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“Alternate-universe where people age until they reach eighteen and then stop aging until they meet their soulmate so they can grow old together.”
Chanyeol has been eighteen for three years. Technically speaking, he is twenty-one, but considering the fact that time basically stands still until you meet the person you’re destined to spend the rest of your life with -- yeah, he’s still eighteen.
His features haven’t sharpened; the curves of his face are still soft, like a baby’s. He is still six feet, one inch tall. The only time anything really changes is during the summer, when the rays of sun soak into his hair and lighten it a few shades.
This is how things generally go.
He knows that once he meets his soulmate, the aging will start again, and they’ll grow old together, blah blah blah. Although there was that one guy that kept killing his soulmate every time he met one. Chanyeol doesn’t think he could bring himself to do that, though.
Chanyeol, in all honesty, isn’t too anxious to meet his soulmate. He really doesn’t want to. A minuscule part of him hopes that he’ll never meet his soulmate so that he may live forever. Although that usually isn’t the case. Probably too narcissistic of a way to live, anyways, to properly get away with it.
***
Kyungsoo is the first to notice any change. He is sitting on the couch in Chanyeol’s dorm room, Chanyeol placed on the floor in front of him, playing absentmindedly with his dark locks when he notices a stray gray hair.
He doesn’t mention it directly. Doesn’t know if Chanyeol himself has even noticed anything changing. But gray hair is the telltale sign of aging, and in this day and age, it has unsurpassable significance.
“So, how are your classes this semester going?” Kyungsoo asks thoughtfully as he twirls a piece of Chanyeol’s hair around his finger.
“Too many people that I don’t know. I mean, I know it’s only been a week but it’s hard to stay positive when the only person that bothers to greet you each day is your professor.” Chanyeol pinches the bridge of his nose, annoyed. “It feels like they’re all purposely ignoring me.”
“Met anyone interesting?”
Chanyeol turns his head abruptly, flinching at the pain of his hair being ripped from Kyungsoo’s grip. “Does it really sound like I met anyone interesting? Jeez. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Kyungsoo doesn’t push the topic.
***
Chanyeol sort of dreads the idea of going to classes the next morning, but he forces himself out of bed, brushes his teeth, changes into a plain black t-shirt (not bothering to take off the sweatpants he’d worn to be the night before) and makes his way to his first class of the morning.
Chanyeol switched his major, which is why he doesn’t really know anyone in any of his classes. Which, consequently, is why he is dreading going to class.
Everyone was sort of pissed when he said that he actually wanted to get an art major, for a few reasons. One; people have been telling him that he should pursue a career in the art field as long as Chanyeol or any of his friends can remember. Two; this is the second time he’s switched his major, even though last semester, he was absolutely positive that he was destined to be a philosopher (no one really knew what to do with this information. What do philosophers actually do, anyways?).
But after a couple days, everyone stopped bugging him about it because they knew that this was what he was actually what he should be doing.
So, right - first class of the morning. Graphic design.
It isn’t really his strong area in pertinence to art, although he isn’t bad at it, per se. And, anyways, his professor is this really laid-back dude who wears his hair in a ponytail and speaks in a really heavy French accent. Which, consequently, makes this class the most bearable of the day.
When he gets there, he sits in the back corner of the room like he’s been doing the whole week, and pulls out his laptop. The whole week, they’d just been screwing around with the different programs, getting used to all the tools and how to use them properly.
Chanyeol stares at his blank screen for a few minutes, before one guy sitting down the row of chairs from him slowly scoots over, one seat at a time, until they’re sitting directly beside each other. It’s painful, really, sitting there and trying not to acknowledge this kid. Chanyeol sinks lower into his seat, hoping that’ll prevent the boy from talking to him.
He glances out of the corner of his eye at the kid, to try and get the run-down, but he’s not really sure how to interpret what he’s seeing. The boy is working intently on whatever’s on his screen, not paying the slightest of attention to Chanyeol, thank god.
He’s wearing a pink shirt, and extremely over-ripped skinny jeans, with grey chucks. He has different colored ribbons tied around his wrists, and Chanyeol thinks he might be wearing a Harry Potter-esque time turner around his neck.
What a nerd.
His hair is white, and Chanyeol’s shocked by how well it works with his complexion. He doesn’t believe that he himself could pull it off.
His eyes are rimmed-red, but not from crying - it’s his makeup. And he has a tiny silver star sticker at the corner of one eye. Very attractive, but in a subtler way.
Chanyeol looks frustratedly back at his screen.
Why is he sitting next to me? There are only like forty people in this class, and there are like, a hundred seats, and this kid has got to know more people than I do so why is he-
“Hey, that’s a really sweet design you got goin’ on there.”
