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They met before they knew what it was like to love someone.
Kyungsoo thinks maybe he learned to love because of Baekhyun. Instinctual and natural, the way they fell together, like the world wanted them to belong to each other—they built up from the water, foundations in the unknowable ocean floor.
* * *
He is eight years old, and he is called down from his bedroom. He pads out, down the stairs, rounding the corner into the kitchen. His mother is standing at the sink, and she dusts her hands on her apron. There is the scent of sweetness in the air. Sugar and fire.
“Baekhyun is at the door,” she says. “Don’t stay out too late, all right? And be safe.”
“All right,” Kyungsoo says.
He puts on his shoes, and he laces them tightly before stepping outside.
Baekhyun is sitting on the step, looking out over the farm. Kyungsoo lets the screen door shut behind him, and Baekhyun doesn’t flinch at the sound. He sits down next to him, looking over at him.
“What’s wrong?” Kyungsoo asks.
“Nothing,” Baekhyun says, his stare blank as he looks at nothing.
“Do you feel okay?”
Baekhyun shakes it off, whatever it was, and he turns to Kyungsoo with a smile. “I’m fine.” He stands up with a spring in his step, and he offers his hand to Kyungsoo. “Come on. I found something cool I want to show you.”
Kyungsoo looks at him with a frown. He knows something’s wrong, he just doesn’t know what. He knows sometimes Baekhyun has trouble with his parents, but Baekhyun never says as much.
Baekhyun shakes his hand exaggeratedly as if to say Well? Aren’t you going to take it?
Kyungsoo puts his hand in Baekhyun’s and a second later, he is effectively launched into the air with a laugh. Baekhyun takes to a run, leaving Kyungsoo in his dust. Kyungsoo skips into a jog, chasing him down the lane and around the bend towards Baekhyun’s house.
They run through town without stopping, and once Kyungsoo’s chest starts to hurt with the effort, he tries to close the gap between them so that he can run next to Baekhyun. But Baekhyun doesn’t slow down to let him catch up. Baekhyun only runs faster.
They are near a sprint, and Kyungsoo is trying to focus his breath as he yells out.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“You’ll see,” Baekhyun yells back, and his voice echoes through the hills of farmland.
Kyungsoo puts his head down, sucks in air, and runs. It is longer than he’s ever run before, and at a certain point, he thinks he will absolutely have to stop. Baekhyun looks back over his shoulder, then, and Kyungsoo gets his second wind.
Still, it feels like his chest is full of straw by the time they finally slow to a stop, and only then does Kyungsoo realize where Baekhyun has led them. They are at the foot of the mountain. They are at the wide, deep, dark mouth of a cave.
He desperately catches his breath as Baekhyun sits on a rock near the entrance.
“Whoa,” Kyungsoo says. “We ran all the way to the mountain.”
“I run here all the time,” Baekhyun says.
Kyungsoo squints. “When?”
“Nighttime,” Baekhyun says.
“Why?”
He shrugs his shoulders in response, and it is not the first time that Kyungsoo has had to come to the conclusion that Baekhyun is hiding something from him.
“What are we doing here?” Kyungsoo asks, looking around. They are so far from town. It could get dangerous, the later they stay.
“We’re gonna go in,” Baekhyun smiles. “Duh.”
“We shouldn’t,” Kyungsoo says. “We don’t know what’s in there.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Baekhyun says. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo says. “We could die.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Baekhyun repeats.
“I’m just being honest.”
“We’re not going to die,” Baekhyun assures him. “Whoever died from going in a cave?”
“I’m sure someone has,” Kyungsoo says because while he doesn’t know of any examples off-hand, it doesn’t seem so outside of the realm of possibility. “Besides, I feel like I’ve heard stories about this cave.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
A shiver runs up his back. “Like people go in and they don’t come back out.”
“What, like a monster eats them?” Baekhyun asks. “Don’t be a baby.”
“I’m not,” Kyungsoo says. “I’m not a baby.”
