I felt his eyes burning holes in the back of my head. He was staring at me – again. What could I do? Should I turn around? Should I pretend I didn’t notice it, like all the other times? But why would I keep doing that… I was wondering why he kept on looking at me, I wondered, but I never had the courage to ask. To me, he was someone beautiful – and beautiful people are hard to talk to – but I didn’t know what I was to him. Maybe he looked at me because he thought I was disgusting, maybe he looked at me because he thought I was gorgeous. I shook my head, I really didn’t know.

I strode away from the kitchen table, all the while pretending I didn’t know what was happening. I knew he was trying to make eye-contact with me but I kept telling myself; ‘if he would have wanted that, he could have talked to me.’ Which he never did. He was making me feel so insecure, I wanted to know what he was thinking, if possible, all the time. I wanted to know what he thought of me, because his opinion would be the one that would matter the most to me. I didn’t care about Joonmyun-hyung’s view of me, I didn’t care about Kyungsoo or Jongin or even maknae Sehunnie. Sure, we were all friends, but that was all they were. Baekhyun wasn’t that to me. He was never my friend, he was the one I looked up to because he was so damn great at what he did. He stepped in the company and seconds later, he filled the gap that existed to nobody else but Lee Soo Man. I was glad that he saw it, though, otherwise, there wouldn’t even be a Baekhyun roaming our dorm, looking at the back of my head, trying to make eye-contact with me while I was so desperately trying to convince myself that it was my imagination.

After a while, I didn’t even know why I did that any longer. If he was looking at me the majority of the time that we were in the same room – which was often because we shared a bedroom – then wouldn’t that mean that he at least was interested in me? I still couldn’t think so, because he didn’t speak to me. It was as if he tried to avoid me, but at the same time, observe me. It felt so wrong to me, as if I was some sort of object that he wanted to understand inside and out, while he could just ask me about things he wanted to know.

He would always listen when I was talking to the other guys, he never joined the conversation except for when he was asked something as well. Usually when that happened, he would try to shrug it off and quietly leave, though today, Jongin had different plans with us. He had called us out to sit in the living on the couch, which we did, as if we had to listen to him or something. Honestly, I was quite surprised because Jongin didn’t usually talk that much, let alone suggest something.

“Okay guys… There’s a few people here that have me confused and because of that, I really want us to talk honestly, okay?” Eyebrows were raised everywhere. Nobody had seen it coming. “Oh come on, don’t look at me as if I’m mental! I mean, everyone has noticed it, right?” What exactly, Jongin-ah… Though before I could formulate a sentence in my head, Joonmyun-hyung spoke first.

“Jonginnie… I don’t really know where you want to go with all this, but you’re acting out of character.”

“Oh jeez! So now my character is not caring for my hyungs?! Well it then, I’m out of here. I just wanted to get some things cleared up, but apparently, it’s not in my place.” Furiously, he stood up and everyone just blinked. What had just happened… Jongin wasn’t someone who would just snap out of the blue… Well maybe to him, it wasn’t out of the blue, maybe he had those words bottled up inside of him for a long time already. Seeing he cared for us, made me feel guilty that I hadn’t said anything to make him feel better, but I didn’t really know what to say…

“I’ll go talk to him…” Kyungsoo offered and in less than a second, he was gone as well. That left us with the leader, the maknae and Baekhyun and myself.

“Oh god I really upset Jonginnie…” Joonmyun-hyung frowned and I really felt for him because I knew how much he wanted all of us to be a happy family but it seemed it didn’t always work out the way he wanted. Again being slow, before I could stand up to comfort him, Sehunnie had already done so and was silently saying stuff to him that I couldn’t hear from where I was sitting.

I fidgeted with my fingers, waiting for anything to happen and accidentally glanced over at Baekhyun who was – once again – staring at me. Though, being the first time I caught him in the action, he turned bright red and unconsciously, I raised my eyebrows at him.

“What is it?” I asked, noticing how my voice came out quite silently and rather soft, even though I was – only a little – getting annoyed by the fact that I was observed. Baekhyun opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again since he apparently didn’t know what and that left Joonmyun-hyung and Sehunnie quite surprised as well until I saw a clear light-bulb appear above my hyung’s head.

“Guys, go to your room and talk already. Jonginnie is upset over you.” I wondered how Jongin would have known, but I guessed it must have been pretty obvious then. I wasn’t the only one who was getting upset over the whole not-talking to each other thing, even though we shared the same room and we lived in the same house. I stood up without thinking about it any longer and was actually quite surprised that Baekhyun didn’t listen to his hyung right away and stayed seated. Debating with myself along the way, I decided not to care and just go to my room as our leader wanted from us.

