Phase one of Subtlety Seduce Chanyeol is a complete disaster. Well, that’s how Baekhyun is describing it to Kyungsoo anyways.

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” Baekhyun sobs into the sleeve of Kyungsoo’s clean school uniform. When he lifts his head, two black crescent moons stain the material.

Kyungsoo makes a face. “Ugh, if you’re going to cry, at least buy water proof eyeliner or something.” Honestly, he just had this cleaned and now he’ll have to bring it all the way to the cleaners again.

“I wasn’t planning on crying, Kyungsoo!” Baekhyun wails. “All this work and for what?! Nothing! Nothing, Kyungsoo! He doesn’t even notice! He’s so stupid!” The sobbing mass goes limp and slides down to the floor, reducing to only pitiful hiccups.

Kyungsoo sighs. It really seems like his life is just a series of sighs. Honestly, he doesn’t deserve the treatment he gets. “Look, you can stay here and cry, or whatever, while everyone else spends time with Chanyeol and gets to know him and gets closer to him, but I have other things I have to do.” He stands and neatly stacks together the scattered papers he was going over.

Baekhyun pouts. “Where are you going?” He ignores the bit about Chanyeol getting close to everyone else and possibly replacing him. Maybe it drifts through his mind once or twice.

“I have to talk to the head of the athletics department.” Kyungsoo says.

At this Baekhyun pops up from his spot, tears dry and eyeliner smudged. It makes his creepy smile even creepier. “Head of the athletics’ department, huh? Isn’t he the captain of the soccer team too?”

Kyungsoo pauses briefly. “Yeah, and?”

Baekhyun just stares at Kyungsoo, smile plastered across his eyeliner stained face. “Didn’t you recently go see a game for, like, the first time ever?”

“That was because my cousin dragged me there to go see his friend play. I was staying with him, so I had no choice.” Kyungsoo dismisses Baekhyun quickly and walks out the door.

Baekhyun’s still suspicious, but there are more important things to attend to, like his appearance. Kyungsoo was right though, he was letting everyone else get close to Chanyeol while he’s been busy discussing tactics and strategies with Kyungsoo. He just needs to buck up and do what he gotta do. It’s time for the planning to end and the action to begin. For real this time. Filled with newfound vigor, Baekhyun rushes to clean himself up. He uses a compact mirror plus his laptop webcam to accurately fix himself, and after a few seconds of self-debate, takes a series of selfies. When he and Chanyeol start dating, Chanyeol’s going to need suitable selfies of Baekhyun to show off.

He checks the time and sees that Chanyeol’s first basketball practice is starting. Chanyeol had made Baekhyun promise to stay and wait for him, even though Baekhyun was planning on staying anyways. As if Baekhyun would pass the chance to see Chanyeol in a basketball uniform, playing basketball. It’s one of the many images he imagines almost everyday and he can’t wait to see it in real life. He rushes to pack all his stuff and fast walks to the gym. Just before entering, he reassess himself and with cool casualty, walks into the gym.

The sound of squeaking shoes and thumping basketballs fill the gym along with shouts from the basketball captain, Kris. His deep voice resonates and bounces off the gym walls as he gives out orders and corrections. There are groups of girls and some guys scattered on the bleachers, watching the practice. Sometimes the girls will cheer for their favorite team member, making Kris scowl in annoyance. If it was up to him, he would have private practices, but the coach says that open practices promote “school spirit”.

Baekhyun slips in quietly and sits on the furthest end of the bleachers, closest to the door. He’s never really attended a game before, and today’s the first time in a while that he has actually stepped foot into the gym. Honestly, the gym is stuffy and uncomfortable, but if it means getting to see Chanyeol play, then it’s worth it. Actually, it’s more than worth it, because Chanyeol is in a spare uniform that hangs down to show his defined arms and sides. The white and red shorts rest on his hips and when he jumps, his top rides up to clearly, even if barely, show abs. It’s strange, because it isn’t like Baekhyun hasn’t seen Chanyeol’s body before; it’s just that the last time he saw it, it was all pudgy and soft.

After the excitment of seeing Chanyeol play in uniform dies down, the practice gets pretty boring and not even halfway through Baekhyun takes out his phone. Every now and then he’ll watch and sometimes catch Chanyeol’s eye, but other than that Baekhyun can’t really get into what they’re doing. Considering he doesn’t know any of the rules of basketball, it’s kind of expected. He’s in the middle of taking selfies when there’s a shout and before Baekhyun can register what’s happening, a flying orange blob smacks right into his face. The small boy goes flying onto the ground with a high-pitched shriek, followed by several snickers from the girls. He’s still dazed when he feels someone pick him up.

