no kissing — bbh 18+
↳ summary: a favor from your best friend spirals into something completely out of control
↳ wc: 7k
↳ baekhyun x f!reader | smut, angst elements, some fluff | 18+ warnings: fingering, eaterrrrrr baek (oral sex - f receiving), hair pulling, raw p in v. some overstim, dirty talk, and implied cum eating but very light
↳ a/n: requested by lovely anon! i struggle so much with angst so i hope it at least partway delivers <3
“He’s such a fucking bum,” Baekhyun sighs. He throws the crumpled piece of paper in the air and it lands on your chest. “Who dumps people with a handwritten note?”
“That was so like him though,” you grumble. “He was so anti-phone. Every time I showed him a reel he would say, you know that stuff is rotting your brain, right?”
Baekhyun turns back from his position on the floor to look at you, scandalized. “You were sending him reels?”
“Yes?” You roll your eyes at his pout. “You know that you don’t like, own Instagram right? I’m allowed to send reels to other people besides you.”
“You’re not allowed to send reels to people that dump you through a handwritten note slid under your door.” He turns back around and leans his head back on the couch, the top of his head nearly touching your thigh. “You’re okay, though? You don’t seem very torn up about it.”
“What if I was?” you hum. “Would that be so terrible?”
“Are you?”
You aren’t. You’d dumped others and been dumped so many times but you’d never actually experienced heartbreak. It never felt real enough to you to feel the hurt. You’d simply nod and move on, blocking their numbers before you were even out the door. Baekhyun called you a sociopath, you called yourself realistic. Besides, who is he to judge anyways? How many nights have you spent rubbing his back because the pretty girl at the bar ghosted him? You think about saying this, but that wouldn’t be a very nice thing to say to your best friend, who was kind enough to open his door to you at midnight with no questions asked.
“He sucked,” you say instead.
“I could have told you that. I don’t think he knew my name. He just called everyone ‘bro.’ Even you.”
“He always made us split the bill when we went out.”
“I’m pretty sure he was trying to flirt with Jongin’s girlfriend last week.”
“He never ate me out.”
Baekhyun chokes, and for a second you think that maybe, for the first time in your fifteen years of friendship, you’ve gone too TMI. He makes that sound again, a strained, choking sound high in the back of his throat.
Then you realize that he’s laughing.
“Fuck off,” you mumble, tossing a throw pillow at his head.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he wheezes. Is he wiping a fucking tear from his eyes right now? “It’s just like – go fucking figure, y’know?”
“What do you mean?”
He turns around to fully face you, still trying to stifle down his giggles. “Like, if there’s a guy who treats his girlfriend like shit there’s like a 90% chance he won’t go down on her either.”
Your eyebrows crease together. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?” he asks. “Like if a guy is a piece of shit he wouldn’t want to do something that’s solely for her pleasure. Of course he’d never turn down a blowjob, but the other way? No way.”
“But I don’t think it works the other way, right?” you say. “Like a guy can be a good partner but not do it.”
“I mean everyone has their preferences, I guess but a downright refusal without a good reason is kind of a red flag.” He raises an eyebrow. “Why are you getting defensive about this?”
“I am not.”
“Yes you are.”
“I guess ‘cus like… I’ve had partners that weren’t shitty people.”
Baekhyun falls silent, eyes wide and incredulous. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”
You groan and cover your burning face in your hands. “Can we drop it?”
“No one’s ever gone down on you?” he asks.
“Baek…”
“That’s fucking insane,” he mutters.
“Okay, well, since you’re the fucking sex expert how many times have you done it?” you spit out. You sit up, fully looking him in the eyes. The teasing glint is long gone now, replaced by something that you realize is close to pity.
“Like… every time?” he says weakly.
“Every time,” you repeat, voice flat. “Every time you hook up with a girl you go down on her?”
“I at least offer!”
A bitter silence falls over the two of you as you turn over this new piece of information in your head. Of course it’s something that you’ve thought about from time to time, but you always just thought it was something optional. A little appetizer to the main course. And you don’t get an appetizer every time you get a meal. But as you think back to all your partners, all the excuses that they gave you for not wanting to do it, you can’t help but feel… bad. Was there something about you that made all your partners not want to go down on you?
“It’s nothing wrong with you,” Baekhyun says. He has a funny way of doing that, assuming what you’re thinking without you saying anything. “I think you just happen to only date terrible people.”
