That night when Baekhyun returned he’d pinned his hopes on his roommate already being asleep but his heart dropped several meters when said roommate was sitting cross legged on his bed, eyes focused on his laptop that sat comfortably on his long, spindly legs. The taller of the two looked up at Baekhyun’s entrance and flashed him an effortlessly dazzling grin.

“Was your friend okay?” He asked, pushing his laptop aside, gaze following Baekhyun across the room.

“Huh?” The brunette cocked an eyebrow until he remembered why he’d left the room in the first place. “Oh, yeah, he’s just an idiot.” He shrugged, feeling a bitter taste in his mouth after insulting Sehun like that. Usually it was okay but this time it felt a little wrong. He yawned, taking a change of clothes into the bathroom. After showering and emerging back into the room in sweats, Baekhyun wandered over to his desk, turning on the lamp and grabbing his laptop from the bag under his bed. He’d unpack tomorrow, he decided. Baekhyun waited until Chanyeol disappeared into the bathroom to shower before he put his first plan into action, shutting the laptop and scrambling under his covers. He shut his eyes and pretended to sleep, consequently with the light on.

He almost found himself falling asleep for real until the reopening of the bathroom door set his heart beating twice as fast, eyes squeezing even further shut whilst he tried not to look like he was pretending to be asleep. He had to remind himself mentally that not breathing was not a sign of being asleep. He could have sworn that after the padding of bare feet across the room, he heard a low chuckle. What he heard next sent a chilling shiver down his spine; the switch on his lamp being flicked, the room in complete darkness as Chanyeol clambered into his own bed and yawned. Baekhyun’s eyes were wide open as he stared at the complete nothingness that had replaced the ceiling.

Chanyeol, on the other hand, convinced himself that he didn’t hear a whimper from the other side of the room. It must have been the wind, he tells himself. He doesn’t take much convincing and the older boy is soon fast asleep.

Baekhyun wakes up the following morning in a cold sweat. He glances around the room which is now being filled with natural light filtering through the curtains. He wipes his forehead on his forearm, taking a deep breath before kicking back the covers in an attempt to cool and calm down. He aims to shower and dress himself as quickly as possible to avoid any further conversation with Chanyeol. Baekhyun feels kind of bad when reflecting on his motives to go down to breakfast quickly. It’s not that he doesn’t like Chanyeol, he seems harmless enough. Even to the point where Baekhyun doesn’t think the auburn haired boy would be capable of fighting his way out of a paper bag, he just wants to avoid awkward conversation. Having never had a roommate he’s a little unsure of where to put himself.

Thirty minutes earlier than he would be ready usually, Baekhyun grabs his school bag and heads down to breakfast just as Chanyeol is rubbing sleep from his kind eyes. Baekhyun feels sick.

That day once classes had ended, after dumping his bag in his room and quickly changing clothes, Baekhyun didn’t come back until much later. He knew that he was trying to put off going back to his room but wouldn’t admit it, even after Luhan and Yixing caught on. He should have taken the hint when even Sehun sloped back to his own room after being too tired.

“Is he really that bad?” Yixing asked, yawning and rolling onto his back, his head hanging off the side of the bed as he stared at Baekhyun who was sitting by Luhan.

“No!” Baekhyun replied instantly, voice ascending in pitch through no choice of his own. “It has nothing to do with him. He’s nice. I just wanted to hang out with you guys, that’s all.” He insisted, eyes flickering around the room nervously. Luhan gagged, shoving Baekhyun onto his side.

“Gross.” He scrunched up his nose. “Now I definitely know you’re lying.” He sighed, glancing at Yixing who got up. “Look, we love you, Baekhyun, but it’s almost midnight and we want to sleep. You can’t avoid your roommate forever.” Baekhyun was personally escorted to the door by his Chinese friends, who he was beginning to think weren’t much like friends at all.

“Get some sleep, Baek, you’ll feel better about it once you get to know the guy.” He smiled as he shut the door in Baekhyun’s face. Muttering choice words under his breath, the dejected Korean dragged his feet down the hall to his own room and opened the door very slowly with hopes he’d left it long enough tonight for Chanyeol to have gone to sleep.

“Hey, roomie.” Baekhyun wanted so much to appreciate the pure and warm smile he was greeted with each time he entered the room but he thinks he’d appreciate Chanyeol’s flawless face much more if it was unmoving as he slept.

“Hi, I thought you’d be asleep.” Baekhyun admitted with a small smile, tossing his key on the desk and rubbing his eyes, flicking on the desk lamp.

