His eyes stared, wide, stunned, his fingers suspended in the air above the black and white keys.

 

"What?"

 

"Let's break up."

 

The confusion and hurt in the older man's eyes almost wavered Baekhyun's resolve. Almost, but he still looked away from his soon-to-be ex-boyfriend of a year. He sat down on the crinkled grey sofa, hands in his jean pockets, and let out a heavy huff. Yixing scrambled from the piano bench to sit beside him, ignoring the pages of sheet music he sent fluttering in his haste.

 

"But Baek, why? Is it something I did? What brought this on?" he tried to put an arm around the frowning boy, only to have it shrugged off. Baekhyun stood up and began pacing around the small living room.

 

"It's not anything you did, okay? I just...this..." he ran a hand through his hair, trying to figure out how to phrase the words in his mouth to be as least hurtful as possible. "It's me. It's not you, it's me."

 

Yixing shook his head frantically. "No, it's not you. I did something, didn't I? Baekyun, talk to me, we can figure this out, please-"

 

"Stop that!" Baekhyun cut across him sharply, then exhaled slowly. "Sorry, Xing. But it's really just me. I'm just...not feeling anything anymore."

 

He didn't see it, as he had averted his eyes to the ground, but Yixing looked as if he'd just slapped him. 

 

"But Baek... I thought you were happy..." he whispered brokenly, looking down at his jean-clad knees.

 

Baekhyun looked at the crumpled man with guilt. "Xing, I was happy. You always tried to make it so that I was happy. But lately... I don't know. It's become..."

 

"Become what, Baek?" Yixing asked quietly, and when Baekhyun didn't answer, demanded again urgently. "What have we become?"

 

"...monotonous. Stagnant."

 

He was silent for a second, slightly shocked at Baekhyun's choice of words, but suddenly let out a soft, relieved laugh. "But we can fix that, Baekhyunnie! Do you want to go somewhere special this weekend? I'm sorry, I've just been really busy lately-"

 

"No, Yixing." And Yixing did just that, smile frozen in place at Baekhyun's cold voice.

 

"It's not fixable, okay? We'll go somewhere, but a week later, it'll be back to this again. I'm bored, okay, I- oh, no."

 

He cursed under his breath as he watched Yixing's expression literally break. He had never been great at dealing with his boyfriend's sad moments. Yixing was usually the always cheerful, happy one, and on the rare occassions that he did become upset, he would retreat to his room for a while, because he knew it made Baekhyun uncomfortable.

 

"...bored? Baekhyun, I'm boring, is that it?"

 

Baekhyun didn't know how to reply, so he just said something about picking up his stuff some time during the week and quickly left the suffocating apartment, trying to erase the image of Yixing staring after him, as shattered as the song that lay in pieces on the beige carpet.

 

 

 

 

As much as he hadn't liked saying it, or wished he hadn't at all, what he said was true, even if it hadn't been the entire reason. His relationship with Yixing had become boring. And it wasn't the other man's fault, either. Zhang Yixing was, in all respects, the perfect boyfriend. The guy that every girl wanted to bring home to her parents, so to speak, except he didn't swing that way. He composed love songs, made surprise dates, cooked the most amazing meals ever, cuddled through sappy chick flicks and horror alike, and generally did everything just right to make Baekhyun feel like the most special person on the planet. Not to mention that the man was an amazing kisser and absolutely delicious in bed.

 

The twenty-year-old was a gifted musician, working part-time performing at anywhere between concert halls and ritzy nightclubs while studying at the Academy for the Arts on a scholarship. Their first meeting had involved Baekhyun tripping over a stray wire while he was singing onstage and falling on top of the piano. Somehow, between apologies and cursing and scattered papers filled with hand-inked dots and tails they ended up making plans to get coffee that Saturday. That Saturday had become each Saturday after that, and Wednesdays and Thursdays and  Tuesdays and Sundays when Yixing decided that just one day a week wasn't enough. Eventually, after one Friday night at the bar because their usual coffee place was closed and finding himself beside the pianist in his apartment the morning after, Baekhyun had decided to just screw it and move in with him, much to Yixing's delight. 

