What He’ll Never Have

Part Eleven: Morning Sun

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Baekhyun was still sound asleep when I woke up.

It was early morning now - probably around 8:00am, if I had to guess from the light splaying across the wall and the muffled sounds of busy street traffic outside - and as I carefully turned to look at the boy now resting half on top of me with an arm thrown across my torso, my mind immediately drew upon three things. 

The comforter had wound up wrapped around a body and it wasn’t mine. Gosh it’s cold today.

I had forgotten to text Sehun about his jeep last night. Oops. He’s probably fuming.

I was in bed with Baekhyun. A boy. And I was okay with... more than okay with that.

I couldn’t remember the last time I woke up feeling this content. His head was pressed in the crook of my arm, wedged just beneath my jaw and neck, platinum hair frayed softly against my neck. From my position I couldn’t quite see his face though heavy, even breathing told me he was still lost in deep sleep. I could get used to this. 

And I could. Something in me didn’t care any longer that he was a boy or that I was going to piss off my friends by ending our ‘destroy Chanyeol’ plight. It simply didn’t matter any more. What did matter was Baekhyun... and the words he had spoken last night.

I’ve known for seven years that I want you.

My chest tightened the slightest bit though morning light somehow made his words sting less. There was no point in coming to conclusions, not without talking to him first, and we would once he was awake. But not yet.

Carefully, and with a slight amount of awkward shuffling, I maneuvered his head off of my shoulder and arm, laying him back on the pillow beside me and scooting my body the tiniest bit away so that I could see him. 

Soft hair falling in every direction, skin ivory and flawless with sharp angles and perfectly defined muscle, fingers long and curled towards me, lips gorgeously full, pink, and able... 

My hand was running down his arm, fingers tracing skin that my eyes didn’t ever want to stop drinking in. The blanket he wore, hogging it entirely to himself (selfish little snipe) fell around the middle of his back and torso, giving me the perfect view of his sculpted body. It was cold and I should have lifted the blanket back around his shoulders for comfort... but I found that I couldn’t bring myself to. Not when instead I could just lay here and stare, and touch.

You came to my house, but then you never spoke to me again.

The pain ached in my chest as I traced his cheek and jaw, thumb roaming across pink lips. I ached to kiss him and it was strange. I had never felt like this about anyone before. It was all I could do not to lean forward, push him back against the pillows and draw his bottom lip into my mouth, but I couldn’t. 

I’ve always liked you, since then.

There was a chance, and I didn’t know how great it was, that Baekhyun was attracted to someone else, and that thought kept me rooted to the bed about a foot away. 

...But I could touch him still - trace him, map him - memorize every divot and line. I could burn the feeling of his skin into my fingertips, imprint the sight of his soft, peaceful expression into my mind. 

I itched to touch his hair - to really touch it. Grab it and hold it, drawing his neck back so I could kiss him, but again I couldn’t. Phantom touches, tentative brushes through platinum fringe at the front were all that I would allow myself for fear of waking him up. 

I wanted this moment to last. 

It did for a while, but not long enough. 

A little huff of breath and gentle stirring, shifting towards me (probably for my body heat) told me that he was waking up. I hummed lightly, continuing to trail my fingers along the skin down his back. Unidentifiable words were mumbled too quietly for me to pick out, and his back stretched, arching the tiniest bit into my hand. I smiled, adding a small amount more pressure as I slowly dragged my fingers back up, circling around his shoulder to run along a collar bone. 

His eyelashes fluttered, teetering between sleep and consciousness before they finally cracked open, brown pools meeting mine almost immediately. For a moment he was silent, unmoving but not frozen, blinking lightly to situate himself. I waited, thumb running up his jaw, giving him time to get his bearings. 

“Dae?” He mumbled as if unsure, eyes opening just the slightest bit more but still not fully there. 

I nodded against the pillow, not knowing really what to say. “Hi,” was about all I managed, trying not to be distracted by his lips. 

The faintest smile rose in his eyes, lips tugging upwards the tiniest bit and he tilted his head slightly, pressing his cheek into my hand. “You’re in my bed.” He noted, as if it was a new revelation. It probably was, I realized. He probably doesn’t remember anything from last night. 

“That I am.” I couldn’t help but smile back, raising my hand as he scooted closer, tucking his head back in under my chin and pressing both hands into my chest, legs tangling between mine, before I settled it back over him, loosely holding the back of his neck. 

