Part 22 ⧫ Unsuspecting

un·sus·pect·ing

/ˌənsəˈspektiNG/

adjective

(Of a person or animal) Not aware of the presence of something; feeling no suspicion.

________

When the first rays of sunlight filtered through the cloth curtains and fell onto me, I felt half dead and probably looked the same.

The first thing on my mind was panic, because the bed and room I was in was completely unfamiliar. There was a closet door, slightly ajar, a dresser, and a large lamp in the corner. The queen bed I was in definitely was not mine. I had a twin bed that I often fell off of -- pretty much every night, and I didn’t remember clambering back onto a bed tonight.

Then, memories of last night began slowly flooding back to me, and I almost fell off the sofa when I remembered Baekhyun when I had last seen him. He had said something along the lines of, “I’m alright, guest bedroom down the hall,” and then slammed the door of the room shut. When I tried to open it, there seemed to be something blocking the door from opening. I had tried to knock on the door for at least thirty minutes, waiting for him to answer it, but in the end, exhaustion took over me and I dragged myself to bed.

I wondered if Baekhyun was mad at me. After all, it was me who had forced (or to put it nicely, convinced) him to go see Baekbeom and apologize, and it was technically my fault. The thought itself hurt me; after all, he had finally summoned up the courage and the humbleness to apologize first, and Baekbeom had left the apartment -- and most likely of what Baekhyun had said to him.

Taking my own clothes out of the drier and changing into them, I headed into the kitchen and decided to make breakfast for Baekhyun before going back home, all the while trying to comb the tangles out of my hair with my fingers. It was, I discovered, pretty much impossible. As for the breakfast, I discovered that it also was a work that I had yet to learn how to accomplish, especially with the limited amount of… non-expired food in Baekhyun’s kitchen.

The clock on the microwave told me it was nearing eight o’clock, and I tried to hurry up because I was pretty sure my grandma was going to kill me if I didn’t get home soon.

After flipping around through his kitchen a little, I finally found enough ingredients and utensils to make a hopefully decent breakfast. I wondered what Baekhyun even ate; if he couldn’t cook anything but ramen, did that mean he ate ramen for breakfast? Brushing the thought off my mind, I tried to find food that was at least somewhat breakfast material.

Halfway through taking apart his refrigerator, Baekhyun appeared at the doorway of the kitchen. His footsteps were so soft that I didn’t even hear him approach (the guy also didn’t wear slippers inside, only socks, which I decided was a very bad habit), until his voice, raspy and rough, spoke up. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice cracking slightly, and I almost fell backwards on my . The moment I saw him, though, the surprise faded to complete pity and what seemed to be like guilt. His eyes were swollen and puffy -- not as bloodshot as yesterday, but still proof of crying. The bottom lip was bleeding. His hair was a mess, like usual, but still, it added to the effect of everything else. He was still wearing the clothes from yesterday, obviously not having changed yet, and the sweatpants and hoodie were rumpled from sleep. “Are you stealing food?”

In an awkward attempt to make everything light up, I held up a package of bread. “I’m attempting to make breakfast,” I said quickly, seeing Baekhyun’s confused expression. “Because I don’t want to die when you blow up the apartment trying to cook. And this bread says best before May 16th. It’s already May 19th.”

Somehow, he managed to crack a small smile, though it was a ghost of his old one. “It was best before the sixteenth. Now it can be better. Then it’ll be okay. Then it’ll be bad.”

I snorted, tossing the bread onto the counter. “The world doesn’t work like that,” I tried to joke back, but his face seemed to fall at that sentence.

“The world never works the way we want it to,” he told me solemnly, and disappeared into the living room.

***

By the time I had made breakfast, Baekhyun had changed into a new set of clothing, though it looked just as depressing as the last. He looked tiny in it, everything being two sized too big for him. However, he looked like he had washed his face, so the tear streaks had disappeared. His eyes, however, were still slightly red and puffy.

The kitchen table wasn’t very big, and despite there being four seats -- one at each end, and then two together -- Baekhyun and I ended up sitting next to each other. He picked at his food unenthusiastically, and despite the actual amount of effort I had put into making it, I couldn’t really blame him for not having an appetite because I didn’t really either. Each mouthful was like swallowing a stone, and Baekhyun looked like he was going through the same thing as I was at the moment.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he finally said after what seemed like hours of picking at his food. “I’m sorry about… everything that happened last night. Minjoon, Baekbeom, everything. I didn’t-” His voice broke. “I didn’t want to cry. But I couldn’t help myself.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” I replied after a moment of hesitation, because I really wasn’t good with apologies -- whether it be apologizing myself, or accepting apologies -- I was just horrible at it. “You didn’t have bad intentions when you offered to walk me home; and if you hadn’t be quick, we probably wouldn’t be here right now. Besides, there’s nothing to apologize for your brother. It’s neither of your faults.” Or maybe, it’s both of your faults.

