The dorm is mostly quiet nowadays.

Baekhyun usually wakes up to the sound of Chanyeol and Sehun bickering over who gets the bigger piece of whatever breakfast Kyungsoo had cooked, or the sound of their manager begging Jongin to please, for the love of God wake up—sometimes it’s Junmyeon that does the begging. Point is, Baekhyun usually wakes up to the dorm already bustling with the life and energy of his bandmates.

Not nowadays, though. He supposes it’s only normal, the hype of their joined schedules have died down—six years is considered a long, long time for an idol group to still be active. He’s grateful for that, of course, but he doesn’t want to push his luck by hoping for another six years. For now, Baekhyun is content, and as long as his fans and his bandmates are happy, he’s happy too.

Sehun occasionally pokes his head in between Baekhyun’s bedroom door at the oddest hours possible—sometimes it’s 10 a.m, and other times at 3 a.m—eyes already glinting with mischief before he even says anything, only to ask, “Hyung, do you want to go and grab dinner with me?” Baekhyun would then roll his eyes, and ask Sehun to bring him food home instead.

It’s not that Baekhyun hates going out, it’s just that he thinks he’s too old to run away from the sasaengs that even after six years, stillfollows him everywhere he ing goes. Even he’s tired of himself, why aren’t these ers tired yet?

Baekhyun prefers the safety his bedroom provides, and the Supreme hoodie that one of his fansites had gifted him for his twenty-fourth birthday is enough to keep him warm and feel loved. Then there’s his PC and all of his beloved gaming equipment stacked at the one corner of his room. Baekhyun thinks he’s set for living inside his bedroom for the rest of his life when he remembers the monstrosity of his gaming collection. He can even make a living out of it, seeing how his precious fans still stream his live gameplays despite his other members having way more cooler gigs.

Everyone is busy. Junmyeon lives mostly in his apartment now, busy with shooting his latest dramas and rehearsing for his musical stages. Kyungsoo barely ever steps his foot into their dorm anymore due to his jam-packed schedule with all the movies and dramas he’s starring in. Baekhyun remembers meeting Kyungsoo for the first time about eight—or seven?—years ago, eyes wide and hair probably way too long for his own liking now, voice a little shaky as he sang some acoustic English song that Baekhyun can’t pronounce the title of. Chanyeol had been the one playing the guitar with a goofy smile behind the round-eyed boy. Baekhyun remembers thinking how scary Kyungsoo had looked even when he’s singing an upbeat song, and never in a million years then he’d thought that that Kyungsoo would star in seven ing movies and counting after debuting. Kyungsoo is an amazing actor, though, Baekhyun admits, and seeing Kyungsoo’s face on TV makes him want to burst into proud, sappy tears just because. He lies to Kyungsoo about never watching his dramas, though, when in reality he cried himself to sleep when Kyungsoo’s character in his newest historical drama had to break up with his love interest.

Baekhyun had to message Minseok on Kakaotalk to bring him tissues over to his room because Minseok is the only he trusts in this house.

Jongdae has been running around and busting his for his solo album, quite literally running from one music station to another, while Jongin disappears for a few days on end to shoot high-end pictorials in the furthest countries Baekhyun would never even go to. Baekhyun keeps tabs on the tanned boy through his Instagram posts. He’s a little jealous of Jongin’s ongoing aesthetic, but he knows he’d never be able to pull off arranging his Instagram feed because he’s an impatient man.

Minseok sometimes sends the group chat pictures of his newly bought furniture that Sehun never fails to make fun of, never really ever leaving his new apartment, and no one loves to lock themselves in the recording studio more than Chanyeol does.  Sometimes, Baekhyun would hear Chanyeol singing at four a.m to some western song he doesn’t know of, but he doesn’t mind. Chanyeol’s voice is extremely soothing.

Sehun shoots a few dramas, too, and travels the world like Jongin for pictorials, too. Baekhyun would know because he’s the first person Sehun tells before he leaves for anywhere. Sehun, for some reason, trusts Baekhyun enough to leave Vivi in Baekhyun’s care—and yet even after 86 playdates, Mongryong and Vivi is still a little awkward. The maknae also stars in a couple of variety shows and it has been absolute hits. Baekhyun has a few of his favourite episodes downloaded on his phone, but Sehun doesn’t have to know that.

Yixing, even when he’s all the way in China, still manages to be the silly hyung that Baekhyun adores. He makes a habit of calling Baekhyun at the oddest times (just like Sehun) of the day. He would call to ask random questions like, “Baekkie, have you eaten yet?” or tell him random facts like, “I saw a puppy today that reminded me of Chanyeol. Speaking of Yeollie, can you hand the phone to him?” in which Baekhyun would tell him to call Chanyeol’s number instead if he wanted to call him so bad, but complies anyway. He’d end up being phoneless for a few hours sometimes—it’s a good thing he has Mongryong to keep him company. Baekhyun misses Yixing.

Spending his days playing games and driving aimlessly at night has become Baekhyun’s routine for now, because he doesn’t know when’s the next time he’ll ever get alone time like this. Every time their full-group comeback rolls around, Baekhyun has to spend every breathing moment with the rest of his bandmates, be it in cars or in the freaking bathroom, jumping around doing the stupidest things to make everyone laugh during their promotions. It’s partly why Baekhyun finds so much peace in his quiet routine. His body is also spent after his back-to-back group promotions with CBX and then EXO while juggling to keep tabs on his new line, Privé, so there’s that. It never fails to amaze him that Jongdae is able to pull through with promoting a solo album after all that.

