pairing: BaekChen
length: 4374 words

Dozens and dozens of thoughts would run through Baekhyun’s mind, all throughout the day. Most of them pertained to his rigorous daily schedules, in which he would be shuttled from place to place, event to event, with the rest of his group members. Such was the life of an idol, especially one as popular and successful as him.

But the thoughts that kept him up at night, the ones that always floated in the back of his mind like a hovercraft, were the ones in which he questioned himself. He questioned his identity. He questioned why he was “different” from others.

Baekhyun wasn’t sure why he was like this. He had never really thought himself as “different” though, not until he had joined SM Entertainment and had begun training to be an idol. There were niggling thoughts that arose when he first became a trainee and he had managed to ignore them for the most part, focusing instead on his upcoming debut with the other eleven trainees who were slated to be part of SM Entertainment’s next boy group.

And once EXO had debuted, those thoughts had seemingly disappeared, because when would he have time to think about those aspects of himself when all he did was live and breathe the harsh idol lifestyle? If he had time to dwell on those thoughts, he might as well be improving his vocals or practicing difficult choreography. With twelve members in the group, Baekhyun would have been quickly left behind if he hadn’t done his absolute best to stand out with his bright personality and laudable talent. And as one of the last members to join SM Entertainment, he knew he had so much to prove to those who had trained for years, like Junmyeon and Jongin.

Luckily, when night came, Baekhyun was usually too exhausted to further entertain those troublesome thoughts and sleep would overcome his mind instead. He could blissfully ignore that tiny voice in his head that was constantly chattering to be noticed. And so it went on for several years.

But then, some nights, after EXO had established itself as a top-tier group within the world of Korean entertainment, those worries would flood Baekhyun’s mind and cause him to lay awake until the wee hours of dawn. And these thoughts were terrifying and confusing, especially because he knew it was possible that he would never be accepted for who he was.

If he could pinpoint when the thoughts had begun to magnify significantly, Baekhyun would choose the evenings after practice when he and Chanyeol would lounge around in their shared bedroom. As avid social media users, the two roommates spent vast amounts of time looking at pictures on Instagram, whether through their respective hash tags, through tagged posts, or simply through their feed. Chanyeol, in particular, had a penchant for searching up photos of beautiful women and showing them to Baekhyun, asking the shorter male what he thought. It was like a simple rating game; sure, they were essentially objectifying these women by basing their worth only on their looks, but on the flip side, the two male idols were objectified almost 24/7 by millions of young girls all over the world. So Chanyeol reasoned that what he was doing was harmless and continued indulging in this frivolous pastime of rating beautiful girls with his roommate.

However, whenever the tall, lanky male would pass his phone to Baekhyun, the shorter male would feel absolutely nothing when he looked at these women. Yes, they were pretty. In fact, some of them were drop-dead gorgeous and Baekhyun would be lying if he said they weren’t. But despite that, he still was unable to feel anything when Chanyeol asked what he thought about them.

The times his heart would stir were when he glanced at attractive men. Handsome, good-looking males were the ones to make his cheeks turn a light pink color and make him turn his head down in embarrassment as his heart began beating faster while his throat dried up.

Because Byun Baekhyun was gay.

But he didn’t want to be gay.

He didn’t want to be a freak.

His older brother was straight and had married the love of his life, who was most definitely female. His roommate and best friend was also very straight, if the nightly rating games weren’t already a huge indicator. Baekhyun was pretty sure almost all of his group members were straight as well.

So why was he “different” from everyone else? Why did he have to be born like this while everyone else was born with “normal” preferences?

Baekhyun’s stomach twisted uncomfortably whenever he thought about the horror and disappointment on his parents’ faces if they ever found out their darling youngest son was gay. Ice coursed through his veins whenever he thought about how his community, especially those who were heavily religious, would react if they found out how unnatural and sinful he was by fantasizing about men in a romantic sense. His chest would constrict painfully whenever he thought about how he would be shunned from society if reports that he was gay were ever released to the public.

He wouldn’t be able to live with the shame. Baekhyun had already witnessed how swiftly Hong Seok Cheon’s career had plummeted upon coming out and how difficult it was for the once respected entertainer to regain the former glory that he’d had. The idol didn’t ever want to undergo those same trials if he could avoid it.

So, in an effort to discover whether this was all just in his head and he actually was straight, Baekhyun had even broken several rules and pursued Kim Taeyeon, the leader of the nation’s girl group. She was pretty, talented, funny, and someone who had also been quite vocal about her support of the LGBTQ+ community. At the very least, he would have an ally in her if this crazy fling turned out to be nothing.

