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“Did you hear that?”
Chanyeol rolls around on his bed on the bottom bunk and grunts in reply.
“Chanyeol, wake up!” Baekhyun whispers harshly. Chanyeol just groans and buries his face deeper into his pillow. He should be used to Baekhyun’s quirks by now, having been best friends since elementary school. But it was his first time spending the night at his house, and Chanyeol wasn’t sure what to make of this newfound information. Was Baekhyun scared of the dark, or was he just imagining things. Baekhyun was staying over at Chanyeol’s house for the long weekend they were given before exams (“Thank God!”), and decided that studying together will help him pass high school Chemistry. Two brains were better than one, after all.
“Chanyeol, please, I think I heard something,” he trails off, voice a little over a whisper since he knew the other was listening.
“Baek, let me sleep.”
“But you’re awake now! Can you go take a look?”
Chanyeol throws his blanket away from his body with a huff, and gets up too quickly that he almost hits his head. He always thought he was too long for a bunk bed. Chanyeol opens the door to the bedroom, peeks out into the corridor for two seconds, then goes back in and shuts the door behind him. “See? Nothing there.” He’s ready to go back under his warm, fuzzy blanket when Baekhyun speaks again. “What if it came from outside?” With another huff he pulls the curtains apart and looks outside, catching Baekhyun’s reflection in the dark window. He’s sitting up on the top bunk with his blanket pulled up all the way under his chin, hair fluffed up from rolling around on his pillow. Chanyeol’s expression softens. Despite being annoyed that he was woken up by him, Baekhyun looked really cute like that, and he wanted to pet his hair.
“Nothing there too.”
He stands next to the bed, just a few heads shorter than Baekhyun and places his hand on Baekhyun’s head. Being tall sure had its advantages sometimes. Baekhyun closes his eyes once Chanyeol’s fingers start moving in his hair and he hears Chanyeol say, “Go back to sleep.” He hums, opening his eyes to see Chanyeol smiling up at him, eyes still shining even in the darkness of the room.
They both lie down in their respective beds, and Chanyeol almost drifts back to sleep when he feels the side of his blanket being raised and the cold wind rushing in. “Baek, what are you doing?” He only just managed to create enough warmth by rubbing his feet against one another. Baekhyun slowly moves closer and closer, until his face is buried in the side of Chanyeol’s neck. “I’m scared,” he whispers, and Chanyeol prays that he hasn’t noticed the shiver that ran through him. He gulps slowly, moving his face so he could look down at Baekhyun and boy was that a mistake. Baekhyun’s face was a little flushed, he could see it even with the small amount of light in the room. His lips were pulled together making his cheeks puff up and Chanyeol thinks about what he might have done in his past life to deserve this. “You’re what?” he asks dumbly, and Baekhyun lets a groan fall out of his mouth and right onto Chanyeol’s collarbone. “Please don’t make this any more embarrassing for me,” he says, and Chanyeol can feel every word on his skin.
They stay quiet for a few minutes, and Chanyeol thinks Baekhyun had fallen asleep, but he suddenly feels Baekhyun’s cold hands slipping underneath his shirt and he lets out a squeak despite himself. “Baek, what the fuck?” The other just continues snuggling up to him, tangling their legs together so that he could rub his cold feet against Chanyeol’s legs. He was being treated like a heater. There’s only so much affection Chanyeol can take, with his ever-growing crush on Baekhyun and all. It was no secret to their friends that Chanyeol liked Baekhyun way more than just a friend, yet Baekhyun remained the only one completely oblivious to it. “You’re warm,” Baekhyun mumbles, looking and sounding absolutely comfortable. There’s no way he couldn’t hear Chanyeol’s heart pounding in his chest. He’s sure his parents downstairs could hear it just as loud. And yet Baekhyun was so calm.
Baekhyun’s eyes were closed but Chanyeol knew he wasn't sleeping. His pulse had slowed down to normal again, but he still felt like all the muscles in his body were tense. They have been friends for years but this was the first time they’ve ever slept in the same bed, let alone having Baekhyun wrap all his limbs around his body.
“Are you nervous?”