“There is,” Baekhyun argued back weakly. “I got you into the mess with Minjoon. If I hadn’t walked with you, then he wouldn’t have attacked you. I… I dragged you… you had see that whole argument with my brother -- it is my fault. That’s not nothing.”

“It’s not your fault,” I told him again, this time more stubbornly, and we continued to eat in silence.

Somewhere along the time of our rather awkward breakfast, Baekhyun disappeared into the kitchen and then appeared with two cups of orange juice. He handed one to me, smiling halfheartedly, and we continued our meal in silence.

By the time we had finished, the microwave told me that it was already nine o’clock. My phone, which I had claimed had been soaked yesterday, had been placed in a bag of rice, and I was guessing that I had received a lot of missed texts from my grandmother, and probably Jihyun too. Baekhyun sat in silence, making no move to clean up or leave the table, and it seemed fitting for me to do the same thing. His eyes were glazed in the distance, hands folded formally in front of him -- too formally, for him. It wasn’t something that had just occurred to me, but Baekbeom’s appearance itself had been quick to take it’s toll on him. Already, the emptiness in his eyes, the slight downwards turn of his lips -- it showed it all.

“Should we clean up?” I finally prodded hesitantly, because it looked like he wasn’t going to answer anytime soon. “I mean, I can do it if you want…” When I looked at him, his brows were furrowed and he seemed to be attempting to bore holes in his plate. Finally, just as I opened my mouth to ask him the question again, because he obviously hadn’t heard it the first time, he shook his head abruptly.

“Can we just… just stay like this for a moment?” Baekhyun asked hesitantly, voice small. “It feels… safe.”

I didn’t reply to that, because I was scared too. Such a request from Baekhyun, who normally couldn’t sit still and was extremely fidgety, was rare. As of the last sentence… well, I wasn’t sure of what to make of it. His voice was gentle, soft, and the wistful, sad expression on his face reminded me immensely of Baekbeom. He seemed to be a completely different person at the moment, stripped of all of the walls he had built up, without the smile he hid behind -- vulnerable, at his knees.

And it broke my heart.

We sat side by side, in complete silence. He was so close to me -- even though we weren’t touching, I could feel the heat radiating off his body. That itself was enough to make me stiffen and sit with with an overly straight back. Thoughts of last night resurfaced again, and the need to dump a cold bucket of water over myself became overwhelming. Every slight moment made me unfoundedly nervous.

“Iseul?”

His voice was hoarse, rough, and it sent shivers crawling down my spine. For a moment, I had been about to ask, 'are you talking to me?' out of stupidity, but the words stuck to my throat when I realized that my name was Iseul and there were only two of us in his apartment. I turned to look at him instead, almost afraid to.

“Yeah?”

Baekhyun didn’t say anything, nor did I, and I took the moment to scan his face. Despite the imperfections -- the smudges of grey under his eyes, the faint silver of a scar that gleamed in the faint light of sun, something I hadn’t noticed until now; it ran from the top of his forehead to just where his eyebrow was; the puffiness of his eyes -- he still looked oh-so-perfect at that moment, for some odd reason I couldn't place my finger on. Something in my stomach seemed to flutter, and I was pretty sure my heart wasn't supposed to be beating at the speed it was at the moment.

“Are you okay? You've been apologizing to me, but it's really you who…” I wasn't sure what to say there, and he didn’t reply either. It's really you who's been through the most last night. “I--” I started again -- and even I myself didn’t know what I was going to blurt out next. I like you. I care for you. I want you to be okay. I want you to be happy. Everything was a jumble of confusion in my brain.

But whatever it was that I was going to say, he cut me off by closely the gap between us.

It was safe to say that my brain wasn’t functioning for a full five seconds -- not with Baekhyun’s lips pressed so softly, so delicately, against my own — like something between us would break if there was more pressure applied. His hands, which had been resting on his lap, I remembered woozily, had somehow found their way around mine, squeezing them with just about as much pressure he was applying to my lips.

I couldn't breath. I couldn't move. Just sat there, frozen, still, in shock. My heartbeat, which had seemed fast a moment ago, was nothing compared to it now — beating intensely to the point where my chest ached. I felt hot —burning, in fact — all over — whether it be the close intimacy or the fact that he had just kissed me and was kissing me.

Baekhyun's eyes were closed, squeezed shut, like he was afraid to open them. Despite the gentle pressure against my own mouth and how close he was, I still couldn't believe this was happening. He's kissing me, my brain repeated. Kissing me. On the lips. Faintly, I could taste the taste of orange juice on his lips, which were warm — and there was something sweet about it.

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