Let's Get Carried Away

13

The next morning, Baekhyun wakes up, goes to work, goes back home, sleeps. And repeats the next day. There's nothing else he can do, and at least work keeps him busy for a few hours, doesn't let him dwell too much on how torn up he feels inside.

He should had seen it coming. He knew things weren't perfect, he could sense how they were walking on eggshells all the time when he and Kyungsoo were together, how from the start it felt like just a few words could change everything, just like that first kiss changed them forever. He doesn't know what Kyungsoo expected from him. How was Baekhyun supposed to know what he wanted? He knows better than to get his hopes up. He learned it the hard way, and Kyungsoo had been the one to teach him.

They're over. It's not like he owns Kyungsoo anything, because they were never anything in the first place. Maybe they're too old for this, he thinks. Or maybe, with all their history, trying to stay friends was never meant to be an option, especially staying friends that also gave each other orgasms on the regular. But it's over now, and the only thing Baekhyun can do is go on with his life. He misses Kyungsoo, of course he does, misses his touch and his kisses as much as he misses his friendship, but he spent the last seven years teaching his heart how to live without him, so he's fine. Or he will be, eventually, because that's how he is.

So he lives. He works, buys groceries, cleans his apartment. He goes out for drinks with his coworkers one day after work. He thinks some of them have noticed he hasn't been as loud as usual, but none of them ask him if he's okay. He's build friendly but distant relationships with most of them, but that's just how he is with everyone. He's always had a lot of friends, but he doesn't let many people get really close to him. In some ways, he either gives everything or nothing at all. There have been very few people in between, Kyungsoo being the most recent examples, and he doesn't think he knows how to handle that type of relationship well. Someone always ends up getting hurt.

He drinks more than he's probably meant to, and laughs loudly at everyone's jokes, but he doesn't feel his usual easiness to make people laugh himself. If anyone notices, no one says anything. Only Seulgi approaches him near the end of the night. She touches his arm to get his attention and asks him if everything's okay. She looks way younger now than she usually does in the office, with her long hair down and pinch of red in her cheeks. She's Jongin's age, but Baekhyun always forgets. He just smiles at her and hopes it looks genuine. "Don't worry about me," he says, and she doesn't look satisfied with his answer, not in the slightest, but she nods and doesn't ask any more questions. She's really pretty, and nice, and can make really ridiculous jokes when she's drunk, as Baekhyun has learned tonight, and it doesn't take much to imagine himself with her, picture what kissing her would be like, right then and there in the mellow darkness of the bar. Maybe he could fall in love with her. But the idea of being with anyone right now leaves him feeling uncomfortable. It would feel wrong, because there's still someone else in his head, in his heart.

He ends up needing help to catch a cab go home, and he hopes he doesn't become a joke to the rest of the office after this. As he sobers up, he can't help but think about the times he and Kyungsoo went home together, both too drunk to drive. He remembers Kyungsoo's soft lips on his neck, his hand pressing just above Baekhyun's groin, with Baekhyun trying really hard to not make too much noise to not bother the driver. As he lays down on his bed when he gets to his apartment, he thinks about all the times Kyungsoo pushed him into the mattress, kissing him fiercely. He thinks about Kyungsoo's plaint body in his sheets, and waking up to his smile in the mornings.

At twenty one, Baekhyun looked at Kyungsoo and he saw something he wanted to keep for himself, but was always out of reach. At twenty eight, Baekhyun had looked at Kyungsoo sleeping on his bed and he hadn't know how to feel. Seven years is a long time, and Baekhyun's not the person he was seven years ago. Kyungsoo has changed too, but what hasn't changed is the way Kyungsoo can make him feel, reckless and out of control. And it's not fair, how even after all this time Kyungsoo still has so much power over him. Baekhyun just wants... he wanted closure, goodbye, so he could move on and fall in love with someone else. The last thing he wanted was to make things even more complicated, and look where that took him.

I don't want to be your friend, Kyungsoo had said. Don't let anyone else see you like this," , and Baekhyun had said yes. He sighs into his pillow. He should have probably seen this coming, but he hadn't. He had been too busy trying to keep his own feelings under control to really think about what Kyungsoo must have been feeling. But Kyungsoo's at fault, too. He's never been good at words, this much Baekhyun knows, but he doesn't need to be to make his intentions clear, to say what he really wants. But Kyungsoo's right; they're not kids anymore. They can't play with fire and pretend they're not going to burn themselves in the end. It was going to end this way sooner or later. He knows that, and he knows that not seeing Kyungsoo is for the best, but he can't stop thinking about him. Can't stop feeling lonely when he isn't around. It makes him feel cold under the covers of his bed, right at the beginning of June. With a bit of luck, maybe by next June he won't feel like this anymore.

(But that's unlikely.)