Chanyeol glances from the blank document to the student sitting beside him. He takes notice of the playful sarcasm dripping from his voice, but doesn’t take it lightly.
Instead of saying anything back, he looks at the guy’s screen to see if he’s made any more progress than he has himself.
On the screen is a picture of a rainbow teddy bear, with a bright yellow background that, at the top, in bright pink, Comic Sans type, says “rt for all ur gay dreams to come true*” and then at the bottom says, “*graphic design is life”.
Chanyeol laughs, quietly but loud enough for his new companion to hear and quickly covers it up with a cough.
“You like it?” Instead of waiting for a response, he continues. “I’m Baekhyun.”
And I’m very confused about what is happening right now. “ Chanyeol.”
Baekhyun repeats his name a couple times, like he’s seeing how it tastes in his mouth. Chanyeol shifts uncomfortably, because he’s never heard anyone say his name like that before, like it actually meant something.
He thinks Baekhyun is about to hold out his hand for him to shake, but instead, he opens his palm to a handful of gummy bears, and raises an eyebrow, like some sort of petty dare a seven year old would make.
He takes a green one, drops it into his mouth, and turns back to his screen, in hopes of getting some sort of work done.
He pretends not to notice Baekhyun smiling, accomplished, out of the corner of his eye.
***
Chanyeol continues to go to Graphic Design three days a week, and Baekhyun sits next to him every day. It seems like he always has some sort of candy to offer. Smarties, gummy bears, skittles, anything.
Every day, Baekhyun makes these ridiculous designs, but somehow he fits it into his schedule to create something that actually applies to the assignment requirements. He’s actually very good when he tries. Chanyeol tries not to be too impressed, although his own mediocrity when it comes to the class comes as an unpleasant shock to him.
Baekhyun tries to help him as much as he can. Picking the right background color, or font, where to position the image, special effects - everything. Chanyeol considers him almost his saving grace.
He’s extremely friendly, and flirty, and neither trait particularly bothers Chanyeol.
“Hey,” Baekhyun says it really loudly even though they’re sitting right next to each other.
“Hi.”
“You look really good today.”
Chanyeol barely glances at his neighbor. “I look like this every day.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Baekhyun seems to actually want to get to know Chanyeol, so he decides that he’ll stop avoiding his questions by changing the subject or giving him the silent treatment.
“Favorite color?”
Chanyeol purses his lips. “It changes every day.”
“Day or night?”
“Somewhere between sunset and sunrise, you know, that late late time of night where you’re not sure if you should keep referring to the day as ‘tomorrow’ or start actually saying ‘today’?”
Baekhyun laughs, and Chanyeol struggles to focus on something other than the fact that his eyes smile with him, and his teeth are so nice, and he just looks like the happiest person on the planet. Baekhyun interrupts his thoughts before Chanyeol has a chance to stop himself. “Would it have been too easy to say, like, three in the morning?”
Chanyeol shrugs. Lets Baekhyun fire questions at him. Tries to fire back answers as quickly as possible.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
Chanyeol almost chokes on the air he’s breathing. “No. No boyfriend. No girlfriend. No anything. I don’t date. Not anymore. The whole soulmate thing has me pretty fucked up.”
“Alright, old man.”
Chanyeol wonders what he means by that, considering that Baekhyun is older than him (by a mere six months), but he’s forgets the comment by the time class ends.
The next time they have class together, Baekhyun brings coffee and donuts.
“How do I know you didn’t slip something in my coffee?”
Baekhyun takes Chanyeol’s coffee out of his hand and replaces it with his own.
“How do I know you didn’t anticipate that I would ask that?”
Baekhyun shrugs. “You don’t.”
Chanyeol shrugs in defeat and accepts the boston creme donut that’s being handed to him, which is his favorite, and Baekhyun treats himself to a pink frosted donut with gummy worms and M&Ms on it. Of course he does, but Chanyeol doesn’t mention it.
Early the next week, Chanyeol spots Baekhyun at the school’s library. He’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of an aisle in the section that includes works about things like aliens and space and weird conspiracy theories. Baekhyun has a pair of circle glasses on, and he pushes them up the bridge of his nose, turns the page, and Chanyeol reads the title of the book he’s reading: Libra.
Chanyeol sits cross-legged in front of him. “What’s your book about?”
He replies without looking up. “The life of Lee Harvey Oswald leading up to the assassination of JFK. It’s mildly interesting.”
“Just mildly?”
