Genre: Humor / Fluff / Angst / (Eventual)

Warnings: OMG they were roommates / slice of life / slow burn / mutual pining / crude humor / cursing / !baek / idiots to lovers / unresolved

Characters: Baekhyun X You/Female Reader

Description: You teach Baekhyun how to date. (Basically the Get You Alone M/V)

Love was agony.

Sleep was an evasive bastard. When the power finally came back on you’d been shivering under your bed covers in complete silence for an hour— since you left his bed and his warmth. 

If the dark silent cold in your bedroom didn’t kill you, you would have certainly died from ual frustration. 

And what could you do? You felt much too guilty to be able to chase a solo release at the thought of him like that, in the state that he had been in; drunk as he was and well out of control of his own body; when he very clearly hadn’t wanted to be doing what he was doing — with that heat and desire you felt him push between your parted thighs, so heavily influenced by the cold temperature of his body and by the alcohol in his blood that lowered every single inhibition he’d had in him.

The guilt came from just how badly you wanted to go back in there and take full advantage of what he had seemed to offer with his body; while his words protested at the very thought of a drunken mistake with you.

It would have been a mistake. 

You rubbed your hands over your arms slowly; telling yourself again and again that you had done the right thing. 

Eventually, when the lights came back on and the gentle hum of electronics that came to life in your home turned back on and brought your hazy mind back to reality; a light switch also flickered on inside of your mind and you felt the spell of the storm and the weak neediness that had bewitched you so completely, snuffed out.

He hadn’t wanted it. Not really; not like that and maybe even, not with you. 

You felt ill. 

Your body felt flushed and your limbs ached.

Your stomach churned and the back of your throat was dry. 

The longer you laid awake in your bed the more your memory played tricks on you. 

You began to see things you weren't sure had been there. A flash of lucidity in his eyes as he looked into yours. The purposeful action of his lips as he kissed the tips of your wandering fingertips and you were sure, you were sure he looked into your face seeing exactly who you were as he directed those kisses at you; they were for you. 

You shook your head. This was a dangerous train of thought. 

Perhaps a shower would help get rid of the flash-burned image of him down on his knees before your body with a look of definite longing in his eyes and a pulsing heaving in his chest as he feasted on the unobstructed view of all of you bare before him. 

You wanted to cry. If not from confusion then from pure frustration. 

You didn’t know what he wanted. It was making you crazy. Not the wacky & harmless, granola-eating kind of crazy, but the dangerous kind of crazy that made you want to run out of this shower right now with shampoo bubbles still in your hair; skin bare, wet, and dripping all over the wooden floors to demand answers from the man to questions you would never in a million years have the courage to ask him. 

Questions like: 

Did he want you as badly as you wanted him? 

Did his chest also ache whenever he watched you silently from across the room?

Did he also want to spend the rest of his life making you laugh? 

Did he love you? Did he love you? Did he love you and was it worth ruining everything for? 

You weren't scared of the love. You’d been living with it for long enough to know you could handle it well enough. You could take it. You could push it down and withstand denying your own selfish pleasures if it meant you could stay by his side and support him in anything he wanted to do with his life. 

You were scared of losing him. Losing this life you had with him, this amazing friendship and companionship you’d nurtured and enjoyed. You were scared of not being able to pay him back for all of the help he’d given you. 

Yes, you relied on him for a lot. For too much. You’d kept detailed records of everything he’d ever paid for, for every single month of missed rent you owed him and even for the difference in what you’d originally agreed to pay to live here minus to what you’d finally bullied him into accepting when you finally found another job. 

You felt a deep rooted apprehension inside of you. Something was changing and it was terrifying. You did not understand it and you could not just stand by and continue to live your life as you had been, taking so much from him and never giving back anything. 

Maybe this was part of the reason you’d been so proactive about helping him with his anxiety about women. Maybe this was how you could pay him back. Whether or not things worked out with Mia, you were struck with the undeniable knowledge that you simply could not allow yourself to rely on this beautiful human being; to use him so willfully without any sort of regard for what was right and proper. Maybe what you both needed was something to even things out between you both. Maybe you could continue being his best friend and confidant and #1 supporter if you at least knew that if something did happen to develop between the two of you and things didn't end up working out you wouldn't be completely destitute and out on the street alone.

You’d been trying; since you started feeling the guilt about his generosity, you’d been saving as much as you could and as you checked your accounts you found that you actually had a pretty decent sized savings now. Much more actually than you even realized you’d have. Much more. You might even be able to settle your debts to him.

