Mia.

Mia, Mia, Mia. 

Oh she was lovely. You’d been chatting with her on Baekhyun’s phone for the better part of an hour and for a moment you forgot all about the man who now laid with his head on the other end of the sofa with his feet stretched over your lap and a phone held up to his face.

He was scrolling through something, giggling and typing. 

The phone you had down in your lap vibrated with another incoming message. 

Laughing emojis, a row of them. She was sharp. Wit and charm came through in her messages and you found yourself responding with an equally long string of laughing faces. The ones with tears leaking out their eyes. She felt so damn familiar and comfortable the moment you got past the awkward introductions and you really started talking to her; the jokes were easy and the topics were something you knew enough about to fake your way though thanks to Baekhyun’s many passions and his absolute inability to shut up about them. He’d held you hostage with so many video games and anime episodes, you knew exactly what she was talking about now. You felt like a complete pseudo pro. A well-read scammer. A faker but a weirdly genuine one. 

You went back to her profile and dragged each of her pictures across the screen with the tip of your finger, switching between them all. She was pretty. She was smart. She was interesting to talk to. She was perfect. Just perfect. A steady warmth had seeped into your chest as you looked at her. It was welcome and actually felt nice at first; if not a little bit unexpected. But the longer you looked at her smile, the more intrusive that warmth felt. After too long, it was sticky and almost too warm. You struggled to breathe deeply. You were breathing normally, there was absolute nothing off about your breathing, but each breath you took suddenly failed to satiate. Why were your lungs suddenly missing oxygen? They were misbehaving without any reason to. You closed out her pictures and returned to the chat window. 

She was asking about the latest episode of an anime. Something that was in its final season. Something you were sure Baekhyun would also be watching soon if he hadn’t seen it already. You could feel her excitement in her words. Something epic must have happened.

“Baek did you watch Attack on Colossatron last night — the latest episode?”

“Not yet—no spoilers, I’ll kill you.” His response was quick and you responded in a similar fashion in text to Mia; without the death threats. You weren’t quite that comfortable with her yet. 

Baekhyun shifted and moved a foot behind you, digging it under your into the gap of the couch cushion. You ignored the intrusion because you were talking to Mia. His soon to be brand new girlfriend by the looks of the conversation. You caught what you were certain was subtle flirting just below the contexts. Then outright flirting. She was sending you a picture from the dating profile you’d set up for Baekhyun. She had to have saved the picture to send it. It would now be saved on the camera roll of her phone where she would likely look at it again and again, admiring how good Baekhyun looked in it. 

She was commenting on how unexpectedly handsome you were and how most of the men who shared interests with her did not look like you. 

She was asking for a picture of you—err, of Baekhyun. She was having trouble believing such an attractive man like you was real and she actually used the word catfishing, careful to insist that she wasn't accusing you of anything; just that she was sure you looked just like some celebrity she saw on twitter and one couldn’t be too careful. 

But you were quick to cooperate and to agree with her need for assuredness. As a woman, yourself, you understood her suspicions instantly.  Yes, Baekhyun did look shockingly attractive in the profile pictures you posted of him. You could see how someone might doubt that he was real and he lived only 5 miles away and was now sweeping her off her feet with his engaging conversations and hilarious jokes. You’d be sure and make him thank you well for this later. 

The pictures of him were surprising, even to you, and you lived with the guy. You saw him every single day. Yet something about seeing him in these pictures, dressed in that black button up shirt and jeans and looking at the camera with a breathtaking natural smile; one he gave you so easily that night when you told him just how good he looked all dressed up. 

“Peanut, look at you! You look so fancy.” 

“Wow, I cant believe how handsome you are.” 

It only took a couple of sincere compliments for the man to unfold before you and the results on camera pulled you into an uncomfortable and unwelcome thoughtfulness when you looked at them alone later. Of course you knew he was handsome. You just hadn’t been prepared for how very attractive he would look on camera. 

You got all his best angles and the man had taken you off guard when you’d bravely asked him to give you a y look. 

It happened just at the end of your little makeshift photo-shoot. You were both a little tired, you could tell with the way he slowed down with his talking and his movements. You could always tell when Baekhyun was tired. Sometimes before even he knew it. 

