Chapter Text
As soon as Kyungsoo stepped into the bar, he knew he was in for a long night.
He’d begrudgingly accepted Chanyeol’s invitation to go out for drinks after his colleague had given him the puppy eyes, toward the end of their 9-to-5 shift. Not that he was weak for them, oh no, of course not; it was just that he’d been particularly mean to Chanyeol during the team meeting, bluntly--and publicly--pointing out some mistakes he’d made on his last proposal.
He was just doing his job, he’d tried to reason with himself, there was nothing false about his accusations, except that was exactly what they were: accusations. Junmyeon, their team leader, had chastised him about his lack of manners (!) and tact (!!!), had even suggested he apologize to Chanyeol formally or some shit like that, which honestly would've been like dunking a bucket of icy humiliation on his head. He didn't think he could live through that.
But thanks to Chanyeol’s easy-going personality, none of that had happened. His hyung had simply fluttered his eyelashes at Kyungsoo to the point he’d gotten teary-eyed, hence the (actually accidental) beaten puppy look. And no matter how desperately Kyungsoo always tried to ignore it, it always got to him, sneakily breaking past his wall of indifference and wrapping around his heart. (Manipulation, pure manipulation, he’d grumble to himself every single time.)
As far as he could remember, he’d only been to the Kokobop Club once, and that was back in college, when he’d gotten so shitfaced he couldn't recall much of the entire experience beside elbowing someone in the face.
Even now, mentally comparing the bar’s before and after? It was an impossible task. With his memories in the blur they were, there was no telling if the buzzing pastel lights, the fake palm trees and the poor ventilation had been the same or not, but he had a guess as for the latter.
It took him one minute too many before he spotted Chanyeol at a table in the far corner of the building, beyond the moving mass of young people that was the dancefloor. His heart was then already squeezed tight and his armpits, most definitely ruined by sweat, even though he’d anticipated this--and made it worse all at once--by putting on a black, fake leather jacket.
He had to zigzag through hot, careless limbs to get to the table, so when he finally made it past the worst of the brouhaha only to realize there were two more people than supposed at the table, he swore. (Under his breath, of course.)
Seated to Chanyeol’s left was Kim Jongin, the newest intern at the office. Awkward, dashing, inexperienced, Kyungsoo appreciated his politeness and the fact he didn't throw any jab at Kyungsoo about his bluntness like the others, but that was about it. Apparently, he and Chanyeol had shared some classes back in college, or something else along the lines.
As for the other man present … well. Kyungsoo would rather he not be there at all, in all honesty, because he couldn’t stand him.
Him being Byun Baekhyun, one of Chanyeol’s closest friends, but number one on Kyungsoo’s blacklist of the workplace for over a year now.
Everyone teased them, would recount tales of how they became rivals from their very first day in the company … which was truly how things had evolved right from the start. They'd both started on the same day, on the same team, and in all of his entire life, Kyungsoo had never met someone he’d disagreed with as much as Baekhyun. He was brash, flirty, good at his job but somehow still lazy and sloppy in his methods, when Kyungsoo always followed a clean, straight line, never let himself become self-indulgent.
He urged a nod at Chanyeol, sliding down in the sole empty seat left; beside Baekhyun, whom he carefully avoided looking at, even as he gave Jongin a small wave across the table.
He heard the redhead scoff next to him--that was right, Baekhyun had dyed his hair fucking red, how much more tacky can you get--and purposefully leaned away and across the table to throw Chanyeol a meaningful death glare. “Why the fuck is he here?” he hissed through clenched teeth, molars grinding together almost painfully. He didn't really care if Baekhyun picked up on his annoyance or not, but he didn't want for Jongin to find himself in a pool of awkwardness he had nothing to do with, so there went his second good act of the day. The first one was coming here, of course.
All that was reflected back at him, though, was a half-apologetic smile and a twitchy shrug of shoulders. “I owe him some drinks because of a favour, and I wanted Jongin to get to know you two outside of work?” Chanyeol attempted, heedless to Kyungsoo’s actual discomfort in the face of such company.