“Thanks, Byun.”
He shrinks away. He knows you only call him that when you’re pissed. “Hey,” he says softly, tugging at your pajama pant leg. “I could do it for you if you wanted.”
You nearly shoot up straight in your seat. “Excuse me?”
He holds his hands up in front of his face, anticipating you to smack him. “I’m being serious. Just so you could see what all the hype is about.”
It’s not an immediately horrible idea. It was just a favor, a way for you to test the waters. But still, thinking that Baekhyun is (objectively) good looking and pretending that you don’t occasionally fantasize about him from time to time (which is a totally normal thing to happen to best friends) are completely different things from, well, actually having sex with him.
“Is it going to be weird?” you ask. “Y’know, after?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think so. I’ve had lots of meaningless sex.”
“Ouch.”
“You know what I mean,” he rolls his eyes. “I mean that we’re not going to fall in love or anything just because I put my mouth on you. You’ll still be my best friend.”
“Besides,” he continues. “Won’t it feel better knowing that it’s coming from someone who cares about you? Instead of some rando who won’t pay for dinner?”
“Can you please be nicer about my dating history?”
“Date a normal guy then I'll see.” Baekhyun sticks his pinky out towards you. “We can drop it right now and I’ll never bring it up again, I swear. But if you’re interested… I’m offering.”
As you stare at his outstretched pinky, you think one more time that maybe this is a bad idea. Then, your treacherous mind betrays you. How bad could it be? It was only a one time thing.
“You better be good,” you say, hooking your pinky with his.
He grins cheekily. “Never had any complaints.”
The two of you wisely decide to not do anything that night, to give you both some time to think about it and maybe even back out. You almost do. Several times, in fact. But the curiosity always wins out over the anxiety in the end. One week later, you’re in your own apartment, sitting next to each other on the side of your bed. He’s freshly showered, and he smells like your shampoo (he always uses too much), and suddenly this is feeling too real.
“It’s just me,” he says softly, noticing your nerves. “Do you want to back out?”
You hesitate for only a second before firmly shaking your head, as if doing so could convince the butterflies in your stomach to settle. “I’m ready.”
Baekhyun’s eyes flutter shut as he leans forward, pursing his lips the slightest amount. A strange feeling, a mix of overwhelm, panic, and maybe even manic laughter fills your chest. “Wait,” you blurt out.
He opens his eyes, biting back an exasperated sigh. “We can stop.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s the… can we not kiss?”
There’s a pause, before he throws his hands up in disbelief. “No kissing?”
“You said it yourself, this is meaningless. And kissing just kinda makes it mean something to me?” Your voice shrinks with every word, wilting under the incredulity of his gaze.
“Meaningless wasn’t a good word,” he says quietly. Almost regretfully. “But yeah. Okay, we can skip the kissing.” He has an unreadable expression for a moment before he shakes it off, replacing it with the easygoing air that you’re used to. “Not sure how you want to get in the mood without it but–”
The words die on his tongue when you abruptly pull your shirt over your head, reaching back to unhook your bra before you have the chance to feel self-conscious about it. His gaze drops down, eyes widening almost comically. You shove the rest of your clothes down your legs and shift onto the bed so that you’re laying back against the pillows. “You’re the expert,” you say, trying to ignore the way that your voice is trembling slightly. “So show me how you get started.”
Baekhyun swallows, trying to not be too shameless in the way he’s staring at your body, pink tongue darting out to wet his lips slightly before he settles in between your legs. “Can I–?” he says carefully, his hand brushing against your waist.
“Do anything you want to do,” you exhale. “I’ll tell you if I don’t like it.”
He lays down onto his stomach and spreads your legs, hooking his arm under your thighs. Your eyes flutter shut of their own accord, breath hitching in anticipation. What if you don’t like it after all? you think. What if he doesn’t? What if there actually is something wrong with me and he’s just like the rest of them?
A small gasp rips from your throat when you feel his lips on your inner thigh, brushing lightly at first before kissing the plush skin there. Your heart is hammering behind your ribcage, muscles tensing when he switches to the other side. You feel exposed with your core so close to his face, even more so since you can feel yourself getting wetter by the second.
After what seems simultaneously like a lifetime and a lightning flash, he finally focuses his attention onto your pussy. He starts slow, licking a long stripe up the length of your cunt, flicking his tongue at the top. Then his mouth descends, tongue dipping into your pussy, a low and almost inaudible groan leaving his mouth.