However when I had sat down on my bed, a few moments later, Baekhyun entered our room and locked the door. I wasn’t really surprised since he did that a lot, when we went to sleep or when he went to change, always, that stupid door had to be locked. But since I was used to it by now, I wasn’t going to make any remark on it because I noticed he was really uncomfortable today. Well, that wasn’t really such a surprise either since the other members had bluntly pointed out that we were the problem. In other words, I was part of the problem, since I didn’t talk to Baekhyun either, I just couldn’t. Baekhyun was like… someone I couldn’t just casually start a conversation with, with that perfect face and that – embarrassed to admit it – godlike body which was always hidden except for when he was in our room.

“Chanyeol-ssi…” Oh. That hurt. I didn’t know we were that distant… I looked up at him, seeing that blush appear on his face again when we locked eyes. “I… I really don’t know what to say… I guess I’m really wrong here. I am sorry. Like really sorry and I don’t even know how to make any of this right, but I am so sorry.”

“If you are so sorry, why don’t you say that to Jongin, he is the one who is upset, not me.” Wasn’t I upset? Hell, I think I was even more upset than Jongin who had just left the room like that.

“Isn’t he upset because of my behavior? And that is because of you and because of that, I have to apologize to you because I don’t know what else to say.” I frowned and it must have looked ugly because Baekhyun flinched. I looked away, thinking about it, why the hell would he keep apologizing to me if we weren’t even familiar enough to drop the formalities? I looked at him again, but this time with widened eyes at the tears that I saw forming in his.

“What did I do…” I asked, not knowing what to say anymore either since apparently, something I had done had made him upset enough to cry over. I got up to – I didn’t even know why – embrace his smaller body, just because I didn’t want him to cry, but he kept flinching away from me, making me feel like a horrible piece of dirt. “Baekhyun what is wrong?” I asked, knowing my voice was laced with fear, even though I didn’t even know what I was afraid of. Though in answer, he only looked away from me, trying to blink the tears away with his back against the locked door. “Why don’t you talk to me?” I swallowed hard as he opened his eyes even wider, breaking my heart to see him like this. Why had this become so hard all of a sudden?! Why was he hurting me by not even saying anything, by just standing there like a broken little boy… “Why don’t you ever talk to me?!” My voice was raising, but this time with panic and I hated panic the most. I was supposed to be a happy virus, not a miserable one.

“Stop! Stop talking to me! I don’t want to hear it, I can’t!” He broke down crying while his body dropped to the ground. I swallowed hard, having a lot of trouble keeping the tears in myself. I made up my mind and sat down next to him, ignored his hands that tried to push me away and held him, slowly rocking both our bodies from side to side to calm him down – and with that, myself. Surprisingly, he stopped struggling after mere seconds and clutched my shirt tightly, pressing himself against my chest. My heartbeat was rising like mad and I didn’t have any intention to tell him to get away from me, because it was – after all – me who had started the skinship.

It took him quite a while to calm down, but even after the sobs had died, he kept himself still in my embrace and I felt like I didn’t want him to go anywhere either. Had I mentioned I thought he was beautiful? Well, I still thought so even if he was crying his eyes out. He had something that others didn’t, a sort of charm that tried to draw me in and he didn’t even have to talk to me for it.

“Chanyeol-ssi, I–” he tried to wriggle himself out of my arms, but my arms around his shoulders were telling him to stay put.

“Stop calling me that.” Without even thinking, I had placed my chin on top of his head.

“Ch-Chanyeol?” I smiled, much better. Seeing as I didn’t interrupt him again, Baekhyun continued. “I am really sorry… I just…” I noticed he sat between my legs, his side against my chest and my arms around his shoulder as I was unconsciously drawing circles on his upper arm with my thumb. But even as I realized, I didn’t want it to stop. I was so happy that finally after living in the same house for almost a year, practicing together, eating together, I could finally talk to him and – wrong as it sounds – touch him. “I couldn’t get over the fact that you’re so perfect… In my thoughts, I had confessed to you so many times that I had forgotten that I had never even talked to you… I’m sorry…” Wow, what? Me, perfect? He must have been joking and if he hadn’t been crying rivers just now, I would have laughed, or at least smiled. Now, I was just blank. Was this the confession he had done so many times in his mind? Did he like me? “I’m sorry if you’re weirded out by me now…” I wasn’t, but I was too surprised by all of this that I couldn’t say it. Instead, I hugged him more tightly and couldn’t really stop myself as I placed a kiss on top of his head. I didn’t know if he could feel that with all of that soft hair covering his head, but I didn’t care that much. This beautiful Baekhyun who had been annoying the hell out of me by being unable to talk to me, liked me. And I liked that idea. “I… I’m so–”

“Stop apologizing for once, will you?” He looked up at me with this surprised look on his face and I couldn’t – and didn’t want to – resist the urge to kiss his lips shortly. “Will you talk to me from now on?” I asked afterwards while his cheeks had been reddened at least four shades. Dazedly, he nodded at me and to hide his pretty face, he hugged me tightly. “That’s good, because I’ve been dying to just talk to you, but I didn’t really have the courage to start a conversation… maybe now it will go naturally. Or maybe not.”

“I think it will… you talk too much anyways.” 

 

--

Thank you for reading and commenting and subscribing! <3