This was torture.

When Baekhyun had agreed to live on the fifth floor in a building with no elevator, he must have been seriously brain damaged. They were only on floor three, and already it felt like dying. Maybe he had eaten one bowl of rice too many at his grandmother's house (and a dozen pizzas too many over the past couple of weeks). Tomorrow, he would start to eat sensibly he promised himself, not for the first time (and probably not the last).

Before they reached the fourth floor, his boyfriend smoothly took one of his shopping bags. Although he did feel bad that Sehun was holding three bags while he was only holding one, at this point it was a matter of survival.

As soon as they managed to reach their kitchen Baekhyun dropped his (one) bag to the floor and let himself fall down on the nearest chair. Meanwhile, his boyfriend started putting away the groceries, completely unfaced by the inhumane amount of stairs they had conquered. How unfair. Probably, it had something to do with amount spent in the gym vs. amount playing video games. Still, unfair.

“Do you need any help?” Eventually he asked (because he felt like he kind of had to).

“No it's fine.” Sehun chuckled, “there's barely room for two people moving around anyways.” While holding onto a big package of ramen (special offer), he smiled and added: “Rest hyung, you couldn't have slept more than three hours last night.”

Blushing, he hadn't realized his boyfriend noticed.

“It's all over now, you can relax,” Sehun disappeared behind the refrigerator door with some vegetables; and Baekhyun could feel how completely exhausted he was, probably he had stressed too much over this.

“Thanks for coming and meeting my grandma.”

“Of course,” A big handsome smile appeared. “I like her. She has character.”

That was one way to put it.

Originally, Baekhyun had never planned to tell his grandmother about his uality. There was no need to force an 86 year old woman to deal with that and for the longest time it hadn't been a problem. Then during one of his visits last month, it suddenly felt suffocating, not being able to talk freely about his life, so without planning to Baekhyun had blurted out:

“Grandma, I need to tell you something.” Soon followed with: “I have a boyfriend... and I live with him.”

“How long?” She had asked.

“A year... since we moved in with each other. Three since we started dating.”

“Hmm,” his grandmother continued stirring her stew, until she finally said. “I need to meet him.”

“Oh... O-Okay.” He had stuttered, too shocked to say anything else.

Then came a month of agony, obsessing over every way that this could horribly wrong. But now it was over and it had gone amazingly well. Beyond any expectations. So well he almost didn't believe it, so when Sehun had gone to the bathroom he asked.

“Is this okay? Are you okay with us?”

“Sehun seems like a good young man,” she had said, eventually adding: “I don't understand this man dating another man business. What I do understand is that when you look at him, you are happy.” She took his hand into his, and gently kissed his temple, making him feel like he was five years old again. “...and when you get to live to my age, you understand that life is to short to be unhappy.” And that was that, his grandmother had accepted his partner.

It was strange to think that the two most important people in his life had met, and yet somehow the world hadn't fallen apart. A lot of that had to do with how amazing Sehun was today. Of course Baekhyun already knew that his boyfriend was amazing, but today he had gone above and beyond what could be considered normal. Heck, Sehun was still even wearing that weird sweater his grandmother had knitted for him and almost forced on him as soon as he entered the door.

Normally Sehun was insanely picky about what he wore (not even his video game avatars were badly dressed). But here he stood, wearing a purple sweater that somewhat fit him over the shoulders, but was too short and too wide below. At least 20 of Sehun's waists could have fit in there. (Probably his grandmother had expected him to date someone short and fat, not tall and shaped like a male model). Like that wasn't bad enough, she seemed to have run out of yarn, or maybe she just picked up the wrong kind on accident (her eye sight wasn't what it used to be), because about two thirds of one sleeve were knitted with a completely different yarn compared to the rest of it. To top it off, his grandmother had also knitted Baekhyun an almost exact replica (though only from one kind of yarn), so they were running around town in two matching horrible sweaters, and Sehun hadn't muttered one word of complaint. Even though this kind of a sweater disaster must be torture for a fashion conscious man such as himself.

Feeling like he needed to thank him properly, Baekhyun stood up and moved closer.

“Sehun-ah,” his boyfriend looked up at him. “Seriously... thanks for today. You were awesome.” His boyfriend smiled, and Baekhyun's heart ached, in a good way. “I mean... you even wore the sweater. You really didn't have to, but thank you.”

“I like the sweater,” he said with a bright smile.

“You do?”

“Yeah, it's kind of stylish don't you think,” he held out his arms to show it off.

At first Baekhyun was too shocked to talk, but when he stopped looking at the sweater only, and started to look at Sehun in the sweater, he could kind of see where he was coming from. The odd shape of the sweater sonehow made it stand out how perfectly Sehun was built, and since it was short it really showed off his waistline (which was good for everyone on the planet). And actually the purple color suited him, it looked nice against the white of his skin, and the deep dark brown color of his hair.

As grateful Baekhyun was that Sehun liked the sweater and looked good in it, it was also a little bit crushing. Everything Sehun wore made him look like he just came off the runway, but here Baekhyun was, wearing exactly the same thing, and looked like a year old grape someone picked up from a dumpster.

“...and the yarn is so soft,” Sehun added happily, while his own chest.

There was no way Baekhyun could resist that. “Can I try?”

“Of course, hyung.” He generously offered.

But instead of patting him, Baekhyun threw himself into his embrace. At first Sehun chuckled, but then wrapped his arms around his waist, hugging him tightly. This was it. The happiest place on Earth. No contest. Sehun was so warm and smelled so nice, and he was the perfect height for Baekhyun to rest his head on his shoulder. Everything was so wonderful, and even though his body was still tired, his spirit felt completely refreshed.

“It is soft.” He joked, while reluctantly pulling away.

“You're soft.” A big crooked smile appeared, arms still firmly locked around his waist.

“Fine, point taken. I'll lay off the pizzas.” Baekhyun replied pouting.

“No.” The smile disappeared. “I mean, I like that you are soft. It feels good to hug you.” And then that irrisistible smile of his reappeared.

Ugh. How was it even allowed to be this cute. There should be a law against that.

“Hyung, how about we make popcorn and find something to binge watch?”

Baekhyun sighed. “Just when I've decided that it's impossible to love you more, you have to say a thing like that and ruin everything.”

“Mwuahah. It's my evil masterplan!” He said, and then laughed for real at his own joke.

But before Baekhyun could hit him on the arm for being the idiot that he was, he was being kissed, and it became a mute point to try to pretend that he wasn't completely and totally enamoured with this sweet perfect being. So he just gave up, and melted in his arms, so happy that even his toes were fluttering.

Later, when they were lying on the couch, Sehun with a bowl of popcorn in his lap, and Baekhyun cuddling up against his broad shoulder covered by dream inducing softness, he decided that he really needed to call his grandmother tomorrow and thank her for the wonderful, wonderful sweaters.