Would You? [Chanbaek; ; 1,210 words]

        Chanyeol sprints towards home as soon as his last class ended. He arrives at the doorstep a couple minutes later, hair sticking to his forehead and sweat coating his body as second skin, and stumbles inside and up the staircase with his rubber shoes still on. He vaguely acknowledges the fact that he's going to be scolded for staining the carpet with mud later, but he couldn't put himself to care at the moment as he quickly gets inside his room. After all, it's Friday—which meant the house was all to himself until 10pm. His mother and father always have their own bonding time during Fridays while his older brother, Baekhyun, always stays out late during Fridays. This is the one of the reasons why Friday is Chanyeol's favorite day of the week—next to Saturday, that is.

To put it simply, Chanyeol was too excited. His Fridays were always spent watching his favorite animes, catching up on new episodes he'd missed throughout the week because of schoolwork. But this week is different from the others; it's when the expected of one particular favorite anime was released. He was going to finally find out whether the main character would choose to kill his own brother or the love of his life in exchange for the world's safety. He simply couldn't wait to know after a whole week of avoiding spoilers from his friends.

Chanyeol places his bag away, tugs off his shoes, and changes into a tank top and a pair of batman boxers as he turns on his laptop and visits the site that hosted his favorite anime. He eagerly clicks on a link that said 'Mirror 1', and watches as his browser redirects him to another tab, which he thinks was odd because the site didn't do that before, but he shakes the thought off. Instead, he sits back and waits as the page loads. He finds himself shooting back up, though, when a string of moans in the form of a sultry male voice greets his eardrums. His eyes widen when he sees his laptop screen. It had gone into fullscreen mode and was currently showing him a view of what seems to be someone's pink butthole. Soon, the picture zooms out, shifts, and shows him two men screwing each other on a creaky wooden bed.

“,” Chanyeol curses under his breath, not because of the reason that his laptop was probably infected with loads of malware by now but because never in his life did he find himself showing any interest in gay yet here he was, already having a hard-on after only being exposed to it for a few seconds.

Soon enough, the list of new anime episodes are forgotten when Chanyeol fails to close the tab. It wouldn't let him anyway, but that obviously wasn't an acceptable excuse for Chanyeol to let go of his resistance and slip a hand past the band of his boxers. He should've took the headphones off, he should've turned his laptop off, he should've—

Baekhyun storms inside his room with a loud bang.

He should've locked the door.

Chanyeol takes his hand away from his boxers as fast as he can and turns to face Baekhyun, “Jesus, what the —” he sees his older brother sitting on the edge of his bed, wiping his eyes with his hands as he tries to stop himself from crying. Chanyeol sighs in relief, at least Baekhyun didn't see. “You could've at least knocked,” he says as he stealthily shuts his laptop screen off.

Baekhyun doesn't seem to pay him any attention. He's too focused on wiping tears away from his face. Chanyeol walks towards his brother, saying as he pats Baekhyun on the head, “Hey, hey, what's wrong, Baek?”

Baekhyun still doesn't flinch.

“Hey, stop crying. Stop crying. Look at me,” Chanyeol says as he tilts Baekhyun's chin so that the older was facing him.

Baekhyun's eyes are red and swollen and there's a thin sheen of snot above his lips. Chanyeol thinks the he looked precious like this. It reminds him of the days when Baekhyun would come crying to him whenever the neighborhood bully, Do Kyungsoo, would steal his candy. Eventhough he was younger than Baekhyun, Chanyeol had always act like he was the older. He misses the days when Baekhyun didn't have eyeliner smudged along his cheeks whenever he'd cried.

Baekhyun looks up at him and Chanyeol winces when Baekhyun slaps his hand away. “Don't touch me.”

“Baekhyun—”

“Stop caring, Park Chanyeol and just—” Baekhyun snaps. He heaves a heavy sigh and calms himself before continuing, “Just leave me alone.”

Chanyeol reels back, hurt with how Baekhyun emphasized his last name like it disgusted him. Baekhyun is his half-brother from his father's second wife but he had always treated Baekhyun as a real brother. That's why he doesn't understand why things with Baekhyun became this complicated. All he knows is that they started drifting from being totally inseperable into almost-strangers when they both hit puberty. Baekhyun was the one who had requested that they shouldn't share rooms or hang out that much together anymore. But Chanyeol, thinking that it was just his brother's way of respecting him, didn't stop caring for Baekhyun.

Suddenly, Chanyeol feels a pang of disappointment wash through him. “Then why are you in my room?” he asks.

Baekhyun just looks up at him, smudged eye make-up looking more intimidating than they should, before looking away. “You wouldn't understand,” he says.

“How will I if you won't tell me, Baek?”

Baekhyun stays silent.

Frustrated, Chanyeol combs fingers through his hair. He doesn't understand why Baekhyun is being so complicated. “I'll... I'll be outside then, hyung.”

But when he motions for the door, Baekhyun grabs him by the arm and stops him.

Chanyeol looks back and finds Baekhyun staring right at him.

“Would you kiss me then, brother?”

Chanyeol stiffens. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. “What?”

“I asked if you'd kiss me even if I was your brother,” Baekhyun says, there's this inexplicable mix of longing and anger in his voice.

“Kiss you?” Chanyeol starts, wincing when Baekhyun's grip around his arm tightens. He turns around and kneels in front of Baekhyun. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I like you. I want you,” Baekhyun says.

“, Baekhyun. You're really serious about this? That was a joke, wasn't it?” Chanyeol hesitantly asks, already half-knowing that it was a joke and half-believing that it wasn't.

Baekhyun doesn't answer. Instead, he presses his lips against Chanyeol's. And Chanyeol flinches, but doesn't push Baekhyun—his brother—away. It's a crash of cold lips against warm ones, want against beliefs, this is wrong—but why does it feels so right.

Baekhyun pulls away first and he looks up at Chanyeol, eyes searching for confirmation. But this time, Chanyeol makes it a move to shake Baekhyun's tight grip off his wrist. And Baekhyun laughs, smiles, and then frowns. “See, I told you, Yeol. You wouldn't understand.”

Chanyeol leaves his room and rushes downstairs to drink a glass of water from the fridge. He drinks, and drinks, and drinks to get rid of the phantom lump in his throat because he does understand. Baekhyun had never seen him as a brother.