“Prove it,” Baekhyun says. “Come in with me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“No?” Baekhyun asks, and he shoves off from his seat on the rock, getting into Kyungsoo’s face. “Why not? Scared of a monster?”
“No,” Kyungsoo says. “I just don’t feel like going in.”
“Well, I am,” Baekhyun says. “So you can sit out here and listen to me get eaten.”
He turns, and he begins walking to the dark, yawning mouth of the cave. Kyungsoo’s stomach twists with fear as he watches Baekhyun’s form shrink, closer and closer to the black.
“You shouldn’t!” Kyungsoo says hurriedly, and Baekhyun turns back with a grin. “I’m serious. You shouldn’t go in there.”
Baekhyun seems to pause for a moment, and Kyungsoo is stupid enough to fall for it. He sighs in relief, and Baekhyun’s smile returns, fiercer than ever.
He dashes off toward the cave, and then, he is swallowed up by the black.
Kyungsoo groans. “Baekhyun.”
“What?” comes his voice.
“Get out of there,” he says. “It’s not safe.”
“It’s really dark. I can’t see anything.” A beat. “Ouch.”
“What?” Kyungsoo asks. “Did you get bitten by something?”
“No,” Baekhyun scoffs. “I almost tripped over a rock.”
“Get out of there,” Kyungsoo says. “I’ll come to grab you out if I have to.”
Baekhyun doesn’t respond, and Kyungsoo figures it out. Baekhyun knew that if he went in alone, Kyungsoo would have to follow.
And so he follows. Even though it scares him, even though his chest heaves with worry, he walks into the cave, into complete and utter darkness.
The first few feet of the cave, Kyungsoo’s eyes try to adjust. After that, it becomes evident that there is no adjusting to it. It isn’t simply dark. It is the absence of light.
“Baekhyun,” he calls. “Where are you?”
Then, he feels a breath on the back of his neck. “Boo.”
Kyungsoo leaps with a frightened gasp, and Baekhyun grabs him on the arm in a fit of delighted laughter. Kyungsoo reaches out into the void and swings his arm wildly for a couple of moments before colliding with Baekhyun. Then, he doubles his efforts, whacking him on the arm.
“Ow, ow,” Baekhyun says, voice echoing loudly. “Stop.”
“You’re so mean sometimes,” Kyungsoo says, but he stops hitting him a second later, instead grabbing onto where Baekhyun is holding him. “I was scared.”
“I know. But there’s no reason to be scared,” Baekhyun assures him, and he swiftly maneuvers them into a handhold. “See?”
Kyungsoo squeezes Baekhyun’s hand as they walk a little deeper into the cave, and Baekhyun laughs suddenly. It makes Kyungsoo tense at his side.
“What?” he asks.
“I’m just happy,” Baekhyun says. “Thank you for coming in after me. I don’t know what I would have done if you left me alone.”
“I’d never leave you alone,” Kyungsoo says. “You’re my best friend.”
For just a second, just a tenuous, fraught second—Kyungsoo swears he can see Baekhyun in the dark. Glimmering with light. A soft, hurt smile on his face.
The light dies or Kyungsoo’s imagination fades away… he can’t be sure which.
And Baekhyun is silent. That silence makes it easy for them to hear a sudden, sharp crack. Rocks falling, at first just a few pebbles and then a dozen larger ones cascading down. A haunting sound. And then the dripping of water. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Kyungsoo can’t see anything, not a thing, but he can feel as Baekhyun turns to look at him. It is a funny moment, the way he can feel Baekhyun’s thoughts mirror his own. The way they seem to come together in a strange moment of singularity.
They run from the cave with laughter in their lungs, all of the effervescent joy of youth bubbling to their respective surfaces. When they fall into the dying light of the day, collapsing onto the grass, chests moving, Kyungsoo turns to look at Baekhyun. It is good to see his face again. Here, he is lit up like a sunrise.
“See,” Baekhyun says, tears of laughter just barely hanging back in his eyes, “it wasn’t that scary.”
