It makes perfect sense how Sehun has been on top of the chart since freshman year. Not only is he tall – the very first thing someone looks for in a top model – Sehun is also incredibly handsome. It’s not a new face seeing Baekhyun has seen him on the front cover of the school’s magazine one time too many, and sometimes even passed by him when on the way to his studio. But it was different to see him up close, to watch his pretty smile form slowly and the way his eyes curl into crescents. And when he laughs, Baekhyun thinks he’s floating among clouds and it’s ridiculous but it’s true.

Baekhyun usually decides which part of someone attractive that he likes most. With Sehun, he first thought it was those crescent eyes but then his lips caught his attention and soon Baekhyun was wondering how soft Sehun’s hair would feel if he runs his fingers through those black strands. It was bad; the last time Baekhyun actually felt this way was when he first met Kyungsoo, but even then he hadn’t caught himself smiling with no particular reason on his way back to his room.

He has been sharing a room in the dorm with his best friend Jongdae since they first joined the school. It’s a long walk from the studio to his room and Baekhyun usually makes Jongdae wait for him but Jongdae is catching up with his drama re-runs and when Jongdae complains, Jongdae isn’t exactly Baekhyun’s favorite person. So he makes his way towards the dorms in silence, phone kept in his backpack and his favorite camera around his neck. It has become a habit of his to snap a picture of whatever scenery or object he finds fascinating, sometimes even things as mundane as a water bottle.

But tonight Baekhyun is distracted; nothing around him is attracting his attention and all he could think of was the soft of Sehun’s brown eyes and the mystery that they somehow hold. They’re warm but Baekhyun could tell between a mask and an open door. It is actually pretty amazing how Sehun is able to close the doors to his soul, wear a mask through his eyes by how much he keeps to himself. And Baekhyun has this urge to open those doors and enter the confines of Sehun’s well-built walls.

It is too soon to think that way, Baekhyun knows, so he shakes his head and proceeds to his dorm. He is greeted with Jongdae’s grin as soon as he enters their shared room, flashing a similar one back at his best friend. It doesn’t happen often; most of the time Baekhyun would ignore Jongdae and take a shower, but he feels good today and apparently so does Jongdae. But when has Jongdae never been nosy? The other boy abandons his laptop and gets off his bed, tailing Baekhyun to their tiny kitchen. The dorm is small, but it is big enough to have its own excuse of a kitchen and a decent bathroom.

“Baekhyun, your partner for the project is so hot. I’d so tap that , man.” Jongdae wheezes, curly grin stuck on his face. Baekhyun rolls his eyes at this, pouring himself a glass of water.

He scoffs after gulping the drink in one breath, his words playful. “Go tap someone else’s .”

There is a familiar look on Jongdae’s face and Baekhyun knows it a little too well. He frowns but Jongdae’s grin only widens. “You so have to date him. He’s so cute and can you believe he’s single?!”

Baekhyun chokes on his own saliva, coughing a little as he takes another gulp of water. It shouldn’t be such a surprise but it somehow is. Sehun is kind of the face of campus; even if he isn’t into girls, surely he would have a boyfriend? Frowning a little, Baekhyun finishes his drink but he doesn’t get to speak when Jongdae begins again, his own brows furrowed. “On second thought, better not because he is kind of best friends with your childhood crush.”

Jongdae pauses, and then the unmistakable look Baekhyun knows so well appears. “Oh my god, Baekhyun. You could totally get into Chanyeol’s pants by the end of this project.”

“Shut up, Jongdae.” Baekhyun rolls his eyes and walks over to the sink to wash his glass, placing it at     the side for it to dry before turning back to face his best friend. “Chanyeol has a boyfriend already. Besides, I don’t even like him that way anymore. He’s still cute, but it kind of died down.”

