“He’s like a ing pillar, I swear to god,” Baekhyun mutters irritably.  “A goddamn walking, talking, cement pillar.”

“This is the, what, fourth time this week?” Jongdae asks, amusement tugging up the corners of his lips.  He’s trying so hard to sound sympathetic, and he’s definitely failing, but Baekhyun’s decided to overlook that.  Instead, he rips some grass up and throws it against the trunk of the tree under which they’re eating lunch.

“Fifth,” he grumbles.  “He doesn’t even have the courtesy to be soft!  I’ve bumped into him five times—my nose is sore from getting smushed into obnoxiously hard pecs.  Which wouldn’t be a problem normally, but it huurts.”

Jongdae outright laughs at his whining, but Baekhyun continues, carried away by his emotions.  “Muscles are nice, and you know I can appreciate guys with them, but Jongdae, my nose.  It’s so cute, and this week it’s suffered so much abuse.”

“I think it’s cuter now, with this endearing shade of pink at the tip,” Jongdae says, poking the side of Baekhyun’s nose enthusiastically and cackling at the resulting yelp.

“Why don’t you just look where you’re going?” asks Yixing, plopping himself on Baekhyun’s other side.

“I’ve tried that!  He just appears out of nowhere!” Baekhyun moans.  “I don’t know why this is happening—Kim Jongin has attended this school for two years already, and this never happened before this week.  I can’t even TA his classes anymore, since he dropped psych to major in dance.”

Yixing chuckles.  “Maybe this is fate,” he says, eating some of Baekhyun’s chips.  Seeing an opportunity, Jongdae grabs a few for himself.

The groan that escapes Baekhyun’s body expresses his entire being’s dissatisfaction with the situation, and he folds inwards, curling into Yixing’s lap and pulling Yixing’s arms tightly around him.  Laughing, Jongdae scoots closer so he can drape himself over Baekhyun, the weight of them pulling Yixing down as well, until they’ve formed their usual cuddle puddle.

Jongdae and Yixing eventually sit up again to finish eating, but Baekhyun can’t be persuaded to remove his face from Yixing’s stomach until they need to get to class.

 

 

 

The genetics class that meets right before abnormal psych literally always runs over, and Baekhyun’s thinking he should invest in the Tetris app when someone taps him on the shoulder.

When he turns around, his eyes widen, and Jongin takes a quick step backwards.

“Sorry,” he mutters.  “Umm…” His eyes are now glued resolutely to the ground, and now that Baekhyun’s not focusing on whether they’re going to collide, he notices the blush spreading across Jongin’s cheeks.

He grins.

Jongin looks up again, but his eyes stay around Baekhyun’s collar, leaving Baekhyun an opportunity to wipe the glee from his face.

“Is there something I can help you with?” he asks after a moment of quiet.

“Well, I— um— just wanted to say— to apologize for running into you so many times this week.  I didn’t realize how… um, energetically you move?”

Baekhyun raises an eyebrow, and Jongin backtracks immediately.

“Not that it’s a bad thing!  You’re very gracefully enthusiastic, I just didn’t expect you to be quite so, erm, mobile, and—”

Baekhyun’s laughter cuts him off.  Jongin just looks lost and worried, though, so Baekhyun calms himself.

“Jongin, it’s fine,” he says, still laughing a little.  “My nose has been smushed a few times, but I’ll live.”

Jongin looks like he’s about to say something, but the class is already filling into the classroom, so Baekhyun cuts him off again, this time apologetically.

“We’ll catch up later, though!” he promises, turning away to catch the door.

 

 

 

Midterms can my , Baekhyun thinks, collapsing onto his textbook.  He’s been in his little corner of the library for at least eight hours.  And on a Saturday.

Seconds later, he hears the chair across from his being pulled out.  He’s been there for eight. ing. hours. I’ve staked my claim already, he thinks, and starts to pick up his head, glaring.

The person standing in front of him, though, is none other than Jongin, who quickly sets down two disposable hot cups on the table.

“I saw you here like five hours ago, and you looked tired, so I thought I’d get you a drink sorry I won’t bother you.”  All the words leave Jongin’s mouth so quickly that Baekhyun can’t help wondering, in his bemused state, whether Jongin had a rap career in another life.

