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"Like a painting, all I can do is stare, can't go too near. I can't touch you or else I'll ruin everything.” - Unknown
He thinks Baekhyun probably has no idea why he’s grown so distant. He thinks it’s probably not fair to the younger man, to offer no explanation.
Still, he thinks it’s for the best.
The fleeting touches, the not-so-fleeting touches, it all has to stop.
Because everything Yixing touches falls apart. Cracks under his fingers like the impending weathering of an old road over time.
And someone like Baekhyun is too pure, too beautiful to be ruined in such a way.
-
On stage, he sticks close to Chanyeol, because Chanyeol never understands. Chanyeol never just knows when the smallest thing is wrong.
Chanyeol doesn’t stare.
Chanyeol doesn’t beg for his touch.
-
New message from Baekhyunnie:
You keep leaving without saying goodbye…
Yixing’s schedule keeps him busier than the other members. He spends more time on airplanes than he does in one place, in one specific bed. One fanmeet in China this day, one live performance in Korea the next. It’s neverending.
He doesn’t sleep. He barely eats.
His stylists scold him for the dark circles under his eyes, the bags that are getting harder and harder to conceal.
He promises he’ll sleep that night. He’ll have time.
He spends the time writing instead. Practicing the choreography for his band’s next performance.
He doesn’t know what sleep is anymore.
-
New message from Baekhyunnie:
I hope you are eating, ge.
New message from Baekhyunnie:
I miss you.
-
The airport is expecting him.
Although he doesn’t know when it’s ever not expecting him now.
He wipes at his red, tear-stained cheeks and crosses the insignificant hotel room to his open luggage and digs until he finds it. The box he keeps Baekhyun’s bracelet in.
“Baekhyun-ah! I can’t accept this!”
Sweet smile. Sparkling eyes. “How else can I give you my strength, gege?”
Yixing sobs as he fumbles to clasp the bracelet around his wrist. Flashes of Baekhyun’s blonde, bedhead hair, soft and sleepy eyes, tangled legs under the sheets of Yixing’s twin bed in the dorm. Baekhyun had crawled in with him sometime in the night, having heard his crying. Baekhyun didn’t once let him go until morning.
“But this bracelet is so important to you.”
“And so are you. Wear it, Xing. When you don’t think you can do it, let it give you strength. Let me give you strength.”
Yixing receives his new plane ticket in the car.
Seoul is no longer his weekend destination.
A really good promotion opportunity came up in Tokyo, Yixing, his agent had informed him mere hours ago.
He’s missing Jongdae’s birthday.
New message from Baekhyunnie:
No one blames you, Yixing.
New message from Xing:
I’m sorry.
-
He hasn’t seen his family in months despite his frequent trips to China.
His friendships are falling apart.
Life is slipping through his fingers.
-
“Am I ruining everything?” he cries into his phone, curled up by the window of his Tokyo suite.
“Yixing-,” Baekhyun’s voice cracks.
The relief that washes over Yixing from merely hearing it is overwhelming. He wants to wrap the warm timbre of it around him like a blanket, wants to drown in it.
He’s selfish for wanting Baekhyun so badly.
“How could you think that?”
Yixing squeezes his eyes shut. He stopped trying to wipe the tears from his face the moment he pathetically dialed Baekhyun’s number. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
The lights in the street below twinkle mockingly at him, the neon signs of downtown a blaring reminder that he’s not where he should be.
He can hear Baekhyun steadying his breaths.
Yixing’s not even touching him and Baekhyun’s crumbling.
“I’m sorry, Baekhyun.”
He hangs up and watches the lights aggressively blur before he succumbs to his fate and weeps until he has no voice left.
New message from Baekhyunnie:
Will you ever let me be there for
you again?
New message from Baekhyunnie:
It’s going to be okay. You’re strong.
New message from Xing:
I’m no good, Baekhyun.
New message from Baekhyunnie:
You’re one of the only good things
left in this world, Xing.
-
A month of various promotions and TV recordings keep him away from South Korea. A month without some of his closest friends. A month without so much as seeing Baekhyun.
