Monday arrives after what seems like a year even though it has only been a few days. Seconds dragged to minutes, minutes dragged to hours, hours dragged to days. The closer it got to Monday, the more nervous Kyungsoo was.

As he makes his way toward the coffee shop, anxiety flutters in his stomach like hummingbirds. Hopefully, the severity of his emotion doesn’t show on his face. He hopes that his eyes seem emotionless, if nothing else, and that his lips aren’t trembling, and that his hands are as steady as rocks. That’s why they are tucked away into his pockets; because anyone could see that his fingers were shivering as though gripped by an invisible cold.

'Hi, guys,’ he greets warmly as he steps through the door. A few inquisitive customers turn their heads, peering cautiously at the face in the doorway. A girl, perhaps nineteen, grins at Kyungsoo, seeming to be thoughtful about something as she inclines her head and bites her lip in his direction. Kyungsoo fails to notice, because his eyes are focused solely on Baekhyun. He barely even registers Minseok’s presence.

Both owners are wearing white shirts and jeans, with black aprons slung over their shoulders. ‘Nice uniforms,’ Kyungsoo chuckles, half serious as he eyes them up and down.

‘Thanks,’ Baekhyun his hip and adopts a model pose, all pouted lips and seducing eyes, showing off his body in ways Kyungsoo had never imagined. Of course, Baekhyun is joking, but lately Kyungsoo had figured that Baekhyun can’t really do much wrong.

Minseok leans over the counter, closer to Kyungsoo, ‘What can I get you?’ A glimmer of something twinkles in both of Minseok’s eyes, as his gaze flits between both of his friends. If either of the two were concentrating, perhaps they would realise what Minseok was insinuating with that gaze.

‘Actually,’ Kyungsoo hums, pointing his finger accusingly at Baekhyun, who shrinks away. ‘Byun Baekhyun, you promised.’ He pouts, and that’s when Baekhyun melts into a puddle on the floor.

‘Okayyyyy,’ he whines, making a point of his grudging reluctance as he trudges to the machines like a toddler whose mother has refused to buy it’s favourite toy. ‘You go and start writing. I’ll bring you the coffee.’

Once again, Minseok’s eyes travel between the two of them, wandering from face to face as it seems to drag his lips into a smile. ‘You’re both so dumb.’ He mutters, half-hoping that Baekhyun heard him. If he did, he showed no signs of acknowledgement.

Kyungsoo opens up his laptop on the table in front of him, and he feels a strange sense of accomplishment at writing in this setting. Wood bends everything into a soft, oaky haze. The daytime washes tides of engine hums in through the door of the shop, and the mood lighting brightens everything into comfortable warmth. As he peers around, screen loading before him, he notes the soft tones of coffee-coloured background, Baekhyun’s hushed skin tones blending into the picture. Like drops of smooth caramel into froth the colour of Demerara sugar.

‘Hey,’ Baekhyun’s voice silences his thought stream, and Kyungsoo just peers up at him. His presence had been hardly discernible through the chaos of Kyungsoo’s thoughts, synonyms running wild as he tried to figure ways to describe his surroundings. A writer’s warm-up; writing before actually writing. Baekhyun places his coffee on the table, ‘That,’ he points at the cup, ‘is a mocaccino.’

‘A what?’

‘Chocolate coffee. Chocolate is your weakness, right?’ He stalks back to the counter, but not before Kyungsoo swears he sees him wink. It is only for a second that he stares after him, because he decides to turn his attention to the monitor and focus, Kyungsoo, focus.

Cheeks burning slightly crimson, he shakes his head to shake the dizziness. Why is it, that every time Baekhyun smiles like that, Kyungsoo’s head is overwhelmed by a fuzzy sensation? Why is it that when the cursor blinks out from the screen, he suddenly knows what to write about? Then again, perhaps “know” is the wrong word, since his fingers are dancing automatically across his keyboard, typing the letters absent-mindedly. Click, click, click as the keys are pushed rapidly, face set in stony concentration as the noise fades to silence, nothing but his own mind cloaking his existence. Kyungsoo’s world is scary sometimes, but for once it is bright.