But he hadn’t anticipated being caught by Dispatch, although he probably should have expected it by acting so carelessly whenever the couple had gone on dates. He had no one to blame but himself and Baekhyun had apologized profusely to his then-girlfriend for weeks after their relationship had been forcefully publicized.

“I’m so sorry, Taeyeon,” the male idol said with a bow, his thin body folded almost completely in half. “I…I should have never used you like this.”

“Used me?”

Baekhyun screwed his eyes shut and took several deep breaths before slowly standing up straight to nod at his girlfriend. “I’ve…been reckless and now it’s jeopardized both of our careers. I should have never approached you. Now both of our fan bases hate us when they should only be hating me.”

“Baekhyun, what are you talking about? I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Taeyeon rested a hand on his shoulder, worry etched all over her youthful face.

The male idol’s hands turned clammy and he flinched away from her touch, instantly regretting it when he saw the hurt expression cross his girlfriend’s face. “I’m sorry. I…I’m really confused about…what I like and what I want… So I used you…to figure myself out…” She still looked perplexed, so Baekhyun continued, “I’m—I’m gay and I dated you to confirm to myself that I am.”

Taeyeon inhaled sharply as her eyes narrowed at him.

Even though Baekhyun felt no romantic love for her, the look of betrayal that she sent him still hurt him. Because she had become a close friend to him throughout their short relationship and now, he was exposing everything that they’d had together as a lie. “You probably hate me for doing this to you. I’d be furious at myself if I were you.” Tears began to stream from Baekhyun’s eyes and he angrily swiped his hand across his face to wipe them away. Because he didn’t earn the right to cry when he was responsible for this mess. “You don’t deserve any of this pain, but I still brought it upon you and I can’t ever apologize enough for how much I’ve wronged you.”

There were several seconds of silence before Taeyeon finally spoke again. “When did you realize you were gay?” she asked in a low voice.

Baekhyun hadn’t been expecting her to speak so calmly, instead thinking that she’d be yelling or hitting him right now because of his selfish actions. So he answered cautiously but honestly, since she deserved the entire truth. “I…I think I always knew I was gay, but it didn’t really cross my mind that I was gay until after EXO debuted.” The male idol then explained the rating game that Chanyeol played with him each night, knowing that if he didn’t already seem like a jerk, then that tidbit of information would most definitely present him as one. After all, which girl would appreciate the knowledge that men would survey females as if they were pieces of meat to be appraised and sold?

“So why me? Why did you choose me out of all of the other female idols you could’ve experimented with?”

“Because…you were available and someone who I thought wouldn’t judge me if I came clean,” he confessed with his head bowed towards the ground again.

Taeyeon sighed deeply as she took in this bomb of information from the tearstained boy in front of her. “Fine,” she began after another bout of complete silence, save for the soft hiccups that periodically escaped from Baekhyun’s mouth. “I won’t hold this against you.”

“You—you won’t?”

“No, I won’t,” Taeyeon repeated firmly. “I’ll keep this a secret for you.”

“Y-you will? Oh, thank y—”

“But,” she interrupted in a stern voice, “you have to promise me that you’ll never toy with another person, girl or boy, like this ever again. I know you didn’t necessarily mean to toy with me, but that’s how I feel right now. Our relationship ends as of today, but we won’t release any news regarding our break-up to make it easier for you. It’ll be easier for you to…figure out yourself with other men if you’re publicly tied to me, since no one will ever guess that you’re gay if you’re openly dating a woman.”

“You’d really do that for me?” Baekhyun couldn’t believe it. Instead of disgust, Taeyeon’s eyes only held sympathy and sisterly affection.

The female idol nodded resolutely. “I know you’re a good guy, Baekhyun, and it’s not your fault that you’re gay. I would never be petty and expose you. That’s not fair to you, especially since everyone makes mistakes in their life. I just happened to be one of your mistakes and you happened to be one of mine, and we’re going to leave it at that.”

And true to her word, Taeyeon had amicably let Baekhyun go and took the brunt of their dating scandal to protect him. Every apology she made was for him and even though he had tried to stop her from doing it, she continued to anyway and only told him to focus on himself.

So once the fiasco of the three ex-members of EXO leaving the group had finally passed, Baekhyun was able to breathe more freely and he spent more time dwelling on his preferences for men. He had begun sleeping in the living room instead of with his group members, since it was easier for him to lie awake and think when he was alone.