“Hey kid, you okay?” a gruff voice sounds through the shock and trauma Baekhyun is experiencing.

Feebly, Baekhyun shakes his head ‘no’. “s,” he mutters before promptly passing out.

Or at least pretending to.

He feels a flick on his forehead and then hears a, “Stop being so dramatic, Baek. You’re not dying.”

Baekhyun opens his eyes and glares at Chanyeol, who did not help him up, but rather, flicked him in the forehead whilst he was in shock from a fatal wound. Tears spring to his eyes and he clutches to his savior, coughing pathetically. “It hurts,” he whimpers into a broad chest.

 “Uuuuhhmm, okay. Well, Chanyeol, I’m gonna assume this is yours,” Kris, clearly disturbed, wretches the feeble boy from his abdomen and hands him over to Chanyeol, “Go, I don’t know, take him to the nurse or something. We can’t be wasting this kind of time. Okay! Everybody back to practice!”

Kris claps his ginormous hands together, effectively making everyone flinch, and starts giving off orders. Chanyeol sighs and hauls Baekhyun up and over his shoulder, deciding it’d be easier to carry him like a sack of potatoes, and heads off to the nurse’s office. Meanwhile, Baekhyun isn’t talking to Chanyeol. He’s decided that this is one too many betrayals and there’s no way Chanyeol can be forgiven no matter how gorgeous and nice he seems to be.  He sighs a sorrowful sigh wondering what he did to deserve to fall in love with such a cruel and heartless person. The thought is almost enough to make him cry right then and there.

Chanyeol rolls his eyes as he can practically hear what Baekhyun’s thinking. For as long as Chanyeol has known him, Baekhyun has always blown everything out of proportion. It’s like he is only able to see the extremes of any situation and respond accordingly. Chanyeol can feel the great heaving (forced) sighs and can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips and the small laugh that escapes when he hears the boy sniffle. He’s rewarded with a knee to the ribs and a sob. Chanyeol bites his lip to keep another laugh back, but it doesn’t go unnoticed and soon Baekhyun is (weakly) punching at his back and struggling to get free.

“Put me down, you monster!” Baekhyun finally breaks his silence with a sob as he struggles to get free from the demon that has captured his body and his heart. Baekhyun is a good person, an angel practically, and yet, as cruel fate would have it, he has fallen into the clutches of evil.

 “Oh come on, Baekkie!” Chanyeol sputters out between laughs and struggling to keep hold of the small dwarf. “Don’t be like this! You know it didn’t hurt that much, you basically blocked the whole thing with your hands. Honestly, I don’t even know how you fell from the bleachers.”

Baekhyun gaped. Was Chanyeol going blind?! He was attacked; there was literally nothing he could do to save himself. “How dare you undermine my pain and trauma!”

“Oh save it.” Chanyeol says as he tosses the limp noodle onto the hard, plastic-y “bed” in the nurse’s office.

The wounded look of treachery shows clearly on Baekhyun’s face, his mouth agape and his eyes wide and wet with fresh tears. How could Chanyeol be so insensitive? He closes his mouth into a pout and looks into the eyes of his one true love. How could Chanyeol care so little for him?

When Baekhyun’s pout begins to tremble, Chanyeol breaks. “Oh okay, I’m sorry! I’m sorry for being mean and insensitive.” He drops onto the bed and pulls Baekhyun into a hug.

Baekhyun immediately wraps his arms around the giant, tears gone and smile bright. “That’s okay, Chanyeol, just next time try to not be so much of an , okay?”

Chanyeol lets out an amused huff. “Okay. I’m sorry for being an and I’ll do my best to not be one anymore.”

“Just to me.”

“I’ll try my best to not be an to you anymore. Happy?”

Baekhyun pulls back and put his finger to his chin, obviously in deep thought. “Hmmmmmm, well, no.”

Chanyeol raises an eyebrow. “No?” He’s been doing this drill since before he can remember and usually Baekhyun would say ‘yes’ and all his sins would be forgiven.

“You should take me out to ice cream.” Baekhyun puts on his brightest, cutest smile and directs it all at Chanyeol.

