Chanyeol POV

The next time I saw Baekhyun, he was in the exact same position, crouched behind my bushes. But this time, I was ready for him and I stood in front of my door, waiting for him to pounce.

“SURPRISE!!!!!!!” Baekhyun screamed as he jumped from the bushes.

I merely yawned and proceeded to open the door.

“Yah! Show some respect to your hyung! I’ve been behind your bushes for almost half an hour now!” Baekhyun frowned.

“It’s not my fault you wanted to scare the living daylights out of me! But thankfully, your dongsaeng is smarter than you’ll ever be.” I smirked.

“Well, if you’re going to be like this, then maybe I don’t want you to come over today.” Baekhyun said with a huff.

My eyes widened, I couldn’t let this opportunity to see Kris just slip by!

“Ah hyung, mianhae! I’m just kidding! Please let me come, pleaseeee!” I said with wide puppy-dog eyes.

“Hmm, I’m not sure I’m convinced…” Baekhyun said whilst crossing his arms, “If you reaaaaally want to come, you should tell me 5 reasons why your hyung is better than you.”

I rolled my eyes; typical, arrogant Baekhyun.

“Did I just see a rolling of the eyes?!” Baekhyun glared.

“Anni! I was uh..just thinking about the maaaaany reasons why hyung is waaay better than me!” I stuttered.

“That’s better, now do carry on.”

“Well, number one, hyung is much more handsome than me.”

“Very true.”

“And hyung is an amazing boyfriend.”

“Check.”

“Hyung also looks so hot with eyeliner on.”

Baekhyun nodded enthusiastically, “I know, I know.”

“…Do I have to keep going?” I groaned. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

“How dare you! Is that all you have to say about your hyung?!?”

“Aissh, okay fine, hyung is a big, fat babe okay? Now can we please go to Tao’s house?!”

“Hey! Who you calling fat?!” Baekhyun said with a scowl.

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It took us almost an hour to leave the house, what with Baekhyun constantly raiding my fridge and me trying to decide on the perfect outfit to casually bump into Kris with.

“You don’t think these red jeans are too much right?” I whispered to Baekhyun as we were riding up on the elevator.

Baekhyun gave me the one-over and wolf-whistled.

“Relax Yeollie, Kris isn’t going to know what hit him!” Baekhyun said with a wink.

“Thanks hyung, you can be nice sometimes..”

Baekhyun feigned shock, “Excuse me?! Sometimes?!”

Thankfully the doors opened at that point and I quickly made my way towards room 834. I had already knocked 3 times before Baekhyun had managed to catch up with me.

A few seconds later, Tao opened the door and upon seeing Baekhyun, his face lit up and he pulled his boyfriend towards him and gave him a huge, squelchy kiss on the lips.

“Jesus Christ guys! Get a room!” I said whilst covering my eyes.

“Don’t mind if I do!” Grinned Baekhyun before dragging Tao towards the bedroom.

“Hey! What am I supposed to do!?” I whined.

Tao shrugged apologetically, “Kris should be over in about 10 minutes! Keep yourself occupied until then!”

Before I knew it, a door was being slammed shut and I was stuck in the hallway with nothing to do.

I sighed, this was typical Baekhyun, always choosing his priorities over me.  I made my way into Tao’s place and began looking around, trying to find something to occupy my time til Kris got here.

The best word to describe Tao’s place was…cute. In every corner were little polaroids and pictures from him and Baekhyun’s dates. I didn’t know they had gone to the zoo and Lotte World! He also had little love notes plastered around the place, and also a little, Baekhyun shrine it looked like in the corner of the living room which contained little photos of Baekhyun, some ticket stubs and also..a lock of hair?!

Okay, so Tao was into some weird stuff..that’s cool..I mean, everyone’s different.. And if Baekhyun was cool with it, who was I to judge?

I was just about to make my way to the couch to watch some TV when I heard the door unlock and a loud voice call out.

“Yah! Tao, I’m here!”

I gasped and proceeded to take deep breaths and smooth down my jeans.

As the footsteps came closer, I was taking “pregnant lady giving birth” breaths and I needed to see Kris soon otherwise I was going to faint.

I knew as soon as I saw Kris I was going to be smooth and charming and say something like “Oh, didn’t expect you to see you here Kris.”

But as soon as he came into my line of vision, all that went straight out of my head.

Kris looked like he had just come out of the shower so his hair was still sticking up in odd angles, which also looked like messy y hair.. NO! What are you doing Chanyeol! You should not be thinking about Kris and the s-word in the same sentence!

He was wearing a navy button down shirt which was straining under his muscly body and his typical tight, black skinny jeans.

“Hey-uh hi Kris, didn’t e-expect you to walk here into the house that Tao lives in..” I stuttered whilst mentally face-palming at my lack of language skills at that moment.

