Title: Ride the Bull

Pairing: BaekYeol

Rating: nc-17

Length: 4602 Words (2/8)

Genres: Romance, college AU, guilty pleasure because fluff

Summary: One would think him blurting out at 2am on the couch in front of the TV to one of his best friends’ stepbrother that “I hooked up with Chan Yeol four nights ago.” was totally uncalled for. This is the story of Baek Hyun’s last four months’ journey of discovering his uality for his tall best friend. Imagine this. All this . Because of a 3D bull from some ty game.

===

Min Seok was Se Hun’s stepbrother.

But see, the thing was, Min Seok too knew very well who Chan Yeol was. Being friends with Baek Hyun meant entitling to be stuck with both Se Hun and Min Seok as well. Because he had been friends with Se Hun for almost twelve years, Min Seok was really just like an extension of a brother too, sort of. They hung out at Se Hun’s place a lot these days, because all of them were cheapskate, hanging out at Se Hun’s place really meant free food and free drinks.

But yeah, not like that had anything to do with anything, though.

Because this was about Baek Hyun, after all.

And if there was a thing people needed to know about him – it was this.

Byun Baek Hyun didn’t dream big.

That was probably due to the fact that he was a practical man surrounded by idiots to know that dreams were for stupid s. All that he honestly wanted was simple: to graduate college and not repeat this paper again because repeating it once was already torture enough, and to make things worse, this was the second time he took the same subject and he still had no idea what the hell was going on. He had no ing clue how Accounting Theory will score him a job.

“I can’t fail again.” The moan sounded just as miserable as the state of his mind was. “Baek Hyun-ah, I can’t fail again, but what the is he talking about.”

Baek Hyun wished he can come up with a clever comeback, because it was only 9.35am, the lecturer wasn’t even making any sense and he was already regretting his decision to be in the class, wishing that he was on his bed instead and that was a ed up attitude.

“I can’t believe I left my unattended this morning just to get to this class.” There was a tug at his shirt, but Baek Hyun was unmotivated at all, body slouched with shoulders dropped and eyes dead. The a/c was just too cold, it was slowly out his life and it more that he can’t even sleep because it was too cold.

The scene that was unfolding around him was nothing new. A defeated Chan Yeol on his right panicking about why nothing was even making any sense and the very motivated Jong Dae on his left making a list of os that he needed to download once class was over.

Baek Hyun was 23 that year.

He was supposed to be in his final year, but he can’t even tell what year he was actually in now, because he repeated too many papers to the point that it got his syllabus so ed up unlike the state of his . He looked down at the printed PowerPoint slides with blurry eyes, because sleepiness tended to burned human’s eyes with acidic spits, and this wasn’t the first time Baek Hyun wished time will fly by faster than the speed of light.

===

Baek Hyun always marvelled at his luck for bagging Oh Se Hun as one of his best friends.

Because his car was sitting back at the workshop in his hometown, the man had offered to take Baek Hyun around. And he did. With not even a breath of complain. In terms of their place to stay, the three of them had different arrangement. Jong Dae stayed with his two cousins, Baek Hyun with a roommate at some rented cheap flat that he’ll only see two or three times a week and Chan Yeol stayed at a studio apartment by himself.

Baek Hyun would usually just shack up at Chan Yeol’s or Se Hun’s place, because Chan Yeol liked company and didn’t mind sharing his bed and Baek Hyun liked noises and Se Hun always complain that he was bored and lonely all the time. So it wasn’t strange for nights like this when Baek Hyun was stranded on the 3-sitter couch in Se Hun’s living room, Chan Yeol on the floor with head pressed against the lain man’s torso and Se Hun flipping the channels from documentaries to dramas from next to Chan Yeol on the floor.

“Are we actually going to watch anything?” Chan Yeol grumbled from next to the younger man and Baek Hyun couldn’t help from glancing over to the top of the tall man’s head. His lips quirked into a slight smile, not that he could help it. His fingers tingled with the thought of running them through the soft silver strands, ruffling them left and right because he knew Chan Yeol will like that very much for the reason that the man must be a dog in his previous life, liking any sort of physical contact. It was also kind of cute how his best friend was still reeling from the Accounting Theory class this morning, moping, whining and complaining all the time.

God, really, what was wrong with him?

He should’ve realised then.

“Still deciding.” Se Hun’s bored drawl had quickly pulled his attention away, and Baek Hyun immediately grinned tiredly, because he had anticipated that, but channel jumping tended to make a person dizzy and sleepy, so he bump Se Hun’s shoulder lightly with his foot.