“Nope, I was just finishing watching a movie. Plus I was kind of waiting for you to get back.” He beamed, fumbling in his backpack for something. “My mom packed some brownies with me, I wanted to give you some.” He was holding out the container, puppy eyes blinking as they never looked down. Baekhyun slowly felt his insides churn out of hatred for his own selfishness. “Everyone likes brownies, right?” Chanyeol’s cheeks were pink and his eyes had started to disappear upwards again as he grinned, showing his pearly white teeth.

“Yeah, I love brownies. Thanks, Chanyeol that’s,” He paused, chest warming a little, “that’s really sweet.” He stepped forward and accepted a brownie, turning to move back to his own side of the room to eat it.

“Did you ever see this movie?” Chanyeol spun his laptop around to present Baekhyun with the movie poster on his screen. Baekhyun shook his head, covering his mouth whilst he chewed quickly.

“No, I meant to see it though, is it good?” He asked, wiping a crumb from the corner of his mouth.

“It’s really good.” Chanyeol confirmed. “Do you wanna watch it now?” He asked earnestly, eyes shimmering in hope.

“I thought you said you were finishing watching it?” Baekhyun frowned a little, eyebrows knitting together. Chanyeol scoffed, waving a hand through the air and smiling.

“Watching it again won’t hurt, come on, it’s really good, I swear!” He shifted along his bed to make room for Baekhyun who padded across the floor quickly, scrambling up onto Chanyeol’s bed, untangling his limbs until he was sufficiently comfortable. “Brownie?” Chanyeol held the container out again as he pressed play. Baekhyun flashed him a smile and accepted quickly.

Baekhyun really didn’t remember falling asleep, nor did he remember the end of the movie or being put to bed. Glancing around at the nothingness around him, he manages to come to the conclusion that it’s still night time and that fact makes his heart sink. His clothes are sticking to his skin due to sweat as he throws the covers away from him, heart beating loudly against his ribs. He’s sure his breath is far too loud as he pants, sitting upright and taking the deepest breath he can. Using the bottom of his shirt he wipes away the sweat on his face. It’s just sweat. He hadn’t been crying. Not being able to stand it any longer, he grabs his phone from the desk and almost runs to where he thinks the door is, feeling overwhelming relief when his eyes adjust to the light of the corridor.

As the door remains open for maybe one, two seconds, it casts a distorted shape of light into the room but Baekhyun doesn’t glance back when he exits the room. Had he done, he might have seen the pair of beady eyes belonging to the boy with covers tucked right under his chin. Beady eyes which didn’t blink for a second.

Chanyeol swallowed but there was still a lump in his throat. He felt guilt. He felt guilt so easily that he couldn’t possibly hurt a fly and if he did; he’d want to give it a funeral. It had always weirded out his friends, how he was too sensitive to other’s feelings but they’d grown to accept it as part of Chanyeol’s extraordinary being. He radiated oddness and they’d long since given up questioning it.

The guilt was still there, like it had been in third grade when he’d passed a pop quiz by one mark because he’d seen Kyungsoo’s answer and Kyungsoo studied really hard. Or the time he offered Tao a pecan cookie even though everyone knew he was allergic to peanuts. To this day he still couldn’t forget the time he’d given Kris a nosebleed during gym class when he’d gotten overly enthusiastic with a baseball. He sat by the older boy for 45 minutes holding ice to his face even though it had stopped bleeding after 10. Guilt would always eat away at Chanyeol and now he felt it weighing down on his chest.

He flinched as the door shut. He glanced over at the other side of the room, at the empty bed. He was biting down hard on his lower lip, eyebrows knitting together as he tried to tell himself not intervening had definitely been the right thing. He’d felt both happy and sad to see Baekhyun had fallen asleep before the movie had finished. He’d watched most of it with Chanyeol and that meant he can’t hate him that much after all- that part made his heart swell. He’d felt pride when he slowly and carefully manoeuvred the smaller boy into his own bed. But when he’d been woken by sniffling and tossing and turning from the other side of the room, he’d not done a thing. He was almost certain Baekhyun had been having a nightmare. He thinks he saw Baekhyun crying. And then he’d left the room. He hadn’t come back yet. He didn’t.

Chanyeol was overly tired when his alarm woke him the following morning. He’s barely finished rubbing his barely open eyes when he remembers, eyes opening instantly. He feels that familiar, sickening feeling drop back into his chest like a tonne of bricks. Baekhyun’s bed is still empty; exactly the way it had been the night before when his roommate fled the room.