“No,” Kyungsoo says. “It wasn’t so bad.”
They take the long walk home, and Baekhyun waves as he drops him off, the stars poking through the black as Kyungsoo takes off his shoes and steps into his slippers.
“Where have you been?” his mother asks. “I told you not to stay out too long.”
“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo says, and he does not elaborate.
She scolds him a while longer before sending him to the bath, and truth be told, he doesn’t mind too much. It was worth it, being there for Baekhyun when he needed it.
* * *
When they are older, once they’ve graduated high school, Baekhyun leaves home.
Kyungsoo had always assumed that they would stick close together, but Baekhyun leaves for college. Leaves and doesn’t come back for a good long while.
Kyungsoo keeps his head down, and he works hard all on his own. He guesses he just never thought he would have to do that. Never thought that there might be a time when they were apart.
He focuses on getting a job that will ease the burden on his parents. He studies medicine, and it is increasingly difficult as the years go on. He knows that the farm will be left to him once they’re gone, and he isn’t sure what to do with that. It’s hard thinking so far ahead, but that’s what being an adult is, he learns. Thinking so far ahead that you forget about the moment you’re in.
More than anything, Kyungsoo learns that it’s lonely.
It would be a lot less lonely if Baekhyun hadn’t left.
* * *
In the winter of his third year, he comes home for his break.
He finds Baekhyun waiting on his doorstep like when they were young.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, walking down the dirt path to his childhood home. “It’s cold out.”
“Well, yeah,” Baekhyun says, standing. “I know that.”
“Y-You’re supposed to be at school,” Kyungsoo says, stepping closer, his suitcase lagging behind him. “Everyone in town said you weren’t coming back.”
“Why would you listen to them?”
Because I never heard from you, Kyungsoo thinks. Because you never gave me a reason to think I would ever see you again.
“I dunno,” he says.
“Well, I’m here,” Baekhyun says with a smile. “Aren’t you gonna invite me in for some tea?”
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, and he steps forward, leaving his suitcase behind. He wraps Baekhyun up in a hug, their padded jackets making it not completely unlike two marshmallows embracing.
“I missed you,” he whispers, hoping that Baekhyun won’t hear him.
He does, of course. He always does.
“I missed you too,” Baekhyun says, and he squeezes Kyungsoo harder. “Come on. It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”
* * *
Kyungsoo’s mom is happy to see Baekhyun, and she showers him with affection like he was her own son. For the first time in a long while, it feels like everything is back to normal. Back the way it should be. They sit in the living room as Kyungsoo’s mother makes them tteokbokki, and Baekhyun’s leg rests against Kyungsoo’s.
He feels it move through him like the shifting of tectonic plates.
“When did you get back?” Kyungsoo wonders, hands wrapped around his mug.
“Yesterday,” Baekhyun says, a lovely smile on his face. “I’m free.”
“You go back in February, right?” Kyungsoo asks.
“I dropped out.”
Kyungsoo nearly drops his tea.
“W-What? Why?”
Baekhyun shrugs. “It wasn’t for me.”
“Y-You’re almost done, though,” Kyungsoo says, lowering his voice like it’s a secret. “Why would you drop out now?”
“It’s not what I want to do,” Baekhyun says. “Besides, I wasn’t actually that close to graduating.” He shrugs again. “No harm, no foul.”
“How?”
“How what?”
“How are you not close to graduating?” Kyungsoo asks.
“I failed a bunch of my classes,” Baekhyun says. “So I had to retake them. I was retracing my steps, essentially. And then I woke up one day, and I thought This isn’t what I want to do, I don’t like doing this. So I decided to stop.”
“T-That’s it?”
“How much more should there be?” Baekhyun smiles.
Shouldn’t you be sad? Shouldn’t you be mourning the life that you wanted so badly that you found it easy to leave me behind?
Was it all for nothing? All that waiting? All that wishing you well?
“I don’t know, hyung,” he says. “Aren’t you… upset?”