The younger boy clicks his tongue. “Doesn’t sound like it did when you were fanning your face when Sehun mentioned Chanyeol earlier.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes again, pushing past Jongdae to grab his towel and ignoring him completely as he disappears into the bathroom. It should be normal for his face to heat up when he finds out his childhood crush is actually a fan of his works, shouldn’t it? Totally normal. His crush on Chanyeol ended back in senior year during high school when Chanyeol started dating Taemin. He is pretty sure he doesn’t like Chanyeol that way anymore until he finds himself still thinking about that time when Chanyeol had caught him by his waist to break his fall. Goddamn, crushes are for children.

He leaves the bathroom with a new conclusion made; he was only still remembering that particular moment because Chanyeol had literally saved him from a social crisis, because there was no way he could ever face his schoolmates had they seen him fall flat onto his own lunch tray. Ah, Chanyeol the saviour. He’s got strong arms too and a really handsome smile. Noticing that he’s gone off topic again, Baekhyun shakes his head and notices Jongdae seated on his bed with the laptop in front of him, no doubt catching up with all the dramas he had missed from the frown visible on his forehead.

Ignoring his friend, Baekhyun crawls under his blanket and turns off his table lamp. He doesn’t even know he was tired; knocking out almost as soon as his head hits his pillow.

The lights are out save for just one in the living room; a scene so familiar to all the cliché horror films he had seen on TV. Baekhyun is vaguely aware that this is just a nightmare but his heart still races against his chest, pounding so hard it hurts. He almost couldn’t breathe as soon as he recognizes the place he’s in and despite the multiple times this nightmare has visited him, Baekhyun still jumps at the sudden noises coming from the kitchen. He knows all too well just exactly what he would see.

The pained groan wasn’t his own and he knows where it comes from, whose voice it belongs to but like in most nightmares, Baekhyun still follows it to see. The place he used to call home is now the place of his fears and he knows this as he makes his way towards the kitchen. There, he knows he would see himself, and he cries for it was the past he could never forget, could never erase. He reaches the kitchen slowly, eyes already fixated to the spot he would soon see himself crouched over an unconscious body.

Kyungsoo. He gasps still, after the hundredth time seeing the exact same thing. His dream version is crying, sobbing loudly, and bloodied fingers shaking as he trembles on the floor of his own kitchen. His own home. His own lover, dead by his own hands. The murderer screams.

And so did Baekhyun.

Baekhyun wakes up from his own breathless choke, face wet with tears mingled with sweat. He sits up to catch his breathing, closing his eyes as he silently tells himself that it’s okay; that he’s awake and everything is alright. He wipes his face with his sleeves, couldn’t help another sob that leaves his lips because even though he is used to this, Baekhyun could never erase the guilt in his chest, slowly eating away his insides. He takes ten minutes to fully calm down, hands covering his face until he’s sure he wouldn’t start crying again. His heart still races, just a little slower this time.

Calmer now, Baekhyun lies back down, hand automatically searches his phone that he hid underneath his pillow. It was a habit he had grown with since he started living with Kyungsoo under one roof; more often than not he would wake in the middle of the night to check if Kyungsoo had left any messages, knows from the stinging scar on his hip, that if he missed even a single message, he would gain another.

There are two messages sent by the same person and Baekhyun ridicules himself into thinking that it could be Kyungsoo. For a brief second, Baekhyun’s heart stops until he remembers that Kyungsoo is no longer breathing like he is. Oh, how he wishes he was the one buried today. Shaking his head, Baekhyun clicks onto the messages, brows raising when he saw that they were from Sehun.

‘Got a name, concept thing for our project.’ The first message reads, followed by the second one containing only a single word; ‘Lost.’ Baekhyun couldn’t help the rising of the hairs on his arms at just the very word, the fact that he relates so much to a simple but meaningful word causing his eyes to prick. He notices the time he had received the messages reading two in the morning, exactly five minutes ago, couldn’t bite back the smile that colours his lips at the thought that Sehun is also awake.

He quickly types a reply, sending it just as soon without checking it twice and falling back asleep.

‘Starbucks at 10am?’

