Chapter 10

“So you have a puppy?”

Jongdae and Baekhyun were curled up on a ugly couch, passed down from Jongdae’s grandmother. Whatever its flaws were, it had a reasonable merit: it was so long that Baekhyun could sit far apart from Jongdae without making it look like he was avoiding him.

“Well, it’s technically Chanyeol’s puppy, but he hasn’t even seen it more than once,” Baekhyun shrugged, pulling his blanket up over himself.

“Really? Does it have a name?”

“Not yet.”

The two sat in a comfortable silence for a while, Jongdae sneaking nervous glances at an oblivious Baekhyun.

Out of the blue, Baekhyun laughed.

“Hey, we’re going to be married and I don’t even know what you’re like.”

Jongdae smiled and shrugged. “Me neither.”

“I think I saw you once before,” Baekhyun said after a while, staring thoughtfully into the fire. “Jongin wanted his family over for a holiday dinner.” He laughed softly. “What I didn’t know was that his idea of a ‘small family gathering’ included not only his humongous immediate family, but also thirty-seven cousins and fifteen cousins once removed.”

Jongdae broke out into a grin. “Well, my maternal grandmother did have eleven children.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Oh, I’m dead serious.”

Kyungsoo lay on his bed, feeling cold and feverish all over despite being completely well. Perhaps it was because he’d ran for half an hour straight, in the middle of a cold December night to come home. Perhaps it was the bottle of wine he’d drank five minutes ago, or dehydration from the copious amounts of crying he’d done.

“Why Luhan?” he asked aloud to nobody in particular. He sighed, feeling leftover tears brim over and trickle slowly onto his hand, where his cheek was rested.

Who was this Luhan anyways? What was he like? Kyungsoo combed desperately through his conversations with Chanyeol for a word, a hint, anything.

“Luhan? He’s beautiful. The epitome of innocence. He smells kinda like strawberries, so I guess that’s a merit.”

Merits? Ha! Like Chanyeol had any to begin with. He wasn’t even worth it.

Kyungsoo laughed bitterly and rolled onto his back. Maybe the problem wasn’t Chanyeol or the mysterious Luhan. Maybe it was the space that Jongin left because while he tried to complete Jongin’s heart, Baekhyun had already completed it anyways, leaving Kyungsoo’s own heart empty and cynical.

“Two times in a row. When do I ever learn?” he repeated for what had probably been the eighth time that night.

Learn what? That you’re not, as Chanyeol oh-so-cheesily put it, ‘radiant as the sun’ like Luhan is?

“Shut up, brain,” Kyungsoo groaned and pushed his wine glass off of the nightstand, glorying in the shattering sound of fragile glass on...on what? On the carpet?

Kyungsoo pushed himself off the bed, swaying over to the nightstand and turning on the light. He looked down, where pieces of glass created lovely tiny rainbow prisms on Kyungsoo’s...phone.

He swore angrily and blearily pushed glass off of plastic, feeling sharp stabs of agony in his hand every time. Dulled by the wine as it was, the feeling of pain still managed to register in Kyungsoo’s drunken mind and he grabbed the phone and tossed it onto the bed before starting to pull the bullet-sized pieces of glass out of his hand.

It was a combination of mental and physical pain, as well as drunkenness that had Kyungsoo howling like a baby by the end of a minute.

“So Baekhyun, what were you saying when you came in?”

Baekhyun chuckled dryly. “Getting right to the point, aren’t you?” He stopped fiddling with his blanket and looked straight into Jongdae’s eyes. “Then I will too. I don’t want us to ignore each other when we’re married.”

“You know I’d let you be with someone else,” Jongdae whispered sadly. “A simple marriage doesn’t mean anything.”

“I hate cheaters, and I definitely don’t intend to be one. Jongdae, I don’t care if I’m not your type. Can we at least be friends?”

“Then marriage would just be like an eternal sleepover,” Jongdae suggested, and they both grinned.

“That doesn’t sound half bad.”

“Thiz ‘z all yourrrr fault, P’rk Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo slurred drunkenly, unconsciously slamming his now-bandaged hand into the bed, over and over again. He picked his phone up again with his good hand and made a noise of frustration.

No missed calls. No texts, except for a lonely single message that simply read ‘is it ok if I take ur coffee home 4 luhan? u didnt drink it’.

