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it starts in milan.
baekhyun gets tired of many things. he grows tired of being stored away. of covering his face when he wants to go outside. of having to ask for permission & security to go to the grocery store.
his life is an endless repetition of circles. rise to look pretty, to sing a few songs. rest to rise again. rinse, repeat. spin the cycle, play the game until you feel so sick of your life you break the way so many others have before.
it is 11:34pm when he steps out of the shower. the air nips at his exposed skin, goosebumps sprout as soon as his foot hits the white tile of the bathroom. he ties a navy blue towel around his waist, uses another to dry his hair haphazardly.
it'll be styled for him in the morning, regardless of how he sleeps. rinse, repeat.
it is 12:06am when baekhyun slips into bed. the window is wide open, overlooking a city of which knows his name. his chest is bare, & for a moment, he considers the way the moonlight casts shadows on his chest. his fingers dance across the skin, over his nipples, swirling down his stomach.
the shapes he draws are odd, but the shadows are pretty. most things that lie in the shadows are, too. his fingers cast as large, moving objects on the ceiling.
the routine breaks with a knock at the door. it is startling, in the dark. baekhyun is suddenly aware of how alone he is, of how vulnerable he is in the dark of his own room. he is also aware of how his heart thrums in anticipation, the way the schedule is broken.
his feet hit the floor again.
when he peers through the door, his eyes scan a taller figure, starting at the feet. he is dressed in gray sweatpants that sit low on his hips. the t-shirt that frames his body is very tight, baekhyun wonders how he can sleep a such thing. his eyes stop at the collarbones of the man before he realizes who it is.
he unlatches the door.
"sehun-ah," baekhyun whispers, side stepping to allow the other boy inside.
sehun is four inches taller than baekhyun, & about double his width. his shoulders are broad, his frame is muscular. baekhyun looks to the ceiling, only for a second, & marvels at the shadows he casts.
"i wasn't kidding," sehun says. his eyes are bloodshot, & he brings the palms of his hands up to rub them agressively. there is no evidence of tears. just exhaustion.
baekhyun cocks his head.
"when i don't like sleeping alone," his voice is quiet. baekhyun thinks he hasn't seen sehun like this since pre-debut days. "one of the managers was supposed to be in my room & then there was an extra single. he switched out."
baekhyun puts his palm on sehun's cold face.
"i'm sorry," his voice is soft. he steps forward. the air is all tension & nothing else, stress wound tight into sehun's core, splitting him down the middle. "i know you hate that."
the emptiness in baekhyun doesn't disappear. but it shrinks, maybe, looking sehun in the eyes like this.
sehun peers up at him, eyes wide.
sehun doesn't speak, he doesn't cry. his eyes just burn, red red, red. a color baekhyun will never forget.
baekhyun steps forward. his hands start on sehun's shoulders, trailing softly down to the waist of sehun's sweatpants. sehun opens up, eyes curious, but mouth quiet.
baekhyun takes hold of the shirt that clings to sehun's muscles. slowly, he peels it off, up & over the younger boy's head.
"then stay with me."
x
milan is the beginning of a new circle, & yet, baekhyun finds himself content with this one.
baekhyun does not get tired of the way sehun creeps into his hotel room. there is no longer a knock, now. it has been replaces with a shuffle at the front door, the sound of sehun reaching into his pockets for a key baekhyun has slipped into his post-practice socks.
he comes like clockwork, no matter the city, no matter the country. he comes like a man on a schedule, because he is. schedules are all they have ever known. it is hard to sperate yourself from all you have ever known.
he always, eventually, enters- without fail, long after all of the others have shut their doors & their eyes. baekhyun does not get tired of the way sehun slips underneath his sheets, sehun's body cold like ice when it curls up behind him.
he does not get tired of the way sehun's fingers skate over his chest, the way his own used to. these goosebumps- the ones that rise on his arms when sehun's thumbs just barely skate below his waistband are far more exhilerating than those from 11:34pm showers.
baekhyun turns over in bed. they have done this nine times now, in nine months, in nine different cities, in nine different beds. they hardly speak, just wrap up together until the night whisks them away and the morning calls their names.
usually, their presence speaks enough for the both of them.
but sehun speaks tonight. of course, he does. baekhyun thinks he loves this about sehun: that he's always breaking schedules & routines.
baekhyun's head is beneath sehun's chin. his nose grazes the soft skin of his chest.
"i used to think i couldn't sleep alone," sehun says, & his voice is high in pitch, wound tightly like a wire bound to snap eventually.
baekhyun sits on the wire with him.
"but now," sehun says, & he kisses the crest of baekhyun's head, right hand gripping the side of elder boy closest to him & squeezing. "now, i don't think i can sleep without you, & that scares me."
baekhyun doesn't think. for once, he doesn't fucking think. he pushes away from sehun's hold. he uses his forearms to raise himself so he is at eye-level with the younger boy.
baekhyun bites his lip. he raises his hand to push the hair away from sehun's forehead.
"you," baekhyun says, his voice cracking. his eyes water and burn red, red, red. "you are the only thing that keeps me sane. you are the only thing i look forward to," he says. the tear falls slowly.
sehun smiles softly, reaching up to wipe at the undersides of baekhyun's eyes. sehun's hand wraps around the back of the elder boy's neck, eyes scanning his face, gaze pausing on baekhyun's lips.
"i can't sleep alone because of all of the thoughts that don't stop," sehun says. bakehyun nods, understands.
"it's so miserable. i just-"
baekhyun shushes sehun, his hand caressing the back of sehun's head now. they hold one another. it dawns on baekhyun that nobody but sehun has ever held him like this.
"i know how you feel." baekhyun nods, tear sliding down the slope of his nose. "i know," baekhyun says again, lowering his face. sehun squeezes his neck harder. "i know." baekhyun says again, before connecting his lips with sehun's in one slow move.
he hasn't been kissed in years. he hasn't kissed like this since high school. sehun bites down on his lower lip, but it isn't aggressive, it is slow. calculated, like everything sehun does. he kisses like he's been thinking about this for years.
baekhyun's tongue slips inside the velvet of sehun's mouth. he licks in slow, takes in the contact that he's craved for so long.
sehun parts to breathe, but only for a second. his lips are back on baekhyun's so fast he couldn't even register the parting. the elder boy moves both of his hands to grab sehun's cheeks, leg swinging over sehun's thighs.
once he's atop the younger boy, he pulls away from sehun's mouth again. his eyes furrow, his lips draw together, like he's trying to figure out how to ask if this okay.
"i wanna do this," sehun says, panting. reading his mind. breaking his routine. his hands move to encase baekhyun's thighs. "i want to do this, in every fucking city we go to."
baekhyun leans in again.
x
they'll always live in circles.
but as sehun traces the t-zone of baekhyun's face with his fingertips, and baekhyun's hands grab at sehun's hips for support, he realizes that this means far more than any of the circles ever did.