The sun had gone down and you’d pulled him from your room into the living room where the lights from the city shone through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, creating a soft glow on his face. The moon was full outside. It was a chilly winter night and snowflakes drifted down to the street below. You were feeling perhaps a bit romantic. Perhaps you were a little bit grateful to be inside and warm and spending your time capturing the pretty face of your annoying best friend. 

You’d gotten a bit bold with the pictures and he’d been behaving so well, not even complaining when you asked him to lay down on the floor so you could capture the beautiful city-scape in the background of the shot. He’d gone still while you set up; moving furniture and turning on a lamp in the corner for more lighting on his features — you wondered briefly if maybe he had fallen asleep. 

You laid down beside him holding your camera up in the right spot to get something nice. His eyes had closed up and his breathing was even and slow and when you’d softly called his name with your camera acting as a barrier in between your faces, you’d expected it to act as more of a buffer than it did. 

“Baekhyun?”

When he heard you call him, his eyes opened and he turned his head toward the sound of your voice; the shift in his eyes was stark and breathtaking and he blinked them closed and then very slowly he opened his eyes again for you. 

“Hmm?” His lips stayed closed when he hummed a response.

What exactly were you going for here? The mood was set. The lighting and the scenery were in place. Hell, even the position of him was set —him laying beside you on the floor in the middle of the night like this when everyone knew it was much too late to be entertaining any of this nonsense. The longer you looked at him the more shades of pink you saw in his cheeks. The pinkness matched his lips and the lighting made every bit of warm flush on his face tell such a romantic story. He looked so very warm and inviting. 

You took a shot and you said it. If the picture came out well, that would be rewarding enough. 

But, you didn't actually expect a real y look. Not really. You’d expected something silly, or something goofy or something with an awkward smile. Maybe it was the nighttime, or the way he ed the top two buttons of his shirt and just let it hang open with the clear smoothness of his chest visible, but when he pulled his chin down and ran a hand through his styled hair, bringing it down just a little bit; giving it a messy and tousled look, you had to grip the camera tighter to keep from doing something dumb like accidentally dropping it. You could not understand the flash of nervousness you felt run through you. 

He lifted a single eyebrow. You had called him and it was clear from the inactivity in the camera that you weren’t taking any pictures of him. 

“Hmm?” He repeated the hum that came from the back of his throat. His eyebrow danced and it was the only movement on his face.

You inhaled a breath and you did it.

“You look incredibly y right now.” 

Despite the camera, despite the props you’d placed around him just so, his eyes seemed to seek out yours with purpose; one hand on the floor was within touching distance and the other hand rested over his forehead from when he’d ran it through his hair, the tips of his fingers landed over one of his eyes and it was so perfect. You felt goosebumps all over your skin.  

The moment his eyes locked into yours you gripped the camera as if your life depended on it. When his lips slowly parted with a gentle exhale and the tip of his tongue appeared between his parted lips and slowly touched against the corner of his bottom lip a surge of heat rose up the back of your throat. 

“I do?” He said with his eyes on yours as if he was looking directly at you; as if the camera did not even exist. 

You hit the button and you heard the shutter click. 

You allowed yourself a moment to look at the picture Mia had sent you. Only a moment though because she was talking again. She was instructing you to send a new picture right now, with your left hand holding your right earlobe. It was the kind of specific sort of picture that would prove that you really did exist. 

“Peanut,” you reached down and tapped his leg three times quickly, “Peanut, our new girlfriend wants a picture of you right now with your,” you held up your hands in front of your face, figuring out which was the left one, “left hand holding your right earlobe.” You held up your left hand for him to see and he pulled the phone down from his face to look at you. After a second his opposite hand was raised and he gripped his earlobe with his fingertips. 

“Is that your left hand?” You raised your left hand higher and lifted your eyebrows as you shook your head once. You felt a sense of urgency in getting this picture to Mia as fast as possible to calm her doubts. 

“It’s my left. My left is your right, stupid. Why do I have to do this?” 

You snapped the picture close enough that it would look like a selfie and sent the image to Mia. She was satisfied enough to send an emoji with heart eyes and you could feel victory at your fingertips. You could hardly believe this was working. 

“She thought you weren’t real.” You said in between messages and Baekhyun’s leg was shaking behind your back. He’d been sitting still for too long here and the nervous energy was building, you could feel it trying to escape from his limbs. He probably needed to go for a run or something or you were in for a long and noisy night of singing or dancing or whatever other shenanigans he thought you needed to suffer though. He hummed a non-response to your answer, clearly so distracted by what was happening on his screen that he couldn’t be bothered to give you any more of his attention right now. 