It takes a little bit for everything to click for Chanyeol and when it does he lets out a laugh. That’s it? Baekhyun’s still as easy to please as ever. “Yeah, sure, whatever you want.”

Baekhyun lets out a cheer of triumph. Get Chanyeol To Go On A Date – check. He’s finally moving down his ‘To Do’ list in the S.S.C (Subtly Seduce Chanyeol) plan. “Sweet! Let’s go!” He jumps up (suddenly no longer injured) just as the nurse comes in to check what they needed.

“Oh, hello, is there something you boys needed?” She says as she smiles at the excitement flowing throughout the rabbit-like kid. She looks to the boy in the basketball uniform, expecting him to be the one injured, but he gestures to the other.

“Baekhyun, don’t you need to get checked by the nurse since being hit by the ball and falling from the bleachers caused you so much trauma?” Chanyeol says and pats the spot next to him. “I still have to get back to practice, you know. I’ll stop by to get you when it’s finished.”

Grumpily, Baekhyun sits back down on the bed and then plops down on his side. He recounts his tale of trauma to the nurse who just nods and pets his head. She’s quite familiar with the boy on account of his exaggeration of any and all injuries.

After she’s done “treating” him, she tucks him in and pats him on the head. Before she’s able to walk away, there’s a tug on her sleeve. She hears Baekhyun call her softly. “Mari, have you ever been in love.”

Nurse Mari smiles and sits on the bed, preparing herself for yet another ‘life lessons’ chat with Baekhyun. “Of course I have, Baekhyun.” She breaks out the juice boxes and doesn’t complain when Baekhyun sips the juice from his horizontal position. He’s a boy in need after all; she’ll chastise him later.

“What was it like? Did it hurt? Did you think you’d never ever ever be able to be with her ever?”

“Well,” Nurse Mari thinks back through all her unsuccessful crushes and decides that positivity breeds optimism. “there are several times where I thought I was in love and I felt that I could never be with her, but when I did really fall in love, those insecurities were only temporary. Everyone gets insecure, Baekhyun, but love is mutual. It takes two to tango, you know? If you feel like that person will never love you or that you don’t trust them to love you, then I don’t think that’s love. You have to really be able to see yourself with that person; you have to feel as though you belong together. The feeling when you’re with them is like 'everything will be okay'. They’re the calm to your storm, your comfort, and your oasis in the desert. Get it?”

Baekhyun slowly sips his juice and nods. He had already decided that he was in love with Chanyeol the moment he saw him, but is he really? Did he really fall in love with him, or was it just lust? How well does Baekhyun even know Chanyeol, the Chanyeol right now? It’s been years and maybe Baekhyun knew everything about the boy back then, but so many things have changed. Can he really claim Chanyeol anymore? The possessiveness in him says yes, but reason says no.

The nurse ruffles his hair standing to get back to work and to leave the boy to think about her words. “Don’t stress too much, you’re still young and you have time to figure out the answer. Just don’t wait til its too late, okay?”

Baekhyun looks up to her and briefly wonders about the flicker of sorrow in her eyes before nodding. He knows that he has the tendency to go to the extremes about everything, and maybe it’s just that he’s been lonely and when he saw Chanyeol, someone who belongs(ed) to him, all gorgeous, maybe he jumped at the chance to have someone again. Maybe he mistook those feelings of want and lust to be love. Maybe he just assumed that those previous emotional connections still applied, when right now, they don’t. Has he even attempted to reconnect those emotional bonds? No, he hasn’t. He’s been too caught up in himself and whether or not he’s good enough for Chanyeol to want to be with him. It takes two to tango. Baekhyun can’t expect Chanyeol to just fall for him because he upped his eyeliner and fashion game; he has to actively reconnect to Chanyeol emotionally!

~*~

“Hey, where are we going? Didn’t you want to get ice cream?” Chanyeol asks as Baekhyun excitedly drags him down different streets and alleyways.

“I do! And we are going to get ice cream!” Baekhyun calls over his shoulder. He’s completely focused now on finding their old favorite ice cream shop. After his epiphany, Baekhyun knew exactly how to start his Reconnect-To-Chanyeol-Emotionally plan. When they were children a new hole-in-the-wall ice cream shop opened up not far from where Chanyeol lived at the time. It was their favorite place to go get ice cream, mostly because it felt almost like a secret hideout. It’s located in between a cluster of shops and unless you’re looking for it, you’d never be able to see it. Occasionally Baekhyun would visit, but it just wasn’t the same without Chanyeol so he stopped going.