Baekhyun had taken to asking questions on Google, desperately searching for answers to why he was so “different.” Because there had to be some reason that he was the way he was. He had read countless coming out stories from other people who didn’t ascribe to the status quo of being straight. Those stories gave him strength and made him feel less alone in this vast world, knowing that there were probably thousands—maybe even hundreds of thousands—of people who were all struggling to find themselves.

But he had also frequented several forums that shunned people like him, often preaching how they were abnormal and would never ascend to Heaven once they had finished their time on Earth. Reading those comments made Baekhyun want to shrink into a ball and eventually disappear into the void. Especially since so many of these people were fans of him, his group members, and his seniors and juniors in the entertainment industry. These were the people who essentially helped put food on his table and gave him a place to sleep, due to the support they showered him. And they were also the people who could tear down his status overnight.

One night, Baekhyun stumbled on several articles from various scientific journals. He didn’t usually delve into academia very often, much less hard sciences, since his path was completely on the other end of the spectrum. But he had grown tired of playing League of Legends and Overwatch for the night, especially after losing to Heechul who had crowed incessantly about his superior skills after winning against the EXO member. So Baekhyun’s adventures on Google had taken him to a corner of the Internet that he had never really explored before.

“Boys with older brothers have a higher likelihood of identifying as gay. It has been hypothesized that exposure to multiple male fetuses changes a mother’s immune system, affecting the prenatal environment of subsequent male offspring. There is little or no evidence to suggest a role for the postnatal environment in ual orientation.”

“In men, ual orientation correlates with an individual’s number of older brothers, each additional older brother increasing the odds of homouality by approximately 33%. Only biological older brothers, and not any other sibling characteristic, including non-biological older brothers, predicted men’s ual orientation, regardless of the amount of time reared with these siblings. These results strongly suggest a prenatal origin to the fraternal birth-order effect.”

These bits of information were tucked in the idol’s mind as he contemplated that maybe this was the reason he was “different” from his group members. It was all in his genetics, which was completely out of his control. After all, Chanyeol had an older sister, so he hadn’t been affected hormonally the way that Baekhyun had in the womb, which could explain why their romantic preferences were so different. But the shorter male wasn’t the only one in the group with an older brother. Junmyeon, Kyungsoo, Sehun, and Jongdae all had older brothers as well.

And then Baekhyun’s face uncontrollably flamed up when he remembered that perhaps he wasn’t so alone in this ordeal after an unexpected incident that had caused him to question himself even further. That night had been…eye-opening and memorable, to say the least.

Baekhyun wasn’t a huge fan of alcohol, preferring to keep his wits about him when he could. His low drinking tolerance further put him off, so he was usually the one to care for the other EXO members when they engaged in social drinking. With Yixing currently promoting in China, Baekhyun now felt more responsible as the third-oldest in the group and was the only one who refused to drink when the group decided to celebrate the success of this awards season.

Junmyeon had offered to also abstain, but Baekhyun refused the help. “You should have fun with everyone else,” he told the leader. “You always look forward to the celebrations, so go and enjoy yourself. Everyone is pretty responsible anyway, so I don’t have much work to do. I can handle it myself.”

With that, the group had their manager send over several bottles of alcohol and celebrated in the safety of their dorm. One by one, when he noticed more and more of the members becoming drunk, Baekhyun would calmly and carefully lead them to their respective bedrooms to sleep off the effects of their frivolous drinking. It was a little more difficult dragging the taller members to their rooms, but Baekhyun managed to safely haul all of them to their beds by himself.

Once Junmyeon had officially tapped out and had been carried to his bedroom, Baekhyun sighed tiredly as he returned to the living room to begin cleaning up. But there was still one member who was lounging on the couch with a bottle in his hand.

“Want some?” Jongdae offered, his words just barely slurring as he good-naturedly held out the bottle towards the older male. “You haven’t had a sip all night.”

“I’m good. But it’s getting late. You should go to sleep now.”

“But you’ll be by yourself then,” Jongdae protested while carelessly waving the open bottle around as he spoke. Several drops of alcohol flew in the air and stained the table in front of him.

Baekhyun quickly walked over to his fellow group member and began prying the bottle from Jongdae’s hand. But the younger male surprisingly had a vice-like grip and Baekhyun had much more trouble than he anticipated he would in trying to separate the two from each other. “C’mon, give me the bottle, Dae,” the older male ordered in an exasperated tone. “I know you’re a strong drinker, but the party’s over for the night. Besides, I need to clean up this place so I can sleep.”

But Jongdae only shook his head and he kept his grip on the bottle. “You can sleep in Yixing’s bed and clean up in the morning instead. I’ll help you.”