“Ah–” You let your head tip back against the pillows, eyes falling shut as he works his mouth over you. His tongue is so wet, lips so soft. You lose yourself in it for a while, slowly getting used to the feeling of him, the slick noises between your legs make you less embarrassed as each second slips by.
His lips abruptly seal over your clit and you jolt when he starts to suck. Your legs twitch in his hold of their own volition, your fists scrambling to clutch the sheets below you. “Oh, that feels good,” you gasp, your voice coming out breathy, foreign to your own ears.
Baekhyun repeats the motion, losing his grip on one of your thighs to bring the pads of his fingers to your dripping hole, shallowly thrusting the tips inside, flirting with your entrance. You buck your hips, inviting him in, pulse pounding in your ears as the pressure in your stomach continues to build higher and higher.
The second that he slips his fingers completely inside of you, you know that it’s over.
Long, slim digits slide inside of you, searching for the one spot that will make you break, mouth still working over your clit, alternating between sucking and licking. “You like that?” he asks, gaze burning, studying your expression.
“Yes, yes, don’t– nn, don’t stop,” you moan, hips moving unconsciously. “Baek—!”
He groans against your skin, and the sound of his voice, usually so light and airy, pitched lower with thinly disguised desperation, sends a new wave of arousal pulsing through you. “My hair,” he gasps, pulling away from you for a second. You look down to meet his gaze and are nearly bowled over by the sight of him: expression dark and thick with lust, lips pink and wet, dripping with you. “Put your hand in my hair.”
Your fingers sink into the soft locks of his hair, pushing his face against you. You’re practically riding his face now, but you don’t care, can’t care when it feels so good. WIth a final cry of his name, his mouth and his fingers bring you to the edge. Your orgasm crashes into you, crackling like static in your veins. Your back bows, arching into him, your grip on his hair borderline painful. He keeps going, prolonging the pleasure until it becomes too much and you’re softly pleading for him to give in.
“Holy fuck,” you say finally.
“Good?” he asks. You look down to find him smirking playfully, equal parts annoying and endearing.
“Solid 8 out of 10,” you reply. “Always room for improvement.”
Baekhyun rolls his eyes and gets up, handing you your clothes from the side of the bed. “I just gave you head and you wanna be smart with me.” He stands and your eyes widen when you see his sweatpants.
He’s hard as fuck.
“Do you want– um–” Your eyes flick away, trying to look anywhere but at it.
“Nah, it’s all good,” Baekhyun replies easily. If he’s embarrassed, he doesn’t show it, even if his voice sounds rough with need. “This was supposed to be for you.”
“Oh. Okay.” The reminder of all this is— a one-time favor— hits again. You try to pretend that you’re not disappointed. “Do you wanna watch a movie?”
“Sure, but I get to pick.” He nudges you to scoot over and slides into bed next to you as if nothing’s changed, as if things are going to go back to normal just as easily as they had skewed from it.
Things don’t go back to normal.
How could they? Both of you had been too stupid, too naive (too hopeful?) to think otherwise. Baekhyun casts glances at you when he thinks you’re not looking, and you find yourself zoning out into his face until he has to snap in front of you. When he feeds you a bite from his meal, as he always does, you notice the way that he swallows, gaze drifting to watch your lips close over his fork.
It’s torture. You can’t even get yourself off without thinking about the feeling of his mouth on you. Seeking other people is out of the question entirely because now that he’d shown you exactly what you’d been missing, how could you ever settle for anything less? You throw yourself into anything you can: work, exercise, picking up abandoned hobbies. Anything to get your mind off of him, off the sound of his voice when he’s turned on, the feeling of his hair in your fist…
“Are you like… okay?”
You blink back to reality, back from where you’ve been watching Baekhyun walk to the restroom, back to focus on Kyungsoo in front of you.
“Yeah, sorry,” you say, eating a fry to distract yourself. “Just been a bit distracted lately.”
Across the table, Kyungsoo narrows his eyes inquisitively. “Distracted by… Baekhyun?” he says carefully.
You deflate. “Is it that obvious?”
“Um… yes? I feel like I’m third-wheeling the two of you more than usual.”
“Soo…” You put your head in your hands and whine. “I need to tell you something but you can’t tell anyone and you need to be normal when Baek comes back.”