“Wait,” he calls when he realizes Jongin’s starting to leave.  “Wait, come back, you can’t buy two drinks and leave them both here.  One’s going to get cold while the other’s getting drunk.”  Jongin sits but still looks unsure whether he should stay, so Baekhyun takes one cup and nudges the other closer to Jongin.

“Stay here and keep me company.  I haven’t spoken to an animate being in four hours.”

“Okay, well in that case, I should probably tell you that one cup’s coffee and the other’s only hot chocolate, because I didn’t know how much longer you wanted to be awake…” Jongin trails off, noticing Baekhyun’s jaw drop.

“Sorry? This is the coffee, here,” Jongin hurriedly pushes his cup across the table.

Baekhyun shakes his head.  “I can’t do this oh my god you got me coffee and hot chocolate because you didn’t know if I wanted caffeine oh my god.”  He buries his face in his arms.

“Sorry,” Jongin whispers, quickly standing up.

“Wait no no nononoo, sit down sorry I’m just so. You’re so nice, and I don’t understand.  My best friends are Kim Jongdae and Zhang Yixing (who is deceivingly cute, so nobody ever believes me—but that’s a tangent).

“Anyway, please stay and talk to me.  We haven’t really talked much, even though I TAed for you last semester, and now you’ve left us for dance.”  Baekhyun pouts, and he’s glad to see the blush return to Jongin’s cheeks as he settles back into the chair.

As they talk, Baekhyun makes a game of seeing how flustered he can make the dancer.  He keeps his eyes trained on Jongin’s the whole time, lavishes compliments on him at every opportunity, and teases Jongin’s shyness lightly, grinning when this just makes him pinker.

Kim Jongin is pretty cute, Baekhyun notices giddily.  Maybe it’s the caffeine and sugar and glee at not studying at the moment, but Jongin is actually adorable.  He can’t quite keep still, and the embarrassed smile that shows up whenever Baekhyun compliments him makes Baekhyun want to cuddle him into a giant pillow fort.

Eventually, an alarm goes off on Jongin’s phone.

“Ah, I need to get going,” he says apologetically.  “I have practice tomorrow morning, and my partner will kill me if I’m late again.”

“Well we can’t have that, can we?” Baekhyun grins, and Jongin ducks his head a little.

“I guess I’ll see you around then,” Jongin says shyly

“Yeah definitely!  And thanks for, you know,” Baekhyun waves his hands around a bit, “all this.  It was really nice of you.”

Jongin mumbles a quiet “No problem,” and when he’s gone, Baekhyun smiles to himself, remembering the small smile that had tugged at Jongin’s lips as he stared into his cup.

 

 

 

Yixing and Jongdae have already set up under the tree when Baekhyun joins them on Monday.  He collapses on Jongdae’s entire right side, burying his face in his neck.

Jongdae clucks sympathetically and pats Baekhyun’s back.  “Stats exam not go well?”

Baekhyun’s groan is muffled, but the message is very clear.  He shifts slightly, though, allowing Yixing to feed him a sympathy cookie.

When he raises his head, he sees a certain dark-haired dancer lying under a tree in front of him, reading and sipping from a travel mug.

“Jongin!”

Jongin looks up, and upon seeing Baekhyun, he breaks into a surprised smile and waves.

Baekhyun gestures for Jongin to come over, not noticing the look Jongdae and Yixing share.  He tugs Jongin down next to him, turning away from Jongdae to push his way into Jongin’s side instead.

When Jongin tenses slightly, but then relaxes and tentatively puts an arm around his shoulders, Baekhyun grins and turns to Jongdae.

“Sorry, but he’s actually the right height, and now I don’t need to slouch for you.”

Jongdae looks over and makes eye contact with Jongin, who shrugs, bemused.

“Fine, ingrate,” Jongdae huffs, rolling his eyes and reaching out to snuggle Yixing, who complies with a sigh of fake exasperation.

After a few seconds of silence, Jongin speaks up.

“I’m Jongin, by the way.”

“Oh , right. Manners are a thing.  Jongin, this loser here is Jongdae, and that cutie (who can’t be trusted) is Yixing,” Baekhyun says, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the other two.

“He’s chosen you, Jongin.  There’s no getting out now,” Yixing says, shaking his head solemnly.

