It’s been a while, around a month to be exact, since they had any contact. Baekhyun assumes it has something to do with the nature of his last text message. ‘I’m going through with it, today. I hope you can forgive me’. They both knew what it meant, the consequences, what it would do to their relationship. It happened anyway, it had to, and ever since the pianist has been staring at a line of unanswered messages.
The hesitation as fingers stiffen around a key decked into the door lock is a product of anxiety, fear even, of what awaits on the other side. Because he can’t catch a scent – no mischievous fragrances of hawthorn, no hint of honey, no otherworldly delicacies. Nothing. The latter might not even be home, yet he still clings to the possibility that even knowing that he is there, the taller didn’t flee. He hopes that when he turns the key it doesn’t get stuck as a result of his friend changing the locks (that this is a hint that he is still welcome in some way).
So he holds his breath and turns the knob.
To his surprise the door swings open, revealing a (mostly) empty penthouse, save for the furniture and…Noah, on one of the sofas with the bird Baekhyun had gifted him sitting up on the armrest, a familiar pair of orbs eerily peering at his direction. The fact that he didn’t evade the meeting should be comforting, but it isn’t, not right now.
Silence dawns upon the room. Deafening, strangling silence.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t dare to even breathe because muscles appear to be petrified and his systems have fallen into a general failure, and the look they exchange shatters something between his ribs. And it lingers. Lingers for a little too long, the discomfort and inquietude that itch at the back of his throat, and the suffocating lump that blocks his trachea. So much to say, yet so little words.
Wind is the culprit behind the loud bang that the door produces when it slams shut, and he should be thankful for it because the way his body jerks in an involuntary response seems to kick start his bloodstream once again. And then he’s walking, but as if tiptoeing around broken glass shards, too caution, each step too quiet against the wooden floor.
Oxygen only fills his lungs when he halts by the other far end of the sofa, lithe fingers naturally gliding over the soft material. Apprehension doesn’t fail to bring an oscillation to his voice.
Nails dip into the fabric as he dares sitting on the arm rest. (Noah’s demeanor, if anything, yells a loud keep a distance at him, and he doesn’t need vampire abilities to identify as much).
Palms flop over his lap, fingers automatically caught in the habit of coiling into a ball, sharp nails decorating the soft flesh with crescent shapes. A familiar ache nestles within his chest, vicious like lava, ferocious like a lion’s claw, withering like a dying flower. Crushing his ribs with the weight of the world as his jaw clenches and his posture deflates.
“I know you caught my scent way before I stepped into the building. Why didn’t you run? I thought you were avoiding me.”
Hurt. He’s hurt and that much should be conveyed if the other knows the first thing about Baekhyun’s tone (which he does), by the transparent agony plastered over hazel hues that evidently pleas for something, anything, after the month of silence treatment. He’s clinging to loose strings, hoping they can still be mended back together.
