Jongin bid goodbye the following morning, with Baekhyun being perfectly fine but whining for him not to leave. Jongin had insisted Baekhyun to stay in bed for extra sleep—which Baekhyun did—and he led his own way out the door.

He jolted in surprise when a man even taller than him stood so close right outside, presumably just about to knock on Baekhyun’s door. Jongin would have dismissed him as another stranger and let him go with his business with Baekhyun, but the man stepped back, as if Jongin was a burglar answering his knocking. His wide curious eyes lit with a mix of carefulness and something Jongin couldn’t decide.

“Is Baekhyun there?” he asked up-front, addressing Jongin as if they weren’t strangers to each other. Jongin could hear the doubt his thick voice.

“He just went to sleep,” Jongin answered with slight suspicion, defensive to the stranger crossing the social line.

“But was he home? I mean, yesterday, or?” the suspicious neighbor asked with the same uncertainty. Who was he to have any say about Baekhyun’s wellbeing? Jongin tried to guess where the neighbor was trying to go.

“He’s been sick. I’ve been tending his fever the past few days,” Jongin answered if that’s what this neighbor wanted to hear, and the man’s eyes lit in another inexplicable tone of shock and frailty. Jongin stepped outside but held the door slightly ajar. “Do you want me to tell him anything?”

He turned his head and tried to look for proper words at the far end of the hallway. “Get well soon,” he breathed. “Tell that Chanyeol was looking for him.”

“Chanyeol?” Jongin repeated, so that he could remember the name on his tongue. The tall man nodded.

“Tell him Chanyeol wishes him well, if anything.”

“Excuse me?” Jongin stepped up and closed the door as if he had the key.

“No, never mind.” Chanyeol, as the man signed his messages with, said dismissively. He put his hands in his pockets and nodded slightly. “I’ll just head out, then. Thanks.”

Jongin watched the neighbor walk away from his place by Baekhyun’s door. When he arrived by the elevator, he turned his head to Baekhyun’s door again, staring at Jongin with scrutiny and regret. The elevator dinged open and Chanyeol nodded a polite goodbye before disappearing.

Jongin looked back at Baekhyun’s door and realized that he wouldn’t be able to go inside as he wanted to. He looked at the lift again. As Jongin thought about it, Chanyeol’s attitude made Jongin wonder if either one of them was an odd prick to Baekhyun’s life.

÷

“Do you,” Jongin started, chopsticks just poking his rice around. Jongin had never had the chance to go to Baekhyun’s office for business purposes anymore. He would just go to work nine-to-five at the Seoul branch the way he would go to work at the Busan branch until he was ordered to leave.

“Hm?” Baekhyun asked, originally trying to bite his chicken bit in half but tried finishing faster to listen to Jongin. They had just tried making their own version of dinner at Baekhyun’s place—never the best but always the warmest.

“Do you like me?” Jongin’s words asked and his eyes pleaded. His heart was trembling, filling up with doubt.

Baekhyun was looking at Jongin in the eyes, chopsticks still hanging in the air and mouth still chewing. His eyes softened and he put his chopsticks down, trying to finish the food in his mouth.

“Of course I do,” Baekhyun said. “What’s the matter?”

“I,” Jongin stuttered, shyly poking at his rice again. He shook his head, not wanting to say what he was thinking.

“Do you like me?” Baekhyun asked back, lightening the question with a smile.

Jongin smiled back. He nodded. “Very much.”

Jongin washed the dishes. Baekhyun remained seated at the dining table, wondering if it was too early to be sure that they loved each other.

Baekhyun pulled Jongin by the hand, not the wrist, to his room, regardless how reluctant Jongin had made himself sound. Baekhyun pulled him into a kiss and he knew Jongin wasn’t really there. When Baekhyun opened his eyes, Jongin’s were still as worried as before. “You look afraid,” Baekhyun asked.

“I,” Jongin let out a slow, shaky breath. He rested his forehead on Baekhyun’s. “There was a guy looking for you when I left. He said he wished you well, but he sounded so bitter about it.” Jongin’s hands curled around Baekhyun’s fingers and this time, it was Baekhyun who looked worried. Jongin looked into his eyes.

Baekhyun looked intrigued. “What’s his name?”

Jongin looked at Baekhyun’s cheekbones, then back to his eyes. He tried to remember. “Cha… Chang…”

“Chanyeol.” Baekhyun completed his guess, and Jongin nodded quickly. Baekhyun couldn’t decide if he should be amused or worried that they met. “Is that why you were asking me if I liked you?” Baekhyun asked. Jongin didn’t leave a word. Baekhyun stopped for a while, trying to find the best way to put it to words.

“We used to date for a while. He cheated and lived with a neighbor—I mean, can you believe that?! A neighbor—downstairs. And now the neighbor left him. So it’s like switching apartment ownerships between the three of us if you see it from the landlord’s point of view.”

Jongin peeled himself off of Baekhyun for a better view. “That’s… funny.”

“Kind of. If you think about it.” Baekhyun looked into Jongin’s eyes. “But you know, at least I know that I’m not pretending to be happy around you.” He pulled Jongin close and laughed a little. “You make me, like, the serious kind of happy.” Baekhyun waited for an answer but Jongin kept silent. “I mean it.”

Jongin chuckled in his ear, and Baekhyun knew, at least he was reassured. “What are you even saying.”

They stayed in each other’s arms for a little too long than a while. “Thank you,” Jongin said. Baekhyun pulled away and held him in place.

“No, thank you,” Baekhyun said. Jongin kissed him delicately, the way Jongin always would. Baekhyun replied it his way, urgent and hasty, and Jongin laughed in between as he got pushed back until he stumbled onto the bed. Baekhyun was nearly unstoppable when it came to this, but Jongin made him, laughing all along and pushing him away.

“Hold your horses,” Jongin said, still laughing, holding Baekhyun off of him and eventually toppling him over. Jongin dipped down to kiss him his way, touches lingering and light. His fingers skittered from Baekhyun shoulders down his arm, barely touching, trying to find Baekhyun’s hand before slipping his fingers between Baekhyun’s, holding them tight.

÷

Seeing that the corners of Baekhyun’s house were either empty or filled with something from Chanyeol that was too useful to throw away, Jongin thought that maybe he could replace the old stuff with something new. Leave his marks before he had to leave.

There were a lot of stuff that Jongin left at Baekhyun’s place and did not let Baekhyun return, as a sweet gesture or a subtle proof of ownership, neither of them could tell. First Jongin would leave his gloves, then his scarf, then his childish doodles, then flowers, then his coffee mug. Every time Jongin came back, Baekhyun would tell him that he left something the last time, but Jongin would say, “You can have it.”

Eventually Jongin’s leaving stuff behind morphed into a straightforward gift. “Here. A pot. Your old pot is cracking.” Your old pot is Chanyeol’s and I don’t like it. “Here. A picture frame. In case you need a new one.” Fill it with my picture. Baekhyun would look at whatever Jongin gave him that day, then look at Jongin, asking, Are you trying to say something else?

Sometimes it would make Baekhyun confused, sometimes just outright offended, but Baekhyun never fought it.

÷