You couldn't help yourself, in the wee hours of the morning when you’d usually be stumbling half asleep into his bedroom to watch him — well you couldn't do that now, you absolutely could not face him yet — instead you browsed through various apartments and rentals in the area. Small units mostly. Nothing as wonderful as this place, but a single studio in a dorm style tower a few blocks away was surprisingly affordable. Sure you’d have to share a kitchen with other flat mates but honestly it didn't sound like the worst place to live and it was still close enough to his place that you could come over and see him any time you felt like. 

Maybe if you kept things cordial with him after...after — maybe you could come over and wash your laundry on the weekends. 

You printed the brochure for the building, feeling an odd peace wash over you at whatever might happen between you and Baekhyun now that you had a solid plan for the worst case scenario. It felt a little bit like taking out an insurance policy. You hoped nothing terrible would happen, but you wouldn't be caught unprepared if it did.

You would survive at least; whatever happened. 

Whatever he wanted to do, or didn't want to do...whatever he felt in his heart when he looked at you and whatever emotions might be behind the confusing and heart fluttering moments that filled your most recent memories with him...anything could happen, right? 

Maybe.

Maybe he felt the same as you did.

When you finally emerged from your room you heard the sounds of life in the kitchen. Baekhyun was up. Baekhyun was chopping vegetables and the steady clack clack clack on the wooden cutting board did not slow or stagger as you made your way into the kitchen. 

“Morning, Peanut,” you called out as casually as you could manage and his eyes remained down on the several hundred tiny cubes of carrots he was working on. He had piles of them, not just orange in color but you saw white and green cubes, all identical size and shapes piled up on a tray next to his cutting board. It was an early morning frenzy.

“Morning, Bug,” he said softly amid the loud chopping sounds that nearly drowned his voice out entirely.  

“What are you making?” Your feet did not slow as you walked past him and you tried your absolute best to keep from looking too closely at the lovely curve of his spine that flowed into his long neck with his strong shoulders and arms with the obvious muscles that flexed with each noisy hit of the blade against the wood. The vegetables never stood a chance.

“Nobody’s favorite fried rice,” he said with a quick pause in chops to look at your face for a second. As quickly as he looked at you his eyes dropped back down to his work and he did not look at you again as you made your way to grab your brochure from the printer at the far end of the kitchen. 

You quickly folded your sheet and stuck it in your pocket before he had a mind to notice and inquire about what you had printed. The last thing you wanted to do was explain your exit plan should the dramatic, whirlwind romance you’d planned for later turn sour and he kicked you out on the street with your suitcase full of overcoats in one hand and your Deluxe Toastmaster Supreme in the other. 

You pulled open the fridge and removed the bottles of sauces he always used for fried rice, placing them on the countertop beside the stove, you then grabbed two eggs to fry for the top. 

He would be done with his mountains of vegetables soon and maybe then he would look at you. Maybe he would soften out this odd roughness and smile at you like he usually did in the mornings. Maybe he would brush his warmth against where you stood and bump your elbow to his elbow as he cooked.

He didn’t though. When he was finished with the chopping he turned to the stove to begin frying everything up and even when you handed him the bowls to serve the rice he looked at you so sparingly and only when absolutely necessary for the purpose of handing you a bowl and not dropping it right on the floor at your feet. 

You were staring at him. 

He was avoiding you and you were beginning to feel a sting from it inside your chest. 

He was seated across from you at the table and you’d watched him shovel bite after bite of rice into his mouth without looking up at you once since he’d started eating. He was eating fast. You’d expected some sort of choking sounds to happen, with as quickly as he shoveled and when the first scrapes of the metal spoon against the ceramic bowl sounded out you watched him struggle with barely held together lips and his cheeks stuffed absolutely full of food. He winced when he swallowed it all down. 

He would get a stomachache from this. He would feel awful later for sure. 

You’d eaten a few bites in the time it took him to finish and you began to bargain and beg with the heavens that he had just been ravenously hungry this morning and his scary silence had nothing to do with extreme regrets about what had nearly happened between you and him in his bed last night. 

What he didn't want to happen; not drunk and not with you. 

The sick hope you’d fooled yourself into encouraging all morning long was beginning to ache in your belly. You had to stop eating. You put your spoon down and drank water, hoping for the ache to just be some stuck food that needed some help going down. 

“I’m sorry,” his voice broke through your swallowing and you looked up to find his face lifted up from the table at last and a glimpse of his brown eyes touched yours briefly before he closed them and inhaled a deep breath, “for how I acted last night...”