Minseok wraps him in a comforting embrace when he stumbles into the dorms in the middle of the night. His flight had been delayed six hours. Minseok happened to be up fixing himself a glass of water.
Yixing melts against his elder, apologies fall from his mouth, and Minseok hits him on the head. “No apologizing.”
-
He trudges into his room quietly and a body crashes into his.
Arms wrap, fingers grip with desperation, lips meet Yixing’s cheek, his jaw.
Yixing swallows over the lump in his throat and tries to ignore the feeling of home Baekhyun’s arms always exude. The way the gaping hole in his chest seals itself up a little bit just because he can feel Baekhyun against his fingertips.
He touches the soft hair he loves so much, and Baekhyun cries.
Everything I touch…
Yixing tries to pull away.
Baekhyun clings tighter.
“Please stop avoiding me, Xing,” he sobs. “I don’t know what I did, but please.”
Devastation swims through Yixing’s veins. Baekhyun didn’t do anything. “You’ve only ever been good to me, Baekhyun.”
“Then why?” They look into each other’s tear-stained faces and Yixing suddenly doesn’t have an answer. “We’re supposed to be each other’s favorites, remember?” The jest is weak, and Yixing nearly breaks apart right there. “You’ve been wearing my bracelet but you won’t let me be there for you, too.”
Yixing drags him into his bed and the sheets flutter to settle atop them as they scramble to tangle their limbs, to hold each other close.
-
“Can’t you see?” Baekhyun whispers into his neck. “Can’t you see how much you mean to me?”
Their lips meet under the covers, whispers of the other members can’t know, no one can know a chant that haunts Yixing, plagues his heart even though he’s the one saying it.
Even in this moment, he just can’t.
-
He leaves just before dawn, never having been good at any form of goodbye.
Maybe he’ll stay in a hotel.
The mere idea makes him nauseous.
His driver has to pull over only a few blocks away from the dorms because Yixing feels sick, Yixing can’t breathe. “Please, please pull over. Please let me out. I need out. Please-.”
He stumbles from the car and lands on a streetside bench. He heaves but nothing comes. Doubled over under the rising sun.
All he does lately is cry.
-
It’s alarming how quickly his favorite embrace wraps around him.
“I wasn’t asleep, Yixing.”
Looking up into Baekhyun’s face, he sees the worry, the deep concern. Yixing is so exhausted, he can't even react.
Baekhyun helps him back into the car.
There's no point in fighting it.
-
He doesn't remember re-entering the dorms, but he’s suddenly on the couch of the band’s dorm living room. He dazedly watches Baekhyun wrap him tight in a blanket, murmuring something to someone behind the couch. Kyungsoo, maybe.
Then Baekhyun’s next to him, holding him close, petting his hair and kissing his temple.
Yixing sniffles and turns his head, blinking blearily. He kisses Baekhyun’s soft lips. “I’m sorry," he whispers, and hopes he gets his point across by pressing their lips together once more. I'm sorry for being stupid. I'm sorry for treating you like shit.
“I know.” Their foreheads touch. “And that’s the only apology I’ll listen to, so no more.”
Yixing nestles against Baekhyun, too drowsy to argue, and his eyes flutter shut, sleep washing over him easier than it has in months.
He’s gently shaken awake half an hour later for breakfast.
“He looks like he hasn’t eaten in days,” Kyungsoo murmurs before Yixing opens his eyes.
Yixing’s not sure if he has or not, really.
“Dance practice is cancelled,” Baekhyun says when Yixing picks his head up.
“What?”
Kyungsoo hands Yixing a plate of food and sits on the coffee table in front of him, a small grin present. “Can’t have dance practice if we’re all sick.”
Yixing cries a little again, but then he's laughing too as Sehun hops over the back of the couch and lands in the open space, snuggling in to Yixing and snatching a slice of bacon from his plate. “Hi.”
“Sehunnie!” Baekhyun exclaims, reaching around to slap at the youngest. “No! Yixing’s food.”
Yixing had forgotten what laughing feels like. “It’s okay.”
And with Baekhyun kissing his shoulder, Sehun nuzzling into his side, and Kyungsoo handing him a glass of juice with a warm smile, he knows it's true.
He will be okay.
He's home.