It is 7 o’clock sharp in the morning when Baekhyun wakes from his dreamless sleep, a smile already on his lips at the excitement of this new day as soon as he remembers Sehun’s message. He takes a quick shower before waking Jongdae up at exactly seven-thirty and is ready by the time the clock strikes 8am. He only realizes he’s too early when he’s about to open the door and leave, sighing as he remembers that the walk to Starbucks would only take fifteen minutes. Oh, how eager.

He’s up and ready again at 9:40am and is about to leave when Jongdae stops him with a smile. “Good luck with your date. So bloody early in the morning but I guess breakfast dates are a thing now?”

Baekhyun’s face heats up but he rolls his eyes anyway. “Shut up. It isn’t a date.”

“Sure, it is.” Jongdae cackles, “Anyway, don’t forget to grab me Chinese take outs on your way home.”

Rolling his eyes again, Baekhyun quickly grabs the books he almost forgot to bring, couldn’t help the small twitch at the corner of his lips. “Won’t be home til late.”

“Well, grab me Chinese take outs when you get home!” Jongdae laughs and he fakes a repelled expression when the older boy plants a kiss on his cheek, a routine they’re both used to by now. Laughing a little, Baekhyun proceeds out of the dorm and hits the street less than five minutes later.

He couldn’t remember being this excited.

When Shixun died, Sehun was lost for a very long time, even when he had Jongin to hold him when he thought he had reached his limits and cried. His mother grew delusional, spending most of her time talking to herself and pretending as if Shixun was still around. She made dinner for three instead of two and often fell asleep on the couch where Shixun used to hold her and sing her a lullaby their grandmother had taught them. For many days and nights, Sehun wished he had been the one who fell.

But there is a wonder within Jongin that was and always will be unexplainable through words, the kind that never stopped to surprise Sehun. Jongin was… a miracle. It was in the way he laced their gloved fingers together in cold winter mornings and the way he lay them down underneath thousands of stars on a blanket in summer nights. He kissed like the sun would a breaking dawn and held Sehun like the moon would hold darkened streets. Jongin was perfect in Sehun’s eyes; his smile that curled at his lips whenever their gazes meet, the sparkle in his eyes when he first opened them in the morning light and the soft of his breathing as he falls into slumber in dark of night.

Jongin was perfect because he made Sehun feel almost complete again.

He was perfect because he loved Sehun the way Sehun should have loved himself.

Jongin helped Sehun manage the remaining years of his high school, graduating with just enough to get into his preferred college. Well, his and Shixun’s, of course. They got into the same college, bought an apartment so they wouldn’t have to be in the dorms, made plans to graduate with flying colours and fulfil their dreams. During the time awaiting their first day of classes, Sehun laid in Jongin’s arms and they talked for hours in the middle of the night, about anything and everything, about the future.

Jongin promised he would always make Sehun happy. And Jongin never breaks his promises.

He was a miracle, and like most miracles, they get taken away before one could truly appreciate them.

Sehun came home from getting dinner one day to a broken door lock and a ransacked living room. With racing heartbeat, he found Jongin in the middle of their floor, still and completely lifeless. Sehun remembers not the pink lips that Jongin was born with but the pale ones that he kissed as he pleaded with broken sobs to ‘please, please wake up’. Sehun remembers not the strong arms that held him but the weak ones that he shook for Jongin to open his eyes. Sehun remembers not the soft breaths that Jongin breathed out when he sleeps but the ones he doesn’t breathe at all. Sehun remembers holding Jongin’s head close to his chest, unable to breathe as he cries, trying to ignore all the blood on Jongin’s hands and his own and those on the floor, all from Jongin’s open wound.

A robbery, the police said. They lost the cash that Jongin carried and the house was turned over pretty badly. The murderer was armed but Jongin was not. He was too gentle, too understanding that hurting another to defend his own life was beyond him. There were no other bruises on him and the police concluded that he hadn’t put up any sort of a fight, believed he would make it out alive if he willingly surrenders all the things the robber had demanded for. It wasn’t a surprise that Jongin had fallen for it.