Sure, Kyungsoo thought, but you honestly could’ve picked another time to invite me. He definitely knew of Kyungsoo and Baekhyun’s constant quarreling. Biting the inside of his cheek, Kyungsoo merely rolled his eyes and instead fixated on one of the neon-lit drink charts hanging on a pillar, near the main counter. If that was how things were going to be--because he couldn’t exactly barge out of the place, it would be rude, he knew that much--he was definitely going to take advantage of the alcohol. It’d been a while since his last real drinking session, but the future buzz of ethanol in his veins would be worth it, was already tempting him.
“Kyungsoo, what are you going to take?” Jongin asked suddenly, yanking him out of his contemplation. He blinked, thinking that maybe it was Jongin’s way of trying to make small-talk. “I think I’m just going to start with a pornstar,” he said in a drawl, hesitant.
In his seat, Baekhyun crossed his arms over his chest, twangy voice resonating far too loud in Kyungsoo’s ears as he mocked. “That’s weak. A girl’s drink.”
Instantly, Kyungsoo clenched his fists into his laps, eyes throwing daggers at his execrable colleague. If Baekhyun couldn’t be decent for an evening, then he didn’t see the point in holding back. “I don’t think I asked for your crappy sexist opinion, so you can shut it.”
Baekhyun’s eyes widened, mouth gaping open as he choked on saliva. “Can’t you take a joke?” Because this was his definition of a joke? “It’s fucking distasteful,” Kyungsoo bit out, and that earned him a eye roll. Across the table, both Jongin and Chanyeol looked appalled and, for lack of a better word, worried.
They were not even five minutes in, and Kyungsoo’s fingers were already itching with the need to fling something at the redhead’s face. He knew all too well how satisfying it would be; after all, he’d thrown a stapler at the back of his head at work, once, when Baekhyun had purposefully been blasting obnoxious rap music from his computer’s speakers during break.
Chanyeol shifted nervously, chair legs scraping against the flooring as he did. “Guys, guys, relax,” he began, one eyebrow ticking as he huffed. “It’s Friday, we’re here to drink whatever we want, however we want. Let’s just have a blast,” he finished, lips wobbling over his teeth as he smiled.
Kyungsoo heaved, and Baekhyun just mumbled, fringe sliding into his eyes as he lowered his face as a reprimanded child would. Good for him, Kyungsoo thought, because he's got the maturity of a two-year-old.
The following hours weren’t as bad.
Chanyeol bought the second round for everyone, and that meant Kyungsoo didn’t feel as terrible for spending money on more booze afterwards. He eventually swapped his sirupy, sour drinks for stronger stuff, while Chanyeol and Baekhyun stuck to beer for the most of it. As for Jongin, he didn’t really drink, only tasted from Chanyeol’s glasses, at least until tequila was brought up. Then, it was as if his whole world had turned around on its axis, and he had himself a couple of shots.
Kyungsoo was, as of late, a wine drinker more than anything else, and a moderate one at that. His tolerance was fine unless he mixed, but he absolutely despised the aftermath that came with it when he went overboard. Not that he wanted to anticipate it today, though. He’d deal with it when it came his way tomorrow morning. Anything would be worth the fogging of his senses if it meant Baekhyun’s nasty sense of humour wouldn’t grate on his nerves as much.
The duo of Chanyeol and Jongin definitely had something to do with the partial removal of tension from the atmosphere of their booth. While the youngest of the two was a bit of an embarrassment, all booming seal-like laugh and dad jokes, he was still a good kind of embarrassment. As for Chanyeol, always the hype man, he was charming, encouraging whoever talked to carry on with their anecdote, clapping hands and all.
Baekhyun visibly unwinded throughout the evening, bantering along with Chanyeol and Jongin so long as Kyungsoo wasn’t involved in the segment of the conversation. Kyungsoo did similarly, but as he was never much of a talker to begin with, would often forget to finish his sentences, which would, as a result, cause his stories to fizzle out in the middle and lose the interest of his listeners.
At some point, Chanyeol, Jongin and Baekhyun all agreed on joining the dancefloor. “To let out the beast,” had joked Chanyeol before Jongin had careened into him, wheezing with laughter. Kyungsoo had declined, all too aware of his poor coordination skills, and instead signalled for a waiter to come take his order. His wallet would cry come tomorrow, and so would his head, but he couldn’t really bring himself to worry for now.