Before he knows it, the coffee cup only has lingering froth in the crevices of the bottom, and he has written over a page. Slowly, he exits the zone of pure concentration he had been in, unfortunate reality spinning back into focus, background noise returning to break the stentorian silence, colours softening again. And as he reads through the words that he has written, two things strike him. The first is that he was using words he never knew were stored in the deepest catacombs of his brain, words that made Kyungsoo seem eloquent and beyond literate. The second is that the person he had described seemed achingly familiar. Jongin, perhaps? But no, because Jongin’s skin is chocolate, not caramel, and Jongin’s hair is the colour of charcoal, not cinnamon.

‘Hey.’ For the second time, Baekhyun’s velvety voice cuts through his stupor. He jumps, scared half to death while he shuts the laptop lid suddenly. Lips twist up into an amused smile while eyes narrow into suspicion, ‘What were you writing?’

‘Nothing,’ Kyungsoo stresses, hoping that he doesn’t seem overly questionable in his actions, all wide eyes and body tilting away from Baekhyun.

‘I made you coffee.’ Baekhyun states, voice flat.

‘What’s your point?’

‘You have to let me read what you’ve written.’

A flush heats Kyungsoo’s cheeks, and he looks away for a second. He never was good with vocalisation. ‘Umm… I will. Just… Not now.’

A small shrug on Baekhyun’s end, ‘Alright.’ He holds out a hand, ‘Deal?’

‘Deal,’ Kyungsoo agrees, connecting their hands together and feeling his face smile.

Time stops again and they are frozen like this, fingers of both men wanting to interlace and maybe hold hands for a minute, eyes locked onto each other in a trance. Almost as though they have been burned, both withdraw their digits hastily, simultaneously retracting their gaze. ‘Uh, so what did you come over here for?’ Kyungsoo inquires.

‘What? Can’t I come to talk to my friend?’

And even though Baekhyun is laughing to emphasise his own joke, Kyungsoo still blushes and tries to argue, ‘N-no I–’

‘Kyungsoo,’ as soon as his name is said, everything falls silent in the space around them. At least in Kyungsoo’s mind it does. ‘Calm down, I was kidding.’ And all the anxiety melts into comfort. ‘I just came over to–’

            A beat. Several. Because Kyungsoo’s mind is reeling and he doesn’t actually know how Baekhyun finishes asking him. The pounding of his heart in his ears is much too loud. All he knows is that his answer is, ‘Yes,’ and Baekhyun’s delighted expression means everything is worth it. All he knows it that, this evening, he has a sort-of-but-not-exactly-official date with Byun Baekhyun.

*

Palms sweaty, it’s a mad dash to shower and select an outfit and fix hair into its proper position. Kyungsoo recalls that someone once told him some people are born to be in the limelight, because their easy confidence and flawless charm, paired with stunning beauty, can be captured on camera. And when he looked at Jongin, he believed this to be true. Not a speck of dirt dared to tarnish the picture-perfect human that was Kim Jongin. Not in real life, and certainly not through the eyes of a camera lens. No matter when Kyungsoo looked at him, he always seemed like a model ready for the runway.

Kyungsoo, on the other hand, is disappointed when he looks in the mirror. “Ugly” is at the opposite end of the spectrum to any word he would use when describing himself. He knows that he is moderately attractive. But in high school, before he and Jongin began dating, he used to glance at the other boy from across the classroom and curse his gene pool.

Now, as he stands before the rectangular slab of reflective glass, he frowns. For some reason, he thinks he has lost weight since he last really studied himself. And for some reason, this is beginning to worry him. His clothes are ill-fitting, his shirt hanging slightly too baggy from his frail shoulders. As he wonders if Baekhyun will still like him like this, the anxiety migrates from his throat to his stomach, somehow working its way into the backs of his eyes and gathering in salty pools. Kyungsoo does not allow himself to cry over appearances, but it seems that he has been too happy for too long, and so any sort of minor emotion is going to get the better of him. A groan escapes his lips, a vague imprint of disappointment still evident on his face as he trudges over to his bed and squirts some potent cologne.

In a strange twist, Kyungsoo doesn’t want the doorbell to ring anymore. He doesn’t look forward to opening the door and seeing Baekhyun’s smiling face. The thought is making his gut twist and Kyungsoo thinks that maybe he is a little sick. So, before it comes to the time to leave, Kyungsoo takes his laptop and begins to write again.

