He should have been used to it, and somedays he was, used to the way that Yixing always seemed to be the first to leave, whether it be a bed or a country, and Baekhyun always seemed to be the one left behind.

The first few times he’d watched.

Fourth and fifth, he’d squeezed his eyes closed, both hands grabbing tightly at the excuse that was post fatigue.

One would have thought that by the time a sixth and seventh occasion had rolled around he would have become numb to it, the knowledge of what had been coming ice on an otherwise angry wound.

Emotions didn’t bend to logic though, no.

Byun Baekhyun was just as vulnerable to the chill of an unused pillow, hands curling into nothing as memories tortured him with the way those lips burnt, searing their touches on to his skin with purpling bruises, and teeth that tore at the very edges of his self-restraint.

It was stupid of him really, to lie there in the deafening quiet, one side of the bed empty in the poisonous hope that even a ghost of the man that had left him would come back and occupy the space.

Sometimes the silence would be filled with the taste of heavy tears rolling across his lips, salt teasing at the edge of his tongue, caught between consolation and desolation.

The nights before Yixing leaving the country were the worst, the knowledge that he wouldn’t even be in the practice rooms the next morning enough to make those the moments where Baekhyun felt the loneliest.

It wasn’t that Baekhyun couldn’t appreciate the reason he was where he was, the reason he was who he was to Yixing, of course he could. The life of an idol was one of restraint, where there were words that you couldn’t say and spared touches.

All he was, all he existed as, beyond another member, was a repository for those touches, and those words. And maybe he would have been okay with that, maybe he could have found peace with who he was.

But Zhang Yixing’s words were too sweet, too warm, too close to the words he wanted whisper in return.

Maybe even then, maybe if those words hadn’t been whispered into his ear as his back arched, as every inch of rejected skin touched, he would have been okay.

All those maybes were too much for Baekhyun’s heart to hold and that was why those moments, those ones where he watched Yixing leaving, that was why they hurt.

If perhaps one of those maybes didn’t exist, he wouldn’t have cried as hard as he did, and his hands wouldn’t stretch out, after the door clicked shut, and curl as he chased a shadow of the man he wanted so desperately to touch him just once more.

Maybes were all that seemed to occupy his mind, ever since that first night, that first chasing of lips against lips and hands against flesh.

That first night had been a celebration, a reassurance in a whirlwind of joy and elation.

They didn’t have reason now, a fact that had been acknowledged around the ninth time that bodies had tumbled on to Baekhyun’s bed, a mess of limbs and half-discarded clothes.

Reasons had become an almost secondary objective, implicit in the way Yixing’s hands traced his legs, his lips trailed his neck, and sometimes they were only imparted after the deed had been done.

Some nights, even if Yixing didn’t offer up a whispered explanation for the way his hands pulled his hips up, Baekhyun would offer it up to the crushing silence, breaking through his own haze of want.

By now he’d lost a count of how many times he’d been the one to offer the excuse, how often it’d been him to console himself, but it was just as evident, as the sheets pooled around Yixing’s bare figure, that tonight would be no different.

Discordant silence was what met his ears tonight, broken only by the shuffle of underwear being pulled on and breathing that took the place of words of excuse.

Baekhyun didn’t know why he expected anything other than the swift exit of Yixing, with only the click of a door to mark the end of their stolen tryst.

Hiccoughed laughter filled the silence before the tears really had time to fall, as Baekhyun realised, he wasn’t entirely sure that he would ever ask for this to end.

To have Yixing hold him, to hear those words, no matter how empty they were, was a sensation, a feeling he wasn’t ready to give up.

AN//

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