“Yes.” He looks up at him over the rim of his glasses. “I prefer books that talk about the different possibilities. I’m looking for more information on the different conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy’s assassination, but they all mostly focus on Oswald. I get that it’s the most likely option, but I wanna hear about how it was an inside job because Kennedy wanted to end the war and hunger and believed in the separation of church and state and no one was really worried about those things.”
“Wow, could you be any more of a nerd?”
Baekhyun leans forward and shoves his shoulder. “Shut up! It’s really interesting.”
Chanyeol nods, unconvinced, as Baekhyun turns back to his book. After a few minutes of silently watching him read, he gets up and starts to walk away. When he’s almost out of sight, he turns around to look at his friend and he’s looking back at him.
He resists the urge to go back and sit with him, and walks away.
***
A couple weeks after Chanyeol befriends Baekhyun, he notices that something has changed and everyone in the vicinity of his dorm room must think someone’s being murdered when he realises it, because he shrieks.
The two people in his dorm room cover their ears, clueless as to what’s happened.
Chanyeol storms from the bathroom, throws his arms in the air, and yells, “Do you guys see this?!” But they look dumbfounded, because nothing appears to be out of the ordinary. Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “These pants used to fit me, but now… now the legs are too short.” He gestures pointedly at his revealed ankles.
Sehun, sitting cross-legged on the floor, purses his lips. “So what?”
Kyungsoo follows this statement up by smacking him upside the head and mumbling, “He grew, dumbass.” Sehun rubs the back of his head as he mouths an Ohhhhhh.
Chanyeol sits on the floor, gangly legs splayed out in front of him. “This has got to be a joke, right? Maybe my pants shrunk in the wash.”
“Not a joke,” Kyungsoo deadpans, pointing to Chanyeol’s dark mop of hair. “Gray hairs. Check it.”
Chanyeol gets up, huffing in disbelief as he makes his way to the bathroom, checks in the mirror and, yes, that’s definitely a gray hair. He almost screams again. He throws himself back down onto the floor without saying anything.
Sehun breaks the silence with, “Do you really think….?”
“I don’t… I can’t think of… like who… you know?” Chanyeol lies all the way back and covers his face with his abnormally large hands and sighs. “This is stupid,” he mumbles into his hands. “This whole soulmate thing. Like, I get that we’re supposed to be able to grow old together and all, but there’s always the possibility of pegging the wrong person, right? So you’re sitting there, like, aging and stuff, and then after a while, you’re like, like, ‘Well, you’re not aging; guess I guessed wrong again!’ and it’s just a stupid endless cycle like what if I never find my actual soulmate?”
Kyungsoo is rubbing his chin. “Isn’t that the whole point? Of a soulmate, I mean? You’re destined to spend the rest of your lives together, so of course you’ll figure out who it is eventually.”
Sehun nods like he finds Kyungsoo’s philosophy particularly heartening and Kyungsoo smacks him again.
Chanyeol lies on the floor for a while, and eventually, the two of his friends have to part for some plan or another, and he’s left to ponder this alone. He counts the seconds. Seconds that he could be spending with his soulmate.
He slips his shoes on and heads out of the dorm, towards a pizza place just off campus. When he gets there, he slouches in a corner booth, orders a small pizza and some fries. Blatantly ignores the waitress with the blonde hair and the big breasts that flirts with him every time he comes here. When his food arrives, he doesn’t touch it. He stares at it, like it’s the most complex thing in the universe. He wishes that it was.
He’s still staring dazedly at the pizza when someone sits across from him and takes a slice. Before he gathers the energy to look up and see who it is, Chanyeol thinks it might be the waitress. But when he does look, it’s Baekhyun. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a crumpled dollar bill, and throws it on the table.
“For the pizza.” He holds it his stolen slice into the air, as if for a lone toast, and takes an inhumanly large bite.
Chanyeol is still in the midst of processing the situation. “Isn’t it against proper table manners to steal someone’s food?”
“What? It’s not like we’re strangers.” He takes another bite.
Chanyeol shrugs.
Baekhyun makes a noise of discontent in the back of his throat while he chews his pizza, deliberately trying to think of what to say. “I don’t think we are, at least. You’re Park Chanyeol, from Graphic Design. You’re very tall. Nice legs. Sort of bitter, but somehow, not actually rude. Very open. Your laptop password is 921127, and I know that’s your birthday. By the way, not so smart to make that your password. Anyone who knows you could access your files. Good at completely ignoring your surroundings. Maybe gay?” He says it like he’s asking.
Chanyeol chokes on a fry, quickly collects himself, and stands up. “Well, when people start asking about my sexuality, that’s usually my cue to leave.” He pins a twenty under the ketchup bottle on the table, although his bill was less than half that, and sidesteps out of the booth. As he leaves, he hears Baekhyun frantically yelling for a to-go box, and he jogs back towards campus, hoping that the boy didn’t see which direction he was headed in.