Chanyeol’s pulse picks up again, and he feels Baekhyun’s lips pull into a lazy smile against his skin. “You are.” They don’t say anything for several moments and Chanyeol is too afraid to even breathe. Baekhyun can’t know. He just can’t. It would end their friendship, and Baekhyun is Chanyeol’s “closest and bestest friend in the whole world", he told him that when they were both six years old, and he still is. Everything will change and he’s terrified. But there’s no other explanation for his hammering pulse, why did his body have to betray him like that? Why did Baekhyun have to be this touchy when he’s scared and cold? The world really was against him
“I can hear you think, Chanyeol.” He feels Baekhyun’s body shaking with laughter against his, and doesn’t bother hiding his groan. Why did he have to fall in love with his best friend?
“Baek, I-”
He manages to mumble out a long excuse; something about Baekhyun being close and stealing all of his oxygen, and him not being able to breathe. Something else about hearts and air and another thing about biology and blood circulation and “Don’t you remember, Baek? We took this in class!”
Baekhyun is still vibrating with laughter. Chanyeol knows that if his parents weren’t asleep downstairs Baekhyun would be barking loudly for several long minutes.
“You really thought I'd believe that?”
Chanyeol pouts. He really thought it would work. But then Baekhyun leans in and pecks him on the lips. The pout disappears but so do his eyebrows that fly up into his hair. He sits up and bangs his head on the bunk above him, falling back down and holding his head between his hands.
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
Chanyeol’s eyes fill up with tears and he closes his eyes so Baekhyun wouldn’t see. “Hey, look at me,” he hears softly, and there are fingers under his chin turning his face to look at Baekhyun’s. He smiles so sweetly at him Chanyeol might tear up again for an entirely different reason. “You okay, big boy?”
Chanyeol pouts again and he hopes Baekhyun takes that as a signal for another kiss because he can’t stop thinking about it. Baekhyun kissed him. Baekhyun kissed him first. He juts his lower lip out further, but Baekhyun isn’t kissing him again. Why isn’t Baekhyun kissing him again?
Baekhyun’s thumb is rubbing at the sore spot on Chanyeol’s head and he asks him if he wants him to go downstairs to get some ice, but all Chanyeol wants is another kiss. So he holds Baekhyun’s hand in his and leans in for a quick kiss, but completely misses because Baekhyun turns his head away from him.
“We’re gonna have to talk about this first, Yeol.”
Chanyeol nods slowly, but doesn’t hide his disappointment. “Okay,” he mumbles, he just wants to get this out of the way as fast as possible.
“And?”
“I like you? What do you mean, and?”
“And, why didn’t you tell me before?”
Chanyeol blinks. He could list a thousand and one reasons why he didn’t tell his best friend that he was in love with him. A lot of things could go wrong. He’s not stupid.
“I didn’t want to risk our friendship, Baek you’re-”
“Your closest and bestest friend in the whole world, I know.” Baekhyun is smiling at him, so wide and bright that his eyes crinkle. Chanyeol thinks he wants to see that smile directed at him for the rest of his life.
“Can I have another kiss?” Chanyeol is blushing, but he knows he’s never going to get what he wants out of Baekhyun unless he asks directly.
He was right, because Baekhyun lips are on his in two seconds; warm and soft and perfect. Baekhyun licks at Chanyeol’s lips lightly until they open up for him. And he should be finding it gross, he thinks, that his tongue is all sorts of wet, but it feels like it belongs in his mouth. He could get really used to this.
They’re cuddled up against one another again when Chanyeol asks, “Sooo, you like me too, right?”
“Chanyeol, I wouldn’t kiss just anyone, you know that.”
“I want you to say it.”
Baekhyun tries to smooth the upturned sides of his lips back into a neutral expression, but fails. Chanyeol is really cute.
“I like you. You’re my best friend, and I like you so much I want to date you, happy?”
Chanyeol hides himself under the blanket to cover his reddening face but Baekhyun is not having any of it. “No kisses for you if you don’t come out right now.”
Chanyeol might have given himself whiplash with how fast he popped his head out. He looked at Baekhyun with bright, twinkling eyes, and Baekhyun feels his heart stutter in his chest and kisses him.