So it’s not like Baekhyun hates working with his bandmates or anything. He loves his bandmates and his job very, very much.

“Hyung,” Sehun’s voice is just as nasally and just as endearing it had been when they first met, effectively snapping Baekhyun back into reality after his daydreaming session, “do you want to get dinner with Junmyeon hyung and me?”

“You need to learn how to knock, Sehun-ah,” Baekhyun forces himself to sit up, blindly grabbing for his glasses perched on his nightstand. Sehun giggles. “Oops.”

“Where are we going?” the older man asks, pushing his glasses up his nose with his middle finger, slightly glaring at the still giggling maknae.

“Wherever you choose,”

It takes Baekhyun approximately three minutes to get ready—he stopped caring about dressing up when he’d hit the four year debut mark, and he’d be lying if he says he misses trying to match his black shirts with the proper shade of black jeans. As long as it’s comfortable, it does the job. Sehun still cares, though, so he has to wait for Sehun in the living room with Junmyeon for ten minutes. Junmyeon immediately greets him with a bone-crushing hug the moment he sees Baekhyun, because they haven’t met each other for a few weeks—if Baekhyun recalls correctly, Junmyeon had been to... Australia? For holiday, or something. Junmyeon cuddles Baekhyun as both of them play with their own phones, the younger melting into the touch of his (arguably) favourite hyung, waiting patiently for Sehun to finish dressing up. When the maknae steps out in a white blouse and track pants, Baekhyun swears at him.

“You little er,” Baekhyun says without a real bite to it, getting up from the couch, “you wear that shirt every day. Why did it have to take you ten minutes to come up with this look?”

Sehun just giggles. It’s his favourite way of answering to his hyungs’ wraths, and Baekhyun partly blames Junmyeon for babying the maknae so much to the point he’s comfortable of doing anything he wants to do. Maybe he has to blame everyone else and maybe a little bit of himself too, but Baekhyun doesn’t want to admit that Sehun’s got the whole EXO whipped for his skinny . Junmyeon pats Sehun’s cheek affectionately in return to his giggles. It had been an attempt to lightly slap the youngest EXO member, but Sehun leans into the touch anyway.

Junmyeon offers to be the driver of their short trip to the restaurant (partly because Sehun doesn’t want to drive his baby to a mere restaurant and Baekhyun is just too lazy) of Sehun’s choice, even when Sehun clearly said Baekhyun gets to pick. Baekhyun sits on the backseat of Junmyeon’s car while he listens to the maknae talk animatedly about this new chef he’s met through Super Junior’s Donghae from the front seat. Junmyeon smiles and nods in response to Sehun’s excited babble, and Baekhyun makes occasional comments here and there on Sehun’s story. Baekhyun realizes then that Sehun makes friends like Baekhyun plays games—often and as much as he can. He’s a little proud to see the shy boy he met eight years ago grow into the social butterfly he is now, but he supposes Junmyeon feels prouder because he’s known Sehun for even longer than Baekhyun does.

They arrive at the restaurant a little over 10 p.m. Baekhyun remembers a few seconds too late that Junmyeon is horrible at parking, only after they’ve driven through the valet parking section. Although he grumbles when Sehun tells him to switch seats with Junmyeon, Baekhyun gets into the driver’s seat and parks the car anyway.

Of course, Sehun picks the most expensive looking restaurant on the top floor of a prestigious hotel when all of them are dressed to eat Korean Barbeque at best. They get seated at the most VIP section the restaurant has, somewhere in a private room overlooking the Seoul cityscape. Baekhyun orders a one-hundred-dollar steak and Sehun asks for something that’s not even on the menu. Junmyeon pays for all of their meals, even the cucumber soup that Sehun had ordered just to spite Baekhyun, and to his surprise, Sehun treats them to the most expensive bottle of wine the restaurant keeps. Baekhyun swears he sees Junmyeon tear up a little when Sehun announces proudly, “I’m buying, hyungs!”

As if Sehun deserves to be awarded for offering to pay, when he’s the one that wanted to order the wine and took them out to dinner in a place he wanted to eat in. Baekhyun just grins. His heart fills up with warmth looking at Junmyeon staring at Sehun with hearts in his eyes, Sehun rolling his eyes at the leader’s lovestruck gaze but blushing anyway. Sometimes it makes him laugh when he sees bogus articles of how EXO members aren’t actually close to each other, because are people ing blind? Do they not see how Junmyeon looks at Sehun like Sehun singlehandedly saved world hunger, or how Kyungsoo is the first to punch Chanyeol when he makes a stupid joke but cooks him food anyway when he says he’s hungry?

Speaking of Chanyeol, Baekhyun finds his phone suddenly flooded with notifications from the EXO group chat that’s been dead for a few weeks now. Chanyeol is the perpetrator—obviously, who else would it be?—and Baekhyun almost doesn’t catch what he’s trying to say over the string of ㅋㅋㅋㅋs and ㅠㅠㅠㅠs.

“I didn’t realize it’s twelve already,” Junmyeon says softly, looking up from his phone, eyes meeting Baekhyun’s halfway.

“Me too,” Baekhyun replies with a crooked smile.

“Why? Why? Is there anything wrong? Whose birthday is it—is it—” Sehun shuts up when Baekhyun points to his phone, quickly picking up the iPhone laid on top of the clothed table haphazardly, not wanting to miss out on anything the hyungs are talking about. A split of a second later, Baekhyun’s phone gets flooded with a bunch of new notifications. Sehun had sent the group chat thirty-eight new stickers with a bunch