“Pick one Se Hun-nie,” he said through a yawn, “I’m getting sleepy here already.”

There was a disapproving hum, but the channel surfing stopped, and Chan Yeol groaned out when they stopped at Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone. Suddenly, Baek Hyun was filled with memories of eleven year old little Byun Baek Hyun, writing a Hogwarts letter to himself and flailing it around the house to show off to a very bemused Byun Baek Bom who later bought him a witch’s hat for Halloween.

The trio had quickly quieted down after that and as he watched with heavily lidded eyes when Ron and Harry came for Hermione’s rescue against the troll, memories of how he had met Chan Yeol rushed to the front of his mind and he smiled to himself. Face warm.

He met Chan Yeol almost five years ago during his first semester of his first year when he was walking home from the ATM machine in campus one night. It was at the park between the campus and his much more expensive old apartment. He’d covered the first km, with only a few hundred metres away until he can escape the cold autumn weather. He regretted not driving his rickety car. He regretted a lot of things actually, but let’s not go there.

Chan Yeol was a very tall man with crazed grin and obsession with varsity jacket. Name any colour, he had them, Baek Hyun soon will know, lined in his closet with a variety of the same white tee folded neatly beneath because on top of being vain, the man was a neat freak too.

He remembered how cold it was that night when he saw the man. Hair dyed obnoxiously red, varsity jacket in jade green and white, black skinny jeans and black beanie. His shoes were white, and he had tiptoed by the bold ‘bicycle lane’ sign at the T-junction near the park, fingers long as they wrapped around black marker pen while his other hand was clutching a can of beer with five other empty ones by his feet.

“What are you writing?” He remembered asking and Chan Yeol turned immediately towards him, eyes bleary before he stopped and focused on the shorter man and a huge grin spread out. His cheeks were tinted in pink.

“Can you even see from there?”

“From where? I’m not even that far from you.”

“But you’re so far down there, you won’t be able to read it!”

“What?”

“I can piggyback you if you want. You can see from my height then.”

“Well I can crush your too with my height, does that sound cool?”

No one had the chance to do anything though, because despite how Chan Yeol had sounded genuinely sincere, he was actually really, really drunk. Baek Hyun will later know it was because he got pickpocketed two hours before and was luckily left with few cash in the pocket of his jacket from a cancelled pizza plan two weeks prior and the man just decided to drown his depression away. He vomited after that before passing out on the pathway of the park, and that was it.

Full stop.

That was the starting point of their friendship.

Baek Hyun had to carry the man all few hundred metres from the park to his room because it was despicable how well his mother had grew him up to be. The man woke up on Baek Hyun’s bed only in his boxer brief and his stupid black beanie because Baek Hyun had thrown everything else in the washing machine and he was so shocked when he saw Baek Hyun walking in, wearing some boxer brief and plain tee, he had chocked on his own spit.

“D-did we? I mean –oh god, did we?”

Baek Hyun had only winked and Chan Yeol almost fainted.

But no.

They didn’t.

(The writing behind the stop sign was “Short people .” And it truly , because Baek Hyun had no ways of wiping the writing off, because, well, he can’t reach.)

He met Jong Dae a semester later.

He was just some dude, lost during his first semester, got confused about the date classes were supposed to start so he had missed the first four weeks. When he actually did go to the class, he went to the wrong group and was failed for all five subjects he took. He made a plea, was granted supplementary and he barely passed them all, and he told all that to Baek Hyun the first day they met with glassy eyes.

That had genuinely impressed him –the raw honesty and sheer lcuk.

They became great friends right away.

===

They had morning classes on Tuesday and Thursday. Baek Hyun had never been a fan of morning classes, because he was a who can’t get up in the morning, but since he had skipped so many classes in the previous semesters, flunking a lot of papers with ty grades, Jong Dae, Chan Yeol and he decided that they needed to buck up if they ever wish to graduate. And throughout the four years of friendship he had formed with the other two men –Baek Hyun had come to a conclusion.

It was that Chan Yeol had a peculiar habit.

He had a weird habit of having so many names.

Exhibit A: They will usually drop by the coffee shop near their campus after class, especially after morning classes, just like today, because Jong Dae was a stereotype woman who needs his daily shots of caffeine while Chan Yeol just like the honeycomb crunch atop his caramel Frappuccino.

That month itself, Chan Yeol had alternated his name differently for the past 5 weeks –week 1: James Bond, week 2: Lee Min Ho, week 3: Batman, week 4: Leonardo Dicaprio and week 5: Emma Stone.

Baek Hyun asked him once, “What’s up with the name? I get the Emma Stone bit, but Leo? C’mon man.”