“Or you can help me now and hand over the alcohol.”

And then Baekhyun felt a plush pair of lips meet his and his hold on the alcohol bottle instantly slacked. They were soft and moist as they pressed even harder on his thin lips. Despite the strong taste of alcohol from the younger male that invaded his mouth, Baekhyun thoroughly enjoyed feeling Jongdae’s sweet lips on his and was about to further the kiss when the realization that he was kissing Jongdae finally computed in his head.

So Baekhyun immediately pushed the younger male away, causing him to fall unceremoniously to the floor. Luckily, the other EXO members were fast asleep in their rooms and none of them ventured out to see what the cause of the loud noise was. While Jongdae was temporarily disoriented from his tumble to the floor, Baekhyun used the opportunity to snatch the bottle of alcohol from the younger male and set it with the other half-empty bottles that were stacked against the wall of the living room.

“What was that for?!” Jongdae finally verbalized as he unsteadily pushed himself up off of the floor.

“Why did you kiss me?!” Baekhyun shot back with an accusing finger pointed at the younger male. “That shouldn’t have happened!”

“Why does it even matter?! You’re hot. I’m hot. I wanted to kiss you just now, so I did. You were enjoying it too,” Jongdae retorted.

A blush formed on the older male’s cheeks, but he quickly shook his head to chase out the thoughts of how much he had enjoyed Jongdae’s lips on his. “But we’re both guys!” Baekhyun protested. Even though Taeyeon had told him to experiment with other guys to affirm his true feelings, that didn’t mean he would engage in anything with his group members of all people. Much less Jongdae, who was his other best friend within the team.

“Why does it matter that we’re guys? Do you have a problem with me liking guys? Do you have a problem with me?” The younger male stared solemnly at Baekhyun, who was at a loss for words.

Several seconds passed before the older male finally whispered, “No, I don’t.”

“Because you like guys too,” Jongdae guessed.

“Please don’t say that out loud. Please don’t say anything about this,” Baekhyun then begged, his voice slightly cracking from desperation. He still wasn’t comfortable enough with his preferences to have them thrown to his face so blatantly. “Go to sleep, Dae. Please.”

Jongdae stared at the older male with an unfathomable expression on his slightly red, angular face before nodding and precariously walking himself to his bedroom.

Once the door to his room clicked shut, Baekhyun collapsed onto the couch and hugged his legs to his chest as he tried to ignore the loud thumping of his heart.

Since that night, Baekhyun had been dreaming more often of Jongdae and his beautiful, up-turned lips. The first time it had happened, he had slapped himself for even daring to think of his fellow group member like that, especially after how rudely he had treated the younger male that night. But Jongdae hadn’t treated him any differently since then, so Baekhyun eventually decided that he would still act comfortably around his best friend as well.

Most of the members were currently out of the dorm, fulfilling personal schedules in the lull between group comebacks. And it just so happened that Jongdae was the only other person in the dorm today with Baekhyun. They hadn’t been alone in the dorm together for ages and the older male decided that this was as good a time as any to speak to Jongdae about his insecurities.

Baekhyun knocked on the door to Jongdae and Yixing’s shared bedroom, and was greeted by a loud, “Come in!” The younger male swiveled around in his chair to face the door and smiled as he waved Baekhyun in. “Need anything?”

“I just felt like talking to you. We haven’t really had any one-on-one talks in a while.”

“Make yourself comfortable,” Jongdae said, gesturing to his nearby bed. After Baekhyun sat down on the edge, the younger male asked, “So what’s up? What’s on your mind?”

“Well,” the older male shifted uncomfortably, which wasn’t unnoticed by Jongdae’s sharp eyes, “remember how we, uh, kissed when you got drunk and we revealed to each other that we’re, um…”

“Gay?” Jongdae finished without hesitation.

“Uh, yeah, that,” Baekhyun confirmed with a wince. “How can you say it so easily?”

“Because it’s the truth,” the younger male replied with a shrug. “It’s a part of who I am, so there’s no point in denying it. I can’t change how I was born, so I might as well embrace it.”

“But how—how do you do it so easily?” Baekhyun couldn’t understand how Jongdae had come to terms with his preferences so effortlessly. Every night, he wouldn’t be able to sleep with the worries of how “different” he was constantly plaguing his mind. Even though the new information that he had probably been biologically programmed to like males during his embryonic development had greatly assuaged Baekhyun’s fears, it was still a difficult pill to swallow.

