You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off you.

When Jongin first met Baekhyun they were only ten years old. Jongin was riding his bike, racing against his friends when suddenly a guy around his age walked around the corner, right in his way.
Jongin screeched and screamed for the stranger to go away, but the guy only whipped his head around and stood still.
Jongn pulled at his breaks, having forgotten about the race as he was focused on not crashing into the guy.
Just as he thought that he wouldn’t make it and would send the guy falling down on his a woman came running from around the corner and pulled the stranger back.
Jongin sighed in relief but crashed right into a pole which led to him falling down onto the ground, palms and knees scratched.

However, Jongin wasn’t mad; he hissed at the stinging pain and stood up. He walked towards the guy and the woman – Jongin thought that she could the stranger’s mom – and smiled at them.

“Are you okay?” he asked them and the woman looked at him with worried eyes.

“You’re the one who fell onto the ground, are you okay? Oh dear, you’re bleeding!”

“Who is it, mom?” The stranger asked and only then did Jongin notice his eyes.
They were kind of… glassy, it looked like they were glazed over.

Then Jongin understood why the guy didn’t back up when Jongin told him to.

He was blind.

It turned out that the stranger’s name was Baekhyun and that he had just moved into town a few days ago.
He was born blind, that’s what Jongin heard Baekhyun’s mother saying when she was talking to his own, something was wrong with the cornea but Jongin didn’t understand any of that anyway.
Whatever it was, it caused Baekhyun to be blind and Jongin felt sad because that meant that Baekhyun could look at things but still see nothing, he could hear the animals but he doesn’t know how any of them looked like, doesn’t know what colors look like, can’t watch any of the funny cartoons Jongin liked to watch. It also meant that Baekhyun doesn’t know how anyone looks like; not how his mother looked like and not even how he himself looks like.

Even years later when they both were seventeen, Jongin couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Baekhyun has never seen himself.

Jongin thinks that Baekhyun would be overwhelmed by his own face.

After Jongin almost crashed into the other they became friends. Jongin always came over after school, telling his mother how lonely Baekhyun must be because he was new in town and didn’t have friends yet. His mother knew that he just really liked to spend time with the slightly older boy though.

Baekhyun was a bit shy while Jongin wasn’t, but that didn’t stop the younger from trying to get closer to him.
Jongin was fascinated by Baekhyun’s calm personality – he was certain that he wouldn’t be as calm as his friend if he wouldn’t see anything – and he was mesmerized by the way Baekhyun would smile when he learnt something new, or the way he would laugh at one of Jongin’s stories even if he couldn’t really picture any of it.
He always felt warm when he spent time with the older boy. There was also another feeling which he couldn’t explain because at that time, he wasn’t sure what it was.

They went to different schools, because Baekhyun couldn’t attend the public schools with his condition, so Jongin always felt envious when he watched his classmates talk to their best friends during breaks and classes, passing notes during lessons and being sent to detention together.
When Jongin visits Baekhyun after school however, and the smaller guy gives him a tight hug and tells him about his own day Jongin forgets all of that - because while the others can spend time together at school he has Baekhyun as his best friend.

When Jongin was sixteen he realized that what he felt for Baekhyun wasn’t just friendship. He admired the other, he always had, but when he heard his classmates talk about their best friends and compared their thoughts to his own, he acknowledged that what he feels was definitely not what best friends should feel for each other.
Unlike most would have, Jongin didn’t make a big drama or anything even close to that out of his realisation.
He still spent the same amount of time with Baekhyun like he always had.
There was a constant, adoring smile on his lips when he listened to Baekhyun talk, and it seemed like he couldn’t look anywhere but at his best friend’s face.
He would unconsciously pout his lips when he talked, or scrunch up his nose when he had said something stupid. Even the way he frowned when he didn’t understand what he just said himself was something Jongin adored.

Jongin doesn’t think that he can take his eyes off of Baekhyun any time soon.

It’s not only his face that Jongin adored. Despite being a calm and usually shy person he is, Jongin also knows how sassy and loud Baekhyun liked to be when it's just the two of them. He would also describe Baekhyun as cute, but then there are also times where Jongin could impossibly deny his friend’s charismatic side. He has his way with words; he’s good at playing with them and making others laugh with his remarks and comments. He can be silly but at the same time he’s very caring towards Jongin. And when Baekhyun opens his mouth and sings, Jongin thinks that Baekhyun is definitely too good to be true.