Auburn hair pointing in all directions and one pyjama leg shorter than the other, Chanyeol drags his uncoordinated feet to the door and peers out into the corridor. It’s empty, it makes him frown. He tells himself maybe Baekhyun went to stay in the room of a friend but why would he do that when he has a room already? Was living with him already so bad? They’d watched almost an entire movie together! Chanyeol was padding down the corridor now, eyes threatening to shut already due to lack of sleep and sudden exposure to light. He reached the common room at the end of the hall and didn’t know whether to feel worse about himself or instant relief.

Baekhyun’s dark hair was pushed back out of his eyes as he lay curled up on the smallest couch by the window, phone loosely in his hand, mouth hanging open a little as a light snore reached Chanyeol’s ears. He approached the sleeping boy and wondered about how to do this.

“Uh,” He poked him. He instantly regretted it because he then thought poking is actually kind of rude. You just don’t poke people, Chanyeol, he scolded himself. Take two; he shook Baekhyun’s shoulder lightly and that seemed to cause him to stir just a little. “Baekhyun?” He hissed. It was supposed to be a soothing whisper but he sounded like he’d stubbed his toe. Baekhyun’s eyes snapped open instantly, said boy recoiling in the couch and flinching away from Chanyeol’s touch. “I er, didn’t want you to be late for class. You must have fallen asleep here.” He bit his tongue, deciding to ignore his knowledge of Baekhyun’s evident nightmare which had led to this situation. Baekhyun glanced around and his cheeks began swimming with pink. Chanyeol figured he’d embarrassed him enough to scare him away even after the progress he thought he’d made so he gave a strange nod and lumbered back to the room quickly.

Neither speak to one another as they both get ready in silence that morning. Chanyeol thinks he’s crossed boundaries and Baekhyun is embarrassed. It’s awkward, and both are pleased to leave for class. Even if it is Algebra.

Baekhyun, who had left a good ten minutes after Chanyeol did, arrived to his algebra classroom panting and almost out of breath, sliding into a seat towards the front just as the bell rung to indicate the start of morning classes. If he hadn’t been so intent on not being late, he might have noticed the tall boy towards the back with his mouth wide open and gawking at his arrival.

“It’s rude to stare.” A quiet voice scolds him to match the slap on the arm. Chanyeol ignores Tao and closes his mouth, blinking, telling himself he’ll focus on the equations and not the back of Baekhyun’s head. He know’s it’s not likely. Eager to make a smooth exit, Chanyeol is one of the first to leave the classroom once class ends which only makes him stand out.

“Chanyeol,” A timid voice calls after him in the hallway. He spins around and raises his eyebrows in surprise. Baekhyun has a shy smile on his lips as he scuffs his shoe against the floor. Chanyeol smiles. “I, er,” He pauses, taking a second to convince himself this is a good idea and it will make him feel better about himself. “I wondered if you wanted to sit with me and my friends at lunch today?” Baekhyun says it all very quickly and it’s a wonder the taller boy can make any sense of it but this time his smile reaches his tired eyes.

“Sure!” He blurted out instantly, “I mean, thanks, I’d like to.” He was smiling even still. Baekhyun thought he looked like a face full of teeth but maybe it was charming. Chanyeol, on the other hand, was doing inward somersaults that Baekhyun might not hate him after all.

Chanyeol’s smile, Baekhyun thinks, makes it worthwhile. He wants to like his roommate and he truly wants to like Chanyeol, and he probably would if not for his situation. Baekhyun tells himself he’ll make more effort during daytimes with the tall boy.

When Baekhyun enters the cafeteria that day he feels on edge. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other uneasily as he waits in line for his food. After paying, he immediately clocks the table he usually sits at, making quick work of the distance to get there. After dropping his tray down carelessly, he slumps into the seat beside Luhan and glances around as the other three look at him like he’d grown another head.

“What?” He asks defensively, knowing his social group has long surpassed greetings and manners between each other. He’s starting to worry whether asking Chanyeol to sit with them really was a good idea. The two of them were already skating on thin ice, he was pretty sure his friends would break it with a tonne of bricks.

“Nothing, you just look…” Luhan is looking at Baekhyun closely.

“Weird.” Yixing finishes off for him, filling his mouth with rice and shrugging after Baekhyun shoots him a glare.

“I was going to say jittery.” Luhan says eventually.