Turns out, the pizza place seems much closer to his dorm when he’s not trying to run away from someone, so he has to stop to catch his breath. Hands on his knees, he hears someone’s quick footfalls approaching from behind and knows who it is before he sees him.
“You,” breath, “forgot,” breath, “yourpizza,” breath.
Chanyeol looks up from his crouched position to see Baekhyun holding out a white styrofoam container. “I don’t want it. I’m not hungry.”
“Why’d you order pizza if you’re not hungry?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Sounds like it.” It should be sarcastic, but it’s not.
Chanyeol straightens himself out, wipes his hands on his pants, and turns towards the noticeably shorter boy.
Chanyeol realises how noticeably shorter the boy is. Actually, the boy is noticeably smaller in nearly every sense. Chanyeol gets the sudden urge to wrap his body around the other boy’s. He shakes the feeling away.
“I should really…” Chanyeol points to his dorms.
Baekhyun seems to understand what he means. “Alright. I’ll go with you.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t stop me from coming.”
“I know.”
He starts walking, and Baekhyun follows like a puppy, and Chanyeol keeps repeating that he doesn’t want Baekhyun to follow him, that he’s annoying, why is he so persistent, I can make it home alone without hurting myself, why are you so worried?
Enter dorm, go up stairs, walk down the hall. Baekhyun is still trailing a few paces behind him. Chanyeol stops outside his door. Faces Baekhyun.
“Now is where you leave.”
“I’m tired from the long walk. You should really let me rest.”
Chanyeol lightly jabs a finger into the smaller boy’s chest. “You’re the one that decided that you needed to walk all the way back here with me. You didn’t have to.”
“You mean that I didn’t have to be so kind as to protect you and make sure you got home safe and also to bring your pizza. I don’t mean to brag, but I’m a huge gentleman. In fact, I can see the effects my gentlemanly actions have on you.”
“I have to deal with you for three days a week for the whole semester,” Chanyeol says as he unlocks his door and steps into his dorm.
“You mean you have the pleasure of being seated next to a mystical creature such as I in the early hours of the morning.”
This kid is definitely full of himself, and way too confident. Chanyeol can see it in the mischievous glint in his eyes.
“I’m going to sleep.” He goes to shut the door.
Baekhyun puts his foot in the doorway to stop it. “It’s not even ten yet.”
“Goodnight.” He gently nudges the other boy’s foot away and shuts his door, but not before seeing the disappointed look on the kid’s face.
He sits on his bed, and studies the crack beneath his door, watching and waiting for Baekhyun’s shadow to disappear, and it doesn’t - not for another ten minutes. And then five minutes after that, the shadow is back.
Chanyeol reluctantly stands, takes the few strides it takes him to get from his bed to the door, and opens it.
Baekhyun is standing there soaking wet. “I was going to go, really, but then I walked outside and it was raining and I don’t have an umbrella and I’m sort of lost.”
Chanyeol slowly steps aside to allow room for Baekhyun to slip inside. Seeing the boy drenched and looking a little hopeless made him look even smaller, and Chanyeol doesn’t think he could deal with himself if he made the boy try to find his way back to his dorm in the rain.
“Let me just find you some clothes to wear, okay?” The taller boy says as he plucks a random towel hanging from a desk chair and throws it at Baekhyun to dry himself off. Chanyeol pulls a pair of white boxers with Pokemon on them and a black t-shirt (which he seems to have an abundance of) out of his closet and tosses them at Baekhyun, who has the towel wrapped around his head, his hair out of sight.
Chanyeol just about has a heart attack when he starts stripping right in front of him, and stands there for a moment, dumbstruck.
“I know I have a nice body and everything but…”
Chanyeol turns around quickly, letting Baekhyun change. He doesn’t mention anything about the Pokemon boxers, which is a relief. When the older boy gives him the okay to turn back around, he’s settled himself in the dorm’s only twin bed. He has his arms crossed behind his head, and his eyes are scanning Chanyeol.
“You seem very on edge today.”
“I started aging.” He doesn’t know why he said it. Sometimes it just feels better to talk about what’s causing stress than trying to deal with it on your own.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Baekhyun sucks on his bottom lip for a few seconds before replying. “How do you know?”
“I grew half an inch. And I found a gray hair,” Chanyeol lets out quietly before taking a seat on the bed besides the smaller boy.
“You got taller ?” He receives an elbow to the side for this comment. “Okay, okay, sorry. Do you, like, know who it is?”