Chan Yeol blamed it all on, “Mid-life crisis. I don’t know what I’m doing now with my life.”

“What are you talking about? You’re 23.”

“I feel like 43.”

“So you’re telling me you’re in that age where you’re having that personality-disorder-confusion , huh?”

“Yeah that, but let’s be real here Baek, because the real question should be what’s the official name of that disorder?”

“I don’t know. But I heard people in the midst of their mid-life crisis tend to have them.”

“I’m actually 43.”

“Sure.”

So when the barista called out, “T-taylor Swift?” hesitantly that Thursday after their morning class, Baek Hyun only shook his head and five minutes later, watched his friend in his Frappuccino dejectedly while he himself was crushing the bud of his cigarette into the flat surface of the ashtray.

“Wanna hang out at my place later?” Chan Yeol had asked, slurping the iced drink loudly as he hopefully looked up to both Baek Hyun and Jong Dae.

Baek Hyun was in the midst of lighting up a new stick with a foot crossed over his knee while Jong Dae was deep into the pamphlet of external hard disks. He said he needed a new one because he had too much junk in his PC, but everyone knew it was really because he downloaded too much . Jong Dae had repeated–“There’s a reason why I called them junk.” Which was respectable. Because despite being a erted bastard, at least Jong Dae had the balls to admit that to himself and to everyone else without an ounce of shame.

Baek Hyun respected that the most about the man.

“I can’t, going to the PC store after this.” Jong Dae said before sliding the pamphlet forward so the other man can see. “Which one should I get? This? Or This?” he pointed to the electric blue Seagate and the red one.

Now that he started dating, he declared that he wanted a fresh start, a clean laptop. And the first step was –a brand new hard disc to store all of his in commemorating his non single life anymore.  

Baek Hyun and Chan Yeol supported him.

There was nothing not to be proud of.

“Can I come with you?” Chan Yeol asked with a hopeful grin.

“Nowpe.” Was the cheerful answer and Baek Hyun couldn’t help the huge smirk at how disappointed Chan Yeol had looked like. “Da-te, date.” He singsong, and the loud dramatic sigh from Chan Yeol was enough to make Baek Hyun laughed, eyes crinkling small and he couldn’t help but to stare at the tall man adoringly, because damn, his heart felt as if it can explode at any seconds, and his stomach twisted so hard, it made him high and giddy.

Goddamn it, he should’ve ing realised it.

“Cheer up, man.” He said and saw Chan Yeol turning to face him. “I’ll hang out at your place.”

He couldn’t explain why Chan Yeol’s shy smile can affect him this much, because suddenly, the idea of doing just about anything to have Chan Yeol keep smiling at him like that was so strong, it freaked him out. So he brushed them aside by snatching the man’s Frappuccino and gulped it down in one go. Chan Yeol’s whine didn’t help at all.

===

Chan Yeol was huge. There was no way of saying it, because the man was really huge. His height was intimidating, over-towering everything in his path, his shoulders were wide and the way he brought himself around can make a man feel small.

Baek Hyun would know it. He lived and breathed with the fact, having to deal with the man on a daily basis for the past few years, and sometimes, he would feel intimidated by it, not like he could help it. It was an envious trait really, it was disgustingly despicable. See, he liked to use that phrase, that word –envious. Not jealous, but envious. Because Jealousy indicates the feeling of longing for something that he already have, whereas envious is the feeling of longing for something that he clearly doesn’t have.

Baek Hyun liked to be specific like that, sometimes.

He liked to think that he was unique, of the sort.

And just like that, there was this one thing that Baek Hyun had come to an understanding.

That Chan Yeol was unique too.

Chan Yeol was just like a coin.

There were two sides of him, two vividly contrast sides that always left Baek Hyun confused and oddly flustered, even to this day. Pouty, demanding and whiney man with a nice smile, and nice smell, offering help and clumsy with his long limbs, comical, to some extent, and then there was the other side of Chan Yeol that was all about dominance, control, unplaced smugness and brattish nature that matched well with his grey bleached hair.

Chan Yeol was kind of good at many things, like how high his alcohol tolerance level was, acing any beer ping pong match, and then there was his appetite too, his talent with any sort of musical instruments. Chan Yeol’s mother once told Baek Hyun, when he went over to the tall man’s house last two summers, that her son was good at many things at the price of his brain.

Which sort of true. Because Chan Yeol was good at subjects with numbers and formulas, theories and all those that require memorising, he was sort of rubbish with the ones that requires the application of logic. It was strange, because Baek Hyun tended to score better at subject that he can come up with his own theory.

