own story.

Baekhyun doesn’t think it’s funny either.

“Two coffees ready,” the night staffer calls out. Baekhyun moves to stand up but Kai gets there first. He worries that maybe he’ll run out of the building, but Kai only retrieves their order and returns to the table.

“Thanks,” he mutters softly, no longer meeting Baekhyun’s eyes.

They take turns slurping the hot liquid. Just when Baekhyun thinks he can’t take the awkwardness anymore, Kai breaks the silence.

“Why’d you become a dancer?”

It's not the question Baekhyun expects. Actually it's not even a conversation he expects.  Nevertheless, he feels a sort of relief come across him at this mundane inquiry.  “Hmm. No particular reason at first. I started young because my mom used to dance. She thought it would be cute to put both her kids into dance class at the same time.”

“Both?”

“Yeah, me and my little sister. I was five and Minzy was three when we started.”

“What’s your sister do now?”

“She still dances back home. She’s eighteen now. Wants to be a pro dancer like her big brother.” Baekhyun smiles proudly, a twinge of humor hanging about his lips.

“That’s cool.” Kai still looks miserable. “How come you kept it up then?”

Baekhyun thinks that’s a simultaneously hard and easy question to answer. “Because I love it?”  He dares to ask him in turn. “What about you?”

Kai glares back at him, his eyebrows arching as if to say, Really?

Baekhyun bites his lip apologetically. “I guess that’s too-- I’m sorry.” Was it too stupid a question? Or too sore a topic? He knows he shouldn't have asked. 

Kai takes another sip of his coffee. His phone buzzes violently inside his back pocket and he pulls it out, lethargically reading the name of the incoming caller. Baekhyun can’t see who it is, but Kai lets it ring an impossibly long time before he finally accepts the call.

“Hello.”

A few long moments pass before a garbled voice answers. Baekhyun can’t make out the words, but the person talks for a long time before Kai speaks again. 

“I know. It’s alright… No, I’m not mad… No… I’m with Baekhyun…”

Kai responds like he’s bored out of his mind.

“Yeah, we’re fine… I said, I’m okay… Yeah I agree, you’re an … Uh huh…”

Baekhyun downs the last of his coffee.

“ Tell Yixing or whatever his name is that it’s all cool... Did Kyungsoo get home okay? … Thanks, man… Alright, bye.”

Kai places his phone back in his pocket. “Sorry about that.” He sighs dramatically, one elbow resting on the table, and buries his face in his palm. Through widespread fingers he peers at Baekhyun with one eyeball open. “Wow, this night did not go as planned.”

Baekhyun takes this as a sign that things are all good again, real explanations be damned.

“So you actually had plans for tonight?” he teases.

“Well, I was going to beat up Sehun for making me miserable, thrash Kyungsoo for being obnoxious, point Yixing in the direction of the Bronx, and seduce you, but what can I say that hasn’t already been said about ‘the best laid plans’ going awry?”

The grin he ends with is positively evil. Baekhyun chokes on his own spit.

“Actually, not all of that is true. Kyungsoo’s no fun to torment and I could point Yixing in any direction and he’d still probably end up somewhere funny.”

“And the rest of that?” Baekhyun finds his voice, small and strained as it is.

“Oh I still plan to beat up Sehun someday.” He refuses to make this that easy.

Baekhyun curses under his breath and forces his mind to clear up fast, thankful for the caffeine he’s just pumped into his body for giving him a head start. He sits up a little taller and raps his fingers against the table to signal his comeback.

“Well, I guess it’s fortunate that you’ve still got one opportunity left.” He might be playing with fire here, but he holds open his arms wide and rotates left and right in the booth, as if to put his body on display. “Like what you see?”

Kai likes this game. His eyes narrow in focus, intently scrutinizing Baekhyun’s neck, collarbones, chest and stomach, as if he can see through the layers of fabric covering him up, as if he hadn’t already memorized all this and more last weekend when he watched him dance.

Baekhyun squirms a little. “Hey. Hey. What’s taking so long? It’s a good body, yeah?”

Kai finishes his perusal, and slowly brings their eyes to level. “Yeah.”

Well, . Baekhyun drops his arms with crash as one wrist smacks the table edge on its way down. He scowls and immediately clutches the injured area with his other hand, almost glad of the pain that’s distracting him from Kai’s bold stare. 

This seems less like a game all of a sudden, and both of them know it.

Kai averts his eyes, momentary shyness engulfing him. Is this even the way to approach him, he wonders, with games and tricks and word play? He didn’t realize how serious he’s been in wanting to pursue Baekhyun, until he worries he’s gone too far. But it really was true, how this night hasn’t gone like he intended. He intended to see a movie with Baekhyun, get to know the older boy, pick up some of his habits, his interests, and befriend him in the hopes of something more. He wanted to test him out with his friends, to see how they meshed, in particular to get Sehun’s opinion of him. His best friend always had good taste and an eye for people, not that he's ever ‘brought anyone home’ to him before. Kai wanted to sit beside Baekhyun, implement a dating-style ambiance, and walk him home at the end of the night, tell him to sleep in and not work too hard tomorrow. He wanted to be around him so they could both realize how comfortable it felt, having someone nearby.