“No promises.”
“We… hooked up. Sort of.”
Instead of any sort of reaction of surprise, Kyungsoo just blinks at you. “Oh. You haven’t been hooking up this whole time?”
“What?!” You lower your voice when the neighboring tables whip their heads to look at you. “Is that what people think?”
“People think that you guys are full on together and have been for years,” he deadpans.
“Well, you know that we’re not, right?”
“Yeah, I know,” he shrugs. “But there’s always the possibility that things are happening beyond my knowledge.”
“What do I do?”
Kyungsoo pauses. “Are things just awkward now? If it’s that, then I think it’ll fizzle out on its own.”
“No, it’s that… I think I kind of like him? Or at least want to hook up with him again. And I think that maybe he also wants to?”
“So hook up again.”
In the corner of your eye you see Baekhyun leave the restroom so you adjust your posture, stealthily raising your eyebrow towards him so that Kyungsoo knows he’s coming. “It’s not that easy, Soo.”
“I think it is,” he replies, then clears his throat before raising the volume of his voice. “Anyways, did you want to get dessert?”
“Ooh, you guys are talking about dessert?” Baekhyun slides into the booth next to you, stealing a fry off your plate easily. “Can we split a slice of cheesecake?”
“Get your own slice, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo says. “Last time you hogged it all.”
Baekhyun splutters in protest, and you laugh, ignoring the way that your heart squeezes.
“You wanna come by my place for a bit? Watch a movie?” Baekhyun asks.
When Kyungsoo left the car just moments ago, it’s as if he took all of the easygoing nature of the hangout with him. Now the atmosphere is heavy, wrought with tension so thick you can practically taste it. Baekhyun drums his fingers against the wheel anxiously.
You could say no. You have to do your grocery shopping tomorrow, your place is a wreck and you need to do a deep clean, you don’t have any of the belongings you need to stay overnight (which is a complete non-issue. You’ve had extra clothes and a spare toothbrush at his for as long as you can remember). You’re not stupid: you know what will end up happening if you stay the night.
But a part of you that you aren’t quite ready to reckon with yet wants it.
“Sure,” you say.
Neither of you are paying attention to the movie that he throws on when you get there. His arm around you is nothing new, his knee knocking against yours is familiar territory, but it all feels so different now. You’re hyperaware of everything: every shift he makes, every time he clears his throat.
Your heart hammers in your chest, beating behind your ribcage with a ferocity you’ve never known before. Calm down, you think. This is Baekhyun. This is Baekhyun and this is normal and we’re just best friends–
He calls your name.
Softly. Pleading.
When you turn towards him, his face is so close that you can count every individual eyelash, see every mole on his face in spectacular detail. The soft glow from the lamplight bathes him in gold. His gaze drifts down, down towards your mouth, his lips parting ever so slightly.
Fuck it.
Before you know it, you’re straddling him, thighs bracketing his hips. You throw your shirt over your head and unclip your bra, shuddering slightly when he splays his hand across your side. His lips dip toward yours and you pull away in a panic.
“No kissing,” you whisper.
He exhales harshly, almost like a laugh, before he diverts his pathway to your neck. “God, you drive me fucking crazy,” he mutters, pressing kisses down the column of your throat. His hands reach up to cup your tits, brushing your nipples under his thumb.
You roll your hips down, pressing yourself against his hardening cock with increasing intensity. “Shit,” he hisses, pulling away. “Lay down for me.” He pushes you gently onto your back, discarding his clothing and the rest of yours in the process. His fingers enter you slowly, stretching you out as he covers your body with his.
“You’re so obvious, y’know?” he chuckles against your skin when you whine. “Practically giving me fuck me eyes every damn day.”
“Fuck you.” Your voice holds no malice, not even a little bit of bite, going breathy around the edges when he thrusts his fingers in deep. “You’re not any better. I saw you looking at my ass the other day.”
“Can you blame me?” He pulls out and positions you so that your legs are wrapped around his waist, his cock positioned at your entrance. “You’re fucking perfect.”
He doesn’t waste any time, immediately thrusting into you at a brutal pace. It’s messy, frantic, your blood thrumming through your veins. You gasp, clutching onto his shoulders for dear life, each thrust pushing you deeper into the couch cushions.
“Holy fuck,” you moan, your head falling back. “Just like that.”