He was brought a glass of whiskey, which he nursed for a while. Each sip brought fire to hurry down his throat, fill the void in his chest, then left a cloying veil on his tongue that he would sweep over his teeth.
There was a pounding in his skull, one that was accentuated in time with the thrumming bass of the music speakers. The distant impression that his stomach was churning would probably reveal to be true by the time sunrise came around, by the time the toxines left his blood and liver and left him utterly dehydrated, but for now, he revelled in the sensation of losing sense of who he was, had been, would be.
Boring, stuck-up Do Kyungsoo, unable to thrive unless given a premade path. Nothing like Byun Baekhyun, whose improvisation skills always charmed the clients and earned him more impressive successes than Kyungsoo at work, even though he didn’t swear by the rules like him. Better than Kyungsoo who, for all of his deeply ingrained work ethics, couldn’t point out someone’s mistake without seeming unapologetically rude.
He shook his head, eyes swirling along with the cubes of ice in his glass as he twirled it. Didn’t matter. Who he was, what he did, didn’t matter. At least, not tonight.
Really, the evening could’ve gone a lot worse, was what he told himself.
He didn’t notice, as the minutes went by, that the table became littered with empty glasses. He rebuffed every single stranger who dropped by the booth, completely disengaged at the idea of superficial chatting, the only thing he was likely to achieve in such a wired environment.
He didn’t give himself the right to leave his seat, however, because everyone’s jackets--and thus wallets and whatnot--were on the chairs, and it just wouldn’t do if someone tried to steal one of the personal items. But after hours of just staring down his drinks, downing them, counting them, counting them in pairs, counting them in thirds, and even popping cats on his cellphone, he was as bored as he could get. Furthermore, his bladder was filled to the brim, and his belt, digging painfully into his lower stomach. It’d feel absolutely fantastic if he could just take off his jeans right then and there, but that would probably only make him look like a pure creep who’d had one drink too many, even if he ever tried to justify his actions with “jeans are the worst thing on Earth, my legs were suffocating, sorry,” or something else along the lines.
The very moment he spotted Chanyeol’s tall frame, Jongin’s white skinny pants and Baekhyun’s bright, unmistakable red hair, he all but jumped from his seat.
An utter miscalculation, really, because his surroundings began to sway before his eyes, inviting him in an impromptu tango back onto his chair. He clung to its metal bars, emitting a small “wow” as he did, because wow indeed, this was hilarious and devastating all at once.
Why was it that sitting made drinking so much trickier? It shouldn’t have taken away from him the ability to evaluate just how wasted he was, and yet. Oh, well, too late already, anyway.
Someone poked him in the cheek--Chanyeol. “Are you okay, Kyungsoo?” He tilted his head up, eyes straying to flushed cheeks and disheveled hair from dancing. The tall man appeared relatively sober, or at least, definitely more so than Kyungsoo. “Sure am,” he slurred, snorting at his own inebriated pronunciation. Chanyeol grinned down at him, sitting down in his previous seat, and Jongin excused himself to go get a glass of water just as Baekhyun made for his seat.
Except, yeah, Kyungsoo raised and stretched his arm at the very last moment just to prevent him from getting to it, because he could. The redhead stopped in his tracks, baffled by Kyungsoo’s not-so-civil (and not-so-mature) move. “Hum,” he began, eyebrows furrowed, mouth twisted. “Can I get my seat?” He, too, was rosy in the face, basically glowing under the glimmering rays of the lights of the bar. Almost cute, but too red all over, and Kyungsoo was never really fond of that bold, garish colour.
He’d rather always preferred subdued blues and greys, maybe even purples--
“I don’t think you deserve it,” he replied, internally spazzing at the look of complete disbelief on Baekhyun’s face. “You’re just an ass,” he added, before finally removing his arm from the way. He was vaguely aware of Chanyeol giggling at the whole scene across the table and Jongin, too, who’d probably just come back from getting his glass of water. Such a responsible kid.
Baekhyun could easily have pushed his limb out of the way, he mused, but he hadn’t moved before Kyungsoo had. “Thanks,” he even said as he passed him by, sliding down into his own chair without looking at Kyungsoo.