“You’re warm.” 

I scoffed. “Says the one hogging the entire blanket to himself.” 

His head bobbed against my chest, tiny puffs of air breezing my neck as he laughed, detaching a hand from between us to tug the blanket out from underneath his body and around us both. I helped some, feeling the warmth seep back into my body as I settled back around him. 

For a while we just laid there, butterflies kicking around in my stomach as my eyes slid shut, contentedly. I couldn’t remember ever having appreciated a morning this much. 

The spell was broken when, five minutes later, Baekhyun mumbled into my neck that he had to pee, before regretfully pulling away and practically falling off the bed. I snickered, eyes dragging down his back appreciatively as he half walked/half stumbled towards the bathroom, groaning something about “too much light” and “never drinking again”. 

The door closed behind him and I yawned, stretching the sleepiness from my limbs and forcing myself into an upright position. I couldn’t stay in bed all day. There were things to do and friends to text about their stolen Jeep. Oops. 

An amount of guilt filled me... but it was very small. Sehun had nothing important to do today and his legs still worked fine anyway. He could walk if he really needed to. I reached for my phone, immediately confirming my suspicions that he had indeed texted and called... eight times. Thank the makers of Apple for creating the ‘Do Not Disturb’ function. I was eternally grateful and fired off a quick: ‘I’ll be back soon. Calm yourself.’ before clicking my phone off, still on DND mode. 

The bathroom door clicked open and out stepped Baekhyun, still wearing his jeans from yesterday, hair crazed and shirtless. I stared, taking in his full form for the first time with light in the room. 

He was beautiful. 

There was no other word to describe it. 

One hand awkwardly rubbed against the other and his eyes flickered down, not quite meeting mine. “Umm... would you like breakfast?” 

I nodded, wondering now if the bashfulness was due to the fact that he did remember last night, or that he didn’t. 

“Okay,” he exhaled, crossing over to double white doors that turned out to be a closet... an extremely well-stocked one. He rummaged through quickly, grabbing a plain white t-shirt and pulling it down over his head. (I felt a little remorseful at the covering of his skin but decided it was probably better that way if I wanted to have any coherent thought within the next hour.) 

Tugging the blanket off my lap, I swung my feet to the floor, quickly locating the crumpled hoodie and tugging it around my shoulders for extra warmth. He had done the same, adding a layer of sweatshirt and was standing by the door, patiently waiting for me to catch up before we left the room and padded silently towards the kitchen. 

“Are eggs okay?” Again I nodded, hovering awkwardly as there was nowhere to sit in his furniture-less house. 

“Would you like some help?” 

It was his turn to nod, and I began to feel the awkwardness that silence and lack of body contact brought with it. I hated the distance already, feeling as though we were suddenly somehow separated though only the few feet from the stove where I stood, to the fridge where he was rummaging for eggs (and cheese by the looks of it), stood between us. 

“Here,” he said, passing me a block of cheese and pointing towards a cupboard to the left of the stove. “Grater is down there. Make at least a cup for me and then however much you want.” 

“You really like cheese.” I cracked a smile, drawing out the grater and finding my spot on the counter next to him. 

His smile matched mine as he chirped, “Yep. Sure do.” And I felt the stiffness in the air peal away just a little bit. 

You can do this. He’s right there, he’s close, and he wants you. 

I turned, in a deep breath as I watched him dump the contents of a few eggs into a pan, skillfully swirling them and lobbing the shells into a trash bin to his right. 

“Do you-” I started, cutting myself off when he looked at me, an open expression across his face. Retry. “What do you remember from last night?” 

With a nervousness that matched mine, he nodded, expecting the question. “Not a lot to be honest.” He skimmed a spatula through the eggs, scrambling them. “I was at Ae-Jeong’s eating soup and then I was waking up in your car.” 

“It’s Sehun’s car,” I interjected stupidly, wondering why my mouth had felt the need to include the unimportant detail. 

“...before waking up in Sehun’s car,” he amended, continuing on with a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “We somehow wound up in my apartment, and then-” A swallow paused his words. “Then you were tugging my shirt over my head.”

Of course that’s all you remember. I nearly face-palmed, suddenly feeling like an old creep that went around undressing half-unconscious, drunk boys. 

You did ask me to, I wanted to say but kept my mouth shut.

