Pan's Bridle

If he clenches his teeth hard enough and holds his breath long enough, eventually, it passes. He never takes count but knows instinctively that each episode lasts a few seconds longer than the previous one. There's no pattern to it, no foreseeing its arrival. It happens at random moments – the angle at which he tilts his head, the pitch at which he laughs, the jutting of his chin as he purses his lips in censure, consideration or self-consciousness, the glint of calculation in his eyes as he plans his latest mischief, their paining dullness when he's depleted the resources of his mind and body with excessive labour, and the tenderness that issues from them when he observes his "brothers" in their own exhaustion – random moments wherein Byun Baekhyun causes Oh Sehun to near madness.

It started off as a game, a play between "brothers" in indulgence of their fans' appetite for "skinship" amongst members. Sehun would wrap his arm about Baekhyun's shoulder; the elder would reciprocate by taking his hand. They'd smile at each other, now coyly, now brazenly, and at the end of the show laugh it all off. But with each performance Sehun would find himself clinging onto his hyung an instant longer, an inch closer, his reluctance to let go that body growing ever deeper. Awareness turned to agitation, agitation to impatience, impatience to need, need to hurt. The pain...he can scarce reason for it at times, but if he clenches his teeth hard enough and holds his breath long enough, eventually, it will pass.

"Sehun-ah, have you seen the stage-notes? It's you and Byun-B tonight for the frame-freeze. So, what's it gonna be? You gonna give his Aeries a gander at their oppa's nutella abs or what?" Park Chanyeol's raucous laughter rattles Sehun out of his reverie where he sits awaiting his turn at hair and makeup. He knows he ought to snigger, make some quick remark, or at least a suitably slow one to match the original, but the casting of the die this night has left him dazed with dread. To touch without touching, tug without tearing the rope...can he hold his breath that long? Clench his teeth that hard? I want to feel him. His jaws lock reflexively at the thought.

"Why so serious?" Chanyeol squeezes his shoulder, the tension in his fingers belying the blitheness of his tone. "It was only a joke. See? Even oppa is laughing at it."

Baekhyun spins round in his chair to face the two younger men, his jet-framed eyes slitted in mock menace. "Yah, Maknae, careful now, you hear me?! Half an inch, that's as far you're going," he sucks in his stomach, "at least until the spread's solidified." Chanyeol breaks out in chortles, while Baekhyun smiles with a mixture of embarrassment and hilarity that sends Sehun's already strained pulse into overdrive.

Sehun means to join them, but instead blurts out: "Why? You're perfect as you are."

Chanyeol's mercifully-timed interjection saves him having to qualify: "Ooooh, a compliment from almighty Hun! Baekhyun-ah, I'd mark the date if I were you; it won't happen twice," he cackles, characteristically clutching his stomach and throwing back his head.

Sehun grasps his chance at diffusion with both hands and mouth. "Haha, so funny...not," he scoffs. "Just because some people will never hear it in this lifetime..."

"Omo, omo!" Chanyeol gasps theatrically. "Listen to this maknae! Is that any way to speak to your hyung?"

Sehun sniffs and sighs. "Do please forgive us, Chanyeol...ah."

"This little punk! Oh Sehun..."

Amusedly Baekhyun observes the two as they bicker on to kill time. The Towers, their Aeries call them - tall, lean and well-built both, but as unlike each other in essence as are cats and dogs. Oh Se-yangi and Park Chan-gae, he chuckles inwardly, the words he daren't let to the fore of his mind hovering at its back...No need for marking dates. Sehunnie...I won't forget.