“Yeah?” he grunts, his fringe hanging low over his eyes, casting the top half of his face in shadow. “Tell me how good it is.”
You don’t even have it in you to make a smart comment back, too bowled over by the quick pace and the mounting pleasure. “S-So good, Baek. Don’t stop.”
He pulls out of you momentarily just to drape your legs over his shoulders, practically bending you in half when he re-enters your slick pussy, caging his arms around your head. The position makes you feel so vulnerable, so completely under his will that it sends a thrill up your spine.
“Do you have any idea,” he murmurs, voice strained with the effort of keeping up the pace, “just how much I’ve thought about you since that night? Can’t get the fuckin’ taste of you out of my head.”
You whimper at the heat of his confession. “Me too,” you say. “Couldn’t stop thinking about it. Never had anyone like that.”
He chuckles, slowing his hips until he’s just grinding into you. “And what about this? Any of those assholes fuck you this good?”
You shake your head, subtly arching into him, trying to get him to resume his pace. “Never. Keep going, need more.”
“Gonna have to hear you say ‘please,’” he teases.
“God, please,” you gasp. “Please, I want it.”
He fucks into you like he has something to prove, moving his hips with devastating precision. His control is slipping, you see it in the way that his jaw tenses, feel it in the way his hips start to stutter. You’re no better— with every minute, you feel your orgasm threatening to overtake you, the overwhelming heat coiling low in your stomach.
“I’m close,” you whisper.
“Me too,” he says, voice breaking. He snakes his hand around as best as he can to reach your clit, the pad of his finger brushing the sensitive nub. “With me, please. Wanna feel it.”
You unravel together, bodies curled in on one another. It rolls through you in waves, white-hot pleasure that makes your vision turn to static around the edges. His fingers dig into your sides, breath hot as he pants against your collarbone, emptying himself inside of you.
You don’t even have a moment to catch your breath before he’s pulling out and kneeling on the floor, draping your legs over his shoulders once again. “What are you— fuck!” Your oversensitive body twitches when he puts his tongue against you, sealing his lips over your clit and inserting two fingers inside.
“I need to taste you again,” he pants. Desperate, needy in a primal way that makes you dizzy. “Please.”
Your moans turn to full-on whimpers as he brings you back to the edge in record time, squeezing your eyes shut as you tremble through it. You cum with a shout of his name, gripping his hair between your fingers.
Then, as your body comes down to Earth, the reality of what’s happened starts to dawn on you.
Uncertainty settles in before anything else. You shift so that you can meet Baekhyun’s gaze, but to your amazement, you don’t see your own hesitance reflected back at you. He smiles at you easily, charmingly, as if he hadn’t just fucked your brains out.
“You alright?” he asks. “Was it too rough?”
“No,” you say, voice hoarse. “Can you get my clothes?”
You get dressed in silence, watching the muscles in his back flex as he pulls his shirt over his head. What the fuck just happened? Last time was just a one-off, a favor. But this?
“Can we talk about this?”
Baekhyun’s easygoing facade slips for a second. “Yeah. Yeah, sit down.”
You sit down next to him on the couch—the couch where you had just had sex, what the fuck?—and take a deep breath. “Where are we going with this? The sex and stuff?”
He shrugs. “Wherever you want it to go. Are you having fun?”
“Yeah,” you say. “I just want to make sure that we’re on the same page about, y’know, expectations and stuff.”
Baekhyun chooses his next words carefully before reaching over and putting his hand on top of yours. “We can always stop and I won’t be upset or disappointed. But if you’re open to it, I would really like to keep doing this.”
“I’m just scared it’s going to change things for us.”
“Nothing will change,” he whispers, smiling. “You’re still my best friend.”
And the way he looks at you… how can you be expected not to believe him?
It becomes a routine.
Frantic quickies at 3am, lazy morning sex, even in the back of his car after a party. You can’t keep your hands off of him, and he can’t keep his hands off of you. Nearly every time you’re alone together, your clothes end up discarded, forgotten on the floor. He learns his way around your body quickly, until making you cum is second nature, as easily as making you laugh. You’re not a bad student either: you learn that he really likes it when you beg, loves it even more when you say his name right before you shatter on his fingers, on his lips, on his cock.
One more time turns into two more times turns into five. Full days pass where the two of you spend all day in bed, lazily dozing in between sessions until you remember that there actually is an outside world that you have to attend to. You’re running out of turtlenecks to wear to work, the only clothing sufficient enough to hide the constellations of love bites across your neck and chest.