“Why should I be?” he replies. “Shouldn’t I be glad I didn’t waste more of my time?”
Baekhyun has that special thing, that wondrous thing—curses become blessings in the blink of an eye. Just a moment in his light, that’s all it really takes. Some masterful transfiguration.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Kyungsoo agrees.
His mom brings their food, and they sit there with their knees brushing up against one another, eating and not doing much talking at all. After they’re finished, Baekhyun says he should head home. He hugs Kyungsoo’s mother close, promising her that he’ll visit more often from now on.
Kyungsoo can’t help but feel like the words are meant more for him than for her.
* * *
There is a knock on his window when the night is full.
Kyungsoo rubs his bleary eyes, rising from his bed to investigate.
He already knows who it is. It’s too reminiscent of the past to be anyone else. There’s no one better at climbing the tree near his window.
Then again, no one else has ever tried.
Baekhyun is there in the fucking tree, same as he’s done so many times before. One hand hangs from a nearby branch to keep himself steady, the other is shoved into his jacket pocket. His hair is dotted with snow, and his nose and cheeks are painted a soft pink. Kyungsoo frowns, opening the window.
“Hi,” Baekhyun says, shuffling back and forth on the limb he’s firmly planted on. “Can I come in?”
“You’re dirty. You have your boots on.”
“So you’re gonna keep me out here all night because of my shoes?”
“What are you doing here?” Kyungsoo asks. “It’s so late.” He looks down at Baekhyun’s feet, looks up at his hands. Dry. “Are you cold?”
“Yeah,” Baekhyun says. “So are you gonna let me in or not?”
“I’ll… I’ll come out,” Kyungsoo says. “I’ll meet you out front.”
“How illicit,” Baekhyun smiles, and Kyungsoo rolls his eyes as he shuts his window without further commentary.
He stuffs himself into warm clothes, his big jacket, and he tiptoes down the stairs. He’s technically an adult even though he still feels like a child. They don’t really tell you that when you’re young. In your head, you’re still six and ten and fourteen and nineteen all at the same time. That feeling solidifies in his stomach as he maneuvers with enough stealth so as to avoid waking his parents.
He sits to put on his boots, and when he opens the door, Baekhyun is sitting on the porch as he always did. He’s facing out toward the fields, and the cut of his figure makes him look so lonesome. At night, the effect worsens.
Kyungsoo shuts the door as gently as he can manage, and Baekhyun looks back over his shoulder with a grin.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo says, and he hugs himself as he tries to keep his voice down. “It’s freezing.”
“Yeah,” Baekhyun says. “Come on. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
“W-Where?”
“The mountain,” Baekhyun says, standing, dusting off his butt. “Let’s go.”
Kyungsoo wants to dig in his heels, but he can’t think of a reason not to go. Not when he’s missed him so much.
“I can’t run like I did when I was a kid,” Kyungsoo says, a weak argument even to his own ears. “And it’s late.”
“I brought my bike, it’s by the tree,” Baekhyun says. “Wait here.”
Kyungsoo waits dutifully, still finding it hard to deny Baekhyun much of anything. Baekhyun wheels the bike around, and he hops on, gesturing for Kyungsoo to stand on the pegs. Kyungsoo walks down the steps, and he steps on.
“Hold on tight,” Baekhyun says, and Kyungsoo holds Baekhyun’s shoulders a little tighter than before.
It has been years since Kyungsoo followed this trail and he is exhausted, but the cold air whipping past him reinvigorates and fills his lungs. It reminds him of running from the cave when they were young. He tilts his head back with an exhilarated exhale, and he looks at the stars. There are so many out here, away from the lights. They present themselves more easily, almost like they are shrugging off the dark.
They are silent as they go, and even with the bike, it takes a while for them to arrive.
Kyungsoo is so fucking cold when Baekhyun finally slows them to a stop, and he resists the urge the pull Baekhyun in just to feed off his warmth.