When they go out together Baekhyun always has to carry his cane with him and Jongin knows that the other is used to it already, but he can’t help but worry about his safety. So he hooks Baekhyun’s arm with his own and ignores the other people’s stares as they walk down the street.
He can’t ignore his own feelings, though, so when he links their arms together and feels Baekhyun holding his elbow tightly, his heart beats a little faster and he wonders how it would be to hold his best friend’s hand instead. He wishes he could just intertwine their fingers and squeeze them tightly. When the sky turns darker as the sun goes down and the temperature sinks he sees Baekhyun shivering because he’s sensitive to the cold. At such times Jongin just wants to wrap his arms around the smaller’s body and pull him closer to himself, protecting him from the cold. He wishes he could tell Baekhyun how much he wants to hold him. He’s certain that it’d be like heaven.

When they’re both seventeen, Jongin still thinks that Baekhyun is too good to be true. 

Sometimes when they’re out to buy clothes together Jongin has to help his best friend try on the shirts he chooses for him.
After some quick explaining to the saleswomen at the store he gets into the same cabin as Baekhyun and no matter how many times he has seen the other shirtless he still can’t help but stare.
But then Baekhyun frowns a little and his cheeks get a little pink. Despite all that, he still thinks Baekhyun looks the cutest. There's just nothing else that compares.

“Jongin, are you staring at me?” he asks.

And Jongin blushes because he was caught staring by a blind person, so that means he must be really, really obvious.
But Jongin always denies, shaking his head furiously even if his friends can’t see him doing so.

“Of course not!”

Baekhyun puts the white button down shirt on with Jongin’s help and straightens the nonexistent wrinkles with his hands.

“How do I look?” is the question he’d always ask first.

Jongin doesn’t know what to say because honestly, he feels his knees getting a bit weak and there’s a lump in his throat.
Then he feels sad again, because he thinks that it would be the best if Baekhyun could see himself, it would be great if he could look at himself and make an opinion about it himself because no matter when he’ll ask him that question, Jongin’s answer would always be the same.
So he smiles sadly and speaks.

“I wish you could see it yourself. You always look great to me.”

And when Baekhyun hasn’t noticed how head over heels Jongin has been for him, he would have by now.
So he makes a confused face to Jongin’s direction.

“Jongin? What does that mean?”

“It means what you think it does.. I really like you Baekhyun.” Jongin smiles down at his friend. “I don’t want to rush you or anything… but please tell me soon, yeah? If you feel the same for me.”

Jongin always imagined him confessing at a more… cliché place, in a more romantic atmosphere when everything would be perfect but here he is, standing in the changing cabinet at a clothing store. Somehow everything is perfect anyway, because Baekhyun is there and he laughs inwardly at his cheesy self.

They walk home together, Baekhyun’s hand holding onto Jongin’s elbow tightly despite the confession. He hasn’t told Jongin about how he feels yet so Jongin feels nervous but he can wait, he has been waiting for quite some time so a few days more won’t hurt.
He makes sure that Baekhyun is safely at home before he goes home himself and maybe it shows on his face but the first thing that his mother said when she saw him was “You confessed, didn’t you?”

He didn’t even know that his mother knew how much he liked Baekhyun, but then again he thinks that his mother had known years before he himself did, because mothers are amazing like that.
She pulled him into a hug and he buried his face into her shoulder while she his hair.

“Mom, you don’t mind?” he had been scared of his mother's reaction ever since he realised that he liked boys.

“Of course I don’t.” she answers, “did he reject you?”

Jongin shakes his head.

“He hasn't said anything yet.”

His mother smiled at him.

“I’m sure he won’t reject you.”

Jongin believes her because he knows, mothers are amazing like that.

When he lays in bed that night, he couldn’t bring himself to fall asleep. Somehow he felt even lonelier than usual, and then the screen of his phone lights up.
So he grabs the phone and feels a little sick as he sees the dialer’s name on the display.

‘Baekhyunnie’

He prepares himself mentally before he picks up the call.

