Sometimes there was something shy in Chanyeol's smile when the lights had dimmed and they laid in separate beds after a long day of training.

During these times, as Baekhyun's body felt heavy with exhaustion but is mind ran quickly through fields of thought, he wondered how many others had seen the same smiles Chanyeol showed him.

His stage smile was one that he wore not only when cameras were flashing but even when he'd grumble a soft good-morning to the members before shoveling cereal into his mouth. This smile, however, was different. It was soft, sincere, and caused a small tremor to rattle in Baekhyun's chest.

Baekhyun had never confronted Chanyeol about it before, never found a reason to bring it up. But as Chanyeol grinned at him from under a pile of blankets, beckoning Baekhyun to join him, then pulling him under when he refused, he felt compelled to ask - just this once.

"Chanyeol?" He said softly, causing Chanyeol to stop trying to tickle Baekhyun's sides and stare at him. Large hands were suddenly folding themselves around Baekhyun's waist and the Large grin on Chanyeol's face smoothed out into a tender smile.

Baekhyun's words sunk back in his throat. The greedy side of him wanting to keep this side of Chanyeol all to himself.

"Nothing," he said sheepishly before fixing his expression into a playful one "You were just making really dumb faces is all."

"Rude." Chanyeol's face scrunched up as he laughed, shoving Baekhyun out of his blanket fort.

As Baekhyun's back hit the mattress, mouth spreading into a gleeful smile and eyes crinkling into half cresants, there was a feeling of weightlessness in his chest that only Chanyeol could create.

☂





"Come on, Chanyeol," Baekhyun whined, throwing a pillow across the room that landed by Chanyeol's feet, "It's too cold, keep the temperature where it is."

Chanyeol threw him a look, he had just come out the shower with nothing but a pair of boxers and a towl around his shoulders. Baekhyun refused to look anywhere but his face.

"It's too hot, Baekhyun." he wiped the back of his hand across his brow for empathsis, "I just came from a hot shower. I need to cool down, I'm feeling light-headed,"
Baekhyun supposed he had a point, but he wouldn't lose. He never loses.

"Fine. Whatever you want." he turned away from Chanyeol and pulled his blankets up to his shoulders. He knew he was being unreasonable, but some part of him wanted Chanyeol to feel bad. Because when Chanyeol upsets Baekhyun he always makes up for it, and the malignant part of him craved attention.

He heard Chanyeol sigh, but the temperature wasn't changed. Instead, Baekhyun felt the bed dip beside him and his blankets being lifted up.

"Hey- what are you doing?!" Baekhyun squawked before quieting as Chanyeol slid under the covers beside him and long arms pulled his back to meet Chanyeol's chest. The pattering of drums rang through Baekhyun's ears as he felt heat rush to his face.

"Better?" Chanyeol's nose pressed into Baekhyun's hair.

"Quite." Baekhyun whispered, praying to god that Chanyeol couldn't hear the way his pulse raced.



☂



If there was one thing Baekhyun enjoyed doing most, it was singing. Anytime, anywhere, Baekhyun would always have a tune in his head and was never afraid of singing it out loud.

Their manager wasn't exactly fond of this fact.

Baekhyun hummed softly to himself at first to the tune of Nam Jin's "With You". Recognizing the song Chanyeol suddenly turned in his seat towards him, "Sing! Sing!" He egged Baekhyun on gleefully.

Baekhyun rolled his eyes, the corner of his mouth lifting up with a cheeky smile before opening to oblige to Chanyeol's request.

The other members in the van chuckled and began to sing along, their manager groaned and pressed his hands to his ears. The members just sung louder, their smiles widening as they belted out the lyrics.

Their manager looked just about ready to explode, "Come on guys! You know I like when you practice, but not in the van! Please!"

"Sorry!" Baekhyun and Chanyeol chimed in unison, laughing as the manger turned up the van's radio to block them out.

Chanyeol draped an arm over Baekhyun's shoulder and swayed them back and forth to the beat, a large smile taking up majority of his face.

Baekhyun beamed back, Chanyeol always knew how to liven up their drives.

☂




When Chanyeol dances, Baekhyun noticed, there's always a hard look of concentration on his face. While Baekhyun himself schooled his features to look confident, striking, Chanyeol looked deep and thoughtful as he managed to guide his less than graceful limbs to the beat of the song. If there was one thing Baekhyun admired most about Chanyeol it was his commitment.

Sometimes as Baekhyun was on his way out of the practice room, he'd look back at Chanyeol who was still practicing as everyone else was packing up for the night. Jongin stayed with him sometimes, to lend him a hand with particularly difficult steps.

Baekhyun questioned why he never stayed to help Chanyeol himself.

The more logical side of him reasoned that it was because he was tired and deserved to take a break. The pangs in his heart as he watched Chanyeol laughing and teasing Jongin whispered of something else entirely.