The cave, for its part, looks unchanged. Just as scary, even though he knows there’s not much within to be afraid of.
Baekhyun puts down the kickstand, and he sits on the rock where he sat so long ago. Back then, he thought there was no one on this Earth that knew him better, that there was no one he knew better. Now, he wonders if maybe that was all just in his head. If it was just him feeling those things.
“What are we doing here?” Kyungsoo asks. “Really?”
“Can’t I just wanna spend time with you? I don’t know if you noticed, but a lot of time has passed.”
Kyungsoo wishes he could hit him. He just knows that by the time he made contact, it would be weak and affectionate, no matter how much anger he’s got inside him.
“Yeah,” he says. “I noticed.”
“I had something to tell you,” Baekhyun says. “But I thought… I don’t know, maybe you wouldn’t wanna talk to me.”
“I always want to talk to you,” Kyungsoo says, thinking Even when you don’t feel like talking to me. Even when you want to hide.
“This is something different,” Baekhyun says. “This is bigger than… than everything else.”
“You already told me you dropped out,” Kyungsoo reminds him.
“Bigger than that.”
What could be bigger than that? The question spits venomous worry into his churning stomach, and he shuffles closer to Baekhyun, drawn in by the threat of danger. This is just like when he followed him in. Wanting to protect him. Knowing that he almost certainly couldn’t. Wishing to simply be with him.
“Tell me,” he says.
He stands, and he makes an expression that Kyungsoo’s never seen him make before.
“I think it would be easier if I showed you,” Baekhyun says.
Kyungsoo doesn’t know what that means, can’t figure out the cryptic message.
Not until he is shown.
Not until he sees.
Baekhyun becomes the sun. Or if he isn’t the sun, he becomes the stars. Sparkling and bright and lighting up the world like a second morning. Another chance at dawn. Kyungsoo takes a step back as the light grows, billowing out in waves. The warmth is incredible, undeniable. Magical. He steps forward once again, his mouth parting in awe.
Cautiously, he reaches out a hand. He is full of worry for his friend, his oldest friend, and Baekhyun’s eyes fill with tears.
“Don’t touch me,” he whispers. “It’s too hot.”
“How did this happen to you?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers. “It just happened one day.”
“When?” Kyungsoo asks wetly, feeling Baekhyun’s tears fall into him quite suddenly.
“When I was seven,” he says. “You were little.”
So were you, Kyungsoo thinks. You were so young, and you never said.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
The light dies, sudden and sharp, and they are plunged back into the dark and the cold. Kyungsoo only realizes how hot it truly was once the heat is gone. He looks around them. The snow that had covered the earth melted away.
He reaches out. Takes Baekhyun’s hand in his. It’s still warm. Almost too hot to touch.
“I thought you would have—I don’t know,” he says, trailing off, looking away.
“What?” Kyungsoo says. “You thought I would have what?”
Baekhyun’s eyes snap to his. He is so full of emotion now. Kyungsoo wonders if this is how he always felt. Bursting with it. Threatening to spill out. You hid it so well, Kyungsoo thinks, but I always knew there was something. I could always feel it coming like an earthquake.
“I thought you would have thought it was weird,” Baekhyun shrugs, sniffing. “And you’d be right.”
“What are you talking about?” Kyungsoo whispers, holding Baekhyun’s hand tighter. “It’s a miracle.”
Baekhyun laughs, sullen, sad, injured, and he rips his hand away.
“Yeah?” he says. “A miracle?”
“It is,” Kyungsoo says. “It’s… something amazing happened to you.”
“You’re—you know, maybe this is why I didn’t tell you,” Baekhyun says. “Because I knew you’d act like this.”
Act like what? Act like you? You always knew how to spin straw into gold. Where did this anger come from? How did you manage to hide it for so long?
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I… I’m sure it must be hard.”
“It is,” Baekhyun says. “You have no idea how hard.” Kyungsoo makes a strangled sound, something leaping up in his throat, and Baekhyun looks at him. “What?”