Surprisingly, Baekhyun finds the little shop without difficulty and sighs in relief when he see’s that it’s still open. It’s always been strange to Baekhyun how it remains to stay open, because the store’s so well hidden. You’d think it would go out of business.

“Whoa! Haha, no way! I totally thought this place would’ve closed down by now!” Chanyeol speaks a bit too loud and gets a dirty look from one of the workers. “I can’t believe you remembered this place, Baek.” His million-dollar smile graces his face as he excitedly looks around the shop. “Ah! Baek look! They still have Rainbow Shock Tornado 9000!”

Another reason the two loved the shop so much was because of the crazy names and flavors and the monthly ‘Create Your Own Flavor’ competition. Chanyeol and Baekhyun tried every month, usually arguing over what would be the better flavor and end up making an indistinguishable blob. One month they finally were able to agree on a flavor (all flavors) and even won the competition. They were also allowed to name their creation and the pair came up with the totally awesome Rainbow Shock Tornado 9000. Apparently the flavor became very popular, but only with children.

“Seriously!” Baekhyun bounds over to the counter and peers through the glass to see the mess of their creation. The ice cream not only contains 7 flavors, but it also has sprinkles of all variety and what Chanyeol and Baekhyun had described as “crunch shock”, which is actually just crushed up sour candies. “Lets get it, Yeol!”

The duo excitedly orders two cones of Rainbow Shock Tornado 9000 and settles into their old favorite booth.

“Ready? On three. One, two, three!” Baekhyun says and they both dive into the crazy colorful cones. Simultaneously, they resist the urge to spit it out, and swallow with a grimace.

“Oh god, that’s so disgusting! Why did we think that was a good idea?” Chanyeol says as he shudders in revulsion.

Baekhyun tries his best not to gag. “The real question is why did we win a competition for this? And why was it popular?”

“Seriously…” Chanyeol mutters glaring at the disastrous cone, and when he meets eyes with Baekhyun they crack smiles that escape into laughter. “Oh man, I guess that’s why no one older than 12 liked it, huh?”

Baekhyun laughs. “Man, we thought this was the best thing ever. Do you remember us rushing to your house after school just so we could come here and order our ice cream?”

“Yeah, and you remember we told everyone at school, even the teachers. We were like kings for, what, a solid month?” Chanyeol looks lost in the memory as his eyes drifts upwards. The afternoon light drifts in lazily through the window, the soft gold a contradiction amongst the bright colors of the shop around them. Baekhyun thinks that he looks like something out of a painting. Everything just looks too perfect to be real and there’s this kind of warmth spreading through his chest and he really can’t help the smile that reflects Chanyeol’s.

They order different flavors of ice cream, old favorites and new flavors, and sit and talk about the past, about what they were doing the past couple of years, until the soft gold turns orange. Baekhyun thinks that they must have racked up quite the bill, but he doesn’t know because Chanyeol pays for everything. He does it so casually that Baekhyun almost forgets that this isn’t a date. But he doesn’t think about that and enjoys the walk home. For some reason Baekhyun lets Chanyeol lead and they end of getting lost somewhere among the twists and turns of shops and by the time they regain their footing, twilight has settled.

Somewhere along the way, Baekhyun slips his arms into Chanyeol’s, but neither of them really notices because they’re having too much fun talking about anything and everything. They occasionally drop into stores to look and touch but never buy. Sometimes they look and touch too long in too nice of shops and earn dirty looks before they scurry out, giggling like children.

Night has fallen by the time they make it back and Baekhyun’s mother scolds them, but it doesn’t deter them from their high. Both are secretly happy that they’ve slipped back into unstrained comfort. It was easier than they had imagined, but they don’t tell the other that. 

*hides* 

So there was school and finals and so much to do and not nearly enough time, so I've been on a sort of unofficial/unannounced hiatus

But! Now it's Christmas break and I definitely plan on getting in more chapters! also a bunch of new stories I might post later

I was thinking about another baekyeol fic based off of Taylor Swift's new song Blank Space (you should go listen its p great + need to watch the video to really grasp the concept) I was thinking of doing it completely based off of the video as far as scene and setting goes. I think it can fit pretty well. 

p.s. i was thinking of also doing a version of Blank Space for xiuhan with minseok as the crazy one (i think that'd be really fun)