Chanyeol stares at him carefully for a few seconds. “How could I?”
Baekhyun ponders this for a moment. “I’m tired.”
“Then sleep.”
The boy nods and moves to lay on his side, facing the wall and away from Chanyeol. Chanyeol realises that he doesn’t have enough pillows and blankets to create a makeshift bed on the floor, and sleeping in the bed would be complicated, due to the fact that he can hardly fit his long body on the bed in the first place.
He stares angrily at the back of Baekhyun’s head before he lies down in the same position. Scoots closer, which, offhandedly, is his only choice, because he’s almost falling off the bed. His feet poke off the bed, and the room is cold, and he has to bend his legs to fit on the bed completely, but he tries, and knees Baekhyun in the back.
He groans in response. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t… fit.”
Baekhyun turns his head slightly to peer, half-asleep and mildly confused, at the frustrated boy. “What?”
“I’m too tall. Usually I can sleep comfortably but then again, I don’t usually sleep with anyone else. And I’d sleep on the floor, but I don’t really have enough bedding to make that comfortable, and-”
“Okay, Chanyeol.”
“Okay?”
Baekhyun turns his whole body to face him, and he tilts his head up to look the taller one in the eyes. “Okay.” He drapes one leg over Chanyeol’s thigh, and uses his foot to maneuver Chanyeol’s legs between his own. “Better?”
Chanyeol has never been so thankful for how dark it is in his room, because his face is so hot, he thinks he could be sporting a fever. He takes extra precaution to ignore how close their faces are to one another. “Yeah,” he hiccups.
“Good.” Baekhyun inches closer even though Chanyeol thought that was impossible, and rests his head on the boy’s chest. “Now… Sleep,” he mutters into his shirt.
Chanyeol stares past the boy who is now cuddled against him at the blank wall for countless minutes. He knows his friend is asleep, because his breathing becomes rhythmic, and every now and then he snores quietly. Eventually, his eyelids begin fluttering, and Chanyeol wonders what images his subconscious may be manifesting, but he seems peaceful enough.
He falls asleep to Baekhyun’s breathing.
***
In the morning, he is woken by someone shoving his door open and shouting his name. Chanyeol knows that, immediately, the situation is dire, because he can still feel the small boy curled up against him, arm across his waist and legs tangled together.
He also knows, immediately, that the person in his room is Sehun, because he’s the only one of his friends who would be so rude to wake him from his slumber in such an obnoxious manner.
Baekhyun mutters something like, “Someone hit the sleep button, please,” before he himself actually processes the situation.
They both try sitting up, but end up knocking their heads together. Baekhyun moans in pain, and falls back onto the bed while Chanyeol untangles his legs and removes himself from the bed.
“Good morning, Sehun.” Chanyeol rubs the back of his neck nervously. The only reason he isn’t completely freaking out is because he knows that his intrusive friend didn’t have enough time to snap a picture.
“Who’s this?” Sehun nods towards Baekhyun, who has decided to sit up, and whose hair apparently has a mind of its own - silver locks stick out in every direction.
“I’m Baekhyun. From Graphic Design.” He gives a weak wave.
Sehun whispers, “Is this the soulmate?” in Chanyeol’s direction, but considering the fact that the two are still across the room from each other, it isn’t very effective.
Chanyeol feels the tip of his ears go red. He throws his hands up, and at the same time he says, “I don’t know,” Baekhyun says, “Maybe.” Chanyeol whips his head around to stare at Baekhyun, feeling the heat spread down his neck. He shrugs, as if saying, I could be .
Sehun nods slowly. “So,” he looks at Chanyeol, “you’re sleeping with him before you’ve even introduced him to your friends?” Chanyeol opens his mouth to say It was just sleeping , but Sehun cuts him off, turning to Baekhyun and bowing. “I’m Sehun. Would you care to join Chanyeol and I for breakfast with our friends?”
Baekhyun’s whole face lights up and he claps his hands together excitedly, in obvious acceptance of Sehun’s offer. Chanyeol stays silent all the while, but doesn’t try to stop himself from glaring at Sehun as if he might strangle him.
“Well, get ready love birds, because we gotta go.”
***
They don’t have time to stop back at Baekhyun’s before they go, so Chanyeol lends him some more of his clothes to wear. Because of their obvious size differences, the clothes hang loosely off Baekhyun’s body and make him look even smaller.
Chanyeol takes the fabric of Baekhyun’s - his - shirt between his fingers. “Cute.”
Baekhyun responds with a questioning quirk of the eyebrow. “Did you just call me cute?” He actually giggles once he says it.