His eyes were down on the table again and his lips were still parted as if he had more to say. His mood had been so quiet and strange you didn't dare interject despite the screaming that was happening inside your head. You couldn’t make yourself speak. You could only shake your head back and forth. An impotent and useless no, no, no yelling out again and again inside your mind. 

“I’m sorry and I promise I won’t ever do that again. I don't want you to misunderstand or feel uncomfortable in your own home because I acted like that.”

The yelling inside your head stopped. You were still staring at his face but your focus had drifted the longer you looked at him and listened to the words he was telling you; his apology that came out swiftly once he’d gotten started. 

He…

He didn’t want that...with you. Your silly heart had run away with your mind.

You were right to stop it last night when you did. You were right to stop him from making a mistake that he would regret forever.

You lifted your water glass to drink and the liquid went down in a painful ball. You should have eaten your fill of breakfast when he was shoveling his down. If you had known this was coming…

The three bites would have to do. 

You felt ill.

Baekhyun was looking at you; no he was staring at you and as desperate as you’d been for his attention all morning you couldn't help but scorn your own foolish desire for this attention now that you sat under the scrutiny of his watchful gaze. 

Would he know? Would he see how closely you had come to ruining the friendship you both relied so heavily on?

“Baekhyun,” your voice sounded weak despite the incredible effort it took to speak right now, “you don't have to apologize. You didn’t do anything to be sorry for.” 

He didn’t want...you. Not like that, it seemed.

The rejection burned. Your throat felt obstructed and you tried to swallow down the awkward lump. The realizations were coming back to you. The memory of your fresh-as-spring crush on him that hit you so easily when you first got to know him. The knowledge that nothing could come of it. The struggles you fought to push it down; to bury it deep so it would never see the light of day. And now, what? Look at what you had let happen. You felt so stupid. 

“You know I would never do anything to hurt you, right?” His eyes were still on you but you had to look down. There was so much warmth in them as he looked at you, you could hardly stand to feel that incredible warmth that did absolutely nothing to help the lump in your throat go down.

Your silence stretched and you closed your eyes well into it. Your chest ached and your fingertips rubbed along the metal handle of your abandoned spoon. 

You felt him then. The back of your hand was covered, coated by him and the heat of his soft skin made your eyes open and you looked down to see what you felt happening. 

“LoveBug?” His slim fingertips moved over your hand, wrapping around your palm, encasing your hand with a firm purposeful grasp and you looked up into his face.

His eyes held many things. Concern, worry, and enough affection to warrant such deep emotions. The worry marred his pretty features and turned his smile down into a fierce pout. You saw a furrow in his brows and a tremble in his bottom lip. His eyes looked glassy and you felt an urge to combat this expression he had grown on his face because of you.  

You pushed again. Pushed it down, pushed it far away, grabbed every bit of disappointment and sadness, anguish and misery that had crested up inside of you and you shoved with all of your might. 

For all of your efforts you managed a meager movement in your face. 

A smile. It was a small smile, but you pushed it up to your eyes. You felt the tremble in your lips as you did it. 

You would survive this. You could handle this much to spare him the pain of believing that he had caused you any harm. 

You turned your hand over, pushing your own fingertips up and around his to grip his hand tightly and you pushed your smile to convincing widths. 

“You forgive me?” His question was punctuated with the smallest melancholy grin on his face and a half blink of his eyes. 

You nodded your head and reached for your spoon with your free hand to force down some more bites of your breakfast. “Of course...and always, Peanut,” you said between big bites, “there is nothing be forgiven for. But if it makes you feel better for me to say it, then, yes.”

You’d expected a relieved sigh. The crumbling of the tension that sat in his shoulders as he dropped his chin and let out a deep breath that he had been holding. You expected the brightness of his eyes and wide gorgeous smile to fill his pretty face. 

Baekhyun sat across from the table and the tightness with which he held your hand did not lessen any bit. His lips had flattened and his eyebrows evened out; the disarming pout was long gone and his eyes stared into your eyes. The relief you’d been waiting for never manifested on his face.

You could not hold your cheerful smile forever. Surely that delicate bubble would settle any second now and pop. Still you worked through it, chewing your food and swallowing without tasting. Still you faked a happy face long enough for his thoughtful, careful observation of your face to pass and long enough for Baekhyun’s phone to buzz in his pocket. 

“Hey, what’s your day like today?”

You’d been pounding a fist discretely over your chest, willing your breakfast to settle when he spoke up with his phone in his hand. 

You shrugged lightly, “just work,” you said. It was the end of a work w