☂







Everyone knew that Baekhyun was daring. He was the type to set his sights on something and catch it at any cost.

But it usually came easy to him.

Back when he had wanted to play piano, his mother found him a teacher right away. When he wanted to be a singer, he was scouted by SM in 2011 and became a part of EXO not long after.

Charisma came easy to him. He made well timed jokes, drove the fans crazy with well placed hands on other members waists. It was as natural as breathing, he was born to live his dream.

But sometimes everything would come crashing down. One false note and he was a wreck, unable to stop himself as he dove deeper and deeper into self-loathing. The tears would fall, the sobs would wrack his body, the words "I'm not good enough" would poor from his lips.

And the words "Baekhyun, Baekhyun, I've got you" would call him back to the surface.

With his head ducked into the side of Chanyeol's neck, breathing in the scent of pine and clean linen, Baekhyun's tears would dry, but the pulsation of his heart would only quicken as he pondered, and pondered how on earth Chanyeol could make him feel so calm and anxious at the same time.

Chanyeol never came easy to him.

☂

It's when Chanyeol is snuggled up closely to Kyungsoo on the couch that Baekhyun snaps.

It's a rush of the most unpleasant kind that comes sweeping through him, knotting his stomach and blocking his air. His fists clench at his side and he urges himself to move, to look away. Instead he waits, waits for Chanyeol to see him, see the pain in his eyes.

When Chanyeol doesn't turn, and instead begins to let his head lull unto Kyungsoo's shoulder, Baekhyun feels an emptiness creep inside him.

He moves quickly to turn before any of the other members see him. The warm tears now leaking down his cheeks are embarrassing, and if his pride is hurt anymore than it already is, Baekhyun doesn't think he can bare it.

The door to his shared room with Chanyeol falls shut, and he locks it behind him before sinking to the floor with his head in his palms and the words "You've lost, Baekhyun, you've lost" taunting him in the back of his mind.

He knows he lost. He was never supposed to fall in love.



☂



"I don't get you!" Chanyeol all but screams as he paces around their dorm room, "I thought we were best friends but now you won't even talk to me?! And every time you do, you just snap, and, I don't - I don't get it at all."


"I-" Baekhyun starts from his position against the wall opposite the door.


"What is this Baekhyun? What are you trying to accomplish by treating me like ?"


"I don't-"


"Are you trying to make me angry? Because it worked."


"Just-"


Chanyeol pulls at the roots of his hair,"I mean - for s sake - if I've done something wrong just tell me."


"Chanyeol." Baekhyun says sharply, getting tired of being cut off.


"What." He stoped pacing and looked Baekhyun directly in the eye, waiting for a response.

Baekhyun swallows back the mucus layering his throat and holds his gaze. Regardless of whether or not it was his fault, he would not yield.

"You-" he falters at Chanyeol's hard gaze, "You - you don't," he realizes then that he really doesn't have a good reason to be ignoring Chanyeol.

Or at least not a good reason that he can tell Chanyeol aloud.


"What is it that you want from me, Baekhyun?" Chanyeol said a little softer, waiting for his response. A sort of sadness settled in his eyes

He crossed the room and stood a mere three steps away from Baekhyun whose chest rose and fell with labored breathing as he tried to fish for something, anything to say that would add up as a reasonable excuse for his actions. Nothing came to mind.

A rough, warm hand reached out and brushed Baekhyun's bangs from his eyes, giving him a look of tenderness that Baekhyun assumed must have risen from pity.

Baekhyun didn't want Chanyeol's pity

He wiped the hand away and leaned back against the door. Chanyeol's brows furrowed.

"I want something you can never give me." He said quietly, Chanyeol opened his mouth to object, but Baekhyun continued on,

"I feel like you've just been playing me this whole time, as if fully aware of what you were doing to me," he took in a breath, "I can't just let myself be strung along until the line suddenly breaks and I'm left to pick up the fallen beads on my own."

Baekhyun feels like he just poured his heart out, but only confusion crosses Chanyeol's face.

"What do you mean?"

Baekhyun knows the consequences of the words he feels just on the tip of his tongue. He knows how this could be the final breaking point between their friendship. He knows that Chanyeol would never see him the same, would never be able to look at him the same, or show him that shy smile he always saved just for him.

He knows this, and yet, he feels the words falling out on their own.

"I'm in love with you."



☂



Baekhyun was alone in the dorm room that night. He assumed Chanyeol had either taken the couch or roomed with one of the other members.

The shock he saw in his face as Baekhyun finally uncapped what he had kept bottled up for so long nearly broke him.

Chayeol's slow retreat from the room, however, did leave him feeling himself falling apart.

The temperature was turned up to the warmer setting, but Baekhyun didn't feel nearly as warm as when Chanyeol would wrap him up in his arms and hold him close to his chest so that Baekhyun would let him keep the air-conditioning .