Sehun wondered for a long time if Jongin had been afraid.

He spent many of those lonely nights wondering if Jongin would be alive if he had been home.

Like a cycle, the pain repeated again but it doubled with the loss of both Shixun and Jongin like a weight crushing his chest. He slept on an empty bed in tears because the pain was too much and the world had never been so pitch black, so silent, void of any noise and light. He had no reason to keep going, had no one to fall back on. His mother held him when he finally came home but the emptiness, the agony of losing both his best friends, a brother and lover, never left. He dreamt of Jongin’s strong arms and firm lips on his own for many nights, the only form of happiness he could ever be granted with.

For a while, he thought it was enough, until college began and he was living up his dreams all alone.

He couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning for hours as memories of Shixun and Jongin replayed in his head. In the end he had resorted to thinking about the project he was supposed to get done with Baekhyun. And at exactly two in the morning, took his phone to send Baekhyun a message without thinking twice about it. He wouldn’t deny the fact that he smiled knowing Baekhyun wasn’t asleep as well when the boy replied him less than ten minutes later, and that he had thought about Baekhyun’s pretty smile.

Sehun had arrived at Starbucks just five minutes before ten, picking a seat outside to get fresh air instead of the stuffy interior. He feels refreshed from his own internal thoughts, enjoying the cool breeze as he waits for Baekhyun. The said boy appears just a minute later than their promised time, bringing an automatic smile to Sehun’s lips as he waves back, slightly mesmerized by Baekhyun’s grin.

Baekhyun takes the seat opposite him, clearing his throat. “I have a class at twelve so we have two hours tops. Unless you have an earlier class, we could totally meet up some other time.”

Stopping Baekhyun by just a raise of his hand, Sehun lets out a chuckle. “Hey, let me at least buy you a drink first before we get into this. I mean, weren’t we both still wide awake at 2am, of all times?”

There is a faint tinge of pink that spreads at Baekhyun’s cheeks when he hesitates, smile faltering just slightly before it widens again and he nods happily. He asks for a cup of Cappuccino and Sehun goes to get them with a small smile and a nod. He gets Baekhyun a slice of Oreo cheesecake, hanging on a lucky guess that Baekhyun might like it. He gets back to the table and offers it to Baekhyun, who takes it happily, and Sehun doesn’t realize he hasn’t been faking the smile he’s wearing all this while.

It’s almost scary.

They spent the following hour discussing possible topics that fall under the word ‘Lost’, coming up with different ideas that they cheered to when they fit perfectly. Sehun laughs a lot more than he usually does per day, and none was faked. How… satisfying yet alarming. Sehun isn’t fond of change. They continued to come up with different kinds of concept to work with the mini photobook that they decided to go through with, Baekhyun looking more excited than Sehun remembered him.

It is during the little break they had that Baekhyun sips his coffee finish, and Sehun spots the white foam from the coffee on Baekhyun’s upper lip. He swallows, looking away to pretend he hadn’t seen it but it seems that Baekhyun didn’t as well. Clearing his throat, Sehun raises a hand to his own lip to indicate that Baekhyun should wipe his but the smaller male only looks confused. Sehun has to smile at the adorable expression on Baekhyun’s face, taking the napkin on the table to wipe the foam off Baekhyun’s lip for him. Baekhyun tenses under his touch and he couldn’t help but feel just slightly smug to see the faint pink on the apples of Baekhyun’s cheeks. He only smiles a little wider.

Baekhyun stays quiet, clearing his own throat and letting his gaze fall onto the plate of leftover cake he couldn’t finish. Sehun isn’t sure what has gotten into him but there is a sudden urge to feel Baekhyun’s lips against his skin without the napkin in the way. Sehun believes himself as a man who thinks before he speaks or do something but Baekhyun has the ability to render him thoughtless and suddenly he isn’t thinking at all. Sehun reaches out once again with furrowed brows, completely unaware of his actions, and lets the tip of his thumb graze along Baekhyun’s bottom lip. A slow smile forms on his lips at how soft it really is against his skin and then he does something without thinking again; he speaks.