“I just—you’re right,” Kyungsoo says, the desperation rising like stomach acid. “I have no idea. I just wish you could tell me. I wish you could… I don’t know, clue me in.”
“What’s there to say?” Baekhyun says. “I’m dangerous. I could hurt you. And I can’t control myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean? I can’t control it.”
The snows fall around them, and it melts on Kyungsoo’s hair the same way it does Baekhyun’s.
“You’re not—but right now,” Kyungsoo says, reaching out a hand, “right now, you’re fine.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because I’m upset,” Baekhyun says. “It’s easier when I’m upset.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really?”
“Oh,” Kyungsoo says.
“What?”
“I just would have assumed it was the opposite,” Kyungsoo says, and Baekhyun gives him a look. “What?”
“You just don’t get it,” Baekhyun says.
“I’m trying to,” Kyungsoo says. “I am. But you’re being—you’re making it hard.”
Baekhyun laughs, and he turns away.
“I know,” Baekhyun says. “I’m the worst. I’m terrible.”
“No,” Kyungsoo says. “No, you’re not.”
“I am.”
He has no choice but to stay there, standing straight under all the silence that builds up like snowbanks.
And in the end, it is worth it. Baekhyun eventually faces him again, and this time, the magic moves much slower. The gold grows around his hairline like a crown, a diadem of pure light, and it engulfs him like a burning flame. It is like nothing else Kyungsoo has ever seen, supremely beautiful, supremely majestic.
If they lived at any other time in history, any eye, any gaze would tell you—Baekhyun looks like divinity incarnate. Like something heavenly reached down to touch him. Only him.
“I love you, you know,” Baekhyun says sadly. “I’ve always loved you.”
“B-Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says, and the light looms, makes him hold up a hand to shield his eye. “W-What—”
“Don’t say anything,” Baekhyun whispers. “Maybe if I finally get it all out, all this will stop.”
“I… I won’t say anything,” Kyungsoo agrees.
“I was so scared when it first happened,” he says, and he takes a step away as the light grows louder and louder. “I thought I was going to die. I had no idea what was happening, I just—I don’t know. I thought it was a weird dream. I thought I must have hallucinated it.
“And then it kept happening,” he continues. “Over and over and over again. The worse things got for me at home, the worse the problem got. I thought—I thought, okay, at least I know what’s going on. At least I know the problem is them. But then things got better with my parents… but the problem didn’t stop. It just got worse. It was happening every single day if I wasn’t careful. And then I figured it out. I figured out what was going on.”
“What?” Kyungsoo asks.
The light grows furious and ravenous, and Baekhyun takes another step back.
“You,” Baekhyun says, and his voice bleeds with emotion. “It was because of you. I couldn’t control it because I didn’t realize what I felt for you—it wasn’t the friendship I thought it was. I loved you. I always loved you. I was just… I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it.” He takes another step back, and Kyungsoo wishes he wouldn’t even as sweat builds on his brow. “You were my best friend, and I wasn’t supposed to love you the way I did. The way I do.” He gestures to himself. “This proves it to me.”
“That’s not what it is,” Kyungsoo says, the words falling out before he can stop himself.
“You said you wouldn’t say anything,” Baekhyun says.
“I know, I just—it’s not true,” Kyungsoo says.
“I’ll hurt you if you touch me,” Baekhyun says. “What’s untrue?”
Kyungsoo takes a step forward, and Baekhyun takes yet another step back.
“Stop it,” he warns Kyungsoo. “Stay back.”
“No,” Kyungsoo says. “You can’t stop me.”
“I left so I could stop feeling this way,” he says, broken in a thousand pieces, ready to be put back together again. “Stop. I left so I could escape you.”
“I’m sorry you were so alone,” Kyungsoo says. “I’m sorry I didn’t come follow you.”
“Stop,” he says, and the light is powerful, brilliant, more radiant than Kyungsoo can stand. And yet he stands it, moves closer and closer. “Stop.”