Baek Hyun woke up the next day with a much bigger problem than what he had anticipated.

Dreaming about it once was fine, because it was easier to blame it all on his curiosity and confusion, but to dream about it almost most nights was driving him mad, a rude reminder shoved to his face of how his outlook towards his best friend had drastically changed now –all because of some ing huge 3D bull.

The thin layer of sweat was a glossy lustre on his fair, but now, flushed skin and he swallowed loudly in the darkness of his room. He sat up quietly, exhaling shaky air and pushed up two palms over his face with a groan.

The room wasn’t even that hot, but look at him, sweating and waking up with a red face and a ing hard on.

He groaned loudly again, muffled by his palms before slowly looking up to an empty bed next to his. His roommate didn’t come back again last night, which wasn’t strange at all, because Jong In only came back once or twice a week and Baek Hyun finally slumped back against the mattress, turning to his side with bended knees.

He will not touch himself again, was what he repeated in his head.

He will sleep this off like always, was what he told himself.

He woke up again three hours later at 9am, this time, no hard on, but the shadow of long limbs wrapped around him still echoed through his skin, plump lips at his skin along his throat and heavy weight pressing him down against the mattress, broader figure roughly mounting him with deep voice out his name.

“Baek Hyun-ah.”

“Baek Hyun-ah.”

Baek Hyun groaned distressfully to himself. Even the slight memory of his dream had such an ugly effect on him, somehow, all organs and muscles and ing knew how to come alive and his heartbeat hastened in panic and adrenaline and rush. 

Don’t get hard now, please, for the love of god, don’t ing get hard now.

===

“You missed the morning class, why, why Baek Hyun, is this some sort of revenge for always ditching you at morning tutorials?” Jong Dae’s voice cracked and rang irritatingly through the whole car. His radio was loud with Miami Horror’s Wild Motion blaring through the speakers and while the song was decent, the volume Jong Dae tended to set for all of his songs was near deafening and Baek Hyun just didn’t see the point of having conversation when all parties have to practically shout to each other to get their message across.

“Are you angry, though?” Chan Yeol whined from the front seat, body twisting around from the front seat to face him, and Baek Hyun had quickly clenched his eyes shut at that. His right hand still kinda sore from vigorously on his bed this morning and promptly, missing the morning class. “You can’t be that mad,” No, Chan Yeol, he wasn’t mad. “You know how hangovers are,” Yes, he knew how hangovers worked because he was lightweight and can’t hold his alcohol for . “I haven’t been that drunk in years.” He knew that, because the last time Chan Yeol was dead drunk, he had d Baek Hyun in front of Jong Dae for no particular reason and Baek Hyun had recorded the whole ordeal as blackmail.

So yeah.

He wasn’t mad at any of them; it was just that he wished he can knock some ing sense into his head before deciding it was fine to imagine thick pouty lips and huge grin while frantically finding his relief with body arching up and toes curled under his duvet.

Chan Yeol’s deep voice didn’t help at all, and his body was still tingly from the thought of that deep voice saying things he knew his best friend wouldn’t say to him anywhere near the future. Baek Hyun slouched dejectedly in the backseat of Jong Dae’s car, face growing red with his heart beating excitedly –no ing control at all, what was the matter with him?

So yesterday they got back the midterm result for their Accounting Theory. Whereas Jong Dae had miraculously scored an 8/15, both Baek Hyun and Chan Yeol had typically scored 6.5/15, and the three of them had dropped by the club last night, trying to release tension with loud music and get drunk. While Chan Yeol drank to his heart content, Baek Hyun was too busy watching the attractive way Chan Yeol’s Adam’s apple had bobbled up and down at each of his gulp, almost didn’t realise how his mouth had practically watered at the sight that even Jong Dae had eyed him suspiciously.

Baek Hyun only had a glass of beer, too scared of the prospect of being drunk, fearing what he might do or say. Chan Yeol had probably six and Jong Dae might have about three or four. He drove Jong Dae’s car and dropped both of the drunken ers at Chan Yeol’s studio apartment before driving himself back to his place. All three of them missed the morning class for various reasons. He drove Jong Dae’s car back to Chan Yeol’s place at 1pm and had the very much hungover Jong Dae drove them for lunch.

“What do you want to do tonight?” Chan Yeol asked once the three had settled at the café and done ordering their lunch. With both of his palms over his face, Chan Yeol had his elbows supported his head on the table and his voice was muffled.

Jong Dae was clenching his phone, trying to read the text messages with red and bleary eyes and Baek Hyun liked how miserable he looked like trying to decrypt the words. It must be his girlfriend. He remembered how excited the man was last night for his date later in the evening, but he didn’t think Jong Dae will be that much of a fun that day, drowsy and moody.