“Definitely not.” Because, if Chanyeol’s being honest with himself, he hadn’t really meant to say it out loud. “Let's go.” He almost goes to grab Baekhyun’s hand to pull him from the room, but catches himself.
This whole soulmate thing is getting to my head.
He holds the door open for Baekhyun, he pretends to be flustered, and they leave together. They meet Sehun outside the dorm, and they head off to breakfast.
***
No one seems particularly surprised by Baekhyun’s presence, only Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow curiously in Chanyeol’s direction; other than that, everyone seems to take to him very quickly. Suho mentions that he had a photography class with Baekhyun last semester, and they even had to do a project together.
No one asks about the soulmate thing, and Chanyeol is beyond thankful for that. Baekhyun jokes with them, and it’s almost like he’s always been a part of the group.
At one point, Baekhyun’s face falls against Chanyeol’s shoulder and he can feel the smaller boy’s body shaking with laughter. After a few minutes, his head is still there, and Chanyeol doesn’t ask him to move it; it stays there for the rest of breakfast.
Once they’ve all finished eating, Baekhyun says he’s got some errands to run, and that he should probably split. He pays for his food, and Chanyeol’s (although Chanyeol tries to tell him not to), and leaves.
A minute or so after Baekhyun leaves, Chanyeol realizes there was something he forgot to ask him and dashes out of the restaurant after bidding the rest of his friends goodbye.
“Baekhyun!” He yells it as soon as he’s outside, because he can still see the boy, and he really hasn’t gotten very far anyways. Baekhyun stops walking when he hears his voice, and waits, so Chanyeol jogs to catch up with him. “I want to talk to you. Like, not in class. Like, maybe I should give you my number or vice versa or something?”
He nods slowly. “Alright. What’s your number?”
“Uh, do you have something to write it down with?”
“I’ll remember it.”
Chanyeol doesn’t voice his doubts about that statement, and relays his number to Baekhyun a few times, so that maybe he can actually remember it. Baekhyun promises that he definitely will remember it, that he’ll see him in class on Monday, and that he really has to go. And then he’s off.
***
Baekhyun doesn’t text him until a week later, and it’s just slightly past one in the morning.
i can’t sleep
Chanyeol knows who it is without asking.
I’m sorry. Anything I can do to help?
open your door?
Chanyeol thinks that if Baekhyun is actually standing outside his dorm room at one in the morning that his heart might actually, literally burst out of his chest. But he gets up nonetheless, even though it could possibly end his life. And, yep, when he opens his door, that is definitely Baekhyun standing there holding a pillow and blanket, hair sticking out all over, eyes red-rimmed. He looks the saddest that Chanyeol’s ever seen him in the month they’ve known each other, but Baekhyun still smiles his widest grin when Chanyeol opens the door.
He steps aside to let Baekhyun in but the smaller boy drops his stuff on the floor and pulls Chanyeol into a one-armed embrace, the other arm balled into a fist in the fabric of Chanyeol’s shirt. It takes the taller boy by surprise but he returns the hug immediately.
Baekhyun’s head falls against his chest and he sighs deeply and Chanyeol’s heart hurts for him. He backs into his room, the boy clinging to his body, and slams his door shut with his foot.
He pets the boy’s ruffled hair with one hand and holds him to his body with the other. “Baek… what’s wrong?”
“Every time I try to sleep,” he mumbles into his shirt, “I dream of bad things.” Chanyeol is about to question him further before he continues. “It’s always been like this, for years, I think. But when I spent the night last week, the nightmares didn’t come. It was the first time they didn’t.”
Chanyeol’s breath hitches in his throat and he coughs. He thinks maybe his heart just broke.
“I don’t want to sleep alone anymore,” Baekhyun whispers.
Chanyeol’s heart is beating really fast, and he can hear the blood in his ears, and nothing matters more to him than making Baekhyun feel safe in this moment.
“You don’t have to.”
Baekhyun looks up at him, and there’s just enough moonlight pouring into the room to illuminate the side of his face, and he looks beautiful, Chanyeol thinks.
“Let’s go to bed,” Chanyeol speaks quietly into Baekhyun’s hair, and the boy nods in return.
Chanyeol picks up Baekhyun bridal style and lies him down on his bed, and crawls onto the bed next to him. He pulls the blanket over the both of them and allows Baekhyun to position himself similarly to how he had the previous week, and they fall asleep without any more words exchanged between them.
***
When Chanyeol wakes up in the morning, it’s not to his alarm - and, considering that it’s a Monday, and he has class on Monday mornings, it should have been to his alarm.