Instead he’s out past midnight, acting alternatively grumpy and heartless, and he knows Baekhyun must be exhausted and possibly hungry, but he still made the boy feel obligated to stalk him down the streets and follow him into this stupid café. 

As if it knows what Kai’s thinking, Baekhyun’s stomach growls and he yawns heavily, releasing his bruising wrist.

“You didn’t have to follow me,” he repeats softly.

“But I wanted to.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

Baekhyun waves his empty coffee cup on display. “I’ve got a little more energy now.”

“You don’t usually drink coffee, do you?”

“No,” he laughs. “How could you tell?”

“You make weird faces every time you drink. Most coffee lovers are the opposite.”

“Yeah well you got me there. I almost never drink the stuff unless I have to.”

“You didn’t say anything when I brought you coffee last week.”

“Because I was tired and exhausted that morning. Also,” he pauses, “because you brought it. I wasn’t going to turn it down.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was… nice of you.”

“Nice…”

“Yeah.”

“You think I’m nice?” It’s not exactly the word Kai’s after.

“Aren’t you? You’ve always seemed that way to me at least, even when I try to piss you off. Well, I haven’t really tried too hard… You know they say I can be a bit of a diva when I want to be.” Baekhyun grins widely.

“Huh. I believe it. So when do I get to see this diva alter ego?”

“Oh, the closer I get to a performance usually. You think you can handle it? I can get pretty wild.”

“I think I can handle you.”

Baekhyun’s breath hitches a bit in the back of his throat. “Hmm,” he grumbles teasingly, “you say that now.”

“Guess I’ll find out. So when am I getting that dinner you promised?”

“Trust you to remember. I’ll have to make it a non-expensive dinner since I did just buy you late-night coffee.”

“Cheapskate. How about you get us a late-night breakfast then?”

Baekhyun ponders that for a moment before nodding. “Done. Let’s see what they’ve got.”

The café turns out to have a small selection of this morning’s baked goods on sale. They pick out a few muffins and croissants each and because Kai doesn’t feel like sitting anymore, they decide to walk.

It’s different this time. They walk side by side munching on their snacks and every now then their hips brush or their arms accidentally knock against the other. Baekhyun doesn’t say much other than to comment about the lackluster street life at this hour of the night, or to whisper dumb observations about the people they pass (‘Bet that lady ran out of coffee for the morning-look at her scurrying into the corner store/That guy’s too drunk he probably forgot where he lives- to be you’); meanwhile Kai chews on his food and tries to match the elder's sudden energy spike. Every now and then Baekhyun jumps around in place to stave off the cold and Kai feels a little guilty for keeping him out in the open.

They stroll unhurriedly for nearly twenty minutes when Kai suddenly grabs Baekhyun by the arm and pulls him across the street at a jogging pace.

“Hey, where are we—“

“Playground! I’ve always wanted to go in, but there’re always so many kids here in the day.”

“We’re going to a playground in the middle of the night? How old are you again, Kai?”

“Nineteen, but you’re never too old to play!”

At Kai’s goofy smiling face, Baekhyun can’t resist and he follows him in. The slide is made for people barely 3 feet tall, the swings for children still in booster chairs. The jungle gym would hardly look impressive except that the sight of Kai running up the slide backwards and pummeling over some of the rails has Baekhyun grinning too. Kai looks like a kid having fun, except that he doesn’t move like a kid. He moves like a man used to bigger things, bigger playgrounds, or larger stages.

At this point in the night, Baekhyun doesn’t think he’s going to get an explanation for that revelation Sehun dropped on them all, or why exactly it made Kai so upset. He can only be grateful that Kai didn’t close up on him completely, and that he evidently made the right decision in staying with him.

Baekhyun pulls himself through a few of the kiddy bars and onto the short platform of the jungle gym, still shivering from the cold as another round of exhaustion hits him.

“Cold?” Kai says from behind him somewhere.

“Yeah. A bit.” He bounces in place a couple times, hands braced on the cold metal before him. Without warning two hands clench around the upper part of his arms, and Kai swipes vigorously up and down to warm him up. Baekhyun gasps in surprise but the friction of Kai’s hands feels so good, as does his body as it blocks part of the wind.

“Any better?” Kai asks, his voice too close to Baekhyun’s left ear.

“Y-yeah,” he croaks. The hands come to stillness on Baekhyun’s arms but they don’t leave. After a moment Kai leans in a little closer, his arms reaching up and around Baekhyun’s shoulders and his hands clasp together in front of his chest. He leans into him gently and Baekhyun feels warmed throughout.

“Better yet?” 

“Yeah.” 

2,401 words

I promised several people a fast update, so here you go. Thank you for all of you who comment and get all excited and giddy with me as I write this! It's one of my favorite things to see the 'New Comments' display on my side dash. xD

Here's a shoutout to my wonderful mom, for reading this story as well. (lol)

Anyways, now that I drowned us all in feels, Happy Easter to those who celebrate it. :)

Rosie

P.S. You can thank my dongsaeng/sister BlueVIP for making me write this story. She's also my beta, my feels tester, and I routinely kill her with Kaibaek overload. Just to make sure it's not all fun and games, and that I'm using this story as constructively as I can (as an elder sis I feel I must), do read this comment reply thread from chapter 7. Hehehe.