“I need to take a piss,” he announced after what might’ve been a mere minute of the table being silent. Chanyeol just nodded, already used to Kyungsoo’s useless comments when drunk or tired, but Jongin stared at him a bit funny before laughing. All the while, Baekhyun said nothing, or so Kyungsoo assumed as he hadn’t turned his way, nor did he hear anything coming from him.
His legs were clumsy, his balance, precarious, so he had to rely on the table to gain back some sort of will to make it to the restroom. When he finally pushed himself entirely up, it didn’t feel as bad as earlier, so he believed himself fine and began making his way, solely guided by the WC sign.
Behind him, he overheard someone say “I’ll go with him” but paid it no heed, speculating it was probably not about himself anyway. He poured all of his attention into the very task of walking to the restroom, no matter how far it seemed, no matter how suffocating the mob of the dancefloor. He could feel perspiration cling to the back of his nape like an illness, breathing down his neck and feeding into an ever growing nausea, but still he continued until his clammy hands came upon the door of the men’s restroom.
The very instant he pushed it open, he was assailed with wafts of both urine and antiseptic products. Nose crinkling, he squinted as he padded to the nearest empty stall only to realize that, no, it wasn't actually empty. So he changed course, set for the urinals on the far wall, but then his vision spun, causing him to stumble and crash into the sink counter just as an arm wound around his waist.
There was a warm exhale against his cheek, and then. “If you're going to bash your head open the first opportunity you get, maybe you shouldn't have drunk so much.”
His head snapped back, eyes going wide as his numbed senses took in Baekhyun, right behind him--around him, holding him. What the actual fuck?
Apparently he blurted his surprise out loud, because Baekhyun grimaced. “Tone it down a bit, won't you,” he warned. Just then Kyungsoo applied pressure on his chest, just enough to push him away, out of his personal space. “Don't--Don’t touch me,” he stuttered, the fire gone from his tone of voice, but not from his skin, veins, and stomach.
Baekhyun eyed him with something akin to wariness painted in the lines of his features, noticeably gnawing on his lip as he considered--maybe?--his next move. “Can you go even without… uh…”
Kyungsoo’s eyebrow arched, twitching with impatience. “What?” Now was certainly not a time to be cryptic. His brain’s ability to understand was most definitely depleted.
Baekhyun groaned, as if greatly pained by the words trying to claw up his throat, mouth, and into the air. “Do you need me to hold you while you piss?”
Kyungsoo frowned, head tilted to one side, the gears cracking in his head as he tried to--comprehend. But then he did, and all that came up was a guffaw; a tired, sarcastic guffaw, filled with poison as much as Kyungsoo was empty. Baekhyun’s eyes locked onto his, and he held, he held the confused glare until it made him dizzy to do so, until he lost himself because all he found, beneath the surprise, was a wall of unknown he couldn't decipher.
He would never understand Baekhyun.
They were so--different. Unfitting to one another. Kyungsoo couldn't even begin to fathom his own friends, let alone himself--why would he suddenly be able to pick up on Baekhyun, who flirted with everyone, Baekhyun, who played along with these social cues that only ever befuddled Kyungsoo?
He considered his state, assessed the slowness of his movements, the weights tied to his wrists and ankles. As if his head was pumped with fluids solely, it wouldn't send the signals to his nerves and muscles for him to so much as blink both eyes at the same time.
“I think, yeah,” he drawled out, hating every cell of his being for accepting, oh so aware that once the new day would be upon him, regret would catch fire in his guts like hay under the sun, and he, he, sober Kyungsoo, would have to suffer humiliation.
He didn’t wait, didn’t linger to see if Baekhyun would pursue him, his uncalculated movements and tremors, to the nearest urinal.
He was thankful, though, for the arms that encased his waist as soon as he found himself lurching forward a tad too much. Faceplanting into a filthy urinal was not on his bucket list, never would be, not even if as hammered as he now was.
But even standing right before the urinal, certainly close enough to get his dick out and just do his business, his hands fumbled, his fingers wouldn’t execute the right presses, the right pulls on the button and fly of his pants. Fucking hell, why wouldn’t it work? Why so complicated, suddenly?