Jongin looks down at Baekhyun’s head nestled against his collarbone, as if sizing Baekhyun up.  Then, he looks back up at Jongdae and Yixing’s smug faces.

“I think I can handle him,” he says with another small shrug.

Baekhyun just chuckles and pats Jongin’s knee.

 

 

 

The weeks pass quickly in college, and Baek is pleased when Jongin begins opening up a bit more and partakes in the teasing of Yixing and Jongdae (and Baekhyun too, which is perhaps a little less exciting).  They make Friday afternoon cuddles a thing—after his last class ends at three, Baekhyun sneaks into Jongin’s room, where the dancer has just finished a post-practice shower.  At first, Baekhyun called ahead, but after the first couple weeks, Jongin started texting if Baekhyun wasn’t there at three on the dot.  Like most college students, they have hectic schedules, but every Friday afternoon is theirs, and at seven, they head over to Yixing’s to start movie night.

One night, they decide to watch Armageddon, and by the time they’re done, everyone is fairly tipsy (“That’s the only way you can stand to finish this movie.  Especially if you’ve seen it before,” Jongdae says, cracking open a beer for Jongin as the opening credits play).

Over the course of the movie, the four of them, already smushed close together on the twin-sized bed, are completely intertwined.  Baekhyun and Jongdae always end up in the middle— “You’re the softest,” Yixing snickers— but today, Baekhyun had pushed Jongin into the center, claiming he wanted to make sure Jongin felt the love on all sides.

Smushed against Jongin’s chest, Baekhyun frees an arm and waves his bottle around.

“You know what would make this night better?”

“Literally anything?”  At Baekhyun’s furrowed eyebrows, Jongdae continues with a shake of his head.  “I mean, we did just watch Armageddon for the third time.”

Baekhyun grins.  “Well, I think we should play truth or dare.”

Yixing and Jongdae groan, burying their faces in each others shoulders.  Laughing, Jongin looks down at where Baekhyun’s pouting and slightly overdoing the puppy look.  He relents anyway, and Baekhyun’s entire face lights up immediately.

“Duuuuude,” Jongdae draws out, leaning further into Jongin.  “You know Baekhyun well enough by now to know better.  He just wants to ask embarrassing questions.  He already knows us too well, so it’s just you left.”

The alcohol has made its presence known through Jongin’s cheeks already, and it appears in Jongin’s next words.

“Bring it on.”

Baekhyun’s lips curve into a wicked grin.  “Let’s go, then.”

 

He begins an onslaught of questions, abandoning the truth or dare pretense.  In the next few hours, Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Yixing end up laughing their stomachs sore over Jongin’s dumb escapades with Oh Sehun, current dance partner and childhood friend.  They hug him extra tightly when he mentions people bullying him for ballet when he was younger, and they tease the life out of him when they ask him about his middle school emo phase.

Finally, Baekhyun asks the question that Jongin had avoided for months by giving a different answer every time.

“Why did you suddenly show up and run into me so many times?”

Jongin has, however, at this point sobered up enough to shake his head and clamp his mouth shut regardless of how much they push.  Finally, Baekhyun gives up, but the sad droop of his lips pushes a quiet “later” from Jongin’s tongue to Baekhyun’s ears.

At this, Baekhyun perks up and gives Jongin’s hand, which is resting on his waist, a squeeze.  He quickly moves on, asking about Jongin’s dogs.

 

 

 

It’s only nine in the morning when Baekhyun slips into Jongin’s room the next morning.  He flops onto the bed, straight on top of the lump of blankets.

Jongin groans loudly, and a hand pulls the blankets higher as he curls into a ball.

Baekhyun chuckles and spreads out so his limbs are wrapped tightly around Jongin, cutting off any possible escape.

“What do you want,” Jongin whines, trying half-heartedly to wiggle away.

“Well I want you to tell me why you kept running into me, but first, I brought breakfast, so basically, I’m the best hyung you could have.”  Baekhyun pulls back the covers and rests his chin on Jongin’s shoulder.

“Come on,” he sings, laughing as Jongin tries to burrow back into the sheets.

“Hyung, it’s like six AM.”

“It’s nine, actually.”

“Exactly.”  Jongin, giving up on an escape, smushes his face into his pillow.