Contrary to his wishes, the front door announces someone’s presence regardless. Gulping past the phantom lump in his throat, he heaves his heavy body from the bed and walks to the entrance. False smile, well-practiced, and he pushes the handle. Baekhyun is standing there, as expected, grinning, as anticipated. At first, Kyungsoo is sure he sees the scene in slow motion, because it’s so obvious that Baekhyun’s expression distorts as soon as he sees him. His mouth drops from its smile into something flatter, but not a frown. Almost surprised. His eyes maintain their stubborn twinkle, but Kyungsoo only sees a disappointment that isn’t really there. He still feels sick. Almost as swiftly as it disappeared, Baekhyun’s smile returns, as bright as ever, and the opposite of false. Maybe that’s why Kyungsoo likes Baekhyun: because there is not an ounce of pretence to him. “Fake” probably doesn’t factor into his vocabulary.

‘Hi,’ he breathes, and once again Kyungsoo is paralysed. It is only by slightly miscalculated instinct that, ‘Hello,’ falls sadly from downward pointing lips.

Baekhyun’s smile dissolves rapidly again. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course.’ Kyungsoo says, realising that his impenetrable plastic smile has just been pierced. He can’t lie to someone with eyes so trustworthy, ‘It’s just that you look incredible.’

This time, what embellishes Baekhyun’s face is more than a smile. In fact, Kyungsoo doubts that there is a word to describe the purity, the perfection, that is standing looking right at him. ‘Come on, Kyungsoo,’ he teases, ‘You’re a writer. You can do better than that.’

Under normal circumstances, there would have been long hesitation and obvious reluctance, perhaps even a lack of words entirely. But Baekhyun’s easiness entices a quiet, flirtatious confidence out of Kyungsoo. ‘You look like perfection personified. Not even the most marvellous of epithets could describe how sensational you look. Like an actor straight from Hollywood.’ Of course, there is a twinge of falseness in Kyungsoo’s voice, a lie that he injected into the sentences himself. Every word he spoke was true, but he wasn’t ready to say that to Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun is laughing, because that is what you’re supposed to do when someone makes a joke, but there is a pang of something in his heart, maybe because he wanted Kyungsoo to mean it.

‘So where are we going?’ Kyungsoo inquires, feeling awkward.

‘The bar where we first met.’ Baekhyun announces, a hint of pride shining through in his voice. ‘I thought it seemed nostalgic. Poetic, even.’

Kyungsoo feels stirred internally as he steps through the door, touched by Baekhyun’s gesture. But it could mean nothing at all.

Appropriately summarised by two men reduced to adolescence, fifteen year olds in twenty year old bodies, they stalk down the street side by side. Darkness has already taken the city, wind blowing away the last traces of dusk. Their silhouettes stand close to one another, and the street lamps from all angles force their shadows to blend into one. The narrow proximity is making Kyungsoo’s mind reel, and he considers reaching over to hold hands. It’s too soon. His flesh tingles when Baekhyun’s fingers sway nearer. Still sickly, his body feels odd. Like wearing a favourite shirt inside out. Everything is familiar but the seams are scratchy, solid and stubborn. Thankfully – or is it? – Baekhyun’s hand sways back the other way again. Just a natural movement alongside walking.

Predictably, it is Baekhyun that begins to indulge in chatter. At first, it’s one-sided witty humour, because Baekhyun not only makes the jokes, but he answers them himself, too. Kyungsoo chuckles, but Baekhyun’s words are only reaching his ears when the sound particles are already scattered, and he can only manage small chuckles before he feels like he’s going to throw up. After a while, Baekhyun’s jokes fade into half-heartedness, and he stops talking just to gaze at Kyungsoo’s face. Through the murky haze of emotion whipped into a violent tornado, Kyungsoo barely registers the lack of sound.

‘Kyungsoo,’ for the first time since they met, Baekhyun’s voice cracks around the syllables.

‘Hmm?’ He hums, incapable of proper speech.

‘Please tell me what’s wrong.’

Kyungsoo’s heart breaks somewhere around “please.” If he could, he would have said everything that was tormenting him, but sometimes words in the English dictionary just can’t describe anything at all. ‘I’m fine.’ He insists, because in this situation there is nothing else to say.

‘Okay.’ Baekhyun seems unwilling to trust him as he turns away. ‘Kyungsoo, I want you to trust me. That’s what friends are for.’

“Friends,” Kyungsoo scoffs internally, repulsed by the word. It was everything he had hoped he wouldn’t hear. He had interpreted things wrong – this wasn’t a date. This was pity on Baekhyun’s part.