An exasperated huff echoed in his ear, reminding him of the body pressed to his own, and hands landed on his belt, undid his pants. “I swear, why am I even putting up with this,” Baekhyun grumbled.
“Cause you’re an ass and if you don’t, I’ll pee on you,” Kyungsoo said without missing a beat and shrugged. Baekhyun gave a disbelieving laugh. Almost a normal laugh, at that. “Hurry up then, drunk one, I already took care of the hardest part for you.”
Was that--was he really just casually messing around with him? Was Kyungsoo wrong in his interpretation of his tone of voice, or did Baekhyun really just sound normal, teasing, yes, but not in a sarcastic way? It was the alcohol, it couldn’t be otherwise.
He managed to take care of the rest by himself, at least until his hands decided to lower while he held himself, and the back of his head gently rested onto Baekhyun’s shoulder. “Hey, you idiot, don’t fall asleep like that!”
He laughed, even as slender fingers touched his hands and helped him back into his pants. Oh, fuck. He really hoped he’d forget about it all by the time he truly woke up again.
Baekhyun literally carried him--or, well, guided him with a lot of attention--back to the table. Everything was starting to mix; scenes, seconds, minutes, all blurred into one another; a sign of his drunkenness dragging him closer and closer to the edge of unconsciousness, even though he had yet to get back home somehow.
“Why did it take so long? Are you guys alright?” Chanyeol’s voice boomed, even amongst all the other noises of the place, and Kyungsoo flinched, eyes tightly shut as he rested his weight on--well, on Baekhyun. Oops. He was supposed to hate on Baekhyun all evening--although… nah, he still hated him, even now.
“We’re fine, Kyung--I mean, he’s completely drunk,” Baekhyun clarified. “Can one of you guys take him home?”
Silence. Well, as much as silence could exist in such a noisy, cramped bar to begin with. Chanyeol stared at Jongin, Jongin stared back, and Baekhyun, not believing his luck, glared at them both, vein pulsing in his neck at the accumulating tension.
“I don’t even know where he lives,” he deadpanned. “I’m not going to make him sleep at my place,” a half-screech, half-laugh. How ridiculous could the situation really get?
Chanyeol moved from one foot to the other while Jongin hovered behind the table, and, finally, said, “Maybe I could give you his address and you just… drop him off there? Or something?” There was so much sweat stuck to the linings of his clothes; Baekhyun couldn’t wait to just get back to his apartment, if only to wash the grime off and sleep. He hadn’t drank that much, but he was still tired after a week of work and hours of dancing.
“What if he goes into coma or something, uh,” he began. “Chanyeol, you’re his friend, why can’t you just take care of him?” He couldn’t help the whine that left him, a sheet of mental discomfort settling upon his shoulders at what taking care of Kyungsoo could entail. He just--couldn’t get along with the other. It’d be horribly awkward if Kyungsoo sobered up and remembered Baekhyun’s act of kindness; and what about his state? Baekhyun was no baby-sitter, wouldn’t just take that someone puke on him while on the taxi ride or some shit like that. All of that was just asking for trouble.
“Well, hum,” Chanyeol threw a quick glance backward, towards Jongin, that didn’t escape Baekhyun. He sneered. “Oh, great.” Pushing forward, he managed to make Kyungsoo sit on his chair, even as his body was a deadweight, even as he teetered to one side and Baekhyun had to hold him, yet again. Before him, Chanyeol and Jongin were both sporting masks of guilt, their real intentions given away by the manner in which they now avoided to hold his glare. “You don’t want your precious fucking time to be interrupted, I see.” Both gasped, with Jongin babbling about excuses while Chanyeol’s face scrunched up as if he was about to cry. They were clearly still under the effects of alcohol, and so was Baekhyun, so why now? Why?
Ever since Jongin had been taken in as an intern in their department, Baekhyun knew there was something fishy about the way he’d always stick to Chanyeol. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that, indeed, the two were something more, but he didn’t think it’d come back and slap him in the face in such a way, ever. It wasn’t about him, for fuck’s sake. He’d already gotten a look at Kyungsoo’s dick, Kyungsoo peeing, and now, he was seemingly stuck with bringing him back home because his “friends” didn’t want to lose a second of their time to fuck? Fucking prodigious.