Jongdae thought for a moment before answering, “It’s not easy for me either. Trust me, Baek. I had my phase of denial as well and I experimented with my fair share of people before I came to terms with who I am. It’s never easy for people like us, but you learn to stop caring about what other people think, especially because you’re the one living your life. Not anyone else.”

The older male still didn’t look convinced.

“Be honest with me, okay?”

Baekhyun nodded as he warily asked, “What do you want to know?”

“You’ve never dated a man before, have you?”

“No,” Baekhyun answered with a shake of his head. “I’ve never had the chance to.”

“Would you date a man if you could then?” Jongdae then asked.

The older male paused before carefully answering, “I guess I would… But I don’t think I’d ever be able to, not as an idol.”

Jongdae slowly nodded his head before finally asking his last question. “Did you enjoy kissing me?”

Baekhyun’s face instantly turned a bright shade of red, giving the younger male the answer he sought.

Jongdae leaned back in his chair with an amused smile and said, “I’ll help you out as my best friend.”

“What—what do you mean?”

And then Jongdae suddenly leaned closer to Baekhyun, causing the older male to yelp and fall back against his best friend’s bed. “You can date me and confirm how wonderful it is to be with a man. Sounds great, right?”

Baekhyun’s throat went dry as he tried not to stare at Jongdae’s beautifully long eyelashes and tantalizing, plush lips. “W-well, I-I mean, uh,” the older male spluttered as his brain short-circuited.

With a boisterous laugh, Jongdae moved away from the embarrassed older male and said, “You can always say no, but I think this would help you. Even though I’ll admit that I’m also acting with my selfish intentions in mind, as your best friend, I really want you to be comfortable with yourself. If I can help out in any way with that, then I will. So what d’you say, Baek? You and me? Together?”

Baekhyun hesitantly looked at Jongdae’s outstretched hand as he sat up from his splayed postion on the younger male’s bed and his heart began to beat erratically against his chest. Jongdae was so confident and at ease in regards to his romantic preferences. He didn’t try to reject the path that his genetics had carved out for him. Baekhyun wanted to learn how to be comfortable with himself like Jongdae was.

This would just be casual dating. Nothing too serious, especially since their friendship was much more important. And Baekhyun couldn’t deny that he found the younger male extremely attractive. Jongdae was a good-looking man, despite most of the public refusing to acknowledge his visuals.

And if this ended up in nothing, then Baekhyun wouldn’t hold it against Jongdae. It was ultimately his own decision to accept his best friend’s proposal.

So the older male nodded, causing Jongdae’s grin to widen even more.

“Great!” The younger male moved to throw his arms tightly around Baekhyun, who flushed at the sudden proximity. Jongdae laughed when he saw how flustered his best friend became at that simple action. “Relax and have fun with this, okay? You don’t have to be ashamed of how you feel. It’s part of who you are.”

Baekhyun nodded again. Jongdae was right. This was who he was and he shouldn’t have to change himself when he had been wired this way from Day One. He nestled snugly against Jongdae, who hugged Baekhyun even more securely.

Yeah, he could get used to this.

♈♈♈

A/N: Even though this story is set as if it were canon, I honestly don't think either Baekhyun or Chen are gay. Sure, I ship them together with Lay, but for me, it's just for fun. I'm pretty sure all three of them are straight, but even if they aren't, I wouldn't feel any differently about them. I'm not a hardcore shipper, and this collection is mostly a way for me to just experiment with different writing styles and ideas without having to create a million female OCs.

Regardless, I think stories like this are important. I'm straight, but I have friends in the LGBTQ+ community and I know a fair number of people on AFF are not straight either. This story was originally going to be much more scientific, since I learned about fraternal birth order in several of my classes last semester and I've been wanting to write a short story about it ever since. It's a very interesting topic and I recommend everyone to read about it. But anyway, as I started writing, it became more of a self-discovery story rather than dialogue about the biological origins of many cases of homouality. (I also didn't have access to most of the journal articles I had been planning to reference, because I'm not at school right now, but they're easily searchable on your own if you're more interested in learning about the correlation between fraternal birth order and male homouality.) Since I have not personally experienced the struggles that those of the LGBTQ+ community have had in terms of preferences and identity, please correct me if I have wrongly portrayed something! I will be more than happy to fix it!

And if anyone is struggling with their self identity, please don't blame yourself for things that are probably out of your control. You are NOT strange or disgusting, regardless of what a lot of people say. You are beautiful and amazing in your own right, regardless of who you love, and I hope you never guilt yourself into thinking otherwise. If anyone is struggling with identity issues, my inbox is always open and I hope you can find people in your offline life who can support you as well.