“After that,” he voice sounded a bit raw, pitched slightly off-kilter and I turned just in time to see red skimming up the side of his face. “I said some embarrassing stuff about you kissing me and then asked you to stay.” 

My hands stalled on the cheese grater, as I watched the forever-confident Baekhyun go red, eyes maintained securely on the eggs that he now stirred with passionate interest. I would’ve laughed had my mind not been stuck on an extremely important detail that remained unmentioned. 

I’ve known for seven years that I want you. 

My throat choked, a thick weight sliding down it and landing squarely on my chest. He doesn’t remember saying that? I tried to shake off the feeling, returning a lame smile as his eyes rose to mine, searching. 

“Here. I’m done with the cheese,” I managed, fumbling with the grater as I moved out of his way to give access.

His eyes narrowed slightly, as if trying to read something on my face before the look was gone, replaced with a neutral smile as he said, “Thanks,” and sprinkled the cheese across four fluffy eggs. My stomach growled, but I was too caught in the panic swirling beneath my skin to pay it much attention. 

So it really was someone else?

I felt sick, trying to reason with the side of me that was devastated. Maybe it wasn’t. Just ask! But I couldn’t. Not after spending the night with him. Not after seeing his smile and touching his skin. I couldn’t lose that. 

And if I brought it up now and it turned out he did have me mixed up, I certainly would.

The eggs were spooned in even portions onto two plates before his free hand slid into mine, and silently tugged me back towards his bedroom. We sat in silence on his bed, neither one of us knowing what to say apparently, but the eggs were delicious and so for the time being I let myself be distracted by them, munching slowly.

He finished before I did, placing his empty plate on the bedside table and playing with his fingers in his lap while I continued to eat. “I remember you know,” he said, quiet enough that I had to pause my chewing to hear. “I remember telling you that I’ve liked you for seven years.” 

I froze mid chew, watching as the red begin to seep into his cheeks again, eyes resolutely turned towards his hands only and not at me. 

“I-” He tried to continue, though I could tell he didn’t know what to say. That made two of us, and the pressure tightening against my chest wasn’t helping any. “I’m sorry if that freaked you out.” He finally managed, voice a little wavery and eyes turning to fix on me. “You don’t remember, do you?” 

Oh my god. 

Turmoil ensued in my gut and suddenly the eggs didn’t taste quite as appetizing. What could I say? No. Sorry I don’t remember because I didn’t know you seven years ago? I couldn’t tell him that - I didn’t want to. 

“I know you don’t remember.” His eyes were burning, searing mine and I found myself flinching away from the intensity of it. He laughed, though not because anything was funny. It was more of an awkward, painful one, standing by itself in the dead space created by my inability to speak. “You didn’t recognize me at all when we passed each other in the hall junior year.” 

What? 

Egg dropped from my fork, half lifted to my mouth and hanging there. I still couldn’t talk, or rather had no clue what to say. “I-” I tried. How could I recognize you if we’d never met before. I couldn’t say that, and resorted to just shaking my head, taking in the sigh he exuded and the slow slump of his shoulders as if he had known this was coming. 

“It’s okay,” he was saying, but he didn’t look like he thought it was okay. He looked hurt - disappointed. “It doesn’t really matter; happened a long time ago.” 

After that only silence hung in the air, and I finally resorted to setting my eggs aside, knowing full well that I couldn’t eat them with the churning that was taking place in my stomach. We washed the plates, attempting a pathetic amount of small talk before I was standing at the door, car keys in hand, and saying I had somewhere to be. It was a lie. Really all that I had on schedule for the day was some math homework and a Call of Duty tournament with Xiumin, but I couldn’t stay here any longer. I needed to be alone. To think. 

“I’ll see you in the library?” Baekhyun asked and I nodded, hopeful. “Monday?” 

More nodding. “Monday.” 

And then I was gone, feeling so entirely lost and empty without having even hugged Baekhyun before I left. This was not how today was supposed to go. It should’ve been spent in his bed, kissing... not driving away as fast as I possibly could, barely paying attention to where I was going. 

But then that’s how my life seemed to be - an ugly montage of boredom and disappointment. Baekhyun had just been a small, sliver of hope tossed in, only to come crashing back down as more disappointment. 

Just when I was ready to finally step up and be with him. 

Just when I had fallen in love. 

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What He’ll Never Have

Part Eleven Completed.

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