Despite all this, he’s still your best friend. You still swap inside jokes, still annoy the hell out of each other. He’s still your comfort person, your safe space, even as you become more vulnerable with him than you ever thought possible.
It’s another lazy night following a lazy day spent in bed. You trace abstract patterns on his back absentmindedly when he perks up suddenly. “I’m bored,” he says. “You wanna go for a walk?”
“Right now?” you ask. “It’s dark out.”
“We’ll just walk to the park and back. What, you don’t think I’ll protect you if any monsters come out of the shadows?”
To Baekhyun’s credit, the park is actually well-lit at night. You take the winding trail through the trees slowly, with all the time in the world. You still find things to talk about, even after years of friendship, after all the hours that you’ve been spending together recently.
“Do you hear that?” Baekhyun asks. And you do, the sounds of live music drawing closer and closer. As you approach the gazebo, you see an older man sitting inside, playing his guitar.
“Hey, isn’t this–?” you say.
Baekhyun’s eyes widen in recognition before a smile spreads across his face. “Oh yeah!”
A high school dance, one of the few that you attended, you can’t remember which one. You had both been rejected by your crushes and ended up having to go with each other. During the slow dance to this very song, the two of you decided to dance together but could not for the life of you stop giggling. Dirty looks were cast your way by the other couples on the dance floor, but you kept snickering into his shoulder, and he kept muffling his laughter in your hair.
“Shall we dance?” he asks, holding his hand out in an exaggerated manner.
“The pleasure is all mine, sir,” you curtsy before taking his hand.
It starts out the same way, all giggly and joking, Baekhyun twirling and dipping you until your head spins. You see the old man cast a smile your way and you nod at him as he continues playing. “Beautiful!” he shouts.
“Isn’t she?” Baekhyun laughs.
And maybe it’s the way that you become aware of his steady hand on your waist, maybe it’s the way that his eyes crinkle up at the edges when he smiles. But all of a sudden, you become painfully, horribly, much too aware of the fact that you are definitely, without question, in love with him.
When had it all changed? Somewhere among all the times that you were under him? In between the whispered praises, the affectionate touches? Or maybe, God forbid, were the feelings there all along?
It doesn’t really matter in the end. All that you know is that everything is different now. It’s as if the world ceases spinning, time slows to a crawl. You’re in love with your best friend. The realization is enough to knock the wind out of your chest.
Baekhyun tilts his head at you questioningly. “You okay?” he murmurs, eyebrows creasing with concern.
You just nod. Your emotions are so stuck in your throat that you’re afraid to answer. The gentle strumming of the guitar stops, leaving the two of you in the silence of the night.
“What’s up with you?”
You blink and find Baekhyun staring at you, concerned. “Nothing,” you reply.
“You’ve been so quiet lately,” he says. “Distant.”
“Just have some things on my mind.” You can’t, won’t meet his gaze. It’s been a few weeks since that night in the park, and all of your energy has been focused on keeping everything normal. The way it always was, the way it always should be. But your mask has been slipping lately, wearing your irritation on your sleeve, spacing out more than usual. Baekhyun’s too perceptive to have gone this long without noticing.
He turns back to the TV, worrying his bottom lip in between his teeth the way he does when he’s thinking. “You know, don’t you?”
“Know what?” And for a moment, you feel your heart rate start to pick up, fluttering with hope. You know that I have feelings for you, right? You imagine how those words would sound coming from him. Would he say it in a serious way? Or with that same, lighthearted confidence that’s permeated your entire friendship?
“That I’m seeing someone.”
You didn’t think it was possible for your entire world to shatter with just four words. He has the audacity to look surprised when you gasp, an ugly, strangled sound in the back of your throat.
“Is that… not what–”
“What?”
“I’m sorry!” he splutters. “I thought you figured it out and that’s why you were pulling away–”
You stand up and pace across the room, crossing your arms in front of your chest. Shielding yourself from him. “Since when?”
“For like a month,” he says quietly.
“Baek… we hooked up so much in the past–”
“I know.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and looks down, frustrated. “I know. But we’ve really just been talking and only went on a couple dates and just decided that we should be exclusive. Like literally last night.”
You laugh bitterly. “So we have to stop, then. Thanks for the fucking heads up, I guess.”
“Stop what?”