The bar is as vibrant as ever, blue lights glowing vivid and burning into retinas, leaving coloured flares on the lenses. With his haziness, Kyungsoo feels drunk, and he hasn’t even touched alcohol yet. ‘Allow me to buy you a drink,’ Baekhyun seems as enthusiastic and carefree as ever, but this time things seem less pure.

Kyungsoo considers protest, but figures that the burning sensation might drown his emotional pain. People never do learn, sometimes.

When they sit at the bar, same places as last time, Baekhyun puts his chin the indent of his palm and leans on his elbow. For a minute that seems like an age, he watches Kyungsoo, sunset eyes calculating. Kyungsoo squirms, as any shy, emotionally traumatised person would.

‘What?’ He finally asks, though he wonders if he really wants to hear the answer.

‘You know what I think?’

‘What?’ Harder this time. Impatient.

‘I think that you’re sad. And you’re lonely. And you’re very, very broken.’

‘Oh, thanks,’ Kyungsoo retorts sarcastically, clearly stung.

‘But,’ Baekhyun holds up a finger to halt Kyungsoo before he says anymore, ‘That’s not to say that broken things can’t be fixed. All you need is coffee and a comforting environment and friends and someone to love you.’

‘What if you don’t have all those things?’

‘Well which one are you missing?’

‘Someone to love me.’

The tiniest of hesitations follows, accompanied by the miniscule smile that Kyungsoo does not miss. Then, ‘Don’t be so sure.’

Before Kyungsoo can ask, their drinks are ready, and Baekhyun has flitted away from the subject, ‘What’s your book about?’

‘I have two,’ Kyungsoo admits. Not a lie.

‘Two? Jesus, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with just one.’

Kyungsoo manages a tiny laugh, though every punch of amusement intensifies the ache in his heart, ‘I kind of abandoned the first one. It’s still on my laptop, though. I might finish it later.’

‘Well what’s that one about?’

It seems as though Baekhyun is genuinely interested, and once again Kyungsoo is tempted our of his shell by those pretty lips and eye-liner traced lashes. ‘Jongin,’ he blurts, no delicate adjectives to pad out the word. Nothing flashes across Baekhyun’s face, just resident intrigue. ‘I started writing it while he was still, you know, alive. It was what I wanted from him. Looking back, it seems cruel, really. Because I don’t think I should have asked for Jongin to be something he wasn’t–’

‘Hold on!’ Baek exclaims, ‘He cheated on you!’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t tell me you blame yourself for what happened?!’

‘Of course I do…’ He trails off, sure that explaining such a situation is useless when the person on the receiving end of the lecture is as happy-go-lucky as Baekhyun.

‘Listen, Kyungsoo. When somebody in a relationship has an affair, it is entirely the cheaters fault. Whether you pushed him away or not, he could have at least told you that he wanted to leave. Staying and lying to you just made everything ten times worse. I understand that you loved Jongin dearly, and that makes it hard to pin all the blame on him, particularly when he is dead. But… Think about it…’

‘The relationship ended because of both of us. I didn’t have time for him anymore.’

‘That’s not what I’m saying.’ Baekhyun counters, growing flustered, ‘Sometimes relationships don’t work out. Sometimes you fall in love with the idea of a person more than the actual person themselves. You loved Jongin because he was everything you wanted to be. He was one of the popular kids. He was stunningly good looking, I know from the photos, and he was confident and suave and sophisticated and athletic. His dancing was spectacular, and you were transfixed, hung up on the movements of a mannequin. It didn’t matter what the soul hung up inside was like. Jongin fell in love with you because he forgot how to feel. He hoped that your over-excessiveness of feeling would make up for his lack of it. He hoped that you could teach him to feel again. And you liked the project. But the thing is, if you ever really had fixed him, he probably would have left for real feeling. Both of you were in love with perfection and you used each other as tools so that neither would feel like they were in unrequited love. The relationship was destined to end, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that he betrayed you. He screwed up your trust and spat on it. Your mutual understanding of each other was destroyed, and he didn’t even let you know.’

This time, Kyungsoo’s jaw is open. His eyes glaze over with feeling and he just sits, staring levelly at Baekhyun. ‘Love or not, Jongin shouldn’t have cheated on you. And it’s not your fault that he died. It’s going to be hard to move on, of course it is, but you can’t even begin until you’ve accepted that Jongin cheating on you is not your fault. You’re still clinging to an ideal, and you’re not accepting that he had huge faults.’