“Alright, whatever, fuck off, you better pay for the taxi, or I’m dumping him on the street,” he threatened even though, truth be told, he’d never leave someone to die, no matter what Kyungsoo might think of him. Chanyeol instantly began to nod his head, all too relieved to shove money in his free hand, the one not holding Kyungsoo up.
His wide-eyed colleague’s dislike of him hadn’t been such a difficult thing to figure out; his hatred, his discomfort in Baekhyun’s presence, it was all crystal clear, so palpable it was harrowing. He hadn’t done anything to Kyungsoo--they just didn’t fit, and somehow it pissed him off even more. And, okay, maybe his internal panic at being with him had spurted unsavory jokes out of his mouth on more than one occasion, but couldn’t he just, like, loosen up and let it go for a bit?
At the very least, Jongin and Chanyeol didn’t leave him stranded right away. They actually offered to carry Kyungsoo outside, which he gladly accepted, and hailed a taxi from the main road nearby. The cash Chanyeol had basically forced in his hands back in the bar was more than enough to pay for the ride until Kyungsoo’s apartment, but Chanyeol insisted he kept it all, reiterating that it was a meager compensation in the face of everything else.
He was a bit reluctant about it all, but once the car door was shut and Kyungsoo had basically slouched onto the backseat and half into his lap, there wasn’t much else to be done. He looked at his own face in his pocket mirror. His cheekbones were still flaming with crimson, far too much for it to be natural, yet his skin in itself was cold and moist, strands of black hair adhering to his forehead and temples. Urgency surged up from deep within himself, urgency to pluck the strands from the sweaty skin and dry them with something, but Baekhyun did nothing, couldn’t do much, had no towels within his reach. He surely looked half as plastered as Kyungsoo, anyway, and should instead focus on his own looks if anything.
The drive was uneventful. Baekhyun was vaguely aware of his on and off drowsing throughout, and when the taxi finally pulled into a narrow driveway and put the car on park, Baekhyun knew they’d reached their destination. He thanked the driver, tipping him, too, for the smooth ride, and with great difficulty, dragged Kyungsoo out of his seat and into the cold air of the night after unbuckling his seatbelt.
An annoyed sob almost made it past his lips when he realized he’d have to bring the other two flight of stairs, but he straightened up; it was only two flights, not seven, not fifteen. He could do this, so long as the zombie in his grasp cooperated a bit. He gave the other a shaking to, hopefully, lure him out of his daze just enough that he could set one foot in front of the other without Baekhyun having to do it all for him. “Kyungsoo, you there? We’re at your place, almost.” A grunt, a sigh, then silence again. “C’mon, I need your help if you’re going to make it to your bed.” He kept the whining out of his words as much as possible, but it was hard, so hard because Baekhyun was a professional whiner, just not in front of Kyungsoo at work.
Kyungsoo huffed, as if disturbed from a nap, but his eyes flickered and eventually, opened the slightest bit. That was a small win, but Baekhyun was going to take it all greedily.
They marched onward and to the set of stairs, Baekhyun’s arm woven around Kyungsoo’s waist as Kyungsoo’s arm rested on his shoulders. Kyungsoo was heavy--maybe not heavier than Baekhyun, but still, when you had to carry such dead weight, it definitely felt hefty--and the climb, incredibly too lengthy in Baekhyun’s perspective. He was sweating profusely by the time they arrived to the door of apartment 202, and, leaving Kyungsoo to lean against the railing, Baekhyun tried to fish for the drunken man’s keys in his coat pockets.
Nothing there; he momentarily sensed panic rise like scalding bile in his throat, until he realized Kyungsoo’s pants, albeit tight, had pockets too, and he set to find the keys, touches never lingering more than necessary. Eventually, he produced a set of keys from the left front pocket, and tried the keys one after the other until he found one corresponding to the door’s keyhole.
The inside of the apartment was pretty nondescript, but one thing that did stand out was its homely vibe. He struggled for a bit, hands splayed out on the entrance wall to search for the light switch. Once the entrance hall was lit up, he stepped back and pulled Kyungsoo in, somehow relieved the other hadn't tipped over the railing or anything.