“I think he looks tired to me.” Sehun, the third party at the table, piped up, a grain of rice stuck to his chin.

“I’m right here, you guys.” Baekhyun interrupts.

“Like, really tired.” Sehun continues. Baekhyun simply rolls his eyes. If it wasn’t his favourite meal on the menu today he’d have seriously considered ditching his lunch, bypassing Chanyeol and calling a rain check. It’s when Baekhyun looks up, as if to ask God what he did to deserve friends like these, that he sees an auburn head above the others in the crowded cafeteria. Like a lost puppy, his large, shining eyes were flicking around the room eagerly as he gripped his tray tightly. Baekhyun stood up and waved, ignoring the looks of complete confusion he earned from his so called friends. Chanyeol’s face lit up like the fourth of July and was soon trotting over at full speed on his spindly legs until he reached Baekhyun’s table. Said giant placed his tray beside Baekhyun, sitting down happily, all the while he didn’t stop beaming.

Meanwhile, Sehun, Luhan and Yixing couldn’t stop staring. And that damned piece of rice was still on Sehun’s chin.

“Uh, guys, this is my roommate, Chanyeol.” Baekhyun was quick to break the silence that had fallen between them, “and this is Luhan, Yixing and Sehun, Sehun you have rice on your face.” Baekhyun reeled off quickly. “My friends.” He added, if a little remorseful. Baekhyun couldn’t shrink further into his uniform if he tried. He felt like this situation was a social time bomb.

“Has living with Baekhyun driven you out of your mind yet?” Yixing asked casually. Baekhyun inwardly groaned.

“What makes you ask that?” Chanyeol asked innocently, smile still prominent on his face. He seemed completely unphased by the idiots Baekhyun socialised with. He was really starting to question his life choices as he watched Sehun try to use sprinkle sesame oil with chopsticks.

“You’re his first ever roommate.” Luhan added. Chanyeol’s eyes widened- if that was actually possible.

“Really? You didn’t tell me that.” Chanyeol  turned to look at the boy in question, blinking and waiting for a confirmation. Baekhyun nodded, opening his mouth to say something but was cut off by the table’s baby.

“Yep.” Sehun piped in. “Nobody else wants to live with him so the school pays for him to have a single room.” He giggled whilst smoothing down the pororo band aid on the side of his hand.

“Oh so you’re the idiot who burned himself.” Chanyeol’s smile increased after clocking the band aid in question and silence fell upon the table. During this time, in which nobody could process what had just happened, another tray hit the table.

“Would you believe I got eraser duty on just the second day of school?” Jongin exhaled, having no clue on what awkward moment he’d joined them in.

“Well I like him.” Yixing mumbled under his breath, earning a kick under the table from Baekhyun who wanted to crawl away with his head in a bag. Second thoughts; scrap the bag. “What!” Yixing yelped. “I told you it wouldn’t be that bad, see!” He punctuated his point with his chopstick in the air. Everyone was looking at him now and Yixing lowered the metal instrument and cleared his throat. “That bad to, to,” He cleared his throat, “to use Luhan’s eyeliner, I mean!” He finished hesitantly.

“What?” Both Luhan and Baekhyun chorused.

“You wear eyeliner?” Was then the universal question around the table. Baekhyun’s face was red and his mental hit list had Zhang Yixing right at the top. Twice.

“Let me see!” Chanyeol thoughtlessly pressed his hand to Baekhyun’s cheek, forcing the brunette to face him for inspection. Luhan and Yixing exchanged glances across the table before returning their gaze to the unlikely and unsubtle skinship occurring at their table.

“I don’t wear eyeliner.” He hissed in embarrassment, batting the taller boy’s hand away as he faced his food with a red face.

“You do sometimes, Hyung.” Sehun pointed out.

“Oh go play with fire.” The older muttered under his breath in a bitter response causing Chanyeol to snort with laughter.

By the end of the lunch period, Baekhyun could confirm that it had been one of the most awkward and challenging experiences of his life. And it was his second day at school. After Chanyeol had excused himself in order to walk over to the other building in time for his next class, Baekhyun was keen to get up quickly.

“Don’t even talk to me.” He groaned, trying to quickly walk away from the table, once again wondering what he’d done to merit this kind of misfortune.

I meant to proof read this again but I never did.
I also meant to post this yesterday... T_T
eh.

 
there is just something beautiful about luhan and yixing which when together idk they seem like sassy es.
lulu is a fairy princess and yixing is a ballerina idek. eugh, layhan feels.
anyway, enjoy~