There is no answer to that. Kyungsoo keeps staring. Until he runs to the bathroom.

Baekhyun finds him two minutes later, curled in a bathroom stall with his head over the bowl. He hadn’t even bothered to shut the cubicle door. ‘You hadn’t even sipped your drink yet,’ Baek offers gently, tenderly offering a chance for Kyungsoo to smile. He does.

‘Shut up, Baek.’ He complains. Anyone can see the colour has drained from his face to leave a grey tinge.

‘Are you ill?’

‘No.’ Kyungsoo says, ‘Just a touch of PTSD.’

‘From?’

‘Sometimes I imagine what I was like to be Jongin, in that car. Did he do it on purpose? I don’t know if I care, and then that makes me feel guilty. And with everything that you just said, I feel like everything suddenly makes sense. Because I don’t have to feel bad, and I don’t have to hate myself for something I didn’t do. And even if the burning continues, I just have to douse the flames. But talking about Jongin made me picture everything one last time, and I’ve felt sick all night, and I just had to go…’

‘Have you been sick?’

As Kyungsoo opens his mouth to say “no,” he vomits, puking up liquid flesh and memories into the toilet bowl. Baekhyun grimaces in disgust, wrinkling his nose against it all, but he doesn’t turn away. He stands right behind Kyungsoo, and his back gently, just like he did on the first night they met. ‘It’s alright Kyungsoo. After you’ve finished, we’re both going to drink until we can’t stand, and then in the morning we’re both going to be hung over and you’ll be able to move on.’

‘Telling me that I’m going to have a pounding headache is not very comforting,’ Kyungsoo pants.

‘Hush,’ Baekhyun whispers.

It’s all over then, and with the stomach acid still burning his insides, Kyungsoo hauls himself to his feet. Or perhaps it’s just lingering emotional pain. He starts out of the door. ‘Let’s go get pissed.’

*

Kyungsoo giggles childishly as Baekhyun wrestles him into his house, ‘Hey, Baek. You have a really cute nose.’

‘And you had way too much to drink,’ the other replies, laying him down on his bed. ‘Sleep well, Kyungsoo.’

‘Noooooooo.’ Kyungsoo whimpers, more drawn out than it ever should have been.

‘What?’ Baekhyun asks, close to sober and not at all equipped to deal with the mess of happiness lying in front of him.

‘You can’t leave.’

‘Why not?’

‘Baekhyun.’ Kyungsoo laughs.

‘What?!’

‘I think I love you.’

There’s a long pause of silence and tension and particles colliding in the air. ‘For s sake, Kyungsoo. You’re drunk.’ He storms out of the room without looking back. If Kyungsoo was sober, he probably would have cried. If Kyungsoo was sober, he might have noticed that Baekhyun was hurting for some reason. He might even have realised that Baekhyun was hurting because he didn’t want it to be a lie. But Kyungsoo is drunk, and he feels immortal, so with a, ‘So mean,’ mumbled through his giggles, he falls backward and passes out on top of the sheets.

Past him, on the laptop, is the paragraph he wrote before Baekhyun took him out. It is left forgotten in an alcohol-fuelled haze, and little does he know that this is the very paragraph that will, in the morning, cause Kyungsoo to cry out tears as potent as vodka. He doesn’t know that what he wrote will push him back to breaking.

“One day, I’m sure that I’ll tell you how I feel. Or how I felt. But right now, I feel that it is an impossible feat. This probably won’t be a date. It will be a meeting of friends. I hate to admit that I need you, and that the pain I have within me only fades when you’re smiling at me. I would ask you on a date for this very reason. But I can’t ever ask you, because I’m certain I know what you’d say. You’d say ‘I’m sorry, believe me, I love you, but not in that way.’” And that’s what I’m so afraid of hearing. But it’s true. Maybe one day you’ll understand.

-Yours truly

Do Kyungsoo.”

a/n I'm surprised how quickly I finished this chapter, especially since I'm still in NZ, but I've had a lot of free time at night and I've been trying to avoid revising maths!!! Anyway, a few of you mentioned in the comments that you wished Kyungsoo didn't blame himself. Surprise! Now he doesn't. But he does have new problems, and I'm sorry for making it sad again. (Maybe. Maybe I'm not sorry). Anyway, I'm also going to mention that the thing Kyungsoo wrote is based on a Sam Smith song.

Keep commenting guys, I really like to know what you think!