Chanyeol's hands were always so warm, so comforting, so consuming.

Baekhyun tried to convince himself that he preferred the cold.



☂





Baekhyun didn't want to hear what Chanyeol had to say. One look into his eyes and Baekhyun knew he'd be a goner. So he avoided him entirely.

At first it wasn't difficult, because Chanyeol was also keeping his distance, but soon Chanyeol would want to talk and Baekhyun wasn't sure he'd ever be ready for that.

It was their day off and Baekhyun had been intending to spend the day in the dorms while the other members went out for bubble tea with their manager. He was much too tired to head out with the rest of them, and the thought of trying to avoid Chanyeol - who was most likely going to seat himself in the chair beside his own to corner Baekhyun into speaking with him - only exhausted him more.

He plugged his ears with headphones and laid back into the pillows nestled around him.

Eyes fluttering close, Baekhyun thought of maybes and what ifs.

If he hadn't fallen in love with Chanyeol, there would never have been a problem. But when he visualizes Chanyeol's wide eyes peering into his own, his dopey smile taking up the majority of his face, his rough hands tickling the back of his neck, the over-bubbling feeling rising in his gut makes him realize that would have never been an option.

He'll have to speak with Chanyeol soon, this he knows, but he plans on waiting as long as he can before having to face his inevitable rejection.

Sometimes Baekhyun wondered what it would be like if Chanyeol returned his feelings.

If Baekhyun spread out his fingers, would Chanyeol twine them through his own?

If Chanyeol leaned in close, what would his lips taste like?

Baekhyun heard the sound of the door opening over the sound of SNSD's Let It Rain.

When he lazily opened his eyes, Chanyeol had already crossed them room and was standing at the side of his bed looking down at him with determination in his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Baekhyun whispered, feeling defenseless under Chanyeols gaze.
"It's my dorm room too you know." He sat himself on the edge of the bed, pulling at the loose threads on the sleeves of his grey sweatshirt.

Baekhyun chuckled under his breath and played with the headphones between his fingers.

Now with his eyes averted, Chanyeol smiled nervously before laying a hand over Baekhyun's.

"Listen, Baekhyun," He began, but Baekhyun didn't want to hear it.

"Stop, Chanyeol, please," He exhaled slowly and drew his hand out from under Chanyeol's, "I know what you're going to stay, and I'm sorry. I never should have said anything."

Baekhyun expected Chanyeol to be relieved, but instead he looked offended, hurt even.

"No, Baekhyun, you don't get it at all, I-" He stilled, and Baekhyun tried to search out his eyes that were boring holes into the duvet. "I want to," he paused, biting onto his lip and Baekhyun's first thought was how he wanted those teeth to be his own.

"I want to try." Chanyeol said finally, and Baekhyun felt his heart swell.

"Really?"

"I... I care about you Baekhyun, and I want to give it a try. If it will make you happy, then I think it's worth a shot."  Chanyeol's shy smile made the fluttering in Baekhyun's heart only intensify. Baekhyun felt his lips pulling upwards automatically and suddenly he felt more relived than he ever had before.

A silence fell between them as Baekhyun wrapped Chanyeol's words around his head. Chanyeol broke it by taking Baekhyun's cheeks in his palms and reddening as he said something that Baekhyun couldn't quite hear.

"What was that?"

"I... I want to kiss you," He mumbled, his face growing more and more red to Baekhyun's amusement, "I mean, if you want to," he added on dumbly.

"Okay" Baekhyun agreed, trying not to let Chanyeol see his trembling hands as he leaned closer.

The press of their lips was soft, tender, testing. Baekhyun felt his toes tingling from the wave of currents  flooding through him. Chanyeol leaned back after a second with large contemplative eyes and a red hue to his face.

"That was..." He said slowly, measuring his response, "nice. Really nice."

Baekhyun smiled slowly before pulling Chanyeol in by his grip on his shoulders and crushing their lips together once more.





☂

















Months passed, and Baekhyun only fell further for Chanyeols boisterous laugh, endearing smile, and relentless teasing.

Not much changed: they still joked around, played pranks on the other members, argued over what temperature the room would be set to.

But now every night before they'd fall asleep, Chanyeol would crawl under the covers beside Baekhyun, wrap his arms around his waist, and press kisses into the top of his head. Now, when they'd string their fingers together while walking around the airports, Baekhyun would rub his thumb in comforting circles on the top of Chanyeols hand. Now, they'd steal kisses when the other members looked away.

But the most important change was the night when, just as Baekhyun was curling himself up in Chanyeol's arms and his breaths were becoming softer as sleep pulled him in, Chanyeol whispered a soft, "Baekhyun?"

"Yes?"

"Goodnight!"

"Goodnight, Chanyeol."

"...And"

"Yes?"

"I think I love you."

☂
end.