 

If he wanted to find one word to describe their relationship, it would be 'sweet'. However, a year of the same sweetness made the previously precious flavour cloying and unwanted. Bluntly put, Baekhyun was fed up with all the unchanging saccharinity. Especially after meeting him.

 

 

 

 

Like with Yixing, Baekhyun met Park Chanyeol at a nightclub. This time, however, he had been only an audience member while the taller male was rapping onstage. His attention was pretty much stolen as soon as the rapper opened his mouth, the voice coming from it trailing teasing fingers down his spine. When he approached him later, with perfectly innocent intentions, mind you, because it had never been his intent to cheat on his boyfriend, he was trapped before he knew it. The dissonance between the rather childish face and the dark chocolate voice, and the way his eyes shone madly, and how they crinkled unevenly when he laughed and showed too many teeth all reeled Baekhyun in like a fish on a line. Everything about Chanyeol was just a tad off, and for Baekhyun, having become so accustomed to the idyllic relationship with Yixing, the unplaceable sense of insanity that emanated from him was the fire to his moth. 

 

Granted, when Chanyeol left him his number, Baekhyun still hadn't really thought of him in any romantic sense. But, after attending some of his other performances and meeting with his friends, he became increasingly addicted to the feel of danger he exuded. Perhaps it was the fact that he was involved in a few underground activities that didn't exactly follow the definition of 'legal' besides rapping, or perhaps it was because he just looked so sinful in leather lounging with his long limbs splayed out in their round booth the night he asked Baekhyun out to dinner (just as friends, as Baekhyun had told himself), but Baekhyun found himself steadily losing interest in Yixing, at times even becoming annoyed at the elder's romantic gestures. Being the loving, oblivious boyfriend he was, Yixing took Baekhyun for his word when he said it was just random bursts of frustration, and tried harder than ever to make his bacon happy. This only led to Baekhyun becoming more frustrated, because his kindness made him feel guilty as , but he tried to hide it lest Yixing try even harder.

 

When he'd walked out today, it had been a little over a month since he met Chanyeol. He'd be lying if he didn't feel like a rotten person, and part of him was screaming questions and warnings along the lines of how he was being a rash idiot and how he should run back in there and apologize and beg Yixing to forgive him. He drowned out that voice by assuring himself that it was for the best, because Yixing deserved better than someone who couldn't love only him completely. He drowned out the snide whispers telling him that he was a lying selfish bastard, too.

 

"Hey, Baekhyunnie."

 

He suppressed a shiver at the deep voice that greeted him when he stepped into the back of the bar that Chanyeol usually hung out at. Despite it being the middle of the day, the younger male was sprawled languidly on the dark red leather seats, a half-empty glass of some alcoholic beverage on the table in front of him. A sleek black laptop sat beside it, whirring quietly, the three scratches on its lid glowing crimson. Noticing the torn expression on his face, Chanyeol asked, in a tone of concern, though his grin did not change.

 

"What happened?"

 

Baekhyun squirmed under questioning gaze, unsure of whether to tell him the truth or not. Would he leave? Would he see this as some sign of commitment? He knew that Chanyeol wasn't the type to commit to anything, being very much the opposite - unpredictable and erratic. It was what drew Baekhyun to him in the first place.

 

"Did you break up with him?"

 

He in a shocked breath at his blunt guess, braced himself for rejection, and nodded.

 

Then, somehow, if it was even possible, Chanyeol's grin widened, his black eyes flashing with some sort of frenzied joy.

 

"Finally."

 

And then Baekhyun found himself encased in Chanyeol's long and lanky arms and his lips being attacked by the younger man's between repeated husky whispers of 'mine', and because he was soaring above clouds and the moon, he pretended not to notice the little part of his heart that broke off and fell away with a little cry of what sounded suspiciously like 'Yixing.'

 

 

 

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