Kyungsoo sighed, imagining the mysterious Luhan’s pink lips touching the brim of the coffee cup before curling into a smile at Chanyeol.

He tried to imagine Luhan’s face, he really did. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t visualize the stunning beauty that had captured Chanyeol’s heart and attention.

Or maybe he was just too drunk.

Kyungsoo tried again, wanting desperately to think up the person Chanyeol loved.

So that you can copy them and steal Chanyeol’s heart from his poor boyfriend, the voice in his head sneered.

“N-no!” Kyungsoo stuttered, mind racing to try and distract him from that one horribly familiar thought. He wandered to the previous scenario he’d conjured up.

Lips! Luhan definitely had nice, soft pink lips. Kissable. Chanyeol was probably kissing them right now, savouring the taste of coffee-

A terrible fury began brewing in Kyungsoo’s heart.

Luhan probably had curly hair. Definitely curly. Dyed a nice golden blonde. Didn’t Chanyeol say he liked blondes? Luhan probably had pullable hair. Kyungsoo could-

He whimpered aloud, biting his lip and curling in on himself. Just when did he get so… malicious? Sadistic?

One of Jongin’s bitter laments came back to him.

“Love makes people do strange things. Terrible things. It makes them unrecognizable.”

He pushed the thought away and was again flooded with shadowed images of the ‘Luhan’ that his brooding had produced.

Luhan probably had a nice, slender figure that Chanyeol could hold, and a elegant, angled face. Kyungsoo self-consciously traced the edge of his rather round face and shivered.

A nice neck, pale and curving. Snappable.

Kyungsoo actually screamed this time, fighting the flow of thoughts away.

“Stop it! I don’t...I’m not like that!”

Arms! Soft, smooth, delicate arms, wrapping around Chanyeol’s shoulders as Luhan giggled.

The quelled anger came back in waves, and it was only the increasingly painful throb in his right hand that kept him from utterly destroying the walls.

He glanced at his phone.

Six in the morning? Had he really spent the last few hours tossing and turning over Luhan?

It was of no matter now. He needed to distract himself from the dark thoughts swirling around like a storm cloud in his head.

He grabbed the container of sleeping pills on his nightstand and was asleep in minutes.

The first thing that Baekhyun registered was the ache in his back.

The second thing was the fact that he had been sleeping in a sitting position, on the couch.

The third was a connection between the first two.

Baekhyun groaned and shifted. “Jongdae?” He winced at his morning voice crack, clearing his throat and then looking across the couch at Jongdae, who was uncurling from a fetal position.

“Good morning, Baek.”

“Good morning… Dae.” The name rolled off of his tongue. Jongie was definitely not an optional nickname. “Getting all friendly and familiar with me?”

Jongdae chuckled sleepily. “Well, we are friends now. And sorry for not moving you from your position; you looked pretty worn out last night and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“It’s alright.” Baekhyun scratched his head. “Wait… last night?” It was then that he registered the blank space in his memory. “I didn’t do anything embarrassing, did I?”

“Nah,” Jongdae drawled, waving it off. “I actually gave you a few sleeping pills in your water, since you looked pretty jittery. You were knocked out in like, five seconds.”

Baekhyun scowled teasingly. “Drugging me on the first night at your house? Not very nice. Luckily, I showered before or you would’ve been dead.”

“Great. So, I’ll pack up my stuff.”

“Err...what?”

Jongdae blinked for a few seconds. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that, too.”

“Umm… what did I forget?”

“I’m moving in with you, because you said that you were lonely. And because you wanted to build a friendship or whatever. And something about an eternal sleepover. Wait, that was me. But still.”

“...Oh. OHHH. Right.” Baekhyun laughed awkwardly.

“Right?”

“Right.” Oh, crap. I’m so screwed.

“...Well, I’m off today. I’ll pack up and you can drive to work! I’ll meet you at your home when you’re done, like at five, right?”

“Umm...sure. Yeah.”

“Okay, seeya later!”

“Wait!” Baekhyun yelped suddenly, and Jongdae turned around questioningly.

“Yes?”

“I swear, if you tell anyone about us…” here Baekhyun blushed… “sleeping on the same couch… I will end you.”

“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a gluestick in my eye,” Jongdae promised.

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow. “Gluestick?”

Jongdae shrugged. “It’ll leave glue on your eyelashes and then-”

“Don’t give me any ideas.”

“Aye aye, captain.”