he whimpers a second after the electricity goes down, wrapping his vision in complete darkness. he’s never liked it when the lights go down, but he has no choice other than bearing with it since his ty best friend park chanyeol is willing to shelter him while he’s looking for another room for himself (a better one, not this museum chanyeol calls a room). it’s also really not helping that chanyeol is out, getting some more drinks for them to get wasted on and he stepped out of the apartment not too long ago.

leaving him and kris in the dark. alone.

and the fact that baekhyun is having the biggest boycrush ever on kris certainly doesn’t help. at all.

he hears kris clearing his throat, clearly not knowing what to do or say in this kind of situation. “ah... don’t worry, it won’t be long,” he tries to assure, only to no avail because baekhyun pulls his knees to his chest and buries his face in his arms.

he’s always hated the darkness, especially ones so dark that you can’t see anything – not even your own hands.

baekhyun is on the verge of crying when kris slowly shifts closer, trying not to surprise him as he tries recalling the younger’s position before the lights went off. he stops a few centimeters away, feeling baekhyun’s radiating body warmth, arms nearly brushing. kris is at a loss for words; he’s never good at consoling people, let alone when they’re crying. not knowing what to do, he clears his throat for the second time and says carefully,

“lean on me.”

there’s a slight gasp before he feels baekhyun’s stare on him and somehow, it makes him smile, even though he won’t dare admit it. kris has the tendency to hide his happiness; a habit he developed when he was younger.

there’s more silence, followed by a hesitant weight on his left shoulder.

for baekhyun, this whole thing is embarrassing as much as it is amusing for kris. he hates chanyeol for bringing kris home with the one excuse he can’t deny—this is my place—so he hates himself instead for opting to stay behind when chanyeol asked him if he wanted to go with him, not expecting that ty best friend of his to force kris to stay as well because he’s a guest. or maybe baekhyun really wasn’t imagining the smirk on chanyeol’s face when he left.

a few minutes pass by but it seems like the electricity won’t return any time soon, so baekhyun tries with all his might to contain his feelings when kris’ hand finds its way to his head and pets it.

“i’m scared,” he says, finally deciding on breaking the silence to relax his own nerves. kris’ hand stops moving and he can feel the slight shift of muscles beneath his head, indicating that kris is looking at him now.

“why are you scared?” the older asks, voice soft and gentle as he resumes patting baekhyun’s head.

baekhyun bites his lower lip, he doesn’t want to talk about his trauma though he supposes he has no choice. he brought this up on his own anyway.

“because i can’t see anything. i can’t see my own hands. i can’t see... your face. it scares me.”

kris is silent for a few long moment so baekhyun thinks that maybe kris thinks his fear is something silly and eyeroll-worthy. he almost pulls away from the comfort that is kris’ shoulder and warmth when kris takes his left hand as gentle as he can, placing it on his right cheek.

“wh—”

“is this assuring?”

baekhyun doesn’t know what to say. or what to feel, for that matter.

so he can only nod dumbly, not realizing that kris can’t see him – not to mention that he’s already peeled his head off kris’ shoulder. but when kris speaks again, he knows the older guy is smiling.

“that’s good.”

and baekhyun suddenly feels stupid for hoping because even though kris can’t see him, he understands that baekhyun’s silence was supposed to mean ‘yes.’ it’s not fair, baekhyun thinks. it’s not fair that i’m the only one feeling like this.

then he feels like crying again, for a different reason now.

not even a minute later, there are fingertips brushing his cheek and he flinches. they feel cold against his warm skin and when he realized that they were kris’ fingers, he blushes a deeper shade of red.

“sorry, i... didn’t mean to surprise you,” there’s hesitance in his voice. baekhyun thinks it’s adorable, because kris never hesitates; kris is always straightforward and blunt, always uncaring towards people’s opinion and maybe that’s why he, the ever-insecure byun baekhyun, fell for him in the first place. he admires the guy’s confidence and all, but he guesses this side of kris isn’t bad. not at all.

so he takes the initiative, holding kris’ bigger hand in his smaller one, guiding it back to his cheek. “it’s okay,” he whispers, not finding it in him to speak out loud. he actually wants to add you can touch me but it sounds really absurd and ambigue even in his mind, so he doesn’t.

but then again, how can he, when a heartbeat later there’s a pair of lips pressing against his cheek?

regardless of being unable to see anything, baekhyun blinks and blinks in attempt to clear his vision, trying to see what kind of expression kris is having on his face right now. the skin under his hand feels a bit warm but it might be just his imagination so he wishes the lights would come back right that second.

“kris—”

“i’m sorry, i shouldn’t have—i’m sorry,” kris says instead, starting to pull his hand back to his side. seeing as the chance will not present itself again in a long time, baekhyun acts on pulse. somehow he manages to find kris’ shoulder without stumbling and secures his arms around the older guy.

“baekhyun?”

there are so many things that baekhyun wants to say but he can’t form words so he blurts the only thing he’s able to breathe right now.

“it’s okay.”

and then when he feels an arm around his slender waist followed by a gentle press of lips against his own, baekhyun thinks that maybe a blackout isn’t so bad, after all, if he gets to spend each one with kris.