But instead, when Chanyeol opens his eyes, he finds that Baekhyun is on top of him, straddling him, and his face is only a couple inches away. It’s almost pathetic how hard he has to try to not let this affect him.
“What are you doing? What time is it?” Chanyeol tries rubbing the sleepiness out of his eyes.
“Well, I thought we could skip classes today, since we were up late and all.” He leans forward to nuzzle his head into the crook of Chanyeol’s neck, and Chanyeol thinks that the smaller boy has got to know what sort of effect he’s having on him.
“What did you-” he yelps quietly, because the older boy nips at the tender skin on his collarbone, and his boxers are getting too tight, embarrassingly fast, “- have in mind,” he finishes, as he rolls the two of them over so he’s on top. Which is worse, somehow, because Baekhyun locks his ankles together behind Chanyeol’s back and pulls him closer.
“Well,” he brings one finger to tap on his chin in thought, “I have to go to the arts and crafts store. And then I thought we could grab something for lunch, and then come back here. Oh, and I checked your mini-fridge for something to eat but all you have is beer.”
Come back here and what? “So you want to go grocery shopping, too?”
Baekhyun nods in reply.
“Well then we should get ready to go, probably?”
“Are you sure you can get up?” Baekhyun laughs mischievously.
Chanyeol feels a blush ravish his face and neck and ears, almost doesn’t notice Baekhyun leaning forward a bit, and scrambles to get out of his hold and off the bed.
“You can borrow more of my clothes.”
Baekhyun leans up on his elbows, looking mildly disappointed, like he was positive that more was going to come from the previous situation.
Chanyeol tries his best to ignore what just happened, to just calm down, and get ready for the day.
***
Half an hour later, Chanyeol and Baekhyun are strolling through the local craft store, Baekhyun wearing one of Chanyeol’s old Pink Floyd shirts, and a pair of jeans that were too long, so Chanyeol had had to cuff them for him.
Chanyeol doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of seeing the older boy wearing his clothes.
He watches silently as Baekhyun strolls through each aisle, throwing countless things into his cart. Paint, brushes, origami paper, camera film, mason jars, glitter pens; a variety of things that, Chanyeol thinks, do not go together at all.
It takes him about twenty minutes to get everything he needs, and in the end he spends nearly two hundred dollars, and How in the hell does a college kid possibly have two hundred dollars to spend on art supplies? But Chanyeol doesn’t think it’d be appropriate to ask.
Fifteen minutes after they leave the art store, they’re seated at an overpriced Japanese restaurant that Chanyeol was iffy about going to in the first place, but, in the end, was forced to give in to Baekhyun’s stupid pouty face.
“I’ve never eaten sushi before,” Chanyeol admits as they look at the menu. “I don’t really know what’s good to order.”
Baekhyun states that he’s been here too many times to count, and that he knows Japanese food all too well and can order for Chanyeol, if he’d be comfortable with that.
Chanyeol is more than happy to let Baekhyun order for them. So they both end up getting Japanese Sprite (or Ramune, Baekhyun says), a bowl of miso soup, and a spicy tuna roll to share.
“Sushi is very filling,” Baekhyun says matter-of-factly as he dips his sushi in soy sauce and shoves the whole thing in his mouth.
Chanyeol fumbles with his chopsticks, manages (not quickly) to get a proper hold of them, and follows Baekhyun’s example.
After he successfully finishes - and thoroughly enjoys - his first ever sushi, he says, “Okay, so I get that it’s composed of rice, seaweed, spicy tuna… avocado… and cream cheese. But what’s the stuff on top?”
“Caviar,” Baekhyun says without thinking about it. When Chanyeol shoots him a confused look, he continues with, “Raw fish eggs.”
“Oh god, how can you eat that?”
“You just did.”
Chanyeol stares at the rest of his portion of sushi uncertainly.
“If you don’t eat it, then their lives will have meant nothing.”
He reluctantly eats the rest.
***
An hour later, they’re at the grocery store.
Baekhyun insists that he sit inside the cart while Chanyeol pushes it, and, despite the strange looks from other shoppers, Chanyeol lets him.
He lets Baekhyun pick out all the food, because he figures that whatever he himself would pick out wouldn’t be satisfactory, and would probably be unhealthy anyways.
He grabs a multitude of ingredients off the shelves as they pass them instead of the easy-to-make microwaveable foods, like, per se, the Instant Ramen that Chanyeol is basically addicted to. He silently prays that Baekhyun doesn’t expect him to make the food, because there is a one hundred percent chance of that ending in disaster.
When they go to check out, Chanyeol smacks Baekhyun’s wallet onto the floor and slides his card before Baekhyun even has the chance to pick his wallet back up.