“Baekhyun?”

“Hey… sorry for calling you so late.”

Jongin hears the nervousness in his tone and feels more nervous himself.

“Don’t worry about it but… why did you call so late?” he asks while knowing exactly why Baekhyun was calling him.

“Do you think you can come over now? I’m sorry if it’s too much.”

Now he feels even more nervous and confused, because Baekhyun never tells him to come over that late.
He says yes anyway, because he can’t bring himself to say no to the other.

While he walks to Baekhyun’s house he silently prays, something he has never done before. Baekhyun’s mother lets him in without asking questions but she throws him a knowing smile, so he guesses that their mothers have known since long ago.

He walks up to Baekhyun’s room and doesn’t know if he should knock or not because Baekhyun had told him one day that he doesn’t like it when someone knocks as it kind of startles him.
Before he could make up his mind Baekhyun told him to just walk into the room and he smiles, because how could he forget Baekhyun’s excellent hearing?

He sees Baekhyun sitting on his bed when he walks in so he steps closer and sits down next to him.

“Sorry for calling you so late but I couldn’t sleep…”

The light was turned off in the room so Jongin couldn’t see Baekhyun very clearly, but even now it’s still fascinating to him how great Baekhyun looks, even with his messed up hair and the pajamas, and once again Jongin couldn’t take his eyes off of him. He almost laughs at himself for having fallen so deep.

“I couldn’t sleep either.”

And then there’s silence because Baekhyun isn’t talking and Jongin doesn’t know what to say, so he just waits. After a while he feels Baekhyun grabbing his hand and holding it between both of his.
It’s not the first time that Baekhyun does that, because while people with sight can remember and recognize people by their faces, Baekhyun uses hands and voices to tell them apart. He traces his slender finger along Jongin’s rough ones, feeling every line on Jongin’s palm. And then he intertwines their fingers and Jongin averts his eyes from where they were looking at their hands up to Baekhyun’s face. That was the first time Baekhyun did that. Jongin sees him smiling, a smile he has never seen before and Jongin could almost imagine how much his eyes could’ve expressed in such a situation, but he doesn’t do that.
Baekhyun gives his hand a little squeeze and even if it’s just a minimal action, it feels like a dream to Jongin.

“I think I like you too, Jongin.”

Jongin wants to pull Baekhyun to his chest and hug him tightly, but that would startle the other so he doesn’t. He lowers his head a little then to look at their joined hands again. He’s smiling so wide his cheeks almost hurt as he grabs Baekhyun’s hands and leads them to his face for the other ito hold his cheeks. Baekhyun moves his thumb across his skin, because it’s the first time he’s holding someone’s face like this, and traces his fingers along the bridge of Jongin’s nose, the curve of his eyebrows and brushes them against his lashes.

“I thought that you might want to… feel my face when you can’t see it.”

Baekhyun doesn’t say anything. He continues on moving the tips of his fingers gently along Jongin’s cheekbone and further down until they stop at something slightly chapped.

“You’re handsome.” Baekhyun says and Jongin chuckles.

“How would you know?”

“Just guessing.”

Jongin doesn’t mention how Baekhyun couldn’t know what someone handsome could look like.

“I might not know how handsome or pretty people look like but I like the feeling of your hands so I guess that’s okay too?” he says and Jongin nods.

“That’s more than okay to me.”

Jongin tells him that he’s going to kiss him and Baekhyun doesn’t really know what he has to do because he has never kissed anyone before but when their lips touch he thinks that maybe that wasn’t all that important at all.

Jongin still can't take his eyes off of Baekhyun after years of dating, and he's still convinced that Baekhyun's too good to be true.
He was also right about the fact that it feels like heaven when he's holding Baekhyun's hand or when he's holding him tightly to his chest,
but now he knows that he's not the only one that thinks that, because Baekhyun tells him that he's too good to be true too, and that he likes holding Jongin's
hand the most and how they're also the nicest hands he has ever felt. Baekhyun also tells him how nice his lips feel and how he doesn't doesn't want to use a cane anymore, now that he has Jongin to guide him. And he tells him how Jongin is part of his life like his blindness is and Jongin realizes that maybe he isn't the only one that has fallen so deep for the other.