"I'm sorry, Baekkie." Joo-hyung clutches Baekhyun's tear-stained face in his hands as he leans forward and kisses a sweaty forehead. Baekhyun is still shivering but he stopped crying, wrapping the blanket even more around him as he inches closer to the fireplace. "I won't ever leave you alone like that again ..."
"..." Baekhyun at first doesn't say anything, still a little traumatised from before, then his quivering voice is soft as he speaks. "I was ... I was ... so scared ..." He lets out small hiccups and sniffs. Joo-hyung kisses his lips chastely.
"I'm sorry." Joo-hyung his hair. "Do you still trust me?"
Baekhyun sniffs as he looks down, then nods his head. The older lifts his face up again until their eyes meet.
"Do you still trust me?" He asks again. This time, the smaller nods. Joo-hyung pulls him into a hug, holding him close.
"I'm sorry, Baekkie ..." Joo-hyung murmurs into his hair, tightening his grip. Baekhyun feels that same comfort that he had lacked all his life, and this time decides to melt in it.
"Hey Baek." Jongdae is starting to get annoying. "Want to meet up with Jongin in Seoul with me? We haven't seen him in ages."
"Sorry. I'm busy." Baekhyun replies automatically as he goes through the photos of him and Joo-hyung that the two of them had taken together.
"You're always busy." Jongdae mutters under his breath, but tries to will his anger away. "Jongin really misses you. You haven't been talking to him for ages." You haven't been talking to me either.
"Yeah yeah I'll see him one day." Baekhyun waves him off. "I'm really busy."
"It's just a few hours, Baek. We haven't been hanging out together as much as we used to."
"That's because we're both busy, Jongdae." Baekhyun looks up from his phone. Jongdae looks ... different. That's when Baekhyun realises Jongdae had changed his hairstyle. "When'd you get a haircut?"
"...... Two months ago." Jongdae replies. Baekhyun shrugs and looks at his phone again, unaware that Jongdae is fuming.
"I'm serious, Baek! At least go... for Jongin." Baekhyun doesn't say anything, acts as if he doesn't hear anything. "We're going to meet at our old meeting place on Saturday 12pm in the afternoon. Whether you want to go or not is your choice." Then Jongdae stomps off. Baekhyun feels slightly guilty, but he remembers he has priorities, and that makes him feel better.
On Saturday, in a tiny place in the huge population of Seoul, Jongin and Jongdae stand there at 12pm, waiting for the friend that had first brought the two of them together.
"He'll come here, I'm sure of it!" Jongin says optimistically. "Baekhyun-hyung will never let us down. He has never let us down before."
"...You're right." Jongdae says with a small smile, his confidence rising. "He never lets us down, no matter how busy he is."
They wait there until sundown.
Going out with someone and loving them with your entire being means that you start thinking about the future with them. A lot.
Baekhyun thinks about what they will be doing in 10 years' time, wonders whether they would be allowed to marry or adopt children or live in a place far, far away from his parents. Sometimes he thinks about the near future, on how he would be the best lover both emotionally and physically. Sometimes, even aside from accompanying Joo-hyung to bars, Baekhyun returns home at night and watches videos that might help him learn on how to be a good ual partner. Even though he's only fourteen years old, he thinks about this constantly because, after all, Joo-hyung is an adult, and adults are bound to think of this stuff.