You look at him as if he’s grown two heads. “Are you joking?”
Baekhyun narrows his eyes. “If you’re asking me if we have to stop having sex, then yes, we have to stop having sex.”
“No shit, Byun.” You sigh, a clusterfuck of emotions rising like bile in your chest. “But where does it stop? We’re going to have to stop hanging out, she probably won’t like it if we hang out at all.”
“Okay, hold on.” Baekhyun stands and grabs you gently by both shoulders, forcing you to look at him. “You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. I love you, but please calm down.”
I love you. It hits you like a slap to the face. “Don’t say that.”
His face twists with pain. “I know you hate when I tell you to calm down but I need you to hear me right now. Nothing’s going to change. We just have to stop hooking up, okay?”
Of course he doesn’t even register that the calm down part of the sentence wasn’t the part that bothered you. “Right. Remember what happened the last time we said nothing was going to change between us?”
Baekhyun falls silent, grappling with the right words to say. Finally, he settles on, “Please. Please don’t hate me for this.”
You throw your hands up in frustration, twisting out of his grip to grab your bag and head towards the door. “I don’t know, it kinda feels like you’re breaking up with me right now.”
“Don’t say that.” His voice hardens instantly. “We’re friends. We’re just best friends.”
“Best friends don’t do this!” you yell. “They don’t have morning sex or dance with each other at the park or have sit down conversations saying that they have to stop hooking up because one of them started seeing someone. They just don’t.”
“So what are you saying then?” he says, tone sharp enough to cut with, dripping with malice. “That you’re in love with me or something?”
Your breath hitches. The way he says it as if it’s something so terrible.
“What if I am?” Your voice cracks, small and pathetic.
He melts instantly, all the venom sucked out of him in one go, and you see your best friend again. “Oh.”
Humiliation spreads like a virus in your chest. So he didn’t know after all.
“I’m so sorry–”
You throw your bag over your shoulder. The second your back turns to him, the hot tears fall down your face. “It’s fine. Just forget it.”
“Wait, please–”
“I said forget it.” You head towards the door without another look back at him, slamming it shut behind you. You almost want to wait to hear the hurried footsteps behind you, but you can’t stand the thought of waiting in that cold, empty hallway, waiting to be followed by someone who would never come.
The calls stop after the third day.
Before the silence, he calls every hour on the hour. You listen to a few of the voicemails from the first day. Hi, can we please talk about this? I don’t want to lose you. Please. After a while, it gets too painful to hear his voice, and the number of unopened voicemails ticks higher and higher until they don’t anymore.
You hardly leave your apartment as weeks go by. It hadn’t occurred to you before now just how much time you had been spending with him. Your days feel emptier now, lacking a spark that he always brought. The silence of your empty place feels almost oppressive.
The thought comes into your mind one night when you’re burying your feelings into a pint of ice cream that this must be what it feels like to be heartbroken. You laugh a bit at the irony– you always figured that the first time you would experience this, you’d at least have the solace of your best friend to crawl to.
A rapt knocking at your front door brings you out of your stupor and your heart leaps into your throat. You sit frozen for a few seconds before the knocking comes again. Before you can think about it too hard, you’re on your feet bounding towards the door.
“Baek, I–”
“Uh, hi?”
It’s not Baekhyun on the other end, but Kyungsoo, who looks a little startled at your appearance. “I was getting a little worried about you, you haven’t answered any of my texts.”
“Oh, um… you can come in. It’s a bit of a mess.”
Kyungsoo looks around your place as he steps inside, littered with trash and piles of laundry. You have half a mind to be embarrassed about it, but he just looks with concern, free of judgement. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
You tell him everything, trying your best not to trip over your words, determined to get through the story without crying. Kyungsoo listens silently, nodding when appropriate, but never makes a move to interject. Finally, when you’re done, and the lump in your throat feels almost too large to bear, he says, “So you haven’t contacted him since this happened?”
“No.”
“And he just sent a bunch of voicemails, didn’t text, didn’t show up here?”
“Yes.”
“And you… want him to?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Your head sinks into your hands, the heels of your palms digging into your closed eyelids. “I don’t know what I feel right now. I just wish that we never did anything to begin with so I never had to realize these feelings.”
“Well… we can’t take it back. And I think it’s obvious now that things have changed, so… now all that’s left to do is renegotiate the terms of the relationship.”