“Can’t believe I forgot I have a date today.” Jong Dae moaned. “I just want to sleep forever.”

Baek Hyun couldn’t help the snicker, and Jong Dae bared his teeth at him with a hiss, muttering a “.” under his breath. 

“Are you going then?” Baek Hyun asked, flipping through the menu, but really, they’ve ordered all that they wanted five minutes ago. He was just using that as an excuse to eye Chan Yeol’s slumped body opposite of him, studying the thick fingers cramped together and throat going dry at each second with the thought of what those fingers can do. The possibility was endless. His neck was long, his shoulders were wide and broad, and the electric blue and white varsity jacket he had donned on top of the black top that day was attractive as hell.

Yes.

Attractive.

, yes.

“Hell yes.” Jong Dae moaned and Baek Hyun steeled himself up at the sudden voice. “I can’t just cancel our plan like that! It’ll be awful for her.”

“The kick is –you’ve cancelled plentiful of our plans to get your touched.” Chan Yeol groaned from behind his palms, earning a kick to the shin from Jong Dae.

“You’re awful, man.” Baek Hyun shook his head in agreement. “How can you be awful to us and not her?”

“Easy, because she’s a woman, and my mom’s a woman too, I wouldn’t want anyone to make her sad.”

“Her? Who? The woman who touched your on a weekly basis or the woman that made hell a huge favour by giving birth to you? You’re not even making any sense anymore.”

“That was unkind, Baek, you.”

“No thanks. Life ed me enough already, I’m basically a .”

Chan Yeol’s snicker from behind his palms made Baek Hyun grin, and Jong Dae’s frustrated groan made him grin even wider as he we watched his best friend dialled his girlfriend up. They talked, and the man’s nasally high pitched voice was annoying, jagiya, jagiya, jagiya, but Jong Dae’s distraction somehow seemed like a green card for him to ogle over Chan Yeol to his heart’s content without being caught, and that was exactly what he did.

And he liked what he saw.

The tousled grey hair, the wide shoulders, the long fingers.

He was overcome with the need to touch his best friend all over, because Chan Yeol can’t be humanely possible, and yet, everything there was to him screamed how human he actually was –breathing and alive and fiery.

Jong Dae’s huge laugh caught his attention, and he swivelled his head to the other man, studying how Jong Dae had gathered his wallet and box of cigarette from in front of him and stuffed them into his pocket before standing up.

“W-where are you going –Jong Dae, the food will be here any minute!” He panicked and Jong Dae grinned at him, raising his middle finger and index finger in a peace sign, mouthing a “She’s making me brownies!” and just like that, he watched the man walked out of the café, got into his car before reversing off and gone.

“Just let him be,” Chan Yeol’s voice muffled from his palm. “The girl loves him so much, they deserve each other, really –”

“Chan Yeol, I don’t think you get the severity of this situation at all.” Baek Hyun said after a while, voice quiet before he looked on to the man with blank eyes. “We came in Jong Dae’s car.”

Chan Yeol was quiet, before crossing his hands on the table and crushed his head into his crossed arms with a sigh. “S’fine,” He said after a while. “There’s the train or taxi or bus.”

And Baek Hyun shook his head.

“Chan Yeol-lie, he has the credit card, my wallet is literally empty of cash, both of our bank accounts are empty from the Star Wars blu-ray collection we splurged on last week. Your money is only enough to cover one coke, and might I remind you that we asked for three cokes and one strawberry milkshake. Let’s not get started on the foods we’ve ordered.”

There was a sudden silence. Baek Hyun leaning back against his chair and Chan Yeol’s figure slumped over the table, and it was peaceful to some extent before the tall man straightened up and looked at him with the most miserable face Baek Hyun’d saw him don on.

The chairs scraped against the wooden floor and the two men were out of the café within the next five seconds before they ran as if their life was the line.

===

a/n: Wootwoot. Chapter 2 is here! There are many things that have inspired me when writing this fic. Like for example, the name thing is a thing that me and my friends always did. The story of how both Chan Yeol and Baek Hyun met was inspired by a picture I saw on tumblr like few years ago. I can’t trace it, but I just feel like I have to make it known.

Ok.

So anyway, how was this? Was it ok? Meh? Lemme know! Also, this is a weekly update. I will try to upload this every Saturday? Because my class will start soon, so, yeah. I was supposed to update this earlier, but was held back because of some health-related matter. And, apology for the grammatical error. This is un-beta.

=]

-bluecoins