“At least look at me,” Baekhyun pouts.

“No, because that’s admitting defeat, and then you’ll pout and I’m not falling for it.”  Jongin’s voice is muffled, but Baekhyun grins, because he can hear the whine even through the cotton.

 

 

It takes many promises of fried chicken, but forty minutes later, Baekhyun coaxes Jongin to the kitchen, still bundled in all his blankets.

They eat bagels and cream cheese with now room temp coffee, and as soon as Jongin’s bagel is gone, Baekhyun pounces.

“So why.”

“Why what?”

“You know what I’m talking about, Jongin.”

“No I don’t,” Jongin stares resolutely into his coffee.

Baek sighs and moves to the other side of the table so he can sit next to Jongin and tug on his chin.

“Hyung, it’s too early for this conversation.”

“Jongin, it’s always too early for this conversation.”

“It is!”

“Jongin.  I am using up this entire year’s supply of seriousness to get you to talk to me.”

Jongin shuffles uncomfortably at this, but he’s silent for several minutes.  Baekhyun’s just about to open his mouth when Jongin finally speaks.

“I was going to ask you out, but I kept freezing and you’d run into me, because I couldn’t talk in time to get your attention.  Then, you told me you were aromantic, so I tried to get over it, and I didn’t want to tell you in case it made you uncomfortable.”

“Oh my god," Baekhyun says, and for once, he can't quite find the right words, because this whole time, he'd assumed Jongin was just shy and/or awkward and didn't know how to talk casually with his TA.

Jongin shrinks in on himself when Baekhyun doesn't say anything else, and when Baekhyun finally notices, he takes a deep breath and cautiously poses a question.

"So… are you over me?”  Baekhyun’s surprised by how calm he sounds.

“Not really? I’m trying!” Jongin pleads, finally looking up.

It takes a moment before Baekhyun finally says, “Jongin, I’m cupioromantic.  I tell people I’m just aro because they normally can't understand how it works, even if I explain, so Jongdae and Yixing are the only ones I ever talk to about it with.”  Jongin looks confused as well, so Baekhyun elaborates.  “Cupioromantic means I want a romantic relationship, but I’m not romantically attracted to anyone.  Or, coincidentally, ually attracted, but that’s a different story and you already know what it’s like.”

“So… what does that mean for me?” Jongin still looks very uncertain.

Baekhyun shrugs.  “I’m not romantically attracted to you, but I do think you’re really cute and nice to cuddle, and I see you all the time anyway, so it’s up to you, I guess.  If you want to try asking me out, you need to be prepared for me waking you up like this more often.”

Jongin stands, then, leaning over the smaller man so their foreheads almost touch.

“Go out with me sometime, then?  I think I can handle you.”

Baekhyun smiles and leans forward to gently bump his nose against Jongin’s.  “Well see.  I’m not convinced you’re cut out for this life.”

Jongin just laughs, enveloping Baekhyun in a warm hug and smiling extra widely when he feels arms circle his waist.

 

 

 

Monday, Baekhyun welcomes Jongin to the lunch tree with a kiss on the cheek, and Jongdae shrieks.  Yixing, on the other hand, leans over to give Jongin a pitying smile.

“i’m so sorry,” he says.

Baekhyun rolls his eyes, but when Jongin sighs sadly and says thank you, he sniffs and starts gathering his things.

“I’m not appreciated enough here.  Good bye.”

Jongin just laughs and pulls Baekhyun back, trapping him in his arms.

“Nope,” he sings, “you’re all mine now.”

Baekhyun sighs tiredly, but he smiles after settling against Jongin’s chest, taking great joy in Jongdae’s and Yixing’s mock-retching.

 

 

 

A/N: thank you for reading! I just wanted to let you know that if you're into the representation of aual/aro/agender orientations, you should definitely go check out aaaexo, a blog dedicated to ace/aro/agender representation in exo fic.  Also, I accidentally deleted the post with "Conventional, but not Comfortable" on LiveJournal (which I called "to he or not to he, that is the question" on AFF), and to be honest, it really ed with my ability to write/read fic for a few weeks.  It's such an important fic to me, and the comments were all so kind, so if you could leave me a comment there, even if it's super short, I'd love you forever. and ever. and ever :)