“But what if…” Your voice comes out small. “What if I don’t like his terms? What if he doesn’t like mine?”
You feel a gentle hand on your back. “You won’t know until you talk about it. That goes for him too. He needs to be a better communicator. Jesus.”
You laugh wetly. “It’s something we’ve always had in common.”
“Avoidance attachment?”
When you peek up through your fingers, Kyungsoo’s smiling good-naturedly. “C’mon, get up. Take a shower and I’ll clean up a little.”
“You don’t have to do that,” you groan.
“I know. I want to. You don’t have a choice.”
The next time you hear a knock on your door, you know that it’s not Kyungsoo.
Baekhyun smiles at you sadly in the doorway, already looking like he’s bracing himself for your rejection. “Hi.”
“Hi,” you say. Your tongue feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.
“I can leave if you want me to, and I won’t bother you again, I swear. I just thought I’d try to talk to you one last time?”
You swallow, then open the door wider. “Come in.”
He looks tired. He hovers around the corners of the room as if he doesn’t know this place better than his own. You get him a glass of water, and you sit awkwardly side by side on your couch. The silence is nearly unbearable, but thankfully, he doesn’t take very long to break it.
“I broke up with her.”
You nod slowly. “When?”
“A day after everything,” Baekhyun says. “I told you in a voicemail, but uh, I assumed you were ignoring it or you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I didn’t hear it,” you admit. “But I never asked you to do that for me.”
“You didn’t have to.” Baekhyun takes a breath, fidgeting with the glass in his hands. “I was scared to admit that becoming physical with you had changed things between us. I thought that if I tried looking elsewhere that things between us could go back to the way they were.”
“You wanted things to go back?” you ask.
“I thought that I would rather things go back to normal than to lose you entirely.”
“You kept insisting that things never changed,” you say. “You were the one that kept that boundary.”
“I know,” he sighs. He looks up at you, dark eyes broken. “I was a fucking idiot. I thought that if I kept saying it, I would believe it.”
“Couldn’t you feel it?” Tears prick at the corner of your eyes, stinging the back of your throat. “Couldn’t you feel that I was falling for you?”
“I didn’t want to believe it. I thought it was my brain telling me what I wanted to hear.” Baekhyun laughs. “I’m such a mess. I ruined everything.”
“You didn’t.” You reach over and grab his hands. His gaze snaps up to meet yours, eyes glimmering with hope. “You didn’t ruin anything, Baek. I should have been more upfront with my feelings too. I shouldn’t have ignored your calls.”
Baekhyun worries his bottom lip between his teeth before speaking again. “So if you were to be more upfront about your feelings now, what would you say?”
“I would say…” You take a deep breath. “That I think I’m in love with you. And I want to try being something more than your best friend.”
His face breaks into a relieved grin. “I love you too. And I’m so, so sorry for everything.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I do,” he frowns. “I did a really douchey thing to you and I regret it—”
You cut him off by climbing into his lap, putting both of your hands on the sides of his face. His words die on his tongue, lips falling apart in awe, looking at you like you’re the most precious thing in the world.
“Please,” you whisper. “Just kiss me.”
Soft lips meet yours cautiously, hesitantly. His arms wrap around your waist and pull you in close, deepening the kiss at the same time. He kisses you with care, like you have all the time in the world, moving his lips against yours perfectly in sync.
And it’s so amazing. It’s unfair just how amazing it feels, how long you’ve denied yourself from being like this, from being with him. You melt in his arms, losing yourself in the rhythm of his lips, the soft gasps of breath in between, the warmth of his body against yours.
You slip your hands into his hair and he groans, breaking apart from you for a second. “Don’t do that,” he murmurs.
“You don’t like it?”
“No, I… I like it a lot.” He looks up at you through his lashes, exhaling shakily. “I just want to do this for a while and that makes it really hard for me to not carry you into your bedroom right now.”
You smile, rolling your hips down once, decisively, onto his lap before dipping down for another kiss. “No reason why we can’t do both,” you whisper.
Baekhyun’s eyes widen before he brings you in even closer, pressing his face into your shoulder. “You’re trying to kill me.”
“Just making up for lost ti—ah!” Your hands scramble to grab onto his shoulders as he stands, carrying you to the bedroom. Your laughter echoes off the walls of your apartment as he walks, filling the place with the light that it sorely missed, that it won’t ever be without from this moment on.
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