Kris’ eyes widened and I took it as an invitation to take a few steps closer to him. His vanilla cologne was enticing and I wanted nothing more than to run my hands through his hair and nuzzle his neck. Unfortunately, my day dream was cut short as he pushed passed me and ran straight to Tao’s door.

I heard Kris yelling at Tao and eventually the door opened and they proceeded to walk into the kitchen talking in hushed, angry tones of Mandarin.

Baekhyun walked over to me whilst trying to put his shirt back on and smoothing down his hair.

“Woah, can you please tell your boyfriend to book an appointment when he wants to see my boyfriend? Jesus Christ, we were just getting to the good stuff!” Baekhyun grumbled.

I didn’t know what I felt more embarrassed about; hearing Baekhyun call Kris my boyfriend, or knowing what him and Tao had been up to only moments before.

“Shut up,” I hissed, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Baekhyun snorted, “Suuuure. Anywho Chanpoopie, what are your plans now that Kris is here?”

I scratched my head, “Uh I don’t know, I guess we could watch a movie or something?”

Baekhyun chastised me with a flick on the forehead, “Yah, pabo! With you looking like that, you don’t want to waste it in a dark movie theatre! Make him take you to a club! Then you can grind with him alllll night long.”

I blushed, “Aish, I don’t want to do that! I just want to spend some nice, quiet time with him.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes, “Riiight, because him wearing that skin-tight shirt is doing nothing for you.. Suuure Channie, whatever you say.”

Before I could retort with a quick one-liner, Kris and Tao returned to the living room.

I stood up and started making my way towards Kris but he took a step back and proceeded to wait behind Tao.

I came to a stop and looked at him sadly, but he was avoiding all eye-contact with me.

“Ahem,” Tao coughed, “Uh, I’m really sorry guys but I have to ask you guys to leave now.”

“Mwoh yeobo?” Baekhyun asked confusedly.

“Please, it’s for the best, I’ll call you soon Baekky, okay?” Tao said with a small smile.

Before I knew it, Tao was hustling Baekhyun and I towards the door and then we were back outside with both of us as confused as ever.

“….I have no idea what just happened.” Baekhyun sighed.

I nodded in agreement, but there was something that was bothering me even more.

“Hyung,” I croaked, “Why didn’t Kris say anything to me? He barely even looked at me!”

Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face and I felt Baekhyun snake his arms around my waist and pat my head gently.

“Oh Yeollie…I’m sorry…” Baekhyun mumbled into my hair.

“No..it’s my fault..I deluded myself into thinking that we…we had something…but I was just being a stupid pabo yet again..” I wailed.

“Shh, shhh.” Baekhyun said comfortingly as he my back.

“Come on, let’s go to my place, we can have a sleepover just like the old days okay?” He said softly.

I nodded gratefully, “I’d like that hyung, gomawo.”

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Earlier at Tao’s Place

“Goddamit Tao, what the hell is he doing here?!”

“What..who? Chanyeol?”

“Yes! Chanyeol!”

“..I’m confused hyung, I thought you liked him!”

“I did! I do..I…”

“…So what’s the problem hyung?”

“Tao…something very serious happened to me at work today. I can never be seen with Chanyeol again, do you understand?”

“What?!”

“I’m serious Tao, if anyone catches me with him…We’ll both suffer dire consequences…”

“..Do you still like him?”

“Goddammit Tao did you not hear a word I just said?!”

“Just answer the goddamn question!”

“….Of course I do! That’s why I have to do this! If I listen to my heart… I’ll be out of a job and Chanyeol will be thrown out of the university. Then, who’ll be happy?!?”

“But isn’t being with him enough??”

“…Tao, you don’t understand… This way, I can’t hurt him. He’ll forget about me, he’ll have a promising future. Without me, everyone’s happy.”

“..I don’t think either one of you will be very happy.”

“This is not your decision to make..”

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Chanyeol POV

After my recuperative weekend at Baekhyun’s place, I was finally starting to feel like my old self again. Baekhyun had showered me with care, waiting on my hand and foot and listening to me cry and whine about my problems til 3am in the morning. He truly was a great friend.

By the time I got home on Sunday afternoon, I was feeling slightly more rejuvenated and decided to meet with Luhan to finally discuss his job prospects.

“Well, what about this one? High wage, only once a week, no experience required.” I read aloud whilst passing over the newspaper to Luhan.

Luhan took one look at it and scrunched up his nose in disgust, “Ew! Chanyeol! I don’t want to be a toilet scrubber!”

I pinched my nose in frustration, this was the fifth job Luhan had rejected.

“Jesus Luhan! You can’t be choosy about this! We had a deal. You were going to get a job ASAP, regardless of what it was and you’d get out of Sehun’s life quick smart.” I barked. 

Luhan lowered his head, “Please don’t hate me for what I’m about to say….”

I frowned, “What now…”

Luhan coughed before looking up at me with his doe-like eyes, “I…..I don’t think I want to get out of Sehun’s life…I think..I want to be in his life…forever.”

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