“That’s no fair.”
“You paid for lunch and for all that art supplies earlier. You’re gonna run out of money soon enough if you keep spending money so carelessly like that.”
Baekhyun pouts and grabs a few of the bags of groceries so Chanyeol doesn’t have to carry it all out to the car on his own. “I’m not gonna run out of money anytime soon, I can promise you that.”
“Really?”
“You ever play poker?”
“That is not how you got all your money.”
“Well, you got me there.” Baekhyun shoves the bags into the trunk of the car and gets into the passenger seat. Chanyeol climbs in the driver’s side a few seconds later.
Chanyeol doesn’t say anything as he starts driving and about halfway back to campus, Baekhyun leans over, putting a hand on Chanyeol’s thigh to hold himself up.
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad.”
He slides his hand up Chanyeol’s thigh. “Are you sure?”
Chanyeol grabs Baekhyun’s hand and pushes it down towards his knee. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Baekhyun makes a noise of doubt but doesn’t say anything until they get back to the dorms.
When Chanyeol parks and goes to open his door, Baekhyun reaches across and pulls it back shut, and before the taller boy realises what’s happening, Baekhyun is climbing across the center console onto his lap.
“Get off-”
“Please. Please stop talking.”
Chanyeol stares at the smaller boy with wide eyes, opens his mouth to say something, but doesn’t have the chance to before Baekhyun catches his lips with his own.
Too many thoughts are running through Chanyeol’s head when this happens.
First, he pictures an explosion. Like the meteor that hit Earth and wiped out all the dinosaurs - that’s how his chest feels when Baekhyun kisses him.
Second, he notices that Baekhyun’s hands are both balled up in the fabric of his shirt. And his lips are so much softer than Chanyeol could have imagined, and shit , Baekhyun is so hot.
Third, he realises that he’s not kissing back and thinks that he should probably do that.
He decides, after that third thought, that he should stop thinking.
Chanyeol hasn’t kissed anyone in a long time, and he didn’t realise how much he needed this until now. He wraps his arms around Baekhyun’s waist and kisses back with more force, too much force because, next thing he knows, Baekhyun is pressed up against the steering wheel and the horn is blaring.
They both pull back, a mix of surprise and panic flooding their emotions.
Baekhyun falls forward onto Chanyeol’s chest, his body shaking with laughter.
He mumbles something into Chanyeol’s shirt, but Chanyeol doesn’t think he heard him properly, because he’s still laughing.
“Can you repeat that?”
“I’m,” he’s still giggling, “I’m aging. I grew, like, a tenth of an inch.”
Chanyeol grabs Baekhyun’s shoulders and pushes him back far enough so that he can look him dead in the eye. “What, do you check your height every day or something?”
“Every day since I met you.”
Chanyeol’s breath catches in his throat, which seems to happen so often when he’s around Baekhyun. Suddenly, he thinks, it’s very hot in the car and he’s forgetting to take breaths. He considers trying to climb out his open window.
“Chanyeol?”
He knows that he’s just sitting there staring at Baekhyun, and this is probably not how normal people react when they realise who their soulmate is, and yet there he is, forgetting to breathe and staring and possibly having a panic attack in front of - holy shit - his soulmate.
“Can we get out of the car?” He thinks if he’s stuck in the car for any longer, he might actually suffocate and pass out.
Baekhyun nods and scrambles to open the door and gets out.
Chanyeol follows suit, leaning against the car after he closes the door.
“You know, the day after I saw you in the library, I went back to check out the book you were reading.” He takes a deep breath. “I stayed up the whole night reading it. I read it again the next day. And you called it mildly interesting . And I know that the reason you think that is because you’re so other . You’re so completely unlike anyone I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. You’re such a fucking nerd. And you look so good in my clothes, and I never knew what it was like to be in love with every single thing about a person, but you… you surprise me every day. And I don’t want you to ever stop surprising me.”
He’s out of breath from saying all of it, and proud of himself for being able to say it without having a heart attack.
“Okay, Chanyeol.”
“Okay?”
Baekhyun is stepping towards him, closing the gap between them in one stride. He stands on his tiptoes, because that’s how damn tall Chanyeol is, and kisses him again, slow and deep and perfect , and neither of them ever wants the moment to end.
It’s one of those moments where they know that this is it. This is what they have to look forward to, and it’s much beyond their expectations, so overwhelming and almost too much to handle. They are so wrapped up in the moment and each other, and nothing else matters, no one else in the world matters, so long and Baekhyun is in Chanyeol’s arms.
After a while, they pull apart, because all good things must eventually come to an end, but then again, maybe they don’t.
This is it.