Baekhyun was not so quietly giggling under his breath and you looked up caught by that very particular sound of it. Something felt familiar in the sound of that giggle; more, the intentions behind it. The particular sneakiness of it maybe made you look up and it took you another second of listening to the way he stifled himself, tried to control the sounds of his laughter before a realization dawned and recognition struck you on the head. 

Baekhyun couldn’t have been giggling, laughing, texting, having a grand ol’ time on his phone because you had his phone in your hands. You had been talking to Mia for a whole damn hour, who in the hell was Baekhyun talking to and was that your phone he was using? 

“Baekhyun who are you talking to on my phone?”

His stomach bounced with stifled laugher below his shirt and he was typing again. His eyes secured on the screen of your phone and not at all looking at you. 

“Baek, who is that. What are you doing?” It wasn’t that you didn't trust him with your private conversations. He knew more about you than probably any other human being on the planet. It wasn't the problem with him knowing it. The problem was with that laughter. The problem was with what Byun Baekhyun might do with all of the things he knew about you and with whoever the hell had the misfortune of texting you at the exact moment when he had your phone.

“Ben,” Baekhyun said after a long pause and you searched through your recent memory for a person who had that name. You’d matched with some guys last week but you were certain there was no one with that name. 

“Ben? Who the hell is Ben? I don't know a Ben” You were leaning now and Baekhyun bent his legs up as soon as you moved, blocking your lean with his knobby knees. You leaned on the other side of them and he moved them to block again. 

The maneuver brought out the panic in you. He was blocking you from your own phone. He was up to something and he was now blocking you from reaching for your phone and you had just nearly murdered him in the kitchen over cheese, did he really want to do this again? 

“Give me my phone. Baek, who the is Ben?”

“I don't know. Some guy named Ben. Said he was some lady’s nephew or cousin or something. He knew your number and he knew your name, and wow he is—”

Oh god. Your co-worker Susie had done it. The son-of-a- had actually given your phone number out this time even though you had successfully, you’d thought, dodged their high pressure tactics to set you up with some eligible bachelor who would probably be 10 years too old for you, balding, with bad teeth, or bad habits, or would be obsessed with his car or his muscles or some sports team and you’d have to make nice small talk with someone who’s interests, frankly, bored you to death until you could politely let the man down. 

And now, what was Baekhyun telling him? What kinds of horrific lies was this little gremlin giggling about over there. You tilted and reached for him again and he moved his knees again. 

“Bug, how- how do you spell hemorrhoids? Hem—hem—er—roids, no that’s not right. Let me look it up. It’s important that I represent you well. A strong, intelligent woman who can talk about her hemorrhoids.” 

You leaped then, over the stupid knees you flew and you landed hard — seated across his belly and the pained grunt he let out was satisfying to hear. He doubled up in pain while simultaneously shoving your phone underneath himself into the softness of the couch cushions and you watched it disappear somewhere below his where he assumed you would not dare to reach. 

“Baekhyun,” you said in as calm a voice as you could pry from your lips. Your teeth gritted together as you spoke and much of the sweetness was lost in the delivery.

Your hands were feeling the softness of the cushions that he laid on. You followed an arm that went down and disappeared behind his back and your fingers traveled to the end where you felt no phone at all, only his empty hand that you pulled up. You did the same on the other side, moving to the other hand and bringing it back empty too. On his face he wore a smug, self-satisfied smile. 

“Peanut,” your next attempt at a compromise pulled his name out in a sweeter tone and his lips turned up into a mischievous grin with teeth bared and all. To your own ears though, you really laid it on thick. This was your darling Peanut. You let your whine come through and you pulled your lips into a pouty frown.

“Bug,” he said, mimicking your overly saccharine tone with a tiny lift of an eyebrow on his face and a fake frown that didn’t touch the rabid joy in his eyes.

“Give me back my phone,” you said and your hands dug into his ribs hard as he reached for your wrists and quickly grabbed to hold you still with both of his free hands before you could do any actual damage to him. 

You struggled against his strong hands, reaching with out-stretched fingers despite his hold on you for a few more tickles before he tightened the grip and you could not connect any more attacks. 

“Give me back my phone,” he