Baekhyun's finger hovered over the mousepad of his laptop for a good five seconds as he contemplated his next move. He was a senior in college now, working frantically on his thesis and trying to find time for singing and Jongdae, who'd officially become his boyfriend not long after that disastrous first date. Moments like this one were precious to him because those short fifteen minutes on Buzzfeed and Instagram and SNS provided just the right amount of sanity to keep him working diligently.

He'd chosen to study psychology, haunted by memories of a mostly golden childhood that was yet somehow marred by a creeping darkness in the form of Kris. It was through his classes that Baekhyun had come to realize what a hold the older man still had over his life, and that revelation alone had helped a lot in the overcoming of it.

Jongdae helped too, of course. Every few months, when Baekhyun would wake up suddenly in a cold sweat while mumbling something about hiding and masks and Kris, the other man would hold him close and make Baekhyun forget.

Yet knowing the problem, identifying it, and even erasing it from temporary memory doesn't make it disappear. At least not entirely. And so Baekhyun's finger hovered, and he thought.

He thought about the last time he'd seen Kris—at a reunion barbecue of sorts the year before—and remembered what it was like to be afraid, not in a dream world, but in tangible reality. He thought about what would happen if he clicked the "unblock" button; he thought about what would happen if he didn't. Honestly, he knew that if he pressed his finger down to remove Kris from the SNS blocked list, it was only a matter of time—mere hours, probably—before Kris discovered Baekhyun again.

Baekhyun wanted to tell himself that the reason he was even debating this choice was because he liked the attention. And on a certain level, probably, that was true. As a psychology major, Baekhyun had learned all about obsession, so he could at least admit to liking his power over Kris as much as Kris liked him. Except Kris held more power over Baekhyun than Baekhyun ever good hold over the elder, simply because Kris could make Baekhyun afraid.

It was this that prompted the college senior to glance guiltily over his shoulder in case of a surprise appearance by his boyfriend, before clicking "unblock" and readying himself for what he knew would come next. His fear drove him here; drove Baekhyun to make a decision that he, Jongdae, and likely the rest of the world, would find stupid in a day or two; drove the 22 year old man to remember the boy he'd been at seven and wonder if he still had a reason to be scared.

That's why he unblocked Kris. That's also why he accepts when Kris sends him a friend request the next day—one of many, by that point, Baekhyun's sure of it. That's why he feels a jolt of pure terror to his heart the moment his phone vibrates with a simple message of "Hi, Baekhyun-ah. I'm so glad you've decided we could be friends again." That's also why he deletes Kris' message instantly, unfriendly the older boy, and waits anxiously for the rest of his 48-hour window to elapse so he can block Kris all over again.

Baekhyun does this to himself, to Kris, every nine months or so because he needs to know that the fear he still holds on to his valid. Kris haunted Baekhyun's growing up years, and still haunts his dreams, sure, but even Baekhyun's scholastic friends have started questioning his visceral reaction every time Kris comes around. Jongdae doesn't—would never, actually—but even Baekhyun's confused by the fear sometimes.

So he repeats this cycle—unblock, friend, message, panic, unfriend, reblock—because he needs to know that he still has a reason to be scared of Kris; needs to know that Kris' obsession is still flourishing; needs to know that he has even a little power over Kris in this situation, because without it Baekhyun thinks the fear might drown him.

Because he'd rather be dead than be with Kris. It's extreme, sure, but that's how Baekhyun feels sometimes, especially in moments like these, when his fingers just clicked the button and he knows what the next few days will bring, and yet Baekhyun does it anyway.