“Pretty,” He says in a whisper but it was loud enough for Baekhyun to hear.

Running fingers through his hair, Baekhyun releases a soft chuckle, scoffing and waving it off wordlessly. Sehun managed to retract his hand without it seeming awkward, keeping the smile as he chuckles as well. But the atmosphere is slowly growing intense but fortunately Baekhyun knows how to recover a potentially awkward silence. The smaller male lifts up the camera he has hung on a cord around his neck and snaps a picture of Sehun, completely not prepared. Sehun fakes a frown.

“Was that supposed to look cool? I wasn’t ready.” Sehun scowls.

Baekhyun laughs, snapping another shot. “No, silly. Have you ever heard of candid shots?”

Sehun scoffs, “Of course I have. I just don’t look as good in them as I do in proper shots.”

“You think you look good in proper shots?” Baekhyun quirks a brow, a teasing smile on his lips. Sehun flushes and rolls his eyes, pursing his lips to stop the grin beginning to form. Baekhyun only cackles again, puffing his cheeks and capturing another shot. “You look good in candid shots, don’t worry.”

Wearing a smug grin, Sehun wiggles his brows playfully. “You think so?”

“I know so,” Baekhyun leans forward and locks his gaze with Sehun’s, almost challengingly.

Sehun flickers his gaze downwards at the curve of Baekhyun’s soft pink lips before they go back up into the other’s eyes. He wants to say something back but flirting with Baekhyun had never been on his list of things to do today so he only rolls his eyes again. “Anyway, do you never stop taking pictures?”

At Baekhyun’s laugh, Sehun realizes that it is a pretty stupid question to a photographer but Baekhyun doesn’t point out his slip, only slips the camera cord over his head to put it on the table. “Don’t you want to capture each moment? Memories will go away, but never memories captured in pictures.”

It strikes Sehun into silence at how true it actually is, gaze falling to meet the surface of the table and there are flashes of pictures he had pasted against the wall just in front of his study table, memories after memories of his times with Shixun and Jongin. They are memories he would never forget. Sehun swallows the sudden lump in his throat, quickly changing the topic and taking Baekhyun’s camera from the table and getting up to stand next to Baekhyun, crouching just enough so they could pose for the camera. Baekhyun puts on an automatic smile and Sehun flashes a small one, a flash and the picture’s taken. Sehun squints at the results, smiling in satisfaction at how good it turned out to be.

“My photo-taking skills aren’t that bad, eh?” He chuckles, earning himself an impressed look from Baekhyun, who takes his camera to look at it for himself.

When he goes back to sit, Baekhyun slips a hand into the pocket of his bag and comes back out with a polaroid photo, smiling as he hands it to Sehun. Sehun’s brows shot up. “Thought you might want to keep that. You know, for your collection of memorable things?”

Baekhyun chuckles at that as Sehun takes a look at the picture, smiling when he remembers that it was the one Jongdae had taken yesterday back at the studio. Sehun shrugs, nodding anyway as he slips it into between the pages of his book. “I guess I’ll keep this one for myself then.”

“Don’t lose it.” Baekhyun teases again. “Anyway, it’s almost time. I’ll call you for our next discussion?”

Sehun could almost feel disappointment weighed at his chest and he fakes a pout just to hide it, glancing at the watch on his wrist. “Ah, didn’t realize the time. But yeah, sure. Just hit me up.”

Gathering his stuff, Baekhyun stands up. “I definitely will. Sooner than you would like, actually.”

“I’ll be waiting.” Sehun chuckles, nodding as he watches Baekhyun walk away and disappears into the corner. His own class starts at twelve too but Sehun stays seated for another hour, until thoughts of Baekhyun finally flee his mind. They came back, anyway.

A/N: Ahhh, I'm so sorry for the super late update but here it is! Another 4k. I haven't been working on it much but I'm gonna start soon as I've got more time now and I'm so much better. Enjoy and leave your thoughts on it?