The first room he came into was a mix of a kitchen and a living, all crème walls, brown furniture, and bamboo flooring. All-in-all quite boring, but well-maintained and open. (Also definitely cleaner than Baekhyun’s own living space, though he did notice garbage bags leaning against the wall by the entrance door as well as remnants of dishes in the sink.) If he could just get Kyungsoo to the couch, then he could figure the rest of the way through the apartment and, more specifically, identify the bathroom and the bedroom.
It was easier said than done, obviously. By then Kyungsoo’s breathing had became deep, and magic was the only explanation to the fact he hadn't fallen over. He was certainly no lighter than before, and carrying him to the couch made Baekhyun nauseous in a mere few steps. His chest was heaving up and down, and he hastily wiped his hands on his pants, moisture having gathered in their lines. All of this had drained him--so he slumped down on the couch once Kyungsoo was lying on it too, with an arm dangling over the edge and his shoes still on.
He just wanted a couple of minutes to rest, to find back his breath, he assured himself. But he’d barely let his eyelids fall shut that a weird noise was reverberating through the apartment, the pitter-patter of something and--a meow. A meow? Was that a cat meowing?
He attempted to remove the fatigue from of his eye sockets by blinking first, then by slapping his face a few times, until the pinch had heated his skin enough that he felt more alert. Before him, sitting prettily and with its tail swishing back and forth, was a cat, striped black and beige from the very tips of its furry ears down to its cute little paw. In the following seconds, it appraised him, lifted its butt, and promptly jumped on him to rub its scent all over his clothes.
He’d never witnessed such a casual demeanour from a cat, so maybe it was somehow linked to his carrying Kyungsoo here? If its… master’s… uh, scent, was all over him, then maybe it’d made him seem more approachable somehow. Maybe. He didn’t know. He’d only ever had one cat, back in elementary school, and dogs had always loved him more anyway.
Nevertheless, this cat seemed pretty straightforward in its attentions and needs, and Baekhyun found he quite revelled in the sensation of its purrs travelling through his frame. It was soothing, somewhat like a hand massager, but with the added emotional tingles, deep within his chest, of knowing the animal savored the caresses and human warmth.
It eventually got bored, though, because it jumped down from his laps and disappeared behind the couch. Baekhyun felt a momentary sense of loss in the hollows of his chest, but then Kyungsoo shifted and groaned, and it caught his attention. Quickly, he yanked his cellphone out of his pocket. 2:18, it displayed, and considering they’d left the bar at around forty-five minutes ago, drove for fifteen minutes… it meant he’d been petting the cat for thirty minutes straight. What the fuck even?
The lights he’d managed to turn on earlier were not vivid by any mean, but they did do enough of a good job that he could observe Kyungsoo’s evolving expression and position. His features were shiny with pearl of sweat, but the redness of his cheeks had gone down a little. As his eyebrows ticked inward, the man brought a hand up to rub at his eyes.
Baekhyun wetted his lips, hesitated before he tried to speak. “You okay?”
Kyungsoo’s head instantly wiped toward him, pure shock imprinted in the curves of his eyes and lips. “What--what are you doing here?” His voice, lower even than usual, dried out before the end of his sentence.
Baekhyun breathed out, heavily. “Chanyeol and Jongin were in a hurry to suck each other’s dick, so I had to bring you back to your place.” There. It summed the situation up pretty well.
But Kyungsoo jolted, sitting upright with taut, stiff limbs. “What?” Disbelief seeped into his tone, and Baekhyun felt bad for him. For some reason. He wasn’t quite sure himself why, to be honest. “What?”
“Since when are they together?” Kyungsoo asked. “I mean--they never said anything!” Baekhyun scowled, but more at Kyungsoo’s slightly hysterical reaction than anything else.
“Well, they never said anything to me, but I guessed it and… that’s what they confirmed?” That was about it, really. But considering Kyungsoo’s reaction, there must have been more to it.
Maybe…
Oh. Maybe Kyungsoo had a crush on one of them. But it certainly didn’t look like it. But then Kyungsoo was bemoaning to himself, and his “how come I’m always the one who can’t figure it out” made Baekhyun stare at him with a raised eyebrow. Uh, okay.
It didn’t last long, alas, for Kyungsoo’s face, which had grown paler and paler in the dim lights of his apartment, suddenly said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”