His heart breaks for him. He wish he had held him together. Wish he had gotten the chance to know before the fracture set in.
“I love you,” Kyungsoo confesses suddenly, and Baekhyun bursts into starlight.
The only thing to do is hold him. And so he goes. He follows.
He holds Baekhyun’s body close, and yes, there is an initial ache. No. Ache is too charitable a word. Too kind. The pain is fierce. The most terrible burn he’s ever felt. Like when he grabbed a pan fresh from the oven except it’s everywhere, everywhen. Like the edges of him are being brushed off. Baekhyun moves, tries to resist—against better judgment, against the screaming at his brainstem, Kyungsoo just holds him tighter.
And then, just when he thinks it might actually kill him, holding a star in his hands—Oh, he thinks, feeling all of the fire and flame melting into him easily, something has changed.
It flows through him like the ocean slowly eroding land. It moves into him like the soil soaking up water. He weathers this particular storm like all the rest he’s weathered. Quietly. Carefully. Deliberately.
The light explodes around them, and Kyungsoo just lets it move into him like that’s where it belongs.
When he looks down, he realizes that the once-frozen soil beneath their feet has wrapped around his legs. Around Baekhyun’s too. That it holds them still. Safe.
And then the waves of light cease, fading away like he just needed this. To be held.
Baekhyun too stares down at where the world has come to greet them, and when he opens his mouth in disbelief, some of his tears drip along his lips.
Suddenly, Kyungsoo can feel the salt along his own skin. In his sweat, he realizes. The iron in his blood. And then… then, the ground moving underfoot. The ground recedes like a wave moving back to the ocean, and Baekhyun looks into his eyes.
“You were like this too? All along?”
“N-No,” Kyungsoo says, “this is new.”
Baekhyun smiles, slow. Another morning. The night grows cold around them, but Kyungsoo can’t feel it. He pulls Baekhyun in, and Baekhyun pulls him too. In mutual movement, they are together. In the middle of the winter, in the middle of everything, they touch each other, hold each other with such love. Kyungsoo can feel something settle when they finally kiss, their lips brushing chastely at first. A test.
A first step.
Kyungsoo lets it grow in passion as the warmth invades him, wrapping his arms around Baekhyun’s body, holding him close as he kisses him harder, more insistently. If you just let me in, I’ll stay forever.
Baekhyun lets him in, hands skimming up along Kyungsoo’s jacket until he can hold his face, his hands soft and warm. Kyungsoo loses himself in the moment, in the singular perfection, and it isn’t until Baekhyun pulls himself away to rest his forehead against Kyungsoo’s that Kyungsoo realizes that there is all the time in the world for this. That this love will wait until morning comes.
“Come on,” Kyungsoo whispers, pressing a kiss to the corner of Baekhyun’s mouth. “Let’s go home.”
Baekhyun smiles. “Okay. But I pedaled all the way here.”
Kyungsoo pulls him off by the hand, and with Baekhyun on the back, Kyungsoo steers them home. The sun pushes at the horizon by the time Kyungsoo stops outside Baekhyun’s childhood home. He hops off and Kyungsoo follows suit, brushing back his hair as Baekhyun takes back his bike.
“Maybe I can stay over tomorrow,” Baekhyun says. “Like old times.”
“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says. “I would like that.”
Baekhyun bites his smile, and he rocks forward on his feet.
Kyungsoo kisses him goodbye, and he doesn’t look back. There’s much more waiting ahead of him than there is left behind.
* * *
Baekhyun keeps close from that night on.
Once Kyungsoo graduates, they see each other pretty much every day. Kyungsoo opens a practice just outside of the neighborhood. Baekhyun works for Kyungsoo’s parents, and by the time Kyungsoo’s business is established, Baekhyun is pretty much running the farm on his own.
Kyungsoo’s parents treat Baekhyun as their own. He and Baekhyun spend more time together than they do apart.
They find home together.
And they marry.
And their life begins anew.
Baekhyun never has a problem controlling himself ever again.
* * *